Page 3 of Praise Me: Soldier

“I’m not going to tell you that.”

“You’re not?”

“No. I didn’t care much for being polite, evenbefore I was in the service.”

She glares at me from behind those nerdy glasses and my balls start to pulse.

Jesus Christ, I’mhard. I didn’t think it would ever be possible again. Thought my post-traumatic stress had robbed my ability to feel arousal. I’ve been back on US soil for two months. During that time, some of my old friends have sent me pictures of single women, asking if I wanted to try dating. They’d even offered casual sex with some grateful—and apparently patriotic—friends of their wives. One friend even dragged me to a singles mixer, but I felt sick and impatient just being there. Porn has done nothing to encourage my body back to its usual state.

This girl, though.

She’s given me my first erection in four years.

I want to be happy about it, but…I’m suddenly very aware of my constricted balls. The weight of them between my legs, denim pressing in on everything.

“Stay where you are,” I rasp. “Pick me over Kevin.”

Twin pink spots appear on her cheeks. “I don’t even know your name and you’re telling me where I can and can’t go?”

“My name is Theo. Yours?”

She hesitates. “Maybe I shouldn’t say.”

My full concentration goes into staying still, instead of ripping the table out from between us and throwing it across the room. “I think you want me to know it.”

“July,” she whispers.

There goes my heart, booming again. I like when she whispers. I like feeling like we’re in bed, sharing secrets. I like…her. A lot. “Your name is July?”

“Yes.”

“Were you born in July?”

“No. August first. But I was due on July twenty-seventh and by then, my mother had already fallen in love with the name, so…”

Another first in four years? The urge to laugh. Holy shit.

I want this girl in my lap. Want to smuggle her out of here like stolen diamonds.

She’s bringing my body back to life.

More than my body. I’m not locked in numbness like I was this morning.

Like I’ve been for months since coming home.

“I don’t know if you’re m-my speed,” she whispers, but her gaze betrays her words, slipping down to the rough curve of my bicep, my throat, eventually taking a prolonged peek at my mouth. Is she attracted to me? “Going on this date alone was a big step for me, you know?” she finishes.

“I understand.” I look around, noticing the crowd has thinned out slightly. “It’s a big step for me just being in this coffee shop.”

That catches her attention, her expression turning inquisitive. “What do you mean?”

Despite urging from my friends, I haven’t spoken about my experience as a POW. It’s hard enough to have the horror inside of me, but harder still to watch that horror dawn on the faces of other people really brings home the gravity of what I survived. I find myself wanting to tell this girl, though. It almost feels inevitable. She’s supposed to know everything about me.

“I was held in an enemy camp for four years. A prisoner of war.” Across the table, her lips part on an intake of breath. “I saw nothing but the walls of my cell and the faces of my captors for so long, this coffee shop feels like a figment of my imagination. It doesn’t seem like real life. Nothing does.”

“Four years?” she whispers

I hum a confirmation. “I wish I could go back into the darkness and tell myself if just survived the torture a little longer, I’d eventually find myself sitting across from an angel in glasses. Might have given me something to hang on for when I’d forgotten how to hope.” Damn. My gut is beginning to churn, my skin going clammy, just talking about my time in the camp. It’s getting hard to draw a breath. “Never mind, I don’t want to go back into the darkness. I want to stay right here—”

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