13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [30]
The young faded man was still alive on January 2, 1916— whoever he was. On this day, Camille was on leave but had to head back out for the front lines the next day. His marriage proposal had already been turned down by Louise’s father, who’d exploded in violent anger at the idea of her marrying her own blood. It simply wasn’t right, he said. It was an insult to what was proper.
The disapproving father could not prevent them from being together on this day, as tied up as he was on the front lines. He was not on leave then, and could not keep Camille away from the small, cozy bedroom where Louise stayed at their aunt Marie’s house in the town of Malakoff—Aunt Marie whose husband and sons were also at war, and who was not home at the moment.
Camille and Louise sat on the bed together. They had never been in such a situation before. They’d held hands and stolen kisses the last time he was home, in passing thrilling moments when they were left accidentally unchaperoned. But now they were truly alone, in a soft, warm, safe place.
They sat a foot apart, looking into each other’s faces. Camille’s blue eyes were filled with some sort of supplication that Louise could not reach, some sort of thing that the experience of war had etched onto his young face, making it older but still beautiful. She put her hand palm down on the coverlet between them, and he covered it with his own, stroking the back of her fingers with his trembling thumb. The contact was so warm and so strangely powerful that Louise almost wished it would stop.
“I’m frightened,” Camille said. “I feel I might die.”
Louise was wounded by these words and reached for him. She cupped his face, stroked his cheek, and said, “Don’t speak like that. I know you will come home.”
Camille seized her in his arms and pressed her to him, crushing her. She yielded immediately to this embrace, to the long, hard kiss he took from her. They breathed hard together; her lips parted slightly, and she felt the flick of his tongue pass between them. Her body shuddered in surprise and delight at this impingement. This was new; it was deeper than before, and they had some time together now, and no one knew where they were.
The kiss didn’t stop. Louise’s hands stroked the back of Camille’s closely cropped head, and his traveled up from her waist along her back. They cradled her neck. He pushed her down and back onto the pillow and she moaned slightly at this without pulling her lips from his. His mustache tickled her and she laughed. Her giggle caused him to pull away and look at her flushed face. Their bodies were tense with expectation, pressed together on Louise’s narrow bed with the crisp white sheets. He reached for her throat and unfastened the first button of her shirt, then the next.
“My father won’t let us marry,” she said softly, not sure whether she was protesting his clear intent to undress her.
“We will marry,” he answered. “As soon as this horrid war ends, we will run away and do it and when we come back as man and wife, they will have to accept us.”
“Oh—I hope so.”
Her dreamy voice encouraged him, and he bent to kiss her neck. He cupped her breast with an eager and brave hand—her back arched. The heat of skin through clothes was nearly unbearable to them both. Louise knew that Camille would make love to her if she let him; she was straining with desire for this. She ached warmly for something she’d never had, and though she had been told that it would hurt the first time, she did not care. She wanted so much to give herself to him.
But she was too afraid; she was too afraid of the fertility of her womb. What if he made her pregnant? She was gripped by a sudden nausea at this thought and groaned with pain when she felt his hand reach under her skirts—his febrile, trembling hand seeking to take possession of her just once before being again forced to carry a gun.
“No,” she said loudly, almost weeping.
For a moment, they did not move. Then Camille sighed. “Oh, Louise.”
“When we marry…,” she began