War's End - 1. Story

War's End

By Mark Arbour

September 21, 1918

“Gabriel, you are not paying attention to me,” he snapped. “It is important that you understand how we are handling these American pay vouchers.” His accent was as bourgeois as he was, and that he pronounced all of his consonants proclaimed to all that he came from Languedoc.

“I’m sorry Monsieur LeGrand,” I told him. He scowled at me and began repeating himself, only this time I actually tried to pay attention. Banking was easy for me, although I never expected that I’d end up in this field. I had a natural knack for numbers and organization, and that had served me well in this environment. In fact, it was the thing that had probably saved my life.

A poor one-legged waif, trying desperately to survive in Paris on what meager allowance the government gave its wounded soldiers, I was destined for starvation. This man, Jacques LeGrand, had rescued me from that life and given me this job. He hadn’t done it because I was a good person, or because he was a good person. He hadn’t done it as an act of kindness, and I hadn’t accepted it as a gesture of charity. He’d done it, given me this job, because I’d been a good fuck, and because having me here, working as a teller in his bank, kept me handy in case he wanted to use me as a hole for his pencil-sized dick.

I didn’t care, or at least I pretended not to. I was fatalistic about it. It was part of the package, part of the deal, and the alternative, hunger and homelessness, was much much worse. I focused instead on trying to do a good job, to make myself so useful and valuable to him that there would come a time when I could refuse his advances and feel secure that I was too important for him to fire me. I was getting there, slowly but surely, but I wasn’t there yet. “I’d like to see you in my office,” he snapped when he was done lecturing me on the new procedure for cashing vouchers for American soldiers.

I followed him to his office, noticing that he closed and locked the door behind us. I instinctively undid my belt as I felt him move up behind me. He pulled my trousers down and bent me over his desk. My fake leg crashed to the floor along with my pants. I heard the zipper, felt the glob of lubricant on my ass, and then he moved up and pushed into me. His little dick was no problem to take, and I did my best to enjoy it. Actually, that was pretty easy. While he pounded away, sating his own desires, desires that his wife evidently couldn’t satisfy, I rolled my eyes back in my head and thought of Jack.

Jack Masterson, the man I’d met a year and a half ago, the man who had brought his pain and suffering to me and let me heal him, and the man who had recognized my own and healed me right back. Jack’s dick was much bigger than LeGrand’s, so it took some imagination to pretend he was Jack, but that wasn’t too hard. LeGrand grunted on, plunging away, ignoring the stump that was all that remained of my left leg. Jack hadn’t done that. He was the only one who had ever paid attention to it, caressed it, treated it as if it was part of me and made me feel that it was a part of me that he loved, not a part of me that should make me ashamed.

It was ridiculous, this obsession I’d developed with him, with Jack Masterson. He’d been in town for a few days in February of last year, and I had neither seen nor heard from him since. I told myself that it was probably because he didn’t know where to find me, and I had been unable to find him. That was the easy answer. I didn’t want to think about the other answer: that he’d been vaporized by an artillery shell, mowed down by a machine gun, or gassed. I told myself that he was alive, pinned my hopes on that, and then cursed myself for being a big fool. There was no reason for this obsession, there was no reason for hope, but in this terrible war, I had to cling to something, and that something was my memory of Jack, and the hope that I’d see him again.

Jack had seemed heterosexual, and if he hadn’t fucked me, I would never have accepted that he liked men. I still wasn’t sure that he did. I think he found me when he was hurt, needing someone, anyone, to hold him. Our chance meeting had introduced us, and I’d been a convenient release for him. He’d probably ship back to Canada after the war, marry some blonde woman with big breasts, and have lots of children. I was sure he never thought of me, or if he did, it was with embarrassment and shame for having a homosexual fling with another man. But I could dream, dream that he felt the same way about me, dream that he longed to be with me again. It was a stupid dream. Even if he was alive, even if I saw him, what then? He would never want me to be part of his life in Canada, and he was probably so sick of France there was no way he’d stay here and eke out a miserable living with me.

LeGrand had picked up his pace and I could tell he was close. I responded, faking my moans, grinding my ass back into him. I stroked my cock, not to make myself ejaculate, but so he would think I was enjoying myself. Then, with a loud grunt, he slammed into me, blasting his load. He didn’t cum for long. When he’d first fucked me that had at first worried me, making me think that I wasn’t doing a good job. But I’d learned over time that he was just like that. Quick and to the point: he came just like he conducted his business.

“Thank you Gabriel,” he said. “You may return to work now.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, hurrying to re-attach my false leg and pull on my trousers and get out of his office. I knew he didn’t like me lingering after we’d fucked. I went out to my window and went through the motions for the rest of the day, helping my customers as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“Can you help me turn this into money?” a voice asked in English. I looked up from my window to see a round young face staring at me. I smiled and he grinned back. He was an American, and the description of “doughboy” worked perfectly for him, with his pudgy features.

“But of course,” I said in English. Learning that language had become a priority for me over the past year, and I was good at it now. I took his voucher and began to complete the forms required to exchange it into Francs. “There will be a service charge of five Francs. Will that be acceptable?”

“Don’t got much choice since all banks charge that,” he said, still smiling.

“Guess you don’t,” I told him.

“You know a good restaurant around here? I’m real hungry,” he said. He had a twangy accent, one that I would expect from a cowboy.

“I do. It is right around the corner. Maximes,” I told him.

“Well thank you. I’m mighty grateful for the recommendation. Maybe if you’re not working, you could show me around Paris some time?” he asked. I looked at him and saw him look at me nervously. He was trying to act as if he wasn’t hitting on me when, in fact, he was.

“It is a beautiful city. I will be happy to do that. Let me get your money,” I told him. I limped over to the cashier and changed the voucher for cash, then hobbled back to him.

“What happened to your leg?” he asked me as I counted his Francs out for him.

“I lost it at the Battle of the Marne,” I told him as if it made no difference to me. “I have a prosthetic one now. It works alright.”

“Oh,” he said nervously. He looked at me with that familiar look, the one that said I was damaged goods. “Well, thanks.” He took his money and left, conveniently forgetting about exploring Paris with me. I tried not to let it bother me, and to the outside world, that is how it would look. He’d thought I was cute, wanted to spend time with me, maybe fuck me, until he’d seen my leg. The revulsion in his expression, even though he tried to hide it, drove straight through to my core. But no one would see that unless someone looked closely at my eyes, and noticed that they were more watery than normal.

After work, I went to Maximes to get dinner. It was a luxury I could only afford once or twice a week, but I was in too much of a bad mood to just go back to the one room hovel I called an apartment.

“There you are,” said Gilles, one of the waiters, the same one Jack had tried to strangle when I’d brought him here. Gilles had the unique ability to piss off almost anyone, but he had a kind heart beneath the surface that was, to all appearances, that of a total asshole. “I have a note for you.” He vanished into the back and came back out, carrying a letter.

“A note from whom?” I asked as I took it.

“A note from that thug who tried to kill me,” he said grumpily.

“Jack?” I asked. He shrugged, but watched as I opened the envelope.

I tore it open and pulled out the note, ignoring the grin on Gilles face as he watched my impetuousness.

Gabriel,

It’s been so long. I hope you still remember me. I’m back in Paris for a few days. I’d love to see you. Meet me here on Saturday night?

Jack

I felt my heart leap, my mood soar. He wasn’t dead! He was alive! He had survived the grist mill of this horrible war. And he wanted to see me. “He wants to meet me on Saturday night. That is tonight!” I said.

“Working at the bank has made you brilliant,” Gilles replied sarcastically.

“Has he been here yet?” I demanded.

“No,” Gilles said, grinning at how excited I was. He would give me serious shit about that later.

“What time was he here last time, the time he gave you this letter?” I asked.

“I think it was around seven o’clock,” he said.

“It’s almost seven now,” I observed.

“And once again your intelligence overwhelms me. You know what day it is, and you can tell time. Truly impressive,” Gilles said, teasing me.

“Why don’t you bring me a glass of wine?” I asked him, imitating his surly behavior. He rolled his eyes and did as I asked. I sat at the table, excited and bored at the same time. He was alive and he wanted to see me. Can dreams come true? I caught myself, desperately trying to keep my emotions and my optimism in check, remembering that even if he wanted to see me, it would be just a temporary interlude. I had to remember to enjoy what I could get, and to not think too far ahead.

Time crawled on, until it was seven o’clock, then seven-fifteen, and now seven-thirty. I was starting to wonder if this wasn’t some cruel hoax, if Gilles hadn’t set this whole thing up to try to cure me of my obsession. He was avoiding me, avoiding my table, which is what he would do if he’d dreamed up such a scheme. I got angry, already convicting him of this imaginary crime.

Then Jack walked in, looking almost like he did the last time I saw him. His light brown hair was just as short, he was just as tall, but he looked even thinner than he did last time I saw him. But it was his eyes that were most different. They were hollow, more hollow than they’d been before. I saw those hollow eyes searching the restaurant hopefully, looking for me. I watched them scanning in an arc, and waited, smiling like an idiot, as they drew closer to my table. They were focused on the table next to me and I saw them shifting to the right, and then he saw me. His face lit up, his huge smile blasting away the sadness that had lived there a second ago. He moved, almost ran toward me.

I stood up as quickly as I could, making it upright and stabilizing myself just as he arrived. He looked at me nervously, and then I leaned forward to greet him in the French fashion, with a kiss on each cheek. He was having none of it, pulling me into a big hug instead. The feeling of his strong arms around me, of his warm body, stimulated so many different reactions in me I could not even quantify them, but all of them were good.

“I was hoping you would want to see me,” he said.

“What kind of idiotic thing is that to say?” I asked. “Of course I want to see you. I have been worried shitless about you.”

“I didn’t know where to write you,” he said calmly.

“I didn’t know where to write you either,” I told him. We just sat there, saying nothing, adjusting to each other, and to both of us being alive and relatively healthy. “I missed you,” I said, letting my own feelings out first, taking a huge risk.

“I missed you too. More than I can say,” he told me. “I think about you all the time.”

“Sure you do,” I said, teasing him.

Only he was in a serious mood, and that told me how much this plagued him. How he had been as captivated by me as I’d been by him. “No, I mean it.”

I took his hand under the table, so no one could see. “I think about you all the time too. It gets me in trouble at work, when I drift off daydreaming about you.”

That made him smile. “Where do you work?” he asked, realizing that there was so much about me and my life he didn’t know.

“I work at a bank around the corner. I will show it to you later,” I said. “I live in a shitty one room apartment. It is not a fun existence, but I am at least surviving.”

“Better than last time I saw you,” he said with a smile. “You look like you have some meat on your bones. It’s made you even more handsome.”

“You are a sweet talker,” I flirted. “You, on the other hand, look thinner than ever. Have you been at the front this whole time?”

“I was pulled for a while when the Yanks came over to help train them, but I went back up a few months ago. I got a metal fragment in my, uh, ass, and that got me pulled off the line. A few days in the hospital, and now I’m here,” he said.

“You are going back?” I asked nervously.

“No, thank God,” he said. He was a reluctant warrior, a man who fought because it was his duty, not because he wanted to. “I’m being sent home. This war is almost over, and they’ve decided I’ve done enough.”

For the first time I noticed his uniform, with the insignia of a major, and a string of medals to tell the world how brave he was. Indeed, he had done enough. At least one general had enough wisdom to realize that not everyone had to be maimed before they should be allowed to return to their normal lives. “You have been promoted, and look at all those medals,” I said.

“Promotion is easy when all your superiors are killed,” he said bitterly. “The medals are just tin, rewards for doing my duty and watching out for my comrades.”

I knew those emotions, and knew to leave that topic alone. “So when do you leave?” I asked him.

“I have to catch a train to LeHavre on Tuesday afternoon. Then I’m on a ship back home,” he said.

“So you found me only to say goodbye?” I asked bitterly.

“I was hoping you would want to spend the next few days with me,” he said hopefully. I felt bad then, for giving him shit, when what he needed was love.

“I am all yours tomorrow, but I must work on Monday and Tuesday. On those days, you only get me at night,” I joked.

“If I remember correctly, that is when you are at your best,” he teased back, finally loosening up.

“With you, that is true,” I said, winking at him. We ordered a lot of food and ate, gorging ourselves and saying little.

He paid for my dinner, despite my argument, and then we left the restaurant. He hailed a cab, getting a strange look from me as I non-verbally questioned such a luxury. “Majors make more money,” he said with a grin. “Plus I don’t spend much on the front.”

“So where are you taking me?” I asked. I was hoping he wouldn’t want to go to my shithole of an apartment.

“To the hotel, the same hotel I stayed at last time,” he said. I wondered if he’d done that because it was where he was supposed to go, or if he was being romantic. We got to the same place, a hotel that had once been quite nice but was growing a little worn with all the military traffic. He led me past the front desk and up the stairs. No one noticed us, no one cared. All the men here had the same hollow look in their eyes, the same expression of sadness and hopelessness. He led me down the hall to the same room he’d had last time.

“You even got the same room,” I said as he turned the key and opened the door.

“You remembered,” he said. He closed and locked the door behind him, then he turned around and I was in his arms. It happened so fast it almost surprised me, but I recovered quickly. He picked me up and carried me over to the bed and laid me down gently, then lay down with me. He kissed me again, a long, passionate, wonderful kiss, then pulled away and gazed into my eyes. “Dreaming of this, of being with you, kept me alive.”

“In my own way, it kept me alive too,” I told him. Then he kissed me again, but this time he didn’t stop. I felt his strong body on top of me, his big hard dick pressing against me, and I responded to him, meeting his thrusts and grinds. He pulled away and stood up, almost ripping off his uniform. I pulled my clothes off too, trying to do that and admire his body, amazing even in its emaciated state.

He knelt on the bed, about to lie down, but I stopped him and leaned up, taking his big cock into my mouth. He drove it deep into my throat, but I didn’t mind. Any other man would have choked me, but not Jack. I wanted him too badly; my whole body was keyed up to take him inside in any way he wanted. I could feel the conflict within him, knowing how much he was enjoying it, but knowing that he wanted to stop and fuck me. I was too good for him to pull out, and I was rewarded by his orgasm. His cock expanded in my mouth and he blasted his load, a huge load, straight down my throat, panting and whimpering the whole time. When he was done, he collapsed next to me, spent, with a big grin on his face. “You are amazing,” he said.

“Why thank you,” I told him. “I would not be that amazing for anyone else, only for you.”

“Why only for me?”

I smiled and ran my head along his face. “Because I care about you, and I want you.” We lay there, just enjoying each other, both of us ignoring my raging erection. His face was right at my ear, his breath gently wafting in, and it was one of the most erotic things I’d ever experienced.

“You are the sexiest person I have ever met,” he said softly into my ear. Then I felt his lips kissing my ear, then that spot behind it, making me moan. He moved his mouth to mine, and I felt his cock hardening against my leg as he recovered from the blow job I’d given him. Now his mouth was lower, on my neck, and lower still, kissing and sucking on my nipples.

I moaned and ran my fingers through his hair, feeling his head move lower still. Down he went, kissing his way across my sensitive abdomen and to my cock, which he enveloped with one swift move. He was good, damn good. I didn’t remember him being this good before, and I fought back the jealousy when I wondered who else he’d been with.

He moved me onto my right side and began to lick my balls, then my perineum. This was the one good thing about missing my left leg; it gave him much easier access to my taint, and my ass. He ran his tongue lower, and lower still, until I felt it trace gently across my hole. I moaned and thrust into him involuntarily, and I could feel his grin even though I couldn’t see it, his happiness at making me feel so good. He worked me, worked me until I couldn’t stand it, then he moved up to my stump.

He kissed and licked it, paying attention to the thing that caused me so much pain and embarrassment, showing me with his mouth and his caresses that it was a part of me that was unique, a part to be cherished not reviled. He had me so excited I just lay there, a moaning, throbbing blob. He leaned over me to grab a jar, stopping to kiss me, then moved back and slathered some of the lube onto his cock. He began to work some into my ass, working his fingers in, getting me ready. He was a big boy, and I needed prep to take him, at least the first time.

Evidently, he decided that I’d had enough prep; I’d decided that a long time ago. He knelt over me, me on my side, him straight up, and lined his cock up. He pushed in gently, and feeling him enter me, fill me up, made me completely euphoric. I just lay there, letting him do everything, giving myself permission to just enjoy him. He began to thrust in and out, and he did that thing that I loved. When he ground into me, he let his pubic bone grind against my stump, let me feel his pubic hair press firmly against it then tickle it slightly as he pulled back. He fucked me in almost a rotating fashion, his cock sliding in and around, hitting my most sensitive and erotic of spots.

I felt his body lower slightly, and now his ass was sliding along my right leg. With every forward and back thrust, his crack rubbed along my leg, and I imagined how the hair on my leg must tickle his cute little pucker as he did. He maintained a slow but steady pace, reducing me to blissful incoherence. For a relative novice, he was a very skilled lover, keeping his tempo under control to make it last as long as he could. But I was beyond that, I was beyond the point of desperation. I needed to cum in the worst way, and as usual, he read my body as if it were his own. He picked up his pace gradually, building up to a crescendo where he made us both reach orgasm.

I blasted my first shot across the bed, probably across the room, but I didn’t give a shit. I knew I was making a mess, but I didn’t care. I let myself go, trying my best not to scream too loudly. I looked up at him and saw that twisted expression his face makes when he blows his load, followed by a dull roar, then his intense grinding and thrusting motion as he worked every last drop of cum possible into my greedy ass. He collapsed back onto me but I pivoted him onto his back and lay down on top of him this time.

I ran my hand up his abdomen to his chest, feeling the stubble of the hair they’d shaved off when he came back. His whole body was hairless, trimmed and shaved as part of the de-lousing process, and it was really sexy. But I bet once his hair grows back he will have a really hairy, sexy body. His chest would probably be like a carpet, one that I could sink into when we were lying like this. Then I remembered that I wouldn’t see that, I wouldn’t be around when his hair grew out. This was just a two-day interlude, a few days of bliss, and then we’d be separated for real this time.

In two days my dream would end, and it would be worse than ever before. Worse because I knew he would go back to Canada, and I could not follow him there. Worse because there would be no hope of seeing him again. Worse because I would lose him forever.

September 24, 1918

I lay in bed with Jack underneath me. The clock ticked away at the side of the bed, every minute gone a minute less I had to spend with him. I had begged Monsieur LeGrand to let me take the day off so I could spend every second with Jack, but he had adamantly refused. Then I had irritated him in the extreme by refusing to let him fuck me yesterday. It would be a miracle if I still had a job at the end of the week. I ran my hand across Jack’s strong chest, flicking my fingers across his nipple and making it harden.

“Mmm,” he said contentedly as my attention woke him up. We’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. Our time together was too precious to waste sleeping. I moved my hand lower to his hard cock and stroked him gently, getting a smile, then he made love to me again. We had fucked all weekend, over and over again, until I thought I’d be completely drained, but just being with him charged me right back up again. But this time, this last fuck was important, because, well, because it was our last fuck. It was my way of saying goodbye to him and telling him that I loved him without using those words.

“I’m going to miss you,” I told him, trying not to cry and failing miserably.

“I’m going to miss you too,” he said.

“Why don’t you stay here, in Paris?” I asked, smiling, as if it was a big joke. As if he would do that. I knew he never would.

“It is tempting,” he said. “Why don’t you come to Canada with me?”

“You know that would never work,” I told him honestly. “What would your family say if you brought a one-legged Frenchman home? You are supposed to marry a blonde girl with big breasts,” I teased.

“I don’t want a blonde girl with big breasts, I want you,” he said.

“Society will not let you have me,” I told him. “Can you imagine your life in Canada, what people would say, what they would think?”

“I see your point,” he said glumly. “I’d lose my family; probably have a hard time getting anyone to even work on the farm.”

“You can’t manage it yourself?” I teased.

“It’s hundreds of acres, probably thousands by now,” he said. “My father says with the war, they’ve made a fortune with the demand for food. He keeps buying more and more land.”

“I can’t see us all living in the same house, can you?” I asked.

“No,” he said. In our hearts, we belonged together. In this world, we could not be.

“I must get up and get ready for work,” I told him. I felt my voice cracking. “It will mean a lot to me if you will write. And maybe, if you can stand it, you can come back and visit.”

“I may have to,” he said, trying to joke and avoid the maudlin goodbye scene that was coming. “I can’t sleep unless I’m with you. Otherwise the dreams come back.” I knew them, knew the dreams, the ones that haunted him just like they’d haunted me. The ones that woke you up in a panic but you didn’t remember what they were, only that you were frightened.

“As I recall, we haven’t been sleeping much now either,” I teased back. He laughed, a beautiful laugh that I didn’t hear enough. I detached myself from him and put on my leg, then my clothes, and hobbled into the bathroom to make myself presentable for work. I looked at my face in the mirror and knew that the happiness I felt was about to be erased by agonizing sadness. I walked out into the main room to find him waiting for me.

He hugged me, hugged me tightly, and I could feel the tears on his cheek blending with mine. “You have given me so much,” he said.

I pulled away and looked at him, and felt all my control fly away. “I love you,” I told him. He stared at me, surprised and dumbfounded, but it was out there, and I couldn’t stop myself. “I do. I love you. Totally and completely,” I said, babbling on. Then I pulled him to me and kissed him, giving him something to do with his mouth so he didn’t have to answer me, so neither one of us would be embarrassed. I broke off the kiss and turned away from him, walking out the door, trying to keep the tears off my face so others wouldn’t see. I was not successful.

Work was horrible and tedious. Monsieur LeGrand was still very angry with me, and took every opportunity to come over and look at my work. He seemed even angrier that I was good at my job, and that there was really nothing for him to criticize. That did not keep him from trying. All morning he did that, harassing me. I knew I could end his abuse by going into his office and letting him fuck me, but Jack hadn’t even left Paris yet. The memory of him was too real, too close. I couldn’t do it. Maybe in a few days, but not now. I’d just persevere.

I tried to visualize my life here, desperate to find some hope of happiness, but I could not see it. I would probably work at this bank until I was old and grizzled, maybe rising up enough to be the head of the tellers, or the chief cashier. I would never make enough money that I wouldn’t have to scrimp and save. Worse than that, with my leg, or lack of it, my huge defect, I would spend my life alone. As I got older and less attractive, fewer men would be willing to overlook such a deformity. I would be old, poor, and lonely. It was a depressing train of thought, all the more depressing because I knew it was true.

I began to wish for the thousandth time that the shell that had taken my leg would have just killed me instead. What kind of existence was this? What kind of life? It wasn’t a life, it wasn’t anything. I was worthless. It was hard to think like this between customers and then be pleasant when they came up to the window, but I managed.

After my first break, I thought maybe I’d be able to come back and focus more, but it didn’t work. I was damned to this life, this existence, so I’d just have to make the best of it. It would be so much easier if I didn’t hurt so badly, if the pain of losing Jack weren’t agonizing. It truly was unbearable. How long would it take me to get over losing him? For the past 18 months, I’d lived in hope that he was alive and that I would get to see him. And that dream had come true, only now that it was over, it was even more horrible than before. Now I knew he was alive, but he would be thousands of kilometers away. I would never be able to afford to visit him. What was worse, he wouldn’t want me to. He would have his life with his big-breasted blonde wife. The last thing he would want or need was his male lover magically appearing.

I was beside myself now, almost irrational. I tried so hard to put these thoughts out of my brain but I couldn’t. Maybe I should just jump off the bridge tonight and quietly drown in the Seine? I began to think and plan along those lines, and it was remarkably stabilizing: To know that there was an end in sight, to know that this searing pain would abate. Armed with my plan of suicide, a plan to end my unhappy and worthless life, I labored on, actually managing to smile at the customers. Time began to fly by, and I looked up at the clock, gratified to see that it was noon.

I finished dealing with a customer, hoping that I would be able to take a break for lunch, but before I could put my ‘closed’ window sign up another man appeared in front of the window. I didn’t even look up to make eye contact, I just stared down, adjusting my ledgers, irritated in the extreme that he’d rushed over here without being called. “May I help you?” I asked in a most unfriendly tone.

“Yes you can. You can leave here and come to Canada with me,” the man said. I looked up and saw Jack looking at me, smiling.

“We talked about this. It cannot work. You cannot ruin your whole future because of me,” I said.

He leaned in to the bars, so only I could hear him. “I love you. You are my future.” I stared at him, stunned by his admission, and by what he was proposing.

“Do you know what you would be giving up?” I asked. “Do you realize the consequences? We talked about this and agreed this was something neither one of us can do.”

“Do you still love me?” he demanded.

“I do,” I admitted grudgingly. I made to argue but he interrupted me.

“Have you been miserable all morning like I have? Have you convinced yourself that life isn’t worth living yet, or is that only me?” he demanded.

I smiled at that. I couldn’t help it. “It is not just you. But you forget that I am even better at making myself miserable than you are.” He chuckled.

“So come on. Come with me. We will both be miserable apart, together we have a chance to be happy,” he said, pleading.

“A chance to be happy?” I demanded. “We will be lucky if we are not killed. Two men living together is dangerous.”

“I would rather die with you, than live without you,” he said, bringing our thoughts into clarity.

“Is there a problem here?” a snotty voice asked me. I turned to see Monsieur LeGrand standing behind me. “I am not paying you to chat with friends.” I looked back at him, at this little man who used me as nothing more than a whore, then looked back at Jack.

“Is this the life you want?” he asked me. I put down my pen and pushed past Monsieur LeGrand, and hobbled over to the door to the teller’s cage.

“If you walk through that door, you are fired,” LeGrand said.

“Good,” I said, and opened the door. I walked through it, and slammed it. Jack was there, and he picked me up and carried me out of the bank. “I am your bride, and you are carrying me over the threshold?” I teased.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” he said. “I never thought I’d be able to do this, to choose you, and I never thought you’d be able to choose me, but now that I have, I know it’s the right thing. You are all that is important to me.”

“You are wrong Jack Masterson. I would have chosen you any day of the week. It is only you who had the hard time making that decision,” I said, pretending it was a joke when it wasn’t.

“Let me tell you about Canada, and what a great place it is,” he said with a grin. Then we started our life together.

© 2010 Mark Arbour

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