Back In Action

Chapter Forty-Five

David and Maria stood in a long, silent embrace just inside her suite. She finally lifted her head from his shoulder and looked into his eyes. "There's a problem, isn't there?"

He nodded. "Herman's missing."

"I could sense it was something serious, you feel a bit tense, and that's not like you. Come, let's get you cleaned up. You've a layer of dust from the roads. A soak will do us both good." She began undoing his shirt front.

As they lay soaking in the tub, he told her of Herman's empty camp, described the terrain it's in and recounted what they've done in trying to find him. "The most likely answer is that he had fallen and incapacitated himself. It's very rugged up through there."

"What if he had been spotted by soldiers and captured? What would he give as his reason for scrambling on the crags above the railway?"

"That's our deepest worry. Before we had crossed the border, we tried to come up with some plausible explanations for why we were there. The potato peddling makes perfect sense, but once we leave the markets, our activities become increasingly suspicious. Georg came up with the idea of mushroom picking, but that was after we had dropped off Herman."

"He'd be seen as a spy, as a potential saboteur, wouldn't he?"

David let out a loud breath. "That's why we hope he wasn't apprehended and tortured for information." He told her of the mutilation of the French officer he'd met on the train.

"Everything? They cut everything off? How horrid."

"He seemed resigned to it. He told me he had already fathered eight children. But Herman..." He blew out a deep sigh. "Let's think of something else. Do something else." He tweaked her breast nubbins and felt her tremble. "Have to be hands and mouths, this is the height of your fertile time, your egg is due today or tomorrow."

"You keep track also? I'm in awe. You've so much else to occupy your mind."

"You're never far from my thoughts. You're a huge part of my life."

"Come, let's rinse and dry and head to the bed."

A few minutes later as she lay trembling from his tongue, she pulled his head up from her crotch. "Inside, David, come inside. Let's just abandon ourselves in some wild, passionate futtering. I miss you so much in here."

"What if I impregnate you? The continuation of your training? What of the instability with the war?"

"If I conceive, it was meant to be. I'll be finished my nursing courses by the time our child is born, so I'll have the time to offer the proper care. Switzerland is stable with its neutrality. Both sides are honouring it as an essential buffer. Let's just futter. I'm so hot for you."

David moved up and slipped in, feeling her convulse around him as he did. "Was that another climax?"

"Oh, God, yes. My God, I've missed this."

Three pops and twenty minutes later, David withdrew. "Lick me. I'm still uncomfortable with the thought of bringing our child into such uncertainty."

"I crave your child, David. Our son, our daughter will add joy and life to a world reeling from death and despair. Switzerland is a safe haven, even with chaos all around it. Peel your foreskin back, bare your head, come back in and pump me full of seed."

David looked into her eyes and sighed. I still have my equipment, not like Jean-Claude. Oh, God! Hopefully, not like Herman also. What if I'm captured and tortured? How would we ever have children? "Are you sure?" He saw a broad smile grow on her face as she nodded.

Two minutes later, as David lay recovering, Maria rotated her hips. "I thought you'd never stop gushing."

"Skipped last night and this morning. Usually look at your photos and jack twice a day. Decided to build up some extra tension to share with you." He glanced at his watch. "Lunch is in just over ten minutes. We should clean up and head down."

"I've unpacked your bag and laid out your clothes. It won't take us long to get ready. Let's cuddle another while, I've missed this so much." She tilted her hips back and forth while a purr emerged from deep in her throat.

As they were dressing a short while later, Maria asked, "So when are you leaving to drive back north?"

"Mid-morning tomorrow. I have an appointment at the Daimler garage at nine thirty."

"Something wrong with the lorry?"

"No, just a routine inspection and adjustment. They wanted to see it after fifty hours of operation to ensure everything is working properly."

"And is it?"

"Superbly. German engineering and craftsmanship are of a very high standard. I wonder why Kaiser Wilhelm didn't simply allow their superiority with design, engineering and innovation to quietly conquer the world."

"But you're due in Titisee at three tomorrow afternoon. Isn't that too long a drive?"

"Yes, if I had to go through Sonnenhang, but I don't. I've ten bins of potatoes in the back of the lorry to ease my way across the border. It's the same distance from here through Basel and Freiburg to Titisee as it is only to Sonnenhang."

As Maria led him down the stairs, she said, "We must change the subject. There will be ears that have no need to hear these things. Let's talk about wine. So the quality is high?"

"Not only the quality, but also the quantity. Your mother talked about a long, slow maturation and healthy grapes. She had been concerned with the late flowering, but the weather held through September and into October. Tante is now convinced the 1915s will be superior to the 1911s, and more than double the quantity as a bonus."

"Their earlier letters had talked about the possibility the grapes wouldn't properly ripen, that they wouldn't reach a sufficiently high Oechsle to make anything but ordinary wine. I miss the excitement of the harvest, the tensions and the rewards."

"But you've your own tensions and rewards with your course work and with the prisoner project."

"I far prefer the tensions and rewards from our futtering." She smiled up at him as they approached the dining room. "Best we go back to talking of wine."