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From: Troubador <llywarch_hen@btinternet.com>
Subject: ST: From Defeat, Epilogue (M/t, hist, oral)
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When I posted Chapter one of this story I said it was in twelve chapters, unfortunately, I managed to duplicate two of the earlier chapters which required a bit of a re-write and the chapter numbering all moved up one which left me with eleven rather than twelve.

I hope this Epilogue, which replaces Chapter Twelve, doesn't strain the bounds of belief to much.

 

Grow old along with me!

The Best is Yet to Be,

The Last of Life, for which the First was made:

Our Times are in His hand

Who saith, 'A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'




Rabbi Ben Ezra

Robert Browning (1812-1889)



Epilogue




    Jurgen paced the museum gallery carefully checking each display case conducting last minute checks before reporting to the Curator all was prepared for the final, pre-opening inspection. This was Jurgen's baby; a history of the Second World War from a German perspective, with his own special take on the Battle of Berlin... with a special cabinet containing his own personal souvenirs.

As he reached the far end of the gallery his assistant was waiting for him, holding a card in his hand.

    "Jurgen, the mail-man left this at the office; there's a package waiting for at the Post Office but it needs to be signed for, by you, personally."

Jurgen nodded absently as he stared back down the gallery hoping he hadn't missed anything.

    "OK. I'll just run over to Doctor Butler's office and let him know he can begin his inspection tour when he's ready, then I'll run over and collect the package. Does the card say how big it is?"

    "No."

    "Damn; can't risk taking my motorbike then, guess I'll have to draw a car from the pool. Run over to Lithography and check the final print run for the display cards has been completed. You need to place them before Butler begins his inspection tour. He's entertaining a member of the appropriations committee at the moment so he'll not be coming by for another couple of hours so you'll have time."













    He returned to his office to grab his jacket and as he turned to leave he caught sight of a framed photo of Karl and himself, taken the day Jurgen had been promoted to assistant Curator here. He was one of five assistants to the Curator, but still, it was an achievement which might be the springboard to bigger and better things if this display pulled in enough people.

At the loading dock to the rear of the building he drew the keys to a pool car and drove into town. The Post Office had it's own car parking lot but as it was such a pleasant day he fancied a stroll through the park to relax and walk off some of the tension which had developed on the run up to Michael Butler's inspection of his project.

An air of tension existed between Jurgen and Michael, his boss, stemming from the fact they were both homosexual and Michael had applied a little blackmail to get Jurgen into his bed. He still felt terrible for betraying Karl and bedding Michael but he'd made it clear to Michael at the outset, whatever happened between them, it would only be transitory thing. He and Karl had been together for almost thirty years now and he had no intention of endangering their relationship with a tawdry affair. Michael, in his turn had made it clear to Jurgen he was only interested in a no-strings sex arrangement, he wasn't looking for a relationship or for commitment, he preferred to remain free and unencumbered.

One night turned into five over a six week period with Jurgen visiting Michael at his home on the pretext of conferring on work issues. Jurgen breathed a sigh of relief when after six weeks Michael announced he'd turned his attention to an eighteen-year-old twink who'd just started work in the museums logistics section. Jurgen had looked in and cruised the young lad one afternoon, he flirted with the lad to annoy Michael but from then on had steered well clear.

When Jurgen was promoted to assistant curator Michael tried to apologise by expressing his regrets for using blackmail and had since been quite uncomfortable in Jurgen's presence; they'd managed to come to a mutually satisfactory accommodation so as not to endanger their professional relationship but it was still a little uneasy. 

During the time he'd been having sex with Michael, Jurgen had come to the realisation that in thirty years, despite a brief dalliance with Anthony Donatello in which Karl had participated, he'd only ever had sex with one man and while his relationship with Karl was, he felt, as strong as ever... he'd experienced a level of excitement and desire with Michael which seemed to have drained from his relationship with Karl.

He'd tried to raise the subject with Karl on a number of occasions but at fifty-five Karl seemed happy with his life and Jurgen felt comfortable making demands and rocking the boat ... so he left it.

His route to the Post Office took him past the house and as he drive past he slowed as he realised Karl was standing on the door step, but as Jurgen moved his hand to toot the horn he caught sight of another man walking up the drive way behind the car. Karl looked both ways up and down the street before he put his hand on the stranger's back to guide him inside.

Jurgen felt a sick hollow feeling grow in the pit of his stomach as he leapt tot he conclusion that Karl was having an affair. Maybe he, too, had grown tired of Jurgen and was inviting a string of men into their home, maybe there was a steady flow of men through their bed. 

Woodenly, he drove the rest of the way to the Post Office, parked, collected the package and returned to the Museum all thoughts of a brisk, relaxing stroll in the park forgotten as his mind churned through the terrible possibilities engendered by what he'd seen.











    He left the museum at the end of the day, dispirited and down, wondering what he'd say to Karl about what he'd seen or if he should say anything at all. Despite Karl being unaware of what had happened between Jurgen and Michael, he still felt he'd betrayed Karl with another man so he was hardly in a position to take the moral high ground.

He parked the car on the driveway and walked the path to the front door. His mind slipped back thirty years to the first time he'd walked up this path as a bewildered seventeen year old, the two cherry blossom trees were still there flanking the path but had long since dropped their little pink petals for this year. 

Karl's grandfather had died at the age of ninety two, followed within six months by his wife who never really recovered from the loss of her husband of seventy years. They had left the house to Karl's parents but after some discussion it was decided they would remain in their own home and Karl and Jurgen would move out of the little apartment above the garage. Barely two months after they'd vacated their old place than one of Karl's cousins, who'd lost a great deal of his possessions and income to a very acrimonious divorce, had moved in so as to cut down his expenses.

Jurgen sat at the table looking over at Karl as they ate dinner, it felt ashen and tasteless in his mouth as he went through motions, images of Karl twisting and writhing in passion as he played with other men in their bed playing endlessly through his mind.

Without looking up from his plate Karl spoke.

    "So! When are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

    "Why should anything be wrong?"

    "You haven't said more than 'How was your day?' since you got home. I know you were completing the finishing touches to the display today. You've been happily telling me all about every aspect of it for weeks and now at the culmination you clam up like an oyster!"

Jurgen took a deep breath to pluck up his courage before continuing.

    "I needed to go to the Post Office to collect a donation sent by parcel post and as I was driving past the house I saw you putting your arm around a guy before walking into the house."

    "Ah ... I see ... you think I'm having an affair, is that it!"

    "Are you?"

    "If I was would it be any different to your sleeping with your boss last year?"

    "You knew?"

    "I didn't know.  I sort of guessed when I met Michael. You were very careful, very discrete but we've been together for thirty odd years and I like to think we know each other very well. You picked up some new techniques in sex and you were trying them out in bed with me."

    "I'm sorry. He ... blackmailed me."

    "You could have said no, found another job."

    "Without a good reference from him as my Head of Department, I'd have been dragging the barrel looking at employment in some flea-bitten back-yard display in the back end of nowhere."

    "So if I was having an affair it's not so much of a betrayal, is it?"

    "I guess not."

Karl go up and walked around the table and knelt beside Jurgen.

    "I don't blame you for having sex with Michael... after all I'm the only man you've ever had sex with. If I'm being truthful, I expected to lose you to one of you're school friends and later to one of your college friends. It was surprising to me you waited as long as you did before you tried it with another man. You only had sex with Donny twice and, I think, that was mainly because you wanted to keep me happy. I've been seeing him quite often over the years and I know you're aware of that."

    "Donny's different, he's an old friend. So... you're not having an affair. There's no string of guys parading through the house when I'm at work."

    "Come on ... my mom sits in the front room of her house most days, looking out the window which over looks our front door. The chances of my sneaking a lad in here without her knowing would be infinitesimal."

    "I'm sorry... sorry for suspecting you and I'm really sorry about Michael." 

    "I don't care, as long as you come home and snuggle up to me in bed each night. As long as you're in my bed. As long as your in me. I just love you so much, more so now than when we first met in Berlin.

    "Jurgen! I've been setting something up for your birthday. The man you saw me with is an old friend, someone I haven't been able to speak to or see in almost thirty years. He's a Russian, an ex-soldier, I knew him in Berlin after the war. He's been working on something for me and, hopefully, in two weeks time I'll have a birthday present for you which will dwarf every other birthday present before. It's taken a lot to set this up and that's all I'm going to say to you about it now. I wouldn't have said even this if you hadn't have seen what you saw."

Jurgen stood up and pulled Karl up to stand along side him, he put his arms around Karl's neck and kissed him long and passionately, to apologise for doubting him and to express his sorrow for going behind his back with Michael.

    "Whao! Keep that up and we're heading off to bed." Karl said.

    "Why don't we? Go to bed, I mean!"

    "Hey! I'm an old man! We had sex this morning and now you want it again? What you trying to do? Put me in an early grave?"

Jurgen slowly slid his hand into Karl's trousers and gently stroked his erection.

    "So what's this then?"

    "A shower first?" Karl smiled.

    "You bet!" Jurgen grinned in reply.


Jurgen ran to the stairs closely followed by Karl as they headed for the shower, stripping off their clothes as they ran. For the first time in a long time Jurgen felt a surge of excitement as Karl playfully chased him the stairs. 
Almost their first project when they moved in was to rip out the old style, in-door, out-house bathroom favoured by the grandparents in favour of something more modern and functional... a wet room. As he stood in the centre of the room with three jets of water splashing over his body Jurgen stood still and allowed Karl to soap his body as he felt something beginning to rekindle between them.

Karl dropped to his knees in front of Jurgen and slowly began to suck Jurgen's cock, sliding his tongue in under the foreskin to rasp the sensitive glans with the rough surface of his tongue.

As he took Jurgen into his mouth Karl continued to move his soap covered hands over Jurgen's arse moving closer to his hole but not actually touching it, that was for later when they were in bed. Karl's mind was enervated with a desire for Jurgen which he now realised had been missing for a while. Perhaps it had been for the best to get Jurgen's brief dalliance with Michael Butler into the open. Karl felt the diminution of desire had really begun when he'd discovered Jurgen had been sneaking around.

Later, laying in bed post-coitus arm-in-arm they chatted late into the night, each speaking of the frustrations they felt about how thier relationship had become hum-drum, even boring. As they looked at each other they realised simultaneously... they'd turned into a middle-aged, married couple and they promised each other to take steps to re-energise their relationship.













    As Jurgen's birthday approached Karl found himself heading down to New York City for a final planning meeting with Yuri. He walked to the Russian Consulate and waited in the foyer as they informed Yuri he was waiting. In the years following the end of the war, Yuri had turned from a good looking, slim, Russian Army sergeant into the typical Russian bear, Vodka-swilling and barrel chested.

    "Karl!"

    "Yuri Malachenko! A pleasure as always."

    "I thought we would have a bite to eat at a little restaurant down on the water-front. A little taste of home from home for me... it is run by a Russian couple who escaped Mother Russia in the 1960's. I guess as a representative of my country I shouldn't really be going there but their cooking is ... excellent. They do not compromise on the preparation and all the staff here at Consulate eat there regularly."

    "Yuri. As long as it's your expense account paying anywhere sounds excellent. I do remember a long time ago in Berlin, you recommended I try borscht but we never got around to it before they slammed borders shut. Perhaps now you will have the opportunity to introduce me to Borscht."













    They sat in the little restaurant as Karl slowly ate his way through a rather excellent bowl of     borscht and Yuri placed a file of papers on the table.

    "Did you ever have any reason to actually believe he had survived?" Yuri asked. 

    "No. Jurgen was sure he'd died as a fifteen year old fighting in the East, possibly Stalingrad."

    "There are no records on file in the East German State Archives post-1943 of this man. As far as the official record is concerned he died somewhere to the east of the Oder-Neisse line. There exists a record of the award of an Iron Cross posthumously, apparently sent to his mother in Berlin, but I've been unable to trace her."

    "No, you wouldn't have been able to locate her. Jurgen says she was in her house on the night his own home was destroyed in an air-raid, probably the same bomb took out the whole street. For reasons of her own she gave the Iron Cross to Jurgen, he still has it."

    "Recently a project has been under way to cross-reference the State Archives using computers instead of the old card indices. I entered the name into the new computer system, date of birth and other information you were able to provide and the system flagged an anomaly. 

    "There exists a STASI record of someone arrested in nineteen sixty-five claiming to be this man; he was seeking to take advantage of state medical care for veterans of the war.

    "Tracking this man down took some great effort and ingenuity on my part but I finally located him. He was living under the name of Erick Manheim in Liepzig and when I confronted him with his true name he pretty much broke down and ... well, he was most eager to tell me the truth about what had happened all those years ago.

    "Toward the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, he realised his country was headed for a massive disaster.  He swapped identity papers with a recently deceased soldier who'd received orders to return to Germany for a new posting. They were about the same age, same height, same build, he simply assumed this man's identity for the purposes of travel and left Stalingrad for Germany on an empty troop convoy. You know, I cant say I blame him, Stalingrad was a terrible place then and both sides did terrible things there."

    "Where is he now?"

    "I have him ... stashed ... at a hotel near the consulate. I'll take you to meet him when we walk back. I arranged for him to get his true identity back, I informed Herr Manhiem's family that his remains where found a few years ago near Volgograd and he was awarded a full military funeral at a German cemetery near there. I arranged for a small head stone to be placed above an empty plot in case they choose to visit."

    "No stone left unturned?"

    "Better to 'cover all the bases' to use American idiom, eh?"

    "I guess so, nothing left to bite us in the arse."

    "From what you tell me, you like being bitten in the arse so I'm not sure how accurate that statement might be." Yuri said with a broad grin on his face.

    "Would you come to Jurgen's party?"

    "I would like to witness the culmination of all my efforts to find this man and see the look on your partner's face when they meet."

    "Come up to New Haven when you're ready."

    "I shall have my assistant book hotel rooms for us. I think a hotel would be better so we can maintain the surprise for Jurgen, yes?"

    "Well, I could ask my parents to put you up."

    "You have told me Jurgen is in and out of their house regularly; even after all these years he might recognise this man. I think it is best we use the hotel until the party after which if you don't mind I would accept your invitation to stay at your place."

    "Always open and available for you, Yuri Malachenko."

    "Perhaps we should walk back now, I shall introduce you to him and we can set this all in motion."













    On the day of his birthday, Jurgen felt a palpable sense of tension in the air as he sat at the table in Karl's parents kitchen eating his dinner. Once again, Karl was absent doing something with his Russian friend; Jurgen was aware that his adopted grand-parents were aware that Karl had planned something big but they were being as close lipped as Karl concerning the whole affair.

Jurgen's display at the museum had launched to congratulations and plaudits from all over the state; a resounding success, it was drawing in the crowds from all over and he and Michael had finally been able to come to terms with what had happened.  He felt a sense of pride as he guided groups of school children around the display explaining to them how it had felt to be their age and fighting as a soldier in his country's armed forces.

    "Jurgen? I think you should go back to work now and allow us to set things up for later." Karl's mother suggested.

    "I was hoping to see Karl before I left."

    "It'll be a few more hours before he returns. You know what's he's like when he's been with Yuri, drinking and eating and all that."

    "When he gets in, tell him I waited."













    His birthday celebration started in town at Donny's restaurant as he celebrated with his friends but as the evening drew to a close he found he really wanted to get home and celebration with his family at the house. He made his farewells to his friends thanking them for an excellent meal; he gave Donny enough money to keep the drink so his friends wouldn't really notice his absence and walked outside to hail a cab.

He walked into the house to be greeted by his family, by neighbourhood friends and by Karl. Karl stood off to one side talking to a big, burly older man but Jurgen was quickly side-lined receiving presents so became a little preoccupied to wonder who the stranger was.

After all the presents had been opened he realised there didn't seem to be anything from Karl despite the hype he'd given about something really big; the fact he was beaming a grin from ear to ear which would have split his face from side to side if it got any wider didn't really help.

Karl walked over and the big, heavy set man he'd been talking to followed.

    "Jurgen? I'd like to introduce you to Yuri Malachenko, he's the friend I've been visiting in New York and he's been the leg work to get me your birthday present."

    "Karl tells me you have few happy memories about Russian soldiers. I hope, perhaps, I might have the chance to change your mind about us."

    "It was a long time ago, sir, I don't hold anything against the Russian people, now. Perhaps you might like to come down to the museum tomorrow and tell me what you think about my work there."

    "Ah... yes... Karl told me about what you have been doing. I would be honoured ... provided I get personally escorted by you?"

    "It would be my honour, sir."

    "Karl?" Yuri said, "Do you perhaps think we have kept them apart long enough?"

    Karl nodded as Yuri walked away and he turned to face Jurgen, he put an arm around his partner's shoulder as Yuri walked in to the kitchen.

    "This all culminated from a desire to get you information for your display at the museum. I made contact with Yuri and requested he do some research on my behalf. I thought you might like to be able to complete the information you have included in your display. That information I've already given you, but in the process of making his enquiries Yuri turned up something rather puzzling and he contacted me for further instructions."

The kitchen door opened and Karl turned Jurgen toward it; Yuri walked into the living room followed by another man about Jurgen's age. As Jurgen frowned at the new stranger in their midst something began to tug at his memories and slowly his mouth dropped open as recognition dawned.

    "Hans..." he whispered.

He turned to look at Karl, the tears he saw welling in Karl's eyes confirmed the truth of what was happening, he looked at his grandmother and his grandfather, at the neighbours and all had tears rolling down their cheeks as Jurgen turned and staggered forward shakily, he slowly closed the distance between himself and the friend he'd last seen boarding a train, as a frightened fifteen year old, heading for Stalingrad almost forty years ago.

    "Jurgy? Is that you?" Hans Voss whispered in hoarse voice.

As soon as Jurgen heard the rasping voice, he knew it was Hans. Jurgen closed the last few feet quickly and threw his arms around his oldest friend, hugging him tight and close, both lads sobbing their hearts out as they whispered to each other confirming the truth, they'd both survived the horror of the war.

Karl felt the warm trickle of tears rolling down his cheeks, he looked around the room and saw not a dry eye in the house, even Yuri had tears rolling down his cheeks, as they bore witness to the closing of a chapter opened by war so long ago.













    Later in the night after they'd bid goodnight to all the guests Karl, Jurgen and Hans remained. From the moment Yuri had escorted Hans out of the kitchen, he and Jurgen had been inseparable as though both feared that come midnight a Cinderella-like transformation would rip then apart again.

    "What say you lads, we have a shower and then head off to bed?"

    "Bed?" Jurgen exclaimed.

    "For over thirty years you've been telling me how much you regretted the chances you missed with Hans. He's told me how much he'd enjoy the chance to go to bed with you. So, perhaps the three of us might go to bed together?"





The stood in the shower as the hot water cascaded over their bodies, Karl and Jurgen soaping each other as usual but soon they'd pulled Hans close and were both soaping his body as he stood and smiled gently as he looked at Jurgen.  A cold draft blew through the open door and Jurgen, his cock buried in Karl's mouth and his lips locked to Hans', gave the door a gentle shove. 

The door swung gently closed as the three made love under the shower.




The End




Well, almost, but what happened in the shower is another story entirely...
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