Love in Armor

by Walter Toman

We are both in armor. I had put my armor in the attic, but I decided to get it out again. In the first place, I was not altogether used to life without armor, and in the second place, from the beginning of our aquaintance, she had worn armor. At first glance it was like a bakelite suit, something modern at least, but if you looked at it more closely, you could notice through the cracks in the joints that she wore another suit of armor under it, and of course this was iron.

I had noticed this right away, but, self-consciously, acted as if I saw only the outer armor. I had also said something to the effect that it was nice that she looked on wearing aromor only as a matter of form, inasmuch as the bakelite armor was naturally no real protection and she had left me in this supposition. But having seen the armor underneath, I put my own armor on, and what goes on between us now is a very unfortunate thing.

When she saw me dressed in armor, I having of course but a single suit and that of iron, she complained that she had only bakelite armor while I had iron, and that she would make out badly that way. Why had I done such a thing?

I did not tell her the real reason. I pointed out that I wore the armor on account of other people, not on account of her, and that my armor could be taken off very easily. To prove it I unfastened the iron right arm at the elbow joint, explained to her how easily the joint could be opened, and took the iron arm off. I stroked her on her bakelite armor with my bare hand; she stood for it, but when I wanted to stroke her cheek, her visor snapped down in front of my fingers.

I said that what happens between us now is an unfortunate thing. This is what happens: She takes her right arm out of her armor, sometimes anxiously hiding the iron armor even now. She leaves the iron arm inside the bakelite arm, which is why the removal takes fairly long; she does it like somebody taking underwear off with a garmet so that it cannot be seen. Then if I hold her naked hand, her visor always falls shut, she feels quickly for the arm which she has laid on the floor, not seeing well enough through the visor. If I help her to put the arm back on, she tries to prevent it, and I finally put my own arm back on—you see, I have permitted myself to bare my arm too—she shoves the visor up. Now I take off my armor leg, unfastening it at the knee; she watches with interest; when I have finished, she waits awhile and takes off her left arm. One time during the removal of the left arm it happened accidentally that the iron arm did not come off with the bakelite arm but remained stuck to the iron upper arm. I saw this and she saw that I saw it. While she is taking her iron left arm off, I bare my other leg but as soon as she notices it, she puts the extra armor back on her arm. However, when I put back my second leg, she takes her leg off. Then if I go to her and embrace her and kiss her through the visor that always falls shut if I come close to her face, then we are both as happy, as happy as anyone can be in this armor. But if I accidentally touch her bare foot, then, of course, she jumps right back, hunts quickly for her double armored leg and puts it on again. Once I even dared to open up my breastplate, but when she saw my bare breast, she ran away in a hurry, and did not come near me for days. At the time I attributed it to the hair on my chest, but she denied that when I tried to talk about it one time. She said she had to run away, she didn't know exactly why, perhaps it was simply because she was in armor.

To be frank, we sometimes sleep in the same bed. We embrace each other; I kiss her visor. We even want to get married in style and live together, but I am not sure that we shall ever lie together naked.