A Soldier's Love

07. Proof Enough For Me

At this point, Corporal Harrington was obliged to rest a long while. He spoke in fits and starts, in between fits of coughing, his breath shallow and labored, and speaking, for him, had become a strenuous athletic event. Marguerite helped him drink a little water, and saw him to sleep, taking the time to wash the small pile of towels now soiled with the blood he kept coughing up. Once washed, she hung the towels over the radiator, and paced the length of the living room. 

Only then did Margie seriously contemplate going home. She missed her family, and God only knew how long poor Jack would be asleep, but she couldn't go now. Not only was there more left to the story, but the Corporal had not been lying when he said that he was seriously, perhaps fatally, ill. He was not eating, could barely drink any water, and was running a constant fever. Margie thought about sending for a doctor, but Jack had forbidden her multiple times-- there was nothing a doctor could do for him, and that was that.

Feeling useless and restless, Marguerite paced for an hour or so. She sat down to read a newspaper sitting on the Corporal's coffee table. It was six months old and covered in a fine layer of dust. These facts made her feel a little ill, and she did not quite understand why. It was hard to even hold the newspaper in her hands, and she had put it aside and was looking for something else to read when she heard Harrington cry out from his room. It was a sad, strangled sort of cry, inarticulate, too weak and brief to be a wail, but far too loud and pained to be anything else. Marguerite hurried to his room, trembling, and found him wild-eyed and sweating and whispering her name.

"Marguerite," he panted, choking, flecks of blood on his lips, "Marguerite, Marguerite--"

"Yes, yes, darling, I'm here," she whispered, patting his brow with a cool cloth. "My God, Jack, what is the matter?"

"I-I-- I thought you had gone," he stammered, his lashes fluttering and tears welling in his eyes. He uttered a little sob. "Please-- please, Margie, promise to stay until the end. I'm not afraid to die, but I don't want to go alone--!"

"No! No, Jack, I could never!" Marguerite whispered, sniffling, and kissing his scarred cheek. "I'm here, darling, I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, you poor, dear man. I'll not go anywhere. Don't you worry. I only went out into the sitting-room for a while to chat with the gray tabby cat."

"Milo," said Jack, uttering another sob. "You'll take care of them when I--"

"Yes, yes of course," Marguerite wept, kissing his knuckles. "I'll take care of everything, love, please... be at peace. My parents will kill me but I'll bring every cat home with me myself and love them as I love you!"

"Good." He relaxed a little, still shedding tears, but his eyes closed and his agitation waned. "Water, darling, would you?"

"Yes, of course." Marguerite held the cup to his lips and balked a little as he struggled to drink it, even with her help, and it spilled a little on to his shirt. She wiped it away, blotting at his shirt, and his eyes cracked open to look at her.

"My own mother was never so kind to me as you are," he murmured, his chin quivering. "Thank you for being here with me, Marguerite."

"It is an honor, Corporal Harrington," she said in earnest, cupping his cheek. "A true and real honor. The first and greatest of my life."

He smiled through his tears, and weakly grasped her hand, and brought it to his lips.

"To thank you for your kindness, I've resolved to live long enough to finish my story for you," he said. "I want you to know."

"I'd love to hear it, but please be gentle with yourself," said Marguerite, her little nose red and her eyes wet. "Please be gentle with yourself, Jack."

"Yes, of course," he whispered, blinking laboriously. "Now, where was I?"

"You had just met the girl-- you said her name was Dani. Dani de Floss."

His features contorted in pain. "Dani. Yes. I remember now."

Like a rat following the Pied Piper, I followed Dani back to her apartment. As we rode in the cab, I couldn't take my eyes off her, nor my hands. She had begun to smile at me and she kept smiling. The more minutes that passed, she in my presence, and I in hers, the more she smiled, and the prettier and prettier she looked, and the harder I fell in love with her.

By the time she led me into her dingy little hell-hole of a dwelling, I was smitten. Enamored. Bewitched. Infatuated. I don't know if she felt the same that night, but she felt something, and for Dani, that was rare in those days. The nicest thing in her place was a gramophone, and she put on music and made martinis. We were both drunk already and she got in my lap. We barely touched the gin, all we wanted was each other.

"What? Keep going," Marguerite urged. Corporal Harrington had stopped talking, and was regarding her with an indecipherable sort of expression.

"Are you-- that is-- well, Margie, are you a prude?" he said with a little snort of laughter.

"A prude! I-I-- I don't think so," she said lamely. "Please tell me, I swear I'll not be offended."

"I'll hold you to that," he said, settling back into the narrative.

She took me to her bed, and I took great pleasure in peeling the dress off of her, until it slipped down below her waist.

And that's when I realized that Dani was not a lady, but a man in a dress.

"No!" Marguerite cried, agape.

"Yes," Jack said solemnly.

Well, I stared at him for a long time, so very drunk I wondered if I weren't hallucinating. His face was still made up and very feminine, very pretty, but between his legs was the most glorious, erect, pulsating member I had ever seen, and-- well, after four years in the army, I'd seen a few. But I'd never looked at a man's member like this before. With the boys, it was all businesslike, seen in passing, sometimes we'd catch one another wanking but-- you know-- nothing like this. But now, now that I was in bed, and he was so lithe and naked before me, smiling at me, challenging me, it awoke in me a desire I had never known before. And that was Dani to me-- he was everything I never knew I wanted, and then I couldn't live without.

I never suspected myself a homosexual, but five minutes in Dani's bed was proof enough for me. I hardly knew what to do with myself-- or him-- but I was eager, and Dani knew exactly what to do, and he showed me. I kissed off all his makeup and revealed the skinny young man underneath, who was to become the object of my adoration for the next six years.

Oh, the alcohol should have made it impossible to remember, but I recall practically every minute of our first night together. It was the night I became a man, I think, and the night I became more complete as a person than I ever dreamed possible.

When I woke the next morning, the sun streaming in the dirty window, I was appalled by my surroundings. Dani's surroundings. Clothes heaped here and there, both women's and men's clothing, probably never washed. Dirty dishes sat atop the piles of clothes and empty bottles of liquors and tonics littered any clear spaces on the floor. A trail of ants marched in and out of a bowl near the foot of the bed. Spiders spun webs in the rafters right over Dani's head-- or where it would've been, if he were still in bed.

I got up and went looking for him and he was at the door in a blue silk dressing-gown, swinging the belt in lazy arcs, leaning against the door frame, chatting to someone. From behind, he was charmingly ambiguous, but when I cleared my throat and he turned around, I drank in the sight of a man in a corset and ladies' undergarments. Dani dismissed his interlocutor and turned his attentions to me, slipping his arms around my neck, kissing my naked chest.

"Good morning, you fucking stud," he murmured, and I noticed, with a lurch, that Dani had already been into-- well, something. Possibly alcohol, possibly-- probably-- something stronger. I put my arms around him and my heart ached, and I kissed him, trying to kiss away whatever it was that drove him to be stoned 'round the clock.

Little did I know, that very thing was me.

Or rather, it was what I represented. And as I tasted the bitterness of some drug on Dani's tongue, I had no idea that I was eventually to be educated in that very same agony.