‘Thank you,’ he said, as he stood there, feeling quite nervous. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine. How’s your day been?’ she asked.
‘The usual. It sometimes makes me feel more like a kindergarten teacher than an army officer,’ he replied.
Izzy smiled. ‘Would you like some tea?’
‘Thank you, I would.’
‘Sit down,’ Izzy said, and Heinrich went to sit on the sofa which was placed at an angle to the range fire. An armchair was positioned opposite.
Izzy made a pot of tea. ‘How many sugars?’ she asked.
‘Two please, but only a splash of milk,’ Heinrich replied.
Izzy poured out the tea then placed a cup and saucer on a small round table at the side of the sofa. She went to sit on the armchair, putting her cup and saucer on the floor.
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ he asked.
Izzy shook her head.
Heinrich got up to offer Izzy a cigarette. She took one and he held the lighter while she lit it, then he went to sit down again.
The gramophone was one of those wind-up ones with a big brass speaker, and it suddenly began to wind down; the turntable turning so slowly it distorted the music to a dirge-like drone. Izzy went to take off the arm.
‘You like classical music,’ Heinrich said. ‘So do I.’
‘I’m rather partial to Vivaldi and Chopin,’ she informed.
‘I like Jazz,’ Heinrich replied. ‘But it’s considered the music of the devil by the people who govern my country. Mozart appeals more to their catholic tastes; conformist and unadventurous.’
‘I have some, more modern records,’ Izzy said.
‘May I look through them?’
‘Yes, they’re underneath the record player.’
Heinrich got up from his seat after taking a slurp of tea to then flip through the records. He found a few by Al Jolson. He wound up the record player and put one on. Suddenly, ‘Oh, how we danced on the night we were wed,’ rang out.
‘Dance with me,’ Heinrich said holding out his hand.
Although Izzy felt self-conscious, she stood up smiling. She’d not danced in years and to be held and guided by a man after all this time, made her feel slightly giddy. Heinrich took her in ballroom hold and waltzed her slowly around the small area. As his head rested at the side of hers he could smell her. She smelled so fresh, so sweet. And the fact he had not been with a woman in over a year, he was worried he might ejaculate before he even started, or if he did get started he wouldn’t be able to reach a climax without he, or she, helping him out. It was either going to be fantastic, or a total disaster. Izzy too had reservations but she already felt wet and tingly, but if he touched her there she would immediately orgasm.
The music stopped. Heinrich looked into her eyes before kissing her lightly on the lips. Izzy responded. And as their tongues danced around the other’s mouth, Heinrich pulled his head away. At this point they both felt like ripping at the other’s clothing, but for some reason they held back. Heinrich then took hold of her hand to kiss it. ‘I want you,’ he said. ‘But not here, on the floor.’
Izzy took hold of his hand and they both walked across the room to a door through which led to a small inner hall-way. Off it were two bedrooms. Heinrich followed her into one of them. Izzy began to undress, and so did Heinrich. He took off his tunic, boots, socks and trousers before his shirt. Then as he bared his left arm she saw it. The scarring which spread over his left shoulder, down the left side of his chest was ugly, even his wife hadn’t seen it properly. Izzy just looked at it as Heinrich stood naked, stock-still. He thought Izzy, too, would retreat and the moment would disappear altogether, and that she wouldn’t want to see him again. But Izzy’s face showed no distaste as she touched it; ran her fingers over the hard, puckered skin. Then she kissed it. Heinrich took her face in his hands; kissed her on the forehead. Izzy broke loose to pull back the sheets and blankets to lie on the bed, on her back. Heinrich gazed down at the milky white skin of her legs; her belly; then resting his eyes on her ample breasts, he knelt at the foot of the bed, near her feet. Stretching out his arms, he took both breasts in his hands, before they slid down her belly to stroke her thighs. He sat upright as Izzy lifted her knees, spreading her legs, her cunt shining like a beacon against the whiteness of her inner thighs. He kissed her knee; his mouth travelling up her inner thigh, but he stopped short, to sit back on his haunches again. Izzy sat up, too, her knees still wide apart. She looked at his hardened cock, then took it in her hand. He softly groaned. He’d left his condoms in his pocket. The moment would be gone if he got off the bed, and he didn’t want to lose it. Izzy lay down again; inviting him. He moved towards her; lay on top of her; fondled and kissed her breasts as she ran her hands through his light brown hair. And losing all consciousness he suddenly found himself slipping inside her, and she was softly moaning as she responded to every movement his groin made. His head became awash with the pleasure this woman gave him and he could almost touch the desire she held for him. It felt so good, so natural, until Izzy began to give out signs she was ready. Heinrich too was ready, but he pulled out. Izzy gasped as he sat up on his haunches again. Izzy sat up, too, and as they faced each other they reached out. Izzy took his cock in her hand, while Heinrich began to stoke her. They just looked at each other, and before everything was about to explode, he put his free arm around her, and she flung her arm around his neck to pull him close. They clung to each other climaxing at the same time, Izzy with a loud scream, and Heinrich with a deep abdominal groan.
Chapter Nine
They had fallen asleep afterwards, and when he awoke to find Izzy curled up beside him he smiled as he gently aroused her by running his hand over the skin on her back. She slowly opened her eyes to look at him. He searched her face for any tell-tale signs of regret: nothing: just a calm, sleepy look that told him how comfortable she felt with him, and the situation. He, too, felt no regret. He just felt warm: from the inside, out: and he felt a quietness, so still, he wondered if he would ever rise from the bed. In that moment of tranquillity he forgot about the hardship, the killing, the blood, and how base his life had become. The contrast of the last few hours, compared to the last few years, were now over-shadowed by a woman he hardly knew, but at the same time felt he had known her for a long, long time. It was not simply the fact of a woman giving herself to a man solely for the purpose of mutual gratification. He actually liked her, but what was more important, she liked him.
‘I have to go,’ he said, kissing her on the shoulder.
Izzy sighed, attempting to get out of bed.
‘Stay where you are, I’ll let myself out,’ he said.
‘I need the lavatory,’ Izzy replied.
He smiled. ‘Me, too.’
Izzy put on a thick candlewick dressing gown while Heinrich dressed. The lavatory was attached to the house, but could only be accessed by going out through the back door. It was now very dark, and getting cold, and the water was freezing as they washed their hands at the kitchen sink afterwards. Heinrich stood behind the front door, about the leave. Izzy went to stand in front of him.
‘Good night,’ she said, looking into his blue eyes.
‘May I come again?’ he asked.
Izzy wanted to laugh but didn’t. Heinrich suddenly saw the humorous side to that question and smiled. ‘I would like to see you again,’ he rephrased.
‘I’m always here from four onwards, but we will probably bump into each other in town. If so, I will ignore you,’ she said.
‘And I will fight the temptation of wanting to touch you.’
Heinrich took her face in his hands and kissed her on the mouth. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him back. With their mouths open, their spittle fused as tongues probed. He suddenly let go. ‘Good night,’ he said, and he opened the door.
‘Good night,’ Izzy replied as she shut the door behind him.
Heinrich felt ravenously hungry as he walked into his billet. He ente
red the kitchen in search of something to eat. At the start of the invasion food had been plentiful; gardens had flower-beds, neatly tendered alongside larger vegetables patches. Now the gardens appeared bleak. Whatever was planted was stolen the minute it was ready to eat. So people just didn’t bother any more. If it wasn’t unscrupulous islanders, it was escaped slave-workers who were kept on starvation rations. Food was now strictly rationed-out as most of it came by way of supply ships from the ports on mainland France, all of which were taken over by the Germans who had isolated themselves by fighting on two fronts: the Western Front and Eastern Front. Even Russia, the vast country it was, could not sustain itself from the onslaught of German soldiers burning farmhouses and crops; killing everything and everyone who stepped into their path; even children. In the end some of Russia’s supplies had to come by way of the Arctic convoys sent from Britain, while Britain was sustained by the Atlantic convoys bringing goods and comestibles that were in such abundance in the States. Heinrich found a half-eaten loaf of bread and a small pat of butter sitting on the table covered in a cloth, alongside was an empty pot of jam. He cut himself a large wedge of bread and spread it with butter before he stuck his knife into the jam pot to scrape it clean. When he could get no more out of it he stuck his finger in to then lick off any residue he had missed with the knife. As he sat down to eat the bread and butter, spread with the thinnest coating of jam, two of his men walked into the kitchen, they had just come off duty.
‘All quiet out there, Oberleutnant,’ one of them said as he placed his machine gun against the wall.
‘Good,’ came Heinrich’s reply. ‘So no one’s flouting curfew regulations?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Only Collette Dubois. She was meeting the Major at a cocktail party being held by the Oberst: he happens to be looking for you, the Major, that is.’
‘Why? I am off duty.’
‘Something about a beach, a woman, and a dog,’ the other one smiled.
‘Gossip on this island runs faster than Jesse Owens,’ Heinrich grumbled. Both men laughed. Heinrich got up from his chair. ‘If you two want something to eat, its bread and butter. Some selfish bastard has finished off the jam,’ he said, and he left the kitchen to walk up to his room.
The following morning Heinrich reported in. The Major was in his office on the phone, and he called Heinrich in mid-conversation. Heinrich stood to attention until told otherwise.
‘Sit down, Oberleutnant,’ the Major said as he put the phone down. Heinrich sat down. ‘It’s come to my attention you were seen on a beach, talking to a woman who should not have been there. That beach has restricted access,’ the Major said.
‘She was simply exercising her dog. And I have come to understand the men manning the gun-emplacements find her presence a welcome change from looking out for Allied shipping or submarines,’ Heinrich said.
‘That dog of hers is a menace, it should be shot,’ the Major commented.
‘I almost shot it myself the other day, but the woman has strict control over the beast, it does exactly as she tells it, so I let it go.’
‘It bit one of my men earlier this year.’
‘Why was that?’
‘He was getting a bit too familiar with the woman, he was also drunk. So, I too, let it go.’
‘Well, to my way of thinking, he’s a well behaved, well-fed dog for the time being, so if things get really bad it would be a welcome sight to perhaps finding it, one day, spit-roasting,’ Heinrich said.
‘I hope the food situation doesn’t bring us to that,’ the Major sighed.
‘Needs must,’ Heinrich said. ‘I ate cat, dog, even roasted a rat once. You’d be surprised how ill-fed and ill-equipped those men are fighting on the Eastern Front.’
The Major looked down. ‘I’d heard it was rough,’ he remarked.
‘Rough?’ Heinrich frowned. ‘Think of hell, multiply it by ten then you might come somewhere near.’
‘Yes, I realise we are sitting in one of the cushiest postings ever. And I do envy you the fact that you have actually fought for the Fatherland.’
‘Don’t envy me,’ Heinrich said. ‘Just be thankful it’s not you lying face-down in Russian snow. I am.’
‘That is why your acerbic manner is tolerated,’ the Major commented. ‘Anyhow, the woman, the beach and the dog.’
‘What about them,’ Heinrich commented.
‘Just keep your eye on her. Make sure she’s not spying, trying to make contact with Allied submarines.’
‘Surely that is up to the men manning the gun-emplacements?’ Heinrich remarked. But he knew they spent some of the time whiling away the boring hours of keeping watch, by disappearing into the lavatories to read pornographic magazines whilst masturbating. It not only released their tension but, at the same time, their boredom.
‘Just keep your eye on the woman, and the make sure the men don’t slack off. We caught a Frenchman the other day on the other side of the island. We interrogated him, then shot him as a spy.’
‘Is that all, Sir,’ Heinrich asked as he stood up, saluting.
Chapter Ten
Izzy was late arriving at the farm that morning. She had slept in, having forgotten to set the alarm clock the night before. She was still feeling the afterglow of love-making when she walked into her parent’s kitchen.
‘Isabelle,’ her mother exclaimed before giving her usual, ‘Good morning.’
Izzy closed her eyes, waiting for the onslaught.
‘Your father’s fuming, why are you late? One of the cows has mastitis, it’s not yielding.’
‘Has he called the vet?’ Izzy asked sitting down at the table.
‘Yes, this morning. He wanted you to help with the milking.’
‘I thought he was teaching Ollie to do it, now he’s left school and working for us.’
‘That still doesn’t mean you can be late. Why are you late?’
‘Mother, I just forgot to set the alarm, that’s all.’
‘You’ve had your head in the clouds these past few weeks, what is it?’
‘Nothing, I just forgot to set the alarm. I was tired, and I’m about to come on.’
‘Still getting pain with it?’ her mother asked.
‘Yes,’ Izzy lied.
‘You know what usually sorts that out, don’t you?’
‘Fat chance, and that’s an old wives tale,’ Izzy remarked thinking having a baby, just to cure pre-menstrual discomfort and pain, was taking things a bit too far.
‘It cured me,’ her mother replied putting Izzy’s breakfast in front of her. It was porridge.
Izzy never liked porridge, but always had to eat it when she was a girl. Then when she got married they had anything else, but. Now, because of the food shortage she was back to eating that gloopy mess again.
‘Hurry up and eat your breakfast, your father’s in the barn with the cows, he’ll want you to finish turning over the bottom field,’ her mother said putting down a dish of left-overs for the dog.
Izzy said not another word. She ate her porridge, quickly downed a cup of sweet sugar-beet tea and left the kitchen with her dog.
After turning over the field, Izzy unclipped the tiller and put the tractor in the barn. Her father was still with his precious cows. The vet had gone and it was nearing lunch-time. Izzy called her dog to take him off to the cliff-tops and the beach in the hope of finding Heinrich there. He was; he was standing looking out to sea, smoking. The dog bounded across the sand towards him. He turned. He wasn’t afraid of the dog anymore, and the dog didn’t bark at him realising he was friend, not foe. Izzy approached. She was still in her overalls and rubber boots.
Heinrich could see by the look in her eyes, a smile was about to blossom, and, oh, how he wanted to see that smile again, but he quickly said, ‘Don’t smile.’
Izzy frowned. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.
‘Yes, just do as I ask for the time being.’
‘Okay,’ Izzy replied.
‘I�
��m going ask to see your papers,’ Heinrich said.
Izzy felt into her pocket to pull them out. She gave them to him.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said whilst scrutinising the papers. ‘I know your visits to the beach are innocent, but the authorities are beginning to think you may be spying, trying to contact Allied submarines.’
Izzy laughed out loud. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘I know that, you know that, but they need convincing,’ Heinrich replied.
‘This is about that Frenchman who was found the other day, isn’t it. He wasn’t a spy, you know, he was just trying to get to see his girlfriend,’ Izzy retorted. ‘He rowed all the way from the French coast, just to get one look at his girl and baby son, who is now fatherless.’
Heinrich sighed. ‘Paranoia drips down like poison from our leader to corrupt all those beneath him. The likes of me, though, the cannon-fodder, are dispensable. But what he forgets is that it takes eighteen years for a baby to grow into a man, and at this rate the German nation will run out of males long before that baby grows up,’ Heinrich replied.
Izzy looked down, she hadn’t thought, until now, how despondent he might be, too. How disillusioned he might be. How alone he might feel knowing he was fighting a losing battle.
‘I want to put my arms around you,’ Izzy said.
‘And I want to kiss you,’ Heinrich replied giving her back the papers. ‘I’ll try and get to see you, then we will talk. For now I would suggest you stay away from the beach.’
‘Won’t it look odd? All this time they’ve let me run my dog down here.’
‘I will tell them I ordered you to stay away by threatening to arrest you the next time you are seen near any area that is restricted.’
‘I still want to put my arms around you,’ Izzy said looking him in the eye.
‘And I still want to kiss you, but I think you had better go,’ he said.
Izzy just looked at him, not moving. She’d waited all those hours to see him once again. ‘Must I?’ she asked.
Forbidden Liaison: They lived and loved for the here and now Page 7