Black Steel

by Steve Perry

  “Hey, it’s only a squirrel, no dib.” He hoped his high voice sounded braver to her than it did to him.

  Thank whoever was in charge that it didn’t crack, at least.

  She smiled down at him. Though they were the same age, Melinda was a full head taller, and she probably outweighed him by five kilos. Like him, she wore her school silks, skirt and shirt, high socks and slippers, all required dress for the infrequent assemblies held in the actual school building. She was not fat, Melinda, but she was a fullfigured and fully developed girl who could easily pass for nineteen or twenty. And she had her implant, though it didn’t show. The squiggly line of the contraceptive tube, not much thicker than a toothpick, was just under the skin of her left inner thigh, up near her pubis. Sleel knew, because he had felt it when he had his hand under her skirt during the communal compulsory viewing of the history vid.

  He was still amazed at himself for that, more for being here with her.

  The old fart Winslow who ran excom ed made them all sit in a dark room watching an old recording of some war on some planet Sleel had never heard of and could give a shit about. They could have just as easily stayed at home and watched it on edcom, but no, the old fart made them assemble once a week, march into the communal viewing room and sit on hard plastic chairs to stare at the big-screen holoproj.

  Socialization, he called it.

  Well. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Sleel.

  The last time, Melinda, about whom he had heard rumors, sat next to him and smiled at him.

  Smiled at him!

  The lights dimmed and the screen lit, but it was still pretty dark in the room. For five minutes, Sleel sweated with fear, wanting to do it, but afraid. Finally, with a daring he had never believed of himself, he reached out and tentatively put his hand on Melinda’s knee. He expected her to slap him, or at least grab his hand and move it as if it were maybe a dog turd, but no, she had done neither. In the darkness, he had seen her teeth flash in another smile.

  Well, shit! He had his hand on a real live girl’s knee! A first. He felt a thrill that danced back and forth between stark terror and lust.

  The war program droned on, a recreation of a battle in which men who dressed funny rode animals-horses?- and shot at each other with rifles. But that wasn’t important now. Nothing was important except that it stay dark.

  Feeling reckless, Sleel slid his hand up Melinda’s leg, actually under her thin silk school skirt.

  Under his own skirt, his dick strived to mimic a tent pole; his underwear didn’t have a prayer of keeping it down.

  Melinda shifted slightly, glancing around to see if anybody was watching. Apparently nobody was, for her change in position allowed Sleel’s questing hand to move farther into territory he had never explored.

  She uncrossed her legs and spread them slightly. Her skin was so soft, it didn’t feel real, and yet the muscles under the skin were taut, alive, wonderful. She leaned toward him a little, and his fingertips-his hand seemed to have a mind of its own-touched the double-S curve of the implant.

  Christo on a pogo board, she had an implant! That had to mean she had done it! A spike of fear shot though Sleel like a shard of hot ice. A lot of his classmates bragged about getting under this skirt or that, but Sleel had never even kissed another kid his age, boy or girl.

  Sleel’s questing hand slid past the implant and found a curly mound. Oh, man, she wasn’t wearing underclothes! The hair felt harsh, somehow, thicker and different than his own mostly straight and still thin pubic fuzz. Wow. Another centimeter, two, and-Oh, Gods in all their kingdoms! he was touching it! A girl’s cunt! Right in the middle of a room full of people, he had his hand on a pussy! Melinda’s pussy!

  If he had a heart attack and died right here, that would have been fine, for he was a fulfilled human being.

  The angle was bad, he thought he might dislocate his shoulder, but he would have happily cut off his arm rather than pull it from under Melinda’s skirt. His fingers wiggled this way and that, looking to explore this wet and hot place, the folds of flesh so strange and so inviting. Sure, he had seen the sex edcom, heard the other students talking about what it was like, but that was nothing compared to actually feeling it!

  Hormone storms raged in Sleel, he felt hot, flushed, his dick throbbed and was so hard it hurt, oh, man!

  Melinda reached down and caught Sleel’s wrist through her skirt. Oh, shit! She wanted him to stop! He would kill himself if she pulled his hand out-But-no. She began to move Sleel’s wrist up and down, pressing his fingers against her. There was a small, harder knot of flesh under his forefinger, and whatever else Sleel was, he was a fast learner. She wanted him to rub that part, must be the whatchamacallit, the clitoris the sex ed teacher had lectured about.

  Sleel rubbed, softly, up and down, then back and forth.

  Melinda gasped and leaned forward a little.

  After a minute, the spot seemed to dry out, so Sleel dipped his fingers lower, between the folds, and moistened them, then went back to touching the part Melinda liked touched.

  On the holoproj, one of the animals being ridden by a soldier made a funny noise and leaped forward.

  Sleel saw the image, but it hardly registered.

  Two or three minutes later, Melinda moaned softly and began to quiver in a funny way. Sleel thought he could feel her heart beat under his hand, except that the throbbing was too fast. Then she reached down and grabbed his wrist again and pulled his hand away.

  Well, shit. He had done something wrong!

  “That’s enough,” she whispered. “Thanks, it was great!”

  Sleel had only the vaguest idea of what she was talking about. But she didn’t seem upset or mad at him, so that was good.

  Then Melinda reached under his skirt and grabbed his dick. She squeezed it a couple of times and moved her hand up and down. Sleel stopped breathing. He was afraid his heart would stop, too. Oh, Gods-!

  Melinda moved her hand up and down again, and that was all it took.

  On the holoproj a cannon fired and an explosion followed as the shell hit and burst.

  Sleel spasmed, climaxing for the first time with help.

  He thought for a second he was going to fall out of the chair. It felt so good!

  Next to him, Melinda chuckled. She squeezed him one more time, hard, and pulled her hand away. After a moment, she handed him a wipe pulled from her shoulder bag. “Here,” she said in a whisper. “Boy, you sure are a gusher.” She giggled as she used another wipe to clean her hand … .

  Sleel, now holding Melinda’s hand as they walked in a quiet section of the bramble, smiled at that memory. That was pretty terrific, the high point of his life, but what they were going to do now might be even better.

  “Here’s the place,” Melinda said.

  “You’ve been here before,” Sleel said.

  “Sure. Lots of times.”

  There was a pile of leaves gathered at the base of one of the trees. Melinda pulled a film blanket from her bag and shook it open, draping it over the leaves. She sat on the thin sheet, lay back, and pulled her skirt up, revealing once again that she was not wearing anything beneath it.

  Sleel dropped to his knees. He knew what to touch, and wasn’t it a wonder to actually see it? It was quite beautiful and mysterious to look upon.

  After a couple of minutes of him stroking her, Melinda said, her voice ragged, “Now, put it in now!”

  Sleel didn’t need any urging. He slid into her easily-she was so hot and wet!-and she began to buck. It took only three strokes for Sleel’s orgasm to start, and Melinda’s was already underway, her muscles clamping and releasing him as he spurted.

  Oh, wow! Oh, oh, oh, oh, wow!

  A few minutes later as he was lying next to her, she looked over at him and said, “You’re still hard?”

  So he was. “I guess so.”

  She grinned. “Well, then let’s do it again.”

  So they did.

  Four more t
imes that afternoon they did it, before Sleel couldn’t do it again. Melinda knew all kinds of different things, and when he was too raw to put it in her again, she taught him how to use his lips and tongue, and that was pretty amazing, too.

  No question, it was a lot better than the time in the history room. A million times better, easy.

  Why hadn’t he discovered this years ago?

  “Sleel?”

  He blinked and saw Kee looking at him. “Huh?”

  “You asleep on your feet?”

  He laughed. “Nah. Just time-tripping. An old memory.”

  “Pleasant one, I hope?”

  “Oh, yeah. First time I ever had sex.”

  Her smiled matched his. “This looks like a good place to have lunch. Want to tell me about it?”

  “About my first time?”

  “Unless it bothers you.”

  “Bother me? Nah. Sure, why not?”

  They found a large and fairly flat rock in the sunshine that was warm despite the air’s chill and sat side by side.

  As they ate he told her about Melinda.

  When he was done, she smiled. “You were lucky,” she said. “A lot of people have a not-so-pleasant time of it the first one. “

  “Voice of experience?”

  She took a bite of the hard fruit she’d brought, a kind of pear, and chewed it thoughtfully. “Yep.”

  “So?”

  “My first was an upperclassman at the boarding school I attended. I was thirteen, awkward, still trying to walk and balance the breasts and hips I had sprouted that summer. One moment I was a skinny kid climbing the rocks with the other pre-pubes, tumbling and sexless; the next it seemed I was drawing attention from older kids, male and female, who wanted to flirt and play games about which I had only vaguely heard.

  “Felton was sixteen, a sports star, swimmer and shiftball player, muscular, like a big cat. He saw me in the pool doing my laps one afternoon. We usually swam nude or in nofric film for speed and that might as well be nothing for what it hides.

  “I was impressed that this hero would stoop to speak to me, much less find me attractive. Two days after he began working on me, we went to his room. I didn’t have a clue about what to do. He laid me on the bed, spread me open, and jammed himself into me. He lasted about forty-five seconds. All I felt was pain. When he was done, he rolled off me, saw the blood from my torn hymen, and said, `Shit, whyn’t you tell me you never did it before?’

  “He was mad at me for getting his bedclothes bloody. That was my welcome to lovemaking.”

  Sleel realized he had put his hand on her shoulder sometime during her recitation. In sympathy. To comfort her. As if apologizing for all men like Felton, or maybe for all the times when he himself had been less caring than he should have been. It surprised him.

  She glanced at his hand and smiled. “It’s okay, Sleel. I got over it.”

  He pulled his hand back a little too quickly.

  “Hey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you anyway.”

  He felt his stomach roil a little. For some reason her saying that reminded him of the moment when he had first put his hand on Melinda’s leg, of that instant of gut-twisting fear all those years ago.

  Now why was that?

  She put away the remains of her lunch. “I think maybe when we get back we ought to start working on a soul for you,” she said.

  He blinked, not understanding. “I thought I had one already. Maybe it’s buried too deep for you to see.”

  “Oh, I can see it just fine. I meant an external one.” She patted her sword carrier. “I’ll explain it as we walk.”

  Chapter TWENTY-TWO

  THE PLACE Wu had camped twice before was almost as it had been the last time she had seen it. There was a bend in the river, and on the concave side, a thickly wooded plot of land that was nearly surrounded by water. One more good stretch of rain and the isthmus would likely be overcome, making the place an island. The narrow neck of land was already thinner than she recalled from last year.

  The trees were tall and cast enough shade so that there was not much undergrowth. Probably there were other campers who came here, thinking the spot was their secret. That didn’t matter to Wu. She was willing to share it with them, as long as it wasn’t at the same time.

  As she and Sleel worked their way toward the clearing near the river where she usually pitched her tent, he stopped, looking alert.

  “Something?”

  Sleel held up one hand in a gesture for silence. But after a moment, he shook his head. “Nothing. I’ve had the feeling of being watched a few times along the trail. Can’t hear anything, haven’t seen anybody. It’s something … subsensical.”

  Wu understood the feeling. Like a name not quite remembered, a tickle or pressure inside your mind.

  She had felt it herself, but dismissed it when there was nothing to back it up. “Stay alert,” she said. “The galaxy needs more lerts.”

  Sleel laughed. “Gods, that’s old. Primary ed joke.”

  “Pre-primary,” she said. “At least.”

  They continued onward.

  Cierto sat in his study, poring over input regarding Kildee Wu. The White Radio com alert chimed and he sat back, the custom orthopedia humming to stay with his new position. “Activate com,” he said.

  The face of his main spy on Koji lit the air and took form. “Patron,” he said.

  “Something?”

  “The subject has gone to a resort area, hiking some thirteen kilometers along a little-used forest trail to a campsite next to a river.”

  “So? Some recreation is to be expected, is it not?”

  “The man Sleel is with her. There is no one else in the immediate area.”

  Cierto frowned. He did not require that the woman be a virgin, that would hardly be possible for an adult female with any kind of life; still, he felt a stab of jealousy. “Has she become sexually intimate with this man?”

  The spy shrugged. “We cannot say, Patron. They share a small tent for sleeping and direct observation within is not possible. Getting close enough to see more would risk being detected. “

  “Hmm. Keep me informed of this.”

  “Of course.”

  After he discommed, Cierto steepled his fingers and considered the new information. Well, so what if she was intimate with the matador? He was not a factor about which to worry. True, the man had managed a fair defense of the old thief, but in the end, he had lost. Once you had beaten a man, he was beaten forever. While it bothered Cierto that another might be using what he considered his property without permission, he had not actually laid claim to that property yet. He had taken great pains, in fact, to maintain secrecy thus far. So, he would hold Wu blameless for this. When she knew the situation, it would be different. As for the matador? Well. He was a dead man in any event, and one could not make him more dead for his sins. It was of no importance. He had other things to worry about.

  Sleel awoke, feeling somewhat stiff despite the thin air pad under his sleep sack. The open flap of the small dome tent faced the river and there was a sandbar that extended from just beyond the tent well into the water. The white sand glistened in the sunlight, the river’s flow was a quiet gurgle. And Kee, naked, stood with the water swirling around her thighs. She was scrubbing herself with a biodegradable cleaner, working up a thick lather of suds. Vapor rose from her into the cool air.

  Beautiful, he thought. Would that he had a camera to capture the sight. Sleel lay on his belly and watched her continue to bathe.

  After a minute, she turned around, conscious of his gaze, but apparently unconcerned about her nudity.

  They had seen each other naked often enough in the gym as they showered and dressed after a workout, hadn’t they? Why would it be any different here?

  “Morning,” she called.

  Sleel suddenly found that lying on his belly was becoming somewhat … uncomfortable. He shifted a little, to relieve the pressure. Just need to pee, h
e thought.

  Kee squatted in the shallow water and allowed the river to rinse her clean. The soapy cleaner would feed natural bacteria in the water. Before the suds drifted a klick or two, they would be almost entirely gone, becoming a part of the environment and harmless. Kee was big on what she called no-impact camping.

  When they left, the site would look the same as when they had arrived. They even buried their own feces sprinkled with a powdery compound that broke it down to a harmless residue.

  “How’s the water?” Sleel called.

  “Cold,” she said.

  Not, he knew, cold enough. Sleel reached for his pants. Damned if he was going to climb out of the tent with his dick playing flagpole. It was getting more difficult all the time to think of Kee as a teacher and nothing else. He didn’t expect that she felt anything for him that way, and he didn’t want to risk, well, screwing things up.

  Breakfast was of freeze-dried concentrates plumped with pure water distilled from the river. Fruit, cereal, zip-cooked soypro patties, container-heated bread. Something about the cool fresh air gave Sleel a powerful appetite, and even though none of the food was fresh, it was delicious nonetheless. They sat next to a small pellet stove that gave out more heat than light, but had a little bluish flame that flickered in the faint breeze.

  Kee was telling him about her family.

  “We have always been matriarchal, the name going with both sons and daughters. And the sword goes to whichever of the children decides to take it up, the oldest getting first choice. Mayli was the oldest, our brother Zam the middle child, I’m the youngest. Mayli started out with the sword but decided to walk another path. Zam wasn’t interested, so I inherited the family heirloom.”

  “What if there aren’t any children?”

  “There are always children somewhere. If I don’t have any, I can try one of Zam’s-he’s got four. Or Mayli’s, if she had any. Or I can adopt one and teach him or her the Way. The link is spiritual, not necessarily genetic.”

  Sleel nodded. “Mayli, Zam and Kildee. Interesting names.”