Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(120)

He has had enough. "Watch your back!" he yells and flanks her on the side; ignoring the bushes in his way, Alexander jumps over three logs and comes out in front of her, holding the gun and panting. He is covered with water and flour. Tatiana shrieks and turns to run away, but before she can move, Alexander is on her, toppling her flat on the mossy ground. "Where do you think you're going?" he pants, holding her down as she tries to get away. "What do you think you're doing, you clever girl, too clever by half for your own good, where are you going to go now?" He rubs his floured cheek against her clean face.

"Stop it," she pants. "You're going to get me dirty."

"I'm going to do more than get you dirty."

She struggles valiantly underneath him; her hands find his ribs as she tickles him without much success. He grabs her hands and pulls them over her head. "You won't even believe what kind of trouble you're in, you flour-throwing Nazi. What were you thinking, how long were you planning this?"

"Five seconds." She laughs. "You're so gullible." She is still fighting to get away.

He holds her hands above her head. Gripping her wrists with one hand, Alexander yanks up the camouflage T-shirt to her neck, exposing her stomach and ribs and breasts. "Will you stop fighting with me?" he says. "Do you give up?"

"Never!" she cries. "It is better to die on your feet--"

Alexander brings his stubbled face to her ribs and tickles her with his chin. Tatiana chortles. "Stop it," Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

she says. "Stop torturing me. Put me in the kissing prison."

"The kissing prison is too good for the likes of you. You're going to need a harsher punishment. Do you give up?" he asks again.

"Never!"

He tickles her ribs again with his mouth and his stubble. Alexander knows he has to be careful. Once he tickled her for so long, she fainted. Now she is laughing uncontrollably, her legs kicking up in the air. He puts his own leg over them, still holding her hands above her head, his tongue tickling her up and down her side. "Do--you--give--up?" he asks again, panting.

"Never!" she squeals, and Alexander raises himself slightly and grabs her nipple with his mouth. He does not cease until he hears her squealing change tone and pitch.

He stops for a moment. "I'm going to ask you again. Do you give up?"

She moans. "No." She pauses. "You better kill me, soldier..." Pause. "And use all your weapons."

Gripping her hands above her head, Alexander makes love to her in the moss, refusing to stop, refusing to be more gentle until she gives up. He continues through her first crashing wave, and then pants, "What say you now, prisoner?"

Tatiana, her voice barely above a murmur, replies, "Please, sir, I want some more."

After he stops laughing, he gives her more.

"Do you give up?"

She is nearly inaudible. "Please, sir, I want some more..."

He gives her more.

"Let go of my hands, husband," Tatiana whispers into his mouth. "I want to touch you."

"Do you give up?"

"Yes, I give up. I give up."

He lets go. She touches him.

After he is done with her, her face and breasts and stomach are all covered in flour too. Flour and moss and Alexander.

"Come on, get up," he whispers.

"I can't," she whispers back. "I can't move."

He carries her to the Kama, where they cool down and clean off in their shallow rocky canopied water hole with the fishes. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"How many ways are there to kill you?" Alexander murmurs, lifting her up onto himself and kissing her.

"Just one," replies Tatiana, her wet warm face rubbing against his wet neck.

In the frozen forests of Poland past, Alexander, Pasha, Ouspensky, and their one remaining corporal, Demko, hid in the bushes, surrounded, out of ammunition, blackened, bloodied and wet.

Alexander and Pasha sat and waited for inspiration or death.

The Germans poured kerosene and set fire to the woods in front of them, and to the left of them, and to the right of them.

"Alexander--"

"Pasha, I know." Their backs were against the thick oaks. They were a few meters from each other. The fire was warm against Alexander's face.

"We're trapped."

"Yes."

"We've got no bullets left."

"Yes." Alexander was carving a piece of wood.

"This is it, isn't it? There is no way out."

"You don't think there is, but there is. We just haven't thought of it."

"By the time we think of it, we'll be dead," said Pasha.

"We'd better think faster, then." He watched Pasha. One way or another, he had to get Tatiana's brother out of these woods. One way or another he had to save him for her, though every once in a while during moments of blackness, Alexander did fear that Pasha was unsaveable.

"We can't surrender."

"No?"

"No. How do you think the Germans will treat us? We've just killed hundreds of their men. You think they'll be lenient?"