Fire & Flesh

by Kerri Carr

  “Oh, yeah, oh, yeah…” She squeezed her breast hard and thrust her hips back and forward. Mixed fluids coated her lips and his shaft, filling the room with wet noises.

  “Fuck, yes, fuck, yes. Oh, my God, that’s it right there. Oh fuck!” She shuddered to a halt, bucking her hips against him. Her breathing was deep, and fast; her eyes fluttered and her mouth hung open. He rocked his hips, but she laughed and shook her head.

  “No more?”

  “Not yet, baby. Not right now not yet no, no, no, please…” She began to fold over and collapse onto him, but he caught her shoulders and held her upright.

  “Careful, lover. Not with the baby on board.”

  “No, no, course not. Whew!” She ran both hands back through her hair and blew air up past her nose.

  “You were amazing,” he said.

  “I love you so much.”

  “Did you have fun?”

  “I did. It was good for your legs, and good for the baby.”

  “It was good for all of me.” He grinned.

  “Well, one part in particular.” She flexed her inner muscles and squeezed him tightly.

  He groaned. “More?”

  “Later, baby. Later. I gotta go clean up—before the dress is ruined.” She gathered the skirt as best she could and rose up. He slid out of her, to land with a wet slap. She shivered with delight at the sensation, then climbed off.

  “Sounds like they’ve finished next door, too.”

  “Nope,” Avery said. “They’re in between.” As she spoke, new cries rose, accompanied by loud slaps and a rhythmic knocking sound.

  “Marriage made in heaven?” Elliott asked.

  “Definitely. ‘Scuse me.” Avery hurried off to the bathroom, clutching the layers of wedding dress. Elliott relaxed on the bed, slipping his hands behind his head and considering what a lucky guy he was.

  He only had a moment to relax, however, before a cry from the bathroom made him sit up.

  “Baby?” Avery cried. “I think we’re gonna need a midwife.”

  “When?”

  “Right about now!”

  THE END

  Another bonus story is on the next page.

  Bonus Story 17 of 44

  Aileen

  Aileen Miroki hitched a ride from the Detroit Metro Airport on the back of a jet black motorcycle called Rabble Rouser, her auburn hair ruffled into the driver’s spare helmet. She had been down these long, tree-lined highways before, but in the winter air everything seemed different. Aileen hadn’t seen snow in six years, so she reveled in the sight while clutching her arms around the driver’s waist. She had five years of education from one of the world’s top astrophysics programs, and still she could barely comprehend the simple beauty of snow.

  The driver dropped her off at the edge of Ohio and was hesitant when she insisted that he leave her in the middle of nowhere. She was sure that he would come on to her, or offer to take her back to his place, but he was actually a gentleman under his red chrome helmet, and gave her a twenty despite her refusal. Aileen needed to be alone after the five-hour flight from Los Angeles, and only the vast countryside could give her relief before she finally returned home.

  Everything around her was white, and even under the layers of winter clothes she could still feel the cold air biting at her. It was a drastic change from the constant heat she was used to. There was still about 75 miles to the town of Luckey, and she was hungry to get her hands on her own set of wheels.

  If she remembered correctly, there was a used auto shop a few miles down the road. She walked south down Highway 15 For an hour, embracing the numbness as the cold set over her, first her legs and then her face. Hiking had always been a passion of hers, even though she normally hiked in the Santa Monica Mountains. Though there were no rattlesnakes out here, the icy road proved to be just as risky as any trail.

  Finally, she saw the sign for Viking Auto Sales in the distance, the junker dealership she and her father always passed when he dropped her off at the airport. Aileen walked to the small red building within the circle of used vehicles. A bell rang as she opened the door. The musty room seemed empty, except for a short bald man asleep behind the counter, the low sound of his daytime television show rambling on.

  “Hello, sir,” Aileen said, quiet enough as to not wake him.

  His eyelids drifted open, and once he caught sight of her he sat upright. “Sorry to wake you,” she said, peeking through the window to catch another glimpse of the vehicles outside. “I’m looking to walk out with something right now. Do you take cash?”

  The old man cleared his throat and smoothed out his clothes. “Well, yes, ma’am,” he mumbled. Aileen could tell that he found her attractive by his flush cheeks and averted gaze. Scrolling through his computer, the man coughed again and said, “Trouble is there’s no ATM or bank for another ten miles or so up the road.”

  Aileen smiled, removed her thick gloves and reached into her navy blue pea jacket. She withdrew a wad of cash and said, “I’ve got about six thousand, here. Five thousand for something I can drive off the lot, and one thousand for the trouble.”

  Money wasn’t something Aileen was low on, the government had assured that. After graduating at the top of her class, they had given her the Baroness Aviation Fellowship for Most Innovative Aircraft Design. If anyone asked why she didn’t work, she would vaguely reply, I’m taken care of, trying to brush the subject off.

  At the sight of the enormous wad, the man’s eyebrows shot up, not expecting her to pull it all out on the spot. “Are you…” he eyed her up and down, cautiously, “…looking for anything in particular?”

  “Something big,” she said with a grin, “and something manual.”

  He laughed at her excited face, understanding the innuendo. “Well, Miss, you sure do have a face I can trust. I think I have just the thing for you. It ain’t first class, but it’ll get you where you need to go.”

  “I’d love to see it,” Aileen replied, following the old man out the side door. He led her a few rows over to a white ’98 Dodge Dakota. “Extended cab, v-6 stick,” she said, running her hands along the scratched exterior. “I’ll take it.”

  ***

  Aileen felt the vibration of the engine through the steering wheel, and the heat didn’t work, but at least the lighter was intact, allowing her to chain-smoke for miles thanks to the pack of Marlboros the old man had given her. She kept the window down as she drove east, enjoying the brisk wind against her face. The dirty smell of cigarettes made her think of her father, and that was the thought that kept her foot steadfast on the gas pedal.

  Instead of taking the faster route, Route 6, which would be a straightaway until I-75, Aileen decided to follow the State Route 65 along River Road and across Grand Rapids. When she was a little girl, Aileen would go sledding with her mother and father at Fort Meigs where there was a giant slope that faced the enormous river. Aileen continued to visit their sledding spot at least once every year after her mother passed away.

  There was more than one ghost Aileen prepared to face as she drove through Perrysburg, around the pewter colonnade. Her first priority was to catch up with her father, as she’d promised all throughout school, because she had simply been too busy at CIT. Although her father didn’t study astrophysics, he was a well-known mechanic, and taught her everything she knew about handling vehicles.

  The other ghost that Aileen had in mind was Darren, her ex-fiancé. Darren had proposed to Aileen right out of high school and, although she said yes, Darren had different feelings about her moving to California. He was tall, handsome, clean-cut with a bright smile, and one of the brightest, wittiest men she had ever met. They were high school sweethearts, and it was true that she missed him from time to time. Living in Pasadena, however, she was never far from the nightlife of Hollywood, where she had more than her share of vain men trying to make it in the film industry. Her only other options were the guys in the astrophysics program, and they were a little too scrawny for her
taste.

  Who knew how long catching up with her father could take? She didn’t intend to rush anything with him. Darren could wait, and the truth was that he was married with children, anyway. That didn’t stop him from emailing her from a private account, though.

  Aileen wanted to spend time in the house where she grew up, watching the old movies that her and her father watched thousands of times over, laughing over the good times. For once it started to feel good being home again.

  The rest of the drive went by in a daze, and Aileen’s thoughts were lost admiring how good of a deal she got with the Dodge. Sure, she had a rattle to her, but the transmission was fluid with every jerk of the stick shift Aileen made. Her house was far out into the country, the only house for miles, acres all around it. Aileen had always thought it strange that when they went to the grocery store, they always had to buy enough supplies for the whole month, because the closest store was an hour away. In LA, Aileen had little to no reason to leave her apartment other than class.

  The fields in Luckey were barren in the wintertime, and as Aileen looked ahead to her house, she could see blinking lights blurred in the distance. Flashes of red came from the duo of vehicles parked outside the house. Is my father okay? Aileen thought. She kept her foot steady on the pedal until she realized that the vehicles were both paramedics.

  *****

  The truck increased speed, and when Aileen finally reached the house, she left the vehicle running in the yard, hopped out, and ran for the front door. There were no paramedics outside, and as she entered the house, there was one woman about her age standing at the foot of the wood-paneled stairwell.

  “Are you Mr. Miroki’s daughter?” the paramedic asked.

  “Yes, I am,” Aileen answered. “Where is he?” She looked around frantically, not letting herself think the worst of the worst quite yet.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Miroki, but your father is gone,” she said, her face tightening inward. “I’m afraid he suffered a heart attack about an hour ago. He called 911, but when the operator answered, there was no response.”

  This can’t be happening, Aileen thought. I was finally finished with school, finally ready to be his daughter again. She closed her eyes, her face hot with the need to create tears. The paramedic reached out and put her hand on Aileen’s shoulder.

  “We’ve already taken him into the ambulance,” the paramedic said. “They were just upstairs making sure there was no other possible cause of death.”

  “What do you mean, ‘other cause of death’?” Aileen asked. “Like drugs, or something?”

  “No, Miss Miroki,” the paramedic responded, “Your father had something that a lot of people want. He was building something, and as soon as the public found out, strange things started happening around here.”

  Aileen had no clue what the woman was talking about. The garage? Aileen brushed past the woman and headed through the kitchen, past the laundry, and into the giant garage. The walls were stacked, top to bottom, with various metal and mechanical gadgets and equipment. There were shelves upon shelves of spare parts, specialty tools, and instruments. In the center of the room there was an enormous blue mass covered up with a ratty tarp.

  “Miss Miroki?” the paramedic called from the garage doorway. “We’re about to take the body—I mean, your father, away now. I just thought you would like to know.”

  Aileen’s head was spinning, and her heart beat furiously in her chest. Everything was happening so fast. She had never known that her body was capable of becoming so numb so quickly.

  “That’s fine, thank you,” Aileen, said, unable to turn around and face the paramedic. “Is there anything you need from me?”

  “Well,” the woman said awkwardly. “We need you to identify the body.”

  Aileen’s eyes closed hard and she exhaled. Of course I do, she thought, turning away from the blue tarp to face the inevitable.

  ***

  After the paramedics pulled away from the house, Aileen stood there for a moment gazing into the endless whiteness of the fields. Somehow the loss of her father felt expected, like her life had led up to such an obvious trial of pain. If she had learned anything studying astrophysics, it was that the Law of Derivation of Tidal Force did not buy into the notion of a soul ascending to heaven. Aileen glanced up to the sky as it faded to pink, said a silent goodbye to her father, and went inside the house.

  The door closed behind her and at last everything felt final. Tears streamed down Aileen’s face and she threw her weight against the door, her fingernails scraping at the wood. She couldn’t escape the thoughts of guilt. What if she had driven faster? Would he have still had a heart attack if he had seen her? The questions were unanswerable, and Aileen’s obsessive need to answer them festered within her.

  She stood up and made a beeline for the garage, knocking over a vase in her wake. The cool air hit her face as the door swung open, and she jumped back at the sight of a man standing on the far side of the mass under the tarp.

  “Hello, Aileen,” the man said, stepping toward her, his hands clasped behind his back. He was a mid-sized man with short brown hair, wearing a black suit and glasses that reflected Aileen’s image back at her.

  “Who the hell are you?” Aileen pressed, “and how did you get in here?”

  “Please, calm down,” said the man in the suit. “I understand you’re one of the brightest minds in the country, if not the world. My name is Agent Roger Hendricks, and I am with the EIT. I entered this garage through the back door, and there are two more of my men waiting outside.”

  The information put Aileen into a defensive shock, but the man’s slow, steady breathing kept her from acting on instinct. “Do not be alarmed, Aileen,” Agent Hendricks continued. “I’m here because my organization and Earth are in need of your help.”

  Aileen laughed, nearly outraged at his joke. “I don’t appreciate your sense of humor,” she said. “You’re trespassing on my father’s property, Mr. whoever-you-are, and I’d like you to leave. Don’t make me call the police.”

  “You’re wrong about one thing,” Agent Hendricks said. “I’m not trespassing on your father’s property. I’m trespassing on your property, technically. All of this belongs to you now, which is partially what I’m here to discuss.” He smiled, walked closer to her, and then examined all of the odd machinery around the garage.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Aileen said. “Sure, maybe my father left everything to me, but that doesn’t explain why you’re here. I’ve never heard of the EIT.” She inched slowly back toward the door, not fully trusting the man.

  “I understand your fear, Aileen,” Agent Hendricks said. “Please, do not be afraid of me or the organization. The EIT is the Exchange of Intergalactic Technology. We develop and produce the most powerful technologies across the galaxy, and since you are the heir to Lieutenant Miroki, I need to speak with you about one of his projects in particular.”

  Aileen stood with her eyes wide. She ran her fingers through her hair. This guy is a hired actor, right? she thought. I’ve got to be on some kind of hidden camera show.

  “No, you’re not on a hidden camera show, Aileen,” Agent Hendricks said.

  Aileen felt a claustrophobic panic encompass her. She must have been trapped in some kind of comatose dream. She was convinced of it. There was no way in the real world a mysterious man in a suit would be able to read her mind.

  “The processing time varies for every person,” Agent Hendricks went on, circling the mass under the tarp. “I heard you were gifted, I expected you to comprehend all this a little quicker. I believe that under this tarp is a very important machine. Your father developed it years ago and has been keeping it safe. He was a brilliant man, well respected, and it is a shame to see him go. This machine, however,” he reached out and put his fingers to the crinkled tarp, “this machine is what will determine the future of mankind.”

  *****

  Agent Hendricks explained in detail the logistic
s of the machine, the operation, and the machine itself. Aileen wished she could forget all the information that had just been force-fed to her but, as it turned out, even though intergalactic travel was possible, time travel was still not. After all the tension had built up, the only thing left to do was uncloak the machine beneath the tarp.

  With a slow, rustling pull, Agent Hendricks revealed the nose of the gigantic machine—a chrome, protruding arrowhead of a cockpit. The more he pulled the tarp, the more it became apparent that hidden beneath it lie some kind of ship. It was enormous, the size of a naval vessel, maybe larger. The sleek design bore the signature of her father’s delicate craftsmanship, two turbines on either side and one fin on the back. Simple, yet effective.

  “He called it the Tower Cadet,” Agent Hendricks said. “It was his life’s work, and if this ship runs, then our people will survive.” He told her about the need to flee Earth to find an alternate home planet, and that her dedicated father planned to test the ship himself. “The coordinates in the ship’s navigational system are already set for the desert planet Woes Ëan. All it needs is a pilot.”

  Aileen took a seat on a nearby crate and dropped her head into her hands. All these years she had been studying astrophysics, and while her father pretended to be a run-of-the-mill mechanic, he was actually developing the world’s first interplanetary transport. While the world seemed bent on destroying her, Aileen also believed that this was her calling all along.

  “If my dad designed it,” she said, drying her eyes. “I can fly it.”

  Agent Hendricks smiled, and pressed his fingers to his temples. “And that, Aileen, is why my crew is here to help you.” The back of the garage door opened, revealing two figures bathed in shadow. On the right, Aileen noticed the figure’s eyes glowing blue in the darkness. The figure on the left’s eyes did not emit any glow, though it stood four feet taller than its counterpart. When they stepped into the light of the garage, what Aileen saw would weigh on her mind for the 90 billion kilometers in front of her. She couldn’t decide what troubled her more—that she was attracted to the two figures in front of her, or that they weren’t human.