A Real Madam Butterfly & Pinkerton.

Wanugee
6 min readOct 12, 2021

A Fortune Tellers’ Tales. Episode 4, Part 1 of 3: “All is Fair in Love and War.”

Original digital art “A Real Madam Butterfly” by Wanugee.

She was mumbling forceful sounds with her lips closed, while struggling to break free, like an abducted captive with duct tape over her mouth. Her body was rocking back and forth, as if her hands and feet were tied. Was she shouting or screaming? Was it the terror of the air raids, when the planes dropped bombs in the night, burning the neighborhood around her when she was a young teen? Her sounds and body movements calmed down after a while, to a moaning, a whimpering, a resignation that loosened the tense muscles in her prone body. Or, was it the day he left?

She was talking in her sleep… again.

They met at the Pine Crest hotel. Her good friend was employed there, working the phones. The Army officers in the area would frequent the lounge, and one officer from the midwest asked her friend if there were any young, available ladies she knew, since she was married. She nodded enthusiastically

That officer was a Lieutenant Colonel, used to giving orders and being saluted. He was white, and he would always show up with his driver, who was black. He was from Chicago, and knew his way around good food, fine dining, and the Blues. And perhaps beautiful women, too.

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