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Authors: G. N. Chevalier
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clenched unpleasantly. “No.”
“Good thing,” she told him firmly. “Because if he’s your fate, you might as well jump in the river now and have it over with.” She watched him for a moment longer before nodding. “All right. I have notes I made from the conference with his doctor. I’ll leave them for you.”
Michael thanked her graciously, although he knew what he was feeling was as far from gratitude as was possible.
T HERE is little privacy or safety to be had in the trenches, and when Michael is moving among them, he is working, so the chances for the brief, furtive couplings that some men find between bombardments and gas attacks and assaults are limited. Even if there were opportunity, he has to admit he would not be tempted, because the last thing he wants is to defile his desires with the stench of desperation and death. Instead he stores them away and unpacks them during his periodic leaves in Paris, where there is always a willing partner for the evening if you know where to look.
Michael knows where to look, even before he can understand the language, because the world in which he moves is fluent in silences. The only significant difference from New York is that the entire city seems to be the Bowery or Greenwich Village, secrets kept in the open for everyone to see but not see, a wink and a nod the rule rather than the exception. He likes it there, likes the freedom and the spirit of the place, and every three or four months, he can spend a few days scrubbing the dirt and blood from his skin and enjoying the company of men who don’t reek of gangrene and Belgian mud, men whose bodies are fine and firm and whole.
If he concentrates, he can almost forget there’s a war by the time his leave is up.
Later on in the war, when Paris is living under the threat of the German long gun and the terror of the Zeppelins, its luster dulls sufficiently that it is no longer enough to rob Michael of his memories, even for a moment. When he comes buried deep in a sweet, rounded ass, vision filling with starry pinpoints as his blood flees his brain, he can no longer lose himself entirely in the comforting amnesia wrought by pleasure. The stench of death does not leave his nostrils, and the vision of sightless eyes and orphaned limbs rises up before him, suffocating his desire.
When he arrives in England, he can barely even stand to touch himself, let alone anyone else. His last potential fuck before the war ends sucks him for what seems like hours, and if he shuts his eyes he can forget that anyone is touching him, because he feels nothing, nothing, nothing.
Michael woke from the flood of reminiscences gasping and sweating, his throat tight and his fists clenched in the sheets. The first fingers of dawn light were beginning to slide in the open window. Below him, he could hear the faint murmur of voices. As he lay collecting his scattered thoughts, the voices rose, resolving themselves briefly into sharp, barbed words before fading away to nothing. A few moments later, he heard the sounds of movement, the squeak of bedsprings and creak of floorboards.
Abbott and his wife were arguing again, as they had been doing nearly every day since the dowager Anderson’s visit. Michael had always thought marriage to be a prison—he’d never known a couple that had been truly happy—but at least until now the Abbotts had seemed such, despite the husband’s less than winning personality. Obviously Mary saw something worthwhile in him, for she was doing her damnedest to keep the old coot from killing himself with overwork; too bad Abbott wasn’t listening to any of her advice. Either he was one of those idiot servants who believed in duty above all else, or Seward had some mystical hold on him that Michael didn’t understand. Whatever the case, he was a fool to be ruining his health for someone who didn’t appreciate his efforts.
Clearly it would fall to Michael to try to come up with some scheme to get
“Good thing,” she told him firmly. “Because if he’s your fate, you might as well jump in the river now and have it over with.” She watched him for a moment longer before nodding. “All right. I have notes I made from the conference with his doctor. I’ll leave them for you.”
Michael thanked her graciously, although he knew what he was feeling was as far from gratitude as was possible.
T HERE is little privacy or safety to be had in the trenches, and when Michael is moving among them, he is working, so the chances for the brief, furtive couplings that some men find between bombardments and gas attacks and assaults are limited. Even if there were opportunity, he has to admit he would not be tempted, because the last thing he wants is to defile his desires with the stench of desperation and death. Instead he stores them away and unpacks them during his periodic leaves in Paris, where there is always a willing partner for the evening if you know where to look.
Michael knows where to look, even before he can understand the language, because the world in which he moves is fluent in silences. The only significant difference from New York is that the entire city seems to be the Bowery or Greenwich Village, secrets kept in the open for everyone to see but not see, a wink and a nod the rule rather than the exception. He likes it there, likes the freedom and the spirit of the place, and every three or four months, he can spend a few days scrubbing the dirt and blood from his skin and enjoying the company of men who don’t reek of gangrene and Belgian mud, men whose bodies are fine and firm and whole.
If he concentrates, he can almost forget there’s a war by the time his leave is up.
Later on in the war, when Paris is living under the threat of the German long gun and the terror of the Zeppelins, its luster dulls sufficiently that it is no longer enough to rob Michael of his memories, even for a moment. When he comes buried deep in a sweet, rounded ass, vision filling with starry pinpoints as his blood flees his brain, he can no longer lose himself entirely in the comforting amnesia wrought by pleasure. The stench of death does not leave his nostrils, and the vision of sightless eyes and orphaned limbs rises up before him, suffocating his desire.
When he arrives in England, he can barely even stand to touch himself, let alone anyone else. His last potential fuck before the war ends sucks him for what seems like hours, and if he shuts his eyes he can forget that anyone is touching him, because he feels nothing, nothing, nothing.
Michael woke from the flood of reminiscences gasping and sweating, his throat tight and his fists clenched in the sheets. The first fingers of dawn light were beginning to slide in the open window. Below him, he could hear the faint murmur of voices. As he lay collecting his scattered thoughts, the voices rose, resolving themselves briefly into sharp, barbed words before fading away to nothing. A few moments later, he heard the sounds of movement, the squeak of bedsprings and creak of floorboards.
Abbott and his wife were arguing again, as they had been doing nearly every day since the dowager Anderson’s visit. Michael had always thought marriage to be a prison—he’d never known a couple that had been truly happy—but at least until now the Abbotts had seemed such, despite the husband’s less than winning personality. Obviously Mary saw something worthwhile in him, for she was doing her damnedest to keep the old coot from killing himself with overwork; too bad Abbott wasn’t listening to any of her advice. Either he was one of those idiot servants who believed in duty above all else, or Seward had some mystical hold on him that Michael didn’t understand. Whatever the case, he was a fool to be ruining his health for someone who didn’t appreciate his efforts.
Clearly it would fall to Michael to try to come up with some scheme to get
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