The Soldier
written by:
Naughty Miranda

"There she is." Marieke elbowed me sharply in the ribs, so sharp I almost dropped my shopping.

"Who?"

"Leda. The one I was telling you about."

I turned and looked across the crowded marketplace. The woman was probably in her mid-20s, pretty in a dusty kind of way, although her threadbare clothes were no more or less remarkable than the outfits that all of us were wearing these days. Her make-up was old, as though she'd slept a few nights in it, but bold as well, her eyes deeply shadowed and her lips outlined in the brightest crimson.

"It makes them look like a cunt," Marieke whispered, as she followed my gaze.

"What does?"

"Her lipstick. It makes her lips look like a cunt, so the men will fuck her there instead of in her pussy or up her ass."
 "They fuck her mouth?"

"My cousin saw her. On her knees in the back of a jeep, with half a dozen militia men taking turns to fuck her mouth."

I grimaced. "And what was she doing?"

"She was letting them, and when they stopped, she begged them to do it some more. My cousin said she was squirming and moaning the whole time, like she was having every orgasm on earth all at once, and when they came, she sucked it into her mouth, or wiped it on her face, and she did them all again right afterwards."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because she didn't want to get pregnant, I suppose. So she let them fuck her mouth." And then Marieke's bus drew up and she got on board, with a kiss on my cheek and a sideways glance down the road that Leda had taken. "She's probably going to find more militia men," she whispered gleefully as the bus began pulling away. "To fuck her mouth."

The bus disappeared, but I still stood on the dusty street. Why would anyone want to have their mouth fucked? It didn't make any sense.

******************

He was a soldier. I noticed him the first time they came into the village, kneeling in the dust to pet one of the stray dogs that seemed to be everywhere these days, then rushing to catch up with the rest of his platoon as they marched on without him. I heard his sergeant bark some kind of admonishment... reminding him, probably, that until the village had been secured, no-one should fall behind.

Secured against what, though? We all knew what was happening elsewhere in the country, the rising tide of violence and destruction that had torn our land into so many shattered fractions, and then set the fractions themselves against one another. But though we heard the helicopters and saw the smoke, and had watched the tanks tearing across the horizon, sending up great clouds of choking dust, the conflict... the violence... why would nobody call it the war that it was?... had so far left us in peace.

And then the soldiers came.

They took up position around the village, while a handful commenced the house to house search. One of the menfolk, one of the few whose English was clear and unbroken, tried to ask what they were looking for. I heard, rather than saw, the dull thud of a rifle butt connecting with his skull, and heard the screams of his family as the troops ransacked their home.

I raised my head above the water barrel I was hiding behind. I couldn't see the soldiers' faces, but I recognized the men they were anyway, the same bully boys that every army seems to attract, the ones who are always first to volunteer for the dirty jobs, because that's what they joined up for in the first place. I crouched down again, then froze as footsteps came up behind me, making no attempt at stealth or surprise, just the matter of fact crunch crunch of heavy boots on the dry, crumbling earth.

I turned, and two more soldiers stood staring at me, their faces set impassively, their eyes the kind of cold, flinty steel that you always read about in books, but have never actually encountered in life.

One spoke to me in my own tongue, faltering but clear enough. "What are you doing there?"

I thought of replying in English, but decided against it. These men needed to know nothing more than they asked. "I was hiding." I spoke honestly. The village had nothing to hide, so there was no need to lie. "I saw you coming into the village and I was scared. So I hid."

"Hear that? She was scared." One of them laughed and turned to his friend. "Don't you know we're here to save you people?"

There was scorn in his voice, but it wasn't directed at me, I didn't think. Rather, he was speaking to the powers that had sent him to this place, thousands of miles from his own home, to take part in a not-war that had absolutely nothing to do with him and his life. But I said nothing, just stood my ground, and looked at the ground, in the way I'd been taught to do when confronted by a peril I was powerless to resist. Although, back then, it was wild animals I had to worry about.

"Is this your home?"

"It is."

"Step inside, please. Someone will be with you in a moment." I obeyed.
 In fact, the soldiers were already inside, and barely glanced up as I slipped in and took a seat beside my mother. They were questioning my father about his skills - before the war, he was an airline pilot, commuting the forty or so kilometers to and from work. But the airport was one of the first things they bombed, even before the soldiers came, and since then he'd stayed at home, working the land with the other men, because they knew that no-one would be coming to replenish the supermarket.

"And you are certain you have seen no strangers in the district?" The conversation was in English.

"No, sir."

"How do I know I can believe you?"

"What would be the point in me lying? If these people you seek are here, they will make themselves known to you soon enough, and I will be punished for attempting to conceal them. If they are not here, then it would scarcely be in my interests to tell you that they are. Therefore, I am telling the truth."

The sergeant nodded, then turned as two of his men came down the stairs that led up to the bedrooms. My soldier, the dog lover, was one of them, and I offered a silent prayer of thanks - not because it was him, but because he had clearly conducted the search with as much care as he lavished on that stray dog. If not for the occasional footfall on the floorboards, I would not even have known they were up there.

"All clear, sir." He spoke clearly but quietly.

"Okay," the sergeant grunted. "We're done here. We're setting up base down the road, in that old storefront before the crossroads..." - he was talking about the supermarket, and my heart sank at the thought of these invaders staying in our village any longer than they needed to.

"I want one of you..." he nodded at the dog lover... "McIntyre, you remain here." And then to another, older man. "The family can come and go as they please." He turned to my father. "It's a precaution. Intelligence says the militias are operating in this area. We need to make sure they don't get comfortable."

My father nodded. "I understand," he said in English. "Our men are welcome to stay."

That was two weeks ago, and McIntyre was still here... the soldiers were still here, a sprawling mass of canvas that now devoured one end of the village, and stretched its arms into every house in the village. Every one of us had two soldiers billeted in our home, one awake while the other slept, and it was surprising how quickly we adjusted to the knowledge that we were under constant surveillance - in my home, anyway.

Other families weren't so fortunate; found themselves hosting the same mindless thugs I'd watched on the first day, and who I'd seen in action on other days, too. They were the ones who demanded the most comfortable beds in the house, who brought their own music and entertainment into decent people's houses, who refused to share the food that the military delivered to every home.

"If the army want to know why the insurgency spreads, maybe it should look towards its own behavior," father told my elder brother one evening. "We've had no trouble here in the past. So the soldiers have come to create it." Shortly after midnight the following morning, the militia shot two soldiers dead at the checkpoint by the river. A 6pm curfew was introduced that same day.

McIntyre, even more than his companion, watched us ceaselessly. He would be in the kitchen when we got up in the morning, and he would be there when we went to bed at night. He was out in the fields while we worked, and he was kicking a ball around with my brothers when we were resting. And I knew, on those nights when it was too hot, or too quiet, or the soldiers were partying around their tent city, that he would be seated by the front door, his rifle propped beside him while he smoked the cigarettes that never left his lips.

A few times, I'd slipped out to sit with him, talking till I tired again about his life back home, or mine before the war, and one night when I couldn't keep my eyes open, he'd allowed me to use his shoulder for a pillow, and pulled his flak jacket over me to keep off the chill.

"I'm sorry, I must have fallen asleep." I sat up, all apologies and confusion.

"That's alright. It's late." He'd learned our language at college, he explained - if the war hadn't come, he'd intended to work as an interpreter at the United Nations, and hoped that he still might, once it was all over. Sometimes I'd laugh when he tripped over a colloquialism, or I'd correct a conjugation that went skewing off in odd directions, but he was fluent and casual when he spoke to my people, and that made a lot of difference.

"The worst of it is, I know if I go back to bed, I'll just lay awake all night," I told him. "Is it alright if I take a walk?" I knew I didn't need to ask his permission, but it was probably safer that I did so. With him watching out for me, I stood less chance of being gunned down by the more trigger-happy members of his platoon. It had happened.

"Just don't go too far," he said. "And take my flashlight." He handed it to me, long and heavy, cylindrical, thick... my heart gave a little lurch. I'd watched him peeing once, out back by the fruit trees when he thought no-one was around. His cock looked like his flashlight felt. I hoped I might see it again.

I walked, then returned and sat back beside him, returned my head to his shoulder as I pointed to the moon. She was full that night, and the village looked magical. "It's like daylight," I whispered; "I love it," and he laughed. "So do we. It means there's less chance of being taken by surprise."

I nodded. What must it be like, spending weeks, months, on end, so far from home, in a land you would never come to understand, and knowing any given moment could be the last of your life? Even the militias knew that men like McIntyre weren't the enemy, the real enemy. But they shot at them anyway, because the more dead the papers "back home" could report on, the more likely their government was to pull them all away. And the dead themselves would be mere statistics, just a fraction of whichever number the headlines howled over this week.

"Tell me about your girlfriend again. Tell me about Danica."

McIntyre had a girl back home, and a handful of photos in his wallet. I sensed his smile as he reached for them and, though I knew the story off by heart, I smiled back as he talked about her. I wondered if she'd seen his flashlight? I wondered whether she'd touched it? I wondered...

Did he read my mind? At first when he spoke the words, I thought I must have missed something, a connecting sentence, or a word of explanation. "We're waiting until we're married." And I blurted out, before I could stop myself, "waiting for what?"

"You asked if we'd made love yet."

I did? I did????? I know I'd thought it, but... I blushed, and I heard myself stammer. Apologies, excuses, embarrassment, horror. But McIntyre only laughed. "It's alright. It's a natural question."

I touched his wrist. "And you don't mind?"

"I didn't," he said slowly. "It was what Danica wanted. Over here, though..." his voice trailed off, and I knew what he was thinking. He could die over here, and he'd still be a virgin. Except he wasn't thinking that, at all. "To be honest, I'm wondering whether she still wants that," and then it came tumbling out, the letters that arrived less regularly than they used to, and the sense that she was spending more time with her "friends" every time that she mentioned them... and one friend in particular, a guy he'd never heard of, but who was at her apartment the last time he'd Skyped her, wearing a lot less clothing than most "friends" usually wear.

"How much less?" I asked, unable to control my curiosity.

"None," replied McIntyre. It was just a glimpse, a movement in the background as a figure passed across the room, but that figure was naked and, though McIntyre didn't say a word, that was the moment when he knew...

"It may have been innocent," I told him, and I looked for the words to back me up. After all, I've seen your cock, but that doesn't mean we're lovers. But he had already laughed and placed an arm around me. "Nice of you to say so, but I don't think so. Anyway, what about you? Do you have a boyfriend?"

I froze. If he'd asked me that half an hour ago, I'd have said no, and meant it. But right now, enfolded in an arm that I never wanted to release me, feeling as though he'd just shown me his soul, I wasn't so sure. "Oh, you know how it is," I replied in English, then laughed and closed my eyes. He felt so good sitting beside me, so warm, so strong...

I could feel myself drifting, my arms growing heavy. I wriggled a little to make myself more comfortable, and let my hands fall. I was dozing and my mind was making movies, of how he'd hold me tight and then kiss me gently, and I'd hold him too, as his lips grazed my neck, while Leda, the girl from the marketplace, stood with a huge tube of lipstick that she spread across her lips, then reached over as if to spread it on mine. And then....

"Er - I don't think you want to have your hand there."

His voice shocked me awake and I looked down. My hand was on his lap, but it wasn't only on his lap. Through the fabric of his combat pants, it had found warm flesh and grasped it; the hand that my dream had told me I was squeezing was... well, I know what it wasn't. It wasn't his flashlight.

"I'm sorry!" Again, I was spluttering and stuttering, but his smile transfixed me even as I sought equilibrium.

"It's okay, You were sleeping."

"I was...." I couldn't even bring myself to say the words. I might have been sleeping, but I was also squeezing your cock. "I was dreaming."

"A good one," he chuckled. 
"A wonderful one," I answered, and it dawned on me that I hadn't yet taken my hand away. I was still squeezing, and he was responding, growing hard in my hand, forcing the fabric of his pants to tighten and rise, and it didn't matter how much I knew that I ought to let go, I couldn't. I wouldn't. Take my flashlight, he'd said. So I had.

The village was silent around us. The moon remained bright; I could see my hand and its cargo quite clearly. Behind me, I could hear the dull rhythmic snoring of my father, all the way at the back of the house. I looked into McIntyre's face, and his eyes were boring into mine. It was now or never....

"I dreamed I was holding you," I told him, in English again, knowing that the sentence could be construed in several ways, and hoping he'd realize which one I meant. "And I was kissing you." I hoped I'd got that right. English is such a minefield in the realm of innuendo - I remembered a lesson once, where I asked the tutor to turn on the light, and he walked over and started whispering to it. "Sweet nothings," he said by way of explanation, and I wondered how it would feel to have someone whisper sweet nothings to me. Would it turn me on as well?

Would it turn me on the way Leda was turned on?

McIntyre's cock flexed in my hand. "Kissing you hard," I repeated, and this time he groaned. I flipped back to my own tongue. I was more comfortable there, and more daring as well. "Using my mouth on you." I didn't know whether he would understand me, but I wasn't only speaking for his benefit now. "Using my tongue." Sisanje te. Sucking you.

"Jest ugoditi" he answered. Yes, please. But the way he said it, I could have been offering a six year old an ice cream or a ride on my bicycle.

"Unutra engleski jezik." Say it in English. I was unfastening the buttons.

"Please... yes," as the night air caressed his hard flesh, and I remained still for a moment as my mind teased Marieke's words from my memory. They fuck her mouth, she'd told me, but was that all she did? Or did she fuck them back with it? Devouring their flesh, engulfing their cocks, sucking them in as deep as she could... his cock was free now, hard in my hand, and I leaned down to inhale its scent.

I did not know what I expected, but it shocked me - tangy, musky, those are the words I'd read in stories. But nothing I'd learned prepared me for the fist in the stomach that caught my breath, as my heart began pounding and my cunt began to flow. I'd expected to smell sweat and soldier. Instead I smelt desire and suddenly I understood why Leda was on her knees in that jeep, why she was slobbering over the cocks of men she had never seen before, and would probably never see again. Because she needed them.

His taste flowed naturally onto my tongue, into my gums, tormenting my taste buds with its ghostly presence. Flavors I'd never imagined the human body could hold, and sensations, too, of incredible heat and unbearable strength, but gentle warmth and nurturing love, too, and so thick that my mouth could barely encircle it, but not so thick that I didn't want to.

He sat still. I worried that he might start moving his hips, trying to fuck me like the militia men fucked Leda, but all he did was lean back on outstretched arms, his eyes closed, his breath in short gasps, while one hand caressed the back of my head, not quite pushing me, but firm enough that I knew he never wanted me to stop.

I broke away and used my tongue on him, up and down and round and round. So much flesh, so many points that made him gasp or sigh or whisper. I licked his balls, free now from his clothing, and took one slowly into my mouth. The hairs tickled my lips but his moan made me smile and I started to suck, while my tongue rolled slowly over the ball.

First one, then the other. Then back to his cock, that miraculous cock, twice the size that it was when I saw it before, so straight and hard and delicious. And so long. My gag reflex hitched before I'd taken half in, but I fought back against it, because I wanted him to fill me, and when his hips, at last, began to buck, I held my head as still as I could, to feel his length as it slipped in and out. On my knees in the dust of the night, while a soldier fucks my mouth.

And me? I'm like Leda, was squirming and moaning and coming as well, and McIntyre knew that, because he was holding me tight, holding my hair so I couldn't escape, and his pumping grew faster and harder and deeper. And he was coming too, filling my mouth and cascading from my lips, flooding down his shaft as I broke away at last and began licking it up, not wanting to waste a drop of his lust, while his muscles relaxed and he lay back on the ground, and I kept on licking and sucking and coming and coming....

And the next day in the marketplace, when I saw Leda with her shopping bags, and her bright red lips and her confident walk, I followed her round the stalls and shops, till she halted at one that sold make-up.

I watched as she pecked through the last tubes of lipstick, watched as she drew lines with each one on her hand, until she found the exact shade of crimson that matched her red lips. And then I stood beside her, and chose one the same color.

She looked at me and smiled, and I beamed brightly back. But neither of us needed to speak.