We were both worried. It was late ‘43 and the war was going badly for Mistress’ side. The Anglo-Americans had evicted the Desert Fox from Africa and had invaded Italy, and were slowly working their way up towards the northern border. The German army in Russia was in a retreat that only a fool couldn’t see was going to be fatal. The French Resistance movement was becoming far better organized and equipped. They were also becoming much bolder, as it became clear that the Germans weren’t going to win the war. Mistress and I were both wondering what we’d do when France was liberated, and Mistress had to return to Germany or be taken prisoner and shipped to England as a prisoner of war. Either way, I’d be very lucky to ever see my lover again. Suddenly, without any warning, a machine pistol appeared in Mistress’ bedroom, indicating that she was worried. It was rare that I ever saw that M.P., though; it was covered by a folded bed sheet, on a chair at Mistress’ side of the big bed.

I had never liked guns, which was why I’d volunteered to be a pianist, but I knew that there was a chance we might need that machine pistol in the near future. I’d been trained by S.O.E. to handle weapons, so when Mistress handed me a pistol for self protection, she didn’t need to instruct me on how to use it. I didn’t ask where the pistol came from; it probably came out of the stores where Mistress worked, which meant that she must have stolen it for me. If it hadn’t been so serious, it would have been funny; I’d worked for Mistress’ enemy, had been captured and interrogated, and Mistress had given me a gun to protect myself from my fellow countrymen, because we didn’t know what would happen if they got hold of me, and knew what I was.

I couldn’t realistically go home to my parents, at least not in the condition I was in, and I knew that. My neighbors would have been aware of the fact that I got lifted by the enemy, more than two years earlier, and why. What was I going to tell them when I suddenly turned up after something approaching three years, well fed, well dressed, and in good health? They’d know what I’d been up to! They’d know that I’d been some German’s ‘piece of meat,’ for the previous three years, and I would likely be treated accordingly. I’d have needed time to alter my appearance; i.e. lose at least twenty pounds, look far less healthy, and acquire lower quality, wartime clothes!

My parents would have heard about what happened to me, and what could I tell them? Worse than that though, I’d have been separated from Mistress; and because I loved Mistress, and Mistress loved me, we didn’t want to be separated. I looked back at the frightened young woman of twenty two that I had been, lying on a straw pallet in a cold, dirty cell, with, as Mistress put it so bluntly, ‘piss-wet panties,’ shivering in a mix of fear and cold; but mainly fear, wondering about what was to come in the very near future. Then I compared her to what I had become, and I resolved that I would rather die than give up what I had become, and what I had acquired. I had blossomed into a woman and had fallen in love with another woman, and despite the social stigma that a same sex relationship carried in those days, I wanted to continue that relationship despite all of the potential problems. I wanted to stay with the woman I loved, and continue to make love to her.

I’d have been marked out as a collaborator, and had I been captured by my own side, my fate would have been uncertain. Would I have been given a long prison sentence for what was little better than treason, despite my lack of options, or would I have been put up against a wall and shot? I don’t suppose that a plea from me that I’d had no other choice to avoid a death-camp would have done me much good. Perhaps if Mistress felt the same way, she and I would conclude a suicide pact; because we’d have had little worth living for, if we were forcibly separated. I wouldn’t have wanted to see Mistress put in a prison camp, with a long sentence for war-crimes, where I couldn’t visit, to assure her of my love. I wouldn’t even have been able to write to her without arousing too much suspicion.

Maybe my mother could convince my father to forgive me, due to the alternative to what I faced, and perhaps, with some fake documents from her office, Mistress could pass herself off as being from Alsace, or Lorraine, explaining the unusual accent, because her spoken French was every bit as good as mine. If so, perhaps I could take Mistress to my parents’ home with me, and introduce her as a friend from the prison the Germans threw me into, without my father shooting her the moment we walked in the door. We’d have to create a French background for her, but if there was no option, I’m sure we could have done that. Failing that, maybe she could be introduced as a dissident German from the same prison. Of course I was assuming that my father wouldn’t have shot me as a collaborator when I walked in the door, too. To make matters even more complicated, how could I tell an old-fashioned couple like my parents that at twenty two, I had become Mistress’ fifth lover, and she became my first? How could I tell them that I had given her my virginity as payment for her saving my life? My mother might have understood, but my father never would!

Christmas came and went, and the signs of an impending invasion were becoming more and more apparent. The strange thing was that more we worried about what the future held for our illicit relationship, the more Mistress made love to me, as if she was giving all she could, in fear of not being able to give any more, soon. What made a bad situation even worse was that Mistress had been promoted to lieutenant colonel and been given more responsibilities, and therefore ended up spending even more time out of her billet, and I missed her so much that I took to crying myself to sleep on many nights, after I’d used one of Mistress’ toys to pleasure myself. I wasn’t used to having to pleasure myself; Mistress always did that for me!

Mistress’ first really long trip away was a surprise to her, and she couldn’t give me any warning that I was going to be left alone. It took two days before I got notification of the situation from Mistress’ pet guard. He posted a note through the letterbox, addressed to me, by name, which was how I knew I could trust him. The note said that he’d be back after dark, (at the rear door so as not to draw attention,) and asked me to give him some of Mistress’ money when he arrived, along with her ration coupons, to go and get supplies for me. Mistress was going to be away for between a week and ten days, so I was going to need food providing for me, because the contents of Mistress’ kitchen cupboards wouldn’t last me that long. A bribe of a month’s pay for a private, and the approval for promotion, had been offered for services rendered, and Mistress had issued dire threats of what would happen to him if she returned home to find out that her pretty concubine had missed out on even one meal because he hadn’t looked out for me. I didn’t ask about the dire threats, and when she returned home, Mistress didn’t volunteer any details of them, so while I wondered about them, I never found out. The worst thing about Mistress’ nights away was that I couldn’t have a fire in the hearth because the smoke would give away my presence, so nights tended to be cold in the winter.

I spent nine successive nights alone, and I hated every one of them. The bed was comfortable and there was plenty of room in it, but I was accustomed to being able to cuddle up to Mistress while I was in it with her. I liked cuddling up to Mistress when she was naked, grinding my nipples against hers, and tasting her lips, (both sets of them)! Nine nights of misery, loneliness and tears, and the moment I laid eyes on Mistress was what seemed to make that day into the best of my entire life. When Mistress got in the door to the house, she was literally all over me like a rash, and it was exactly where I wanted her. Mistress had her hands inside my blouse and her tongue in my mouth before she’d even opened the belt on her greatcoat, and the feeling was fantastic!

Then the shit really hit the fan; D-Day arrived! The British and Americans landed in Normandy, and began the second front. That left Mistress and I in a very awkward position. The life we knew was going to be over very soon, and we didn’t know what to do about it. We couldn’t stay the way we were, where we were. We couldn’t leave together either. Nor would Mistress be able to stay with me in Paris when it was liberated.

I knew that Mistress had grandparents in Paris, so I suggested that with her accent she could stay with them, and try to pass herself off as a Frenchwoman. Her reply kind of killed off that idea.