by Aaron Bunce
She worked her mouth back and forth, his thoughts sinking into the pleasure of the moment. Soraya ran her fingernails down his stomach, the pleasure and pain melding perfectly together.
His head lolled forward. He watched her work her mouth lovingly back and forth, her flawless skin and firm breasts begging to be touched. Jacoby wanted her to pull away from him in that moment and throw him down. He wanted to know what her skin felt and tasted like, how her body felt when it accepted him inside. Jacoby wanted her to moan his name into his ear, wanted to make her scream as he pulled her nipples into his mouth and bit them playfully.
Soraya worked him into her mouth harder and faster, as if she could tell that he was starting to lose control. A fire rose up inside, the thick, effervescent smell filling the air like a cool morning’s fog. He looked down, a gentle, but noticeable blue glow framing Soraya’s body.
A single thought blew through the lust, crashing into him like an icy wind. Preston. The fear of Soraya’s imposing husband effectively blasted through the cloud of lust and confusion. The fire was growing in his loins, his orgasm approaching with terrifying speed.
Jacoby grasped Soraya’s hand and managed to pull her free. She fought but he was clear again, his thoughts his own. He lifted her upright, and she tried to kiss him.
“Soraya, you need to stop this. Now! Think of Preston,” he hissed, trying to convince himself and her at the same time.
She pushed back, reaching down and trying to pull her panties down. He grabbed ahold of her arms and tried to stop her, but she pulled violently and the fabric tore.
Jacoby reacted, doing the only thing he could think of. He shook her hard.
“Soraya…please, snap out of it. This is not you,” he yelled, shaking her even harder. She shook, her head snapping back and forth and then stumbled back.
Jacoby retreated to the bathroom door, gaining some distance for the first time. He pulled the handle, yanking the door open, preparing to barricade himself inside.
“Whaa?” Soraya groaned and took another uneasy step back. She reached up and held her head, before looking up again. She wobbled unsteadily…but he’d smelled no alcohol on her before.
He slid into the bathroom and prepared to close and lock the door. “Are…you okay?” he asked, realizing exactly how hard he’d shaken her. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.
Soraya met his gaze, the hall light shining directly on her face. She mumbled something under her breath, looked down at her open robe, the elastic of her panties now partially torn and her sports bra pulled off to one side.
She looked back up, her eyelids fluttering for a moment, her pupils contracting suddenly. She staggered again, and then quickly glanced around. She looked lost, bewildered.
“Soraya…” he started to say, hiding his nakedness behind the door.
“I…where…uh,” she stammered, looked down, hastily pulled her robe closed, and turned on her heals and ran unsteadily down the hall. Jacoby followed slowly, maintaining a cautious distance. She paused to let the door open, but then turned and looked right at him.
“I, uh…you,” she said, her eyes finally opening fully, and then she stepped out into the hall, her robe swishing quietly.
Jacoby checked the door to make sure it locked and fell back against the wall.
“What…in the fuck…was that?” he breathed, and shut his eyes tight. He reached up and rubbed his face, massaged his aching temples, and smashed his fists into his eyes, pushing back against the pressure in his skull. Either he was going crazy, or everyone else was. Or, maybe this was all a bad dream. Sure he’d fantasized about women throwing themselves at him…almost constantly, but this wasn’t how he thought it would feel.
“Tomorrow, Jacoby. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow you won’t feel like your head is going to explode and everyone will not be fucking crazy…” he started to whisper, just as the hall light went out, almost absolute darkness blanketing the living quarters.
“Or…not,” he whispered, stepping away from the wall. The wide porthole window glowed like a radiant screen, the flickering stars beyond affording the only light. He waved his hands out before him, feeling his way to the bench by the outer wall.
Weird. Jacoby couldn’t see anything but stars, not the strobe-like flashing lights, not the blazing floods, nor the blue, green, and red marker lights of the communications arrays.
He felt his way back across the living room, fumbling his way towards the bathroom, his data point glowing to life on the small table.
“There you are,” he said, picking it up and tapping it awake. The three-dimensional loading icon popped up, spun twice, and flashed red.
“What in the hell is going on…?” he mumbled, just as the light overhead flickered on suddenly. The walls hummed, the ceramic and titanium weave vibrating as fresh air started to flow out of the vents once again.
“Maybe it’s fixed?” He’d barely whispered the words when the light flickered again, the station’s normal hum ebbing and flowing irregularly. His data point chirped and vibrated in his hand. The screen glowed to life, the network icon finally turning green.
The small device then proceeded to vibrate and beep continuously for several minutes, the screen flooding with alerts and message requests.
Holy f’ing shit, he thought, swiping through the messages as more flooded in. He found a message string from Anna, reading the increasingly desperate messages.
“Damn stupid power outage,” he raged, and suddenly felt even more guilty about his run-ins with Lex in the commissary and Soraya. He selected the first message.
[Anna] - Accident on C Ring. Did you hear? Are you okay? People are dead. Please tell me you’re okay!
[Jacoby) – I’m all right. Are you safe? Lights went out when I was almost home. I’m here now.
He typed the message out and paced from the window to the door, suddenly aware of his nakedness. He ran back into the hall, scooped his shirt off the floor and held it over his privates.
Jacoby paced for another ten minutes before the data point beeped. He unlocked the screen and clicked on the new message icon.
[Anna] – Thank God. We’re still dealing with shit here. I’m hoping they relieve me soon. Have to pee so bad. Be home when I can.
A swell of relief flooded through him, and he typed out a quick response.
[Jacoby] – I’ll be here. Hope they get you out of there a.s.a.p. Stay safe.
He took the data point into the bathroom, and proceeded to take an uncomfortably cold shower. When he was done, Jacoby toweled off and threw on some clean shorts and his favorite t-shirt.
He looked around his room – everything was picked up and put away, save for his bed, which was still a rumpled mess.
“What would I do without her,” Jacoby thought, his guilt deepening. He made his bed, went out and washed the few dishes in the sink, and tidied up as best he could. Then he sat by the window, waiting, moved to the uncomfortable chair after a while, and finally, after starting to nod off, retired to his room to lie down.
2100 Hours
Jacoby lay in bed, his data point sitting on the nightstand, struggling to stay awake. Eventually his eyes grew too heavy to hold open and he drifted off. His dreams were oddly vivid, everyone he encountered either made up of blinding color, or dull, lifeless gray figures, wandering aimlessly.
He walked through the crowds of people, not entirely sure of where he was supposed to go or what he needed to do, yet still compelled to move nonetheless.
The bright, colorful people noticed him and followed, while the colorless shadows drifted away. The colorless people clumped together, their faces like featureless balls of light.
They crowded in, bunching up until he couldn’t move. They pressed in and Jacoby tried to push them away, but there were too many. They all wanted to be near him, touching him. They wanted to be one – he could feel it, their flesh and bodies melting together, flowing over him like a hot, suffocating blanket.
Jaco
by couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, everything sliding into a hot, black mess – and then he snapped awake, sitting bolt upright in bed. The room was dark, a gentle hum of air buzzing in the register directly across from the bed. The air smelled a bit stale – the familiar tinge of warm plastic and ozone much stronger than usual.
Is it just me?
Jacoby reached up to wipe his face but he wasn’t sweaty. Far from it. In fact, his skin was cold to the touch. He flopped back onto the mattress and listened to the quiet quarters, trying to determine if Anna had come home yet.
As if on cue, he heard the door beep quietly and slide open. Jacoby pushed up onto his elbows, half-lifting his legs to roll out of bed before her heard the bathroom door click closed. The shower turned on a few moments later.
Jacoby listened and waited, trying to put his thoughts in a reasonable order, preparing to work things out with Anna. He knew his drinking had been a problem, that hanging out with creeps like Mike was taking him in all the wrong directions, but more importantly he wanted Anna to know that…well, that he knew it. She’d been trying to tell him, and he was just too stubborn and pigheaded to see it.
Before signing his contract with Planitex and coming to Hyde station, they’d only had each other – through the months of backpacking on earth, scrounging enough money to get off planet…then their time squatting in a small eight by eight foot micro hotel in the lunar colony, just scraping by.
They’d struggled, but Jacoby couldn’t remember a time when he’d had more fun. It was simple, an adventure, and together they’d managed to stay out of trouble. But this…this was starting to feel like all the things they’d been running away from.
The shower turned off and a little while later the bathroom door clicked open again and he heard Anna go into her room.
“Mike is just like the guys from school, you know, the cool, popular guys you always wished would be your friends? Well, they are, and just look at them, and you. They’re doing what they’ve always done, drink, party, chase women, and use stims. But that wasn’t you, and that’s not who you are. Why can’t you see that? The longer we’re on station here and you’re around guys like that, the more likely it is that you get yourself into trouble.” Anna’s voice echoed around in his thoughts.
Jacoby rubbed his eyes again, his anger and frustration mounting. She’d said it, and he’d gotten angry…because he knew it was true, but wasn’t ready to accept the truth.
He waited, hoping that Anna would come to talk to him, hoping that he could come clean and say what needed to be said, that she would forgive him for being such a stupid ass, and they could get back to good. The quiet moments stretched on, until he rolled over and closed his eyes,
He rolled over, trying to get comfortable, the cheap micro-foam mattress working to mold around his new shape. His thoughts were sluggish, muddled by sleep. A soft noise issued from the hall and he turned just in time to see a shadow move from his doorway.
“Anna?” he called, his voice gravelly. He heard her move in the hall, the soft swish of fabric just audible above the gentle hum of circulating air.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” she whispered, appearing in the doorway again. She swept into the room, a dark form moving between shadows.
Anna moved to the window and raised the solar shade, allowing the station’s ambient exterior light to dispel a small amount of the gloom. Then she moved to the bed, and tentatively sat on the edge, the backlighting keeping her face in shadow.
Jacoby could smell her – the soft lavender of her shower gel, her wet hair, and the subtle mineral scent that clung to freshly laundered clothes.
“I…” she started, but paused, heaving a weary sigh.
“I want you to know that you were right…about all of it,” Jacoby said, pushing quickly up to sit before her. He needed to say it…all of it, before his thoughts scattered or he forgot, because dammit, he always forgot the important shit.
“I’ve been an ass lately. I don’t know what I was thinking when I renewed my contract. We should have talked about it first, like we do…about everything. It just…well, it felt like a little security for us both…another year without having to worry about where we are going or what we are going to do for money. And you were right about Mike and the guys. It was just a way to blow off steam at first, to laugh at Janice and the rest of the bullshit, but then it just turned into a reason to have a few drinks – a way to forget about shrinking bonuses and our struggles to hit quota day after day. Mike, the booze, the stims, it all messed up my head. I wasn’t thinking right…I didn’t feel like myself. I don’t want to make excuses, but it all took me away from what and who I am,” he said, trying to spit it all out and make sense at the same time. Anna listened, the details of her face and sleepwear coming into focus as his eyes adjusted to the dim, ambient glow. She stared at the bed, her shoulders and mouth sagging slightly. She looked exhausted.
“It’s always been you and me, since early in school, when your parents forbid you from being my friend. We found ways to spend time together, talking about…well, everything – your overbearing parents, my split family and my dad never being around. You were the only one I could talk to about my dad getting drunk and slapping me around. You remember when I tried to run away and you made me skip afternoon sessions so we could sneak down to that abandoned fueling station in the Quarter’s district? You listened to me talk all afternoon, hell it was dark before I worked up the nerve to admit my dad hit me. You hugged me and told me that you’d always listen…always be there, no matter what. It was your promise, and I swore to do the same. What were we, ten years old?”
Anna snorted and nodded, some of her wet hair falling from behind her ear. “I told my friends that I gave you that black eye…that you teased me at recess that I hit like a girl, so I punched you to prove you wrong.”
Jacoby chuckled, remembering how all the little girls teased him after that. Jacoby got beat up by a girl. He swallowed down the laughter, also remembering how Anna had been pulled into the headmistress’s office once the rumor spread and stuck to her story, even accepting a weeklong suspension to keep the truth a secret. If the school knew his father beat him, shit would have gotten complicated real quick. He’d have been torn out of his home, pulled into the system, and likely never seen Anna again…just another broken kid from a broken family destined to fail at everything.
“I never would have made it without you…through him, the time after him…shit, any of it. I probably would have ended up just like him.”
“I told you I would protect you, and as soon as we were old enough, we would run away to where our families couldn’t rule over us anymore,” she added, sniffling again, “but then you grew up and you were bigger than me.”
“Except that whole period of time where you were in college. I mean, that wasn’t really your idea, though.”
“You are the reason I made it through all of that, Coby. Nothing like having your parents decide what school you will go to, your field of study, and where you’re destined to work after, the man you’d marry, or how many kids you’d pop out. And my mom, ugh, her weekly visits, where she would search my dorm room to make sure I wasn’t spending time with people she didn’t approve of...” Anna whispered, sniffling again.
“Ha, yeah. By that, you mean me. She refused to let you live your life. What a…” Jacoby sighed.
“Bitch,” Anna cut in, laughing and nodding her head vigorously.
“We got clear of them,” Jacoby said, simply, scratching his nose. “I should have talked to you. You’re the rational one, the one who does the research and determines the best routes and plans. I’m the one who makes impulsive decisions. Do you hate me?”
“Hate you? Coby, why would I hate you? I…I,” Anna stammered, reaching up to pull her hair out of her face. She took in a deep breath, and pushed it out, looking at the ceiling as if trying to put her thoughts together. “I just don’t like Mike…or guys like him. They’re crude and reckless and think p
ushing sleep deprivation with stims and alcohol is fun. They break shit cause it’s fun, get in fights to prove they’re tough, and steal to get a thrill. They’re the exact same as they were back in school, when getting drunk before class, hiding dead animals in people’s lockers, and starting rumors were just ways to pass time. They think women are meat, Coby. They’re pigs. You’ve never been like that...not back then and sure as hell not now. I guess you started acting differently when you started spending time with them. I freaked out a little, thinking that I was…”
“What?” he asked, as she went quiet.
“I thought that I was losing you, Coby. I thought you were slipping away from me…turning into one of them.”
Anna moved fully onto the bed for the first time. She moved closer and for the first time he became aware of the heat radiating off of her body. He wanted to snuggle close and bask in her warmth.
Precious flower. Hold her close, protect her, make her endure.
Jacoby shook his head and almost cursed out loud. Not now…shut up! he thought, willing his loud, jumbled thoughts to be silent.
“I think in a way, it’s true, and it took our fight for me to see it. I was slipping away…uh, becoming someone different. It felt like the only way to deal with the stress, without dumping it all on your shoulders. Because I didn’t want to do that…I didn’t want to come back and make you listen about Janice doing this, or Mike saying that, or not meeting my quota again and my Panitex share taking another quarter cut. That didn’t feel right. I wanted to…well, just as I always have…I guess, wanted to shield you from all of it. I wanted to protect you.”
A tear ran down his cheek and he reached up to swipe it away, realizing for the first time that his eyes were brimming with them. A tear leaked down Anna’s cheek, too.
“I’m not some delicate flower, you jerk,” she said and lurched forward, throwing her arms around his neck.
