Russian Birch: Chapter 2
ATTENTION: There are no tags or categories for transgender related stories or subjects. For that reason these stories have been categorized as "other". They do not. however, contain any herm or supernatural content. They are intended to be realistic stories depicting transgendered persons. If at some point there are categories and tags for transgendered content I will remove this notice and change the story's classification appropriately. That is all.
The forest was, in large part, without features. Each tree the same as the last, each clearing covered with the same leaves. During the thaw all the trenches and creek beds would be steady streams, but for months and months they formed an endless network of scars, each looking essentially like the other. At the start of winter they had begun digging and cutting, chopping down trees and expanding one such scar. At first it was a trench. Word came that shelling had started in other places, so walls and a ceiling were built from trees a mile away, not wanting to give away their position or cover by clearing the woods too close by. Troops rotated back and forth, never seeing any action, never so much as a single shot fired. The river nearby was supposed to be important, and the fighting was supposed to be eminent, but nobody ever saw a thing. Soon more of the creek bed was walled and covered, dirt thrown over the top to insulate from the cold and hide their presence.
Snow fell here and there, but never much. Soon, shovels became the only thing each soldier knew. Cigarette smoke poured from either end of the tunnel and the heavy winter coats were thrown wherever they wouldn't be covered in dirt. Tunnels, offices, sleeping quarters, and supply rooms were slowly cut into the earth on either side of the creek bed. Secret exits were arranged and chairs, tables, cots, and all manner of food and medical supplies were carried in bit by bit. What was once just a trench became an underground city of birch â€" every wall and every ceiling that same white and grey wood â€" every bit of it a reminder of the forest outside and an indication that shelling was expected. Each new room or crate of supplies signaled what the command thought of how long the war would last.
The final straw, the nail in the coffin of hope, came when the creek bed was dammed and diverted miles upstream. This meant they would be there past the end of winter. They had become a semi permanent installation.
There were several ways out, in the event of flood, emergency, or invasion. But these were trap doors covered in dirt and leaves. There were only two ways to get in; one at either end of the covered portion of creek bed. At all hours of the day and night at each end there was a guard posted â€" a freezing cold and bitterly cynical guard puffing away on bent and broken cigarettes standing next to a rifle with a rusting bayonet.
In pitch black moonless night the commander returned first. The guard didn't so much as raise an eye â€" let alone pick up his rifle. The commander nodded, the guard nodded, and that was that. Several minutes later the young soldier followed, bumping into trees and taking heavy steps through the crust of frozen leaves. The closer the soldier got the louder and clumsier he seemed. The guard became irritated, clenching a small bit of paper and tobacco between his teeth and looking disgusted. When finally the young soldier made it down the creek bed and to the entrance the guard picked up his rifle and widened his stance, blocking the way in.
"The ground is frozen." The guard said; his expression blank. The young soldier stood there, breathless, looking confused. "The ground is frozen." He said again, more impatiently.
The young soldier suddenly remembered the pass phrase. Nobody had used it the entire time he had been there. "We will cast the bell in spring".
The guard dropped his rifle and fished a new cigarette out of a crumpled pack. As he struggled trying to light the smoke, which had a very obvious break in its middle, the corners of his mouth turned up in a smirk. "So that bell you'll be casting..." The guard, through great effort and several rapid breaths, managed to get the broken cigarette awkwardly burning, with a long uneven cherry. "How big will this bell be?" The guards smile grew and grew as he held out his gloved hands, holding them first only a few inches apart, slowly separating them, shooting the most lewd and knowing glance the young soldier had ever seen. The guard's smile got bigger and bigger, but then fell when the distance between his hands grew too large. The soldier was oblivious, ‘is this part of the pass phrase?'.
The guard shoved the soldier hard, betraying some jealousy â€" or perhaps disgust. "The commander's bell! The thing you were wrapped around out in the woods all evening. How big was it?" The question came as a shock, not helped at all by the low, forced whisper the guard used to come clean about it. "We had a bet going that he'd be fucking you, but the odds were shit, now we've got a pool going on the size of his dick. Come on, I've got a lot of money on this." The guards expression showed he wasn't serious, but it also wasn't entirely playful.
"I'm cold. I forgot my gloves." The soldier sheepishly slipped beside the guard.
"You have next shift â€" started..." The guard reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pantomime pocket watch. "About an hour ago." He pretended to slowly and snobbishly close the pretend watch with one finger, tapping it shut.
"I'll come back after stew. I'm hungry."
"The stew is cold." The guard's shoulder slumped. Whatever anger or frustration was in him before had dissolved â€" had left him with these last words.
"Cold beets and vodka make for strong constitution." The soldier disappeared into the tunnel network around a corner. His hand lingered on the birch post making up the corner. The guard watched it until it was gone before looking back out into the night.
None of the lanterns were lit through the tunnels or in any rooms. Oil needed to be saved and most of the troops knew the tunnels too well to need light. Each path had been burned slowly in their minds by the tedious act of digging and removing dirt â€" by pounding birch posts into the earth and lashing them together â€" by walking the tunnels in the middle of the night to take turns as guards, to go out for fresh air or for a piss. They were supposed to use bed pans and to bury their waste once a day far from camp, but most preferred getting out of the stale air now and then to shit in the woods or mark a tree. Nobody liked the smell of bedpans in stale air.
The kitchen was the largest room they had dug. It was a store-room for all the supplies that weren't weapons. Canned food, clothes, bandages and medicine, and all manner of cases crates and bags had been carried in and dumped all over. A small amount of cookware had been hung against one of the walls and a few boxes were used to hold a camp stove and a collection of utensils, bowls, and plates. Taking slow, careful steps, the young soldier felt his way through the dark to the stove, reaching up to find the lamp just above it. Just as he was about to illuminate the room his ears flicked and he picked up a strange noise.
When the war came the country called on all men â€" young and old â€" to serve. The young, horny soldiers had a hard time finding privacy to, as the older men called it, exercise their shooting hand here in the tunnels. It wasn't that the young men were ashamed, but bunking with men as old as their fathers led them to have a hard time if they took care of business in their own beds. You could be assured, too, that you would be tortured the next day with endless jokes if you were caught or ratted out. Accusations of being a father fucker ran rampant through the troops. Lacking the equipment to prove he was a man, the young soldier had mimicked the noises and motions of this act several times, accepting the jokes and ridicule as the cost of deflecting suspicion. As the young soldier drew his hand back from the lantern and swallowed back his breath he realized that someone had escaped to the kitchen to steal a bit of this private time. He stepped as carefully as he could back to a wall, settling down, sitting with his back on the cold timbers, reclined slightly.
As he strained his ears to hear he realized the other must have just barely started. Every time he was convinced he had only heard phantoms there would be another shuffle or deep huff of breath, but his silent partner seemed to be taking things slowly. The thick smell of musk started to reach his nose. The other soldier must have just freed his member to the cold air.
There was silence again. There was a long stretch of it. Just as he was about to doubt his hearing once again, to think he was crazy, more sounds betrayed the presence of the other male. It was a light, wet sound in that unmistakable pattern. The young soldier spread his knees apart slightly, a hand falling between his legs rubbing slowly. He was breathing quickly but trying hard not to make a sound, growing faint from suppressing the urge to pant. Biology and scent were taking over. The events of earlier in the evening and so long since a climax â€" months and months â€" it all was working against him and his remaining hidden. Any other night and he might not have given a second thought to another man getting off. After all, he had thought himself as straight. He had hoped he was straight. Things would be so much simpler if he was straight. The faintness and the lust grew in his chest as an anxiety that threatened to explode through his ribcage. He bit his tongue hard and drove two fingers against his slit through the fabric of his pants. It was damp.
Becoming so aroused and touching himself, he had sent the smell of a female across the room â€" a response to the scent of a male. It hit the nose of the hidden soldier like a ghost â€" like a forgotten beautiful thing that had no place where they were. It was only a matter of seconds before the cold dark room filled with steady panting and shuffling. Wet, sticky sounds were now a constant, as if the fist had become a mouth incapable of closing its lips, slurping spit and pre up and down a throbbing canine cock, indifferent to decency in every way. Across the room the young soldier slid down the wall to lie on the floor, his thick hat a pillow for the frozen earth as he squirmed and held his mouth shut tight, panting through his nose, his hand trapped between his clenching thighs.
Just as the young soldier felt a fire building â€" a tightness gathering inside him â€" he had to freeze and nearly choke on his own tongue for lack of breath and fear of being discovered. The hidden figure gasped and kicked over a small package of some random supply. They were jerking and writhing against whatever they were reclined against. With the whole world dead around them and without the distraction of sight the young soldier could hear plainly the little chuff of clothing each time the hidden figure came a little more. He could hear a faint pitter like rain on tarp as each glob of creamy white cum fell where it may. He wanted to see it. He wanted to see desperately what it looked like to do that.
Because god is cruel, the prayer was answered. After a few deep breaths and the slurping sound of licking ones fingers clean, the hidden figured fished out a lighter and illuminated the kitchen. For five terrifying seconds the young soldier knew he could be seen. He knew he was lying there, doubled over with his fingers on his crotch, staring in the direction of the husky that just came all over himself. He felt his heart stop, but the lighter clicked shut, and with only the end of a cigarette illuminating the vague figures of the form smoking it he retreated behind the boxes where the stove sat.
The image was burned into his mind. He didn't notice the other soldier leaving. He waited a long time before getting up to light the lantern. All he could do was sit there in the dark and see in his mind and through his eyes â€" painted on the black nothing â€" a well muscled husky half reclined. The other had been in nothing but an undershirt and boxers. The light of the lighter... it was cruel to be so romantic. Each curve of his body was painted like a Rembrandt. Each glob of cum â€" and there was a frightful amount â€" each larger than the last â€" was a little halo of firelight. It was as if someone had scooped up the light in a teaspoon and dribbled it out across the husky's chest. Then when the young soldier had finally gotten over seeing all that mess he realized what else he had seen. He had seen his brothers when they were young. He had seen men pissing. He had never seen anything like that. It was huge. It was frightening. It shone as wet as the cum but it was two fists long, thick and throbbing, deep red like it was ready to bleed at the slightest touch.
He filled a bowl with cold borscht and filled two dirty glasses with vodka. Feeling suddenly guilty for leaving the guard alone for so long, he blew out the lantern and hurried back. The guard had left. The curve of the tunnel meant that when he turned around â€" afraid that the enemy was upon him â€" he could not see the other end or the other guard. He was alone, standing there with two cups of vodka and a bowl of stew, looking out at â€" looking at â€" a reindeer?
"Oh... fuck..." He fell over backwards, landing on his ass.
"Are you ok?" came a soft call from the other end of the tunnel. The reindeer, which had been curiously testing the tunnel entrance, which had seemed to materialize from nothing after the young soldier had gone on a flight of paranoid anxiety about enemies and missing guards, turned on its hind legs and shot out of the creek bed, bounding off through the woods. He thought he might cry, to go from the excitement of the kitchen to the fear of the abandoned post to the surprise of a wild animal. He wondered if the reindeer was a spirit or an omen â€" if they were supposed to mean anything to superstitious people.
"I brought a drink... come take it from me. I've... forgotten my gloves and rifle." They sat in the center of the tunnel, the two of them guarding the entrances to the other rooms rather than the openings to the world. In silence they drank, smoked, and the young soldier choked down the cold stew. When it was gone he took a lantern from the wall and used it to go back into the earth, hunting down his gloves and his rifle, putting on a second pair of pants and a sweater he had found in a burnt out village. He put on a scarf, and by the time he got back he was more clothes than soldier. The other guard smirked and they hugged, kissed each other on the cheek, and went back to their posts. It was a tradition the commander started. Should the guards see each other, he would say, they should greet like men, they should say goodbye like men, because they will be the first to die.
They saw no enemy. They heard no gunfire. That tradition was the only reminder they had of their mortality, and so they embraced it, because it was the only thing that made sense of their being so frightened.