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The Crossing - Part 37 Of 37 free porn video
After escaping from a German PoW camp during the war, circumstances had
forced me to assume the identity of a dead woman and take a husband. Now
discover my final fate.
THE CROSSING - part 37 of 37
by BobH
(c) 2016
- EPILOGUE -
January 1953. It hardly seemed possible this was my tenth year as Eva,
but the calendar doesn't lie. Ours hung on the wall, with now ex-
President Truman sitting on the edge of a desk and staring down at me
from it avuncularly as I checked my general appearance in the wall
mirror again. Fluffing my hair, and smoothing down my A-line skirt, I
turned to make sure the seams of my nylons were straight. I still looked
as presentable as I had five minutes earlier, but it never hurts to be
sure. I took out my powder compact and examined my make-up in its
smaller mirror, baring my teeth to see if any lipstick had migrated onto
them in the few minutes since I'd last checked. It hadn't.
I knew it was silly but I was nervous. Then again it wasn't every day I
received a visit from the wife of Senator Carter Danworth Jr. I'd been
following her progress in the press for several years now. A society
hostess who conducted political fundraisers for her husband's party
among their wealthy friends, she was a great beauty who often outshone
famous actresses when she appeared on the red carpet at a movie premiere
wearing a fabulous gown. Their film studio was just one of many
businesses the Danworth family owned and she adored glamour, so I wasn't
surprised when she became a red carpet regular. Being a fun-loving woman
she also regularly organised celebrity-filled weekend parties at her
summer home in the Hamptons. That was her life. Me, I was just a
housewife.
Our house sat on a quarter acre of land and had three bedrooms, all at
ground level. It also had a basement, one which incorporated a storm
cellar as most did hereabouts. When you live in 'Tornado Alley' this is
a necessity.
With their wealth, Mr & Mrs Carter Danworth Jr were used to a level of
luxury I could only dream of and our house would probably seem tiny to
her. Anxiously, I surveyed the contents of our living room, hoping it
would pass muster. On the mantel above the fireplace were framed photos
of our children arrayed either side of a photo of me and Helmut taken at
our wedding by Leni Riefenstahl - *not* one with Hitler in it. Our
leather sofas and Helmut's La-Z-Boy recliner surrounded a low, oval
coffee table on which we kept a box of cigarettes, a table lighter, and
a heavy crystal ash tray for visitors. The furniture was also arranged
so that it faced our television set. This was a Raytheon with a nine
inch screen, fitted with a magnifying lens. We'd had it for three years
now and it was starting to look primitive in this age of twelve,
fourteen, and even seventeen inch screens. Still, at least we had a TV.
Half of all American homes still didn't.
Hearing a car pull up outside I looked out the window. It was her. The
car was a limo and as I watched the driver - dressed in full chauffeur
uniform - opened the rear door for his passenger. Seeing this I couldn't
help but think back to Heinrich and the Duesenberg. I wonder where he is
now, and if he survived the war? The passenger climbed out and stood for
a moment getting her bearings. She was wearing heels, a salmon coloured
half-hat, a long, light brown mink coat, and carrying a stylish purse.
Even in Alabama it could get chilly in January so a fur coat did not
look out of place. Taking her compact from her purse she checked her
appearance, gave a little nod of approval, then headed up the pathway to
our front door. I opened it before she reached it.
"Eva!" she said, looking delighted to see me.
We briefly hugged, touched our lips to each other's powdered cheek, and
went inside.
I took her coat and her half-hat, marvelling at how effortlessly elegant
and glamorous she was as always. She sat on the sofa on one side of the
coffee table, I sat on the other.
"Cigarette?" I said, opening the box and offering it to her.
"I prefer my own brand," she said, fishing a gold cigarette case from
her purse and taking one from it.
I picked up the heavy table lighter and she leaned in to accept a light
from it.
"Thanks," she said, inhaling appreciatively.
"So how was your journey, Lexi?" I asked.
"Tiresome. This country is so large it's almost vulgar."
In the seven years she had lived here, Lexi had acquired the accent and
manners of the New England elite. Her story was that she was a
Frenchwoman, of course, but no one who didn't know this would ever guess
she had been born outside the US.
"How about you?" she asked. "In your last letter you mentioned Gerda is
pregnant again. That must be weird for you."
"Why?" I said. "Someone has to be the sperm donor, and I'm the obvious
choice. We want people to believe Hans is getting his wife pregnant, and
using my sperm keeps it in the family. And they are my family. Gerda and
I are closer than sisters. I would do anything for her."
"You don't regard yourself as the father of her children, then?"
"Of course not. My sperm and a turkey baster may have been used, but
Hans is their father. I'm happy just being their aunt, and a mother to
my own children."
"I'd love to have seen William and Amanda," sighed Lexi.
"And they'd have loved to have seen you, I'm sure, but it is a school
day and Helmut won't hear of them missing lessons."
"Ah well, maybe next visit. Are you still glad you adopted?"
"I am. Back in Germany, Helmut was all about continuing his bloodline.
He could only do that by using a surrogate. Now we're plain Mr and Mrs
von Rumstahl and living in America that doesn't matter to him so much
any more. After the war there were a lot of children without parents out
there so adopting a pair of orphaned toddler siblings seemed like the
right thing to do."
"I sometimes wish Carter had felt the same way, but it was important to
him that Carter Danworth III should be his blood. So secret surrogacy it
was. Jeez I hated having to wear those false bellies and looking fat,
but the first time I held that tiny baby in my arms it was all worth it.
He has nannies who look after him while I'm not there, but I do miss him
dreadfully when I'm away."
"And Carter still has no idea you weren't born female?"
"Why would he? I love my husband dearly, and not just because he keeps
me in diamonds and furs. I don't ever want anything to change how he
looks at me. I'm the girl Carter fell in love with at first sight when
we met in Germany in 1945 and I want to stay that way. He believes my
infertility is no different to that any other woman might suffer."
Lexi's plan to bluff her way through the Soviet lines then ditch her
Russian flier's uniform had barely lasted fifteen minutes after she left
us in the Tiergarten. She strayed too close to a firefight in one of the
adjacent streets and had to dive for cover, dropping her suitcase in the
process. When she was able to emerge from her hiding place it was gone.
She never did find out what happened to it, though we both assumed it
was taken by some desperate person looking for food or wood. I wonder
what they made of the uniform and forged papers it contained? So Lexi
had to improvise. I'm vague on the details of exactly what she had to do
to get out of Berlin, and she won't talk about it, but when she did she
made her way west and encountered handsome young Captain Carter Danworth
Jr. Despite pretending otherwise she immediately recognized him as the
son of Senator Carter Danworth Sr and the scion of one of America's
wealthiest families. He was enchanted by this beautiful young
Frenchwoman who spoke four languages and the rest, as they say, is
history. Lexi's luck and the way she always seems to land on her feet is
truly amazing.
Lexi took a drag on her cigarette and regarded me thoughtfully.
"I assume you heard about that story on the front page of the New York
Daily News last month?" she said.
I nodded.
"'Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Bombshell'. Not the sort of headline I'm likely
to forget."
"It caused a sensation. From her photo, this Christine Jorgensen is a
real looker, but they treated her as if she was the first person ever to
have a 'sex change', as they're calling it. Even before me that wasn't
true. They wouldn't have known about Otto Frankenheim, of course, but
you'd think they'd have mentioned Lili Elbe or the Magnus Hirschfeld
clinic."
"I agree, but this still feels like the start of something new to me."
"You may be right. At the moment there are too many who see those like
Jorgensen and us, people who are 'gender variant' for want of a better
term, as freaks. As more of these 'sex changes' occur that will
hopefully change. What about you? Are you tempted to take the plunge?"
"Never. I'm happy living as a woman, happy being a wife and mother, but
I don't want to change my body. Helmut wouldn't want me to either."
"It's just as well Gerda's your physician. You and Hans would have some
awkward explaining to do with another doctor, who might then decide to
report you to the authorities."
"Which, as you know, is why I insisted Hoover had to approve Hans and
Gerda for US residency as well when he offered me his hand after our
interview. At first I thought I might have pushed things too far, but
then he agreed."
"Of course he did. If even half the things you hear about him are true
he would have been creaming his pants thinking he was forcing a man to
live as a woman. Gerda knew the truth about you and would protect you,
so bringing her over to be your doctor was always something he was going
to agree to."
"Is Hoover really that twisted?"
"Oh honey, you have no idea! The FBI used to have female agents. When he
took over Hoover gradually purged them all. This obviously creates a
problem in situations where you need a woman to go undercover. So Hoover
has male agents do so dressed as women. The rumour is that he selects
agents he judges pretty enough for this duty himself, then personally
oversees every detail of their clothing, hair and make-up."
"Wow."
"I know. Carter and I sometimes see him in social situations. He's
always accompanied by his live-in partner, Clyde Tolson."
"So on top of everything else he's a homosexual?"
"Yes, and quite open about it in the circles we move in. But then in
almost every country the laws that ordinary mortals have to obey don't
apply to the rich and powerful. They never have, and they never will.
Which is how he's able to persecute others for things he does himself.
Isn't hypocrisy wonderful?"
She took another long drag on her cigarette and looked around the room.
"I like your new home. It's very...cosy."
"With the children getting old enough to need separate rooms we had to
find somewhere bigger. Our old place was nice enough, and a lot better
than the accomodation we were forced to endure at Fort Bliss, but this
is definitely an improvement. It's in a nicer part of Huntsville, too.
Plus, quite a few of the other V-2 rocket scientists live nearby so in
some ways we're our own little community of German exiles."
"German exiles," said Lexi, with an amused smile, "including you."
"Including me. Officially, I'm Eva Schumacher and I was born in Munich.
That can't change."
"I wouldn't want it to. But you don't have all the Operation Paperclip
guys here in Huntsville, do you? I hear von Braun has been grumbling
about Dornberger."
"With the way Walter Dornberger has been poaching engineers from his
team for US Air Force projects lately Wernher must sometimes wish he was
still behind barbed wire in Wales."
Dornberger had been detained for two years at a PoW camp in Bridgend,
South Wales. On his release he was brought to America under the auspices
of Operation Paperclip, and worked for the United States Air Force for
three years developing guided missiles. Since 1950 he's been with the
Bell Aircraft Corporation, and is apparently still working on projects
for the USAF if the people he's poached are any indication.
"Speaking of Wernher, that series of articles he wrote about space
travel for Collier's last year really got Carter fired up. He's very
enthusiastic about rockets and thinks we should establish a civilian
agency dedicated to the pursuit of manned spaceflight. He's been
championing the idea in Washington."
"Was the story of how his wife saved the life of a major rocket
scientist in Berlin where this interest in rockets began, I wonder?"
"Of course it was," she chuckled, "and he used the story of my heroism
when he was campaigning to assume his father's seat in the Senate, too.
His opponent's wife's cake-making skills couldn't compete with that."
The tale had grown over the years. It now had Lexi gunning down Grost
during a shoot-out as Berlin was crashing down in flames around them,
which is more heroic than how it actually went down I suppose.
"How politically ambitious is Carter?" I asked.
"I'm not sure. I don't think he wants the top job, which is a pity. I
think Alexa Danworth, First Lady of the United States has a nice ring to
it, don't you?"
"You'd certainly be the most glamorous First Lady we've ever had."
"I would, but whatever their other virtues Mamie Eisenhower and Bess
Truman don't provide much competition in that regard."
"I suppose not. Isn't it odd to think that if not for the V-2 neither of
us would be sitting here now," I mused.
"True enough," said Lexi, stubbing her cigarette out in the ash tray,
"but while Carter is part of a senate delegation that's come down to
Alabama to view a Redstone launch, I only tagged along to see my friend
and to invite her to come and stay with me in New York one weekend while
Carter is away in Washington."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. Our penthouse overlooks Central Park. You'll love it."
"It's very tempting," I admitted, "and it would be wonderful to see New
York again, but I'm a wife and a mother now. I can't just fly off for
two or three days and leave Helmut with the children."
"Why ever not? You deserve a break and it's time the girls of Stalag
Luft XII had another reunion. We won't go wild, of course. We're both
over thirty now, and Mrs Eva von Rumstahl and Mrs Alexa Danworth are
respectable married ladies. We don't need a repeat of our adventure
together the last time we were there. No, we'll pamper ourselves in the
city's best beauty parlours, eat in the finest restaurants, take in the
latest Broadway musicals, and have you fly home with lots of sexy
lingerie that will drive Helmut wild when you wear it for him. All my
treat, of course. Just say the word, and I'll have an airline ticket
waiting for you at the airport for the weekend we agree on."
"Okay," I said, "I'll do it. I'll tell Helmut I'm going and he's just
going to have to accept it."
"Attagirl!" said Lexi.
She got to her feet.
"I'm afraid I really have to be going now. Carter will be wondering
where I've got to. We'll see you at the reception tonight, of course?"
"I wouldn't miss it," I said. "Saturday night dances are alright, but a
reception for you visiting dignitaries is the sort of glamorous affair
we don't get to have around here too often."
"Good. I love seeing you in Helmut's arms when you two slow-dance. There
are women who would kill to have a man look at them the way he looks at
you. But then we're both blessed to be the wives of gorgeous men who who
adore us. Right, so I guess I'll see you this evening."
We shared a brief hug, painted lips were brushed against powdered
cheeks, and then she was gone. Watching through the window as Lexi was
driven away, I thought about our conversation and found my mind drifting
back to that day at Fort Strong and how I felt as I left my meeting with
Hoover. Progressing back along that corridor, hearing sounds from the
side offices as members of the rocket group were interviewed by other
FBI officials, my mind was whirling. Betrayed by my own government,
blackmailed by one of the most powerful men in America, I was at a low
ebb. They saw me only as a tool to be used then discarded, not caring
about my feelings or what I might want. To them these things were
irrelevant.
I burst through the outer door into the light and he was there, standing
alone: Helmut. Here was a someone who did value me as a person, someone
who loved me and who had never deceived me. He smiled at me, and in that
moment I realised just how much I needed hi, how much I wanted him.
It was as if a dam suddenly burst within me, one I had been desperately
trying to keep shored up so afraid was I of what would happen if I
didn't. Well no more. Let it collapse and be washed away. I had been
lying to myself for too long, denying my feelings and the truth of what
had happened to me over the past two years. I had given myself wholly
over to the role of being Helmut's ideal lover for so long and with such
conviction, utilizing all of my considerable acting skills in the
process, that it had ceased to be an act. This wasn't a role I was
playing anymore; it was who I was. Others had seen this, but I had
denied it. I would deny it no longer.
Walking over to Helmut, I placed my hands on his shoulders,
smiling as he slid his powerful arms around me, feeling warm, protected
and safe in their embrace.
"I love you," I said, and for the first time I meant it without
reservation and with all of my heart.
"I know," he said, and then we kissed, long and hard.
We were going to have sex tonight, I decided, and I would be
a full and passionate participant in our lovemaking from now on because
I was Helmut's woman, his lover, his wife, and because that is what I
wanted. Hoover might imagine he was coercing me into something I would
hate but I refused to be a victim. I was Eva von Rumstahl and I was
going to embrace every aspect of being her.
And I had.
Looking back on my life since then, I pondered my situation. Was it
really the result of what I had pretended to be becoming what I was? Was
it my masquerade at Castle Rumstahl exposing something that was already
there? Or was it some combination of the two? I didn't know, nor was it
something I was going to worry about about any more.
I am who I am. That's all that should matter to anyone.
******************
The End
******************
Notes:
Wow, I've finally reached the finish line. 136,000 words! Now I need to
go back and reread the whole thing to see if it all hangs together and
correct some technical mistakes (eg. calling the V-1 and V-2 by those
names during their development).
If I can figure out how to properly format it for publication on
something like Lulu.com, I definitely want to put this out in book form.
In fact, that's where I'd originally intended the epilogue to appear.
However, as the story progressed I realised it wasn't just a 'DVD
extra', a nice add-on, but something actually needed to give the whole
thing the proper closure, so it had to be included here. If I do this
tale in book form I'll probably add something nice but not strictly
necessary at the front end. We shall see.
For those of you interested in that sort of thing, this was my process
on this story. As I've mentioned earlier, it was inspired by something I
read about male PoWs being given permission to grow out their hair when
the played female roles in plays put on in those camps and me wondering
if any of these guys had then escaped and gone on the run in drag. I've
never been convinced by the 'forced femme' tales I've read here, mostly
because they usually have people acting in ways I don't find believable,
but it occurred to me that a PoW in hiding might be forced into this
position by circumstances rather than by any one individual, an idea
which intrigued me. Before deciding whether or not to actually write
this tale I needed an ending. If I can't come up with one I like, the
story doesn't get started. That's when I remembered stuff I'd read about
J. Edgar Hoover making his FBI agents dress in drag and in one instance
allegedly forcing someone to permanently adopt a female identity. I've
no idea if there's any truth behind such claims, but for fictional
purposes I decided to assume there was. This gave me my ending, but for
Hoover to appear my protagonist would need to end up in the US. The
obvious solution: Operation Paperclip.
I was fairly familiar with the story of the V-2, and I now had my
framework. My protagonist would escape the PoW camp just in time to
encounter someone working on those rockets and be responsible for the
intelligence that led to Operation Hydra, the first Allied raid on
Peenemunde. This gave me my timeline. After that I just thought about
all this for a week and worked out what my 'set pieces' would be. It
would go like this: escape, assuming identity of dead woman and having
to stay in character, reappearance of Alec Delon as a woman, wedding &
assassination attempt on Hitler, showdown in Berlin in April 1945,
meeting with Hoover, the end. I wrote no notes but kept to this
timeline, filling in details as I wrote and coming up with various bits
of business along the way. One exception to this was the reappearance of
Alec Delon as Lexi. Given the iron inflexibilty of the WWII events I was
weaving the story around, the most time I could have between the escape
and Lexi showing up was a year, hardly enough for the physical
transformation that needed to occur. Which is why I created Otto
Frankenheim and his clinic. The Nazis were way ahead of everyone else in
all manner of fields, so why not in this area too?
At the end of the first instalment I posted here I wrote: "please note
that I never start a story without knowing what the final scene will be,
and this is no exception. It will end with a confrontation between my
protagonist and a famous, real-life American. In fact I've already
written that scene." I had to amend it a bit, but what you read at the
end of the previous instalment is essentially the same scene I wrote
last September. Below is the original unaltered version for those who
want to compare the two. Yes, there was always going to be a small coda
where Eva declares her love to Helmut, which is now a flashback at the
end of the epilogue for obvious story structure reasons, but this is the
ending in that it's here that Eva's fate is sealed. Having it already-
written gave me a target to aim for and kept me from straying off-course
- very useful when you write something this long. Anyway, here it is:
***********************************
In the room was a desk, behind which sat a man reading a file. He looked
up.
"Please be seated, Countess," he said, indicating the chair in front of
the desk.
I pulled this out, tucked my skirt under me, and sat down. I knew who
this man was, of course, having seen his picture in the newspapers
before the war many times, and I couldn't help staring at him. He was
middle-aged, with frog-like features and slicked back hair: J. Edgar
Hoover, head of America's Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Finishing his inspection of the file he closed it and placed it
alongside another on his desk.
"Two files, two lives," he said. "One for Countess Eva von Rumstahl, a
German, a member of the Nazi party, and the wife of Count Helmut von
Rumstahl. The other for Flying Officer Paul Ripley of the Royal Air
Force, a Brit who escaped from Stalag Luft XII in August 1943 but who
never made it back to England."
"You know who I am?" I said, surprised.
"That's what we're here to decide," he said, staring at me thoughtfully.
"You performed an important service for the Allied cause. The Countess
von Rumstahl performing that service is one thing; Flying Officer Ripley
quite another."
"I don't understand," I said.
He pulled two envelopes from a desk drawer and laid them on the table.
"In one of these envelopes are citizenship papers for the Countess," he
said. "In the other is an arrest warrant for Paul Ripley."
My head was spinning. None of what he was saying made any sense.
"What? I don't...."
"It's very simple. Either the person sitting before me is the Countess
von Rumstahl, an elegant and attractive woman supporting her husband as
he prepares to embark on work of vital importance to the United States
of America and the entire free world, or he's a sexual deviant hoping to
gain US citizenship under false pretenses."
"You can't do this!" I protested. "My government...."
"Who do you think passed on your file to us?" he said, cutting me off.
"Flying Officer Ripley may have risked his life performing an important
service for the Allied cause, but how he performed it....well. Given
that homosexual acts are illegal in the United Kingdom, as they are over
here, it would be embarrassing if the details ever got out. And
governments don't like to be embarrassed. There are many things
governments sanction during wartime that they sweep under the carpet
afterwards. Sometimes heroes get their due, and sometimes they get
shafted."
That was true, I thought bitterly. Sir Hugh Dowding had been head of
Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain and masterminded the
response to the Luftwaffe's assault that had saved the country. And what
did it get him? After it was all over he was relieved of his command.
"So what happens now?" I asked, my shoulders slumping.
"Well now, Countess - I'm assuming it is Countess - you become a citizen
of this great nation and take on the role of a housewife. You will be a
dutiful and obedient spouse, taking care to look pretty for your husband
at all times, to have a meal ready for him when he gets in from work
and, most importantly, to keep him satisfied in the bedroom. We need him
to be happy and productive, and that's the part you'll play in helping
ensure that he is."
"So according to those papers, I'm a woman?"
"Yes, you are legally female and legally married to the Count."
"Meaning Paul Ripley is listed as 'missing in action'?"
"Correct."
"And if I refuse to go along with this, if I insist I am Paul Ripley?"
"Then you go to prison for very long time for immoral acts, attempting
to gain entry to the country under false pretenses, and for
collaborating with the enemy during time of war. Nor will your
government come to your aid."
"'Collaborating'? You *know* that isn't what I was doing."
"In this world no good deed goes unpunished."
"This isn't fair!" I protested.
"Life very rarely is," he replied, shrugging. "So what's it going to
be?"
"You haven't left me much choice."
"No, I haven't. It's how I usually get my way. Now who are you?"
I laid a hand on the Countess's file.
"Very wise," said Hoover, smiling. "You and the Count make a very
attractive couple. I wish you a long and contented life as his loving
wife. However, I'll hang on to the other file just in case you ever
attempt to return to your former identity. That would be very unwise.
And as long as you play ball your husband will never find out from us
that you spied on him for the Allies. Oh, and we're not real big on
aristocratic titles over here. It might be better if you became just
plain Mr and Mrs von Rumstahl."
He stood and offered me his hand.
"Welcome to America," he said.
**************************************
Virginia
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