Maria looked closely at David's stitches. His grin had pulled apart a short fissure in his lip, and a small bead of blood grew slowly there. She had seen the bead as it started, but before she could get to him with a piece of gauze, the blood had grown too heavy and rolled down his chin.

She laid him back, bunching up the bedrolls beneath him into a pillow for his head, then pressed the small wad of gauze against the split and held it. "You are such a beautiful creature," she said softly, "a magnificent man, a wonderful friend. I've known you for two and a half days. I feel as if I've known you forever."

He nodded slightly, almost not at all, not wanting to move his mouth. He wanted to simply melt into her care. To submit to her, to let her minister to his wounds. He had missed this since he had reached his mid-adolescence and felt he needed to reject his mother's attentions. He had often wondered why he had done so.

She had done nothing to deserve my rejection. I only pretended to her she was unimportant to me. Why? To make me seem more important? Was it to show my independence? To make me feel stronger?

When I get home, I must let her know I love her, that she is still my best friend, that she has never ceased to be. I probably avoided her, embarrassed by my maturing, probably more the shame from what I was doing with Sister Clemencia. How stupid all of that was. How stupid it still is.

David was so deeply into his thoughts he had missed Maria's questioning, or even if she had been questioning. Her voice had become rather insistent by the time he realised she was waiting for a response. He didn't even know the question or even if there had been one.

"I'm sorry, Maria, I was thinking of my mother and of how much I miss her. My mind was completely elsewhere. I don't know what you were saying or asking."

"Oh God, David... Oh, I'm so sorry to interrupt your thoughts, your memories. My question is so tiny in comparison. Here you are, half the way around the world from home, away from your family, wounded, far into enemy territory, now surrounded by enemy, and some dumb girl is asking you if you like her."

"Do I like her? What's not to like? But like is such an inadequate word for what I feel — I love her — I don't even know what that means, but it says it better."

She squeezed his hand lightly, but the worried expression was still on her face. "I'm so sorry for interrupting your thoughts of your —"

He raised his hand to interrupt. "I need to be here, to be here in the present, not daydreaming of other times, other places. I would rather be here than anywhere else. Trying to be anywhere else is a waste of time and a big waste of energy. We miss what's here, what's now. We miss the experience of the present, we miss seeing opportunities as they arise. So, thank you for bringing me back."

"I love your way of thinking. I love your energy and your spirit." The concern melted from her face as she spoke. "Men usually keep their thoughts and their feelings, hidden. You — you're wide open, so easy to understand, so easy to be with."

"I'm delighted you think so..." He paused. "You're pressing rather hard on my lip. How's the bleeding?"

"Sorry, distracted." She lifted the gauze and looked. "The bleeding has stopped. It was a tiny rupture in your dry lips. I'll leave it open for now. You'll have to remember not to smile so widely, not to stretch it too much again. How long have these stitches been in?"

"This is Saturday, I was stitched-up Monday mid-morning, so five days now. Did the wound reopen?"

"No the wound's intact, and the stitches can come out now. Five days is sufficient for facial lacerations, longer than that can cause more suture scarring. The blood supply to the face is greater than other parts of the body and healing is faster. Elsewhere, a week to ten days is more normal." She stroked his short whisker stubble.

"I have a small personal kit, tweezers and nail scissors which will do a fine job. I'll start with your cheek, but I'll have to be careful not to mistake beard stubble for stitches," she giggled. "How old is the beard?"

"A bit over a week now. I last shaved on Friday after my bum had been stitched-up."

"Your bum?"

"I got a small rip from pieces of exploding shell, and I was moved back behind the lines to have it repaired."

"I'll have to look at that. I've not seen your bare backside, only your front. Your front is so intriguing to me, I never thought to check elsewhere."

"You're making me swell, Maria."

"What? So simply?"

"I can never predict what pumps it up. Sometimes has a mind of its own."

"Can it wait until I've done your face? Or should I start lower down toward your butt?"

"My father frequently reminded me it's necessary to start at the bottom and work up." He looked into her eyes and chuckled.

"Off with your trousers, then. Mama, take his shoes off and pull down on his cuffs. Let's get to work."

He undid his belt, unbuttoned his front and lifted his butt to help Rachel tug his trousers down. He rolled over as she finished.

"It's so long, lots of ragged tears. So many stitches all over the place. Looks good, though, there's no redness, no swelling." She leaned to smell the wound. "Smells clean." She kissed his butt cheek.

"The medic at the ADS said it was mostly shallow, a few chunks of meat missing, but not serious."

"What's ADS?" Maria asked, as she continued to examine the wound across the top of his left buttock.

"I don't exactly know. It was the second place I was walked to from the trench. The first one was the RAP, Regimental Aid Post, where I was examined, bandaged and accompanied farther back."

"Is it sore?"

"No, not really. Just a bit tender. I looked at it when I got my room in the gasthaus. Difficult to see back there, even with my little mirror. I removed the bandages and daubed it with gauze. There was no blood, not even the yellow oozing which I still had on my face. I soaked in the bathtub for a long while, then taped layers of gauze over it. After another soak in the tub on Thursday evening before dinner, I left the dressing off. It had been totally clean."

"It looks good. There's some puckering from stitches which bridge missing flesh, there's scabbing on the shallow scrapes, but I think the stitches can come out. That high on your buttock, there is little movement, little to stretch and reopen the wound. Our instructor said there'd possibly be a bit of bleeding and oozing as the stitches come out. Maybe a bit of pain. This must have made a mess of your trousers."

"Ripped the entire seat out of both them and my union suit."

"What's a union suit?"

"Underwear, a soft wool suit the Army issued me for extra warmth under my trousers and shirt. I ordered replacements for it and for my trousers from the Quartermaster. One of the stretcher bearers taped-up the seat of my trousers as the medic was stitching me back together. He did a terrific job on them, taping mostly inside."

Maria knelt between his legs and dabbed the wound with alcohol. She lifted the first stitch with tweezers and snipped the thread. "Tell me if this hurts," she said as she tugged gently with tweezers on the end of the suture to dislodge it. "We practised with stitches on oranges in school, but this is my first real one. They said some will be difficult to get moving, but this first one was easy."

"It's a strange feeling, almost like a little tickle inside."

"At school, we were told to start by removing every second stitch to make sure the edges of the wound stay together." She continued along the longest laceration, leaving half the sutures in place. Then she began removing stitches from the side tears, finished them and worked her way back along the long tear. "Your butt looks really good."

"Yes, I thought it had healed well when I looked at it with the little mirror."

"No, not the wound, David." She giggled. "I meant your butt. You've a beautiful butt. I'm curious, though, these balls dangling and wagging around down here between your legs; they must get in the way when you walk, when you move. Where do all your dangling parts go? Women have such a tidy arrangement."

"I've never thought about it — I guess I simply let them do what they will — except when moving to sit down. I learned long ago to hand myself an automatic little heft as I do, to prevent sitting on tender things. Are you done back there?"

"Done except for the admiring, a cleaning with alcohol and some taping. Then we can start on the other side."

She finished the cleaning and put the tape directly onto the wound. "The tape will hold the edges together, keep the area clean and prevent chafing on your trousers. It'll hurt a bit when it's removed, and we'll have to be careful with the scabs, but this is the best way to do it in our current circumstances." She finished applying the tape, then kissed both butt cheeks and said, "Roll over, let the nurse examine the rest of you."

Rachel had been watching and admiring her daughter's nursing. "You two need privacy. I'll go —"

"It's not safe outside now with Fritz wandering through the area." David shrugged his shoulders. "Besides, I've nothing I'm ashamed of having you see. What about you, Maria?"

"I have nothing to hide from Mama."

"What about you, Rachel?"

"I love watching you two interact, but you need your privacy. I'll roll over and see if I can catch up on sleep."

After Rachel had turned her back, David rolled over. Maria put her fingers under his balls and lifted them, rotating them to examine and study. "Tell me about these things. Yesterday when you got out of the warm water to dry, they were dangling nearly half way to your knees. By the time we began to dress, they were up almost out of sight. Now, they are somewhere in between — they act like a coblenz."

"Coblenz? I'm familiar with the city, I went through there earlier this week, but I miss the analogy."

"It's a toy, a pair of wooden discs on an axle that you play with and spin to roll up and down a string, like this." She demonstrated.

"A yo-yo? We call it a yo-yo. Yes, I guess they are like that. They go up and down to regulate their temperature. I learned they need to be at a cooler temperature than the rest of the body, so the yo-yo, the coblenz is the regulator. When it's hot, they hang low."

"How low do they go?"

"I don't know, I've never checked, though the left one is always lower. I know how high they go, though. Let me show you." He worked his left one up inside his pubes, then did the same with the other. She was left holding an empty bag.

"This is very stretchy skin," she said as she pulled it.

He took hold of it and stretched it across his thigh and let go. They watched it sit there a while before beginning to retreat. "Watch this." He tensed his abdominal muscles, and the two balls popped back out into his sack, pulling the stretched flap off his thigh.

"You love your body, don't you? I love your familiarity with it."

"It's the only one I've ever explored closely. Yes, I enjoy it — I enjoy how it works. I figured out long ago I can't expect to know anyone else unless I know myself first. I've spent a lot of time alone, learning about myself, about how I work. Physically and spiritually."

He paused to look at her, tilting his head. "Maybe it's time I start learning about someone else. I've been physically close to women, but I've never been emotionally close to any. Other than a few parts, I know nothing about women. Learning about you seems a great place to start."

"We can start by doing something about your swelling here."

"But that's me, not you. I want to learn about you."

"But it is me too. It's a huge part of my interest, of my curiosity right now. I've not seen one before. Well, never a man's. I used to see the tiny ones on my brothers when we were young, but I had no idea these things grow so much. I've never examined one." She held it, then moved it around as she observed, sliding the skin on and off the head and studying its structure and action.

"Besides my brothers', the only one I'd seen before yours was in the strange drawings in the anatomy book at school this week. The bodies were drawn sliced in half like a hog at the butcher shop. I couldn't recognise anything familiar on the drawing of the woman, and I assumed the drawing of the man was as misleading. That was a big part of my curiosity a couple of nights ago."

She smiled at him as she pushed it down to his belly and watched it spring back, then pulled it down toward his knees and let it pop back up. "So your penis is very much about me at the moment. See, you've already learned something about me. That I'm curious."

"You're certainly not shy, either. You're confident and self-aware."

"I'm also hot and completely wet. Let me get a bit more comfortable." She took off her shirt and the camisole under it, undid her trousers and slid them off. "Do you mind if I sit on you while I examine your cheek?"

He throbbed at the sight of her nakedness. "Please, go right ahead, you're the nurse, you seem to know what's best for me."

"Just lie still," she said after she had slipped him into position. She slowly moved back and forth, taking a closer look at the stitches in his cheek and then moving back for a wider view, then a closer one, then wider.

Maria's examination routine slowly increased in speed. After a few minutes, she tensed. Her buttocks quivered and her breathing grew deeper and quicker. Random twitching shook her body, she threw her head back and opened her mouth wide, let out a roar, scrunching her eyes. Her whole body quivered, then convulsed and again, and again, and again.

Her hands kneaded the bedroll as her head dropped and hung while her chest rapidly expanded and contracted with deep breathing. When it had slowed, she lifted her head, leaned down to kiss him gently and went back to her slow examination of the stitches in his cheek. A closer view, a wider one, closer, wider...

After two more cycles of cheek examination and two more gentle kisses, she asked him, still lightly panting, "What can I do to help you?"

"Nothing else at all — this is truly exquisite. I've been holding back for you, allowing you play. You let me know when you're ready to finish, and I'll be right there with you."

"Let's do it this time, I'm familiar with all your stitches now." Maria giggled, then together they slowly climbed to a huge shuddering release. She collapsed onto him, and they lay gasping with wide smiles on their faces.

"Careful you don't tear your lip again," she panted as she tenderly stroked his face and lightly ground her mound against him, shuddering anew.