Talisman Ch. 6: Croix du Bois

Tentatively, he moved his hand closer and fumbled in the dark to find what the source of the mysterious heat. It seemed to be coming from inside Utuburu’s breast pocket. Patrick reached in and felt something hot and smooth like a river-stone. He tried to remove it, but soon realized that it was pinned to the inside of the pocket. He unpinned it and held it up to look at it, but he could see little more than a pale disc in the darkness. Patrick pocketed the item and went to find his men.

17 Janvier 1918

One of the most onerous duties of an officer is writing to the next of kin of his soldiers. Patrick was discovering that it was particularly difficult when he didn’t know the man he was writing about at all. He didn’t like the idea of writing generic plaudits--”He performed his duty admirably under heavy fire. He has earned the respect of all who fought with him. France is grateful.” But he found himself writing exactly these sorts of things.

Something was poking him in the chest he rubbed the spot and jumped at the sharp pain. When he reached into his tunic pocket he rediscovered the forgotten disc. On the front, carved in relief, was what appeared to be a man on one leg, apparently in combat as he was wielding a sword. On the other side was a bare breasted woman who seemed to be dancing. There were a series of holes at the top through which a short loop of leather cord had been threaded and attached to the cord was a pin. The warmth that had emanated from the thing the night before was gone. It carried only the heat of Patrick’s own body. The medallion seemed to be made of bone or ivory and polished to a high gloss under the grime.

Patrick rubbed the thing clean with a saliva dampened thumb. When the grime was gone, it seemed to glow in the lamp-lit bunker. Without thinking, Patrick pinned the medallion in his own tunic pocket as Utuburu had then he went to his cot to attempt to sleep for the rest of the day.

Malveaux was surprised to find himself being awakened by Patrick that evening.

“Are you ready? Do we patrol tonight?” Patrick asked.

“No, the 23rd patrols tonight. What has you so eager tonight? Are you sick?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the excitement of being at the front again. Regardless of the misery, you have to admit there is a bit of a thrill.”

“I suppose. Don‘t get too thrilled or you‘ll earn the Croix du bois.”

Again they made it to the frontline trench in time for the stand to. After Patrick and Malveaux got the men positioned, they sat together sipping some of the de Tours family brandy. They spoke of military matters for a while: the relative merits of the Colt, the Lebel, the Webley, and the Luger; the best amount of time to wait between pulling the pin on and throwing a grenade; which men would handle the stresses of combat the best. Then, uncharacteristically for Patrick, the talk turned to women.

“What is the best way to get a woman to… ? You know,” Patrick asked.

“Is this my choirboy speaking? Have the heavens turned inside out, or has Hell released a succubus to tempt you? What can this mean? Will the Messiah return tonight?”

Some of the men, sensing some fun, came closer to listen.

“Come on, Malveaux, you know what I’m asking. Don’t make this more difficult for me.”

“Okay, okay. I can be a father figure when I must. Well, sir, tell me, do you think she likes you? Do you think her knees get weak when she sees you? Does she put her hand to her breast at the mere thought of you? No? Well, I’ll tell you what I would do, though I am no officer. I would take her some flowers. Wait, wrong season. I would take her some wine!”

“Better still,” chimed in Duval. “Wine loosens the bloomers!”

“Yes,” continued Malveaux, “now shut up. I am instructing a young man in the ways of love. And in any case, one can tell by looking at you that you are nearly as ignorant as he. Now when you bring her the wine, you should also have a baguette and some good cheese. If you can find any, some apples or pears. With luck she will invite you in to take a meal. If, I say “if”, because you are not so pretty or of so high a rank to make this a certainty, if she lets you in, you must pour her some wine as soon as you may. If she drinks without waiting for you, take your cheese and fruits and go. But, this is where you must pay attention, if she waits for you to drink, you must immediately take her in your arms and kiss her full on the mouth.”

“This is not too forward, too brazen.”

The men laughed as quietly as they could, but the thought of an officer having to ask these questions was too delicious.

“No, a thousand times no. A woman is only interested in a man who is forceful, who will take what he wants. Subtlety is lost on the creatures.

“Now listen. If she should put her arms around you, you must be sure to take her immediately to the couch or the bed. Whichever is nearer. For practical purposes, it does not matter. In fact, if neither is near, you must throw her on the table.” He stopped as though a thought had just occurred to him. “Make sure you do not knock over the wine, though. If all goes well, you will be thirsty.

“Then, you should lift her skirts and find what is underneath. There will be a great quantity of under things, but don’t mind them. You can move all of them aside. Then, jump in the saddle! You are there.”

“Yes. All good advice,” chimed in Clement, “but you have forgotten how much women enjoy cleaning the stem. And also, it makes for another bout of loving all the sooner.”

“Clement, that is an unexpected stroke of genius coming from you. I thought you nothing but a fool, but apparently, there is a thought rattling around in that large kettle you call a head.”

Duval, feeling that he must get into the action, said, “And you mustn’t forget, after the stem is clean you must cherchez le fond! No woman will feel that the lovemaking is done if you do not.”

“Cherchez le fond? Are you sure? That doesn’t sound…”

“Yes, yes!” said Malveaux. “A woman must be made to feel as though… as though… As though she were full of love. Brimming.”

“Well, thank you, men. I am surprised by your advice. I had thought that women were demure creatures, shy creatures. But I bow to your superior experience.”

“Yes, sir. They are only shy in public. Their private natures are very different. I am sure that you won’t even have to tell us how things went. Your face will tell the happy story.”

With that, Malveaux dispersed the men, and went down the line making sure that everyone was where they should be, and that they were awake.

Patrick sat in his bolt hole and thought of Maggie doing the things the men had suggested. His erection felt fuller than it ever had. Like a sausage about to burst on the fire. But somehow, the thought of Maggie made his heart fell the same way. He bent over his erection and it poked into the notch in his breastbone as though it were seeking it’s partner in pain.

Patrick found himself walking toward the German line. There was a flame in his breast, but no sniper, no sentry, no patrol could see him. He looked at his feet and saw that the very earth was catching fire beneath his feet, though it did not burn him. Finally, when he was no more than ten yards from the German line, someone saw him and raised a cry. Bullets flew to the left and the right of him, and ate the ground at his feet, but they could not touch him. For some reason, he stood on one leg and waved his arm and a sheet of flame flew from his hand and many of the Boche burst screaming into flames.

Patrick woke with a start not realizing where he was. His hand was clutching the medallion in his tunic pocket so hard that the pin had entered his palm and drawn blood. Without quite knowing why, he crawled from his bolt hole and began to climb the trench wall.

“What are you doing, Patrick,” Malveaux said. “It is not our night to patrol.”

“I heard something. Let me go.”

Malveaux dropped his hand and watched Patrick climb over the revetment and disappear. With an exasperated sigh and a muffled curse, he followed.

Patrick quickly made his way out to no man’s land and shook hands with Fritz. Then he unerringly made his way toward the German line.

He had never been able to move this quickly, this silently. Before he knew it, he had circled around to the side of a German listening post. The two men were asleep. He dropped into the hole and pulled out his heavy American bayonet and slashed it across the throat of the nearest man, nearly decapitating him. The other man heard something and awoke, but he only stared up at the apparition that soon cut his throat as well.

Malveaux came up just in time to see Patrick sawing the second man’s head the rest of the way off. He lifted it by the hair and set it facing the German lines with the first man’s head.

Patrick climbed back out of the hole, grabbed Malveaux’s sleeve and said, “Let’s go.”

When they got back to their trench, Malveaux just looked at Patrick and shook his head then walked down the line to check on his charges.

28 Janvier 1918

Patrick had gone out every night after that and slain one or two Germans, and once he had ambushed a patrol with his knife and a Luger that he had taken from an earlier kill. He had had to wait out an hour of firing and a brief artillery barrage before he could go back to the French line, but when he returned, he brought four more pistols and some ammunition. These were enough to arm all of his men with pistols to go with their carbines and bayonets.

Malveaux was thankful when they were called back to the rear. Patrick had become a demon of some kind. He seemed not to be able to get enough blood, and the violence with which he drew it. Frightening. Malveaux had begun to worry that they should not have played the joke on him, for what might he do when he realized what they had done?

For his part, Patrick felt strange wearing the medallion when he got away from the front, but when he drew it out and looked at it, he decided that the other side seemed more appropriate to wear around civilians, so he pinned it to his under tunic with the other side facing outward.

The first thing he did when he got back to the village was to seek out Maggie at the hospital. She had to work until evening, so he went to buy a bottle of wine, a baguette and whatever fruit and cheese might be found. Then he went back to the barracks for a little nap.

When he awoke, he could not remember his dreams, but he had soiled his undergarments and his penis was mottled red and white with the scar tissue and the blood of engorgement.

Cleaned, bathed, and shaved, he presented himself at Maggie’s door promptly at seven. She opened the door before he could knock and greeted him with a beautiful smile.

“I saw your name in the paper. You are to be awarded the Croix de Guerre! They say you heroically wiped out a German patrol single handed. I am so proud of you.”

Patrick thought of the battle with the patrol. He had risen among them in the darkness and killed two with the knife in his left hand before they even knew he was there. Then he had shot the other three as their heads were barely turning towards him. He knew he had butchered them. That it had been no battle nor was it heroic. He looked down and studied his feet.

“Oh, but you have brought wine! And winter apples! Oooh and soft cheese! A feast. Come in, we’ll have a meal together.”

She gathered up the foodstuffs in her arms and looked over her shoulder at Patrick. One glance at her beautiful neck, gracefully turned to present her lovely face, and he forgot all about the front and followed her inside.

“I’ll set the table if you’ll open the wine.” She tossed him a corkscrew and Patrick set to work. The cork came out with a satisfying ’pop’ and he poured them each a glass of wine. Maggie looked at him and raised her glass.

“To my good friend, the hero!”

Patrick tipped his glass and Maggie drank from hers at the same time. Now what could this mean, he thought? Maybe I should just kiss her gently, rather than forcefully.

Patrick reached for Maggie and pulled her close. He could see the surprise in her eyes, but he kissed her anyhow. Maggie’s mouth opened to him and she flicked her tongue lightly against his lower lip. Patrick had never felt anything like it. Her tongue tasted slightly of the wine, and he could smell ether from the hospital in her hair.

They both dropped their glasses of wine and moved towards the daybed. One of Patrick’s hands dropped to her behind and squeezed. Cherchez le fond, he thought, but not yet. When they reached the daybed, he lifted her skirts and started to paw the various undergarments to the side.

“Wait. No, wait, Patrick,” Maggie said breathlessly. “Let me.”

Patrick reluctantly pulled his mouth away from Maggie’s as she stood up. He sat back on the couch and watched as Maggie undid the buttons on her dress and dropped it to the floor. Malveaux was right. There were a confusing array of undergarments. But he watched carefully so that he might be able to remove them another time.

When finally she stood naked before him in a pool of cotton and silk, he asked her to stop and let him see her. At first she tried to cover herself with an arm across her small neat breasts and a hand covering her lower parts, but she looked in Patrick’s eyes and saw that he was awestruck. She slowly lowered her arm from her breasts to expose the delicate tips that rode on a fuller, puffy plum. Then she raised both arms slowly above her head as she spun slowly around. Patrick asked her to stop again as her buttocks came into view. They made him think of fresh baked bread but they looked far, far more delicious than that.

Maggie resumed her turn and he admired the way her breasts had risen and tightened on her chest, then he looked lower at the delicate wisp of red that rose on a slight rise between her legs. He pulled her toward him and her back arched, and with that movement, her mound seemed even more pronounced. He ran his fingers through the fine and springy hair and watched it pop back erect after his fingers passed. He became aware of a scent rising from between her legs and leaned down to drink it in.

It reminded him of the sea near the orchard, of apples and sea foam. When he exhaled, his breath blew through the little red forest on the hill and Maggie trembled. So he did it again. This time a small moan escaped her lips and she slightly opened her legs. Patrick rubbed his face on the mound and suddenly, he was supporting Maggie’s full weight. He lowered her to the daybed and continued his examination of this undiscovered country.

Maggie’s legs were spread widely, so he touched her between the legs. Like an apricot, he thought, I will eat it until the juices run down my face. Tentatively, he touched his tongue to her, to taste her, to open the apricot. The wispy hairs tickled his nose, but he didn’t care. He brushed his hand through them and listened to the sound that made. Like the wind through the dunes.

He crushed the hairs flat and swiped the flat of his tongue between this lower set of lips he had found and was rewarded with a flower. It resembled a lotus that he had seen at the Botanical Gardens in Detroit, but to him this was more beautiful. He touched the petals, stroked them, and made another discovery. At the top of this flower was another tiny one. Just a bud really, but it seemed to be trying to bloom. He touched it and it moved a little. He touched it again and Maggie moved like the waves of the sea.

“Again,” she said.

Patrick was going to do that anyway, but he made her wait. He watched the little bud throb as though it might burst into flower at any moment.

“Please, please, please,” Maggie chanted.

He kissed the little bud and twirled it with his tongue and Maggie writhed. He sucked it into his mouth and Maggie’s whole body tensed in an arch and her legs opened yet wider. A loud grunt escaped her, and she grabbed his hair to hold him in place. Patrick couldn’t see what was happening to the flower and the bud, so he reached up to fell what was happening and his finger slid on Maggie’s lubrication and, seemingly on it’s own, disappeared inside of Maggie.

Maggie’s body spasmed, then arched again and held in the bowed position. She was pulling Patrick’s hair quite hard now, but he barely noticed, because the flower was rhythmically squeezing his finger. Maggie’s breath shuddered out of her, and her body went limp. Patrick pulled his face away and looked at his hand with one finger inside of Maggie. He pulled the finger out and it was shiny with juice, then pushed it back in and Maggie twitched. He began moving his finger back and forth and watched it all. Maggie’s breath was coming quick and shallow, and Patrick realized that he was breathing as though he had just run thorough no man’s land in the rain with a heavy pack.

In the back of his mind, he heard, “Cherchez le fond!” The way that Maggie was laying with her legs wide open and her hips pumping, he could see it, red and winking at him, shiny with Maggie’s juices. He touched it, and Maggie’s back arched so hard that he thought she might hurt herself, but she grabbed his hand and rubbed it back and forth and around on her most hidden part. Patrick pushed forward a little and his finger slid inside. Maggie seemed to be aiming her genitals at him, so he kissed the tiny, yet swollen, bud again and Maggie started to breathe hard and ragged, with each exhalation she grunted, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Then her back arched again and Patrick’s face was flooded with liquid. Maggie pumped once again, and froze. And then Patrick could feel the little bud throbbing against his tongue and the little muscle squeezing his finger in unison.

When they finally stopped throbbing, Patrick raised his head and looked at Maggie.

She looked ravaged. All over her head strands of hair had come loose from the bun and were plastered by sweat to her face and neck. Her face was turned to the side and she had what looked almost like a drunken smile on her face. Her arms were raised over her head, and Patrick could see little tufts of red hair in the armpits that he hadn’t noticed before. They too were plastered to her skin by sweat. Patrick leaned over and kissed them then kissed Maggie tenderly on her lips. At first she seemed surprised to find his face so wet, but then she kissed and licked the liquid away.

“I have never felt anything like that before,” she said. “You were telling me a story about being chaste.”

“No. And it is still true.”

“Oh, you can have no doubt that we will take care of that tonight. But you must let me catch my breath.”

The wine glasses were shattered on the floor where they had dropped them, and Maggie started to get up to get them new glasses, but her legs collapsed and she fell back to the daybed.

“I think maybe you better get the wine. My legs seem to be made of rubber.”

Patrick got up and swept up the broken glass, then found two fresh ones in the cupboard. He came back to the daybed where Maggie was still spread wantonly and offered her a glass of wine. She took a sip, then set her glass on the floor.

“Why don’t you undo those leggings. You’ll be more comfortable.”

Patrick sat down and unwound his leggings without taking his eyes off of Maggie. The red flush had not yet faded from her chest and thighs and her freckles stood out on her flesh like a star field. He reached out to caress her thigh, but she stopped him.

“Ah ah ahh. Fetch me an apple won’t you?”

Patrick went to the table and stood before her with the apple, but she was staring at the bulge in the front of his trousers.

“It has been a long time since I have seen this,” she said. “I hope it looks better than it did the last time.”

She reached for his trouser buttons and slowly undid them. Too slowly for Patrick, he pushed her hands away and tore open his trousers and let them fall to the floor. Maggie grabbed his skivvies and pulled them down. Maggie watched him go downward, then rebound back up and vibrate.