Petrichor - a novel in "open beta" - [M/f, minigiant, post-apocalyptic dystopia, slavery, military setting]
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@nephilim Thank you so much! This is high praise
I’m really glad it’s coming together, it was a calico-quilt mess for a long time. Committing it to internet paper has helped me solidify a lot of ideas, and I was worried that it would still suffer from its hodge-podginess… but my worries are evidently unfounded!
Balancing the worldbuilding and “newspeak” of it all has been a real challenge, as I’ve gone off the deep end of that sort of thing for other projects before and its easy to lose sight of the story. I realized that this needs to be “just enough” - just different enough, just futuristic enough, just awful enough to carry the reader over into this feasible-if-you-squint version of our own timeline.
And I’m excited you discovered my weak spot for desert plant life!
@Nyx Thank you SO MUCH Nyx. I was told by someone else on another platform that the way I write is still very “purple”, and I couldn’t quite wrap my head around that… I guess I like to take a scalpel to my characters’ inner lives and that’s considered egregiously descriptive in the normal lit world. Oh well, I’m lucky that kink readers like that sort of thing! (I’ve started calling it “stylistic overwhelm”.) And hope you enjoy more weirdness coming from characters on both sides of the war here soon.
@Olo You keep calling stuff JUST before it happens LOL. Next chapter she’ll get a minute to herself…
And yeah, Gray’s turning out to be little jumpy. She doesn’t want anything to be about her. She’ll be uncomfortable being the protagonist of her own story for a little while longer.
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@kisupure said in Petrichor - a novel in "open beta" - [M/f, minigiant, post-apocalyptic dystopia, slavery, military setting]:
@Nyx Thank you SO MUCH Nyx. I was told by someone else on another platform that the way I write is still very “purple”,
Christ. I must be maroon or something, then.
No; I love how you slice, dice, dissect the characters’ inner worlds. Don’t stop it. Don’t ever stop it. It’s a talent that’s woefully overlooked, I think. Too many people get praise for the heavy logistics of moving set pieces in a story (like Snyder); I would rather see their inner world, because painting that fearsomely, but believably, whilst still providing peripheral story and ongoing narrative without missing a beat? That’s talent.
I enjoy Gray and her inner musings. Don’t stop. I mean, entire literary empires have been erected on the inner-world premise ('hem, George RR Martin has entered the chat. And so does Stephen King of his older works, to be fair, we’re talking Lisey’s-Story-era).
Forget those idiots. They don’t know what they’re talking about.
However;
I’m going to use that from now on: “stylistic overwhelm.” Love it. -
[[OK, last chapter for a couple weeks. This was a lot of work but I was on a roll - half of it is entirely new material worked into an old scene, so my brain is complete mush now.]]
CHAPTER 6
The rank of Captain is reserved for Officers who lead a Corps Platoon or Division. A Platoon consists of 150-200 fighting corpsmen and their support, who are designated within each Camp by color. A Division refers to any self-contained department necessary for the functioning of a Corps Camp, such as Hospitality, Medical, or Utilities. Divisions may also refer to combat specialization groups, such as Scouting or Communications. See Annex I for a complete list of Divisions and Sub-Divisions.
—HDC Manual, Section 2 § 2
Normally, the Corps would begin picking out potential officers in the months before candidates got their freedom, always transferring the newly promoted to an unfamiliar camp if there was an opening, or if an officer was planning to retire from the corps to return to civvie life.
The benefits for Wesson were worth coveting: provisional freedom without a mark, and promotion to the captain’s office complete with all the rights and privileges of the upranked. There was no pomp for him or the ninth-year from red toon that was also being promoted, just a lot of paperwork, a few symbolic aptitude tests, and an oath-taking ceremony in the commander’s tent. He even got a new uniform. Well, newer.
“So no more philandering with us enlisted, eh?” a fifth-year teased at a gathering behind Harrison’s the next evening in his honor.
Like enlisteds with outsiders, officers were discouraged from getting cozy with their subordinates. Meals were to be taken separately, quarters relocated to the captain’s barracks, and outside of the occasional drink, Wesson would be spending as little free time as possible with the downrank from now on. And this was the last time that he would be allowed to enjoy the company of so many enlisted all at once… so many friends.
Wesson shrugged, a bittersweet smile on his face. The liquor was getting to him.
“It’s part of the price we’ll all have to pay to get our freedom,” he sagely declared. Then, he held up his drink. “To the Corps! May she never run low on lead!”
“To the Corps!” a good twenty voices echoed back.
Gray didn’t say anything when she raised her cup, and when she glanced beside her to Finch with her arm in a sling, the redhead didn’t either. She’d only been allowed to stay one night in the med tent, but from what Finch told her, she didn’t want more than that anyway. It was depressing as hell and too many injured were talking and moaning in their sleep.
“He looks a lot better today,” Gray said, watching Wesson talk to a few others.
“He looks tore,” Finch said flatly.
Gray frowned. “He almost had his head busted open out there.”
“We he definitely isn’t shellshocked. In fact, it seems like he’s enjoying himself. Look.”
Gray looked, and realized it was true. The difference was like night and day. It was as he’d never hit his head at all, and she wondered if it hadn’t been something else that made him seem so distracted. Or maybe speaking to Hitch gave him the confidence to believe that he could fulfill his new role. Being told you were getting a promo after a fight like that was enough to sucker punch anybody. Still, Gray suddenly didn’t like how he was taking up space.
Wesson was engrossed in conversation, but he began to point their way. A moment later he was crossing the distance, talking loudly.
“…And in fact, the first thing I’m gonna do, right now, is come right on over here and say to her, ‘Gray, I want you to work for me’.”
Wesson’s bright eyes were locked onto her. He was always a few inches taller but suddenly the seventh-year felt as if he was as big as a ‘Nak as he stood close, putting his arm around her shoulder. He waited for her answer with a grin. Others hooted, hollered, and clapped.
Gray looked up at him, unable to hide the expression on her face. “Wh–what? You want me to be your clerk?” she said, easing herself away from him. “Do I look like a filing cabinet to you?”
His smile widened and he turned to the others. “If you’ll excuse us,” he called out, “I need a moment to speak with my new assistant.”
With that he ushered them both away, and she noticed that his sparkling smile quickly disappeared.
“C’mon Gray,” he said once they were out of sight. “I’m an officer now, I can pull strings.”
She squinted at him, that blond hair and tanned face beginning to look a little too charismatic. “What makes you think I want to file paperwork and run errands for you all day? You could’ve asked me first.”
He took a quick glance around and gave her shoulder an authoritative squeeze. “I care about you guys,” he said. “You, Harper, and Finch. And if I can use this promotion to help make your lives easier for a while, then I will. And I didn’t ask because they don’t want me to. I’m supposed to tell you what to do and you’re supposed to do it.”
Gray’s lips became a fine line. Coming from any other captain, this conversation wouldn’t be happening. She would be saying “yes, sir” and “thank you, sir” for the opportunity to be a good corpsman. She’d be grateful for being seen as valuable. Clerk work was clean, and it was quiet; you slept in a tent attached to the captain’s office, and being one more step removed from the fighting ranks of corpsmen put you one step closer to the outside world. The things you learned better prepared you to deal with civtown.
But Gray still didn’t want it. She didn’t want the strange, special treatment. And nobody liked the clerks anyways. They were odd, and rude, and smoked so much they could barely ruck.
“I know I bitch about it, but I actually like scouting. I don’t want to be transferred to records, even if it is easier work.”
He gave her a look she had never seen outside of battle, slate eyes suddenly cold. There was an edge to his voice as he spoke, and his hand held firm to her shoulder.
“I can keep you safe, Gray.”
“Is this… is this an us thing?” she blurted. “Are you trying to win me back or something?“
“It’s not. I promise.” Wesson chewed his lip and thought for a moment. “This last fight made me realize just how awful it is to lose people this late in the game. It’s just… it’s more dangerous out there than any of us realize. But I suddenly have the power to protect you now.”
Gray swallowed.
“What about Finch?”
“Finch will get her chance, don’t worry. I could always try setting her up with hospitality.”
Hospitality was where the wastelanders were, and officers from Alpine: clean men and women in clean uniforms, decked with colorful ribbons and polished metal.
But keeping visitors fed, watered, and entertained during their visits was a secretive task. The Manual said it was “distracting” work for the average corpsman because of the gossip, the rumors, the foreign culture of the outsiders. Most were not fit for it.
And if Gray knew Finch, she wasn’t fit for it either.
“That’s even worse than records,” she said.
Wesson threw up his arms. “Who cares! If she wants to live to kill another ‘Nak then she’ll need to get away from the front anyways. She doesn’t stand a chance right now.”
“Then make her work the office!”
He shook his head. “No, we make a better team. I want you in there. She knows card games, she’ll do much better keeping outsiders happy.”
“With all due respect, I don’t want her waiting on outsiders any more than I want to wait on you, sir.”
The Manual recommended prefacing opinions with those words to avoid coming across as insubordinate. But Wesson knew inter-rank protocol just as much as she did, and his silence told her that she should have kept her mouth shut.
He straightened.
“I’ve always told you to watch what you say after you’ve had too much shine. It’s going to get you into trouble one of these days,” he said, turning away. “Think about my offer, Gray. Don’t be stupid.”
* * *
She laid on her cot and stared at the flapping canvas above her head. The night was almost warm enough to roll up the sides to let air in through the bug netting, but the beads of sweat on the nape of her neck had nothing to do with the approaching summer heat.
“Captain Wesson,” she mumbled to herself. “Yes sir, captain Wesson sir.”
Gray groaned and turned over onto her good side.
The next afternoon, she checked the board for Wesson’s first duty roster. Juggling the schedules of 200 corpsmen would be the first thing he’d learn to do. Glancing at the other names, it didn’t look half-bad for a first try. In fact, it probably took him all night. But as she found her name, neatly typed on its own row, her stare turned to gawking, and her gawking soon turned to indignation.
S M T W T F S [SS12C]---------------------------------------[SS12A]“SS” stood for “solitary sentry”, the number designated her blind, and the letter told her when she was to ruck out. This wasn’t a duty roster, this was a sentence. A week up in a tree. These shifts were supposed to be three days long, and the most she had ever heard of was five.
The asshole did this on purpose.
Gray stormed away from Captain Wesson’s new office, and back to her toon tent.
“Did you see the board?” she said, walking in on Finch on her cot as Harper dabbed a clean rag on her wound.
“No,” Finch snorted. “Why would I? I got four weeks off.”
“Hardly. They’ll have to give you something to do starting next week,” Harper said.
Gray ignored them. “Is this was he always wanted? To order people around? I feel like I don’t know the guy anymore.”
Harper shrugged. “He wanted promo, you knew that.”
“He’s got me on seven days of solitary. Seven!”
Finch chuckled. “You’re always going to lose in a fight with an officer.”
“Piss off, this isn’t funny.”
Gray sat down on a cot and rubbed her face.
“It’s whatever, Gray. You guys got into an argument, you probably said something dumb, and he’s doing something dumb to get back at you. Be glad it’s just sentry and that he’s—ow!” Finch hissed as Harper helped her arm back into the sling. “Be glad he’s not making you scrub toilets for a week.”
Gray sighed. Maybe Finch was right. Maybe she was blowing this out of proportion and being unable to say ‘Captain Wesson’ with a straight face was her problem.
“Any of you miss Burke?” Harper said.
“Didn’t really know her.”
“The officers don’t really want *any *of us to know them, do they?”
Gray scoffed. “I wouldn’t either, if I were them. We’re numbers until we get our freedom.” A pause. “Maybe he just needs some time.”
A man tapped on the flap before letting himself inside. It was one of Burke’s old staff. “Finch? Fifth-year?”
“That’s me.”
He handed her a folded piece of paper and ducked out.
Finch’s eyes narrowed as she opened and read the note.
“Holy fuck, I’m going to be Wesson’s new help,” she said, dumbfounded. “It’s been approved by Hitch and everything already. I’ll be transferred to records when my arm’s healed.”
Harper stood up and grabbed the paper from her. Gray winced, remembering their argument.
“He’s trying to help you out.”
“Jesus Christ, Gray, this isn’t a week of sentry, this is for the rest of the season! And when we get a real captain in there, they might even keep me!”
“It’s either this, or you risk release,” Harper said. “Think of it this way, he just saved you from a death sentence.”
“Yeah, and saved a bunch of fuckin’ ‘Naks too. I’m gonna be one of the last people to go out on a ruck, now.”
“In forty-seven months you get your freedom and that’s all that matters. You can kill as many of ‘em as you want when you’re out of here.” Gray was trying very hard to scold the younger corpsman into being thankful, but it was a hard sell.
“That’s all that matters, huh?” Finch set her jaw and stared at the ground. “I’m not like you. Not like any of you. I’m not here for promo, and I’m not here to get out. All I want is revenge, and up until now, the Corps made that easy for me.”
“Yeah, well, it’s looking like the only person getting what they want around here is Wesson.” Gray stood up to leave. Finch was awful to be around when she was in a bad mood. “I’ll see you in a fucking week.”
* * *
After a 4-minute shower, 1900 hours rolled around and it was time to hit the trail. Scowling, Gray signed off on the board and rucked out from there to her post without saying a single word to anyone, the captain included. At this point, part of her was looking forward to getting away.
“What is wrong with him?” she muttered. “Why does it feel like he’s taking this personally?”
But underneath her indignation there was hurt, she realized. Did she feel like Wesson had somehow cheated the system to get out early? Maybe he did—the Corps wasn’t without its petty corruption. Sometimes you heard about protection contracts being paid off with warm bodies instead of goods or money. The money, too, worried her. Would he flaunt it, or would he try to pretend like it didn’t matter? He could even spend it out in civtown if he wanted. Because he was allowed to leave on errands now, too. Or maybe that was a privilege reserved for true freemen. She didn’t know. She almost didn’t care.
As she reached her post and began the climb up into the tree, Gray pondered the Corps in the abstract. Just what *was *it? And what did it do to people?
The Western Human Defense Corps, as the militia was once more formally called, was a machine at its heart. Its moving parts were made of muscle, and it was lubricated by the sweat of its corpsmen. Its ranks were filled with bonds brought in from the wastes; some of them runaways, like her, and some by purchase. And they were brought together for a single purpose: to keep the enemy at bay, an enemy that didn’t discriminate against any human.
The Corps prided itself on offering its enlistees more than just survival training; it offered dignity, and a chance for you to leave a stronger, smarter person than you were when you arrived. It was like a still, turning mash into shine.
Unfortunately, a lot of mash went into making even a just little shine.
Wesson wasn’t under any delusion that this was a hard life, but he leaned heavily on the mythology of the Corps—General Piece, the Manual, the early victories of the Disruption—while Gray and many others did not. For her, the Corps was a means to an end. In twenty-eight months she’d be packing up her bags and heading out to civtown where she could decide who to work for. That was all the freedom she ever wanted.
As she took a swig of water, Gray’s thoughts turned back to that sentinel again. His apocryphal existence was in diametric opposition to the life of a Corps officer. The sentinel lived and worked alone, something Gray could barely fathom. No rosters, no drills, nobody breathing down his neck telling him when to eat or sleep or shit. Unlike Wesson, whose confidence came from knowing people, the sentinel stood alone.
Strong. Clever.
Handsome.
She found herself sighing wistfully, then laughed. Gray knew better than to romanticize that kind of life. He was probably often hungry and thirsty, and half–nuts from the isolation. If the Anakim were as social as the humans they were modeled after, she guessed that loneliness could eat away at them just the same.
But hunger and thirst was freedom too, wasn’t it? She contrasted the sentinel’s hard, rugged face in the dust with Wesson’s newfound authority, washed and fed. Gray knew which face she preferred.
She knew who was the better kisser, too.
There was a faint throb between her legs and she wiggled a little to release some of the tension with a sigh. Noncommittally, Gray thought about those hands again and their bruising strength. She recalled those lips, that tongue, thought about what it would have been like to be flipped over then and there, with bullets flying over their heads in the dark, to have a neat hole ripped in the seat of her pants and…
Gray’s breathing quickened, heart picking up. Her fingers hovered over her fly, half undone. She was remembering now how small she felt, too, how the pheromone made her feel like he could kill her with a word. But he did no such thing. His word had saved them.
The contrast was bewildering. Intoxicating.
Removed from the moment itself, she could reflect on it from the safety of the now. Relive it in any way she wanted. This was her tiny sliver of freedom, and not a soul would know. She could fantasize about the sentinel. She would fantasize about the sentinel.
Gray undid the rest of the buttons and kicked off her pants, they needed some repair anyways. Then feeling strangely electrified, she slipped her fingers under the hem of her underwear and brushed along her straining bud. Only now did she realize that she was soaking wet.
Take that, Wesson.
* * *
She sat and pulled a long beige thread through one pant leg, pulling a hole shut as the sky above slowly turned to pinks and purples. Long shadows crept across the valley, a few easy kliks away from Fox, and for a long while Gray was almost at ease. The floorboards of her blind radiated warmth even as the sun began to disappear behind the rolling valley wall, its top hairy with scrub taller than a human.
A few crickets picked up their song, and off in the distance Gray spotted a doe and her adolescent faun picking their way through the brush. For a few minutes she watched them, their heads dipping down every few seconds then snapping back up, enormous ears swiveling.
Most other corpsmen hated the color brown—they hated it like they hated the dust and the heat, and her toon was was the butt of most jokes for its color. But the desert had taught Gray that brown could be elegant, even beautiful. As she considered the deer, common but rarely noticed, considered their strong, lean, silent bodies moving through the landscape, there seemed to be no more regal a color on earth than the heathery brown of their fur.
Suddenly, the deer stood at attention, ears pointing to the corpsman’s 3 o’clock. Gray had heard nothing, but flattened herself and trained her ears too. Soon, a single rock tumbled down the hillside nearby and the deer disappeared up the canyon with a decisive rustle of underbrush.
It was probably an animal, but Gray grabbed her gun anyways, foregoing the pair of binos. Blood began beat in her ears. She was hoping that it was something innocuous. A hare, maybe. Or a bird. Hell, she’d even take a cougar over the other available options.
She laid on her belly for a few long minutes, listening with every nerve ending in her body. A moment later and there was another sound: the faint scrape of a twig against something—fabric—again at her 3. Steadying her breath, Gray decided to cup her mouth to throw one of the standard bird calls, but there was no reply. This was not a corpsman.
Judging by the faintness of the sound, Gray assumed human. A lost wastelander maybe, or a brig looking to relieve a lone “corpy” of their gear. It happened, and with surprising regularity. Sentries would be sent out, and their body found later near their post, stripped naked and half-eaten by coyotes. Just as she was going through the rough calculations of her chances given the weapons the attacker was likely to have, another clue appeared in the form of a scent.
Not pheromone, but tobacco smoke.
So, a cocky fucker, then. But the sound of boots in the dirt below the blind drained her of color in an instant.
The only way he’d creep that close was if he knew she was there, and knew she was alone. A dozen scenarios roared through her mind, most of them ending badly. But some of them didn’t. The thick, breathless pause had her preparing for confrontation. Where was he standing? How many seconds did she have? Could she land a successful first shot before this attacker filled the floorboards full of holes?
“I know you’re up there,” said the familiar voice.
It was… him.
His voice was raw granite. Rough and stony, like the arroyos and dusty canyons he stalked in service to the Anakim. In her mind she saw his blue eyes again looking back at her over the long barrel of his rifle, and she let out her captive breath. It was loud enough for him to hear.
Gray stood up on shaky feet and neared the edge of the platform where she could climb down the knotted rope. She didn’t dare look at him until her bare feet met solid ground, after which she raised her eyes, heart pounding. She waited for the pheromone to creep into her nostrils and begin clawing at the back of her mind, but it never did. Maybe she wasn’t close enough?
Her gaze paused at his belly – she was at eye-level with the frayed webbing of his belt – and let that sink in for a moment before following the rest of him upward to his face. His helmet was off, and his kicker lazily hung from a broad shoulder. If it was ever his intention to kill her, then it definitely wasn’t now.
“How did you to come here?” she said quietly, trying to hide the distant unease in her voice. Gray didn’t want to creep any closer to him for a number of reasons.
“Doesn’t take me long to figure out what goes on in my territory,” he said quietly, cooly.
He was so matter–of–fact, and that sent a little shiver down her spine. What else did he know? How long had he been watching her? She took an unconscious step back, fingering the rope as though that were somehow an exit route. He frowned and took a long drag of the tiny cigarette between his fingers. Quarter of an inch disappeared in a bright red cherry before her eyes. Gray realized that it was one of those human-sized sticks that she’d seen him smoking earlier, and she could tell by the tightness of the roll that there was no way he could have done it himself—not with fingers that size.
“You think I’m here to kill you.”
She swallowed, and her rosy thoughts from earlier couldn’t have seemed further away. He was here now, in the flesh. Something she had never expected.
“This is a war. Why would I think otherwise?”
The idea seemed funny to him, and he snorted. “I dunno, you tell me.”
All was still as they stared each other down for a long while, reading body language, doing math, gauging motives. It was so quiet that Gray almost started when he let his boomer drop to the dirt, then the cigarette, before slowly taking a knee. Gray held onto the rope, fearing that she would lose her balance.
“Why are you here?” she whispered, suddenly feeling uncomfortable that he emitted no pheromone. It was almost… wrong.
He chuckled and looked away, and she saw now that there were some strands of silver in his dark hair, catching the early evening light.
“Testing my mettle, I guess. Wanted to see how close to you I could get.” His eyes flicked back to her. “Made it pretty far, you have to admit.”
The giant waited like that for a few more seconds. Either the sentinel was confident that she wasn’t a risk to him, or he was very, very stupid. If this was a common ‘Nak soldier, Gray would have assumed the latter. But this wasn’t a common ‘Nak soldier.
“Will it make you feel better if I answered your question?”
“I don’t remember asking you a question.”
“No, but I can tell you want to. And the answer is yes, I’m suppressing.”
Gray frowned. “Suppressing what? What are you talking about?”
The massive man removed his glove and tossed it to her. Startled, she caught it out of instinct and when she realized what he was trying to do, she held it, eyes hard as she waited for the squeeze.
“Go on, it won’t do anything.”
Trepidly, she did. But all she could smell was the scent of leather, dirt, and… him.
Gray was confounded. “It’s not affecting me.”
He cocked a brow at her. “You want it to?”
Those words sent an intense fluttering through her belly. The little corpsman swallowed and tossed the glove back to him.
“Suppression, huh?”
“I can choose to make you scared,” was his only explanation. “If it suits my needs. And to tell you the truth, corpsman, I have other plans.”
Plans like what? The corpsman swallowed.What was unfolding between them now, in this valley, was not something she could have ever even dreamed up. In fact, she still wasn’t sure if it was really happening. Such encounters never happened. Ever. Or if they did, no one lived to talk about them.
“Why’d you kiss me?”
Her question seemed to catch him off-guard. Not too much, though. He was probably genetically designed to conceal his emotions.
“Never know when you’re going to catch lead,” he said flatly.
Evidently, that’s all Gray needed to hear.
Because frankly, that would have been her answer too. So just for now, until the very first wisp of danger, she decided she would trust him. When she let go of the rope and stepped closer, his hands went to her back to bring her in the rest of the way. It was slower this time, but there was still that spark of need that drove him to kiss her without hesitation.
Even his mouth was big, she dimly noted. Her bare skin grazed the rough fabric of his pants and her fingers instinctively went to his immense shoulders for purchase. His mouth parted to reveal teeth that nipped at her lip and a tongue that wanted in. When she opened for him, he rumbled faintly, exploring wantonly and crushing her to him as though he was starved for contact. Maybe he was.
Eventually Gray broke away to catch her breath. She was panting, and the flutter in her belly had grown into a burning ember.
“What the hell are we doing?” she whispered, sobering up.
He ran his fingers through the rough chop of her chin–length hair and he studied her mouth. His eyes were dark, and it wasn’t because of the creeping dusk.
“To be honest, I have no fucking idea.”
Gray realized that this was the most refreshing thing she’d heard anyone say in a long time. Everyone else she knew seemed to be constantly laboring under the pretense of purpose, of some grand vision for either themselves or the Corps. Everyone knew what they were doing, no one was lost. No one was trying to figure things out.
He seemed to sense her defenses melting away, and so the massive soldier pressed his mouth to hers again. The kiss grew sloppier. His hand moved steadily down to her ass, and he gripped both cheeks with those five big fingers. There were more fingers in her hair, raking her scalp, and for a moment they were all hot breath and flushed skin. When the giant pressed her hips into his, though, she felt something through the fabric—something large and firm, straining against the confines of his pant leg. Gray’s eyes shot open as shegasped into his mouth. The Anak broke and pulled away.
“Fuck,” she hissed, eyes wide as she met his wanton gaze. “You’re… that’s…“
He gave her a little smirk and Gray found herself being guided onto her back in the dirt beside his gun. Gray let him, for some reason—this seemed like the natural progression, and the animal impiety of it electrified her. She listened to the deep, heavy breaths that rushed out of his nostrils. His teeth found the nape of her neck a moment later, and she shivered as the rough gusset at his knee brushed against her calf.
She arched into him, even though he still wore so much. What would Wesson say? The human soldier came back to herself one last time, remembering where and what she was – what he was.
Wesson wouldn’t say anything, and you know it. He’d put you up against a wall and blow your fucking brains out.
Panting, Gray put a hand to the Anak’s chest to stop him.
“I-I don’t think this is a good time,” she said quietly, and was distantly amazed when he didn’t ignore her, even with his need as clear as day. The giant fell back onto his heels.
He nodded with disappointment. “Sorry, I get it. You have your obligations.”
“It’s not that,” she blurted. But she had to pause and search for an answer that didn’t involve Wesson. “I just don’t like doing this in the open. Not with… you know.”
“You realize I’m the scariest thing in these hills, right?”
Gray chuckled weakly. “I meant privacy.”
"You want me to find you later?”
She swallowed hard and wracked her addled brain for a safe answer. Was there a safe answer? “We… have storage further up the canyon, closer to the wellhead.”
The Anak gave a smug look. “Two corpsmen patrol that route, and it takes 30 minutes to complete the circuit. But most of them take their time, sometimes dragging it out to an hour.”
The implication was obvious, and Gray was a little less sure of herself. He knew a lot about Fox already, and they had been here for less than a month.
The human considered the Anak for a long moment, trying to get a bead on him.
Quietly, she said: “You could kill a lot of people if you wanted to.”
“I could.”
But you won’t?
She licked her dry lips. “I’ll have the time after I get back. Saturday night.”
“It’ll be easier after dark,” he said, and a little shiver passed through her at the sheer audacity of his confidence. If other ‘Naks were this sure they could slip behind Corps lines and infiltrate a camp without being seen, then…?
“I’ll be there at 2200.”
He reached out to palm the back of her neck. “2200,” he murmured.
Gray closed the meager distance between them, feeling alive. Her naked leg faintly brushed against the spot on his thigh where she’d felt him before, and was greeted by its shape again, slowly softening. Gray licked her lips when she thought about what it might look like. What it might feel like.
“Why the hell do I trust you,” she said into one of his dirty shoulder straps, her voice its own kind of husky.
“Be careful,” he replied, not giving her what she was looking for. “Trust’ll get a human hurt around here.”
“Is that a warning or a threat?”
“Both.”
With that he stood up again, boomer in hand, and looked down at her. Fuck, he was big. Gray tried to avoid letting her eyes fall on the bulge in his pants, practically right in front of her face, but he saw her steal a glance and chuckled.
Then he put himself back together: helmet on his head, cloth around his neck loosened up to let some of the cool evening air in, rifle slung up on his shoulder, and soon another human-rolled cigarette was in his mouth and he was striking at a lighter from behind a cupped hand. He gave her a three–fingered salute, the one they used in the Corps, and disappeared into the brush as expertly as he came. Gray was left reeling, but at least she finally had another partial answer to the question of how he moved so quietly: he aimed his footfalls for rock instead of gravel, padding like a stalking predator. But that was a small distraction from the enormity of what just transpired. When he was gone, she let out a few deep breaths.
“Holy shit,” Gray whispered to herself, repeating it several times as she stared at the ground where he’d stood. Out of the corner of her eye she spied the half-smoked cigarette that he’d dropped earlier, and pocketed it without thinking.
http:/sizekink.com
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@kisupure said in Petrichor - a novel in "open beta" - [M/f, minigiant, post-apocalyptic dystopia, slavery, military setting]:
The enlisted/officer divide is a staple of military fiction, but what was once rooted in static social classes became more permeable with the rise of “professional” soldiers and recruitment. With the Disruption sending us back to serfdom, however, a battlefield commission is less a promotion than an ennobling.
Corpsmen are still enslaved, as Finch’s lack of good choices demonstrates. Captains leading armed bondsmen aren’t quite overseers or feudal lords, but the 'Naks and harsh environment seem to provide the rest of the discipline necessary to keep the corpsmen loyal. Until now, that is.
Still, Gray suddenly didn’t like how [Wesson] was taking up space.
Not as much space as some do…
animal impiety
Nice.
As far as I can tell, you haven’t disturbed the conventional wisdom that there are no female Anakim, but you have allowed that it might not be possible to engineer an humanoid effectively for combat without giving it a libido. I don’t suppose I have to remind you how non-neutered adult human males have historically behaved in prolonged single-sex environments.
What does fear pheromone smell like to other 'Naks? Pleasant? Noxious? Undetectable? Is suppression against orders?
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@Nyx Thank you SO MUCH Nyx. I was told by someone else on another platform that the way I write is still very “purple”, and I couldn’t quite wrap my head around that… I guess I like to take a scalpel to my characters’ inner lives and that’s considered egregiously descriptive in the normal lit world. Oh well, I’m lucky that kink readers like that sort of thing! (I’ve started calling it “stylistic overwhelm”.) And hope you enjoy more weirdness coming from characters on both sides of the war here soon.
I don’t think that your prose is purple at all…in fact, your style is one of the things that I like about your stories (besides the very large men, of course
). It flows well and it’s easy to immerse myself in your writing, and I would eagerly read any non-size fiction that you wrote. And honestly, I wish that more writers spent time on their characters’ inner lives. That’s part of the thrill for me as a reader, experiencing a character’s emotions and how they react to both mundane events and life-altering ones.As for Chapter 6, I like how more mysteries were introduced, including the human-sized cigarettes (and whether there are humans living with or working with the Anakim). The fact that the sentinel is touch-starved was surprisingly heartbreaking, and I realized that both he and Gray are sort of outsiders. Gray seems to want to rebel in her own ways, including pocketing the cigarette and agreeing to a rendezvous with the sentinel, and I have to wonder if this behavior will eventually get her into deep trouble.
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@olo Definitely was envisioning a very real, very large military/paramilitary organization that formed to pick up the slack of the failing nation-state, and as things continued to get worse, it descended into a self-contained feudal society. I like the military metaphor a lot (water is wet!) but I like it because unlike a lot of sci fi tropes we have it now. And it’s already just an extreme form of the social stratification we are all forced into living already.
Haven’t decided how it smells yet! For humans, it’s basically an invisible scent, only really detectable by its effects. For the anakim though, it might just be a bit musky.
I don’t suppose I have to remind you how non-neutered adult human males have historically behaved in prolonged single-sex environments
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@nyx @nephilim re: ““purple”” prose, I’ve done some brushing up on the term and I’m reminded now that it’s a very over-used and misunderstood criticism in the amateur writing world lol. (I remember when many fandoms all kind of discovered the term back in the late 90’s and early 00’s and suddenly everyone was either doing it on purpose or clutching their pearls over it lol).
Like, I’ll say this: Ender’s Game is one of my favorite books, but boy did Card do a poor job of conveying Ender’s anguish in a lot of scenes. Neuromancer, as much of a slog that was for me, was WAY better in the emotional detail department. Even Tom fucking Clancy is decent. (Nephilim, I can’t say I’ve read any Stephen King! Maybe I should get on it…)
But thank you Nyx, that’s heartening to hear. I’ve heard from a couple people who want me to change the writing style to “appeal” to a broader audience, and I’m just like… to what end? How broad of an audience is this ever going to get lmao?
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@kisupure said in Petrichor - a novel in "open beta" - [M/f, minigiant, post-apocalyptic dystopia, slavery, military setting]:
I’ve heard from a couple people who want me to change the writing style to “appeal” to a broader audience
Here?
All my M/f stories and discussions can be found here.
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@olo NO no, haha. AO3 tbh, though that’s no surprise at all.
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CHAPTER 7
(No Manual excerpt for this chapter yet either. Also, this is essentially a first draft, virgin writing. I’d cannibalized only a couple general dialogue ideas from previous drafts, but this is a version 1.0. It will need work.)
It was five more days up in that tree, climbing down only to relieve herself or grab something she dropped. The only other person she spoke to was the corpsman who came to deliver her water.
By the end, Gray felt like her skin was crawling and she couldn’t wait to get back to camp. A shower, a hot meal, and a bit of shine would do her some good. At 2000 hours she was relieved by a replacement, whoever it was signaling their approach by bird-call.
“Hey-hey, you’re still alive up there!” came a familiar voice. His name was Clark. He was a fifth-year, short but sturdy.
“Just barely,” she grunted back.
The seventh-year threw her pack to Clark’s feet before making her way down the rope.
The young man smiled. “Don’t worry, the smell of a Corps camp in this heat will wake you up.”
She snorted. “Might actually finish me off.”
“You look pretty ripe yourself.”
“Ripe as a peach, thanks.”
While she didn’t know the corpsman well, he was part of Brown Fox too, and thus eligible for the same posts and duties as she and her friends were. He probably would have interacted with Wesson in his new role as acting officer by now. “How’s the captain’s mood been lately?”
Clark knew what she was referring to.
“I heard you two weren’t seeing eye to eye the other night,” he admitted. “I guess that’s why they force the new promos into transferring camps; makes it easier to bark at the boots if you don’t know any of ‘em personally.”
He sighed, pulling out a tinder stick—a cheap cigarette cut with dry grass and shredded paper—to light up. Its harsh smell had long since stopped smelling bad to her, but was nothing compared to the Anak’s rich, earthy tobacco. Clark shrugged.
“You put him in a bad mood for a few days, not gonna lie. But I think he’s had time to cool off. You’re lucky he hasn’t quite got the hang of things yet, or he might’ve given you something worse. Officers learn all sorts of dirty tricks, don’t they?”
That much was true. If Burke had survived the attack, there was a few things she could have done to Kessler for pulling that pin, even without sending him to retraining. She could have erased a year from his service record, forcing him to repeat it; cut off a chunk of his ear; or, more likely, is that she would have sent him on one of the more distant patrol circuits and hoped he just didn’t make it back.
Gray just sighed. “I tell you, serving under a friend fucking sucks, Clark.”
He offered up the stick.
“No thanks, I prefer shine.”
They stood in silence for a minute, looking out over the landscape, all pinks and golds. But it was time to go. She hefted up her gear.
“Well, I guess all I can do is count down the days until this year’s release, when he’ll be replaced by some promo from some other camp who won’t know a damn thing about me.”
Clark nodded, they both knew the way things were. “Can only be one of two things in this shithole,” he muttered around the somestick hanging out of his mouth. “You’re either bound, or free. Still, I’d rather Wesson be tellin’ me what to do instead of some warlord out there in the waste.”
That, she had to admit, was difficult to disagree with.
* * *
When she’d staggered back to Fox, both exhausted and buzzing with restless energy, the first thing she did was grab her punch card and make a beeline for brown toon’s showers.
The wooden structure was freestanding and sheltered by a tarp. There were six stalls per toon tent, each one giving only just enough privacy to wash up, though it wasn’t uncommon to see two (or three) pairs of legs from underneath the partitions, and it wasn’t uncommon to be stuck washing up right next to some of those legs. All you could really do was avoid eye contact. It’s not like you had long in there while the water was running.
It was a relatively simple outfit: a reservoir painted black and baking in the sun all day provided hot water. Every corpsman was assigned a punch card monthly, which allotted them a total of 45 minutes showering time, to spend however they damn well pleased. Some corpsmen preferred to spend ten minutes once a week, but others, like Gray, hated the grime, and preferred short showers as often as possible. The machine that read the punch cards and doled out the water was one of the more complex things that Camp Fox had, but water was so scarce a resource that its strict regulation was worth the hassle.
As she slid the sturdy card into the slot to be read and marked by the machine, Gray thought about the sentinel. She thought about his face, those cutting eyes. She thought about the hot, slick muscle of his tongue.
For the first time, she thought about what something like that might actually do to her.
Gray licked her lips as she stripped and turned on the stream of water.
* * *
It was late by the time she was done, and the breeze felt almost too cold when it hit her wet hair; but cold was a luxurious feeling, and she relished it. Gray had traded an old friday for shine, which she nursed from on top of a metal drum within view of Wesson’s tent. It glowed with a faint light from inside. Eventually, this light was snuffed out, and soon after Wesson emerged, holding the flap open for none other than Finch.
Gray’s eyes narrowed and she took another long sip of the burning, musty, alcohol. The pair paused outside the tent for a moment, not noticing her in the shadows, and she caught the end of a conversation.
“…Friday, alright? 2200, I’ll come get you.”
Finch nodded. “My arm won’t be a problem?”
“Naw, naw. You won’t be playing any games, just sort of… you know.”
There was a thick pause and Gray frowned.
Wesson clapped a hand on Finch’s good arm. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. I don’t want you nervous.”
“Sure thing, ah… sir.”
Gray gulped down the last of the hooch in her cup and slid off the drum. Her frown deepened into a scowl by the time she stormed back to Harrison’s to toss the empty cup into the washing bin with a hollow clank.
Outside, a voice caught her attention. “Hey!” it shouted angrily. “It’s you, that seventh-year brownie!”
She turned to find a pair coming up the path. They were faces she knew, though Gray couldn’t put names to them.
“Yeah?” she said, not sure what insult she’d be defending herself from. “What do you want?”
The one man got right up into her face, and one look at the marks on his collar told her he was a youngyear. “You’re the one that got Kessler in hot, steaming shit, aren’t you?”
She scoffed, and loudly. Didn’t they know anything? They weren’t going to win this.
“Get dusted, he’s the one who pulled that pin. And Burke’s dead, so what does it matter? The reprimand didn’t even make it to his fucking file.”
The young man’s eyes grew deadly serious and Gray’s skin prickled as she instinctively shored up her SA—her situational awareness—just in case she needed to put some distance between them.
“He knew what he saw,” the corpsman said.
Gray swallowed, narrowed her eyes at them both. “So do I. Now be glad I never told Captain Wesson what happened.”
The seventh-year got one last look at the pair as she turned to leave.
“This ain’t over!”
“Yes, it is.” At least, Gray hoped it was. “Now leave me alone, I’ve been in a tree all goddamn week and I’d like to get some sleep.”
* * *
Exercises woke Gray up early the next day. She’d been dreaming about him, those hands, those arms. She was waiting for him up in the dark, narrow canyon, stars wheeling overhead, and there he was. He bent to kiss her. Their passion deepened, and against her thigh was something firm and hot. But when she reached for it, all her fingers touched was metal. Her nostrils were suddenly filled with the faint cloying musk of the pheromone, and consumed with fear, all she could do was stare as he lifted away, capturing her lips in his one more time, before burying a bullet in her chest.
The report of small arms fire wasn’t a particularly regular sound around a Corps camp, and even the most distant pops and bangs were still enough to wake her up. Five years of sentry trained her to sleep light. This was both a blessing and a curse. She wrote off the dream as an early-morning blurring of sleep and waking reality, but her heart was still pounding, and Gray was left wondering why in the hell she felt so alive.
She put her clothes on, rubbed her face down with a cloth, laced up her boots, and headed out to the mess for coffee.
What Gray and all the other corpsmen called coffee might not actually have been coffee, but it’s all any of them knew. It was a dark, burnt, sludgy sort of drink, and it helped you wake up a little. Interestingly, unlike water, a corpsman could have as much coffee as he wanted. Commander Hitch drank so much of it that his teeth were quite yellow. Gray didn’t drink that much of it, she didn’t like the shakes it gave her after a few cups.
Today was her day off, and she knew as much without even being told—it’s what she was due after such a stretch of shifts by writ of the Manual—and it was exactly the thing she needed. After watching the sun come up over the distant mountains, she went to kill a little more time at the toon board before seeing if Finch or Harper was awake. What Wesson was up to was no longer any of her business.
Squinting in the hard morning light, Gray scanned down the pages pinned to the wood, neatly typed in black and white, and saw nothing but “TBD” beside her name.
TBD. What was TBD again?
Gray’s eyes settled on Wesson’s office, knowing he’d have at least one copy of the Manual in there, but she didn’t want to sneak in to look at it. She was supposed to know what the acronym meant.
With a growl, Gray quickly returned to her tent, reaching for a box under her cot where she kept her Manual. When she took it out, looking at it for the first time in a few months, she couldn’t help the sigh. The Manual was more than just a brick of a book three fingers thick, more than the dust collecting on its fragile, cracking cover, it was the law, harsh and unforgiving, that governed her life. And over the years, she had learned to trust that law.
“Alright, appendix eye-vee…”
She flipped to the very back of the book, running her finger along a reference table printed with very small letters. There: TBD.
“To be determined; undecided.”
Gray frowned. Undecided? She stared at the page a moment longer before shoving the book away again and all but kicking the box under her cot. She knew now that this was a coded message: come talk to me. That’s an order.
“For fuck’s sake,” Gray hissed.
* * *
Finch was just sitting up in her cot when Gray came around, peeking her head in. She nodded her good morning to the other waking corpsmen, and turned to her friend.
“Oh, you’re back,” Finch mumbled, yawning. “Easy shift?”
“Uh, sure. Listen, meet me in the mess in five?”
“I haven’t even made it to the latrines yet.”
“Well get in line and I’ll grab you a coffee.”
Finch snorted. “Yes, sir.”
Back in the big mess tent, Gray filled two cups and thought about what she was actually going to say. She wanted to know what happened while she was gone, what happened last night. She found an empty table in the corner and waited, now sipping nervously.
When the redhead finally sat down almost 10 minutes later, Gray started with something inoffensive.
“How’s the arm?”
Finch flexed her fingers and was able to make a loose fist with a wince. “Still ugly. I won’t even try to hold a sider until next week. Harper says I should wait at least a month before I can even try shooting. The recoil is going to hurt like a bitch.”
“That’s more time than they said originally. Wesson pulled through for you after all, then?”
Finch looked at her coffee in an uncharacteristic moment of thought. “We talked and I see where he’s coming from now.” She shrugged with one shoulder. “He found a use for me while I heal and so… I get to stay. That’s about it.”
Gray bought some time by fiddling with her half-empty cup. “Has he said anything about me?”
“He doesn’t see why you won’t let him help you too.”
“But that’s the thing, Finch. I’m not injured. I don’t need his help.”
“To him, it’s just a matter of time.”
“We’re all gonna die someday. Is he trying to protect me from that, too?”
Finch continued looking at her coffee. “He knows stuff now.”
“Like what?”
“He can’t say. But there’s been things explained to him, he says. You just need to trust him.”
Gray rolled her eyes. “I know how this place works. It’s not complicated, and that’s the beauty of it. Corpsmen get hurt out here, and sometimes they die. If you’re lucky, you make your ten years like Wesson did. And I’m happy for him, really. But he…”
She had to stop herself there.
“The point is, I trust the Corps as much as I need to. We’re not fuckin’ Moonies. I don’t see Hitch wearing a crown.”
Finch snorted.
“You know what I think?” Gray continued. “I think he’s mad that I’m not tripping over myself to get back in his cot.”
“Oh come on. Really?”
“Really. Did you see the duty roster?”
“He had me take a look while he was writing it, but…”
“I’m TBD. He’s making this weird on purpose, Finch. Can’t you see what he’s doing?”
“He’s not doing anything. In another couple months I’ll be out on patrols shooting ‘Naks again. He said so himself. You just need to lighten up a little.”
Gray frowned, and after a minute, she decided to switch gears.
“What’s going on Friday?”
It was Finch’s turn to frown.
“Nothing. And how did you know?”
“Word gets around,” Gray muttered.
“It’s cards, OK? That’s it.”
“Just you and Wesson?”
“Basically.”
Finch checked her watch then and stood.
“I gotta head to the med tent for a bit,” she said. “Wesson should be in by now, if you want to talk to him.”
“Guess I’d better.”
They both rose and left, but Gray took a moment outside to let out the breath she’d been holding.
What the fuck happened here while she was away? All it took was a week and Wesson had managed to… to do something to Finch. The fifth-year just lied through her teeth for him. How could she?
Sure, Gray had lied once too. But this was different. It had to be.
Up ahead, behind the brown-gray mountains, not quite majestic but still good in their mountain-ness, a thick tower of clouds gathered. Was it a storm? She wondered if Fox would see any squalls this year, or if the dry spell would last through autumn. Tensions ran high through the summer season as everyone anxiously waited for the catharsis of rain. And you could feel it coming. The sudden rush of wind, the weight in the air. The smell. It’s like rain had a pheromone too: one that calmed the nerves and made everything feel new again.
Off to her left was brown toon’s office. Eyes on her boots, Gray went over to see if the captain was in.
She didn’t have any words planned, but the anger and unease churned. Like the sound of ‘Nak boots on gravel, though, the sight of another officer standing with Wesson had her stop dead in her tracks and think of nothing else but survival.
“Sirs,” Gray mumbled, clasping her hands neatly behind her back.
The officer, one of Black Fox’s support staff, shot her a look and made sure to finish speaking.
“So just remember, form C22 needs two requisitions for filing, D22 needs three, because you go to the head of records for that one. Make sense?”
“Yeah,” Wesson said, nodding curtly. “Yeah, OK, I get it now. Thanks for the help, Devora.”
“You’re in for poker tonight, right?”
“Oh, you can count on it!”
The man from Black Fox circled around to the tent flap. Gray dutifully stepped aside, and nodded at his leave. As soon as the canvas fell back into place, she sucked in a breath. Wesson finally looked at her.
“First off, perfect, thank you. Those guys love it when I look like I have my shit together.” He chuckled and straightened a few stacks of papers. “What d’you need, Gray?”
Fuck, it was like holding in a full bladder.
“If you need to talk, you know where to fucking find me,” she hissed.
“Hey, whoa, what?”
“The board, Wesson. What are you mad about? Last week, or three years ago?”
“Four years ago,” he corrected.
If it weren’t for the conversation, he’d have looked every bit as comfortable behind that desk as any other officer. Even the dark rings under his eyes from the late nights he was spending here were worn like a badge of pride.
“Where’s my schedule?”
“You have a couple options, I just wanted to see which one you’d prefer.”
Gray narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re playing with me. Give me whatever, sir.”
“So my friend doesn’t want my help at all.”
For some reason those words hit her particularly hard.
“I’m a sentry. Give me sentry.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t want something easier?” Wesson thumbed through some papers on the desk, possibly for effect. “There’s laundry this week, a patrol circuit…”
What was he doing? His words were plain, but they were slippery, muddy, hiding things. Is this how he talked to Finch for a whole week? He made this seem so strangely urgent, like she was running out of time.
Running out of time to get used to his new power over her life.
“This is your last chance, Gray.” Wesson rose from the desk and put his hands down on it. “Stay close to me and you’ll make it. And I can’t keep arguing with you like this… someone’s going to find out and then they’ll expect me to give you the lash for it.”
She didn’t say anything.
“You have no idea how hard this has been for me, G. They’ve been putting me through my paces so I’d have to prove myself with extra work, and now they expect me to host the visiting wastelanders this weekend. They’re an important cartel and it’s my job to impress them.”
Gray’s heart sank as she put 1-and-1 together. And her face hardened.
“Whatever sob story you told to Finch, won’t work on me.”
“Alright, fine. You came in here to get your schedule. Here you go, how does another six days of solitary at blind 14 sound?”
Blind 14 was… to the northeast, on a rocky hill. Blazing hot in the late afternoon.
She clenched her jaw as she spoke. “Great.”
“Yeah? Alright, you can have it next week too.”
“Perfect. Am I dismissed, sir?”
“I still need to debrief you.” The young captain reached into a drawer for a form. He filled it out.
“Did you, at any time during your shift, leave your post.”
“No, sir.”
“Did you, at any time during your shift, see, hear, or otherwise notice any suspicious activity in your vicinity?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you interact with any civilian human during your shift?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you fire any shots?”
“No, sir.”
“Would you willingly submit your weapon to a bullet count?”
“Yes, sir.”
He scribbled down one final note at the end of the page, and tucked it away again.
“That’ll be all, corpsman,” Wesson said. “Kim will be inspecting your weapon at the armory.”
Gray drew her lips into a fine line; if you hadn’t fired a weapon, the question was a formality. She’d never been subjected to one otherwise.
“Enjoy the rest of your Saturday,” he said cooly. Then, reaching into a drawer, produced a white slip stamped with blue. “Have a drink on me.”
Gray snatched the friday out of his hand, crumpling it up into her fist and said nothing more as she left. Outside, she reeled, hands trembling.
What just happened?
Who was that man behind the desk? He looked like Wesson, sounded like Wesson; it seemed like an impostor wearing his skin. Or maybe she had it all backwards. Maybe this was the real Wesson, and the corpsman she’d come to know for the past seven years—the corpsman she’d almost fallen in love with, laid herself bare for—had been the lie.
But all of that needed to be stowed, because if nothing else, Wesson had just done her an immense favor: he’d reminded her that it was Saturday.
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@kisupure said in Petrichor - a novel in "open beta" - [M/f, minigiant, post-apocalyptic dystopia, slavery, military setting]:
What was he doing? His words were plain, but they were slippery, muddy, hiding things. Is this how he talked to Finch for a whole week? He made this seem so strangely urgent, like she was running out of time.
Like the pheromone, she can detect the foreboding but she cannot see the cause.
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CHAPTER 9
FINALLY, A SEX SCENE!
Gray had spent the afternoon napping, or trying to. Her thoughts were spinning in all directions, and after staring at the canvas above her head for a long time, she realized that her feelings were not incompatible with each other. In fact, the fire in her belly burned for two reasons, like riders approaching each other from different directions on the road. They met, now. Shook hands. Her lust for the sentinel and her frustration with Wesson were one in the same thing.
If he showed up tonight—there was always the chance he wouldn’t—and if he didn’t use this opportunity to wreak bloody havoc—there was always the chance that he would—then maybe, just maybe, this was the solution to her problem. The middle finger she was looking for. Gray could dangle her treason in front of his face every time she stepped into his office without him suspecting a goddamn thing.
Maybe she could have this.
One of her bunkmates came in to change out of a shirt drenched in sweat. “You’ve been hard to find lately,” she said, pulling the garment off to reveal a back crisscrossed with a few old switch scars. “Gonna play some strip horseshoes when the sun goes down. You in?”
Gray swallowed. “Nah, I’m busy.”
“With what? C’mon, don’t you wanna see that nice ass Tucker’s got? Or how ‘bout Hill’s?” Hill was a woman.
“I think I might have a date with somebody else’s ass, actually.”
“Ooh. Who’s the corpsman?”
Gray bit back a smirk and her heart began to race at the thrill of it all. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“I’ll find out one way or another,” the other woman said, pulling down the new shirt. “Have fun!”
Gray waved her out. “I’ll try,” she murmured to herself.
* * *
2140 arrived. Gray was restless, abuzz with anticipation, excitement, a sense of danger not unlike the kind she felt in a firefight. But she wasn’t going to war, so the corpsman had settled for spending a friday to throw back some hard shine near the checkpoint to watch the summer sun dance along the far horizon. Near the end, it flattened into a lumpy red blob in the haze for a short while, then finally winked out of existence along with her drink.
Dusk in the Southland was her favorite time of day. The tans and golden browns of the landscape ripened to purple and ochre, and when the afternoon heat finally began to evaporate into the cooler night air, it was almost possible to imagine that the world wasn’t one endless, shell-pocked desert. As she started walking, a pleasant breeze picked up and Gray found that her nerves had calmed a little. But she couldn’t delay any longer, it was almost time.
Gray made her way up the canyon, shivering despite the heat.
For all intents and purposes, she looked like any other tired corpsman taking an evening stroll to clear the mind. She passed the mules in their corral, passed the pair of patrolmen whose movements the sentinel had tracked, noted, and memorized long ago. Their uniforms indicated that they were with Rose Fox, so she didn’t know them and by her guess, they were only a few minutes away from the beginning of their circuit. The Anak’s comment about their behavior was proven right also: these two were taking their sweet-ass time, barely aware of their surroundings as they talked and chewed on what looked like a couple codys. She nodded to them as they went by, but neither noticed.
The canyon began to narrow here, its walls steep and rocky. Gray had no idea how the sentinel would find his way down from a path along the top of the hills, but she didn’t doubt that he had one in mind. The hairs on her arms stood on end as she turned her brown eyes upward, following the ridges above, trying to see any signs of life or movement among the tall grass and tobacco trees. Nothing but the rustling breeze. Up ahead was the long maze of storage: mismatched crates, boxes, barrels of varying make and age, all of it salvage. Inside them? Extra tent canvas, spare parts for everything from guns to cot frames, paper, light bulbs, copper wire. The important stuff was kept under better lock and key, but everything here, bulky and unconcealed, was the boring necessities of sustaining a Corps camp. And it provided ample cover for an illicit encounter. In fact, it was a surprise that she hadn’t stumbled across anyone else with the same idea yet.
“Can’t believe I’m doing this,” she whispered to the mass of containers.
Gray passed row upon row of storage, some piled neater than others. She hurried along, not quite sure why, but decided that she was looking for a place they could meet. Don’t mind me, she declared in her head. Just figuring out where to fool around with a goddamn ‘Nak.
The perfect spot was near the end. Crates stacked well above her head, encircling a small area. But that’s when she saw it: several storage rooms dug out of the hillside, kept cool and hidden by a board of plywood and canvas flap. Gray glanced around, listened, heard nothing. Heart beating, she set the board aside and pushed away the flap. Feeling around for a switch, with a flick the single bulb heaved to life above. It couldn’t have been more than 20 watts. Just enough to bathe the small space in a meager, shadowy glow. Enough to find one’s way through a tangle of limbs. She checked her watch: 2158.
She immediately shrugged off her overshirt and undid her belt, setting them quietly down on the floor just inside. Her sider was going to be next, but as she considered its modest weight in her hand, Gray turned on the safety and put it in her pocket… just in case. He was still an Anak after all.
Then, she waited.
But she didn’t have to wait long.
There was a noise outside. It wasn’t him, as far as she could tell, and it took a few moments of searching to find the source: there was a stick at her feet that hadn’t been there before. When she held it to the light, she saw that it was roughly inscribed with three straight-lined marks, separated each by one dot. Her Morse was rusty, but the prosign was familiar: ATTENTION, it meant.
There was another noise, then. A faint crack from the right, the smallest shuffle, and a moment later her eyes fell on that towering wall of gray shadow that blended expertly into the twilight, rounding the corner with predatory skill. The sentinel was right on time. She looked at him, some part of her still in complete disbelief at what was unfolding.
The soldier in her reached for the comfort of her little sider, ran her fingers over it, told herself that if this was all a ruse then she still had a chance to make it out alive, because there was no turning back now. She wondered if she could ever trust him more than this, or if she was going to be content fucking a man she might have to pull a gun on.
All nine feet of him stood beside the bank of crates as he rested his elbow on it, the wood creaking under his weight. In the thinning light, though, he was quite a sight: lean, imposing, with his face obscured by that cloth and eyes hidden behind the striking green lenses of what could only be a pair of night–vision goggles. She’s heard about them before, but never seen a pair herself. Gray could only imagine what they would look like while in the squeeze.
Quickly he tugged the fabric under his chin and raised the eyewear to rest above his forehead, and his face caught the light in just such a way that it occurred to her she was looking at one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen in her whole goddamn life. Besides her nerves, it felt like her heart was going to explode.
“W-we’ve got forty minutes,” was the first thing she said. Gray could have smacked herself for how unsexy of an opener that was. Worse, her apprehension was showing.
But he didn’t seem to give a damn. The giant wasted no time kissing her: it was deep and salty and he tasted like cigarette smoke. That roughed–up palm of his glove was behind her neck, up in her hair, down to her shoulders and then her arms. He broke away, giving her a little wink and a smile before twisting on his heels and pushing her in through the door as though he knew what she’d planned for them.
“We’d better get started, then.”
Gray glanced at her watch for reference, committed the hour to memory and marveled as he entered the small shelter, ducking deeply. He closed the door behind them. This was it now.
As if reading her mind, he asked: “We gonna do the enemy soldier song and dance again?”
Fuck, she loved the sound of that deep voice, so raspy around the edges. Gray couldn’t tell if she wanted to jump him or call it all off. But she steeled herself. This is it, corpsman. You’ve got treason to commit now, or didn’t you know?
He didn’t have his pack on, she realized—he must have left it somewhere nearby—and so he started with his body armor. Slim spaulders went first, dropped to the dirt floor, then he quickly undid the bracers around his big forearms. Gray watched him in fascination, forgetting herself for a few moments. She never in her life imagined be here, close enough to a ‘Nak to see the whites of his eyes outside of a battle, outside the do or die logic of war. Well, she did on the rare occasion. But she never told a soul.
“Why?” she countered, blood still beating in her ears as she went for the belt holding her pants up. “You want to?” Surely, false confidence was better than none.
The Anak shook his big head.
“You wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight in a tight space like this,” he said with a smirk, eyes roaming around the interior of the sandstone bunker for a moment to punctuate his point. “I’d have you on the ground in no time.”
Was he talking about killing her, or fucking her?
Gray shot him a look, at once wry and flirtatious, and realized that he was trying to make her—or the both of them, maybe—feel more at ease. She was half his size and a quarter his weight, sure, but he could still catch lead like her, could still bleed out with a well-aimed shot. She cocked a hip and an eyebrow at him, acutely aware of the gun in her pocket and the fact that once she discarded her pants, she wouldn’t be within easy reach of another weapon.
“You don’t know what I’m packing,” she half–joked.
Before she had a chance to slowly shimmy off her slacks, he had her by the hip–bones against him again, pressed very fully against that familiar tenting in his pants. Every nerve–ending in her body lit up when he ground those hips into hers, pressing that bulge against a much smaller mons. She was surrounded by him, his dust, his need. She had to remember to breathe.
“You don’t know what I’m packing either,” he smirked into her shoulder as she could feel heat beat her cheeks red.
She braced herself against that wall of a body as his still-gloved hands began to roam, and it wasn’t long before he came to the familiar shape in her pocket. He reached in with two fingers and pinched it out. Gray looked away. Embarrassed?
“Weren’t going to be able to hide that for long,” he said, and dropped the sider to the floor before yanking her pants down.
Gray still averted her eyes, settling on the rippling muscle of his clothed thigh. “A little protection,” she said, forcing a laugh.
“Yeah,” he said with a faint snort. “Old habits die hard, don’t they?”
Then he reached into his boot and slid out a fierce looking knife, showing it to her before pushing the blade into the dirt beside her gun. The small gesture said a lot to someone like her. He kissed her again, finally tearing off his gloves.
“It feels weird to not be afraid,” she said when she broke for air. It was another dumb thing to say, but it was true.
The sentinel chuckled and it sounded like gravel. “Spoken like a true corpsman.”
A minute later they were both shirtless and he was on his back with her straddling his firm waistline. Finally, she could see what he looked like under all that brown and gray.
And he was marvelous. A quick survey of his chest, broad and strong, revealed a hard life: scarring, chillingly symmetrical from implants, and scattered others from his time in the wilderness. There was a fading tattoo underneath his left collarbone: R-402, it read in plain black. Gray became momentarily aware of the slight metal chain around her neck, and the stamped tags tucked into her compression top that had a something similar pressed into them, her Enlistment Identification Number. Her fingers found the ink in his skin. She wanted to see if she could feel the tattoo, and found that she could.
“They call me Rice,” he murmured. No given names for Anakim either, then?
“Gray,” she replied.
“I know.” His bare hands, almost as rough as the gloves, were on her back now, imposing against her slender bones. Imposing, but god, so good.
How could this be treason?
She could sit there, staring at that body, that handsome face, and feel those strong hands against her spine for eons. But they didn’t have eons: they had barely more than half an hour. The giant soldier underneath her seemed to remember this and he decided to push her compression top up to reveal soft, lean breasts.
Gray sucked in air as the sensitive flesh was exposed, and Rice rumbled deep in his chest, his eyes fixed on the smooth swells punctuated by dusky pink. His fingers soon followed, each one taking a breast and giving an almost reverent squeeze.
She couldn’t help the little moan. He grabbed harder this time, raking his thumbs across a pair of nipples quickly puckering up at the attention. He seemed to revel in their meager weight, their plump curves, stroking and cupping. Gray was aware of a throbbing heat between her legs and realized that she wanted to be touched there too. She arched, sliding her hips back so that her ass just grazed him through the fabric of his pants. A bold move.
“I’m not going to fit,” he grunted after drawing her face down to his for a second. Then he kissed her, as if to make up for the disappointment. “You know that, right?”
“Like hell you won’t.”
He cocked his head at her. “I’m nine–one, five–hundred and sixty pounds, Gray.” A chuckle. “If you’ve never taken five fingers, you’re not taking me.”
She bent over and nipped along the side of his thickly corded neck. “Never say die, Anak.”
The little human had no idea why she was fighting him over it. He probably could have convinced her if he’d stopped suppressing his pheromone, though, and the thought made her shiver.
“Hmm.”
In a swift motion, he was suddenly on top, a padded knee on either side of her ankles. He palmed at the bulge in his pants for a moment before going in to undo the buttons on the fly. She watched, enraptured and curious. It’s not that she’d never seen ‘Nak dick before, but she’d never seen one like this. Never seen one that wanted her.
Then there it was. The length of flesh that slipped out was almost startling, actually— thick, long, and with a little bit of a curve to his left. It only took a half second to realize that it was as big around as her forearm, and not at the wrist.
Poised above her, Rice met her gaze again with a pair of very dark eyes. “Told you,” he said.
The excitement went straight between her legs and she unconsciously arched up toward him, wanting, needing to be touched again. Gray, partly driven by a refusal to admit defeat and partly driven by some animal need to feel that thing between her legs, set her jaw and dug in her heels.
“Never say die,” she repeated.
He quirked a brow at her and one corner of his mouth curled in the faintest hint of a smirk. “I would if I were you.”
Rice seemed to enjoy moving her comparatively slight weight around because he had her again, grabbed her with those huge hands by the hip and the shoulder, turned her as he pulled her up to him and sat back on his heels. Gray’s shoulders were against his warm chest, simply dwarfed by the breadth of his own. The crown of her head barely grazed his chin as he held her precipitously above that heaving organ.
Big, was the only word that crossed her mind for a moment. Fucking big… all of him. Jesus!
With a hooked thumb he slid her underwear down her thighs just enough to expose that moist heat between her legs with practiced confidence. The suspense was killing her and she fought back a whimper.
Her mind nearly exploded when the head, a rich, purple-red, slid up against her folds and brushed her clit, sending a jolt of pleasure rushing from her head to each of her curling toes. Gray arched even more, trying to angle herself against it by some primal reasoning but froze when she felt the pressure of him trying to enter.
“Yeah,” he panted above her with both warmth and frustration, “Never say die until you realize you have no lube. Now hold still while I…”
He wasn’t interrupted so much as he didn’t bother to finish. With a deep growl he was in. Well, the first inch of him.
Gray hissed loudly and gasped.
“F-fuck!”
The sentinel’s girth had her stretched as wide as she’d ever been in her life and her aching cunt stung around the invading member. She had to do something with her hands— anything—and they settled for holding on for dear life. He shifted slightly underneath her, and even that seemed to push the air from her lungs.
Still, Gray was no stranger to pain, and it didn’t take long for her to feel the pleasure percolating beneath it.
“You can tap out.” Rice’s words were breathy and ragged, and he struggled to hold still.
“So can—” Gray whimpered when he moved the tiniest bit. “—you.”
That appeared to be a challenge he wasn’t going to walk away from. Quickly, the giant adjusted their positions, pinning her knees to her chest with one arm and wrapping his fingers around her slender neck with the other. A pang of fear electrified her and her own little fingers grasped at the hand at her neck, strong enough, she imagined, to crush her windpipe in the blink of an eye.
He plunged in another nearly unbearable inch, and muffled her cry with his tongue in her mouth.
Gray’s head swam, and she was prepared to regret playing with fire. But what she didn’t expect was the intense wave of pleasure when he pulled out. A clever quip would have taken more wherewithal than she had now. A wordless moan was all she could manage instead.
“Unh.”
He worked himself back in with what few inches her body could accommodate like this, hand still on her neck but not tightening. It was there for effect—an effect that she found she liked. It kept her on edge like the pheromone.
Gray realized that she wasn’t going to last long like this. Rice withdrew once more and drove back in, rocking his hips so carefully into her, and she was all ragged whimpers and straining muscles and hot, hot heat—
Orgasm rolled through her, spreading from the pressure in her pussy down to her toes and up to the scalp on the top of her head.
His hand was quick to cover her mouth before her cries could reach their crescendo. The corpsman’s body stiffened so much and so quickly that her bones felt like they would break if her climax had hit any harder, and she made ugly, desperate noises against the palm of his hand.
Her legs shook and her cunt shivered, greedily clutching at that massive cock, either trying to push it out or pull it further in, maybe both. The giant groaned when her muscles gripped him even harder, but he was patient, she dimly noted—he was waiting for her to finish. Eventually she collapsed back against him, shaking and holding onto herself.
“Mm, you sure showed me,” the giant muttered into her hair.
Gray didn’t dare move because he was still in her, still hard, and still putting pressure on all the right places. But she was tired now. Her hips ached. She was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. It felt like she’d just walked a mile with a hundred-pound ruck. But they weren’t done. At least, Rice wasn’t, and something told her that he hadn’t risked life and limb just to get her off.
She was about to say something, but the rosy haze had turned her mind to mush. After a moment he gave a small thrust into her hypersensitive cunt: she yelped, and he laughed.
“Wake up, corpy,” he chuckled. “We’ve got fifteen minutes.”
He eased himself out of her, and she whimpered.
“Over there.” Rice picked her up and set her on the ground against a few crates. Kneeling, his cock was at the perfect height for her to use her mouth. Above, she saw him brace his massive hands on the containers, effectively pinning her down. Gray swallowed, reminding herself that this was a dangerous position to be in. More dangerous than what she’d just done? Hardly. But things still felt weird without the fear. Disorienting; only, in a good way.
The one thing she could know for sure, though, was that this Rice, this deadly Anak sentinel, was using her as a means to an end. But it was mutual, they both understood. Their allegiances didn’t matter here in this cramped room, only that base hunger for touch. For a witness.
But there was something else, too: why agree to go through the trouble to fuck a corpsman on camp soil? Surely, there was another, bigger game he was playing that Gray was providing a set piece for.
And yet, it still didn’t seem wrong. Or, wrong enough.
As the massive man rolled his hips in closer to her face, Gray momentarily thought of Wesson. She’d slept with him a number of times; the sex wasn’t bad, exactly, but not good either. He’d been gentle and mealy, sentimental. But there was no time for that. Not at Fox, not in the Corps, not anywhere in the vast rolling desert of the Southland.
Why Wesson wanted romance was beyond her. Romance didn’t just stifle, it made things more complicated than they needed to be. Then she remembered another corpsman, his name forgotten to her now, and how he’d put his hand around her neck once too. But still, it hadn’t been like this. It hadn’t been an Anak’s hand.
Rice’s boots scraped against the floor, and the sound drew her out of her head. Boots in the dirt, she thought, turning the image over in her mind a few times. It was one of the most honest sounds she could think of.
He grabbed himself, touched the sticky moisture at the tip of his cock to her lip. Gray smelled herself on him and blushed. But beyond that, he was clean. He must have bathed for this, somehow.
Gray’s tongue darted out to lick at the precum, and she could feel his eyes digging into her from high above. She took him in both hands, suddenly wondering if her knowledge of human anatomy would be enough here.
“Are you… it’s like a human’s, just bigger, right?”
She glanced up, suddenly sheepish and feeling very, very small now.
“Far as I can tell,” he grunted.
Rice reached down to grab and stroke her chin, a little roughness in the gesture reminding her that the clock was ticking.
Licking her lips, Gray opened her mouth as wide as it would go and he pushed in to the back molars, which was as far as he could go. Even then she had to fight a gag.
Rice felt it and massaged at the bulge under her chin. “Don’t need you to deepthroat,” he murmured. “You can grip me harder than that, though.”
Gray nodded with his cock still splitting her mouth open and got to work synchronizing her pumping fists with bobbing her head around the first few inches of his heaving length.
She couldn’t believe how hot he was! Or how rock-hard now; it was like stroking sun-baked saddle leather. His veins were so pronounced that she felt like she’d be able to feel the pumping blood under the tight skin. It was like even his dick was made of muscle.
“Fingers can’t wrap all the way around me, can they?” he quietly teased.
She responded with a short moan that vibrated around his hot cockhead, so swollen now that she could barely tug at his foreskin. She rubbed her tongue along the underneath of his head, and when she pulled away, she licked up along the slit, oozing his moisture now.
“Getting close, keep going.”
Gray picked up her pace. She stroked along his thick shaft as hard as she could, lubricating him with her spit, and hollowed her her cheeks to suckle at the tip. A swear left the giant’s lips and wood creaked high above.
He reached down to cup the back of her head, threading fingers through her hair as he began rocking his hips in a way that told her he was still in tight control. One overzealous move and he could choke her. Or have his dick bitten. It was impossible to tell which one was the stronger motivator.
Before long, Gray was sucking and stroking as fast as her tired little body could go. He helped by grabbing himself at the root to stroke his bottom half, and from what she could see, his breaths were growing more labored, his cut belly tightening with every heave of his chest.
“Y’ready?” he breathed.
A second later he grabbed her by the hair hard enough to sting and stiffened. His huge body convulsed once, twice, and he kept his cock firmly buried in the back of her mouth as he pumped his load into her with a groan. Gray held onto his hips and made a noise as she struggled to swallow the globs of heat hitting her throat, concentrating on not gagging, don’t gag, don’t gag!
There was still so much of it in her mouth when he freed himself from her aching jaw with a thread of milky split connecting them for a moment.
Licking her lips, Gray was finally able to actually taste him. His flavor was surprisingly clean, too, and human enough, but there was a note there, faint, that was immediately recognizable, and it made her heart jump.
Rice sat down, an arm resting on his knee as he breathed slow and content, need satiated for now. Gray was still busy swallowing the last of his cum as she went to sit beside him. Idly, they both watched his erection flag until it lay limply against his leg.
He tucked it away again, buttoned up his fly, then without warning pulled her up into his lap like the rag doll she suddenly was. They sat like that for a minute or two, half–listening for approaching corpsmen, half lost in the doped–up haze of post–orgasm. But something else made her not want to get too comfortable.
“How’d you learn to fuck a human like that?” Gray asked, not sure she really wanted to know the answer.
“I’m a sentinel,” he grunted. “A free-range operator. And there’s still a lot of free–range humans out there.”
Gray started to wonder what that meant, having been only sixteen when she left that world behind. But why should that surprise her? There were more people out in the wastes than the Corps, after all. She supposed that if he had something valuable enough to offer someone, then they would probably have no problem trading themselves for it. She wondered if he ever threatened anyone for sex, but something struck her odd about the idea.
“Though to be honest,” he continued lazily, and there was the faintest hint of satisfaction in his voice that she couldn’t get a read on. “I’ve never fucked a corpsman before.”
Neither of them said anything for a long beat, but the way the air in the storage room was starting to feel, Gray could tell that a something was bubbling to the forefront of both their minds. He spoke to it first.
“Question is, the hell do we do now?”
He’d been naive, she realized, in pursuing her like that, and he knew it. Maybe he was used to having the kind of latitude that let him follow his whims, used to being able to bend the rules. Gray wondered if he hadn’t actually thought this through, or if he’d been thinking with his dick too much.
Because fuck knows she hadn’t been thinking with her brain either.
Her mouth was suddenly dry, but she spoke anyway. “We put on our uniforms and go back to doing our jobs,” she muttered.
Gray suddenly felt that his pants were too rough for her bare thighs, and his skin too warm for her bare back, so she released herself from his loose grasp and staggered back to her clothes across the room. Her watch told her that their time was almost up.
She hefted up her pants and underwear at the same time, and reached for her shirt. She stole a glance at the Anak as he dressed, watching him strap on his matte beige gear. He must’ve caught her looking, because he nodded in distant agreement, but her answer also seemed to bother him.
She was ready in the short span that he was, and it was time for him to go. The light was switched off again. She sucked in a shaking breath and held it as she peeked outside the door, listening to the silence for any trace of movement. There was none, and Gray stepped out. He followed and the two found themselves among the crates again, obscured by the deeper shadows of night.
“Let’s do that again,” he said. He’d taken a knee, goggles hanging loosely around his neck. His gloved hand held onto her hip with his thumb stroking her belly.
Images and sensations passed through her mind’s eye and she tingled with a small surge of adrenaline. Could they have this? Would they be able to hang onto this simple, dangerous arrangement, even when all the forces of their world were hurtling them towards the grim and inevitable? Gray felt compelled to try. If she couldn’t assert herself against the interests of the upranked, she could at least assert herself here. She could bring this back to camp and unlike shifts, unlike fridays, unlike codys and blankets, the Corps didn’t give it to her, and so the Corps couldn’t take it away.
Gray’s own game had begun.
“Yeah, we should.”
“When?”
“This is your territory, isn’t it?” she countered with a little smile. “You tell me.”
He laughed quietly, and she almost lost herself in that deep, earthy sound. “You won’t like me gettin’ the drop on you.”
Gray grabbed the webbing of his vest and yanked him forward with the help of his cooperation. “You thought my pussy wouldn’t like your cock either. Seems to me like you’re in the habit of being wrong.”
His smile widened and he showed teeth. “Big words for a human.”
She snorted, was about to make some kind of clever, sexy rebuttal, but Rice just kissed her before she had the chance. His fully-loaded silhouette, ominous and striking in its effect on the senses, blocked the starry sky from her field of vision. But he was gentle, if not a little trepid, even. Not the behavior of a well-trained ‘Nak.
Then he lifted up his goggles, depressed a button along the side, and disappeared back into the wild like a rustle on the breeze.
http:/sizekink.com
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Oh, that was nice. His hands on her spine and the back of her head were the best. And of course dialogue is the best way to explore characters. I’m pretty sure no human ever gets used to a Nak’s voice.
“W-we’ve got forty minutes,” was the first thing she said. Gray could have smacked herself for how unsexy of an opener that was.
Honey, he’s here. You don’t need to close the sale.
“Spoken like a true corpsman.”
How would you know, Traitor?
Booker rumbled deep in his chest
Um, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.
something told her that he hadn’t risked life and limb just to get her off
You never know.
gentle and mealy
Such a nasty thing to say.
She glanced up, suddenly sheepish and feeling very, very small now.
Aaand now you have your next illustration.
Gray was still busy swallowing the last of his cum as she went to sit beside him.
I guess now she can afford to swap her daily protein ration for a friday.
“Let’s do that again,” he said.
[Moonstruck Cher:] “Snap out of it!”
They are so doomed.
All my M/f stories and discussions can be found here.
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I’m pretty sure no human ever gets used to a Nak’s voice.
I’m imagining Tim Storms’ bass + essentially a built-in subwoofer. Like seriously: think of the resonance a chest cavity that big would provide!
Um, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.
I knew I left one in!
I’ve spent the past 3 fucking years waffling over his name, changing it probably 8 times. Literally yesterday I said ‘fuck it’ and went with the original from the vignette.
I may still change it.
Such a nasty thing to say.
Especially in this fetish, amirite?
Aaand now you have your next illustration.
Got you covered, fam.
I guess now she can afford to swap her daily protein ration for a friday
Probably tastes way better than hardtack, even after feeding him asparagus.
[Moonstruck Cher:] “Snap out of it!”
They are so doomed.
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@kisupure You certainly know how to write size erotica well…that was so powerful and sensual
It’s also fascinating to watch their relationship as it grows and to wonder what the consequences of that relationship will be.
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