Water scatters and women on their way to the McInnery House jump trying to save their new dresses from the spray of four night's worth of solid, Scottish rainfall given a toss by a barrelling military jeep. The pretty, parasol-like display doesn't slow the jeep down one iota. Nor do the shouts of a handful of American G.I.'s suddenly met with the choice of hugging the stone of wall or kissing the cobblestones.
That's an Irish flyboy (well, navigator to be honest) turning back and laughing. The hell with Brooklyn anyway. That'll be Niall o'Dubhlain...
Sitting in the back with him but looking a lot more dashing and distinguished is another from Ireland, still wearing the gear he wore when he landed, jumped in the prigged jeep (American issue at that). That'll be a fresh faced Henry Fitzsimmons. Captain Fitzsimmons, to be exact.
Driving -- although we're stretching the license of the word and its meaning here to its broadest and most generous extent -- is Davydd ap Owain, somewhere beneath that gear and rain slicker. Madcap laughter trails behind the roar of the jeep. We're making history here...
And I, I just want to get to the house alive. I was less fearful of my life manuevering through the flack fire over France. "Oh shit!" Hands in the jeep as it barrel down a street never meant for solid, American engineering.
"Are you sure you won't come with, Will'm?" that roll of Cymraeg, half-muffled by the cigarette in Davydd's mouth, amazingly still lit at that.
"Dead sure," I said to the groans of the voices in the jeep with me. As Davydd sent us sideways in a skid, perfectly aligned with the side of the curb where the road bent, I lifted my hand to my hat. I wasn't worried about it so much as I wanted to make sure my head stayed intact. "I'll catch the next one, Davy. I just want to fall in a bed and sleep for a thousand years...si vous plais..."
I piled out of the jeep, grabbing the duffle and swinging it over my shoulder, and rain beaded upon the long leather coat I wore. Pilot officer. That was me, William Plantagenet, RAF.
How we learned to fly in the first place, how we made our way in Man's army, well... that's another story...
Davydd's smile billowed smoke and he grinned like the Welsh rascal he gave rise to. "Bon soir, mon ami. We'll be gettin' pissed at McInnery's. You'll get a full and complete report," that'd be a first, "... on the lovelies you missed for some shut-eye."
Henry stuck out his hand and I took it briefly. "Keep him out of trouble," I said. "I'll see you in three nights." When leave was over.
Let them have their dancing. I just wanted to go home. As I turned to head down a narrow alley and to a rowhouse tucked in an old, comfortable spot, I heard Davydd and Niall roaring over the jeep: Coward!
It was 1942 and it had been two months since I had seen him. Him. That would be Ian Dunross.
"No," Ian shouted into the heavy black phone in his hand. "No, Gerald, that's not what they promised, and I have no plans..." cigarette pulled out and tapped against a silver case, "...on giving them that. The deal was done and wot - they think me stupid? Of course they can't come up with it, and of course, they thought I'd take the three-quarters and be happy? It's wartime," Ian's hand swings about, "...he'll be happy to have the business -- fuck him, he'll take the loss and be delighted that a hand's up his ass?"
Still in uniform, Ian had barely made it into the house at 9 Royal Mile before Gerald MacInveray called looking for the man he calls 'sheyfin'...his Boss. In his British dress-browns, Ian paces before the writing desk, his bag still in the doorway. "Look, Gerald," the man's voice on the other end of the phone loud now not in anger, but in frustration and dismay, "...I'm not mad at you. But what in God's name did you think would happen when you went into this? Yes, I agreed, and I'll take it out of their hides before yours. I want the ships full and they can have the hand up their ass..."
"Christ," Ian whispers, trying to hold the phone with his shoulder. Zippo comes out and he strikes...strikes...before the flame flickers to the cigarette held between his teeth.
"Fi-mmrph...fine! Just...do it Gerald. Tell them. The boats will be filled. Period. End of story."
Hard to run a shipping business from behind enemy lines. Gerald has gone weeks without hearing from Dunross. Calls out of Germany are impossible, and when he's there, Ian's too busy in his SS dress-blacks, too deep in the darkest corners. Even his rare dreams are in German...
Fiddling with the lighter and the cigarette brings opportunity to see the watch on his wrist. A British uniform to get home. Shit. The blonde boy, Aryan in every way, grimaces as he notices the time. "I gotta go, Gerald. I just fuckin' got here and Ich gehen mussen..."
God. I've got to shake this...
"I'll call you in a few hours, Gerald. Yes, I know there's much to go over, but I just got home Gerald, for Christ's sake..."
There's a sound at the door -- it is the door. The brasswork is being engaged, a key slipped in the hole, a turn and a twist of the knob (it's a tricky door, what with the constant moisture). It is opened with a resounding sound, a Plantagenet shoulder, an RAF duffle and a "Mon Dieu." Rare these nights to hear French at all. These have been sad days and nights...
Sad and most alone. When was the last time? Somewhere on the Continent. And you have been practicing your German. Mine's bloody awful (always has been, I don't think I could have spoken two words to my nephew Otto, praise his French). Do you surrender? No? Gunfire. Really, my vocabulary is quite limited.
There are steps in the foyer. I thought I heard your voice. You are here. Ah, there's your bag. That's what I nearly tripped over. I set the duffle in the foyer, gave the door a close and promptly locked it.
When you see him, he has the question of your name in his eyes. He's removing his pilot's cap, and water is running down his jacket like all the rivers of Europe combined. Off come the gloves and slow comes the smile.
"Est-ce que ce la maison est d'un ami?" Indigo smiles before his mouth does, both spread warm and wide. "Je m'ai pense ai entendu l'allemand. J'ai presque saisi mon pistolet..." Laughter halts at the throat. "It's been a long time, Colonel."
I have thought of clicking my heels and saluting. But... I just wanted to hold you. I dropped my gloves to your table. Sorry for the mess, amours...
Gerald's slow to go, but Ian turns around, his words quiet. There you are. The most beautiful, perfect sight there is...
"Gone, Gerald. I'll talk to you in a few hours..."
The phone is most unceremoniously set back into its cradle.
"I haven't been called Colonel much," Ian admits, voice over the click and thudding of the phone. He looks at the uniform he's wearing. "I've had to dominate most of the British regiments to pass it all off."
He can't stop staring at you. Words come forth, but those are but accidents. Like breathing. They mean nothing to Ian. A reflexive reaction in the face of words spoken to him and automatic social graces. Ian swallows and smiles as he looks you over from head to toe. The cap in your hands and now the gloves.
The world is quiet here. Strangely so. It takes a while to get used to nothing: no cars, no gunshots, no impending trauma or life-or-death situations that could make or break the war. No prying eyes and lips that would tell all.
"It has been, Commander, a...very long time." Get to the point of the words, really. Ian's smile jumps again, lest it seem waned. He laughs a little, but then it softens as Ian continues to stare.
The world is so quiet when there are only two people in it. And there is no rushing, there is no charge, no gunfire, no straifing air cannons. No bombs. When he comes to you, it seems as though he was never away from you. There has been no war, no insult and injury of invasion in his country, no death, no bombings. William stands before you, he looks you over -- as detailed as any medic's look but with much more warmth -- every detail absorbed. And then, there is the hand in your hair.
It is shorter, very ... very Berlin. You see it cross his features. And he, very RAF. Clean-shaven, short haired, a man you could present to your mother despite the presence of the French accent (it's been months since he's been able to wear it).
First there is an embrace, his hand to your golden head, his other arm around you, you drawn in close. To feel your weight. You are solid, and now all is right with the world. In three days time it will be 1942 again. But not now.
"I thought of you in the skies over the Loire," he says at your ear. "Where have you been..." The hold parts just enough to let you speak and just enough that his mouth can brush yours, the slow taking of a kiss, just a brush, sir.
But he wants more than a brush. His hair is shorn close at the back, only slightly longer at the top. Ian's arms encircle you, and his cheek eagerly nuzzles the hand that caresses it. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Ian murmurs. "Berechtgaden," he says softly. Hitler's very own Eagle's Nest at the German-Austrian border. "Berlin. Dresden," he finishes, tired of thinking of them all. The SS is his assignment, but he works for British Intelligence. And how.
"What did you think over the Loire?" Ian asks, nose beneath yours. The smell of you is almost overwhelming. Ian's arms tighten around you instinctively.
"Some night, we are going to meet there, oui," he smiles, "...and we are going to split all of the champagne he has stolen from my poor country." His poor, beleaguered, conquered country. But that isn't the half of it, as he knows. As he well knows. William exhales and he closes his eyes a moment. I do not want to talk about work. "I thought of this," he says. The kiss is explanation enough.
It has been so long. Long enough to not wish to rush it, to roll over you like the storms roll over Edinburgh. That would be too easy, too quick, too fleeting. There is nothing fleeting about the hold, the press of pilot's leathers and gear into the British browns, nothing transitory about the kiss.
He smells of leather and of rain. Beneath that is him, Plantagenet earth, the North Sea and the fire from his last cigarette. "I love you," he says against your mouth and into it. "And I hope you don't mind but..." that mouth and the way it forms a smile, the way his eyes hold it cupped and his mouth dashes emotions to pieces, devastating, "...I think you are going to be too busy to speak with Gerald..." Your mouth, amours, it is going to be too full. He doesn't have to say it. His hands say it for him, his eyes say it for him. A kiss, and his mouth confirms it. Far too busy.
Ian grins, boyish lips with a millenia of experience, replying softly, "You can tell him, when he calls." For Gerald shall. He cannot wait for amorous encounters, reacquaintment, or requiting. Ah, he'll try hard for a few hours, but when his phone does not ring, he'll be desperate to make a call before Ian goes away for weeks, months, once more.
"I, personally," Ian breathes at your lips, staring at them before he dives in again, "...will not mind..."
"I will tell him," he begins, the Plantagenet beginning, a declaration, a pronouncement of Will's will. When he calls again -- and he will call -- the phone will be answered and will summarily be put down again, call disconnected. Just like that.
He will have to wait. It is his turn. And William will be victorious.
His hand slips from your short golden hair, to join with his other behind your back. You are caught, sir, and here is no escaping it or him or this. "We should have cognac upstairs, in bed. I should dry off." You dive in at his mouth again and he loses his words, the thoughts fly right out. And you are squeezed in arms that no other British flyboy has. What other British flyboy has carried himself in armor to the hot sun of the Holy Land? It is the crusader who kisses you, it is your mate who claims you. Do you doubt the mouth that takes you?
I don't know how long we've been standing here, I've been standing here dripping half of Scotland and the North Sea on your rugs. I want and I want and I want. I want you. I want to taste you. I want to feel and to hear you. And I want you out of these British browns.
"Let's go," William says quietly, his hand to your face again, the back of his hand brushing. Let's go, says the indigo. There's a room waiting. And in that room there is a bed. And in that bed there will be two men. And those two men will make one man between them. William steps back a touch, smiling, and he starts to turn. He looks around the room.
Dieu, it seems like centuries, ages since I was here....
Oh, don't take it away! Ian's eyes open, his head falling towards you as if following your lips. But you've stopped. He licks his bottom lip, Ian does, then nods. Fingers clench yours, never to be torn apart. Any who should dare, well, they risk their very souls.
In silence, Ian follows you, eager to be led down...up...the primrose path. Free hand pulls at his collar, twists at the button there. Grey eyes continue to stare at you as if you were something magical made manifest before him. A demi-god, a dream made real.
His boots tap lightly on each step and the stair creaks gently beneath your combined weight. Ian's undershirt shows more and more beneath his browns, gleaming white within the folds.
... I lit a cigarette in bed and I watched you rest. We made a mess of the sheets, and one another. I can still smell the blood in the room and a few other things that pass between men. Your sweat, even though it has dried on my skin (and yours) tastes like the ocean. I smile, flicking ash. I can taste your other ocean on my tongue. Something more like the Mediterranean. Yes, I smile. I missed that, too.
The phone rang at the bedside twice -- once from Gerald, once from Davydd at the dance-hall. I could hear Gershwin and Goodman in the background. Actually, the phone rang three times, but it was easily ignored -- your thighs over my ears did wonders to block the sound.
I exhale smoke, but I still breathe you in. Closing my eyes, yes... you are still there. I open them. Yes, you are still there. When I am in the clouds again in two days, I will think of this.
My friends do not understand my faraway looks, the quiet that has descended upon me. Though my 'fame' (it is more infamy) travels with me, it travels on its own legs. My 'legend' no longer needs my active involvement. I will no doubt hear that while I was making love to you tonight I was simultaneously making love to twelve women and one American G.I.
There, the cigarette is done and I am content. Content, Plantagenet. Who in your family would have believed this. I turn my head to look at him, I sink in the bedding. And I don't care.
One night, they will all know.
"Who was that?" Ian murmurs softly beside you, no less contented than you are. He rests with a smile upon his face, eyes closed for now. "Ach, if it was Gerald," he laments and sighs, knowing that there is much business to attend to, somehow. The energy and care must be found; Ian cannot leave Gerald without answers for another half year.
Upon your stomach, Ian's hand lands again. Like a spider, his fingers crawl across your taut muscle, a smirk growing at his young features. The sheet's edge barely covers his rear, while Ian's cheek sinks into his down pillow.
"It doesn't matter," he murmurs. It will sort itself out. There is tomorrow, afterall. That's what tomorrow is for. For now, his cigarette is ended. You stir, there is no need to busy his mouth with a surrogate. Not when the real desire is so close.
Half lidded, the indigo eyes move over your smile, your spreading hand, and where the sheet does and does not land, and hides and does not hide you beneath it.
I will not be melancholy for tomorrow and the night after that will find me getting into a jeep and heading back to the front. That will find you returning to Germany. I will not think about passing his messages to you through channels, such that they are barely recognizable by the time they get to you, in German no less.
Your hand spreads, his larger hand covers it, pressing it downward. Do not stop there...
The down pillow sinks with the weight of his arm, and his mouth brushes against your forehead. "I don't know. Before, it was Gerald. Then Davydd and Niall," that time, did you even notice? When he lifted and rolled within you, upon you, against you in a powerful wave and held in place. Then. He thinks of it, and he wants you again. "Ian," he whispers at your mouth. "See what being apart from you does? The wind cannot blow, and you cannot smile..." William grins, he closes his eyes, he exhales at your skin, and tasting your skin, he rolls over you again.
Both the sun and Gerald will be back. But.. maybe not for a while, ne c'est pas?
But he does smile now, feeling you upon him once more. In times like these, there is never a chance to finish a thought, fall through a conversation. Communication lines are overloaded and the circuits are busy. Voice...is the last refuge of explanation and the least effective. The hand, his skin, your movement. And soon enough, the fingers of both his hands splay across the cotton sheets as Ian's mouth parts for a sigh.
Strathfayr's grandeur has not made it to the third floor of 9 Royal Mile. A simple life rules here, though the sofa and chairs downstairs are new. The electrics could use a once over and a new refrigerator is in order. Gerald will see to those later. The neighbors speak kindly of the RAF and Army officer who appear to be roommates in the inside rowhouse of 9...must be tough with no windows though. But as they both are away, serving in the War to end all Wars, well, what use is there to worry about such things? Great young men, both, truly.
"You make it sound as if the world comes to an end when we are apart," Ian says softly, words brushing over the pillow's edge. He smiles, knowing the response. Even stalwart Ian cannot help but drown in romantic emotion when you meet. It's pinned up, you see. Standing frozen at an ocean's edge, watching the waves lap but never reach. And then, suddenly, you can move! Arms and legs slacken and free, and you run towards the water with all of your might. Then, just as you reach the cool edge, the soft sand damp, instead of walking forth and acclimating, you dive headlong into the next breaker, pummeled and shocked by the torrent that controls you. But you're there willingly, eagerly, having waited so long for the ocean's embrace.
"It does," regardless of whether you know the response or not, it is spoken. He's no different from any G.I. When he is in battle, when he is commanding, strategizing, he goes on automatic pilot. Sometimes literally. His body steers itself, but even in the middle of gunfire, flackfire and dogfighting, his mind is often a thousand miles away.
He writes a letter to you the night before he flies a mission. He locks himself up in a room if a room can be found, or takes shelter in a foxhole, trench, or writes it in transit, piled into the back of a jeep. He hopes you will never see these letters, for if you see them it will mean that he was unable to bring them to you himself. They could not be in safer hands, each one delivered to that man of Avignon.
Pinned up. Contained and held secret. Held in the chest, in the throat, most silent. When you are together, is it any wonder that the beds rattle, the sheets tear, the words flow and with sentimentality. Gonna take a sentimental journey. Isn't that how the song will go?
Your hands splay upon the sheets, his splays against your hips, pulling you to him, and William sinks into you, coming with you as you sink further, your weight doubled, into the down.
On the floor there is the evidence of it. Another war. Another period of the business of the world and your part in it. An RAF uniform here. A British Army uniform there. As his mouth covers you, widening, and his body slides between you and the linens, it could just as easily be the first world war. The end of the 100 Years War. The liberation of Alhambra. The waning years after the victory at Arsuf. You and he, the motion of the bed, the anguish expressed in the need, the love expressed in the sweat and blood of it -- this has not changed...
Posted by rowan at August 02, 2003 10:39 PM
