Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:28:52 +0000
From: bradley stoke <bradley_stoke@hotmail.com>
Subject: "The Price of Prejudice" by Bradley Stoke

The Price of Prejudice
======================

Life was so different for Tanneka now since her parents
had left her that tearful day, leaving her in the care of the
Van Vliet family and their children. Not that she didn't
appreciate her new guardians, and she knew that in the
circumstances it was so much better this way. Perhaps one
day in the future she would be reunited with her parents,
but for now it seemed so much more prudent to live with
Herr and Frau Van Vliet and their infant children in this
nondescript small town far away from the cities and the
risk of British aeroplanes and their bombs.

Still, her school wasn't a bad one, although the disruption
caused by German occupation rather changed the
atmosphere. The teachers were generally circumspect in
their opinions and always avoided any questions about the
war or the Germans or even the Nazi ideology they were
obliged to impart on their pupils. Well, most of them were.
Clearly, some teachers actually embraced the new way of
thinking; quite happy to relate just how evil was the Jewish
Conspiracy and how necessary the strict discipline and
guidance imposed by the jackboots and tanks of Nazi
Germany.

This rather disturbed Tanneka. The stories of how evil and
vile the Jews were and how the world would be so
different without them seemed somewhat fantastical and
totally unlike anything in her experience. But anti-Semitism
was just one new feature of her life she found difficult to
get used to. The inexorable march of Nazi ideology, the
curse of disability and sexual perversion, and the greater
virtues of the Aryan race: all these new ways of thinking
had to be understood and, at least outwardly, observed. It
frightened her how several of her fellow pupils took to this
new order with such enthusiasm. So many had enrolled in
the Hitler youth and were proud to sport swastika
armbands and military style uniforms. She would sit
silently in the classroom as day after day she was reminded
of the tenets of the new masters' views. Frightened to ever
express an opinion that might earn her the disapprobation
of her peers and her teachers. Or even worse.

School, in addition, had for her all the trials of any school.
Getting to know new friends, getting to find her way about
unfamiliar streets and corridors, suffering the self-
discovery and self-consciousness of growing up that
anyone anywhere would have to go through. At least, many
of the other girls were just as new to the school as she was.
The upheaval of war had caused so much dislocation that it
seemed natural to her that almost every week a new girl
would be introduced to the school and welcomed as
another casualty of the realities of armed occupation in the
seemingly unstoppable growth of the German lebensraum.
She would gaze at the newly reissued map on the wall that
showed the extent of the Third Reich - so deep into the
depths of what used to be the Soviet Union, taking in
Scandinavia, Greece, France and the Balkans. And to the
top of the map was the British foe, whose tyrannical
leaders would drop their bombs on innocent civilians and
seek to thwart the onward march of History. And to the
corner of the map was the malevolent gaze of Stalin, whom
Tanneka could remember was once uneasily viewed as an
ally of the New Order in its struggle for world domination.

Erika was another girl quite new to the school, but one who
was already very much as one with the new ideology. With
her blonde hair, tied back in plaits like Tanneka's own
thick dark brown hair, and her sparklingly limpid blue eyes
so unlike Tanneka's dark brooding ones, she was clearly of
the Aryan model. One so unlike any of the leaders of the
Third Reich whose pictures she saw when she went to the
cinema with her guardians and their children. She was not
as slim as Tanneka, but she was certainly not plump. Her
round cheeks belied a healthy appetite. And her full young
breasts pressed against the dark brown of her shirt,
supported, as they had to be, by a bra that gave her an older
appearance than the youth of her face might otherwise
suggest.

Tanneka was fascinated by Erika. She was not the brightest
girl in the class: that honour was Tanneka's own. But she
was very popular, both with the other girls and with the
teachers. But, in Tanneka's eyes, her worst fault, and why
Tanneka did not feel very comfortable in Erika's presence,
was her enthusiasm for National Socialism. She was fond
of making cruel jokes about gypsies, Jews and the mentally
ill. She even extended her jokes to Asians, Africans and
Chinese; although solicitous to exclude Italians and
Japanese from her scorn who, although not Aryan, were
from similarly proud, superior races and showing their
worth as Allies in the great war. She was proud to wear her
swastika on her sleeve, and unsympathetic to those who
showed more reluctance than her to embrace the opinions
of the great Adolf Hitler.

Erika's biggest regret, as she confided to Tanneka, was that
she couldn't understand German well enough to fully
comprehend the broadcasts of the Fhrer on the radio. She
rather envied Tanneka's rather better grasp of the natural
language of the Third Reich, and befriended Tanneka in
the hope that she might pass this facility onto her. Tanneka
was rather less keen on Hitler's diatribes, or even those of
his lieutenants like G"ring or Himmler. Her knowledge of
German, though far from fluent, was quite sufficient for
her to understand exactly what was being said, and it was,
to her, even more frightening than what she would hear at
school. These were the people who were running her
country and ultimately her life. And they were so full of
hatred and vitriol and disgust. It made her almost ill to
think about it.

But, despite Erika's jibes about her lack of enthusiasm for
National Socialism, Tanneka found herself becoming very
fond of the girl. She was so very pretty. And she had such a
sweet smile. And a twinkling laugh, which contrasted
strangely with the coarseness of her observations. Her
bright blue eyes. The smooth pale skin. That loose lock of
blonde hair that detached itself from her plaits and fell onto
her round cheeks. And, Tanneka was disturbed to realise,
she loved the look of those firm breasts pressing against
the buttons of her blouse, those slim ankles at the end of
her shapely long legs, with such a fine fair down of hair
that it would be almost a shame to shave it off. She became
used to a curious shortness of breath whenever Erika came
into the room, before she'd even greeted her. And she
found her eyes would constantly wander towards Erika's,
hypnotised by the pale blue gaze framed by such long and
luscious eyelashes.

And, what was worse, she noticed that her strong feelings
were shared by Erika. Despite her lack of zeal for the Nazi
Party, her reluctance to join the Hitler Youth, or her refusal
to join whole-heartedly in Erika's condemnation of non-
Aryans, she could see that Erika was taking quite a strong
interest in her. Indeed, she was sure of it. Erika's voice was
always lower, more intimate, more polite, when with
Tanneka than she was with her other friends. She smiled so
readily, so beautifully, sparks of affection from her eyes
illuminating her cheeks and her brilliantly white teeth. The
very personification of the Aryan ideal. Tanneka was
smitten. And she could see that Erika was also smitten by
her. What did this mean? And what did this forebode?

  The curfew that gripped all the territories of the Third
Reich meant that the only way Tanneka and Erika could
spend the evening assisting each other with their
homework was to spend the night at one or the other girl's
house. Frau Van Vliet was not at all happy with the idea of
Erika staying overnight at their home. Her views of the
traitors who invaded her country without even the courtesy
of declaring war made it almost impossible for her to
countenance the presence of someone who had taken the
monstrous step too far of becoming a Hitler Youth. In fact,
neither of her guardians were at all happy that she should
have a friend who wore a swastika on her sleeve. Herr Van
Vliet was no less pleased than his wife, but he took a
practical attitude. He reasoned that young girls didn't really
know the full meaning of what they were doing, and would
hopefully grow out of the monstrous perversions of the
Nazi fantasy. As he assured his wife grimly, there was no
sense in making things worse and arousing suspicions of
nonconformity by appearing uncooperative in such a small
thing as letting young Tanneka spend the evening with her
friend.

When Tanneka arrived with her satchel and books at
Erika's home, she was first of all impressed by just how
grand a property it was. Erika's father had done well out of
his own sympathies for the Nazi cause. She was also quite
grateful that she didn't have to spend any time with Erika's
parents who were at a function in another town and
wouldn't be expected back until the following day.
Tanneka was led up the stairs to Erika's bedroom by her
maidservant, Theresa, who as soon as the girls were
together, scurried out of the house to get home before the
curfew began.

Erika's bedroom was huge. There was a large double bed, a
view out onto the dark unlit streets below and a desk where
Erika sat in just a night-dress, her hair unplaited and
cascading freely onto her shoulders. She turned her head as
Tanneka was ushered in, a pencil in one hand with its tip in
her mouth. She withdrew the pencil as the maidservant
shut the door behind her and smiled deeply and warmly.

"I'm so glad you could make it," she announced. "I'm sorry
that the room is such a mess, but tidiness isn't amongst my
virtues."

Tanneka was hardly aware of any mess at all. Indeed, it
would be quite difficult for any mess to be noticeable at all
in such a large room. She was far more aware of Erika's
relative state of undress. Not that Erika's dress was in any
way immodest. It covered her arms, was tight to the waist
and came down to her bare feet. And it was not of flimsy
material, but Tanneka could see so clearly Erika's breasts
pressed against the fabric of the night-dress and
unsupported by a bra. As Erika stood up to greet her, Tanneka
could see the impression of Erika's nipples through the
cloth, and observe the breasts swing at a slightly more
ponderous pace than the rest of her.

"Guten abend meine freund," greeted Erika in her not
especially good German accent. "Shall we study some
'Deutsch' together?"

"Yes, why not?" said Tanneka, trying to wrest her gaze
away from the impression of Erika's breasts and onto much
more wholesome matters. She knew she was unlikely to
improve Erika's German, nor indeed her Mathematics,
Geography or History, but she was looking forward to
them spending time so close together.

They sat on two hard-backed chairs by Erika's neat wooden
desk, heads bent close to each other, the brush of night-
dress against Tanneka's bare arms in her short-sleeved
blouse and against the knees of her dark navy-blue skirt.
Occasionally, Tanneka caught sight of the two girls'
reflection in the tall mirror that stood against the wall.
There was Erika, her hair falling onto her face,
occasionally brushing it off with a pale dimpled hand, her
long white night-dress sparkling in the electric light like
her equally white teeth and the white of her penetrating
blue eyes. And there was Tanneka, with her unmanageable
thick dark hair, tied unsatisfactorily back into plaits, her
white blouse and the skirt that came down to her knees at
almost the same point as her white socks reached up to
them. Her slightly olive skin and lightly chiselled features
were in such contrast to the soft, pale, round contours of
Erika's face. She could also see that both of them had lively
animated faces, as they laughed and giggled and chortled
over aspects of German grammar that had never seemed
quite so funny before. And Tanneka was even able to
appreciate the explosion of Erika's coarse humour when, as
was inevitable in an approved text book, there were
derogatory comments in German about those from races
inferior to the Aryan master race.

She looked at Erika with a strong affection as her friend
struggled to write German sentences with that voluptuous
looping handwriting of hers, which struggled to hold its
place between the lines above and below, and came out
with so much labour and effort, while Erika mouthed to
herself each vowel and consonant she was writing. Her
blonde hair fell over her shoulder and brushed against her
elbow as she bent over to put as much weight and effort as
she could in this struggle for self-expression in the
language of her German masters.

"So many words are the same but sound different!" Erika
exclaimed at one point. "And other words that look the
same as in our language but mean something different as
well."

"You mean, faux amis?" queried Tanneka.

"I'm sure you're right," said Erika, opening her German
dictionary with a puzzled expression. "I've not heard that
word before. How do you spell that?"

"It's French."

"Oh! Well, I can't be bothered with French words. The
French can't even fight a good war. Why should I be
bothered with their stupid language? They're just a bunch
of stupid, garlic-eating, fat asses! And they smell, too!"

Tanneka didn't dare ask on what concrete evidence Erika
based her comments. As far as she could see, Erika had
hardly met anyone who was of any other nationality than
her own, and, naturally, the Germans'. But Tanneka also
knew these opinions were not at all unusual, and were
certain to be magnified in the retelling. She also reflected
that although gypsies, Jews, Slavs, Arabs, and others were
often compared to dogs, pigs and asses, in actual fact these
nonhuman species were treated rather better than those
considered to be of the same species but of an inferior race.
Where was the justice in that?

"Do you want some wine?" asked Erika, perhaps sensing
her friend's discomfort. "My father won't notice. He's got
absolutely loads of the stuff."

"Well, I?" began Tanneka who'd never had any alcohol
before, but too late before Erika was off and out of the
room, returning with two bottles of white wine and two
glasses.

"It's best French wine," smiled Erika, as she unscrewed a
cork with a bottle opener. "One thing we know the French
are good at!"

"Indeed," agreed Tanneka, happy to see a softening,
however slight, in her friend's generally derogatory opinion
of other races. But she wasn't sure she really enjoyed the
sharp taste of the sweet liquid as she sipped at it. Almost
immediately, it made her feel ever so slightly peculiar. It
was very much like the feeling she associated with getting
giddy after spinning around. But it was a taste that she
gradually came to enjoy more with each sip, although she'd
have been more than happy with a cup of tea or strong
coffee.

As she sipped the sharp bright liquid, she regarded Erika
who was drinking her glass rather faster than hers and was
all too soon onto a second glass that she poured slightly
carelessly with a foolish grin on her face.

"I know some French," giggled Erika proudly. "Je t'aime.
Je t'aime."

"Yes. That's French," agreed Tanneka diplomatically, but
feeling a sudden spurt of emotion in the pit of her stomach.

"And in German that's Ich liebe dich. Ich liebe dich. That's
right, isn't it?"

"It is," agreed Tanneka.

"You say it. Ich liebe dich."

Tanneka breathed in deeply, not sure whether it was the
wine or the intent of the words that made her feel so
horribly peculiar. "Ich liebe dich."

"And I love you too!" said Erika emphatically, quite
suddenly grasping Tanneka around the back of her head
with the hand that wasn't clasping a wine-glass, and
drawing her lips against her own. Tanneka was startled, but
she was totally unable to resist the pleasure and desire that
erupted from deep within her and vomited itself into her
consciousness.

This kiss was so liquid, so passionate, so strong. And so
wonderful. Both girls abandoned their glasses and pressed
their mouths and faces and lips together. Muscular tongue
fought against tongue, teeth clashed clumsily against teeth,
jarring the nerves at the very roots. It was so very slurpy
and moist and Tanneka wanted more and more. Her mouth
grappled, her jaw ached, as she and Erika pulled
themselves together, somehow knowing exactly where to
put their hands. And it seemed so natural as Erika guided
Tanneka back onto her large bed, the soft sprung mattress
enveloping the two girls in its capacious warmth as they
fell on to it. And then, how it happened Tanneka wasn't
sure, she found her hands on Erika's bare flesh, the night-
dress thrown off. And Erika without clothes was even more
beautiful than Erika dressed.

Those breasts, the object of so much unspoken silent
desire, were as beautiful, and round, and firm as she'd
imagined. Now freed from restraint, they seemed so natural
swelling out from her chests, overhanging her ribs, with
nipples firm and hard with a darker pinkish aureate ring.
Her bare skin so pale and fleshy, but not too plump.
Welcoming and inviting and so soft and warm. Her hands
gripped Erika from behind, feeling the curve of her spine
and almost not daring to, but having to, feel the larger
curve of her buttocks, even softer and warmer and more
welcoming than the folds of her breasts.

And soon, with Erika's assistance, Tanneka herself was
divested of her clothes, giggling and sighing as skirt,
blouse, slip, shoes, socks and finally, after a moment of
theatrical pause, her knickers were also off. And there she
was as naked as Erika herself. All the while, as Erika
busied herself on the buttons and straps that had secured
Tanneka's modesty a beaming, smiling Erika displayed
herself as a feast to Tanneka's eyes. Not just the breasts: so
firm and welcoming. Not just the curve and line and
firmness of flesh so much like the Aryan ideal. Not just
that face and mouth and teeth and blue eyes that had
already earned Tanneka's affection. But now, between the
legs, a blonde triangle of hair, curling in amongst itself,
and obscuring, but not hiding, a set of complex lips that hid
the soul and virtue of a woman. Something that Tanneka
had never expected to see except in a mirror, and now
arched above her as Erika spreadeagled her waist and
tossed her knickers to one side.

Tanneka, herself, was slim and dark: her breasts mere
bumps in comparison to Erika's but with long, firm nipples
on a much darker aureole than those others. Thighs and
arms, slim, almost bony. But like Erika, a secret revealed,
folded and boldly naked, hidden more successfully under
the heavy bush of dark hair in her crotch. She smiled up at
Erika, trembling with excitement at the moment, at the
pleasure of being with such a beautiful lover, at the passion
of saliva and kisses. And then a sudden gasp as Erika's
body collapsed on her, naked bosom against naked bosom,
mouth once again on mouth, and a new feeling as she felt
Erika's fingers stroke the dark thick hair of her crotch: the
mere sensation tingling the core of her being and causing
an aching empty feeling to open inside her and forcing
open her legs.

It was inevitable that after kissing and cuddling and
stroking and even licking each other, that Erika's fingers
should probe around the folds and features of Tanneka's
vagina. And then, ooh! And again, ooh! Ooh! One of
Erika's fingers slid so easily into the moist opening of it,
while Erika's other hand guided one of Tanneka's hands
and fingers towards her own crotch.

And what a surprise that was too! It was so moist and
sticky. Even though the hair around it was dry and straw-
like in its composition. And so warm! Where did that
warmth come from? Was it like the warmth and moistness
that she felt sure she was emitting below, that ached so
hard, that pressed even harder against her stomach? She let
a finger probe inside the lips. Such a surprising warmth.
And with surprising contours and shapes. What was this
hard knob to the top of the vagina? Was it like the growth
in her own that she'd sometimes thought to be a kind of
warty infection? But she knew her own crotch from her
few clumsy fumblings (often with unfocussed thoughts of
Erika uppermost in her mind) that this was the same. A
complicated growth hidden like a secret in special secret
folds she'd thought were only her own, and was never sure
were like that of other people. She was pleased to realise
that she was not the only one whose crotch was not as
smooth and undifferentiated as the classical nude
sculptures so beloved of the Third Reich aesthetic.

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, 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 intoxicating her,
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
that 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 she had any intimacy
with someone else, though necessarily of a much more
innocent kind, 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 a
longer sip while admiring the portrait of Adolf Hitler
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 that 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 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. Erika 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 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 that had
silenced her. The curfew had long since begun and
Tanneka 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.