After the Downfall Read Free

the perfect skin between her eyebrows - she didn’t follow him, either. He said the same thing in French, remembered from school, and then in bad Russian acquired at the front. She shook her head each time.
    She slowly walked toward him. Little by little, he realized what a mess he was: filthy, unshaven, in a wet, muddy, shabby uniform. He would have apologized if only he knew how.
    She pointed to the dead men, then to his machine pistol, and said something that had to be a question. You killed them? With that? ’What else could she be asking?
    He nodded. “Ja. I did for ‘em, all right.” He stuck to German from then on. Why not? At least he’d be sure of what he was saying. He jabbed a thumb at his own chest and told her what his name was.
    “Pemsel. Hasso Pemsel,” she repeated thoughtfully. His name had never sounded so good as it did in her mouth. She laid an index finger between her small, upstanding breasts. “Velona,” she said. He touched the brim of his coal - scuttle helmet, echoing, “Velona.” He couldn’t make her name seem nearly so wonderful as she did his.
    “Pemsel. Hasso Pemsel,” she said again, and then something else that had his name in it. When he just stood there, she laughed at herself. She must have forgotten he couldn’t follow what she was saying. What she did next didn’t need any words. She pulled off the torn and tattered shift - Hasso couldn’t come up with a better name for it - she was wearing, spread it out in the middle of the road, and, naked, lay down on it. She beckoned to him to join her.
    His jaw fell. He almost dropped the Schmeisser. What went through his mind was, You’re a hero, pal. Here’s your reward. Beats the hell out of the Knight’s Cross, doesn’t it? Even with Swords and Oak Leaves.
    No, his imagination definitely didn’t work this well. He’d saved a couple of German women from death or a fate worse than or both together. They didn’t want to screw him afterwards to say thank - you. They wanted to go off somewhere and have hysterics. That seemed reasonable enough to him. But Velona was plainly different all kinds of ways. She played by way different rules. When she spoke again, it was with a touch of impatience. What are you waiting for, big boy? Come and get it. In case he was a congenital idiot, she twitched her hips and opened her legs a little. He looked up the road again. Nobody. He looked down the road. Also still nobody. The two of them were the only live people for quite a ways. It was lay her or jump in the swamp.
    “If you’re sure...” He stopped, feeling dumb. If she wasn’t sure, she was auditioning for a stag film. She’d get the part, too.
    Awkwardly, still wary, he got down beside her. She nodded, as if to say, It’s about time. When he took off his clothes, he was careful to keep himself between her and them - and between her and the Schmeisser. But she wasn’t interested in the uniform or the weapon, not then. Her hands roamed him, soft and knowing at the same time. He stroked her, too. This all felt more surreal than a Max Ernst painting, but he didn’t care. If it was a figment of his dying imagination, his brains were working overtime. He was less and less inclined to believe that, though. Everything was too vividly detailed, from the grittiness of the hard - packed dirt to the sweaty heat of Velona’s flesh to the way her breath stirred the hair above his left ear.
    He rapidly discovered that under her curves she had muscles to rival an Olympic athlete’s. Well, the way she ran had already told him that much. He was broader through the shoulders, and probably outweighed her by twenty kilos, but he wasn’t sure which of them was the stronger. Then she kissed him, and he stopped caring. Had he run all that way, he thought his mouth would have been dry as dust. Hers was warm and moist and sweet. His hand slid between her legs. She was warm and moist there, too. She made a small sound of pleasure, down deep in her