Alex and LeMon, all dressed up nowhere to go.

Spleen....Anyone?

Here you are in Japan. Hubby’s away at sea. You miss him! You miss him! You miss him! But you’re okay. You tell yourself: “Go out and play! Have fun! Enjoy yourself – don’t just stay home moping around.” Hubby tells you: “Go out and play! Have fun! Enjoy yourself – don’t just stay home moping around.” He adds, “just be careful of “those Navy guys.”” “No problem”, you say. “Baby, I’m all "growed up", I can totally handle myself. And who knows better than you, sweetie, what an unmitigated beeyatch I can be if provoked. Navy guys, shmavy guys..."

So out you go to have some fun. But you don’t have a posse to hang with. You hang solo, or occasionally with one--at most two--friends. That’s just you’re style. It’s the way you’ve always been. You feel comfortable just hanging out alone. And therein lies the peril. For if you choose to hang out in "The Honch"-- that seedy jumble of bars, restaurants and "massage" parlors located close to the military base-- you put yourself at the mercy of innumerable Navy boys out for a good time, the more discriminating of whom find the challenge of bagging someone else’s spouse far more exhilarating than the easy lay to be found in a section of town which at night literally crawls with literal whores.

You’re no innocent little kitty cat and though you are generally friendly, albeit reserved, if ruffled you be can be cold, cold, cold and dispassionately dismissive, casually wielding your Dictionary.com -enhanced command of the English language like a light sabre. And when it comes right down to it, you’re not too shy to say…”Fuck off” And so you feel safe. You feel secure. You feel capable of handling whatever comes your way. You do not feel like the fool you really are.

Who's afraid of the big bad Honch? Certainly not you! And so, there you are; in your jeans and your tank top and your very little make up; with your hair up in a big pouf. There you are in a corner at a bar in The Honch, with a Heineken in hand. And you find yourself being approached by a few men, here and there. You think this is no big deal. You think you have established early on why you’re here. You say something like: “My husband’s on a big, bad aircraft carrier and he’s a big, bad man.” You think that you’ve laid down some ground rules, that is, if they are looking for a one nighter at the nearby Hotel Goddess, or a down and dirty shag in some down and dirty toilet, now is the time for them to walk away. Some do. Some stay. And you talk and you shoot the shit and you think, "cool! – someone to have casual chit chat with." No big deal, you think. Casual and innocent fun.

And you are wrong to think this. So very wrong. Because you don’t realize that in saying you’re a Navy wife, you’re saying nothing that will deter some men. You don’t realize that some Navy wives go out while their husbands’ are away, looking for an easy fuck, a balm, a sexual salve to ease the pain of seemingly endless lonely nights. You don’t know this, or maybe you do, but you don’t believe that these men really misrecognize you in this way. You don’t believe for a minute that they could possibly think that you’re on the make. You wear your wedding ring. As a kind of joke, you even wear a custom-made white gold US naval aviation ordnance ring. The logo of the ordnance rating looks like a cannonball with wings and a big flame shooting out of the top. Hubby tells you it’s nicknamed a “flaming [something or other]” but you insist on calling it the incredible flaming, flying asshole. (Sometimes, you’re a big jerk).

You think these rings offer some sort of protection – some kind of finger charm that keeps away the jerks, the fornicators, the fuckwits. You feel that you can say "it" i.e "friends only 'mkaaayyyy?" with a finger—not an upturned middle one—but politely with your finger charms. You like hanging out. You’re a tomboy at heart and surviving high school without once being asked out on a date, without once even kissing a boy, taught you to relate to men in a friendly – I’m your buddy – sort of way. Those women who don’t know how to be platonic friends with men really bore and piss you off. You think you know how to “just be friends” and you think you mean it when you say it (or even when you don’t). You actually think they mean it too, though you begin to get suspicious when they actually come out and say it: “let’s just be friends.” You prefer the eloquence of omission, the sublimely silent statement that stupidly, you honestly think your wedding ring makes. You let your finger do the talking.

But they don’t get you, do they? Oh no. They see you the way they probably see all women – just another slut. 'Cause really, “if you’re married, what (the hell) are you doing out here anyway?” That’s what that one guy said to you after you told him, “No you can’t pat my pouf, and no you can’t touch my hand and no I don’t care if you think you can tell a lot about a person by examining her hand, and no, even though you said, “May I,” you most certainly cannot touch my belly button,” you sick little fuck. You may however, get lost.”

It’s what you said, and it’s what he did, but only then does an ugly little maggot of a thought chew its way into your conscious mind; only then does your hard and cynical, knowing self overwhelm the naïve and foolish little pussy cat that you sometimes are. You realize that, while these men are talking about their job or the music they like or where they’ve been, that maybe they’re thinking:

“Stop pretending that you have a man, that you don’t want me bitch. Cause you do. And after a couple more beers and maybe a couple of shots, I’ll have you. It’s all so very simple really, isn’t it? It’s what you want, it’s why you’re here, it’s what you need, it’s why you exist. Besides, the love hotel, "Hotel Goddess" is around the corner. You know you wanna go there with me and be my goddess, don't ya baby? I see that wedding ring but that ain't nothing to me baby. Take it off so that when I tell you to put your finger in my asshole and make me see moon and stars it won't get stuck up there or hurt me a little.”

Or something like that.