The Price of Prejudice

And then a fumbling, and an awkward rearrangement of roles, as Erika lowered herself down the line of Tanneka's body, while she gazed up at the cream plastered ceiling, surrendering herself to the sensation of Tanneka's hands and tongue on her breasts, her ribs, her stomach, and then, and then. It was a new sensation again. Even more liquid and potent than with mouth to mouth. Erika's tongue was lapping and lapping and licking at Tanneka's crotch, inside and outside the folds, nibbling her clitoris, which was now hard and exposed, rubbing and tweaking the raw sensuous inner lips. And then, from deep inside her, with no thought, no intention, and as shocking to herself as it was to Erika, she gave vent to a long low sigh and then a gasp. And then another gasp. Louder. Longer. More guttural. More animal. More passionate. And then longer again.

The passion gripped her with urgency. In the next few heated moments, she was conscious of little other than heat and trails of sweat from her stomach and streaming down her forehead, salting her eyes and sweet on her tongue. The two girls grappled and fought together, bare flesh on bare flesh. Tanneka's mouth on Erika's crotch, licking and tasting and enjoying the strong smells which were intoxicating her, which were driving her mad with passion and ecstasy. And all the while, she would hear herself moaning and yelling, as distant from her consciousness as those yells and moans which Erika was also releasing. And all the while it seemed natural. So natural. So obviously the right thing. To wrestle and grapple and lick. To have strands of pubic hair caught between the teeth. To have sticky sweaty slippery skin sliding against each other. To have cascades of juice from inside burst with flavour and viscosity into the mouth. To be reduced to animal grunts and gasps and the occasional full throaty cry.

And then to collapse. Two girls together. Head on shoulder. Arm around each other. Panting and gasping. Sweat and vaginal fluids caking in the dusty gloom of the electric light. And to sip again from the glasses of sweet white wine that Erika had poured out. Their faces shone with the gleam of passion and satisfaction. Heat radiating from each other, so hot that it almost burned. And to exchange sips of wine with kisses to the lips with nibbles around the ears. And all the while hands clasped so tightly together, as if ensuring that this perfect moment should never end. To hope that it could never end. It was so perfect. So right. So natural. How could it ever end?

Tanneka recollected the last occasion when she had had any intimacy with someone else, though necessarily of a much more innocent kind, which was when she last saw her mother. She recalled her mother's abject sadness, aware more than Tanneka was dimly able, that this could be their last ever hug and their last ever kiss. Tanneka squeezed Erika closer to her and rested her head on her shoulder.

Erika felt the tears drip over Tanneka's cheeks and onto the bare flesh of her upper arm. "What's wrong, my dear?" she asked tenderly.

"I was just thinking of my mother."

"Frau Van Vliet? She seems fine. What's wrong with her?"

"No, not her. My real mother. I was thinking of the last time we met. When she and my father had to leave the country. Because of the Germans."

"Why did they have to leave?"

"Because they're Jews," replied Tanneka before she could guard her tongue.

Erika squeezed Tanneka's hand tight and looked close into her eyes. She ran a free hand up and down the long contours of her naked body. "So that means you're Jewish?"

Tanneka frowned. Bizarrely enough, this quite obvious connection hadn't really occurred to her before. "I suppose it does."

Erika was quite silent, but she gripped Tanneka's hand even more tightly than before. She took a sip from her wine, while Tanneka lay slumped on her, head against shoulder and arm sprawled over her stomach. She took another longer sip, while admiring the portrait of Adolf Hitler which was framed in a high position just above her desk. His stern, unamused face glared accusingly down on her.

"I suppose you may never see your parents again?" mused Erika.

"Oh! Don't say that! I hope I do. I hope I can see them again."

Erika sighed. "There's another game we can play," she said swallowing the whole of her glass of wine in one gulp. "It's different from the ones we've played already, but I'm told it can be fun."

She detached herself from Tanneka and walked over to her desk, where she poured herself another glass of wine and drank almost all of it in one long gulp, her throat jogging as it sank down.

"What game is that?" asked Tanneka, who had rather enjoyed the last one.

"Come into the bathroom with me," Erika commanded.

This game, Tanneka found, was really not as pleasant as their earlier lovemaking. Erika bade her lie down in the hard enamelled bath. It was a particularly large bath, supported on four cast-iron legs and quite big enough for the two of them. Tanneka half-expected Erika to turn on the taps so that the two girls could bathe together. After all, both of them were smelling quite strongly of the odour of sex. She watched as Erika got into the bath and stood right above her, one leg on either side of her, the feet between Tanneka's arms and her sides. Tanneka looked up to gaze at the gash of Erika's vagina, where so recently she had been licking and fingering with such pleasure.

And then. Oooh! Tanneka didn't expect that! Erika let loose a stream of urine facilitated by the alcohol and it spurted straight into Tanneka's face and her hair. Uuggh! That was not nice at all! And it didn't stop with one stream. Tanneka looked up in alarm as Erika emitted a longer, fuller, more ferocious stream of urine which went straight into her eyes, into her nose and some of it into her mouth. It tasted very strange. Very sour. Quite unpleasant. She coughed and splattered while Erika continued to let loose more and more of the liquid, getting gradually less urgent as her bladder emptied. This was one game that Tanneka hoped that she wouldn't have to play again!

After this ordeal, the two girls had baths. But not together. Tanneka had hers in the bath, immediately after Erika deemed herself satisfied, who waited until Tanneka was thoroughly clean and the polluted water had wholly disappeared down the plug hole before running a bath for herself. She sipped wine in the bath, while Tanneka scrubbed her back from above. All the while, Erika was relatively quiet. Somehow, she was happier to express herself by touch and kiss rather than verbally. Although Tanneka was sure that this was not how it should be. She herself was bursting with things to say, but Erika just did not seem so receptive now.

The two girls slept together, naked flesh against naked flesh. Occasionally, they would exchange kisses and hugs, but the passion of earlier in the evening just didn't happen again. Tanneka reflected that perhaps this was because of the enormity of the discovery of their love for each other. After all, it certainly gave her a great deal to think about.

However, as Tanneka was to find out the following evening, it wasn't Erika's love for Tanneka which had silenced her. The curfew had long since began and Erika was ready to go to bed in her night-dress while Frau and Herr Van Vliet were settling down in front of the radio to tune into the BBC. She had been feeling disorientated all day and was looking forward to an early night in which she could adjust her thoughts and reflect on her new status as someone who had made love to her schoolfriend. Not that she'd ever tell anyone, of course.

It was then, as she prepared herself for bed, that the German soldiers arrived, bashing on the door and shouting "Juden! Juden! " Within minutes, her life and those of the Van Vliet family were to be forever changed. She was singled out for especial attention as the German soldiers punched and kicked her, until she vomited blood out of her mouth. The rest of the Van Vliet family were also slapped about, but with rather less hatred than that reserved for the Judenfrau.

The last glimpse she had of the Van Vliet family was through a veil of blood and tears, before she was bundled on the train to a concentration camp in the Eastern occupied territories. She now knew Erika's priorities when faced with conflict between love and ideology . This was the price Tanneka had to pay for Erika's prejudice.