Whittled Away

The man who chops his own wood warms himself twice.

"You always had clever things to say when I was in pain." Nonetheless, David set another log on the chopping block and swung his axe. It was a well-practiced swing of the razor sharp blade and split the log smoothly. He picked up the pieces and tossed them in his wagon. He picked up the next log, almost too small to split. He'd spent the past week cutting the wood to the right lengths with his chainsaw. He'd hauled it out of the woodlot, but the larger pieces still needed to be split or they wouldn't burn thoroughly. Some wouldn't even fit in the fireplace.

He stood with the stick of wood in his hand and let the axe idle against his thigh. A limb had broken away from this trunk many years ago leaving a protruding knob, long-since healed over with bark. The shape of the knot filled his hand with memories.

I was never as firm as that. And never a wooden lover.

"No, my love, but the shape is about right. I held those precious breasts enough times to remember."

I went to sleep at night with your hands supporting them. I felt so secure.

"I think I'll stop for now and go sit a spell."

Don't forget to drink something. And I mean water, not any of that cider that's gone hard.

"I don't drink that stuff."

Don't lie to me. I know better.

"I suppose you are spying on me from the grave. I'll have water first."

David dragged the two-wheel cart up to the house and stacked the load of firewood, keeping the breast-shaped log aside. He'd just keep that by his chair on the porch for a while. He pumped water and washed his head to cool off. The water was cold. October was already brisk and he was headed for a hard winter. As long as he kept a fire in the firebox, the pump shouldn't freeze. But he needed to finish splitting that fourth cord of wood and if he was smart he'd put in another. He drank his fill of the cold water and toweled himself off. There'd been no hard frost yet, so he figured he could do without a fire tonight.

Instead he fixed a simple dinner of rice and beans, cut a sausage into the mess, and sat on the porch with his plate.

Those cans of vegetables you put in won't do your body any good unless you eat them.

"Always complaining about the way I eat," he said.

Just always want you to be healthy, my love. Was I really such a nag?

"If you were, I'd give my life to have you here to nag me now."

I don't think that was an answer. What are you going to do now?

"Hmm. Sit here." He rocked in his chair and picked up the log. Maybe he'd whittle a little. He pulled out his Buck knife and carefully began stripping the bark from the block of wood.

Ooh. Like the first time you undressed me.

"D, I'm ready, darling. I know I told you I wasn't ready, but I am. I was just scared."

"Ella, I would never hurt you. I'd never rush you. We don't have to do anything else right now if you don't want to."

"But I do want to, David. I want you to touch me and to ... to see me. Kiss me and tell me how much you love me."

Nineteen years old and he was a bit scared, himself. David and Ella had grown up near each other and she went from being the bothersome neighbor kid to the love of his life in a matter of months. He'd tried going to college, but that didn't work out. He spent all his time writing home to her and none of it studying. When he predictably flunked out, he'd received his draft notice within two weeks. Tomorrow he would be headed for boot camp.

"I love you more than the stars in the sky, Ella. More than all the grains of sand on the shores." He kissed her and they lost themselves in each other's touch. "I love you higher than the moon and deeper than the ocean. I love you the very essence of my being." They kissed some more and his hand moved slowly to cup her breast.

"D, you make me feel like an angel lying in your arms—like I will be able to fly when I've given myself to you fully. Make me fly, love. Make me sprout my wings and soar into the sky with your love. I'm yours."

His fingers found the buttons on her blouse and slowly twisted them through the loops. She said she'd dressed for him tonight. That meant she'd worn nothing under the silky covering. She expected him to touch her unfettered breasts through the sensuous fabric. She hadn't expected him to peel it away from her skin when the night began, but there was nothing now that she wanted more.

David's tears were as hot against her skin as his tongue. He worshipped her as he slowly undressed her. She pulled at his shirt and his undershirt to get them off so they could like chest to chest in the bed of the old pickup. Every kiss reminded him that tomorrow he would leave—that tonight might be the only night they could ever share together.

She didn't complain when he found the fastening for her skirt. In fact, she helped, lifting her hips so he could pull the garment off her. She made sure her underwear went with it. From that point there was not another doubt in her mind. She knew what she wanted as she unbuckled his belt and pushed at the waistband. He quickly got the message and in minutes they were lying against each other with no barriers. They kissed, stroked, and petted each other. She felt his erection hot against her skin and when it parted her wet folds and pushed into her sacred channel, she wept. This spot—this place she had kept so private—was meant only for her husband. David had never mentioned marriage, though his letters and his words had often enough spoken of love.

You soiled yourself, David.

"Not my fault, woman."

I didn't think men your age had spontaneous emissions.

"Shows how much you know."

Was it really because you were thinking about our first time together?

"The first and the second and the third. And how I miss you, Ella."

There, there, my handsome man. Let's clean up and go to bed. I want to hold you all night.

"In my dreams."

If you are going to make my pregnant belly, you need a much bigger piece of wood!

"I didn't say it was your whole pregnant belly. I said it reminded me of when you were pregnant."

How? Tell me how.

"You never wrote to tell me you were pregnant."

What could you have done? You were in the army. They didn't give you leave to come home before they shipped you out.

"There was no time. We were at war."

But still you wrote.

"Every day."

My Darling Ella,

They told me Southeast Asia was hot. They didn't tell me that the monsoons had come in and I was going to spend every night shivering in a hole, soaked to the bone. It's not that I'm cold. I'm scared, sweetheart. Charlie is all around us. Sometimes I think they shoot one shot, someplace way down the line, so we'll think there's a sniper crawling around picking us off one at a time. But in the morning, we're all still here.

Andy, my black friend, ducked down next to me last night and told me to paint my face black like his. Then to close my eyes and shut my mouth and Charlie wouldn't see me no-how. He's a funny guy. I hope we both make it back so I can introduce you.

Again, I'm thinking of that night before I left. You gave me a reason to come home, Ella. I'll get there. If I have to walk through hell, I'll come home to you.

Love, David

"David, David! Don't die. Please don't die!" she screamed as she was finally admitted to the hospital room. "I love you! Please don't die!"

"I'm not dying, Ella. I just got more shrapnel in my leg than they allow. I'm home, darling. I'm coming home," he said as she hugged him. Every damned thing hurt. They'd shipped him to the VA hospital after he was patched up in Germany. They said he wouldn't lose his leg. That was supposed to make him happy. They said he'd never run a marathon but the only place he'd ever had to run was in the army so who the fuck cared about that. What they didn't say was that he'd be in pain every day for the rest of his life. Fuck them.

"I love you, David."

"I love you, Ella. You are what kept me alive over there. I had to come home to you." They hugged and he suppressed the wince. They said the piece in his shoulder was there to stay. They couldn't dig that out. But there was something different in this hug. "Ella? What's this?"

"That's our baby, David. Please don't hate me!"

"You never told me we were going to have a baby! When is it due?"

"Well, figure it out. We only had one night together. David, is it okay? I'm sorry. I ... You don't have to marry me. I..."

"Don't have to marry you? What are you saying? Do you have someone else?"

"No! Oh no. I've never had anyone but you. I never want anyone but you," she wept.

"My sweet, sweet, love. You should have told me. I'd have got shot up sooner so we'd be married by now. Did you think that when I made love to you that it was just because I was leaving? I want you now and forever. I don't ever want to lose you, love." The two were wrapped in each other's arms, his pain forgotten for the moment. "Let me touch my son," he said. She crawled up onto the bed next to him so he could easily touch the roundness of her belly. He felt the bump of her navel beneath the maternity clothes she wore. "I thought you had an innie!"

"Your son pushed it out. He's already so big. Two more months. Will you be with me, David?"

"You listen here, you silly girl! There's a chaplain here in the hospital. I want you to go find him and bring him right here to my room so we can get married. I don't want to wait another minute now that we're together. You go find him," he said.

"I can't, David."

"What? Why can't you?"

"You haven't let go of me."

So it's not my pregnant belly you've carved into that old block of wood. It's my popped out belly button. Like one of those turkeys for Thanksgiving that has a button that pops out when it's cooked right.

"I thought for a while that it was permanent and you'd always have that outie belly button. How was I to know it would go back in after the baby was born?"

I'm sorry, David.

"Don't be sorry, darling. I miss him every day. Just like I miss you. Please tell me you're together now."

He's here, but he's got his own friends. You know how kids are.

"I should have been there."

You were a responsible father. You can't be everywhere at once.

They named the baby David Andrew. David for his father and Andrew for the army buddy who never made it out of the jungles of Viet Nam. Junior was born just a week after David got out of the hospital and the three of them lived with his parents. As a wedding gift, his parents gave them an acre that fronted on the road and was bounded on one side by the drainage ditch they called a creek. The little family spent hours that summer sitting under a walnut tree on the property and dreaming about where they'd build their home.

David went to technical school when he'd recovered enough to be active. He'd always been good with wood, so becoming a carpenter seemed like a natural choice. And he was good at it. Good enough that his instructors pushed him to keep going and become a cabinetmaker. He was able to get construction work during the summer and continue his schooling in the evening and during the winter. Education was something the government owed him. Each night Ella rubbed soothing analgesic into his shoulder. It was a surprise when they started getting disability payments from the government even though he was working part time. Payment for pain, his father said.

When Junior was three years old, they had a well dug. David and his father spent every evening digging out the trench that would become the foundation when they poured concrete and set the blocks for the crawlspace. The ground was too wet and unstable to dig a basement. David was a little relieved. The foundation was all they got done that summer, but until the snow flew, Ella and Junior walked hand-in-hand with him to picture themselves in their new little house. They stepped off each room, planted stakes in the ground to show where doors and windows would be, and sat on the ground together where one day they would sit on their front porch.

And at night, when the baby and the grandparents were asleep, they made love.

You always come back to that, don't you?

"Ella, making love with you was all I wanted to do in life. I didn't care about work or school. I cared about getting you in bed."

Or anyplace else you could get me. What's that you keep stroking there? It feels so smooth beneath your hands.

"Oh, nothing. Just whittling away. It kind of reminds me of a certain bit of your anatomy."

You are squeezing my little wooden ass, you old pervert!

"My, my, it does sort of remind me of that, now you mention it. So round and smooth. No baby's bottom had anything on you."

As you taught me out at the house site.

"We did have some good times out there."

And your parents knew. How many times could we ask them to watch Junior while we went out to the site to take some measurements? With a blanket?

"Seems you suggested it on a few of those occasions."

"Do you know what Junior said today?" Ella asked as they walked hand-in-hand the quarter mile from his parents' house to where the cold foundation of their new home awaited.

"No. Do tell me what."

"He asked why he didn't have a little sister," she smiled.

"That child is three and a half years old, love of my life. I can't imagine that he even knows what a baby sister is."

"Well, he didn't say the actual words. I just knew that was what he meant," Ella said as she leaned against her husband.

"Psychic now, are you?"

"Why haven't I gotten pregnant again, David? We try enough," she said. He could see a tear forming in her eye and quickly kissed it away. They dropped the blanket in the midst of the foundation and the kiss on her cheek moved to her lips. The kiss deepened and they soon were sitting on the blanket lost in the love and the passion of the moment.

"Well, we haven't gone back and tried it in the back of that pickup again," he laughed.

"We sold that truck to get you one more reliable for your tools. I cried."

"I didn't know that, sweetheart. It was just a truck," he said, petting her hair. His fingers moved to the buttons on the front of her housedress.

"Don't be careless, hon," she said, slowing him down. "I just made this dress."

"You could support us all with your sewing," he laughed. He moved so he could use both hands to gently unbutton the dress. "I think maybe you simply haven't been excited enough to get pregnant. Remember how nervous we were that first time?"

"I thought I'd peed myself," she giggled. "And when I felt you for the first time, I just knew it wouldn't fit."

"You're stretchy. I don't remember any problem with it fitting."

"It hurt a little at first. But then I was so overwhelmed by the sensations my body felt that I couldn't think about the pain."

"Still, there's something to be said for new and what it does to our bodies."

"You want a new wife?" she pouted. She tried to pull her dress closed, but he pulled it down over her shoulders and she relaxed. He unfastened her bra and it, too, fell to the side.

"No, I want this wife in new ways."

"What ways?"

"Well, look around you. I think you have some of that adventurous spirit, too. You put our blanket down right in the middle of the dining room," he laughed. She looked around.

"We can't even tell one room from another yet. We're lying on the grass."

"Just imagine," he said as he moved lower to pull her panties down. "The kitchen is just beyond your head there. Off to your left is the arch that will lead into the living room. Grandmother Abrams' china hutch will be against the wall next to the window there on your right. And you know that big oak table we picked up at the auction last year and stored in the barn?"

"I know the table," she whispered. "We need to refinish it."

"And when we do, it's going to sit in the middle of the dining room right under where you are lying now."

"Oh! David, do you mean I'm naked on the dining room table?" The very thought of it caused a flush to spread from her cheeks down to her tight little nipples.

"Yes, that's right," he whispered. "And I've just gotten home from work. I'm a starving man. I sit at the table to eat my dinner." With that he dipped his head between her legs and licked through her hair.

"David! What are you doing?"

"I'm getting ready to taste my dinner. I've wanted to do this for years. I'm starving, Ella. Let me eat." He pushed her legs farther apart and applied his thumbs to part her nether lips. Almost four years of marriage and it was the first time he'd had his face between her legs—the first time he could see the juices running from her vagina, begging him to taste them.

"It's not clean down there," Ella protested. She pushed at his head but he was insistent. When his tongue touched her opening, her resistance faded. His next lick brought a moan from her lips. He slid his hands down to cup her buns as he pulled her more firmly into his mouth. Once tasting her, he knew he would feast here often. Ella's passion rose quickly and the little glen where their new home would be built echoed with her orgasm.