CONTENT WARNING: The long awaited conclusion of Bitches Brew has been given a rating of NFK (Not for the Kiddies) by TWA (that stands for Thy Wise Author) because it contains unmarried naked people frolicking by which I mean that other thing that also starts with the letter f and rhymes quite well with the given verb. I had fun writing this one and remember: if you are looking for a story with a moral, please leave a message after the tone.
Abaya: an over-garment worn by some Muslim women.
Bismillah: in the name of Allah.
Burqa: opaque veil worn in addition to the traditional headscarf.
Laa: no.
Purdah: the practice of requiring women to cover their bodies (as with a burqa) and conceal their form.
"Come. I've drawn you a bath, you smell like my goat." Silas looked at Jamila for a second, expressionless, until he realized she was teasing him again.
"Occupational hazard," he said at last, embarrassed because he knew she was right even though he'd showered twice before leaving camp.
"Silly man." She pushed him into the small bathroom. "Can't you see I just want to get you naked?"
She knelt at his feet and started working on the bootlaces as he tackled everything else hanging off him, vest, holster, jacket, undershirt, when did they start issuing so much crap? Jamila held on to each shoe as he freed one foot at a time then unbuckled his belt, yanked his pants free of his hips and tugged on the white boxers last, her progress businesslike, like she could have been undressing a door. This gave Silas pause.
"What's wrong?" He asked pulling her up, glad to have her face out of his crotch for the time being.
"That thing," she said glancing at his M9 on the edge of the sink. "It's pointed at my head." He took the handgun in his right hand and turned around so they faced the same direction.
"Look the safety is on." He showed her the switch. "It disconnects the trigger." Jamila arched an eyebrow. Silas dropped the magazine and aimed down and at the wall. He slid the action, checked the barrel and showed her. "See? Nothing to worry about." He tried to smile reassuringly but reloaded the handgun and set it on his clothes by the tub when she turned around.
"You'll stay then?" He asked lowering himself into the hot water making a noise like a cat purring as the relaxing heat began seeping into much too tired everything. Jamila nodded kneeling by his head.
"I think the projected benefits," she whispered in his ear beginning to massage his knotted shoulders "more than justify the initial risk to investors."
"Mmmm, I love it when you talk dirty."
Jamila filled a mug with the water in the tub, nudged Silas forward and poured it on his head. She worked up a lather with soap between her hands and began washing his neck and back, kneading away the tension with expert fingers that lingered longer than necessary enjoying toned muscle where she'd only known weird fat deposits and unsightly back hair. She dampened a washcloth in the sink, let it soak more water and used it to rinse the soap. Silas leaned back down trying to forget everything except Jamila's hands on his body. It wasn't as easy as he would have liked.
"Does your husband know where you are?" He asked at last.
"He did."
"What changed?"
"He has gone to Atham," she replied eventually though looking away to Silas' feet, cleaning between his toes with the washcloth. He was ticklish.
"What is that? Atham?"
"It is one of the gates of Jahannam, hell. In the holy book," she added resting her head on the edge of the tub, petting his stomach absentmindedly as she talked, jumping from freckle to freckle "it is a valley of molten brass around the Mountain of Punishment. Every day the sinners get new skin and once it is roasted through, it is replaced, again and again until Judgment Day."
"He died then?" Jamila was quiet for a long time. When she answered his question it was in a cold voice that begged nothing else be asked.
"Yes; while I was in the hospital recovering. At first the police suspected one of my brothers but they finally realized it was just freak accident. He was cleaning his revolver one night and… it was his time. Allah called him." Silas shivered. In her own very vague way, Jamila had just confessed and he was pretty sure to what.
"If you are going to keep doing that," he said taking the fingers painting figure eights on his skin and kissing the tip of each playfully, "you should think about joining me in here." Jamila splashed the water. She stood up.
"And ruin my beautiful new dress? I think not." Silas pulled Jamila closer to him as she shed the abaya over her head. She was naked underneath except for the rigueur arm covers like dismembered sleeves and unflattering wool stockings that reached mid thigh.
"Still not into layering?" He ran his hand down the side of Jamila's leg and looked up, trying to get up to her eyes but never making it past her nipples.
"I could slip into a sexy little burqa if you don't approve; we can play ghosts and robbers," she said with a half smile. Sitting on the edge of the tub, she peeled off the arm covers. Silas hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her, laughing, into the water with him.
-X-
Forward Operating Base Danger, Tikrit Presidential Site:
First and second lieutenants Kinder and Dahl were oblivious to just how ridiculous they looked in matching X-Metal Juliet sunglasses at opposite sides of an office door in an ornate palace marbled to the hilt and no one around seemed to care enough to make either man aware of this littlest of facts. They were slumped on low slung bucket seats with M4s on their laps facing a 650 pound crystal chandelier they'd been pelting with wads of chewed up notebook paper for the better part of an hour. Extra points were assigned for any projectile that stuck to the gold plates around the lowest tier of crystal baubles without falling to the floor below. They perked up slightly when the newly relieved switchboard operator, Sgt. Wilson bounded up the stairs.
"Hey how come you're all still here? What's up with Martinez?" Wilson asked making eye contact with Kinder though there were several steps left to go. He didn't wait for an answer. "Is he busy right now?"
"What you need him for?" Dahl replied with a question of his own. Wilson unfolded a poster printed on letter sized glossy paper.
"Check this out; Candy Caine at the USO show in Spelcher. That's a former Hustler Honey right there," he added fondling the woman's picture. "Mmmm what I wouldn't give for a piece of that." He moved towards the door, to knock on it and found Dahl then Kinder blocking his way.
"Come on, the truck for Spelcher is leaving in like five minutes and the driver wants me to clear it first."
"I wouldn't do that unless you really wanna be writing to your mama from Alaska man," Kinder said. Wilson looked from the poster to the closed double doors and back. Four months of self-love on bad porn were wearing thin. He looked at his watch. Two minutes till the truck left. He needed new material and Candy Caine was up first.
"I'll take my chances. Come on, announce me." Kinder shrugged shaking his head as he knocked on the door.
"Kernel," he drawled in that weird accent of his that made his 'colonels' sound like popcorn remains "Sgt. Wilson here to see you."
There was no immediate answer from inside the office and Wilson found this reassuring. He straightened his uniform and reached out for the door but found Dahl and Kinder had turned the handles instead. Stray notes from one of Bach's unaccompanied cello suites wafted ominously out of the office as a stapler zoomed past his head close enough to graze his week-old haircut then settled with a noisy crash on the chandelier instead. Wilson bit his floppy desert hat, whispered a quick prayer and rubbed his head thankful for second chances.
-X-
It'd taken them a while to make it to the bed but comfort after a quickie in the cramped bathtub had trumped the appeal of the more immediate chairs they'd passed on the way. Silas lowered Jamila onto the mattress, knelt before her and began peeling off her wet socks from legs planted on either side of his chest. He let his hands explore leisurely; payback for all her earlier teasing when she was dressed and had the advantage.
"Bismillah." Jamila propped herself up on her elbows. "Fuck me!" She cried out in a husky voice that demanded and appealed all in the same breath. She wrapped her legs around his waist in an effort to get closer to the hard dick that kept brushing against her bare thighs. Silas stroked her curly pubic hair with one hand and leaned forth to kiss her. Jamila bucked her hips instinctively and began moving against his thumb on her clit trying to ease the dull ache of pleasure that needed more than the finger he slipped inside her. She reached between them whimpering indiscernible pleas.
"Wait," he ordered sternly but smiling, swatting her hand aside and making a mental note to shave off at least two seconds from his current condom unwrapping technique. He bit a corner of the wrapper.
"I'm not a common whore you know," she said exasperated. A needle scratching a record would have been a fitting sound effect. There was full blown British haught in her statement and she backed away leaving enough room between them to dance a waltz.
"What?" He asked understanding meaning more than words. His brain wasn't getting enough blood for logic. The reason for her indignation sank in and he found speech easier the second time. "I'm… I don't want to get you pregnant Jamila." It was the right answer; sugar and spice was back.
"That's so sweet," she said moving closer and pushing him on his back before he realized her renewed intentions. She took the condom still in his grasp, finished tearing the orange wrapper, rolled it on with much more expertise than a practically cloistered 21-year-old should have had and sat astride his dick, guiding it inside her inch by inch.
"Contraception," she added moaning when Chris raised himself enough to take one of her nipples in his mouth and roll the other between his fingers, "is traditionally the woman's responsibility in my culture Sergeant." She began rocking her hips slowly at first then in tune with his upward thrusts. Silas scrambled to recall New York Knicks statistics when Jamila took over setting the pace and several minutes later, when she came, he had added the words for 'faster,' 'harder' and five different ways of praising Allah to his knowledge of the Arabic language.
-X-
"Told ya," Dahl pointed behind Wilson at a phone's handset curled around the topmost tier of the chandelier. "Martinez wanted to go to the show too," he added.
"Come back tomorrow," Kinder offered lazily. "He'll be out of shit to throw by then"
"What crawled up his ass?" Wilson muttered before the part of his brain that controlled what he said to people several links above him in the food chain was back up and running again.
"Wife died." Dahl said sitting back down again.
"He was married?" There was shock in Wilson face.
"Ex-wife," Kinder corrected.
"So what's the problem then?" Wilson asked. Candy Caine took a backseat in his mind. In a pinch, he wouldn't need more than the poster already in possession, a little imagination and a serving of mayonnaise. "I was fucking over the moon when I gave my wife her walking papers."
"They were still… friendly if you know what I mean."
"You been going through his trash there Mikey?" Dahl popped a mint in his mouth. He'd been keeping Kinder company for two hours without a cigarette break.
"Intelligence starts in the home." This was one of his daily affirmations. He had glued an outline of his morning routine to the inside of his shaving kit. Stand before mirror. Admire your potential. State affirmations 10 times. Brush teeth. "Besides I don't need to. I handle all his correspondence."
Wilson was still standing in front of them, waiting for a punch line. His mind couldn't grasp the concept of mourning for an ex-wife as defined by the vernacular.
"You know that Medevac chopper that was shot down in al-Hudaba? The woman was his wife…"
"You mean the blonde?" Wilson interrupted considering the possibilities. No. She was a decorated war hero. She was dead. Even he had standards.
"Yup."
"He's been trying to reroute her body all morning. She didn't want to be buried. Looks like it's gonna happen though. I really don't want to be in Taylor's shoes when word gets around she was the one who rubber stamped all the shipping paperwork man."
"Like what's he gonna do to her fool? Article fifteen her ass for doing her job. This ain't the fucking mafia." Dahl was pissed off. There was only so much of Kinder's bullshit he could withstand without some nicotine to take the edge off.
"What does he want with the body anyway?" Wilson continued.
"Jazz funeral." Dahl crunched more mints. "They're shipping her to Virginia though. I think it's only the stepmother left and she don't give a shit."
"You think he'll let me go to Spelcher man? I know Taylor."
"How well?"
"Biblically," Wilson whispered averting his eyes. Cardinal rules of gentlemanly behavior such as 'don't' kiss and tell' only applied to gentlemen.
"I think he might just drive you himself." Kinder grunted. Ryan's head popped out of his office then the whole of him and Wilson began to stand in attention until Ryan signaled otherwise.
"Why don't you do the world a favor Lieutenant," Colonel Ryan boomed behind Kinder's ear lifting the man off his chair by the collar of his body armor until he had recovered enough footing to stand in attention, "and stop thinking so much."
"Yes sir. Sorry sir."
"Make yourself useful."
"Yes sir."
"Type up your reassignment orders to the 377th. Congratulations, Lieutenant, you are shipping out!" Kinder processed the funeral music still seeping out Ryan's office and didn't dare ask if he was serious. Survival was about instinct after all. "Sergeant," he added "why don't you step into my office for a second? I think we need to have a talk."
-X-
"What is this?"
"A Jhelam stole." Jamila took the scarf from his hands and wrapped it around his neck.
"So this is cashmere," he said examining the garment-care label.
"A hundred percent." Silas took both ends of the rich coffee coloured scarf in his hands. He saw the designer's signature quilted into the cloth in a lighter thread. "Keep it; it brings out your eyes."
"This is too expensive Jamila."
"Don't let a brand name fool you Sergeant; I nicked that from a shop in Sloane Street." She laughed at his straight face.
"All the big name designers in London have these invitation-only sales for rich Muslim women observing purdah," she continued. "They close down the store, break out the caviar and send all the men out to lunch. Anyway, Mustafa was trying to impress some obscure Saudi diplomat at the time and when the man's wife asked if I wanted to join her, Mustafa had to say yes. He gave me his AmEx Centurion card to open a charge account with Louis Vuitton and said I could buy anything I wanted." Jamila scooted towards the edge of the bed and shrugged into a robe folded over the footboard.
"I spent over 50,000 pounds in less than an hour. I must have ordered one of everything they had in stock and still, the shop girl wouldn't look at my face. I was seething. I took that scarf off a mannequin and just… walked out of the store. Mustafa broke my ring finger when he saw the bill that night." Oddly enough, the memory made Jamila laugh.
"I'm sorry."
"Why? Did you ever work for asinine luggage designers?"
"That the world is so fucked up," Silas said, suddenly aware that the moment was gone and the comfort of her bed and the easy way their bodies fit together were fleeting commodities at best. He sat beside her on the edge of the bed, with his hand on the small of her back. "I'm going home," he said after a while. "I don't know if my unit will still be assigned to Mosul when I get back."
Jamila took a deep breath. She got up and walked to the window, parting the curtains to look outside. The sun was getting tired.
"I trust you," she said looking at the grass "and that's a lot more than I can say about anyone else right now so whatever it is about me that makes you disregard common sense and show up at my doorstep; I'm glad I have it."
"I'm not trying to…"
"Laa," Jamila interjected. "I don't need an explanation. You are welcome to visit… whenever and it's okay if you don't. I have a vibrator."
"Thank you." She laughed again.
"I'll never stop teasing you if your cheeks always turn that charming shade of pink," she said straddling his lap. Silas kissed the scar on her neck. "When is your birthday?" She asked.
"Not for another month." Jamila looked at his wristwatch. There'd be sunlight a little longer yet.
"We don't celebrate birthdays in Islam but I'll make an exception," she said sliding off his lap and to her knees in front of him. She pushed his knees apart and traced the outline of the muscles of his thighs as if trying to decide something. Silas sat still, struggling to focus on the furniture then the goat bleating downstairs, not wanting to jinx his chances with any of the stupid thoughts going through his head. Jamila took his dick in her hand, made her lips into an 'o' and buried her face in his crotch, swirling her tongue around the head, stroking the budding erection up and down feeling him grow harder in her mouth.
"Happy birthday Ranger," she said breaking contact to lick his balls. Chris was pretty sure he had answered but then it was a coin toss whether or not 'mrgle' could be considered a word.
Finis a'ight! Be warned though, this is officially a trilogy now. I gots Part 3 in the rough.
Thank you Bianca! Without you, I'd have missed that stray public hair.
Thy Author.