The episode with Armand threw a scare into Martin and me. Martin was very tired for the next two days and slept a lot. It was more than a month before I initiated any sexual contact between us again.
It was a cool but sunny day in October and Martin was sitting in his wing backed chair looking out the window at the fall colours and the sea with a book in his hands that he had lost interest in. We had been increasing the length of our daily walks and Martin was beginning to regain his strength and when I came out of the shower and saw him sitting there I took one of the pillows from the couch and walked over to Martin and dropped it on the floor at his feet and than knelt on it in my total nakedness. I looked up into his face and he smiled down at me and nodded his approval.
After that it became a morning ritual after my shower for me to make slow sensual oral love to his cock until he would quietly cum in my mouth while gently holding my head between his hands. For me it was the giving of pleasure, of love, of the sweetest kind and his gratitude was a benediction.
….
One cold morning in early November I heard a motor boat go between us and the Island in front of The Villa Vegeta and then I heard the tinkling of a hundred thousand glass wind chimes! I turned to Martin and asked, "What is that?"
Martin looked at me and said, "Look at the sea between us and Swan Island and listen," and he held his finger to his mouth in the whisper signal for silence.
On the water reflecting in the sun was a thin bright film of ice and as the waves of the motor boat that had recently cut through it receded so did the sound.
It was one of the most beautiful and magical moments of my life.
After a few minutes of silence Martin looked at me with a sad smile and said, "It is time to go."
Then he added, "You are very privileged to hear that sound. It is one of the most beautiful sounds on this earth and only a very few people ever get to hear it. We live in beauty and the Scandinavian winter is beautiful too in a dark and terrible way, but we don't want to be here for it. That sound is nature's alarm clock."
….
Martin made the necessary arrangements to ship the car from Hamburg, Germany to Bayonne, New Jersey on November 14th. The freighter was one that could take ten passengers and he also booked our passage on it at the same time.
We started driving south to Germany early in the morning of November 9th. I was now more confident in my abilities to handle the Mercedes, but we wanted to get out of Scandinavia ahead of a storm that was expected to bring snow the evening of the 11th and for the next several days.
We were cruising along just over the speed limit on cruise control just outside of Granna, Sweden when I saw the roadside stop flash by. I hit the breaks stopping the cruise control and pulled over to the side of the road. I waited for a break in the traffic and when it was safe to do so I did a U turn and drove back to the roadside stop and pulled into it and stopped the car.
Martin looked at me quizzically and finally said, "What's up?"
I gazed out at the Island of rocks and trees in the middle of the field and finally said, "See that little Island of forest in the middle of the field?"
"What about it?" Martin answered in puzzlement.
"It seems so hard to believe now, after what I have done in the past few months, but, believe it or not, I lost my virginity there to my husband less than three years ago." I said as I began to cry at what a tangled complicated mess my life had become since that afternoon of comparative innocence's lost.
I put the car back into gear and neither Martin nor I said a word for the next hour as we sped south toward the ferry and Copenhagen.
….
We spent one evening in Copenhagen on the way to Hamburg and a second evening outside of Lubeck arriving in Hamburg in the early afternoon of the 11th. I wanted to take a tour of the city and after checking into our hotel Martin accompanied me in the tour bus as the middle age man gave his spiel on the port city. At one point he went into a tirade about the fire bombing of Hamburg in WWII and about how many innocent lives were lost by such an act of savagery. The English couple behind us said, just loudly enough for us to hear but not the guide, "Bloody hell hasn't the Jerry ever heard of the London Blitz or Coventry?"
Martin laughed and said, "Why don't we ask him?" and then spoke up and said, "Didn't the fire bombing of Hamburg and Dresden happen after the London Blitz and the fire bombing of Coventry?"
The German guide's face grew red and then he said, "Those attacks had strategic military importance to the war effort. The attacks on Hamburg and Coventry were for no other reason than revenge!"
Suddenly several of the Americans on the bus said loudly enough for everyone to hear, "And what's wrong with that!"
The English on the bus politely added, "Here, Here!" and the guide decided to point out the club where The Beetles had become famous.
After the tour I said to Martin that I wanted to go back to the Reeperbahn to see have a drink in the club where The Beetles became famous. When we left the club Martin took me for a walk through an underground garage that must have had 400 prostitutes in it. Some were in dresses others in just lingerie. As we walked through the underground garage some hissed at me and others propositioned me. When we walked back out into the night air Martin commented that somehow, even though it was a contradiction in terms, "Nothing is more sexless than German prostitution."
….
The next day we boarded out ship and I was presently surprised at how luxurious our cabin was. The only other passengers were three couples of elderly Germans. Martin after being introduced to them said to me sotto voce as we walked away, "Bayreische! Not my favorite people. I will take the Guten Tagers over the Gross Guters any day of the week."
When I asked what he meant Martin explained that when you met someone in Bayern or southern Germany the typical greeting was Gruss Got or Greetings from God rather than a simple Good Day. Martin had lived in Nurnburg for a time and the stories he told me of how he had been treated as an American I found difficult to believe especially since he was there to keep the German's safe from the Russians at the time.
…