Authors: Emma Taylor
Before he drove away, he flipped a switch on another small box with an antenna.
The two boxes left on the cable television wall plates pumped a gas into the room that smelled exactly like natural gas. Halah and Dalal felt themselves become dizzy and nauseous. They pounded on their doors. When the security people opened their doors, they saw two girls with green complexions who were throwing up. They couldn’t miss the smell of natural gas.
The people inside the palace evacuated and called the hospital. An ambulance pulled up and regular paramedics took the two girls away.
When the Sheikh and the man in the suit came back, they were told about the medical emergency. The man in the suit anxiously called the closest hospital. He was told that two young women had been admitted but had left the hospital against their doctor’s orders. No one at the hospital had any idea where they’d gone.
*****
When Halah and Dalal recovered from the effects of the gas, Nitro and John drove them to the US Consulate.
During the journey, Dalal rode in the back seat with Nitro. She touched a scar on his arm with her finger. “You have scars. Where did you get this one?”
“Fallujah. Sniper.”
“Do you have a lot of scars?”
“Twelve. None in places that matter. I’m still alive.”
She traced a tattoo with her finger. “You have tattoos.”
“I’m covered with them. None on my face, though.”
“Good. I don’t like them on the face.” She turned on her seat and faced him. “How tall are you?”
“Six feet eight inches.”
She studied him for a few seconds. “Would you do me a big favor?”
“If I can.”
“We’ve been through a lot in the last day and a half. I was terrified most of the time. I know I’m safe now, but I’m still jumpy. Would you mind holding my hand? It would help me a lot.”
“I’m glad to.”
Nitro’s big hand engulfed Dalal’s and she leaned on his arm. She took a deep breath. “That does help me. Thank you.”
In the front seat, Halah whispered in John’s ear, “Is the big man in the back seat a good man? My sister is attracted to him.”
John said, “Yes, she can trust him.”
Halah turned around in her seat and said to Dalal, “You can trust him.”
Dalal smiled up at Nitro. She took his hand and draped it over her shoulders. She scooted as close to him as she could and put her legs over his. Nitro pulled her even closer. Dalal said, “You’re not married, are you? Or going with anyone?”
“Not any more. I wouldn’t do this if I was.”
“Good.”
Matthew Strater was the official in charge of security in the United States Consulate. Halah looked at him.
“Can I have John stay with me?” she said. “Please? I don’t have anyone, and I don’t want to be alone.”
Dalal joined in. “I’d like that too. We don’t have any men that we can trust”
Mr. Strater had daughters. He understood the state of their emotions. He said, “Certainly. If they don’t have to get back to their base, they can stay with you as long as you want them to.” He turned to his assistant. “Put them up in our safe house overnight.”
He then pulled Nitro and John away from the girls. He said, “Gentlemen. These women have been terrified for hours. Treat them with care. They have to feel safe and cared for. Will you do that for them?”
Nitro and John nodded and said, “Yes sir,” in unison.
*****
The safe house turned out to be a penthouse in an upscale hotel. It had special locks on the door and guards in the corridor.
The girls had clothes to try on. John and Nitro were alone in the living room of the suite. Nitro called the base. “Yes, Lieutenant. They personally requested us to stay with them. I don’t know how long.” He broke the connection, and turned to John. “We’ve accomplished the mission,” he said. “We’re on stand down.” He became serious. “I feel a connection with Dalal. It couldn’t come at a worse time. You remember that letter I got back in the base?”
“Yes. It didn’t look like good news,” said John.
“It wasn’t. Gloria broke up with me. I was serious about her. I don’t think I can deal with another woman right now,” said Nitro.
“You might surprise yourself. I’m in the same situation. The commander asked me whether I was through mourning before we left,” said John.
“Dead women take up a lot of room in the heart.”
“They do. It’s hard to move them out.”
The girls came back. Dalal took Nitro’s hand and led him to a bedroom on one side of the suite. Halah led John to the other.
Dalal stood in front of Nitro with the joy of discovery in her eyes. She ran her hands over his arms and his massive chest. She said, “You’re so nice and big. I like that. The men in the village are all scrawny.”
She glanced at his eyes and stopped moving her hands. She said, “You’re unhappy. I can see it in your eyes. Tell me why.”
Big men who don’t cry will sometimes let a bit of their emotions show when they’re with a sympathetic woman. Nitro’s emotions ambushed him. He set his jaw hard and couldn’t talk. Dalal watched as two tiny tears appeared in his eyes. She said, “Oh dear. It’s serious, isn’t it.” She tugged him to a chair by a desk and sat on his lap. She put her hands on his cheeks and made him look at her. “I want to know what made you sad. But first, you have to feel acceptance and love. Let me do this.”
Dalal wrapped her warm arms around his neck and head and put her cheek on his. She kept one hand on the back of his head and rubbed her soft skin against his rough face. She said, in a very faint and very loving voice, “Whatever it is, we can make it go away if we work together.” She kissed his cheek. “Do you feel me touching you?”
He nodded.
“Does it feel good to you?”
He managed to speak. “It feels like you’re saving my life.”
“I am. Stop. I have to do something.”
She stood up then hiked her skirt up and sat down on his legs facing him. She played with his ears and rubbed her hands on his neck and chest. “When you want to, tell me what made you sad.”
He didn’t speak for a moment. Dalal said, “That’s okay. Put your arms around me and pull me close to you. I’m a woman. I’m soft. I’ll comfort you. I care about you. You saved my life. I can help you save yours.”
Nitro threw his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. He did it suddenly, like a man lunging toward the food that will save him from starving.
Dalal said, “Oh my. It’s really bad.”
Nitro spoke directly into her ear, as if he wanted to make sure no one else heard him. “Could we just stay like this for a while? You feel so good to me. I need you.”
She held his forehead against her shoulder and stroked the back of his head. “Yes. I think that would be just the right thing. We can take all of the time you want.”
Halah and John faced each other across the bedroom. Halah said, “Could I talk to you up close?”
John thought about it for a moment. “I have to tell you, I’m probably not fit company for a woman who needs a sympathetic shoulder for comfort.”
Halah walked up to him. “Tell me why.” She didn’t touch him.
“I was going to marry a girl named Gloria. I loved her deeply, but she died in a car accident nine months ago. I can do my job as a SEAL; but when I’m not working, I feel dead inside. I don’t seem to have any emotions. That’s what I meant.”
“I understand. I’ve lost the man I loved. He was killed by ISIS a year and a half ago. That’s why I joined the CIA when they asked me to help. I loved him just as you loved your fiancée. Jarrel worked against ISIS. He knew he might not come back from his last mission. He told me not to waste any time moving on with my life. He said he wanted me to have a full life with a man and babies just like he would have given me.”
“He sounds like a good man. He didn’t come back from that mission?”
“No. He was killed by a sniper’s bullet.”
“We’re in the same situation, and we need to get out. Pity our dead lovers didn’t tell us how to do it.”
“Yes, I know. How do you move on? There must be a way.”
Nitro and Dalal hadn’t moved in ten minutes. Dalal said, “We’ll be more comfortable on the bed. Let’s go there.”
“I’d like that. We can only hold each other. There’ll be no sex. We just met yesterday.”
“I know. It wouldn’t be fitting.”
They took their shoes off and crawled on the top of the bed. Nitro leaned against the headboard and opened his arms. Dalal pressed as close as she could to his side and threw her arm over his chest. He tightened his arm, bringing her closer. She sighed.
They stayed like that until Dalal said, “I want more.”
Nitro looked at her, waiting for her to tell him what she wanted.
Halah and John would have stayed as they were, in stasis, in the center of the room, if Halah hadn’t said, “I need some cold water,” and walked toward the little refrigerator in the corner. She tripped and fell right into John’s arms. He caught her. Her chest landed on his, her arms around his shoulders. Instinctively, they held each other with their arms and hands.
Both looked like someone had hit them hard between the eyes with something hard and heavy. Halah swallowed and looked at John. John just looked at the far wall.
Halah said, “What just happened?”
“We’re touching each other. We didn’t mean to, but it happened anyway. How does it feel to you?”
“Wonderful. No one’s held me in a year and a half. What about you?”
“It feels important. Like a turning point in my life.”
Halah dared to turn her head to look at John’s face. They’d been looking over the other’s shoulder. John moved to see her eyes. He said, “This is magical. I’m afraid to let you go. It might not happen again.”
“I know. Let’s stay here for a minute and try to get used to it.”
“Good idea.” He brought her in front of him so that her cheek was close to his. “This is better. More comfortable.”
“Yes. More comfortable.” She pressed her body against him in hesitant little movements. Finally, she felt his strong, hard body from her chest down to her knees. She smiled and laid her head on his shoulder.
In the other room, Dalal said, “I need to feel you touching me. You need that too.” She levered herself off the bed and onto Nitro. Her head rested on his chest and her legs fell off his big body on either side. She said, “Pull my blouse out of my skirt.” His big fingers did an efficient job of freeing her blouse. She leaned up. “Close your eyes.” He did it. She unbuttoned her blouse down the front and spread it apart. “Put your hands under my blouse and caress my back.”
It took him a few seconds to get up the courage, but he made it. His coarse hands slid up and down her back until she said, “Stop.” She reached back and undid the clasp on her bra. “Now you can do it without running into anything.”
It didn’t go as planned. Nitro didn’t continue rubbing her back. As soon as his hands landed on her back, he pulled her up to him the same way a man lifts a bouquet of flowers to smell them. He buried his nose in the corner of her neck and shoulder and exhaled.
She held his head on her shoulder with both hands. She said, “My poor baby.”
He didn’t speak and didn’t let go.
Halah and John were still vertical in the middle of the room, each one afraid to end the embrace and lose the only thing that made them feel hope.
John finally said, “We’re approaching this wrong. We’re in no danger here. Neither of us is going to die. When we go outside, that’s different. That doesn’t matter. We have to have some trust that the other one will be alive when we come home at night.”
“You’re right. We’re not going to die tonight so let’s enjoy it.”
They leaned apart and stopped touching then immediately come together like two magnets and wrapped their arms around each other.
If it hadn’t been so desperate, it would have been comical. They didn’t leave their embrace for another twelve hours. When it was time to eat, Halah sat on John’s lap. When they watched television together, it was sideways on the bed with Halah spooning into John’s body. They slept on top of the bed, entwined in each other.
It took Nitro an hour to get rid of his pain. Dalal had patience. She told him. “I don’t think I’m going to be without you for a very long time. We’re starting this off right. We’re dealing with your broken heart.”
That was the first time Nitro kissed her. She kissed back. Nitro forgot the girl who’d dumped him.
*****
The men helped Dalal and Halah apply for visas to go to the United States. When that was accomplished, they had a double wedding and both applied for stateside positions. Nitro taught explosives at Quantico and John taught Farsi at Camp Pendleton.
John and Halah never lost the need to touch each other and Nitro and Dalal supported each other emotionally for the rest of their lives.
THE END