Chapter 9: Recovery

Three days later I awoke in Susan's bed with a full-fledged erection. I would not include this fact except that I had suspected I would never have another. I just lay on my back and enjoyed the feel of it poking up and rubbing at her thin quilt. My lieutenant had given me a pass for a week's leave after I told him what had happened to Susan and me and after one of those doctors over in camp looked at my bruises. He thought the stocking on my injured member was funny until he pulled it off and looked at my damaged rod. He gave me some stuff that smelled even worse that the ointment Mrs. Snyder had made.

On the 27th, I had barely been able to stand up and spent most of the day rolled in my blanket feeling sorry for myself and smelling like mint and witch hazel. I though I'd faint when I took a blood-tinged piss. The next day, showing my pass three times, I went back across the river with a pack full of rations and knocked on Susan's flapping door. She welcomed me with a kiss, rubbed the doctor's goo on both my skin and hers and then curled up with me in her bed. I think we slept for twenty hours and woke sore and hungry on the morning of the 30th. She greased me, and I greased her fading stripes, which I enjoyed more than I told her. At her suggestion, I held snow to my privates off and on, which I did not enjoy at all since it reminded me of how they got that battered and bruised.

Now it was New Year's Day, 1777, and I had a good, sore, ugly, solid erection and the urge to use it. I blew Susan's hair out of her face, and she slowly awoke beside me. She slept in her shift; I was wearing just my shirt as usual. It was almost as cold as outdoors in her little cabin despite the carefully banked fire, but I threw back the quilt to her knees and said, "Look." Despite blotchy stripes, swollen veins, a blood blister and a discolored head, I was proud of it.

"Well," Susan said as I flipped the quilt back up cover us, "my goodness." I caressed her soft back, feeling the raised lines of her scourging. She shivered. I wondered about her other injuries, the internal ones. Her hand slid down my bruised stomach. "Seems a lot smaller," she said with a chuckle in the voice. "Think we ought to give the poor little thing a try?"

I pulled her leg over mine and slid into her very slowly, feeling her tongue licking my chest, the hurried pace of her breathing, the ripples in her belly, things opening and unfolding within her like secret doors.

"Um," she said. "I guess we will." She rolled over on top of me, and we let out bodies have control, giving our minds a rest. I felt my heartbeat slowly increase. Her innards responded, welcoming my flesh, but I did not have the energy or ability to do more than just lie there like some fallen tree with an upright limb and enjoy her as she gently humped against my still-bruised belly. My hips, thighs and groin refused to take part, and my stones screamed out in frustrated pain. I was in great shape.

She kissed me and we tried to do more, but I failed completely. She rolled off after a while and gently rubbed my many, long, swollen welts and bruises. "A good first step," she said and slid out of bed to stir up the fire.

Someone knocked and she said, "Come."

My lieutenant entered, stomping his feet and looking sheepish. I suspect he had been standing outside for a while, listening and waiting.

"Sorry to bust in," he said. "Your leave's over. Sorry ma'am. Cornwallis is on the move. We gotta get the scouts and pickets out."

"Let me fix you both some breakfast," Susan said, sliding her old dress over her head. "Won't take long."

I sat up, disgusted with myself and the army.

"My God!" the lieutenant said, pulling off his three-cornered hat and looking at me wide-eyed.

"You ought'a see his back," Susan said, swinging a water pot over the growing fire and getting her griddle.

"What'd he hit you with?" my officer asked, stepping over and touching the long bruise that curled up across my chest and around my neck. I stood, letting the quilt slide away, and he gasped and put his hand to his mouth like he was going to throw up. The welts across my belly and thighs were still swollen, red-edged and blue-black, hungry snakes circling my body. My discolored privates hung like a long-dead rabbit.

I dressed quickly, and we ate hoecakes and apple butter and drank beer. I kissed Susan gently and said, "Thank you." The lieutenant tossed her a salute and helped me get on the spare horse he had brought. Sitting a horse in my condition was not my favorite thing, but he wanted me to go up to Princeton, and it was too far to walk.