WASN'T ONE FOR COMPROMISE
CHAPTER ONE; STRUGGLE & FILTH
That April was a bad time to be a Basterd. The sun shone, showed signs of spring, but the weather had been biting. When it would rain, the ragtag posse would slog through the thick muck of the countryside. The decaying undergrowth was mashed and wet and offered little help for their boots, sometimes held fast in the ground like the Devil dragging them down.
The heat of their trudge was no solace, the sweat grew cold where it stood, chilling them deeper and stinging their eyes. Aldo spent his nights on damp logs and topography maps, opting for a course change on higher, drier ground. The Basterds on watch spent their shifts sinking and stepping and sinking again, eyes keen on the black forest and nostrils filled with the stench of rot. They were all hungry and haggard.
"Fuck that," said Donny, "fuck that," said Donny again.
"Donowitz," sighed Aldo, "it's either we double-back or we're mired in this shit another thirty miles easy. You seen Omar's foot? That skin's slidin' off like a spitfire game hen's, and I ain't about to be riskin' any more a'my mens' health in this stew."
Omar had unwrapped his foot and was picking at it in the moonlight. Fires were futile.
"It's pretty fuckin' gross, Donny," he confirmed, peering at something under his fingernails.
"Wastin' time, wastin' miles, wastin' away," Donny grumbled, rising and slogging back to his blanket, heavy wool heavier from the thick air.
"Chin up, Sergeant," Aldo said with a grin, folding the map and easing it back into his jacket, "Gotta good feelin' our bad luck's runnin' dry."
"Least somethin' is," he heard Donny mutter, saw the words in his steaming breath.
They'd woke the next day before dawn and marched forward and upward through the giving ground. Aldo kept his eyes up and expectant, staying somehow above the mud with deft rabbit steps. After three hours passed the same way the past three days had, full of struggle and filth, he halted the company and raised his foot to scrape his soles on a stone.
"Private," he said, and all four were at attention, but he knew the one he wanted. "Utivich," he clarified and Smitty pried his feet up and loped along to Aldo's side, the Lieutenant's boot still on the stone, poised in conquest, silhouetted bronze and statuesque in the sun.
"Yessir?" he asked.
"Can I be gettin' one a'them smokes offa' yeh?" he asked, his eyes still fixed on the grassy rise before them. Utivich handed him his packet of army-issue Red Apples and forgot to get them back when he saw the crumbling cottage on the hill. Smitty snapped back in the moment and his agape jaw shut when Aldo tucked the Apples back into the private's jacket with a pat of gratitude. "I owe ya' one, son," he said, his half-grin disappearing in the spring afternoon as he headed up the hill.
CHAPTER TWO; SHIRTS & SCALPS
Aldo said he'd been scouting, strategizing, setting up office in the main floor of the cottage. What he'd really been doing was more akin to sleeping; there was a three-legged half-burnt chaise longue in the makeshift drawing room only separated with a muslin curtain hammered in the stone, and laying on it felt a sin. He was started from his shallow dreams by a bang on the wood door, tipping the chaise on its bad leg and near pitching himself to the floor. Still in his dirty jacket, boots muddying up the once-rich red upholstery, he raked down his mussed hair and straightened his rumpled coat. On his way through the curtain and to the door, he spread some papers on the knife-nicked dining table.
When Aldo opened the door, Utivich had a scalp on his head. Well, two scalps, counting his own that ain't been sliced off.
"Well, well," Aldo appraised, eyes squinted with sleep, "if it ain't the king'a the wild frun-tier himself."
"Sir," Utivich countered and snapped off a salute, Kraut blood on his hands, forehead now. "Donny's getting a ballgame together, and we're needing somebody on the mound."
"Izzit shirts 'n scalps, then?" Aldo asked mildly, watching a fly circle, land on detached fair red-blonde hair that didn't suit anything about the kid save for the quiet craziness in his oceanic eyeballs.
"What?" asked Utivich. Aldo pushed a prompting hand through his own hair, sweeping it back into place where trudging and sweat had set it astray. Utivich looked right mortified, like a kid caught playing make-believe.
"What's what, yeh ask, is so far's I can tell, we've already got one Sergeant Donowitz in this company, and that's all the company we'll be needin', you dig that dirt?" Aldo implored, pacing slow along the millstone entry. He ground to a pivot on his bootheel and faced Utivich, who obviously wasn't digging much of anything.
"What I mean's," Aldo breathed an air of impatience, "we already got one fuck-shit un-sane sumbitch, and we don't be needin' 'nother."
"I dig," said Utivich, his eyes fixed and grim on the lieutenant, who drew a short, bent smoke from his breast pocket and clamped it in his jaws.
"Wellthen, it's dug. Now get that skullrag offa yer head 'fore I lose my breakfast," he muttered around the cigarette, his face tipped and glowing in the zippo flame.
"There was breakfast?" Utivich asked.
Aldo belched bacon. " 's a turn a'phrase, Private," he mumbled distractedly, snapping shut the lighter. "Now nothin' more a' these questions and-," Aldo paused, grimaced, "-and so help me Utivich, next time I look 'round that thing better be hangin' out to cure or you'll be wantin' for a pitcher and I can guaran-damn-tee that Stiglitz ain't warmin' up to the idea."
Utivich cursed himself, snatched the dead hairs in his fist and dragged it down. He set the stinking scalp in Aldo's hands.
"What number?" Aldo asked. Utivich shook his head.
"Don't have numbers, sir. Not enough players."
Aldo let it go. The cold snap was giving him a headache. He stared down at that sick toupee; it had to be near fifty for Utivich, a right pristine fifty. Aldo turned it and studied the underside's smooth scalpel cuts of a well-sharp blade. Utivich was ruthless under order, but that boy weren't cut out for crazy.
"Nice doing, son," Aldo set the scalp on the window ledge, wiped his hands on his brown wool coat, and clenched his leather gloves back on. His palm slapped on Utivich's shoulder, giving a brief squeeze as he swaggered down the stone stoop. "Now, what'zis I hear 'boutta ballgame?"
CHAPTER THREE; TRIPWIRES & SAWDUST
The ballpark was a swath of raised land behind the cottage, surrounded by murk and covered in gold dead grasses. Aldo set his hands on his hips and squinted at the scene; Omar was patting the last of the dirt down on the pitcher's mound with a shovel flat, Wicki was dragging a rusted hoe carelessly around the basepaths, and Donny was on-deck, choking the bat handle and check-swinging. Once he'd rounded what would be Third, Wicki tossed the tool and made his way to Aldo.
"Donny wants to be his own team," Wicki said. Aldo spat.
"How many we got playin'?" he asked.
"Just us, seems," he raised a hand toward Stiglitz, who sat smoking on a stump. "Werden Sie spielen?" he called. Stiglitz dragged on the cigarette stub, pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
"Nein," he said. Wicki turned back to Aldo.
"He won't play."
"Yeh, and us neither if Utivich don't round us up any bases," Aldo said, and when he glanced sidelong, Utivich was already turned around and halfway to the leaning storage shack.
"A good Private," said Wicki.
"Ain't bad," Aldo granted, then flicked his eyes to the approaching Sergeant Donowitz. He had his bat on his shoulder and looked in a huff. When he was close enough, Aldo noticed the swaths of blood smeared in a morbid mockery of greasepaint under Donny's eyes, and got a pretty decent idea who Utivich had gone on the hunt with that early evening.
"I wanna be my own team," said Donny, the bat tip sliding from his shoulder to the damp ground where he leaned against it like he did his rifle.
"You see?" said Wicki.
"And why'zat, Donowitz?" asked Aldo.
"Because Omar's a damn idiot," he said loud, loud enough to warrant an unsavory hand gesture from the Basterd in question.
"Fuck off, Donny!" Omar yelled from the mound, slamming the shovel into the earth. He caught the hubcap Utivich slung to him and made for home plate.
"But he dug that nice little knoll there," Aldo offered. Donny spluttered, disdain drawn tight in his face.
"Yeah, dug it outta fuckin' center field," he sneered. Aldo waved him off and over at once, tromping toward the infield, Donny and Wicki trailing behind.
"Ain't like this's league ball, Donny," said Aldo, stepping onto and sinking into the dark dirt of the pitcher's mound, "yer a long way off from yer precious Fenway. Now let's play ball, we're losin' light. Utivich!"
"Sir!" Utivich yelped back, dropping third base into place, an old metal sign with red letters saying fraiche boucherie.
"You got infield, Wicki, you got outfield," Aldo slipped off his jacket and bit the leather fingertip of his glove, pulling it off his right hand while his left fished in his pocket. He thumbed open the snuffbox he'd pulled and took a pinch, huffing it into his nostrils. "Donny, you're up, Omar, you're on-deck-and Donny, I ain't hearin' no word about it." He snapped the case shut, dropped it back into the coat's inside-pocket. "Now who's got a damn ball?"
Wicki had a damn ball. He tossed it to Aldo, and it landed in his palm with a soft slap. Aldo turned the it in his hands. It was a grotesque bulging thing, uneven innards all stitched up in some kind of hide.
"Where the hell'd you find this thing, Wicki?" Aldo asked, peering at the lump contemptuously.
"Hugo made it," Utivich said, "outta tripwires and sawdust and that Nazi's uniform." Aldo took a glance back at Stiglitz, who'd lit another cigarette and was running his blade along the sharpening strap.
"Ain't that nice," murmured Aldo with a tinge of wonder in his words. Donny scoffed.
"Are you jokin'? I'm gonna beat the cover right off that fuckin' thing, slug its guts clean out. Ain't no way we're gettin' past the top of the first," he called from the plate, which wasn't too far, on account of little solid ground to work with. Aldo leant, retrieved his coat from the ground and searched a couple pockets, drawing out a soft paper sachet of tobacco. He dipped a quid and stuck it in his lip.
"Lissen, Don'witz," Aldo drawled, "we came out here to play, not to sweat around and hear yeh grandstand." Donny took a couple practice swings then took a stance, bloodstained bat barrel swaying in the air, hands wringing on the handle.
"Well then pitch it, ya bobby-sox bitch," Donny called back. Aldo spat brown, raised a knee, and ripped a strike that Omar had to chase down through the spring swamp.
The rest of the game was a bust. Donny fell into Omar's hole in the third inning and near broke his ankle, then was so sore about it that he wouldn't let anyone use the bat anymore and the branch Utivich pulled from the brush just wasn't the same.
CHAPTER FOUR; UNDONE & SLICK
Omar swung the shovel, and it made another shallow divot in the cellar door. He set his feet, set to swing again, but there was a hand on the handle.
"Lemme do it," Donny protested, tossing to the dirt the hoe he'd been trying to use. Omar yanked the other end of the shovel.
"Says the guy who couldn't get a damn hit," Omar grumbled, twisting the shovel, wrenching it from Donny's hands.
"That's my fuckin' mark!" Donny shouted, pointing to one of the the splintered gashes in the oak with a boot stomp. It was the one closest to the rusted chain that shackled the cellar's handles. "I'm the only one who got anywheah fuckin' close."
"That one was mine," said Omar plainly, eyes hooded and lips curling.
"Like fuck," Donny growled and seized the lapel of Omar's jacket, making to either push him or pull him but it hadn't been decided because the barrel of a Schmeisser submachine gun was thrust between them and near crowed them apart.
"Stand away," muttered Stiglitz around his cigarette, burnt down to the filter, huffing the smoke from the blazing tip direct down his nose. Omar and Donny backed up while Utivich stood dumbly by, mind elsewhere while Stiglitz emptied the clip of the German rifle til it jammed. One of the rounds ricocheted from the chain and Utivich heard the BATANGG blow by, a breath away from his right ear. Stiglitz spat his butt on the ground and stomped right through the weakened chain and cheese-holed doors, one caving in entirely onto the descending stone stairs.
"Kinder," growled Stiglitz, pushing the rifle into Utivich's chest and stalking back to the pit of coals Wicki was coaxing alight. Utivich detangled himself from the Schmeisser's shoulder strap and slung it around his back. The three of them scrambled down the steps, throwing open the reamed wood doors on the descent.
That night, the Basterds all sat too close to the hot fire and ate nearly half the cellar's provisions in one supper sitting. Aldo had half a mind to tell his men to slow the fuck down, but the other half of his mind was all stomach too and he mawed down a jar of pickles to himself and the vinegar stung the cold-chapped skin on his lips. Utivich sat alongside Aldo, eating deep red lumps of fruit preserves even after the cinnamon oil bread was long gone. There were spots of mold on one heel, but they all had figured bad bread would be no match after what they'd done and what's to come.
After a certain amount of clinking and smacking, Aldo slid his eyes to fall on Utivich in the firelight, dipping his scalping knife into the jar, swirling, then bathing the blade with his tongue. Aldo gingerly pulled a dead speck of skin from his lips with his teeth, absently tonguing the coppery patch it'd left beneath. It hardly took time for Utivich's wide eyes to find the Lieutenant's slotted gaze, the weight and while of it heavy enough to tear him away from his meal.
"Utivich," Aldo said sharp, not once wavering his eyes, talking as if to get the private's attention even knowing it was already got. Utivich realized his tongue was still out, slicked against the steel.
"Ah," Utivich started uncertainly, "yessir?"
"Head on inside'n look to the left where there's a cabinet under'at old sink. Inside that cabinet you'll find a copper kettle, a big sonovabitch. Fill it halfway with water'n set it out here'ta heat," Aldo instructed, the last word grunted out with his rise from the dirt and the strain from his stiffened knees. Utivich raised the lip of the jar to his own, tipped his head back and dumped another clot of jam into his mouth before getting along to Aldo's errand.
Inside, Utivich knelt bent at the waist and yanked at the kettle, one of its feet jammed tight against the bottom of the cupboard. Skillets rattled and strained around it while Utivich swore and struggled. Aldo had come inside and upon the Private, and took to settling himself against his shoulder in the doorframe. He let all that banging go on another moment before piping up.
"Yeh gettin' it?" he asked, amusement in his eyes mirrored in his voice. Utivich swung his head up, around, and into the wood overhang just above. More curses, but this time through grit teeth and tears that'd sprang unbidden to the corners of his eyes. He blinked them back with the same insistence he pushed Aldo's hands away when they reached past his shoulder to help in the dislodging.
"I've got it," Utivich reiterated with more venom than Aldo could remember hearing from that mouth in his direction. He showed his amicable palms though Utivich hadn't turned around.
"Alright, son, alright," he conceded and offered a smile when Utivich dragged himself and the kettle up from the floor. "Yer head alright? You concussed or d'yer eyes always look two ways?"
"I'm fine, it's fine," Utivich muttered, shifting the kettle to hang by the handle in the crook of his arm while his other hand probed searchingly at the forming lump. He withdrew his fingers, checked for blood, stood still and with patience while Aldo stepped into him and did the same damn inspection. His hands were tender while they smoothed and sorted through Smitty's dark hair, one sliding down to the back of his neck, tightening then dropping away.
"Pump's out front," Aldo prompted and turned back to the dining table where his bolt-rifle was all undone and slick with gungrease. Utivich set his jaw and pulled the cumbersome kettle outside behind him, thinking on how he hadn't really noticed the cold except in the absence of Aldo's palms.
CHAPTER FIVE; KNIT & BEMUSED
By the time the water had gotten up to a boil, most of the Basterds had bed down, save for Hirschberg and Kagan who'd took first watch. After burning an angry red stripe through his palms on the hot handle, Utivich pulled on his leather gloves and lifted the pot from the fire, sidling laboredly around the still bodies under the still blankets. When he'd finally gotten across the yard and inside the cottage, Aldo wasn't to be seen. The gun was still on the table.
"Lieutenant?" Utivich called.
"Bring'er up here, Private," he heard Aldo through the ceiling and stared dismayed at the set of stairs in the far corner of the room. He heaved his way up each at a time, careful not to slosh the scalding water. When he'd got to the top, he looked into the right one of the two rooms, and found Aldo leaning up against the stand of the washbasin, wrapped in a musty moth-ate robe he'd dug from somewhere, looking so foreign from the cold and filth that Utivich was given a start like he'd seen a ghost. Aldo nodded toward the bathtub, a rust-pocked hulking thing that sat squat on four clawed feet.
Utivich strained, hauled the kettle up to the bevel of the tub's edge and tilted the water from it. When he set it back down with a clang, he pulled off his gloves to fussily itch the lash of burn across his hands. He was panting, heart still hammering, and it didn't seem to help when Aldo took his hands and rubbed the rough pads of his thumbs across the swelling stripes.
"Got the curse, son, bumps 'n burns," Aldo murmured, brows knit and bemused. Utivich swallowed, tried to steady his lungs.
"Yeah," he puffed, the regulation of his breath just making him heave heavier, "wasn't thinking."
"That right?" Aldo inquired rhetorically, "see, I'm thinkin' it's jest the opp'site. I'm thinkin' I've seen you all rolled up in them college-boy brains, eyes glassy as a goddamn windscreen. Thinkin' I've seen you not seein' what's comin' out there in them trees till it's damn near too late." And Utivich wanted to protest, but he could just sit there gape-jawed waiting for a retort that wouldn't surface because he knew it was true; Hell, he'd almost got his ear shot off by Stiglitz' friendly fire but four hours prior. Fuckin' windscreen eyes, mind gone to wander, bullets flying by.
"Son, you get outta' that head and let yer body do some thinkin'. A man can go stark bat-shit nuts out 'ere, and so far's I'm concerned that don't get root in the trench but in the head," Aldo paused to slide his fingers in the cool water of the washbasin, bringing them back to trace the drops along Utivich's sore hands, who had stopped even entertaining the idea of an edgewise word, and had stopped thinking altogether when Aldo's drawl in his ears and his wet skin slick against his flaring wounds reached a sensory unity.
"B'sides," Aldo said, voice low, hands dipping again in the basin, then back to his tentative touching, "only thing college-boy brains are good for in a den a' Natzis is gettin' blown out." Aldo patted the kid's cheek with his wet palm. Utivich still had his hands out and open.
"Yessir," he said, and brushed the back of his hand on the wet finger trails. Aldo looked about to untie the silk sash of the robe, then peered into the bathtub. Utivich peered too. They stared at the four inches of water.
"Think we're gonna be needin' more," Aldo said. Utivich bit his tongue, pulled his gloves back on, and hauled the kettle back to the hallway.
CHAPTER SIX; SILENCE & STEAM
Utivich busied himself with a fire in the wood stove that nearly smoked him out 'til whatever it was that'd been up the stovepipe fell out or burned away. He bunched his hand in his sleeve and swung the metal grate shut, his eyes full of smoke and ears full of splashing and choruses of Over There from the floor above. Normally he'd have taken his leave to bed down beside Omar; he was warmest and didn't mind the closeness. Donny was a near-second, but in a mood, he'd be all elbows, growling and pushing when Utivich slid too close and wanted to whisper about home. Donny'd been in a mood all week.
Normally, he'd have taken his leave, small shelters tacitly agreed upon being the Lieutenant's quarters, but after all that lugging to draw that goddamn bath he figured his sore shoulders were worth the price of admission. He sat with his back to the fire, rolled his sore sockets that loosened with the warmth, and heard Jonneh git-yer-gun git-yer-gun git yer-gun for the ten-thousandth time until it was suddenly broken by his name.
"Yessir!" Utivich called.
"You got any o'that talc on yeh?"
Utivich hauled himself to his haunches then back to his feet, rummaging in his pack he'd hung on an old oak chair. He found a dirty lump of soap, stained permanent pink, and trudged back up the stairs.
"I'll toss it," he offered at the doorway of the dark room, lit just by the flicker of a half-candle. Aldo motioned him in with the old newspaper both his hands were full with.
"Actually figured you wouldn't mind givin' a little a' the Donowitz treatment," Aldo said through a grin, "Ah'd do it massel, but I ain't blessed with more arms."
Beauty school. It still made Utivich grin to think about it; beautician Bear Jew, oh if those dead Krauts had just known.
"Is this all some kinda test?" Utivich asked as he sidled between the sink and the tub, standing behind Aldo and dunking what was left of the soap corner.
"Private, when it comes to a mission like this, nothin' ain't a test," Utivich thought about that, pulled it apart, and decided not to say anything on double-negatives. He shoved his hands into Aldo's wet hair, lye in the suds searing his burns. The sound that came from Aldo was low from the throat, and he dropped his hands enough to wet the bottom of the paper. "C'mon, son, no mercy," Aldo prompted, and Utivich stiffened up his fingers, scratching into the scalp.
"Where'd that paper come from?" Utivich asked, the silence and steam giving him a little something like vertigo. He glanced over Aldo's shoulder to glimpse a column, but couldn't read it. "You read French?" he asked, incredulous. Aldo snapped the paper, folded it aside.
"Notta' whit," he said, settling back into Utivich's hands while he just sighed, his deft fingers still working Aldo over.
"Figured," said Utivich and tugged Aldo's head back like he was about to slice his hairline. "That enough? Any longer and I'm charging."
"At ease," Aldo grinned, scooping up a rinse and pouring it down his head, one hand rubbing over the lynchmark on his neck. "You see that still out back?"
"What?" asked Utivich.
"You see them barrels and pipes out back, edge a' the wood?" Aldo rephrased.
"Yeah," he said.
"That's a still, not the shinin' sort, but I'm sure-as-shit these Grapestompers got some sorta' spirits squirrel'd away, why doncha sniff 'round and see if we can get a little lit?"
"On it," Utivich said, gingerly wiping his wet hands and disappearing downstairs.
CHAPTER SEVEN; SALT & SOAP
When Aldo strolled down the stairs, brand-clean in dirty clothes, Utivich was settled by the stove. He had two fingers hooked in a clay-colored jug handle, the heel on his other hand drawing it back as he drank deep.
"How's it?" Aldo asked. Utivich wiped his mouth with his scratchy sleeve.
"Tastes like shit," he gasped, then tipped it back again. Aldo piled up beside him on the creaking floor, plucking the jug from the private's hand. He rested it on the crook of his arm, lifting his elbow and swigging single-handed.
"You ain't kiddin'. That's some fuckin' fermentin', ain't even sure that's wine anymore." Aldo screwed up his lip, one eye squinting. He took another long pull, then Utivich had his eager hands all over it. They drank awhile in the dark and in the quiet, listening to the knots pop in the flame.
Aldo pulled the jug back over.
"You leave a good woman back'n New York?" Aldo asked, more for lack of anything worth asking.
"No," said Utivich, licking the wine off his lip, "she's a real bitch."
Aldo laughed, full haw, pure Tennessee.
"Ain't they just."
"I don't know," shrugged Utivich, trying to drink from the handle like the lieutenant, but he couldn't get his hand and arm working in at once. He abandoned the clumsy endeavor and levered the jug to his lips on his bent knee, "my mom's alright," he said and he meant it to be funny, but so far away, it wasn't. It made him think of his fifth-floor apartment down the block from her, transistor radio on the kitchen windowsill. He'd had to put up a year's rent for it when he'd decided to enlist and considered it now, dark and still, like it may as well not exist at all.
"Most mommas are," said Aldo, and watched Utivich slug down swallow after swallow.
"I don't have a woman," Utivich clarified while his head swam and he pushed the jug back to Aldo, "bitch or otherwise. How do you drink like that? I mean, holding it," Utivich flapped an arm and crooked his fingers in time with Aldo.
" 's easy," Aldo said after that last gulp burned down his throat and sank to his stomach. He threaded Utivich's fingers through the handle, feeling the rough callus on the balls of his palm. The kid had hands suited for typekeys more than triggers, and sometimes Aldo had to stare at him; in the rain, suckin' down smokes, smilin' small while Hirschberg and Donny spat and swore, and just plain wonder what in the fuck he was doin' out here. Aldo bent Utivich's wrist back and laid the jug on the crux of his arm and watched him drink, tipping too far, the wine dripping down his chin from the seal of his lips.
Aldo reached over, thumb dragging upward to gather the red trail, hesitating right at the edge of his lower lip. Utivich let his body do some thinkin'; he sopped the wine from the lieutenant's thumbtip with his lips, letting his tongue slide out to get the rest. Aldo withdrew his hand slow, slipped two fingers into the neck of the jug. He tipped the wine down it, and his hand soaked in red wasn't exactly an unfamiliar sight.
"Well, fer fuck's sake," Aldo murmured, eyes slit and smoldering as Utivich leaned over and started lapping his fingers and palm, tasting salt and soap and acrid wine, and when he pushed his lips on Aldo's, he did too. Aldo jut his jaw further forward against Utivich's persistent mouth, finally catching the kid by the shoulders.
"Lissen, prettyboy, hate ta' damper the date, but I ain't so much the kissin' kind," so Utivich bit the lieutenant's lip instead, felt him shudder in his jaws. He pulled back with a clack, Aldo's flesh red and raw.
"What kind are you, then?"
Aldo tongued the sore skin, smiled sideways. "The gettin'-my-cock-sucked kind."
Utivich flushed.
"This's all happening a little quick," he recanted, burnt palms up. "And I gotta' get goin' on watch in not too long, last thing I want is for fuckin' Omar to wander in looking for me and see-"
"You ain't on watch t'nite, private. Donowitz is doin' double, on my order." Oh, and wouldn't Utivich catch all kinds of hell for that tomorrow.
"Still," said Utivich, but couldn't think of anything else, cornered. Aldo shoved his bath-hot hands into Utivich's open shirt, getting under the thin white cotton and rounding his waist.
"Ain't figured on you to be the teasin' type, playin' all possum after alla that filth out that pretty mouth 'while back," he murmured and hooked his thumb back onto Utivich's jaw, voice low, guttering in his ear, "last time I'd heard somethin' like that, she was gettin' paid fer it."
Utivich lolled his tongue against Aldo's hand and tried to talk awhile before Aldo released him.
"What?"
"That word ain't so becomin' on yeh, Private, that brain so stuffed with smarts 'n all."
"I said what I meant."
"Yeah," and that growl was back, rich and full of gravel, "y'mean when y'were goin' on about alla that Mick cock yeh usedta suck in college?"
Utivich's face fell. He couldn't believe it, but there it was; he'd divulged his favorite secret, that private paradox he reveled in during that life of privilege and prestige. It had been something his entirely, and now he'd given it up to the fuckin' commanding officer; after his accounting night classes, he'd taken to moonlighting, slumming around New York's immigrant neighborhoods. He'd spend nights kicking around Hell's Kitchen-Five Points when he was feeling rough-in his beat bomber jacket and jeans, black wingtips, white v-neck.
He'd sit slumped over bartops, watching out blue eyes, rolling smokes and sipping scotch-which he normally hated, but these nights, they were a point to slip into something else-eyeing for signals; too-long glances, certain lapel pins. Of course when he was approached, that pokerface fell, and he'd be nervous as a hen in a foxhouse. To his advantage, they liked that more; boyish uncertainty, charming twitchy smiles, big earnest eyes. In an Irish neighborhood, he felt exotic, sought-for, not just another brainy big-eared Jewish kid at a ledger.
It'd never taken long for it to end up in the alley, eyes closed, dizzy with drink, sucking hard with hands in his hair. Sometimes they'd try to give him money, but he just did it for kicks, for that thrill of control behind a mask of vulnerability. He'd head back to his apartment, hands in his pockets, knees dirty, feeling electric.
At one point, he'd been on the fast track to being a mob man's boy, but he'd chickened the fuck out. Clammed up and vanished, in too deep with dinners and movies and cufflinks. Guy's name was Cormac Cadden, but the guys called him Marathon Mac because he had a shin a little twisted with old Polio and a limp that made him formidable and made Utivich hot-blooded. He'd called himself Charlie Hale those nights, and decided the whole thing'd gone too far when he'd started forgetting to answer to Smithson elsewhere.
It was his private facet, his hidden life. His big fucking mouth.
"I told you that?"
Aldo sat back, took up the wine. "More like whispered," he said, swigged, "all lurid-like."
"Like, uh, in your ear?" asked Utivich dumbly.
"Stuck yer tongue in there, too, memory servin'," Aldo grinned wolfishly. Utivich's face was a strange shade.
"God," he groaned, the heel of his hand pressing to his eyesocket, "I don't remember that. At all. When the hell was this?"
Aldo drank again, then scraped the bottle along the floor toward Utivich, "after yeh drove alla them schnapps' into yeh."
"More specific," Utivich eyed the jug like an enemy, pushed it back to Aldo.
"When Donny'd got yeh all prettied-up 'n yeh headed into town fer supplies."
Utivich had at least remembered that part.
CHAPTER EIGHT; AFTERSHAVE & POMADE
The Basterds had been without cigarettes for the better part of a month, and tensions were too high. There was more infighting than usual, petty squabbles that even smoke-starved Stiglitz would sometimes start. When Aldo broke them up, it was with more aggression, and when the argument would resurface, it was with more teeth.
They were fifteen miles outside Montoire, crouching in a bombed-out textile warehouse that smelled like ash and dye. They were waiting for orders and for Donny to strangle Hirschberg.
"No," Donny said, "it's fuckin' rock-paper-scissors, three fuckin' words, three fuckin' pounds."
"But then the shoot part's when you decide," Hirschberg countered, fingers still stuck out in scissors.
"The game ain't called rock-paper-scissors-fuckin'-shoot!" Donny shouted, then chose rock and gave Hirschberg a shot in the jaw. In a moment, Stiglitz and Omar were grappling with the fighting soldiers, linked and held at the arms as they struggled and lunged back at eachother. Stiglitz wrenched Donny's wrist to his back and brought him to the ground.
"Wouldya boys just play fuckin' tic-tac-toe?" muttered Aldo over a French phrasebook he was trying to decipher, jotting down words here and there. "Donny, stop fuckin' 'round and bring Utivich over here."
Utivich had himself leaned against the wall, cross-legged, a Ridgely Torrence book close to his nose in the dim light. He hadn't heard a thing, ears immune to the regular tiffs.
"Utivich," said Donny over him, toeing at his knee. "Lieutenant wants to see ya."
They crossed the floor in file, to a half-walled corner room with a brokedown loom inside that Aldo was leaning on. His shirtsleeves were cuffed up his biceps, the top few buttons unhooked. He pushed a piece of paper into Utivich's hands.
"Go on 'head 'n read that out loud, son," said Aldo. Utivich squinted at the chickenscratch.
"Je veux beaucoup de cigarettes, s'il vous plaît," he said. Donny and Aldo grinned at eachother.
"Sergeant, I think we got the Private his next mission," he said.
"Didja teach him how to say eighty?" asked Donny. Aldo sighed wearily and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Donny, in case y'forgot, this's wartime. Pretty sure we can't get eighty packs o'cigarettes."
"But how'll we know if he don't know how to say it?"
"That'll do, Sergeant," Aldo said impatiently, and Donny snapped his mouth shut. Utivich looked up from the paper. "Private, the town a' Montoire (Mont-oyer) is just northwest a'here," Aldo tapped his finger on a tore-up map he'd hung on the wall with errant nails, "you speak the best French outta' alla' us, 'n look most the part, bein' so little 'n starved," Aldo explained, and Utivich immediately shook his head, eyes wide.
"Are you fuckin' crazy? That city's full of Gerrys," he protested. Donny folded his arms and exchanged a cool glance with Aldo before laying a hard gaze back on Utivich.
" 'scuse me Private," and oh, that Boston accent was more patronising than ever, "but did I just hear ya say that the orders a' your commanding officer were 'fuckin' crazy'?" Utivich moved his mouth in a silent stammer, gave a salute for good measure.
"No sir, Sergeant, sir," he said, "but that place is crawling with Gestapo, I don't know if-"
"Wellthen, you best bring that carvin' knife with yeh, and you'll be at a hunnerd scalps right quick," Aldo interrupted, "Donny, I'm sure there's a washroom somewhere'n here, get our boy lookin' presentable for his night on the town. Dis-missed," said Aldo, and Utivich couldn't say another word about it.
"Sir," said Donny, saluted, and disappeared out the door. Utivich followed suit with far less enthusiasm.
Aldo had gone around with an old tobacco tin and collected the francs and Reichsmarks the Basterds had swiped from their slaughtered. They all gave generously, and Aldo pocketed the tin and trotted down the wrought-iron spiral staircase to the basement.
"Donny, you down here?" he called on his way.
"Come take a look at ya boy!" Donny shouted up from below and Aldo walked past the boilers to the dingy washroom.
"Well, wouldja lookit that," Aldo mused, appraising Utivich approvingly, "alla them mam-zells are gonna be on you like flies onna shithouse handle." Utivich grinned, cleaned up nice and coiffed to perfection, wearing black slacks and a vest over a dark blue button-down dress shirt. Aldo savored the scent of aftershave and pomade off him.
"Yee-eah," said Donny, "bring some a'them back too, will ya, Private?" he clapped Utivich on the back, and Aldo set the money tin in his hands.
"There's yer ration," Aldo said, "bring back cigarettes 'n whatever hooch yeh can get fer near-nothin'."
"Yessir," said Utivich, and slid the money in the watch-pocket of the vest, "how far until Montoire?"
"Oh," said Aldo easy, shrugging his shoulders, "I'd figure 'round fifteen mile, giv'er take."
"But," he paused, sure to add, "sir, that'll take all day; I don't think I'll get back by sundown," his eyes were wide again. Aldo pushed a piece of Utivich's greased hair back into place.
"Wellthen, I'd say you better get hoofin'."
By the time Utivich had arrived in town, his hair was a mess, the bag at his side was slicing his shoulder, and his shirt had been sweat through. He tried to compose himself, forced his dirty shoes not to drag on the cobblestones, and staggered into a shop with cigarettes in the windowcase.
"Bonjour, monsieur," chirped the clerk. Utivich panted.
"Cigarettes. Beaucoup," the sheet of paper with the original sentence had been misplaced along the way, and that was all he could remember. She stared at him through big dark eyes and set three packs on the counter.
"Bien?"
"Beaucoup," he repeated, and stretched his hands apart. She bit her lip, peered into the back room where Utivich could see an older man-probably her father-checking inventory stock. She reached beneath the counter and came up with four cartons, ten packs apiece.
"Vite," she hissed, setting them on the counter, gesturing hurriedly. Utivich dug in his pocket, felt relief at the tin in his hand, and dumped it out on the counter. The clerk changed him out quickly, red painted nails flitting through the notes and coins. She raised her hand to her mouth and blew a brief kiss as Utivich unzipped the bag.
"Au revoir," she said coyly as Utivich jammed the cartons into his pack instead of paying her mind.
"Merci, madamoiselle," he said, and backed out into the street.
Back at the warehouse, Donny was starting to worry. He kept saying he wasn't, but for someone who couldn't give a shit, he sure kept bringing him up.
"Donny, wouldjeh shut up about 'im?" said Aldo, who'd picked up Utivich's book and was paging through it. Fuckin' poetry, pie-in-the-sky waste a' damn time. "Yeh saw 'im yerself, he'll blend in like a local."
"Yeah, well, he's been gone nearly nine hours. Shit shouldn't take that long," Donny muttered, continuing to stare out the smoked glass window.
"Siddown, sergeant," said Aldo. Donny did, and the Basterds waited in silence. Finally, there was a knock on the corrugated steel door. Donny scrambled to his feet and strode over.
"Who's it?" he asked gruffly.
"Who do you think?" asked Utivich. His voice was weary, breathless.
"You been followed?"
"No," Utivich hissed, "can you let me the fuck in?"
Aldo pushed past Donny and opened the door, tired of the charade when five minutes earlier Donowitz was near wringin' his hands for the kid. Utivich staggered in, the bag around him bulging, clanking with bottles as he dropped it to the ground.
He'd gotten a heroes' welcome, the company hooting and patting his back, ruffling his hair and shaking his shoulders. Shit, even Stiglitz' stony face was carved in a grin. Aldo stuck two smokes in Smitty's mouth and lit 'em up.
"Bra-vo, son," he said, and slung his arm around his shoulders. Once the schnapps started pouring-down Utivich's throat most especial, since the boys wouldn't let up on him-he started to feel warm and hazy, felt like he'd finally set himself apart. He felt like Donny must've felt every damn day when he'd stride from the shadows, come out swinging.
CHAPTER NINE; TENDERNESS & BITTERNESS
"I really, really don't remember that," Utivich continued to reel. Aldo snorted snuff from his thumbtip, clapped the clasp shut.
"That don't surprise me a lick," Aldo said, scrunching his nose and snuffling, "tried my damnedest to get ya in the ruttin' mood. Had to take yeh outside to that old machine shed, thought yeh were gonna git up on my lap right there in fronta' the boys."
"I don't count that as my fault," Utivich stated, sure he couldn't've divulged all of that information about Charlie Hale without some interrogation. Aldo smiled fondly and drew up a knee, resting his elbow cocked on it, hand dangling.
"I'll admit, I didn't 'zactly discourage ya, but it turned out not t'matter too much anyway. I got yeh out there 'n you were game for a hot-minute 'fore passin' out on me," Aldo glanced sidelong at Utivich, a strange mixture of tenderness and bitterness in his eyes, on his face. Utivich breathed a sigh.
"Well, I guess that's goo-"
"Then yeh fuckin' sicked up ev'rywhere," said Aldo, grinning crookedly and Utivich's hand was back at his forehead. "I ain't seen that much sick outta anyone, 'cept maybe Omar that first day out when we'd strung up that whelp Nazi 'n I gutted 'im like a mule deer."
He recalled; Omar in the ditch on all fours. Utivich had stayed back with him, 'cause while the company was marching, he couldn't even stand. Aldo remembered it, too. Remembered Utivich comin' into camp, bringing Omar and the Basterds' starting scalp.
"Naw, naw," Aldo reconsidered, "Omar wasn't even bad. You retched yerself inside-out."
"Can we stop talking about this?" Utivich asked flatly. Aldo pushed himself closer, and Utivich was still as a deer while the lieutenant bit his earlobe.
"My vote's we stop talkin' altogether," Aldo murmured as he licked the curve of his private's ear, "n'less there's somethin' more yeh wanna tell me 'bout yer schooldays." Utivich shivered at the voice in his ear, the closeness of his mouth. He turned his head to one side and brushed Aldo's lips.
"I don't think it's exactly fair that I've only got half the conversation on that night. Sure the shit you were sayin' was just as bad," Utivich's voice had a marked tone, a certain spunk that made Aldo seize his neck in his teeth, biting and licking up his jaw.
"It was nothin'," he murmured into Utivich's wet skin, "somethin' bout the luck a' the Irish," he sucked a bruise up from the private's collarbone, "somethin' 'bout seein' you comin' in with alla' them smokes makin' me wanna fuck yeh witless."
Utivich resented the high snicker that escaped him.
Aldo took the opportunity to plant a hand on the private's chest and push him back onto the wood floor. He landed with a clatter, back arched strange, hands grabbing at Aldo's shoulders.
"Ahh, fuck," Utivich hissed as Aldo noticed, then grasped, the black strap running crosswise along the private's chest. He pulled Utivich back up by it, dragged it around front.
"Mm," Aldo nearly purred, his hands sliding tender along the smooth steel of the machine gun. Utivich had completely forgotten about it. Aldo wrapped one hand around the stock, the other hand on the magazine. "Where'd ya get that gat?"
"Off that Nazi me and Donny killed," Utivich ran his thumb up the barrel distractedly, then furrowed his brows.
"Donny was saying that scalp was his. It's damn well not, he shot the guy in the knees, but I cut his fuckin' throat, and the scalp, so by all accounts, that makes it mine. But Donny-" and all of a sudden, the tip of the Schmeisser was pressed to his lips.
"Private, what'd I say 'bout all this talk?" Aldo asked, voice husky as he pushed the barrel forward, sliding the cool steel through Utivich's lips, clicking on his teeth. He opened his mouth.
The muzzle sight scratched at the roof of his mouth, but Utivich closed his eyes and put on a show. He slid his mouth along the metal in tandem with his fist wrapped around it-which he thought a bit too theatrical, but when Aldo had started up a muttered mantra of aw, yehh, Utivich was reminded that the man didn't strike him as a great appreciator of subtlety. He dragged his mouth off the gun, licked up the length, and made damn sure he was looking right in Aldo's eyes when he stuck his tongue inside the bore of the barrel, tasting the gunpowder from Stiglitz' discharge. Utivich noticed the lieutenant's hand had left the clip in favor of palming slowly at the groin of his pants. He eased himself to sit back on his knees, batting Aldo's hand away and replacing it with his own, rubbing circles against the hardening bulge, his other hand still jacking the slick gunbarrel.
"Fuck, Utivich," Aldo swore, breathless at the sight of his mouth back on the muzzle, sucking the tip before dropping his lips down around it again, pushing it deeper. Aldo bucked involuntarily into the hand on his crotch, hissing as it fell away to run down his hip. Utivich touched the elk-handle of that knife strapped to Aldo's thigh. He pulled his mouth from the gun.
"What about you, Lieutenant?" murmured Utivich, drawing close, his hand still tugging at the hilt, "Haven't seen you cut any scalps," his eyes were narrowed, bowed lips curled in a smirk. Aldo pulled Utivich's hand away at the wrist, pushed it back onto the straining corduroy, then grabbed the handle himself and drew the knife from its hide holster.
"Son, you know damn well the cuttin' I been doin's of a different sort," he muttered, raising it to brush back some dark hair that had fallen on Utivich's forehead with the point. The private felt his blood chill. "And if yeh recall, I said each man under my command's the ones'at owe me the quota," Aldo explained, patting Utivich's cheek with the blade-flat. Utivich turned his face carefully, felt and heard the hair-thin blade scrape his skin. Aldo watched rapt as he stuck that pink tongue against the blade and lapped at the metal. He turned the knife; Utivich licked up the other side. And oh, fuck, Aldo could've watched that boy suck and lick on weapons all damn day, but those pangs in his cock were telling him to move on along. He dragged the tip of the blade down Utivich's neck and along his collarbone before it slid back into its sheath.
"Sounds t'me like you gotta' problem listenin', so open them ears, one-striper," Aldo growled, tapping with his knuckle-backs what would've been the rank-side breast of Utivich's uniform, "let's not ferget 'zactly who it is yer takin' orders from."
"Yessir," Utivich murmured, catching Aldo's mouth in a retaliatory too-tender kiss. But Aldo fought right back, snatching the nape of Utivich's neck and crashing their mouths together, savagely prying his tongue into his private's mouth, then abruptly breaking away. Utivich pushed forward, but a hand halted him.
"What I want's for you to get along behind that drape, in fronta' that-thing," it wasn't a damn couch, but he didn't know any Frog word for it, "and I want yeh on that floor 'n on them knees, 'zzat understood?"
"Understood, sir," he uttered, head swimming, heart pounding.
"Wellthen, looks like alla' that fancy schoolin' was worth every penny paid."
CHAPTER TEN; NECK & LIPS
Utivich followed his orders. To the letter. He'd nestled nice in front of the chaise and between Aldo's thighs, touching his stiff dick through his trousers, licking at the thick corduroy in vain except Aldo thought it looked damn fine, even if he couldn't feel a fuckin' thing. Finally, Aldo thumbed his fly open and tore the rest of the buttons down, shuddering while the cold air hit that taut skin. He tangled a hand in Utivich's hair.
"Would yeh lookit that, so fuckin' shy for a second ago, but," he murmured, hand cupping the kid's cheek and tipping his head up and damn if that mouth wasn't just the nicest thing he'd seen in this fuckin' hellhole of a countryside.
Aldo Raine wasn't one for patience; Utivich scarcely saw him on-edge except after days of trudging, but most especially after days of waiting. He was the stir-crazy type, pacing around a concrete bunker, tapping his heels, popping every joint in his fingers 'til Utivich could nearly hear Donny's teeth gritting. All this in mind, he shouldn't have been surprised when Aldo thrust his uncut cock in his mouth before his lips even wrapped around it. His cheek bulged full to the left. Aldo realigned Utivich by the hair, pulled back out, pushed back in. Utivich swallowed a gag around him and pushed his hands on Aldo's stomach, the muscles there tense and crawling under his skin. "Shit," Utivich gasped, dragging his lips off, his hands sliding down and catching in Aldo's unstrung belt loops.
"Cool it on that, hey? Fuckin' drowning down here," he panted hot breath on Aldo's spit-slick dick, then compromised with a hand curled at its base, tonguing the tip. The lieutenant growled, long and low. Utivich mustered the sultriest up-through-the-eyelashes stare he could, but Aldo's eyes weren't open anyway. At first he felt silly, then felt a hand on the back of his head, felt the head of Aldo's cock thrust well beyond his molars. Aldo Raine wasn't one for compromise, either.
" 'pologies," Aldo grunted, but Utivich figured he couldn't have been so sorry because he did it again just a few seconds later. Finally, Utivich started working him into a slow rhythm with his neck and lips and Aldo's hips rolling in time.
"Fuck, Donny," Aldo hissed, dragging his hands through the head of dark hair in front of him. When Utivich choked this time, it wasn't on dick.
"Smitty?" Utivich corrected after he'd cleared his throat. Aldo chewed the inside of his cheek, his eyes slitting open and his brows bowed in staged confusion. From that angle, both those boys looked the exact damn same.
"Whud' I say?"
"Donny, sir."
Aldo appeared to consider it, but then gave his head a shake and put his impatient hands back on Utivich's head, scrabbling at his haircut.
"Thinkeyer mistaken."
Utivich stuck his sneering lips where Aldo pulled him to. Donny, Donny, fucking Donny. Donny with his damn swagger and fucking swing and all the high-fives and hand-claps he'd get from the Basterds after rending some Nazi skulls, the looks that Aldo gave him before the first crack, his eyes narrow, intent, practically fuckin' salivating. It took Utivich awhile to realize all his sucking had ground slowly to a cease, eyes darkened in some distant envy, thinking on all their covert rendezvous; the way Donny'd strut around, his suspenders dangling down with a fresh bite-split in his lip, the way Aldo would neglect to fasten the top couple buttons on his trousers when it was obvious they'd been drunk and filled with a fast, desperate lust. But really, the lieutenant's partiality couldn't be blamed. Donny was the type who'd wind up a war hero; he was the type who'd wind up dead, bones on the forest floor, another fuckin' tickmark in a ledger.
"Utivich? Yeh want me ta put on one 'a them accents?" He was still easing himself in then out of his private's slack lips. Utivich spat out Aldo's dick, spat at the floor for added spite.
"Your own's enough," he muttered, "and if Donny's really so distracting, I can stand his watch and send him in here."
"Fuck naw," Aldo grunted, hand finding its way back into Utivich's hair, "that boy's been rubbin' me raw as a' late, alla' his fuckin' caterwaulin' in the swamp, you'd think he'd ain't ever-" Aldo thought further, felt a twinge shock through his aching prick.
"-'less o'course yeh wanted 'im here?" It was less of a question, more of a suggestion. Instead of answering, Utivich stacked himself on his knees and bit at the inside of Aldo's spread thigh.
"Mmm, fuck, that Donny," Aldo let his eyes slide shut as Utivich's teeth gave way to tongue, "sometimes that mouth a' his ain't worth that mouth a' his."
"Can you stop talking about him?" asked Utivich wearily, feeling like a ringer.
"Can you stop thinkin' on him?"
"Can you? I'm not the one saying wrong names." Aldo gave his thigh a pat and grinned crookedly down at Utivich between his knees.
"C'mere," he murmured, and Smitty crawled up like a lap-dog, licked Aldo's ear and neck like one, too.
CHAPTER ELEVEN; STARBURSTS & MUZZLE FLASH
Utivich was getting hard for Aldo's graceless kisses that had grown looser in lip every time he'd ground his hips down on the lieutenant's. He'd swear and Utivich would smile and do it again, and watching the Apache come undone was just too good a game not to be played for keeps. After awhile, he was just pressed against the kid, open-mouthed and breathing hard, gripping Utivich's waist and pushing him down, feeling the rough fabric against his still-exposed groin. Utivich licked Aldo's teeth, moaning in his mouth when the lieutenant fumbled his trousers undone and pushed his hand in, figurin' it was high-time the kid got some attention.
Aldo's hand was hot and rough against his cock, coiled like a cobra. Utivich rode against it, pushing alternately into his hand then down onto Aldo's lap, which was gettin' groans from the both of them.
"God, Aldo," Utivich whimpered into the patch of skin below Aldo's ear, licking at the light beginnings of that scar, dragging his lips and fingers all over it, following the thickening rise where the rope had dug deeper. Aldo tensed and bristled at the touch; his jaw clenched and a cord of muscle tightened against Utivich's cheek.
Suddenly, Aldo's hand was around his neck, tight to the private's throat as the scar to his skin.
"Private," he spat the rank like a curse, "when you been close 'nuf to death that he ain't even gonna bother reachin' out for yeh, bein' reminded-even by that nice little shit-talkin' dick-suckin' mouth a'yers-ain't exactly somethin' I savor."
"Yessir," came the timid reply when Aldo released him. He pulled his hands away, stuck them still at his sides. Aldo spat in his hand and rewrapped Utivich's cock.
"Son, I'll fuckin' tell you when to take yer hands off me," he snarled, and Utivich couldn't do anything but comply, laying his palms indiscriminate along the flesh of his neck, still cognizant of the scar tissue bumping up against the fresh welts on his palms. Aldo rumbled a gutteral assent, lifted Utivich to push his heavy pants down his thighs, hand pumping faster, squeezing tighter. And all the sudden, Utivich's hand was on his.
"Stop," he gasped, pulled Aldo's wrist away, "stop," he reiterated. There was no way, no fucking way he was gonna lose it, blow it all right now. It'd been too long since there'd been any hand on his cock but his left, and shit, this wasn't just any hand. "I need a minute." Aldo just stared bewilderedly, then took to rubbing Utivich's hipbones.
"How 'bout now?" Aldo asked between bites to the neck. One hand left his hip, and a thumb rubbed across the head of his cock. Utivich yelped, jolted.
"Oh, god, Aldo, you better just fuck me now," he hissed. It had definitely not been a minute, but there was no way to stall the lieutenant.
" 'zzat a command, Private?" he asked amused. Utivich made a desperate sound, and Aldo eased him from his lap, helped arrange him on all-fours. "Jes' like that," he murmured, tracing a hand down Utivich's spine, letting his hand rest in the little arch at the small of his back.
"You been fucked 'fore, son?"
"Yeah," said Utivich, and it was true. He'd been fucked once, by Mac Cadden, when he'd been invited out to dinner with some of the boys. He didn't want to go, but felt obligated because of that fucking knockoff Rolex he'd been bought and because it was obvious that Mac was head-over-goddamn heels for him.
When he'd showed up late and was led to the table, save for Mac, they all had their wives with.
They all had their wives with and three-piece suits and Utivich had worn Utivich clothes that night, a black vest and an olive blazer, because Charlie Hale never fucking dressed up. Utivich caught his reflection in the picture window; he looked like he was going to a lecture, out to dinner with his mother. He got a hundred-yard gaze, said something about how it was nice meeting them, and walked stiffly back out to the street and down the walk.
"Charlie!" he heard, and didn't turn around, and for having a bum leg Mac sure caught up quick. He grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. "What in the fuck was that all about?"
"This is crazy. I feel crazy," was all he said, and Mac just put an arm around him, rubbed his shoulder through the jacket.
"Listen, if y'don't wanna go back in there, y'don't have to. I got some dinner back at mine, we can do our own-" and he hadn't even finished before Utivich was kissing him, hard and feverish.
"Let's do that," he said quietly as he pulled back, and Mac led him back to a big black car.
The drive back to Mac's apartment was perilous because they couldn't keep their hands off eachother. After they'd bumped up on the curb for the third time, Utivich got contented with hovering at the wheel, lips on Mac's knuckles, licking at the white-gold Claddagh on his little finger. Utivich didn't get dinner, he got fucked, and when Mac came hot into him, moaning a name that wasn't his, Utivich decided that he needed a change of pace. He pretended to sleep a couple hours, still and quiet in that gangster's arms before inching his way out. He dressed silently and left a note on the nightstand in scratchy blue ink, Mac, I think I'm going to war, Charlie. A parting glance when he slipped out that apartment door was the last he'd seen of Marathon Mac.
Utivich remembered how he'd been offered a job in the mafia even though he wasn't Irish. Small-time, separating heroin into gram-bags-Mac called them Cadillacs for some fuckin' reason-running cocaine, odd deliveries. He thought about after the war, knocking on Cormac Cadden's door, yeah, you need anyone taken care of? I'll bring you their fuckin' scalp. He'd leave a kid, come back a killer. He thought about these things as he sucked on Aldo's fingers.
"You fucked a guy before?" he asked when Aldo had pulled his hand from his mouth and traced the slick fingertips down the cleave of Utivich's ass, then pushed two in at once. It hurt at first, but those hot streaks of pain were quickly smoothed over by the gentle crooks of Aldo's fingers. He'd forgot he'd asked a question at all.
"Gat-damn, but ain't you hot fer it," Aldo mused darkly as he watched Utivich writhing back against his touch. "Private, you answer me when I'm makin' an inquiry," there was a particularly tough twist, and Utivich moaned sharply.
"Fuck yes, sir," he said emphatically and Aldo pulled his fingers out, spat into his palm.
"That's what I like'ta hear." He slicked spit on his cock, and when he sidled behind him and put his hands on his hips, Utivich rolled like a scared gator and scrambled back against the high-end of the chaise.
"No," he said, "that's not enough. You ever fucked a guy before?" he asked, skeptical. Aldo set his jaw impatiently.
" 'course I fuckin' have. Figured we'd already established that Team Dead Natzi ain't the only one Donny's swingin' fer."
"Well, then," Utivich cast his eyes aside, "guess I'm no Bear Jew. Ain't enough."
Aldo rose and hitched up his pants, rounding past Utivich and disappearing behind the curtain. He heard a bit of clattering, a scrape of metal on wood, and didn't Aldo just look like a cat that got the cream when he came back with the little tin of gungrease.
"You ain't no Bear Jew," Aldo said as he scooped a couple fingers into the tin and smoothed his hand back over his dick before rolling Utivich back over. He pulled him to his knees by his hips, the private's top half still draped over the arm of the chaise, "but yer sure somethin'," he murmured as he pushed partway into Utivich, who had to think about a pile of Nazi guts, a pile of Omar's puke, to keep him from coming then and there.
Aldo thrust the rest of the way in.
"That good?" he asked. Utivich groaned.
"God, yeah," he gasped. Aldo pulled back out, drove back in.
"Yeh, that good?" he growled again, just because he liked hearing Utivich.
"Yeah," he answered belatedly, too fuck-struck to figure his tongue out immediately. He bucked back against Aldo, pushing deep. "C'mon, Aldo," he whimpered, because Aldo would've been content to just watch the private fuck back on his cock, especially if it made him twitch and writhe like that, all tuned up and needy as hell. Aldo shuddered, Utivich felt it. He brought a hand off his hip, back on in a slap to Utivich's ass.
"What's'at, Private?" he prompted. Utivich hissed.
"Please, Lieutenant," he tried. He got another slap, hot and stinging, the pain rolling through in a prickling wave.
"Yer close."
"Apache!" he yelped desperately, "that's not fucking fair," he growled. Aldo rubbed the reddened skin, then hooked his hand back on his hip.
"Naw, but yeh just look pretty like that," Aldo said, and rewarded him with a few thrusts, pulling the private's hips back to grind against him, holding him there even as he tried to pull away for another buck.
"Hold yer damn horses, son," muttered Aldo, closing his eyes and rutting close against him, just savoring the notion of being buried deep and hot in that fuckin' tight ass, "thought yeh needed a minute."
"Need something else now," he pushed back on Aldo uselessly, breath hitching. He still felt the handle of that knife, still strapped on Aldo's thigh, scraping against the back of his leg.
Finally, Aldo went at him, pushing violent enough for his teeth to clatter. He tried to counter the new fevered rhythm, but just ended up fucking up the sync and getting snarls from Aldo. Suddenly, he grabbed Utivich by the hair, pulling his head around to face him.
"Wanna see them eyes a'yers," he said quietly, and Utivich craned his neck, watching over his shoulder as Aldo slowed his pace and saw every thrust roll through Utivich in those fluttering blue eyes. With the heat of his fucking, ass tight around him and those big damn eyes on his, he suddenly felt very close. He stuck a palm in front of Utivich's mouth, and he laid his lips and tongue all over it, guided it down to his cock.
"Shit, son, got some fuckin' mouth on yeh," Aldo guttered, pumping his hips and Utivich's dick, shivers coursing through him 'cause the kid was moaning loud enough to wake the fuckin' dead. But despite the obvious risk, Aldo liked that. Donny, fuckin' prima-donna he could be, pretendin' like he didn't want it, like he could take it or leave it. Yet in no time at all, he'd cut the shit and be beggin' and whinin' for his dick like Utivich was. It's just that the game got old, and the private's earnest eagerness was sure refreshing, sure turned him the hell on.
"Aw, fuck, sir, 'm gonna-" and he did a moment later, came twitching and shuddering into Aldo's hand. He drew it away, wiped it on the back of Utivich's disheveled jacket, then grabbed at his hips and plunged hard into him, pistoning until his teeth were grit so his jaw was sore, and under his eyelids he saw starbursts and muzzle flash. He came hard, kept pushing into Utivich until the last of the tension had slipped from his body, and he dropped himself slack over the kid, who struggled to roll to his back. Aldo settled his head on Utivich's chest, felt his breath steady, heard his heartbeat. They laid like that awhile. Utivich tried to twine his hand in Aldo's hair, but he pushed it away. He rested it behind his head instead.
"You afraid'a death, Private?" Aldo asked.
"No," Utivich said, bleakness in his voice betraying the lie.
"You should start bein'," said Aldo, "keeps yeh livin' longer," and Utivich thought that made sense.
"You want me to go, sir?" he asked, making to get up even with Aldo still laying on him. He just put a couple fingers blindly to Utivich's lips.
"Naw, it's fine, y'can stay here," Aldo murmured, and Utivich shifted onto his side, nestled himself between the low back of the chaise and Aldo's still-warm body. "I hope y'don't think I'm too hard on yeh, son. It's just the way it's gotta be."
"I didn't come out here to be coddled," Utivich answered, steel in his voice belying the way he nuzzled up under Aldo's chin.
He decided to let it lie; he didn't necessarily mind cuddling, but post-coitus Aldo was always a little touchy like his skin was on wrong. That was sure somethin' Donny understood; they never spent nights together, just feverish hours. He reached to the floor and drew up the wool blanket he'd been sleeping with earlier, spread it over them and shut his eyes, one arm around Utivich's waist despite himself.
CHAPTER TWELVE; WIDE & WICKED
Aldo woke suddenly, not sure why until Utivich whined again, a strange anguished half-sob. Then he started pushing. It took Aldo a moment to realize that he was still sleeping; he pulled Utivich closer to him, putting his lips to his private's ear, telling him to shhh. It worked for a moment, then he started kicking. Aldo swore and shifted himself on top of Utivich, pinning him down.
"Utivich, son, wake up," he said sharply. Utivich opened his eyes halfway, stared blank up at Aldo and saw nothing before closing them again. His whimpering struggles continued, despite Aldo's attempts at comfort, smoothing his dark hair, nosing his cheek, and god wouldn't Donowitz have himself a fuckin' laugh if he saw him cuddling and cooing to the private. Finally, Aldo rolled off the chaise and left the little drawing room to curl on the floor in front of the stove, balling up his shirt and shoving it under his head.
Come dawn, Aldo felt a nudge against his shoulder.
"Utivich," he muttered and rolled to one side. Then he felt a jab in his chest that nearly knocked the wind from him. When he opened his eyes he saw Donny blearily above him, his rifle butt still resting against his ribs. Aldo pushed the gunstock away, sat up.
"Donny, what the fuck're yeh doin'?" he muttered.
"It's oh-five-hundred, sir."
"We ain't got nowhere to move out to today, Donowitz," Aldo muttered, pulling his jacket tighter around him to ward off the chill. "Stayin' here 'till we hear from the brass, 'less you're so eager to get back out ta' them wet woods." Donny didn't say anything, just leaned against the rifle.
"What're you doin' sleepin' on the floor? Ground's probably fuckin' softer," Donny said pointedly, and Aldo hardly had time to make up an excuse before they both watched Utivich shoulder his way through the curtain, head down and focused on the buttons of his shirt.
"So you couldn't stand sleepin' next to him, either," Donny said with a snort, and Utivich's head shot up. He stared wide-eyed between the two.
"Morning, Lieutenant," he said shortly, "Sergeant," he added.
"Save the shit, Smitty," Donny mumbled, and Utivich couldn't help but savor that envious twinge in his voice, in the sneer on his lips. Oh good god, was he smiling? He hoped he wasn't smiling. He flattened his lips to a thin, grim line just to be safe. Aldo settled his feet under him and rose, dusting himself off and popping his stiff neck.
"Say, Sergeant," Aldo said brightly, trying to diffuse the situation the way he always did, with that fuckin' casual charm, "yeh worked extra hard last night, coverin' for the Private'ere, what say you to a night off?" It appeared to work, Donny tried to keep his scowl in place, but it was already turning up at one corner.
"I'll tell Omar," he said, the smirk growing wide and wicked.
"I'll take it," Utivich offered. He was halfway to the door. Donny and Aldo just grinned, slid eachother a glance.
"Bet yeh fuckin' will," said Aldo.
Utivich smiled apprehensively, felt their eyes follow him out the door.
FIN