Not Another Hero

by Wendy Rathbone

“I know that. I’m not some monster. I can be kind and gentle.”

  She makes a disgusted noise. “You’re the playboy of the stars.”

  “Is that what they call me now?” I laugh.

  “No. It’s what I call you behind your back.”

  The muscles around my eyes tighten. I turn away. I can’t think of any comeback to that. Sure, we crew can get into fights. Even I do, as the captain, when I forget for a moment my role is supposed to inspire cooperation, camaraderie, but I don’t deserve this rudeness from her. I reassure myself she’s just looking out for her brother. She’s being the protective big sister. He told me himself she is like that.

  Finally, I say, my back still to her, “I’m meeting him again tonight. Is that okay with you?”

  I hear a noise like a quick humf.

  “We get along well.” I turn, the full basket in my hand. “I hope to be seeing a lot of him on this voyage.”

  “I know. He’s into you. He told me but he didn’t have to. And half the crew knows. All those moony looks you gave each other today. The ship tour. People talk.”

  “I know.” Our version of the corporate water cooler. Gossip on this ship flies fast and hard.

  “Well? What’s going on? You can tell me.”

  I shrug. “Hanging out again tonight.”

  “He’s that good, eh?”

  Normally, I’d always say yes. About any of my crew. We have an honor code among each other. We don’t critique each other’s work. Ever. But I don’t feel like treating Drac as just any other crew member. I say, “I already told you. We get along well.”

  When I pick up the basket and head for the door, her gaze follows me. The smirk has still not left her face.

  *

  When I arrive at the upper deck I spy Drac already sitting on the long lounge facing the viewport. I set the basket on the floor and fall back beside him.

  The viewport takes up the entire bulkhead. There’s usually not much to see but darkness, but it seems Drac has the settings altered to give a little color and magnify the stars. This port does not face Earth, so there is no tiny blue star to try to find out there.

  I don’t miss home. Not yet. But sometimes on the longer voyages, I cannot wait to be planet-side in fresh air and real gravity, maybe sit on my porch and listen to the crickets. My money has bought me a nice place in Big Bear, east of Los Angeles. It’s shady and peaceful, and in winter it snows, which is amazing. I love my real wood fire place.

  I reach into the basket. “I have wine coolers this time. Sorry I couldn’t find any Coke.”

  “No problem.” But one sleek eyebrow rises.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “It seems I have been all day today.”

  “Yeah. Staying up all night will do that to a body.”

  He gives a quick laugh.

  I bring out the wine-cooler bottles and some sandwiches. Drac looks pleased.

  Immediately, Drac starts telling me about how amazing Lacrosse is as we eat. His excitement is contagious.

  We finish eating and relax. He is more talkative than ever. I never thought I’d see it.

  Finally, I find an opening to speak. I’m so enamored I can only think of one thing. “Will you kiss me again?”

  He leans forward, eyes alight. “Will you spend the night with me again?”

  “Yes!”

  We end up in my quarters this time.

  We can’t undress fast enough. When we fall into bed, it’s as if we never got up this morning. Everything resumes as if we never stopped making love. Our bodies press. Our lips merge. My hands and his hands explore everywhere. Our mouths follow.

  My orgasms break me apart. I am totally infatuated. Damn him, I’m in love.

  I want him everywhere. On me. In me. I offer myself and he accepts by way of taking the lube I grab from my bedside cabinet.

  He is thorough and gentle with me, more so than any other lover I’ve ever had. Correction. They were not lovers. They were business partners. Hook ups for the cameras, for the masses to view and get off on.

  It’s not like that with Drac. He takes his time. I’m on my hands and knees, and he doesn’t thrust into me like an overzealous actor. He goes slow so the burn is almost non-existent. I’m stretched, but his patience lets me feel myself stretch further in pure pleasure.

  When his hips graze my ass, he reaches around me and holds me tight to him, the embrace adding to the connection, the affection I can feel throbbing inside me, starting the euphoria to begin its roll through me.

  I press back into him, trying to get him deeper. I am filled to the brim, mind, heart and ass. I want him there forever.

  I moan.

  Drac says my name. “Stirling. Weldon. You feel incredible.”

  “You can move,” I say.

  He starts to pull back. Everything is slick and I don’t feel the usual uncomfortable sensation as I get used to the thrusts. He pushes in again, slow and gentle.

  “You can go faster,” I assure him.

  He laughs. He hugs me tighter to him. “I just want to feel you for a minute.”

  “That’s okay.”

  I let my head fall forward on my pillow. Voice muffled now, ass in air, I say, “What’s your real name?”

  “It’s Drac. My parents were emo or Goths or whatever you call it.”

  He pulls out again and thrusts back in a little harder.

  “Oh! That’s good!”

  No more talk. Just great thrusting. He’s so hard. Such a perfect fit. And the way it’s so smooth and natural, as if our bodies are meant to be one, is truly making love.

  He must feel what I’m feeling. I can’t be wrong about this. His shining eyes, his eagerness to spend the whole night with me last night, and now this.

  We get into a rhythm and I never want to stop.

  My cock is so hard it’s flat against my belly. Pre-cum leaks from the tip and dribbles down. The head catches on my spread. It will leave a stain but I’m used to it. I’ve left more stains and washed more coverlets and sheets in a year than most people do in their lives. Yeah, I’ve had that much sex.

  But this beats it all.

  Drac’s thrusting becomes more interesting. Faster, yes, but he spins his hips a little and now the head of his cock is hitting my prostate every time he pushes back in. It causes little explosions in my mind, white and pink and red, and my blood burns.

  My whole body is charged with bliss. It’s already so good I could die happy like this. But when he pulls back and runs his hands over my waist, down my thighs, gripping, one hand encasing my cock, the climb to even greater ecstasy begins.

  I can’t stop moaning. No control. Not that I want it.

  Drac strokes my cock to the rhythm of his thrusts, faster and faster. We have wings now. We have lift-off.

  I go up and up until it seems there is no up left. But somehow there is, and I go even higher. Drac is keeping me poised on the precipice of utter rapture. His cries mingle with mine.

  I reach back and grab his hip, pulling him tight against me. “Come with me. Come with me,” I yell, because I don’t think I can hold back any longer and still live.

  Everything is colors out the corners of my eyes, and the perfumed fragrance of union. It’s all flying and rolling through the sweetest desire I’ve ever experienced. I slide my legs wider, trying to get him closer, deeper. He hits that spot again. Again. One more time and I’m lost. Falling. Screaming. Heaven explodes into a million heavens. I hear Drac crying out as if from a distance. Calling my name. “Stirling. Weldon.”

  I don’t care what he calls me. As long as he is with me. As long as he holds on and we do this together, I’ll be exhilarated forever.

  *

  When I come out of my bathroom, Drac is sound asleep. The covers are bunched about his feet and thighs, and he’s curled into a pillow. His back and ass are revealed, all the long muscle sweeps and dips brushed with shadow and light. I moved onto the bed, curling up behind him, my arm going around his waist.
His buttocks press against my thighs. My chest rubs his back. His breathing changes slightly and he pushes himself back. I embrace him tighter, bow my head until my nose parts the hair at the base of his neck, and close my eyes.

  I have never spent two nights in a row with anyone. Even John Luke would kick me out of his bed despite a perceived intimacy I thought we had for each other, despite my love for him.

  I want Drac with me all the time now. Is this just me acting like a kid again?

  But my body doesn’t think. It knows. Something deeper than flesh and porn-star thoughts craves him.

  As I fall to sleep, I am thinking: What will happen after this mission? What am I going to do?

  Chapter Ten

  For the next week, Drac and I take all our meals together. We spend every night in each other’s arms. We try out every position we can think of. We take turns topping and bottoming. We both confess we can’t decide which we like best. It’s a testament to our talents.

  Or maybe it’s more. I like to think that. Love plays a part, most definitely. I say, I love you in my mind a hundred times a day.

  But neither of us has said it aloud.

  The rest of the crew ignores us.

  The script is more like an outline. Not a rule. It doesn’t tell us who we are supposed to have relationships with, or for how long. We all play it by what feels right in the moment. So everyone assumes Drac and I are feeling right. At the moment. No one suspects it’s anything more.

  Except Danielle.

  Danielle glowers sometimes in passing, but Drac always smiles at her, and she forces him into conversations. She pretty much ignores me, which wasn’t the way when all this started. I don’t know if she hates that Drac is with me all the time now or if she wants more of his attention or what.

  This morning, in the galley, after Danielle talks to Drac and leaves, Drac comes up to me and says, “Dani says I have fan mail I’m ignoring.” He shrugs. “Who knew?”

  “Right. I pretty much ignore that. I never watch my own vids.”

  “No?”

  I shake my head. “It makes me self-conscious. I just can’t.”

  “Anyway, I have some work to do today in my quarters.”

  I understand that he’s trying to say, nicely, that he’s taking a break.

  I have work, too, that I’ve been neglecting. “I’m backlogged in my own reports. The PTB likes to hear from me now and then. I’ve been ignoring their messages.”

  “We can meet for lunch,” Drac offers.

  I lean up and kiss him. “Good plan.”

  Once in my quarters and at my computer, I realize how much I’ve been neglecting what few duties I have other than playing my role and fucking my crew. My agent has left ten messages. The PTB at least that many. And my PR rep has left me two. The last two usually have to do with promotional stuff and public appearances when I am on Earth so I ignore them for now.

  I deal with all of it as quickly as I can. The PTB sends me daily reports on my crew. Because I am Captain, if any of them aren’t doing well in their ratings, or are having problems settling, mixing, or the fans hate what they’re wearing, etc., they get a message and I get a message. I follow up with them while at the same time try not to micromanage them. I’m their boss in space, but their real bosses are the PTB. They own the rights to everything. They are the corporation we work for.

  When I receive the report on Drac, everything seems fine. Apparently our first vid was a mega hit. We are ranked in the top ten. He’s actually ahead of me. Jealousy flares for only a second and is gone. I’m so proud of him. But another short message pops up beside the first. Like a postscript.

  Drac has a lot of computer activity but we don’t see him at his computer enough to account for it. If he has auto-responses to his fan mail, that might account for some of it. But some of his outgoing messages are in terabytes. Look into this. I see you have access now. Could be a computer glitch.

  --Bill Trastivor, PTB

  Bill is the guy who corresponds with me the most. He’s like my handler from the corporation. Mostly, if the PTB has questions about a crew member, I meet with them, we go over the problem and solve it or not. If not, sometimes that crew member is fired when we return to Earth.

  But this is different. Like spying. I don’t recall doing that before.

  As Captain, I have access to files and parts of the ship’s computer the rest of the crew doesn’t have. Some of it is considered sensitive and encrypted. I never need to access that stuff.

  I also have access to personal interactions on all computers on board. But I don’t look at that stuff. Ever. There was only one time I had to, and that was when one of my crew was illegally selling bootleg vids of himself in space on the darkweb market. I didn’t have to do much in that case. The PTB cut him off from all media when they caught him. I confiscated his tech. That was it. He was pissed but stayed to himself until we got back to Earth. Not sure what happened to him after that.

  I pull up Drac’s accounts. I feel spacesick just doing that. I love him and now I’m intruding on his personal stuff.

  I tell myself I’m just going to glance at it all and see that it’s fine. Then I will return a quick message to Bill at PTB that everything’s in order.

  But when I look, everything isn’t in order.

  I can’t see what it is, and I should be able to, but Drac’s been sending a lot heavily loaded messages back to Earth to something called Vistech. It can’t be right.

  I check again. I see chunks of information outgoing. But I am blocked from seeing what it is.

  My computer messages me that its system on the bridge has a program I can use to see more. Why can’t the PTB do this from their end? Why does it have to be me?

  I send a quick message off to Bill asking him to do it from their end.

  I do other work while waiting for a reply.

  Two hours later I receive it.

  Drac’s accounts are blocked from us. He’s used the ship’s systems themselves to block us. There’s an auto-reroute of our attempts to break through. If you can get in through the bridge system manually and follow its instructions, maybe you can find out more.

  Bill Trastivor, PTB

  Because Drac’s system is wired through the ship, that’s now the only way in. PTB does not have the override options I might have if I use voice command on the bridge.

  I’m not a damn computer geek. I don’t know what I’m doing. And all of this is freaking me out. Drac is my lover. I don’t want to know that he’s doing anything wrong. I don’t want to be the one to catch him.

  If he’s selling bootleg vids or anything like that, I don’t want to know.

  I spend another hour pacing my quarters, wishing I had my lucky gold coin back so I can juggle it across my knuckles. That always soothes me.

  But Drac has it. And I want him to have it. I want to feel his arms around me. I want to go to him and tell him about all this, have him tell me there’s an easy and logical explanation. That nothing is wrong.

  With a huff, I grab my tablet and head to the bridge.

  Chapter Eleven

  When I get to the bridge, as expected it is empty. No one needs to be there, so they hardly ever are. There are a lot of screens and lights. The floor is hard. There are chairs at various stations, and a bigger, softer captain’s chair. I’ve had sex there many times. The bridge isn’t used for much else.

  There is one section of the bridge which isn’t just a model for the set, though. It contains a readout screen, as well as access to PTB library computers back on Earth. I never take advantage of this access. I don’t want more knowledge than I need to do my job. It just complicates things.

  I have the password. Just in case. But now I have to use my code for a way in to access Drac’s personal account.

  I verbally open the program. I speak my private code aloud. “Zero zero zero zero one.”

  First, before I look at Drac’s activity again and try to see what he’s exporting, I can’t stop
myself from checking on his personal PTB bio. I set it for reading since I can read twice as fast as the computer talks. Just that small process gives me a headache. Not because it’s work, but because it’s Drac.

  Immediately, I see both Drac and Danielle’s files. Why? Hers must be connected to his and I open it. It’s the standard file, though. Nothing much that I didn’t already know about her.

  It is less than suspicious. If she’s a scientist, then she’s been undercover as a Hero for ten years. This is her twenty-second mission – first time under my command – and she likes to read. Because of her beauty, she’s a popular crewer, but her love of the classics bores viewers. As with all Heroes, she’s bisexual.

  PTB thought that with her closeness to her younger brother, Drac, she might climb the popularity chart. They are hoping there might be some incest on the side. I know now there isn’t, but her record lists it as a factor in ratings and the possibility this could be exploited. In one month her rank has gone from one hundred and four to forty-four.

  Drac’s file follows.

  I scroll down to his popularity rating. I’d meant to look it up in my quarters, but forgot. I rarely look at my own. Usually I don’t care about numbers. They don’t affect my performance. Last I looked, we were both in the top ten. But that was days ago.

  When I see Drac is number two, right below John-Luke who is always number one, and two above me—I’m at four?—I do a double-take. We are both climbing fast. A thrill at this success courses through me.

  I verbally command the computer to show me Drac’s transactions for the past week from Lacrosse to Earth.

  Coincidentally, Drac chooses that moment to walk onto the bridge.

  I turn and my eyes must still be registering shock, because he says, not meeting my eyes, “Are you all right?”

  “Sure,” I sputter. “Just fine. What are you doing here?”

  He looks at the screen on the console before me just before I deftly flick it off, then walks past me toward the main viewer.