More hourglass sand trickling down my back, rough but softly caressing. Silly me, I miss Jochen. No, more precisely I miss his hand around my cock. Fine, tight fingers on the base of it. Nicely manicured nails scratching the sensitive skin. And with the other hand cupping my balls and slowly but unrelentingly squeezing. He didn’t do that actually, not the part with the balls. But I wish he had and I can imagine it vividly when I jerk off into the bathroom sink while my girls outside just won’t stop knocking on the door, asking if daddy is okay.

Jochen still writes me letters like nothing happened. Friendly, soppy, heartfelt letters that don’t mention anything about the night in that hotel room. And I respect that because there is no way of politely asking whether he remembers jerking me off and possibly wishes to eventually repeat the experience. I imagine proposing this to his face and grind my teeth remembering the way his hands felt on my throat and I think about how nice it would sound if he closed them tighter, cutting off the air and called me a dirty old man and other such innocent words, quiet, softly, like he speaks when he is angry, so that the insult would eventually be drowned out by my own gasps for air.

There are no more happy events, the Leibstandarte only ever assembles when comrades die. One of these days I meet Jochen again. It’s like a kick in the balls, hard to describe why seeing him has that effect on me when the pain is still so sharp. He looks good in black. I am reminded of his uniform, the black Panzer one. I can’t control myself. When I greet him I grab him by his small waist. I could lift him up so easily, he seems as light as one of my girls. He jumps like something crawled up his back and still standing on tiptoes scolds me with a quiet look until I wrestle my hands back wishing he would have slapped me across the face instead.

I hadn’t expected it to be that bad, the intrusive thoughts are terrible. I should be mourning, but I’m just horny. I’m like a schoolboy in gym class, hiding the tent in my very expensive dress pants while I stand at the old comrade’s grave. And good, solemn Jochen stands on the other side of that hole in the ground. His hair is so neatly parted. His eyes are wet. I wonder if they ever made him cry in Landsberg and wonder if maybe I could make him cry if he was drunk enough to allow it. If I suck you off will you let me stick it up your ass?

They put our comrade in the ground. It starts to rain. His wife cries. I’m utterly disgusting.

It’s tradition to celebrate the dead with a feast. The HIAG helped out with the finances and it’s to our own benefit as we are both the financiers and the guests. In a small local restaurant we say farewell to our comrade and I say sorry for being such a swine. To my relief Jochen keeps his distance, talking to some younger men in a corner that I can’t see from my seat, and judging by the laughs entertaining them greatly. With increased alcohol intake the relief turns into anger. It’s just normal that I want what’s being withheld from me.

I watch Jochen as he walks out of the room, wandering off alone by himself. He is fiddling with his wedding ring, his nervous tick. It’s a sort of invitation. I follow him. He walks past the kitchen and out the back door leaving it open for the cold air to get in and me to slip out after him. It’s definitely an invitation.

It’s dark outside except for a light above the door. There is nothing here but mud, empty barrels and the edge of a forest. He is leaning on the wall next to the door, hiding from the rain under the overhang. I’m hardly drunk, but already so unrestrained. He has no excuse to be here, he’s not even smoking. When our eyes meet he smiles like he only smiles for me, affectedly coy. I grab him by the shoulders – he feels softer than I thought he would be, and push him closer to the wall, trap him with my body. Muffled conversations spill out of the door next to us. If he screamed they’d hear it, but he doesn’t make a sound. He just cocks his head and looks at me with something resembling curiosity and an underlying note that I can’t grasp but I remember from that night, knowing it should not be worn with such an innocent expression. He waits patiently, shifts his weight with a soft rustle, his knee rubs the inside of my thigh. The cold air bites my gums. I smell the alcohol on my own breath. I feel like I’m trapped there under my own heavy body, not him. Now that I have him I don’t know what to do with him.

“At a funeral service, Kurt?” he asks and there is no smile in his voice, it’s all cold and sharp like his eyes when he musters me up and down. “You’re shameless.” Shameless. What a wonderful poignant word. He drops it like a knife and it strikes me somewhere deep in my guts, leaving a queasy feeling, like blood spreading, horrible really, but also nice and warm and most of all deserved. I want him to say it again, rend me with words, cut me open, gut me like a pig and pull out all those rotten entrails.

I remember something stupid, something someone told me once who was nearly as good a disciple of Heini as Jochen. Maybe he’ll like that, I think, actually I am not thinking at all, just acting on quick reflexes, trying to get to him one way or another, preferably the hard way, make him angry so he shows his teeth. “Did you know the Saxons used to feast for three nights for each of their fallen warriors to..” Yet I hesitate, reflexively lick my lips, I think about fucking and placing my seed deep inside a girl, but I try to find better words for Jochen, who is so much more delicate than I am, “..ensure there would be enough babies to replace the dead?”

He tilts his head slowly to the other side not breaking eye contact for a moment, more snake than kitten now. “Kurt, evidently you haven’t paid much attention in biology class,” he says dryly, “The two of us are not going to pull that off.”

“We can still try,” I reply with a wink and I absolutely mean it, think about it too, him instead of that girl, back arched and dripping come.

He sighs, barely concealing an amused smile with this protest.

“Thank you for the offer, but I must reject,” he says and he pries my fingers from his jacket. I grab him by the wrists and slam them hard into the wall, clumsily, hurting myself just as much as him. The pain makes him wince. Disapproving folds appear between his furrowed brows. But he doesn’t fight me at all. His hands drop at an uncomfortable looking angle, such a theatrically emphasized lack of resistance. He must reject, but he must also not fight me. I can feel his heart beating under my thumbs. Not moving from my position I close the door with one foot, cutting off the distant mumble. Now it’s only the soft thrumming of the rain on the roof and the grass and the leaves. And Jochen’s heartbeat and his breathing, disappointingly calm, he doesn’t even look angry with me anymore.

“Aren’t you scared of the big bad wolf?” I say and show my teeth like a big bad wolf does.

He squints at me, flashing daggers from deep, dark eye sockets.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

I stumble at the question, answering it in my head. God, how much I would love it if he shivered before me. It’s not right, absolutely not right, to think like that about my dear old comrade in arms, yet here I am digging my nails into his skin and waiting for him to do something fun, like whimper or moan. I can see him grind his teeth and clench his jaw, the hard outline of his muscles jutting out. He tries to stare me down, but I’m not that easy, I won’t budge. Long, drawn-out seconds later the tension leaves his face, he lowers his eyes. I win. His smile is bittersweet.

“I thought you only fuck them to make them squeal,” he says and then looks up at me again, intelligent eyes behind dark eyelashes, his smile cocky now, calculated trick, just the right provocative expression, the kind that makes me aware of the weight of my cock, trapped by my pants, hard against my leg. Don’t ruin your outfit, Kurt. And he waits another moment, makes me think about the way he said ‘fuck’ and really shouldn’t have, good, innocent Peiper, makes me feel what it does to my dick. “I won’t squeal,” he says unflinching, begging to be proven wrong. I could drag him off into the forest, show him just how easy it is, I reckon it wouldn’t take much. He still keeps his hair that perfect length to hold on to. All I need is hand on the back of his head, one on his hip and he’ll be my piglet in no time.

I must stop my thoughts before actions follow all too quickly. He is my dear Jochen and I must remember how much he loves me and how good he is to me and how despicable I am for thinking of breaking this sacred bond between us, just because my dick is hard and I want to destroy something small and feeble; and small and feeble he is not, but maybe that’s why he riles me up so much.

“You’re abnormal,” he says so low it’s almost a whisper, the suggestion is barely audible over the constant drizzle of rain. It cuts right through me, splits me open, body and thought and all that lust now in his hands to play with. I know he’s doing it on purpose, a well calculated choice for words, twist the blade in my hand until it points back at me. I envy him for how good he is at it, reading me and finding that weak spot to probe, but that knowledge doesn’t help the fact that it does hurt and it hurts precisely where I need it to hurt now. My grip on his wrists becomes weak. I nod. “Yes, I am.”

“What are you?” he asks and he’s all kitten again, looking at least a decade younger than he is, like I remember him from the war, the doe-eyed admirer, practically begging to be allowed to taste my cock the way he looked at me then. Except of course, he never did want me like that, he’s just a tease and I’m the idiot falling for it over and over again. It is all so predictable. I know exactly what gets him off. He needs me to repeat his words, put me as the subject, make me say and really mean it, establish hierarchy by verbal submission.

I did want to be punished, did it not?

“I am a disgusting swine.” Anticipatory obedience, let’s get on with it. It does feel nice to say it out loud, that constant nagging thought, throbbing under my cranium. Like pulling a fat maggot out of rotten flesh. See, it’s still perfectly good to eat if just a little bitter.

“Yes, you are, Kurt,”I still like the way he says my name. It’s so affectionate, like he wants to swallow me whole. He slides his arms out of my hold and crosses them in front of his chest. The posture reminds me of my wife when she finds me nibbling on sweets. My arms, still caging him, are useless now without anything to hold on to, so I retreat and fold my hands behind my back. He must love that, I know I would.

It’s like a switch, sweet lovely Jochen to stern Standartenführer Peiper, to be addressed only with the full title, but preferably not addressed at all. “You’ve been fantasizing about me; at the burial,” he says, more statement than question. I nod.

“Tell me.”

My tongue becomes heavy, weighed down, too many things to say, all the nasty images clogged up in my heads, all of them likely to make him retch. I swallow them for him. It makes me sick. Even on fantasies I overeat.

He’s not patient with me. “Tell me,” he repeats with added emphasis, the anger barely concealed in the tone of it, but so apparent from the way his fingers dig into the fabric of his own suit. I have never seen him that unrestrained, but I should know better, the ‘flamethrower battalion’ moniker didn’t attest to a reserved character. Of course I don’t answer, just smile foolishly, knowing very well he wouldn’t accept that. He is so delightfully angry with me; his nails must by now be digging into his own flesh. Don’t hurt yourself, hurt me. I must have spoken out loud. Suddenly he lets go and smacks me in the face. The blow is harder than I had anticipated from his pretty hands, not as strong as my father’s were but enough to make my cheek feel warm and numb. The way Jochen looks at me then I can’t tell if he’s disgusted or intrigued or both, like when you see a particularly deformed animal in the wild and wonder how it can even live like that. Maybe he needs to see more of my depravities to come to a conclusion. I’ll show him how much I love pain. I can see his arms twitch to hit me again. I brace for it and am disappointed when he spares me. He sighs, glances over to the door and back to me.

“Get on your knees.”

I hit the ground before the downwards gesture of his index finger even points where he wants me. The grass under my knees is wet and muddy. Dirty water soaks my pants. I want to jump up again but I don’t, because he says “good boy” and says it as if it was a joke with a sarcastic edge and a smugness that makes my stomach twists. I’m not a good boy, I’m very bad and I need to be punished. I get on all fours, my hands sink into the wet grass, my sleeves are wet now too. There are steps behind the door, heavy, no heels, approaching. My heart is racing. To be seen like this, put in my place, they would all know what kind of a dirty pig I am. They stop, I freeze. They start again, going the other way, leaving us.

I am so relieved. I look up at Jochen, stick out my tongue and pant like a dog. I must look very silly. Jochen laughs just like you would if your pet did something absolutely adorable. He pats me on the head, two times, his hand remains there. Does he not see how vile I am? He strokes the back of my head, I barely feel the touch, too much pomade, it’s like an itch. I can’t stand his tenderness. It’s fake, he’s just toying with me.

“Hurt me,” I say with stifled anger.

He just quietly looks down at me, a hint of that laugh still remaining in the corner of his mouth. His fingers have gone through the slick strands of my hair, his nails scrape along my scalp, the sensation sends shivers down my spine. “Please hurt me,” I try again and twist my neck to give myself into his hand, knowing he will understand, hoping he will just grab my hair and pull. He hastily lets go of me, I’m not good enough to touch. He wipes the pomade off on my shoulder. I am as disgusted with myself as he is with me. I try to get up and get away, anywhere but here and on my knees.

“No,” he says, “stay.”

I am a good boy, I stay. Back on my knees again, closer now, getting accustomed to it.

“You’ll have to repay me,” he says. For what? I haven’t said anything, I’ve only been naughty in my mind. He can’t know that. “For when I jerked you off. Don’t tell me you forgot?” He puts on the face that I’m sure he uses on the girls, so understanding, so thoughtful, intense; he’s only got eyes for me. “No, of course not.” I sound like a bootlicker. “Good,” he says and grabs the hair on the back of my head, just like I wanted it. A slight pull snaps my head back, I stare at the lamp above us, little moths are trapped in its light. It’s blinding me too. I can’t see Jochen’s face when he says, “Now you suck me off.”

It’s only fair. My hands are too messy to touch his clothing, he unzips for me. He’s half hard, entirely unimpressed by my performance. A droll sight if I was fucking him, knowing he was getting off on it so little but just enough to be ashamed. Now it’s simply cruel. I try my best to excite him, I pull back his foreskin, lick the head, suck on it, stuff his dick in my mouth. He’s not dirty, but something about it still remains repulsive. I can not get used to the taste of his cock. Eventually I get him hard, when I try to go so deep down on him that I gag. He likes that. Precum rubs into the back of my throat, salty like blood. I would prefer it if he pissed on me, I think, I would feel less like a cunt. There is that look again, I’m his girlfriend now. He starts fucking my mouth, sharp jabs, always enough time between them to watch me squirm. I nearly forgot how much of a sadist he is. It’s cute. I gag again and taste sick on my tongue, he pushes deeper, as deep down my throat as he can go, and feeds me his spunk. A fitting punishment for a glutton. It’s kind that he doesn’t get it on my face, makes it a little easier to explain the condition of my clothing when I go back inside. I can taste him still, on the back of my tongue, all evening, the beer won’t wash it down.

It’s strange to meet Jochen again after all those years. When I had last seen him we were both in uniform talking tanks and war and Germany. He addressed me so formally then, what was it again? SS-Oberführer Meyer? Dates and titles are hazy.

Now there he is in a room full of old men, alcoholic beverages and heavy food. For so many years I only had the words in his letters but my visual impression of him and the sound of his voice was still fresh in my mind.

Sometimes his letters sounded so bitter, even depressed. He would never say so of course, but the desperation for contact was clear in his closing words. The whole ordeal never struck me quite as severely as him. I’m not a man of intellect but cunning. The ramifications of my actions and circumstances aren’t quite as obvious to me as to him. He sees a darker future where I see a grey present.

He is different and all the same. Older of course. Unlike me he didn’t gain weight, it seems like he never really got the fat back on his rips after the war stripped it off him. He’s a little grey around the edges, but still as handsome as ever. And so very solemn. His face lightens up the moment he spots me. He embraces me and laughs. He stills sounds like Berlin royalty, his controlled choice of words is in pleasant contrast with the relaxed demeanour. And he has so much to tell, but even more so he wants to hear about me, about Canada, Britain, my plans of escape from the POW camp. I see he’s still glowing with the same admiration he had for me the moment we first met. He would still call me SS-Brigadeführer had I not literally shaken it out of him. I get nostalgic again. But no more ranks now, It’s just “Kurt” and “Jochen”.

Sepp is there too. Like the good old days. We laugh a lot. It’s a good night with plenty of alcohol to grease the tongue. We drink to the fallen comrades.

Time passes quickly. Jochen misses his ride home. As the meeting splits up I offer my hotel room. He gladly accepts. We throw ourselves on the bed in the gloomy bedroom. There is no space for sitting areas in old fashioned places like this.

I’m not tired and neither is he. I’m not even sure he’s really drunk, had it not been for the missed ride home. I feel tipsy and unfocused yet his eyes are so clear and so unwaveringly pinned on me. You need a pair of balls to withstand a look like that. It’s not like he means harm, but he’s just so damn intense in everything he does. So much will for such a small body. Well, I shouldn’t be talking.

He takes his jacket off. The fit of his pants is flattering around his hip. My mind makes two jumps.

“Probably the worst thing in there was having no decent German around. I heard you guys could really spend some quality time together?” He nods, his eyes are still glued onto mine. “I heard Sepp had a… special kind of friend.” His expression changes ever so slightly. I’m too drunk to read it.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

God, he sounds cold now. Where is that warm admiration? He makes it sound like I implied him in the matter. I wouldn’t dare. I need to win him back, think of something.

“The Americans. Did you ever?” I imitate a gun with my hand and make a shooting motion. He looks at my hand and back into my eyes. Is that a little curiosity maybe? I set the gun to his forehead. His body tenses visibly. “Did you see it?”

“I wasn’t present,” he says in a rehearsed manner and then a little calmer, “and if I was I had other matters to attend to.”

“Oh, that’s a shame.”

He looks intoxicated now. The red shows so easily on his pale skin. The tip of my fingers are still on his forehead. I’m not sure I understand his expression any longer. Is he flirting with me? I feel hot. When in doubt, keep talking.

“The Canadians… I’ve seen it all. When… I forgot his name… when he shot them. Every one of them. That moment when the light leaves their eyes and they spill their brains. Such a funny way to go.” The memory is still vivid. It brings a smile to my face. I feel dizzy.

Jochen holds his breath. He’s tense. I feel something I haven’t felt in years. The urge to grab his throat is suddenly unbearable. I could swear his eyes beckon me to do it too. I can’t refuse. I grab him by the neck and pin him to the headrest. To my surprise he lowers his eyes into an almost submissive expression. Then they shoot back at me again, warm, glowing with newly kindled adoration.

“I hated thinking about the noose,” he says. Slowly, carefully he also grabs me by the throat. Smaller hands but a firm grip. I can’t tell if this situation of mutual choking is comical or intimate. It makes me giggle either way.

“Did you ever think about what it would feel like if they don’t snap your neck immediately? To have your windpipe slowly crushed. Not enough air to live but enough to draw your death out for hours if they want to.” A sad smile. “What a disgrace, for a knight of the black order to dance and moan and soil himself in front of a common hangman.” There is something so much more vulgar about his choice of words than my plain vocabulary. My thoughts are too dirty for this. Does he even understand what he’s doing to me? I always grin when I’m horny.

Evidently he very much understands what he’s doing to me. His eyes flicker down. No way of hiding this. Oh, how will he deal with that? Himmler’s first man. Such a decent German couldn’t possibly accept sharing a bed with someone as degenerate as me? He lets go of my throat. I hastily follow. I expect some insult, disgust. Yes, I’m pathetic. Normally I would never. I’m not that kind of man. Just a little too much alcohol and dirty talk.

His hand drops on my chest. Heavy fingertips going up and down with every breath. One finger slips between the buttons of my shirt and rests on the sticky hair of my chest. I feel like a disgusting slop. His every move is so controlled. It seems silly, that he could seem so reserved when he places his other hand on the bulge in my pants.

“Tell me.” He stops to think. “Tell me about Russia.”

I know exactly what he means. I dig out my most exquisite memories. That church filled with Russian peasants, crammed in there like cattle to the slaughter. I give him every detail. Their screams as the fire starts to engulf them. That disgusting meaty sound as the grenades detonate between them. The wails, the smoke, the smell. God, that smell.

He listens as if I’m giving an interesting lecture. But his hand seems to be operate separately from his brain. He opens my pants, pulls out my cock. I’m leaking and desperate for touch. I don’t dare break eye contact lest I break the spell and make him stop. I keep talking. He jerks me off. More details, more horrors. I never told anyone any of this. I feel like a piece of meat, a little toy soldier, just pathetic. But I need this. I have to keep talking. Can I talk about the women, what we did to them? I’m so close. He stops.

“Do you think that is becoming of a German soldier?” he asks. He looks so angry. I buckle into his hand. Don’t do this to me now.

“This is disgusting, Kurt.” I can see the delight on his face as he says that. My name is a delicacy to him. Twisted little fuck, I always knew there was something wrong with him. No wonder he liked me so much. Sadistic little shit just like me. I want to hurt him, but I just rub my cock on his hand like a stupid teenage boy. I want to fuck him now. I imagine his cocky little face pressed into the sheets. Wouldn’t be so fucking arrogant with my cock up his ass. No more sarcasm, just muffled screams.

“Over my dead body,” he says and laughs. He looks like one of those Hitler Youth boys on the posters. His hand moves erratically. I wince. He’s hurting me. I close my eyes, think about tearing into him and come.

While I’m still catching my breath he stares at the pool of semen in his hands then back to me. “How can I make you lick this up?”, he asks innocently. Fuck that. I resist the urge to throw him out of the room in a fit of disgust. He cleans himself up and we just sleep next to each other like an old married couple. I’m glad he doesn’t touch me again. I don’t feel like I can trust my body any longer. God knows what he’d make me do.

“Have you been getting carried away?”

Meyer’s voice, gentle, mild, and the rough packed earth scouring Peiper’s cheek. Meyer holds him against it, kneeling beside him. When he shifts his weight the crackle of his boots on the frozen ground reverberates against Peiper’s ear.

“I’ve only-”

He stops, scowling as his hair falls into his face. He tries to blow it away and Meyer helpfully assists, yanking him an inch off the floor by his roots.

“What about in here?” Meyer asks and rags his head from side to side as though he’ll shake Peiper’s thoughts out that way. “Isn’t it nice when they shiver and beg?”

“It’s disgusting.”

Meyer nods.

“I understand.” Pausing. “It’s no good you know.”

The water in the trough in front of them is thinly glassed with ice. Peiper sucks in a frantic breath as his head is slammed through its blistered surface  and held down, cold slicing like knives into his lungs. The fist in his hair pulls him free before shoving him immediately back under.

His knuckles scrap against the side of the trough, a distant hollow clamour. Expansive pain, like a flare glittering in his chest. Just as he’s starting to fear Meyer will drown him whether he means to or not, he’s tossed back onto the floor and slapped hard on the sternum, three times. Water sprays from his lungs in a bitter arc.

Puddles of water darken the earth around him. Meyer hauls him up to his knees, he sways a little. Meyer’s hard hand trails a line of tenderness across his cheek, draws back. Peiper doesn’t flinch. The creases on Meyer’s face when he smiles are well-worn and genuine. His eyes move over Peiper as if he’s studying a field map. Looking to see where he can inflict most damage.  

“Think of something nice,” Meyer says. “I know you can.”

He steps closer, tapping the holster of his gun. He smells like cordite and oil and a brute arousal that breaks through the antiseptic chill of the air like the steam of their breath. Peiper’s eyes are fixed on the pistol, the tap of Meyer’s finger. He thinks of blood on the barrel, not the messy blow back from a shot to the head but from hard steel flaying the back of a throat raw. He pictures himself with his finger on the trigger, someone else on their knees.

Meyer gives him a knowing look. “Going to share?”

Peiper tries to work his jaw free of the clench that’s come from the constant, crippling cold in the room. When Meyer touches him it isn’t to tip his head back or slide his palms into the hollows beneath his cheekbones. Instead, he puts a hand on Peiper’s left shoulder –  digging inquisitive fingers into the stressed tendon until Peiper’s forced to wince – and another on his left wrist and begins to apply torque.

“Tell me about the bad thoughts, Jochen,” Meyer says, peering into his face.

Reflexive tears make his vision swim. He feels a scream building that will stay in his skull long after his elbow has been forced from its socket, imagines Meyer prodding at his dislocated joint with all the callous curiosity of a child poking a stick at a dying animal.

Meyer lets go of his arm.

“Can’t have you coming to proper harm now, can we?” he says, jovial. Peiper, panting, barely registers the fractious rub of a thumb across his lower lip as Meyer continues. “I’ll just have to assume the worst.”