Sunday, February 18, 2024

GREEN RUINS & SHALLOW BLUES: BOOK II: FRUITFUL

Excerpt Chapter 11
(c) 2024 Kyrinn S. Eis All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Aleks smelled Antje's hair, noted the difference, smiled. He moved his right hand, felt her hands clutch his to her breast: larger. He ground into her, between the sheets? Sleepily, he mumbled, his face half buried in the pillow, the rest covered by her balsamed hair,
"Pregnant again?"

Silence; awkward silence. Aleks became more fully awake, aware of his early morning yearning.
-- "Not yet."

Aleks pulled away slowly; Barbara turned her head, swept her hair from her face, looked at him with quiet longing, reached out to touch his face; he pulled away and sat up, bent his knees to tent himself; shook his head. Barbara softly pawed with her right hand, while her left--
Aleks got out of bed angrily, stomped the short distance to the bathroom and stepped inside the shower and snarled in the cold jet of water which alleviated his condition; he wanted to punch the shower wall, to punch Barbara, to punch Salvys bloody, to throw himself to his death out that monastery window to the pile of corpses below, to stop thinking, stop remembering his duty, his obligations. He punched the wall and then twice more in a right-left combo. His right fist throbbed; there. The instrument of self-control he had allowed to slacken.
-- "Don't beat yourself up. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry, I haven't--"
Alex pulled her into the shower and she almost screamed, then burst into shuddered laughter for the cold. Aleks looked down into her eyes, fingersbreadth shorter than Antje; he wanted to glower but instead, smiled, laughed.
-- "I guess that's Prussian for STFU, huh?"
Aleks snorted a laugh and stepped out, and towelled-off. He left the towel for her and reclaimed the undershirt she had taken; it smelled good. He balled his fists and pulled on his boxers, then sat and put on his combat pants. She emerged, the towel clutched in front of her again as she dabbed her face of water, and then sped past him to pull on her panties and sun dress. Aleks reached across and squeezed her right hand with his left; Barbara turned as she hid her face in her right shoulder, raised then, and nodded; slowly turned back and silently sobbed. Aleks stood, donned his over shirt, tucked it into his pants and felt again his desire. He tongued his teeth in anger and then pulled his arms through the straps of the rucksack; its weight felt good, familiar, like returning home from a salvage run. Aleks then clasped his war belt and checked the pistol's magazine, racked the slide, and caught the ejected cartridge, dropped the magazine and inserted the cartridge before he returned the mag to home, and then pushed the pistol into the rigid retention holster; its snap into place was the last bit of the ritual. Aleks turned to see her progress.

Barbara looked somehow younger, prettier. She smiled softly as she towelled-dry her long natural curls; he admired her strong nose; found his mind wander to what her children would look like; shook his head awake, and snorted again. A strong connection, this. The beast in the wood -- Aleks laughed aloud.
"What? What is it?"
-- "Ever since whatever happened in the yellow-flower woods..."
"Yeah. I feel it too. I mean I had been sexed up in the joint, y'know -- a girl gets lonely, but this -- you and me -- its nuts; Crazy town." Her honesty extended to her eyes, which still shone with longing. Aleks nodded.
-- "Tozhe samoye"
Barbara smiled more deeply,
"Russian more than German, 'Prussian'?"
Aleks nodded, -- "Mother was in the Soviet Central Committee, father was a painter, an engraver; 'famous' for a stamp of a Reich building that was bombed with an atomic weapon and never rebuilt."

Barbara wanted him even more now; he was no NAZI; there was something between them; like an invisible string, no -- more like magnets, and not in their hips: somewhere higher, heart, head? Aleks turned towards her, studied her face, raised his right hand, almost stepped towards her, almost; he pivoted, balled his hands to fists and walked to the door. It was going to happen; probably when they least expected it, like after a car crash or something like that. She sighed half-happily, half-forlorn and laughed at herself. Barbara looked about for anything of hers she had missed, and out of a sense of guilt, she picked up the wet towel from the bed and tossed it over the back of the chair by the small round table; gave the room a second once-over and then headed out the door Aleks held open.