Uniformed Love Triangle

CHAPTER 1: GRIMNESS1. Devon He had no particular reason for going to war and fighting for his country; it was simply his job. He had no ideals, no feelings of patriotism to speak of, that motivated so many others to enlist and go die recklessly. Of course, he may have had some ideals back when he was a youngster, watching G. I. Joe cartoons and playing with toys, and later on he had been immensely interested in perfecting his own body. He had been preparing himself for this call for many years, training diligently and pushing his body and mind to ultimate limits. Perhaps there had been some desire for heroism back then, but what boy or a teenager didn’t dream of being a hero of sorts, a superhero even? The naïve perceptions of what he should become had led him to choose to be a soldier, but he had never stopped to think about what it had actually meant. Only when he had set foot on the very battlefield had he learned what his profession truly entailed, and what consequences his actions left not only for himself, but for others as well. Being educated at the academy had been easy enough, and he had taken things lightly as they had come until he’d seen the actual battle, and until he’d participated in one. Until he’d landed his first kill; until he had made some unnamed woman a widow, and some unknown child an orphan. The consequences of his actions had not been always easy to spot because they were taking place off of the battlefield—like families that were left bereft and scared for their own lives. But shortly after his first assignment, he had been scheduled to be deployed to Iraq once more—this time to a different base. That was yet to come, though. He had a whole month to himself, to visit his family and friends. At first when the things had become too difficult on the field, when battles became fierce, and when reasons for fighting those other people had become blurred and unimportant, he always thought he would be looking forward to going back home. He always thought it would feel nice to hug all of those people and to laugh with them again—to feel the normalcy of life once more and embrace it with open arms. Little did he know that he would cease to feel that way. After everything he had seen and experienced, all he wanted to do was keep quiet and never tell a living soul. He preferred solitude and quietness. Oftentimes he liked to go to the vacation home that his parents owned, to reflect upon what he could not unsee. The limbs flying in all directions, guts spilled everywhere. The feeling of tension and fear; every step calculated, anticipation building up. It was so tangible and real that he could feel it coil around his body. This tension had never really left him—not even after he boarded a plane and landed at the airport, where he had been safe. That day was not an exception though. He made his constantly alert self go into the backyard, drink some beer, and do more reflecting. That was the only thing he found important; to constantly remind himself of the reality that he had witnessed, never allowing himself to be swept away by the lies that society was projecting upon people. Nowhere was safe enough. No one ever knew where a war could break out. Sometimes he regretted it, being twenty-seven and already disillusioned with life. He felt that he had been leading a completely “wrong” life right from the beginning, never having enough interest to pursue something else, or to discover what that something else was. Instead, he had grabbed onto the first thing that he thought was his passion, immaturely, without even thinking it through. But he was trying to repress that regret and everything that he once was. He had changed, he had to constantly remind himself. Or rather, things had changed…or stayed the same, until he had become aware of the truth. It hurt. It hurt to see things from a different perspective. But what could he do about it now? His first round was over, and he had a month until the second one. This was who he was now. A trained murderer. Trained to withstand everything that came his way. To survive at the cost of others. To buy food and pay electricity bills solely by hurting others. And that was what he was trying to make himself accept—at least to an extent. It was a pleasant summer evening, the one unique to the countryside. As the sun was slowly sinking below the horizon, casting its last light upon Earthlings and their sky. The smell of the freshly mown grass began to spread throughout his yard. He threw himself into the old, torn recliner chair that his parents had thrown out and replaced it with the new one in the living room. It was a good old black leather chair that had borne witness to many an event the family had had in that house every summer. It had seen his father’s escapades with his mistress, for instance—something that everybody else also knew, but refused to comment on or even acknowledge. Such was the case in his family. Mostly they liked to keep to themselves, and they rarely opened up to each other. Yet somehow upon his return, everybody felt like sharing what they had been doing in his absence, and were eager to know what the war was like up on the battlefront. Though most of those questions, he reasoned, had been asked out of common courtesy rather than with genuine interest. Being back again with them had been awkward to them as well. By sticking around him constantly, they were mostly doing something that they thought was proper. What was to be said more about war than he already explained? Was it that they were fearing they would never see him again, so they were using every opportunity to be in his proximity? Hell if he knew, but being open about things had never been his family’s forte, nor had it been his. And so, immersed in his thoughts, he leaned back comfortably in his chair, opening a can of cold beer with such gusto that it was the only honest thing he had done in a very long time. He was pleasantly tired, and his muscles were just barely tingling from the strain of the day’s labor. He had arrived at this place early in the morning, and seeing how his family rarely visited ever since his father’s affair—some sort of a tacit agreement had been put to action. It was in a rather bad condition, so, he had taken upon himself to make the house a decent place to live—something that he had neglected to do during his previous visits. He had fixed the fence and repainted it, made sure the pipework inside the house was usable, washed all of the sheets and dusted a bit, and he’d also mown the lawn in the end. Keeping himself distracted like this, he felt, was what made him forget, even for a while. Not necessarily just the horrors of war, but also the fact that he was an empty, uninteresting man with very little to offer to anyone. Depressing thoughts after such a productive day, don’t you think? he thought to himself, and would have continued to sink into his contemplations if another voice that was not his own hadn’t shocked him back into reality. “Nice sunset today, isn’t it?” a female voice asked, and he lifted up his head and looked to his right. His eyes met with the face of an attractive young woman on the other side of the fence. His property was small, but next to it was a huge farm. She was leading a brown horse on a leash, and was sporting one of those nice, white smiles. She was blonde and slim, dressed in a rider outfit. “It is, isn’t it?” he replied, although he didn’t necessarily feel like talking to anyone, and he most certainly didn’t appreciate the interruption of his hard-earned solitude. “I’m Ashley Jordan. My parents own this farm so I come for a bit of riding during the summer. And you are?” she inquired, looking at him expectantly. “Devon,” he replied in his deep but barely audible voice that gave away his reluctance to socialize on any level. “Devon Jones. My folks also own this house, and I came here to escape from my family.” “Oh?” Ashley did not stop smiling, not even for a second. “How come? Care to tell me over dinner? I think it’s very important that neighbors get to know one another.” “Actually, I’d—“she cut him off before he could decline her offer. “I know, I know. You came here to be alone. That much is evident. But every once in a while it won’t kill you to talk to another human being now, will it? My parents bought this estate barely a year ago, and I only have one friend who lives down the road a bit, and she has just recently moved as well. I’d really like to know more people here,” she added, smiling even wider and swaying a little bit in a seductive manner. “So, how about it? Just one dinner and I promise I’ll leave you alone.” He sheepishly smiled at her, showing that she had won and that he would come to dinner with her that evening. “It won’t be anything special, though,” she warned him, “I’m a terrible cook. So, how about some plain spaghetti and some wine?” “Sounds good to me,” he agreed. Ashley nodded contentedly before turning her horse around and mounting it. Then she was gone in a flash. ______ Even though the farm it was on was enormous, her house was of a moderate size. It was equipped by modern standards, and also pretty depersonalized. It felt as if they had put a finger on a random picture in a magazine and decided to copy the interior to the most minute details. But it had been done in good taste, at least. Almost all of the interior was white with beige elements, like the carpet and cushions in the living room, and the beige picture frames as well. It gave the room a bit of warmth. There was also a fireplace that could probably add to the warmth both visually and literally, during the winter. She brought two glasses of wine after what had seemed a rather edible dinner—not anything special as she had warned, but it had certainly been good enough. She sat down next to him, draping her left side over the back of the couch with a filled glass in her hand and her legs neatly tucked under her backside. “So,” she began in an alluring tone, which confirmed what he had suspected before—that she was there to seduce and drag him into bed. “Who is Devon Jones?” He smiled slightly, so as to make things seem less awkward. He always hated answering questions about himself, since he thought himself rather uninteresting. “I’m a professional soldier. A colonel, actually.” “Impressive!” she cooed. “Would you care to share some war stories with me?” “Actually…I’m not very comfortable with that, sorry,” he replied, deciding to be honest with her. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to—“He interrupted her before she could finish her apology. “It’s alright,” he assured her. “What about yourself? Who is Ashley Jordan?” Ashley’s face brightened up immediately upon hearing his question. “I’m a socialite. I know many people think it’s a bad thing, but I really just want to have fun. You know what they say—a little party never hurt nobody. My parents are filthy rich and I’m on a summer break here—a senior in architecture, actually—but I don’t plan on pursuing my career in that. The diploma is just for show, and to keep my parents happy,” she took a sip of her wine and continued. “I always knew I wouldn’t amount to much in life, and I know how all of this might seem to you. I’m rather disgusting, aren’t I?” self-deprecating was always a powerful tool to gain somebody’s approval; it was almost like some sort of reverse psychology. “No, not at all. I believe that every person has their own qualities and that everybody should lead the life that they want to lead,” he told her genuinely. He had not expected much of her anyway. “That’s so nice of you to say! Thank you!” was probably the only honest thing she had said all evening. It appeared to him that she was not happy with the way she lived, or rather that she was afraid of being stigmatized as useless, and could not enjoy her lifestyle as much as she truly wanted to. “So, what kind of life are you living?”