Carthago Delenda Est

XXXII

Tuesday, 1900

When they had both enjoyed their orgasms, Veronica moved slowly forward to lay flat on her stomach, before she rolled left onto her back and stretched in a very feline manner. As she began to stir, Jack sat up from the cool, wetness of her back and felt her movement pulling him out of her, before he lay down next to her, and held her tightly to him in excess of an hour. Neither said anything as they lay closely together, Jack kissing and stroking Veronica's long, two-toned braids as she kissed his neck, lips, jaw and chin and squeezed his hard biceps and shoulders. They quietly focused their energies on solidifying their deep emotional bond with their now established ritual of extended, loving afterplay, each of them touching and exploring anew their deeply shared desire for one another. In every way, they each enjoyed the exotic physical differences of the other; for Veronica, Jack's strong, pale, firm body was as attractive to her as her dark, curvaceous and soft physique was enchanting to Jack.

It was this interplay of their physical opposites combined with their emotional similarities (regardless of whether or not they would ever know in their waking minds), that had not merely allowed, but in fact had compelled them to fall in love so quickly and so deeply. From their natural human evolutionary drive to find an attractive and healthy mate whose appearance and subtle chemical indicators promised alleles that would offer potentially unique advantages to their offspring, to their shared violent and rudderless beginnings that provided them both with a strong desire to vigorously defend themselves and their interests, Jack and Veronica were a perfect match. Though they'd met under very inauspicious circumstances, they each had quickly come to recognize, primarily unconsciously, the uniquely synergistic opportunity their meeting represented to fulfill their most central human drive (no matter how astronomically unlikely it had been for a poor white boy from South Dakota and a refugee Igbo girl from Nigeria to meet and fall in love). Given the stew of biological and karmic kicks-in-the-ass at work, they had risen above the challenge of their meeting and very quickly formed a uniquely strong connection. That each of them were in their primes, physically, and were both well disposed toward a high degree of fitness and good health, only furthered the calculus at work in their deep, unconscious minds that had assessed the likelihood that their progeny would be healthy, numerous and very loved.

Feeling a strong impulse to capture the perfect happiness Veronica felt at that moment, she reached across and over Jack to the bedside table and took her iPhone and then climbed up and lay on Jack's chest, and kissed him quickly. Veronica smiled at Jack, and then faced to her right (Jack's left), and held out her iPhone at arm's length. She deftly toggled through her already full screens to the camera app, and used it to take a selfie of them, in the tender afterglow of three vigorous rounds of very satisfying sex.

"Jack, look over here!" She said as she pushed her braids back behind her head and away from her face, and saw in the screen that naughty smile of his that she liked so much. The right side of his face was pressed against the left side of hers, his arms wrapped tightly around her back, the side bulge of her breasts as she lay against him was very noticeable now that their blanket was pushed back to lay over them, just forward of her waist, displaying for the camera the stark differences in their skin complexions. She took three pictures of them in bed, wishing she could relive the moment for the rest of her life. She rolled over and lay on her back, along Jack's right side and quickly flicked her fingers across the screen, moving from menu to menu until she'd made their post-coital picture the background image of her phone's screen. Smiling satisfied, she put her iPhone back on the nightstand.

Jack laughed gently. "Are you sure you want that as your home screen?"

Veronica turned to him and put her arms around his neck and kissed him gently before nodding. "Of course." She pushed herself up onto her left elbow and ran her index finger over his chest and arms. "Tell me about your tattoos." She said.

"Which ones?"

"All of them!" She said, smiling and squeezing his right pec.

"You tell me about yours, first." Jack said, smiling as he drew his fingers lightly across Veronica's skin, tickling her and making her giggle uncontrollably.

"Jack!" She gasped between peals of laughter. "Stop, honey, please... You'll make me pee!" She pleaded with him, and began to gently slow her breathing as he complied and leaned in to kiss her.

"I don't have any tattoos, babe, my skin is too dark. They told me that the ink wouldn't show up..." She murmured as she snuggled close to him and began to once more gently trace the outline of the tattoos he sported, one on each of his pecs.

"Well, this one," Jack said, pointing to the macabre image on his right pec, "I got after Jimmy and I rotated back to the US from my first deployment to Afghanistan. That was the deployment we survived that IED hit we took in Paktika; I had a hard time believing we survived it. I used to think that maybe we didn't survive; that maybe I was really dead, like this handsome guy..." Jack said, pointing to the hideous corpse-head tattoo. "Or, I thought that maybe I'm actually laying in a hospital somewhere, locked in a coma dream that I'll never wake-up from." He said, chuckling at the way Veronica wrinkled her nose in disgust at the detailed, and Jack had to admit, repulsive image of the decayed zombie head and face.

"But you're not dead, you're here with me, and maybe that's why you survived that explosion; so that we could find each other and be together." She said gently, then let her eyes trail over his naked body. "Maybe you survived so you could use that big dick and huge pair of balls to start a family with me..." She said suggestively, and she could tell from his expression that he'd never considered anything positive could come out of the low points of his life. She decided to draw him back to her initial question.

"What about this one? What does it mean, 'Vae Victis'?"

"That refers to a barbarian leader who successfully sacked Rome, and made the Romans pay him a bribe of a certain weight of gold before he would leave and give them back their city. The Romans complained about the amount of gold he wanted, saying it was too high. The barbarian chief laughed at them and threw his sword on the scale, adding to the weight in gold they had to pay him. As he laughed, he said to them, 'Vae Victis!,' which, if I remember correctly what Jimmy said when he told me about that episode of history, meant something like, "Sucks to be losers!" Basically, he told them he had no sympathy for their whining; they lost, and that's just the way it goes. I loved that story when Jimmy told it to me, and I added that tat after we finished Ranger School, when I was full of piss and vinegar to get back into the fight."

"That's not very nice, Jack. Do you really agree with that kind of mentality?"

Jack thought for a moment before answering. He looked carefully at Veronica, and in spite of her question, he only saw love and interest in her face, not the revulsion or anger he'd always dreaded as lead-ins to yet more rejection. "I sure used to, but honestly, after meeting and falling in love with you, no, I don't think that's a good way of looking at the world anymore."

"What do you mean?" She asked, intrigued that she'd changed his outlook.

"Like you told me, you and your family were refugees and left Nigeria because you had been at the mercy of guys like that barbarian chief; I don't like the idea of you being at the mercy of someone else just because they were stronger. And because I hate hypocrisy, if I don't like that you were in a situation like that, I can't be okay with other people being in that kind of situation."

Veronica smiled and nodded her head; she liked his answer and felt better about him. She saw him smile wider than his normal, broody-but-contemplative-Jack smile. "What? Why are you smiling at me like that?" She asked, feeling her own smile begin to peak the corners of her mouth.

"I just realized who you look like; I mean, what actress you make me think of." He said.

Veronica groaned and rolled her eyes. "Oh, Jack, don't say it, I know who you're going to name..."

He smiled but wouldn't stay silent. "Your face looks that gorgeous black, Latina actress from Avatar-"

"Zoey Saldana, right?" Veronica finished for him.

"Yes! I mean, your complexion is a bit darker than hers, which I really like, and you wear your hair in braids while she seems to prefer a straighter texture, but your eyes, your smile, ears, neck, your general build look very similar to hers." He concluded.

Veronica sighed theatrically, but couldn't help the smile that stayed on her mouth. "I have heard that so many times." She said, feigning feeling perturbed. Veronica rolled back toward him and kissed him for some time, enjoying again the feeling of his arms around her. She ended their kiss by tugging gently with her teeth on his lower lip as she backed slightly away from him, and began to let her eyes rove over his body again. "I don't really mind that comparison. I agree, she is beautiful, but I like even more that you appreciate the ways in which I am different from her."

"What about this one?" She asked, drawing his attention back to his tattoos. She'd pointed to two large, stenciled, tattooed letters reading "U.S." on his left shoulder. The letters were thick and black, each roughly four inches high and an inch wide.

Jack rolled onto his right side and faced her so that he could angle his left shoulder toward her. "This one I got when I finished my first deployment to Iraq, before Jimmy and I went to Ranger School. I copied the style of brands that cavalry horses get, on their left, front shoulders. In the old days, it was a way to denote government ownership of the horses. I was gung-ho back then, and was, I guess, trying to express my desire to be a lifer; to serve in the Army for 30+ years. This was my way of copying the 'SPQR,' "mark of the legion" tattoo that Maximus has in the movie, 'Gladiator,' except I picked a more modernly-military stencil font for the letters."

"Okay. I kind of like it, it does look very martial with that stencil style for the letters." She said, gently tracing her fingertip along each of the letters, then looking up into his green eyes and smiling at the way her touch raised goose bumps along his skin. "What about this one, on your right shoulder; what does it say?" She asked, prodding him to lay on his back so that his right shoulder was visible again.

"It says 'Cum Gladio et Sale,' and means, "with sword and salt," basically the motto of professional soldiers; the idea that they fight for pay."

"Hmm, okay. Is that why there's a picture of a sword on a pile of, what is that, salt?" She asked, referring to a drawn gladius on top of a pile of what she'd thought at first was snow.

"Yup."

"Is that what you do now, Jack? Are you like a mercenary or something?"

"Yes, although technically, no; actually working as a mercenary, is illegal in the US, and for Americans anywhere. But what I do, working as a private security contractor, is not."

"So, what do 'private security contractors' do? Do you work for Blackwater?"

"Same idea, but no, I didn't work for that company, or its current reincarnation. And I don't do anything as flamboyant as what got them into trouble. What I've done for my last two deployments as a private contractor is train and mentor Afghan Local Police, working for a British security company, under contract directly to the Afghan government. In reality, they're not local police, they're a militia for an Afghan warlord, and I don't just train them, I train them and then lead them on raids and other missions against ISKP, ill-tempered Chechens and other cast-off, Muj mutations."

"ISKP? Muj?" She asked, not understanding.

"ISKP," Jack said, pronouncing each letter independently. "is the Afghan knock-off version of the 'Islamic State;' 'Muj' is short for mujaheddin. What a lot of people call 'jihadis;' your garden-variety, self-proclaimed 'holy warriors;' they're really just terrorists, smugglers and poppy-cartel fighters hiding behind their religion. Most of the warlords in Afghanistan want to stabilize the country so it's easier for them to sell or work as middlemen in selling drugs (especially heroin), guns, people and pretty much everything else, to the rest of the world. That whole strategic location on the 'silk road,' and all..." Jack explained.

Veronica looked at him and sighed. "And here I thought my life was finished with warlords... How long do you want to keep doing that, Jack? Obviously," She said, looking around his room and indicting the new condo and Jack's tailored clothes. "the money is good; I get that. But it's not easy to have a normal life, a family and children if I'm here, worrying about you while you're over there, doing that..."

Jack nodded and then he, too, sighed and looked away from her as he went over the thoughts he'd had often since their first meeting. "I've been thinking about that ever since I met you; well, ever since I met the real you." He said, looking back into her eyes and absently running his thumb over the small pox vaccine scar on her right shoulder. She smiled self-consciously and took his hand in hers, interlacing her fingers with his.

"Are you planning to do another deployment like that?" She asked him.

"I think just one more."

Veronica was quiet for awhile, thinking about Jack leaving her for a deployment, eventually turning away from him but then scooting backwards, pushing her back against him and taking his left hand and holding it snugly over her womb. She enjoyed the warm, hard feel of his chest against her back, and the feel of his steady, deep breaths against her ear and neck while his hand lay upon her soft skin above her womb. She felt a churning in the pit of her stomach as she continued to think about Jack leaving her (likely pregnant), going back to war and getting hurt, or worse... This was a new concern for her only insomuch as it added to the worry she'd felt when he told her he was going to try and kill Dante. "It's only sexy when he's back, and safe; it's not fun when I have to wait to see what happens when he goes out and gambles with his life..." She thought, feeling foolish for how turned on she'd felt when he came home Monday night, after he'd beaten the shit out of the junkie who'd tried to rob him. She wondered at Jack's inherent violence, remembering the horrible experience he'd told her about his father's abusive treatment of Jack and his mother. She wondered what he had to balance out that experience.

"Jack?" She asked after several minutes of quiet contemplation. "Do you have any happy memories from your childhood?" She felt his chest expand against her back and then felt his slow exhalation before he answered.

"Not many, but there is one that sticks out; it was the last time I ever saw my father."

"What happened?" She asked hesitantly, not sure if it was a painful memory, but wanting to better understand him. She squeezed his left hand, still enjoying its protective presence over her womb.

"We were driving to visit a sister of his, my aunt, in Conway, Arkansas, over summer break after I finished fourth grade; that was the summer before September 11th. That whole trip, all three days of it, he'd been on a bender, doing nothing but drinking, beating and yelling at my mom and me, and passing out. I thought so many times how easy it would be to unlock his door and just push him out. My mom was driving since the Old Prick's license was non-existent after his first eight DUIs. Finally, everything came to a head. One night we stopped at a cheap motel in Joplin, Missouri, and he raped my mom three times, with me there in the room, trying to sleep on the floor. At first, I got up and tried to make him stop; he was hurting her, really going at her and making her cry, but all I did was distract him enough to get the shit kicked out of me, and he seemed to like that, too. After he gave me a bloody nose and a black eye, slammed my head against the wall and gave me a concussion, my mom begged me to just go to sleep, told me it was okay, no matter how much she cried. I listened to that all night until he finally passed out and she went to the bathroom, left all the towels stained with blood from what he did to her."

Though Jack couldn't see Veronica's face, he recognized the revulsion she felt from the way her body, particularly her hands, reacted as he told her about what had been the second worst beating he and his mother had experienced, but also the prelude to what was the best childhood memory he had.

"Anyway, the next day after we crossed into Arkansas from Missouri, we stopped at a highway rest stop just inside Arkansas on I-49, and as we were pulling in, my dad woke up pretty hung over and started beating my mom as she drove, and it was severe enough that my mom couldn't hold the wheel straight, and the car started to swerve, dangerously. My mom was somehow able to park, and she and I got out of the car and tried to run inside the welcome station to get away from him. I remember lots of old people, quiet and open-mouthed, watching us, my dad staggering after us, swearing at us and the old people. He only made it about halfway to the welcome station before an Arkansas State Trooper who'd stopped to use the toilet came out of the men's room, saw us, heard my dad, told us to stay inside the welcome station, and he went outside. I'll never forget how awesome and huge he looked, like a typical State Trooper; tall, blocky, handlebar mustache and high-and-tight haircut. I remember how as soon as he stepped out of the door, he set down his hat on the pavement, you know the kind, with the wide, round brims, like park rangers." Veronica nodded, though Jack saw it only from behind her.

"So he sets down his hat, takes his sunglasses off of his left shirt pocket and lays them on the brim of his hat, then walks toward my dad. He says, 'Why don't you try dancing with a man for a change, shitbird?!'," Jack said, imitating the twang and cadence of a working class Arkansas accent. " And then before my dad can say anything stupid in response, the trooper snaps my dad's head back with a nasty jab, and lays my old man out, right on the pavement, and then waits for him to get back up. Every time my dad gets up, he lunges or tries to punch the trooper, but the trooper just knocks him down again, and each time, he calmly waits for the bastard to get back up. At one point I think my dad managed to grapple with him, and must have bit the trooper's arm or something; it was a bad idea. The trooper grabbed my dad by the throat and took hold of my dad's pants with his other hand and, I shit you not, throws him through the air, into the side of the welcome station, just tosses him like a sack of rotten potatoes. I'd never before seen anyone dish out pain like that to my dad but, God damn, I loved it. Anyway, the trooper is pretty mad at that point, and just kicks the hell out of my dad, finally dealing out enough pain so the dumbass stays down. Then he cuffed and hogtied my dad and tossed him into the backseat of his cruiser and waited for a paddy wagon to show up and haul my dad off, making sure my mom and I are okay to keep driving to my aunt's house."

"What happened to your dad?" Veronica asked meekly, shocked by Jack's story.

"The bastard finally went to prison. They got him for felonious domestic battery (because he'd beaten me and my mom in front of so many old people who'd been happy to give sworn witness testimony), assaulting a peace officer and the Trooper even got the feds to indict him for obstructing interstate commerce, since he did all of it at a rest stop on the interstate. He took a plea and sat in some Arkansas state pen for the next six years until my aunt told us that his liver finally killed him. My mom lived long enough to hear that, before the cancer in her intestines killed her. My aunt told us she took care of the burial arrangements, and neither of us went to the funeral. May he rot in hell."