A Hard Headed Woman

My eyes grazed into the dark chocolate eyes of Donny. He looked down at me longingly. It was the strange desperation in his eyes that worried me. His hands secured me against the wall and he lowered his head kissing me like he was kissing somebody else. I didn’t kiss him back but placed the palms of my hands against his chest attempting to push him away.

“Donny stop,” I mutter into the kiss.
“Just be quiet,” Donny growls as he lifted me up and carried me to the bed.
“Donny, I’m not her,” I counter as I flipped the positions and pinned his hands above his head, “That girl is waiting for you back home whoever she is.”
“She ain’t waitin’ for me, not no more,” he retorts as a flash of sadness passed across his dark brown eyes.
“It doesn’t mean I’m going to be doing this with you, you’re a good kid but I’m not having sex with you.”

“Fine that’s just dandy, I get it, you want the Lieutenant.”
“I want to go back home in one piece, that’s what I want,” I retort narrowing my eyes at him, “Yew fucking obnoxious man!”
“At least I’m no fuckin’ tease!” he responds fiercely.
“Tease?! I just have to fucking stand in your line of vision for you to get any deluded ideas that yew are gonna get anything!”

Donny locked into an intense staring contest with me and I glared back with just as much intensity. He obviously didn’t like me calling him obnoxious and suggesting he was deluded.

“Well Amber you are truly on a roll, who knew you had it in you to pin down the Bear Jew?” Nora claps from the doorway with a smirk.
“Fuck off Nora, this Neanderthal tried to attack me,” I snap as I shot a ferocious glare at Donny. I immediately got off of Donny and began moving towards the door.
“Don’t act like you don’t want me honey!” Donny exclaims behind me. I stopped in my tracks and Nora saw the look in my eyes.
“Oh buddy, that is not what you want to say to her,” Nora laughs.

I turned around walking back over to the now sitting Donny who smirked with his arms crossed in front of him. My lips twitched into a devious smile as I grew incredibly close to his face. Leaning in my lips nearly grazing his earlobe I let my hot breath send involuntary shivers down his spine. All the while my hand played with the strap of his suspenders. Donny was pretty much putty in my hands, his breath was ragged and I could tell he was getting hot and bothered.

“Oh I want you so badly I just can’t stand it anymore. Makes me want to do very bad things to you,” I say seductively.
“L-l-like what?” he stuttered out.
“Like this,” I respond kneeing him in the testicles. I walked away as Donny keeled over to his side holding his bits and pieces. Nora was laughing hysterically and we left the room.
“Oh darling I wish you would pull those evil moves more often,” Nora laughs. I couldn’t help but let slip a smile. Even if what I did was a bit wicked, it was a lesson that Donny was going to have to learn. I felt more in control and empowered afterwards which was great.

Sick of expelling so much energy I went back to the room with Nora, opting to sleep in order to actually function with the coming day of trekking through the dense forests. To be honest I was sick of all the bullshit and hoped that when I went to sleep, I’d wake up and realize it was all just a bad dream. But deep down I knew no such thing was going to happen so I just went to bed hoping for a little shut eye at the very least.

The next morning when I got up at the same whorehouse, I just put on my clothes and went downstairs. It was awkward to say the least. Aldo would watch my every move while Donny glared at me whenever I’d even locked eyes with Aldo. Wilhelm was pretty pleased and Nora would shoot him a few seductive smiles. Paulie and Gwen talked amongst the others whilst I was sort of ostracized from the other men most likely because they didn’t want to get beat up by Donny or get questioned by Aldo.

Pretty much I kept to myself and we all headed out of the place before seven in the morning. It was a gloomy morning, with the sky overcast and the sun blocked by all the gray clouds. We walked for hours and I kept to myself until Hugo Stiglitz walked alongside of me.

“You know it is gloomy enough outside without you frowning,” he says nudging me slightly.

“Who would have thought you‘d be the person telling me I should stop frowning.”
“Makes you realize just how displeased you look,” Hugo smirks mildly.
“Indeed it does,” I reply with a small smile.
“For someone so little you really are tough.”
“For someone so violent you really are too nice.”
“Danke Fraulein,” he chuckles.
“De nada Senor,” I laugh.

Everyone kept walking and we trooped until we were outside of Paris where we were to pick up the British officer. The girls and I already knew who was coming, what his name was and just what was supposed to happen next. Lieutenant Archie Hicox had arrived with his posh accent and good looks. Admittedly he was quite the looker and I saw Paulie dribbling a bit as she stared at him.

Archie seemed quite thrown off that women were accompanying the Basterds and after the Basterds introduced themselves Archie looked to Aldo for explanation.

“They‘re with us,” Aldo says simply.

“Right well, I suppose introductions are in order, I‘m Amber,” I say shaking Archie’s hand firmly.
“I‘m Nora.”
“Gwen.”
“Paulina but you can call me Paulie,” Paulie says with a goofy smile.

“Paulina is a very lovely name, it suits you,” Archie responds with a debonair smile.

“She prefers Paulie,” Nora states.
“He can call me Paulina if he wants,” Paulie retorts shooting Nora a look.

“Why doesn‘t she just bend over right now?” Gwen leans in and whispers to me. I let out a laugh only to be stared at like I was a maniac. Nothing new there.

“This is getting ridiculous,” I laugh some more.
“You‘re telling me, am I the only one that can keep it in my pants?” Gwen replies sardonically.
“Hey now, I haven‘t been throwing my cat everywhere like Nora has,” I argue. That was when Gwen along with Nora began to break out into hysterics. They laughed but Nora laughed harder, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Throwing my cat everywhere! Hahaha where in the world did you get that expression?” Nora questions in between fits of laughter.

“It’s a real knee slapper ain‘t it?”
“And then the knee slapper--sometimes even I question what era you are from,” Gwen laughs.
“Coming from the woman who writes stories based in the 18th century, that means a lot,” I counter with a smile.
“I do my best Darling.”

“What‘d I miss?” Paulie inquires after Archie stopped talking to her to discuss plans with Aldo.
“Amber thinks I‘ve been and I quote ‘Have been throwing my cat everywhere,’” Nora says causing Paulie to burst into a fit of giggles.

“Pinche Amber, you sound like a viejita saying those things.”
“I am a viejita.”
“You are the hottest viejita ever though,” Nora adds.
“What that a menopause joke?” I ask.
“What‘s a faheta?” Omar questions pronouncing the word completely wrong.
“Viejita means old lady in Spanish,” Paulie states.
“Oh, then I agree with Nora, you are a nice looking old lady,” he replies looking at me with a smile.

“Who‘s a nice lookin‘ old lady?” Aldo’s Southern accent inquires behind me.
“Miss Amber here is,” Nora laughs.
“You ain‘t supposed to call a woman old Ulmer,” Aldo says sternly. Omar cowered slightly under the look Aldo was apparently giving him behind my back.

“He didn‘t call me old, besides being called old isn‘t a bad thing, I mean I‘m not one to really care about the whole age thing,” I say offhandedly.
“If that were the case my friend you wouldn‘t deny so many guys who are younger than you,” Paulie points out.
“You‘re dad is seven years younger than your mom and they seem pretty happy.”
“Are we making an argument out of this? Imma tell you right now you will lose.”
“Paulie is going to school to be a lawyer, and well I‘m just superb. All odds say that you wouldn‘t win the argument if you had the chance.”

“The conversation signs all point to argument, let the ranting begin,” Gwen states watching in amusement.

“Have you any substantial reason for your beliefs that you cannot be with someone younger than you?” Paulie starts out all professionally.
“One, I am the youngest of three, being that I was raised always being the one taken care of by older people, I find it difficult to be with someone that needs to be the center of attention. Two when I am around younger people I have a habit of playing mom which is well horribly wrong in a relationship, I already am condescending as it is. Three is that there is really too much of that naïveté, then lastly I will just say Kevin Thomas.”

“Nope Kevin Thomas doesn‘t count,” Nora says.
“How does he not count? He was three years younger than me,” I retort giving her a dirty look.
“Pity cases do not count,” Paulie states.
“That’s bullshit, the first date was a pity case then it was two weeks of weird.”
“Yeah weird doesn‘t count.”
“Fine Jonah Cartwright,” I respond with a huff.
“Who the fuck is Jonah Cartwright?” Nora counters.
“Alright you win,” Paulie replies.
“What? No you‘re the lawyer lady, who the hell is this guy?”

“Jonah Cartwright is legally considered Amber‘s stalker. He‘s four years younger and wrote to her from prison.”
“Holy shit you actually have a stalker, and he‘s in prison, what‘d he do come to your house or something?” Nora questions all at once.
“My aunt was a juvenile hall parole officer, she brought the kid to dinner, I gave him a couple of books and held a three minute conversation. He wrote me letters all the time, I wrote back sometimes to be polite, then I found out he tried to kill his mother, and the letters got creepy. Then some other stuff. In short, it just got all sorts of fucked up,” I ramble ruffling my bangs in nervous manner.
“Fuck --yeah you win,” Nora mutters.
“Generally ya, I go for older guys because they understand that when its over, things will move on and they‘ll meet someone else. Younger guys don‘t have that understanding because until they around the age of 25 they‘ll still have an egocentric mindset that thinks its impossible for someone to not like them,” I state.

“Your moments of wisdom always entertain and enlighten me,” Gwen smiles.
“Well you‘re welcome ma‘am,” I say with a bow as I twirled my hand fancily. Gwen laughed as did Nora but Paulie gave me an unsure look as I continued walking ahead.

Thoughts of my past stalker was a bit unnerving, things got scary in those days. It was the thought of not having control and everything being so chaotic that drove me over the edge. I walked along and the announcement that we were in Nadine made me realize what was going to happen next; the bar scene. The girls seemed to remember as well and didn’t like it one bit so they dragged me into one of the empty abandoned rooms of the building we were to hide in with the Basterds.

“What are we going to do?” Gwen questions in a hushed tone.
“Yeah we need to get them out of there before they kill perfectly good pieces of man candy,” Nora states.
“What are great reason,” I mutter sarcastically.
“You of all people never wanted this scene to happen,” Paulie adds.
“I know but what are we supposed to do huh? Go in there and get Hellstrom to come out before he notices something odd?” I counter leaning against the wall.
“Exactly it, one of us can go in there and seduce Hellstrom.”
“Well Nora you are the cat lady,” I comment.
“But I don‘t speak any other languages, plus don‘t know how to fight,” she replies then looks at both Paulie and I, “Now its between you two because you can both pull off the innocent look.”

“Probably Amber because she‘s got the long hair,” Gwen comments and pauses briefly, “And odd men do tend to flock to you.”

“Gee thanks Gwen,” I counter sardonically.
“So its settled, now to get you fixed up. Paulie give her that dress to wear and heels back,” Nora orders.

The next few minutes consisted of me changing into the dress and slipping on the heels whilst Nora and Paulie fussed with my hair and face. It was sort of pointless because we didn’t have any makeup, but Nora did have some cherry chapstick which was lovely enough. We missed the others leaving and I was left to be the one to sneak out. The girls left the room to go distract the guys and I slipped passed everyone out the exit. Briefly after making it to the front of the building I looked back at the windows of the abandoned building and locked eyes with Aldo. Giving a weak smile I turned my attention to the bar ahead of me.

Fuck I hope I don’t get shot for this. Lord please let this plan work so I can save these men.