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precious-little-scoundrel · 6 days

Text

|| Radio ||

Requested plot points? ☑️

Circa: early February 1944

Immediate previous fic: Favorite Escape

Summary: when your hodge podge radio won’t work, who should ya call? Probably the flight engineer

Warnings: usual universe warnings apply, 18+ but nothing very alarming really happens in this one, references to others are made, some potential slut shaming in the beginning if ya squint? perhaps some queer baiting but it’s the Buckies rolling around on the flooor, they’re one massive queer bait lbr, it’s not me. Also. My shit Crystal Radio making descriptions- don’t come for me I haven’t made one and I spent five hours falling down a rabbit hole as to how the guys made them in the camps and at the end of the day I said: screw it! And went with one of the Brit’s scenarios 🍻

Edited only by my tired little eyes, full warning and have mercy 💋

Also, just a note I feel compelled to make- this fic centers around women in the army, in a war, which they’re spending under dire conditions in a POW camp. Yes there is love here, there is also hierarchy and discipline and the enforcement of that does not make one character or another necessarily callous or less loving. They are their ranks first and foremost as all signed up for.

“They’re forging papers, you know.” Maureen broached the topic to Egan one day, late February and when her cheeks were still bruised from Ida’s book.

Bucky paused his tracing of a map, sooty finger trailing along a river with the same incomprehensible name as its twin running parallel, he didn’t know anything about papers or anyone making them and she knew that. “Who?”

“Good ones. Identification, passports.” She enumerated.

“Who?”

“The Poles. The ones with the-“

“-the liquor.” he finished for her, remembrance and condemnation heavy in his wry tone. “The ones you stayed out all night with.”

“Stayed long enough for them to get drunk enough to show me.”she replied, without heat, which was surprising.

“Some grand plan of yours, huh?” He bit back a laugh, it was a fine way to cover her ass for being insubordinate. It was a way he’d likely try if he was in her place.

“No.” she swore instead. “Just luck, I happened to see them. They got careless. Maybe an answer to all Jack’s prayers.”

“Yeah. Anything to give that rosary a break.”

“Yeah.”

“You asked them?”

“What for?”

Bucky regarded her with thinning patience but something kept him from snapping, the feeling of a riddle still to be solved. “For some papers.” he clarified, measured and intent, she knew how much easier that would make their plans for Ida.

Maureen shook her head, glancing down at her twisting hands, “I didn’t want to-“ her mouth twisted too, “-I wanted to ask a superior first.”

Bucky considered that for a moment, slightly touched at her newfound wisdom, “Why not ask Buck?”

She shook her head again, auburn hair curling under her chin just so, even here in the stalag she had some traces of the old charm. “He’s got too much to worry about for me to be bringing in hypotheticals.” she was so upset by something she would not even meet John’s eye and he felt a slice of remorse for how he hadn’t even noticed the ground down change in her since she got here, his drinking buddy and the soft fleshed rival of merry old English days was a gruff and battered and sullen woman; being a red blooded American male, he regretted that dismal change. “And I'm worried about what to bargain with. What can I promise? We haven’t got much and I don’t have— there’s not much anyway, but what we’ve got I didn’t wanna promise. Not without-“ she still hadn’t met his eye, he tracked hers; a furious roving of pale blue back and forth across the floorboards and it made Bucky itch.

“Who signs these papers?” Bucky asked, thinking the logistics through, knowing she’d perk up if he brought them up.

“Haven’t a clue. Maybe they haven’t figured that part out yet. I don’t know. I just know they’ve got papers.”

“Good ones.”

“Yeah.”

“We haven’t got much.” he agreed, clicking his teeth in thought, “What’d you give them for the liquor?”

“They just invited me.”

“Didn’t have to lend a hand or nothin’?” he balked and Maureen threw him a glare that seemed more hurt than rage, and chastened by a voice inside that sounded much like his mama’s, he amended with sheepish humor, “Hell, feel like lending a hand myself these days, if it’d get me a whisky.”

Her gnarled fist curled white in her lap, she managed hoarsely, “They just wanted to talk about home. To someone who hadn’t heard about it a million times before.”

“They got cigarettes?” he asked.

“As most common payment for their booze -they’ve got enough to insulate their shack three deep.”

“Cigarettes won’t cut it then.”

“I’ve been thinking.”-

“Yeah?”

“The radio. I’m the only one who doesn’t think it’s worth the risk but, I know, it doesn’t matter, it’s happening. Gale’s going to keep trying. And if it works-“ she rubbed at her eyes, tired and unsure, “-that’s quite the bargaining chip.”

Bucky nodded slowly, eyes narrowing as his smile grew a touch broader, “News of the outside world.” he was half in agreement, “Buck asked for a week. Been four days.”

“He’s stumped.” Maureen retorted instantly. “And he’ll stay that way and he’ll go nuts and you’ll go die going over the fence and then he’ll have no reason left not to die too.”

Bucky whistled, low and chiding, “You’re full of rainbows today, Candy.”

“You know who he oughta ask.” she shook off the barb. “But he won’t. And I don’t want him risking it for this thing anymore than anyone else, but you all want it so bad, and they’ll shoot us for it if it works or not. I’m not asking her. But you would. Might as well get shot for it working, right? Isn't that what you said yesterday? You know who he should ask.”

Bucky’s keen eyes showed the moment it dawned on him, his eyebrows shot up and his mouth sagged and he ran a weathered hand over his face, “Awww shit, Candy.” came garbled behind his palm. “Ah shit.” he said again with conviction as he shoved the hand into his pocket, wretched acknowledgment of her point clear on his face.

“I didn’t want to suggest it, told Ida it’s a fucking dangerous thing and I’ll never forgive if— but you all—“

Bucky grounded aloud, “Nah, nah she’s -Lu would solve it.” he muttered, shushing her. “Demarco really pummeled you the other day, huh?” he added, and that got her to meet his eye, she looked spooked and a little incensed, “Saw him fuckin’ you up behind B compound but sheesh, s’like he hollowed you out worse than a jacolantern; yer shifty as hell.”

“He-“ Maureen still felt like blanching at the memory of Benny’s terribly correct opinions, his disappointed eyes and his fist full of her flight jacket asking her what in the living fuck was wrong with her besides a concussion, a sick childhood and an ever nauseating jealousy of Buck Cleven’s paternal time and effort, “-he had some admonitions. After…after the other night.”

Bucky hummed, shitty smirk taking up residence on his face, “How ‘bout that.”

“I’m gonna be better.” she muttered and Bucky felt for her, could almost taste the echo of his identical and hollow determination to climb the mountain of bad habits when weak from spuds and pneumonia. He told himself the same every morning and fell into bed condoning his failure every night, like a ritual.

“You’re gonna get us those papers.” he corrected, shoving off the wall to come near her, give her the full Major treatment and maybe a friendly hand, “And you can promise your drinkin’ buddies news from the radio.”

Maureen nodded in understanding, no joy or animation left in her green eyes. She used to enjoy a bit of subterfuge, now she only felt hollow misery at the thought that she'd dragged Lu into this, too. This risk she hated so much and yet no one cared. Lu would be glad to be dragged in, it’s true, she was itching at the chance to be useful and to make Gale proud, it’s how the girl was wired. It’s how most girls were wired, Maureen supposed, desperate to make Gale Cleven approve. Lu’s enthusiasm wouldn’t make the sight of her being made to kneel in the mud and have a bullet put in her head any easier, wouldn’t make Maureen feel any less responsible for it when her lifeless body thudded to the earth.

All that lovely goodness stamped out.

Over a radio.

Bucky’s hand felt too hard and too big on her shoulder. He had gone before the vision cleared, mud and wire and the freezing main square at Ravensbruck fading back to the musty bunk room. Maureen shook herself and stood up to make herself somehow appealing, reamniante some semblance of the cheerful rashness that had led her to the Polish combine in the first place: she found it hard to inspire. She’d like to count that a victory but she knew better, she wasn’t reformed she was just tired.

A washed face and a fake smile and the promise of news from outside would have to be enough to bank all their risks on, it would have to be.

“Crank,” she greeted the man in the hall, flashing him clean, water brushed teeth and her gentlest, freshly soot lined eyes, “I’ve been tasked by Major Egan with an errand, spare a minute to babysit me?”

__________________________________

Bucky finds Buck Cleven in his own bunkroom, Demarco outside on watch and that’s all Bucky needs to know to guess the radio is out and Buck’s working like a fiend yet again to make it work. Sure enough, he’s hunched over the table with it, mittened hands shaking from cold and exhaustion and a sheen of sweat on his forehead despite the paltry sweater he wears.

Bucky walks in and Gale gives him a soft, acknowledging glance before continuing to his work. Bucky takes up his usual place behind Buck’s left shoulder to watch and Buck, being used to it, goes on.

“My little Kriegie Marconi, huh?” Bucky allows the nagging impulse he has felt for weeks while standing in this position to finally exert itself, and his forefinger lifts and swirls in the curling gold strands of hair at the nape of Gale’s neck, his friend almost bolts away but then seems to choose a prey’s tactic and just stills, goes very still and Bucky scritches the scalp beneath his grab in assurance he don’t meant anything by it. He doesn’t think he does, at least.

Gale, wary and with a voice close to mechanized it’s so stilted, inquires with ever-present politeness, “You alright Bucky?”

It’s better than that whole ‘major’ business; getting called Major as if that meant shit anymore. “Yeah, ‘course I am.” Bucky rakes his fingers through the hairs there at the nape of that dainty neck, scritches the scalp with all four of his main ones, and uncovers a white long scar sliding round once he lifts the hairs there. “Why wouldn’t I be? Gonna be a father soon.”

Buck does jerk then, away from his touch and wheeling his chair around to glare at Bucky; it’s an impressively executed little pirouette and John misses the feel of his warm neck and oil soft hair. “Jesus John.” he reprimands.

“We’re gonna get outta here Buck.” John swears, he’s so sure of it because he cannot in all his thinking and predicting ever imagine a scenario where they don’t, and he chooses to think it’s not delusion but a good omen. “Ida’s gonna have that baby and when it’s safe we’ll all meet up.”

Gale is looking at him like he’s his own father again, Bucky knows that look, it always makes him equal parts ashamed and desperate, “Jus’ like that.” Gale mocks in a husky gust.

It’s devastating, and it’s intended to be, and Bucky could bear that with better humor if he could still touch Gale and his hair. “Just like that.”

Gale hums and it’s a mean sorta vocalization that makes Bucky’s heart thud and his skin prickle hot, it’s the kinda noise you kiss off a person, he thinks, but it’s Buck and so he doesn’t know what to do with it. “It’s gonna get you killed.” Buck is saying instead and Bucky lets him, “I know you all think she’s cracked up and maybe she has but it wouldn’t hurt to listen to Kendeigh sometimes when she’s tellin’ ya shit that a five year old could accurately guess, -goddamn it.”

His voice rose to a strong rage by the end and Bucky takes a chair opposite him, sick of standing there like a dumb dog waiting for his scolding to be over. “So what.” Bucky challenges him, “We just wait around and Brady pops out a child and the krauts let us keep it and it’s our new mascot and we all sing zippidy doo da, huh? Huh, Buck?”

Gale’s hands fell away from his face with a slam to the table, a shocking degree of anger showing for a split second and it gave Bucky an odd degree of gratification. “I jus’ want you to find a plan with better odds.”

Bucky sniffed and leaned forward, went in for the kill and Gale was looking at him like he expected it, like it was his turn to play daddy to everyone here and Gale for once was so beaten down he wouldn’t just allow the changing of the guard, he was close to angry at its lateness. It made Bucky’s heart thud.

“I’ve been listening to Kendeigh.” Bucky refuted briefly, “And we’ve got a plan.” Gale gave him a tired look of encouragement to go on, “How long’s it been since you slept? Huh, well, we got a plan. Practically perfect, or it will be, just need the radio.”

“Ain’t giving this away.” Gale said, “Not for anythin’, even useless.”

Bucky patted the table top in easy assurance, if he could have reached Buck’s thigh, he’d have patted that instead, “No, no, don’t need to give it away, just need it to work. So,” he softened his voice and his eyes tightened, “I’m callin’ Lu in.”

Oddly, Gale does not fight it. Not aloud, at least. There’s an anguished look of hate on his face and Bucky mirrors it. It’s for this place and the fucking awful choices they have to choose from every goddamn day.

“You run this by Ida?” is all he asks.

Bucky pops his flaking lips audibly, “What, need us both gangin’ up on you to agree? She’ll sign off. Smith’s an officer. Gotta remember that sometimes, Buck.”

The way his Buck swallows hard and dry contradicts his words, “I do remember that.”

“Really?” Bucky’s mouth gives a soft smile of doubtful incredulity and Gale’s mimics it, mournful but a smirk all the same, “Feel like she should answer to ‘Gale’s Baby’ these days. Lieutenant Smith who?”

Gale scoffs, “Careful now.”

“No really, she’s an officer and she wants to be treated like one. It’ll do her good to have work. Her kinda work.”

“Could get her killed.”

“Layin’ in her bunk could do that.”

Gale grunts, its sounds like an agreement.

“So I say Lieutenant Smith gets put on radio detail. Like her goddamn job description suggests. Huh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Gale lets out a shaky agreement.

“Aaaaand,” Bucky draws it out as he rises again and saunters over to Buck who is ready for him and loose this time, “how bout I go back to bein’ the one you’re frettin’ ‘bout all the time. Got me almost jealous of the girl. How ‘bout I do. Huh?”

Gale’s scoff is fond as anything as he looks up at John with cheerful derision, “And you ‘bout to be a father? Make me an old man? Fuck no, ya looney.”

“Alright.” Bucky concedes with hands up in surrender before lurching forward and grasping Gale’s rickety chair back by its wobbly spokes and hefting it partially off the ground, beautiful and outraged prude of an occupant still seated in it, “Then I’ll play daddy and put you to bed, how ‘bout that.”

“John Egan for fucks sake-“ Gale’s fists pounded on the meat of his shoulders and his outraged protests wafted against Bucky’s neck and his jabbing knees collided with the meat of his thighs and Bucky hadn’t felt so close to him or so happy to be alive since England.

“Major sir, the hell is goin’ on?” Demarco’s tame inquiry from the safety of the doorway made them both lose their grapple and they collided together onto the floor, bunk bed barely missed by their heads and the hapless chair mixed up between their limbs.

Bucky grinned, hip sore from his fall and kidneys suffering from Buck’s trapped elbow there, “Puttin’ Goldilocks to bed.” he replied.

DeMarco processed that and the scene before him with grave sobriety before saluting lazily and turning to go, “Right on, sir.”

John did his best to rise up without further pinching Gale who was indeed trapped beside him and beneath him, chair legs wound between a lanky human leg in a puzzle that Bucky realized might take some caution to untangle without harm. Strangely, Buck wasn’t moving, he was just looking up at him like a cat would their clumsy master who has done somethin’ stupid which was a surprise to neither. It was so innocuous a look and so nostalgic, it winded Bucky with the realization he hadn’t seen it in ages, just as he hadn’t felt his boney ribs against his own and the feel of his elegant hands yanking him around in a fight. This miserable place really was stomping out the glow in the best people.

“Ya know Buck,” he ventured, clearing his throat for extra casualness, “I’ve missed you.” When Gale only kept looking up at him, perfect porcelain face with its unsettling scars and wary eyes without a lick of storm in them, John Egan grabbed his shovel and dug his own grave a little deeper, drug a finger down his cheek. “Missed all this.”

Bucky didn’t know what he meant by “this” but it felt safer and worse all at once, since he did miss Buck but he and Buck never used to hang out on floors with a chair as chaperone. Mercifully, Buck neither points that out nor moves away, acting very much like he needed to heaped on the floor with Bucky and a stray chair every bit as much as John did. Like it’s doing him good.

“And you couldn’t’ve jus’ said.” Gale murmurs with the softest eye roll of the century and Bucky feels like beaming and it must show in his face so strong and bright after a sunless winter that after a flash Gale’s cheeks flame from it and he averts his eyes.

“I dunno Buck, could I?” Egan asks one blushing cheek and Gale hasn’t got a good reply for that, so they just lay there on the floor.

“Go on now, get off me.” Gale doesn’t shove at him, he presses his hand to John’s forehead like he would a dog and John goes, obedient as one.

———————————————————————-

They found Lu with Murph and Benny and Brady, measuring out what seemed to be lot lines between Love Shack #9 and the next combine, boot scuffed perimeters already visible in the light snow and drawn in a decently tidy rectangle. There were guards loitering nearby, nosey as always with their cigarettes and their antsy dogs anytime someone did something out there besides piss or pace or stare at the fence.

“What’s all this?” Bucky inquired cheerfully, coming up to them with Gale, bundled and shivering behind him.

Benny looked up from tilling a furrow with his boot, right where Lu’s mittened finger pointed out. “It’s for the garden. S’posed to be spring before long.”

“A Chicago man oughta know better, Benny.” Egan snarked.

“Need us?”

Bucky sniffed, a casual set to his body that belied his quest, “Just the little one.”

Smith promptly looked startled, then eager. “All well Majors?”

“Need your advice on the color of my cufflinks with this suit.” Bucky extended his arm and beckoned her, “C’mon back in for a minute. One of you too, need a watch to go with the cufflinks.”

———————————————————————

With Benny on guard, Brady and Kendeigh having excavated the radio’s shell from the floorboard and table leg in which it resided, the Buckies stood over Smith’s small frame as she sat at the table and inspected the simplistic device with keen eyed appreciation for the construct.

“It’s really marvelous.” she assured Cleven, running her fingers over the carefully coiled wire and precarious pin.

Gale didn’t even crack a smile. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked instead.

She shook her head, a frown gathering. “Never made one-“ she cautioned.

“-but you get the idea.”

“Yes sir, I do.”

“So what’s wrong.”

Lu ran her fingers over the wire, again and again, the dusty metal not insulated, just bare copper, likely stripped from somewhere. It reminded her of early days as a cadet when they threw chicken wire mixed with hydraulic lines at herself and her fellow rookie engineers and told them to sort it, testing to see if they knew which was which. It had been so rudimentary she had wanted to laugh until she realized others were being flunked.

This was so basic she was stumped.

“Take your time, Lu.” Bucky spoke up after a burdened pause during which she could almost feel Major Cleven breathing down her neck.

“Candy, can I try with the headphone?” she asked at last, frustrated and out of her element, just a few months out of a plane and she had already lost her touch.

Maureen passed it over and Lu pressed it to her ear, not to discern what was quite obviously radio silence, but to imagine the whole process in reverse, track it down the cord all the way to the base, each possible breakdown of the conduction.

She fingered the ramshackle diode with burgeoning suspicion. “What’s your crystal?”

“That’s just…lead.” Cleven muttered.

“From?”

“Ground pencils.” Bucky supplied cheerfully.

Smith bit her lip, “We need sulfur added. Lead won’t conduct on its own.” She figured Cleven knew that, the grim and unmoving set of his mouth suggested so.

“Just- sulfur?” Maureen asked.

“If I had sulfur we could add it to the lead dust, ignite it and-“ Smith grinned at Kendeigh, knowing that she alone may have shared her enjoyment of a small conflagration from time to time, “burn it down and you’ve got something close enough to Galena. Just need a pinch of it should work.”

Bucky shoved his hands in his pockets and surveyed the mostly morose room. All except for the two girls grinning at each other over the hypothetical of a little chemistry experiment in a highly flammable wooden combine.

“We’ve got sandy soil.” Buck’s contemplative drawl spoke up, “Dunno if we could extract enough pure sulfur.”

Maureen stared back at Egan instead, “Other sectors have gotten portions of kits, chemistry kits, radio kits, they’ve been smuggled in with all sorts of stuff. Inside of a violin, oat bags. Nothing to fully build something. They might have sulfur. I could make inquiries and- well, Jack could pick it up next time the band goes over C compound to entertain the poor Aussie bastards.”

“How do you kno- nevermind, actually. Nevermind.” Bucky broke off, “Alright. Sure, why not. Ya sure that’s it?” he asked Lu once more.

She gave a helpless little shrug. “Gotta be. Or the wire’s dirty. Where’d it come from anyway?”

Gale gave Bucky a long suffering look as Bucky seemed to swell a couple inches and bounce back on his heels at the mention of his scrounging prowess. “The lamp.” he nodded above them all.

Jack Brady scoffed, short, clipped, betrayed, “That why it cuts out all the time? Strobed us so bad last night -thought the room was possessed.”

“Sacrifices Jack, sacrifices.”

———————————————————

Benny had hauled in enough water buckets to elicit some negative attention from the guards, and when the inspection came the inmates of the Love Shack insisted the drenched floors and table of the Majors’ barracks were due to sanitation post regurgitation. At night, with only one stolen torch light from Combine 15 to illuminate the endeavor, a basin of water beneath a smaller bowl in which lay their precious and recently procured ingredients, a science experiment began. The Majors and Ida gathered round, all looking as ghastly and spectral in the light of the flashlight as Brady’s fake ghost. It held the thrill of a bonfire night except for the stakes, which all in the room did their best not to dwell on.

“Zippo, Candy.” Lu gave the word and Maureen, with only the protection of Ida’s bent aviators to keep from a scorched cornea, flicked on her lighter and set the mixed powders ablaze.

It flamed up high and smelly, making Benny gag and mutter something about Meatball’s gas to a tittering Brady, and then died down to a yellow smoking ember.

“We should let it sit.” Lu surmised with a squeeze to Maureen’s only somewhat singed hand, her big dark eyes surveying the burnt bowl and their smoking experiment with glittery excitement at the possibility of success, “Let it cool, settle, maybe strain it. Can you get me a net? Oh Candy come now, get me a strainer?” she begged with a laugh as Maureen rolled her eyes at the idea of yet another trip to the Stalag Market for the most random items imaginable. If they hoped to not be suspicious, they’d need better lies or more money.

“How about cheesecloth?” Kendeigh tried not to grin indulgently- and failed- in the face of Lu and having recently been allowed to set something on fire

Lu kissed her cheek. “Cheesecloth would be perfect.”

In the end, cheesecloth did indeed prove perfect, and amongst the burnt dust of the combined minerals was a gritty little pinch full of the needed crystals. Or so Lu said, Gale agreed but the crease between his brows hadn’t lifted for two days; Bucky’s fingers had begun to twitch in antsy need to manually smooth them out. He imagined Maureen felt the same but she hadn’t said, uncharacteristically forbearant now she had some job to keep her sane. Even if it was playing fetch for Lu.

—————————————————————

“Well, this is it.” Gale muttered when the watch had been set once more, Murph and Hambone on the steps, Crank inside, Brady at the door, Benny at the window. Even Major Clark had joined them in the barracks for this final try and Lu’s cheeks were maroon from the attention even as her deft hands steadily pressed her concoction beneath its intended rod.

“Pass me the pliers, sir?” She asked and for a moment, the teacher became the apprentice and Gale fetched her the stalag forged tool, rudimentary like everything here yet the gripped and pulled and lifted same as the pliers back home. “You could check your look in this wire’s reflection.” She complimented Gale’s buffing of the copper wire.

He shrugged in turn. “Didn't wanna leave anythin’ to chance. That it?” he asked as her hands stalled and she surveyed her work.

Lu nodded solemnly. “Yes sir.”

Gale picked up the headphone from in front of him on the table like it was a gun he was about to bring to his head. “Here.” He extended it to her instead, “S’right, it was your job, you should be the first. Cmon.”

Despite her voiceless protest he pressed the headphones into her hands and Lu, never knowing how to disobey an officer, folded immediately.

For a good ten seconds everyone in the room held their breath as Smith pressed the headphone to her ear and gently wiggled the clothespin along the wire, searching and tuning, her face holding that old peaceful concentration they hadn’t seen since the last mission. She was at home with her mind tuned to another dimension. The pilots in the room knew that look, that was the look of someone at home with something that terrified them all the same, the gut swooping feeling of clearing the take off and sledding along the tops of the clouds. Wrong and strange and utterly incomparable to others, it was the closest to home one’s mind could be. Lu belonged somewhere on those electric currents and searching them out was like finding oneself again.

Then at last, Lu’s eyes sharpened out of their dreamy haze of concentration and she said, gentle as always, “It’s the BBC sir.”

💋 Hope you enjoyed! Feedback is a writer’s lifeblood, please feel free to scream in comments or the inbox, I love it and wanna hear it all. Trust me, nothing is “too dumb”. Your thoughts mean the world to me.

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aconflagrationofmyown · 2 years

Text

Good Husbandry

A Sarge and lil Mama fic

Summary: One day in the mess hall Elvis breaks his self imposed rule of not talkin ‘bout ensuring marital satisfaction and the key to makin a woman like taking her man

Warnings: crude and dated lanaguge regarding women, marriage, sex and female pleasure

Circa: 1959

There’s a lotta talk in the army about women. No surprise really, anywhere men congregate be it barracks, backstage, manholes, urinals, studios, they tend to talk about dames. But in the army there’s an extra air of entitlement to any sorta talk about them. Women at home and women on the streets, women in magazines or on tv, all the women in their lives and, initially at least, a whole lotta talk about Elvis’ woman.

His wife.

He reiterated her honored title pointedly to any fella who started talking as if she wasn’t a married before god wife and the revered mother to his children. Anyone who took her at her photographed face value as just another woman with beautiful tits and a trim waist, a gippable ass and a generous mouth and devilishly glinting eyes that just anyone was allowed to jerk and spatter over.

That was his wife.

It was a typical sort of hazing and like all the other forms thrown his way by his fellow soldiers he had surmounted it, along with the help of good ole gentlemanly Hodge, and now when the privates and corporals and sergeants milled around and talked about the only subject worth any breath, they didn’t include Elaine Presley in the discussion.

Most times.

Now that she’s over here Continental side, and now that he’s done his duty by her and filled her full again and she’s ripening right up like the goddamn fertile minx she is, it’s made matters both better and worse. Now there’s a hostess and a soul and a kind lady to put to the face of the pretty Mrs. Presley they’ve speculated about, and it causes the better sort of men some shame to drool and wank unashamedly over her as she pops in for the occasional visit to the base. Though now she is an indisputable fixture in the social life of these men “Elaine” in all her real life glory gets thrown about quite frequently, and while often it’s in the context of her house parties and her snacks and her friendship with their women, Elvis can tell by the rush of color and the heavy silence that often follows a mention of her that they ain’t thinkin things they oughta be thinkin about another man’s wife. He knows it, he knows it because if she weren’t already his he’d have unchristian designs on her until she was. It makes him grabby and possessive and irrational and more than a little proud as each week ticks by and shows her swelling more and more in the magnificent cause of growing a second batch of his twins. She looks so happy about it the guys just know, they just know she has a grand time making them. Something her husband is doing makes her whale-like proportions and aching feet a goddamn badge of honor.

So there’s a lotta talk. They talk about women and they talk about wives and they talk about his woman and his wife. They never say her name but they speak of the anomaly, they speak of the constant struggle men have between the sweet wife at home and the back alley whores. How the sedate and respectable wives ought to be the preferred choice but the joyous and hungry alley cats can’t ever manage to keep their claws out of ‘em…their minds if not their bodies.

That’s when they bring her up without ever saying her name, but as he fiddles with his footlocker at the end of a long day before he gets to shuck off and go home to her, he hears them saying “reckon the secret is to combine the two.”

And he knows even without the use of his eyes that they’re looking at the back of his head enviously. As if god made Elaine soley, out of all the women in the world, the only hungry wife.

It’s not just whores, they talk about. There’s the other types and likelihoods. They talk a whole lot about secretaries or waitresses they met on the side, the sweet-tight-blow-naughty-dirty-tits-ass-pussy-bar-backseat-desk-lunchhour kinds of women, who made noises and told them they were good lovers, who responded with all the arched back-tits up-snatch clenched-back scratch-eyes roll-throat hoarse-enthusiasm a man could dream of, the ones who would do the things their wives wouldn't. They sigh longingly about those women, they damn them for being so addictive. It never occurs to them that their wives could be that, too, if they’d just love them into it.

Elvis would sigh and slam his foot locker closed.

Elaine was not aware of the logistics of conjugal life when he wrestled her father and got ahold of her, she was unaware that a man shoved himself inside a woman on their wedding night. She had laughed and then frowned and then gulped in fear when she realized he wasn’t kidding. When she realized what he intended to do to her.

She had been like any other woman.

But he had managed to soothe, and love and stoke her fire till she was doing the ‘shoving in’ herself a mere two hours later. His jaw had ached for days after from unhinging itself in devouring her skittish pussy all that interim, but it had been worth her slick and gentle first ride. He’d never told her that riding his face or swallowing his seed or letting him take her hot and vicious from the back was something wives did not do, that it was naughty or the “other woman’s” job.

On the contrary, all Elaine ever knew was that it was exactly what wives did, what they were fashioned by God to do. And to enjoy. The men and women who saw the enjoyment written on her face and the joy stretching her belly thought her a scientific anomaly.

But Elvis bites his lip and doesn't comment when the men talk about women. If he speaks up he doesn’t think he’ll be able to shut up. That maybe he’ll say some shit he’d rather keep private, maybe go on too long orating the perfect fit of her and the way her face scrunches and glows when he does his job right.

Elvis rarely talks about women, and never about the waitresses and fans and secretaries and starlets he’s had. He gets asked often but he laughs it off, he remembers their particulars as about as fascinating as his hand. It did the job but wasn’t the one he can’t stop thinking about, even though he woke up next to her this morning. Women mean his wife, too, so he doesn’t talk about women.

That is until today. The subject is back up like a bad penny and the naughty girls and side women are being extolled and the wives are being complained of in usual fashion. He chews in silence and jiggles his leg under the table of the cafeteria mess as he listens:

-“Well, I'm in her, right, and she says it's too much and makes me stop. Too much! Can you fucking believe? Tammy never had a problem taking me, you know?

They talk a lot about taking - about taking her, taking me, taking it.

So much talk about “taking”. They’re always dreaming of the gals who take them, Elvis supposes those fellas who don’t talk much must be happily married like him, they just eat their collards in peace while everyone else talks about those rare female unicorns who were made to “take” men.

Made for it. He’d taken a raw virgin and made her into a howling baby making machine who wears satisfaction on her face like it’s Vaseline. She takes him easy as pie and she’s a wife. It doesn’t make her a whore that she can take him, it makes her his well loved wife.

“Whadda ya mean your wife *can’t* take ya?” he waves his fork around in annoyance and the man pauses halfway through his anecdote about how his old lady for some reason freezes up and winces when he rolls on top of her and puts it in without notice.

The whole mess hall goes deathly quiet and somehow Elvis knew this would be the reaction if he ever spoke up, somehow he just knew not to but he had to go and put his foot in it. Or his mouth, that is.

“She -she’s all tight and shit.” The guy swallows and looks at his fellows and there’s various faces around the table, ones who are sympathetic, those who look condescending and those who look confused. Elvis is the later. The guy shifts in his seat at the idea of The Pelvis finally taking the bait and joining in only for it to be on the subject of his lackluster marital bed. “And look,” he goes on chuckling nervously, “I’m a nice guy, I’m not one to force the issue. She’s just all clammed up, can’t get her excited, always says I go too fast, then too slow then changes her mind and -hell, why can’t she just be easy like them waitress girls?”

“Thought Debbie had been a waitress ‘fore y'all married.” Elvis mumbles around his next bite.

“What? Well yeah, yeah, but she was different then.”

“She was different then.” Elvis imitates mockingly.

“What’s that supposed to mean, Loverboy?”

“Just wonderin the last time ya kissed her without askin for more.” he shrugs.

“I-I don’t get it.” the guy looks for backup around the mess but everyone’s rather invested and hoping that Elvis will finally start spilling whatever black magic tricks he’s got up his sleeve that made a whole nation cream themselves over his voice alone. No one intervenes.

“If ya go out an’ crank the tank in the middle of winter, then curse it for takin a little while to idle before it runs smooth, er’yone here’s gonna think yer an impatient fool, right?”

“Uh, yeah. -What have tanks got to do with my wife, Presley?”

“They both got slow warmin’ motors, man.”

The guy looks torn between brawling and asking for more explanations. “She used to -didn’t used to be this way, man, we had some good times. Used to take her out back behind the diner and she liked it. Dunno why she’s all clammed up now.”

“Well I reckon that was nice and excitin for her back then.” Elvis says, “Bein’ adventurous and defyin her mama and lettin ya fool with her.”

“You’re saying she was thinking of her mother while we-“

“-no, no not that, -look Kipper, for women more than half the hots of it is in the mind, alright? It’s in the anticipation, it’s in the motivation, it’s in the intent ya have when you finally go to take her. The suspense of the thing. That behind the diner stuff -it’s old hat now, gotta keep her ‘cited in other ways now. Half of the thrill for them is in the mind. And it’s in knowin not every touch and kiss is gonna end up with a man jackhammerin inside.”

“Well, what would ya do if a Elai-“ Kipper snaps his mouth shut and judiciously rephrases his legitimate question, “What would you do if you had a wife who was all clammed up on ya?”

Elvis pushes the peas around on his plate and contemplates that, his mouth puckers childishly and Charlie Hodge thinks that maybe he didn’t hear, or is deciding to retreat from the conversation while he’s ahead. All the men are leaning in when Elvis flicks his eyes up and he has to clear his throat a little to work up his voice in nonchalance,

“Why Kipper, I’ve only had one and that one only for a couple a’years.” he chuckles self consciously and the men join in, he milks his mouth briefly in embarrassment.

“C’mon Elvis, just…hypothetically.” another man pipes up from father down.

“What would I do with a clammed up wife?” he repeats the question like he does in his interviews, “Well, for one I’d make certain it weren’t no extracurricular matter weighin on her mind, and if, havin judged it is a uh, uh matter of distaste for relations then, well then I’d start assuring her I value her, I’d compliment her, worship her and I’d try to take her out for nice little things when I could and I’d try not to fall asleep after dinner so we could chat and I’d only ever initiate one bit of contact for a lil while.”

“What’s that?” a couple dozen voices ask, entranced.

“I’d kiss her wrists.” he shrugs, “And if after awhile of that one day ya feel the pulse jumpin under your lips, then you’ll know you’re makin progress.”

The table nods solemnly in unison before suddenly Kipper has a heavy realization settle on him. “Wait, you’re saying don’t try anything besides that? Might as well go celibate for eternity than wait for her to pounce!”

“Hmm, well,” Elvis skewers a ham cube with his fork and proceeds to chew it obnoxiously, “if ya do what I’m sayin and ya do it with patience, she’ll come round. She’ll start wantin it. Women are like horses, they can sense impatience and since they wanna please they get all skittish and they…clamp up. Even the ones who are tryin to be pleasin, they’re tryin too hard and too focused on makin ya happy, ya gotta flip the tables. First night she makes a move, you better eat her kitty out like it’s your last meal and not so much as wet your tip.”

“You’re kiddin man, you eat your wife’s beaver?”

“Breakfast of champions.” he grins cockily until it dies on his lips as he sees a couple dozen pairs of eyes glaze over at the thought of Elaine’s perfect pussy. “Anyway,” he clears his throat pointedly, “you might shock yourself and like it. Better yet if you can shock her and make her like it. And don’t ask for no returns, that’ll come later. Power of suggestion is highly powerful.”

“How’da ya mean?”

“Look,” Elvis wipes his mouth on a napkin, “you might not think about wantin a donut but then you see I’m eating a donut, then suddenly you want a donut. Power of suggestion. Now it won’t be the same donut but it’s the same craving. Lick her kitty and she might start thinking to -ya know…suck your pole. Women are a lot less stingy than men, they see ya do a nice thing and they wanna repay, just gotta make ‘em feel safe for doin it, appreciated. That sorta thing.”

“A-and that will do it?”

“It’s a start, man.” Elvis shrugs, “Suck her button for a bit, Lordy, it ain’t complicated. Her nipples, too. Make out with her for a couple nights like yer teenagers again. Ha! Look at you cats actin like you’ve never got your face up in there before, ain’t no different than slurpin watermelon off the rind.”

-“Well, fuck man, sounds kinda hot when you put it that way.”

-“yeah, any other tips?”

“Get messy.” Elvis grins, leaning back and starting to enjoy the superiority he’s being in, “Get in there, don’t just smooch her down there, suck at her, swallow her, tongue her, ya know like-“ he closes his eyes and waggles his head while making a obscenely skilled motion with his tongue that makes it blur in a whizz of pink movement that the table can generally assume has come from much practice.

Someone down the line is getting patted on the back after inhaling some cola. When Elvis opens his eyes he looks a little lost, like he really went somewhere far away in his mind for that brief second. Kipper's spoon drops and hits his plate with a clatter.

“Look, you and you and especially you-“ he points at the fellas who a years worth of communal showering has given him more knowledge of than he strictly needs, “unless you take these precautions you’re gonna hurt some poor dame ‘makin’ those things fit.” the table laughs and things start to loosen up, “Gotta grease her up, get all the blood rushin down there so she can hold -uh, take- more, best way to do it is ta lick ‘er up to a couple of orgasms first. Check ‘er lips, her mouth that is, before ya go in, if all the blood’s gone south, her lips’ll be cool to the touch.”

“Sergeant Presley!” an orderly taps him on the shoulder, ears pink from embarrassment at overhearing more than he bargained for in delivering a message, Elvis tries to give him a stalwart grin of encouragement, “Phone call for you. Says it’s your wife, she says ‘come quick, the boy just said’ -um, um” he squints at the table cloth trying to recall what the very pretty and very excited Mrs Presley had breathily charged him with relaying over the crackling receiver, “uh.”

“My son’s first words and you can’t remember?” Elvis thunders, rising from his seat without leave.

“Elvis, sit!” Hodge hisses, plucking at his elbow.

“Don’t calm me down man, I gotta know!” he pleads, flopping down in a dejected lump anyway. “Kipper, be a pal an’ ask the Colonel if I can be excused from mess, tell him it’s of the utmost urgency and this idiot can’t be trusted to carry important information.”

“Give me private lessons.” The Colonel bargains from the head of the table and Elvis gives him a disbelieving stare. “O-on women. Ya know…wives.”

“You’re shittin’me.” Elvis growls.

“Casual like,” the Colonel assures him, “off the books -just tips and date ideas and such.”

“Hey I want in, man!” another voice chirps up.

“Yeah, ain’t fair hogging the tricks all to yourself!” a corporal from Missouri objects.

“If it’s got a show an’ tell about how to take a woman with Elaine as Exhibit A, then I wanna buy tickets.” Kipper is grinning, thinking he’s real funny.

Elvis is ready to commit himself. Sometimes he despairs of mankind, he really despairs. God, why can’t the fucker just remember what his son said?

“Bubbles!” The lingering orderly recalls suddenly and Elvis swivels fully around to face him in his excitement, “It was bubbles. The word was bubbles!”

“You hear that cats? I’ve got an ed-u-cat-ed firstborn! What’s your name, my boy?” Elvis rises from his seat beaming and embraces the orderly, protocol be damned, “Colonel you’re on, so long as you agree to buy this fine fella an officer’s commission.”

“Elvis that isn’t legal anymore…” he thinks he hears Colonel begin.

None of it really matters. His son knows how to say bubbles.

#mine #elvis fanfiction #sarge and lil mama #good husbandry #the most wholesome breeding kink you ever did see #elvis fanfic #elvis imagine #austin elvis imagine #army elvis

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