Eventually the months grew colder, and even with jackets it was too frigid to stand around for an hour enjoying our cigarettes. We stopped our rendezvous all together, until one day she pulled me into the bathroom stall as I headed to my room. She must have been watching for me because it was perfectly timed.
As I stumbled into the common bathroom with laughter, she whispered in excitement, “Come smoke with me; look there is a vent in this one,” pointing to the top of the wall in the far stall. It took her beautiful brown eyes a few flutters with a bit of begging before I agreed. We giggled as we squished into the stall, lit our cigarettes, and tried to blow our exhales into the slats as quickly as we could so we wouldn’t get caught.
Suddenly someone flushed a toilet, and fear drained the color from both of our faces. The sound echoed through the stalls and tiled walls. In a panic we rid ourselves of the evidence and walked out to the sinks as if two girls coming out of a stall were normal. The lesbian was there, squishing soap in her hands with a smile from ear to ear while she remarked, “Don’t worry ladies, that’s where I go,” and nonchalantly rinsed.
This time we were safe from the wrath of the drill sergeants, but we cleared ourselves from the latrine just the same. We understood with words unspoken that this was our new designated smoking area, and the routine resumed in the warmth of the stall. It was also my overdue fix to see Rachel, but it ended too quickly. So off I went to have sex in the woods with an equestrian boy from Ohio.
It took about a week before Rachel and I stopped blowing the smoke into the slats, figuring it didn’t make a difference as long as the girls continued to bitch about the odor.
Since no one could be pinpointed as the culprit, all the smokers became careless. What would “they” do anyway? Kick us out of the army for smoking? We laughed at our rebellious actions. Rachel was the minx who brought up that fact.
Our routine made me happy, but it also led me to my most uncomfortable situation with Rachel. The smoking tradition was as follows; we met, checked the latrine, smoked and talked, washed our hands, and left. It was perfectly timed to coincide with the absence of other soldiers and drill sergeants. No one ever came in, and if they did, we were too wrapped up in the moment to notice. On one such smoke break, I lost control and had hope of something more.
As the story goes, we met as usual, checking the latrine stalls for feet and opening the shower curtains just in case. We prepped the vent for the proper angle, and I took my usual position against the back wall, straddling the toilet while she pulled out a cigarette for each of us and leaned against the door. It was the routine and the details of it that made the whole ordeal more than just a smoke break. I patted down every pocket possible for the lighter that I swore was on me this time. Rachel snickered at my familiar actions and shook her head as she held two cigarettes in one hand and crossed her arm over her stomach with the other.
“Wait, dammit, I know I put one in my pocket today.” I patted myself down relentlessly as she watched endearingly with her big brown eyes.
“Yeah, like you put one in your pocket yesterday and the day before, right?” Her head shook again, but this time it was accompanied by deep eye rolls.
“Shut up, you ass. Where the hell do they go? I must have a fucking hole in my pants.” I countered and continued checking the ten possible pockets in my uniform. We snickered in unison as I checked for the third time.
While I mumbled on about a lighter that was never there, she slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled from it a pink mini Bic. Rachel placed her hand on my shoulder to stop me, and, when I looked up from the hunt, she placed a smoke into my mouth and reminded me, “Here, I have mine.” Her peach hand cream was recently renewed, and the smell was stronger than usual. But I was fixated on locating the missing one, which was supposed to be in on me. Was it because I was trying to prove my point or that I was avoiding eye contact?
Either way, I was losing cool points the longer I fumbled. “I swear I have it. I grabbed it to impress your dumb ass and used it to burn strings from the lesbian’s uniform in formation.” Rachel formed a half-cocked smile and her eyes changed. I couldn’t see the change, it wasn’t something visual; I could only feel it. My boots scooted back an inch for spatial comfort. My tone changed in frustration but held flirtatious undertones. “God damn it, woman, stop smirking. I know it’s here.” It was lighthearted stubbornness. Rachel plastered the Mona Lisa smile across her lips as she stared at me much longer than she ever had. This stare confirmed the difference in the atmosphere. My embarrassment was quite obvious.
“What?” I asked as she stared and said nothing.
My hands nervously squeezed each pocket. The filter on the cigarette in my mouth was getting wet with each passing second. The fan next to the vent stopped spinning. Her glare made me incredibly uneasy, so bending over a bit to “check” my cargo pockets for the fourth time was the best way to hide the blushing that was filling my cheeks. The tension seemed to make the stall enclose around us.
Her words replayed in my head about how she was totally Christian, which only made me feel guilty about the signals she was presumably sending. As I leaned down, Rachel shifted her position from the stall door. She sidestepped and moved closer to me with her lighter already in flames, yet gave me enough room to straighten myself up.
“I told you I have mine.” She waved the lighter in the air. As the smell of peach and burning lighter fluid filled my nose, our eyes locked; then she stole another inch of my space. The bright flame created a beautiful reflected flickering in her eyes and I was mesmerized. I could almost see my frozen image staring back at me.
Rachel held the lighter, and I uncomfortably broke my stare with a shake of my head. My eyes focused on the tip of the cigarette to make sure it was in the flame. As I inhaled, our eyes reconnected through the haze, and yours truly was unable to feel confident about anything. I’m sure my eyebrow shifted to silently ask her what she was doing. I was perplexed and extremely coy, which is highly unlike me and only convinced her of the power she had. She nudged her body against mine, barely, but it was enough to make my knees feel weak and start the ringing in my ears.
I tilted my head back when the cigarette was lit and exhaled the smoke into the air as our bodies hovered close enough to bathe in each other’s’ radiating heat. “Thank you,” I said in the way that smokers do when they still have it in their lungs and need to take another breath.
My gaze flicked back to her, and alarm shot through me. She had managed to lean her face closer to mine while distancing the physical connection between our bodies. There was a pause and the fantasy of us kissing that overwhelmed me.
I restrained everything my body was telling me to do and let confusion rule my actions.
My observations shifted to her lips and back to her eyes again. She was on the verge of saying something but I couldn’t tell what. We lingered in the moment. Rachel’s expression communicated loud and clear that she wanted me, but wanted me to what? Kiss her? Fuck her? Try something so she could call me evil and restate her firm beliefs in Christianity?
Disconnecting myself was easy by inhaling another long drag. My knees finally bent to enable me to sit on the toilet. Rachel smiled. We didn’t say much as we finished what was left of our cigarettes. We walked out of the stall, sliding past each other in an aching desperate state. For once, this dog didn’t run to the toy that was clearly in the master’s hands.
A few days later, Rachel invited me to her room unexpectedly during an average conversation before formation. She pulled me off to the side so others wouldn’t hear and, in a hushed voice, asked me to spend the night with her.