Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane [79]
I stayed outside while Judy walked upstairs to the kitchen with a handful of bills for the honor cash box. While she had been a model of professionalism and had done nothing to suggest there was more to this beach visit than watching the waves and having a beer, every molecule of testosterone in my body was busy suggesting otherwise. I could no longer see her as a fellow astronaut and crewmember. I could only see her as the beautiful woman she was. She came out with a six-pack of Coors hooked on a finger, stood with her hip cocked to the side, and smiled. “It’s not Moosehead, Tarzan, but here’re your winnings.” She tossed the package to me.God help me, I prayed.
We walked over to the dunes and sat in the sand. I extracted beers for both of us and for a moment we were silent, just enjoying a perfect beach evening. A thunderstorm lashed the distant ocean at our front, its anvil head glowing orange in the dying sun. There was just enough of a breeze in our faces to keep the bugs away.
“Here’s to Prime Crew, Tarzan.” Judy held out her beer and I touched it with mine. Her face was illuminated by the reflections from the cloud and I could see her expansive smile. The Prime Crew title did that to astronauts. We’d all be wearing those smiles until Hank’s call of “Wheel stop.”
We fell into conversation about our training and new issues on our communication satellite deployment procedures. I joined in halfheartedly. She was the only astronaut present on that beach. My mind was busy dealing with the scent of her shampoo, the feel of her body heat radiating across the gap between us, and the voices in my head. Those whispered that it would be different with Judy and me. Mortals had dirty, sinful, sordid affairs. But we weren’t mortals. We were astronauts. We were demigod and -goddess, alpha male and female. The rules didn’t apply to us. Not on this beach, they didn’t. This was a place separate from Earth where vows and social conventions and the Sixth Commandment didn’t apply. Of course, it was all testosteronic bullshit, but I listened to those voices with the same intensity I listened to MCC in our simulations.
As I was popping another beer, Judy left the subject of communication satellites. “Tarzan, I want to thank you and Donna for including me in your family.” I was glad to hear Donna’s name. It was a reminder of what I was…married. My thumb folded onto my wedding band.
“You’re welcome. We’re always glad to have you over.” Donna and I had extended numerous invitations to Judy for dinner or other social get-togethers.
“Well, you guys are the only ones. Most of the wives hate me.” She was right. Many of the wives did not like Judy. They were threatened by her. Their husbands jetted across the country with her in private planes to train in factories and go jogging together and perhaps, as I was doing at that very moment, to sit on a beach together enjoying a sunset and a beer.And what happened then? the wives wondered. At one TFNG party I saw a visibly shaken JR leave early. Later I heard the reason. One of the child-widened wives had taken her aside and screamed at her, “Stay away from my husband!” Though I had not heard a single rumor connecting JR to the woman’s spouse and strongly suspected the accusation was completely groundless, I could understand where the woman was coming from. She understood what female youth and beauty did to men (and was doing tome on that beach) and she was dropping a preemptive nuke. Judy was feared by most of the wives. At one of our earliest TFNG get-togethers, she arrived wearing formfitting jeans and a white knit T-shirt. Every head, male and female, turned and the hubbub of the party diminished noticeably. A few of the wives looked into their man’s eyes to read his thoughts. Some stepped closer to their husbands. There was nothing trashy about Judy’s dress. I had seen many of the wives similarly dressed at various casual functions. It was just that Judy looked like one of those impossibly curvaceous mannequins in a boutique window. It was a fact of