Chapter 34: Ocean City

I woke the next morning when the sun came in and hit me in the face, an early hour since the window was facing the beach to the east. I was in the same position as last night, leaning back against some pillows, with Marilyn curled up at my side. Surprisingly, despite a slight crick in my neck, I was feeling pretty good. In that I wasn’t hungover, although I did have to piss something wicked. I managed to extricate myself and went into the bathroom. After using the facilities, I stopped and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked a little worse for the wear, and my eyes were bloodshot, but I felt better than I looked.

I went back to bed and found Marilyn stirring awake. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

“What time is it?” she asked blearily.

“Sunrise! Can’t you hear the birds chirping cheerfully?”

“That’s too early. What are you doing up?” she asked.

“Nature called, and somebody had to answer. Ready to get up and face the world?”

She looked at me with sleepy eyes. “You are way too cheerful in the morning. If I had known you were this cheerful in the morning, I would never have slept with you last night!”

I sat down next to her and leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “Speaking of which, how are you feeling?”

“I’m good.” Then she gave me a funny look and pointed at my chest. “Hey, what’s with the necklace? It felt kind of scratchy!”

“Necklace?” It took me a second to realize what she was referring to. “Oh! Those are my dog tags! They’re my military ID. I got them when I started ROTC. Sorry about that. I’m so used to wearing them I forget they’re there.”

“Oh.”

“Is that a problem?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, just curious.”

I nodded. “Then I’m going out for a bit.” I stood up and went back into the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth and washed my face. After that I slipped back into the bedroom as quietly as I could and changed into some gym shorts and a t-shirt, along with socks and sneakers. I grabbed my keys and clipped them to my dog tags.

“Where are you going?” asked Marilyn, finally sitting up and paying some attention to what was happening.

“I need to run.”

“Why?”

“Because if I don’t burn some calories, last night’s dinner will stay with me for years to come!” I patted my midsection. Last night Marilyn had the surf and turf, while I had some seafood in white sauce on linguine. Maryland has the best seafood on the planet, and I was going to thoroughly enjoy my vacation in more ways than one!

“Ugghhh!”

I bent down and kissed her quickly. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. You sleep some more, and then take that nice hot bath we talked about. Afterwards we’ll get some breakfast, okay?”

“Mmmm...” Marilyn closed her eyes and sank back down into the covers. I grabbed my sunglasses and headed for the door to the suite.

I rode the elevator down to the lobby and headed out onto North Baltimore Street. According to the map, we were a few blocks north of the Boardwalk, which sounded like a good place to run. I stretched briefly, and then headed south, moving at an easy lope. I kept the pace down until I hit the Boardwalk, at which point I picked it up. I had read somewhere that it was about two and a half miles long, so a round trip would be five miles. I should be able to do that in an hour.

It was a nice run. The sky was grayer than I liked, and I could smell a storm brewing, but I had missed the forecast. At that hour, it was empty except for a bunch of joggers and bicyclers like me out getting a quiet workout. I nodded to a few of them and simply enjoyed the run. The stores and tourist traps were still shuttered closed, although you could hear people working inside some of them. When I got to the end of the Boardwalk I reversed course and powered it up another notch. By the time I got back I was sweating and breathing hard. I walked from there back to the Hilton. I desperately needed to shower.

It was a good thing nobody was in the elevator as I rode back upstairs, because I think my smell would have had them getting off long before their floor had arrived. I let myself into the room and tossed the room key onto a buffet and walked into the bedroom we had used. The bed was rumpled but empty. A light was on in the bathroom, and I found Marilyn happily immersed in bath bubbles. I guess bubble bath must have been in the courtesy kit in the room, or Marilyn packed her own, which I wouldn’t rule out; she liked bubble baths.

“Well, you look like you’re having fun,” I commented from the open doorway.

Marilyn squealed and ducked even lower under the bubbles, although there were enough I hadn’t seen anything anyway. “You’re not supposed to be in here!” she protested.

“Considering that this is my bedroom and my bathroom, I could say the same to you.” Marilyn stuck her tongue out at me. “You know, maybe I need a bath, too!”

“No, you can’t!” she protested.

I peeled off my shirt and kicked off my shoes. “Why not?” I asked with a smile.

“Because!”

I peeled off my socks and dropped them in the corner with the sweaty shirt. “Because why?”

“Just because!”

“You sound like you’re telling something to a four-year-old,” I laughed.

She smiled at that. I rescued her modesty by turning on the shower (deluxe suites had deluxe bathrooms, with both showers and tubs.) Then I stripped down and jumped in for a quick shower. She blushed when I stepped out and dried off. “You know, you saw everything last night,” I reminded her. I wrapped the towel around my waist and turned the water on in the sink.

“Not really,” she admitted. “I think my eyes were closed.” She gave me a very sheepish look.

I grabbed my towel and moved to whisk it away. “We can fix that!”

“NO!” Marilyn yelled, and then ducked down under the water. When she couldn’t hold her breath any longer, she surfaced and wiped the suds from her eyes, to find me standing there, my towel still around my waist, and laughing my ass off at her. “Now I have to dry my hair!” she complained.

“That’s not my fault,” I said with a laugh. I turned away and went to the sink to begin shaving and found a wet washcloth flying to hit me in the shoulder. I turned to face her and did a bump-and-grind, yanked off my towel and then showed her my butt as I shaved. Marilyn gave a little harrumph of displeasure.

When I was done, I left the bathroom and allowed her to finish up in privacy. I pulled on some clean briefs and a clean pair of chinos, along with a sports shirt. I also looked at Marilyn’s silk robe. It had a few blood spots and semen marks. I took it into the common room and found a dry-cleaning bag and stuffed it inside, and then I called down to room service and asked for a bellman for some dry cleaning. Maybe it could be cleaned. Those types of stains weren’t the type you wanted to keep around and reminisce about; just ask Bill Clinton!

From behind me, in the direction of the bedroom, I heard Marilyn. “Carl? Have you seen my robe?”

Ooops. No good deed goes unpunished. I went to the bedroom door and said, “I sent it to the cleaners.”

“Well, what am I supposed to wear now?” she protested.

I laughed and pushed the door open. Marilyn squealed in outrage and tried to wrap her towel around herself. I simply strode up to her and wrapped her in my arms. “Will you stop worrying! You might not remember what I looked like from last night, but you can believe that I remember what you looked like, and I liked every single square inch!” I tugged away her towel and kept hold of her. “I like seeing you like this. I think I’m going to have to see you like this more often.”

Marilyn blushed, and then she giggled. “I guess I am being silly.

“Yes, but I like that, too. Now, get dressed and we’ll get breakfast.” I tossed her the towel and she went off to her room carrying her towel. I followed, happy to see her from behind.

“I think I can do this myself,” she said with a smile.

“Well, I mean, it just seems logical, if I get to take your clothes off you, I get some say in what goes on you,” I countered.

“You’re too logical for your own good.”

“Then let me make a suggestion, seriously. Put on a long skirt or sundress and leave off the unmentionables. It will cut down on the irritation, hmmm?” I figured that was a long shot, but it sounded logical, and would be more interesting.

“OUT!”

I skedaddled out of there. I figured I would be able to experiment later and see if she liked my idea.

Marilyn came out a few minutes later in some flat sandals and a long halter-topped sundress. I smiled and looked at her hips to see if I could figure out if she was wearing anything under the dress. She noticed and laughed at me. “I’m not telling you, either.”

I shrugged and smiled. “It’s even more fun to wonder.” I grabbed her hand and the room key, and we headed out the door. In the elevator, I took a chance and hugged her, and in the process, ran my hands along her rear. At first, she moaned slightly, but then she jumped back and swatted at me. “That’s cheating!”

“I can’t imagine why you would trust me not to cheat. I wouldn’t trust me not to cheat!”

She glared at me for moment, but I just smiled innocently, and then buffed my fingertips against my shirt theatrically. Marilyn blushed again. Unless she was wearing a thong, and thongs weren’t all that common back in ‘74, I was pretty sure of the answer.

Breakfast was a buffet, and Marilyn happily loaded up on some scrambled eggs, toast, and juice, while I limited myself to juice and some fruit salad. “You’re not hungry?” she asked.

“Breakfast isn’t my big meal for the day. I normally just have some fruit and juice, or something light. My big meals will be lunch and dinner. I need to watch my weight.”

“You’re kidding me, right? You’re like pure muscle.”

I laughed at that. “Not hardly. When I was a little kid I was nothing but skin and bones. I have to work at it. Besides, a soldier can’t afford to be fat; I need the muscle.”

“I find that hard to believe, too. I can’t see you as a soldier.”

“Hey, you saw the ‘Wall of Heroes.’ Even if I am drummed out of the family, my mother will put my boot camp photo up there next year,” I told her.

We talked some more about the road trip that summer, although I avoided discussion of my winning at the casino in Las Vegas. We also talked about our schedules for that fall, when school started.

After breakfast, it was time to take a walk around town. It was continuing to stay gray outside, but it wasn’t raining, so we walked down to the Boardwalk holding hands. By now businesses were open and people were coming out to the beach, although there weren’t as many as if it had been bright and sunny. There are about a million tourist traps and stores along the Boardwalk, and we went into several. I bought a box of saltwater taffy, which Marilyn had never had before. I said we’d have to buy a big box for Tusker and Tessa, and Marilyn asked me why it was called saltwater taffy if there was no salt water in it, and I couldn’t answer that one.

I bought a straw fedora for myself and a big floppy straw hat for Marilyn. I also pointed out several different miniscule bikinis and offered to buy them for Marilyn, which earned me a lot of blushes. I decided I would revisit the question later in the week.

We perambulated down the Boardwalk slowly, taking in the sights and letting the breeze blow around us. At one point, it picked up enough that she had to grab her dress to keep it from flipping up and answering the question she refused to answer herself. I laughed and pointed to a little girl walking with her mother on the other side of the Boardwalk, towards us. She was giggling and pointing at us, among other things. I leaned over and whispered to Marilyn, “I know what she just told her mother.”

“What?”

“She said that you weren’t wearing any underpants and that her mother needed to call the Panty Police!” Marilyn squawked at that and smacked me in the arm, which got me to laughing so hard my hat blew off and I had to chase it down.

We had lunch a bit before noon at a pizza place. I was starting to get worried about the weather. It was getting darker and the wind was starting to blow stronger. We ate lunch and hurried back north. The rain held off until we were about a block away from the hotel, and then we ran back as fast as we could before we got drenched. I led the way to an ocean view bar, and we sat and had a couple of rum punches. I admired the view of Marilyn more than the storm. Her dress got a bit clingy and sheer when wet.

After drinking the rum punches, Marilyn’s dress dried enough that it wasn’t so clingy and sheer, and I decided I rather preferred it the other way around. Or, in other words, I started thinking with my small head. I signed for the drinks and took Marilyn’s hand. “Come on, I need to get something from the room.” Marilyn nodded and stood up, slurping her rum punch down through the straw first.

We walked out to the lobby and got into the first available elevator. Thankfully it was empty. I slipped behind her and wrapped my arms around her, and then lowered my face to her shoulders. One of Marilyn’s major erogenous zones was her shoulders; she just went nuts went I touched her or licked her there. She stiffened and arched her back and whimpered slightly. “I think I know what you want in the room,” she said quietly.

“Is that a problem?” I asked, licking her neck as I whispered to her.

She whimpered some more, and haltingly answered, “No...”

I kept tormenting her for the rest of the ride to our floor, which was only a few seconds more. I gave her a knowing smile, to which she blushed, but she also smiled. I unlocked the door and led her inside. As I suspected, the room had been made up, and my bed had a new cover on it. I led her to the bed and gently pushed her backwards. “Sit down.” She gave me a shy smile, but she sat promptly and looked at me expectantly.

I gave her a much more wolfish smile and knelt at her feet. “I seem to recall saying something about kissing something and making it feel better. Maybe I should check on that.” I said this as I ran my fingertips lightly over her ankles. She was too excited to answer me, but she nodded vigorously. I tugged her sandals off and tossed them behind me, where they clattered against something, but I didn’t bother looking. I slowly ran my fingers up her ankles to her calves, and under the hem of her long skirt. Then I lifted her left leg up and gently kissed her calf. “Was it here I was supposed to kiss?”

“No,” she answered weakly.

I gave her an innocent look and rested her calf on my right shoulder, and then lifted her right leg up and kissed my way from her right calf up to her right knee. I gave that a little more attention, and then looked up at her. “Here?”