Thread: Rape Camp (skittish_butterfly & littlerooster)

Jen saw the check hit the table and started to reach it but the Sergeant swept it up in his big mitt while she was still trying to remember which pocket of the backpack her pocketbook was in. Jen shrugged. Truth be told, he had been there longer and all she had was the coffee, which was horrible, so she let it go. Still, as she got up to follow him out, she couldn't help noticing he left an awfully big tip though, much bigger than she would have left. Out in the lot he went straight for a fairly non-descript car, motor pool, clearly. He already had himself seated behind the wheel as she was stowing her bag in the trunk. It gave her only a second or two to peek around a bit. Just one overnight bag, nothing special. But he had known what was up before he came, either that or he was the boy scout type, always prepared with an emergency bag, just in case. Jen slammed the lid a little harder than she meant, sheepishly apologizing as she slipped into the passenger seat, but he didn't seem to care. Not his car. It wasn't far to the hotel and they drove in near silence. Soon enough he'd handed over Uncle Sam's platinum card and set them up with identical adjoining rooms. The place was certainly not the Ritz, but it was nice. Clean. Well lit. Remote control worked, as the Sergeant was spending a good bit of time discovering. Jen would have gone to settle into her own room, but he held both keys, and it didn't matter for the moment, since both rooms were identical and she only had the small backpack, not even a nightgown or anything to put away. Toothbrush on the sink and Mom and Dad's picture on the bedside with his medals arranged just so. Wouldn't take her more than a minute and she'd be ready for sleep, so she was in no rush to get into her own room. Jen checked out the closets, the view from the window, and the bathroom and tub, while she heard him flipping channels every 1.4 seconds, as if anyone could possibly make sense of a channel in that much time. But she didn't yell out for him to just pick a channel. She just came out and sat down next to him on the bed. He turned off the TV and started talking. Jen didn't say a word, as the Sergeant spoke for a good long time, maybe 20 minutes, maybe 40, she wasn't sure. Here in the quiet of the hotel room, just the two of them, the Sergeant really opening up, now that he was out of the cute waitress's orbit. He even seemed to be more than the slab of granite she'd taken him for at first. Well, he certainly was a slab of granite, but not in the head. He was actually somewhat well-rounded. Thoughtful. He'd studied more than the anatomy of a rifle, and dreamt of more than Officer's Training. Jen found herself looking at him differently as he told her about coming out of a rough childhood, as if he was lucky even to have bootstraps to pull himself up with. And here he was, successful in the army, studying and building a life. She was reminded of her dad, and so many of his buddies, how the army could absolutely destroy the boy while building the man. But it seemed like more than that with the Sergeant, like there he had an internal drive beyond what the army instilled in him. His own man. He had Jen hanging on his every word about what combat was like. Of course she'd never experienced it herself, not really. The simulations in Basic were hectic and chaotic, but they weren't the same thing. Living and dying and killing weren't on the table, just following orders and getting that stamp of approval from the instructor. The sergeant had been through the meat grinder and he'd come out steak. Jen took mental notes, paying unusual attention to the unspoken tells of what it had done to him and how he coped the darkness in his eyes, the set of his jaw, how still he managed to keep his big hands when she would have assumed most people would be twisting their shirts up or twisting their fingers around each other with all the anxious memories. Jen herself felt her body taut with tension just from listening to him, every bit of her attention on him, and it took everything she had to keep herself still like he did, wanting to learn from this man who'd seen and been through so much. If she was going to make it in special forces, she was going to have to be more like him. Implacable, no matter what happened to her. And then, like some switch just flipped in a single moment he went from a soft grim voice with a distant look to a warm smile, asking he if she still wanted to shop for panties. It took Jen a second to change gears, her breath still slow and deep, still in the desert of Iraq with his words. She blinked, seeing his eyes on her now. She smiled too and nodded, scarcely thinking it through, the idea of this big rough guy walking through the intimate apparel section with her, and the stir it might cause. Sure, why not? Guess we should hurry, though. Wouldn't want you to be tardy meeting up with your waitress friend, later. Really rude to leave a girl hanging. Waiting for you to show up when you're late, I mean. It had only happened to her once or twice, always by accident, but for whatever reason it was on her mind right then. Maybe it was just one sister looking out for another, or something like that.