Mountains Wanted (20 page)

Sarah was trying to
listen neutrally, but she was afraid her eyes were growing too wide to disguise
her concern. Her empathic sensibilities were bracing herself for whatever he
had to share, but she wanted to listen without judgment so he would feel at
ease. She repositioned herself slightly so they were no longer touching
and pretended she was hearing the story from a stranger. Thinking about him.
..fighting
a war...at age nineteen...my god.
She couldn’t even fathom how scared he
must have been.

“One night  I was
called out to detonate a cache that was buried under the floor of a house where
IEDs were being made. The bad guys knew that the weapons would be detonated if
found so they started to booby trap the weapons caches. One of the less
experienced guys asked to go in my place. He was full of piss and vinegar, very
ideological and patriotic,”  James smiled as he conjured up the image of
his fellow soldier. “Yup, that was Will. He’d take a hill single handedly
with only a Swiss army knife if asked to do so.”

Sarah smiled with him
hesitantly, but inside she was afraid of where this story was headed. Nonetheless,
she urged him on with her eyes as she could feel all his energy being released,
like his words had a need to be spoken, a story that must be told. He
continued, “It was a small cache and I was nearing the end of my tour so I
agreed to let him go. So Will gets to the site and probably due to his
excitement and lack of experience, he ends up setting off the booby trap. The
trap was likely designed just to harm the person entering, but the bad guys
aren’t exactly experts. They were inconsistent in their practices and
unpredictable.” He shook his head for a moment, his eyes fading into the
distance, transporting his brain back to the desert.  

He continued, beginning
to sound monotone, like he was narrating a documentary. “In some ways, this is
really the most difficult type of enemy one could encounter. The small
explosion ended up setting off the rest of the cache which roughly consisted of
the material equivalent to 2 VBIEDs designed to take out Iraqi Police
checkpoints.”

Sarah shrugged at the
unfamiliar acronym. “Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Devices,” he decoded.

She nodded in
understanding.
 Is the story over?
she wondered. He had drifted
away and she felt like she had lost him. Suddenly he felt present again in the
room and he finished his story, matter-of-factly, his own Auto Pilot kicking
in. “Will died.  His folks were really religious. There weren’t enough of
his remains to send home.”

There were tears
stinging at her eyes thinking about a mother who would never see her son again,
dead or alive. She was unable to watch war movies or witness the portrayal of
other tragic events because the emotion would well up inside her so strongly,
wrenching her heart, overwhelming her. She didn’t have that switch that could
shut off the effects of tragedies that were not her own reality.

“Another kid was badly
injured but lived for a while, and a third who was the first to respond to the
blast and tried to pull Will out...they both ended up dying from inhalation of chlorine
gas. Chlorine is an additive sometimes used in IEDs …it’s cheap, plentiful and
deadly,” he explained, his voice unwavering.

Sarah was wiping away
the tear that had slipped down her cheek. “It could have been you,” she said so
softly it was a whisper.

He nodded. “It was
supposed to be simple. Textbook.” He shook his head again. “But over
there, things have a way of getting complicated.”

“Are you okay?” Sarah
questioned.

“Yeah,” James answered,
“of course. It’s my job. It’s what I signed up for.  I have to be
okay. Although if I’d been there, I would have probably gotten the job
done right...because I had more experience...but it’s just the way it worked out.
Other shit happened too...while I was there for that deployment...I did another
a few years after that. But that sticks out. I guess because I still see
his face sometimes. And if it hadn’t been only a month till I came home, I
probably would have gone in his place.”

She wasn’t entirely
convinced he had come to terms with it all, but she wanted to know more.
Like
how did that experience factor into his marriage?
“So what happened when
you got home?”

James laughed, “Well,
what do you think happened?” The tension from his earlier story had
dissipated and his documentary voice had faded in favor of a more animated
version of his normal voice. “That fucking bitch I was married to who was so
afraid of me looking at some burka-wearing Iraqi women had gone and gotten
herself knocked up. And no, it wasn’t mine.”

Now Sarah allowed her
eyes to widen. “Really?”

“Yeah, some nerve, huh? I’m
off fighting a war and she’s home fucking everything with two legs and a dick. So
uh, yeah, we were divorced.”

He was quiet again for a
moment, as if he was still processing all that he had shared. “You know, I grew
up that year. I got married, I went off to war, I saw some buddies get
blown up, I came home to a cheating bitch and got divorced.” He smirked
and placed his hand on Sarah’s thigh. “After that, everything else seems
pretty damn easy.”

She had had some pretty
tumultuous years in her life too: getting pregnant right before college
graduation, trying to care for a newborn and work full time, her first year of
grad school, and she’d had her own experience with cheating spouses. 
We’re
both survivors.
We just had a moment of understanding.
Sarah
stretched back out beside him, placing her head on his chest again. He wrapped
his arm around her instinctively.
This explains a lot
, she thought. 
Why
he seems older than his age. Why he’s so elusive. Why there seems to be a
barrier. Why it was hard for him to let her in.

They laid there for a
little bit in silence, their bodies meshing. Then they exchanged more words,
something lighter to lift the mood: a recap of dinner in which she generously
extolled his culinary abilities; next they shared what was currently on their
reading lists. Sarah lost all track of time. Finally, she looked over at the
clock on his nightstand and it read 12:37 in bold red numbers. They had missed
ringing in the New Year, the Ball Drop, the kiss at midnight.
Oh well,
she
thought,
I’m here with him, and every moment feels like the stroke of
midnight.

***

She peeled away the
covers and perched on her knees between his legs. The expression painted on his
face was one of blissful slumber but a body part further south had already
begun to stir. It had not escaped her notice under the thin sheet that loosely
shrouded his hips and thighs. She moved the fabric aside and stretched before
him, bowing to his rising manhood beginning to wave, a little more than
semi-stiff with morning wood.

She brushed the edges of
her lips against the tip and felt it instantly swell against her soft skin. She
took the head into her mouth as her fingers gently caressed between his legs
and around his balls. Soon his shaft was rigid and she slid her mouth down it,
feeling it glide to the back of her throat. She glanced up to see if his
expression had changed. His eyes remained closed; his arms were stretched above
his head so that she could make out the definition of the muscles in his
shoulders. The only thing that had changed was his breathing had grown a little
heavier.

Now that his tool was
hard and ready despite his seemingly steady slumber, she decided her best
option was to take advantage of him before he fully awakened. She straddled
him, a thigh on either side of his hips. She reached between her legs, her
fingers dexterously encircling his throbbing cock. She teased it against the opening
of her sex and gasped at discovering her slit was already dripping with desire,
ripe and wanton for him. She’d been waiting to feel him inside her again for
two weeks now.

She guided the head
inside the lips of her sex and then very slowly slid her pelvis down to take
him deep inside her. She started to rotate her hips, grinding against him ever
so slowly at first, her breasts just barely brushing the prickly stubble on his
chin with each thrust downward. She moaned at the sensation of the rough hair
against her nipples, then gripped the metal headboard as she began to slam her
pelvis down to meet his more forcefully.

He was nearly silent.
He'd let one gasp escape as his cock was fully engulfed by her warm wetness and
intermittently a moan would find its way from his lips. She was moving faster
even though he was still and quiet beneath her. She felt her orgasm building as
she sat almost straight up, perched on his cock, her palms bracing her weight
against his hairy, muscular chest. She watched his eyes twitch a bit under his
eyelids, noticing how long his lashes looked brushing against his cheek. She
ran her fingers through his hair, pulling his mouth to her breast.
Instinctively his lips parted and sucked her nipple inside, raking his teeth
against its firmness.

Suddenly he bit down and
the intense spike of pain reverberated through her core, driving her completely
over the edge, sending her pussy into strong spasms around his cock. She
suspended her motion to feel each contraction squeeze his shaft and with each
one she let out a soft "Oh my god, oh my god," the exclamations
becoming further and further apart as the climactic waves gradually faded. She
finally opened her eyes to see that a smile had curled across his lips, though
his eyes remained closed.

She dismounted his still
hard cock and slid back down his body to inspect it. It was coated in white
cream from her pussy which her tongue tingled at the prospect of tasting. She
cleaned up his cock thoroughly, taking it deep into her mouth to get every drop
of her juices just as he lazily opened his eyes to say "Good
morning..."

“I don’t want to go
home,” Sarah whispered, not knowing if he was really awake enough to hear her.

He drew her close to his
body again so that her face was buried in his chest hair. “So don’t.”

***

   
The
happy mountains surround me like an embrace. The sparkling stream is full of
liquid crystals and the sky is dotted with birds on wing. The sunrise filters
through the peaks and floods its rosy peach glory throughout the valley. I
look down at my legs and they are scarred from the previous day’s arduous
climb, but the wounds are healing, covered in thick scabs. I’m enveloped
in peace and the tranquility is radiating throughout my body, quelling the
pain.

After dozing for another
hour or so, this time James woke first. He reached over and smoothed
Sarah’s hair away from her face and stroked a finger down her
cheek. “Sleep well?”

“Mmmmm,” Sarah moaned,
turning over to face him. “I did. It’s so nice waking up next to you.” She
still felt the peace she had absorbed while suspended in her dream.

James smiled. “So...coffee?
 Breakfast?  What is on tap for you today?”

Sarah shrugged, “No real
plans. How about you?”

“Hoping to fuck you
again directly,” James admitted, winking at her.

Sarah laughed. “Well,
I could always call my mom and see what she has planned...see if the kids can
stay a bit longer.”

“You can stay as long as
you’d like,” James offered generously and ran his hand up her thigh, across her
stomach and up to her breasts where he tweaked her nipple between his
fingertips. Sarah felt the energy surge through her body, traveling from her
head and her toes toward her core at lightning speed. “You are incredibly
responsive,” he observed, “I love it.” His hand stroked down her stomach,
teasing his way toward her sex which was beginning to throb in anticipation of
his touch. He stopped short and she sighed with disappointment.

He laughed at her
reaction, but then his normal intensity returned and soon his eyes were bearing
down on her as he moved between her legs. She felt his stiff cock press against
her thigh as his mouth grazed on the flesh where her neck met her shoulder. She
shuddered beneath his weight, yearning to feel his cock sliding into her. She
really hoped he wasn’t going to torment her too badly. He hadn’t orgasmed
during the episode in which she took advantage of him earlier in the morning...
so
hopefully he feels a sense of urgency
, Sarah sighed.

As if reading her mind,
James shifted his pelvis, repositioning his cock so that it pressed against her
labia, parting them slightly and slowly easing its way inside her. Once he felt
the resistance diminish, he pushed more forcefully and she gasped as her body
struggled to accommodate him.

“You are so fucking
tight,” he remarked, slowly withdrawing and then thrusting into her again.

“Mmmmhmmmm,” Sarah
moaned breathlessly. “That’s cause you didn’t warm me up properly first!”

“Well, I’m sorry that
you’re just too alluring to resist, lying there all half asleep. I had to have
you. And besides, didn’t you get warmed up an hour or two ago when you
practically raped me?” James questioned, then picked up his speed so that Sarah
was too breathless to answer. “It’s my turn now,” he added, beginning to drill
into her faster and deeper.

He had rendered her
speechless. She grabbed his ass and grinded her hips into his thrusts,
feeling the pressure on her clit and causing her orgasm to build. She felt him
tense just then; he slowed momentarily as if trying to hold back his release
but quickly realized it wasn’t possible. “Oh, god, Sarah,” he apologized,
unable to control himself any longer, which was enough to drive her over the
edge as well, precipitating an explosion that reverberated through her body in
intense spasms that milked his cock, draining him of all his seed.