ElyriasEcstasy (10 page)

“You loaned me your key, remember? So that I could pick up
that paper?” He handed her a glass then held out his. She filled her own first.

“You were supposed to leave that key.” She spoke through her
teeth as she remembered Aphael Chav showing her the tract that depicted him as
a wolf among chickens. “Speaking of paper…”

“Did you see the pamphlet we distributed?” Bongo grinned
again, nodding as though she’d answered affirmatively. “It was good, right?”

“T-y-r-a-n-t. That’s tyrant.”

“Hey.” He raised his hands defensively. “It’s not my fault I
received a civilian’s education.”

It was a barb—an ineffective one he’d tried to use against
her before. Virge felt no guilt over her privileged education, one that had
trained her to be a chemist. She had shown an aptitude as a youngster and she
had applied herself, finding the field a fascinating one. Chemicals combined in
complex ways. They were the basic components of reality and she, with her
knowledge and knack for manipulating such essences, had secured for herself a
livelihood. She was good at what she did. More than good, a virtuoso. The
chemical concoctions she made for the Weapon/Shadowflash division were only
part of her duties. Her lab produced medicines for the general population, very
necessary supplies.

Like the taverns that paid off the Guard, her labor for the
Lux let her operate for a greater good.

To Bongo she said, “For someone so clever, you display a
stunning lack of intelligence.”

“You thought it was clever, then?” His eyes were fully
alight, the green sparkling.

He hadn’t responded at all to her evident anger and that had
the inevitable effect of dissipating it. Virge wanted to be furious with him
but it wasn’t quite working. She was tired, though not sleepy.

“Clever?” After taking a savoring sip from her glass she
finally said, “Not especially. More juvenile, really. Although, I suppose,
something
can
be juvenile
and
clever…” Virge slipped out of her
boots, losing an inch of height in the process. “The Toplux seemed to enjoy
it,” she continued. “He was my date.” Bongo’s eyes widened. And that was
gratifying. Yes, far better than regaling him with her sexual escapade with
Nick, the Guard Junior Interrogator.

“You’re full of it,” Bongo said, and knocked back half the
contents of his glass as if he were belting rotgut rather than this smooth
stuff.

“Nope,” Virge said. “He brought me in. Two boys in black
were waiting for me when I went to the lab.”

“Shit. What did they get you for?”

The question brought all her anger right back. “For your
stupid fucking cartoon!” Virge slammed her palm down, rattling a few empty
packages on the counter, once containing protein rations. The last thing she’d
eaten, and that had been this morning.

With the anger, recent events came rushing back in a flood.
Being taken into custody, transported to the Citadel. No explanations, no
threats, no promises. Made to wait hours before being hauled before Chav
himself. She’d kept her calm, her deeply ingrained poise, because she’d had to.
She would rather die than look weak in front of that old bastard, the man who
had ruled the Safe all her life. A man who, just possibly, had some personal,
unwholesome—though surely quite nonsexual—interest it her.

This wasn’t the first time she had been brought before the
Toplux. That was a lot of attention for a civilian, even an important chemist
like herself.

She pulled her fingers back through her thick hair, rubbed
her face with her palms. Bongo had come up beside her. His smile vanished. His
impishness seemed to have evaporated.

“Hey,” he said gently. “I’m sorry, all right? I should have
told you what I needed the paper for.”

“And I should have known you would be careless with it.”
Actually, she’d intentionally
not
asked, though she had suspected the
paper would be used for something like those pamphlets. Why lie to herself? “I
suppose we can call this one a wash.”

“Are you sure?” He put his hand on her shoulder.

She lifted her gaze, narrowed it at him. He had set down his
empty glass. Hers was still halfway full of the gold liquor. Or was it half
empty?

“Maybe I could weave a spell of emotional healing between
us,” he said.

Virge blinked back at him. Was he serious…? Yes. He had a
small object in his hand now, something of beaten metal with points on it,
etched with arcane designs. A talisman. Or what he and the believers would call
a talisman. To her it was just a hunk of odd-looking metal, and Bongo had
pocketfuls of stuff like this. Feathers, stones, crystals, tiny wood carvings.
If he ever got caught with them he could always say they were mere crafts,
meant for amusement. As far as Virge was concerned, that was exactly what they
were.

“I’d said I would help you. And I helped you. It’s done
now.”

Bongo gave her one of his little-boy-lost looks. “But you’re
still mad…”

He really was quite a scrumptious male and she’d always felt
something just a shade more serious than an animal attraction toward him. But
his evidently sincere belief in the magical arts was a put-off. Magic was a
shuck, magic was bedtime stories for kids. Magic was the need to believe in
something more powerful than the Black Ship, than the Lux.

“Put that thing away,” she said, then emptied her glass with
a decisive swallow. She thumped it down on the counter.

She used the tone of voice she kept reserved for ending
conversations. Bongo’s hand was still on her shoulder. His other returned the
metal object to his pocket. The sweat of Nick Daphral had barely dried on her
skin, yet she was surprised to feel her blood stirring again. Reacting to the
familiarity and warmth of her friend’s proximity.

Bongo was shorter than Nick but he had a fantastic body,
sturdy and evenly muscled. When he wasn’t exercising his talents for civil
disobedience, he spent his hours sorting legal salvage at one of the large
outdoor plants just inside the Lux city limits. It wasn’t glamorous (whose life
was, really?) but he could credit his assigned occupation for the tanned glow
of his skin, his strong arms. He could toss Virge onto her back as easily as
she could flip open a book.

She knew this from experience. Flushing, forgetting about
the glass, Virge raised the bottle to her lips and took a long swig. Bongo
reclaimed it with his free hand when she was done and mirrored her motion,
overdoing it, shaking his head when the alcohol—a smooth blend dubbed Fire by
Raz—filled his throat. Virge had meant to save the golden liquor for an
occasion. Maybe this was one after all, she considered. Any night you got free
from the clutches of the Lux was a good one.

“So, why’d they cut you loose?” he asked, masking a cough
behind his hand as Virge took the bottle back.

“It’s weird…” Virge hesitated. She’d been planning to tell
him the news of Urna’s escape. Now an internal voice rose, warning her against
it. No one outside of the Lux and the Guard would know about it and that made
the knowledge dangerous. If word spread, it might be traced back to Virge’s
Interrogator, who had certainly violated the rules of secrecy by telling her.
She found she had no urge to get poor, horny, semi-hapless Nick Daphral into
any trouble.

And what about Urna himself? The more buzz there was among
the Safe’s general populace concerning Urna, the harder it would be for him to
keep a low profile. Virge didn’t actually care about the Weapon’s personal
well-being, but she preferred the idea of him evading Aphael Chav for a good
long time, keeping the evil old fuck occupied. It might keep him off her back,
at least. And maybe even the backs of those rebellious miscreants she
considered her friends by way of Bongo. Acquaintances, anyway.

She looked at Bongo, shaking her head. “They didn’t tell
me,” she finally finished.

“Well, then, who cares?” Bongo’s fingers moved from her
shoulder to brush against the side of her neck. Virge swatted him vaguely, all
the while feeling her insides beginning to melt.

“I’m tired,” she said. Which was true. But there were other,
more urgent truths at play here.

“Yeah.” Bongo took the bottle out of her hands once more,
turned her toward him easily by the waist. “So am I,” he said softly. “Maybe we
ought to head for bed.”

It was a juvenile approach. But it worked.

* * * * *

The uncapped bottle of Fire sat on the floor next to Virge’s
bed, ignored.

Unlike Nick Daphral, Bongo took his time undressing her.
There was no cause to hold his hand through the act and for this she was
grateful. Not that being in complete control wasn’t occasionally exhilarating
for her, but it was nice to let go and have him take the lead while she
unraveled. The perfect antidote to this whole arduous experience.

How did Bongo always know to come around when she was in
need of him? She couldn’t have said, and right now couldn’t have cared.

The bedroom was on the small house’s second floor—or,
really, the bedroom
was
the second level, a cozy loft with bare beams
for walls. Something a previous owner had added on. Virge liked the space. Its
snugness was comforting. She had a low wood-framed bed up here and little else.
Bongo had lit a candle and shadows rolled up the canted timbers of the walls.
The last of her clothing dropped to the floor at the head of the sharply
descending ladder. Her lover was still dressed.

Bongo had always coveted her legs, praising their
shapeliness as often as he could. He now laid her gently down on the bed and
spread her thighs. Crouching between with the candlelight making fire of his
blond hair, he traced slow patterns on the soft inner flesh with his tongue and
fingers. Her pussy was already soft with dampness. The leisurely but loving
work of his mouth set her streaming.

It seemed like ages before his lips finally landed where she
yearned for him most, and when they did, it only took a few swipes of his
nimble tongue across her clit to make her come hard, gasping and shuddering.

He went down on her for something like a quarter of an hour
after that, without respite, without flagging. His tongue kept up its thirsty
work, slurping inside her, drawing out more of her juices. Hot breath scalded
her folds exquisitely. She sucked air sharply through clenched teeth when she
felt the occasional gentle abrasion of his chin’s stubble. His shoulders kept
her thighs pressed apart. He heaved and huffed upon her exposed cleft and
pleasure struck her again and again, orgasms beyond all lucidity, reducing her
each time to a limp and helpless state from which she never wanted deliverance.

It was delirium. It was better, far better, than
drunkenness. She couldn’t possibly get off again, not ever again…

When he raised himself from his work, a delicious coolness
shivered over her pussy. Eyes, closed, drifted languidly open to behold Bongo
at last undressing, in a hurry now, hopping a bit comically on one foot while
he wrestled off a shoe. Virge took in his body, appreciating it. He had a
strongly delineated musculature. His cock was ramrod-hard, thrusting out
eagerly from a nest of blond curls.

He flung himself back upon the bed and swung her knees up
over his shoulders, pushing his thick shaft into her slickness in one smooth
motion. Virge’s breath left her lungs.

“Fuck, you’re hot tonight,” he whispered, moving her against
him, his hands gripping her ass. She brought her own hands up, stroking his
defined chest, implying that she felt the same. There was a tattoo just beneath
his left collarbone, the skin raised faintly by the scar.

The ancient Elyrian symbol for magic, a mythological rune
that had somehow survived from a time even before the arrival of the Black
Ship. It was a kind of curlicue, this one drawn in red ink. The symbol he and
his other rebel friends rallied under. Unlike the trinkets he carried with him,
this was truly damning evidence of his outlawed beliefs. Were a member of the
Lux ever to see this symbol, Bongo would likely be killed on the spot.

The Lux didn’t believe in magic any more than she did. No
one with any sense actually trusted that unseen, indefinable, unscientific
forces could influence reality. But the Lux recognized the belief system for
what it truly was—the desperate and dangerous hope that this current society
could be overthrown and replaced with…what exactly, she didn’t know. And she
suspected Bongo and his ilk didn’t know either. They were just in it for the
sake of dissension, probably.

Not that the Lux didn’t goddamn well
deserve
to be
overthrown.

Bearing that tattoo permanently, inked into his skin, was
akin to Bongo signing his own death warrant. Yet he wore it with pride, and
that notion filled Virge with a sudden, intense affection for him.

Bongo was plowing steadily into her, his muscled body
flexing. It was a constant, unvarying rhythm. Maybe a little unimaginative, but
it was precisely what she was in the mood for right now. Just lie back, let
this hot stud screw her. His cock filled her over and over, withdrawing ‘til
only the swollen cap stretched her entrance, then sliding lusciously inside
her, exciting fresh pleasure from a body she’d thought already spent.

Impossibly, she came one more time, just as Bongo’s thrusts
were going uneven and urgent. He spilled into her with a long, hoarse groan as
Virge shuddered beneath him, gripping his shoulders with her knees, pulling on
him. His oozing bliss filled her and the sweetness and directness of her orgasm
gave her comfort.

He was kissing her breasts and her neck. Any place he could
reach with his mouth. There had been no pretense of pulling out, of utilizing
contraceptives. He understood the implications behind Virge’s tattoo as well as
she did his.

Finally he collapsed on top of her, breath still hitching,
until she nudged him gently, encouraging him to roll onto his side. As well as she
knew him, she knew that any second now he would cheapen the moment with some
lame-ass comment or stupid question.