That was easy.  Getting rid of Barry.  Or was his name Perry? Whatever.  His
speech was so badly slurred when I picked him up at the bar last night that I
never figured it out.  And this morning, I didn't want to give him any clue that
we didn't get to know each other very well last night.  Very well indeed. 
Intimately, if you know what I mean. Anyway, despite his hangover, he took off
like a rocket once he got to the door this morning.  All I have to do is hint
about marriage and most grad students freak out.  Males, I mean.  They figure I'm
good for a quick lay, but to make it permanent?  No way! I guess it's that they
know I'm a career Air Force officer plus the way I come after them over breakfast
the morning after. Now, if those OSI gumshoes talk to him, I'm certified.  OSI?
Office of Special Investigations.  The Air Force's secret police. Why would they
want to talk to him?  You've heard of the "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue"
policy, haven't you?  Well, take it from me, it's a joke.  Especially the "don't
pursue" part of it. Somebody sicked them onto me.  I think they really have it in
for us.  They think any Air Force female whose face doesn't stop a clock and who
doesn't date is lesbian.  Yeah.  I thought that stereotype was long dead.  But it
isn't. That's right, they think I'm queer.  Now isn't that a hoot. They're right,
you know.  But what they don't have is any proof of my "orientation." 
Suspicions, but no evidence.  Not a trace. Certification?  Oh, that's what I call
a man's witnessing to my being het.  Heterosexual.  That throws the OSI
bloodhounds off for a while.  From what I can tell, they have to report, go
through channels and re-evaluate me before they can come after me again. Oh, I
don't know this for sure.  Yeah, I'm guessing.  But I sure as hell am not going
to ask anybody in OSI what their procedure is for hunting us down.  I'm not that
dumb! Anyway, I've got the drill down now.  It's much simpler than ever before. 
That's why I'm living up here in Davis, twenty miles up the freeway from Travis
Air Force Base, but just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the university.  When
I need to get certified, I troll for a graduate student in one of the bars, one
who is fairly well blotto, take him home with me and finish the job.  In the
morning, he wakes up with a splitting headache, no memory, a rubber full of cum,
and me, naked as a jaybird beside him, just gushing over how good a lover he was.
 I don't know why it is-- perhaps the hangover, but so far I've been able to make
them all believe we've really done it.  I'd guess that for men, it isn't so much
the pleasure but the conquest they're after.  And it seems that the muff of an
Air Force captain looks pretty good for bragging rights. After that, I turn on
him--I always do it at the breakfast table--over toast and eggs.  Up to that
point, I've been stroking his ego.  Stroking it so smoothly that he really hasn't
felt the full effects of his hangover.  Yet. I shift gears as quietly as
possible.  Honey just drips from my lips.  I get his telephone number, then ask
whether he has the weekend open.  I tell him we need to find a place closer to
Travis. If he doesn't bail out at that broad hint, I launch into my spiel on the
difficult life of a tanker pilot.  About the long hours, irregular deployments,
and how I'd really like to come home to him without facing the hazards of driving
twenty miles on Interstate 80 while dog tired.  Besides, although I know he'd be
good with the kids and taking care of the house, it would be best if it wouldn't
take me too long to get home from the base in case of an emergency. So far, I've
never had to go that far in my script.  And not one of them yet has gone into
cardiac arrest when they realize what I'm talking about.  Usually, he tries to
negotiate.  You know, talks about the liberated woman, the sexual revolution, and
open relationships.  That sort of crap.  That's when he finds out I'm a bitch. 
Oh, I'm sweet about it, but I tell him that, for career purposes, I really should
be married to whoever is getting it. I say that the Air Force cuts us older
single girls a little slack in our choice of tactics when we're trolling for a
husband. But if they were to think I'm just getting my jollies, OSI would come
down on me like a ton of bricks.  The Uniform Code of Military Justice has a
court martial offense called "sodomy" that's applied to any case where the two
consenting adults are not legally married to one another.  At present, I'm not
interested in a major career change.  If the guy isn't back-peddling furiously by
that point, I tell him that he probably wouldn't cherish being a witness at a
general court martial and having the national press make him into a household
name. As I said, this routine makes it much easier than before. Actually, Kim
suggested it to me when I took leave after the squadron transferred to Travis AFB
three years ago.  I'd had a pretty bad experience just before we left March AFB
and it took her a couple of days to put my head back together again.  For three
years, I'd actually let some guy poke me in order to get certified. Grit my
teeth, fake major orgasm, and get it over with.  God, that was filthy,
disgusting!  The last one was the worst of them all-- he was a professor from
Riverside and a certifiable kink.  But it kept me clear with OSI for a few
months. Actually, it was also a three-year experiment.  I was hoping that,
instead of being homo, I was really bi.  I was looking for somebody I could
stomach in order to get into a long-term het relationship.  Oh, I had no
intention of giving up Kim.  She'd been in a poly relationship before and wasn't
worried, as long as she'd still be my primary.  So if I were bi, that would solve
a whole lot of problems.  But I never did find a guy who could ring my chimes.
I'm still looking, still hoping, but I'm not going to let another man poke me
until I'm really comfortable about it in my mind. Years ago, Kim and I had talked
about my taking up with a fag. You know, fake the het thing for both our benefit.
 But I was leery.  If there wasn't a real relationship in such a situation, how
could I trust the guy not to do something stupid while an OSI gumshoe was nosing
around, like getting caught with his lover and burning me if it was to his
advantage?  No, my getting poked was what the bloodhounds were looking for.  So I
gave them what they wanted. Why do I go through all of this?  It's simple.  I
like being a tanker pilot.  Really.  It floats my boat.  And just as long as I
can keep OSI confused, I'm AOK.  As far as I can tell, nobody in the squadron is
concerned about the plumbing of my bedmate.  I'm good at my job.  And that's what
counts. With everybody, but OSI. Well, somebody in my past was concerned
enough--and suspicious enough--about my "preference" to finger me.  And I haven't
got a clue as to who it was.  It could have been somebody as far back as Air
Force ROTC.  There were a lot of young studs in the unit who thought that the
female cadets were trolling and that I ought to go out with them.  For starters. 
After all, they were doing us a favor.  That was before they understood that the
policy on sexual harassment in the military has teeth.  At least that it would
work for a mouthy bitch like me who knows how to take care of herself. There was
this cadet officer, a senior, in the AFROTC unit who got physical with me one
evening in my sophomore year after formation.  He started pawing me, I put my
knee where it really hurts, and the next day the officer instructors reviewed Air
Force policy on sexual harassment with all the Air Science classes.  And they
made sure that each cadet got a xerox copy of the policy statement.  After that,
nobody bothered me.  Until active duty. Growing up the way I did, I wasn't
paranoid about my sexuality.  And about what others might think of it.  Oh, I
knew that being queer was incompatible with being in the service, but I figured
that all I would have to do was stay in the closet, keep my mouth shut, and wait.
 The policy couldn't last for ever. Yeah.  I voted for Clinton in '92.  I was
excited by his effort to change policy.  And, when that went belly up, I was
naive about what "don't ask, don't tell" would mean.  Now, I'm sort of paranoid
about it all.  Kim says I see an OSI gumshoe behind every bush.  But I don't want
to make it into Air Force Times, like Major Debra Meeks did a year or so ago, on
a charge of sodomy.  I don't want my seven years of active duty service to go
down the drain. And I certainly don't want to take up lodgings at the graybar
hotel. And so, when it's necessary, I go trolling for a stewed grad student and
do my thing.  Jack him off, fake het sex and stuff like that.