Nora's Moral Madman

The forest in the first light of day was infinitely friendlier than that of the evening. Beams of sunlight burst through the trees in a thin morning mist, illuminating the dewy moss covering the trees and stones. The first birds had begun their morning songs, and it was all Anton could hear besides the sound of his military combat boots crushing the earth below him. His steps were heavy and inconsistent, as they had been for the past hours. His white undershirt clung to his chest, drenched in sweat. Though April nights in France were cold, he had disposed of any and all garments that might tie him to his country. Germany. Oh how he loved Germany. The thought of his home country finally brought his weary legs to a halt, and he sunk to his knees, landing on a mossy bed. Everything in his body shook, and while he calmed himself he dug his fingers into the wet earth below him. The damp soil mixing with the drying blood on his hands.

Not long after sunset they had come, maybe 20 or 25 of them. French resistance. Anton's squadron consisted of only 6 men, as usual for reconnaissance missions. The young men hadn't stood a chance. Anton had been a mere 30 meters away from their camp, standing guard as each of them had every 5 hours. In horror, he had watched the French gut his brothers in arms when they had shown up from behind. The sound of their rifles had torn through the dense forest air, and had filled his heart with paralyzing terror. Whispering prayers, he had waited for the bastards to discover him, but after looting the dead and spitting on their bodies, they simply turned and went back to where they came from. Anton did not know how long he had sat between the bushes, watching his friends lie in the cold mud in the distance.

When the muscles in his legs strained, he stood up straight and slowly walked towards the recently deceased. With tears streaming down his face, he searched the bodies of his friends for their silver calling cards. One by one the metal chains slid into his pocket, and he felt irrationally responsible for their untimely end. The awful sound of the French returned from the distance and his searching turned frantic. He roughly handled the body in desperation, but pulled away anxiously as the enemy's dogs howled from between the trees. He bit on his trembling fist as he disappeared into the forest behind him.

Remembering it all had made him cry again. He gritted his teeth and balled his fists as he let out a short and tempered scream. The resistance fighters had come from the East, where the new German base had been set up. He therefore knew that they too, were gone. He was entirely alone and lost and deep within enemy territory, but when the morning rays had touched his young face, his breathing slowed and his heart had calmed. His tired, red eyes opened and he drew in the sharp cold air which seared his exhausted lungs. Still on his knees with his hands tangled in muddy moss, he felt his body cease its shaking and the pain steadily turnt to a quieter anger. All else left him, as if flowing down through his hands and into the earth. When he felt he could never live for anything again but the blood of the French, he pledged to himself that the next Franco-faggot he came across would end up on the business side of his hunting knife. He swallowed once, inhaled, then stood up.

Anton walked with uniform rhythm through the woods, preceded by the ominous jingle of the calling cards in his leg pocket. His jaw twitched and his eyes were hard. He no longer felt the cold, the thought of tearing through the flesh of the French with his very own teeth had removed everything else from his mind. When he neared the edge of the forest, he had taken the shape of a man possessed.

As he broke through the treeline, his eyes narrowed from the sudden light. A sunny oasis in the dense dark woods had come from nowhere. The fresh grass was wet and glittering from the morning dew, the first bees hovered over yellow dandelions. A bit further down behind some grapevines and rain barrels, stood a small house. Barely having noticed the idyllic environment, he kept moving. There was no beauty to him, all he saw was a French residence on French land. Whatever was inside of the modest cottage, was sure to relieve Anton of at least one of his needs. Be it food, proper clothing, a bed to rest in, or a Frenchman's heart. As he neared the house, the door swung open and a woman in a dress stepped out. She carried a basket between her arm and her hip and walked towards several skinny chickens. Right before crouching down, her head turned just in time to see Anton making his way towards her. He was only 30 meters away from her now, and she stumbled backwards, holding the basket in front of her like a shield. Anton stopped. In the last 17 hours he had gone from a young man to something beyond a soldier. His girlfriend at home was an intangible memory, he knew he would never see her again. His entire life felt alien to him, having shed most of his humanity in the dark of night. Now, face to face with this woman, he knew not what to feel. His vengeful feverdreams that had kept him walking through the night had contained the faces of ugly French men, not young women. She was young. Not too young for children. Marriageable age. Her dress was thick white cotton with a square neckline and long sleeves. It reached to her ankles, leaving only her bare feet sticking out on the grass. A good woman, a decent woman. The silence between them was so lengthy, he felt he had all the time in the world to see the strange small details of her appearance. Actually, had she not gotten up and broken the silence, he might have had enough time to rediscover mercy. Unfortunately, with another step back, she spoke:

"Que veux-tu?"

His hand hovered over the pocket where the calling card rested. The god awful sound of this language had made the image of his friends lifeless form reappear in his mind, even if it came from the mouth of a woman.

He had never killed before, having done mainly recon missions. He considered carefully. While a brute, Anton was not a goon. Even through his bloodthirst he saw the insignificance in her death. He would not kill the innocent. He never joined the army to kill. Only to conquer in the name of Germany. He supposed, that is what he should keep doing.

The woman looked back to her house, the lacquered green door still open. Before her head had turned back to him, he had closed the distance between them. His dirty hands grabbed onto her wrists and after a short standing wrestle, her back was on the grass. The chickens flew away from all the commotion, restlessly squawking. She angrily spouted French questions along with what sounded like profanity while he methodically moved her hands above her head and his knees between her thighs. In her struggle, her dress now tarnished with streaks of green and it scrunching up around her waist, she managed to kick his chest hard. Anton felt the air in his lungs pushed out and for a moment he staggered backwards, just long enough for her to stand up and start running. Her feet scrambled at the wet earth, and she turned to run. Only seconds after her attempted escape, Anton had grabbed her from the back and pushed her face into the grass as they both fell. He climbed on top of her, pinning her down with his weight. Her limbs flailing, he realized what he wanted to do. He yelled short and loud.

"Pain!"

No, not the English pain. French pain. The word for bread. He thought it ironic for a moment, knowing he would soon feed from both.

He spoke again, softer this time.

"Pain."

He released some of his weight and flipped her frail body around, then sat on her chest, her arms stuck under his strong thighs. His crotch was close to her face, and her face showed no fear. She was only appalled, in disbelief, and just like him, angry. He recognized her anger, and it confused him. He did not want to relate to her. He just wanted to taint the French bloodline, and be done with it. He wanted revenge. For his friends. His eyebrows furrowed when he thought of them, and she noticed. Strained, she whispered:

"Allemand..."

Like she had read the pain from his face, her expression changed. From outrage and dismay to an understanding. While she didn't stop struggling, her eyes softened, and made place for a plainer terror. Her arms hurt under his weight, and she was entirely confused. Had he just asked for bread? Was he hard? When Anton moved off of her with military grace, she sat up straight but didn't move away. Bread? His expression was absolute. She knew from those eyes that even if she tried to run, she wouldn't get very far. In return, he knew from her eyes that while she'd comply with his demand, she was far from surrender. They stared at each other for a while, then she finally opened her mouth, her head tilted downwards:

"Pain."

They stood up at the same time, the woman under absolute surveillance. She started walking towards the house, the sun now a little higher illuminating the thatched roof. Anton roughly grabbed her arm to guide her, but she forcefully twisted out of it. She would walk but on her own terms. He admired her defiance and almost regretted not meeting the child he was going to put inside of her. He knew it would become quite something.

Once inside the modest home, Anton was greeted with buckets full of berries and empty glass jars on a black and white tiled floor. The walls were tinted with light blue and in the middle of the living room stood a round hardwood table. Copper pans hung from the wall, along with strands of garlic and other dried herbs. The counter had onions and potatoes, and an open bag of flour with white dusting on the surface around it. She had been making jam and bread. The woman went about her house, presumably to look for the bread he had asked for. Had Anton known her language better, he might have asked her if she lived alone. His mind wandered as his stomach took in the smell of peasant food. When it returned, he found himself at the edge of what looked to be an unnecessarily large cooking knife. Well sharpened. Her eyes burnt into his as she stood entirely unmoving.

Nora had been alone in her house for almost seven months, her husband away at war. When she had stopped receiving his bi-weekly letters twelve weeks ago, she had known that he was dead. She despised the Germans for having taken him from her. Having simmered in bitter contempt for so long, she too had developed a taste for revenge. In an instant, she had read the same agony from his eyes, and cursed herself for her sympathy. However, now, with the scruffy German at the tip of her knife, retribution was entirely within reach. They both breathed heavily. She had grass and dandelion seeds tangled in her hair, and his face was streaked with brown mud, contrasting with the white of his eyes. One hand rested on his hip where his knife sat in its sheathe, the other rose slowly to meet the knife Nora was holding up at him. Without breaking eye contact, he gently put his fingers to the lemmet and pressured downwards. She let him guide her by the knife until the handle slipped through her fingers and it clattered onto the floor. How could it be, that they could find such wordless understanding in the eyes of the enemy? Despite the unexpected connection, the lack of trust between them maintained an ever thickening tension.

Neither knew what to do next. The mutual contempt was undeniable, but so was the understanding. Anton knew her watery eyes came not of his violence, but of something that he had inside of himself as well. He knew from the way she had recognized him as German. He sighed and picked up the knife from the floor and Nora hesitantly watched his movements. He held it for a moment, considering its weight, then put it on the vegetable littered counter.

There was something else at play. Nora's anger was not entirely directed at the man opposite her. It was also herself. After having been alone for months, away from any and every man, a hidden part of her had wanted him to take her right in that field. Ashamed and confused she had gathered herself, and had pointed the knife at this rough intruder. The wife in her controlled her eyes, furious and defiant. The widow in her wanted him to undress her.

Anton too was fighting a mental battle, as his treacherous imagination played her as his woman. How she would look in her bed, or bathing herself. How she would caress his face with her hand in the morning when they woke up together. If she would sing songs to her children. Would she sing them in French?

There was a paradoxical uncertainty in the situation. He moved to close the door. Nora stepped backwards, then picked up her knife. With a thick French accent, she raised it once again.

"Leave, and THEN close the door, bastard."

When she saw him reach for his own knife, she panicked and lunged forward. Anton deflected by throwing up his underarm, resulting in a mean cut right below his elbow. He grunted and slapped the knife out of her hands, flinging it to the side. Before he could grab her, she pulled the chair next to her and shoved it into him. She'd gone and done it now. Anton kicked the chair away and followed her, slow and menacing. There was no escape for her in this house. Nora ran towards the bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her. Only seconds later it splintered under one powerful kick, his boot stuck between the planks. Nora looked around frantically for things to defend herself with while he tried to free his leg, finding only the ceramic urn on her bedside table. A second kick caused the entire door to break down, and Karl stepped inside, blood streaming down his arm. She didn't hesitate and hurled the urn at him. When it hit him he didn't budge, and she backed up until she couldn't anymore, moving the bedside cabinet and causing the oil lamp to fall to the floor.

Nora was all but out of fight. Her cheeks were bright red and her eyes were full of fire. Anton thought she looked like a vision. With her hair all over the place and her dress ruffled and scrunched, she looked absolutely wild. He didn't know wether to kiss her or kill her. Before he could decide, Nora charged at him, thinking offense was the best defense. She kicked and punched and bit but when she looked up at her assailant, he was grinning. His blood covered arm reached out and grabbed a hand full of her messy hair, yanking it backwards roughly, causing her to bare her neck. She cried out in pain and her hands shot up and held his arm to try and wrench him off. Anton pulled out his knife and put the cold blade to her neck. She went silent again, feeling its edge nip at her skin. They looked at each other for a second, and then he guided her to the bed by her hair. A flurry of French cursewords escaped from her mouth as he practically threw her against the frame. He said nothing, he only looked at her as he undid his belt. Her eyes followed his hands and she swallowed as he pulled down his trousers. His boxers seemed to be painfully constraining him, and he smiled when she looked back up at him. He got closer to the bed, putting one knee onto it and hovered over her next to her ear. He whispered:

"Was your husbands cock as big as mine before we got him?"

She was about to scream into his face, but before she could take in the air to do so his dirty hand roughly covered her mouth.

"Why don't you have any children yet? Did you not like to fuck him?"

Tightening the grip on the lower half of her face, she scorned him with eyesight. She wanted to bite him but the lock on her jaw was too tight. Anton moved more of his body on the bed and then onto her, his knife still in his other hand. When he had fixed her in place and she was entirely immobilized, he started cutting away at the dress, the white now stained with his blood. In three big rips, it was gone along with the undergarments she wore. She had gone quiet against his iron grip palm, and he slowly released her. Her strained breathing caused her chest to heave up and down. He needed her to keep speaking French, or he would kiss her. All he wanted was to kiss her. Her skin was so soft and smooth, and if she didn't piss him off soon, he would put his lips all over her.

Nora had seen it. The admiration in his eyes. The shame in enjoying this entire ordeal had caused her to go bright red. She couldn't think, her head was so hazy. She wasn't even worried about him hurting her, just embarrassed that whenever he would feel between her legs, he'd know she actually wanted this. Pushing upwards with her legs, she tried to remove him still, but her efforts were getting weaker and weaker.

Anton didn't know what to do, so he just did both. He slapped her already red face hard, and followed it up with a tender yet hungry kiss. She kissed him back, parting her lips as he snaked his tongue through them. She tasted of blood, her face covered in it from when his bloodied hand had pressed her jaws shut. He couldn't get enough, the softness of her was overpowering. He dropped the knife and gripped her hips, deepening the kiss. Her arms released from the shift of his weight and held his face and pulled it closer. He pulled back and slapped her again. This was still an act of revenge. He was really trying to make this an act of revenge. But her rosy cheeks were so endearing, the curve of her jaw so alluring, the look in her eye so tempting. Even after slapping her twice, she still had that same expression, that taunting expression saying: you won't break me.

He admired her strength and resilience, and he had never wanted to bury his cock into something as bad as now. But watching her, he felt he couldn't. He wouldn't rape her. He didn't know why she had kissed him back, perhaps out of self preservation, but he couldn't. He got ready to get off of her, but as he pulled backwards, she kept holding onto him. Before he could understand, her hand was stroking him through his underwear. He looked back up at her. She wanted this. She wanted him? Her light pink sheets were stained with mud and blood, and crinkled under their weight. She wanted him. French whore. Beautiful French whore. He would empty every last drop of himself inside of her, and then he would eat and then he would sleep.

Anton felt delirious. He pushed his boxers down. Under him, she spread her legs as far as she could while still trapped between his knees, and touched herself. She then brought her hand up and smeared the slippery substance onto his own eager flesh. His body, pumped and on edge from the countless different hormones that had come from the last 24 hours, winced at her delicate fingers spreading her wetness all over him. Maybe the French weren't so bad after all, he thought as he grabbed her wrist from under him, her other wrist from beside him and planted them back above her head with one hand. He used the other to lift her legs so her knees touched his torso as he positioned himself in between them. He closed the distance and pushed into her agonizingly slowly. She bucked her hips, eagerly inviting him to go deeper.

He did, and felt her muscles struggle to make space for him. Falling further into feverish delirium, he kissed her again. Harder this time. The soft sounds she was making against his mouth, especially when their lips broke apart and she gasped for air drove him even further. He had wanted this to be methodical, clinical even, but as he ravaged her, all she did was hold him closer and sweeter. He broke the kiss properly so he could look at her, and her ecstatic expression almost united Germany and France as the thought of coming inside of her then and there drove him to a frenzy. He slapped her cheeks again while miserably failing to hide the infatuation on his face. This was not going very well for him at all, and the little smile that had begun to play on her lips confirmed it. He let go of her wrists to hold onto her hips, and decided that if she could take a slap with a smile, she should take a proper pounding the same way. Her arms reached over his shoulders like she had read his mind and she buried her face in his neck. He couldn't think, only vaguely aware that he was steadily abandoning the notion that he was to hatefuck her. More. Closer.