Chapter 11: I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto the Hills

One door – or in my case, two doors — shuts and another one opens, and a week after Chloe and Amy had left for Toulouse I rang the Hotel Kaliphornika and made a booking for that night. I hoped Angelica would be available for room service but would not be too surprised if she wasn’t. It can’t be often a girl as attractive as she is gets spurned Fortunately, Angelica was still agreeable to spend a night with me.

I left the hotel the following morning feeling a damn sight better than I had for the past week. Not only was Angelica a natural red head, but her tongue was both articulate and articulated. She demonstrated the latter attribute by wrapping it around my tongue and my penis, although not at the same time of course. I bet she could tie a knot in a cherry stem, she nearly knotted my dick.

The sex had been enjoyable if not quite up to the standard of that shared with Chloe or Amy. However I was not downhearted as it takes time to get used to a new female beneath (or on top of) you. Angelica felt, tasted, sounded, and moved differently than Amy or Chloe, and she and I would need to experiment until we found the right recipe for ‘lift offs’ and ‘jackpots.’ Judging by our first night of experimentation it wouldn’t be too long before that was achieved.

Life after Chloe and Amy was flat and uninteresting other than when I travelled to the Hotel Kaliphornika for further experimentation with Angelica, where our sexual chemistry bubbled away nicely under the Bunsen burner of lust and lasciviousness. I had Chloe’s house in Chemin des Carriers for any pickups I made in Castelnaudary but to tell the truth, after Chloe, Amy, and now Angelica, other girls paled in comparison.

I had about a year left to serve in the Regiment of Instruction before having to leave and spend a year in a different unit before I could reapply for instructional duties. I buckled down and threw myself into the work that I had somewhat neglected over the past six months or so, volunteering for extra classes and lectures and generally improving not only my teaching skills but also my chances of being reassigned to instructional duties after my compulsory year away.

Unfortunately, Capitaine Lorenzo Masséna was still my commanding officer and he was not a happy bunny. Masséna was facing a divorce as the guilty party and the photographs from the Hotel Kaliphornika had been the prime evidence of his adultery. His lawyer advised him to go quickly and quietly even if a divorce would throw a spanner/wrench in his plans, or rather his father’s plans, for a career in politics. The plan had been to complete his three year stint in the Foreign Legion before being eased into André Masséna’s seat at the National Assembly when he, André, was elevated to the Senate.

The new plan devised by André Masséna had Lorenzo leaving the Legion before his three year commitment expired then laying low, out of the public’s gaze, in the Tours region while Papa rebuilt the tarnished reputation of his son and sought out a whiter than white wife for him. White not only in complexion, but reputation; a wife of that type being as essential an item for a wannabe politician as a glib tongue and the art of being ‘sincere’ while lying through his teeth. Lorenzo Masséna was already adept in both those skills.

Naturally, André Masséna was infuriated that his son had first married the wrong Roubaix and then had compounded his felony by not having her branded as the guilty party in the divorce. He made his anger and contempt known to his son. Merde rolls downhill, which is why I was now in front of a glowering Capitaine Masséna.

“I know what you’ve been up to, Soissons,” he begun. For one terrible moment I thought he knew of my affair with his wife, soon to be his ex-wife. I played dumb, it comes natural to me.

“What would that be, Capitaine?”

“Snooping around the Hotel Kaliphornika asking questions and...”

“The Hotel California! Isn’t that a hit song by The Eagles?” I hummed the opening bars of the refrain, probably slightly off key as I have a tin ear.

“Don’t be a smartarse, Soissons,” he snarled. “I know it was you who obtained the photographs my wife is using as evidence. You got them from the Kaliphornika. You have been seen there on many occasions.”

“Yes, I’ve stayed at the Hotel Kaliphornika several times. They do an excellent coq au vin and their room service is second to none. I know nothing of photographs, although I do believe pornographic videos are shown to special customers in Caligula’s Cavern, whatever that is, but I don’t qualify for such exalted treatment.” I knew Masséna couldn’t lay a glove on me, and the devil in me caused me to poke him a bit harder. “In any case, I hardly know your wife, particularly in the biblical sense. Why should she engage me to find evidence? Of course, I would have been only too willing to help her had she asked me. I understand your wife is very generous to those that do her —” I paused for effect, watching his face go purple in rage, before continuing “a good turn, and would have been more than willing to do her —, “ another empurpling pause, “a good turn.” I then gave an exaggerated wink that tipped him over the edge.

“You bastard, Soissons.” He shouted, spitting with fury. “Don’t think you’ll get away with this. I’ll make damn sure you’ll rue the day you crossed me.” He struggled to bring himself under control and almost succeeded. “You are dismissed, and appointed Orderly Sergent for tonight!”

Masséna was right about one thing, I did rue the day. I should not have poked him as he could, and did, poke back a bloody sight harder and stronger.

During their basic training Enlisted Volunteers spend three weeks on a survival and navigation course in the Pyrenees. It was while Masséna was on such an exercise that I had returned to Castelnaudary and took up again with Chloe, unaware she was in a relationship with him. (‘Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive’).

The base camp where the navigation and survival courses are held is in the Pic de Bugatet region of the Pyrenees, the nearest road being the D 118 and the nearest habitation the hamlet of Aragnouet. A detachment consisting of an officer, a SNCO, and six legionnaires are on site to ensure supplies — food, water, fuel for heating and the generator that powers the radio transmitter, plus specialist military equipment -- are available when the recruits arrive for their 3 weeks of training. The detachment man the camp during the 24 week period the courses were held, between the second week of April and the last but one week of September. The course was to train and test recruits in basic navigation and survival in the wild, though not Winter Warfare, as that course was held in Norway and was something you wouldn’t want to do twice, or even once.

The base camp staff, who also assisted the instructors in charge of the recruits with navigation and radio back up as requited, were rotated every six weeks before the local sheep herders complained that too many sheep were being sexually assaulted. However it was Capitaine Masséna’s Continuation Training Company who supplied the personnel for the base and I was ordered by him to remain in post over the complete 24 weeks season, along with an officer, Sous Lieutenant Cosmo Beaumont. The base camp is known to those who maintain the site as Fort Nonookie, and my banishment to Fort Nonookie for six months was Masséna’s revenge for me obtaining the incriminating photographs of him committing adultery at the Hotel Kaliphornika.

I have no idea who it was at the hotel that gave him the information.

I shrugged in resignation when Masséna gave me the news that I was to be exiled for six months in a female free zone, a human female free zone as there are plenty of ewes in the Pyrenees. It could have been worse. He could have had me detached permanently to the Winter Warfare School in Norway. I managed to telephone Angelica before I was dispatched to Fort Nonookie to tell her I would be out of circulation for six months. She took it rather philosophically, which didn’t enhance my self-esteem a great deal.

“Never mind, Philippe. Think how horny you will be when you return to civilisation. I’m getting wet just thinking about it!”

“My equipment will probably seize up with non usage, Angie. I’ll be no use to woman or beast when I return from exile.”

“Courage, mon brave. I have a fluid that will ease the most rusted of tools, and I don’t mean WD-Forty,” she said, and hung up giggling.

Sous Lieutenant Beaumont, the Officer Commanding Fort Nonookie, was a young Legion officer not long graduated from Saint-Cyr Military Academy. I asked him what he had done to deserve Masséna’s spite. He was rather shamefaced when replying.

“I had carnal knowledge, extensive and extremely energetic carnal knowledge, of Capitaine Masséna’s girlfriend, Giselle. In fact, he caught us in flagrante. I know it’s bad form to, err, have sexual relations with comrade’s girl friend or wife but I swear I had no idea he was seeing Giselle. I knew the capitaine was recently married and never imagined he would be having extramarital relations so soon after taking his vows. At Saint-Cyr we are enjoined to be officers and gentlemen and keep to one’s word, but I don’t think the capitaine could have attended that lesson.” He gave me an inquiring look. “Were you also seeing one, or giving one, to a mistress of his, Sergent-chef?”

I knew most if not all of the officers, SNCOs, and men of the Continuation Training Company referred to me by my nick name, ‘Professor’, and in fact Sous Lieutenant Beaumont was also known to most of the company by his. He was a well set up fellow and was known as ‘Beefy’, partly because of his build but mostly due to the frequency of him burying his beefy bayonet in young females. I thought it best that he and I maintained formality and discipline between us during the six month detachment, which is why I addressed him formally when replying.

“No, Sir. I was helping his wife gather evidence to divorce him. Had I known the circumstances with you and Giselle I would have contacted you as a witness to his infidelity.”

“Thank God you didn’t, Sergent Chef. It’s bad enough I’ve been banished to the Pyrenees for six months, Capitaine Masséna might have made it permanent if he thought I had been even partly to blame for his divorce.” The young man gave a sigh that made his body shake. “I’ve only been here a week and already the sheep are looking attractive, especially the sexy one wearing lipstick and false eyelashes!”

My main role at Fort Nonookie was to prepare routes for the recruits, Enlisted Volunteers, to follow. It was a sort of orienteering exercise coupled with living off the land and surviving in wild country. During the week before the recruits arrived at the base I would trek out, placing markers at intervals with coordinates to the next marker. I stayed out for about three days, sleeping in my sleeping bag (known as a Green Slug) and living on field ration packs (ration packs are referred to as Rat-Packs or Compo, short for Composite Ration) and whatever rabbits I could snare, which was what the recruits would also be doing. Strenuous exercise during the day coupled with solitary nights was a complete change from what I had experienced with Amy and Chloe during the previous six months, which were days spent recovering from the strenuous exercise during the nights.

The mountains, ever present and serene in their magnificence, were a constant back drop. Fort Nonookie was set above the treeline but the Pyrenean uplands have a harsh beauty of their own: a few tenacious wind sculpted bushes clinging to the infertile soil like ship wrecked sailors to a buoy, wind waving upland pastures grazed by sheep that would be driven down to the valleys come the winter, weirdly shaped granite outcrops, and deep, dark, glacial lakes combined to calm and concentrate my mind. It is no wonder that in Biblical times prophets would either trek into the desert or up in the mountains to seek serenity, contemplation, and God, bringing with it an inner peace and closer understanding of one’s self.

At night I lay under myriads of stars glittering from horizon to horizon, until the whirling constellations lulled me to sleep. I thought about my life — past, present, and future — and came to the realisation that the time spent with Chloe and Amy had been the most enjoyable so far, especially the threesome finale. Could I perhaps be wrong to think marriage was not for me?

Okay, so I had shared six months with a girl(s) but not a continuous period. The longest I spent with any of the girls was five nights with Chloe and three with Amy, hardly a basis for a lifelong partnership. Over time, I had enjoyed being with the two girls, and I don’t just mean for the sex. Chloe and Amy, although differed in many ways, were a delight to be with, to talk to, to discuss and joke with, to relax and be myself with. I hadn’t had that sort of relationship with Chardonnay. I was always alert to her moods and had to tread carefully at times, in fact at most times.

Chloe, I knew, was a manipulator, but she was a generous lover and had a sense of humour akin to mine. Her toned body was a testament to her love of running and waking in the hills, and some heavy duty work in the gym. She was only slightly less toned and muscular than Lieutenant Miriam Bachar, Krav Maga teacher and former ballerina.

Amy was softer, gentler, tender, and more affectionate than Chloe. Her sense of humour was not so attuned to mine as was Chloe’s but we did enjoy similar tastes in music, especially Hollywood musicals. My favourite being ‘Oklahoma’ and Amy’s ‘Sweet Charity’. Amy was a lawyer and was an excellent talker/interrogator. She got into my head early in our relationship and I told her more of my past life than I had anyone else. She knew about the deaths of Alfie Hinds and Ferdi Azarian, and without me realising it had eased out of me the back story of their deaths. I was amazed at how simpatico she could be, although I later realised it was a necessary tool of her trade. Nevertheless I’m certain Amy had my best interests at heart when she probed my hidden layers.

‘Confront your fears and guilt, Philippe, and face them down. Clear your soul and live a better, more fulfilling, life without the ball and chain of self-recrimination holding you back’ was one of her constant themes. It was some time before I realised Amy had passed information gleaned from me to Chloe. In fact, Chloe used practically the same words when we made our last farewell. For a brief second I cursed both girls as interfering busy bodies, but then I reflected on how wonderful it had been for someone to understand how I felt, and was prepared to help me put my doubts, fears, guilt, whatever, behind me.

My thought also strayed to Hans Krause and his girlfriend, now his wife, Elissa. Hans had resigned from the Legion and was married the day after his release. I visited them at Dido’s Palace about a month after the wedding, a family only ceremony carried out by the mayor of Montpellier.

‘You know, Professor, I thoroughly enjoyed my years in the Legion but since being married I curse the fact I did not marry long before,’ Hans had said. ‘I can’t explain how but marriage has made my life not just happier but complete. Those years in the Legion were wasted because I was not with Elissa. Life without a partner is not the way we are meant to be, Professor. Sooner or later you will recognise that fact. Make sure it’s sooner rather than later, or even worse never!’

I gazed about me, and saw I was in a pasture surrounded by sheep. There was no chance of finding a life-long partner hereabouts, unless I had a wool fetish! Actually there were females available but at a price and at a distance. A quartet of enterprising young harlots from Perpignan, along with their much older Madame, had rented a chalet for the season that was located adjacent to a long distance trail, part of the Chemin Transpyrénéen. This trail was a favourite of those hardy souls who wished to walk the length of the Pyrenees from East to West or vice versa, and it was vice rather than versa the four entrepreneurs were offering. Some of the Fort Nonookie staff made the half day trek descent to take advantage of the business opportunity on offer. Then, after much sexual exercise, the day long ascent back to Fort Nonookie. Beefy Beaumont was one of the trekkers, ever ready to try something different, bizarre, or down right kinky in the sexual stakes. After burying his ‘bayonet’ in all four girls, Beefy did the same for the Madame, who was from Armentieres and hadn’t been beefy bayoneted for forty years. She was so pleased to be included in the shag fest that after the deed was done she whipped out her dentures and gave Beefy an ‘on the house’ blow job as a gesture of thanks.

When Beefy told me of his experience I was appalled but he was quite blasé about the whole affair. “Being gobbled by a mouth sans teeth is something you should experience, Professor, it’s incredible. The inside of her mouth was as smooth as a young girl’s inner thigh, and the suction she achieved was beyond anything I’ve experienced with a toothed blow job.”

“I will take your word for it, Beefy, but the idea doesn’t appeal to me.”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, Professor. That has always been my motto.”

If I should ever be propositioned by a geriatric fairy on her way to a goblin party with her false teeth in her hands I will probably give it a miss, regardless of Beefy Beaumont’s motto!

By now we were half way through the six month detachment and Sous Lieutenant Beaumont and I referred to each other in private by our nick names but maintained the correct mode of address in front of the legionnaires. It was also around this time I decided that as I was in the vicinity I would visit Andorra my supposed place of birth, but I blinked and missed it.

Although the Enlisted Volunteers had their own instructors I would occasionally accompany a course in the field in case they got lost as I was the map reading and radio ‘expert.’ Survival meant catching your own food, using snares to catch rabbits and then skinning and gutting them. I was armed with MAS 49/56 rifle and says it myself as shouldn’t I’m a damn good shot and potted the occasional wild goat for a change of menu. There were plenty of sheep grazing the high pastures but they were off limits, other than for sexual purposes, and then only the ones wearing lipstick.

L’automne arrived with flurries of snow and it was time for Fort Nonookie to shut up shop for the winter. Perishables were taken back to Castelnaudary along with the radio equipment. A local hill farmer was paid to keep an eye on the place so there were never any break-ins or vandalism. However it wasn’t the presence of the farmer that kept villains at bay. The post was Legion property, and a notice informing any passing vandals of that fact, surmounted by a skull and crossbones graphic, gave the less than subtle warning that if anything untoward befell the buildings or contents then retribution would be visited on anyone stupid enough to fuck with the Legion.

The good news when I returned to Castelnaudary was that Capitaine Lorenzo Masséna had resigned his commission and left the army. He was now divorced, but his father had already lined up a politically useful future spouse for him. If I thought life would be easier with Masséna out of the picture I was sadly mistaken. He had given his successor, Capitaine Hector De Freitas, a damning résumé of my faults, with accounts of my indiscipline, poor instructional skills, and insolence.

Capitaine De Freitas had swallowed the lies told him by Masséna and considered me only slightly less wicked than Rasputin. Consequently I got all the worst jobs, and the most recalcitrant of students in my lectures and classes. However, my stay in the mountains had given me a certain peace of mind and I took the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in my stride, although, thanks to the never ending duties, I had little time to go into Castelnaudary to find available females, and no time whatever to visit Angelica in Marseille.