I remember Bethany

After work, I gave her the book which was written in French but intended for the barely literate people of French colonial Africa. I believe it had been designed as a Recruiting tool and an anti-German, Pro-colonial cooperation in defense of the motherland piece of propaganda. It dated from the First World War and I had picked it up in a quiet little book store in Clichy, it had somehow survived the Vichy government, the Nazi occupation and the postwar De Gaul censorship. The book was a set of photographs done with a high quality silver gel sepia process which showed great skin tones and high contrast.

The book opens with an obviously drunk German officer attempting to rape a pretty young Frenchwoman. Suddenly, a very large, very black, French Senegalese soldier with mud still on his puttees and trench coat burst into the room. He seizes the officer and knocks him out with one punch. Together, the girl and the soldier defenestrate the German out and into the street several floors below her window. The girl then turns to the soldier with her clothes still torn and in disarray, declares him “My Hero” and kisses him. The colonial soldier is at first startled but then returns her embrace and then lifts her easily on to her bed. She quickly divests him of his clothes and expresses happy astonishment at the size of his manhood.

What follows is a series of sexual postures both on and off the bed. I found it unusual in that they displayed great pleasure in the sex, including smiles, sweat and flushed skin across the face and chest. The final picture in the series shows them in post-coital bliss, him on his back with a large grin, one hand thrust between her legs and the other resting on her head which lies on his abdomen. Her face has an equal smile with her glazed cheeks and lips nestled against his tumescence, still gleaming from the fruits of their lovemaking. The final two pictures are what make the book unique for the first shows the fiercely proud soldier in full dress uniform bedecked with medals and his beaming and very pregnant bride standing outside the parish church. The books’ final illustration is of the soldier complete with paterfamilias mustache, pipe, evening paper and easy chair while his still smiling wife is setting the dinner table with several mixed race children playing at their feet.

I gave the book to Beth and she handled it gingerly and with mixed emotions, promising to take good care of it. She brought it back the following Friday and told me that she had been both aroused and fascinated with the book, but it had obsessed her imagination and even bothered her dreams. Much later, she told me that the image she couldn’t get out of her head was of the blissful Frenchwoman with her lustrous and dripping lips wrapped around the soldiers gleaming ebony shaft buried deep inside her mouth.

After she gave the book back, Beth asked with hesitation if I didn’t think the soldier was unusually large and I responded that I didn’t think so. She stammered with her cheeks reddened and said that she meant his “thing”. I again responded that I still didn’t think he was all that large. Her eyes widened and I saw them drop to my lap. She quickly looked up with her cheeks crimson and her nipples stiffened and then started to apologize. But I cut her short and told her “Thank you, it’s not often that an old married man gets a compliment like that”. She bashfully smiled again and quickly went back to work.

For the next few weeks, Bethany was bubbling with excitement as she planned her romantic trip with her new bikini and see-through baby-doll nightgown. Once, while she was a little drunk, she confessed to masturbating with a vibrator and she could hardly wait to try out some of her new sexual ideas on her betrothed.

Then one day, she was really down in the dumps and when I asked her why, she told me that her fiancé’s leave had been cancelled and he was being sent up-country and that he would be out of touch for a couple of weeks. I thought that sounded a little bogus but I told her not to worry, his R&R would soon be rescheduled and they would soon meet up in Hawaii. She cheered up and was soon back to her normal self but still slightly subdued.

The next Friday I found her in tears and she showed me a letter from her brother who was in the Signal Corps. He wrote that he had seen her fiancé’s name on the manifest of a Saigon to Sidney flight and went down to the Bangkok terminal to greet him. Instead what he saw was her very drunk beloved with an Australian nurse hanging off him bound for two weeks of R&R or I&I (intoxication and intercourse) as her brother put it.

I told her how sorry I was and that it might be a case of mistaken identity. She replied that her brother would not have written unless he was absolutely sure. She began to weep bitterly against my shoulder and I fought the urge to mouth platitudes about “tomorrow is another day.” and “There’s more than one fish in the sea.” Instead, I just held her and stroked the back of her head until she stopped crying. I gave her my handkerchief and she thanked me for just being there. She said “You’re a good friend, George” and kissed my palm before returning to work. However, I could tell that she was just going through the motions.

Later, after closing time, as I was headed out to my car, I spotted Beth sitting in her old gou-shi (beat-to-shit) mustang with her head on the steering wheel and tears streaming down her face. I knocked on her window to ask if she was ok and she rolled it down, sobbing “My brother left me this piece of junk two years ago and tonight it won’t start. I spent all my money on a plane flight I can’t use. The busses have stopped running, my fiancé is a louse and I’m freezing.”

I told her to get out of the car and to lock it up and that I would drive her home and look at her car in the morning. She responded that I didn’t need to do that and that she could just sleep in the car. I said “No, It’s only going to get colder and this is not a good neighborhood for a woman by herself. I’m telling you that you need to get in my car and let me take you home. Here, take my coat.” She finally agreed and locked up the mustang.

Back then, I was driving an older model Mercedes s300 that I picked up in Germany, used, on my last tour and that I kept up myself. The car had bench seats and a huge interior and very useful when the kids were small for long trips and you had to keep them at least three feet apart. When Beth climbed in and I had the heater running, she noticed the broad plush seats and the fine woodwork and remarked on how nice the car was. I replied that it was ok; it was like me, built for comfort, not speed.
She laughed and replied “You’re in great shape.”

“You mean, for my age.”

“No, for any age.” And then her cheeks reddened even further as she realized that it sounded like a come on.

I smiled and handed her my hip flask of 180 proof homemade plum brandy and she thanked me and took a swig, coughed and exclaimed “Whoa, that’s strong stuff, but it sure warms you up.” Beth then gave me directions to the walkup over a liquor store she rented. We were sitting in the parking lot in back when she asked if we could just sit and talk for a while.

I said I understood and pulled out a joint and fired it up. As we talked, I handed it to her and she took a toke and began coughing violently. I said “Be careful, this isn’t your college shit, this is grade A Nam Boo mixed with black tar opium.” She replied that it was ok; she could stand to get really stoned, so I offered to shotgun her.

As I took a mouthful of smoke and blew it into her open mouth, she inhaled and held it. When she exhaled, Beth remarked that it felt as if the back of her head was floating away. I told her that was just her neck muscles relaxing.

About the third or fourth time I leaned in to blow some smoke into her mouth, Beth just looked me in the eyes, closed hers and kissed me. Our mouths joined and our tongues pushed into a wet embrace. When we broke, she apologized and told me that she shouldn’t have done that. I responded that I had been wanting to do that for some time and pulled her into another deep long kiss.

When we broke our kiss the second time, she was running her fingers inside my open shirt collar on my pectoral; she marveled that it was so broad and firm. I followed suit and slipped my hand into her blouse to cup her small upturned breast. “And this is so soft and beautiful.”

“Thank you, George, for letting me feel pleasure again.”

“If you want pleasure, try this.” And I reached inside the glove box to pull out my special mix of Xing qu shi and K-Y jelly, opened her blouse and began rubbing it on her chest, pushing her bra over the top of her breasts. As the mix of warmth and cooling took effect, she sighed, closed her eyes and her nipples turned into pebbles as she kissed me again. Beth then unbuttoned my shirt and started rubbing the mix on my chest and abs, again marveling at how fit I was.