Limited options.

The following days I saw all of the three women happy, especially Kara. She was smiling all around, infecting everyone with pure joy. The boys could not help themselves smiling with her, finally coming ‘home’ again after another night in the woods. Tom and Didier had been silent for the longest of times, but whatever they talked through, being in each other’s company, they were working it out. I dismissed Tom’s apologies for being so absent. I understood completely, losing his best friends in the war.

Thinking about it, I could not imagine losing one of my companions. Keeping my promise to the mother of the two siblings made me wonder about the strange ways life can get you into. Strange that I found myself in middle of love, because that was what is was: love among four people. Caring for each other, being taken cared of by each other, sharing intimacy amongst each other, in body and mind.

Not all my fears about intimacy were leaving me. Far from it. I talked to the women about it. I could not see myself initiating sex, fearing I would hurt them, fearing I would somehow hurt myself. It was an enigma why this existed at all, why this persisted against all their sublime efforts.

And efforts were made to further entice me in engaging myself. Especially Kara wanted more. Abused, both physically and mentally by her previous boyfriends, she wanted more positive experiences with me. I had told her it would be one of her driving motivations, perhaps for the rest of her life to overwrite her negative life experiences with intimacy, but it didn’t limit her affectionate behavior towards in the slightest. Obvious seducing tactics had little to no effect upon me. Bluntly asking me resulted in more resistance. She became frustrated with the little progress she had made, and with the limited progress of my evolvement. The pace she envisioned was way too fast for me. She started to complain to the other women, and yet after them telling her that I was far from a normal man, Kylie had enough of it, and came to me.

“She just wants sex, good sex, well... perhaps not exactly that, but more affectionate sex. Blame your magic tongue, and your genuine care for her, Alex. She enjoys that very much. She sees it as a natural development of her relation with you.”

“I don’t see myself as a sexual healer, far from it.”

“You don’t need to be. She will heal herself. See yourself as just someone who cares for her, very much.”

“Sure, and I do, but with her bad experiences, she will want to overwrite them all, but reassociated with love and care. I am far from sure I can handle all of that.”

“Just take small steps, don’t think about all the rest. We are now all in a relationship with you, even if you haven’t wanted to happen, being at war. The war is nearing its end very fast now. You must have realized that. I’ve seen your disinterest at the front lines for a while now, do you really want to commit yourself and us to see it finished?”

I had to admit she had a valid point. I barely cared for the war these days. I couldn’t commit myself anymore to the fullest. I had seen too much and I knew the rest of the section had had more than their share in the atrocities of war. We could easily pull out, desert even, and leave the rest to the incoming fresh troops the US were sending now. Finally.

“The others will follow you no matter what you decide, you know that.”

“You want to quit too, Kylie?”

“I don’t care for this war anymore than you do now. You are tired of it, I am too. And you know the rest had had its breaking point some time ago.”

“I know they did. It is the reason I didn’t want to join the new platoons. Meeting new people, caring for them, then see them killed again. I can’t afford to lose anymore people I have promised to keep alive. I have too many broken promises on my conscience already. I had my breaking point too, perhaps not so obviously like Tom and Didier, but little by little, my heart is not in it anymore. My heart belongs to you now. And Kate, and Kara. You guessed that right. I will give my love freely, but I cannot afford it any more to lose it.”

“Then it is settled, gather the circle and tell them you want out.”

I called for a section meeting and once I had their full attention, I told them so.

“I want to be out of this war. I made a promise as your section leader to keep you safe, but with the war nearing its end, the battles to come... I foresee they will be even worse than what we had before. I have to much to lose now. I cannot afford to lose even one of you. So, as the last act of your section commander, I say we desert.”

They all were silent for a while. Perhaps they never even considered deserting as a way out, but I doubted that very much. We can’t have been the only militia section considering it very seriously after the new influx of professional soldiers. Soldiers from all over the world were pouring in: the US most of all, but other countries too, NATO or otherwise, that didn’t want the Soviet-Union to be reborn.

“You mean it?” Tom asked.

“I do. The six of us won’t make a difference at all. We’ll have to wait out the outcome of the coming battles first, then decide how we will live the rest of our lives. But I don’t want us to be part of those battles. Chances are very high we will all die. And even if some of us survive, we are caring for each other too much now, those people we would lose, will be such a burden. Chances are even lower we would want to live after it, let alone we would experience any happiness in our future lives. Those of us surviving would live, but that would be just it. Nothing more than being alive.”

“I agree,” Tom said. “Past weeks, I could not see myself in battle anymore. You know I couldn’t do more. I was and still am devastated by the all the losses I’ve had.”

“So am I.” Didier said. “I lost my previous section, all the comrades I had made there, the friendships I had. Then this section was halved as well, all those people I liked very much. Gone. And with the ones remaining... No. I wouldn’t be able to handle it, even if I survive.”

“I spoke to the other women, here.” Kylie said. “They all want out. We care too much about each other. We love each other too much to be able to stand even one loss among us.”

Kate and Kara nodded at Kylie’s statement.

“Okay then, we’ll desert as one. Unless some of you want to leave on your own? Anyone?” I asked.

No response on that question. Some even looked horrified at the thought of it.

“Well, we can’t stay here. In case they want to **** us to join. You never know. Let’s remain in the forest, dig a new home, gather supplies, or hunt for it. Best to keep our footprint as small as possible. Just another station, but this time off the radar.”

Looking at the map, I figured we had to stay in Black Forest, not too close to the Rhine, not too close to the defensive lines, not too close to wherever the Russians were planning to go. Not too far away of a village, not too close to it either. Far away enough from major cities. Close enough to a water supply. Limited options all around.

We chose to move a little bit more southwards, near the National Park of the Black Forest. Plenty of small villages nearby, plenty of little rivers, and incredibly densely forested. Tom and Didier had been there before on their hunting trips and mentioned the region was very quiet, though the inhabitants hadn’t left yet.

Once the decision was made, all proceeded very fast. In a night we we’re simply gone, the next day we were already digging our new ‘home’. Plenty of experience with that. It took us two days to get it done. Reinforced earth caves. Two of them. One for the two boys, one for the women and me. Far enough from each other, and very well isolated against wind, cold and noise. Outside, but adjacent a fire pit inside a sort of hut. We all were getting close to becoming true survivalists.

When it was dug, reinforced, isolated, cloaked and decorated, Kara wanted to Christianize it in her own way. And I was to be involved in it. I could have guessed. For too long now she had been waiting. With the war over for us, there was no reason for me to formally object to real relationship standings, with all that entailed in her mind. I simply had no say in it, whatsoever. I could object, plead whatever I wanted, Kara was becoming a little tyrant in her own way. Perhaps she saw it was the only way to get what she wanted, by simply ordering me, an act in which before she was too hesitant, too unconfident, too shy to do so.