The Swallow Tattoo

Finally home.

Her soldier blocks the light from the cottage front door, his silhouette dark and hard. She can't see his face. She peers into the blackness, aching to know if he's safe or is he scarred this time? Physically he's always fine, but beneath his skin, mutilated. And that uniform, thickened into his pores like a shell.

This time is no exception. She steps up to him and looks for some kindness in his eyes, but sees only the creases of a stiff, polite smile. More armour. They hug, his buttons and buckles digging into the softness under the light dress she wore to please him, rasping at her washed and perfumed skin. He smells of carbolic, metal and earth. A noise escapes him, scraping boulders, while he grips her like the ledge of a precipice. The same embrace they share when he leaves. Ah... There he is, his ghost anyway, in the desperation of that hug.

She takes his hand and pulls him in as he removes his hat, stooping to fit into the little building. Out-of-place and out-of-scale. His fingers are stiff and cold against her warmth and she trembles in them. What have those hands done? What have his eyes seen, to be so guarded? She puts the chilling thoughts out of her mind. She knows what to do. There isn't much time.

They go upstairs where she has filled the bath, and reaches up to kiss his lips for the first time. She twitches, uncertain at their resilience and stiffness, but checks her disappointment and starts unbuckling. She discards the uniform, unable to hide her distaste as she throws it on a chair, revealing - in silence and by slow degrees - the man underneath.

She tries to hide her shock and worry at his bruises, at half-healed scratches and wounds. She runs her hands over them, counting the new ones, blessing the old ones, and he steps into the warm water. He sighs as he settles - far too big for the tub, his legs hooking out over the end - and she can't help but let her lust glimmer in a smile at his manhood.

He takes her face in his rough hand, cupping it like an ember against the cold, and she buries her lips in its palm, holding back her tears. She will save them for later, when she's alone. A telltale stirring in the water at his hips banishes such maudlin thought and she turns to the here and now. She wants everything that slow arousal promises.

She cups hot water over his chest, over his head, and elicits tectonic sighs as he wipes his face with both hands. She smiles at the tattoo on his wrist, a bird carrying a message with her name written on it, and pushes her face to his, into a gasp of pleasure.

She kisses his lips until they yield into a smile, lets her eagerness dance in her tongue along them, and then stands away from him, for the first time confident enough to tease.

She grabs her dress and pulls it off over her head, marvelling at how long she and her friends had pondered over it, and yet how short-lived its effect was.

She is naked, presenting herself to him, watching him take her in, she knows she's beautiful, and to him, now, more likely an angel. Her body melts his vitrified eyes just as the hot water eases his body. And there, something is swelling up above the water at last.

She kneels against the bath and presses her thick lips to his neck and chest, taking his hand and placing it on her breast; making both breaths catch at the sensation of rough on smooth, hard on soft. She feels herself dissolve between her own legs as her hand slides up between his. She sighs, finally having the masculine core of him hard against her palm, wrapped in her fingers. Hers.

She slides her gentle grip up his length, and his hand tenses on her breast. His thick arm encircles her, holding her in place. She pulls right down, unsheathing his swollen head and breaking her kiss to watch it. His body is laid out before her, craven and hard, lean and veined, and the entire bulb of his manhood bulges from her light fist.

She strokes him again, up and down, and his hips push out of the water. She strengthens her hold and turns stroking to rubbing, now demanding more from him. His lips part and his hips thrust at every stroke, her mouth waters along with her yearning sex. She can wait. She presses her lips to his one more time.

Her tongue will not be refused and seeks out his in the cave of his mouth, teasing it back into hers. Her vigorous hand shakes out a rising moan with it, peaking into a moment of taut stillness, of held breath and screwed up eyes. He stiffens in her palm.

She grabs the back of his shuddering head and holds it still to her deep kiss, sucking his quivering tongue, drawing his howl into her as he bursts in her hand. Thick, heavy, heat splatters her wrist and he jerks in the water, slopping it over the sides, all over her legs.

His cries are lost in her healing kiss along with - at last - a handful of deep, wrenched sobs. Sobs of relief, of grief. Sobs of pent-up horror she can never know. But they have to come out. She has to swallow them away.

She softens her rubbing to a languorous pull and settles back, smiling at the spill of him over her hand and his face streaked with tears. He blinks at her through them, as if seeing her for the first time, laughing, finally with her.

Finally Home.