The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head

by Cassandra Duffy

  “Speaking of, why didn’t Danny recognize any of you?”

  “How could he?” Veronica let out a cute little giggle, rolling onto her back. “Our human traffickers always wore masks, and he barely got picked up before you broke him out. He probably saw hooded figures, the inside of a boxcar, and then you and your band of rebellious human property making a mess out of my train. You know you broke my heart and cost me a fortune all in the same night?”

  “That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.” Fiona folded her arms over her chest, trying desperately to hide the fact that her nipples still hadn’t calmed down from Veronica’s tweaking of them.

  “To put it bluntly, we’re taking over the west,” Veronica said. “Think about it. We could be the ruling class in the strongest new-world country. The Omaha Pact gives us all the food we can handle and then some just to keep us from invading. With all the desert city-states brought under Vegas rule, we could finally move against the Slark.”

  “You sound like Gieo,” Fiona snorted.

  “Again with your pet; she must have a talented mouth to have you so smitten. Fuck it! Bring the little crotch-licker along for the ride if you’re so hung up on her.” Veronica slid from the bed and began the slow process of peeling away her Can-Can dress, turning her back to Fiona in a feint of modesty. “I’m not remotely the jealous type. We could even share her, if you’re willing.”

  “I never said I wanted to come back to the Ravens.”

  Veronica glanced over her shoulder, arms crossed over her breasts as she let her dress fall away, revealing the fishnet stockings and lacy little thong beneath. “Oh, sweetie, in a few days, you’re not going to have a choice.”

  “I could go east to Texas.”

  “Gone,” Veronica said with a little rise in pitch to her voice. She tossed one of her fingerless opera-length gloves over her shoulder to add a little flare to the declaration. “The Mexicans took it over and then they all died of a series of cholera outbreaks. I think the Slark have their eyes on the land, but they’d need to go through Arizona first, and they can’t make that push. Not with Tombstone and Tempe in the way.” Veronica turned back to Fiona, slowly letting her hands fall away from her breasts. Fiona knew them all too well, with their pert, pink nipples and the crescent shaped scar along the underside of the left breast where Veronica had nearly lost a knife fight in the wild, early days of the Ravens’ taking over Vegas. Fiona used to lick the scar, calling it the river of strength that started in the mountains of her courageous heart and wound its way to the ocean of her breasts. It felt like an eternity ago, but seeing Veronica’s scar brought it all back.

  “I almost forgot,” Veronica teased, catching onto Fiona’s prolonged stare at her chest, “you’re a breast woman. I also noticed your little Korean pet doesn’t have a lot going on up top, even with a corset.”

  “Not breast-wise,” Fiona admitted, “but just a little further up, she has more than anyone I’ve ever met.” It was a proud declaration, and one she thought might harm Veronica’s ego considering, to that point, Veronica had been the smartest person Fiona knew.

  It stopped Veronica in her tracks, but not with wounded pride as Fiona had hoped. She looked intrigued. “Oh, do tell.” Suddenly, Veronica couldn’t hear enough about the woman she’d been degrading the entire conversation. Her eyes reflected the high-speed gears working behind them, and Fiona knew she’d said too much.

  “She’s a scientist,” Fiona said, unable to stop her bragging, “and a pilot. She built an airship that actually flew, and it wasn’t her first.”

  “I need to talk to this girl.”

  “Be prepared to have your ear chewed off.”

  Veronica cocked her head to one side and shrugged. “She actually seemed a little tongue-tied when I met her earlier.”

  Fiona had never seen anything but overt charisma and spastic charm from the pilot. She’d bombarded Fiona with a million questions, comments, and conversation pieces within the first five minutes of meeting her, and then shoved her hand straight down Fiona’s pants within a few miles of their first car ride together; shy and tongue-tied were not normal behavior for Gieo. Veronica read Fiona’s face, as she always could, and her eyes widened under the realization.

  “I must have really had an impact on her,” Veronica said, “one you clearly didn’t. Are you losing your touch, love? Time was you had women and men hurling themselves at your feet.”

  Fiona’s hand reached for the door, but didn’t even make it to the handle before Veronica caught her wrist. She was fast, much faster than Fiona even, and knew every tell the gunfighter had; after all, she was the one who had taught Fiona the killing trade. Tears, honest to goodness tears, began welling in the corners of Fiona’s eyes. She was a child in her former mentor and lover’s hands.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I know what she’s going through, wanting to be possessed by you. Fiona, you still have that effect on me,” Veronica whispered, closing the gap between them. “Please stay. My heart shattered when you left.”

  Fiona inhaled deeply of her former lover’s scent, the strawberries that touched everything about her, the desert dust clinging to her hair, and the undertone of familiar sweat coursing beneath it all. Veronica felt like home, felt like safety, felt like letting go.

  “You could have come after me,” Fiona whispered, not wanting to give in, but knowing she didn’t really have a choice.

  “You said you would kill me if I tried,” Veronica replied with a little laugh. “But I’m here now.”

  Fiona grasped Veronica around the waist and lifted her. Veronica easily straddled the gunfighter’s hips. Their lips met again in an urgent kiss. Fiona struggled to breath past the intense embrace. Veronica was nearly her height and easily matched her in strength and weight as she’d had a much stronger path since their parting. Despite being the one being held off the floor, Veronica steered Fiona to the bed with her hips and legs, finally pushing the gunfighter onto her back atop the pillowy bed. Veronica broke the kiss and smiled down to Fiona, running her hands along her exposed stomach and taut abdominal muscles.

  “I’m going to feed you up, get you strong again, back to your shining old self,” Veronica promised. “In a month you’ll be ready to stand at my side when I roll over the entire west coast. We’ll make a world run by women, devoid of Slark.”

  “I’m ready now,” Fiona snarled in protest. She reached up, grabbed Veronica by the back of the neck and flipped her down onto the bed, immediately diving on top of her. She ground her hips into Veronica, pressing the front of her leather pants against the thin lacy material between Veronica’s legs.

  Veronica let out a little groan of pleasure and laughed. She easily reversed their positions, flipped Fiona onto her face, and pinned the gunfighter’s right hand behind her back. Veronica’s leg found its way up between Fiona’s, pressing her knee firmly down against Fiona’s ass.

  “You’re not strong enough to top me right now, let alone rule at my side,” Veronica whispered hotly into Fiona’s ear. “I don’t want to hurt your pride though. Your confidence is sexy and vital for what’s coming.” Veronica let her go. Fiona gasped in a few deep breaths, having struggled to breathe through the face-full of comforter. “I have a gift for you to use on your pet. It’ll help put a swagger back in your step.” Veronica strolled across the room, threw open one of her many steamer trunks, and retrieved an item all too familiar to Fiona. She tossed the leather harness with a metal ring and a few buckles onto the bed. The huge, red phallus mounted in the strap-on harness whispered to Fiona of her former life.

  She plucked the old friend from the top of the bed and inspected it to be sure it really was the same one. The extra holes punched to fit the straps to her slender hips were right where she’d left them. Even the scratch marks where the strap that ran just above her ass had rubbed against a cement wall when they made good use of the toy in a parking structure in Barstow were there. They’d fought Slark all day, losing their enti
re squad of Ravens and the accompanying male slaves. When it looked like it would be the end of them after the aliens had finally cornered them in the shopping center parking structure, they’d done what anyone in that situation might do: fucked like bunnies with the expectation of dying before morning.

  They wore urban military fatigues, camouflaged in grays and blacks for their night ops. Aside from a few bumps, bruises, and scrapes, they’d both escaped the catastrophic results of the battle that had claimed the rest of their squad, but their ammunition and explosives were all burned in the act of escaping. The Slark knew where they were, but didn’t know they were down to knives and harsh language for weapons. The Slark had lost so many in the chase that they waited for reinforcements as night came on, certain the Red Bishop and White Queen were capable of slipping away if they attacked with so few.

  The cold light of the moon mingled with the rosy glow of the various fires burning throughout the city to give a low, ambient light to the parking structure, level three, section D, space 49. Fiona was stressed, as she tended to be, and Veronica was exhilarated, as she tended to be. Veronica had leaned against the cement support pillar, her face flushed with excitement, dusty with a sheen of sweat. She’d produced the strap-on from her pack like it was just another implement of war. Fiona could hardly believe her eyes at the impracticality of bringing a ten-inch dildo to a battlefield. Veronica had smiled through her protests though, and, with her appealing, mesmerizing way, she’d asked, “Is there anything you want to do before we die?”

  She’d stripped Fiona before she could put up much of a fight. Their empty ammunition harnesses, shirts, boots, and combat fatigues fell away, creating something of a nest on the concrete floor. Veronica tried again and again to get the harness to fit Fiona’s slender hips, finally letting Fiona punch a couple extra holes further in for the buckles using her pocket knife. Even as Fiona was getting used to the sensation of wearing such a thing, something she’d never done before, Veronica was busy mentally checking off things on her list. She pushed Fiona against the pillar, fell to her knees, and began giving the most lurid blow job Fiona could have imagined, taking the enormous, red phallus in her mouth with inexperienced verve. The strap along the back, just above Fiona’s ass, scraped and rubbed against the wall with every plunge and sloppy sucking motion Veronica made. There was little in the way of physical sensation to the blow job for Fiona, but the visual, auditory, and energy components shifted her thinking from survival to sexual ends. When Veronica had satisfied her curiosity, she’d climbed Fiona’s body, her lips made rosy from the work, an ineffable smile on her face, having checked off something she’d never done and didn’t want to die without knowing. “Some of the girls talk about how great that is,” she’d said. “I had to know.”

  “Oh,” Fiona had replied breathlessly.

  “Was it good for you?”

  Before Fiona could answer, Veronica’s lips met hers. They kissed, Veronica’s mouth still tasting rubbery from the blow job and tingling from the work. Fiona lifted her, spun her in a half-turn to press her back against the pillar, and guided the strap-on between her legs and into her as though she were hungry to accept it. Holding Veronica up, straddling her waist, even with the help of the pillar through every thrust, was exhausting, but clearly worth the effort as Veronica was well on her way to climax before Fiona’s strength and energy even started to flag. She came screaming, riding hard, scraping her bare back against the cement pillar, gripping a handful of hair at the back of Fiona’s head. Fiona had never seen her so lovely, so happy, and so alive. Before she’d even come down, as though life was the lone remaining half of an orange requiring harsh treatment to drain every last drop of juice, she shook Fiona to attention by the handle of her hair, and locked gazes. There was something wild and primal in Veronica’s hazel eyes that had excited Fiona in ways she’d never felt. “I want to try anal,” Veronica had said. Fiona’s brain refused to process the request the first time, forcing Veronica to repeat herself. “I said, I want you to violate me with that thing—I’ve never done it, and I don’t want to die without knowing if I like it or not.”

  “Can’t you just assume it’ll be painful and degrading?”

  “Exactly my point!” Veronica had laughed as though the world, and Fiona in particular, tickled her. “When have I ever shied away from either of those things?”

  Veronica had dismounted, turned to face the pillar, and bent at the waist. Fiona hadn’t the slightest clue how to proceed. Veronica guided her through the process of using spit to lubricate, taking her time, and using a natural angle, which all led Fiona to believe the experiment had spent a lot of time between Veronica’s ears before she found a sufficiently dire situation to bring it up. The pre-preparation that involved fingers, stretching, relaxing, and spit took on something of a virginal, sensual quality as Veronica was nervous and thus not interested in it ending right away, and Fiona was in no particular hurry as the act itself wouldn’t be doing much for her and she was entirely possessed with the need to not hurt Veronica; after a good deal of very intimate stretching with the three longest fingers on Fiona’s right hand, Veronica had declared herself ready. Fiona had followed the further instructions with all care, guiding the springy, red strap-on between the alluring curves of Veronica’s ass, using every last drop of her spit possible to ease the process. Stoicism, which was something Veronica had in spades, prevented any verbal reaction from escaping until Fiona was slowly working the toy in and out, grasping the base with both hands for stability. “You’re right,” Veronica had groaned, “it’s unpleasant.” Fiona had offered to stop; Veronica told her there wasn’t a chance in the world they were going to quit after how much effort it had taken to get the thing in there. She’d guided one of Fiona’s hands to her waist, and told her to stop being a wuss about it. Veronica’s own hand had found its way to her clit, giving herself a different context for the act with furious, urgent rubbing. Fiona took the demand with tentative care at first, losing a bit of her reticence when Veronica began pushing back against her. Her lover’s legendary stoicism mixed a pained edge into her moans of pleasure, but without any other discernable discomfort, although her body told a different story, showing that whatever stimulation she was giving herself was clearly tempered by a fairly intense pain from what Fiona was doing. The red strap-on, though never fully entering Veronica’s tight swirl, began sliding easier, and Fiona took that as a cue to increase the speed and depth of her thrusts, until she could feel the trembling, sweat-soaked, Veronica climaxing in a deeply intense and strangely muddled orgasm that left her visibly shaking, forehead rested against the pillar, wet blond hair clinging to her neck and shoulders. Fiona very slowly withdrew the strap-on from her in a wet sucking sound, accompanied by a hiss of pain from Veronica’s lips.

  “Are you okay?” Fiona had asked.

  Veronica’s response, which Fiona never forgot, “If you ever tell anyone I enjoyed that, I will kill you.” There was an element of jest to it, mostly from the gentle slap of her own ass that Veronica added for effect, but the deeply embarrassed quiver in her voice told Fiona that Veronica had not only not expected to enjoy the act, she loathed herself for how much she’d enjoyed it.

  Veronica turned slowly, her face a mask of pleasure with a strange lacing of shame. She caught Fiona’s eyes—the primal shine to them had been satisfied. “Do you want to try?” Veronica had asked. Fiona didn’t, although she only shook her head, struggling hard to keep any facial expression out of the mix that might indicate how much she didn’t. “Good,” Veronica sighed. “I could use some vanilla to clear my head.” The reciprocity of filling out Fiona’s list may have been provincial, but the emotional bond created through Veronica’s list added a new level of intimacy that Fiona cherished, even if the sex itself was only athletic and a little rough.

  As the sky began pinking with the coming dawn, reinforcements from two different Raven camps rolled back the Slark long before they were in any real danger, but Fiona and Veronic
a were too busy with each other to join the fight.

  Fiona returned to the present with a strange, sad longing for the closeness she’d shared with Veronica. They had been inseparable after Barstow. Their falling out, less than six months after the parking garage, took place at the edge of the burning wreckage of a train. Fiona had indeed threatened to kill Veronica if she followed. The statement hadn’t severed all of Fiona’s emotional nerves as she’d suspected, and secretly hoped, it would. Whatever else Veronica was, she was Fiona’s first love. The strap-on, acting as a strange and lurid symbol of their past intimacy, wasn’t given as a wanton gift, but Fiona couldn’t divine exactly what it meant.