Camouflaged (Hiding From Love #0.5)

Dedication

For all the young men and women who travel the globe in the hopes of making it a better place. You brave battles and wage wars, bring aid and offer comfort. You are without a doubt, the best of us.

Volens et Potens

N
ick
had been gone for six months, two weeks, and four days. Not that I was counting. He was the one who’d suggested we enlist, dreams of being heroes dancing through his head. I’d gone along, although mostly I’d joined up so I could earn a salary to send home to my mom. Now he was back in Sacramento after majorly fucking up and getting discharged, and I was here for tour number two in the desert of Afghanistan, dodging the Taliban and the occasional pissed off drug lord. But as long as the paychecks kept coming, I’d keep soldiering.

It was Thursday, and I was off duty, which meant my standing appointment with Natalya. I waited outside the dining facility (DFAC) for Benji and Corbin to come out to make their trek into the village. When they showed up, I only had about five minutes before Natalya would be expecting me.

“What the fuck took you two so long?”

“Chill out, man. We were talking to Ace about him loaning us money to bet on the Derby next month.” Corbin, a short kid from New Jersey, got his rifle at the ready as we walked toward the vehicle lot.

“The Derby? You asshats are seriously going to try to make bets for the Derby online? Can you even do that?”

“Yeah, man. My cousin knows a guy who’ll take our bets online. Sort of a special for the Armed Forces, you know?” Benji offered.

I shook my head. “Dude, is there any slightly shady thing that someone in your family doesn’t have covered? You’ve got an uncle who runs pit bull training camps, a brother who owns a strip club, and a cousin who’s a bookie. Got any sisters who work at the Chicken Ranch in Vegas or anything?”

“Fuck you, Thompson. And don’t you dare start talking shit about my sisters, ‘cause I’ll kick your ass.”

Corbin snorted. “I’d like to see you try,” he said.

I laughed. Yeah, there weren’t many guys in my unit who’d take me on. I wasn’t the biggest, but I was usually the meanest.

After leaving base, we drove down the dirt road that led into the village. Benji and Corbin were on anti-recruitment duty. They had to patrol the village, basically hanging around in case there was any Al Qaeda activity.

We drove with the windows open, and dust was everywhere, paving being something that didn’t happen here. Corbin coughed as he inhaled a lungful of dust and then Benji went still, holding up his hand. Corbin took his foot off the accelerator and I stopped, hand on my rifle, ears straining for sounds that meant an ambush. After a few moments, we heard a truck grinding its gears as it accelerated along the road ahead of us.

“One of ours?” Benji asked.

“No,” I responded. “It’s a ZIL-157. Left over from the Russians.”

He nodded as he switched off the headlights and pulled to a stop. We waited in silence for several minutes, listening to the other truck pulling farther and farther away. While Afghani patrols used old Russian equipment, insurgents would as well, so it was impossible to tell if what lay ahead was someone friendly or a trap being laid. Finally, when we’d gone close to five minutes without hearing anything new, Corbin started the engine back up and flipped on the headlights, and we slowly headed out.

A few minutes later, we saw a tiny house about fifty yards down a small trail that broke off the main road. “All right, man, I’ll see you two in a couple of hours,” I said as Corbin slowed the truck down at the turn-off to the house.

“Saddle up, cowboy,” Benji answered before he cracked up, wiggling around on the bench seat, thrusting his hips back and forth like a creepy monkey.

“Fuck you, dude.” I rolled my eyes. He said the same damn thing every week and it hadn’t been funny the first time.

“Yeah, whatever. Catch you later, Casanova,” Corbin said as he shifted the truck back into gear while I shut the door and waited for them to drive away. Once the truck was on its way, I looked around at the dark landscape, prayed to God there was no one out there waiting to kill me, and started the hike to the front door of the house.

I walked quietly, staying aware of my surroundings and in particular listening for sounds from the house. Natalya would never have someone there when she was expecting me – if she could help it. Sometimes it wasn’t up to her.

Everything seemed quiet, so I knocked on the door and in a minute it opened. She was dressed in one of my old t-shirts,
The Surf Shack
it read, and the incongruity of seeing it on a twenty-five year-old widow living in the middle of a desert half a world away from where I’d bought the damn thing was disorienting to say the least.

I smiled as she stood there in the doorway, her long, dark hair a tangled halo around her face. “Hey, baby.” I stepped forward, put my hand behind her head, and pulled her into a hard kiss.

She pushed at my chest before she grabbed my wrist and dragged me inside, shutting the door and locking it behind me.

“Gabe. You’re such a bad boy. You know you shouldn’t do that where someone might see,” she scolded me as she ran her hands up my chest. Even through the layers of MultiCam, I could feel her firm touch, and I definitely appreciated her intentions.

“Yeah, I am a bad boy, which is the appeal, right?”

She put her head down and looked up at me from under her thick black lashes. “Maybe,” she said in a singsong voice.

I chuckled and palmed her breast through the t-shirt. Conveniently she was braless. “Nice shirt, baby. Where’d you get it?”

“Oh, I know a man. He comes here from America and he leaves the shirt at my home because he is like a big child and never cleans up after himself.”

I laughed again and shook my head. “What an asshole. How do you put up with him?”

She lifted the hem of the shirt and pulled it over her head, gifting me with a good long look at smooth skin and dark nipples the color of rich chocolate. I felt myself get hard immediately. Yeah, Afghanistan sucked, but Natalya made it better.

I cupped both breasts and she hung her head back and moaned. “You missed me this week, didn’t you?” I murmured as I moved my mouth from her cheek to her neck and then headed to her breast. I took the nipple into my mouth and sucked. She moaned louder.

“Gabe.” She squirmed as I put one arm around her small waist and used the other to work under the band of her underwear. Within a few seconds, I had the worn cotton panties on the floor and I was on my knees on front of her, one hand on a breast and the other exploring her slick center. I kissed her stomach and circled her bellybutton with my tongue.

“How’s that?” I asked, my voice rough as my dick expanded even further in the layers of my stiff uniform.

“You…know…I…love that,” she huffed out between breaths. Then my tongue found her clit and she started whispering in Dari, the local language. I always wondered what the hell she was saying, but I’d never asked her.

I was glad she’d been ready because my knees were killing me on the hard plank floor of her little house by the time she came. As the last shudders rolled through her, I stood and scooped her up on my way to the small bedroom, the only other room in the place.

In Natalya’s bedroom sat a double bed made from pieces of scrap wood. It was covered with an Army blanket and a quilt my grandmother had made for me. I’d given the quilt to Natalya when I’d found out she slept in four or five layers of clothes because she couldn’t afford firewood to keep the house heated at night. She said she’d rather have
me
there with her all night to keep her warm, but we both knew that wasn’t possible, and more than that, we both knew I wouldn’t do it if it were.

After I’d gotten Natalya settled in the bed, I started the laborious process of removing my uniform. I set my rifle carefully on the floor next to the side of the bed I was sitting on. While I generally trusted Natalya, I’d been in Afghanistan long enough to know that no one could ever be completely trusted. I made sure that gun was in my reach and no one else’s.

After unlacing the boots and removing them, I undid the body armor and stripped out of my uniform blouse with its MP armband. Then I took the ammo belt and pants off and finally the socks, t-shirt, and boxer briefs. I reached down and took a condom out of the pocket of my pants. Closing my eyes, I stroked myself a couple of times before I rolled the condom on. I stood up and turned around to look at Natalya lying there, watching me. I saw a sadness skitter across her face before she recovered and gave me a coquettish smile. She crooked her finger at me, and I knelt on the bed and crawled on top of her, trying to ignore that while she wanted me, I also hurt her simply by being in the room.

“Tell me what you’d like, baby,” I whispered in her ear. She started a litany of requests in Dari, and I plunged into her and pumped until my world broke apart. For one glorious moment everything was good and beautiful, and I felt like someone who actually mattered.

“I don’t know if I can keep seeing you, Gabe,” she whispered in bed after we finished while I lay there and rubbed her back.

I pulled back, trying to see her face better. “What’s going on?”

She rolled onto her back so I couldn’t hold her anymore and looked up at the ceiling. “The malik? The one I told you about?”

“You mean the other guy you’re sleeping with.”

She looked over at me and then turned her face back up to the ceiling, a masterpiece of lumpy plaster dissected by cracks and yellowing stains from years of leaks in the roof.

I sighed. “I’m sorry, I know you only do what you have to, and I’m in no position to judge you.” I turned to watch her and put my hand on her stomach, gently rubbing my thumb across it.

Her face relaxed some. “He’s heard that I might be seeing someone else and he is very angry.”

My senses went on alert. “Did he hurt you?” I leaned up on one elbow. “If he hit you, Natalya, I’ll handle it. You know what happened to Aubra. I won’t ever let anyone do that to you. This—” I waved my arm over the bed, indicating our state of dishabille, “is my fault, not yours. It’s my mess to handle.”

She turned her head to look at me and brought her small soft hand up to my face. “Oh, Gabe. You know I hate when you’re kind. It is so much harder when you’re kind.” She rolled away from me and sat up on the edge of the bed. “Just keep being selfish. It works better for both of us.”

I watched as she pulled my old t-shirt back on, and then I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling as she went over to the small dresser, the only other piece of furniture in the room, and lit a cigarette. She stood, looking out the window at the dark night, occasionally blowing rings of smoke through the air.

Sensing her agitation, I sat up on the edge of the bed and began the laborious process of getting all my gear back on. The body armor was the worst, and while I’d never leave base without the IOTV, it was a bitch to get all the adjustments right. I was working on the last of the million Velcro straps when she spoke.

“How many women were there? Before me, I mean, when you were at home in California?” Her voice was small, and I didn’t look at her when I answered. I didn’t want to see the pain on her face.

“Don’t do this.” I bent over and started lacing my left boot. “We’ve been through this already. It’s—“ I moved my head to one side, cracking my neck. “It’s an arrangement. If you don’t want it anymore or if you think you can’t, then that’s cool. You know I’ll always help you out, but it’s only an arrangement.”

I turned and looked at her, my face tight with the strain of the words I had to say. “We don’t have a future, Natalya. I’m not going to marry you and take you back to the States, so either
sex
is okay or it’s not. Your choice.”

She looked at me for a moment. Her dark hair was tangled and dull, and her thin limbs stuck out of my big t-shirt awkwardly, making her look like a tiny scarecrow. I wished I had a way to bring her more food. The small things I was able to provide her with weren’t enough, and it sucked that I couldn’t find a way to do more. She exhaled one last puff of smoke and ground the cigarette out on a flat piece of scrap metal on the windowsill.

I turned my back to her again and leaned over to lace up the other boot. Then I reached down and swung the M4 strap onto my shoulder. When I stood, I heard her speak very quietly.

“I can’t do it anymore.” She lifted her chin high and looked me right in the eye as I took a couple of steps around the bed toward her. I held out one of my hands in a useless gesture.