The Saffron Malformation (59 page)

             
“Put him down Rach,” Quey said softly and she looked at him, tears shimmering on her eyes.  “Or let someone else.”

             
“You’re all dead,” the broodling spat.  “Render’s not far.  You got given up a ways back and you’ll get given up here too.”

             
Rachel rested the barrel of the gun against his chest, just above his heart and fired.  The Broodling fell still.

             
When the echo of the shot faded, long before the scent of expended shells would, Quey announced, “We have to move.”

             
In the scramble he went to Natalie and told her, “I want you driving the car.”  Natalie nodded and hurried to get set.

             
Rachel leaned against the van, her hands shaking and covered in blood.  Rain approached her and she looked up at the girl and was met by a reassuring smile.  “I don’t know who that was,” Rachel said dully.  “I’ve never… that isn’t me.”  Rain nodded, put an arm around her and helped her into the back of the van where she could clean up.

             
“She’ll ride in here,” Rain told Quey who nodded.

             
“Amber come with me,” Natalie barked.  After a long sigh the girl followed.

             
“Arnie I need you driving the van,” Quey said and was answered with a nod.

             
Leone was staring at Natalie and Amber climbing into the car.  Rain gave him a sideways look and said, “You can ride with them if Natalie doesn’t mind.”

             
He swallowed hard, choking something down as he stared at the car with terrified eyes.  Finally he shook his head, “No.”

             
She understood.  They’d covered the back seat with a thick blanket but underneath it was still there.  Her blood, soaked deep in the fabric and dark, a constant reminder of what had happened the last time he’d been in that car.

             
They finished loading up, Leone climbing into the passenger’s seat of the van and Rain closing the door to the back.  Quey was behind the wheel of the truck and the big man settled in beside him.  Engines turned over one at a time and then they were off, away from the diner and toward the edge of the livable world.  Every kilometer that ticked by meant it grew a little browner beyond the windows and then that brown gave way to grey.  Then, finally, before they knew it they were into the wasteland.  That’s how it was, a slow decent into lifelessness and that’s why no one noticed as it creped across the entire world.

             
Rachel was sitting on the mattress in the back of the van trembling slightly and staring at the Broodling’s blood, slowly vanishing as Rain wiped it away with a wet cloth that came with their ‘to go’ orders.  Rain sat silently across from her watching the woman stare at her palm and fingers as if they were a puzzle to be solved.

             
Her first reaction to Rachel had been fear, when she saw her standing over that man in the parking lot in the grip of a frenzy she hadn’t seen in a person since her father gave her mother to Sticklan Stone.  It reflected across her face and through her body, radiating off her intensely.  Now as she looked at her she saw something else and it caused her to smile reassurance to her.  When her hand was clean she settled in beside the woman and rested against her.  Rachel looked at her with confused eyes but Rain simply smiled again.

             
The woman sighed and rested her head on Rain’s shoulder.  Rain draped her arm around her and noticed more blood so she took up the cloth and began to work at scrubbing it from her hand.

             
Rachel watched the last bits, in and around her nails mostly, slowly vanish and felt Rain gently run her fingers through her hair.  She felt tears trickle from her eyes but the bit of weeping she did was silent.  When her hand was clean Rain let her settle on her lap and gently stroked her long brown hair.

             
Finally she spoke.  “I don’t know what happened,” Rachel said and looked up at her and then hugged her and added, “Thank you.”

             
“I didn’t do anything.”

             
She sat up and said, “Yes you did.”  Rachel smiled at her.  “You did a lot, given how scary that must have been.  I don’t know what happened.  I just… lost it.”

             
“I understand,” Rain replied.

             
Rachel smiled, “You’re a good mom.”

             
After a moment she replied.  “I’m not really a mom.”

             
Rachel gripped her tight with both arms.  “Sorry if I scared you guys,” she finished and sat back.  “I never was a violent person.”

             
Rain shook her head but couldn’t look at Rachel.  Her face hinted toward an inner distress as she said soft enough so it stayed between the two of them, “That didn’t scare me.  What scared me is… if they had gotten Leone,” she shook her head.  “I don’t think I’d care anymore.  I wouldn’t stop until I killed them all.”

             
Rachel touched her cheek and looked at her.  “You wouldn’t be at it alone.”

             
Rain chuckled and felt a bit of pain shoot through her left side.  “I can just see a tiny thing like me and a pregnant lady taking on the entire brood.”  A moment passed and Rain said, “I’d sneak off.”  Rachel looked at her, surprised.  “You’re going to be a mother.  I wouldn’t be able to live with that.”

             
“I wouldn’t let you go,” Rachel added and Rain peered at her.  “You’d die too and then he’d win.  Your father,” she clarified.  “I don’t think you want that.”  Rain was overwhelmed as she imagined that scenario, where Leone had been killed and there was nothing she could do.  Rachel touched her shoulder and added, “Besides I’m going to need you around.  I mean I’ve never even changed a diaper.”

             
The weight lifted from Rain’s expression and Rachel was glad.

             
Rain cocked her head and looked at her.  “Shut up,” she said with a touch of the animation she was famous for.  The first bit of herself she’d shown since being shot.

             
“It’s true,” Rachel said with a shake of her head.  “I was the youngest in my family and I just never really was left in charge of a baby.”

             
“Hmm,” Rain said, her face flaring with pretend thought.  “Not sure where to begin.  I suppose, the thing about diapers is that they go on the bottom.”

             
Rachel laughed.

             
Rain smiled and continued.  “No, really, you remember that and you’re pretty much set.”  Rain shifted a bit to her right putting her snug against the vans back doors and motioned for Rachel to come to her.  They sat as far back as they could get huddled together like teenagers only instead of talking about boys Rachel listened as Rain told her stories about Leone from when he was a baby.

             
After a half dozen Rachel shook her head and looked toward the front of the van where Leone was sitting in the passenger’s seat.  “Must be so weird,” she said.  “Seeing him go from that tiny to… well he’s practically bigger than you now.”

             
“Oh no,” she said matter of factly, “He is.  It’s not weird though,” she answered.  “It’s…” she trailed off thoughtfully then continued, “something but weird isn’t the word.”  She was looking at Leone and said, “Amazing maybe.”

             
Rachel smiled at her.

             
“So what’s it like?” Rain asked.  “When they’re in there.”

             
Rachel chuckled.  “Well whoever is in here hasn’t been too active, just the once and I think maybe I imagined it.  Like, I needed to feel it and so I did.  Still,” she said and then it was her time to reflect.  “Yeah, I think amazing is just about right.”

             
Rachel and Rain talked a bit before lying down.  All the excitement had been more than Rain was ready for and mentally Rachel was exhausted.  She closed her eyes and saw the pavement of the parking lot, soaked in broodlings blood.  She saw the anguish on the last ones face as she’d shoved her fingers into his wounds and a slight tremble passed through her.  Rain’s arms came around her instinctively and as the world changed from brown to grey both women drifted and slept.  Alas, their group had made it into the wastes.

Flesh and Bot

             
Quey explained the vast empty of the wastes and the sick little grasses and weeds that spread throughout it.  “You’ve seen your last bit of green for sometime,” he said.  He’d warned them also about the heat, so heavy outside that even an air conditioner on full blast could only hope to keep the temperature manageable as opposed to unbearable.  Still, for everyone save Reggie, who had seen a waste before, it took its toll as it was impossible to imagine the reality of it.

             
They’d fallen into a rhythm, as one does on the road, stopping for the bathroom and food at generally the same times and driving in shifts.  It was afternoon and the convoy was stopped.  Arnie's time at the wheel was over and when he was done pissing on some sickly looking brown and Viney plant he climbed into the back of the van and lay on the mattress.

             
“I hate this heat,” Rain complained and he smiled at her.  She was rummaging through her meager belongings.  “Yup,” she said, a bit exasperated and tossed up her hands.  “I’m officially out of clothes that haven’t been sweat through.”

             
“It’s okay,” Arnie told her, crawling close and resting his head on her lap.  “I love you anyway.”

             
She gave him a bit of a smile.  “Just don’t breathe too deep,” she warned him, “You might change your mind.”

             
He lifted his head from her thigh and sniffed once.  He looked up at her and sniffed again.  She smiled a bit so he moved closer to her face sniffing wildly like a dog on a scent.  When he moved closer she pushed on his shoulders trying to keep him away but that only made him persist until his face was buried in her neck and he was sniffing wildly.  She laughed as his breath tickled her neck and slapped him gently on the back cackling the word, “Stop,” over and over.  Finally he did, pulled back, and looked at her face trying to make his look like that of a monkey.  A moment later he was on her again.  She wrapped her legs around him and howled with laughter.  It felt good to be able to laugh again without blinding pain.

             
He settled snug against her and his hand gently brushed her side then settled just above her hip as his lips tasted her neck.  Suddenly her laughter subsided and what she was left with was the sensuality of the moment.  She tightened her thighs around him and ran her fingers down his back.  Both their hearts beat a little faster as he kissed her again.  His hand left her hip and found her subtle breast, firm and free under the thin fabric of her shirt and then his lips found her’s.  They were blessed with fifteen more seconds before the front doors opened.

             
He groaned and she whispered, “Soon,” just before they parted.

             
Leone settled in behind the wheel of the van and Amber was beside him.  She was wearing the same loose fitting summer dress as the day before but it still looked fresh and Rain envied that.  The doors closed with a clank and Leone looked back over his shoulder.

             
“Well what do we have here?” he asked with playful accusation.

             
Amber smiled slyly, “Looks like the pair of thems up to no good,” she added.

             
Leone shook his head slowly.  “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes can I?”

             
“I could be done in five but if you made it ten I’d be grateful,” Arnie said.

             
Leone groaned and turned around, “Geeze man,” he protested as Rain laughed.  “I don’t need to know that,” the boy added as he turned the engine over.

             
“I could get by on two or three,” Rain announced.

             
Leone tossed up his hand as he started to roll after the moving truck and said, “Okay.  Right, I get it.  Minding my own business now.”

             
Rain and Arnie settled against each other in the back of the van.  His head rested on her breast, not much of a pillow she had to concede, but he seemed to enjoy it as he pressed himself to her and she could feel his cock throbbing against her leg.  She enjoyed that, strange as it may seem.  She supposed it was the idea that she could have that effect on someone.  A man could string all manner of words into all sorts of pretty phrases but you knew which ones were truths when it came to his cock and the way he looked at you when you let him use it.

             
She’d had a great many men meet her eyes while inside her and she always knew exactly where she stood and what was meant.  Sometimes she saw the conquerer, a man just adding another notch to his belt.  Sometimes she saw the animal, raw in passion and fleeting in heart—you love me now but when it’s over...  Sometimes she saw the gratefulness of a beggar and she had a soft spot for them because she would be one of a very few women who allowed them the pleasures her body could offer.  With them she often made it a point to try a little more, to make the experience something that might stay with them for a while as they might just have a long wait ahead for another.  That brought her to another type, the rarest of them and the only one she tried for as hard if not harder than the beggar.  Sometimes she saw the lover.

             
Arnie stirred gripping her in his arms, pressing himself against her and she began to run her fingers through his hair.  He moaned gently as she scratched his scalp.  In a few minutes his cock would lose its vigor, she knew, eased by the gentle movements of her fingers.

             
The lover, she had to admit, felt the best, which was probably why the sex was so intense.  The conquerer could make you feel like a prize, the animal might make you feel sexy, the beggar made you feel like the only woman in the world, and of course depending on the individual you might get a touch of feeling powerful or fragile or vulnerable or nurturing.

             
She had to admit, embarrassingly, that she really liked feeling a man lose himself inside her.  She enjoyed seeing whomever he thought he was melt away as his primal nature took over.  Near the end she always let them take her however they wanted, whether facing them or flipped around from the back.  On top or sideways, there were so many possibilities and strangely enough it was the end she enjoyed the most—after her own pleasure of course.

             
In essence it was the same, she’d feel them grow massive, throbbing as their thrusts turned vigorous and then they would touch her.  Some men slid a hand across her ass whereas others gripped her breasts while some put a hand around her throat or held her down in some other fashion or any combination of those until finally they pressed deep and spasmed.  She loved it, almost as much as her own orgasm.  She loved that with nothing but her body she was capable of granting that amount of pleasure.  When she looked at them there was satisfaction, gratitude, and joy.  Pure simple joy.

             
It felt good to be wanted and desired with that intensity.  She liked to watch their faces, even if they flipped her over to take her from behind she would sometimes look over her shoulder at their final moments.  Their eyes always found what they liked best, the curve of her hips, the roundness of her ass, or even the swell of her breasts.  She liked the men who focused on her breasts since her’s were small and always a point of self-consciousness for her.

             
Of course then there were the lovers…

             
Arnie had fallen asleep on her chest, his breathing shallow and steady.

             
The lovers might grab her breast, or caress her thighs or ass.  They might even grip her wrists or neck but their eyes always found her’s and looked deep.  Logic says that love takes time and effort, but Rain knew for these souls the only time it took was in those last few moments and as for the effort, it existed mostly at the end of that final stroke.

             
Arnie hadn’t looked into her eyes, and even now it was rare he did.  At first she thought he would though, as he settled atop her and began to thrust, his face buried in her neck.  She thought he’d rise up and meet her eyes when the end came close.  Instead he pulled back and gripped her breasts, trying to bury his face in them, but hers are too small for that.

             
Thinking about this brought her thoughts to what Leone had said to Quey when she was shot and bleeding in a motel parking lot.  “You love her,” the boy had said, “I know you do.”

             
It wasn’t far from the truth, she knew, as Quey was a lover.  Not only that he was different from any she could recall.  He had found her eyes in the last moments, as a handful had before, but he had done it in a way she didn’t think she’d experienced before.  He’d done it from the bottom.  Men often allowed her to ride them to their end, but not the first time.  The first time they wanted to be in control, to be sure their orgasm was as powerful as it could be and with little regard for the one they were with.  Approaching the end they might thrust too hard or holding something too firmly, or maybe something about the position was just uncomfortable, but there was nothing you could say, nothing to do but wait for them to finish because amidst those thralls there was no talking to them.  That’s what had made her time with Quey so intense for her.  He had surrendered all of that to her and if she was going to be truthful, she’d enjoyed that more than anything any man had ever done with her sexually.  He had trusted her with his pleasure and in gratitude she had tried with him more than she had with anyone else, massaging him inside her with all the intensity her rolling hips and groin muscles could muster and as she did she’d grown excited again.  Unaccustomed to multiple orgasms she craved the experience so she told him, “Don’t come.  Don’t come yet.”  She’d watched the effort straining his face as he struggled to oblige and that made her excitement grow to frenzy.  She pinched his nipple and he grimaced but didn’t protest for he understood and the bit of pain gave him a few extra moments.  Rolling her hips in a way that pet every nerve, she felt herself tighten as she slowly built toward ecstasy and that’s when he grabbed her hair and pulled her to him.  He kissed her fiercely and met her eyes and gazed deeply as she thrust against him in long grinding strokes.  She’d watched him fall in love with her, desiring nothing save to witness her pleasure and take whatever she would give.  He kissed her again and his hands rushed over her skin, touching everything they could, caressing her from thigh to neck because that was what he wanted, not just her breasts or her ass or her thighs but her body, whole and absolute.  The truth of that burned and finally spasmed in her loins and as she spasmed, gripping him like a vice, he pulled her face to his and watched her orgasm.  Breathing frantically she rode him, her nerves still tingling as she tried to judge what he liked so she could bring him to climax with the greatest intensity.  Finally she felt him explode inside her.  His spasm and the way he watched her as his hips pushed up and burred his cock as deep as he could caused another lighter burst of pleasure to flutter through her and they fell silent together in the back of the cab of his truck.

             
Leone had been right.  He had loved her and probably would again if she asked.  What Quey didn’t know was the rest.  She was supposed to head back to the hotel that night with enough jewelry sold to carry them a spell.  Instead she’d stayed the night.  She’d left Leone alone so she could wake up with the moonshiner beside her.  Matter of fact, since she was being honest with herself, if her sheet hadn’t beeped, if she hadn’t discovered Sticklan was on the move and heading toward them, she would have given him enough to follow her, had he been so inclined.  In short, the truth she’d never say aloud wasn’t that she could have loved Quey in some other where and when.  The truth was that for a moment she had.

             
Arnie stirred and snuggled against her and it roused a bit of guilt that made her feel like a bad person.  Thinking on the time she’d spent with someone else like this.  And how could feelings like that be possible?  Everything she thought she could have loved in Quey was completely opposite from everything she loved in Arnie.  Quey was streetwise and strong in the world.  He would protect her and always know what to do.  In bed he would be rough when she wanted and how she wanted, and gentle when that was her wish.  Arnie was the follower in the world, looking to her for every idea and when she had none his only one was to look to Quey.  In bed, however, he was the animal, and she liked that too.  He took her with vigorous need but he always gave her pleasure before taking his own.

             
Of course there was the other stuff, and that’s what snapped her back to reality.  Quey might stop all this nonsense for a spell, but he would never settle, not really.  To know that all you had to do was look at Dusty and that’s how the lives of the restless always seemed to end.  Being a roader might feel like an adventure for a time, but it was never stable and rarely long.  Most roaders didn’t die of natural causes, unless you consider that bullets can kill you natural.

             
Rain sighed.  She’d made her choice and made it clearly and when she really thought about it she was glad she had.  The rest didn’t matter.  She didn’t regret her night with Quey, quite the opposite, she was grateful for it, but that didn’t mean it was right for her forever.  Settled into a bit of peace of mind she finally slept.