A Human Element (23 page)

They drove back up the dark mountain in silence. Then the road rattled beneath them and Laura jolted awake, unaware she fell asleep. They got out in the dark by the cabin. One dismal light on the porch flickered in welcome. Beyond the pool of light the woods stood ominous as the wind wailed amongst the naked trees. Through the shadows she could see the branches swaying in a frenzied dance. All was dark below. She wondered where Felix was and when they'd see him again. She shivered in the cold and looked up, before heading inside. Somewhere her twin raced toward them.

"Look." She pointed. "A full moon."

"Nearly. There is a tiny rim missing. Tomorrow night will be the full moon."

"A night when the crazies come out."

He reached for her and hugged her in the dark and cold. They gazed at the moon overhead as it moved through the bending trees. Laura wanted to capture the moment, hold it in time. Here Ben could hold her under the moon and she could feel all was right with the world. They would be together always. She sensed Ben thinking of another night here a long ago. A night when he stood in these woods as a boy and watched a green light descend from the sky. The night his parents died. The night Laura was made. And now she was here with him.

"It's unbelievable, isn't it?" Laura whispered and leaned into him. He buried his head in her neck and kissed her warm skin.

"Yes, just like you are."

"Do you still want me?" Her voice cracked, with need and emotion.

"What do mean?"

"I'm not all, you know, real." She hid her face in his arm holding her. She wanted one more night with Ben. A night to forget she wasn't all human. Then she could say goodbye.
But just let me have one more night.

"You are real. You're the most human person I've ever known."

"Let's go in." She pulled him inside and led him up the loft ladder. She turned on the soft bed lamp and stood before him. He waited, not moving toward her. She needed to feel in control.

"I need a shower. I feel dirty after all that happened today."

She stripped off her jacket and placed it on the chair near the bed. Ben stood still, just watching her. She undid her shirt and bra, her fingers trembling, and let them fall to the floor. Ben gazed at her pink nipples lit by the lamp's glow. She moved toward him and unbuttoned his jacket and then flannel shirt, gliding her fingers over his skin as she worked.

Ben remained still. He raised an eyebrow at her, encouraging her to go on. She slipped her jeans off and shook her head back, pulling her hands through her hair and arching her back. Ben removed the gun from his pants and placed it on the bedside table. Laura didn't say a word.

She moved toward him, unbuckled his belt and pulled down his jeans, moving over his hard penis that sprung out. She squeezed it and massaged his buttocks with her other hand. Ben moaned and closed his eyes. Laura leaned into him molding her body into his, embracing him with her arms and kissed his nipples, licking and sucking them into tiny points. Ben shuddered and held her close. She felt his heart racing against her. She grabbed him tight and let out a tiny sob.

"I need you, Ben."

"You're all woman, Laura, do you realize that? All woman to me."

She just looked at him and tilted her head, unsure what to believe. She sensed that he believed what he said, for now. And Ben wanted to prove it to her. He pulled her head up to look into his eyes. She would give him this night. It may be all they had left together. After just finding him, she may lose him.

"My woman." He crushed his lips to hers in a slow, sensuous kiss. Their tongues blended together in sweet harmony. Laura felt him hard against her groin and moaned thinking of him inside her. She pulled back and led him to the shower. He took the gun with him and placed it on the floor, within reach, then locked the bathroom door. The shower stall was oversized with room for two. When the water was hot enough they slipped out of their remaining clothes and moved together under the pouring stream. She smoothed her hands over his chest.

"I don't want to think about anything but here and now," Laura whispered, holding him close. He took the soap and smoothed it on his hands and over her body. He sought out the crevice of her buttocks, between her thighs, and the hills of her breasts. After he washed her breasts clean he licked them over and over, squeezing them together in tender, taut ridges. He found baby oil in the shower holder and smoothed it all over her body in long strokes. She shook inside, feeling a pulsing inside her come from deep below. Then he parted her legs, as if he knew, and touched her swollen bud with his finger. Her legs quaked with desire, but she stopped his slow rubbing.

"Not yet," she said, breathing heavy. Then it was her turn to wash him, and she didn't miss a spot. Laura knelt on her knees loving him with her hands and mouth. She stroked his legs and buttocks until he pulled her up. His skin slid against her in smooth peaks of pleasure. They cleaned each other from the scum they uncovered during the day.

"Laura, you drive me crazy."

He leaned her up against the wall and held her bottom and legs up high, pushing them out. She was wide open to receive him. He pushed into her deep and slow. She cried out and clung to him, her nipples rubbing across his chest as he slid in and out of her tight wetness.

His muscles flexed as he braced himself holding her. He looked so magnificent to her with his lean body moving like ripples toward her as he pushed and pulled away in a timeless rhythm. He had lissome beauty in his nakedness, like a lean lion ready to spring.

On lonely nights in her old apartment when passion rose inside her and she yearned for someone to touch her, she would finger herself to release pretending it was her lover. She pulled on her nipples imagining her lover pulling so sweetly on her breasts. And now here he moved in the flesh across her body like a dream.

"I want to see you touch yourself," Ben said, and held her still. Laura looked into his eyes and slid her hands down her breasts to rub herself. The baby oil made it slick and smooth. She was so near the edge and closed her eyes.

"Ben, don't stop moving, please. I want to feel you."

"Only if you open your eyes."

Steam filled the air as the water shot around them. Laura opened her eyes and he pushed deep inside her. She gasped as she stroked herself and Ben stroked her, deeper, pushing her into the wall, staring into her eyes. He held up her legs higher and caressed her underneath, lapping her with his thumbs, rubbing her slow and smooth with the oil that covered her. She felt a heat growing inside her to an almost painful intensity as water dripped from her everywhere.

"Oh my God, Ben!"

He held her gaze as she shrieked in orgasm, her eyes wide open, and then he let himself go, shouting out as he filled her up. They stood, leaning into the wall sliding off each other's chests, both heaving huge breaths. He finally slipped out of her and put her legs down. They clung to each other in slippery wetness, the steam billowing around them.

They dried each other off and Ben laid her down on the bed, the gun close by. He placed his hand on her hip. "You look like an angel with your hair flowing around you, just like you did the first day I met you."

"You mean when I was up in a tree?"

"Yes. You were singing away so the whole world could hear you."

"It was silly."

"No, it was refreshing."

"And now a madman is coming for us and we've no way of stopping him."

"We do. We have your powers, I have a gun, and we have Felix. I hope. I have to hope. I didn't have hope before, not for a long, long time. I forgot what it was, but you showed me, Laura."

She was silent and rolled over on her back, staring at the ceiling.

"I have a brother I've never met, who is a freak, and now I have to kill him. Where's the hope in that?" Her voice quivered and she laughed. It was all so bizarre. "No, I am the freak."

"You're not a freak. I don't know what your brother is, but you're not. We'll face this together and then we'll have our lives to go on."

"Are you sure? Everyone I love dies." She stared at the ceiling. "Why do these Elyon people exist? And does it mean there are more beings out there in this infinite universe, watching us, on their way to us? Maybe here already?

"I don't know, Laura. More questions to ask Felix. There wasn't nearly enough time today to get all the answers we needed. It's an amazing event that happened, them coming here and you're part of it." He touched her shoulder but she continued to stare at the ceiling. They lay in silence for a while listening to the wind moan in distress outside.

"The more we learn, the more questions there are," Ben said.

"I wonder if we'll ever know the full story and history of what happened here." Laura looked through the loft window at the night sky. "Up there, somewhere, millions of miles away is another planet with intelligent life. Beings loving and living and dying, just like us. Having babies, like we do. Like you and I could. Are they coming again now or is their planet already dead?"

"I don't know." She sensed Ben didn't want to think about a baby, even though they had been careless again just now. He wanted to live in this moment with her.

"If we don't want to be dead I have to use my powers against my own brother. I never met him and yet I must kill him. I first went to the crash site with Mr. B and saw my alien father, Feo, there in a vision. My brother's father, too." It felt strange to Laura, saying it out loud. "Although, I didn't know at the time who or what the strange being was."

"Now you do. But it doesn't change who you are."

"It does," Laura whispered. "It changes everything."

Ben didn't say anything.

"And what if I'm pregnant and everything Felix said is true about us creating this child?"

"Then we'll deal with it. Then. Not now."

"What if you die too?"

"I'm not going to die."

"You don't know for sure."

"No, I don't. But why would we have come together if not to win in the end? And we have Felix now on our side. It's got to be something. He's watched us all these years for a reason, right? He saw my death in Hawaii and changed the course of those events so I lived. He made that happen, didn't he?"

She rolled over toward him. "When are you going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"About what happened to you? I had glimpses. It must have been terrible."

"Nothing as gruesome as what you've been through." Ben rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling.

Laura placed her hand on his chest. "So what. I cornered the market on being traumatized?"

"But you're not, that's what's so incredible. You overcame. You're wide open to people and love."

"Am I?"

"Yes, you grab life with passion even after tragedy."

"I see them all in my mind. My parents, Moe, Renee. I try not to see them as I last did but as I loved them."

"You're so brave, Laura. I wish I had a braver heart like you."

"But you do. You've survived terrible things and you're here helping me. You know you could die but you haven't left, yet."

Ben turned to her, his gray eyes piercing hers. There was such torment and pain.

"I'm not a good man. I've done terrible things. Things good people don't do. If you knew, you might not want to be with me."

She took his hand and meshed his fingers with hers. "Tell me. It won't change how I feel for you. Doing bad things doesn't make you bad, Ben. Sometimes we are forced to do things we wouldn't normally do except in extreme situations. Survival situations."

"I can't tell you."

"Then show me." She touched his forehead. "Remember and I will see it for myself."

Ben stared at her for a long moment then nodded. He closed his eyes and took himself back to the night the crash happened. And Laura watched his memories. How he moved on to foster homes where he was the invisible boy until he was seventeen and grew to live with daily beatings from Frank. She saw the day he watched Frank burn and how good Ben felt to watch him die. She saw him living in a seedy hotel, working low paying jobs to survive until he could turn eighteen and join the Navy.

She saw all his times in Hawaii, drinking himself into a stupor and whoring with prostitutes. Then the night the Samoans kidnapped him. She felt the rock grate against him as he tried in vain to break free from his bonds. She saw when his mind crossed into a dark place after that. Then being discharged from the Navy to return to a life of drink and self-pity.

Laura grabbed his other hand tight, feeling his pain as she witnessed his anguish as a boy and a young man. He gripped her hands and she felt a great grief well up inside him. It washed over her and filled her with his pain. She held him and cried, but he didn't cry.

Ben opened his eyes. Laura kissed his face, his hair, and his hands. She had no words, just love to give, to make it better. She still wanted him after all she now knew.

"I murdered my foster father."

"No."

"I let him die."

"He wasn't a good man, Ben."

"It doesn't mean he deserved to be left to die."