Right Where It Belongs

[Rolf Jäger]

There was usually a sense of relief in returning to a place familiar, be it either a home or other environment where one could feel comfortable in, a space mundane and domestic, the corners and items within it creating a comfortable security inside their circle and allowing oneself to rest easy and recover their strength before they would be forced to return back to the harsh reality. The room with its shoddy furniture and dusty corners was indeed familiar to Rolf, but this time there was a sense of foreboding associated to the pale gloom of the single light bulb and to the sounds of raindrops spattering against the window, the howl of the wind in the corners of the building whispering of ominous things, of hags and devils riding upon the currents and just waiting for the right time to swoop down upon their victims. Rolf shuddered, maybe from the sudden cold he felt or the ill thoughts his mind was conjuring, and the look in his eyes sharpened the moment Riedel mockingly suggested that they had arrived home, her comment hitting far too close to the man's own musings not to alarm him. The woman's sudden, sharp laughter caused the blood to further freeze in his veins and Rolf's features immediately adopted a more hostile expression, his grey eyes narrowing further at the mocking sound of her amusement. Rolf's lips already drew into a sneer when he was ready to ask her what she found so funny, but then the woman simply turned her back at him, allowing the drenched tunic to slide away from her shoulders as she stepped away and even through his renewed anger the man could not quite tear his gaze away from her behind, the shadows drawing languid, enticing lines over her pale skin. The man's eyes snapped back at Riedel's visage as she turned around to look at him and he steeled his entire countenance, readying himself for the offensive words that would drop from her wretched lips - for what else might she have said after such a jeering laughter, what else did she have to offer him but insults?

In his hatred he was even able to look past the rather naked state the woman currently existed in and the sharpness in the man's eyes communicated his readiness for a confrontation, the walls of his defences standing prepared for the onslaught, yet they were immediately chipped when Riedel addressed him, her words not ones bathing in the poison of her hatred, but in the calmest, clearest perception, the woman's observations ones that caused the man's heart to fall somewhere into the pit of his stomach. Riedel stalked closer to him, her bare feet soundless on the floor as she blamed him for conveniently forgetting about things that had happened earlier, that he was perfectly happy in falling asleep and waking up to a day where all the events of the previous night had been erased from existence. The man raised his chin up at the sight of the woman's hand rising up to meet his face, but her fingertips merely moved in to brush at his bristled jaw, tracing a gentle path beneath his lower lip as she spoke. Her touch was enticing and beguiling and Rolf's breathing grew just faintly more shallow while he absorbed her observations, the touch of her fingertips burning his skin. She claimed that Rolf only felt comfortable as long as he figured the woman would not remember the deeds he had done, that he was afraid and that he was lying not only to her, but himself as well. The man's eyebrows knitted together in silent confusion as the woman drew her thumb along his lower lip, referring to things that he had given her, but then, what had he ever given her? He might have helped her on the occasion of offering her the chance for a phone call, but it had only been due to curiosity and then, he did well recall defending the woman against the greedy hands that would have defiled her, but then... had it not been for the simple fact that he had wished to be the one to bring upon the woman her ruin and shame?

Or was that what he really wanted? Was he even aware of his own desires and goals any longer? He had been treading on such a simple path, one built upon his own whims and desires, the road never branching away from its set course for the purpose of others, but he had now found his feet slipping and the sides of the path loomed far too foreboding by his sides, their darkness deep and hostile. Why would he have even considered deviating from his set course for the sake of checking whether something different lay past that murky gloom and why would he have, indeed, endangered his safe conformity for the sake of another person? What could he possibly gain?

A small smile etched upon the woman's lips as she questioned him about the source of his careful tactics and even though there was no real hostility to her question, the man sneered at her, now mostly on the account of the growing feeling of getting cornered and being asked far too many questions. He wanted to turn away from her and silence the soft tone of her voice snaking inside his head so very treacherously, but the light touch of her fingers held him captive and Rolf could only stare at her in silence, feeling her touch moving along his cheek, the warmth of her skin transferring upon his own. It would have been easier had she actually mocked him, and the genuine tone behind her words caused Rolf's blood to run cold in his veins. He had never fully considered the things she was telling him now, but she had forced him to stand still and take in the cold poison of her words. Rolf could only grit his teeth together in order not to shrink away from her and escape, the line of his jaw tightening at his own inner turmoil. She was destroying everything he had built, she was tearing down walls and leaving him defenceless and weak to whatever enemy might wish to attack him, yet Rolf could only look at the destruction in growing despair, his heart withering at her description of him. She stood closer to him, her soft breathing tingling upon his chin as she leaned in closer to grace her lips over Rolf's, the man's fingertips silently twitching at the sensation while he forgot to breathe, a completely lost and confused look now reigning over the anger he had managed to muster so effortlessly just seconds earlier. That she should have told him that she cared, that there were even qualities to him that she liked, was a notion far too foreign and cruel for him to fully grasp and Rolf only swallowed, his eyes half-closing when the woman's tongue briefly brushed against the bristles upon his cheek. He hoped he would have possessed the strength of will to break away from her, to slap her an tell her that she was being a blind fool and that her observations were those made by a childish, weak will, but her words only prodded at something within him and he was powerless to act upon the desire.

It was when she moved away that Rolf snapped out of his stupor and the man attempted to furiously gather his senses once more, his eyes once more flashing with some sense of sharpness, the urge to throw the obtrusive woman aside gradually growing within him. She needed to be silenced and slapped for her insolence - for even claiming that she could understand the tiniest fraction of Rolf's true essence - and it would only be through a display of power that she would understand that no such weakness dwelled within him. As the woman took a step back, he followed, and as she assured him that there was no way out for him, Rolf felt like laughing; she held no power over him, she was not the one setting rules or conditions here, and the sentiments flashed feral within the pilot's steel-grey eyes for a moment. So what if she was calling him arrogant? Rolf had all the reason to behave in such a manner and really, he did not even consider it a negative quality; yet here she was, claiming that arrogant was not all that Rolf was. As if she could know him, as if she could pass any judgment on his character! The woman's slow retreat had been cut short by the edge of the table, but instead of really appearing too intimidated by it, she merely shifted her figure upon it's wooden surface and Rolf had to battle with himself in order not to get too distracted by the play of shadows upon the muscles of her stomach and on her naked breasts. He gathered his hatred and anger, Riedel's ridiculous words of his fears only assisting him in the task and the man's lips drew into a gradual sneer. The lingering growl in the corner of his mouth was quick dissolved when he felt Riedel's feet moving in to caress his shins and soon enough, upwards to his knees. The unexpected contact caused the man's eyes to widen and his angry resolve was once more cracking, the familiar twinges of lust igniting tiny flames within his frame with each slow centimeter the woman's foot travelled across the canvas.

He felt the sudden urge to move away, full well knowing that he would be ruined should he allow her to pull him in further into her carefully woven web, but the flash of this emotion had been far too evident in the man's eyes. With surprising agility did the woman clamp her legs around his and even in the occasion of possessing enough wits to pull himself free, it would have been of no use. The hold of her legs grew stronger and Rolf found himself almost falling towards her, his hands instinctively stopping the stumbling short as they grasped at the edge of the table in an effort to help him preserve his balance. Rolf's mouth hung half-open from the confusion and surprise, his previously steeled eyes now reflecting only these very feelings, his gaze searching for answers upon her smiling visage and from the green irises looking back at him, genuine and amused. A hoarse croak escaped from the man's lips as he tried to conjure up conveniently angry words of reprisal and rejection, but the woman merely tightened his hold and pulled him closer, the distance between them now having grown insignificant and the ghost of the woman's warm breath passing through the soaked canvas of Rolf's shirt. Through the sudden numbness of his skin could he feel the woman lifting away one finger after another from the belt he was still holding in his hand and Rolf allowed her to do so, the leather strap soon sliding away from his hold and the holster clanking softly as it was placed upon the wooden table. Her viridian eyes held him prisoner as much as her legs did, and Rolf felt his breathing growing more shallow at her intense gaze and at her naked closeness, the dominating curl of her legs around his own further drawing out the feral lust he had managed to nearly drown in his own hatred. He could now distinctly see the drops of rain that still clung to her skin, glistening in the faint lighting along with the dim silver of her necklace, while some of them shivered for a moment and escaped, hiding in the play of shadows upon her curves. Her dark, long hair hung over her bare breasts and shoulders in moist curls, the distinct, pale line of her jaw starkly contrasted against their ebon shade. Her fingers snaked to his abdomen and upwards, that simple touch drawing out shivers that ran up and down the man's spine and he grasped at the side of the table desperately, his gaze feverish while he stared back at her and allowed her to start unbuttoning his shirt, as drenched and uncomfortable as that piece of clothing currently was.

She questioned whether he was afraid of her and some sense of offense and resistance attempted to creep up to the man's eyes and lips, but the glare and sneer were left as nothing more but faint, passing twinge that passed when her leg brushed against his thigh, inviting and playful. There was no resistance in him as the wet shirt was pushed away from his shoulders and as though a skin he was refusing to shed, the canvas clung to him for a few brief moments before it was peeled away by her uncompromising grasp. The man's skin was ever riddled with various tiny moles, the darker specks covering his skin as if they served a purpose of camouflaging the hunter so that he might better stalk his prey in the shadows. There was clear strength to his form that told of the man's love for keeping active and in good shape, the pilot's muscles currently strained from the mere purpose of taking in the woman's closeness. The warmth of her hands transferred upon his chest as she moved them in gentle motions along his skin and Rolf could only stare back at her, intoxicated by his constantly growing hunger. He was past questioning the woman's words or his own will, a much more simpler and straightforward urge easily reigning over them and filling his mind with enticing whispers of violent desire, of skin brushing against skin and of the woman's frantic breath upon his ear. With eyes of hazed silver did the man stare back at her as she assured him that there was no escape, that she would force him to face the things he had attempted to escape from, but Rolf already knew that he was powerless to break that contact now and his eyelids closed the moment her lips brushed against his abdomen, that simple touch causing the man to flinch, his muscles contracting at the feeling of her warm breath upon the skin left cold from the rain. He allowed his fingers to release their hold of the table and with automatic motions did his hands settle upon her hips, the palms drawing a slow path upwards along the sides of her frame, his thumbs momentarily lingering upon the muscles on her stomach and further journeying upwards. His hands paused at the contact of the small imperfections they felt upon the woman's skin below her breasts, the fingertips stopping for the brief moment it took them to properly study the tiny grazes and wounds that had been left behind by the inconveniences of her double identity, although whether the man actually could quite understand the origins of these markings was hardly of any importance at the current moment. The palms of his hands moved to circle a path over the woman's arms, the touch of his fingertips teasingly light as he allowed himself to properly explore the soft texture of her pale skin and soon enough his hands reached her throat, the fingertips briefly teasing the nape of her neck in a manner uncharacteristically careful for the man.

It was only a passing illusion and suddenly his fingers clamped violently around the back of her neck, the other hand snaking below her chin as the man's grey eyes flashed with the greed and desire that were brewing within him. He forced the woman's head backwards and held her clamped in that strong, uncompromising hold of both of his hands as he glared down at her, his heart pounding violently against his ribcage while he absorbed her in that hungry glare, the appetite which she had so expertly coaxed into a feral frenzy within him growing with each deep breath he took. He drank the woman in with his intense gaze and nudged her head backwards, his own head snaking downwards in a slow, painful manner, just stop it nothing but a few centimeters away from hers. Rolf closed his eyes half-way, allowing the woman to feel his heated breathing upon her chin as his lips traced a pathway across the edge of her jaw, never quite touching it. As if the union would have been painful and destructive, the man closed his eyes as he inched his lips closer and allowed them to finally contact with the edge of her jaw, a low growl forming in the man's throat at the sensation. He could taste the fresh water upon the woman's pale skin and his tongue flicked out to savor it, that humid touch leaving a moist trail across her jaw as the man's lips and tongue travelled a slow path towards her mouth. The fingers so dominantly clamped around her chin slipped away, that cruel touch once more transforming into a more benign one as the man's hand rested against her cheek and his warm, quickened breath tingled the skin at the corner of her lips. It was an agonizing wait and it caused Rolf's insides to twist with dull pain, this sensation carried over to the woman in the way his fingers clamped more tightly around the back of her neck in anticipation of the humid union. When his lips finally found hers, they tempted the contact with a small lick of his tongue upon her lower lip, teasing and prodding, but then he allowed the approach to fully develop, the hungry sigh stifled in his throat as he finally kissed her. It was an union born out of purest passion and need and Rolf drank her essence in as if he had been starving for years, the low grumbles in his throat following the eager movements of his head as he concentrated on devouring her.

This time he did did not flinch back from the contact and as it deepened, his hand slid away from the woman's cheek and soon his arm had settled around her back to further keep her locked in the exchange with him while the rest of his frame pushed eagerly against hers in an effort to keep her as close as possible. The man's breathing had grown frantic by this point and he could no longer hear any voices of reason or restraint, the warm proximity of her body against his inevitable, unavoidable and as vital to him as the oxygen he needed to survive. He broke the contact with a groan, his lips already moving in to feed from her neck, the teeth once more revealed for the sole purpose of nipping at the skin, at drawing out bruises and marks of ownership that were sealed by his heavy breathing and the warm saliva transferred upon her humid skin while the savage need within him grew with each bite and lick. The hand upon her back snaked downwards to grasp at the woman's backside and to bring her hips into a demanding contact with his, his fingers pushing her against him to further display just where his urges lay. His teeth found their pleasure in the lobe of her ear, where they bit at the tender skin, the low, animalistic growl vibrating in his throat as he allowed his hand to travel along her thigh, stroking it, coaxing her. There was a clear purpose to the movement of his hand as it returned back to her hip, just to grasp at the black canvas of her underwear and starting to peel it away with a designated need, his hand having to apply some force in order to properly pull away that wretched piece of clothing down to her thighs. With an annoyed grunt did the man step away from her, his teeth for a moment possessively clinging on to the lobe of her ear before he made enough room between himself and the woman to push the woman's legs together and to pull the black canvas below her knees, where it was further forced down by his knee and then, by the tip of his boot, just to have the dark cloth finally lay discarded upon the floor. The man's grey eyes flashed with a feverish urge as he allowed his gaze to linger on the sight, her pale skin now standing uncovered for him to claim, and with his chest heaving heavily from nothing but the strongest desire did he allow both of his hands settle upon her knees, his palms starting to slide slowly across the rain-slickened skin of her legs. He leaned closer to breathe upon her lips and to snap at them with his teeth, a fervent glint in his fevered eyes only communicating his growing ache of properly claiming her. Rolf finally allowed his lips to press against hers once more, this kiss even hungrier than the ones before it, the humid contact telling of the man's feral need, an urge that could no longer be sidetracked by either words or actions, no matter how compelling or violent. It was a desire too strong to be ignored and its force surprised even the man himself, for he had never felt such insanity, such need for any woman in his life and it was driving him ever further to the brink of madness with each second he made himself wait. She had no say in what he was to do or not, what was his to touch and what was forbidden, for Rolf's mind was settled and the hunger within him had grown to such extents as to consume the man if he was deprived of his source of sustenance for his feral greed.

The wind still howled outside and collided with the windowpane, causing it to shutter, the storm only lending force to Rolf's own inner torrents as he claimed her, ravaged her essence and feasted upon it like a starving, ravenous beast. He allowed the bristles of his chin to grate over the skin of her shoulder as he growled and bit into the flesh upon her neck once more, his low grunts growing muffled as they were drowned into her. Something metallic grazed against the man's skin and with an annoyed snarl did he shift his arm around her back, his fingers violently grasping around the wretched necklace - of the collar of the freshly purchased slave - just to roughly break the clasp behind it and to pry the glinting jewelry from her neck. It was needlessly covering the pale skin he wished to explore and creating for nothing but an annoying distraction, and the man would not allow anything to lessen the force of the pleasurable sensations that were burning him from within. He absentmindedly dropped the broken silver necklace from his grasp and curled his fingers around the back of the woman's neck instead, his eyelids flickering while his mouth hung open from nothing but the simplest enjoyment. There was no need for any complex thinking and he built his world upon the feel of her skin on his own, on the heated essence of her very being and on the small moans that escaped from her lips as he consumed her, grunting and heaving. The man's breathing was erratic and ever interrupted with his growls and snarls, while his skin had grown heated from the fervent contact, Rolf completely lost in his own world of increasingly heightening ecstasy. He was gasping for air, the need too great for him to handle as he grasped at the woman's neck and crushed her against himself, the man nothing but a growling animal out to quench his needs as he held his breath and groaned, pushing the woman's entire frame ravenously against his own to finally allow himself to step over that brink that promised him satisfaction. As Rolf finally reached it, he devoured it with greed, drinking in each fine drop of that intoxicating essence as he claimed her, making her his own. Finally the man simply rested against her, panting and sweating, the fingers still grasping at her stubbornly for a few moments before the fingers around her neck slid away, tracing a lazy path down her back. It was a feeling far too gratifying to exist in the real world and Rolf lingered in that comfortably swirling existence for a few moments more, not wanting to draw himself away from her enjoyable, warm glow.

The reality of the previous moments was only now starting to dawn to the man and with his lust momentarily satisfied, his eyes blinked open and Rolf stared somewhere into the wall behind the woman, his other hand further inching away from the woman's backside. As comfortable and satisfied as he felt, he was now realizing just how unexpected everything had been and how he had waded through the previous minutes in a lust-drawn haze, following only the instinct of his more animalistic side. He had wanted, so he had taken, it was as simple as that, but then again... What if it was not? His breathing was still erratic as he shifted his head away from her shoulder and glanced into her eyes in that very same confusion, of not understanding his own apprehension over having achieved something that he had so fervently hunted after. His grey eyes still spoke of his bewilderment as he swallowed and, upon realizing that an out of breath smile had been etched upon his lips this entire time, the man allowed it to slowly fade away.

[Dirk Riedel]

Her gaze was calm and understanding, and one could not say what the woman truly intended for him, what she expected of the man; whether she had been prodding at him, goading him, for the purpose of bringing a union long since fated to fruition, of guiding him through that close human contact he felt inconvenient to or if, indeed, she had only wished to poke at the edges simply to watch his reaction. The single light bulb hanging from the ceiling graced her with shadows and the faint orange glow caressing her skin, in the same way his hands began to do so within moments after she had declared the impossibility of his leave, her arms slowly slipping down at his back to finally move away from him once she felt the texture of his palms stroking in a slow motion alongside the sides of her frame; a cold, electric sensation channeled throughout the veins of her body at the contact and she quietly stared at him in that curious, submissive position. Her skin welcomed his touch, the various marks, lesions and wounds adorning it staying as quiet even when the stories they had to share spoke of adventures and deeds, but even those, regardless how compelling or dramatic, bowed in silence at his present touch that was of greater import than any battle fought since the beginning of the war. Her hands slowly moved to rest on the edge of the table at the time that his roamed on their leisurely, dawdling pilgrimage across the curvatures of her half slippery form until they found her throat in a manner she would have never thought possible for him at another time; she had at one point known only his violent and aggressive hand, the feeling of his mild softness bestowed upon her only for the value of a passing moment, no more. One could not tell the thoughts racing her mind at this very moment – or if she was thinking at all – but her eyes remained transfixed upon his face in that eternal, unfailing haze of submission and obedience, her servility offered, but it was not yet clear whether it was surrender and defeat, or her own personal triumph as she captured him around herself and cornered him to force him into confronting his fears. Her eyes promptly widened as he, without warning, clenched his fingers strongly at her nape while his other hand locked upon her chin and forced her into a falling motion, her form bending into an arch at his command, which, undeniable as it was rightful, was with such clarity gleamed through his precarious, eager eyes of argent steel when he swallowed her in that one hungry glower, a look that was simple but which revealed all the secrets and intentions this world had to carry. What his world had to carry.

Her eyes slowly travelled around the room without the ability to concentrate on a particular object when she felt his red-hot breath tingling at her jaw, the contact she knew was fated to come not quite brought to fulfillment, and she waited, and waited in that painful, agonizing moment during which his breathing merely caressed her jaw line, and she hated him, and hated him for being as cruel, merciless and just as ruthless, the forefinger of her right hand raised instinctively against the table’s edge without any purpose but for the simple reason of feeling even the remotest essence of motion that his vicious hand refused to give her. Then, she closed her eyes in an instinctual movement when she felt him finally ending her torment, and the sighing sound her throat made was left unvoiced and hushed as his tongue traced a pathway along her wet skin, hungry and slippery muscle nudging at the flesh, drawing out a line in its ascending journey to find her lips. She should have driven him away at this wretched touch, and if a moment had materialized to end this unsafe and dangerous madness now was the time to do so, before the hunger was goaded, before ancient instinct and simple, unrefined emotion gained ultimate dominance, to foil that which was meant to follow. Now that it was the beginning she ought to have forced his head apart from hers, thrown him aside and got away from him, to forget all about this nonsensical exchange which her better – or worse – judgement should have impeded and denied him that which assuredly had been the initial grounds of his hunt after her. And still, still, she only focused her gaze into his eyes when the final contact was made, and his lips locked on her mouth, the caress of his hand by the side of her face gratifying and calming, even if only for a moment, the inner upheaval slowly burning at the seams. He had these moments. Instances when he could offer her nothing but his primitive and abusive hand, the biting force of his insults and his overflowing arrogance, only to retract his teeth in the next with a gentle caress; and this drew her even deeper into his existence, so that the woman, entrapped and secured well within his inexorable clutch, could never quite leave him even if she so furiously intended. She knew that not even he could understand that softer nature he was rarely prone to bestow upon her, but did it really matter at all to understand as long as its raw and unexplored existence flowed within him and dictated his actions for as much as it was worth?

The fingers of her hands faintly stirred at the table when he kissed her, his touch binding and imperative as the flesh on flesh interweaved within, the smallest of sounds suppressed in her throat and she only yielded to his command, let him boldly capture her in ways that would only disconcert the most religious of pilgrims, averted the gods and rattled those who dared to assert of how unthinkable the union was; only nature, yes, only nature could understand them. A surge of heretical worship rushed throughout her viscera as she felt the constant scratching of the bristles against her face, her eyes shut at the sensation of his closeness and her form curved alongside him when he pressured her even closer against his frame; the stray locks of wet hair sticking on his forehead tingled at her skin, her spine barely shivering at the hand soon sidling away from her cheek on its intended passage around upon her back, his palm pressed stable and secure against it. Her eyes half opened through that haze of consciousness and stared into nothing as his chin brushed at her jaw and he moved lower in that familiar, reminiscent touch of his lips reveling at her neck and his teeth biting at her ear, the motion drawing out a sharp, dropping sighing sound with hands still firmly holding the edge of the table. Then, the greedy hand – which she allowed to be greedy – moved lower at her back and clasped at her rear as he forced her thighs to fall into harmony against his pelvis, and she knew she should have stopped him then, that if she had been unable to push him away during the critical first contact of their lips now this fresh demand ought to have been the final window for her to escape his grasp, but how could she even give in to her thoughts when she had already given in to him?

This narrow proximity made her eyebrows slightly curve in that known, familiar way they always used to, yet now they did so not out of the intention to show her wrath and outrage – but the pure curiosity at the sensation; she ought to have found his touch disgusting and repulsive, ought to have allowed her revulsion to take control of her mind when she even so deeply hated him, but for all that, she still was rendered helpless to the waves of loathsome affection as his teeth were birthing marks of possession at her, to the signs of curious disaster as the hand roaming across her thigh suddenly forced her legs shut and began to pull away at the remaining piece of black underwear; her eyes opened wide and stared at the ceiling in a fusion of wonder and torpor, and though her lips had parted she was unable to speak, her skin numb and powerless to his demand, speaking nothing for there was nothing to be said, and doing nothing for there was nothing to be done at this moment apart from looking into his eyes, at their fixation, at their blatant, rude desire, and absorbing all of his resolve into her own self. She knew not what kind of force it was that made her yield to the uncompromising purpose of his hand, and whether she was really letting him impose his will on her simply because she wanted of him to confront her finally rather that avert his gaze from the light that threatened to destroy his vain world, or if indeed she ached for his closeness, as well. Soon enough she felt the garment dragged across her shins and eventually falling lifelessly on the floor below her, the woman’s nude shape bared before his very eyes, and she – but a slave to his authority and guidance – only gazed back at him in her hollow breathing, her lips parted and eyes that gleamed with sharpness in the soft orange glow. Her chest rose and her form grew a little tense in an almost virginal element once his hands caressed up across her legs, and they in turn faintly shifted at the intimate touch of his fingers across the soft flesh of her inner thighs, his motion growing formidable and yearning, and her heartbeat rising also in cadence, and she awaited, quietly, anxiously, her green eyes alight and silently pleading him; for what? Was it mercy? Was it for attention? Or was it perhaps a plead to end his torment of her and step aside, for she knew it was useless to associate with anyone of his own kind, that she had no place with him, that his intentions well ill-natured and egotistical, that she had to solely devote to her military task with a relatively clearer mind without him as her fresh burden to carry and even, perhaps, that she was intimidated to let him inside him, into her own self, into her own world, because she knew that even despite his cruelty and selfishness she would never have the strength to pull him out again? Her eyes seared through his as he stared at her, and communicated precisely that, and her parted lips motioned to speak that very word she needed to give voice to, no more but a word, a simple pleading, but how cruel that her throat felt constricted and the most primitive form of speech incapacitated the woman when all she could do was slowly beginning to melt at his growing venereal touch – and then he kissed her again, hungrily, impatiently, his teeth marking at her lips and his heaving breath tingling her mouth. Violent and aching it was, his command unsparing, and a sudden stifled hoarse whimper rose in her throat and drowned into him the moment his hands claimed her.

If before she had the ability to even remotely recognize the distinct shuttering of the windowpanes or the whistling sound of the strengthened wind, the strike of lightning and the noise of the downpour reaching the room and giving the impression of a flock of woodpeckers attempting to carve a hole into the wall, by this time the woman was completely impaired as to any other sounds apart from his constant animalistic growling muffled into her throat, her reality constrained as far as his existence lay and her mind having entirely frozen; the left leg hanging by his side pushed in a fleeting, jerking movement against thin air in instinctual reaction and her calf brushed more tightly against the back of his shin when he first felt for her, and the knuckles whitened from the sheer pressure she exercised when she pressed her fingers tightly into solid fists that held the margins of the table with a despairing clench. Her spine went cold and a tremor passed across her back when he insisted on that absorbing contact, her lips rendered paralyzed and quivering for moments, unable to return the kiss even as he was still hungrily eating her. Then, her hand shot from the table and clutched around his wrist, before it crawled in a twitch across his arm and coiled along his elbow, holding him there to plead for his support and feed from his strength, and the more torturing his touch became the more she pressed her fingers against the elbow, the knuckles of her other hand still very much clenched at the table. And soon enough, her head slightly curved backwards as she let him bite her all the more he wished, and at his command she lost herself in the midst of a raging thunderstorm, the cloudburst pelting down upon her, in a sunless, deserted road, in a nameless, insignificant place, and the prodding call of insanity whispered her siren song at her, yes, derangement; her hand gripped resolutely at his elbow, and her senses were oblivious to the movement of his hand undressing what was left of him, his chin grazing against her skin as he feasted upon her neck, her head bent backwards and eyes half open, half closed gazing into the ceiling, but seeing nothing.

Her eyes jerked open sharply in the dim light at the same moment when they had almost begun to water in the corners and she blinked for a second or two. The hand that lay coiled around his elbow moved upwards to hold him from his bare shoulder, while the other rose from the table and clasped around his neck. With her head pressed by the side of his own and her chin touching at his shoulder, the woman could only stare into the room’s emptiness while he was swallowing her neck, and yet now her awareness was anxiously and vastly sharpened, tersely conscious of every small detail such as each finger’s position of the hand supporting her against the table, against himself, or the sense of his other hand travelling down to clasp at her with a very clear purpose; her heartbeat was rising into a deranged, frantic crescendo with such force that the pulsation was beginning to seriously hurt her against her ribcage, feeling each violent thud hitting against her chest, and her lips parted in half agony, desperation and distress somehow intrinsically melded into aching curiosity and thirst. She felt helpless, weak and vulnerable, and for the first time she was not the one to guide him through the light, and her hands pressed tightly around him, strongly at the back of his head and clutching onto his shoulder, fingers folding, and then unfolding, stirring, and stroking at the skin as she waited, and she waited, her eyes dilating from the torment and her frame slowly acclimatizing to the sense of the man pressed so intimately against her. It was almost otherworldly to feel in this strange way at his touch, and though she had been the one to tell him he was scared of her contact now she was the one riddled with a hundred questions, doubts and uncertainties about his closing contact, born not out of simple fear but her obscure unease at the influence and meaning his existence bore into her; she would wish to guide him through the dark roads his constricting, self-sufficient and pre-determined world burdened him with, and then just as he were about to create that step forwards and feed in from her warmth she would take that step back and ruin that which had been created, because she berated herself for taking the trouble to waste time with him, her efforts futile and pointless, and she could not even understand why she had to meddle into his life. Oh yes, he had violated hers, to begin with, in his uncaring, obsessive method that she could no longer not be a part of him in turn, when she lay by the side of the hospital bed and slowly stroked his hair in the surrounding darkness as he was sleeping, when she treated the bruises her own hand had meted out with his own belt, when she made excuses for him, defended him without his knowledge, visited him in prison and used the need to voice her final indifference and disgust as a pretext to pacify her mind when she only ever wanted to see him during his detainment, pressed against him in the wall of his office to hurt him, stab him, wound him. He was afraid to come closer and truly feel what her contact meant in all of its foreign impact, but the truth was that she was afraid to let him be in her for all that he could grow to mean for her.

The wind howled against the windowpanes with a shuttering force, the woman blinked once, and her stomach suctioned internally yet again as though some invisible force was pulling her from behind her navel, the woman’s instinctive reaction that of shielding herself, her form only faintly shifting away even against her will but for his severe, unyielding hold of her back forcing her closer to him, and a small, frail part of her wanted to push him away – as if she could – and stop him, but in the next moment her nails dug deeply into his skin and her spine went rigid. Her nails scratched all the way down across his back as her chest rose and fell in motion with his movement, green eyes agape and transfixed at the emptiness around them, but they stared into nothing, nothing, through that haze of blinding sentiment, the overpowering essence of his breath warming the air surrounding them, and another choking, stifled moan was released down from her viscera and through her throat to further goad him. She only faintly registered that a weight had been lifted off her a few moments after he had torn apart the piece of jewellery around her neck and thrown it aside, before the man focused on her, ever on her, so that when she was in the fullness of time able to completely embrace him her head faintly shifted to the side and kissed his temple at first, before her teeth then bit at his jaws, in consequence her one hand moving to violently stroke the hair at the back of his head and the other gripping tightly at his shoulder, her knuckles whitening from the pressure, her stroking vicious, vicious and aggressive, and she was but a slave to his command.

The cloudburst cracked violently against the shattering windows; her teeth gnawed painfully at his skin, stroking his hair savagely, feeding from his noise, his distinctive growling infiltrating her mind and piercing throughout her entire body, the torment guiltily hungered after, as if she were only drinking from the sweetest hemlock, and she was hating him, yes, hating him, again and again, loathed him forcefully, over and over, and her inflated adoration of him deepened, again, the hand moving from his shoulder to travel down along the side of his frame, her nails violently digging into his skin, her fingers interlocking around his hair, and at this point she had entirely forgotten that she had been in the caravansera, that she had danced next to the cages of leopards and sold as a slave to the man, her mind rendered useless and frozen at the heightened closeness – and did it matter who had been the winner? The hunter had become the prey, and the prey the hunter, and when they formed together in unison, they were but the very same thing, so how was it truly different what each one was, who had overpowered, who had yielded? She, bared in all of her flaws, and he, amidst all of his selfishness, moving through the same motion, the motion fluid and frantic, not entirely selfless, not entirely inconsiderate, as she clung on to him, and then suddenly there was nothing, nothing else in the world but him, him and void, him and the abyss, and her eternal, undying worship.

Once green irises opened, she blinked furiously and then realized that her eyes had watered, the prickling feeling in their corners accentuated by the tears crystallized in them through the formidable force of sentiment and the severity of impassioned agitation. She needed a few moments to realize that they were indeed in a room, and in which specific room they were, or in which part of the world they currently belonged to. She was aching for air, and the first thing she gazed into was his silver eyes and that genuine, simplest smile formed across his lips, and never before had she felt his hand against her all the more meaningful than at this very moment when all stood very quiet and they lay still, the heaving slowly beginning to lose its fervor. Her momentary raging adoration of him passed; her claws were retracted and her hand dawdled alongside his frame to rest at the side of his cheek, her fingers gently moving at his sticky stubble and caressing his face, and silence dominated. With her lips faintly parted to draw out breath but keep inside that sphere of his soul she had acquired, the woman could not say anything even if she had something of essence to voice, if her throat was not as constricted, and simply rested against him and allowed him to rest there against her, in that loud silence, in that small, old room.

It was so warm.

She did not know for how many moments they lay very still in that enclosing warmth, her eyes staring into his endlessly, until her lips parted – but she could not speak. Her throat felt still constricted, or perhaps she did not want to break away from his embrace; instead, she examined his face closely and drew him in with her gaze. She had not been a virgin, yet the woman could not understand why she had felt as though it had been the first time she had ever been touched; neither was she the timid, frightened girl, nor the uncaring, scoffing prostitute – the first felt too much, the latter too little. She had in a conventional sense found contact before, but it had been ever the passing incident of one moment, bearing no impact, no meaning and no purpose in her, so that when he had for the first time breathed life into her it had arrived with the cataclysmic gravity of a downpour, of everything the world held sacred and revered. The first time she had been a little over to eighteen, perhaps close to nineteen, and the other a mere urban son of a farmer she had known from her boxing days, a passing friend she had cherished for a few years and who had then been driven away into other lands, the intimacy born more out of curiosity rather than sentiment, the old-fashioned expectation generally held of women remaining vestal until marriage making the meeting even more compelling. The second, when she was around nineteen, she had been unconscious. And, well, apart from that there had been nothing else; she had obsessively devoted herself to her remaining family and always had something to do, always needed something to fix, and guilt, guilt and suffering distanced her from anyone who wished to approach her, as she had refused any assistance at all with her duties, the crying call of survival and then recovery grasping at her with its claws and forcing her to bark madly at anyone who made the slightest step, her response nothing but scoffing indifference before she would get back to work. And she worked, for the days were long, very long, and the nights even longer, and grueling; and once the suffering had been dulled the memories of debauchery were still too fresh to forget, and then her great decision had been made to join the Wehrmacht, at which point any such relations were out of the question.

Her hand slightly shifted across his cheek, and this time she finally found traces of her voice. “Nehmen Sie mich …” she whispered in a soft, frail tone, and then stared at him for the next few moments in stillness, before she was able to continue and asked of him to take her to the bed. She half swallowed, her eyes never leaving his, until he soon picked her up, his arms clasping her tightly once more but in a different manner once he closed the distance from the table to the bed, and he lay her to rest. Her legs touched along the soft mattress, and she pressed her elbows against it to support herself and lift her upper body as she turned to look at him, her hands outreaching up to his form to pull him down with her, lest he had any other ideas. She let him softly fall on to the mattress next to her with his back against the bed, and she turned to her side to better look at him, her eyes gazing over at his face and her left arm stretched to lie across his chest for a second or two, before it slowly drew alongside his skin and rested by the side of his face, her fingers softly caressing his skin while she simply stood there in silence, watching him, and brought her leg to rest in between him an inch or two above the knee in an instinctual movement of intimacy, moving herself slightly closer to him so that his arm brushed lightly against her shoulder, and there she stayed, her fingers ever so faintly stirring on his cheek with the lightness as if they were gently experimenting with the key notes of a recently acquired piano. The wind had quieted down and the rain had stopped, the windowpanes no longer creaking, so that a sudden, consuming silence enveloped them and fed from their stillness. It almost felt as if nature herself had been a part of them, and once they quenched and rested, she rested as well. She looked at his lying form, turned over to the side as she was, and the tips of her fingers shifted to slowly follow the shape of his ear, tracing that arch and then with a shuddering quality to it softly slipping inside the inner flesh, her touch faint but gentle, and she heaved deeply.

She did not say anything as the hand slowly drew away from his ear, and rested on the mattress from the other side of his form to his right, the woman moving to place a gentle kiss on his neck whence three big moles formed in a triangular connection, briefly registering the bruises marked at his shoulder, and slowly moved lower to kiss down every of his imperfections she found carved upon his skin, her hand trailing along his chest in a leisurely, caring manner, and it was indeed astonishing how they could pass from violence to silence, from that moment of calamity and ruin to perfect stillness, from the deepest fires of rage and hatred to calmness, the same hand meting out punishment and pain also worthy of a gentle touch, and all these seeming contradictions interweaved into one another, complemented one another, so that one could not clearly distinguish one quality from the next. She motioned lower and showed affection to every mole – one would say blemish, but to her only ever ornaments adorning his form – allowing her fingers to trace the muscles of his arms in a slow, stroking motion, her hand clasping around at his arm for a few moments simply to feel his strength, drawing frictional circles around at his skin and moving down to follow the crescentic line of his thick elbow, while she let her tongue lightly kiss down at the wet chest and along the breastbone, the skin dampened, over at his heart, where she felt his beat pulsating with the rhythm of life against her lips, and rested there for a while to absorb that very essence of his life, and how strange to feel the steady, calmed heartbeat vibrating in cadence, as though she had never heard anyone’s heart beating before. Then, she motioned lower to feel for his abdomen; she slowly traced the ribs in a fluid, nimble shift of her lips as they passed from one muscle to the next, her red-hot breath also tingling at the skin with a humid pathway of slaver glistening in the light bulb’s warm orange glow across the route she paved, her nose brushing against the skin and her hand caressing across his chest, until her tongue slipped inside his navel and feeling into the inside skin with a teasing, stroking wave. Her breath tickled at the skin, and she rested the side of her face there, the hand on his chest drawing lower where her head lay, the one by the mattress shifting to rest on his pelvis. She rested there calmly, her form still maintaining the feeling of him afresh from within, and her eyes glancing into the wardrobe opposite them, although they were not looking at anything in particular. Then, she swallowed and impulsively asked in a low tone, “Wie alt sind Sie?”



Translation

Take me to …

How old are you?

[Rolf Jäger]

Rolf had ever been swift in finding the most convenient words to say, offering the recipient the biting force of his jeering insults, the man not caring enough about the opinion of others to even attempt to mask his derision. If he managed to draw an angry response from someone, then he had already triumphed, and he would happily immerse himself in the collected hatred and violence that would often ensue. It made him feel alive and his blood would rush at meeting other people's scorn, the malicious smile always etching its way upon his lips at someone's anger. As a lawyer he was also apt in following just the right pattern of speech to get where he wanted and his heritage and training had further bestowed upon him the gift of spouting out fitting nonsense, his speech a flowing, treacherous river that circled and ran past the jagged edges of rocks, yet carried in its undercurrents a force strong enough to pull the unsuspecting victim to the very bottom of those cold, merciless waters. The man now found himself at a complete loss of words as he gazed back at the woman's viridian irises, through a warm haze noting how her mouth opened in an attempt to speak something, yet she soon found herself rendered just as silent as Rolf currently was. They simply stared at each other through that current of unexpected sentiments and urges and as much as the man wanted to break away from the contact and leave the situation which had caused him to fall so uncharacteristically silent and calm, he was powerless to act upon the instinct. Her warmth still surrounded him, pulling him ever further into a state of comfortable tranquility and Rolf swallowed as he steadied his breathing, his fingers gently resting upon the sides of the woman's hips as the reality of the situation started unfolding before him.

What exactly had brought them through such violent confrontations to this point? She had fervently rejected him for such a long time, just to allow him to initiate and bring to fruition that scorching contact Rolf had craved for ever since she had first hatefully slapped him with the winds of the desert howling around them, that violent retaliation sparking within Rolf a flame that refused to go out. It was her violence and tameless spirit that had drawn Rolf to her and the more she had enforced them, the more engrossed the man had grown with the task of attempting to understand that nature and the powers that had forged her proud will. Maybe he had recognized himself in that unshakable crest of hers, maybe she had simply appeared so different from any other person Rolf had ever met that the interest could have not been helped, the reasons seemed just as meaningless as they appeared boundless, for what really mattered was nothing but the current moment and her warmth wrapping itself around him. Something had brought them down this path and Rolf could only blink and powerlessly attempt to remember all the turns and intersections they had taken, his mind consumed by the woman's hand as she allowed it to brush over the rough bristles on his cheek and his eyes drawn to the image of her naked chest rising and falling in rhythm of her fast breathing. Rolf was held a prisoner of that gaze and his mouth hang slightly open as he stared back at her, his brown hair at places standing up in wet curls and the muscles under his eyes tightened as he drank her presence in, attempting to read and understand it. Maybe he was expecting her to give him a sudden explanation or for the scenery to shift into something he could better understand, her usual hate ignited within her once more, their silence turning into a storm of insults and growls and the gentle touch turning painful in a way Rolf had learned to expect from her.

When she finally spoke, her voice was nothing but an almost inaudible whisper and Rolf brought his head just slightly closer to properly hear her. The man blinked at the weakened tone of her voice, tangled and depleted as it was, and then at her request, straining his hearing to catch each word, the woman asking for him to take her to bed. The man stared at her for small moments, having to take some time to properly process the quietly spoken appeal and he breathed out slowly, questioning himself on whether he had properly heard her. With a careful and hesitative movement Rolf shifted his hands and allowed them to slide down the side of her thigh and, as if waking up from a dream, he peeled off the rest of his clothes from his feet along with his jackboots, soon wrapping his arms around her and feeling the woman returning to that gesture to support herself. His eyes never left hers as he lifted her from the table and moved towards the bed and settled her upon the mattress in his continued silent reverence, chained by those eyes of clearest viridian green and by the hands that slowly unfolded from around him as she lay down on the bed. Rolf had all the intention of leaving her there alone, the moment the contact between them was broken suddenly prodding at some inner sense of alarm over the foreign quality of the situation, but she had already grasped him and so simple and unyielding was that hold that the man could only follow the motion, his grey eyes flashing with a brief sense of alarm over being trapped. The soft texture of the mattress made the situation seem all the more stranger, for he had become accustomed to sleeping on a thin cover thrown over a slab of stone and the man's fingertips curled at the sudden notion of escape the moment the back of his head touched upon the pillow. His gaze flicked towards the woman as she settled laying on her side, her arm stretching across his chest in the most austere and untroubled manner possible as she settled into a more comfortable position next to him, her distinct warmth infecting him with its glow and the traces of her sweat further mixing with his. Rolf hardly had any time to react before the woman's hand found its place on his cheek and his heart jumped at that touch, a sudden rush of cold flashing through his entire frame and why, indeed, did he suddenly feel so intimidated by such a simple gesture? The beating of his heart quickened once more the moment her leg slid across and between his to rest there in languid repose and Rolf's eyes widened at her closeness, regardless of the fact that such an action could hardly be called the height of their shared intimacy anymore. Rolf was not unfamiliar with laying with a woman and if anything, it had been a favourite game of his, especially during the years he had spent studying in Heidelberg. It was a simple pleasure of life, as much as drinking a glass of fine wine, eating a luxurious meal or riding a horse down across a steep hill was, and why shouldn't he have enjoyed everything that was out there for him to grasp?

These carnal contacts had always been meaningless, serving nothing but the man's feral purpose of finding his personal satisfaction, and he had never even entertained the notion of attempting to find something emotional in such a transaction. He had no interest in lingering behind, not even long enough to spend the rest of the night with one of his recent conquests and if anything, such a ridiculous thing would have only made him feel edgy and awkward. True, a few he had paid, and most of the ones he had not paid had not exactly been willing participants, but what did such inconveniences matter to him? He would have preferred treating Riedel just in the similar manner, breaking away from her and focusing his mind on other things now that his hunger had been satisfied, yet... he could not. Frozen in his spot as he was, he could not drive away the warmth that still seemed to surround him, the woman's presence enfolding him in a comfortable wrap and in emotions he did not know how to explore. The heat of their exchange still burned faintly at his insides and Rolf realized that he had never felt anything like it, not the extent of despaired hunger that had taken him over the moment he had pulled her closer or the way something within him attempted to reach towards her and keep her there. There had been more than just lust to it, something that ran deeper and alarmingly meaningful, filling his insides with a dull ache that could not be satisfied with a mere physical contact. Like a parasite latched upon him the sentiments had fed on her presence and on her touch, causing the foreign organism within him to grow and strengthen and it was only now that he realized that he had allowed it to linger for far too long and that he could no longer rid himself of it. The realization brought upon him an impending sense of panic, of being trapped and having no means to pry himself free from the snare, yet his resistance was growing ever more tired and somewhere deep within the very reaches of his mind he knew; he knew he would have to stop running and face it one day, but maybe it did not have to be tonight, not right now. It was too complicated for him to understand and Rolf did not want to go through that experience, too much pain was involved, too much trust was required of him and his insides shuddered with horror at the mere thought of having grown too dependent on someone in such a manner. He attempted to muster the strength to distance himself from her and to assure himself that his mind would be rid of her now that he had experienced that which he had so fervently craved for, but as her fingertips brushed over the skin of his cheek and her body pressed close against his, his struggling grew weaker and he merely closed his eyes half-way, breathing out slowly at the warmth of her presence. Maybe he could allow himself this, just for a few moments more, and Rolf allowed the panic to fade from the path of her careful touch.

The storm outside had quieted down, yet the one within him had done anything but, and in a very contrasting manner it was her continued contact and presence that pulled a blanket of new-found calmness over him even through his inner turmoil. Her fingers traced a slow path along his ears, the man's eyes closing for a moment as he felt the pressure of the fingertips momentarily slipping within, cold shivers running down the man's spine at the foreign sensation. He swallowed and shifted his head when her lips pressed against his neck and there was pain to that touch, an agony of guilt and inner torment attacking the man with such a vicious force as to cause him hold his breath. There had never been anyone that would have cared to show him such careful, gentle attention, although in a stark contrast there had never been anyone to direct such burning hatred at him as the woman had, either. He felt that such benign things were not for him and maybe deep down he even understood that he was undeserving of them due to his violent nature, the anger he was so eager to attract merely a twisted way of self-punishment. The realization twisted a painful knife in his insides and Rolf felt his throat constricting, the guilt momentarily hanging heavy and foreboding over him, but then his pride overruled over the motion and he shook the thoughts away with an angry force, pushing them into the darkest layers of his mind and conveniently forgetting about them.

For the moment the waters were calm and with a laborious heave of his lungs Rolf breathed them in, drowning in their humid essence and allowing himself to be pulled into the unknown deep, dark depths she had so very effortlessly brought to existence. He allowed his eyes to remain closed now and Rolf only shifted head to the side to better allow her to maintain that contact, her lips finding his neck and the bruises on his shoulder while the man's chest rose and fall in calmed motions. Rolf was fully expecting her teeth to punish his skin once more, but as if to further settle the blanket of comfort and safety around him, she kept them hidden and only caressed his skin with her tongue and lips, their soft and moist texture causing a small set of involuntarily shivers to drive down Rolf's back. Her mouth stopped at the level of his chest to place careful kisses upon his skin, and the last traces of alarmed struggle that had still lingered in Rolf's muscles left him, the anxiety exhaled in one long breath as his hand instinctively moved to stroke the woman's curious coal-black hair. The humid seals her lips and tongue were leaving behind felt cold at first, then heated like metal in the bare scorch of the sun and even though the man had been left well-satisfied, a tiny flame lit within him once more. Her fingers wrapped themselves around his arm briefly and Rolf simply stroked the woman's hair with the tips of his fingers, his eyes closed and his entire frame settled into experiencing that uncompromising and genuine contact. The man's lips remained slightly parted as he allowed himself to breathe in deeply at that moment, his eyelids flickering when he felt the woman's tongue brush along his chest and even though his mind could not fathom the reasons behind such undeserved attention, he gave himself the permission to simply experience it before the moment would be lost forever. There was no rush to the leisurely motions of her mouth, yet when they moved downwards towards his stomach, Rolf's muscles tightened and the tiny flicker that had been left lit within him now suddenly flared, the man's fingertips pushing against the woman's scalp with enjoyment and anticipation. Her breathing was suddenly adopting a burning quality to it and Rolf felt his heart beating just ever so slightly faster with each teasing prod of her tongue that left a distinct path of slaver upon his skin and the dampened hair brushed against his bare skin as if to further tempt him. He was past questioning the reasons behind her actions once more, as well as those of his own, and his muscles tightened the moment her tongue drew against his navel and slipped within. A low growl emitted from within the man's throat and his upper body writhed involuntarily at the enticing sensation, while the flame grew in force, feeding from the agonizing and humid contact. He was already imagining how the contact would continue and his heart ran just slightly faster, for it would have certainly been something he had never before experienced and he inched himself upwards on nothing but simple instinct, to further coax her into continuing with whatever she was doing. Rolf's fingertips pushed against the woman's scalp and a small, pleased smile drew from the corner of his mouth, his eyes still remaining closed as he grumbled in nothing but the simplest enjoyment.

The man's eyebrow arched in a sharp and irritated manner when the woman stopped, settling into resting her cheek against his stomach and allowing her steady breathing to tickle his skin while she did nothing - nothing at all! - to continue with bringing to reality the images Rolf had already greedily enjoyed, and Rolf waited for her to go on, for the sensation to continue upon the quickly unfolding path that it had opened, but she seemed perfectly content in simply reclining against him. Rolf stroked her hair in an attempt to coax her further, stubbornly keeping his eyes closed as if not to wake up from the dream, but then she suddenly spoke and it was what she had to ask that caused the man's steel-grey eyes to snap open, his eyebrows curved in nothing but utter confusion, his body ruthlessly forced out of its increasingly impatient state. "Wie... wie alt?" the man repeated hoarsely, the texture of his voice even coarser than usually after such a copious amount of growling and snarling. He had not expected her to ask such a thing and, in fact, he had not really expected her to say anything at all, his mind already having created its own enticing images of what should happen next. The man's thoughts were still addled by the woman's torturous touch and it took him some time to properly understand the question, further having to spend some extra time in considering the answer to it after. It was an utterly nonsensical thing to ask out of the blue - especially when asking questions shouldn't have been the last thing she was doing now - but Rolf also realized that no other person had really ever bothered asking Rolf about his age... or about anything personal about him, now that he thought about it. The man narrowed his steel-grey eyes when he considered the fact that Riedel might have been mocking him, but there had been no sense of betrayal to the childishly curious tone of her voice. No.... Rolf knew she was being genuine in posing the question, as little sense as it seemed to make, and the man allowed himself to breathe out slowly just in effort to push aside the teasing images he had so eagerly enjoyed. "Welche Frage ist das?" the man managed to ask after the small moment it had taken him to calm himself down. Rolf glanced somewhere towards the ceiling and grumbled with a slight sense of irritation, as if not knowing whether he should answer her or not, but then his coarse tone pierced through the silence of the room once more. "Ich bin siebenundzwanzig." Rolf felt strange giving her the answer; for even speaking after such a fervent and feral contact and then, for simply telling something as seemingly insignificant about himself to someone. His fingers stroked against the woman's hair thoughtfully still and Rolf shifted his head to the side as he continued. "Ich weiß bereits, wie alt Sie sind. Geboren in Hannover, am 31. Januar 1915," the pilot recalled, all the smallest details of her personal file fervently etched in his memory. He had gone through it enough times to have it almost completely memorized, although his burning obsession for her must have helped him in recalling these things straight out of the blue. "Sie studierten die Maschinentechnik," the man added, a small, amused scoff raised somewhere within his throat at the thought of the woman's utterly stubborn will of choosing such a strange career.

"Maschinentechnik..." Rolf grumbled in his hoarse tone, mostly to himself, the man slowly realizing that they had not really even attempted conversing about anything in such a calm and collected manner, but then again, it must have had something to do with the insults and slaps that continuously kept flying between them. At the moment they were resting in a state of lazy repose, the snarls forgotten deep within their chests and the teeth hidden beneath their lips, and Rolf's fingertips traced a contemplative path to the woman's left shoulder, stroking the skin there and drawing upon its pale surface absentminded, round patterns. "Ich verstehe nicht, warum Sie sogar würden wissen mögen."


Translations:

"Wie... wie alt?"
"How... how old?"

"Welche Frage ist das? Ich bin siebenundzwanzig."
"What kind of question is that? I'm twenty-seven."

"Ich weiß bereits, wie alt Sie sind. Geboren in Hannover, am 31. Januar 1915."
"I already know how old you are. Born in Hannover, 31st of January, 1915."

"Sie studierten die Maschinentechnik... Maschinentechnik..."
"You studied mechanical engineering... mechanical engineering"

"Ich verstehe nicht, warum Sie sogar würden wissen mögen."
"I don't understand why you'd even wish to know."

[Dirk Riedel]

She felt his fingers softly stroking the hair, and this single motion of caress calmed her still turbulent body from the previous contact, as she rested her head against his lower stomach in quietude and peace; the room was drenched in their silence and fed from that momentary stillness, prevalent to such an extent that his breathing was almost audible from between those four walls, and she could still feel his heartbeat pulsating with a stable, slightly brisker reverberation across his ribs and reaching the woman’s cheek when she had it so firmly pressed against his skin. It felt strange to lay against a man in such an intimate manner, and it was even stranger it had to be him; and how strange and curious that four, nearly five months ago it would have been nothing but utterly ridiculous to believe any such intimacy would have taken place, but then in reality, it would have been equally absurd to believe any such closeness to have happened as of yesterday, one instance leading to another in that irrepressible sequence of rapidly moving actions that bound them, forced them in conjunction and held them prisoners of one another, and who could tell the master from the slave, the hunter from the prey, the victim from the victimizer, both essences melded into one existence into that self-contradictory, self-complementary quality. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded even more guttural than usual and a warm sensation passed through her viscera when she heard it again, that familiar gruff, rasping aspect of his voice a sound she had become so accustomed to, her existence so intrinsically associated with that single sound that to think of how it would be without hearing it again was, as it happened, downright odd. Perhaps it was that the man’s typical hunt of her – even when she was in the barracks and in her other identity – had violated her world with such possessive force she could not terminate, her initial reaction that of a wrathful annoyance, soon enough morphed into simple scoffing acceptance whenever he decided to impose his presence on her yet again, the expectation of his shameless invasion now routine and unsurprising.

He appeared a little lost at first with her question, and she could understand why; he also faintly grumbled with mild annoyance, and she could also understand why. Still, she waited for him silently, and without moving at all while he appeared to recollect himself, until he finally told her his age. Twenty-seven. She stared absentmindedly at the wardrobe opposite them, dusty and unused, and without realizing she slowly knitted her brows; he was but a year older than her, and was it not funny, even absurd, he should be older than her when she had considered him to possess the level of maturity equal to a three-year-old. Not that the woman believed age was equivalent to maturity, either, but to be younger than him – even by a number as significant as their age difference was – felt at first somehow amusing, then a little insulting, then amusing again. During a different time she could have scoffed at this information, but not now, not this hour. Rather, when he called to mind her precise date of birth, down to the smallest detail, it could not be helped but a small, distinct smile rose across the left corner of her lips and remained there for the following moments; she should have been angered at the reminding of how he had violated her privacy and rummaged through her papers, broken every sense of individual respect and hunted down for her information, she should have slapped him for his insolence, his encroachment, but not now, not this hour. For some reason she did not feel offended and, if anything, her secret smile betrayed her recognition of his awareness, his fixation to remember something as unimportant as that. Then, he recalled the faculty she had studied at University, and her fingers lightly stroked the skin by his pelvis in affection, even caught the faint trace of amusement escaping his throat, and her smile resurfaced to complement his reaction, as if to acknowledge her path of choice was indeed unusual and unconventional for a woman, but then again, he knew her well already not to be surprised too much. Her skin welcomed his touch the moment his fingers moved to stroke at her shoulder, and then he voiced his uncertainty about her questions; he did not seem to understand why and how even such seemingly trifling bits of information were important, why anything revolving around him was important, and he even appeared a little tense at first when she first touched him upon lying in the bed. The signs of tenseness had not been as evident and obvious, but now that her form had welcomed him within and learned of his skin, each motion, each characteristic, she could feel every part of him, every change, as though she was nothing more but an extension of him.

She slowly raised her head, one hand by the side of his pelvis and the other close to his stomach, her eyes gazing calmly into his own. “Was soll dort verstehen?” she whispered, her question simple and clear, her throat forming her voice to be faintly guttural, and her hands moved to each side of the mattress to lift her body only slightly in the same way a female lion was skulking from behind the bushes to pry upon the unsuspecting antelope quietly eating from the grass one warm morning, the paws touching against the ground and the shoulder blades slightly curved sharply along the neck, the head slightly bowed in that attuned hunting position – and, as if the woman’s true nature could no longer be stifled, the dominance reigning through and her command incontestable, let alone challenged, she lurked above him in that same manner, her gaze only ever serene and unemotional, with the same tranquil capacity of the animal knowing the victim’s fate regardless of its struggle; still, it would have been wrong to believe she looked at him as if he were a victim and, if anything, her posture, her gaze was inviting and devoted, her face pure and bearing the best of intentions for him, and such outstanding spiritual calmness and peace emitted from that quiet expression that it was almost moving. “Ich stelle Fragen,” she simply said. “Sie antworten.” It was so very clear and straightforward, and the right corner of her lips faintly curved into the smallest of smirks, but it was her eyes that were smiling at him. Her eyes then slightly narrowed, and her face glanced upon his navel, before her nose brushed against it lightly and her lips traced a humid pathway against the belly button once again, this time without passing through as she had hitchhiked before, to motion slowly across the pelvic region, the fingers of her right hand moving alongside the mattress with the tips tracing a line across the side of his frame, enough to tickle at the skin in their faint, teasing touch, her tongue creating growing stroking patterns at the dampened skin, to flavour the characteristic taste and take him all, all of his existence, his being, so that ultimately there would be nothing from her concealed, and she would trespass upon every thought he had, every line of reasoning he cherished and every memory he held within his viscera, the viscera she had long since tasted, she wanted to know what he admired, what he ached for, what his dreams were if he had any, where his aspirations lay, what did his heart tell him and what could his mind command, what was he made of, was it steel or rubber, unbroken will forged through the fires of burning coal; what he thought of each day, the way in which his mind functioned, the profound darkness of that road he had been treading upon, what expectations he tried to live up to, which he loathed, which he fancied, which he wanted to discard; she wanted to know, yes, what he liked, what he did not like, what he wanted to dislike but could not, what freedom meant to him, and the more her lips experienced his skin the more her questions seared and tormented her with their demand to be fulfilled, from the most significant moment of his life down to the most irrelevant details, the most insignificant information he had to give her, even those it was foolish to ask, but it was never foolish, and it was never irrelevant.

She motioned slowly on that descending southernmost pilgrimage, the declivity to madness effortless and uncomplicated, natural and unceremonious, but if madness should mean to harbour such peace and quietness then it mattered not if it was called madness or simply another side to consider contentment as; her fingers moved from the side to the front of his abdomen to trail the same southerly orientation, her forefinger stroking at the area around his belly button before it gently slithered inside the crevice, the contact sudden but slow, and she felt his vibration reverberating in her hand, before the finger in just as slow manner began to dig deeper and push into the skin, slowly, gently, as though that very aperture concealed all of his nucleus which would have given her all the answers she needed to the questions that swarmed around her mind, her thirst rising, rising and heaving, and her lips birthing wet kisses across the bones she had not too many moments ago grasped at in agony, her forefinger stroking inside the rounded, knotty aperture, drawing it in and then pulling it out, again and again, softly, quietly, while she sowed pathways of reverent devotion now along the pelvis inclination angle adjusted at the hips, the heated breath burning at the skin, and forming wet kisses, wet and red-hot, slowly, gently, the slippery muscle slithering alongside his frame to feel him, take him all in, yes, consume him, drawing him out, pulling him in, softly, quietly.

The room was silent, the mattress unmoving but for her slithering form, and then in the next moment she drew out her forefinger and raised her head, her hand moving by the side on its former position by the mattress, and she lifted herself up slightly above him to look at him. “In der welchen Universität studierten Sie?” she asked him quietly, her breathing calm, calm and patient, her expression resolute and determined for the answer she knew his lips must carry to fulfill her; slowly, she pulled herself lower once again and kissed back at the skin, her journey now ascending as she reached up closer to his navel. “Wie ist Ihr gesamter Rang?” she then asked again, without looking at him, her nose brushing against the nude skin as she let her tongue create slow, circling patterns at his abdomen, leisurely moving up to his chest. “Wie ist Ihr Lieblingszeitvertreib?” she said softly, and her form slowly crawled up alongside his, like water that shaped however the container was shaped, and the leg comfortably leaned in between his thighs moved along with the rest of her body, when she finally reached his neck and gently bit at his collarbone. “Von welchem einem Teil des Landes Sie sind?” she asked him, and then kissed at his neck, following the virile arch of the jugular protrusion, her motions slow, slow and ring-shaped, sometimes taking the Adam’s apple in between her lips to swallow it, lightly bit at it with her teeth, sometimes merely tracing the curve, quietly, resolutely, before she moved her head to kiss across his shoulder and then lightly gnaw at his arm, feeling the muscles of that solid part of the skin, tracing them slowly in that eternal growing motion, gently, quietly. “Sprechen,” she nudged at him in a lone muffled whisper, and to further torture him she motioned closer in between him to better relocate herself and pressed against him. “Sprechen,” she insisted, and she knew well how difficult it must have been for him to comply to her wishes, but she pressed on and insisted, her left arm moving from the mattress beside him to press against his chest, her fingers coiling at the side, and she instructed him to continue speaking again.

Maybe she was doing it on purpose.




Translation

What is there to understand? I ask questions. You answer.

In which University did you study? What is your overall grade? What is your favourite pastime? Which part of the country are you from?

Speak.

[Rolf Jäger]

*******

Rolf stirred into a warm and comfortably formless reality, his senses slowly sliding and shifting from the realm of deep sleep and picking up one distinct prospect of the new existence at a time. He gave himself ample time in studying each one of these aspects around him as they slowly solified and became distinct enough for him to properly understand and he did not bother going to such lengths as actually opening his eyes, in his relaxed state discerning that it was more appropriate to simply feel the world around him first. An unmistakable warmth of another person glowed at his other side, a hand stretched across his chest and a leg curled around his under the covers as the woman had clamped on to him for warmth and comfort. Her arm rose and fell in the rhythm of his steady breathing and Rolf could feel the softness of the woman's breasts pushing against his arm, the realization causing the man to grumble with lazy gratification and the prospect of her closeness felt curiously natural and uncomplicated through those silent moments he spent in listening to her sleeping, his own eyes still remaining firmly closed. Through his eyelids he could make out the subtle golden glow of the early morning, but the amount of light had not grown distinct enough to denote that the day would have drawn too far yet and the chill of the night still lingered in the room to further correspond to the man's deduction, his muscles still resting in perfect repose and the motions of his chest remaining nearly at the same level as if he had still been sleeping. He was feeling far too warm and comfortable to start rushing around or checking the time now and he merely curved the tips of his fingers to remind himself of the arm laying under the woman's head, his other hand lazily resting upon her naked thigh.

The leg reclining against his own brought back memories and they crept from the reaches of his mind first like nightly animals in the first moments of deepening dusk, timidly skulking in the shadows and feeling distant enough to be nothing but traces of sleep, but then they grew more distinct, gaining clearer outlines and flashing in front of his vision far too distinct not to have taken place in reality. The man's eyebrows inched up at the sudden memories and his lips, parched as they now were, parted slowly to allow him a deep, almost shaky exhale, the Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed. He could remember her sweaty skin brushing against his, muscles distinctly contracting against his lower stomach and nails pushing into his skin, the memory of her fingers digging into his back suddenly rousing up a small tingle on his back at the memory of the welts now left there. He could next recall teeth clamping upon his lip and gnawing into his neck, the woman's mouth violently biting into his shoulder in an effort to drown out the feral, burning essence of pained lust that had been shared between them. And then there had been her warm essence surrounding him, throbbing and twisting, pulsating and devouring, and then her roaming hands grasping and pulling at him, the touch becoming teasing and more purposeful, encircling him, tormenting him... Rolf's eyelids inched open at the memories and grey irises shifted carefully to regard the sleeping figure of the woman next to him, her skin glowing pale in the first careful light of the morning and the mass of her adopted raven hair flowing over her shoulder and back in lazy curls.

Rolf would have been inclined to believe that each one of those memories had been nothing more but a fragment from a very vivid dream, but her presence was undeniable, as were the marks left upon his skin and those on hers, a multitude of small bruises faintly drawn upon her body telling their own story of the nature of the violent and fervent exchange that had taken place just previous night. He had been far too consumed by the simplest of emotions during that time, but now as he was regaining more of his senses and given time to properly reflect on the events, his mind was riddled with apprehension and questions, with disbelief and uncertainty. Why should it have taken place here and now, against all odds and prospects? A simple case of purest lust and need would have been enough to explain away some of it, but had it been that straightforward Rolf would have not certainly not lingered behind and he would have not woken up in the room this very morning so completely entwined with her. As burning as the memories of their primal and violent exchanges still were, Rolf found himself consumed in finding out the reasons behind the events and he knew they were not explained away as simply as he would have hoped. It bothered him and something nudged uncomfortably at his insides despite the comfort he was feeling - or maybe it was just because of that that he felt uneasy, for it was a sentiment not suited for him, not for his nature. Never to someone like him.

Rolf pried his gaze away from the woman and he stared at the roof instead, his tongue inching towards the roof of his mouth while he breathed out through his nostrils, eyes narrowed in silent contemplation. His glazed irises skittered in any small and insignificant details he could find, yet the questions forming in his mind kept taking form and dissolving, disrupted by her distinctly glowing warmth pressed against him, that simple and unchanged sensation reminding him of the violent closeness they had shared, the growls and the sighs, the moans and the creaking of wood and the desperation and agony that had passed between them, unbridled and sincere. As much as feral lust had directed their actions, Rolf knew that a certain amount of trust had been shared through them, also, and it was too much faith for him to place on anyone, too many guards allowed to let down and leaving him vulnerable for attack and he did not want that, he did not want to feel that dependent on anyone or even to let his defences down for the briefest of moments, the anger and violence ever shielding him from any malignant intents and keeping him safe and secured. The man's jaw inched to the side at the prospect of allowing himself to act so very foolish and his eyes searched for answer from the dull texture of the ceiling, still, while he refused to admit to himself that he simply did not want to move away yet, his fingers absentmindedly stroking at her thigh, her steady breathing and distinct warmth offering him something that he craved for and a low, indistinct growl of irritation emitted from his throat at his own weakness and indecisiveness.

He lingered in that position for a few moments more before he finally blinked and glanced at the woman once more, this time a more mundane thought of the woman waking up passing through his mind and next he already considered how to best pry himself free without rousing Riedel from her slumber. He wouldn't have known how to confront her now, what to say, what kind of explanation to offer and whether he should have found some adequate words to offer her, maybe telling her that there was no need in attaching anything grander to what had happened the previous night... But then, could he have made the lie convincing enough when he could not even properly persuade himself of the fact? Maybe, if Rolf was lucky, she would wake up infuriated and he would know exactly how to answer to her anger and he could leave the room in a storm of rage, the events forgotten as quickly as they had enfolded, their anger renewed and that simple existence between them established once more.

But to say that it had been ever simple to begin with was just another lie... wasn't it?

With a careful shift of his shoulder, the man inched his arm away from under her head and neck, making sure that the woman's head was settled slowly upon the crunched up pillow and his eyes skittered over her sleeping features, lingering upon them for longer than he would have wanted. It was difficult to believe that such simple innocence could reside in her through those moments that she was sleeping and there was vulnerability to her as she lay there, lips slightly parted in that steady breathing and eyelids pressed closed gently, the curves of her distinct eyebrows now resting in simple repose of well-needed slumber. Rolf's head inched to the side as he observed the sight and such was the extent of his sudden concentration of absorbing that very sight that his mouth was left hanging open while his eyes fervently drew in that image of calmness and complete guiltlessness, the hand still resting upon her thigh drawing away and appearing from behind the cover as he propped himself up with his elbow and his free hand inched towards her face, yearning to touch that small curve at her lips and to carefully trace over the faint bruises drawn at the edge of her jaw... but then he pulled his hand away and breathed out sharply, grey eyes flashing with apprehension and guilt. What was it all for, anyway? Why was he still there?

Gathering that determination, the man forced himself to inch away from her, feeling irritatingly empty the moment her skin no longer touched his and, angered by this notion as he was, he drew himself away further, ignoring the pangs of hollow pain that still attacked him, some part of him still wanting to return back to that comfortable warmth - but he refused it from himself, the man merely pulling the cover over the woman just before he propped himself up from the bed. He found his legs surprisingly unstable as his weight was once more entrusted upon them and Rolf teetered next to the bed for a small moment, various tiny aches in his muscles lighting up at the fast movement and raising up a small snarl from him. He had not been living the most comfortable life for the past few weeks he had spent in confinement, his movement limited and his bed of stone feeling anything but comfortable through those short hours he had attempted sleeping - and now that he had, arguably, strained himself during the previous night and then fell asleep relaxed on a soft mattress, his body was protesting at the fast shifts and pain jolted through his muscles in angry spasms. The man growled under his breath like an angered dog, eyes narrowed at the sudden mutiny of his own frame and for a moment more wished he would have never forced himself up from the bed, rather forgetting himself in the bliss of warmth and relaxation, but wasn't that just the very weakness he was meant to rid himself of? Rolf stood by the bed, his light-brown hair standing in an unkempt mess, red welts drawn across his back and various small bruises already starting to shine upon his skin to sing herald to the desperate violence with which they had clung to each other nothing but a few hours ago.

His legs stiff and aching, the man started tracing a path across the floor, his clothes littering it in a distinct line that drew from the table next to the wall to the side of the bed and Rolf had to muffle a grunt as he bent down to pick up the various items of clothing shed on the floor. The tunic and the shirt were still damp, left crumpled on the floor as they had been, and Rolf lifted the wrinkled shirt to his view with a disapproving glare, his eyebrows knitting together into a distinct expression of displeasure.

His eyelids drew tiredly together as he dropped the tunic and the shirt upon the table, his gaze regarding the belt and the holster that had slid down from its wooden surface and left lying on the floor, a distinct silver shine glinting somewhere from the tangle of well-oiled leather. Right. The slave's collar. With a half-amused scoff, Rolf bent down to pick up both of the items, dropping them on the table silently and focusing on pulling on his pants instead, his eyes half-closed in lazy exhaustion. He picked up his tunic next and fished the pockets for the case of cigarettes, pulling out one of them and again spending the next few seconds digging the pockets for his lighter. Once he had finally managed to light the cigarette, he drew in the smoke deep and raised an eyebrow at the blissful sensation, a hoarse grumble of satisfaction rumbling from inside his throat as the grey smoke danced around him and inside his mouth, before he finally exhaled it through his nose. Poking the cigarette between his lips he settled into brushing the wrinkles away from the damp canvas of the tunic, a task as hopeless as it was, and the man's grey eyes remained narrowed as he allowed himself to settle into this mundane task, his mind momentarily void of the various complications that would no doubt return back to haunt him the moment there wasn't anything else to focus on.

[Dirk Riedel]

The faintest rays of sunshine gently touched at her eyelids, the woman’s sleeping figure calm and peaceful as it lay upon the mattress, unperturbed and silent in its serenity, as if no troubles were worrying her quiet mind, and yet what a contrast this posed to reality considering how all the world’s troubles burdened her, if not stressed her in their sheer magnitude and the efforts she had to exercise in order to see them fulfilled. Usually she would suffer from sleep deprivation in the barracks and, seeing how she had not been used to the feeling of acquiring accommodation anywhere else before the pilot had jumped into her life and led them into this very same old room, the sensation of the warm, soft mattress had been strange at first, then comforting, but the truth lay in the fact the momentary peace she enjoyed unconsciously birthed from the final closeness shared, despite how deeply sardonic such a fact should be, how ridiculous it would have sounded to her, how absolutely, irrefutably absurd for anyone who was familiar enough with her nature, and his. Still, there was no reason and no account for which to blame the woman for her inability to drive him away or refuse that closeness, and how pointless would it even have been to make a single effort to comprehend the profound complicacies of that shared intimacy, why she should have done the exact opposite of what she had otherwise asserted while he had been in prison, and did she really not believe everything she had told him then? After all, it had not been more than just a few days ago. In truth, the woman had attempted to bring an untimely end to what she assumed was a caricature of a human relation between them, his various whimsicalities, caprices, his persistent exploitation and arrogant nature only further goading her to resent his presence and force him away from her life, his continued intrusions and hunt of her a headache for her and, even more so, at times often guaranteeing a state of inner turmoil whenever the subject of her family was raised. Had she forgotten these, too? Had she forgotten anything at all? Irrespective of the way in which her mind functioned, still, she was better able to approach him in that manner than he ever could be, his timid reluctance and apprehension well known to her, she who could register the faintest trace of fear and nervousness in a mere glint of his eyes, a sensation for him as subtle and barely perceptible as it was for her shocking to witness. Slowly, the woman’s eyelids fluttered and in the next moment a hue of clearest, vibrant green stared into nothingness, blinked, and then gazed at the empty wall opposite her. The bed felt very warm, the mattress stubbornly retaining a reminder of his presence even as the space next to her was empty, and the first thought that entered her mind was that the man had left the room, a moment before her ears picked up the sound of noise from behind her. Those first few seconds were critical in that she was slowly realizing where she was, in what room she lay and how that same room had been significant in the not too distant past, memory after memory returning to her with the same effortless quality, the fluid motion of these sensations flowing into her with ease and adaptability, the palms of her hands resting against the mattress, without a purpose now that he was not there, without a reason to touch. The woman turned around to lay on her back, her hands clasping around her head and stroking the sides in slow, absentminded gestures as her eyes blankly gazed at the ceiling; she could not feel the ache while she was still lying on her side but once she had rolled over the soreness twinged at her lower body in between her thighs, the momentary stinging sensation substituted with that of general soreness, and her eyebrows slightly curved in cue of that feeling, and she breathed calmly. The tips of her fingers faintly stirred to feel them, and her legs were strained and stiff, the muscles of her stomach taut and the consciousness of a countless more small bruises and marks adorning her face and body even without needing to stare at a mirror.

She pressed her palms at her temples and stroked at the coal-black hair now dried and standing messy in loose curls, and remained in her position for many more moments on end, her eyes inscrutably gazing into the ceiling, green bearing into the sandstone perhaps in an effort to properly absorb everything she desired and which she must fully grasp, but then again there was nothing really to absorb to begin with, was there? Her clarity was perfect and her understanding just as clear, unbreakable as the raw diamond uncontaminated and unprocessed by the hand of man, the absence of a need to step into the path of realization only ever intensified by the fact that there was nothing really to realize when she very well knew all, felt all, had all within her, to tell her, inform her, curse her. The distracted motion of her hand stopped, and she moved her head to the side to look at him; the man stood not too many metres away from the bed, with his back turned on her, and committed to the insignificant task of what appeared to have been brushing his tunic. The grey fume circling him gave away that he was smoking, and a small indistinct smile blossomed across her lips as she watched him quietly and absorbed that moment of his peace, her eyes gazing into the muscles of his strong frame, the breadth of his back and the characteristic curves of his hips accentuated underneath the military trousers, that prominent motion of his shoulder blades forwards whenever his arms moved to smooth out the tunic. She hated him, yes. She knew not for how many moments she simply lay there, staring at him in serene quietude and uninterrupted ease, but slowly she felt her legs moving and the blanket shifted away from her body as she stood up; her feet touched upon the floor and in the first moment she propped herself up she had to immediately clasp at the wooden bedside table for support, as though her legs had been rendered useless and she but the merest slave of her physical fatigue was, her body an absolute stranger to the sensation of that closeness – but to say this was its own way to complain for it would be quite cruel and untrue, this result of somatic strain proof, if anything, of the genuineness of their contact which, unabashed and irrepressible, made arrogance and prejudice yield to the painful call of need and demand. Her eyebrows furrowed above her eyes for a second before she had managed to balance herself and, in the next moment, she slowly, though a little achingly, walked closer towards him.

She approached him from behind and, without notice, she leaned her head and kissed him in the back, at the space in between his shoulder blades, the gesture gentle and short-lived, but as he had turned around he could only see her bending over to pick up that pitiful piece of black underwear from the floor, somewhere scattered near the table and left there, uncared for and forgotten. She shifted her weight onto one leg as she wore the garment, and then reached for the table to grasp at his shirt; it had half dried during the night and no longer appeared drenched, but the texture was still rather wet and cold, the night’s humidity only ever adding to its continued moisture, and as she felt for it the woman opened it in her hands and moved it around her shoulders, passing her arms through the sleeves to properly wear it. She buttoned it up slowly, unhurriedly, her eyes following the motion of her fingers rather than diverting to glance at the man next to her, and once she was finished the man’s military shirt fit around her body with almost all buttons clasped but for the first three. The garment’s wetness came in chilly contact with her warm body, yet she did not appear to be in discomfort in the slightest, the woman instead lifting her head to eventually steal a glimpse of him, and her green eyes locked onto his greys. She did not speak anything, for there was nothing to be said, and merely stood there, looking at him blankly, the cigarette poked in between his lips and his hands lifeless upon the tunic, and he could plainly see her calculation born within her eyes – and then, she suddenly moved away towards the door, her gait slow and steady, but she had not walked too much away from him before, soon enough, she had returned back where he stood. “Vielleicht sollten Sie derjenige sein, um die Hauswirtin zu fragen, wenn sie irgendwelches Essen überhaupt hat,” she simply told him, her dry voice hoarse and guttural in the morning hours, and came closer by the table; she had been meaning to visit the old woman herself before she had calculated the probability of her reaction in the last moment, and decided otherwise. “Sie sind ein Offizier,” she announced, and an amused smile crossed her lips as she gazed at him with a zealous glint of her eyes, the sun having ascended its glorious pathway across the wide blue firmament to gleam upon her dark hair and the contrasting green irises of her eyes with its golden caress. Having set the task to the man of procuring something to eat, she grabbed the tunic from his hands into a tight hold and began to walk away, this time her direction being that of the bathroom, and surely she knew the man must have understood what he ought to do at this point, and her insides writhed with pleasure and sportive delight upon witnessing the expression on his face once she turned around to look at him. She turned the door’s latch and with a last glance she turned to look at him, and then she smirked, that lone gesture communicative enough. But in the next minute she had turned around and stepped into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

The bathroom was left in the same state since the last time she had been there, with the only difference that now it was a little cleaner, but seeing as there were as many soaps as before and how even the toothpaste upon the single shelf underneath the mirror had been left untouched, it was safe to assume that the room had indeed served no other occupants apart from them. She approached the familiar bath tub and slightly bent to let the water flow from the tap, and while she waited for the tub to fill the woman walked to the sink and placed the tunic inside the basin, opened the tap and let the water flow upon the garment; she motioned for the white soap on the enamel surface at the same time that she heard the distinct, but detached sound of the other door being shut, and she knew the man had left the room. She smirked to herself, and then began scrubbing at the tunic, her hands moving in their usual disciplined motion as they washed his garment, eyebrows curved in their characteristic gesture and her face only making visible how committed and focused she was in properly doing something as unimportant and trifling as cleaning his shirt. Nevertheless, it was certainly not trifling at all to the woman, who tended to this matter with consequence and care, making sure to rub off every stain she noticed, her fingers working furiously to remove those who seemed the most persistent, and relaxing once they delt with more simple patches marking the shirt – and at another time she would have found it ridiculous she should have been taking care of a baron’s clothes, and scoffed at the fact she ought to have done so simply out of a question of social status. He would have said it was her place that gave him the right to demand this from her. She would have defied him, refused to comply to his acts of humiliation, called him a cretin, and struck him. And then everything would take it due course.

She squeezed the shirt in her hands to let the water drip once she was finished, and then moved to close the bath tub’s still running tap when it had been filled to the top, her motions quick and requiring no need for her to think, a lifetime’s worth of toil and housework troubles having grown a second nature to her; she opened the bathroom door and moved into the main room, blinking once at the strengthened sunlight casting its rays within from the glass window near the table, and she walked to it in a purposeful gait just as the door opened and he walked in. She stole a single glance at him but then focused on clicking the window open to carefully place the wet shirt to lay across the window sill, where it should dry within short time with the aid of the growing warmth, enough to properly lose the wetness but minding to remove it in due time as not to render it parched. She let the drapes of the window stand wide open and then turned around to look at him as he walked closer to her, carrying a small bundle in a cloth in his hands. She absentmindedly moved a few steps to the table and leaned against it, crossing her arms and looking at him curiously as he approached her. He did not appear too delighted, and quite understandably so taking into consideration his interaction with the landlady must have been nothing short of pleasant, indeed – and the woman smirked at the thought – but then she took the bundle from his hands and opened it: there were a few slices of white bread, a banana, one red apple and two boiled eggs. A short, amused laugh escaped her lips at the sight, but then she placed the bundle on the table and with a weary sigh and a faint smile tracing her lips, the woman opted for the banana. She absentmindedly slid herself on the edge of the table, the motion familiar but at this moment merely done for the purpose of leisure and relaxation, her legs aching and strained to maintain her balance for longer than necessary – and slowly began to peel the fruit, before she removed the outer covering and carelessly threw it on the table by her side. Her forefinger moved and pushed at the center of the fruit’s pale creamy length, and she applied enough pressure to slowly hollow out the smallest hole, and then automatically in a motion that was fluid and which followed the initial, momentary pressure of her hand the fruit sliced into three equal different parts; she did not need to press into it for longer than a second, for the fruit had at her gesture cut into slices, and she observed it calmly, slowly, and then, just as calmly and slowly did her forefinger dig further into its soft, pulpy flesh, her movement slow, slow and patient, and her finger drew deeper within its flesh, the manner reminiscent, and let her hand squelch into the ripe yellow skin, each slice curving backwards upon a new motion of her finger, and she pressed further into its bowels, entered its depths, and then pushed more to the core, leisurely, serenely, until she reached the very core, the end of its depth, and her eyes gleamed with a smile.

She pulled out her finger and cut a small part of one slice with her hands, and in the next moment she moved it to his mouth, where she smoothly pressed it in between his lips and fed it to him, pushing her three fingers further enough to have his lips brush halfway against her fingers as he swallowed; she pulled the fruit deeper into his throat, her fingers wetting from his saliva and the other two resting at the lines of his mouth in the outer side. She smiled, and then pulled her fingers out again. Her legs shifted and they softly brushed each by the side of his thighs as they, then, wrapped around a little below his waistline, bringing him nearer to her and closing that meaningless distance between them as his naked abdomen stroked against the fabric of his shirt on her stomach. Her fingers repeated the motion, and as they picked another slice they drew inside the passage of his lips and stroked along his tongue as she fed him, eyes committed to the task, one hand holding the fruit and the other pulling into his mouth, withdrawing, and then drawing deeper again. And then, the next time she brought another slice into his mouth she let him bite into the yellow ripe flesh but leaned her face closer and touched his lips to eat the other half, her teeth cutting the slice and kissing him at the same time, and her eyes closed as she let her tongue stroke his for a moment or two, before it flavoured the taste of the fruit, and then she pulled away to swallow it.




Translation

Maybe you should be the one to ask the landlady if she has any food at all. You’re an officer.

[Rolf Jäger]

Rolf's fingers brushed over the silver-embroidered eagle on the Luftwaffe tunic and he paused for a moment, allowing the fingertips to linger upon the spread wings of the proud raptor carrying a swastika in one claw, the other prepared in attack. The man tilted his head and realized how very distant military matters had seemed to him the previous night and just this very morning, just before he would grasp the uniform and get reminded of his tasks here. Flying had been a passion of his ever since he had found the Deutscher Luftsportverband and joined them, learning the basics of flight and taking to the air first in gliders and later when the organization adopted an even stronger National Socialist bearing and changed its name, Rolf had already moved on to more demanding aircraft. He had been a Truppführer in the NFSK Gruppe Schwaben before he had joined the Luftwaffe in 1937 and ever since he had dedicated his life to the German Air Force, to the Fatherland and to his passion of flight. That seemed to have happened like a lifetime ago, when it had only really been a few years, yet it was even more astonishing to look at the past few months and the scope and importance of the events that this brief time now entailed.

Smoke snaked from between the man's lips as he allowed his fingers to slide down the tunic and his grey eyes narrowed in silent contemplation when he considered the night his eyes had first fallen upon the woman's pale figure, how she had carried herself in that dress, oblivious of his presence and of the enticing thoughts that had formed in Rolf's mind as he had locked his eyes upon her. Had he achieved that which he had at those moments imagined, he might have never even chanced upon her again and nothing would have changed, nothing at all. Of course fate had decided otherwise - if it had ever been fate at all and merely their conflicting natures clashing together - and Rolf had been through fire and ice because of her, through pain and torment, bliss and pleasure, and he could no longer make sense of where one sensation ended and where the other one begun. Her presence had taken on more meaning that Rolf would have ever placed on anyone, even his own family, and he found he could no longer diminish that precedence no matter how much he tried. His mind was locked on her, consumed by her and plagued, tormented and shattered by the actions she took, just for him to pick up those pieces once more and see her later destroy that image he had so painstakingly managed to re-create of himself, of the world around him.

Why couldn't he stop her?

As if on queue to these thoughts, something soft brushed against his back and the pilot almost jumped around, his fingers instinctively grasping at the canvas of the tunic as he pivoted around, bewildered and surprised, blinking when he could see the woman bending down to pick up the discarded piece of her underwear. Rolf breathed out deeply at the sight of the woman's naked body, noting how it did not carry any of those signs of preserved slenderness that bordered on carefully preserved famine that he was more used to seeing in women, her frame only speaking of health, strength and hard work. The signs of her femininity were not lessened by the muscles of her body and if anything, they only accented her curves, the sight causing the skin at the corner of the man's eyes to twitch, his eyes glinting sharply as he stared at her. The signs of his ownership from the previous night were still evident upon the pale skin of her body, bringing back more than just one memory from those moments spent in the haze of blind lust and Rolf's fingertips pushed into the coarse texture of the tunic at the thought. She appeared completely oblivious to the hungry gaze Rolf was giving her, instead only focusing on pulling on the black underwear, her hand going for the shirt upon the table next and Rolf's eyebrows drew together when he saw her grasping at his shirt and pulling it over her own frame. The man's mouth opened in protest, but then it would have been quite futile to say anything as Riedel was already busying herself with clasping the buttons and Rolf already knew her stubborn nature well enough just to keep his mouth shut. He chose to continue standing where he was, the cigarette loosely hanging from between his lips and the tunic still held in his grasp as the woman finally looked back at him, determined and composed, while Rolf's own eyes communicated nothing but his stunned confusion.

Dressed in Rolf's white shirt, the woman started towards the door, but then suddenly changed her mind an returned back to the table, telling him how he should go to ask the landlady for food and even though it was not as much of an order as the ones she had graced him with before, there was still a stern decisiveness to her hoarse tone that caused the man to narrow his eyes in rebellion. He had expected her to say something about the events of the previous night, maybe have her attack him over them, but instead the only things he could think of were covering her body and then, procuring food. He was an officer, she told him mirthfully, next pulling the tunic from his hands without even bothering to witnessing his reaction, the woman's determined steps already taking her towards the bathroom. The initial irritation that had glinted in his eyes and started twisting his lips at the woman's insolence was next changed into an expression of bewildered amusement, a mixture of a scoff and a chuckle rising from his throat as he meant to tell the woman that he could hardly go to the landlady with half of his clothes missing... but then he realized that this was entirely what the woman was meaning to have him do and the affronted smile died away from his lips, his hands falling to his sides and hanging there, powerless. The woman stole a glance at him, smirking with obvious delight over his plight and Rolf blinked back at her, his own expression suddenly very serious. "Riede-" the man started, but then the door had already shut behind the woman and Rolf had been standing alone, a desperate task looming upon him.

He could have followed her and pried the door open, barking angry words at him, but then it would have appeared too much as if Rolf would not dare to meet the challenge she had issued him with, that he was somehow afraid and ashamed to confront the landlady - a person whose opinions were completely insignificant to Rolf. An angry snarl drew across the man's lips as he stared towards the bathroom for a moment, his eyes hatefully flicking towards the door leading outside into the corridor next, and the Hauptmann's fingers curled into light fists as he fumed at the woman's wretched insolence. "Natürlich jetzt bin ich ein Offizier; wann auch immer es Ihnen am besten anpasst, DANN bin ich ein Offizier," the man growled low under his breath, looking around on an instinct for something to wear but of course; the woman had taken both his shirt and tunic with her and the boots that she had left behind were simply meaningless now. Rolf's grey eyes narrowed and with a low growl, the pilot stood up straighter, his chin tilting up as he headed for the door and closed it behind him.

The moment the door snapped shut, Rolf felt some of his confidence faltering, and he glanced behind himself with no small amount of apprehension, some part of him wishing to return back into the safe confines of the room, but of course, his pride could simply not allow him such. He snatched the cigarette from his mouth, glanced around and then extinguished the cigarette on the doorframe, allowing it to drop upon the floor. Wearing nothing but his military-issue trousers, Rolf started trudging down the stairs and steeling himself for the upcoming awkward confrontation with each step he took, but then... the desk was empty. Rolf stopped next to the wooden desk and breathed out in relief, for the landlady was not there and hence, there was nobody to ask for food and then he could simply turn back and never- The sudden click of something wooden was enough to cause the man jolt visibly on his spot and then the landlady had suddenly appeared to stand behind the desk, staring.... just staring at him. Rolf's scarred eyebrow inched upwards as he attempted to decipher the sentiments behind that unbreaking stare and then he slowly lifted them both to communicate this very confusion of not understanding the elder woman's state of mind. She was certainly not pleased by the Hauptmann's appearance, nor his presence, or maybe even not the fact that he had chosen this very building as the base of his frequent visits, always accompanied the same - often drunken and half-naked - woman as he was. Glancing somewhere to his side, Rolf allowed his eyebrows to remain raised and his face settled into an overly carefree expression as he placed one hand over the counter and regarded the landlady. "Entschuldigung. Ich..." Rolf's words died in his throat the moment he saw the look on the elder woman's face only turning into a clearly disapproving one and she eyed him closely as if he had been the beaten, mangy corpse of a stray dog forgotten upon the steps of her building. Arguably, Rolf could have appeared in the lobby looking a bit more presentable, but whether he was half-clothed or not should have hardly mattered to the landlady! He had always paid her good money for the room, even going above the standard fee to make sure that no grumbled words about the nature of the German officer's company would be heard outside the premises of this very building.

Rolf glanced somewhere to his side, eyebrows still raised, and his mouth opened and closed as he attempted to recollect the reasons behind this rather humiliating visit, but then again... why should have allowed her scornful gaze to affect him the least, he cared not of her opinion! The man's eyes snapped back at the landlady and he stood up straighter and his grey eyes glinting with challenge did he address her once more, a sudden sharpness now dominating the tone of his hoarse voice as he stared back at her. "Ich brauche etwas um zu essen. Das muss nicht viel, vielleicht gerade etwas Frucht sein. Ich bin sicher, dass Sie etwas haben. Und ich werde natürlich zahlen," Rolf told her and when a sudden thought entered his mind, he tilted his head slowly to the side. "Mit Geld." He did not want his current state to create any false images of him, for he was still very much a German officer, a man of great pride and dignity, even if he appeared like some... half-clothed, bruised fool with an untidy stubble and hair that stood up in all different directions. The landlady said nothing and instead only turned around, disappearing back inside the room she had so surprisingly appeared from and Rolf nimbly raised a hand to run it through his hair, full well understanding that such a shallow attempt of making himself look any more presentable was completely useless. His grey eyes skipped towards the door and his fingertips dug into the texture of the wooden desk as he just waited for that door to open and someone to burst in through it; maybe someone he knew, maybe someone from the Luftwaffe, laughing and talking just before they would notice Rolf standing there and then... he would never hear the end of it. The man was far too consumed by these thoughts to even notice that the landlady had returned and upon placing a small bundle of cloth upon the desk, she cleared her throat and Rolf jumped - again - at her silent appearance. He eyed the small package wrapped in cloth, then the landlady, and his hand inched towards the bundle, snatching it from the table in one fast motion as if he was expecting the landlady to grasp him by his arm if he did not act fast enough. He was not sure where such an idea even stemmed from, but it must have had something to do with the disapproving, almost disgusted glint that inhabited the elder woman's eyes and Rolf realized that maybe he had a little more information of the events from the previous night than he might have wanted to shared with anyone... but then, the previous night he had not exactly been in a frame of mind to worry about the noises carrying from the room, his attention far too consumed by his hungry, blinding lust. But what did it matter, anyway? It was only Libya.

"Gut. Ich werde sobald wir... Ich reise ab," the man commented, correcting himself in a futile and completely senseless attempt to make it seem as if he had rented the room for himself, for the landlady had plainly seen the woman in his company the previous night. Rolf could see how the woman's eyes inched towards his shoulder and Rolf remembered how Riedel's teeth had forcefully clamped upon his skin, the marks still slightly tingling whenever he would shift his shoulder. "Ein Hund biss mich!" Rolf growled at the landlady, the woman merely blinking at his nonsensical answer in silence just before the man turned around and stormed back up the stairs, her affronted glare still burning upon his back when he had reached the door of the rented room.

Riedel was just walking towards the window when Rolf pushed the door open, the man ready to bark angry words at her for forcing him to carry out such a pitiful task at the price of his very dignity and he slammed the door shut forcefully, the feral growl already stirring within his throat. Instead of forcing the irritated snarl upon her, his eyes fixated upon her pale calves and on the form of her body as it was drawn beneath the shirt, the sunlight sifting through the white canvas revealing the shadows of the curves hidden beneath. The onyx hair that fell in lazy curves over her shoulders appeared foreign, the characteristic not something that Rolf was used to seeing in her, but then it did not seem too unpleasing either and he drank in the sight of the golden light caressing her bare skin, the image of the woman concentrated on laying out his tunic upon the window sill to dry nudging at something within him. The imagery was strangely calming, making him feel as if he had arrived home, but it was not the home he had in Stuttgart but one existing in some other reality, the concept of this home more ethereal and intangible. Maybe this short-lived feeling caused the man to merely stare at the woman in silence, watching as she drew open the drapes, the canvas of the shirt shifting momentarily upwards to reveal more of the backs of her thighs. After the woman had finished with her task and walked back to the table, the irritation still lingered in the man's gaze, but the worst brunt of his anger was gone and he only approached the woman and handed her the bundle the landlady had given him. His attention was still held by her serene appearance and by the appearance of the tiny freckles in the morning light, his ears perking up at the light, relaxed sound of her laughter when she saw the food Rolf had managed to procure for her. If she had witnessed the annoyance Rolf still felt over his demeaning task, she simply did not care about it, her attention more focused on propping herself up upon the table, picking up a banana and starting to peel it open.

Rolf could not help himself from simply staring at the woman as she prodded at the fruit with her finger, its creamy texture molding and yielding to that touch and the fruit slicing into three different pieces. The man's Adam's apple bobbed in an involuntarily swallowing motion as his eyes remained fixated on the woman's task of dividing the fruit and digging into it and the room felt very heated suddenly, either due to the increased force of the sunlight slowly warming up the humble space of the room, or maybe the warmth was coming from within the man himself, his grey eyes sharpened to carefully observe even the smallest gesture of her fingers. Rolf had suddenly been reminded of another kind of touch of hers and as irritated as he had been just moments, he could no longer remember why he would have ever felt infuriated on such a captivating morning, the reasons behind his irritation being pushed to oblivion with each stroke of the woman's fingers. When her hand slid towards him to offer him a small slice of the fruit, Rolf's natural reaction of flinching back was evident only as a small twitch in the corner of his eyes, but then he happily allowed his lips to close over the woman's fingers and he savoured the sweet taste of the fruit, lapping it up with his tongue and allowing it to brush over her fingers in the process. A slow grumble of delight followed that motion and when Riedel smiled, a small and careful smile was coaxed upon his lips, too, the man's eyes glinting with simple enjoyment and mirth. When he felt her legs pulling him closer, he followed the motion and pressed his abdomen against her, the warmth radiated and transferred from her to his bare skin feeling strangely calming and almost cathartic in its genuine quality. When she offered him another piece of the fruit, he consumed it eagerly and this time, provided a small suction upon them before they slid away, his increasingly burning gaze boring into her irises of clear viridian.

The third time she even allowed him to properly bite into the soft flesh of the fruit, but then she claimed the other half and bit into it, soft lips brushing against his in that sweet, agonizing exchange, her tongue further drawing against his and Rolf consumed the offering in all of its nectarous essence. A low grumble of resistance formed in his throat when the woman pulled her head away from his, settling into enjoying the rest of the fruit she had shared with him in that curiously relaxed and calm state of his. Rolf felt anything but complacent right now, for his own appetite had been rekindled and he could not settle for such a passing contact anymore and he needed to drink her in properly. He swallowed down the rest of the sweet fruit in a hurry and his grey eyes flashed with sudden, unrecognized need for another dose of her closeness and then his hand had already settled upon her cheek, the man's head inching towards hers to recreate the previous contact. His lips inched open and he allowed himself to breathe into her at first, his mouth lingering but a few meaningless centimeters away from the woman's, but then he was too impatient to wait much longer and his lips brushed against hers, soon binding the humid contact with a more distinct force. There was warmth in that exchange and this time Rolf allowed himself to experience it, his tongue only occasionally prodding at hers and his head tilting just slightly to the side, the coarse bristles on his chin brushing against her skin with the motion. He was fast finding out that he could never be quite satisfied, at least not for a very long time, and that he once more needed more of her, all of her, and even though this hunger was only a dull, distant gnawing somewhere in the pit of his stomach at the moment, he knew it would grow in force soon enough. He breathed out with a low grumble and his hand inched to rest at her thigh, the fingertips only faintly stroking at the skin while his other hand brushed over the woman's cheek and neck. There was uncommon tenderness to the man's touch and warmth, reliance, curiosity, sentiments which the man would have hardly ever chosen to demonstrate to anyone else but her and then, not even to Riedel had it not been for the intoxicating quality of her actions, how confiding and honest they were. His fingertips drew lazy paths upon the woman's thigh, the thumb occasionally applying for more pressure while the man enjoyed the hungry contact, his grey eyes half-closed. His tongue teased at hers, the man's breathing growing more distinct at the prodding motion and Rolf felt alive and warm, something comfortable stirring inside him and urging him to drown himself further in that comforting reality, his exhale coming out in a suppressed shudder while his fingers crawled to the back of the woman's neck.

When he broke the contact to breathe out more properly, he had all the intentions of renewing it and the sentiment was evident in his eyes for those brief seconds he still allowed himself to exist in her warming solace, but then... it was far too benign for him, wasn't it? The doubt was nothing but a lingering twinge in the corner of the man's eyes, but after he had allowed it to manifest itself, it soon grew in force and become open apprehension and alarm, the hand upon the woman's neck trembling and then withdrawing quickly, as if on queue to some inner pain he felt. It was not the first time Rolf had felt this way, to be drawn into something that appeared so very enlivening and safe just to have some inner voice of his to warn him of the consequences and he breathed out sharply as he stared at the woman, the man's eyebrows curved in open confusion and trepidation. "Was ist es?" he growled hoarsely as his gaze skittered on her features feverishly, attempting to spot any outward signs of her treachery in effort to recognize them before she could attack him. "Was?" he barked more forcefully this time and then he withdrew his hands, pushing her legs away and prying free from that hold he had so openly enjoyed just a few seconds ago. The man's chest was suddenly heaving up and down along with his quickened breathing and he remained a step away from the woman sat upon the table. "Ist dieser Teil von einem großen Plan von euch? Ist das es?" the man asked fervently, teeth bared upon the question as his paranoia-filled gazed still sought hers for the answers he needed. He could not spot a benign thing when it crossed his path and he could not bend his mind into understanding it, so very foreign were the concepts of happiness and peace. His mind was building up the defences of anger and mistrust more rapidly now and with his heart thumping heavily against his ribcage, Rolf stepped further away from her as he imagined how she would soon laugh at him, jeer at him and reveal to Rolf just how she had been planning on ridiculing him in some way.

To anyone else it might have appeared like the most laughable concept, but Rolf's mind had created a trap for him that had him walking in cycles, so that whenever he should allow himself to strip himself of the prejudices and doubts that chained him, they would only attack him with renewed force and he became a servant of their whims, their violent caprices and hateful whispers. Rolf had not forgotten the very genuine quality attached to her actions, but then it took nothing but the force of his own illusions to look past them, to twist them and turn them into something he could more easily understand. When he could not wrap his mind around the concept of genuine warmth and caring, it was easier for him to simply imagine things from a viewpoint more familiar to him and as treachery and ruthlessness were something he had been well-schooled during his life, those were the perceptions he found it the easiest settling with. His blood ran cold at the prospect of being so ridiculed when he had so foolishly allowed himself to trust in her, even if had been for the smallest of moments, for it had certainly been nothing but open trust that had passed between them the previous night and again now that he had succumbed into her and allowed himself to feel tranquil and easy at her presence. Even through his suspicion he could not forget those brief but meaningful moments that they had shared and they insisted on him to change his mind, to take that one critical step and simply drop his defences once more... but then, it was too much to ask of him. It was as difficult as it was painful to even think that such blind trust could have been expected from him and he allowed his mind to grasp at the treacherous images once more until they had strengthened and become convincing enough to further incite his inner turmoil. He felt desperation at having been betrayed, then furious at the cruelty of her plot - whatever its ultimate goal was - and then the feelings mixed into one, the man's chin quivering at the barely contained affront while his bare chest heaved rapidly at his inner dismay. "Wenn Sie denken dass ich bin dass leicht, Spaß zu machen, Sie können wieder denken," Rolf snarled like an animal cornered and forced to face its foe, his voice communicating his complete readiness to battle whatever was thrown at him and the steel-grey of his eyes glinted sharp and feral, the man's fingertips curling and then relaxing at the instinctive reaction of forming them into fists.

"Wiedergeben Sie mir mein Hemd," the man demanded with a hoarse growl, taking one bold step towards the woman, then another one that seemed just slightly more apprehensive than the first one, but he would not give up; his mind was too settled on regaining control of both himself and the situation. "Wiedergeben es!" He closed the distance between them once more, but this time his hands shot out violently at the shirt, fingers curling around the lapels that had been left unbuttoned by her and his grey eyes burned with his inner turmoil, the man's lips drawn into a small sneer. Rolf tugged at the canvas demandingly, commandingly, warning the woman with that one savage glance to yield and comply, lest that possessive tug should suddenly turn into a more violent one.

Translations:

"Natürlich jetzt bin ich ein Offizier; wann auch immer es Ihnen am besten anpasst, DANN bin ich ein Offizier."
"Of course, now I'm an officer; whenever it suits you best, THEN I'm an officer."

"Ich brauche etwas um zu essen. Das muss nicht viel, vielleicht gerade etwas Frucht sein. Ich bin sicher, dass Sie etwas haben. Und ich werde natürlich zahlen. Mit Geld."
"I need some food. It doesn't have to be much, maybe just some fruit. I'm sure you have something. And I'll pay, of course. With money."

"Gut. Ich werde sobald wir... Ich reise ab."
"Good. I will pay once we... I leave."

"Ein Hund biss mich!"
"A dog bit me!"

"Was ist es? Was?"
"What is it? What?"

"Ist dieser Teil von einem großen Plan von euch? Ist das es?"
"Is this part of some great plan of yours? Is that it?"

"Wenn Sie denken dass ich bin dass leicht, Spaß zu machen, Sie können wieder denken."
"If you think that I'm that easy to fool, you can think again."

"Wiedergeben Sie mir mein Hemd. Wiedergeben es!"
"Give me back my shirt. Give it back!"

[Dirk Riedel]

The woman swallowed the part of the slice she had bit from his mouth, but in the next moment there was nothing else she could do when she felt the man’s hand moving to rest by her cheek, the pilot suddenly leaning himself forwards and closing the distance between them, at first his warm breath tingling her lips a second before he also minimalised that gap and kissed her; the hand holding the fruit lowered and she absentmindedly motioned it closer to the table where she eventually lay it, and then clasped her arms around his neck as she returned the gesture in open closeness, breathing into him and feeling his needed hand trace gentle strokes down her neck. The fingers of each hand held him from the nape of his neck and caressed him fondly, slowly, quietly, as his face rolled around and he drew her closer, drawing from her calmness, breathing from her comfort and gradually sinking into softly rippling waves of relief and comfort; the palm of his hand was cold at first as it rested upon her thigh, but then her warmth was imparted on to him and that comforting embrace surrounded her, filled her and consoled her furthermore, his touch secure and calming, and rendering her mind useless to any other insignificant pieces of information or duties she had to tend to before long, all military matters forgotten, her family, her troubles, the endless line of chores and tasks, the command of authority, the burden of the false identity, all somewhere drowned into a pool of temporary oblivion upon the tender contact of tongues and his mildly forceful approach growing into something a little more demanding but still ever retaining its slow, firm and gentle motion. The bristles of his face brushed against her skin but they were only ever adornments, and their touch was not of a grating thorny quality but a tender stroke of her face as they moved in motion, his nose brushing against her in flawless harmony and the symmetry of the contact only ever accentuated by the slow and quiet rhythmic movement that wanted nothing, demanded nothing, but yet not entirely selfless was it, and not entirely selfish, either. Her fingers stroked the veins in the back of his strong, thick neck; he led, she followed. It was so very simple, so truly uncomplicated to simply follow that motion that for moments the sunlight gleamed upon the top of their heads, sifted in between the narrow gap in their necks and there rested, warming the room slowly as it penetrated the space from the open glass window, casting small shadows here and there upon its arrival those early hours of dawn.

She breathed deeply once he pulled away, her lips still clinging on to his lower lip when they realized the parting, and then gazed into him, silently, in a moment her body instinctively leaning forward to resume the contact – the desire clear in his eyes as he stared back at her – but then something shifted inside her upon witnessing that subtle familiar gleam of his eyes, the faint tremble of his fingertips against her skin and, then, quite without warning, he rapidly pulled his hands away from her and his snarl filled the room with the quick, abrupt and sharp quality of a razor, his reaction as unpredictable as she was not familiarized whatsoever with anyone showing such erratic behaviour before she had met him; he immediately drew his distance and defensively broke free from her, forcing himself apart and moving backwards to create that protective sphere against her as though she had been prepared to rake her claws all over him and bleed him with her fangs, but the woman only ever stood in her place, unresponsive and quiet, her eyebrows curving above eyes of palest green to frown at him as she stared curiously at his shrinking figure, and despite the outward calmness the inner infuriation was building up inside her very slowly, almost without realizing so, as he barked at her rabidly, accused her, demanded of her to tell him something which she knew not how to respond to; she did not know what she was supposed to say, even momentarily believed he was pulling a bad joke but then in reality she knew very well he was being very serious, that this was him, this was how he acted, the way his mind functioned, the manner in which his entire world had been built to best meet his expectations. Yes, he accused her what was up with ‘it’, and what that was exactly the woman could not tell, his growling snarl hostile and his hackles raised at her as he barked at her more, accused her, attacked her, demanded what it was about.

What her plan was.

Her glower froze upon his paranoid countenance, and something broke inside her at his sudden suspicions even if she only appeared progressively angrier second by second the more his act continued, her eyes slowly narrowing and glaring at him evidently, but the man had now succumbed into a fit of delusions and would simply hear nothing if she had to say anything, would have completely drowned out her voice if she had decided to calm him down, and so she only openly stared at him in unspoken disbelief, her lips formed into a severe, stern straight line and her eyes widening after each accusation, now telling her that she was fooling him, of course, that she was the evil witch in his world of fairytales and he was the gallant knight, the hero of the story, was he not, the handsome and brave prince who mounted upon his horse to save the damsel in distress, and she was but the ugly hag with the wrinkles and the warts, who wanted to devour Hansel and Gretel, who wanted to poison him, the Lamya that intended to attack and savagely eat his insides and digest from his stomach – what on earth did he see her as? She might have appeared stone-cold on the outside and unaffected, but only her heart knew that he hurt her, and with each word of aggression he spat something inside her shrank and perished slowly, but he was merciless in his venom and how cruel that he believed he was the one suffering from the noxious quality of her vitriol when she was the one receiving the bite, instead, and it stung, twisted in her veins and spread around her with the force of incurable illness and affliction, the woman paralyzed in her spot, and it was only when he suddenly burst forwards and demanded his shirt back when some form of life was finally forced into her as he grasped at the lapels of the garment, her numb fingertips gaining life and motion as she stared at him, and how much evident hatred was in that cold, steel-iron face, how much disgust and utter loathing.

He commanded of her to pull out his shirt, even savagely pushed at the cloth and his burning eyes bore into her little embers of burning coal searing through her irises, but she remained unmoving and quiet, until, in the next second, her right hand rose and sternly curled around his wrist, that simple motion rendering his touch ineffective, the inner hatred now presenting itself in the form of physical force empowering her to hold his arm still, and her severe gaze was unblinking, uncompromising, and ever as thoughtful. It was not the first time she had witnessed such a reaction; even as much back as the time during their stay in the hospital the man had flinched back in his bed when she had motioned closer to him in an instinctive attempt to place her hand upon his heart and feel his heartbeat, and many more times had he allowed for that closeness to blossom before he savagely tore it apart, drenched in the agony of his fears and mistrust, the primal call for an animalistic need to shield himself from a potential foe scratching inside his viscera and claiming the better part of his judgement, stripping him of common sense or even sentiment, and how well she knew that very distinct gleam of his eyes that silently spoke to her of his apprehension, his timidity, that side of him he wanted to shield the most, the vulnerability no person would ever imagine the man possessed in all of his proud, arrogant and undefeatable posture that was as imposing as that of a rigid hunter refusing to surrender at the task of bringing his prey to surrender. He had relaxed himself and offered her a window into his soul when she approached him all those weeks ago, in this very same room, lying on the mattress and breathing very closely next to him, refusing to touch him on the grounds she was striving hard not to fall over that brink that would lead her into his dark embrace lest she would forget of her current military tasks and be distracted with his presence, and once she had stopped had he not really raised his walls back up and defensively drew her away? It had been the same question, always the same. What is this. And really, what was it?

In a different time she would have tried to reason with him calmly; in a different time she would have ignored him, laughed at him and then left him alone to die in his own mindless misapprehensions and drown in his various, wild delusions. But not this time, and not this hour. Her grip around his wrist tightened extensively, her nails digging into his skin, enough to leave marks at their wake, and slowly, very slowly she began to force his one hand away from the lapel and her eyes never left his for a mere moment, her disbelief and rage so effortlessly molded into quietly brewing rage that simmered and frothed within the blood channeled throughout her veins and pumping into her heart. She moved his hand away in that simple, single and unyielding motion, and she controlled her heaving to be calm and unbroken as she felt herself quickly falling into that spiral of sentiments she had on several occasions before. She ought to have talked to him, perhaps, any other woman might have pleaded with him to understand, begged of him to see the truth in her eyes and how she never wished to do him any harm, attempted her best to persuade him she had no befouling intentions within her mind and that, assuredly, he must learn to struggle against such ill-founded suspicions that made him question each and every thing she did; even exercised sheer efforts to prove to him how wrong he was. But not her. Someone else might have resorted to these pitiful, ineffective measures, but not her. She gazed at him silently, her silence painful, almost ominous, and her eyes forbidding and hostile, cold and glassy, and her mind racing, racing and pivoting around his presence. Why waste her efforts in talking to him when she knew exactly how to bring him round from his bout of insolent stupidity.

And so she slapped him.

The strike was sharp and forceful as it threw his face to the side, and she glared at him quietly, but then he had no time to properly turn his head around and face her when it was then thrown towards the opposite direction with a distinct, stinging force, the second strike more brutal and agonizing, and her lips pursed. She awaited for a second, two seconds, but then she could not help it – no! – and she slapped him again. “Plan,” she breathed, clearly offended. “Plan!” she barked at him, and a fourth slap hit him straight across his cheek and threw him aside again, her rage slowly but surely surfacing and beginning to unshackle itself from the bonds of self-restraint she had endeavoured to exercise upon herself. “Ist das was Sie wollen? Ist das es?” she demanded sharply. “Ist das was Sie wirklich mich bitten, zu tun, auf Ihnen zu stampfen, Sie zu verletzen?” she barked at him, her eyes glowering at him with such hatred and hurt, that more instinctively than not her hand struck at his face again. She watched him closely as he slowly brought his head around to confront her, and her glower was as hateful and pained as spoke to him of both interwoven sensations, even if she only meted out her punishment upon his impertinent figure. How dare he! How dare he ever question her motives, ever take her and then treat her as if she were the evil-doer, for it would have been better if he had treated her like filth, at least then she would have acknowledged he was acting in his usual manners, but to accuse her of such despicable conniving plans, her, who had ever been as open and honest with him, accuse her of things only his corrupt, deceitful mind was capable of! The mere notion of this was laughable and best and most humiliating and enraging at worst! “Wollen Sie, dass ich Sie verletze, wollen Sie, dass ich es absichtlich gerade tue, so können Sie sich selbst bestätigen?” she sharply told him, her tone dictating him for an answer she did not want to hear, but she already knew it to begin with, and how vain he was, how feeble and deeply lamentable in the illusions he fed himself and how an unimaginable force had grasped its icy fingers around her heart and commanded her to tear him apart just to teach him for the last time who was fit for his doubting, who deserved his respect and trust, and who deserved neither. “Weil Sie es nicht wirklich glauben, stimmt dass? setzen Sie nur fort, sich diese mitleidsvollen Lügen zu füttern, weil es Sie lässt sich besser fühlen, weil Sie noch ebenso verwirrt sind, wie Sie jemals waren, weil Sie Angst haben! Sie haben Angst, und Sie können nicht den Gedanken sogar tragen es gibt etwas, um zu konfrontieren, der wahr und, so tief in der Vorrichtung und Betrug echt ist, der Sie sind!” she shouted at him in her barking tone, and if any thought passed in his nonsensical mind that she was done then soon it was proven otherwise when her hand collided against his face for yet another time, her palm almost glued at his skin when she struck him in that unsparing and vicious slap, in her fury the woman hardly ever registering the growing redness of his skin.

“Hören Sie auf, das zu sich selbst zu tun, es aufhören! Sie sind nicht der Bengel der Geschichte, es gibt keine Geschichte!” she barked at him, and the tips of her fingers inched for another strike, but then her hand simply hovered midair as she glared at him, simply sat upon the edge of the desk and he against her, her other hand clasping him by his arm in case he suddenly were to find it fitting to simple flee. “Es gibt nur Sie, und mich, und nichts anderes,” she very clearly explained to him through gritted teeth. “Nichts anderes, nichts, tut Sie sehen! Sie geben sich verzweifelt große Mühe, um Falschheit in allem um Sie zu finden, aber ich habe Ihnen gegeben kein Grund, Sie! zu tun, will, dass ich gehe? Lassen Sie Sie allein und lassen Sie Sie in Ihrer dummen Unabhängigkeit ersticken und nie sich umdrehen, um Ihnen einen einzelnen Scheißblick zu geben, ist dass es?” she asked him fervidly, her eyes wide open and the veins across her arms popping out from the sheer force she exerted to get her message across, and when she had to swallow at a simple reactionary gesture her dry throat complained, and it ached her. “So, stimmt dass?” she insisted, and both hands grasped at his shoulders and shook him, but there was no answer, and she needed no answer.

She heaved more laboriously now, and her chest rose and fell with each breath she took, but when she suddenly stretched her legs around him and pushed him forcefully against her there was only fierce determination to further accentuate the weight of her words. “Ich habe Ihnen alles gegeben, dass ich, alles habe, Sie haben alles von mir, und nachdem alles Sie noch Scheißfrage ich genommen!” she cried furiously, her fingers coiling around his neck and the thumbs pressed against his jugular with the force as the one of her calves wrapping themselves below his waistline to lock him against her grip. She had let him escape in the past, she had made mistakes in her treatment of him, and not cared enough to pressure him into confronting that which he most deeply resented to confront, the momentary intimate contact ending in a fiasco of hatred, rage and violence, but not now, not this hour – it was too late to leave, and he was too insolent to deserve a reprieve. “Sie haben einen Nerv, um so viel von einem Dreck zu sein, nicht Sie zu tun! So was jetzt sind wir zurück meinem Vater, der mich jedem Mann im Dorf und Ihnen ausverkauft, soviel von einer Scheide seiend, wie dachte ich, dass Sie waren?” she demanded furiously, her tone biting and her voice brusque and unforgiving, but then her right hand loosened its grasp of his neck for the sole reason of striking against his face, but this time she quickly reached and brought his head around to force him into facing her, her movement sharp as she did so and even might have strained a few nerves and veins at the side of his neck, but the incensed woman was beside herself and did not care in the slightest. The growling man was no more an animal than she was, but she had a very clear clarity of purpose attached to each action she took; and only punishment would communicate to him of precisely what she would never tolerate to listen to again. She had ignored it before and chosen to let him be as it was, but not anymore, this was the end, and she would not allow it!

Her mouth was hanging open from the bout of violence she was executing, and eyes of glinting green shone in the strengthened sunlight sardonically sifting to beam upon their figures as if the happiest form of human interaction was just growing to fruition! “Sie bezweifeln mich noch, Sie misstrauen mir, und ich habe Ihnen irgendwelche Gründe für diesen Abfall nie gegeben! Ich bin die nur ein gewesen, um schön zu sein, und gerade mit Ihnen, ich log nie zu Ihnen, ich war immer ehrlich, offen, anspruchslos, und Sie schätzen es so?” she shouted hoarsely, her voice having raised to such a level at this point that her holler resounded from each wall of the room in all of its guttural, grating quality, powerful and blaring enough to be carried through the corridors – and then she slapped him again! “Ich sollte die letzte Person gewesen sein, der Sie jemals mit Ihrem shitbag einer Meinung würden misstrauen müssen! Irgendjemand anderer, Ja, aber nicht ich – lügen alle jene Arschkriecher, die Sie wie Ratten umlaufen, jene die Ihnen nichts geben, nichts als und Hochmut, aber sie sind gerade für Sie vollkommen!” – and slapped him again – “Und Sie haben nur jemals ein Problem mit mir?” she bellowed in utter disbelief, and her chest rose in motion when she raised her hand and struck at the other side of his face, ruthlessly, hard and with a vicious, rigid fervour that resonated in that bash. “Jetzt können Sie dazu Scheiße-Loch einer Familie zurückgehen, die Sie zurück darin Scheiße-Hausvon euch haben und sie beschuldigen, warum sie Sie jemals so gebumst im Kopf enden lassen, aber nicht tun, wagen Sie jemals, mich wieder zu bezweifeln!” she shouted, absolutely overcome with nothing but the most tainted forms of rage, and her hands clasped at his shoulders and forced him closer to her, her breathing heavy and erratic, but she wanted his attention, she wanted to make herself very, very clear. And with another strike she sent his face to the side in that resounding echo, the biting force of her punishment ruthless and unforgiving. Yes, unforgiving! Her fingers forced him to confront her once more, and curled around his chin as she brought him forwards. Her heated breath tingled his nose and she stared at him for a second or two, trying to catch her heartbeat, but then her nails dug into his skin painfully. “Sie haben jeden Abfall, den Sie teilen wollen, Sie hatten besser richten sie statt meiner, weil, wenn Sie mich jemals mit Ihrer erbärmlichen Unsicherheit wieder unordentlich verstreuen, ich schwöre, dass ich Fetzen Sie auseinander!” she barked at him in a warning tone, her teeth gritted. “Auseinander!” she hissed, and as she attempted to catch her breath she observed his reddened face, the marks all over and the stinging evident, and she held him very closely in her hands, until they slowly loosened their hold around him.

Slowly, and heaving, the woman let them trace a leisurely pathway around at his back, and completely contrasted to her punishing hand only a moment ago, her fingers were tender as they travelled at the skin and she pulled him closer against her, her other hand circling around his head and pressing around his head for comfort as she let him rest his weakened head on her shoulder and recline against her, her cheek touching at his stubble, and she stared into the wall opposite them, her eyes very clear and gleaming green. She breathed out calmly and embraced him, her hold firm and stern, but still soft as dramatically contradicted her former hold of him, before she shifted her head to the side and let her lips brush at his ear, her warm breath tingling the skin before she kissed it. “Gerade kommen … zu mir zurück,” she whispered softly at his ear, and slowly began to trace a path of slow, devoted kisses across his cheek. “Es gibt kein Bedürfnis, sich in diesem Zimmer zu verlieren. In diesem Zimmer gibt es nur Sie und mich,” she assured him in a calm tone, and moved to the corner of his lips, one hand holding his head while the other still very firmly pressed against his back, her fingers spread to feel the skin. “Ich verspreche nur Sie und ich. Ich verspreche,” she said, and then she kissed him.




Translation

Plan. Plan! Is this what you want? Is that it? Is this what you really beg of me to do, to stomp on you, to injure you? Do you want me to hurt you, do you want me to do it on purpose just so you can prove yourself right? Because you don’t really believe it, do you? You only keep feeding yourself these pitiful lies because it makes you feel better, because you are still as confused as you ever were, because you are afraid! You are afraid and you can’t even bear the thought there is something to confront that is true and genuine, so deep in contrivance and deception you are!

Stop doing this to yourself, stop it! You are not the story’s villain, there is no story! There is only you, and me, and nothing else. Nothing else, nothing, do you see! You desperately try so hard to find falseness in everything around you, but I have given you no reason to! Do you want me to go? Leave you alone and let you smother in your stupid self-sufficiency and never turn around to give you a single fucking look, is that it? Well, do you?

I have given you everything I have, everything, you have taken all of me, and after everything you still fucking question me! You have some nerve to be that much of a muck, don’t you! So what now, are we back to my father selling me off to every man in the village and you being as much of a cunt as I thought you were?

You still doubt me, you mistrust me, and I have never given you any grounds for this rubbish! I have been the only one to be fair and just with you, I never lied to you, I was always honest, open, unpretentious, and you value it so? I should have been the last person you would ever have to distrust with your shitbag of a mind! Any one else, yes, but not me – all those ass-kissers that run around you like rats, those fuckwits that give you nothing, nothing but lies and vanity, but they are just perfect for you! And you only ever have a problem with me?

Now you can go back to that shithole of a family you have back in that shithouse of yours and accuse them why they ever let you end up so fucked in the head, but don’t you ever dare doubt me again! You have any trash you want to share, you had better address them instead of me because if you ever litter me with your pathetic insecurities again I swear I will shred you to pieces! To pieces!

Just … come back to me. There is no need to lose yourself in this room. In this room there is only you and me. I promise, only you and me. I promise.

[Rolf Jäger]

Determinate fingers curled around the pilot's wrist, the pressure of the fingers merely confident at first, then commanding and brutal and Rolf's eyes flashed with open surprise and maybe he had expected some form of submission and obedience, for there was no sense in fighting in a situation such as this. Riedel simply looked back at him, far too silent and determined to bode anything well and feeling more apprehensive once more, Rolf attempted to nudge his hand free from her hold, but her grip was surprisingly strong. When her nails dug into the skin of his wrist, the man sneered and growled at her painful challenge and his muscles already contracted and readied for the violence that would no doubt ensue the very next moment, but he soon found out that Riedel's actions were controlled by such an amount of cold, calculated anger as the man himself could have never hoped to conjure. She pulled his hand away from the lapel of the white shirt and Rolf glanced at her hand and at his own, even through his anger blinking at the amount of strength stored in her muscles. He had been introduced to that raw power the very night they had first met, when he had attempted to forcefully claim her as his own and then suffered the inevitable consequences that had followed, Riedel's hand dealing with him swiftly and brutally, but he still found himself just as surprised as on that occasion when he felt her iron grip clasping around his wrist.

Rolf attempted to gather his anger through that sudden confusion and his lips drew to reveal a set of teeth grit into a feral snarl, the man's grey eyes blazing with fury as they bore into her irises of clearest, coldest green and like two feral beasts they were locked in that anticipating hold, the man's other hand still distinctly grasping at the lapel of the shirt, while the woman had forced the other hand away, her grasp still as unyielding as before. The air in the room stood still and oppressing and the golden sunlight gently sifting through the windowpane seemed to exist for the mere purpose of mocking the nature of the situation, the premises appearing far too peaceful and benign for the savage confrontation that loomed ahead. Still, Rolf had hardly any time to react when the woman's hand suddenly cut through the air and a swift slap caught him across his face, his head thrown aside by the force of the strike and he blinked, his eyes widened and staring somewhere to the side while he attempted to understand just what exactly had hit him. He breathed out and attempted to somehow clear his head from the ringing force of the strike, the woman's attack having caught him completely defenseless even regarding the fact that he had known to expect something hostile from her. The man's eyes glinted with anger rekindled and he brought his head around, ready to return to that violence and to further assault her with his venomous words, but then another strike tossed his head to the side, this time to the opposite direction, and he lost the grasp of his wrath once more. He grunted, blinked and stared into nothingness with widened eyes, attempting to bring his head around once more, but no - a third strike was just waiting for him, then a fourth, all of them as equally vicious as the first one had been. She repeated Rolf's words about her plan with no small amount of disgust and then asked him whether he really wished for her to injure him, another brutal strike stinging at his skin once more.

The man felt lightheaded and he had forgotten about his fury, her attacks too rapid, numerous and unexpected to allow him even enough time to gather his wits once more and he breathed out sharply, blinking and attempting to focus his eyes upon the woman's hateful countenance. He had not expected such a furious reaction from the woman, even knowing that it would hardly be a positive and benign one and when she once more inquired of him whether he wished to be hurt by her, he was not sure. He was not sure if it was pain he wanted to feel, or pleasure, or maybe comfort and safety, yet where they not really all the same sentiments in the end in his completely muddled mind? Maybe he wanted her to hurt him just in order to feel something, that desperate ache for any real contact between himself and another person too complicated for him to properly understand; or maybe he could not even make the distinction between pain and any other feeling any longer, both hatred and affection cutting him with the same, agonizing force when he succumbed into them. He was still slowly contemplating on the differences between these feelings, when another strike caught him across his face and the bristled skin on his face felt both stinging and numb from the contiunous abuse it had been subjected to. Once more did she accuse him of being afraid, pointing out how he could not stand facing something that was genuine and undemanding, his mind too distinctly drawn into the muds of constant deception and hatred.

A low grunt escaped from Rolf's lips as he attempted to collect himself and provide her with either, with an answer or a counterattack, but another fierce strike rendered him unable to act on either of these desires, his grey eyes now constantly widened at the sheer force of her attack and his breathing coming in shallow, labored gasps. She told him to stop doing this to himself; and what it was that he was doing to himself Rolf could not fathom, even though he could next clearly understand that she was next referring to the time Rolf had told her that he was the villain of the story and the heroes, they were the ones coming to lock him up in the dungeons, where he belonged. He had felt guilt that time and he punishment had felt just - for that moment - but he had gathered his arrogance since and saw his time spent in imprisonment nothing but a filthy trick played upon him by those who wished to chain him down, attempting to break him and make him tame, but he had refused. And what was it then, that he was doing to himself other than holding his ground, defending himself and standing ever proud? was the world attempting to betray him or had it ever only been Rolf himself? His thoughts had become a muddied haze, his thoughts attempting to free themselves from the deep mire they had now waded knee-deep into and he could see yet another slap coming his way, but possessed no senses to even attempt to move out of its way or to even deflect it with his hand. His fingers curled around the woman's arm in an absentminded gesture to push her away, the other hand still hanging on to the lapel of the dress shirt worn by her, but then the slap did not come and he could see the woman's fingers hovering at the edge of his vision. There were no others except him and her, she assured him, yet Rolf could not understand whether the woman was referring to the room or something else and when she asked him whether she should have left, Rolf felt the unexpected desire to tell her no, that he still needed her to be in this room with him, but then his pride and confusion could not allow that one simple answer to escape from his lips even when she shook him to put more weight to that question.

Rolf found himself being drawn towards the woman, his legs feeling strangely powerless as he collided into her and both of his hands instinctively pushed against her shoulders for support. The hold of her bare legs was familiar to him by now, yet now there was fierce violence to the grasp of her thighs, the raw hatred only further accentuated when her fingers curled around his neck to hold him there, to take in the burn of her words and the severity that was attached to them. She told him that she had given everything she could possibly give him and Rolf found the concept too foreign to even begin untangling, his concept of giving and receiving based on nothing but material property, not sentiments such as trust and affection. The confusion was evident in the man's grey eyes and his mouth hang open, the breath coming out in shallow and short gasps both from the pain stinging upon his skin as from his ever increasing inner turmoil. And where they destined, indeed, to return back to where they had started from, nothing but open hatred and violence passing between them, whipped along only by the cutting force of their insults? Rolf's lips pressed together and parted in an effort to come up with an answer, but then another strike threw his face to the side, yet it was not enough for her - no! - she had to grasp his head so quickly that he could feel the muscles on his neck painfully protesting at that motion, while she forced him to gaze back into her burning eyes of viridian, that feral look of hers communicating more than her violence ever could. Rolf realized he had crossed some kind of line and as blurred as it was, she was quickly clearing up the extents of that border to him, making the distinction between herself and the people she assumed Rolf usually spent his time with. Cheap lackeys and lowly bootlickers that only latched upon his presence just to feed on his blood, the worthless leeches and parasites that they were, growing fat on his wealth and feeding him lies, lies and vainglory. He had cheapened her in treating her as he should have been treating those treacherous vultures ever circling around him and then, Rolf felt a sharp sense of guilt prodding at his insides at the thought, another angry punishment from the woman's hand only further accentuating that feeling. He had already realized well enough that the woman had given him more than anyone ever had, even if it wouldn't have been nothing but that passing look that actually saw him, glanced within him and noticed his presence when nobody else did. Certainly there was the Rolf Jäger anyone noticed, for he made sure to make himself into a person one could hardly ever forget confronting and he lived wildly, loudly for everyone to see and admire, but then it was an empty act and sometimes he even realized that, dwelling in those silent moments of solitude as he sometimes did.

Something oppressing pushed at his insides and crunched against his chest, his breathing growing shallow and faster as the man attempted to draw breath properly, but her words were suffocating him and the strikes that she had punished him with had become a numbing flow of pain that no longer even could not find its proper place within his senses. Even when the woman insulted his family, Rolf could no longer find the anger within and he stared at her, his grey eyes empty and lost, his face slowly adopting a red hue from the slaps she had punished him with. Her speech had risen to a furious shout, the hoarse tone of her cutting words echoing from the very same sandstone walls that had reverberated with sounds of a completely different nature just the previous night and Rolf could only stare at her through his torpor when she forced him closer, just to belt him with another ruthless strike of her hand. When the woman's fingers curled mercilessly around his chin, an involuntary grunt of pain escaped from the man's lips and his fingertips dug into her shoulders and she warned him of the consequences of ever doubting her in such a manner again, the promise of violence lingering real and raw in that meaningless distance between them. The man's mouth hung open, some form of desperation mixing with his open bewilderment and he was powerless to pry himself free, or to retaliate, or even to answer her. Her words had caused him much more damage than the physical pain inflicted upon him ever could and Rolf waited, his breathing coming in shaky gasps as he expected her to continue the onslaught... but then her hold loosened and her hands crawled to his bare back, instead.

Rolf felt himself being pulled closer against her and he fell powerlessly against her while he stared somewhere into the sandstone wall in front of his vision and his eyes skittered over the marks left upon the stone next to the edge of the table, no longer able to even recall how they had been birthed. She pushed his head upon her shoulder and carefully, tiredly, Rolf allowed his chin to recline there, his bristled cheek pushed against her when he allowed him the reprieve to recover from the attack, the walls around them now standing strangely quiet and neutral. Rolf's hands had circled around her arms, but they lacked all of their strength and he merely trusted in her to keep him standing upright while his own breathing came in rapid, erratic gasps and his heart thumped violently against his ribcage and then, against her chest. Rolf's fingertips curled when he could feel her breathing upon his ear, the soft lips brushing against it as she told him to return back to him, the whisper calm and enticing and he felt as if he had suddenly sailed into that calm serenity within the eye of the storm, the man allowing his eyes to close slowly, carefully. A shuddering sigh escaped from his open mouth when he felt the woman's lips drawing a path of light kisses across his cheek and as that journey drew closer to completion, she told him that he was safe in this room, that there were no others here but her and him.... and then the concept, even in all of its absurdity, felt enticing and comforting. The man swallowed when he felt the woman's heated breath finally brushing against his lips and she promised, she promised him that there were no others for there for Rolf to worry about, to put up an act for or to attack - she promised - and then Rolf's lips met hers and he breathed inside her the extent of his agony and inner torment, the man's fingers forcefully digging into the skin of her arms.

All this time his heart had still been beating wildly and it did not settle down now either when his lips drew agonizing paths along hers, as if fearing to fully initiate that contact on the chance that it would destroy whatever was still left of him and his will and the tips of his fingers both grasped at her and pushed her away at the same time, that indecisive motion born out of the man's simple anguish and he drew shaky breaths, breathing upon her lips in violent shivers before he finally allowed that contact to properly take form. A pained sigh emitted from the man's throat and his hands circled violently around the woman's arm in a way that was reminiscent from a moment of a very different nature, but which now communicated only his torment of being drawn out of the safe conformity of his own world and needing to grasp at something to anchor himself in that moment and not see himself spirited away by his own, persistent doubts. There was warmth to her and even through the painful sting of her strikes still burning upon his skin, he found it effortless to focus on her presence instead and how her hand pressed against his head and held him there, pulling him out of his cage for those brief moments, even when the escape was unauthorized and hence, never quite complete. She had promised him that they were alone and that there was safety in that room, and he trusted in her in those moments his mouth brushed over hers and his head tilted to the side, the still feral and uncontrolled transferred further upon her frame, for her to feel and share. Rolf allowed the kiss to deepen for a moment of desperation and he breathed out deeply, his fingers unfolding and then grasping at her arms once more as he held on to that urgent contact and attempted to draw at her power through it to further convince him of her words and of the honesty they had been spoken with. It should have been so very easy to linger in that moment and push aside the prejudices that ever plagued him.... but then, it was not. It was anything but easy and it was as painful as watching drips of acid burn inside one's skin and who in their right mind would have ever voluntarily set themselves into experiencing such torment?

Rolf allowed his mouth to slowly withdraw from hers, his lips still lightly brushing against hers and for a second or two, he regarded her in that moment of his inner struggle, his steel-grey eyes reflecting both the desire to trust in her, yet also the forces that still caused him to doubt, that still would not allow him to rest. Instead of pulling away, the man inched his head closer to hers and rested his chin upon her shoulder, the heartbeats still pounding with a distinct force against his chest as his hand inched to recline against her back. Rolf stared into the opposite wall, his gaze lost in his silent confusion while he breathed through parted lips and gave himself those moments needed to calm down the pace of his heart. Her presence felt comforting, yes, but he was now also starting to feel ashamed for even allowing her to school him in such a manner, to stand so powerless in the way of her attacks and then, to allow her to see him in such a moment of weakness. Rolf's fingertips curled and pushed against the woman's back at the thought and he swallowed, wanting to recoil from that embrace, yet finding himself powerless to act upon that desire, the distinct warmth of her frame pulling at him and holding him there. He remained resting against her through those silent moments, eyebrows curved in desperation and eyes staring into nothingness, all the while his breathing calmed down along with the beating of his heart and the knots in his muscles slowly relaxed, the ache in them returning along with the distinct, burning sting upon his skin.

When Rolf finally pulled away from her and stood up straighter, he could not bear looking at her from his shame, his eyes only briefly skipping towards her visage from under fiercely furrowed eyebrows. Then the man glanced down and allowed his hands to slide away from her back, passingly brushing against her arms before he finally used them to push the woman's legs away from himself and took a step back, his head tilting to the side as he gazed somewhere towards the window. He could still feel her presence lingering near him even though there was a distance between them and of that moment, it felt natural, as if she should have been there. A light breeze carried from outside and ruffled his unkempt hair with the softest of sighs and Rolf blinked, his eyes momentarily fixated upon the clear azure sky that had decided to dawn upon them after the storm of the previous night.

It was a good weather for flying.

[Dirk Riedel]

There were only a few things the woman could do, but even those few ones she were to implement in a manner most effective as to thoroughly communicate to the man the error of his ways; the bout of violence as form of punishment was the only method with which to bring him round and slap away his paranoia when words were to ultimately fail, despite how sophisticated or genuine they would be. The woman’s strong exterior easily revealed that she was a person of few scruples when it came to the matter of physical retribution, her liability to resort to violence born certainly not out some profound desire of sadism and cruelty but, if anything, the sincerest willpower and dedication to impose discipline or exercise punishment upon anyone who deserved it, any who in their wrongful and unjust actions shamed her or any person she held in esteem, her reaction merciless and brutal once it was effectuated, and unquestionably with a very clear purpose attached to the action. She had not hit him because she wanted to hurt him; in truth he had been the one to hurt her, rather, but she had forced her unforgiving strength upon him to virtually raise his consciousness as to his surroundings and his capacity to distinguish between specific types of people, whom deserved his trust and whom only his utter contempt. But truly, was she unforgiving when she held him so very closely to her, to ease his mind, to protect him? Was she unforgiving when she spent her greatest efforts on him, to correct him, to teach him, efforts that strained her, pained her, maddened her? Was she unforgiving to lick the wounds she had created herself upon his reddened skin, to embrace him despite his faults and care enough to see him in peace? Care enough to caress the welts upon his torso at the bruises of her belting, to hold his hand as their blood-stained fingers interweaved and guarantee that his thrashed form would be led to safety by one of her soldiers even as she lay down on the ground, shot and bleeding; to swallow her pride and make excuses for him, defend him, beg for him; to seek comfort from him when she writhed against the mud-brown ground in tears and vomit; to take his hand in hers and guide him away from that eternal circle of self-feeding assurances drenched in vanity and narcissism that was his world, into something purer, more natural, and so deeply much more simple and human.

Was she really that cruel with him, then?

She had never asked anything more in her life than was ordained to be given to her beforehand, but as she touched him with an aching, pained need there was dependability in that contact, and her hands held him very closely, locked around at his head and upon his back, the notion of parting vicious and oppressing, and she kissed him in want, in privation, in anguish – once momentarily gazing quietly into his dejected and downhearted face when he pulled away – but then clasped around his head more tightly in response to his strengthened grip around her arms when he closed the gap between them, and then … then there was quietude. The open glass window allowed the sunlight to shift through the windowpanes and embrace them in its golden delight, but there were no starlings to chirp in and break through that silence during the rising of dawn. Even the room stood very quiet, the walls breathing in almost religious reverence in their oath never to breach that sacred tranquility, and the furniture stood very quietly too; the large wooden wardrobe was leaning against the sandstone wall, the used bed with its rumpled coverings, the rickety old side table, the chair next to the table, and then the table both of them stood against, all witnessing the slow, calm exchange; and how curious it no longer was anguished and desperate, pained or hateful, but simple, peaceful. Human. It was untroubled, and windless, and no longer could any strengthened breeze rush through to drift over the barely controlled frothing sentiments and within moments to enrage them, to escalate them, no – now there was nothing but serenity … and the sun. It was not an exchange of disease but one of warmth, and the sunshine that caressed them with its fair and prosperous gown promised only clarity. Clarity and truth. She held him, and held her promise; she held him and secured him into her embrace, uncomplicated as it was genuine, pure white and untainted. And there was nothing else in that old god-forsaken room, nothing but light. There was light.

And what could ever stop it? Who could ever destroy this moment?

She had never asked for this dependability, and frowned upon the first presages of her growing concern once they had manifested themselves to tell her how something had changed, that North Africa was no longer a single campaign for the war effort but also included in its nucleus a great part without which her existence could no longer continue without it being rendered ridiculous and meaningless: his presence. The apprehension and self-hatred had been gnawing at her insides upon realizing those first indications that spoke of how intertwined she had grown into him; she had struck her hand in despair and agony against the Kubelwagen’s door inside the garage, she had struck it once more against the hospital door, until she had drawn blood; she had picked up bad habits she had assured herself she would never again descend to, the siren call of alcohol and indecency too strong to resist when she only ever wanted to burn out and forget all those implications and sentiments his presence spawned, and how tormenting those initial steps had been to avoid, how indifferent and uncaring had she been firstly, before slowly, quietly, indifference had assumed a different shade and morphed into another quality. But then, it had not been indifference in its purified form even in the beginning, had it? She had, after all, thrown herself into him with the ardent and overpowering force of hatred and contempt since the very first meeting, that her reactions had never been indifferent but always forged through a shroud of quite heavy sentiment, hatred being only a different side of the coin to accentuate how deeply she had been enfolded by his existence, how irreversibly she had – unconsciously and unwillingly – allowed his presence to affect her, and when his chin reposed on her shoulder and he rested against her, her hands moved slowly to hold him warmly, to compose him, to protect him. No, she had not asked for anything.

Her eyes gazed absentmindedly at the surrounding wall or the ceiling, but saw nothing, allowing herself as sanctuary for his restless form, to calm, to quiet down and live through his peace when the world became too vast and frightening to step into, a space breeding formless figures, faceless masses and hundreds of spawns that hurt one another, ate one another, a cold and unnerving place that greedily grasped at everything with its icy fingers and could so easily stomp on its creatures, the violent promise of blood and the pangs of insecurity too savage to confront; but there stood a port he could rest during the raging thunderstorm, that could harbour him, feed him and place warm clothes around him, a very small shelter he could have, small and safe, standing tall and imposing against the battling tidal waves, that would never sink, never capitulate. She breathed him, and his natural scent infiltrated through her nostrils and every pore of her body to enter her. Stay with her. She had not known why that growing concern was eating her from the inside once he had violated rudely into her life, blamed herself for that stubborn will which refused to disentangle from his presence, refused to discontinue its interest, but as she gazed into the ceiling tiny specks of what that sentiment truly was slowly began to clear within her mind, and she stood very quiet, serene and unsmiling. When he finally pulled away from her, her eyes moved to regard him, passing over his facial features and noticing that very close, perceptive and dedicated expression of his iron-crystal eyes as he stared beyond the window and into the horizon, and how she would have wished to know precisely the thought of his mind in that moment.

She slowly raised her hand and let her fingers brush over the stubble of his chin, the slow caress short-lived and gentle. “Ich machte das Bad bereit. Sie können zuerst gehen,” she told him, and then withdrew her hand; she slid herself from the table and let her feet touch upon the warmed up floor, and then turned to the window to check on the shirt. The woman reached the window with a few short steps and grasped the shirt’s lapels, not expecting it to have dried so soon to be sure but then she knew the sun would strengthen in a matter of minutes and the least they wanted was a very parched, shriveled up military tunic, which is why she pulled it away from the window sill and then hang it on the window’s latch, where it would be best shielded from the extreme sunlight but nonetheless dry soon enough. She turned over and stole a fleeting glance at him as she stretched out her hands and grabbed at his case of his cigarettes she had lain on the table, her fingers clicking it open in a single, fluid motion to grope inside for a cigarette and the lighter; she lit it and in moments breathed out the fume once the warm essence of nicotine swirled inside her throat, and she had almost forgotten the feel, as if the woman had not smoked anything for entire months when in reality it had only been one day, but then the last events had been of such a dramatic, unpredictable consequence that her great need for a cigarette was only ever accentuated even more as if on an outlet. She gazed at him as she took another drag from the cigarette, and inhaled deeply, her expression silent and unreadable, looking at him, and by the time she had changed hands the man had turned around and walked inside the bathroom. She heard the door click shut and, with a weary sigh, the woman moved away and walked to the window, leaning her form against the surface with one hand hanging across the sill in absentminded fashion. Her eyes wandered off outdoors, the brick buildings around them and the quiet, unmoving alleyways apart from a local or two walking by, some stray cats whisking in the corners in search for any food remains, and then her fingers abstractedly stroked at the garment hanging by the window, and when she turned her head over her shoulder at the instinctive action her eyes fixated upon the drying tunic for a few moments. She stayed in that spot, unmoving and unresponsive for moments, the cigarette forgotten in between her lips, before, quite suddenly, she heaved a sigh and then turned around from the window.

The latch clicked at her command, and she pushed the door open. The moment she had entered the bathroom the man had turned his head over his shoulder to look at her, but she only offered him a glimpse lasting no more than a few seconds before she busied herself and stepped over to grab his trousers from the floor, the cigarette shoved through her mouth, and she indifferently moved closer to the wash basin to lay the garment there, her one hand setting the case of cigarettes she had carried upon the shelf underneath the mirror, and then opened the tap and grabbed the soap. She could not let him leave to the barracks smelling like a dirty dog and all of his uniform needed some proper washing as it was, and thus she began to scrub at the trousers; she noticed they were already rather clean when it came to cleaning away any stains they might have had, but they still smelled from the heavy smoking and the alcohol emitting in the surrounding atmosphere from the caravansera the night before, and more to the point, she needed to do something. She could not simply just stand there and wait until he were finished, neither could she lay on the bed and calm down her spirits, pretending nothing was going on and how all was absolutely normal. No, it was not normal; it was not normal that she should be here in this room rather than the Wehrmacht barracks, spending her leave by enjoying a bottle of beer and relaxing in the shades against some old disused tyres, or driving around the suburbs on the motorcycle, or even taking a walk around … certainly not share this room with a pilot of the Luftwaffe, and a baron to boot. Occasionally she would raise one hand and pull the cigarette out of her mouth to breathe out the smoke, before she would pull it to the opposite side and continue to clean at the trousers, her fingers adept and quick, and scrubbed at it, until she then raised her head and glimpsed at her own reflection in the mirror. With a swift motion she finished the scrubbing and let the cloth soak in water and soap, and grabbed the case of cigarettes inside which she had also packed the lighter.

She drew deeply from the cigarette and then extinguished it in the small pool of water gathered around at the right side of the basin, and then turned around and very slowly walked towards the bathtub, her eyes transfixed upon him and inscrutably gazing into his wet form lying underneath the water. When she finally came to a slow stop by the side of the tub she stood there for a second, before she motioned to set the case of cigarettes at the surface’s edge at the end of the tub, and then she sat down by its one side, close enough to him so that she could stare down at the man from a very small distance, the palms of her hands resting by her lap but for when she pulled the cigarette out of her lips to breathe out grey circles of fume surrounding them in a welcoming haze of warmth and intimacy. She gazed into his eyes endlessly, her genuineness and tenderness communicated between them as her green irises focused upon those curious, argent eyes of his that initially flinched, and then slowly moved to touch him by the face. If he flinched she cared not; if he twitched his muscles, she simply let the reaction fade away, and her fingers stroked across the skin alongside his jaws, slowly, attentively, brushing at the wet stubble that stung at her flesh but which to her felt like the most gentle of caresses, down across his neck to circle around his jugular and then travelled in their southward journey by his clavicles and over his chest. They caressed past the skin with a passing, stroking motion and then roamed lower, before they went after his hands next, taking the sponge in her grasp and twisting her fingers around its yellow fibrous body, her gaze eternal, eternal and unblinking, and thus slowly moved it by his neck, brushing the skin with one hand while the fingers of her free hand circled around the nape of his neck and traced a moist pathway up to his ear and touch behind the skin in that same passing, stroking movement, and she was calm, so very unnervingly calm and serene, letting the sponge travel down by his chest in gentle, circular patterns, and then moving up again, in that same rhythmic shift. Her eyes focused upon the movement of her hand, her gaze fixed, dedicated, and her gesture became firm, stern and precise, no more wanton than it was purposeful and steadfast, cleaning at his shoulders and tracing along the collarbones, and then moving to stroke down by his torso again.

She strained her body as she bent to best reach the other side of his stomach when her hand moved to clean him there, the sponge washing at his side ribs in that same fluid motion, quietly, slowly; but she could not outreach properly and so, determinedly, the woman suddenly rose from her seat and climbed over the tub, one foot first and then, after holding herself from the other edge, she clambered up and dipped herself beneath the water as she sat down, his bent legs almost brushing against her abdomen and her knees scraping at the surface below, and she leaned forwards to rub at the side of his ribs thoroughly, the white shirt she was wearing drenched up to the height of her bosom, her face unsmiling but warm, devoted to her task and adamant to see it done properly; the side of her arm brushed alongside his outer thigh as it moved in the stroking pattern, bent as it was, and rested the palm of her free hand against his chest to provide for appropriate pressure as she cleaned him with her other hand, but then that one free hand moved lower in a lonesome journey across the side of his form to caress along the opposite side of the thigh her arm brushed against; always firmly, but gently. Her eyes were fixated still at the movement of her hands, the cloth at the undersurface of her arms wet as it came into contact with the water, but she did not seem to notice any of this, and thus continued brushing.




Translation

I made the bath ready. You can go first.

[Rolf Jäger]

A light touch drew Rolf from his sudden stupor and his grey eyes skipped from the azure sky back at the woman and as his gaze settled upon her, there was still some amount of timidity attached to that glance as the man could not quite decide how to regard her in such a foreign situation. His eyes flicked over her features in search of anything treacherous or malicious, but Rolf could only witness a genuine calmness that seemed to enfold both the woman and then, at her proximity, also him, and he allowed his muscles to relax once more. The woman's fingers brushed over the rough stubble on his jaw, the touch only fleeting but still enough to have the man to direct all of his attention towards her, and he blinked slowly when the woman suddenly told him that she had prepared a bath and that Rolf should go there first. He did not know how they had gone from a moment of tranquility and ease to one of open hostility, just to return back to that sun-touched peace that flowed inside the room and surrounded them, the woman the next second unexpectedly moving to such a mundane matter as taking a bath. Rolf's lips parted in an effort to comment on the absurdity of her suggestion, but then Riedel had already inched herself away from the table, languidly making her way towards the window while Rolf turned to stare after her, still attempting to come up with something to say. She settled into checking on the tunic she had laid out upon the window sill and Rolf only now processed the thought that she had washed the tunic of his uniform, something within him shifting at the thought of her doing such a thing purely out of her own volition. It was a selfless act, one performed without him even asking it of her, and as simple as such a thing might have seemed, it twisted and tore apart the walls of the world Rolf knew, the whole concept of such a thing appearing almost absurd to him.

The man was still frozen in his place when the woman already proceeded to hang the tunic from the window's latch, her attention drawn to the case of cigarettes - Rolf's cigarettes - settled upon the table next to her and he watched her lighting up a tobacco roll and bringing it to her lips, that simple, relaxed decisiveness now suddenly the one thing capturing all of his attention and holding him there. He drank in the sight of her standing there, the thin canvas of the white shirt wrapped around her pale figure, the woman's eyebrows nonchalantly curved above her eyes of viridian and her wrist resting in a relaxed pose as it held the cigarette and Rolf's fingertips twitched at the sight. When the woman gazed at him, Rolf merely stared back in his state of confusion, but upon recalling the woman's earlier words and realizing that he might have not appeared too intelligent, simply standing there and gaping, so he forced his bare feet to shift and he turned around, stunned, walking inside the bathroom and closing the door after him with an automatic motion.

After the door had clicked shut, he breathed out deeply, feeling at least some of his senses returning to him once more and with them came the questions and doubts, a sea of thoughts he had kept at bay as he had existed in that moment of tranquil silence, but which now crashed against him with a violent force, almost causing him to reel over. He was fast recalling the words she had just addressed him with, of the damage he was causing upon himself, upon her, of the world that he had ever perceived as being normal, but which in her opinion was nothing but twisted and depraved. In some sense he could understand her, but then again it was simply impossible to attempt to look at that world from the outside or to even begin imagining the extent of its borders or the pulsating, blackened core that empowered it. He had been offered a brief glimpse at it through the window of her soul as she had breathed life into him, but the memory was fading all too easily from the way of his confused thoughts and there was simply far too much for him to consider at this time. How had they come to such a situation when she had been attempting to escape from him the previous night, begging for anyone to save her from the fate of being purchased by him, of being forced to his presence? What had passed between them that had suddenly caused things to simply click and through their burning hatred seen them tearing at each other, consuming and desiring, growling and moaning, caressing and clawing? As much as Rolf had attempted to achieve the satisfaction of claiming her, it had felt unexpected when the events had escalated to that point and then, his desires being answered to, her invitation only further pulling him into a world he had not even know had existed. Their exchange had been intense, savage and all-consuming, and Rolf knew it had not been merely upon the natural call of his body, but on a more mental existence, as well. He had felt himself being pulled somewhere within as he had been surrounded by her warmth, something that had lain dormant within him had suddenly snapped its eyes open and caused a set of tremors to run through his entire length. Their hungry exchange had felt simple enough the previous night when his thoughts had been dominated by nothing but savage lust, but now that he had the time to consider the events and see them drawn in front of his eyes with such a crisp clarity, they felt like images from a very vivid dream, too unexpected and strange for him to properly fathom and injected with feelings he had not even known he possessed.

The bathtub stood silent and neutral, the surface of the water still and unmoving, but still it reminded Rolf of her, of the simple actions that she needed to take in order to drive his entire existence into a painful turmoil. The man's eyebrows furrowed fiercely when he did not want to entertain all the complicated thoughts and questions surfacing in his mind. Attempting to drive them away with a low growl, the man sneered at himself and opened the buttons upon his trousers, shedding the piece of clothing along with his underwear upon the bathroom floor, his steps taking him towards the tub when he decided that it would be utterly foolish to leave an opportunity to bathe unused. The smell of sweat still stuck to his skin and it had further been mixed with the faint traces of her scent and of their shared carnality, this curious mixture causing the man to arch his eyebrow in silence. He tested the temperature of the water with one foot at first before he stepped into the tub and sat down, allowing the water to immerse his sore muscles and sighing deeply at the sensation of the warm water embracing his form. As muddled as his mind was, he could still appreciate the calming effect the water had on him and Rolf growled low in his throat, simply sitting still and relishing in the sensation of his muscles slowly entangling and relaxing in the warmth. The red scratches drawn across his back stung at first, but then even this mild discomfort vanished into the still waters around him and he closed his eyes, allowing the rest of his anxiety to leave him in one, long exhale. The man enjoyed the silence of the room in this manner for a few moments more before his eyes finally cracked open and he allowed his hand to emerge from the water, his fingers circling around the sponge set upon the edge of the tub and then, around the bar of soap that had been hidden beneath it. The man sat up straighter, gazing at these two items with a casual raise of his eyebrows and then proceeding to rub the soap into the soft texture of the sponge, his next task that of setting down the bar of soap and starting the rubbing from his upper back and the sides of his neck when it appeared like the most convenient thing to do.

He had hardly even begun this task of washing himself, when the door clicked and the man jolted at the sound, the sponge nearly dropping from his hand from nothing but simple surprise. He blinked, grey eyes staring at the figure of the woman casually entering the room and his mouth opened in effort to tell the woman that he had hardly finished washing himself up and that she would simply have to wait longer, but Riedel's silent determination rendered this intention fruitless, the woman simply picking up Rolf's discarded trousers from the floor before she stepped towards the sink. The pilot's mouth opened and closed, his gaze focused on the woman as she started scrubbing his trousers clean in the sink, hardly paying him any mind as she settled into her task and Rolf could only gape, the sponge twisting between his fingers as he crushed it inside his hand, the skin at the corner of his eye twitching at the woman's unexpected invasion. Riedel acted as if he did not even exist, fervently settling into the task of washing up the piece of clothing and pausing only momentarily to move the cigarette from her lips and to breathe out grey wisps of tobacco smoke before she would resume her task with no small amount of routined discipline. Rolf still stared at her, but then something in her practiced motions calmed him down and he allowed himself to breathe out, his hold of the sponge becoming more relaxed as he brought it back to his neck, attempting to return back to his own undertaking. His eyes still skipped towards the woman's figure every now and then, almost apprehensively, but then her presence slowly turned into something that was simply there, unthreatening and a few moments later, almost soothing.

Rolf was settled into scrubbing at the skin behind his ears with his fingers when from the corner of his eye he could see the woman moving and immediately his muscles tensed at the notion, his hand frozen in mid-motion and the other one simply grasping at the sponge as Riedel moved ever closer, setting down the case of cigarettes before she knelt next to the tub. Rolf gazed back into her eyes of calmest, clearest green and even though he could see nothing but serenity in their stillness, he could not help the fact that his heart was suddenly beating just slightly faster and that his fingers were curling around the sponge with a more distinct force due to nothing more but her presence. He instinctively flinched when the woman's hand inched closer to him, but then her fingers only moved in to touch the side of his face, gentle and genuine and even though Rolf still stared at her with no small amount of apprehension, he remained perfectly still when he felt the woman's hand snaking down to his neck. He swallowed when the fingers traced a path further downwards and he breathed out deeply when that touch snaked along his chest and caressed their journey to his arms, the woman's fingers curling around the sponge that he had already forgotten he was holding. They pried away the sponge from his hold with little effort while he was trapped in the gaze of her viridian irises and he could only sit still, observing that stern determination that her eyes communicated. He could distantly feel the soft porous texture of the sponge leaving his hand and then appearing upon his neck next, the woman's fingers slithering along the side of his neck and to the nape of it, while the other one settled into moving the sponge along his skin, rubbing over his chest in calm, circular motions while he could only stare at her in silence and disbelief. The movements of her hands were as gentle as they were determined, cleaning away any traces of sweat and dust from his skin and Rolf was reminded of the time it had been Riedel sitting in that very same bath, lost in her own word of inebriation as he had tended to her, washing away the filth she had been contaminated with.

The man's head tilted to the side as he allowed her to go through her task, his muscles only tightening the moment he felt that touch moving downwards from his chest, reaching his stomach in a few simple strokes and causing the pilot's steel-grey eyes to widen. Rolf's fingers curled around the side of the tub and his mouth opened in protest, but then Riedel had already settled into the task of clambering inside the tub with him and his back flattened against the side of the tub when the woman's legs rushed very close by his abdomen. His mouth hanging open and his breathing having grown just slightly more rapid, the man stared at Riedel in disbelief, his mind caught in too many things to consider at once. For one, the white shirt she had borrowed from him and decided to wear into the tub, was getting soaked with water and hence also revealing the pale tone of the skin beneath it, the wet cloth turning transparent and hugging at her curves enticingly. Then again, it was challenging to properly settle into observing such a sight when her hand rested against his chest and her arm brushed against his thigh, that determined but gentle touch of hers moving to brush at his sides, Rolf only staring at the woman with his mouth hanging half-open. When he felt her hand tracing a slow journey along his thigh, he held his breath and as full of apprehension as his eyes had been just a fraction of a second ago, they now flared with something more feral and demanding.

Suddenly all he could understand was that touch of hers and the way in which the dark circles of her nipples were visible under the soaked texture of the shirt and he found the notion of her breasts being both concealed and then so suggestively revealed to both captivating as it was utterly tormenting. His eyes had adopted a sharper, hungrier glint to them in the matter of a fleeting moment and his fingers curled around the edges of the tub as he breathed out slowly, his eyelids momentarily fluttering at the sensation of her hand brushing at his thigh, but the woman seemed completely oblivious to the sudden change in his mood, completely focused on her task as she was. Whether she was being completely innocent in the way that she touched him or simply teasing him in her cruel manner, Rolf was not certain, but then it hardly mattered as the demanding feeling in the pit of his stomach grew and multiplied until it scorched at his insides and then at his skin. Suddenly he felt as if his entire form was on fire and her touch was there only to further stoke at the embers, causing him agony that gnawed at his insides and she was being cruel, so very cruel in pretending that she was completely oblivious to the nature of sentiments she was waking up in him. Rolf's penetrating gaze embraced her, enfolded her and already conjured up images of the things he would have seen done to her and slowly his fingers entangled from around the edge of the tub, desiring to bring those intentions to fruition. His lips were slightly parted and unsmiling as his hand moved below the water and his fingertips brushed against the woman's stomach. The touch was apparently unwanted by Riedel, for she slapped his hand away with as much force as the pressure of the water allowed her and Rolf pulled his hand away with a low snarl, his eyes flashing, while the woman merely attempting to continue with her task of washing his skin.

With an intense gaze belonging to a hungry, determined predator, Rolf's hand shot out towards the woman's wrist next and he forced her hand to the surface of water, the man's teeth gritting together at the irritation of having her deny him. There was affront and open anger in the woman's gaze as she simply pulled her wrist free from his hold, the task quite effortless as Rolf's fingers slipped upon her wet, soapy skin, but of course her denial only further stroked at the flames of both his desire and anger, the challenge laid before him now one that simply could not be overlooked. As his hand reached towards the sponge once more, Riedel pulled her arm back and her free hand sharply slapped his greedy fingers away, her irritation now having clearly reached new heights at the man's persistent meddling. A feral growl was born deep within the man's throat and his lips drew into a silent snarl as he grasped the woman by her shoulder, this time gaining a better hold due to the still-dry texture and his fingers clamped mercilessly around her arm, pulling and commanding, forcing her hand to move closer until he could snatch at the sponge and pry it away from the woman's fingers. The gesture more symbolic than it was practical, mostly communicating nothing but Rolf's obsession of triumphing over whatever challenges other people issued him with, the matter of possessing that simple, meaningless item having grown to ridiculous measures in its importance to the man. With a victorious smirk the man stared into her eyes of raging green and as he discarded the sponge with a simple flick of his fingers and allowed it to drop somewhere in the middle of the bathroom floor, his eyes flashed with further challenge, inviting her to retaliate for his overflowing arrogance.

There was no reason to spend any further time locked in the battle of stares and the man found other things more enticing now, his eyes fixating to the level of the woman's breasts and further focusing in the way in which the darker, round shadows contrasted through the drenched canvas. Rolf's eyebrow inched upwards, his head tilting to the side to better observe this enticing sight and his heart was beating faster once more as he found himself wanting nothing more but running his hands over every inch of her body, then exploring her further with his mouth and tongue, savouring her taste and consuming her, his saliva slowly fading away from the burning of her skin. The pure want born of these images had suddenly turned into a numb, throbbing agony that threatened to lock his breath within his lungs and he knew there was ever only one cure for this very illness and it could only be found within her, extracted from her essence. Even if the exact nature of the man's current sentiments was not very clear, their general quality was left anything but hidden, the hunger and lust blazing wild and unconstrained in his eyes of liquid silver and the hoarse growl that was risen from his throat heralded the attack that prowled beneath the surface, the stalking beast eager and purposeful. At some point Rolf had lived under the illusion that once he would have had her, his lust for her would be spent and he could move on to other, simpler things, yet by now he had already learned that if anything, his hungry desire only grew in force and it was ever only for her; it was for her pale skin that now carried the marks of his violent ownership, for the eyes of clear green that could hold such a fierce scope of different emotions within them, and for her strong frame now so enticingly exposed to him, delightfully slippery and completely sprung with irritation. Suddenly he was overwhelmed by the primal desire to have her battle against him and then, to have her succumb, so very heated and wet, hating and hurting, yet also pulling him closer and pulsating all around him until there was nothing else to understand and nothing else simply mattered. His breathing had grown more shallow, each one of his muscles straining to meet the demand of his blinding sentiments until he felt his entire frame tingling with small electric currents rushing down his spine. It was not a malignant force that suddenly held him, but an epitome of natural desires which he simply did not know how to restrict and even though it was not his intention to truly cause the woman any true harm, he could not quite make sense of whether he might have been hurting her or not. It was so very simple for him to fall into a state where all that mattered was what he wanted, what he needed, and in that frame of mind he did not pause to weigh the consequences of his actions, rather following his primal instincts and succumbing to their beastly howl.

Rolf's hands shot out towards the woman, first grasping her by the shoulders and as she battled him, then by her arms, and his demanding hands would clutch at her at any way he could, just to pull her closer with a possessive force. Any signs of her resistance were met with nothing but his annoyed sneering and whether his actions were met with a violent force from her, seemed to matter very little to him. The man's hand clasped around the woman's jaw just in order to push her head backwards into an awkward position and to help him gain that bearing of supremacy he required to go through with his desires. The man hardly noticed if the woman found the sudden movement painful and the serenity that had calmed down the sea of grey in his irises had now completely evaporated from the wake of his burning lust. He needed to have her or he would never be rid of the continuously growing sensation of pain that crawled along his viscera and with this knowledge his fingers dug further into her jaw, the man breathing out sharply and his eyes ever fixated upon the woman. Rolf's other hand moved in to clasp around the back of her neck to further lock her in that violent embrace and next he already leaned in closer, his heated breath tingling the woman's mouth just before he forcefully crushed his lips against hers and growled.

------

The night had fallen upon them and outside the rain fell heavy upon the streets, with the sandstone buildings standing dark and silent after the storm had cut the electricity and left the residents of the old city scouring their homes for candles. Rolf was standing in the darkened bathroom while she told him that there was no time, and how very well Rolf knew this, how fervently had he attempted to struggle against the very truth even at every turn she chose to force this fact upon him, and the inevitability of it all was now looming in front of him, heavy and oppressing. Rolf could feel the air shifting around him when the woman moved away and instinctively his hand was raised to find her through the impenetrable darkness but his fingers touched only emptiness, the woman already having decisively circled around him to head towards the door. Words of stubborn rejection were stuck in his throat and turned into nothing more but a hoarse growl, and he veered around in an effort to follow her through the darkness. Holding his hands in front of him, he mostly followed the sounds of her light footsteps upon the floor, heard her finding the door and even through the heavy thrumming of the rain the room fell eerily silent and empty with her presence was gone and Rolf hastened to find the edge of the open door.

Feeling disoriented and confused without his eyesight all the sounds appeared to become sharper and more distinct in his ears and as soon as stepped inside the other room, he could hear the annoyed tone of the woman grumbling about finding her boots. Rolf shuffled closer to her, feeling the glow of her frame in the air and hearing her breathing just that more faster in irritation and his fingertips twitched when they simply could not resist the temptation of touching her. As much as he had silently promised her that they would be leaving, the darkness seemed to drown out those words just as if they were at the very beginning of creation and there was no light, nor was there really any darkness as these things were yet to be discovered, and the concept of time was vague - if it even existed at all - and everything was there, and nothing was there... Nothing but his hands reaching through the ethereal space to grasp at her form with a force and resolution as inevitable as the vast fields of stars pulsating through the endless reaches of the universe, and his frame was pulling closer to her as if commanded by a gravitational pull, and he could already feel the warmth closer, could feel her life pulsating beneath his palms as he slid his hands over her arms to pull her into an embrace...

And with a sharp tug his advance was brought to a halt and a swift slap caught him in the side of his face, the man's hold inevitably loosened and lost as he raised a hand up to his face with an agonized grunt. The strike had partly caught him in the eye and even though it had not as much hurt him as it had momentarily startled him, a sudden thought flashed through his mind and suddenly his palm pushed fervently over his left eye as he groaned and hung his head down through the darkness. "Oh! Ow! Du hast mich direkt in die Augen!" the man complained in a pained voice, while his ear were constantly perked up to hear her response and he knew not exactly why he had assumed that she would tend to such an injury when just a few days ago he would have been more inclined to expect her to rejoice in it. All Rolf knew was that she was determined to leave and that he could grasp at her all he wanted and she would only reject him. This was simply a desperate mean to have her pay attention to him and disregard the notion of leaving, even if it was for nothing more but a few more moments before she would discover his ruse. "Warum hast du das tun? ...oh, jetzt ist es wirklich brennt... Und was soll ich tun, wenn es zu ernsthaften Verletzungen, was... was, wenn ich nicht einmal fliegen kann! Ein Pilot muss seine beiden Augen und- Ow! Ich kann es nicht öffnen an allen... " He was not entirely certain if he was overacting it, but there was a very distinct sense of open worry in his voice over the nature of his supposed injury and at least to him, it sounded genuine enough, and so he continued holding his hand over his left eye while bending his upper body in an effort to better withstand the brunt of his much acted pain. Even though she could not see the entire extent of his act, the gesture helped him to at least better identify with the extent of agony he was supposed to be feeling.

For a moment he thought she was not falling for his act or that even if she had believed it, she was too occupied with leaving for the barracks to pay it any mind. Certainly she would have effortlessly seen through his shoddy lie had she witnessed such a display in proper lighting, but the unperturbed darkness reigning over the room shielded his bluff and next he could already feel her moving closer with a weary grumble. Rolf's eyes flashed victorious when her hands carefully searched for him, the palms finding his head and lifting it upwards for her inspection and he had to consciously keep the crooked smirk at bay lest she might feel the shift upon his facial muscles and call him out for his juvenile treachery. Rolf made sure to flinch just slightly - maybe out of pain, maybe out of instinctive apprehension that she should only cause further pain - but then his hand was ushered away by the woman and he allowed it to return to his side, his eyes narrowing in a slow and mirthful manner through the darkness when he was certain that she had taken the bait.

No sooner than he had tempted the woman closer to him did he already feel the urge to touch more of her; and it was always more in his mind that he craved for, his fascination towards her and the unexplored warmth she could offer him always swirling like wisps of smoke inside his head and clouding his better judgment. He could not see her through the heavy veil of the darkness, but his narrowed eyes burned smoldering in an attempt to penetrate right through her and brand the woman with his mark of ownership, but she could not see it, nor might she had even felt it through the persistent air of her haste and irritation. Suddenly Rolf's hands gently pressed upon her clothed hips, and in a swift and flowing motion did they slide to find her rear, and as suggestive as that gesture was, it was never uncontrolled or greedy, not even when his own heart had proceeded to pound just a little bit faster than before. She was not saying anything, nor was she really doing anything, but Rolf could sense the volatile feeling of urgency brimming inside the woman when her rationality had overridden the ethereal state of indulgence Rolf would have still rather remained in. His fingers spread to feel more of her fleshy backside and his grey eyes narrowed even more in the darkness, their glint slowly turning into that of temperate dissoluteness when the tiny flame of yearning was gradually coaxed into raging proclivity from nothing more but that small motion of his palms. By now she must have realized that his act had been just that - an act - and Rolf's heart pounded even faster from nothing more but the thought of her turning away from him. The darkness was forgiving and it obscured the sense of time, sense of place, yet almost grudgingly could he understand the woman's state of mind, built upon duties and rationality as it was and now demanding her to tend to her military obligations. To her disguise. To the war.

Suddenly she motioned away from him, the motion brisk and accompanied by a distinctly annoyed slap upon his shoulder, and Rolf's eyes widened, his hands shooting to grasp at her arms before she could even turn around. "Warte! Warte doch... Ich meine es ernst jetzt bin ich! Warte. Ich habe etwas zu sagen."

Rolf was not sure why he had said that - what it was he wanted to say to her! - but in a barely contained manner did the woman pause for him just for one more moment and he could feel her attention drawn towards him even through the darkness. His palms still desperately grasped at her arms as he licked his lips and found himself at a loss of words and truly, what had it been that had urged her to stop her for the notion of addressing her when he did not even know what he had been meaning to say! He realized he had very little time to find out, for the woman would certainly turn around if it appeared that this was simply another ruse to delay her, but he could not help the desperate moment of silence from passing between them as he stood there almost petrified, his tongue tangled. He blinked and breathed out slowly, the fingertips pushing through the canvas into the flesh of her arms when he physically attempted to force the right words out of his mouth; and surely they must have existed hidden somewhere deep in his core if he had on a whim announced that he had something to say?

He knew the nature of things he would have liked to ask her and they bounced around in his head in a messy cluster, and the one he could grasp at always felt more ridiculous than the one he had previously noted, for they were not things he would say. What would happen after they stepped out of the door? Had the room simply been a separate instance, some quixotic plane of existence which would be dissolved the moment one would leave its unearthly embrace? Would he see her again? What, exactly, was it that had passed between them that moment she had forbidden him to leave the room before he had faced his fears? What had made her stay? Was her hurry to get out of the room an urgency to leave him behind and forget him, just as she had denounced him that moment she had arrived to glare at him through the prison bars?

His mouth felt dry and he breathed out a shallow exhale, and the questions became noisy and oppressing; and they were not his thoughts, they had never been his thoughts, they should have not been! Rolf Jäger never contemplated on such idle things, never pondered on the inner feelings of another person and she had infected him with all of this, it was all her fault! The woman could not see it through the darkness, but something in the man's eyes flickered - a mixture of anger and rejection, despair and sorrow - and then his mouth opened, the words again coming out on their own volition without him even quite realizing what he was saying. "Ich sollte nach unten gehen zuerst. Die Vermieterin könnte dich sehen. Sie ist wahrscheinlich nicht im Dunkeln sitzen, sowieso, und sie fragen sich vielleicht, was für eine Wehrmacht Leutnant befindet sich im Gebäude zu tun." The words were a steady, hoarse stream, the straightforward military rationality of a Hauptmann having replaced the tone that recently had only displayed his mirth, his rage and his unending lust for her. His palms slid away from her arms to release the woman to do as she wished, and the man searched in his pocket for a while before his fingertips met with the familiar metallic side of the lighter.

Suddenly a light flickered in the space between them and his grey eyes, now bathed in the orange glow of the flame from the cigarette lighter, looked at her earnest and serious, his indecision and inner pain hidden deep beneath their almost glassy surface. He would not let her know what had passed through his mind, and he would never confess how much her presence had disturbed his state of existence, how much it had pained him; twisted him! No... she would never know. He would not allow her.

"Hier," he nodded towards the lighter to impart upon her the earnestness of his assistance, that he would provide her with the light to help her find her things within the messy room and his eyes flicked to the side, the steady raspy tone disturbing the almost distant thrum of the rain upon the roof. "Ihre Schuhe sind beim dem Stuhl."


Translations:

"Oh! Ow! Friede! Du hast mich direkt in die Augen!"
"Oh! Ow! Friede! You hit me straight in the eye!"

"Warum hast du das tun? ...oh, jetzt ist es wirklich brennt... Und was soll ich tun, wenn es zu ernsthaften Verletzungen, was... was, wenn ich nicht einmal fliegen kann! Ein Pilot muss seine beiden Augen und- Ow! Ich kann es nicht öffnen an allen..."
"Why did you have to do that? ...oh, now it really burns... And what am I going to do if there is serious injury, what... what if I can't even fly! A pilot needs both of his eyes and- Ow! I can't open it at all..."

"Warte! Warte doch... Ich meine es ernst jetzt bin ich! Warte. Ich habe etwas zu sagen."
"Wait! Wait... I'm serious now, I am! Wait. I have something to say."

"Ich sollte nach unten gehen zuerst..."
"I should go downstairs first. The landlady might see you. She is most likely not sitting in the dark, anyway, and she might wonder what a Wehrmacht Leutnant is doing in the building."

"Ihre Schuhe sind beim dem Stuhl."
"Your boots are by the chair."

[Dirk Riedel]

Friederike was ready to turn around on the spot and go searching for her boots, had it not been for the man’s immediate reaction that spoke of sudden anguish. He asserted that she had hit him in the eye but then the woman frowned, for she was quite certain her strike had not been as hurtful, even though she knew often she could not control the strength of her muscle, a fact which would most likely stand true had the man been of the feeble, delicate kind. And it struck her that a simple slap as that – and the pilot had without question received worse a clout, worse violence meted out upon him – would bring him such discomfort; and for this reason she remained hesitant and frowning in the darkness, undecided as to what to do when her mind was for that moment distracted from any thought of leaving. He began to grouch how it hurt like a whining puppy, telling her that he might lose his eye, and it was in that moment that the man’s sorry excuse lost every credibility to the woman who could no more but scoff at him and his petty lies. “Was!” she sharply called in a disapproving frown, and although it were obvious she had not hit him as strongly, she still reserved a thought that perhaps the pilot had indeed been struck but resolved to extravagance purely out of his arrogant and aristocratic nature. He was being ridiculous, but Friederike sighed quietly and stepped closer to him, stretching out her arms and carefully guiding them where she assumed his face was; at first feeling the side of his neck cautiously and, then, in more confident motion allowing them to softly glide upon his cheek wherefrom they found his eyes. It was too dark to hope of any inspection, but she could at least through tactile sense alone examine any lump or bruise that might have been formed, and it was precisely as she had thought of taking him closer by the window lest there was more light by which to inspect him, when she suddenly felt his hands grasp at her hips, and she frowned, her fingers promptly remaining unresponsive at his touch, that only when his palms smoothly slid to her buttocks – in her surprise! – did she instantly draw her hands away from his face. That filthy liar! Of course, she ought to have realised already his pitiful caricature at theatrical play was no more but his trick to employ her affection and, thence, give him the opportunity to ensnare her into his embrace where he could continue with his sordid desire of prolonging their contact, again!

She glowered at him through the enshrouding darkness, and an annoyed scoff was enough to communicate to him her displeasure, that she in irritated manner slapped at his shoulder and turned around sharply with the evident intention of leaving him. To think that she had almost been ready to believe him! Almost … but not quite. Any such intention, however, was easily thwarted when she felt his arms strongly clenching at her and cutting short her haste, pulling her closer to him that the woman would face him once more. Her face was austere and unwilling to listen to any more of his nonsense, nor would she be fooled or tricked into believing she had somehow brought him any anguish – perhaps as she had turned around such motion created a breeze of such unfamiliar strength that he caught a very serious cold! – and grumbled quietly but with protest. He told her he were serious, but little were she convinced, and only until he announced he had something to say did she simply stand there, no less in her suspicious expression waiting for him to voice some other absurdity. But he did not; in fact nothing was said, that Friederike began to grow the impression he was once more only bidding time through the silence, had she not caught the slightly solemn and corrective tone in his voice. She remained in position and sternly waited for him, before the man suddenly commented upon the way by which to escape the landlady. Friederike was confused at such stray change of thought, and then wondered if this was simply another of his tricks: to have her believe his mind was truly set upon leaving when, in reality, inside him his mind was racing as to the most perfect manner of seeing her captured within his demanding embrace.

And though she could not look at his facial expression, the man appeared to be quite serious in contrast, and that was the only characteristic of him which made the woman remain in place and offer him her attention, that his suggestion of the way in which they were to plan their leave from the room was not unnoticed by her in craftiness and in sly trickery. She recognised his idea as one they should follow, and she considered it for a moment or two, before suddenly two eyes alight in glimmering slate stared back at her, thoughtful, troubled by thoughts she could not grasp; and she gazed at him through the silence, that despite how the pilot told her where the military jackboots were, for that moment she cared not, and became transfixed into his gaze, unblinking, unsmiling, but simply staring, not because she had anything to say or anything to ask of him; not because she wanted to chide or scold him, or appraise him. She simply wanted to gaze at him, for it was in such remote times that his eyes would speak to her in such honesty, through the bleak darkness of their haze, their warm, their cold reminiscence of a summer glow, the uncertainty of a dusky gloom that befell upon the Libyan Sea. And her hand lifted that her fingers should curl around his wrist, softly, firmly, and outreaching towards the inside of his palm holding the lighter, and she stepped closer, once, only once, looking at him, at him through the soft orange glow that illuminated half his face, and half let drown in shadows, the quiet silvery irises that dilated, and lips of solemn close. Lips that in silence stood when she touched them, and it was only for a moment, in the welcoming darkness that embraced both of its disciples, that she kissed him, an undemanding gesture that held no true reason, and it was only ever a momentary caress, gentle as it moderate, and quiet, that she drew upon his underlip for a second longer as she pulled away, and then looked at him, before she turned around and went to sit by the chair.

It was an easy moment, and despite the slight illumination that barely showed her the surroundings, she bent her spine and began to pull on her jackboots.

[Rolf Jäger]

The flame visible somewhere in the corner of Rolf's eyes flickered and danced in nervous motions as a breeze from the open window caught it, and the small orange flare replicated in the man's grey irises quivered as well. He had expected her to rush to pick up her boots in her great hurry to leave the room, but instead she was left staring back at him and Rolf felt his breath grow shallow in a manner that suggested that all the oxygen might have suddenly been drawn from within the room. The woman lingered and he knew not why, could not recognize the sentiment or intention hidden in the silent gesture of her fingers curling around his wrist, or her head nudging closer in a reticent motion while her eyes - now the colour of deep gold and dark green - held within them too many secrets for the man to interpret. His bristled jaw nudged lower as her breath tingled his skin and his gaze was as confused as it was almost hallowed by the simple stillness of that moment where the rain thrummed upon the roof, and there was water, and there was fire, and there was the soft sable darkness that enfolded them into her forgiving embrace. Rolf's eyelids drew half-closed to leave his eyes faintly shimmering in the flicker of the lighter like two glowing embers and he allowed her fingers to draw to the inside of his palm. His mind only half-noted how accustomed he had grown to her touch and how at an earlier time it would have made him flinch back in doubt and hostility, but then it was not relevant, for his thoughts wrapped around the growing closeness of her lips and how they finally softly nudged at his, the contact silent and undemanding.

It did not wake up the wild carnal urges that were so easily waken from their slumber at the smallest inclination of her closeness; and it was her closeness that the reaction required, only ever hers, the woman he had grabbed by the arm one fate-stricken night, the unexpected strength stored within her muscles causing him to almost turn back. But he had not turned back and she had only intrigued him more, and she had enraged him more with every foul word dropping from her lips and then; he had hated her with all the burning passion that his strongly beating heart could have mustered. Why was it then, that he was now holding his breath when her lips nudged at hers? And why was it that his eyes should have drawn closed when for that one fleeting moment she kissed him, and he answered the gesture with distant longing? He knew this was the moment of their parting and that beyond the door they would pass through was a world that was painfully sharp, and mercilessly twisted and hostile. Rolf would be different living in it as would the woman be, and he was helpless to change it not due to the rules set by the university itself, but because his soul was trapped and chained by the unbending restraints of his nature. He could still retain that ethereal form of existence in the shelter of that room, or in that fleeting and light kiss that pulled upon his lower lip just before it ended, and his eyes opened up to look at her for those mere fractions of a second her gaze still remained on him... just before she turned around and left to collect her boots.

Rolf breathed out sharply and blinked his eyes, his gaze following the hurried steps of the woman as she bent down to pick up her boots, sat upon the chair and promptly started pulling them to her feet. The man's eyes remained narrowed for a few moments more and his heart seemed to skip a few nervous beats, but then he allowed the mask of sobriety to once more triumph over the almost apprehensive feeling of worry and his eyes - softened in the orange glow of the lighter as they momentarily might have been - once more slowly grew colder and impermeable. He was finding his own means to survive the impending shift back into the outside world and they did not include lingering in the warmth of her touch as it's memory was imprinted upon his skin, and it did not involve desperately grasping at her in a childish effort to make her stay... Not now when the truth was dawning even upon his own easily self-misguided mind.

He turned around just to provide her with enough light to manage the task and he had to consciously force his mind away from the reality, his attention instead focused on the small and seemingly insignificant things around him. He noticed the distant rumble of thunder faintly reaching the room through the beating of the rain on the roof, and how comforting did those sounds feel, how comforting had they almost felt to him, listening to the nature pour its fury upon the ground and making the world appear surreal for one more moment. When he had been but a child, he had secretly pretended that he was in charge of the weather and that it was his will that made the wind rush so relentless as to bend the trees towards the ground and bow to his might; that it was by his command that a lightning should lash against the ground and that the ear-shattering roar of thunder should follow it like a heavenly cavalry rushing across the domed sky in a mass of heavy hooves and the clanking of metal armour. Yes, he had imagined such foolish and extravagant things in that zestful and unbridled time of his childhood, but he also imagined it now, and he willed the weather to bend to his might, the next warning grumble of the thunder reverberating across his skin and soothing him. For what manner of earthly grievance could have ever disturbed a god of storms?

Maybe it was the sunlight that should pry its golden fingers through the murky clouds, maybe it was ever the glint in her green irises that could have made him waver... but he did not allow himself fall prey to her presence and instead he looked away, his eyes narrowed and his lips pressed into a thin line to preserve his resolution, and it was then, in a brief flash of lightning, that his eyes caught the silvery glint of jewelry laying upon the floor. Rolf took a careful glance at the woman, but she had already lost herself in the process of getting ready for that inevitable return for the barracks and he was sure she no longer made any real note of his presence. With steps that appeared almost silent through the constant thundering of the rain outside, he made his way towards the piece of jewelry - and even knowing that carrying the only real source of lighting as he was, he was most likely not the stealthiest person in the room - he bent down quickly to grasp at the discarded necklace. For a small moment he simply held it in his grasp and the metal felt cold and lifeless, the nightly breeze from the window further having cooled down something that had once held the glowing heat of a human form. The gemstones bit sharply into Rolf's palm as he remembered the moment he had pried it off her neck and recalled the way the precious metal had lain across her pale, naked skin. As lavish as the design was, it was a slave's collar, and he had bought both the choker and the woman wearing it for reasons he still could not fathom. It would have been a pity, though, leaving such a memento discarded and forgotten upon the floor and for the greedy fingers of the landlady to find. No, he would not tarnish the memory of that feral transaction between them, would not share it and would not give it away, and as he turned around to provide her with the flame of his lighter once more, he nimbly slid the piece of jewelry into the side pocket of his uniform to preserve the curious symbol of their unexpected intimacy.

Her figure, part obscured shadows and half-lit by the golden glow cast by the Hauptmann's lighter, had stolen his attention and he wondered what kind of thoughts were running through her mind; if they were ones centered around her upcoming duties, if she was already absorbing the role she was to use in order to survive. Or if she was still contemplating on the events that had passed between them, trying to fathom the reasons behind them just as he had, and being met with a wall of hazy memories, of emotions too strong to describe and too powerful to admit... or if it had been that way for her, at all. Rolf's eyes shifted to the side and he ran a hand down the front of his uniform, his mind too much of a mess to even properly get agitated by the thought that he should have been so affected when she clearly was not, that he should have been the one so deeply agitated, that he had not been the one to leave the room first! His fingertips curved to touch at the palms of his hands and as he further distracted his gaze from the much confounding sight of the woman, his eyes fell upon the belt he still had not worn. He was needlessly reminded of that earlier moment of her domination and he did not need that, not now when he was attempting to clear his mind of all the complications his time with her had stirred up, when he was trying to become more like the Rolf Jäger he knew he was! That very same piece of leather had once lashed out at him to draw out red welts upon his skin, and how vividly did he remember the way he had hated her, always more with each stinging lick of the belt; and how it had made his insides burn, how fervently he had wanted to strike back at her! He should have already known during that time that something was alarmingly off, and that he was not being quite himself when he had merely pinned her against the mattress and threatened her with fledgling promises of him turning her secret out to the authorities. It had been a weak revenge for the insult she had caused him and he knew he should have struck her back in seething wrath, to push her head into the pillow so that it would have been her catching his breath and flinching beneath the burning lashes of the leather belt! Rolf's hand hovered by his side for a moment, but then it shot out to snatch the belt from upon the floor, his tense and aching frame loudly complaining as he bent down to pick up the offending item. Rolf regained his composure much too quickly, and his eyebrows furrowed with the distinct displeasure of feeling a vast selection of various little aches waking up all along his muscles, yet it was ever his own disappointment of finding himself so powerless to punish her that made the edges of the leather strip to bite mercilessly into his palm and his mouth to draw into a thin line.

Let it go, he told himself within his head. Let it go and forget it even happened. It is less trouble that way. The pressure of his hand around the belt slowly eased up and something flickered in his eyes through the darkness. This is not who Rolf Jäger is. Carry yourself in a manner a member of the Jäger bloodline should! Stop slouching! Eyes forward! Straighten up! The voice ringing through his mind was suddenly no longer his own, but it had inclined into a lower, less raspier tone, the timbre of which Rolf could painfully well identify. He closed his eyes to blink away the image of his father's stern visage and for a moment his presence within the room was as strong as to cause the hairs at the back of his neck to stand up. The next rolling roar of the thunder vibrated through his heart, soothing him with assurances of his own Olympian powers, and with his lips slightly parted, he allowed his eyes to nudge sideways to find the woman caught in her preparations once more. The image of her decisive silence calmed him down even more and he allowed his gaze to linger so that his mind could better draw assurance from her presence, to make note of the way she would settle her clothing and just how she seemed to draw her own strength from those mundane and straightforward duties. He had been similarly soothed by watching her wash his clothing and settling it upon the window to dry - and he knew not why such insignificant, plebeian task should have caught his attention now when he would have otherwise regarded them as uninteresting trivialities gravely beneath his stature. Maybe it was because he had never paid enough mind for such things, that he had never settled into observing them; or maybe it was because it was Friederike that he saw focused on such duties and that she should have found it natural even in his presence.

Suddenly the flame of the lighter died and she disappeared into the darkness, the shadows engulfing both of them like the nightly tide washing over rock and sand and drowning not only detail, but form as well. In a fraction of a second he found his composure dying and the dark room was crushing around him with a thousand promises of malice. He struck the lighter once more, but it refused to obey and he grew almost frantic, his breath caught in his throat when he was certain that someone was standing in front of the window and that during the next flash of lightning he would be met with his father's disappointed image staring right back at him. His thumb flicked repeatedly over the mechanism before the small flame was brought alive once more and the ring of orange light around him had never felt more strong and secure than it did now. The room knew they were leaving and it was conjuring up shadowy beasts to hasten them, and Rolf could almost swear there were other presences there, all of them condemning him, reaching out at him and revealing sets of gleaming fangs just behind the woman just for the sake of destroying everything that had passed between them within these walls. The man felt his breathing growing alarmingly shallow when he knew not what troubled him so, and he stepped towards her with a sudden and jerky movement, his grey eyes constantly flicking around the obscure darkness surrounding them in a disturbed effort to spot some physical manifestation of the unease that had suddenly overwhelmed him. "Lass uns gehen."

His eyes did not remain on her for long, for he was worried she might have spotted the sudden apprehension even through that veil of shadows that prevailed in the room through that one weak source of lightning. He busied himself with pushing the wantonly hanging edges of his shirt beneath his trousers and gazed at the door, his skin crawling with the desire to get out, yet even then the craving was curiously mixed with a desperate urge to grasp her and prevent her from leaving. These conflicted feelings made the sensation of open irritation grow within him like some noxious disease and it's bitter poison made his aching muscles twitch with the desire of violence and anger, his movements turning sharp and edgy. He really had no way of properly tidying himself up or even buckling up the belt for as long as his other hand was occupied with keeping alive the flame of the lighter and so, without really caring about how he appeared, he already retreated towards the door. He was now continuously avoiding looking at her, plagued with the dreadful feeling that she would somehow manage to pry the secrets out of his mind just by looking at him; and was it truly even a ludicrous idea to consider, seeing as how she seemed to possess such a talent for reading him, or that she had paused long enough to look past his pride and wrath to begin with? When she stood up straight, Rolf could not help his eyes from drawing towards her form and it alarmed him that for a moment he only saw the Leutnant - that there was no question in his mind that this was the very same stern and militaristic figure that he had held such aversion for - but then the low lighting illuminated the side of her face and he could see the familiar line of her jawbone and the curve of the neck bathed in shadow, and the illusion was gone. It was Friederike.

When she turned around to walk at the door, Rolf was quick to avert his gaze at the pretense of coaxing the lighter into maintaining its flame for moments more and he even made a show of furrowing his eyebrows in concentration when the blaze briefly flickered. When she was closer by, he glanced at her from below his eyebrows and hated the way his attention was involuntarily caught by her, his grey eyes wavering for a moment when he wanted to pry his gaze away from her but found that he could not. The reality of their parting had suddenly become very raw and real, and Rolf Jäger stood there, the man caught in his loahtfully disheveled and coarsely stubbled state, his shirt hanging from beneath the edge of the tunic and his eyes for a moment desperate, the skin over his face tightening from inner anxiety. His insides were turning themselves inside-out while his chest felt constricted, and he wanted nothing more but to come up with some brilliant lie to deceive both himself and the woman into discarding reality once more. The various falsehoods his mind could conjure were already ripe upon his dry lips and his gaze held her, unwavering and intense as if he was ready to grasp at her and to force her to remain with violence, if necessary... yet then his hand slowly motioned towards the handle of the door and he allowed it to click open.

"Ich werde zuerst gehen," Rolf's raspy and low tone was quiet enough to almost get drowned by the steady beating of the rain upon the roof, his gaze for a few seconds more taking of the image of her standing in the shadows to better preserve it before he finally stepped out of the room. The room behind him was immediately engulfed by darkness the moment the only source of lighting was moved elsewhere, and Rolf felt his boots sound obnoxiously loud in the corridor when the thrumming of the rain had grown so very distinctly muffled in the very middle of the building. He did not need to glance behind himself to make sure whether she was following or not, for he could feel her presence and even estimate the distance where she stood, that very sensation making his spine tingle when it felt like too much of a connection to share with someone. He did not need to press her with needless instructions on what to do, for she knew well enough to avoid being seen by the landlady in the form that would have certainly roused up unneeded suspicion. Rolf descended the small flight of stairs on his own, allowing the metal lighter to flick shut when he noticed the lone candle left lit and standing on top of the counter. The lobby was otherwise empty and quiet, and for a moment Rolf wondered if the establishment was ever even used by any other customers at all and then, what exactly was the use of spending time and effort in an enterprise that hardly could have created much income to begin with?

Rolf stood in front of the counter for a few more moments, half-expecting the door to the landlady's room to swing open at the next moment to reveal her scowling and unbecoming visage, but then it only stood eerily silent. Apparently attached to the counter as the landlady might have appeared to be, even she might have needed rest at times. Rolf glanced at the stairs, simply nudging his head at her to indicate that the way was clear, but she must have realized that much from his unbroken silence, anyway. She soon rushed past him to make good use of the open opportunity, and Rolf followed after a few more hesitant glances towards the counter just before his attention was drawn to the suddenly grown roar of the rain when she opened the door and revealed the full force of the storm raging outside. The man's skin crawled with the thought of trading the dry and relatively warm confines of the building for that endless torrent of cold water, but she was already stepping outside and he had no choice but to follow, the door swinging shut behind him and his eyes narrowing with severe displeasure when the first few seconds of rain already made his hair flatten wet against his scalp.

Translations:

"Lass uns gehen."
"Let's go."

"Ich werde zuerst gehen."
"I will go first."

[Dirk Riedel]

There was nothing truly interesting about dressing in one’s boots. It was a common fact, unless one was a shoemaker and took exceptional pride upon having fashioned a jolly new pair, that such was no more but a dull process; and yet Friederike needed particular time to wear the military jackboots and fix them properly around her lower calves, not because such was in any manner complicated – alas! – but to devote herself on a chore that required only the concentration of her mind and a transfixed gaze, especially now that the source of light was as scarce and dim, served her in setting aside other troubles she might have considered with regard to the man’s presence. There was nothing tricky about pulling up the boots, but she still prolonged her time during which she grasped at the edge of her military trousers and tried to straighten them as to fit inside the boot without necessarily creasing, but then, oh what misfortune, it creased, and she had to do it again. And after this, it was her other foot. The woman kept her head lowered to the floor and her back bent over in place throughout this task, and never did she raise her glance to see where the man stood but for observing, against her wish, his dark shadow in the corner of her eye upon the floor, there where it met with the surrounding shadows of the room’s furniture, and melded with them. At one point her fingers trembled and eyes alight with the glimmer of confusion were unmoving and glassy … and gazed without gazing upon the black leather … But it was only ever a thought, a passing flicker, a very swift dusk that allowed the last trail of golden roseate hue to disappear beneath the horizon at the enveloping darkness, and then she began anew.

No, there was nothing interesting about wearing one’s boots; and Friederike knew this well. Her hands were skilled, roughened in places and then strong, as they held the boot firmly and tucked the garment beneath carefully, even though she well knew how vain it was when outdoors it was raining, even though she was well conscious of the fact it would all be ruined the moment they were to step in the street; she could hear the strengthened downpour pelt upon the sandstone building and biting upon the window shutters that creaked in protest, the rushing noise of the small streams birthed across the corner by the narrow alleyways and carrying with them sand, dust and pebbles; as well as she could hear the man’s breath while he busied himself with something or other, but she did not know what it was, for she never looked. Indeed, why did she persist upon fixing the trousers so stubbornly beneath the boots? The shutter groaned, and then lightning struck. Friederike raised her eyes, and his faint outline stood by the other corner, engrossed in something irrelevant, trivial. She tried to remember whether she had gathered all, and instinctively her hands touched around her form in swift, sharp motions, groping at her pockets to check she had not forgotten anything; and once she, against her will, turned to look towards the man’s direction, but he was too busy tending to his lighter. She turned her gaze upon the rain-spattered window, and then folded her collar better, making sure it were properly buttoned and stiff, and half in darkness, half in dim light, she managed to walk her way closer to the door, silently. For what, truly, could be spoken?

There stood the man, and there their eyes finally met; ablaze with a curious and longing uncertainty, and such was the quietude, such the perceptible calmness within the room though outside it may have been in cloudburst that the roads were awashed in; there was silence; and there was a state of unspoken indecision in her gaze, which, yellow, and virescent, gazed at him with dubiety shared. Until he finally pronounced his leave, and she did not have any problem to acquiesce to that statement, that before a moment passed she followed suit behind him; and, curiously enough, when the door made that final strange click as it creaked closed with a soft thud, something intricate and foreign tugged at her visceral depth for one second, some sort of writhing parasite that for one moment – one second! – clicked within her. It had only been the turn of a latch, and yet it felt like her heart turned, skipped a beat, and then for that second forgot to pulsate. It was only for one second.

The hallway was narrow and small, and how curious that a strange sensation minutely overwhelmed the woman as she walked along the dark corridor, its walls restricting her in between with a view to ensnare the woman within their suffocating clench were they to move closer and crush her with their force; but they did not, and the man was leading the way, with his back turned on her, walking tall and imposing and with his movement steady and certain - though it may have in fact been unconfident and confused - dressed in his military uniform and setting forth towards the end of the hallway, until his vague outline suddenly disappeared from view. The woman's heart shrunk for a moment, and was left alone those following seconds during which she waited at the side by the corner; the silence of the reception was evident, when only the creaking of the shutters and the pelting rain voiced one another through the old sandstone building, further attested by the pilot's own silence and the absence of dim light reflected upon the corridor's floor, that Friederike turned to look slightly to the main room. There was nobody there, and she moved properly that her entire outline appeared from the open door, until she quickly and with steadfast steps walked closer to the man, and then away from him. It all had suddenly taken a curious process of simple gliding motion that turned fluid and timeless, the absence of thought through the regal reign of confusion and avoidance as domineering as by contrast the man's carnal demands had formerly been, but now was silence; now was the drifting quietude of leave that wafted them away from their shared nest, and into the cataclysmic rain.

She first stepped into the road, at the wake of the thundering rain that spattered upon the exposed flesh of her face and her hands, her hair soon enough growing moist, and she could curious feel the unclear water running in small streams beneath her boots; the source of life that rushed across their carved bodies and marked them with its immortality. The woman looked up to the wide dark blue firmament which had turned misty and melancholy, and as she walked by the alleyway, at first slowly, she glanced quickly around her, and then turned to the man. “Los!” she called sharply amidst the musical entreaty of the rainwater, and then broke into a run.

[Rolf Jäger]

The Libyan city stood trapped in between the bleak, grey walls of the rain, the buildings holding steadfast in the soggy mud that the ground had been transformed into, and in the midst of it all stood Rolf Jäger with his eyebrows furrowed with displeasure, the beads of water snaking along the worn side of the leather belt he still held in his hand. It was a harsh wakeup call to reality and he was not enjoying it, not even when the low thrumming of thunder - its sound always one that he had particularly relished in - was enough to soothe his increasingly aggravated thoughts. Now he did not want to leave the room, even though just previously he had almost felt that small, enclosed space pushing them out with sour rejection, and he did not accept the fact that he was to lose the warmth of closeness that he had experienced and next time he was to fall asleep, he would be doing so on his own. The thought felt even colder now that he was stood in the heavy thrumming of the rain, watching at the woman's uniformed figure stand strung and ready to abandon him, and his grey eyes narrowed with secret disappointment and bitterness, their hue melding into the veil of the rain like some camouflaged beast crouching down to grow one with his surroundings in order to stalk its prey.

She was oblivious to it, her figure appearing nimble and almost fluid in comparison to the Hauptmann's still and unmoving form, and the man simply allowed his fingers to clench around the already wet leather, his gaze only briefly managing to catch the sight of her unreadable features when she turned around to tell him to move. She never quite gave him time to respond for she had already broken into a brisk run, leaving Rolf momentarily standing there with his mouth voicelessly opening and closing before he jumped after her. It was on an instinct that he followed, not wanting to see her part any further from him, yet still his pace was a half-run rather than the sharp, precise gait that she evaded the rain with, and it half in disagreement and half in confusion that he paced after her. "Lauf nicht! Was-" Rolf stopped when he realized that his question was lost in the roaring thrumming of the rain beating down upon the street and the buildings lining it and that she could not hear it, her military boots stirring up splashes of muddy water as the distance between them grew further. Suppressing a grumble, Rolf hastened his pace and suddenly had to grit his teeth when each one of his muscles complained in loud protest over such a sudden movement. After being put through the weeks spent upon the hard bed of the prison and then forced to strain so profusely with his carnal embracing of the woman his body had gone into a blaring rebellion, and Rolf grunted as he ran, the pain shooting in curiously heated waves through his increasingly drenched frame. It was not fitting for his stature to run in rain and stubbornly he would have rather walked; and he would have walked even if the streets should have suddenly been flooded with a mass of water and he had been left under the disastrous currents, just in order to show everyone that a bit of rain would not bother his stalwart nature. Yet still, for the woman, he ran, not even noticing the spatters of mud that rose to tarnish not only the smooth leather of his boots, but also the water-darkened canvas of his military clothing.

Running and grunting, he haphazardly raised the belt with its leather holster and the pistol that it held to his waist and had to struggle for a while to manage the buckle from the rather pained and uneven gait of his running. He was about to call to her - using her real name rather than the one that she had adopted for her current identity - but was stopped the moment his lips were already forming the very first letter of that name. There was nobody there to hear them, not that someone would have even managed to make out any words the man might have shouted out through the constant roar of the rain, but the immediate sense of impending danger over her safety had instinctively cut out the rest of that name. The man's eyebrows further furrowed from the curious realization of how natural it had felt to protect her when just some time ago that knowledge had been a malicious snare to torture her with, and it would have been more instinctive of him to lash out at the woman rather than to shield her. He drew breath and felt drops of rain snaking into his mouth, making all the more complete the illusion that he was rather swimming than running along Libyan streets; streets that better knew the dry, angry torrents of dust rather than the cold, liquid form of the rain.

Rolf's existence became one of burning muscles and the punishment of rain, and he felt weak trying to follow her when his time spent in imprisonment had left him somewhat malnourished. It was his lust and dedication that had provided him with the resources to indulge himself in her closeness, but now that the world was cold and hostile around him once more those supplies had suddenly dwindled, and he found shivers of exhaustion and pain run all the more fervent through his muscles. He was no longer even quite sure where they were headed and for how long they had been in the rain and his only point of focus was upon her ever evasive form. She was like the deer flitting through the thick trunks of the trees, through leaves and thickets evading her hunter and yet teasingly staying just at the very edge of his sight so that he should never quite lose sight of her, and would always pursue his quarry in blind hunger.

Suddenly two intrusive beams of light appeared in front of his vision and the woman came to a halt, with the blinking and aching man stopping on cue right her. Together they watched how the two distinct spots of light grew more distinct and then they could already hear the sound of the engine and soon after, the wheels of the military car sploshing upon fresh mud. Rolf already stepped forward to the tracks that might have once been a road, but which now more resembled a shallow river that circled around the ankles of his boots, and he got ready to stop the car in the hopes that it was occupied by lower-ranking soldiers and that he could order them to drive them back to the barracks. As the dirt-splattered Kubelwagen got closer, Rolf noticed it to be advancing at such a speed as to make it appear that the driver had never even spotted them and on an instinct he took a step back, not wanting to end his days being overrun by a German military vehicle. The vehicle came to a sudden, skidding stop just right next to them and the stilled moment was suddenly dominated by the rain spattering upon metal, the engine's nervous growl and the wind-shield wipers throwing water away from the glass while Rolf stood there, breathless and aching.

Suddenly the door burst open and a stocky man climbed out of the vehicle, his movements almost nervous and jerky as if he had been caught in the act of unforgivable mischief to be driving a car along the road. When he made note that both of the men standing at the side of the road were officers, he snapped into a fast salute, his boot sending a mad splash of mud spattering around. Rolf stared at the ridiculous display for a while before the inevitable recognition of these mannerisms rapidly dawned to him. He furrowed his eyebrows, craning his neck despite the uncomfortably cold water circling around his throat and finding its way beneath his shirt, while his eyes slowly narrowed just to better discern the other man's features through the continuous fall of the rain. "...Kronberg?"

The realization seemed to dawn to the stocky man much more slowly and could he really be blamed, finding the Hauptmann randomly trudging around in the rain with - what Kronberg could now plainly see - an officer of the Wehrmacht. "...Herr Hauptmann!" Kronberg voiced in astonishment through the pouring rain, for there was simply no mistaking that characteristic voice of the Luftwaffe officer. His eyes skipped towards the other man and he almost jumped back after recognizing Leutnant Riedel and the mystery became even more confusing to him, for certainly the two men had ever only hated one another and then, Kronberg quite certainly knew that it was the Leutnant who had been behind the grave battering that had sent the Hauptmann on to a trip to the military hospital. This caused Kronberg to harbour a very pronounced dislike for the Leutnant, one which he certainly did not share for his much agreeable and gentler sister, and his eyebrows crunched up just a little bit when he regarded the Wehrmacht officer. "Herr Leutnant!"

"Was machst du denn hier, Kronberg?" Rolf had to ask, for the prospect of the man randomly chancing on to them was improbable, to say the least. Kronberg's confused gaze skipped back to the Hauptmann and then, as if his task had suddenly dawned back to him, his entire stature was suddenly one of wild alarm. "Ich bin gekommen um dich zu finden, Herr Hauptmann, ich dachte, du wärst noch in der Stadt, es gibt-" the man had to pause for breath when it became almost frantic from sudden panic and Rolf's eyes narrowed, his gaze growing more intense when he waited for the man to continue with his story. "Es gibt eine Flut von der regen, in den Lagern. Zelte wurden entfernt vom Wasser gefegt, und Lieferungen... Alles ist in einem Chaos! Es ist sowohl unser Lager... und die eine der Afrikakorps!" Kronberg added when he realized that the Leutnant might have wished to partake in the knowledge, as well, and that he might have grown equally alarmed by his news. Rolf allowed the woman - no, the Leutnant - a quick glance and he knew duty was calling for her as much as it was calling to him. "Gibt es jeder verletzte? ...Tot?" Rolf asked with a sudden military briskness and Kronberg could only shake his head. "Nicht, dass ich von gehört. Es ist nur die Lieferungen... viele Karten und Papieren. Aber ich denke, jeder ist in Ordnung, Herr Hauptmann."

The unexpected news had almost made Rolf forget about the rain for a moment, but then he already stepped towards the car and Kronberg hurried to open the door for the two officers so that they could seat themselves upon the backseat. Rolf was almost inclined to allow the woman to climb in first, but then he was promptly reminded that she was supposed to be the Leutnant and it was expected of his rank to get inside the car before the other officer would, so he seated himself upon the uncomfortable seat of the Kubelwagen and wiped the water from his face. He realized that his uniform was by now completely drenched and that it would have hardly mattered if he had spent another ten minutes in the pouring rain, or another hour for that fact, but it still felt quite welcome to sit somewhere dry for a moment. The canvas roof draped over the vehicle was making the insides of the car incredibly noisy with the constant tapping of the rain attacking it and the noise as only broken by the heavy thud of the door when Kronberg closed it after the Leutnant. Rolf waited anxiously for the Hauptfeldwebel to take his place behind the wheel and when he did, he clamped the metallic bar running over the backs of the two front seats and leaned closer to better address the other man through the constant noise of the angry storm. "Wie sind die Flugzeuge?" he inquired of Kronberg when the man was turning the car around and the gears of the Kubelwagen groaned dangerously, mud grinding beneath the tires and sending it flying along the sides of the vehicle when the Hauptfeldwebel sharply pulled at the wheel. It took him a few moments to register his commanding officer's question and he had to steady the vehicle when it bumped forcefully enough to almost have him let go of the steering wheel. Rolf grunted and grasped at the metal bar to remain sitting upright, and all of his muscles came alive with renewed pain at the sudden movement. "Die Flugzeuge? Oh, die Flugzeuge sind ganz gut, Herr Hauptmann! Sie sind auf einer Anhöhe, ist es nur das ganze Lager, die weg ist- Oh, sieh mal, ein Blitz ist! Hast du das gesehen! Das muss man den Boden getroffen haben weniger als einen Kilometer von hier!" Kronberg pointed towards a distance were certainly, a flash of electricity had struck upon the ground.... just as it had done for several times, already, and the Hauptfeldwebel's overly excited and easily distracted mind made Rolf furrow his eyebrows in silent embarrassment over his wingman's antics.

He turned around to look at the Leutnant - maybe to offer the other officer some explanation why Kronberg was slightly flighty like that - but then the other side of the car lunged downwards and Rolf's grip of the vertical metal bar was unavoidably stolen from him and he slid along the long seat to crash quite forcefully into the Leutnant's frame. All of the man's muscles complained in loud protest and he was sure that the impact had caused at least a few large bruises, the air nearly having cleared out of his lungs and the woman - the Leutnant, he reminded himself - most likely not faring any better, seeing as she had been crunched between the door and the Hautpmann's heavy frame. At first it was difficult to discern the warm glow of her body through the soaked weight of their clothes, but the almost violent proximity of his body pushing against hers was soon reminding Rolf of how he had been pressed against her before with no clothing barring them, and then the thought had already grown too strong to let go of. The memory caused the man's muscles to tighten and he was not sure if it was the car veering to the side or his barely suppressed desire that made his heavy bulk crush all the more strongly against her, and his hand shifted to grasp her arm - just to steady the man - but the fingers clenched at the wet cloth with a force that was not necessarily needed to maintain his balance. His silver eyes momentarily fell upon the paleness of her throat and his gaze grew hungry while in his mind he was already drinking the drops of rain from her neck, licking them, consuming them and relishing in their life-giving force, and in the flame that she had managed to light inside him.

Rolf's irises glinted distinctly feverish in the shadows and he would have loved nothing more but pushing her painfully against the metallic inside of the car - to bite at her, to rip at her, to have his hands run over her rain-slickened body! - his violence that of savage affection, and his explosive yearning for her never quite appeased... but then the car bumped again and he was brought back into the cold reality where she was the Leutnant and where Kronberg was most definitely in the same car with them. As focused on driving in the darkness as the other pilot was, it would have hardly appeared appropriate if he was to remain grasping at Riedel for too long. Even through his hunger Rolf had to grudgingly admit that as violently tempting as these images were, he could not have what he craved for, and that those times had already hopelessly drifted past them. He gazed at her for a few fractions of a seconds more, but then the pressure of his fingertips eased up on her arm, and he distanced himself away from the uniformed woman. Groaning and with his eyes slightly widened from the throbbing remnants of his pain, Rolf grasped at the metallic bar again, painfully and slowly making his way back to the other side of the seat and he realized that his entire physicality was simply finding itself to be too weary to even protest over Kronberg's reckless driving. With his heart still thudding from that momentary agitation he succumbed to the force of the various bumps of the car, wincing whenever it made his body protest, and only a few times did he steal a glance towards the Leutnant, each time finding it just as confusing to think that he perfectly - and quite intimately - knew what hid beneath the military disguise.

When they reached the Wehrmacht camp, it did not quite look the same as it had appeared when Rolf had last seen it. Gone were the rows of tents dug into the sand, the tall command tents and the organized German structure that resembled the war camps of the old Roman legions. They had been replaced by various sources of lighting having been lit in an effort to make sense of the damage that the flood had caused, and the mud was littered with clothing, boxes of supplies, drenched and overturned tents, and the various soldiers attempting to gather what could be salvaged while the officers gruffly and wearily assigned them tasks, attempting to maintain least some sense of order through all the rush of confusion. Rolf eyed the sight and breathed out slowly, knowing full well that what awaited him back at his own barracks could not be much different from this, and he turned around to gaze at the Leutnant, his eyes trapped by the familiar countenance of green eyes - her green eyes - looking back at him through those fleeting and silent seconds. Rolf's fingers curled more strongly around the metallic bar and his mouth hang just slightly open, the tan uniform having adopted a darker shade from water, and his wet hair clung to his scalp, drips of water still glistening upon the untidy stubble. For a split second he wished he could have communicated something to her, for this was the very moment of their parting and its cruel and cold reality was only further emphasized by the disarray they were both to return to... but there was simply nothing for him to say, not that he would have expressed himself in Kronberg's presence, yet it was simply the fact that he had no words to offer her that ultimately caused his unbroken and walled-off silence. For a moment something flickered in the grey of his irises, like an eager, important sentiment attempting to surface through the harsh coldness of the steel, but with the last shuddering sigh of the thunder it was gone. And nothing was said.


Translations:

"Lauf nicht! Was-"
"Don't run-! What-"

"Was machst du denn hier, Kronberg?"
"What are you doing here, Kronberg?"

"Ich bin gekommen um dich zu finden, Herr Hauptmann, ich dachte, du wärst noch in der Stadt, es gibt-"
"I came to find you, Herr Hauptmann! I thought you were still in the city, there is-"

"Es gibt eine Flut von der regen, in den Lagern. Zelte wurden entfernt vom Wasser gefegt, und Lieferungen... Alles ist in einem Chaos! Es ist sowohl unser Lager... und die eine der Afrikakorps!"
"There is a flood from the rain, in the camps. Tents have been swept away by water, and supplies... Everything is in a disarray! It is both our camp... and the one of Afrikakorps!"

"Gibt es jeder verletzte? ...Tot?"
"Are the any injured? ...dead?"

"Nicht, dass ich von gehört. Es ist nur die Lieferungen... viele Karten und Papieren. Aber ich denke, jeder ist in Ordnung, Herr Hauptmann."
"Not that I have heard of. It is just the supplies... a lot of maps and papers. But I think everyone is fine, Herr Hauptmann."

"Wie sind die Flugzeuge?"
"How are the planes?"

"Die Flugzeuge? Oh, die Flugzeuge sind ganz gut, Herr Hauptmann..!"
"The planes? Oh, the planes are just fine, Herr Hauptmann! They are on higher ground, it is just the entire camp that is gone- Oh, look, a lightning! Did you see that! That one must have hit the ground less than a kilometer from here!"