Agent Dacro Sanx Ch 3

As you may understand, that day changed my days in Paris. For a few months I held on to the sensation I had felt during a few joyful seconds of my life, but it never happened again, at least not the sensation. It didn't matter what Caroline and Stephanie tried to bring forth the immense lust that we've shared, it wasn't anywhere to be found again, and I knew why even if they only knew a word which could just as well be the currency of Japan. I felt drawn into the abyss of darkness that had been my home for so many years. I was both happy and in complete despair when they returned to my quarters every night with new intriguing ways to raise my lust to what they knew I could feel.

I could see with new eyes how the two that was the closest thing to friends I had made a deeper impact in the men that frequented The Velvet Room, and that knowledge made it even more strange that I couldn't feel the passion they had to share. As they appeared on the stage in different costumes, the men would howl and cheer loudly. The whistling would never stop as they caressed their long slender bodies with their hands as they kept dancing to the pumping beat of the music. They certainly mastered the art of seduction as every movement would cause louder cheers and whistling, and the crowd would take a break when the other unfortunate strippers entered the stage.

I would sit in my booth which was far from all others, the bar and the catwalk stage, sipping a dry white wine from nearby districts, and watch as the crowd went crazy when the barker shouted out a new appearance by either Stephanie or Caroline.

It didn't matter if Stephanie was introduces as the wonderful seductress of the Arabian Nights dressed in warm sheer fabric that made her appear mysterious, or as the caretaking nurse dressed in a white nurses uniform with stethoscope, or any other of her roles on stage, the crowd would directly turn to the stage to gaze at her performance. The same would happen when Caroline was presented as the widow in grief all dressed in black with a veil before her face, or as the cowgirl with her leather boots with spurs, gun belt around her constantly moving hips and the white cowboy hat, or any other of her roles on stage.

There were no doubt about the popularity of the two girls, and at night when the clock would move closer to 2 in the morning, when the nights were starting to illuminate, it wasn't unusual to see a dozen men next to the stage standing at attention with body and cock. The two friends doing one of their team performances lustfully giving of their bodies, rubbing themselves against the faces of eagerly jerking men, and watching them they sticking bills of various currencies down the panties of the two and surrendering to their seductive ways until they walked from one to the other and watch them ejaculate in honorable salute. As the evening ended with the catwalk floor covered in slick semi transparent semen, I would still sit in my booth and sip on the same wine, and be guided home by the two seductresses to the small loft that I had known as home during my days in Paris.

Their performances effecting themselves to the point where their lecherous minds would make their bodies as hot as bursting volcanoes. It was of course difficult for them to give more seductive performances before me, but they found ways as they weren't limited by rules in the early morning hours. The gadgets and techniques they both brought with them came in all shapes and sizes, but regardless what they did, there never was the intensity of what once was. It was never an issue of impotence, the erection would make it's appearance, but the sensations behind it all would always feel empty and cold, as unloading of a heavy burden only to get a heavier loaded onto my shoulders. The relief in the misery was that my friends got the power trip they wanted and needed to survive another day and sleep the rest of the night.

One day when I was sitting in my booth in the normal careless way, a tall man dressed in a uniform blocked my view of the stage.

"Are you Mr O'Brian?"

I looked up without answering, as my instinct was to answer immediately a single "No." but as I looked up at the young clerk before me I silently answered.

"Who wants to know?"

The clerk answered politely with name, rank and number as if he was training incase he ever got held hostage or prisoner, following the Geneva Convention. He then continued without waiting to make certain that I really was who he was looking for, and introduced an envelope to the table. He watched in silence as I read the short letter and when I looked up from the piece of paper I had been reading, he asked if I could make it. I nodded in reply without any further words. He left and visions of that horrible night resurfaced from the depths.

The weight of Lieutenant Hendricks had been enormous on my shoulders, but it still didn't stop me from running my legs off. And now it was back to haunt me once more when I thought I had been able to put it behind me, the night I thought I was running from freedom, yet only running to a thought of freedom that wasn't meant for me. It was an escape from own prison to another, but I had not known that then. How could I? I had been to young to know otherwise.

I found myself pulled back to a life that I thought I had left behind me, and I had no option but to use the tickets reserved for my journey back to the states. I tried to come up with something to say to Caroline and Stephanie, but I couldn't come up with words for my departure, so I wrote them a note with an address in Washington where they could reach me if they needed to. The bartender Alain was most surprised when I gave him the note saying my short good byes.

The journey back home onboard an Air France Concorde was fabulous and most pleasant. The velocity and flight altitude was impressive, even if it really didn't matter. It took a couple of hours with first class service, so if it had taken a day or two wouldn't have mattered. But as all other good things in my life came to a much early end, so did the trip. It was the first and last time I would have the luxury of first class plane trips. I was met by two silent men in uniforms who was to drive me and help me with my luggage. I assume that they were waiting for a great war hero and not a pile of trash like me. As I got into the waiting car the two men sat down in the front and started talking to each other with great disrespect for me, but I couldn't blame them. After listening to their innocent chatting about were the clitoris was and how girls reacted when they began to be a little bit intimate, I laughed out loudly. It was hilarious all of it, and for the first time in a long long time I felt a happy bubbling sensation within me, and when I looked at the front seat I saw the two men, or boys which what they really were, looking at me as if I had lost my mind entirely. I let them believe that as I engulfed the happiness for as long as I could, but eventually it faded away as a memory, left on the road behind the car as we continued our trip from New York to Washington.

Finally arriving in Washington, the car pulled up to a large house that was new to me, but from what I could see, Washington had changed since my last visit. The first to greet me welcome was to my surprise Bernard Oliver Hendricks dressed in colorful leisure clothes.

"Dacro, you old nut, is that really you? You haven't changed a bit, you're still the piece of shit you were in Nam."

His laughter was as fat and ugly as he ever was, and the clothes only made him look like a tourist who's spent two weeks in Hawaii. His beard was dark red while his hair had a dark silver tone. I looked at the ghost of Christmas past appearing in the shape of call sign Bo Hen, which Johnson and Burnstein had altered to Mother Hen to further point out the constant cackle that appeared to come from his mouth.

"Mother Hen, you still use that intelligent language you were so proud of?"

Isn't it fantastic how two friends from the past so easily could pick up where they left off decades earlier and still remember to call one another names and be sarcastic? But then that was the kind of relation Hendricks, me and the others could have and call our own trapped in the camp. It had been our way to keep our sanity intact and win the mind games that we were subjected to. Even though we had not known anything about what the other one was doing all these years, we instantly started to catch up on the life of one another. During the days that followed it became obvious that we had similar memories to share. I did however never reveal my encounter with Yen in fear that it would be taken in the wrong way, but he would never stop talking about his days in London as if those were the good old days. He's constant babbling about the sweetness of Soho would never end, as if his brain was only filled with sex, sex and sex. The girls, the shows and the way he was treated because of his big "ego" as he would call it. Each sentence would end with him laughing hysterically so there weren't that much spoken.

I was presented with the Purple Heart for my casualties and for saving Hendricks. It meant nothing to me but a reminder of Yen and the scars I had inside that no one could see. In the evening we went out to flush down our memories with bourbon. It was that night Hendricks was going on about tits and ass, that he explained that he came up with the idea of actually looking at something that was genuine London, so he went to follow in the footsteps of Jack the Ripper. In the small alleys he would see what it must have looked like in misty London in those days in late 19th century. What would Jack the Ripper be in the massive news flow today? Killing of a few prostitutes would not likely make headlines today, but then it did. His words for choosing that tour was strange but still accurate.

"Genuine London, yet so very like me. Sex and murder, the story of my life."

Again he would end each sentence with a laughter that was becoming more and more enjoying each passing day. Could he never stop it for just a few moments and actually finish a story without laughing?

"And guess what? I'm Jack!" he suddenly startled me as if he had read my mind.

His smile had turned into a huge grin, and for a moment he was actually silent, as if he was gathering his thoughts.

"It's true, I am. It was during the tour when I got left behind at one place. I had been intrigued by one of the places where one of the girls were found, and I was looking around to understand how it must have been to discover her when out of the mist that female Vietnamese Officer had appeared dressed like a showgirl from one of the shows. I remember her opening her mouth, but that's all before it was over."

He suddenly made sure to describe every detail of the events, but I can't remember them. I had felt a sudden dizziness come over me and I threw up the large amount of bourbon that we had been drinking together. I can't remember more from that evening. The next thing I remembered was sitting on a bus heading west towards Chicago, but most of all away from everything else. Hendricks never got to know that I had also met with Yen and that the encounter had meant something entirely different to me. But of course his encounter with Yen had different meanings to the both of us which he also never got to share with me. There wasn't any reason for revealing that to him or to anyone else. No one would benefit from ever knowing.

I moved on west until I came to Seattle, where I got a job as a Forest Ranger. The solitude was perfect for me. It provided a perfect hiding place for me to end my days. My training helped me in the simple life of the wilderness, hunting, fishing and relying on roots and plants to survive was not an adventure but merely a way of life. The only visitors I received was from other Rangers leaving or retrieving mail and reports, but apart from that it was just me and Mother Nature.

Only at one occasion a couple of years ago, did an unfamiliar car find it's way to my cottage. I had heard it for a couple of minutes before it arrived, so I had that much time to leave the cottage and hide behind the perfect cover on a natural rock. The car was to my understanding designed for rough roads, with something called 4WD. Apparently something very spectacular indeed. It had passed me on it's way up, but the windows were shaded so I couldn't see inside the vehicle. It had come to a complete stop not far from the porch with the passengerside towards me, and I was stunned, or rather shocked, to see a woman get out. Could it really be her? I wasn't sure, but I knew that I had been surprised by this woman before, but it was so many years since the last time. She had found me after all these years, and she called out, hoping I would answer her call.

"Dacro."

I was in absolute shock, frozen in my position behind the rock, feeling how tears began to fall down my cheek. I wiped my eyes a bit seeing how she let her hands work her long black hair into a youthful ponytail, showing of her lightly tanned skin. The years had been kind to her, but then no one ever claimed her to be anything other than stunning.

"Dacro."

Her call had been louder the second time, and I felt how I was beginning to raise from my shelter when the next surprise appeared before my eyes in the form of a second female. It was true, even though my heart had difficulties understanding. I began to walk towards the car and raised my voice in a warm greeting.

"My friends, how on earth did you find me?"

It was amazing to see my friends again, and as Caroline stepped out of the car, Stephanie came rushing towards me and hugged me with all of her might. It was as if history had come back to caress my cheek when she gave me a kiss while holding me close. Over her shoulder I watched as a man and two children got out of the car as well. Caroline embraced me in her arms in silence, before introducing me to her daughter Emily, who had her mothers eyes and smile, and her husband Pierre, who looked dressed for the occasion in a flannel shirt and long black trousers. Then it was Stephanie's turn to introduce me to her boy Trevor, who was a bit shy standing behind his mother's legs. The five had been travelling for almost a year in their own quest to find me since Stephanie's divorce, and they finally had.

They stayed for a month as we went fishing or scouting during the days, only to talk about the past during the evenings when the children was tucked away in their beds. They told their stories, how they had met their husbands and actually married all four together in the same church with a few friends from The Velvet Room present. Stephanie admitting that her marriage had almost been forced upon her when she got pregnant, but that her man had not been what she first saw in him. Caroline and Pierre felt that their love grew stronger each day, and since they all had been able to put away some money over the years they all came to the agreement to move to the states to find me and start from scratch as Paris had changed to something else than home.

When the month was over, they moved into downtown Seattle where they all still live together in a house they bought. Stephanie is still single and working in a retirement home. Pierre and Caroline has a small business importing clothes. And there you have it, my life. 20 years of youth and training, 20 years of soul-seeking and 20 years trying to forget here in the wilderness. So why how did you come up with the idea of writing an article about me?

The young reporter turns off the tape-recorder and lowers her eyes as if she isn't confident enough to talk while maintaining eye contact.

"I have been looking for an opportunity to write an article about a true American hero, and when I heard that there was one with a Purple Heart living in the forest, I saw the opportunity I have been looking for. I think people have the right to know, or rather has the obligation to learn about it. So many are starting to question the actions by the nazis during World War II. Americans in general are trying to forget the loss in Vietnam, but I think they should remember that we sent young men there to die and that their deaths should be remembered. What better way is there than a survivor from those days?"

She moved down to pick up her bag and took out a roll of paper and places it on the table.

"I also wanted to meet you because Mother wanted me to give this to you..."

Looking down to see the paper unfolding when her hand released it's grip, and within the thin silk paper laid two elegantly crafted bamboosticks. I watched in silence as my memories returned to the forests of Vietnam, and the first time I saw Yen walking on the road beneath my hiding place. Before I could say anything, the young reporter finished her sentence with a single word.

"... Father."