Para Bellum

Veronica closed her eyes as she began to sob now, and even as she still held his hand tightly with her right, she reached up with her left hand and covered her face as her sobs shook her for a moment, then roughly wiped her tears away before Jack could move forward to comfort her. She opened her eyes and looked at him again before continuing. "Even in my family," she said, forcing her words out through her tears, "my middle sister was always my mother's favorite, and as I was the oldest daughter, my mother always expected me to help her raise my sisters and assist her with the housework. My father never appreciated any of us; he always wanted a son and wished he'd had one until the day he died."

Jack continued to listen, recognizing this moment as a time to not speak, but to listen and learn.

She inhaled deeply and slowly several times, forcing her tears to abate, and took both of his hands in hers again, looking at them for several seconds before looking up into his eyes and smiling at him, sadly and endearingly. "I've never felt this kind of consideration and... love, from anyone before. I guess that's why I feel it in my heart that I love you, Jack." She said quietly, and put her arms around his neck and held him tightly.

Jack was shocked, and she could feel the stiffness of his shock in his shoulder and arm muscles as she clung to him. He'd believed she would be happy to receive the packages, certainly, but had not expected that she possessed such a depth of pain, nor that he alone in her life had shown her the decency and consideration he knew her to be worthy of... He hated himself for not fully appreciating her situation until now. But he also was upset at what he felt was his cowardice in not vocalizing as honestly as Veronica had, how he felt toward her. Jack could feel some deep emotions stirring in his core, a reaction he'd instinctively known was coming, a feeling he knew was building, unstoppably under its own momentum since he'd met her. It started as an incredible attraction to her, physically, and had grown, its roots drawing water from some longing buried deep in his soul, far beneath his conscious mind warmed by the affection and love she had shown him. It had been humming to life from the moment he first kissed her and held her close to him, growing with the building hope from deep within him that this magnificent woman might love him as much as he knew that he loved her. He felt as though he was totally unworthy of her love, but he was unable to stifle the recognition of his own love for her, nor could he deny his relief that she'd confirmed her love for him and the happiness it brought him. "Don't say anything!" he mentally scolded himself, just holding her close to him.

Veronica felt exhausted and was certain she'd feel like a fool for letting her control over her emotions slip. But she concluded that she could postpone further recriminations until after she'd regathered her energy. In the meantime, she took solace from the fact that Jack had recovered from his shock and now held her tightly and nuzzled her affectionately. She was aware, too, that while he'd seemed genuinely shocked, and hadn't responded in kind, he also hadn't laughed at her, repudiated her feelings, or been angry. She felt certain he was searching his feelings, deeply, that he did feel strongly for her, that he did cherish and value her, but that he was still confused as to whether or not that was love. "I think I can give him more time to make up his mind." She thought, "Maybe even another day, you fool!" She chastised herself, sarcastically, even as she slowly sat back and rubbed her eyes once more and faced him.

"Jack-" She began to say, but he interrupted her as he leaned forward and kissed her gently, putting his right arm around her waist, and gently touching her face with his left hand.

Veronica gasped through his kiss, and put both of her hands on his shoulders and squeezed them as she pulled him tight against her. She formed no words in her mind, but she felt her soul flying within her. Veronica instinctively recognized his affection, coming as it did on the heels of her revealing her love for him, as confirmation that he, too, loved her. This recognition overwhelmed her very frayed nerves and loose semblance of calm in the wake of her tears. She let go of her attempt to stifle her feelings any longer, and felt a fire ignite and burn hotly within her, radiating from her abdomen. She gave into this heat she felt spread from under his touch, and combusting along every nerve fiber within her, with as much intensity as she'd known the night before, when he'd come home as she finished cooking dinner.

Jack felt Veronica's body tense an instant before she pounced on him, pushing him back onto the right section of the sofa, devouring his mouth and making that same arousing, rumbling feral growling/purring sound she'd used the previous night. They clumsily tore off their clothes and coupled furiously in missionary position. Veronica was on her back, beneath him, facing him with the crown of her head touching the cushions along the back of the couch. Jack mounted her and rode her vigorously, leaning down frequently to kiss her and enjoy the way her arms encircled his back and her fingers rubbed and squeezed his arms and shoulders. He did not feel himself reaching his point of ejaculation until, as he'd worked himself into a complete lather of sweat, he felt his body tense as he pulled himself tightly against her and came, deep inside of Veronica. He closed his eyes for a moment as his breathing became ragged and he could hear her voice moaning as she began to climax. He opened his eyes and recognized the expression on her face, noticing her eyes closed and her back arched just as she was reaching the peak of her orgasm. He slowly stopped his movements, feeling his abdominal muscles twitching with painful spasms as he forced himself stationary within her. He lay down upon her and felt her run her hands across his face and over his scalp as she began to gently kiss his neck and face. He forced himself to breathe slowly, drinking in air with deep gulps as Veronica used her hands to gently clear the sweat from Jack's face.

Veronica wasn't finished with him yet, her need for him still blazing within her even as her legs shook with involuntary twitches, she wrapped them slowly around his waist and pulled him tightly to her.

She framed his face with her hands and kissed him over and over again, feeling so warm and content beneath him and with his cock buried tightly and safely inside her. "I love you so much, Jack..." She thought, her eyes and smile beaming at him from only a few inches in front of him.

They lay together just holding one another for some time, their kisses lingering and tender. For both of them, their post coitus affection served as a gentle introduction to the new stage they'd reached as Veronica had bared her feelings to Jack, and Jack had finally been forced to confront his own feelings for her. They lay together in the slowly dimming afterglow of their intense union, gradually coming to conscious interest in post coital activities.

"I need to try these things on, and then take a long bath, wash my hair, and look good for you." She said, smiling gently and wiping the last of the sweat from her eyes and neck.

Jack kissed her softly, and nodded. "Take your time and enjoy, sweetheart. The guest bath is the only one I have with a tub, and it's all yours. Before I leave, let me know if there's anything from your order that's missing, or just something else you need. I'm going to go get some groceries; anything in particular you want?" He asked.

She smiled wide, and nodded.

Eventually they both got up and began moving Veronica's things into their bedroom. After Veronica had drawn her bath and began her soak in the hot water, Jack came into the bathroom and set down a full glass of red wine for her, on the tile floor next to the tub. She smiled and thanked him with a kiss as he sat down on the top of the toilet seat lid and wrote down carefully what she wanted for groceries. He'd included his own small list of sundry items, and after kissing her once more on his way out of the bathroom, he changed for the cold, windy weather outside and proceeded to slowly leave the condo. He paused for a moment before shutting the front door, smiling as he listened to Veronica enjoying a long soak in the bath, singing merrily in English and what he presumed was Igbo. Once more, he recognized instinctively and then consciously that she had made his condo seem more like a home than anywhere else he'd lived, or at any other time he could remember. Moreover, he realized how important to him it was that he not lose this feeling of having a home with her.

XVIII

Monday, 0756

Jack finished his run and wiped down his treadmill. He'd kicked his ass, and wondered if the alcohol or the skipped workout the day before had more to do with how he felt. He finished cleaning his exercise equipment and walked slowly to his kitchen to pour himself a glass of cold, chocolate milk and then water. He drank them both, one after the other, and thought about something else that had perhaps troubled him through his routine. He reasoned, maybe it was the guilt he felt for fondling LaChyna's pussy and sucking her nipples the previous night, at Baby Doll's that had interrupted his sleep and made his workout difficult.

XVIII.I

Sunday, 2247

Jack drove away from Baby Doll's, feeling soiled and upset with himself. While he'd not sucked LaChyna's tits or fondled her vagina out of any genuine desire for her, (in fact he found her cardboard attitude and obvious manipulation quite unattractive), he'd felt like shit on his way home, back to Veronica, and hoped that he could compartmentalize that experience and never relate it to her. He'd reasoned he could, as LaChyna was no threat to Veronica's relationship with Jack; he had zero interest in trying anything else with her. He'd gotten the information and drugs he needed for his next gambits, he'd not socialize with her ever again.

But his growing revulsion with his behavior had been enough for him to stop at a convenience store on the way back to his condo and buy a makeup remover towelette, and a bottle of the old-school, yellow, nasty-tasting Listerine. He'd washed his mouth with half of the bottle, which he'd learned amounted to twelve separate mouthfuls of the awful stuff, and wiped his face clean of the 'pussy dust' glitter that he was sure LaChyna's tits and stomach had left on his face.

When he returned to his condo, he was careful to keep his face neutral, and found Veronica sitting quietly on the sofa, waiting for him. She smiled, turned off the tv and stood up and walked toward him sleepily, but happy for his return.

"Hey, baby!" She said tiredly, kissing his lips and holding tightly to him. He pushed his guilt deep into the back of his mind, hugged her back and smelled the clean, feminine scent of her shampoo. Jack noticed that she'd washed and straightened her hair, and he missed her braids, finding her perfectly beautiful as he'd first seen her. But he also admired her now long, gently curling hair. He saw she'd painted her finger and toenails a thick, shiny bright red color. Even in the dim light from a floor lamp he'd rarely used, he could see that her nails flashed and her hair shimmered. He realized she'd put on lipstick, eye liner and mascara, that she did all of this for him, to surprise him as he returned from dinner with Jimmy. He began to hate himself all over again. Jack had never been terribly monogamous in past relationships, and to be sure, he'd neither fallen in love with LaChyna, nor engaged in sex with her or even kissed her lips, but he felt like he'd betrayed Veronica's trust. He vowed to never do anything to call into question his commitment to her again. The fact that neither of them had formally voiced or even discussed such a commitment was meaningless in light of her feelings toward him, and his own feelings for her.

"Ronnie, you look incredible." He said to her, softly, loving her smile, wondering if anything he'd ever seen before had been as beautiful to him as her smile, the image of her happiness. He was aware that something significant had shifted in his consciousness and how he viewed her. She was precious to him, he wanted to protect and see to her welfare as he'd aspired to do for absolutely no one else in his life. Just looking at her flawless, fertile dark skin, so exotic and magnetic to him, he felt as though she glowed with an inner energy that humbled him to his core in knowing that she loved him.

"Let's go to bed." Jack said and picked her up in his arms and carried her slowly and carefully back to their bedroom.

XVIII.II

Sunday, 2300

"So what happened in Afghanistan?" She asked him, laying on her side and facing him from two inches away as he, too, lay on his side and faced her.

"My fire team was driving in our up-armored HMMWV when we hit an IED. The explosion killed one of my guys, Ramirez, instantly, just obliterated him and blew his guts around the HMMWV. Another guy, Van Der Walle, lost his arms and legs, his lower jaw, his ears, his nose and one of his eyes. He died about three weeks later. Jackson, another of my guys, who was in the turret manning the deuce; sorry, the M2 .50 caliber machine gun, lost his leg, and died of a blood clot two days later in Germany. Jimmy, my friend, was driving, and I was in the front seat, next to him. The HMMWV blew in half and the front half landed in a ditch. We survived, but I can't see how. Especially when the IED turned Ramirez into Jelly and fucked up Van Der Walle so badly, there's no reason Jimmy and I should have walked away from it. I had a dream about that explosion this morning." He said.

Veronica was stunned. Jack told her about the explosion in a flat, neutral voice that suggested to her he'd had to do so enough times to be able to recite it from muscle memory. She didn't want to push any more, not yet, but she did want to talk with him more about this later. It was an awful thing to live through, and she detected the trace of some deep trauma to Jack from survivor's guilt or something else. She decided to change the subject.

"What's your middle name?" She asked him, running her hands over his tattoos.

"What?" He asked, smiling and laughing. "I did not see that coming." He said. "Okay. My middle name is Conrad. Why do you ask?"

"Women always want to know a man's full name when they get serious with him."

"And you're getting serious with me?" He asked her, his mischievous smile she liked so much visible even in the weak light of the room.

"Yes." She said simply, and kissed him again, feeling the shadow of stubble from his cheeks and above his lips grating on her lips and her fingers as she touched his face.

"Me, too." He said, surprising her with the conviction she felt in his words. "Okay, so tell me how you came to have the last name of 'Johnson.'" He continued, changing her train of thought.

"My father was so angry at our situation after we left Nigeria he changed our last name on our citizenship papers. It used to be 'Okoye.' So I was born as 'Veronica Iguzosi Ike, Okoye.'" She said smiling, enjoying his interest in knowing more about her.

"So are "Iguzosi" and "Ike" both your middle names?" He asked her.

"No, together, they're my Igbo given name, my tribal name. "Iguzosi Ike" means "loyal," in Igbo, and my parents named me that to signify what they were sure was my sense of loyalty to my family. Oldest daughters must always, in Igbo culture, be loyal to their family, and later to their husband and his family." She told him, and she felt butterflies rise in her stomach as she saw him nodding as he listened, and she realized he was listening closely to her, that he paid attention to her words and felt a genuine interest in learning about her background.

"My turn." She said. "What's your birthday?"

"11 November 1990." He said, stating the date in what she assumed was a military manner; most people, Veronica felt, would have answered, 'November 11th, 1990.'

"Okay, so because I know you're going to ask, my birthday is June 24th..." She said, reluctant to tell him the year.

Jack smiled and laughed, "Year?"

"June 24th, 1985." She said, pulling the blanket over her head as she formally admitted to him her age. "Are you okay with older women?" She asked, actually feeling a bit nervous as she pulled back the blanket and looked at him sideways with a shy grin on her face.

"I'm happy to make an exception in your case, Ronnie." He joked, smiling that mischievous Joker's smile she loved, and she enjoyed the little wrinkles it produced in the corners of his Sam Worthington-eyes...

"So, I've told you about my family, tell me about yours. Do you have any siblings?"

"None that survived." He said darkly, smiling embarrassedly.

"Jack, what do you mean?" She asked, concerned and surprised at his response. "In Africa, you hear of babies not surviving, not in America..." she reasoned, still feeling enough of the appreciation for the first world to overlook the human-tragedy just as much around her in America as what she'd dimly recalled from her childhood in Nigeria.

"I mean my mom was pregnant twice after I was born, when I was 3 and 4, and each time my father beat her so badly she miscarried. The second time, I remember him punching her repeatedly in the stomach, asking her why she wanted another worthless mouth to feed; he looked right at me when he said it. I was in the bathtub, my mom had been giving me a bath, and he'd interrupted her, yelling and beating on her. He did that so long that the water in the bath turned cold, but I didn't dare get out; I was afraid he'd beat me, too." Jack told her, in the same monotone voice with which he'd related the IED detonation that continued to haunt his dreams. "Anyway, when he had beaten my mom so badly that she could only lay on the floor of our trailer and bleed from between her legs, he stumbled into the bathroom, and as he looked me right in the eyes, he pissed into my bathwater, about a foot away from me. I remember being relieved, I was worried he would piss in my face, but he didn't, he just looked at me with contempt and left me in that toilet-water that had been my bath."

Veronica said nothing, thoroughly revolted and felt a deep cloud of anger begin to coalesce within her at the humiliation and unbelievable degradation Jack had endured as a child. "After that, he stepped over my mom and left the trailer to go on a two-day bender. When I was sure he was gone, I got out of the tub, reeking of piss, naked and shivering, and called my aunt to ask for help. By the time she and my uncle came and saw what happened, my mom had miscarried and almost died before the paramedics got her to the hospital. I wish my dad had lived long enough for me to kill him. He was a useless waste of skin and the asshole more in need of a slow, painful death than anyone else I have ever known."

"Jack..." Veronica said, touching his shoulder and relieved that he didn't jerk away from her touch, and in fact seemed to relax. She saw the way he so casually related his story to her, how easily he talked about wanting so much to have killed his own father, and it made her pity him. That Jack had survived a terrible childhood was obvious to her, but that he could still find it in him to treat her as well as he did, and to demonstrate that he was still capable of love and affection for her, impressed and touched her. Veronica could think of no words to offer him succor, and felt only an elemental need to maintain contact with him and try and comfort him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pushed her face against his throat, feeling his steady but very strong pulse in his neck.