Love is a Wounded Soldier (12 page)

Ellen produced some towels and soap, and
laid them on a blanket near the water’s edge. I boldly removed my clothes and
laid them on a rock. I felt a little self-conscious as Ellen took time from
removing her shoes to unabashedly gawk at her recent acquisition.

“What, you never seen a naked man before?”
I laughed.

She blushed and shook her head as I dove
into the cool, refreshing water. It was clear, clean, and just over waist deep.
I dunked my head and scrubbed my hair. It felt so invigorating to wash the
smell of sweat off. I wiped the water out of my eyes and hair with my hands,
and as I watched Ellen undress, it felt as though the real wedding ceremony was
just beginning. I felt strangely like a groom standing at the altar, waiting to
receive his bride. Just I doubt any groom waited with the same degree of carnal
anticipation that I did, watching my bride reveal herself bit by bit. She
unbuttoned the front of her dress tantalizingly and let it to fall to the
ground. The sun hung low now, and the fractured light the trees let through
bathed her body in its dusky glow. She shyly removed her undergarments, and
finally, there she stood, as beautiful as I had imagined. Perfect. Innocent.
Magnificent. Mine.

She daintily stepped into the water and
slowly waded toward me. She was so beautiful I could have cried. The look on her
face matched my feelings. With the desire in me raging, my patience evaporated,
and when she was an arm’s length away, I rushed her with such force I almost
bowled her over. I couldn’t swallow her in my arms soon enough and I pressed
her soft body against me and kissed her forcefully.

“You’re drowning me,” she laughed softly
when I relented.

“First things first, Robbie,” she
whispered, slipping a bar of soap into my hand. “I need you to wash me.” She
punctuated the statement with a look that drove me wild. I gave her a washing
that the word “thorough” cannot even begin to describe. My gleeful hands roamed
her body, giving special attention to the parts that made her close her eyes
and moan appreciatively. And then, after I’d teased myself half crazy, we wrapped
our arms about each other and waded to the shore.

We stood on the rocks and took turns drying
each other off. The energy built between us like static electricity as we used
the towels to rub each other into a frenzy.

We stepped onto the blanket and sat down,
the thick carpet of grass cushioning us from the ground. Her slightly damp hair
flowed over her breasts and hung down to the middle of her flat, firm belly.
Tresses, I thought as I kissed her deeply, pushing her down onto the blanket.
She fell back, the golden halo of her hair framing her face and veiling her
body with soft strands that made me shiver when my skin touched them. My
unskilled fingers gained confidence as she groaned with pleasure at my kiss and
caress.

“Have me,” she mouthed more than spoke. And
there in the fading light, she gave herself to me. I thought it might feel
awkward, but it didn’t. We were one flesh, and I held her as naturally as the
valley cradled the river beside us. As the river lapped the bank, the waves of
passion built in me, culminating in an orgasmic tsunami, wave, after wave,
after wave. I fell back, panting, feeling like I’d poured all my love and
energy into her. Yet, as I lay beside her, I felt she’d given me back a deeper
kind of strength.

She moaned softly as I pushed her hair off
her forehead, kissed her, and lay my head down between her moist, firm breasts.

“Did it hurt?” I asked, with a tenderness
I’d never felt before. Her body quivered and arched, as though the aftershocks
of ecstasy still rippled through her.

“It hurt beautifully,” she smiled, running
her fingers through my tangled hair.

We lay silently beside each other, looking
up at the sky. The sun had burned down to allow the stars to receive their
glory.

The fire within me seemed to have been
reduced to glowing embers in concert with the campfire I’d built earlier. As
the darkness descended, I could see only the odd insubordinate flame from the
campfire lick the air for a moment before the breeze snuffed it. My stomach
growled.

“Hungry?” Ellen giggled. Hungry? Was I
ever! My stomach roared again, as if ordering that the few pieces of cheese and
bread I’d eaten en route to our camping spot be brought back to be inspected
for missed nutritional value. The hunger for my bride had eclipsed my desire for
food all day, and now the tables had turned.

“Let’s go make something,” I said, rising
to my feet and offering Ellen a helping hand. As I helped her up, a flame of
desire flickered briefly before being squelched by the cries from my stomach.

Just about starving now, I roused the fire
with a stick, added some kindling and small sticks, and after they had caught
fire, put on two larger pieces.

I had foolishly purchased our foodstuffs on
my own, and as I studied everything I’d bought, it seemed nothing could possibly
be combined with something else to produce an actual dish of food. Seeing my
distress, Ellen draped a short, light nightgown over her shoulders and ordered
me out of the way. I watched dubiously as she added an assortment of
ingredients to a can of Spam, but she won my admiration when her concoction
tasted not just edible, but good.

It was still too warm to sit beside the
fire, so after rinsing our dishes and utensils in the river, we lay down on the
blanket again, close enough to hear the fire’s crackle, but far enough away
that the light didn’t interfere with stargazing. The cicadas, which had
serenaded us with their love songs earlier, quieted as darkness cooled the
land. We used rolled up clothes to pillow our heads, and lay together, skin on
skin.

“Can you read the stars?” Ellen asked me.

“Why, of course I can! What, you think I’m
an idiot?” I feigned injury.

“Well, what do you see?” she challenged.

“Hmm . . .” I thought. “Well, I see a
dazzling star, which I interpret to be a woman of unparalleled beauty.
Desirable beyond words.” I snuck a look at her to see her expression. She
stared straight up, but her profile betrayed her knowing delight.

“Go on,” she prompted eagerly.

“I see another star, a much larger,
brighter star that shines as the sun in its own galaxy.” I paused. “It appears
this star is a man of uncommon strength and majesty,” I prophesied.

“Uh-huh,” she replied with affected
skepticism, a laugh in her voice.

“These two stars appear to be lovers that
don’t seem that close together, but they are actually connected by smaller
stars, as though the arms of these lovers extend toward each other, and by
clasping hands, they form a circle, like a wedding band.” I paused again.

“Is that all you see?” she asked, becoming
engrossed in my story as though it were real.

“No, in the ring they form, I see tiny,
twinkling flashes that aren’t stars, but look like they may become stars in
time. I deduce those are the unborn children of the mother and father stars,” I
concluded confidently.

“These stars,” she asked, as though she
took the story seriously, “do they look like they’ll burn steady, or do they
look prone to fade?”

“No,” I assured her as I propped myself up
on my elbow. “They’ll only burn more fervently for each other as time goes on.
It’ll be a wonder if they don’t consume everything around them.”

I leaned over and kissed her, and could see
her eyes shimmer with tears. She fervently kissed me back, and broke it off as
she started sniffling. I lay back down and listened with satisfaction as she sniffed
several more times. I was wise enough to know that making a woman cry can be a
good thing sometimes, and this was one of those times. She found my hand and
squeezed it. We both fell silent and listened to the wind whisper secrets to
the treetops. A fish splashed in the water, and the rising moon shone a path of
light on the river. The river murmured restlessly and rushed impatiently along,
as though the day would be wasted if it didn’t round at least another bend or
two by midnight.

“I wonder what your pa’s going to say?” I
pondered out loud.

“Robbie, I don’t even want to talk about
that. Let’s just enjoy being together. Let’s think about our new life,” she
told me, a little sharply. I nodded silently, watched a star fall, and wished
for a son.

“Are you glad we waited? You know . . . to
make love?” she asked me softly.

“Well, it was the right thing to do—from a
moral viewpoint,” I answered carefully. “You don’t give away something you only
have one of to the first taker. And lots of kids do that, thinking they’ll be
with that person forever, but until you say those vows . . . there is no
forever.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “So how about from a
non-moral viewpoint—are you glad we waited?” she asked teasingly. I chuckled.

“Well, I don’t remember a time since even
before we were courting that I didn’t want you pretty bad,” I admitted. “But
after being with you today as man and wife . . . gosh, it was the most
beautiful moment of my life. You were worth it, baby—worth waiting for.” I
could see her getting weepy again, and it felt like I was coming down with a
slight case of it myself. A woman can sure soften a man in a hurry.

“Yeah, me too,” she said, her voice
catching. She cleared her throat and changed her tone. “But as wonderful as
that moment was, it’s just a memory now. I think it’s time to make another
memory,” she said suggestively, slipping out of her gown. That thought had been
on my mind for some time again, but I’d not wanted to be pushy. The moon played
the role of voyeur, peering around a cloud like a creamy, luminescent eyeball,
spilling light over Ellen’s perfect form.

As we embraced, I thought of the proverb,
“Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her
be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all
times; and be thou ravished always with her love.” And she ravished me with her
love.

~~~

I awoke the next morning to a raucous
chorus of birds. We’d finally retired to the tent sometime after we’d seen a
family of deer drinking on the edge of the opposite bank, and before an owl had
haunted us with his sober questions. The clock meant nothing.

Ellen lay beside me. Her tousled hair fell
across her chest, rising and falling slightly as she snored softly in a way
surprisingly feminine. The light was still weak, and I had no urge to
shortchange myself on sleep, so I threw my arm over my wife and wormed my way
closer to her warmth. She stirred a little, and I fell asleep.

When I woke up next, I was alone. The birds
had given up singing for their breakfasts and were now preoccupied with finding
them. Outside I could hear the hiss and sputter of food frying. I put on my
shoes, unzipped the door, and ducked through it. Ellen smiled as I stretched
and walked toward her.

“Good morning, gorgeous!” I said, wrapping
my arms around her from behind and kissing her ear.

“Good morning, my wild stallion!” she
returned teasingly.

Fog rose up from the river, and a smoky
mist hung over every bowl and basin in the valley. Every grass stalk and
spider’s web dripped with droplets of dew.

By the time we’d eaten breakfast the sun
had burned off most of the mist, and we discussed how to spend the day. I
proposed a cruise down the river, and Ellen was game, but appeared a little
doubtful as to how I would produce the necessary craft for the excursion. Armed
with a hunting knife and my rusty hatchet, I proceeded to cobble together a
raft.

By noon, my project was ready to launch,
and I wrestled it into the water and cautiously stepped aboard. It held my
weight, so I motioned for Ellen to join me. It rocked as she climbed on, but
appeared to be seaworthy. Pleased with my apparent success, we docked it, and I
found some poles for pushing it while Ellen made us a picnic lunch. I
remembered I had some fishing line and hooks in the camping kit I’d brought
along, so I cut down a few sturdy, supple branches to use as fishing poles.

We loaded the raft with anything we might
possibly wish we’d brought with if we’d left it behind, and poled our way
upstream, since I thought I’d much rather exert a little effort early on, and
have the benefit of being able to float back on the current later. We both
manned the poles, trying to stay out of the way of the main current by hugging
the shady southern bank.

Once I got the hang of things, I told Ellen
I could probably push it by myself. She was getting in the way more than she
was helping much of the time, anyway. I chalked it up as inexperience, but knew
she was probably capable of faking stereotypical female ineptness in order to
get me to suggest I alone would be adequate to power our little vessel.

Ellen proceeded to distract me by throwing
a blanket down, undressing, and, after directing me to try to stay as much out
of the shade as possible, she lay down, closed her eyes, and began sunbathing,
flipping over from back to belly from time to time. I was lucky I didn’t run us
aground, as much time as my longing eyes were diverted from the waterway to the
sunbathing siren at my feet. She stopped talking after a few minutes, and
appeared to fall asleep.