The Portrait Of Jessica

The higher-level officer gave Hans a medal and walked away. They were allowed to go back to their bunker and go to sleep, however light the sleep because of the constant artillery shelling might have been.

A couple hours in, Hans felt a kick into his rips. It was the team leader, who waved Hans to follow into a trench away from the team. The team leader gave no indication of what he wanted, but when they were out of earshot, he pulled his knife and jabbed for Hans. The team leader partially missed Hans' belly because Michael threw his body on top of the team leader. All three men went into a tangle. The team leader was the first to stop fighting because all life had left him.

By the end of the fight, the whole company was watching them. Karl stepped up to the dead team leader, cut the officer ribbon off, and placed it on his own uniform. Karl was their team leader now. Karl had sent Michael after the team leader, knowing what would happen and made sure that it ended in the right way.

Hans' bleeding didn't stop by morning. His face was very pale. Karl ordered Michael to carry Hans to the hospital tent and to come back with ammunition. Hans passed out on the way. When he woke up, he was lying on a field bed under a tent with a big red cross on the roof for the planes to identify the tent as non-military. He was only wearing his pants. A Bandage was around his belly. He didn't feel as woozy anymore. He looked left and right and found rows and rows of field beds with fellow wounded soldiers.

A doctor came by and told Hans that the surgery had been successful. If he'd try to stand up, the sutures would rip, and he would likely die. So he needed to lie down. The doctor wasn't concerned with Hans at all because it seemed like a straightforward case of waiting out the clock of healing.

He slept most of the next day because he's body was exhausted from the trauma. In the weak light of dawn, he noticed a shadowy figure slipping from field bed to field bed. At first, he thought that it might be a saboteur. He had heard tales of traitors infiltrating hospitals and killing one defenseless soldier after the next. When the shadowy figure turned to his field bed, he half closed his eyes to pretend to sleep but be able to see what the figure would do. Like with the other beds, the figure bent over their faces. He saw that it was a nurse. She looked familiar. His mind couldn't locate anyone whom he had seen at the front that matched her face, but when she leaned forward to whisper into his ear, he knew. The voice whispered, "Hans! Be quiet and listen!"

It was Jessica!

She wanted to know how he was doing and was relieved to hear his prognosis. Her voice was the sweetest thing on this planet. He cried a little bit with joy.

"I wanted to be closer to you. I volunteered as a nurse. When I heard that someone named Hans had arrived, I had to find out if it was you. I'm so glad to have found you and that you are alive!" Jessica's voice soothed Hans. Her voice was full of love and hope. He smelled her skin. He smelled her armpits. They were so feminine. He felt love and longing for her.

"I have to go now! They can't catch me missing my morning round in my hospital tent. I'll be back!" she whispered and slipped back into the half-light and away.

His heart felt upbeat during the morning. He couldn't wait to heal enough to move on from the hospital tent. The doctor remarked that optimism was a key ingredient for a speedy recovery. The smell of burned flesh when the doctors operated didn't feel that bad anymore because he'd soon have all that behind him. He started scheming about how he and Jessica would get away from the fighting.

As promised, Jessica returned at lunchtime. She made the rounds with the water cart and handed each patient a cup of fresh water. She had traded shifts with another nurse. He longed to look into her face. He held her hands. Her skin was so smooth and warm. He was amazed that she felt close to him as well.

"My aunt is leaving for Baku in two days. My family insists that I go with her. Baku is the center of the storm. There is no fighting. No side can claim it. Meet me there as soon as you can! We'll have the only bakery that makes the kind of bread from our hometown. You must remember the smell of rye and fresh bread. Wander the streets until you can smell it. I'll be waiting for you!" said Jessica, and then she hurriedly moved on. She didn't want to draw attention to their relationship so that they would draw less suspicion planning their escape.

His days passed slowly because he was waiting for her much too short visits. They decided on names for their children. They picked for each of their three kids a male and a female name because they couldn't know how it would turn out. They decided to live on the edge of a town so that they could grow apple and pear trees in their backyard and also go to the theatres. She would let her hand linger on his arm in a tender touch. He'd imprint those little touches into his memory to replay them in the slowly moving hours in between the visits.

One day, a doctor accompanied her for a check-up. The doctor addressed him friendly, "I forgot to apologize for destroying your jacket. We had to cut it away from your body to start surgery right away. But I went through the discarded clothes because it was slow today, and I collected your belongings from the pocket. Here's your photo. I'm sure you missed it."

"Oh! You've been able to hang onto my portrait through the war. That is so romantic!" Jessica called out, touched and blushing lightly red.

She grabbed the photo eagerly and turned it right side up. She faced the Russian woman. Her face looked shocked. She protested, "You must have gotten the wrong jacket."

Hans burst out, "Let me explain!"

Those words gave away what was going on in Jessica's mind. "Who is that bitch?" she screamed. "You are dead to me," she added and stormed away with tears running down her cheeks.

The doctor turned grim and threatened Hans, "You are going to pay for this! She's my best nurse!" The doctor turned and walked away.

Hans was in an uproar. He couldn't leave. He couldn't do anything. He couldn't reach Jessica. The whole hospital staff was hostile to him.

Within an hour, an officer with an assistant arrived at his bedside. The officer had a clean uniform like he hadn't been fighting and only doing administrative work. The officer's face was cold.

"I herewith charge you with the murder of an officer. We've recovered the dead body of your team leader. Your fellow soldiers said that you stabbed him to death. You are herewith arrested. Get up!" ordered the officer.

"But I'm not allowed to get up. My sutures would tear!" complained Hans panicked.

"I dearly hope they tear, you dog! There is no worse cowardice than killing your commanding officer," barked the officer.

The officer's assistant grabbed Hans by the shoulder and pulled him out of the hospital tent. The two walked Hans across the central square of the tent village to a waiting train. They threw him into a train car with bars. There were other handcuffed and sad-looking figures in there. After the officer and his assistant had left, one of the sad-looking figures remarked, "If you are here, it means you are lucky. It means your officer hasn't shot you, but they are going to hang you after you get your trial. Pray for the war to end before the court process is over!"

After half a day, the train started rumbling away from the front. Nobody talked in the train car. They were all sullen. Hans wished that he could explain how he lost the photo and gained the other photo. The Russian woman meant nothing to him, but with each chuck-chuck of the train car rumbling, he was one chuck-chuck further away from Jessica. Baku, that's what she had said. He needed to get there.

A giant loud explosion rang. The next moment, the floor, wall, and ceiling flew in opposite directions. He tried to push his arms and legs out in all directions as the walls and floor were trying to take turns hitting him. When things calmed down, he found himself lying on the wall of the train car. An explosion had thrown the train car down the little hill that the tracks ran on top. He was bleeding. He saw broken bones. He heard moaning. Then he heard the bursts of rifle fire going from train to train car.

The thumb of a heavy axe burst against the train car. Someone smashed a hole into the ceiling of the train car. A rifle barrel peered in followed by a face. A second face looked inside. The two talked outside in a foreign language. One of the prisoners whispered, "They think we are Jewish because we are imprisoned. They sound like rebels. Wait! They are mountain Jews. I think we are going to live. They are a weird group of Christians who converted to Judaism." He suddenly went very quiet.

"Come out, friends," Called one of the guys in. Then a hand reached in through the ceiling, offering to pull the first person out. The translator rushed for it. He got out. He seemed to hug the two guys outside and sounded like he put a good word in for us. Hans helped carry some of the injured out.

The rebels had been only a small band of five with a lot of dynamite to blow up the train track. They were in a rush to disappear before reinforcements came. They wished everyone good luck and left.

Hans looked at the train cars until he found the officer's train car. He entered the upside-down car. He found papers strewn everywhere. There were black forms for mission orders. He took a fountain pen and made himself an order to travel to Baku at once for a top-secret mission. He got the red seal. He copied the numbers from a filled-in order. He copied the signature of an officer.

When the reinforcements arrived on horses, he showed them the paper. They wished him the best and handed him a horse. He took off vaguely in the direction of the front because he knew that Baku lay a little more south. By morning, he arrived at a roadblock. The uniforms were more greenish than he expected. When they addressed him in Russian, he realized that something was off. He presented his orders anyway. They laughed at him. He got the sense that Baku wasn't under the control of his country. They seemed to think it a joke to let him move on and show up as an idiot deep behind the lines on the wrong side.

By midday, a herd of camel-riding soldiers surrounded Hans. They spoke Persian. They inquired about him. He guessed that they belonged to a Persian-aligned princedom. When they reviewed his order, they broke out laughing. Hans guessed that word had gotten around about the idiot on the wrong side of the war. They insisted on him wearing one of their turbans. Then they let him pass.

In the evening, he ran into another roadblock. These fellas seemed Turkish. They looked at his uniform and the turban and were confused on which side he was fighting. When he showed them his orders, they started laughing. They insisted on him trading his jacket for one of their jackets. Hans got the sense that the whole area was making a joke of him and that neither fighting company had much allegiance to any side of the war but had known each other for hundreds of years. They all seemed to have a distaste for the outsiders that kept invading their lands.

By the next morning, his horse was limping badly, but the edge of Kabu appeared at the horizon. He freed the horse because he didn't want it to die of exhaustion. He walked the rest of the way into the city. The city was a mix of modernity, Islam, and Christian buildings. He walked the streets and smelled. He asked for a bakery of rye bread. In the old muslim quarters where the streets were narrow alleys that wound and contorted in their path, he followed the narrow stairs up the hill to the mosque. That's where the smell of rye bread hit his nose. He followed he smell to a little window.

"Jessica!" he called.

There was a noise inside. He called for her again. The door swung open. The barrel of a rifle swung out, rushed towards his face and pushed his nose up. He saw Jessica's face on the other side of the crosshairs.

"Get in! I'll cut off each of your fingers before I shoot you!" she barked at him, angry and hurt.

He followed her and begged her, "Please, let me explain!"

The bakery was a little room. Whom he presumed was Jessica's aunt was sharpening a knife for surely they meant to dismember him finger by finger. The aunt's face was so hungry and ear to carry through.

"Please, let me explain!" he begged again.

"I don't want to hear how you cheated on me with that Russian whore!" complained Jessica.

"I never looked at her photo with any pleasure! I picked it up from a fallen comrade to trade for something later," Hans burst out!

"But where is my photo then? You burned it when you found her, didn't you!" she cried out.

"No! No! I lost it playing poker. I'm terrible! I'm terrible!" he cried.

She dropped the rifle and started slapping his face left and right. He hugged her and cried, "I so deserve that!" The aunt threw the knife with displeasure into the drawer and went back to kneading dough.

He cried on her shoulder. She cried on his shoulder. They hugged each other. Their chests heaved hard breaths against each other. Then, body on body, they felt the consolation of the hug and the care that they had for each other. He caressed the hair out of her face. The hair had become sticky from her tears. He whispered to her, "I'll never leave you anymore now." She cried, "Don't you dare leave me again!"

She showed him the production process for the bread so that he could help. He stepped in to be the provider. He was glad to be in the same kitchen with her. He stole glances at her. She said how handsome he was. He sung for her. She joined him. They felt their voices resonating together. Happiness rung. They had excellent bread with butter and a pinch of salt on top for dinner.

That evening, the machine gun fire drew more and more frequent. It wasn't the usually hit-and-run skirmish but a more sustained fight. By midnight explosions rattled the night. Nobody knew who was fighting whom but more and more people felt like they needed to fight back. The night started lighting up with bright flashes. The old Muslim quarter became unsafe because the Muslim fighters joined the fighting. Jessica and Hans went towards the old town of the crusaders. There was an abandoned ruin of a tower on the edge. Nobody lived there. They climbed up the stairs.

When they were on top, there was only one wall to hide behind. The other walls had crumbled away. They felt like they'd be out of the way of the main fighting passages, yet they feared that this might be their last night. "Marry me!" whispered Jessica into Hans' ear as they laid together. "Sure," said Hans. "No, you have to ask for real," replied Jessica.

Hans got on one knee and took her hand, "Will you marry me?"

"Yes, you fool!" she told him back. "Kiss me now!"

And this was the second kiss in their lives. This time after melting their lips, Hans sent his tongue over the gate of her teeth. She happily received his tongue and danced with it. He pressed her body harder against his own.

"If this is our last night, we should consume the marriage," he told her.

"Yes, yes, please," she whisper-moaned-hissed into his ear and started pulling her dress off her body.

He hurriedly pulled his clothes off and laid them on the floor for her to lie on. With only the moon light shining onto Jessica's body, he admired her breasts, the smoothness of her happy. She was in good shape. He inspected her navel button.

"Am I beautiful to you?" she asked.

"You are the most beautiful woman in the world," he told her.

"May I?" he asked nodding to her boobs.

"You must!" she told him.

He knelt next to her and showered her breasts with kisses. Her nipples pulled together as they firmed from the gentle touches. He explored every square inch of her breasts and greeted them with dedicated precision. He was so reverent that he barely touched her body.

"Drink my nectar, now, my husband!" she invited him.

He knelt between her legs and bowed to her sex with around mouth like one drinks from a bottle, but he realized that her nectar wasn't that copious, but more of a lapping affair. So he lapped at her sex like a dog. Her nectar was indeed delicious. He wanted to thank her but noticed that she started a kind of humming-singing that surprised him. In the middle of the cacophony of war instruments around them was the most lovely tune that he had ever heard. And he noticed that his lapping was rousing such sounds to come out of her. The more gentle and surprising he lept at her sex, the more she was making those heavenly sounds. He played with surprise darts and wild left-to-right thrashing. He was doing something right because her body started moving and struggling around. The better the dance of his tongue, nose, and lips on her sex became the wilder her bucking became.

"Do you want me to put it in the safe or the dangerous place," he asked her.

She knew that he was referring to her ass or her pussy. One was dangerous because she could become pregnant. "Put it into the dangerous place," she told him. "I want to bear your children."

The night was a strange blend of fighting, death, and lust. All the desperation of their journeys through war came to a stop here in these moments of love and joy. They had to wring from the clutches of destruction one good thing. The feeling of being a fugitive - vulnerable and on the run - made their carnal connection only more intense. For if you live on the run, you live for the moment. And that moment was the highlight of their lives. There is no light without darkness. There was so much darkness around them to make this light shine so bright. This was what they both had been dreaming about for weeks while they had to bear the worst of ordeals. Only the hope for reaching this moment kept them moving forward.

That's when he entered her sex with his penis. The anticipation of a million moments came together that very moment. He felt her wetness slip over the length of his penis. She felt the fullness of his penis distending her belly. She wrapped her arms around him so that she could roll on top of him and sit on him. She circled her groin around his penis. She was the queen of queens that night as the pale moonlight lit her up, sitting above him, looking down at him.

Machine gun fire ringing below them, they could feel the danger. They could feel that every moment could be their last. They were hiding out from death searching through the streets, breathless from sex and the thrill of being alive, she rode him like a horse, tilting her pelvis on top of his groin. He caressed her body up and down with his hands. Another grenade exploded a building. They fucked on.

Not bearing the patience to let her slow ride her, he grabbed her hips and rolled on top of her. He bent her legs in between them so that her feet were at his face. Then he fucked her hard, slammed into her ass as hard as he could. The fire on his dick drove him mad. He needed to extinguish it. She cried out from the rough fucking because the rag-dolling turned her on. He noticed that she reacted with hunger to him unleashing the beast inside of himself. He let the driving desire in him play rough with her. He hungrily mouthed her lips. He grabbed her hips to thrust her harder. He threw his weight with pressure on top of her. She loved the beastly onslaught and let her body go to it. "My Bengal tiger," she called him. She let her body go limb for him to toss her around as he pleased. With crying, whining, and moaning, she let him know how much it pleased her to feel the violent desire inside of him.

With a roar of his own, he came and shot his seed into her belly. He pushed her across the dirty floor, trying to shove his penis deeper into her than it possibly could. "Yes, give me all your baby juice," she pleaded with him and gently caressed his balls to put in extra effort to squeeze out every last bit they had to offer. "You have to keep your penis inside me like a wine cork in a bottle to keep all the baby juice in and make us a child," she told him. Then they fell asleep into a post-coital slumber.