Fields of Fire by James Webb Page B

and it fell straight and black and silky down her back. He gathered it in his hands and pressed it into his face and it was soft and clean and he kissed it, holding it that way. Then he gently pulled on it, turning her around, and lifted her face, her eyes still looking down, not meeting his, and he kissed her.
    He held her that way for a long time, careful not to force himself on her, wondering at the fullness of her mouth, trying to understand that part of him that was exclaiming that this was perhaps the most beautiful moment of his life. He experienced the firmness of her back and hips and then the surprising fullness of her breasts. He marveled at the shyness of her response after she had finally committed herself so completely to him.
    Then she slowly broke away from him, still not saying a word, and left the room. He stood awkwardly for a moment, watching after her. The hard white of a streetlight flashed on her as she re-entered the room but it was soft and gold and black where it touched her. She did not return to him, though, did not even look at him. Instead she knelt on the floor of her little room and folded down the futon that was her bed.
    He noticed that he had begun to tremble. He dropped his clothes where he stood and joined her on the futon, losing his fears and loneliness in the solace of her warmth. Still she was shy, almost passive, but she was mercurial warm when he entered her and she spoke for the first time then, a sharp groan and a lovely word that he did not understand because it was a Japanese word. But he needed no translation.
    Then it was over and they still held each other, almost as if both were in shock at their intimacy. He took her hair and wrapped it behind his neck, enveloping them inside the soft black cocoon that her hair made. She laughed softly, her face still fresh and innocent and bright, and he felt that he was somehow experiencing an emotion that had eluded him before, that was not supposed to be a part of him. Not there. Not then. But he felt it and he remarked to himself that he would do almost anything to preserve it.
    He noticed it then, on the futon. She saw that he was staring at it and stood quickly, donning a happy-coat, making such a simple thing as that a poem. Then she gathered the sheet and carried it out of the room.
    He held his head, laying back on the futon. Oh, wow. I didn't know there was such a thing any more, not on Okinawa. She re-entered the room and went into the kitchen, where she put on a pot of tea. He watched her movements, stunned. Her hair was down around her shoulders, framing her oval face. She was ignoring him again.
    A virgin! All the way to Okinawa to learn the ways of sultry, sloe-eyed Oriental women, and he'd happened on a virgin. It explained a lot of things to him. He walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She stared into the teapot as it steamed, taking no apparent notice of his hands.
    “Mitsuko. This was your first time.”
    She turned around and faced him. She seemed embarrassed, compromised. She nodded.
    He shrugged helplessly. “Mine, too.”
    HE walked loose and powerful on his way back to Camp Hansen, taking long strides in the middle of the street, avoiding shadowed pockets of buildings where Americans skulked with gutting knives, waiting to split a man's belly for the dollars in his wallet. He reached the camp gate and listened to the bar tales of the others coming in from liberty, all the cruel clichés about Oriental women. He thought of the groin-grinding bar girls of two days before, and for the first time understood the sad part of Mitsuko's stare that kept accusing.
    STREETLIGHT’S hard light on the far wall, soft breasts pressed against his middle. How could she have such breasts beneath the unrevealing cloth of waitress uniforms? American songs on the radio. Japanese radio. Armed Forces Network. Don't ask why. Don't ask how. Don't ask forever. Love me now. * Love breaks over green tea that he loaded down