by Iris Astres
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Loose Id Titles by Iris Astres
Iris Astres
THE SAFETY OF NOWHERE
Iris Astres
www.loose-id.com
The Safety of Nowhere
Copyright © August 2013 by Iris Astres
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
eISBN 9781623004798
Editor: Rory Olsen
Cover Artist: Dar Albert
Published in the United States of America
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning
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Dedication
To my mother, who loved gardening and blue-eyed men—in that order.
Acknowledgment
I’d like to thank the village of women at Loose Id who helped me raise this novel: Christy Lockhart, Treva Harte, Allie McKnight, and Rory Olsen. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your patience and support.
Chapter One
Malcolm had resurfaced somewhere new and infinitely better. The harsh lights and unpleasant smells were gone, as were the endless stream of strangers asking questions he still couldn’t answer.
Are you all right? Are you in pain?
A hundred times they asked. A dozen different voices. The brisk sound of their footsteps drawing near and then receding.
Wherever he now found himself was quiet as a temple, the silence only broken by the pleasant sounds of domesticity: the rush of water in a sink, the scrape of furniture over the floor. Gentle sounds made by a gentle woman whose presence led him forward like a distant rustling in the fog.
At times she placed her hand over his heart and dipped her head to press her cheek to his. The smell of earth and sun clung to her hair, and everything about her felt alive and thrumming like a hive of bees. She didn’t have the practiced hands of doctors. Her touch caressed and soothed, her voice a murmur of concern. And he was charmed by her. Intrigued. More than anything, he wished that he could lift a hand and stroke her. Had he any strength at all, he’d pull her warm, lithe body closer to his and return her sweet caresses with his own.
But Malcolm couldn’t move. He was encased in some inviolable torpor. Whether it was brought on by an illness or the lingering effect of drugs, he couldn’t say. Whatever the cause, it left him trapped. He couldn’t lift a hand or speak. There wasn’t any feeling in him but the place that wanted her.
Beyond that, there were only memories. Dark and painful memories of a bomb’s blast that had torn into the Body House and left it broken and exposed. The life he’d shared there was gone. If not gone, gravely altered.
He and all his brethren had spent two years traveling to Earth, and never in all that time had any one of them imagined they would be the source of so much hate when they arrived. They’d barely had a chance to enjoy their success before Earth First’s harsh voice was heard. Kick them off the planet. Send them back to where they came from. Whatever force was put behind these less-than-kind suggestions, Malcolm and his friends weren’t going back. They liked their new home far too much. Enemies aside.
In the beginning the grassroots movement against aliens was just a band of crackpots. That’s what everyone had said. No one said it anymore. The group was stronger now, their numbers growing larger, and they’d progressed beyond their first libelous claims through kidnappings and public executions to what now seemed like full-scale war.
And why? Because Bods were devoted to the pleasuring of women? Because, as was now obvious, Earth women had a marked interest in the kind of expert fucking they could give? Hard to fathom what in all of that might result in so much animosity. There was no way to understand. Better not to think of it at all.
A door opened, and on a breeze she came to him and sat beside him on the bed. “Malcolm.” She knew his name. If only he knew hers. “What’s wrong?” Her voice was low and tight, her palm pressed to his chest. “You’ve been asleep nearly a day, and that’s too long. You have to try to wake up now. This isn’t a hospital. Unless you’re conscious, I can’t feed you. I can’t even move you on my own or give you anything to drink. I’ll have to call those people to come back for you, which isn’t good. It’s dangerous to roam around out there. But if you can’t wake up, there isn’t any other choice.”
She picked his hand up, placed it in her lap, and stroked his palm. “Can’t you just open your eyes?” The pleading got to him. He wasn’t in the habit of denying women. This woman could ask anything of him and he’d comply. Except every inch of skin he had felt weighted down, pinned by an unbending force. His impulses were absorbed by the prevailing heaviness. He gave his body orders, and they dissipated instantly into a thick, cottony void.
“Oh God.” She let go of his hand, a gesture of defeat. He focused everything he had on holding on to her. A little movement in his fingers offered some encouragement, but she appeared not to have seen it.
Her warmth descended, and he felt her silky hair fall over him, the press of her full lips against his forehead. “I’m going back outside, and when I come back in, I’ll have to decide what to do. Help me if you can. Try to wake up just a little. Let me know you’ll be okay.”
And so he’d been commanded.
Malcolm gathered everything he had and focused on reclaiming the full power of the man he’d been. If there were pain, it would be easier. Physical torment was something he had mastered long ago. No prick or burn or sting was new to him. In fact, a little agony could be a fine thing when a sharpened focus was required. But nothing hurt. Nothing ached. He had so little sensation he might doubt his own existence were it not for wanting her. I want therefore I am. Hadn’t someone somewhere said that once?
In her name, Malcolm fought the mysterious venom coursing through him. Fought the sorcery. He pierced the layers of oblivion one by one and managed just the slightest shift, a shallow rocking of his lower body. Exhaustion from the effort dragg
ed him down again. Before he could succumb, he dug his wrists into the bed and got his torso half an inch up from the mattress. A moment later through sheer force of will he opened both his eyes.
The world was a faint blur of shapes for several minutes. With time he saw the contours of a tidy cabin. A wall painted a cheery blue. A stove, a table, a stream of sunlight from the shaded window. Her home. Her essence everywhere. But not her flesh. To bring her back to him he’d have to go on fighting until he could stand and walk and cross the distance to wherever she might be.
Chapter Two
The man would not wake up. She’d watched him sleep for almost a full day now, and in all that time he hadn’t moved a muscle. Dinah knew this for certain because she’d checked on him about a hundred times. Despite being persistently unconscious, he looked okay—in fact he looked amazing. Handsome. Perfect. Like a nobleman drawn by a classical anatomist. And he looked peaceful too, which must be nice for him, but he would not wake up.
They’d told her he would have to sleep the drugs out of his system. They’d told her when the residual effects of surgery wore off, he’d wake up good as new, minus a few scars and pins and maybe a few nasty memories. But evidently they’d been wrong. Did Earth doctors really know how a Backusian would respond to drugs or surgery or being at the center of a big, ugly explosion? She’d read the infoscans they’d left for him. She knew what he’d been through.
He had to wake up. If he didn’t, she would have to find a way to get those people back to pick him up. Assuming that she could and that it wouldn’t be too late. These were not good thoughts for Dinah. They churned inside her head until she got that too much feeling she really didn’t like. Too much was the enemy. It made her flibbity and flushed and short of breath, none of which worked for her. Dinah liked life on an even keel, and gardening was her favorite way to mellow out.
She unwound the garden hose beside the house and placed the metal tip into the rose bed that separated her yard from the street. Peering down the hill, she saw just what she liked to see: nothing. Not a soul for miles.
It still made her antsy to be close to the street. Some townie guy could easily come up the hill, pretending to run into her, making her walk the tricky line between insultingly cold and invitingly friendly. Dinah had gotten pretty good at that line over the years, but she didn’t want any more practice. Definitely not today.
Clippers out, she moved toward the wild poppies and gathered a good-sized bouquet for Cy’s memorial. The morning sun teased her chilled skin with its flickering heat as she brushed her hand over her husband’s picture, apologizing into his smiling face for putting him on show. Thanks for looking out for me. No doubt his spirit had her back, because her grieving widowhood seemed to be working for her. So far so, good in any case.
Dinah paused. Head up and hackles rising, she listened to a faint metallic sound moving toward her. When she recognized the scrape of tires scuffling along the dirt, she let go of her breath and stepped into the street.
Gordon Evers was tearing toward her on his bike, his boxy, chubby frame plugging away despite the wobbly fit.
“Hey, big guy!” Dinah called to him. “You’re out mighty early.”
Gordon wasn’t often on his own at any time of day. Cindy was protective of her grandson, who was “special”—on something called a spectrum. Maybe the old woman still felt guilty that her daughter had run out on him so soon after her son was born. Or maybe it was just because his father was a total dick. Hard to say. All three could work as reasons for her keeping such a close eye on him.
Dinah had no call to point a finger. As far as distant neighbors went, Cindy and Pat were pretty much ideal. And Gordon was her bud—the only company she truly welcomed now that Cy was gone.
“I can’t do work today.” He made loops and zigzags on the road, calling to her from the street in his full-throttle monotone. “I’m going to my dad’s for the whole weekend. He has a new girlfriend!”
“Ew,” Dinah said. Gordon laughed. For some reason he found a good nine-tenths of what she said hysterical. A bonus since she’d come to love that helpless hee hee hee of his, especially when he grabbed his belly like a cartoon version of himself.
As for the “ew,” she’d meant it. Whoever Rocco Evers found to date him was a desperate case by definition. Dinah tried amending this for Gordon’s sake. Maybe, if this new woman had asked to meet the man’s disabled son, she had some good in her. For the sake of her buddy G-man, Dinah hoped the mystery girlfriend was endowed with heart and brains despite her lack of taste in men.
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Vrroom,” came Gordon’s answer. “Motorcycles.” He hunkered down over his bike and twisted both his wrists.
Shit, thought Dinah. Shithead, came the afterthought. Rocco and his fucking bike. She hoped with all her heart she was becoming a judgmental bitch and that this father-son thing would turn out all right.
“Have fun,” she said as brightly as she could.
“I am having fun!” Gordon made a loopy circle, whooped it up with laughter.
Those hopes are way too fucking high.
She made a silent wish the child’s day would not be a complete disaster. With Rocco Evers’s tendency to be a posturing, belligerent prick, she had reason to doubt. Lots of men in town made Dinah queasy. Rocco had enough whacked-out violence in him to make her keep her distance.
“You be careful with all the macho vroom-vroom stuff, okay? I need you back here in one piece. I’m powerless against the heavy stuff without my G-man, remember?” That was true. The kid was worth his weight in gold when it came to hauling around big bags of manure.
Gordon stopped. He stood on tiptoes, straddling the too-big bike, a serious expression on his face. “You need help now?” It clearly broke his heart to offer. Dinah would have hugged him if he wasn’t adamantly antihug.
“Nah!” She waved him onward. “I’m just watering today. But don’t go crazy. Come back safe.”
She watched as Gordon made his shaky start back into motion. He labored on the upward incline. She willed him forward to the crest of the small hill. Then he was rolling downhill fast, making those crazy, high-pitched hees she couldn’t get enough of. As always Gordon dared himself to let go of the handlebars—let go, hold on, let go, hold on. Eventually he got both arms out at his side, and that amazing bravery let him fly into the wind until the ground went flat again and Gordon peddled hard, hurtling forward out of view.
Dinah stooped to move the hose so water seeped more evenly into each bed. She snapped some spent blooms off a couple of bushes, pausing only when an unaccustomed shape moved in to her peripheral vision.
The sight made Dinah turn abruptly toward the house, and there he was—the man. Her alien.
Thank God.
He was standing naked on the porch where anyone could see him. Dinah dropped the crumpled wad of petals in her hand and hurried toward him, stomping so the dirt would shake loose from her shoes.
He watched unmoving, deathly pale. Something in his stillness made her hesitate at the foot of the stairs.
“Are you okay?”
His gaze shifted toward her, narrowed with discomfort—or was that worry? “I don’t know how I am.”
“I can believe that.” She stooped to turn the water off and took another step toward him. “You’ve been ill. Let’s go inside. It’s easier to talk in there.”
He didn’t move.
“We can’t let someone see you.”
At that, he scanned the vast expanse of nothing all around them, after which he settled his attention on her face. She tried to look trustworthy and benevolent. Maybe she succeeded. In any case, he turned and walked back through the door the way she’d asked without a word.
Frowning at the knotted muscles in his back, Dinah stepped out of her plastic clogs, shucking hat and jacket in the entryway as always. She peeled off Cy’s old shirt and pants, hanging the damp clothes against the wall until she got down to her bra
and panties. Then she crossed the room, plucked her robe off the bathroom door, and slipped it on.
He watched her do it all. She didn’t care. Modesty was not a thing with her. Or him, apparently. He didn’t even seem to notice he had nothing on.
For her, it wouldn’t be so easy to ignore his naked body. Asleep he had been gorgeous and awake… Good God.
“Who are you?” he asked. That very basic question gave her pause. What must it be like for him, standing in her cabin, having no idea where he might be? Not completely pleasant, obviously. He looked at sea, uncomfortably muddled, almost too straight and still where he had every right to be unsteady.
He glanced at her expectantly. She started to speak and paused. Something was different about him—something in his looks she hadn’t seen while he was sleeping. She tried but couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was
“I’m Dinah Kelley,” she said finally, knowing it would not mean much. “Two women brought you here yesterday from a small clinic southeast of the Body House. Do you remember anything?” She wanted to tell him to sit, or better yet, go back to bed, but everything about him told her he was staying on his feet.
“Why here?” His gaze locked on to hers. And that was it. The eyes. That was the newly devastating thing about him. She hadn’t seen them while he slept, and now it struck her that he had amazing eyes: intensely blue and streaked with lighter flecks that made them look like shattered glass. Shattered, sexy glass.
He cleared his throat. She heard a dry sound rattle in his chest and grabbed one of her lemons from the windowsill. A fragrant, oily mist rose from the fruit when she sliced in to it, and clack, the sound the knife made on the cutting board was good. Clack, clack. She placed a juicy yellow wedge into a glass and poured fresh water over it.
“Here.” She held it out to him. He took the offering and sipped, then drank the contents thirstily and handed back the glass.
“Thank you.” He nodded. She thought she saw a tiny bit of agitation move aside for him to express gratitude. It looked good on him, and she liked it. Maybe he was hungry too.
