Pillow Talk

The Elephant in the Room

By Cokie

Author's Note: I feel like I'm in withdrawal at not having posted anything for a couple of weeks. This is short and silly, but I hope you enjoy! Cokie

~~~H50~~~

Steve was glad it was Friday and this week was over. He and Danny had just gotten back from a trip to the Big Island where they had testified in a drug trafficking case. Thankfully the two perps had been convicted and sentenced for their crimes. The two officers had had a late meal before their flight home and now all Steve wanted was to say hello to Catherine and get out of his suit.

Maybe not in that order.

He had texted when they reached the airstrip on Oahu and told her he would be home soon. She had answered, saying she was in bed, reading, and not worry about trying not to wake her up. She also said she had something to talk to him about.

Crap. He hated lead-ins like that.

He had casually mentioned to Danny that Cath had wanted to talk and his partner just shook his head, immediately asking what Steve had done. This time.

He swore that he hadn't done anything, but Danny had that look. The one that said 'you're in deep shit and don't even know it.' When Steve got out of the Camaro at his house, Danny came around the car to drive home.

He slapped Steve on the back as he passed and said, "Good luck, Buddy."

"Danny, stop. I swear everything's fine."

"So you say. All you can do is hope for the best. Call me if you need anything… like bandages, an ice pack… a night on my couch…"

"Shut up, Danno and get outta here," Steve told his friend with a forced chuckle. He hoped none of the mentioned options would be needed tonight.

Steve locked the door and set the alarm before heading upstairs, taking off his jacket as he took the steps. From the doorway, he glanced at Catherine, looking all cozy in bed with who-knew-how-many pillows stuffed behind her.

"Hey, Handsome," she greeted him with a grin, setting aside her book.

"Hey, yourself," he said. "I missed you." Steve hung up his jacket and then began unbuttoning his dark blue shirt.

"So, today was a success?" Cath asked.

"Yeah, really good. It was worth every hassle we went through to get those two behind bars," Steve told her thinking about all the trouble they had to go through to make the charges stick.

"That's good. Are you hungry?" she asked.

Steve shook his head and removed the shirt, tossing it into the hamper in the closet. "I had dinner with Danny." He headed to the bathroom, asking, "What'd you want to talk about?" over his shoulder.

"It will wait until you're back in here," she called to him over the sound of running water.

Shit.

Steve wracked his brain trying to think of something he had done to upset her, but was coming up empty. They had an easy relationship and had had very few real fights during their times together. But he was thinking that possibly tonight might change that, because he was getting a very strange vibe from Catherine.

After postponing the inevitable as long as he could with an extra-long brushing of his teeth, Steve walked back into the bedroom and stripped out of his dress trousers, taking care to hang them in the closet. He grabbed a pair of sleep pants and moved toward the bed, sliding in and leaning over to give her a kiss.

"Sorry, I should have done that as soon as I got in," he said, smiling at her. He stopped short of batting his eyelashes, thinking that might be a trick for later.

Or never.

But many years ago, he had overheard his mother tell a friend of hers that all Steve had to do was bat those long eyelashes and her heart melted.

It was a last ditch weapon and one that was rarely used. At least consciously. And he prayed to God he didn't have to use it tonight.

Catherine tossed a couple of pillows on the floor and got comfortable next to him, her head lying in the crook of his arm.

"How was your day?" he began.

"Good. We finished up most of the paperwork from this week and we all went to Kamekona's for lunch. Tonight I went through a few of the boxes I brought with me from my house; got rid of some things and then stored the others."

"That's good," he mumbled, kissing her temple. "Remember, I told you to take all the room you need. We can rearrange anything to fit your things in. I want you to feel at home and happy here. "

"Yeah, I know," she told him, pulling away just a bit. "And speaking of, that leads me to the question

I have for you."

Here it comes.

"OK, shoot," he said, hoping to sound very nonchalant when he was anything but.

"Well, this isn't so easy to ask," she began and scooted up in bed. "I know we've been together off and on for several years, right?"

Well, duh, yeah.

"Uh, sure. Lots of good years."

"And I know that when we were in an off-phase, you saw other women, and I dated-"

"Cath, what's this about? I thought we said that the past was the past. I know you've dated some guys but I don't want to know any details."

"Yeah, right," she agreed, but he noticed she was having trouble looking at him.

"Cath, tell me what's wrong."

"Well, I mean, we've had some really good sex, right?"

"Hell, yeah. I mean," he stopped talking, trying to think where this possibly could be headed… "yes, of course. It was good for you, too, right?" Steve asked, suddenly worried that she wasn't satisfied with their sex life.

"Absolutely." She did glance at him and gave him a beautiful smile before looking back down to the sheet that she was picking apart. "Only," she finished in a quieter tone, "I never knew that you liked um… kinky sex."

"Excuse me?" he squeaked. "Who told you that?"

"Well, no one, actually. I just sort of figured it out after I saw the picture." Cath put both hands on her face and finally admitted, "Really, I wasn't snooping, but today when I was making room in the top of the closet for some stuff, I came across some pictures. I didn't know that box was off limits, Steve, I swear I didn't."

Steve turned on his side and stared at her. "Tell me what the heck you're talking about. I don't have any pictures—"

"Um, yeah, you do," she interrupted him and reached over to the nightstand. "And I have the proof right here. I mean, really Steve, I don't think I've ever seen a more amorous pose." She picked up a picture and turned it over, taking another look at it before he snatched it from her hand.

He stared at it and then a wide grin appeared on his face. "That's Bombay!"

"Your girlfriend was named 'Bombay'?" Cath asked, snuggling up closer to him and laughing. "I thought I was going to bust something this afternoon when I found this. I was laughing so hard and couldn't wait to ask you about it."

"You scared the piss out of me," Steve admitted with a sigh of relief. "I thought you were mad at something I had done."

"Not mad, just really concerned about your sex life," she replied, still chuckling. "Now, tell me about you and Bombay."

Steve continued to look at the photo. "Wow, that was such a long time ago."

"And you look so cute in your white sailor suit and cocky little hat!" Steve was facing the camera with a look of surprise on his face. A baby elephant was standing to his right, its trunk wrapped around Steve's shoulders, the end of it on Steve's left ear. "So, tell me the story."

"It was me, Freddy and a couple others on our first trip out. We had been cooped up for what seemed like forever on board and were given 48 hours shore leave when we docked in Thailand. We couldn't wait to grab some beer and found a little hole in the wall along a main 'street', grabbed a table and started drinking and watching the crowd. The city was filthy and there were vendors all along both sides of the dirt street, if you could even call it a street.

"Did the elephant ask you for a dance or did you see her first?" Cath asked with a giggle.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Absolutely. I love this picture!"

"This old man was working his way down the street with this little elephant, offering to take a Polaroid picture with her for what he considered a "nominal fee". Every time someone would have their picture taken, he would give her a banana, I guess to try and keep her calm. Anyway, remember we had probably been drinking beer non-stop for at least an hour. A couple people around us had their pictures taken and poor Bombay… we had already named it… was still hungry. So we decided to feed her."

His grin widened as he thought back to that night and Catherine loved seeing the memory play out on his face.

"There was an old woman a few storefronts down selling fried bananas and we went and bought her entire stalk of bananas, but wouldn't let her fry them. Freddy and I walked along behind the elephant man and kept slipping bananas to Bombay. When he would turn around, we would try to blend in with all the other nightlife so he wouldn't yell at us. But finally we were out of bananas and knew that Bombay wasn't hungry anymore after all that we fed her. We decided we needed more beer and turned to go back to the bar we had been in."

"That's nice that you fed a hungry animal," Cath told him. "But when did you get the picture taken?"

"This picture kept me out of the Thai pokey for the weekend!"

"Your first leave and you almost landed in jail?"

"Yeah, and it wasn't funny. We were walking down the street and all of a sudden someone started yelling and then police whistles started blowing and when we turned around, Bombay was running after us just as fast as her fat little feet could carry her through the crowd. The owner told the police we were trying to kidnap her…. OK, Cath, it isn't that funny," Steve scolded her when she again broke out into giggles.

"Hearing you tell it, it is," she replied.

"When they caught up with us, the police were going to arrest us, but we offered to pay for pictures with Bombay if the man would drop the charges. We each had to pay for ten pictures—"

"So there's more than this one?" she asked.

"No, that was the only one that turned out of me and Bombay," Steve told her. "The guy had a crappy old Polaroid camera with probably outdated film in it. Anyway, Bombay got a little fresh…"

Catherine held the picture up. "A little? She is smitten with you. I love it. And I need to frame it and set it out somewhere."

"No, I don't think that's necessary," Steve told her, mortified at the thought everyone coming to the house seeing that picture.

"Oh, but it is. What a conversation piece," she told him.

"That's what I'm afraid of!"

"Just think how Danny would love to hear that story."

"Not gonna happen," Steve said while punching his pillow to get comfortable.

"And Grace. She needs to hear it." Catherine set the photo on the nightstand and scooted down next to him, wrapping her arm around his neck. She leaned in closer and gave him a kiss, whispering, "so, is this what you like?"

He jumped when she began playing with her finger in his earlobe. "Like this?" she asked with a grin.

"Cath, that's not funny." He removed her arm from around his neck and pulled her closer so that their faces were almost touching. "You know what's really funny?" he asked.

"There's more?"

He leaned in to whisper. "I'm not sure if Bombay was even a girl."

She immediately laughed. "And you think I'm not telling your team this story? Dream on, Commander."

I found this story in Tales of the U.S. Navy on the internet. While there were some "tall tales" on the site, I don't know the validity of this one. Therefore, I can neither confirm nor deny if this ever happened. Cokie