Love is a Wounded Soldier Page 9

  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 tog
ether 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.

  As the sun sapped my strength, I became a little peeved; my wife was deliberately making me work in the sun’s heat, during the hottest point in the day, while she lay comfortably sleeping, not even bothering to entertain me with conversation! After stewing about it for a half hour, my hot head hatched a little plot of vengeance from a bedeviled egg. A mess of weeds floated beside us, and I speared it with my pole, lifted it out of the water, and examined the slimy, dripping swamp salad I’d snagged. My mood flipped quickly from irate to gleeful as I dangled it over her belly and shook it loose. Almost before it plopped down, she shrieked and sat up, clawing at it and flinging it into the river. I laughed so hard I almost fell off the raft. Then she almost threw me off, grabbing my wrists and glaring threateningly at me, with just a glint of growing amusement in her eyes.

  “I oughta kill you!” she growled, as I pretended to cower, but I failed miserably at looking like I took her seriously.

  “I’m sorry!” I laughed insincerely. “I—I was scared you might be burning.”

  “Do I look burnt?” she yelled at me, looking down at her perfectly tanned torso. She released my wrists and looked back at the disgusting clump of weeds floating away.

  “Ew!” she shuddered.

  “Well, you made me work so hard by myself in the sun, and then—” I raised my voice indignantly for effect, “and then you lay there, taunting me with your—your frockless glory, and—and you didn’t talk to me or pay any attention to me for hours and hours!” I exaggerated, doing my best to sound like a sniveling child.

  “Aww,” she played along, “come here you poor thing!” She consoled me by patting my back in maternal fashion. I sniffled as she hugged me, my hands taking liberties with her body.

  “Now, now,” she said, “would it make you feel better if we pushed off to some quiet place and I could give you the attention you deserve?”

  “Yes, I do believe that would mend my broken heart,” I smiled, wiping the imaginary tears from my dry eyes. She laughed at the alacrity with which I grabbed my pole and pushed us on in search of that quiet place. It wasn’t long before I located a quiet, shady backwater. An eddy spun the water in a wide, unhurried vortex which kept the raft turning slowly in a circle, negating the need to find a place to beach it or moor it in any way. And I got my attention. Gobs of it.

  After she’d all but exhausted me with attention, we dug into our picnic lunch. The shade was refreshing, and felt almost cool. The water twirled our raft lazily around and around as we talked.

  “Do you think God will still bless our marriage, even though we disobeyed Daddy?” she asked me out of nowhere. I hadn’t really given that question any thought to speak of, so I had to think a minute before answering.

  “Well, you’re supposed to honor your father and mother,” I admitted slowly, thinking at the same time that there was no way in hell I’d ever honor my father.

  “But, I think honoring your pa means you respect his advice, but you don’t have to obey him. You’re old enough to make your own decisions. I don’t think you should have to live with the decisions made for you by someone else.” I took a swig of water from the canteen.

  “I’d like to think I’ll be judged for the choices I made, not the ones that someone else made for me,” I finished, taking a bite of cracker and sardine.

  “What, are you having doubts now?” I asked, a little puzzled at why this had come up now.

  “Oh, I don’t know!” she said. “My motivation for marrying you wasn’t, you know, exactly spiritual.” She looked at me to see if I understood what she meant. I got it.

  I wiped the crumbs off my lips and answered. “Well, I think anyone that says they’re getting married for “spiritual reasons” is either delusional, or a bald-faced liar. The only reason to get married is to fulfill this God-given drive in all of us without sinning. You probably know the Bible better than me; is there any place it says that you’ll help build the kingdom of God by getting married?”

  “No, not that I know of,” she shook her head slowly.

  “So I guess we can infer from what I know of the Bible, at least, that the whole point of a man and woman becoming one flesh is to be fruitful and multiply. And as near as I can make out, that’s a pretty fleshly process,” I grinned at her, and she winked back.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she concurred, falling silent. We both commenced staring at the gently swirling water, lost in our respective thoughts.

  I thought about Moses. I hardly ever thought about him anymore. He was like a bad dream I tried to keep locked in the dark attic of my mind. The very suggestion of honoring him riled me. His memory angered me. As I thought about him, I could still see the look of hurt and degradation on his face as I’d shown him to the door with my fists. I suddenly felt guilt; pricks, not pangs, but it felt strange, because I’d never before felt guilt in conjunction with that memory. It wasn’t my blows that had hurt him; I’d humiliated him, and somehow, for some reason, I just didn’t feel right about that.

  A piece of crust fell off the bread I’d been eating, and I picked it up and absentmindedly threw it in the water. The water boiled briefly as a fish came and snapped it up, rousing me from my daydream. Ellen saw it too, and we both reached for fishing poles. I got mine ready, then helped Ellen string hers up. We used bits of our lunch as bait, and were delighted to find the fish were in an afternoon feeding frenzy. I moved the raft nearer to the shore, where the fish were hiding under logs and in the weeds. We caught mostly bass, and I put four or five on a string for supper, but the fish kept biting, so we kept fishing.

  “Bet I’ve caught more fish than you,” Ellen needled me. I laughed. I considered myself to be an above-average fisherman, although I’m not sure how I came to be so high-minded about it; I’d mostly fished by myself, so I really had no one to compare to.

  “How many?” I asked, setting my hook into another freshwater beauty.

  “Oh, ten or twelve,” she clearly exaggerated.

  “This is number sixteen,” I lied, pulling the flopping fish onto the raft.

  “Right!” she shot back doubtfully.

  “Well, let’s have a contest, then. Let’s see who catches the most fish from now on,” I proposed.

  “OK, but when is the deadline?” she asked, raising a good point. Neither of us had a watch. I looked around.

  “When that tree’s shadow falls dead center on that rock,�
� I pointed, “the contest will be over.”

  “And what does the winner get?” she asked, concentrating on casting her hook at a likely looking spot.

  “The winner pushes the disgraced loser into the river to be thoroughly shamed,” I decided.

  “Prepare to be drenched,” she foretold menacingly, and the contest was on.

  Good-natured squabbles ensued as we quarreled over technicalities, both making up rules as we went along. Ellen had one fish wriggle off her hook as she was pulling it out of the water. I protested when she counted it, and an argument erupted; she contended it counted as long as you pulled it in close enough to see it, but I maintained you had to grab it with your hand, or at the very least, pull it onto the raft.

  The tree’s shadow moved like the hand on a giant clock. It neared the rock around an hour into our friendly competition. The fishing had slowed down, and I was behind eight to six, if you counted Ellen’s escaped fish. I nervously watched the shadow creep onto the edge of the rock. My self-respect as an angler was on the line! How would I live with—and live with being bested by—a no-account, amateur fisherwoman, who would doubtlessly remind me of my humiliating loss at the most inconvenient times? It was a frantic rush against the sundial.

  As the end neared, I got a hit. I set the hook and started pulling it in. It felt like I had something on, but it felt more like I’d snagged a stick or weeds. I pulled my hook out of the water, and with it, a bluegill crappy the length of my fingers. I hollered triumphantly.

  “You call that a fish?” Ellen hooted derisively. I looked at the rock. Time was up.

  “Well, let’s see . . .” I rubbed my chin. “It’s got scales, gills, fins. Yes, dear, it appears to be a fish. A bluegillas crappicanas, to be specific.” I commentated eruditely.

  “Sorry,” Ellen countered, “but that isn’t big enough to count as a fish. That’s just an egg with a tail,” she scoffed. “I win eight to six.”

  “Hold on!” I squawked as she rolled up imaginary sleeves, preparing to dunk me. “This little guy is as much a fish as the rest of them, just smaller. And you’ve been counting one fish that you hooked, but never actually caught. And—” I fabricated nimbly with the persuasiveness of a trial lawyer, “and, you weren’t sharp enough to notice, but I noted the fifth fish you caught had a small wound on the left side of its lower lip, which strangely enough, corresponds with the exact location you hooked your third fish, so the evidence strongly suggests you caught the same fish twice!”