Maria finished removing the stitches, all but the ones across the rounding of David's lip. She gently cleaned the inside of his mouth and tenderly kissed him. "I've got to get your lips into good working order, I want to enjoy them."
He ran his tongue around the inside of his lower lip, through the gap in his teeth and again up and down the line of toughened tissue, the scar lines inside his mouth. "This is so much better. I hope you don't mind if I practice using them on you as I regain control."
"Oh, please do. Can we go lie in the sun? Would it be safe?"
"There hasn't been a sound from Fritz for a long while now. Not since they lugged Herzog back across the slopes. It seems their camp is on this side of the stream, likely near the top of Feldberg. Much better than it being on our entrance side. How long ago was that? When they left. I've lost track of time. I've been luxuriating in all this caring attention."
"Has to be close to half an hour, now," Rachel said. "We haven't heard a sound, not even above us. They must have done a wide skirt around this place."
"Let's hope they keep doing that," he said as he removed his watch and began unbuttoning his shirt. "Last one out in the sun is a — is a — is the last one in the sun."
He shuffled out of his shirt, kicked off his trousers and stripped off his socks. Maria had already crawled past him, stepping out of her trousers as she ran. He watched in awe as she spread her arms and twirled around, spinning on quick little steps. Rachel soon joined her, and they ad-libbed a pas de deux in the sun.
David stood entranced for a long while before he picked up the top set of bedding, and without taking his eyes off them but fleetingly, he walked to the spot he had calculated the sun would leave last. He spread the blanket and sat enjoying the girls gracefully play.
Such beautiful creatures, this is more like the way people should interact. This is so far from the hatred, the violence, the mayhem of the war.
His mind continued spinning.
War is so stupid, What's this one about? A family feud? A grab for more land? Kaiser Wilhelm is King George's cousin. They are both grandsons of Queen Victoria, yet here is Wilhelm causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of young men, mostly men, but also many women. Why? Pride, mostly. Too proud to back down from a bad decision last year in —
"You're off in a dream world again, David," Maria said, rubbing her sweat-glistened body against his as she sat beside him on the blanket. Her chest was heaving, juggling her breasts as she puffed to regain her breath from the dancing. "Where have you gone this time?"
He looked at her and shook his head, "I was hypnotised by your graceful movements, the both of you, together, unfettered, free, joyous, beautiful expressions of life, magnificent creatures moving in harmony." He stopped himself short of continuing into the darker thoughts which had followed.
"We had an enchanting dance, so carefree. That's what life is meant to be, carefree, uninhibited, sharing. You should have joined us."
"I'm not a dancer, at least not on the floor, though I've been told by people who've seen me climbing, that it's as if I'm dancing on the rocks. I prefer that type of dancing — it's also free and unfettered — we need to get out of this damnable war."
She gave him a hug and a light kiss, then lay beside him, and patting the blanket, she said, "Come, lie beside me, let's get some sun. It's beneficial to your wounds."
David sat looking at her, then he shifted position, turning to sit beside her knees as he scanned up and down her body, from her face to her thighs, slowly caressing her with his eyes, looking without pausing anywhere to examine as he continued up and down slowly. He watched each time he returned to her face as it grew into an increasingly sublime expression.
"That feels so good," she said. "I've not thought of being massaged by eyes. Where did you learn that? It makes me feel so... So tingly all over."
"I learned it on the first of May in 1915 in a little nook in the Black Forest, inspired by an absolutely gorgeous woman."
"But you do it so well."
"I'm very inspired." He nodded his head toward her blond mound. "Tell me what you know about this exquisite part of you. What do you call it? I love the short hair-do, I love the way the little pink flaps peek out."
Rachel rose and pointed to the pools. "I'm heading for a soak to offer you two a little more privacy."
David and Maria watched her walk across the slab, and when she was out of earshot, David commented, "She has an amazing body for a woman in her forties. Firm, fit and... but back to this collection of delicate folds." He nodded to it. "So beautiful."
"I don't know what it's called in English, but I call it my button and grooves. In our textbook at school, it's called a weibliche Scham, that's such an awful name, woman's shame, for such a wonderful part."
"In English, it's called a vulva. I was curious and looked it up in a medical book in the library when I was on leave in Bristol. It comes from the Old Latin word for roll or wrapper. The drawings and pictures made them look mundane, not in the least inviting. Yours is so beautiful, but I must say, I've never looked closely at one. Every girl, every woman I've ever been with has been too shy to let me look closely."
"Maybe that's where the German name comes from. But why the shame? I like mine, it makes me feel so good."
"I like it very much as well. Where does it feel the best for you?"
"Here, on my little button, the book labelled it Kitzler — that's the German word for tickler. And it certainly is. It's extremely sensitive, so I can't rub it directly too much, it becomes too intense. I have to move the skin around it and only occasionally touch it directly with a wet finger, not a dry one. There's a wonderful source of slippery wetness once I get going," she rolled a knee aside, "down here inside the bottom of my lips."
"What if I licked it? Some of the Army fellows talked about licking. My saliva is slippery, and my tongue is soft."
"I'm sure I'd like that, probably love it. Would you want to do it?"
"I would love to, but let me study the geography first. It's such a wondrous combination of folds, and I've never been allowed to examine one closely before. This is exquisitely exciting for me; I hope you know that." He leaned close and shuddered. Such an intoxicating aroma. "These flaps are so delicate and soft."
"They're also very stretchy, like your wrinkly pouch. Look." She ran a finger between them to separate, then pinched her right one and pulled it out. "I can stretch this one about five centimetres, the left one a little bit more."
"Are they sensitive?"
"Deliciously so. I sometimes close my legs and run my finger lightly along the parts which stick out, tickle them gently for a long while, dreaming, then a few firm strokes of my button sets me off."
She lifted her other knee and spread it down. He lightly pulled the small pink flaps apart and examined how they joined in an inverted vee, attached to the sides of her tickler toward the apex of her rounded lips. "You're so beautiful down here," he said with another light shudder. "You're so beautiful everywhere. I'll try not to scratch you with my whiskers and stitches."
After their intimacies, David and Maria joined Rachel and the trio spent the middle of the afternoon variously baking in the sun, cooling off under the spray of the cascade, rewarming and soaking in the shallow pools, having cold body massages from the pelt of the heavier flow falling in the narrow main stream of the waterfall, and enjoying warmer ones from each other.
"I wonder how much longer Fritz will remain up there exercising?" Maria asked.
"We don't even know if he's still there," David replied. "Though it would seem strange to come all the way up for only a few hours. It was shortly before 1100 when I saw the platoons marching past, coming across the fields. How long does it take to climb from the valley to the saddle with a heavy pack?"
"It's about a thousand metres up from the valley and about a dozen kilometres," Rachel said. "We'd take about four hours."
"So the platoons, the companies could easily do it in five," he said. "Unless they were marching from an overnight camp along the ridges to the west, they were just arriving. A six o'clock start is not unusual. Early starts are part of the exercise."
"What about the dead officer? Won't that stop their exercise?"
"No, Maria. Injuries, no matter how serious, won't stop an exercise. Death and injury are a part of the game. War is a serious game, a deadly game." David shook his head. "I much prefer the games we've been playing here."
"How long will the ex —"
Maria was interrupted by the sound of a gun firing. Then another, followed by many more. They seemed a long distance away, and then came the echoing from the hills.
"Sounds like target practice. The shooting is too regular for anything else. It reminds me of the target practices at Valcartier and on the Salisbury Plains; the same patterns of sounds."
David carefully looked around, up along the top of the cliffs, both sides of the gully and across its back. He again confirmed it was impossible to see in. The slopes rounding back from the vertical precipices were too steep to approach, too slippery from the layers of wet vegetation, lichen and slime. Leutnant Herzog had demonstrated it was dangerous to approach their little hideaway from above.
"I'm going to check the view from the corner. See what Fritz would see if he found this little nook."
He got up and walked to the stream, crossed under the spray and sidled along the narrow ledge, edged around the bulge and stood at the corner looking into the gully.
Nothing of the canvas is visible. Except for the two beautiful women lying on the blanket, a cake of soap and some towels, I see nothing to suggest anyone is there. My God, she's so gorgeous. So innocent, so endearing, so horny.
The opposite side of the gully looked impossible to pass. It was obviously a blind end. He looked down at the waterfall at his feet, and he watched it splashing onto next slab, down where Leutnant Herzog had landed after his second fall.
He froze.
Holding his breath, he slowly plastered himself back into the rock face. With his chin tightly to his neck, he looked down and couldn't see them.
I'm now out of their line of sight, hidden by the slab.
He saw Maria and Rachel watching him. With his elbows kept back, he slowly put a finger to his lips and pointed down with the other hand, moving both hands to emphasise their messages.
With slow, calculated moves, he eased around the corner backwards, crouching to ensure he remained out of sight from below. At the bulge, he stood to manoeuvre past it and scramble back into the waterfall. He paused there under its cold pelt, trying to regain his calm.