Annabel and I were just sixteen-years-old the night we popped each other’s cherries in the back seat of my mom’s Chrysler (that old piece of crap Chrysler had a back seat like a mattress on wheels).
We had been unofficially dating and fiddling around sexually for a long time. We were young and horny and loved to experiment and make each other cum. I didn’t count things back then, but there were a lot of hand jobs, finger jobs, blow jobs, and massive amounts of tongue fucking. I lived for those moments when I could suck on Annabel’s tender clit and part her pussy lips with my fingers and shove my tongue deep inside her sweet hole. Her juices flowed from her pussy like a warm stream over my tongue and into my mouth. It was like drinking the nectar of the gods. I lapped it up like a kitten attacking a bowl of milk and prodded for more. Even after all this time I could still close my eyes and taste her on the tip of my tongue… sweet… salty… pungent… I could still smell the scent of her cunt when I inhaled deeply, recalling the memory of her squirming against my lips.
We had done everything except fuck at that point, so we knew each other’s bodies well and knew how to quickly reach the point of orgasm. Slipping my cock inside her pussy just seemed like the natural progression of things, at least that’s what I’d been trying to convince her of. I’d been begging her for a while to let me fuck her, but she kept saying no, no, no. I had cum in her mouth, on her belly, on her tits, on her ass, and on her face, but I longed for the tight, wet, searing heat of her pussy around my cock.
And then the night came when Annabel said we could take things all the way. She had been milking my cock and I’d had my fing
ers buried all up inside her pussy for nearly half an hour when she whispered, “I want you to fuck me, Shane” in my ear. I was so fucking excited I almost shot my load just hearing those words. I could barely get the rubber out of the wrapper, my hands were shaking so bad.
Annabel calmly took the rubber and expertly slid it over my cock and climbed on top of me. I could remember the exact moment her tight pussy opened up like a delicate flower and allowed my big cock to slowly come inside. Her pussy was so tight it hurt going in at first, like a thousand fingers squeezing my dick as it forced its way into a hole the size of a thimble. Then, the tip of my cock hit her hymen and she froze. I watched her take a deep breath. Then she smiled at me with tears in her eyes and impaled herself on my cock in one quick movement. She gasped and fell still for a moment, then she exhaled deeply as her hips started to slowly move back and forth, sliding me in and out of her gushing virgin hole.
I exploded within seconds and so did she.
And from that moment on we never looked back.
That night still stands as the greatest night of my life.
I have replayed it in my dreams a thousand times.
* * *
Annabel was tall for a girl; thin, with pert, firm tits and not much in the way of curves, but she had a beautiful face and a tender way about her that just made me want to be near her. She had this aura, I guess you could say, this chemical magnetism that drew me to her like a moth to a flame or a magnet to steel. Like the moment I first slid inside her, I could still close my eyes and feel the heat coming off her young body as we lay there naked and sweating after our first awkward sex.
I’d known Annabel Lee pretty much my entire life, since first grade probably, but we started hanging out regularly our junior year when the chemistry teacher put us together on a project, probably because Annabel was the smartest kid in the class and I was the dumbest (plus I needed at least a C to keep my spot as quarterback of the junior varsity football team). I guess Coach Hand, the chemistry teacher who also happened to be an assistant football coach, figured I needed all the help I could get to even get a C in the class. He was right. I would have racked up another in a long line of D’s if it hadn’t been for Annabel’s hard work. We all knew it; her, me, and the coach. She got an A on the project and I got a sympathetic C that allowed me to keep playing football. My mom was proud as punch because she couldn’t remember the last time I’d made a grade above a D.
Me and Annabel hung out a lot after that, then casually became a couple our senior year. We never made it official, I mean, I never gave her my football jacket or a ring, but she had my heart for sure. She was my girl and I was her guy and everybody knew it. I was only happy when I was with Annabel. The rest of my life back then was shit. Pure unadulterated shit.
Then I fucked up big time and she caught me doing it and wouldn’t even talk to me after that. When she saw me coming she’d head in the other direction. She ignored my calls, my notes, the pleas sent through mutual friends, and my late-night visits outside of her bedroom window. Her mom would call the cops and I’d flee when the sirens got close. Once, the sheriff followed me home and told me to keep the fuck away. Fortunately for me, my old man had already passed out or he would have beaten the living shit out of me.
Then my brother Kenny was killed and everything went to shit.
The last time I saw Annabel was 4,103 days and 11 hours ago, the day I climbed onto the Greyhound bus for the long ride from south Texas to northern Michigan, headed to basic training at The Great Lakes Naval Training Center on the western shore of Lake Michigan. I didn’t even know she was there until the bus was pulling out of the terminal. I glanced out the window and there she was, sitting in her old man’s pickup truck watching me through the dirty windshield. She had her thin fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. She didn’t wave. She didn’t blink. She didn’t move. She didn’t open her mouth. She just watched me go with a blank expression on her gorgeous face. I’ll never forget the look of apathy in her eyes. Or the sharp pains in my chest as I mentally ripped out my beating heart and tossed it out the window. It splattered like a ripe melon when it hit the scorching hot blacktop and sizzled like a frying egg. That was fine. I could live without it because I wouldn’t need it anymore. I was leaving it behind forever, along with my Annabel Lee.
* * *
I spent eight weeks in basic training, then put in my request to join the SEALS. I was numb back then. I literally felt nothing. No joy, no pain, no fear, no love. Nothing. Not a fucking thing. I wanted to pay for my sins with my flesh, blood, and bones. I wanted to atone for everything I’d done and the things I didn’t do. I wanted to pay for breaking Annabel’s heart, for betraying her trust. I wanted to offer myself as a sacrifice for the death of my little brother. I wanted to make up for all the years of abuse I took from my old man rather than killing him in his sleep when I was old enough to squeeze the trigger on the gun he kept in his nightstand. Dark thoughts, I know. I wanted to pay for just being me. I wanted to put my life on the line every day just so I could feel something. And I knew of no better way to do that than to become a SEAL and volunteer for every dangerous mission that came along. And that’s what I’ve done for the last eleven years.
Honestly, between you and me, the requirements for getting into the SEALs aren’t that stringent. It’s mostly physical stuff—endurance, perseverance, the willingness and ability to follow orders and put your ass on the line time and time again. Thank God, otherwise I never would have been accepted. Like my buddy Troy said, “Getting in was easy. Staying in and staying alive was hard.”
From Michigan, I flew back across country to the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado across the bay from San Diego, California. After twenty-one weeks of SEAL training, they herded my team onto a C-17 troop transport plane and it was off to Iraq for my first mission. And like leaving Gulf Breeze, I never looked back. From there, I have bounced around the globe like a fucking pinball with an assault rifle and enough attitude to fill a tanker truck.
Hoo-fucking-rah, SEALs…
A day hadn’t gone by when I didn’t wonder what became of Annabel.
I still thought about her late at night, when I felt alone even with another woman in my bed.
I wondered if I would ever see her again.
And if I did, I wondered if she would even speak to me.
CHAPTER 2: Annabel Lee
Wendy, my receptionist, stuck her head in the operating room door and waited for me to acknowledge her presence with a quick glance. She knew better than to come inside when I had an animal open on the table. One, it wasn’t sanitary, and two, Wendy puked her guts out at the sight of blood.
The operating room was nothing fancy and certainly not as sterile as those found in hospitals for humans. It was just a small room in the back of my practice with a tall table covered in sterile plastic and a large light that loomed above my head like some kind of hovering Martian ship. I was stitching up Dolly the eighty-pound Labrador after spaying her. Dolly was sleeping like a baby on the table.
Without taking my eyes off my work, I barked at Wendy, no pun intended. “Speak, Wendy.”