Chancy never shut up about the soup. And he never stopped eyeing me like he wanted to fuck me and kill me at the same time. I caught him following me around the ship several times. He tried to look casual, but there was nothing casual about a hundred kilo man who sauntered into every corridor and stairwell I passed.
I could settle the issue several ways, yet I wasn’t certain which would be more problematic or distasteful. If I could stomach fucking him, that might put a stop to the menacing energy he exuded in my presence, but then he’d probably expect me to do it regularly, and that was not happening. The idea of letting him touch me at all turned my stomach. I had another consideration – Cesar. What would Cesar think of me?
I could go the other way and confront Chancy with violence, let him feel a sliver of the rage I still carried from Jason’s death. The rest of the crew would probably hate me. Then there was Cesar, again. What would he think of me for being so violent, what kind of questions would that rise? Questions I didn’t want to answer.
I could go to Cesar and confide in him my concerns about Chancy, but I didn’t think he’d believe me. He had a healthy tolerance for Chancy’s attitudes and peculiarities. Plus, there was hardly a chain of command on the ship. Cesar acted more like a father and mentor than a commander. Pushing Cesar to my defense yet again probably wouldn’t settle anything.
I decided to talk to Cesar, before the situation got any worse. I found him in the engineering room pouring over holovid star charts. He was so absorbed he didn’t notice me at his side. I smoothed my hand over his shoulder. “So its official then, we’re lost in space?”
He grunted. I expected more of his sly humor, but when he finally looked up at me, all I saw was severity. “Well, yes and no. We know where we want to go, but it’s all the stars and black holes in between that are the problem. If we jump too close to a dense star, we may never get out of its gravity well. There are stars and such with thousands of times the gravitational pull of Earth, and we’ve never tried to navigate that before. Then there’s the question of time dilation. If we jump too close to an event horizon, if we’re lucky enough to escape it, we might lose years or decades in the unpredictable time distortion. Some of these men have families back home, and they’d like to see them in this century.”
He pointed at one holovid chart that was dotted with dark circles all around a jagged line of trajectory. “There are at least a thousand black holes along our jump path, and we have to get around every one of them by a good margin.”
It was fascinating, and worrisome, but I couldn’t stop looking at him, the salt and pepper gray at his temples, his eyes, his sharp jaw line, his warm, beautiful lips. The warmth of his shoulder radiated through the thin fabric of his shirt into my hand. I reached up and felt the side of his jaw. The sensation of his prickly skin tickled the inside of my palm. “I believe in you, Cesar. You’ll find our way home, like you found me. The men believe in you, too. I see it when you speak to them.”
He looked at me then. The worry and concern of black holes melted away in the searing hot desire in his dark eyes. His response ignited my own. My nipples hardened instantly and warm wetness trickled from inside me. He turned into me and his hands slipped around my waist, pulling me close. The hardened tips of my breasts slid gently against his shirt and I could feel him through my zipper suit. The sensation shot tingles straight down between my legs.
I was ready for him in three seconds flat.
He’d been hiding this desire from me all along. I thought he was … friendly, being kind to the psycho girl who had loved his fool brother. There was nothing kind or friendly about the man who gripped my hips and fucked me raw with his eyes. I wanted this Cesar. I wanted to be devoured by the fire in his eyes.
He looked so much like Jason, but in this moment, he was all Cesar. When he crushed my lips with his hot, delicious kisses the two men overlapped and merged in my mind. Jason was hiding within the thick muscular body of Cesar, kissing me with Cesar’s thick lips and wonderful tongue. Jason unzipped my suit all the way past my thigh and slipped Cesar’s hands up my stomach and chest to find my nipples aching for him.
Jason slid Cesar’s hand down my belly, past my curls of pubic hair and rubbed my sopping wet pussy lips with his fingers. Jason slipped Cesar’s tongue inside my mouth and let me suck and stroke him with my tongue. Jason slipped his finger up and curled back inside of me, letting me grind my pelvis onto his strong grip.
Riding Jason’s hand and sucking his tongue, I tore through the buttons of his pants and freed an erection that was larger than Jason’s, but every bit as hot and hard. I stroked the wet tear of come on the head of his cock and couldn’t wait to feel Jason thrusting Cesar inside of me. I massaged his balls and suddenly he slipped two, then three fingers inside me, working me, stroking me, preparing me for him.
I couldn’t wait anymore. I came all over Jason-Cesar’s hand and it was so good I could hardly stay on my feet. I pulled away from his kiss and stepped back to let his fingers slide out of me. Now it was my turn to show Jason how much I still loved him. I dropped to my knees and swallowed Cesar whole, into the back of my throat. I sucked as hard and fast as I could. I poured all my love and need onto Cesar’s cock. Jason had shown me we could still be together. I was not alone in the universe.
I showed him how much I missed him when I swallowed every drop of his come. I pumped it out of him, squeezing and stroking to milk even more. I stroked his balls and worked his shaft, taking the last bit he had left to give. Licking his come off my lips, I looked up with tears of joy and relief, with all the love I had for him still. “I love you so much, Jason. I’ll always love you.”
Cesar looked down at me as I sucked on his cock once more and his face morphed through a series of emotions: ecstasy, shock, disbelief, pain, and then finally understanding.
I’d been given a second chance. I could still have my Jason, in spirit and body, through Cesar. I didn’t care how much it shocked him. I didn’t care if it hurt him. I would take Jason any way I could get him. I had found a way to hold onto my happiness, to live a life that meant something.
* * * *
Cesar wouldn’t talk to me for two days. He avoided me constantly. When I spoke to him he’d mumble something then make tracks to some other part of the ship. I tried to let him be, to give him room to adjust, but I needed him. My need for Jason had blended with my attraction to Cesar, and I could no longer separate them.
On the third day that he ignored me, my grief for Jason kicked in hard, and I roamed the halls of the ship looking for somewhere to hide, something to take my mind off of Cesar and Jason. I found a place on the bottom of the ship, a little seat with a window out onto space. I sat for hours and watched the stars, thinking about how I would do myself and the universe a favor if I just stepped out the airlock.
“Well aren’t you adorable? Moping around with your puppy dog eyes, lying to Cesar all day long. I know what you are, and I dinna like you. I dinna want you on our ship. Tis bad luck.” Chancy stood three feet behind me, looking down on me with disdain and desire, a caustic mix of emotions.
“I know what you want, Chancy. Be truthful and stop pretending it’s my fault you can’t keep your eyes off me.”
“Sure, I want to stick my plug in your hole because you’re shaking your ass across the deck. No matter what I want from you in a moment of temptation, I know the truth.”
“What truth?”
“We never shoulda brought your sorry arse home instead of Jason. You can’t take his place. Not for me, and not for Cesar.”
He sliced me to the core with his words. Tears burned down my face and I could hardly speak. I rolled over onto the ground and curled up in a ball with the squeezing pain in my chest.
“You got no place here. We shoulda left you for the bloody Cats to play with.”
I reached out for his boot in desperation and choked on my words. “Will you do it for me? I’ve tried. I want to do it, but I’m not strong enough.”
> “What are you whining about now?”
“Take me to the airlock. Open it for me. I can’t do it by myself.”
He staggered backwards with shock and disgust on his face. “Don’t put it on me! Don’t you dare put this on me!” He turned to run and slammed into Cesar’s chest.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
Chancy pushed past him and Cesar grabbed ahold of his arm. “She’s all yours, Cesar. You brought her aboard, you deal with the mess. I want nothing to do with it!” He jerked out of Cesar’s grasp and stomped down the hallway.
Cesar knelt in front of me. “What’s this about?”
I wiped the tears out of my eyes and sat up, feeling sick and ashamed. “It’s nothing. He was just being Chancy.”
Cesar eyed me and I knew he didn’t believe me, but he didn’t push it. Instead he helped me to my feet. “I know exactly what you need.”
I knew what I needed too, him.
“We’re going to give you a job, Angel. You need something to keep you occupied, something useful. What kind of job would you like?”
I could think of nothing except him, holding my hand, staring into my eyes, so close, yet untouchable. I wanted to help him. “I can look at your star charts and help you plot a course.”
I caught it then, his reticence. His eyes hinted that he didn’t like the idea of being in the same room with me all day. I couldn’t think of a better place to be on this ship.
“Have you ever worked with star charts?”
I shook my head then smiled through my tears. “I’m a fast learner. On Nugene I was studying calculus … before all this.”
He pulled me up off the floor and frowned. “Well, if you think you can help, you’re welcome. But it’s a complicated business. We’ve been at it for two weeks, and nothing.”
* * * *
Chapter 10
Calculus and the quantum mechanics of jump theory had taught me that the keys to the universe lie somewhere between the heart of an atom and a wave of gravity. This knowledge proved useless without a map to the universe.
I spent days digging through charts and listening to Cesar and Azad ramble on and on about trying to narrow down the jump coordinates. I looked over the snapshot charts they had taken at each jump point. I memorized every chart they showed me, but it didn’t seem to matter. There was no way across this sea of black holes and stars without a full database on all the planetary movements across the galaxy. The fools had leapt on the coat-tails of the Gran and barely grabbed a few hours’ worth of data at each jump point. They didn’t have a clue how to get back home.
Sure there was always Line Of Sight, like the first explorers had done fifty years ago when they ran into the Gran by accident. The LOS method took a series of quick scans, assimilated the data within a narrow path, and then determined the next farthest jump point that would be safe within an hour. The jump data had to be current, or stellar movements would change the landscape, like a fat-ass asteroid racing across our trajectory. LOS jump travel across this distance could take years or decades, had a huge degree of risk, and still couldn’t guarantee we’d miss the major black hole zones and time distortions.
After the fourth day of beating my head against the wall, Azad lost patience with my questions and what-ifs. He quit and left Cesar and I alone. That’s when I accepted the harsh truth the men refused to admit.
I swiped my hand through the holovid in front of Cesar’s face to get his attention. “You can’t do it. Not if you want to get home in a few weeks. We’ll run out of supplies and find ourselves starving in the middle of nowhere. The only way home is to piggyback on the Gran the next time they make a run for Nugene. If we return to the last jump point, where you assaulted their ship, we should be able to catch them on their way back to Nugene for another batch of worker drones.”
His face scrunched up with concentration. He was considering what I said. “And how the hell will we know when they are leaving? We could starve waiting for them just as easily as we’ll starve right here doing nothing.”
“They visit the station every ninety days, like clockwork. If it took a month to get through the jump cycle from Nugene to here, that means they have to leave a month early to arrive at Nugene on time.”
I did a quick count of the weeks I’d spent on the Gran jumpship, and the weeks aboard the Shadow vessel with Cesar and crew, and it was about two months. “They could be passing through the last jump point any day now. We can sneak in behind them and ride their jump wake back to Nugene.”
Cesar stared at me with eyes wide in shock. “That’s it! You’ve done it!” His hands wrapped around my cheeks and his face bloomed with the realization. “My God you’ve found a way home, Angel!” He hugged me and before I knew what was happening, we kissed.
It was sweet, delicious, joyous, and all Cesar. I wrapped my hands around the back of his head and settled in for a wet and wonderful duel with his tongue. This was Cesar, not Jason. I hadn’t thought of Jason for days. Cesar and the star charts had become my world. Cesar’s struggle had become my struggle. As Cesar meditated in front of the charts without sleep, I had stayed at his side around the clock.
Once again, I had focused my life, energy, and attention on another human being. A man who might never accept me if he understood the truth of my origins. A man who would probably die when I needed him most. A man who might eventually betray me to save himself.
Though it felt so right and glorious, I pulled away from Cesar’s kiss and my heart pulled away from the man I could not afford to love. “I’m sorry, Cesar. I can’t do this. I can’t …”
He let go of me and stepped back. The happiness of his eyes hardened. “You could do it when you pretended I was Jason. You had no problem then.”
I had hurt him, carelessly. Cesar was too strong to let it show, too considerate to burden me. Instead he’d brought me back from the brink, yet again. This man had saved me so many times with his smile, his conversation, his good cheer. But if I let myself love him, he could destroy me just as easily.
“I … it’s not you, Cesar. You’re kind and generous. I want nothing more than to be here, with you, with your smile. You’ve been such a good friend. The problem is me. I can’t … Please understand.”
“I understand perfectly, Angel. You’re a mess, girl. Until you decide to start living and loving again, that’s all you’ll ever be, a mess.”
* * * *
Chapter 11
Within a day of fast flying we had returned to the exact same locale where the Shadow cruiser had ambushed a Gran vessel three times its size and firepower. We waited no more than a day hiding behind a nearby asteroid, when the Gran showed up once more – the same vessel. They cruised up to the jump point and we shadowed them in stealth.
Seeing the ship again, I imagined Captain Cronin’s fury at having lost his concubine. I grinned at the idea of him humping on his couch like a dog with a pillow, spraying his drug on the cushions so he could get off. He was probably suffering withdrawals without me to help deliver his drug. My life now among the pirates was so drastically different from my debased experiences kneeling before the Gran.
In stealth mode, the standing order which everyone impressed upon me with great severity was utter silence. No speaking, no electronics of any sort, nothing but the stealth engines of our ship and the jump drive that only fired upon the wake of the Gran ship, after they jumped first. Until then, I never understood how much trouble the crew had gone through to shadow the Gran for those weeks I’d spent imprisoned with Jason.
Living in silence for a day is torture. Living in silence for a week is insanity. By the second week, I had become convinced everyone aboard the ship was watching my every move, waiting for me to say something, waiting for me to break the silence and betray our presence to the Gran. As if I was the weak link among a ragtag crew of ex-miners turned pirate.
If they could do it, I could do it. I swore to myself that the next bastard who stared at my silent footfalls and
the squeak of my chair when I sat down in the galley was going to catch a silent fist upside his face. Chancy stepped up to do the honors when he grabbed my arm, his intense eyes right in my face. All I had done was drop my soup bowl on the counter with a slight clank noise.
His fingers pinched into my arm, his face in my face, silently communicating how much he wanted to scream at me. I broke his nose with my forehead and grinned as he clamped his hand over his mouth to avoid crying out in pain. I watched him stagger around the galley, near blinded, until the men helped him regain his balance. His hate-filled eyes watched me from a safe distance as he cleaned the blood off his face with a napkin.
Damn that felt good.
Cesar laid his hand over mine and his eyes were solemn. He gently pulled my hand and guided me away from the galley. Wearing only my suit, no shoes or slippers to make noise, I wound through the corridors to the upper level, following Cesar to my tiny bedroom. They’d removed the flexi-cot to get rid of anything that made sound, leaving me with only a foam pad on the floor and a blanket. Cesar opened my door and led me into my room, then locked the door behind us.
Slowly, ever-so quietly, he unzipped his suit and stripped down to his boxer shorts. I was entranced by the lovely vision of his powerful, muscular body. With eyes communicating intense wordless emotion, he unzipped my suit past my knee and peeled it off of me to reveal my naked body.
Though my fear said no, my heart said yes. My body screamed hell yes.
I wanted him so badly my nipples stood erect, ultrasensitive. The moment he touched my bare shoulders, wetness rolled down my inner thighs. When he guided me to the mattress, I bit my tongue to keep from telling him how wonderful he was. Slowly, with painstaking patience, he ran his fingertips up and down my body. An artist, he used my body as a canvas. He painted me with his fingers, and the soft glide of his warm palms.