August 1967
Music everywhere, this summer. This summer, Han Solo is thirty-five years old, an established and respected pilot, devoted father to his eight-year-old daughter. Joyfully married to a prominent reporter during what is called the Summer of Love. Free love, broadcasters name it, prurient condemnation in their faces. Like people never fucked around before, Han snorts, over footage of some Californian commune. Some part of him forever a tough, abandoned child. That part of him appreciates his wife's dry observation that there are an awful lot of women cooking around swollen bellies, a lot of men relaxing in green grass, strumming guitars.
Free love. Han figures adults should do what they like to one another. He isn't shocked or threatened by any of it. But Han isn't titillated by it, either. For one thing, he's older. For another, Han doesn't miss free—and love belongs, only and always, to Leia.
This summer Leia is thirty. At some staggering synthesis of self-possession, accomplishment, intellect, beauty. And Han likes it a whole hell of a lot. If he were the kind of man to give it analytical thought, he wouldn't be sure if his taste was selfish, or principled. But he is not that man, so he doesn't care why: Han likes Leia free, and that's just the way it is. Even as her freedom, exploding in glory and power, locks a kind of shackle on him—locking his eyes to Leia, his want to her, god this summer he can't take his eyes off her. Auburn hair worn long, loose and wavy, fair skin lit with the vibrant color she's wearing lately. Leia's enjoyment of herself, of her body, her mind, her youth does things to Han. He has ideas about her, raw and animal—maybe they're unspeakable in this, the—what else are they calling it, those stuffed shirts on TV? The Era of Enlightenment. The Age of Aquarius.
But there is something, yes, in the air. Aretha Franklin rolls it out rich and deep as a river as he and Leia walk down Main Street together, heads swivelling after his wife's shapely sway: chain chain chain. Whistles from cars. Chain of fools.
Han Solo is not a jealous man. And it's a good thing, this summer, that he is a sound, stable thirty-five. That he can rationalize when some primal self behind his eyes alights on Leia and growls: mine. Mine.
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In August 1967 Han and Leia remain close. Close in self, in thought, in heart. There is time spent together, there is always laughter. But in some ways, this summer has been tough. No fighting, no anger—just a crevasse of work, the price of mutual career success. Han's away, then Leia: it reminds each of 1956, when Han got the night shift and Leia her first feature. They're better able to manage such pressures after over a decade of marriage. They trust one another, know it will pass.
Now, though, Leia and Han have a child. It's school summer break, so their shared days off are spent with Grace; swimming in the lake, going to the movies for the air-conditioning, to the diner for supper. It's often too hot, at night, inside the house to sleep, so Han hauls out the giant air mattress he found at the Tosche and the three of them camp out on the porch. Grace is eight but she loves that yet, nestled between her parents beneath mosquito netting, riveted to Leia's scary stories that make even Han shiver.
These are precious, fleeting days with their daughter, Han and Leia couldn't regret time with her, ever. But the thing that is missed, for much of this heady summer, is sex.
They figure they'll make up for it when Grace goes to arts camp, an hour past Mantell. Luke's volunteering there and asks if Grace wants to visit, there's a unit on jazz. Grace is overjoyed when her parents say yes. There's no misinterpreting the look Han shoots Leia then: so hotly opportunistic it gives Leia a jolt even as she almost laughs aloud. Mouths to him, It's a date.
The pair have just stumbled inside the cabin from dropping Grace off, kissing clumsy and hungry and wresting at clothing, when the telephone rings. Nuh uh leave it, Hanmumbles against Leia's throat—except this is Grace's first trip away from home. Maybe she's forgotten something, Leia says. Han moves to the kitchen so stiffly, grasping at the jeans slipping down his hips, it makes Leia laugh. She pauses on the staircase, blouse unbuttoned. Pulse-point behind her ear still slick from his mouth. Han jabs a finger toward their loft as he scoops up the receiver. Now it's Han's turn for silent words, bitten brightly off: Get. Your little ass. Into bed. He grins. Princess.
But when Han follows, he's sheepish, apologetic, furious. A young pilot has abruptly quit, walked away from the loaded Piper in Detroit. Gatley has gone out to collect the plane, to deliver the cargo, but now there is an emergency meeting with a retailer in Chicago, wondering what the hell is delaying their shipment. They're withholding agreement on the new contract, and that problem is now Han's to solve, because he is the boss.
"Fuckin' Aaron," Han spits, hurling his duffel on the rocking chair beside their bed. Where Leia's waiting, naked, under the sheet. "I told him—"
Han trails off into groan when Leia rises up on her knees, the press of her body to his trapping the sheet, precariously veiling her nudity. She slinks one hand into the thick hair flipping at the base of his neck, the other into his still-opened fly. Whispers at his earlobe, ten minutes. Leia feels her husband violently shudder. Han is no saint, he's a mere thirty-five, and it's been as long a season for him as for her. But then there is a staunch set of his jaw.
"Ten minutes is enough for me, Sweetheart," Han says bravely, buttoning the crotch of his faded Levi's with a wincing adjustment that Leia finds endearing, arousing. Irritating. "Not for you."
And Leia wishes he would be a little less noble. Leia would like Han to be selfish, just now, a little rough, a little ruthless. An exciting thought, to be ravished, because she knows she's truly cherished. But she nods, kisses Han chastely, lets him go. Sits back on the bed, gathered in her sheet. There's nothing for it, responsibility is the cost of all their independence. She's had to do it, too, postpone lovemaking for breaking news—she's seen the look on Han's face that she can feel on her own, the frustration under the self-control, support, the real and loyal partnership.
But damn it all, Leia wants to pout. No! She wants to throw a fit. Leia wants to drum her feet and fists on this new mattress, bought in June. Heavenly, but underused. Wants to tackle Han to his broad back, insist through kisses: mine, mine, mine!
And look at him, this summer. It's not fair. Han vows even now that he doesn't publicly dance, but his hipshot walk is set to some innate beat. Loping down Main Street with Leia, pinky finger hooked with hers, Han unconsciously keeps the rhythm of "Susie Q," rolling from some passing car. Look at him now in white t-shirt and old jeans, wavy hair, tan. Three-day whiskers that Han, who hates shaving, often allows now that custom tends to the hirsute. At thirty-five, Han's good looks are deeper than ever. He's bursting with happiness, confidence, humor. Intelligence. Vigor.
Han draws eyes. Of course he does, Leia does too; stares from strangers are blatant lately, with notions of sex and commitment shifting. Leia's not jealous, or—perhaps she is. Jealous not in suspicion of Han, but in covetousness of him, in desire. In the sense of something missed. And he is missed, like that: right this moment, in fact. She'd set her taste for him, the weight of him, the heat and strength. The secret sight. The tension in voice and flesh just before she makes him crack. Oh, she knows they'll get it back, but right now Leia misses Han so much it's an ache in her throat, her heart, lower. She is jealous for him, yes.
Han pauses, duffel half-buckled. "Hey. Leia."
She looks up, stalwart as he was, just seconds ago. Leia wonders, does it bother him too? Does it bother Han when she doesn't demand it, what she wants from him?
He grazes knuckles over her cheekbone. "Come with me."
Leia blinks. Her first impulse is that she...can't. Her mind ticking over calendars, clocks. There is Grace: school, dance, playtime with her friends. Homework. Her own work. The chores of home and life. But Grace is away with Uncle Luke, and Leia just put a draft in to Cecil, who is a trial but a spectacular fact-checker. Forget the garden, the oven and the damn dusting.
"Whaddaya say, huh? Dinner?" Han jokes around the hopeful catch in his voice, playfully hitching his slim hips side-to-side. "A little danc—"
"I'll get dressed," Leia says, releasing the sheet.
"Goddamn, Princess." Han's smile is incandescent, his whistle filthy. "Sure wish you wouldn't."
XXXXXXXXX
It's something like their trip to Mantell, when they were newlyweds, except that they travel by plane, and Han is always serious when he flies. Concentrated, communicating with other pilots, towers. So Leia reads, and that's like Mantell too, because she reads about sex. It's a mainstream topic, in 1967, not like it was in 1956; not hidden in art books and on the highest newsstand shelves, wrapped in plain brown paper. Nothing is plain anymore, nothing unavailable—sex is in the air, heavy and sweet as honeysuckle. Sex at speed, casual, anonymous, free. In full color, everywhere. It's in this article about female pleasure, tucked between miniskirts and patent-shined lips as though satisfaction is an item to be—
Picked up, so to speak.
Is the grass greener? screams another header, about infidelity.
And closing the magazine Leia asks herself, asks the shade of herself in the airplane window: what do I want. Not as wife, not as mother, not even as woman; the I an entity detached from all commitment to others. The want a hunger Leia separates, for the purpose of bald truth, from the man she's married to. The man next to her, absorbed in his switches and dials, in the clean humming of his propellers.
The only person she's ever slept with.
Leia finds flying meditative, especially with Han at the helm. So she closes her eyes, far over the Midwest, to travel memory, private imagery. The combination lock of her own body, both changing and constant. What she likes. What she finds fantastic, in the truest sense. There is a lot, and it isn't all her husband. But the essential answer is as simple, and as complex, as this: Han Solo is the major sexual object on which Leia's want alights. That's just the way it is, for her, au courant or not.
Han Solo who, hemmed in his headset, eyes behind mirrored glasses, could almost be a stranger.
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After they land, Han rents an Impala at the O'Hare counter. He doesn't trust cab drivers, and there's no time for the L. He drops Leia on the curb downtown, outside the hotel where he keeps a work account, and has to go straight to the operation of his disgruntled client.
It's not a fancy hotel—it's not the Bespin, nor the Orbit—but it's comfortable, serviceable. Leia leaves her overnight bag, then goes out onto Rush Street. She's been to Chicago several times for her own work, and she finds herself tracing familiar steps, at first. But visiting museums and art galleries, libraries and bookstores is what she always does, and Leia—well.
Leia wants something new.
She goes shopping. Hedonism, indulgence, frivolity, breaks out her new checking card. Checks out what people are wearing, in the big city; enjoys the novelty of the bustling Magnificent Mile. And when Leia gets back to the hotel a few hours later the receptionist waves her down. There's a message from her husband, blinking on the phone at the front desk. Leia hears a click, then Han's voice. He's spent the damn day sweet-talking the clients and they're still jerkin' me around, wanna take me to dinner, before they sign the extension. Some bar, after. Called, uh. She hears Han tuck the phone between ear and shoulder the way he does, the crackle of paper, and it squeezes Leia's heart to clearly see Han, pulling inked notes from his back pocket. To know him so well he never really leaves her. Chalmun's. She can hear Han's anger. About our date...he sighs. Fucksake. Only Leia would be able to pick out the desperation in the rapid rest: Sweetheart. I'm s—hey, I love you. A hesitation, a breath. Something muttered, an oath. A click.
Leia goes upstairs. Orders room service. Eats, watches TV. Tries to read. She can't focus, she fidgets. She feels closed into this homey room. She feels a strange electricity, a buzzing cramp in her muscles that's only present when she's at rest.
Around six she vaults up from bed, finds herself snapping the radio on, singing along in the shower. After, Leia stands in new underwear, blow-drying her hair to silky straightness. Bites the sales-tags from a daringly short purple shift. Zips it up her hip, zips tan leather boots up her calves. Leia ties her hair high. Mascara and tinted gloss.
In the full-length mirror, Leia looks different. And she likes it. She strides out onto the swarming sidewalk, hails a cab like she's always done it. Maybe she has, Leia thinks with a curve of lips; she is someone else tonight.
XXXXXXXXX
There's a reason Han hires salesmen. Too proud to be a grinning monkey, huge money on the line or no. He sat through dinner in the high-end steakhouse glaring, and glaringly out of place in his t-shirt and jeans. Munching five-dollar french fries that weren't a patch on Chewie's. Han was told the meeting would be only a couple hours, strictly casual, confined to the receiving floor. Garrett Bowler, CEO, smirking at his negotiation tactic. Well, fuck! That was a dirty trick. Han was mad at himself for not anticipating it.
He'd been distracted by thoughts of his wife.
He'd meant what he promised her; supper, some quaint Italian joint—or, hell, a hot dog from a cart. A walk in the damn park! Han would gratefully take it, if it was with Leia, if their night ended with her clothed in only a sheet. Ahhhhhhh. Wasn't that somethin'? Leia wrapped in a cloud, all that hair tumbling. A vision out of his own sexual heaven.
After dinner, the clients' favorite bar. Chalmun's is a dive, the rich guys slumming for kicks, but Han slips into the scene like a pair of bloodstripes. Jukebox, pool table; these are Han's markers and they work in his favor just as collars and ties worked for Bowler. But Garret Bowler doesn't know this as he takes cues down from the wall, hands one to Han. He has a snooker table in his games room, he informs Han with a show of terminal pity.
Biting the inside of his cheek, Han hesitates, then accepts. Maybe he's laying it on a little thick as he chalks up? Well. Here goes' nothin! He sounds like some plucky orphan out of the musicals Grace loves, when he's another kind of the breed entirely, hand on the cue and eye on the money. Bowler, clearly tickled by the hick pilot's spirit, shakes on Han's suggestion, spoken last-minute: if Han wins, Bowler will sign a ten-year extension on the contract.
Hankeeps a straight face as hebends to the break. Whistles a bar of "Tomorrow" in his daughter's honor—bet your bottom dollar, Baby. Wishes Leia was here for this, she always digs this act when he trots it out on the fattest cats.
Under two minutes later a stunned Garret Bowler signs the contract right on the green felt. It seems to please him, being bested; Jesus, Han thinks, kick a guy's ass at nine-ball and he's your long-lost brother. Slapping Han's back, Bowler invites him along to the next bar. Chase some tail-feathers, Solo? And yeah Bowler's married, all his guys are married, but they don't care and neither does Han; he cares only for only his own wedding band, slung under his t-shirt on his tags, where he keeps it when he works with his hands. That fucking paper is signed. Mission accomplished, and at an unforeseen price. Let these guys hit the road, wherever it is they're going next.
He's going to bed.
Again the picture comes to him, Leia in that sheet, on her knees and...
Gritting his teeth, Han tries to defuse himself, putting down another ball. Can't crash in on Leia like this, taut with adrenaline and lust, she'd finish him fast as he'd beat Bowler. And he wants—
A flash of color pulls Han's eyes up from the cloth.
Mother of Christ.
It shouldn't affect Han as it does when he sees the tiny woman walking over, flip of skirt like a beckoning flicker of fingers. Swing of chestnut ponytail above straight shoulders, bare-legged above knee-high boots. Great big brown eyes, knowing smile. In her lobes, milk-opal orbs that he bought last Mother's Day. Like full moons on fine silver chains, giving tiny revolutions as she moves.
Han gives a mildly unmanly whimper. Eleven years. His knees still quiver.
"...Sweetheart?"
Han Solo's wife stops at the pool table. Trails fingers over the felt, quirks her brow.
"You must have me confused with someone else."
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He's a tall sandy-haired man, over six feet. Fitted faded Levi's, not slacks like the group he's with. White t-shirt, no tie, no collar.
She watches him chalk up, accepting his opponent's challenge with hesitance so false it makes her laugh softly into her glass. Sucker stitchedon his t-shirt would've been more subtle. Then he bends, and with a flex of long thigh the only hint to power, he unleashes a break like a warhammer. The two, three, eight balls vanish from sight. He doesn't even straighten, just coolly pivots into his next shot. Five-ball to nine and it's done—a paper signed, grin white against his tan.
Then he is alone. Scanning that document, slotting it in a back pocket, draining his tumbler. Sighing, he shifts his weight on his high ass. Shoulder blades in stark relief against thin cotton. Eyes closed he smiles to himself, not at all the fuck-you smirk of the pool shark. Something private to it, something softer, secret.
But then it's lost, the dreaminess. He strolls around the table; he watches his hips as he walks, as he bends to bank a clean shot. Boom, boom, boom, boom, The Animals growl from the jukebox.
She wonders what he's like in bed.
Only one way to find out.
XXXXXXXX
Up close she likes his face as much as she'd liked his rangy frame. Likes his broken nose, scar, scruff. Slanted mouth. Green eyes, and she likes the way they rove her: from toes to ponytail like he could dive into her.
He claims to know her, and when she says he's mistaken he blinks, thick brows lifting in confusion. But he's not a man to miss a trick.
"That so." He cocks his head, eyes gone metallic at their rims.
She indicates the cue curled loosely in his fingers. "Nice work."
He looks at her long and levelly. Then he leans forward to place a hand on the felt lip of the table, raising veins in his long, braced arm. "You were watching."
It's not a question, so she doesn't answer. And he cocks his head the other way, gauging her like he had his shot: force, distance. Commitment.
"Won a tournament, once," he offers. "In Indiana." The slightest crinkle of amusement, of affection, at the corners of his eyes. "Maybe that's where I know you from."
"I doubt it," she says, airily.
"No?" He leans down, splaying long fingers on the felt, eyes flicking keen to the last ball. Clicks the seven down the long rail, and it strikes the corner pocket clean and sharp, just left of her hip. From under his lashes, he flashes her a molten look. "Well. You sure look like the girl who kissed me after."
Her lips twitch. "Lucky lady."
"No." Shaking his head, he says it straight as a vow as he stands upright. "I'm the lucky one."
The smile she gives him is sly and wide and joyful. "How lucky do you hope to get, tonight?"