Thirty-six: Thunder balls

He picked me up and jogged out, carrying me in his arms. I felt his tense wariness as he made sure the way was clear. In a silent room that echoed, he put me down. I sniffed.

"This a toilet?" I whispered through barely moving lips.

"Yes," he replied, carefully picking glass shards out of my face, taking extra careful care around my eyes. "But first, does anything hurt? Did you get seriously injured anywhere? Can you move all your limbs?"

I moved all my limbs, albeit somewhat stiffly.

"Keep your eyes shut," he instructed me. "There are some shards of glass that will need tweezers to get out and I'm worried they might get in your eyes if you open them."

He picked at shards in my lips next, while I began to wriggle.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"This is embarrassing, but I'm about to pee in my pants," I said through my mostly closed lips.

"Oh," he chuckled and helped me up onto unsteady feet.

I swayed about in an uncoordinated off balance manner. I didn't know why I felt it was so hard to keep my balance. Perhaps it was the grenade that had exploded in that room? It must have been a stun grenade. Those were known to disorientate a person, right?

The Bosky soldier caught hold of me and helped me walk to a cubicle.

"Will you be alright on your own?" he asked me.

I nodded firmly and hoped to heaven that I would. Having a man help me with my toileting was a bit too embarrassing to consider. He probably wouldn't want to have such intimate contact with me either, right?

Unfortunately, my prayers went unheard. I missed the toilet when I was trying to sit down and fell in a tangle of limbs with my pants down. The Bosky soldier rushed into the cubicle to help me up. He lifted me up and sat me on the toilet, holding my swaying body steady there.

"I'm not looking," he assured me. "You can do your business."

I had to believe him. I was too desperate to empty my bladder to do anything else. Letting go, I sighed in relief at the decreasing pressure. I'd gotten to a toilet in time. Thank goodness. Then I felt about for the toilet paper and accidentally patted the wrong spot on the man's lower waist. Kindly, he didn't say anything. He only caught my hand, while my other one reached out blindly.

"What are you looking for?" he asked.

"The toilet paper," I replied, blushing. I had felt something that was half cocked in there and wished I had thought before I had acted. "Sorry. I didn't mean to touch anything."

"It's alright," he said in a low voice. "You and only you can touch all you like."

I felt the blood rush to my head and explode. If I were a cartoon, I could imagine smoke coming out my ears. I froze. Couldn't move. Couldn't think. With just those words, he had pretty much rendered me immobile.

Putting my right hand back on that part of his body, he prevented me from being able to retrieve my hand. I heard and smelt him when he bent over me. There was the sound of tearing toilet paper from my right hand side. Then his big hand helped me carefully wipe between my legs and make sure I was dry. I swallowed while flinching back.

His hand. In that spot. My hand. On that spot. What was he doing, coming on to me in this way? Not to mention it was the first time a guy - any guy had expressed any sort of interest in me. And he was an enemy.

Thunder balls, as Eleanor liked to say.

I felt ready to faint from shame and embarrassment. Instead of the ringing in my ears, now all I could hear was blood thundering in a tumultuous roar, like the waves in the sea. I couldn't make a sound.

He gently tugged me into standing and hugged me while he helped me pull my pants up. By the time my senses had returned, he had already helped me over to the sink where he washed my hands together with his in the cold water, and sat me back down to resume picking glass out of my face. As if it hadn't happened. Had I just imagined it?

"This is all your fault," I said the first thing that came to mind, feeling more lightheaded than before. Almost like I was floating. "It's all your fault."

"I know," he said. "I know. I'm sorry."

"The agents know about you now," I said and he paused for a moment, before resuming his careful examination of my face. "There were too many photos that had both of us in them. You've been framing me. You've been stalking me and someone else has been stalking us. Apparently I'm on a hit list."

"Did the agents hurt you?"

"No, but if I didn't tell them, I'd be in prison right now, I think," I said, "or possibly dead. It was a close thing. You're not a normal soldier are you?"

The Bosky soldier was quiet. His gentle fingers brushed my lips and then pulled out a splinter. Why was my heart suddenly beating so hard? My lips tingled where his fingers had touched.

"Are you still going to kill me?"

The fingers paused.

"I'd rather not have to," he said, resuming picking at the glass until a noise outside made him turn off the light. We both froze. "Stay here," he breathed into my ear, tucking me into a corner where I couldn't feel wind from the doorway blowing. "Don't move and don't come out."

I huddled in that cold corner, feeling the cold seep into my limbs through the tiles beneath me and the walls around me. He was gone a long time. I missed his company. Even if he was a pervert. With his big warm presence around, I didn't feel so afraid. Now that he was gone, I imagined what would happen if I was abandoned and forgotten here.

That was a dreadful thought.

What if I opened my eyes and glass got in them and then I went blind? Then I'd really be dead meat. I'd be the walking dead. Just waiting for hunger, thirst or a bullet to kill me.