“f**k that,” I said. “I paid for your time.”
She snorted as I pinned her shoulders to that sordid little bed and had my money"s worth. Why had I bagged off; what was I looking for when I went to the Rose: tenderness reminding me of Cliesh? What I got was a cheap ride.
I sat with Aristiedes in a bar; we sipped our beers waiting for the truck back to the barracks. I thought about the days of tender loving with Cliesh. I ached for her, longed for her body, for the sound of her voice. I would have given anything just to see her again. How could I, stuck in Algeria and obliged to go to whatever corner of the globe the Legion sent me?
“Some ride,” Aristiedes said.
“Right; some f*****g ride,” I said.
After that I kept to the military stews. The girls were clean, and it would have been bad lu
