2

"John. I don't think I can do this much longer."

The setting could not be as different from earlier in the day as you could imagine. It is a dinning room in the Emerald City, the Green Zone. There is velvet hanging from the walls, the tables are covered with white linens that are actually white. I am not dressed in spattered camo, but in a soft white dress that hangs in folds off my soft breasts, and down just above my ankles. I am in tan silk stockings and high heels. Hampton, my husband, is in a tux. We are eating steak and fish. There is wine. We don't usually celebrate our scores, but we have an anniversary date soon, and may not be together when it comes. It is September 2006, and we have been married almost five years.

"You'd better be able to. We aren't going to retire on my Captain's pay. Even if they do promote me to Major. Let's not talk about this."

We don't, instead we eat, we dance, and we return to the room that I rent. It is small, not particularly luxurious, but laundry is done every day, and it has a safe. It is into this metal cube that I put the small rock.

"It is hard to believe that this much of the past is for sale."

"If it is not nailed down, it is for sale. If we can pry it loose, it is not nailed down."

"Isn't that why you got me here?"

"From the very beginning little darling. From the very beginning."

He sweeps me up into his arms. He pulls my eyes up to his.

"Do you realize what kind of a score we are making? We've put aside almost half a million dollars since you got here. Everyone of these bits of junk is worth a year of my pay."

"It's also worth the lives of many people."

"Just so long as none of them are ours."

I look into his blazing face, and into the intensity that cradles his eyes in his somewhat sunken sockets, and animates his long square face. He is so tall. So much taller than I am.

"The interrogation for this one was like clockwork. They are getting good at this."

"He broke and told the truth."

"Oh good god know, but he gave us a name, of people he was envious of. That's how half of these things get netted. Pick some poor digger up, put it into him, and he will give you the names of people who he thinks are doing better than he is. And half the time, he'll be right."

"So how did this one go?"

"Earlier today they picked up his son. The got in touch with him, told him to bring a specific piece. I heard them tell him that his son was going sky diving if he wasn't in that mosque in time."

"So why the big drama?"

"This morning he was trapped in that mosque. Some of Sadr's militia had him surrounded. There was a big gunfight. The marines got drawn in. There was a long stand off. Eventually Sadr's people moved along, but two, or maybe more, were in the minaret. We were the, ummm, back up plan. When they lost contact with him, we had to go in."

"And as always…"

"I can go in where angels fear to tread. Yes."

"This is such a sweet deal."

"I'm not happy about it."

"Everything we take was going out anyway, we are just diverting it. It is probably ending up in the same place. How many people have a hard on for rocks are there?"

"I'm the one up to my arms in blood."

"And you think I don't want to get closer to the action?" His eyes are blazing with fury and anger.

My voice gets very small.

"no."

He throws me back on the bed and begins to unbuckle his pants.

"John. I don't feel like it."

I here more unbuckling noises.

"What did I tell you about that."

I wince in expectation.

"Never to say those words."

"And what happened the last time you said them?"

"You cuffed me to a chair and made me watch as you had…'" my composure rattles at the visual memory "suh-suh-suh-sex with a whore."

"What kind of whore?"

"An Arab."

"An Arab what?"

"A fifteen year old Arab whore."

"That's right."

I can hear the clink of him pullin gout a pair of cuffs. There is a whirling motion through the air, and then I feel them clack across my wrists. He yanks and hooks my now bound writs over one of the posts at the top corner of the bed.

"And then what happened?"

"You put a gun to my head."

He pulls my legs out to a "Y". He cuffs one to a lower part of the bed frame. My stomach muscles are pulle taut already. He bends over. Clearly tonight was going to be a bondage night, because he came well prepared. I hear him unzipping the bag he brought with him before our meal. I hear the clank of hollow metal poles. I hear a thunk as they are fit together. Moments later I feel a snap as a manacle is fit around one leg. I begin to flail one leg feebly, but it is far to late. He brings down the metal pole with a thwack several times on the back of my thighs.

"And?"

"You made me lick her."

I whimper and stop moving the moment he slaps the second mancle on me. He unzips the dress and bunches it up over my face, leaving me in darkness, my bra strap feeling horribly tight across my now exposed back.

"Where?"

"Between her legs?"

He screws the pole into one manacle, and then slaps it inot the other. My legs are spread apart by almost three feet. There is a scripthing noise as he cuts first one strap, then the other, of my panties loose and pulls them off of me, the remains of the band sliding across my tumm and away.

"Where is that?"

"All over he sex and ass."

"And what specifically did you have to do next?"

I wince has he straps my hips with a short hard piece of leather.

"I had to drill my tongue into her asshole."

"That's right."

He straps me again, and then continues.

"And what did I tell you about the next time you did it."

"That it would be much, much, worse."

"I wasn't lying."

"Please no."

"What did I tell you those words meant?"

"Absolutely nothing."

I whimper again. I have no idea what is coming. My head is buzzing with the dull ache that comes after sharp pain. There is a throbbing across my tights, and there is a slow burning sensation settling in around my hips, deep in the balls of the joints were stretched.

I gasp out "Absolutely nothing."

Smack.

"Absolutely nothing."

Smack.

I am whimpering and wincing, my face contorts. Not in pain, but in the expectation of pain.

He does terrible things to my body.

He leaves me there, only to come back hours later to unlock me, and then leave me alone on the bed. And that is the worst punishment of the night.