******
In the following weeks, events occurred more quickly than Andre could ever have dreamed. He enrolled in NROTC and began the first few sets of physical readiness exercises—and a class on arms familiarity. His physical strength and size identified him to recruiters and before long he was headed for Marine intelligence.
Meanwhile Suzanne announced that she wasn’t “ready” for an engagement and convinced her mother that a spring announcement was out of the question. Andre would likely go to war—and she didn’t feature herself as a war widow or one left back home pining for a man. She blamed the war, but deep down, she knew that Andre was not the one for her.
Finn was quickly promoted to journeyman stonemason—with a 50% increase in hourly pay, but far more responsibilities. His creativity and all-around excellence were clear to all. His ability to “visit” Andre was often thwarted. So Andre had a reprieve (although he continued to date Suzanne), had begun the long path toward a military career out of national necessity, and Finn and Andre were deprived opportunities to be together. Andre did not return to the farm that summer. There was mandatory boot camp—fortunately at a base just outside Boston—so he remained in the area, although with less free time and freedom.
Circumstances took over again. Finn was drafted into a special engineer corps of the US Army, and after boot camp, he was posted to the UK. Roosevelt was convinced that the US had to go to war despite a recalcitrant Senate. France had fallen quickly, and the UK was under aerial bombardment so engineers were needed to make instant repairs to keep infrastructure intact. US soldiers wouldn’t fight—yet, but they could provide support outside the war zone while preparing for combat. Finn, an Irishman, was reluctant to fight to save his historic oppressors, but he had no choice. And he decided to take revenge by fucking as many girls and guys as he could find. He found many who were enchanted by the red-headed American Viking. He quickly gained a reputation as the company’s cocksman.
Andre finished Harvard several months early and enrolled in OTC in Virginia. His language skills meant that he was headed for intelligence. Even before war was declared, after Pearl Harbor, he was headed to France as a liaison with the French Underground—La Resistance. It was all very secret as the US was not technically in the war. He parachuted in—and in a separate parachute drop, radio equipment on which he had been trained was provided. He immediately began to report on the needs of an effective sabotage. He too found many partners, the daughters of farmers and fellow freedom fighters. He became a legendary stud in the French countryside as well as hero of the Resistance for his fearlessness. The French seemed not to mind that he was indiscriminate in taking young boys and girls to his bed. Everything was in the moment. L’amour in France was not same sex-bound—at least during the war. Everyone seemed to be bisexual. And the need for sexual release was ubiquitous—perhaps the only relief from tension, the only recreation of a people at war.
Finn and Andre were ultimately apart for almost three years. Three years in which they mostly hid their passion for men, while taking an occasional male partner for convenience. Both grew up very quickly. Both often found willing partners—mostly whose names they didn’t know. In those years, Finn and Andre lost their innocence. They had caroused with local women. And more or less discretely with a few young men. A cigarette, some bread, chocolate—or just a bit of humanity was traded for sexual fulfillment.
By the end of the war, they were men in substance as well as in age. They remained unsure of the future, but both had determined an irrevocable sexual identity—even it didn’t fit with the post-war American grasp for a return to innocence and alpha malehood. The grasp was futile. The genie was out of the bottle. Forces had been unleashed. Horrors and intimacy had blended on a daily basis—which resulted in permission—for almost anything sexual.
TBC BD