Sandra Hill by Down, Dirty

winters, Terri claimed to still be able to do a “kick arse backbend,” which was apparently a much-to-be-desired talent in this country. Britta vowed to try this, as well.
    “Now dish, girl, what’s with you and that pretty SEAL? Man, I wouldn’t mind him putting his boondockers under my bed.” Terri waggled her eyebrows at Britta.
    The other three ladies in the room—there were four pallets in each sleeping chamber—agreed.
    Donita Leone, a tall, slim woman with ebony skin and tight black curls like a cap, said, “I heard that Lieutenant Floyd is the poster boy for hottie Navy SEAL…you know, screw everything with breasts.
    Britta gave Donita her full attention. “I have noticed that Zack-hairy and some of the other leaders carry the title lewd-tenant. Is that not an odd choice of naming? Though perhaps not so much for the pretty boy with the lewd fingers.”
    “Huh?” Donita said.
    Terri had told Britta earlier that Donita was an aging—at twenty-seven—Olympic swimmer who had suffered a great scandal years ago when she was accused of “drugging,” whatever that was…a form of cheating. The Olympics were something like the old Greek games. The charges had been proven false but never lived down. In recent years, she had been diving from a high board through fire into a pool of water at circus events. That was something Britta would like to see.
    The fourth woman, Marie Delacroix—a Cay-jun, just like Cage, whom she’d met afore—summed up the questions for everyone. “Did ya do the deed with the pretty bad boy, chère ?” Marie, a Marine, was the only one of them with previous military experience, except for Britta. She had good reason to want to fight terrorists, her father having been one of those affected by a bombing that took place at some far-famed towers.
    Britta was fairly certain she knew what “the deed” meant, having been accused of and punished for it by the commander. “I did no such thing, even though the rogue has tried repeatedly.”
    “Whoa! You knew Lieutenant Floyd before?” Terri asked.
    “I met him and some of his comrades-in-arms—Torolf, JAM, Geek, and Cage—two years ago.” Britta was unsure of her position here in America, and some instinct warned to be careful how much of her past she exposed. “In the Norselands.”
    “And he tried to jump your bones?” Terri asked.
    “Nay, he ne’er tried to hurt me.”
    Terri shook her head as if Britta were unbelievable. “Did he try to make love with you?”
    “Yea, Zack-hairy did try to lure me to his bed furs. To no avail.”
    “Why, for heaven’s sake? Are you…were you…married?”
    “Nay.”
    “Engaged?”
    “Dost mean betrothed? Nay.”
    “Are ya gay, darlin’?”
    “Betimes. But what has my gaiety to do with anything?”
    Marie giggled and said, “I don’t think she understands. Gay means a lesbian, a woman who loves women, not men.”
    At first, Britta frowned. Then she understood. She had heard of such women but never met any. “Nay.”
    “Don’t you think he’s good-looking?”
    “Hah! He is so good-looking he makes my bones ache.”
    “Holding out for love?”
    “Of course not. At my advanced age, I am long past dreaming of those softer sentiments.” Well, that was not quite true. Betimes Britta ached deep in her shuttered soul, but she had learned to ignore the pain.
    “How old are you?”
    “Twenty and seven.”
    “Good Lord! And you think that’s old?”
    She shrugged. “I concede, I am not yet in my dotage. Still…”
    “Is it like a religious thing? No sex before marriage?”
    She shook her head. “’Tis not that, precisely. What bothers me most about Zack-hairy…Lewd-tenant Floyd…is that he waves his manpart hither and yon. I suspect he has swived an army of women. Just like my father and brothers. They tup anything in a gunna that walks by with no care for the many by-blows they produce.”
    They all nodded their understanding.
    As they bedded down, dark now, conversation