These Eyes So Green - Chapter 19
Rated NC-17 for adult themes and strong sexual content. The character of Hans Landa is the sole property of Quentin Tarantino. All other characters are of my own creation.
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When they arrived at the townhouse, Hermann and Severine were already there, waiting for them. Severine gave Desiree a warm, welcoming hug while Hermann helped Hans unload Desiree’s belongings. Desiree and Severine followed the two men as they carried the belongings upstairs to a small room close to Hans’ bedroom.
“Your things will be safe here,” Hans told Desiree. “Safe and accessible when you need them.” He turned to Hermann. “How is Charlont?”
“The doctor said the bullet had only chipped a bone in his wrist, so he’ll be fine, I imagine. He’s in a cell at headquarters now.”
“Oh, no,” breathed Desiree. “Please, Hans…” Severine put her arm around Desiree to comfort her.
Hermann turned to Desiree, his blue eyes warm. “It’s all right, Madame,” he told her, “they’re under strict orders to leave him alone as the Standartenführer’s prisoner. No one will harm him.”
Hans smiled. “Vielen Dank, Hermann. I knew I could rely on you to do what needed to be done.”
“Hans, what will happen to him?”
“I’ll do my best,” he told Desiree as the three started back downstairs. “After you’re safely across the border in Spain he’ll be charged with attempted murder of an SS officer. They won’t shoot him; that was a pointless exercise I put a stop to, since it cost us valuable information about the Resistance throughout France. The policy now is to get as much information as possible from them, then send them to different camps.”
He looked straight into Desiree’s eyes. “I can’t promise you anything about his future or his ultimate fate; to a certain extent that was sealed when he attempted to shoot me. He will go to a camp, where he’ll be closely monitored to see if he makes contact with other Resistance members. The Resistance is like a tree with many branches-it’s our goal to lop off each one while at the same time working on the roots.”
“Is there anything at all you can do to help him?”
“I won’t promise you anything-I couldn’t, anyway. He was going to kill you…”
“I don’t think he would have,” Desiree told Hans. “I know he came to the cottage intending to do so, but he was already hesitating about it when you arrived…”
“As I said, I won’t promise you anything.” Hans held her gaze as he said it.
“The truck,” he suddenly said, “do you need to deliver it somewhere?”
“Non…I was going to leave it at the cottage with the keys for the new owners.”
“I’ll have Hermann take it back, then.” He handed the keys to Hermann. “Put your motorbike in the back of the truck and return to your quarters afterward,” he told him.
“Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer.” There was a knock at the front door, and all three of them turned simultaneously toward it.
“That will be the guards, Herr Oberst,” Hermann told Hans.
“Have them posted at every possible entryway. Madame Mendelsohn is at great risk, and we must keep her safe.”
“Jawohl, Mein Herr.” Hermann opened the door and went outside to direct the guards to their positions.
“Dinner will be ready quite soon,” Severine told Hans and Desiree. “Why don’t you two have a drink in the parlour until then? You’ve barely had a moment to catch your breath.”
“That’s a splendid idea,” Hans replied. “I’m sure we could both use one. What would you like?”
“I don’t often drink it, but I’d like a whiskey now,” Desiree told him as they both entered the parlour.
He gave her a wry smile. “Me, too,” he said, as he poured them each a glass. He handed one to her and she took it without looking at him, then sat down on one of the sofas. He eyed her curiously, then came and sat down beside her.
“What is it?”
“Rene said something about you,” Desiree began.
“What did he say?”
“He said you were ‘The Jew Hunter’.” She looked up into his eyes.
His face went through a subtle change; first it seemed to fall, but then it hardened.
“Yes,” he said, “I’ve been called that.”
“You rounded up Jews-sometimes killed them on the spot.”
“Yes,” he said again. “I look for people. I hunt them down. I’m a detective. Finding people is what I do, and yes, some of them are Jews.”
Desiree looked away and sat silent. Hans grasped her by the chin and turned her gently back to face him.
“It’s what I do. It’s my job,” he told her. “I won’t pretend it’s not part of who I am, because it is.”
“But to hunt people down-to kill them-just because they’re Jews-”
“Not because of that. I could care less about that. I don’t distinguish between the people I hunt. I simply do my job to the best of my ability.”
Desiree looked at him in despair.
“This is who I am,” Hans went on. “Am I a monster because of it? No. I’m just a man. Nothing more, nothing less.” He got up from the sofa and began to pace around it.
“No doubt it would be better if I was a monster. If I was some demon from another world, evil personified. That would be easier to understand, wouldn’t it? For me to be a hideous, inhuman creature instead of your lover?”
“Yes,” Desiree whispered.
“I’m not. I’m a man who loves you. Do you hate me now?”
“I can’t hate you,” she breathed. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”
Hans stopped next to her and laid a hand against her cheek, and instinctively Desiree leaned into that hand. With his other hand he began to stroke her hair.
There was a knock on the parlour door. “I have your dinner, M. Colonel.”
Hans crossed over to the double doors and opened them to let in Severine with the tray. It was a simple meal-Hans liked all his meals simple. Slices of prime rib, sautéed green beans with sliced mushrooms, roasted potatoes with rosemary, a fine Cabernet.
It could have been straw for all Desiree was concerned. She ate mechanically, refusing to look at Hans as she did so.
“Look at me,” he finally said.
She did, and she saw a man very dear to her-a man who had hunted people down, had killed them, but had also touched her, made love to her; a man who in fact loved her, body and soul.
Hadn’t she always known this about him? She’d even told him once that she didn’t care if he’d killed people. What made things different now? That he had a nickname associated with terror and death? That terror and death were also an intrinsic part of his nature?
She had actually seen Uwe kill, after all, and she had loved him and still did. But Uwe had changed-he wasn’t the same man by the time he’d freed her. He hadn’t summarily killed anyone again in the camp.
Desiree looked into Hans’ eyes again. Had he changed? He could have killed Rene, she was sure of it; yet he hadn’t. Was it possible he had truly changed the way Uwe had?
But would it matter if he hadn’t? What if he was still the same man? After she left she’d never know whether he killed again. In the insane world they both occupied, would it matter if the man she loved was capable of killing? Was it at all possible to reconcile these two indisputable facts? And again-did it matter? Did any of it matter?
Hans’ eyes were a brilliant emerald green again, and there was that sharpness, that radiance in them to which she had responded so strongly from the very first night they’d met. But now there was something else in them as well-a longing, a hunger-that flashed brightly but then vanished quickly, as though a steel door suddenly came crashing down, cutting off the light that had been there.
“I am who I am, Desiree,” he told her quietly. “I’m a killer. I can’t change the past. I can’t change what I’ve done or who I’ve been.”
“But you can change your present,” she replied. “You already have. You’re not the same man you were before you met me, are you?”
Hans thought about that for a moment.
“No,” he finally replied, “not all of me. But there are some aspects of my character that nothing and no one can change, not even you.”
“I know that,” Desiree said. “I’ve always known that.”
“Then what’s changed since you learned I was ‘The Jew Hunter’? How am I different now?”
There was another knock at the door, and Severine came in to clear up.
“It was delicious, as always,” Hans told her, “thank you.”
“Yes, thank you, Severine,” added Desiree.
Severine smiled in return. “I’ll be back momentarily with coffee and dessert. I’ve made a berry tart today.”
“That sounds wonderful. Bring it right in,” said Hans.
They were both quiet until Severine returned with the coffee and the tart.
“I’ll serve us,” Desiree told her. “Thank you so much, it looks wonderful.”
“It does indeed,” echoed Hans.
“Merci Beaucoup, M. Colonel and Mme Mendelsohn.”
“Oh please, Severine, do call me Desiree, just the way you did when we worked together.”
Severine gave her a fond smile, than wrapped an arm around the seated Desiree’s shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. Then she stood tall and looked Hans right in the eye.
“M. Colonel,” she began, “pardonnez-mois, but I must speak my mind.”
Hans cocked an eyebrow, and Desiree looked up at Severine in surprise.
“Mme Desiree is a good woman,” she went on, “whatever she does…or has done…please protect her. Please keep her safe.”
Hans returned Severine’s steady gaze, and Desiree watched that steel door rise and the warmth return to those bright, emerald eyes.
“You needn’t worry, Severine,” he told her. “I won’t let any harm come to her.”
Severine gave Desiree another affectionate squeeze. “Merci Beaucoup, M. Colonel.”
After Severine had left, Hans turned to Desiree and watched her cut and serve the tart and pour their coffee.
“It’s different now, isn’t it,” he said, his voice softer. “Different than it was ten minutes ago, and different still from three hours ago.”
Desiree looked up at him.
“I’m different. You’re different,” he continued. “And yet we’re also the same. I’m still a ruthless and angry man. I’m still ‘The Jew Hunter’. I’m still a killer. And you? You’re still brave and honorable and terrified and so very, very generous although you’d never admit it.
“Two hours from now we’ll each, again, be different people-but at the core we’ll each remain the same.”
“Yes,” Desiree replied. “Different, and yet the same.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
They went upstairs together not long after they’d finished their dessert and Severine had cleared everything away. They undressed and got into bed like any long-married couple, with no more than a quick kiss. They both felt uneasy, as though by sharing a fundamental, unchangeable secret they’d each become more vulnerable to the other. And despite everything they’d said, it was as though a wound remained between them, one that stubbornly refused to heal.
Desiree lay on her side, facing away from Hans, and he lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
They were quiet for a long time, listening only to each other’s breathing. Then Desiree heard Hans turn and felt him reach out for her, placing a hand on her hip and gently stroking it.
It was an appeal of sorts, an expression of need and desire and affection so simple and unadorned that Desiree felt a sharp pang in her belly in response. She turned to Hans and was immediately gathered up in his arms and passionately, passionately kissed.
There was a greater urgency in the way they now kissed and touched; far greater than they’d ever before experienced together, a hunger so desperate that appeasing it seemed almost impossible. And yet they tried so hard to do so. They groped, grasped, clawed, licked, nibbled, gnawed and bit at each other, and when they were at last joined it was fiery and intense and they moaned from the pleasure of it.
They sat up, facing each other, and rocked together violently, clinging desperately to each other, their mouths and their hips joined.
Hans suddenly pushed Desiree back against the bed, pulled out and quickly buried his face between her legs, noisily licking, sucking and nipping at her wet flesh until she cried out and came, and then he flipped her onto her belly, lifted her hips and plunged inside her once more.
When he was completely, deeply inside her, Hans held still and let loose a low, deep, primal moan that seemed to come from the depths of his soul, which Desiree echoed with a moan just as primal and deep. Hans held her hips to him and began moving slowly, drawing the full length of his cock in and out. Rather than increase in speed, he drew out each thrust ever longer, so they could both enjoy the slow, slick, almost torturous friction of their joined flesh.
Desiree felt as though she might go mad from that exceedingly slow rhythm, the long draw of that stiff cock inward and outward, and she whimpered and struggled to increase the almost dream-like sexual tempo. It was too much-too much sensation, too much feeling-she could hardly bear it.
And then Hans lowered down and pressed against her-she felt the soft hairs on his chest caress her back and his hot breath in her ear.
“Only I can give you this,” he whispered. “No one else. Ever.” He licked her ear, then bit it, and Desiree shuddered with pleasure. “Ja, meine liebe, feel how deeply I can touch you…”
“Please, Hans,” she whimpered. “Please…I need…”
“What do you need?” He kept his thrusts steady.
“I need to feel you…”
“I’m right here, Liebchen, deep inside you. Can you feel me?”
“Oui…oh, more, please…”
“Bitte?”
“Bitte,” she moaned.
“Like this?” He increased both the depth and speed of his thrusts, and drank in each sweet sound of pleasure that issued from her mouth.
“Ja,” he breathed, “your sounds-give me your moans, your sighs, I need them…”
He grasped her hips, moving harder and deeper, listening closely as her moans grew longer and deeper.
“Ja…mehr…mehr…”
And then the two of them began to moan together, Hans pausing only to kiss her cheeks and gnaw at her throat, to taste and touch her as much as possible.
It seemed to grow slowly, the very acuteness of their shared pleasure, wave after wave after wave of a tremendous build, build, build, as though a thousand new worlds were being born until Desiree arched back against Hans, clutching him, grasping him tightly, rhythmically inside her as the ache grew and grew and grew until it flew apart in a thousand pieces, and she was coming so powerfully she couldn’t catch her breath, and barely felt his teeth sink into her shoulder as he followed her.
Hans wrapped himself around Desiree afterwards and held her close, kissing her tenderly, and she thought suddenly of Uwe and the very first time he had held her like this. A connection was made then; it snapped firmly in place, and a treasured circle closed to keep it safe within her.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
“You’re so soft,” Hans whispered. He lay behind Desiree once more, one arm reaching around to stroke her belly. “I love to touch you…”
Desiree laid her hand over his.
“I’ll miss this,” Hans said. “I’ll miss it terribly.”
“I will, too.”
Hans buried his face in her shoulder and tenderly kissed the spot he’d bit earlier.
“Ich liebe dich,” he whispered.
“Je t’aime,” she answered, bringing his hand to her mouth and kissing it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
That next morning Hans finished his coffee, put the cup back into the saucer and rose, grabbing his cap and gloves. “What will you do today?”
“I’ll help Severine around the house,” Desiree replied, “make myself useful.”
Hans grinned at that. “She’s a good woman,” he told Desiree, “and she likes you. It’s a rather nice way to spend your last-“ he stopped.
“…my last days here. I agree.”
She saw the flicker of pain pass through his eyes, then watched them grow strong and reassuring again.
“Come,” Hans said, putting on his cap and then his gloves. “Kiss me goodbye. We’ll pretend to be husband and wife.”
Desiree’s smile matched his as she rose and walked over to him.