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Adventuresses

by

Angelia Sparrow

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This collection copyright 2012. All rights reserved.

Cover art by Whizzelfisch Productions

Rewriting Old Songs previously published by Torquere Press

Still Rolling previously published by Library of the Living Dead

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch previously published by Torquere Press

Rock Us All Down previously published by Torquere Press

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Other Books by Angelia Sparrow

Novels

Power in the Blood

Privateer's Treasure (With Naomi Brooks)

Alive on the Inside (With Naomi Brooks)

Curse of the Pharaoh's Manicurists (With Naomi Brooks)

Shell-Shocked (With Naomi Brooks)

Heart of a Forest (With Naomi Brooks)

Glad Hands (With Naomi Brooks)

Nikolai

Niko-Chan

Stand-alone Shorts

Songs for Guitar and French Harp

Long Term (With Naomi Brooks)

Swimming Through the Net

Breathe Deep

Thigh to Thigh (With Naomi Brooks)

Showdown at Yellowstone River (With Naomi Brooks)

Sky-Rat

Chain-Male (With Naomi Brooks)

Master Bear (With Naomi Brooks)

Collared Hearts (With Naomi Brooks)

Frosted Hearts (With Naomi Brooks)

For Love of Etarin (With Naomi Brooks)

Pushing the Boundaries of Reality

Raising the Dead

Eight Days Ablaze

Collections

Into Dark Waters (With Naomi Brooks)

Howl at the Mistletoe

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Author's Note

This books owes its existence to Elizabeth Donald, Fearless Leader of the Literary Underworld. She's been after me to write it for a couple of years. And then she went and edited it for me. In her defense, I assume all responsibility for errors, sins of omission and commission, any others are the fault of the book bears.

Thanks are also due to my sister, Jennifer Moss, and the indefatigable Kiwi Carlisle, both of whom were first readers.

As always, all my work is available at http://www.brooksandsparrow.com and http://www.literaryunderworld.com

Some of the stories are reprints, some are new and exclusive to this collection. So it's time to greet old friends and make new ones as we step into the world of Adventuresses.

Angelia Sparrow

West Memphis 2012

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Table of Contents

Adventuress 1

Burning for Eight Days 6

That Time They Talk About 14

Rewriting Old Songs 27

Change of Plans 38

Still Rolling 47

Induced Paroxysms 55

Recovery 65

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch 85

Rock Us All Down 110

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Adventuress

Clarissa stood on the deck of the airship, shivering in the cold wind, trying to hide behind her brothers. Tom and Matt stood very tall and fierce, hair whipping in the wind. They'd protect her from any man in shoe-leather.

The alert siren had sounded half an hour before, and the next minutes had been a frenzy of racing crew, fainting women and general chaos. Clarissa kept her head and watched the pirate airship heave them about.

The crew, a motley collection of men and women in clothes that only half-fit them, swarmed aboard. In their midst, a woman taller than most men strode through the mess. Clarissa watched her with unseemly interest. She'd never seen anything like her and wanted to memorize every detail. Perhaps the paper in Dodge City or penny dreadful publishers would pay her to tell the story.

The woman's left boot came over her thigh, but the right was cut away to let her draw the arcane pistol she carried. Two more of a different make crossed in her wide leather belt, in the style of the Mexicans. Her long duster coat came to her knees, and Clarissa saw the straps holding it close to her thighs. A man's embroidered waistcoat and a band-collared shirt without collar or tie led Clarissa's eye to the woman's face. She flinched at the scar that ran up from her jaw and disappeared under an eye patch. A set of flying goggles, one lens blacked out, rode the brim of her battered leather hat.

“Toldja we should have taken the train, Matt,” Tom grumbled as he glared at the pirates.

The young man guarding them cleared his throat. “Shut up.” He meant it to sound impressive, but his voice cracked on the last. Clarissa catalogued him as well. About seventeen, she decided, just a little younger than she was, pudgy and freckled, but with amazing blue eyes that would make him handsome when he grew into his body. For now, he was an annoyance.

Clarissa stuck her tongue out at him, only to find her jaw caught in a small, blunt-fingered hand clad in a thin leather glove.

“Saucy little girl.” A low raspy woman's voice made Clarissa turn to look. She flinched at the nearness of the one-eyed woman with the scar on her face. “Would you like to fly with me?”

“Let go of our sister, you, you¡K” Tom sputtered, trying to think of something bad enough to call the woman while not offending his sister, “you wicked adventuress!” Her laugh sounded like coal rumbling down a chute. “Adventuress. Indeed. For I have many adventures.”

Something in the way she said it went straight along Clarissa's spine. She wanted adventures. In fact, the whole airship trip had been the adventure of a lifetime, much more exciting than traveling by train. Then the reality that she might not make it to Dodge City made her catch her breath as if she'd been struck.

The lady pirate chuckled again and yedkissed her cheek. Clarissa gasped as if burned, the kiss shivering along her skin. “You're a pretty little one, but I don't kidnap people.” She relieved Clarissa of her earbobs, her deft fingers brushing Clarissa's face as she did, and then moved on to liberate Matt's watch. The rest of the crew circulated over the deck and took the baubles of the passengers.

When the pirate ship cut them free, Clarissa excused herself to her stateroom. Her brothers took her to the door and checked the room before they allowed her in. Once they approved, she faked a faint onto her bunk and they left after checking the little balcony one last time.

Clarissa lay on her bunk, feeling the ship purr along, the great airscrews driving it toward Dodge City. She sighed, feeling the kiss still burn on her cheek. What would it be like to be kissed on the mouth? Would it sizzle through her whole body, setting her blood to fizzing like champagne?

She rucked up her skirt and stroked her thighs. Such a wicked little wanton to want this, but she didn't care. No one knew what she did in her private chambers. No one could peek in her windows up here in the air.

Just as she slid her fingers into the opening of her pantalettes, a rapping came at the French windows of her cabin. Before she could flip her skirt down, the windows opened on the little balcony where she was accustomed to take the air in the morning.

The woman pirate stood in her door, her long duster coat whipping around her legs.

Clarissa held her breath as the pirate shut the doors and latched them, then crossed the cabin with long strides.

“You should always lock your windows, pretty thing.” Her smile twisted where the scar damaged her cheek. “Otherwise, surprise visitors can drop in unannounced.”

Clarissa stuttered. “Who?”

“I'm Angelina Calamity, sweetness, and I had to have a real taste of you.” She doffed the battered leather hat she wore and knelt on one knee beside the bed.

Clarissa realized what was coming an instant before Angelina kissed her. The pirate woman's mouth met hers, warm and demanding. She breathed in sharply and then lost all thought as Angelina probed for entry. Clarissa nearly bit the questing tongue but decided to suck on it instead. Angelina explored all the places in her mouth. She relaxed a bit, not caring that her skirt was still about her waist.

“Look at you, all laid out for me like a sweet oyster on a shell.” Angelina laughed and spread Clarissa's thighs wider. “All pink and lace around it, just like a valentine.” She stroked one finger over the slit in Clarissa's pantalettes, starting the hottest, naughtiest rise of sensation Clarissa had ever experienced. It made her shiver and burn at once, knotting up under her belly button and begging to be untied. “I think I'll call you Valentina.”

“My name is--” Clarissa lost the rest of her words in a gasp as Angelina followed her finger with a warm, wet tongue.

“Your name is Valentina, precious. Do you want more?”

“Oh, please yes. I shall die if you don't.” Aheingelina gave her another lick and Clarissa shivered. “I may die if you do.”

“You won't die,” Angelina promised.

The hot wet tongue went everywhere, waking the entirety of her secrets, making her whole body feel as if it were melting like ice on a warm day, like ice cream in the pirate woman's mouth. Clarissa gasped when a finger invaded her, probing gently. She had only ever stroked the outside, which was wickedness enough. She rocked on the finger, pressing up into Angelina's mouth.

“What a naughty, hot puss you are, Valentina.” The words blew over her dampness, chilling it and sending more of the sparks all over her body, red and green flashes that made her feel ready to explode like a Chinese rocket.

“Please,” Clarissa begged. “Please more.”

Angelina addressed her mouth once again to the secret kisses, the ones that burned so hotly and left her flooding to put out the fire. Her tongue teased and tickled around the edges, making Clarissa buck against her mouth. Then she found the little bump at the top, and sucked at it. Clarissa screamed as she splintered into flinders and flew to the four winds before landing back in the bed.

Angelina laughed again and licked her all over, rubbing her fingers in and out. Clarissa cried out again, and this time, it brought pounding at her door.

“Sissy?” called Matt. “Sissy, are you all right?”

“I stubbed my toe, Matt. I'm all right.”

“Are you sure? You screamed.” He rattled the doorknob. “I'm coming in.”

“It really hurt. I'm not dressed, Matt.”

Angelina hastily put Clarissa's petticoats in order. She put her hat back on and stood up, helping Clarissa to stand.

“I'm coming in. Unlock this door, Clarissa.”

“I'm in trouble,” Clarissa whispered, then spoke aloud. “I'm hunting the key. Oh Matt, I dropped it. It will be a minute.”

“Hurry, Sissy, or I'll get the purser to knock the door down.”

She clung to Angelina as the pirate woman took a step toward the balcony. “How will you escape?”

Angelina gave her another kiss. “You tempt me not to. I have a single-person craft. It will get me to my ship.”

“I'm going to Dodge City. Will I see you again?”

“You may yet, Valentina. You may.” Angelina stroked her face and stole another kiss. “I may have to have another taste of you.” She took off her pocket-watch and tucked it into Clarissa's hand. “I always recover this, sweetness.”

Angelina held her close for a long minute and then kissed her for a longer one. The earlier kisses had made her head spin and the fire in her blood rise. This one was cold and clear as moonlight with no passion in it. Clarissa could taste the good-bye.cap

Angelina opened the French doors, stepped onto the balcony and raised her hat against the setting sun. Clarissa ventured a wave, but when she went to give the pocket-watch a squeeze, she saw Angelina dangling it from two fingers.

The pirate blew her a kiss and stepped over the railing of her balcony, dropping out of sight with one hand on her hat.

Clarissa dashed onto the balcony, and saw what looked like a little dish, with Angelina kneeling upright in it, slowly spiraling toward the ground away to the North. She waved, although the pirate was no longer watching.

With a wicked grin, she turned back to the door, key in one hand, bouncing Angelina's mostly-full flask in her other. She was willing to bet the pirate would be visiting her very soon indeed.

Angelina Calamity first appeared as a mention in “Sky-Rat,” and has taken on a life, and wardrobe of her own.

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Burning for Eight Days

2045

Adina barJonas loved Hanukkah. December was nothing but cold weather, ice storms and chilly rain, but she loved the holidays with the lights, presents and comfort food. She didn’t even mind that Christmas dominated the stores. Any holiday in any religion was just an excuse to see family, overeat and spend too much.

The UPS box she balanced on her hip as she opened the apartment door only emphasized the last point. She set her briefcase down¡ªthe Linzer inheritance case could wait a while¡ªand placed the box on the teak coffee table while she decompressed from work.

She brushed aside the beaded curtain that separated her bedroom from the rest of the apartment. She’d done the place in the style of an opium den or vintage hippie pad from the mid-twentieth century, full of gold-tassled red velvet furniture and floor cushions around low tables. Candles and incense burners filled the apartment with fragrant smoke when it suited her. There were no black-light posters. They didn’t fit the more upscale image she projected as a junior partner in Brinkley, Samudrala, Wallace and Nguyen.

Adina moved slowly, drawing out the anticipation. She stepped out of her heels and hung them in their place on the shoe rack before peeling off the silk stockings and rinsing them. She itched to open the box.

“Delayed gratification is the hallmark of a mature personality,” she heard her father say in her head. She continued her evening ritual, trying very hard to be mature.

She slipped out of her dark designer suit and silk blouse, and drew on a soft cotton tunic and pants. Indian fashion had been in for a while and the yoke of the tunic sparkled with beads and little mirrors. She duger. her bare toes into the thick Persian carpet her father had given her when she graduated from law school.

Her dark designer suit and silk blouse went into the closet, replaced by soft cotton. The current Indian fashion made the yoke of the tunic sparkle with beads and little mirrors. She dug her bare toes into the thick Persian carpet her father had given her when she graduated from law school.

She scooted back into the front room and stopped herself just as she reached for the letter-opener. Now she had to make herself wait even longer for the present because she’d been too eager. Although she was in regular contact with her father and uncle, she had little enough other social life that even a present and not just a call felt like an event. She sat a minute with her hands in her lap, then went to the kitchen for her usual cup of coffee.

The same disquiet that had been growing within her for the last six months seized her as she made coffee. She did her best not to hurry as she got the beans from the freezer, ground them twice and made a single cup. She sat on the sofa and sipped her coffee, staring at the box, her fingers twitching now and then toward the letter opener. There was no name and the return address on the box was a post office box in New York. It could be from no one but her father. Papa’s gifts were always expensive, always too much. She loved it.

Adina sipped more coffee, drawing out the suspense. Since making junior partner at the firm, she no longer worked the ninety to hundred-twenty hour weeks that had consumed her since high school. She had turned thirty last month. The thought occurred to her more and more frequently of late that she had no friends outside the office and no life beyond work. There were too many hours now that she had no idea how to fill. Bars and clubs bored her.

She wanted a lover or a husband, someone to come home to, tell about the cases and just be a warm presence in her little flat. She didn’t know where to start looking.

Her eyes drifted back to the gift. Papa had very set ideas on who would be an appropriate husband. While Adina could recite the list from memory, her priorities weren’t her father’s. She wasn’t sure what hers were. She loved her Papa dearly, even if he did have a tendency to be very overwhelming, presence and presents alike. She took the coffee cup to the kitchen and washed it slowly.

Of course, Papa could afford expensive presents. He had once been the highest-paid sex worker in the world. Even middle aged, he still remained in the top five. He traveled in style from Rome to London to New York at the behest of wealthy women and men. He had always supplemented his income with thievery, more as the years wore on and his long jet curls began to show the first gray. He had money to burn and never hesitated to lavish it on his only child, regardless of her determination to make it on her own.

Unable to stand any more anticipation, Adina slit the tape with the tiny, jewel-hilted dagger that he’d sent her from Turkey. Carefully, she opened the flaps and shoved the packing aside. The card was blue and white and showed a menorah done in the ancient style. She opened the card before digging further into the packing.

Her father’s beautiful handwriting, almost more calligraphy than script, read, Happy Hanukkah, Princess. I thought the best lawyer in the family could use this to "0"argue down the best lawyers ever. Love, Papa.

She swept the packing away and pulled out a simple black cardboard box. VirtualClone, the white block letters proclaimed. A completely integrated sensory experience. No endorsements, no hyperbole, no exclamation marks marred the box, just the clean, simple lettering.

Adina felt her stomach lurch. She’d coveted one of these since she’d seen the first advertisement. Her father, with his usual sense of occasion, had placed a “Do not open until Hanukkah” sticker on the flap, right over the factory seal.

The holiday was five days away. Adina slit the sticker with one short, impeccable scarlet thumbnail and opened the box anyway.

She took out the VirtualClone generator, a hard plastic case the size of two personal data readers and as tall as her palm, then set it on the table. The instruction manual was small and simple.

VirtualClone offers the first totally integrated sensory experience and is a breakthrough in personal holographic entertainment technology. Before using, please consult your medical provider. To begin use, simply active the power switch, place the wireless contact sensors on your temples, and think of the experience you wish to have.

There was more, all about how VirtualClone created the experience by drawing on its programming, the internet, planetary databanks and the subject’s own memories. She skimmed, noting only the failsafe feature. VirtualClone reset itself after three hours. It would cease all programming and take an hour to recharge.

She activated the power switch and attached the sensors to her temples. There was no discomfort, but reality seemed to shimmer for a minute and then Mr. Wallace stood in front of her, scowling.

“Jonas!” he snapped, deliberately truncating her surname. “Why isn’t the Linzer case done? I want it on my desk in ten minutes!”

Adina scrambled for the electrodes. No, there would be no arguing with the crusty old senior partner. She breathed hard, her adrenaline rushing almost as if she’d actually been called into Wallace’s office. She tucked the VirtualClone back in its box and started the rest of her evening routine of dinner, bath and more work.

* * * * *

She spent Friday evening at the temple and then puttered away the weekend, trying to avoid the box yet being constantly drawn back to it. “Not until Hanukkah,” she whispered every time she found her hand on the case.

* * * * *

On Sunday evening, when the first stars appeared, she lit the first candle in the small menorah, mumbling her way through the half-remembered Hebrew prayers that accompanied the evening and the ones that blessed the candles. After the light had burned the required half an hour, she extinguished it and went on about her evening.

First a simple dinner, then a bath. Then she found herself back on the sofa, staring at the VirtualClone and wondering if she was up for another “fully integrated sensory experience”. After Mr. Wallace, she was hesitant to think of anyone she knew.

No, perhaps someone long dead. Sensual, yes, but not someone she’d have to see at work. She set the contacts and thought.

The woman in front of her made her smile. Long, slightly frizzy brown hair escaped the colorful scarf to tangle in the multitude of beads. The bracelets and big glasses were simply iconic above the trademark smile. Janis Joplin set the bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the table and looked around.

She smiled as she saw Adina. “Nice pad.” Her unmistakable rasp sent chills over the lawyer as she added, “And aren’t you cute?”

Adina got up and grabbed a couple of glasses from the bar to pour them both shots of the whiskey. She’d had the famous nude poster of Joplin in nothing but her hair and beads and spent many nights as an undergrad jilling to it.

She turned back to find Janis sitting all flang-dang on the sofa. Her velvet pants stopped just short of the bare feet she’d propped on the coffee table. “You’re amazing,” Adina responded.

“Nice to know someone thinks so. My manager’s on my ass about how much I drink, the roadies are about to revolt because he never pays them.” She straight-armed the shot and took a second straight from the bottle.

Adina sipped at hers and curled up with her feet under her. Her dark eyes were full of mischief. “Can I kiss you?” she asked.

Janis grinned back. “Baby, you can do anything you want.”

Adina slid off the couch to kneel on the floor. Janis stroked her long black hair, pulling the pins that held it up for work. She looked down at Adina.

“God, you're beautiful. Where you from, baby?”

“England,” Adina said, leaning in to kiss her. She closed her eyes and brushed her lips tentatively across the rock diva’s. Janis didn’t settle for that and opened to her, kissing her with an open, wet tongue that tasted of whiskey and smoke.

“Don't look like any English bird I ever met. They’re all skinny and pale.”

“My parents are from Israel.”

Janis nodded. “That’d do it.” She didn’t say anything else because Adina was kissing her again, deep from the start this time. She stroked Adina’s breasts through the silk of her blouse. Adina moaned and rose to meet her hands. “Come on up here, baby.”

The rough whisper worked over Adina’s skin like a cat’s tongue, making her shiver. She took a sip of her drink and got back up on the sofa. Janis pulled her in for another kiss. Adina cupped the famous breasts and rubbed her nipple through the soft material.

“So sexy. You always were,” Adina whispered, untying Janis’s blouse.

Janis purred, her hands in Adina’s hair, stroking her back. “You look at me with those big eyes, babe, and I just want to fall in.” When Adina licked her throat, teasing, she asked. “You want to fuck or not?”

“Oh yes,” Adina sighed. She moaned as Janis pushed her back to the sofa and kissed her hard. The rings on the singer’s fingers pressed against her skin as Janis ran a hand down her back and squeezed her ass. Adina gave herself over to the experienced hands that undressed her while the wanton mouth distracted her.

Janis kissed her all over, seeming to like the taste of her. The Blues Lady’s kisses and hands moved slowly, almost as if she were stoned. Adina met each touch and lolled on the couch, her senses stripped.

“Dreams come true,” she whispered.

Janis looked up from her breasts and whispered, “And you're one of them.” She trailed a lazy tongue over Adina’s nipples and cleavage. Adina rose to meet her tongue, hips twisting. The soft chuckle from the underside of her breasts sent shivers over her skin.

Adina started working on Janis’s clothes, trying to be as slow and sensual as the singer. She couldn’t keep her hands from slipping into the stretch velvet pants. Janis wore nothing else and rubbed against her hand before teasing with her own fingers.

“Oh yes!” Adina pushed down Janis’s tight bellbottoms and brought her fingers to her mouth, tasting. Janis groaned and slipped a finger into her as well.

“Oh baby,” Janis whispered, as she licked her own finger clean, “you taste so good. Gonna eat your pussy until you yell uncle.”

Adina gave a soft laugh and kissed Janis. “Leave my uncle out of this,” she muttered, spreading her legs a little wider to accommodate the plan.

“He as sexy as you?” Janis didn’t wait for an answer before licking a long stripe along Adina’s cleft, parting the full little lips that were pouting at her with her tongue.

“Sexier,” Adina muttered, not really caring or wanting to discuss her uncle right now. Not when Janis fucking Joplin¨Cor at least a passable simulacrum of her¨Cwas licking her like she was ice cream. Like the ice cream, she wanted to melt under that tongue, a puddle of Adina-ness on the red velvet sofa. Her bones certainly seemed to agree with the idea. She squirmed, writhing in pleasure, and yelled her orgasm.

Janis’s laugh was slightly drunk, and she plunged back in for more, leaving Adina to shout and moan her way through another three orgasms. Then Adina lay limp for a couple minutes, just letting Janis lick.

Finally, Adina sat up, shoved Janis onto her own back, and knelt over Janis’s face for a moment before she took her own lick of the singer. Smoke and booze and all the tastes from Janis’s mouth were followed by a taste that was uniquely Janis.

“Sixty-nine. Or thirty four and a half as some of the political dykes call it,” Janis chuckled. “My favorite number.” She curled her tongue up and flicked over Adina’s clit, plucking at it like a guitar stringa p.

Adina, her face buried in sweet wetness, said nothing, but she agreed. She wanted Janis to moan like she had, to weep and beg for more. The long, lazy strokes along her own slit were undoing her totally. The next orgasm made her arms tremble until she couldn’t hold herself.

With a small whimper, she turned to lie in Janis’s arms. “So damn good.”

Janis ran a languid tongue over her chin, licking her clean like a cat. “Same for you, baby.”

“Whiskey?” Adina sat up slowly.

Janis grinned. “Thought you'd never offer.” She drank about half the contents of the bottle Adina handed her.

They lay together on the red velvet sofa, Adina’s fingers twining in Janis’s frizzy hair, Janis’s hands slow and gentle on Adina’s skin. Janis told her of touring with Big Brother and the Holding Company, of the pricks at Columbia. She told about the time the Full Tilt Boogie Band had gotten stranded. Adina listened to the stories, tipping her face up for the kisses that punctuated the pauses.

Adina decided she could lie here forever, listening to Janis’s raspy voice, sung to tatters in smoky blues clubs, talking. Sometimes, she wasn’t sure if the stories were even being told so much as being pumped directly into her dreams.

Adina shook herself awake and kissed Janis one last time. Almost regretfully, she removed the sensors and was alone on the sofa. She wandered back to her bedroom, and promised herself she’d find that old poster. Tomorrow. Janis had left her thoroughly exhausted tonight.

This was originally part of the story that would be titled “Eight Days Ablaze,” from Ellora's Cave. However, their house rules made me cut the lesbian scene, here restored for your enjoyment.

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That Time They Talk About

The great bird the color of starlight swooped out of the darkening eastern sky. The woman on its back rode hunched forward, as if elderly or wounded, or perhaps just tired from a long flight.

She landed the bird on the pad behind the local cantina, the only two-story building in town. She glanced at the wooden building, itself a rarity in this land of adobe and mud, and nodded at the sign that read, “rooms, drinks, eats.”

A boy came out from the wattle and daub stable, his skin dark in the gathering dusk, nearly the saddle-leather shade of her own. The hunchbacked woman tossed him a silver coin. He caught it before divuit hit the ground and looked at her bird.

“Thass good for three night's bed and food for the bird, ma'am.”

She nodded. “Good.” She walked into the cantina, pausing in the door to let her eyes adjust. Her hair, the same silvery color as the bird, and her hunched back tended to make the locals dismiss her as a threat.

She strolled to a table and beckoned the waitress, a pretty sloe-eyed girl with black hair to her waist. The girl, barely old enough to be considered marriageable, came over.

“Carnitas y arroz, vino, cerveza o cafe?” she asked.

“Té?” the woman asked, her own Espan rusty. Tea would be exactly what she needed. “Y la comida.” The food should be relatively edible. She'd seen plenty of farms on the flight in. They looked a little parched, and the river that she had been following went dry rather suddenly.

It was the same story everywhere, though. Someone would get enough money to buy the rights to a river and dam it up, with no regard for the people downstream. Sometimes she thought the Old People had the right idea and no one should own the land or water or sky.

“Sí, té.” The girl hurried off, her full skirt fluttering around her calves.

She looked around the cantina. Not too many people in here at dusk. The local farmers would come later to wash the dust and grit from their throats with beer. The ladies of the evening would show up for trade and a glass of wine. A few perpetual drinkers hovered in the corners and a guitar player sat on a stool, his drink on a table near him. She watched as his clouded eyes didn't focus on anything in the room and realized he was blind.

The girl came back with tea, a plate of rice and three folded tortillas full of spiced meat. She smiled at the strange woman.

“Gracias,” the woman said. “¿Hay habitaciónes libres?”

“Sí. Tres platas.”

The woman counted nine silver pieces onto the table. They were covered for three days, which should be long enough. Then she laid an open tintype folder on the table, the picture showing herself and a lady with light hair and eyes, a snub nose and round cheeks. She tapped the light-haired woman.

“No, no.” The girl shook her head. “Ella es bonita.”

“Clara.” She held up a gold piece, and the girl stared. She realized she had run out of Espan. “Do you know Ing? This is yours, if you get me news and I find her from it.”

The girl nodded. “Sí. Clara.” She looked up and saw a newly arrived customer signaling her. “Habitación numero tres.”

Room three. Three nights, three silvers per night, room three. It all fell together neatly as if foretold. She watched the girl and ate the food, staring at the tintype of Clara.

They sat for the picture long ago, when her own hair was still brown. Clara was barely eighteen, almost an old maid by her family's estimation. The wild girl settled into a fine woman over the years, tough and strong, unafraid to ride the great birds, quick with her tongue and quicker with her guns.

The rice and carnitas gone, she pushed away the plate and picked up the tintype. She tried to rise, but a hand landed on her shoulder and held her in her seat.

“Leaving us already, stranger?” the man asked. “Don't you know it ain't polite to leave without offering to buy a drink for the whole place, at least when you're new in town?”

She tipped her head and gave him a look that made most men back right off. He was either dumber than most or less cautious. He never moved his hand.

“Come on, grandma, buy us one.”

“Sí, cervaza,” one of the other farmers said.

“Don't make him get ugly, old lady,” added one of the night-doves hanging on her meal-ticket of the evening.

“He already ugly. Muy feo!” tossed out someone on the other side of the room. The men laughed. She had heard that tenor in crowds before. It never boded well.

The intruder clamped his hand down harder, trying to hurt her. That would not do. She returned her attention to her teacup, pretending to ignore the others.

“Look, you old hag,” he started.

She drew. Not the forward-facing guns on her thighs, but the ones tucked in the back of her belt. Her upper set of arms unfolded itself, flipped her coat back to the elbows and drew on her harasser.

A gasp went up. There were a few odditys around, but most kept their deformities out of sight if they could. Most of the first generation were long dead, with only a few living to adulthood and fewer still having children. The rebels had brought something out of Texas during the War, and her ma had been less than fifty miles from the place where they exploded it. It got into the air, the water and the ground, and spread from the original site.

“Care to let me get my rest now? I flew a long way today.”

“I'm sorry,” the man said, letting go of her shoulder and backing away.

She stood up, her lower arms in position to pull the guns on her thighs. The crowd looked and realized those were in quick-draw holsters, like a gunfighter's.

No one else bothered her as she headed up the stairs to room three. It was small and plain, but the door latched behind her. She took off her coat and tugged off her boots. She hung her guns on the bedposts by her head and stretched out on the narrow bed.

She lay looking at the ceiling, her upper arms under her head and her lower arms folded across her belly. She thought of Clara until she wasn't sure where memory ended and dream began.

* * * * *

Clara sat doing the mending on the porch swing of the big old house, much the worse for war and rebuilding. No one lived this close to the old battleground. The trees did strange things, growing in odd shapes with luminescent moss on the trunks that glowed by day and night both. Superstitious old people said the trees moved too, when folks weren't watching them.

Vegetables came out odd, over-large, misshapen and badly colored. The animals gave birth to monstrosities that usually did not live. The two-headed calves were the hardiest and Clara had gotten their herd up a little.

“Come on, darling,” Clara coaxed, and in the dream, she sat on the swing beside her beloved. She laid one of the upper arms across the back of the swing, careful to keep the cape she always wore covering her back. She couldn't wear normal clothes, but a piece of cloth tied to cover the front and a cloak or cape did fine for most occasions.

“Do you love me?” she asked. “Even though?” She shrugged with both sets of arms.

Clara laughed and caught all four of her hands and kissed them. “I love that about you. It makes me feel secure. You can fight off the stinking rebels and still light one of your little cigars and hug me, all at the same time. Or you get three shots to their one, four if you would quit using that shotgun and pack a couple more pistols.”

“I ain't ladylike. Your Pa doesn't like me coming around to see to you.”

“It doesn't matter. Pa can't say a thing. He isn't hunting up meat for the pot and you are. He's not out planting and picking and working his hands into blisters so we can eat. I am. He's not been right since Antietam, and all the county knows it.” She gestured at the basket of mending and embroidery. “They keep me in needlework so we don't go begging for flour and salt, but it surely isn't easy.”

Clara scowled out over the blasted fields, watching the sun set in a spectacular display that turned the clouds pink and golden, then crimson and violet. There was nothing to say, so they rocked on the swing and let the light fade.

Finally she spoke up, almost afraid to suggest it, “What if I was to move in? Do my hunting for the three of us and help in the field and...” she trailed off and stared at the mending. “Not much with a needle, but I can help other ways and free you up to do it.”

Clara took her face in both of her hands, pretty hands that should have been soft and white, never picking up anything heavier than a Bible, but instead were brown and calloused. She waited and Clara kissed her, all soft and gentle. Women kissed all the time, cheeks and lips both, but this was more a courting kiss.

It started soft and gentle, the press of sweet lips on hers, and grew. She cupped Clara's face with her upper arms and wrapped the lower pair around her waist. Clara's hane Ads wandered off from her face and under the frontage cloth she wore.

“Miss Clara,” she teased, loving the feel of the warm fingers on her belly, “you are being naughty.”

“Oh, indeed I am.”

She gasped when Clara pinched the nipples of her small breasts, making them poke out, tenting the homespun cloth. Clara cupped her breasts, stroked them and kissed her more.

She felt everything betwixt and between growing larger and wetter, as though asking for Clara's touches. She rocked a little on the swing, trying to ease the ache between her legs. Clara just chuckled as she kissed her way down to lick where the shoulder split and made two arms on one side.

A heavy, uneven tread in the hall interrupted the kisses. Clara peered at her mending.

“Get the lamp, would you please? I've lost the daylight.”

Old man Cooper appeared in the door, leaning on his crutch, his right trouser leg pinned up where a cannonball had taken him in battle. He looked at the women and grunted. He didn't talk much these days.

“Is she staying to dinner?” he demanded of Clara, his reedy voice sounding like the whine of a sullen child. “Tain't hardly enough for two, let alone three.”

“I brought some cornbread and apples,” she offered. “It'll make what there is go farther.”

“It's beans and the last of the rabbits you brought us,” Clara said. “Father, she provided the meat. It would be churlish to say she might not eat. Some cornbread would be perfect to round it out.”

“Might go milk the cow and add that in,” he said, going back into the house.

“I'll go get the milk,” she offered.

“I can throw together a pandowdy out of your apples. That will please him more than plain fruit. I put bits and bobs by where he cannot find them, raisins here, sugar there.” Clara folded the sock into the basket and got up, then bent and caught a kiss.

“I'll check for eggs too,” she volunteered.

“I love you,” Clara said. “I want you to live here. And if Father doesn't see it my way, I'll simply come live in the little house with you until he does.”

* * * * *

Morning came, the scalding desert light like a splash of cold water thrown in her eyes, driving away dreams of Clara. She got up, washed her hands and face, pulled on her boots and guns and covered up the second set of arms. Not that it would help. Last night's stand was doubtless the talk of every breakfast table in town this morning.

She went down and the pretty girl from last night fed her biscuits and sausage gravy. The egg beside it had three yolks. The contagion was spreading. Whatever the rebels had used had damagedy d everyone and everything. The enormous bombs had gone off thirty years ago now, two years before she was born.

This little desert town was a thousand miles and more from the explosion. The egg yolks were the first. Soon enough, pigs would be born with six legs, calves with two heads and the carrots would all look like mandrakes instead of proper vegetables. Then it would be the humans.

She'd seen them in her travels, people with too many fingers, with not enough, those with misshapen enormous heads, the ones with half-formed twins growing out of their bodies. There were more casualties every year.

“I hear you're looking for a lady.” The man in the poncho tipped his hat back and strolled over as she finished her breakfast.

She nodded and took out the tintype. “Clara. Heard she got hauled here.”

He looked at it “Yeah. Saw her on the slavers' caravan passing through. Didn't see her in Alkali Wells, so she must be somewhere between here and there.”

“How far?” she asked.

“Forty miles west of here. Only a couple ranchos between here and there. If she's alive, she'll be on one of them.”

“Thanks.” She left a silver for the waitress and headed out to the stable. Due west was easy flying in the morning.

* * * * *

She returned at sunset and paid for another three days. She knew everything she needed to know. She needed to plan and get aid. She left word for her food to be brought up for the next couple of days.

She paced through the night, her lower arms drawing and re-holstering the Colts from her belt holsters. Her upper arms, she locked into the small of her back as she paced. Dawn found her with no better plan than the one she had formulated while flying.

At noon, she went to the newspaper office, figuring them for having the only printing press in town. She pulled a piece of paper out and set it on the counter. “I need twenty of these printed and posted before dinner.”

“Won't be cheap, miss.”

She shook her head. “Nothing is.” She laid the two-dollar gold piece on the counter. Her money was going fast here and about to go faster if this worked. Then again, once she got Clara back, it didn't matter.

“That'll do. The paper may run a bit late today, but your poster will be up.”

“Good. Thank you.” She turned, but the newspaperman stopped her before she left.

“I heard about the arms. It's spreading, isn't it?”

She stopped, hearing her thoughts of the night before echoed so clearly. “It is.”

“How bad is it, back east?”

She shook her head. “Columbus hasn't had a normal birth in two years, and the rest of Ohio is worse. St. Louis hasn't had a single-headed animal born for six months, and that was months ago. Folks in Virginia don’t have hair any more, and they're dying young, twenty-five and the like. Little Rock? They're still losing all their teeth and rotting from skin sores. Tulsa's swarming with oddities and I hear Texas is worse. It's spreading.”

The newspaperman shook his head. “How far is going to be far enough to get away from it?”

“China, maybe. Rebel break-the-sky magic may kill us all yet.” She turned to go again. “And that may be exactly what the old Apache medicine man planned.”

She let the door swing shut behind her. Nobody knew the truth of the bombs, but the most persistent legend featured a rebel general going to every tribe he could find and begging for help. At last the Apache, who had no love at all for whites or blacks, had given him something to put in the bombs. It was a thing they found in Texas, a yellow rock that made wild-fires burn from what should have been ordinary shells, and made the land and people sick.

She tried not to think too much about it. Her own extra arms were useful. She didn't show anyone any of the other extra parts. Even Clara didn't know about the extra eyes. Her mother had said she was to be twins. She had named the parts that still showed. She suspected that if the doctors cut her open after she died, they'd find the rest of Peggy inside her.

She went back to her room to wait. She counted her money while she did. There would be enough. She would make it be enough. After she had Clara, they might be penniless, but they would be together.

The first knock came on her door.

“Come,” she said, “and leave it open.” She leaned back in the chair, her boots on the table. She folded her upper arms behind her head and cleaned one of her revolvers with the lower hands. Everyone knew by now, and she wanted to see if any were intimidated.

“Rodrigo,” he said by way of introduction, smiling broadly and twirling his long mustache. She took in the tarnished silver buttons on his scarlet vest, the missing silver conchos on the seam of his trousers, the general lack of polish on his boots, and the immaculate condition of the pearl-handled pistols in his belt. He cared for the equipment that he needed most. “I hear you are looking for hard riders and straight shooters, sí? I have a bird.” His face softened and the smile became more real. “She is beautiful and very fast.”

“I pay two silvers for the day's work. You supply your own ammunition. Meet at the bluff shaped like a kettle at dawn tomorrow.”

“And what are we riding to, senorita?” She watched him look at her busy hands, and the idle ones, his smile quirking into something close to a leer.

“I'll tell you that in the morning.” She gave a small smile.

“Ain't buying a pig in a poke,” said the next man from the doorway, his scant blond beard making him look younger than his eyes.

“It squeals,” she reassured him. “I keep my own counsel on our mission until I am sure it cannot be betrayed. Two silver, we meet at dawn on the kettle bluff.”

Rodrigo bowed and gave her a smile. “You are a very clever woman. I look forward to riding with you.” He strode off, his spurs clinking. Two more men waited in the hall. She beckoned them all in and stated her terms.

“We all fly. But you're asking us to risk our birds on this without more than two silvers.” One man, a few shades darker than her, his tight-curled hair still deep black, looked at her with curiosity. “What's in it besides the money?”

“Two silvers, take it or leave it. If you come, I pay. Half at the meeting, half when we finish up successfully. Any other answers, you'll have to find tomorrow.” She turned them out and locked her door behind them.

She lay on the bed and dreamed of Clara again.

* * * * *

“It's getting worse, isn't it?” Clara asked as they sat on the swing.

Every muscle ached in all four of her arms. She had dug the grave herself while Clara washed and dressed her father's body for burial. They built the coffin together and Clara carved the marker. Now Mr. Cooper lay under the apple tree, beside his wife, and they were two women alone in a hostile land.

“Carter down to the store said he saw another band of slavers passing through yesterday,” she said. Clara looked grave. “You're going to have to be careful. Pretty lady like you and they'll surely make a stop.”

“You'll take care of me,” Clara said. The confidence and love in her voice was heartbreaking. “And I can shoot too.”

“The herd is fading. We lost another three, and no new calves have been born in two years.”

“The hens are still laying,” Clara offered.

“The garden can't feed one, let alone two.” She hugged Clara close and ruffled her soft hair. “Here I am worrying you more on the day we bury your father. I should just take you inside and make you feel better.”

Clara smiled, her eyes too bright. “He knew about us, you know. He told me, just before he went. He told me to take good care of you, because you loved me so.”

“He was right.” She leaned in and kissed Clara, there on the porch in broad daylight.

Clara held her right back and returned the kiss hard, like there weren't enough kisses in the whole world. She kissed her lady as long as Clara would sit still for it. Darkness fell around them, and Clara's arms, which had snaked under her cloak and around her waist, grew cool.

“Come on inside,” Clara said. “I changed the bed. It's ours now.”

They had made love a few times before, stol anen moments when Clara's father napped or was away, but never in the big bed in the master bedroom. Clara had been born in that bed. Her parents had both died in it. Now it was theirs.

She took off the cape and frontage piece, then shed her skirt. Clara just looked at her, like always, drinking her in with loving eyes. Clara unbuttoned her basque and she helped with the stays. They tumbled together, naked amid the white linen sheets, Clara's tanned white skin and her own darker, pressing and touching until the world faded away in a flood of touch.

She rolled Clara into her upper arms, and the lower arms set to work stroking her lady. And pleasant work it was, as Clara's soft body unfurled all its sweet secrets. She kissed the places on Clara's neck that Clara had always shooed her away from before, the ones that made her gasp and giggle and squirm. Now she lingered and Clara just arched into her mouth and hands, moaning and begging for more.

Her lower hands cradled Clara's breasts, teasing the nipples with gentle pinches, squeezing lightly as she kissed. She got one leg between Clara's thighs, and Clara bucked against it, rubbing and twisting.

“Darling,” Clara sighed. “Please.”

She knew what Clara wanted. “In time, sweetheart. In time.” She continued kissing, moving lower to taste Clara's beautiful breasts. Round and pale and firm, tipped with pink nipples that turned red with kisses and pinches and nips, she adored Clara's bosom and thought it a shame low-necked gowns were out of fashion.

She sucked one nipple and her lower hands slipped between Clara's legs, one spreading while the other stroked. Her upper left hand cupped Clara's unoccupied breast, and the upper right smoothed Clara's hair out of her face. Clara spasmed in a paroxysm of pleasure, her softness growing wet around the insistent fingers.

“My beautiful lady.” She knew exactly what Clara wanted. She stroked the soft little protuberance at the front of her quim, and Clara grew even wetter.

“More, darling,” Clara begged. “Please more.”

Two slim fingers eased into Clara’s slick channel, and the other hand held her open while teasing her clit, now standing at attention. Her upper hands occupied themselves with Clara's breasts as she moved back up for more kisses at Clara's mouth.

Clara twisted under her, kissing hard and bucking against her hands. Her eyes focused somewhere past the ceiling and she gave little gasping screams of pleasure. Unable to resist Clara's arousal, she left off kissing and moved down to taste her.

“Oh, love.” Clara lay very still as she ran a gentle tongue all over Clara's soft thighs and delicate hidden lips. Her upper hands squeezed Clara's breasts gently and she ran her thumb over the nipples to make them stand up even taller.

She teased the stiff little organ that stood up like a miniature prick and sucked it some. A veritable symphony of moans and gasps answered this action.

Peggy saw the movement of a shadow in the door frame that let her yank the sheet up over Clara and herself before anyone could catch them at it. It was one thing for her to live with Clarg,a, letting most folks think she was Clara's servant, hunting and farming for her. It would be another thing entirely to be caught making love to Clara. Folks didn't cotton to black and white mixing as friends, let alone more closely, for all that most black women in the neighborhood had thrown at least one yellow baby in their day.

She burrowed down, hoping the bulk of the featherbed would hide her. She only came up when Clara signaled. She gasped for air in long gulps; the bedclothes had been stuffy.

“Oh, my love.” Clara clung to her. “They want taxes and death duties and everything.”

“And they had to come here on the day of your father's funeral to demand them, of course. Rest now, sweet. We'll deal in all this come morning.”

Clara slept in her arms all night.

* * * * *

She waited on the bluff an hour before dawn, wondering how many of the men would show. She wondered to whose ears the information of her raid had found its way. She wanted this to be done. She needed Clara, needed her woman like she needed air and flight.

She preened Moonlight, her hands working the spot on the back of its head where it had trouble reaching. She stroked and smoothed the feathers, soothing her own nerves with activity. Moonlight shifted and trilled.

She looked up to see a shadow blotting out the moon. A great black bird dove out of the setting moon, the silvery light gleaming on silver chasing in its saddle and harness. Rodrigo reined in and landed beside her.

“Buenas días, senorita. We ride soon, sí? My bird, he is ready for a long flight.”

“He's lovely. Stay mounted. We await the others.”

Two more of the great birds landed on the bluff, the blond man and the black one. The ordinary-looking white man was not with them.

“We fly,” she said. “We are raiding to get my wife back. The rancheros should hire workers instead of buying them. Anything you can carry off, you can keep. Do not harm the slaves or women. The master of the ranch and his sons are fair game.”

She paid them each a silver coin and handed them bags of fire-bombs. Then she swung into Moonlight's saddle and leaned against the high back of it, gathering her courage for the task ahead.

The men nodded and they followed her aloft. She wondered if the other man had cold feet, a sick bird or was even now running to alert her target. But even the men riding with her didn't know which ranch they were raiding.

The Lazy A lay sleeping in the pre-dawn, only a couple of women up and moving about in the kitchens, preparing the breakfast for the household. She steeled herself and swooped down, lighting the first of her fire-bombs and chucking it through a window of the hacienda.

She saw her men skimming in low and tossing their own bombs. The fires spread at once in the dry desert air, devouring anything that would burn. The women ran screaming from the kitchens and she smiled.

Moonlight dropped down in front of one of the running women. She couldn't stop and crashed into the side of the bird. Moonlight protested with a squawk.

Clara caught her breath and stopped yelling.

“You came,” she breathed and reached up to her lover.

“Hello, darling.” She reached down and helped Clara into the saddle before her. Rodrigo landed nearby and walked his bird over.

“This was what we came for, no?”

“Oh yes.” She buried her face in Clara's hair and nuzzled her. She tossed Rodrigo a pouch with some silver in it. “Pay the men, do what you like. Clara and I are gone, long gone.”

She hugged Clara closer, and nudged Moonlight with her heels. The great silver bird rose in the just-graying sky. She saw the men diving and burning and raiding. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered now that she had Clara back.

Clara clutched her and she held onto her lady with her lower arms and guided Moonlight with the upper set. They headed west, toward California and the great ocean.

This story came about because of a line in the song “John Wesley Harding” about how he carried a gun in every hand. That led me to ask how many hands did he have, and the four-armed gunslinger popped into my head.

fnwer wor

Rewriting Old Songs

“I stopped at a road-house in Texas,

A little place called Hamburger Dan’s

I heard that old jukebox a-playing

A song about a truck driving man.”

--Truck Driving Man by Terry Fell

Now I don’t mind driving Texas. I just hate driving Texas in the summer. It always reminds me of when I was a rookie and locked myself out of my cab in Dallas. Sitting in hundred and eight degree July heat, waiting to be rescued, knowing the driver who did was going to tell it to his buddies as “Reason 9,788,634 why women shouldn’t drive big trucks” is not one of my better memories. These days, I carry three spare keys, since I don’t drive for a fleet any more and no one can come rescue me without busting the window out of my girl.

I pulled into the little truck stop out on the state highway just north of Dallas. I was fine for fuel, but that last Dr. Pepper was surely making itself felt. Sometimes I think I’m the only trucker on the road who hates coffee. I’m not crazy about big truck stops either. The big commercial chains all look alike, and the parking lots are always gross. Oil and reefer melt and other fluids, not to mention the fact most male drivers piss between their back tires, all makes for a real nasty blend.

I climbed down out of the cab, found the ladies’ room, took a seat at the counter and there she was. All long dark hair and big dark eyes in a powder-blue uniform that didn’t do a thing for her gorgeous copper skin. Her nameplate read “Alice,” and I knew every driver over the age of thirty-five had said, “Kiss mah grits,” to this pretty lady at some point. The only thing that lasts longer than the smell of diesel fuel in clothes is bad sitcom catch-phrases.

She came by with a glass of water and a menu. I gave her my best smile and said, “Alice. Dallas Alice.” She rolled her eyes. Yeah, she heard that one a lot, too. Drivers love the song.

“Sorry, miss.” I placed my order and watched her as she cleaned up, took care of the other two drivers, and got my order around. She set the taco salad down and stole a glance at my Pride necklace: six colored rings on a chain. She gave me a little smile and kept working. I ate, but couldn’t stop watching her. So gorgeous.

“Out on the road late last night

I'd see my pretty Alice in every headlight

Alice, Dallas Alice”

--Willing by Lowell George

I dreamed of Alice all the way to Laredo and back. I stopped in at the truck stop again. She filled my glass with unsweetened tea, same as I’d ordered last time, and gave me an extra smile. I left a real nice tip.

After that, it was just habit. My run was Duluth to Laredo and back. Six days: Pick up, Alice, deliver, drive, Alice, and home. I usually came in about two, and, as often as not, I was the only one there. Sometimes, after I’d been coming in for a few months, she’d take her break while I was eating and join me to talk.

She’d left school at sixteen and went to work. Waitressing was all she knew. There was a whole series of men, and a common-law husband, but no kids.

“I wouldn’t want kids. I love ‘em but there’s nothing here, no good way to make a living.”

I told her my life, what little there was. Parents dead, mom from cancer, dad from a heart attack. A brief marriage that didn’t last. Downsized out of office work and a quick trip through truck driving school before I was thirty. A few years driving for a line, then my own truck. My permanent address was a post office box in Duluth, and I lived in the truck.

She leaned across the table and flicked my necklace rings. “No lady?”

I gave her my best roguish grin. “Ju hest you, sugar.”

I winked. She laughed and went back to rolling silverware.

“Now the last thing I wanted was to get in a fight

In Jackson, Mississippi, on a Saturday night.”

--Uneasy Rider, Charlie Daniels Band

We went like that for about a year. Then, they changed my pick-up time. Instead of rolling in at two, I showed up at supper rush this particular Tuesday. She looked really frazzled, like she’d been on her feet since dawn and the only thing keeping her there was too much coffee.

She still had a smile for me as she set down my tea. “Been watching for you all day. I was worried something had happened.”

I caught her hand and rubbed it a little. “They just changed my run. You okay, sweetie?”

She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Better now you’re here.”

“Taco salad, please, Alice,” I said.

One of the drivers at the counter rattled his coffee cup to get her attention. She darted off to take care of it.

I ate, watching her. She hustled the coffee around, taking and filling orders as fast as she could. There were about three drivers giving her a hard time. Most drivers are great people, but there's always one who thinks he can be an asshole, and a couple more who are cheering for him to get away with it.

My knuckles were very white around the handle of the knife I was using on the salad as I listened to them. When one grabbed her butt, I made myself unclench my teeth and slow my breathing. I laid the knife back on the table and tried cutting the reluctant tomato with a fork. I didn’t want the temptation of pinning the driver’s Roman hand and Russian fingers to the chipped Formica counter with the dull butter spreader.

I pushed the salad away, picked up my tea, and moved to the counter. I wouldn’t be any help in a booth. I left my payment and Alice’s tip tucked under the plate, as usual.

The asshole that had felt her up was of the thin and weatherbeaten trucker variety. I guessed I had two inches and fifty pounds on him. I was about twenty years younger, too. I just listened to him and his buddies for a little while.

It had started simple enough, just a game of seeing if he could get the waitress in bed, but now, when he was getting into racial slurs, their laughter took an uglier undertone.

“White man take little squaw for a ride? Gotta big blanket,” he offered. Alice ignored him. I took a deep breath. “Come on, copper baby, don’t be snotty.”

Alice gave him her sweetest smile. “Driver, you’d better just take your act on down the line.”

“Or what, Pocahontas? Your brave gonna scalp me?”

I watched her chin go up. “Exactly.”

When his hand went for her ass again, mine got there first. I yanked his arm up behind his back.

“You owe the lady an apology,” I said.

“Back off, dyke. This ain’t your show.”

I gave him an extra twist, letting him feel just how close to breaking his arm I really was. “Mighty hard to shift one-handed, driver. Now, you owe the lady and me an apology.”

“Didn’t mean nothin’,” he mumbled.

I jerked his arm almost to the break point again.

“Sorry, Alice.”

I let him go. He rounded on me, ready to throw a punch, and I knocked him to his stool. I planted one steel-toed boot at his crotch, threatening to crush his lug-nuts with just enough weight behind it to make him think really hard about his next words.

“You didn’t sound sincere.”

“Miss Alice, I’m sorry I acted badly and said rude things,” he babbled, his eyes on my high-bent knee.

“Better.”

Alice came over. “Apology accepted.”

I leaned a little harder on his nuts. He went pale. “I’m sorry I disturbed your dinner, ma’am,” he added.

I smiled, showing too many teeth. “Now, as Miss Alice said, take your act on down the line. Next time, I won’t be so nice.”

I let off and he half-staggered out the door, clutching himself. His two buddies decided they needed to be gone as well. The café cleared out.

Alice stopped by me and said, “Thank you.” Then, she threw her apron over her face. I didn’t care who was watching. I wrapped her in my arms and sat us down in a booth. I didn’t say anything, just held her until she stopped sobbing. The cook came out and saw us. The look I sent made him decide it might be a good time for a cigarette out back.

“You didn’t have to,” she hitched. She took a breath and wiped her eyes with the apron. “It’s not you, Yolanda, or him. It’s the whole goddamned week.”

“When are you off?” I asked. “You can tell me about it. Cry on me if you want.”

She glanced at the clock. “About ten minutes.”

I flipped the café sign to “closed.” Big truck stops could stay open 24/7. She didn’t have to. “Tip out and let’s go. I have chocolate in the truck. No booze though.”

“I don’t drink.” The bus boy was clearing the table and Alice got her tips from the till. She punched out. The night was too cool for her polyester dress. I wrapped my leather jacket around her shoulders and took her to my rig.

She looked up"> at me. “I forgot my sweater. It’s locked in.” She burst into giggles that were too close to tears. “That's the story in itself.” The tears did come.

My girl’s a Kenworth anteater, all purple and narrow-nosed, with a discreet rainbow triangle on the side-box in among the tropical flowers painted on her. Alice climbed into the passenger seat and I got us each a bag of chocolate kisses from the cooler.

“Now, tell me all about it.”

“Can we go? Just drive and leave all this behind?”

“I could, if I weren’t out of hours. I can’t move until morning. Sorry.” I shrugged and unwrapped a piece of candy.

“Why’d you do that?” she asked.

I gave her the usual roguish grin. “Gotta take care of my girl.” I popped it in my mouth.

Of all the reactions, I’d expected, getting smacked was not one.

“Just like those men!” she spat. “Your girl. You got as big a macho complex as the asshole who was giving me trouble. Well, fuck you, Yolanda, I’m nobody’s girl!”

My cheeks burned and my forehead felt like it was on fire. “No, you’re not,” I said, softly. “You’re a beautiful, amazing woman. And I love you.”

She froze with her hand on the door handle. “What?”

“I love you.”

She sat back down in the seat and stared at her hands. They lay in her lap, rough from too much dishwashing, callused from too many hours of pushing a broom. Her nails were short, bitten to the quick.

“He doesn’t love me. I went back for my sweater today and he had some little blonde slut in my bed. I couldn’t face him so I pulled a double. Then those drivers...I know they were just playing, but I don't like being a target.” She looked up at me and the hope in her face made me ache all through my chest. “Do you really? Love me, I mean.”

I nodded. “I have for a while.”

She gave me a wry little smile. “I kinda thought so. Not many people leave fifties to pay for a ten-dollar meal. Not twice a week, anyway.”

“My little way of taking care of you,” I mumbled, embarrassed.

She leaned closer. “Thank you. It helped. I have over two thousand dollars, most of it from you. I was going to leave Johnny this week.” She opened the top button of her dress and pulled out a money pouch that hung around her neck. “I keep it all on me.” She kissed my cheek. “Take me away. There’s nothing here: a dead-end job, a cheating man, and more harassment from jackasses. I've had enough of the bad apples and the fuzzy end of the lollipop.”

“I leave in the morning for Laredo.” I looked at her, dead serious. “You can ride.”

“For how long? A run? A month?”

div> <p height="0" width="0"><font size="3"> “Forever?” I offered. I opened the curtains. The lady has a fair-sized sleeper, double bed, cabinets, mini-fridge, microwave. I bent to untie my boots. “Love to have you.”<font>

She slipped out of her work shoes and white bobby socks, then slipped between the seats to sit on the bed. I stripped out of my jeans, and shrugged off my bra from under my shirt and looked at her.

“Move one way or the other. I’m lying down.”

She scooted back to sit cross-legged against the wall. I stretched out on the outer edge of the bunk. She unbuttoned her dress another button.

I opened one eye, looked at her and said, “Miss Alice, you’re trying to seduce me.”

She laughed at that, a sound I had heard far too seldom and wanted to hear a lot more of. I propped up on one elbow and she bent over to kiss me.

Her lips were warm and soft, and I tasted her as long as she let me. By the time we parted, my arms had made it around her waist and one hand was unbuttoning the damned dress.

“Yolanda,” she said, nerves in her voice, “I’ve never¡K“

I nodded. “It’s okay.” I kissed her again, mouth and cheek and neck and ear, holding her in close. “We don’t have to do anything at all.”

“Nothing?” she whispered, lifting my t-shirt.

“Nothing,” I said, pushing her dress open and working on her bra.

“Promise?” she asked, from where she was kissing my nipple.

“Pro-promise,” I said, my breath catching as she flicked her tongue over my nipple. I cupped her pretty tits, running my hands over the soft curve of them.

Then she kissed me. I opened to her, feeling her tongue sweet in my mouth with the taste of chocolate. Then I returned it, breathing for her, feeling the slick satin of her cheeks, the little ridges of the roof and most of all, just kissing my Alice, the girl I’d loved for months.

She went back to my boobs, touching and kissing, and sucking at the nipples until I squirmed. If I still had my jeans on, I’d have been rubbing my swollen twat all over the seam. As it was, I got a heel under me and rode that.

One of her hands stole down and shoved at my underwear. I stripped out of the tee-shirt and panties. She just looked at me for a minute.

“You’re gorgeous,” she breathed.

I pushed the dress off her shoulders, pinning her arms. I shot her a wicked grin and seized her, crushing her to me. “I have you now. You thought I was a hero, rescuing you. No, sweet Alice, I have my own nefarious ends!” I twirled an imaginary mustache.

She giggled and squirmed out of my arms and out of the dress and was out of her white cotton underwear so fast I blinked. She pounced, knocking me to my back on the bed. “Who has who, mother-truckPer?”

I laughed and pulled her down to kiss her, the feel of her bare skin on mine driving me crazy. I wanted to touch and kiss and feel her all night, all the rest of forever. She was smooth and warm, her legs shaved, her pits a couple days past the razor and her bush natural. Perfect. I inhaled the scent at the base of her neck, buried my face between her perfect tits, and kissed her until we both forgot to breathe.

She got a leg between mine and I rubbed against it. My own had gone up for her, and I felt the slickness on my thigh. She was as hot for me as I was for her. I kept sucking at her nipples and slid one hand over the sweet curve of her belly and down between her legs.

She was hot here, moist fire, soft skin and a little clit hard as a rock and begging for attention. I gave it happily. I just barely touched her and she yelped into my mouth, getting a lot slicker against my thigh. I tapped it again a couple times and she came again.

I slid one finger into her, leaving my thumb on her clit. She kissed me hard for that.

“Two?” I whispered. She nodded. I added a second, and she was wet tightness, rippling like a flag in a windstorm around my fingers. “Love you,” I added, hooking them forward and rubbing both ends of her clit at once, the outside with my thumb, the g-spot with the fingertips.

Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she clawed the mattress and screamed as she came that time. And she didn’t stop either, just rolled right on into the next orgasm and the next. I loved it when ladies did that. I loved it when I did it. She was shaking in my arms by the time she stopped.

“Want to taste,” I said. She shivered and shook her head. I eased my fingers out and sucked on them.

“Too much,” she whispered. “Too intense. God, I’ve never had it like that.”

I tapped her clit again, just lightly with one finger and she exploded again. I chuckled. Then I kissed her. “If you like my fingers, wait until you get my tongue. Ain’t just my engine does 1600 RPMs.”

She laughed at that and curled into my shoulder. “So what do you do when you aren’t seducing helpless waitresses into a life of sapphic degeneracy with your irresistible heroics?”

I laughed at her teasing. “I have a toy.” I reached into the side cabinet.

She stared at the tangle of wires and plastic. “Doesn’t look like a toy.”

I smiled. “Hang on, Dallas Alice, you’re about to get the ride of your life.” I started untangling it. I slid one of the three blue tips onto each of my fingers, except thumb and pinky, then I strapped the control box around my wrist.

“That’s like science fiction,” she said. “What’s it do?”

“Science friction,” I smiled and turned it on. I ran lightly vibrating fingers over her face, her throat. She giggled. I used them to roll one nipple and she gasped.

“Wow,” she said, her breath getting fast again.

“That’s low,” I teased, and flicked the box up to high. I can’t stay there too long since it makes my fingers go numb. I played with her nipples again, feeling the way they perked right up, hard and looking for more. I licked one and then buzzed it again. Alice just moaned.

I slid the fingers down fast, wanting to enjoy it. I thought she was going to climb the walls of the sleeper when I tapped her clit. I ran one finger all over the arch of her pussy, and then between the lips to tease her opening. She shoved into my hand, begging for more.

I kissed her, slipped two fingers into her and let the pointer slide around the outside, rubbing her lips, tickling her clit. She came around my hand, clenching hard and flooding me. I swallowed her groans.

I fingered her a few minutes more, and she never stopped coming. I turned the box down to low, withdrew and kissed her mouth while I played with her. She jumped when I tapped her ass.

“No, please,” she whispered. “That’s how Johnny always did it so I wouldn’t get pregnant.”

“I’m sorry, baby.” I kissed her and turned off the toy.

“Yolanda,” she breathed, kissing me all over my face. “You haven’t come yet.”

“It’s all right. You’re wiped out and I’m pretty tired, too. We’ll take care of me tomorrow.” It felt weird to say that, almost like a promise that we had all the time in the world. I peeled off the tips and rubbed them with disinfectant wipes.

“That was amazing,” she said, as she watched.

“Yeah,” I gave her a smile. “It’s most of the reason I’m not eating every truck stop waitress from Laredo to Duluth.”

She socked me in the arm, playful. “No, you were just using this and thinking of me all night.” She kissed me.

“Yep.”

“I want to try it on you,” she said, burrowing down under the covers. “Want to see how you look when you’re coming your brains out.”

I kissed her and slid under the covers beside her. She snuggled right up to me. “You sure can. When we’re both awake. Sleep now, baby. Got a lot of ground to cover tomorrow.”

She was already gone, the double shift and multiple orgasms leaving her nothing but an exhausted, if much happier, lady.

The alarm on my cell phone went off at seven. The sun was rising and the morning air was warming up fast. The cab was going to get really uncomfortable in a very short time. I got dressed and kissed Alice.

“Rise and shine, pretty lady. Last call for a leak and we’re off to adventure.”

She batted at me. “Go ‘way. Sleeping.”

I kissed her again. “Yep and I’m gonna get twenty miles down the road, stuck in Dallas traffic, and you’re gonna have to pee. Let’s go.”

She rolled out, grumbling, and put on a pair of my sweat pants and a black t-shirt that was two sizes too big, but looked great on her. We made a quick bathroom run, and she quit very formally. The manager gave her that last paycheck with a lot of griping, but it gave me a chance to get a couple of sodas and some muffins.

After a quick pre-trip, I climbed back in. She’d made the bed and was buckled and ready. I cranked up my lady and we rolled. As we pulled out of the lot, she chucked the powder-blue dress out the window, letting it flutter to the dirt in our slipstream. I fought the urge to back over it.

She dug around and found my CD case. Slotting my driving mix CD, we laughed as Buck Owens started on “Truck Driving Man.” I sang over him on the last verse, the words I’d made up weeks ago, thinking of her.

“I helped her aboard my old semi

Then like a flash we were gone.

I got those old truck wheels a-turning.

We’re getting married up in Saskatchewan.”

She laughed all the way to San Antonio.

Much of this story is real, including the locked-out-in-Dallas bit and the toy. It originally appeared in Torquere Press's Sappho's Chest, one of the Toybox series.

fnwer wor

Change of Plans

Alice doesn't always know what she does to me, I realized as I climbed back into the cab of my big purple Kenworth. She was sitting on the bunk, reading. She read a lot these days, anything she could get her hands on. She'd left school after seventh grade and always felt like she had missed something.

I wasn't missing anything. Not with her along.

It was the way she was sitting that got me. Her bare feet were tucked up under her, the soles visible and vulnerable, little coppery toes peering out, the silver nail polish shining and just starting to chip. Her shirt was rucked up, her skirt low on her hips. The small of her back invited my tongue. I shuddered at the sight of a dimple above one hip.

Her arms covered her breasts and her face was buried in the reading, but oh God, just her back was making me crazy. I wanted to lick it, to see if she was as sweet as she looked or if she'd sweated a little since her shower, just enough to give some salt kick to her soft skin.

When she looked up and smiled at me, I melted.

“Nice shower, sweetheart?” she asked.

I smiled and shook my head in a dazed sort of way. She did that to me every time, making my head go swimmy and my heart thud like some stupid love song. “Yeah, but now I want to get all sweaty again.” I sat down on the bunk beside her and put my hands around her waist, getting my thumbs into those dimples I wanted to lick. She gave me an oddly cool peck and turned back to her magazine. “Whatcha reading?” I looked over her shoulder and saw it was real-estate listings.

“Might be a good time to buy. Yolanda, you said if fuel went over five dollars a gallon, you'd sell the truck.”

I glared at her, no longer feeling quite so interested. She had been restless for weeks, but I'd had no idea how bad it had gotten.

“Yo, sugar,” she kissed me and held my face in her hands. “I love you. You know I do. I just feel so useless. I can't drive. I'm not allowed to unload. I'm just a hundred and thirty pounds of dead weight cutting your fuel mileage.”

I shook my head. I wasn't hearing this. Had I really done it so wrong? Six months ago, Alice had been a waitress in a little Texas truck stop until a driver got racist and grabby. I rescued her that day, sending the driver on down the line nursing a pair of sore nuts from my steel-toes. She'd given notice, mainly by tossing her uniform out the window of my truck as we left, and been with me ever since.

In the last couple weeks, I'd come to understand why fairy tales end with the rescue and the wedding. I knew Alice felt useless. She'd expressed a desire for an address that was a more permanent than a post office box and a job she could do. My princess needed a castle to call her own.

I wasn't sure I could live stationary any more.

I kissed her. “Alice, honey, can you trust me, and be patient for a little longer?”

She sighed, and from the sound of it, I wouldn't be getting any loving tonight. “How long? You've been saying 'be patient' for weeks now. It's always been 'just a little longer, honey' or 'one more run, darling,' and you never make as much as they promised you and we have to take just one more.”

I settled into the bunk, my back against the sidewall of the truck. She spoke the truth. I'd been running the system for three weeks now, barely meeting my operating expenses, while the company was bidding on keeping my run.

“That's how it goes out here, Alice. I'm not cut out for staying in one place anyway.”

“And I'm not cut out for this!” She dropped the magazine and burst into tears. Tears I could handle. I cuddled her into my arms and stroked her. Alice wasn't much of a crier, so I knew something bad had gotten to her today.

I made soothing noises, not really words, until she quit crying. “What happened, babe?”

“I was going for a shower and three guys had already whistled at me. This one yelled about wanting to get his swirl on and he could...” she sniffed, “he could really go for that ‘strawberry ripple action.’”

fic

“Who was it? I'll knock his head in.” I gave her an evil smile. “That's Use Number Twenty-seven for Tire-thumpers that they don't teach you in driver training.”

“I lost my temper and got in his face, demanding to know how he'd like to run a gauntlet of foul men with no teeth and bad breath and palpable body odor telling him in graphic detail what they wanted to do to his body. I also offered him his strawberry ripple action, provided I got to put the tire-thumper in my strap-on harness and bend him over the fender in front of God and everybody.” She gave a smile. “He let me go have my shower in peace after that.”

“Oh, honey. I shouldn't let you go out alone.” I knew as soon as the words were out they had been a mistake. She was my girl and I tended to be a little domineering about taking care of her.

“Let?” She shoved me away. “Let? Since when do you let or forbid one fucking thing in my life, Yolanda Carter?”

Yep. I screwed up again. I mentally kissed my loving tonight good-bye. My phone rang before I could make more trouble for myself with my big mouth.

I checked the number and saw it was dispatch. “Let me take this, babe. I'll be right back.” She shrugged and it stabbed me, like she was saying she didn't care if I ever came back. I knew a few minutes alone would cool her off. Alice got mad faster than anyone I knew, but she never stayed mad long.

I stepped outside to take the call, keeping an eye on Alice through the cab windows. I got the word my dedicated was over for good, not just on hiatus. The company had lost the account. I gritted my teeth and asked for the one thing I knew I had to.

A few minutes later, I climbed back in the cab and sat down in the passenger seat. Alice came up and kissed me.

“I know, you're all overprotective and macho, and I love that, but I really hate your possessiveness.”

“I know.” I kissed her forehead. “I'm sorry.” I held her a minute more. “Can I buy you dinner to make up for it? I know you're as tired of peanut butter and cold cuts as I am.”

“Can we afford it?” she asked.

I nodded. “Dinner, and I have some news.” She teased me to tell her all the way in. I refused, saying nothing and keeping one arm around her as we walked across the darkening lot. In the dimness, I was often taken for a man. Nobody gave us any trouble.

We settled in at the table and gave the waitress our order. After she brought our drinks, I told Alice my news. “I asked dispatch about short dedicated runs up home. The kind where we could have an apartment and I'd be home every night or every other night. You could settle down and maybe find a job. They said two or three were opening up soon, like next week soon, and I said I wanted one.”

Alice looked happier than I'd seen her in weeks. The weariness sort of fell away from her and a shadow I hadn't even noticed lifted out of her big dark eyes.

“I'll look for apartments. Is there going to be coany trouble?” She gestured at herself and I knew exactly what she meant. While we weren't Texas or the Dakotas, there was still some anti-Native sentiment, even in Minnesota.

I gave her a smile. “Of course not. Every midwesterner claims to be one-eighth Cherokee, so just remind them about that, tell 'em you're a distant cousin and ask for the brother-in-law price.”

She laughed. “Every midwesterner?”

I nodded. “Except one friend of mine, who actually had her genealogy papers and was one-thirty-second Shoshone.”

We ate, talking about plans for the future and what we wanted in an apartment. Alice had more ideas than I did. She'd lived in a trailer in Texas, so she wanted a real building, with someone to handle plumbing and electrical problems. We agreed that the maintenance on a house would be an issue. She wanted a washer and dryer, cable TV and all the things she'd never really had. I said as long as it had a bed, a kitchen and her, I didn't much care about the rest.

I tipped the waitress nicely and we headed back to the truck.

There are situations I really hate and getting surrounded is one of them. I'm good against one man or two alone, three if Alice was along. They brought five, which seemed like loading the odds. I hadn't had to fight, not really fight, for a long time, but the old adrenaline kicked right in.

The switchblade under my nose clinched it: they were out for some real trouble. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of the guys had tire-thumpers.

I saw Alice's hand go into her pocket for her phone, but so did they. Two of them yanked her arms in different directions, well away from her body.

“That was really stupid, dyke,” one said.

“Big bad bull dyke and her Indian Princess are in heap big hurt about now,” added another.

“Let's get out of the lights. Security patrols this place.” The leader looked at me. “You and the squaw are gonna be real good, do just what we say, and maybe we'll let you live. You might even get out in time to make your delivery window. Fuck it up, bitch, and we'll do her first and make you watch. Now, leave your phones right here on the ground for any thief that wants them, and come on.”

I eased my new smartphone out of my pocket. “Look, it's brand new. Would you let us put these in the truck? I really don't want to have to transfer all my numbers and shit.” Maybe if I could keep him talking, security would come by. I gave him a smile. “Knowing my stuff is fine would take some worry off my mind and might make us more fun.”

The leader considered. “All right. In the truck, but no funny stuff.” He and the boys led us back to my big purple Kenworth. I unlocked her and set the phones up in the cab, without climbing up. I threw my wallet in for good measure and locked the door. Alice wasn't carrying anything except her ID, so I didn't worry about her wallet. After all, the cops would need some way to identify our bodies.

I shut down that line of thought at once. We were going to live through this and escape and get back on the ro saad. We were going to make tomorrow's delivery on time and unscathed.

There was an abandoned barn about a mile up the outer road from the truck stop. We'd seen it on the way in. They separated us on the drive, so that we wouldn't do anything stupid, like bail out of a moving car. I considered it anyway, since the slope into the ditch looked grassy and rock-free, but that would leave Alice in their hands. They would hurt her even more if I did jump. Instead I watched her head, there in the middle of the back seat of the car ahead of us, and thought about how much I loved her. We were going to get out of this.

I let them take us into the barn. One of them dropped an old blanket on the ground. “Give us a show, bitches.”

I looked at him like I was stupid. “A show?”

Big mistake. The leader clouted me upside the head and my ears rang. I sat down hard on the ground.

“Fuck your girl. We want some hot chick action to get us revved up.”

Alice sat down beside me and kissed me. “Go with it, sweetheart,” she whispered, nuzzling my hair. “I have a plan.”

I couldn't even manage our usual glib response of “Custer had a plan.” I just hugged her tight to me, knowing it might be the last time. I didn't want to lose her like this. It would be so wrong that I had taken her away from everything she knew, kept her bored and trapped with me, and now was getting her killed.

Alice started in on my shirt. I kept one hand in her hair and just breathed the clean sweet smell of her. She opened my shirt and undid the front hooks of my bra. Then she kissed me again.

“Love you, baby,” I said softly. I reached for her top and she slipped out of it.

“I know.” She undid her own bra. Our shirts were still in easy reach.

“Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about,” one of the men said. “Shame those tits are wasted.”

Alice looked up at him. “What makes you think they're wasted?” She threw him a wicked grin and bent in to lick me. I'm not built as nicely as she is, but she loved me anyway. I couldn't ever take it when she did that. I squirmed and pulled her back to lie on the blanket so she could have more and I could have her thigh between my legs.

That was what I wanted. She loved on my boobs and I rode her thigh, the seam in my jeans riding right up tight against my crotch. I almost came before I caught a glimpse of a pair of cowboy boots and remembered how much trouble we were in. Alice could do that every time, put me right out of the here and now and into a place where the only thing that matters is coming.

She rolled me onto my back and hovered over me. I reached for her pretty boobs hanging right there above my head like ripe fruit. A show they wanted, and a damned distracting one I planned to put on. But she caught my wrists and pinned them down with one hand. “No, no, no.” She made a tsk-tsk sound. “White girl no touch.” With the other, she unbuckled my belt and slid it from the loops.

“Yeah, baby, tie her up,” one of the men said.

“Snap it across her tits,” another suggested.

I swallowed. We'd worked out a code a long time ago, when she first came with me. If she ever lapsed into Hollywood pidgen, or called me “white girl,” I was to be ready to kick some ass as soon as she pointed me in the right direction. I was ready any time she said. I knew the signal would be something subtle.

I was wrong. Oh, so very wrong.

The signal was Alice bouncing off me with my belt in her hand like a whip and a banshee yell that startled the men into frozen silence for a second.

A second was all I needed. I rolled over and yanked the leader's feet out from under him.

He came down hard, hitting his head on the packed earth, but still swinging with his knife. I pounced on him, kicking him in the ribs. The steel toes of my boots were meant to protect my feet and had saved me from broken toes on more than one occasion. Now they landed with satisfying cracks along his sides.

He caught me with the knife across the back of one calf.

It slashed through my jeans and into my leg, leaving a trail of fire behind it. I was going to feel that for a long time. Fucker got me in the accelerator and braking leg. I hoped the doc-in-the-box inside the truck stop kept late hours, because I expected I would need stitches.

These boys were playing for keeps. From the corner of my eye, I saw Alice send two of the men cowering into the corner, lashing at them with the buckle end of the belt. I held my breath and kicked as hard as I could with my undamaged leg. My boot connected with his temple. The crunch made me wince. But I kicked him again, just as hard, and broke the skin. His eyes rolled back in his head. I hesitated and decided not to stomp his nose into the middle of his skull.

I reached down and grabbed his switchblade. Alice had two of the men cornered. One ran for it and the other looked like he was considering coming after us.

I pointed the knife at him. “I wouldn't do it, driver.”

He followed his buddy out the barn door and into the night. I picked up our shirts and went to Alice. She snapped the belt, making sure she wrapped the buckle around one man's face. He went down, bleeding from a gash in his scalp.

“You gonna give us any shit?” she asked the last one.

“No, no.” He held up his hands and shook his head.

I landed a solid punch in his jaw, sitting him down beside his buddy, who was holding a bleeding flap of scalp on his skull.

“Next time you decide to try a little rape for shits and giggles, remember the night you didn't get that strawberry swirl,” Alice snapped. “Fuckmuppet.”

She turned and marched out, her skirt flaring around her calves. I followed her, limping as I pulled my shirt on.

“Alice, honey?”

She looked back and saw me struggling. “Yo, honey, what's wrong?”

“Got cut. Can we borrow a car? I can't manage to walk a mile.” I handed her the shirt and bra she'd left behind.

She nodded and opened the door of the Buick. One of the asshats had left his keys in it. She put her shirt on and drove us back to the truck stop.

We left his car in the four-wheeler lot. I managed to limp across the badly tilting floor to the doc-in-the-box walk-in clinic before my head went all swimmy. I sank into a chair and elevated my leg as Alice gave all the information to nurse.

I was kind of hazy about the rest of the evening. I remembered stitches and a cop and lots of questions. Alice answered them all and never let go of my hand. She steered me back to the truck and helped me aboard.

“Take these,” she said, pouring out a handful of pills. “Antibiotics and pain-killer.” I swallowed them with a drink of water.

“Love you, sugar. Remind me not to make you mad.”

She laughed. “Yolanda, honey, we'll be fine.”

Of course we would. I was going to get her off the road. I determined to look at apartments and local runs as soon as I delivered tomorrow.

No more truck stops, no more rough men. No more danger. My girl was meant for finer things and I wanted her to have everything she wanted.

This started because of a pretty girl at the gay and lesbian center and a call for a working girls anthology. It didn't get done in time, but here it is now.

fnwer wor

Still Rolling

Get on up here and shut that door fast! Yeah, you just sit there and breathe a minute, mister, and I'll get us the hell outta here. Damn lucky I saw you and luckier that I could stop in time. Another minute and they'da had you. Nah, I wouldn't ever leave anyone to get eaten by those things, but still, you better say a thank-you prayer to God, Loki, St. Jude, Coyote, Hermes and St. Christopher, and mean it. And check your pants. Not too many folk stay clean and dry in a zombie attack.

Welcome aboard my girl. Yeah, she's pretty. I bought her because you just don't come by purple Kenworths too often. I added the flowers on the side of the sleeper myself. Shoulda seen her before all this got going. She was a lot prettier before the Change, but we're all looking a little battered these days. The cow-catcher kinda ruins her lines, but gotta have it. I'm one of the last still rolling.

So how'd you end up on foot, carrying a small arsenal, out here on the b waack-ass side of Nowhere, Kansas?

Ah, yeah. Gas is getting to be a problem. Diesel's no better, but I make that my clients' worry. They have to fill me up and load me. I usually run food from the agri-fortresses out around Wichita into the university compound up in Kansas City. UMKC sends medicine and equipment back.

So where you been, mister?

Heh. A bunker? For real? Kinda had you figured for one of them weekend-warrior survivalist types, what with the camo and the guns.

Okay, sugar butt, put the boom-stick down. You shoot me here and this eighteen-wheeled bitch of mine will roll just to badass you.

Think this through. If you shoot me, not only will you have a corpse behind the wheel of eighty thousand pounds of steel rolling along at seventy-five, you'll have a big old hole in the driver's window. You really think you can shoot me, unbuckle my seatbelt, get my corpse out of the seat I just made a mess of and drive the lady before she crashes? That's assuming I don't kick the brake or clutch and turn off the cruise. You don't even know how to drive a rig and your fucking male pride ain't worth losing your life.

And that hole in the window? Zombies aren't smart but they can climb stairs. You're gonna wake up being digested before you knew you fell asleep.

That's better. We were getting along fine until you went macho and stupid. Didn't your mama ever tell you not to shoot the piano-player or your driver?

'Sides, it ain't like you got any ammo. Will you get that fucking shotgun out of my face? You aren't going to shoot me. If you had ammo, you'd have been shooting zombies, not running from them. Now be good or I'll put you off out here.

Brace yourself. Ah shit, I'm gonna be washing that off for a week. Stupid undead.

They weren't always this way, you know. The zombies, I mean. You don't know? Heh. Lots of folks seem to think we're out here in a fucking George Romero movie, with no good reason for it. Well, get comfortable. We got time before Kansas City, even as fast as I'm running.

Hunh? Oh hell no, I don't ever shut up. Jaw-jacking keeps me awake. I talk to Alice. I talk to any other drivers on the CB, though there ain't so many anymore. I talk to myself. So, lucky you. You get Yolanda's Tale of the End of the World and Theories of What Comes Next all to yourself today.

Started down in Louisiana, where else? Some of the companies started using zombie labor, must be ten years ago now. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Zombies, they aren't smart but they're strong and they work steadily and for no pay. They weren't dangerous, either. Real popular on the loading docks and with the accountants. Turned a nice profit, saving all that payroll.

Nasty when they start to rot, though, and they do it fast in the deep south summer heat. Nothing like getting out of your cab on a hot August afternoon, when there ain't no air from St. Louis to the Gulf, just hot wet thickness you can't hardly breathe, and then getting hit with zombie-stink from the dock.

Speaking of, hold on tight, fella. Here we go again. They're thick today.

There. Damn, I hate it when they're little kids. Makes me feel guilty about running over 'em. But that baby girl had been dead about a year, if her skeleton arms and poor little dress are anything to go by. Dead, sure, but her body's still up and walking around. She ain't in it no more. So it's better that way. You know, the longer they shamble, the worse their clothes and skin get. Down in Mississippi and in wilder country, I've seen 'em bare-ass naked and some down to skeletons. And believe me, fella, once you've seen moldy ribs through zombie tits, it's almost enough to put you off live ones.

Ah, don't look at me like that. You had me pegged for a big ol' diesel dyke the minute you figured out you hadn't pissed yourself. Guess what. I am. Now hush up, you're gonna wake my Alice. She's not feelin' too good. I ain't either. That's why you're not getting me at my cheeriest.

Yeah, she's my wife. Married all legal-like back in Iowa. Back when there was an Iowa and when things like that mattered. Now all that I worry about is keeping us alive on a run.

Nah, Alice doesn't drive. I'm married to the most beautiful woman in the whole damn world. We were just like one of those truck-driving songs. Trucker, waitress and met at a roadhouse in Texas and all that jazz. Only thing different was we were both girls and we're both still rolling. Half the trucking songs are about being in love with waitresses and the other half are about dying on the road.

Saw her twice a week on my dedicated route. Long story short, I saved her from a pushy guy, she decided to come along. We got married. She's the brains of the outfit, my navigator, tax accountant and bookkeeper.

Yeah, sorry. Guess we shouldn't talk about brains since yours almost got eaten. Where were we? Oh yeah. Loading docks and zombie labor.

Anyway, Alice pointed out, after a few months, how the towns that were using zombie labor started dying. No, not literally. The zombies weren't hungry then. The towns just sorta shut down.

Fewer workers pulling a wage means less stuff getting bought at the stores, which means they fire cashiers and stockers and don't have as much call for drivers. And fewer workers making money means more people having to leave and live with relatives. The truck stops stayed open, but the little towns pretty much dried up and blew away in the space of a couple years. Just like a lot of 'em did when the interstates came through.

Factory folks had it better, since they had to think on the job and zombies can't. But the idea of zombie labor just kept creeping on northward. Everybody loves to save money. Started in Louisiana and branched into Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas first. Then Memphis, which is a major transportation hub. Fed Ex loved it. They let about half their workforce go. And when Big Purple cuts staff like that? A city, even a city big as Memphis, can be in a world of hurt.

In three years, I was seeing zombies in the Caves up in Kansas City. They got moldy in there instead of having great chunks just fall off like blue-green rotten meat. And out in Texas, they dried out to leathery mummy-things in the dry air.

Hang on.

Ick. That one spattered. Sorry about the smell, fella. Kinda like a skunk, it never quite comes out. I know, not too fragrant in here, either. I had a shower in Lawrence yesterday, but there aren't many safe rest areas anymore. Personal needs? I got a coffee can.

Look out there, a whole pack of 'em just kinda moseying along. Heh. Herds of zombies instead of buffalo on the great prairie. Never seen quite so many at once and headed...oh shit. Nothing personal, but are you sure you aren't injured or bit? They can smell blood, you know, just like human sharks. And they can smell one of their own.

Hang on, mister. We're goin' for a ride and it's a bumpy one.

Shhh. Alice, honey, go back to sleep. We'll be in the compound soon.

No, she doesn't sound good. Toldja she was sick. Bad fever and some pink-eye on top of it. Think I'm catching it. That's why she has to stay in the sleeper, gotta keep it dark. Can't wait for her to get well.

She's so pretty, fella, you should see her. She's half-Cherokee, you know. Lotsa long black hair. I'm crazy about women with long black hair. Blondes don't do it for me, really. But anyway, she's real pretty and I miss her sitting in that seat talking to me. I hope she gets better soon.

So what happened with the zombies? That's the question, ain't it, why they got a taste for people? Nobody really knows, but I got a few ideas.

Sure, could be demons, why not? If you believe in such things, I can see how you'd think it. Maybe it's like I heard that radio preacher saying, “Awake and sing, you that dwell in dust. Your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” Yeah, creepy. Or maybe the voodoo gods got angry at having so many people yanked back out of the spirit realm and decided to teach us a lesson. Me, I don't buy any of it.

I think something went wrong in the concoctions. I don't know what they were mixing up to make the dead walk again and take orders but you know it had to be hella potent. Shit like that, you slip once, even a little bit, and everything goes bad.

Somebody fucked it up royally. The zombies came back all right, but they came back hungry. Regular zombies, they have to eat to keep the energy flowing, but they eat gruel, thin oatmeal, with no salt or sugar or spices. That stuff makes 'em remember they're dead, y'see?

I saw one, once, get hold of a soda. It drank the pop like it was water. Then that dead face got a real funny look and the zombie ambled off the dock, around to the grassy side of the building. I watched it dig itself back into the ground if you can believe it. Just dug in, laid down and pulled the hole in after it. Shoulda heard the foreman swear too.

This new batch, they wanted blood and salt and brains and flesh and didn't give a damn about the fact they were dead. Salt, sugar, spice? None of that was going to make them go back in the ground. Only thing that puts them down is destroying the head.

Yeah, gotta be the head. You ever seen a dead guy with no legs, no ass, his guts dragging out the lower half of his body, pulling himself along on his hands? Coming after you? Lucky you. Pray you don't. Wish I hadn't.

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I hear the trouble started up around Ohio or West Virginia. Heh. Maybe one of them hillbillies got to fancying himself a hougan and tried using white lightning or some shit to raise some workers. Put a little kick in the revivification serum and instead of working faster, they just got the munchies.

I know. I know. I'm being bad. But if you don't joke about this stuff, you go crazy, man.

Believe me, I saw enough crazy in the early days, when we were still figuring it all out and before the fortress perimeters all got set. Now, crazy tends to take the shape of someone just walking out into the night and getting eaten. Then, oh hell. You should have seen it. Straight out of horror novels. People crucified on telephone poles. Lots of religious crazies, including a couple cults of zombie worshipers. Yeah, that lasted about as long as it took for them to all get eaten. Lots of places decorated with zombies impaled on spikes or their walls as warnings. Autodueling.

Almost lost my rig to a bunch of road warrior wannabes on that last one. Alice got a real nasty scar on her pretty face from it. They wanted to play road warriors. Well, we went Mel Gibson on their little four-wheel asses. I don't like killing live people. Don't do it unless I gotta.

Shhh. Alice baby, we're almost to Tonganoxie. We'll be there in an hour. You sleep, darlin'.

I hope they got something there for that fever, fella. I really do. Not like I can just pop in and buy a bottle of Tylenol at Wal-Mart anymore.

So yeah, the new batch came back hungry and they came back contagious. And pretty soon there wasn't much of anything left of the old batches, or of people, or of the whole damn country.

Hang on. Perimeter checkpoint. We're getting close.

Yolanda and Alice and human guest en route from Wichita to UMKC. We got pork and beef and veggies. Now move us on through. I got an hour's worth of gas left in the reefer.

Easy as pie. And I lied. I got two hours, so they'd better unload me fast. But I gotta take a quick break soon, even if we are almost there.

Where's it all gonna go from here? Not a clue. I think the fortresses are probably going to be city-states for a while yet. That's both good and bad. They can set their own rules, but I betcha it won't be long before weirdness starts there, too. I've heard some of the places are already using women as currency. That could get ugly fast. Especially when some fortress decides to declare war on another.

What? Oh yeah, when. There is no question at all in my mind that humans, once they get their numbers up a little, will start trying to kill each other, and much more effectively than by biting faces off one at a time.

What's gonna happen went some bright boy gets the idea of smuggling a few zombies into an enemy fortress and letting them loose? That ought to give you a few nightmares, hunh?

The zombies are going to rot out, eventually. I think there will always be a few and we'll just have to treat them like any other predator. Unless someone takes to breeding them as an army. Yeah, ain't I cheerful today? Or m F traybe, just maybe, the docs will find a cure.

I know, no cure for death, right? But maybe they can come up with something that helps the bitten not become zombies. Maybe a shot or something, inoculate everyone.

Yeah, that's gonna be bad for a while, too. The vaccine stores all went over a couple years ago. They're working on it. I hear we lost a lot of diabetics and other medically fragile folks in the collapse. They got measles in Warrensburg, the CB says, and we lost Omaha to typhoid last winter. We're already getting afraid of disease again. But in this dark age, we know what causes it.

Dark age, yeah, with feudalism and all. We were Rome for a while, standing astride the whole world. Now, Rome has fallen again. And we're picking up the pieces into little fiefs, walled cities and monasteries of science.

I'm pulling off here, hang on.

This is one of the last safe rest areas left and I gotta go. No, your little iron penis-waving display didn't cause it. Needed it for a while now and I sure ain't gonna use the coffee can in front of you. That'd be plain embarrassing for both of us.

Why don't you come along? There might be a Coke or something. UMKC is trying to get the bottling plant running, but it's all fits and starts and sometimes the taste is weird. Cola nuts and coca leaves are hard to come by these days. They do better on the root beer. Lots of sassafras trees around and they can make their own syrup.

Nah, don't lock it. We're the only ones here. Yeah, the pop's in the cooler in the old vending house.

Uh-hunh. And so is the snare. Nice trap checking there, Rambo.

Now you hush, mister weekend warrior. You sealed it when you drew on me, even if you weren't loaded.

Tell me one thing, while you hang there upside down. Have you ever loved, I mean really loved someone? Loved 'em enough to walk through the fires of Hell and demand the devil give 'em back? I thought not. Then you aren't gonna understand what comes next.

Yeah, that's a chainsaw. I'm sorry, I don't have time enough to make this painless, just quick. See, I didn't lie about Alice being sick or me catching it. She got bit last run. I got her muzzled and tied up before she came back.

She's still smart though. Maybe the zombies aren't as brainless as we think. She knew what it took to get me infected. And this morning, she got me with a tear when I kissed her cheek.

I don't have much time, mister. I'm gonna get us to the lab and offer us for experiments. UMKC has scientists working on the zombie problem. We'll be safe in a lab.

Like I said, I don't like killing live people and I'm sorry about the pain, but Alice and me, we come first. And the folks at UMKC ain't too picky about whether their pork comes on four legs, if you follow me.

It'll all be over in a minute.

Shhh, Alice baby. It's me. Yeah, I got something for you. Let me get that muzzle, sugar. Hey, hey, be nice. You don't need to try to bit Fme.

Sit up. There we go. See? A nice fresh brain. Now, how about you enjoy your lunch while I finish the run? You want some music?

We're almost safe and still rolling. Oh, hey, sing it with me, darlin'. Our words, not old Buck's.

I helped her aboard my old semi

Then like a flash we had flown

Got them old truck wheels a turnin'

Heading for a wedding in Des Moines.

This originally appeared in the Lambda Literary nominated anthology Zombiality: a Queer Bent on the Undead.

fnwer wor

Induced Paroxysms

“You look amazing.” I had to kiss her and then hold her at arm's length and look at her. “Kind of a demented Mrs. Lovett.”

“I was going for Bellatrix Lestrange,” she said. “But I'm good.”

“Perfect.” I stole another kiss. “You ready?”

“I'm kind of nervous. I've never done a public scene.”

“We'll be fine, sweetheart.” I adjusted my lab coat over the corset and settled my goggles. Her straitjacket was perfect, an exact replica of the Victorian original. Our friends were waiting for us near the elevator bank and her other outfit hung on a rolling rack.

We caught the elevator to the main conference room, done up as an auditorium for us. I couldn't let her see, but I was a little nervous too. Steampunk wasn't a new costume, and neither were medical scenes, but I'd never done one in public. At least my mad scientist/evil doctor clothes were comfortable and the lace-up boots fit well. If I tried to do this in the dancing shoes and tight corset, I'd never get through it.

I stole one more kiss before we left the elevator. She waited outside the conference room with our friends and assistants and I went in.

At three past, I cleared my throat and the house lights dimmed, but the lights in the auditorium area stayed at full.

“Welcome to this scene. Please know, that the activities you are about to see have all been thoroughly negotiated between my wife and me. She has a signal to use as her safeword. Thank you for coming to our little s Fhrouhow.”

The lights went out. A single follow spot picked me out as I stood at the foot of a replica examination table, slightly altered to look more menacing. Decorative gears seemed to indicate it could be folded in a variety of ways, bending the body on it to conform. The foot stirrups had been replaced with full lower leg stirrups, and heavy, evil-looking leather straps dangled from them. More straps hung near the head and along the sides.

Casey and I had bought the table on a medical surplus sale a couple years ago and added to it. We loved it and were looking forward to sharing it with our audience.

“Ladies of the academy, I bid you welcome.” I ignored the gentlemen in the audience. There was no need. “As you know, our gracious Queen has decreed the necessity of training lady physicians, so that we of the gentler sex need not compromise our modesty by revealing ourselves to male doctors. So today, I will be doing the first of many demonstrations. We will begin by demonstrating my experimental treatment for the treatment of nervous hysteria. This disorder afflicts as many as seventy percent of the ladies of our fair isle. Some of you yourselves may suffer from it. It is my hope that this may offer you some relief as well.”

The ladies muttered approvingly and I turned to the door and beckoned.

“Hilda and Bertha have in their custody one Celeste duPuy. She suffers from nervous hysteria, to the point that she can no longer carry out day-to-day functions. Ordinary treatments have proved fruitless, so we shall try the experiment.”

Beth and Heather brought Casey out. She staggered between them, bound in the straitjacket, her head lolling. Her eyes rolled, skittering from one woman to another, then to her guards and me, then to the table.

“Please remove the straitjacket, if you would?” I asked them. They unbundled Casey and she stood, shivering in a chemise. I smiled gently at her. “My dear, if you would remove your shimmy, we will proceed with the treatment.”

“My... shimmy?” she repeated, looking terrified and clutching the chemise.

“You want to get better, don't you, dear?” I coaxed. “It's only ladies here.”

“Yessss.” She took off the chemise and climbed on the table. Heather and Beth helped her up and when she lay back, they strapped her down by her wrists, her chest and waist. They moved quickly and lifted her legs into the stirrups, spreading her wide on display for the audience. She made a noise of protest. Beth held up a mouth screw. The wooden plug was carved in a spiral pattern and ranged from about an inch to three inches in diameter.

She protested again as Beth held her nose until she opened her mouth and popped the mouth screw in. Once it was in, Beth gave it an extra twist to hold Casey's mouth open just a little more firmly

I patted her leg. “My dear, you must be restrained. The motions this experiment may induce could injure you if you aren't confined. And the gag is simply to spare our audience any noises.”

I turned to the audience and picked up a roll of gauze. “We begin by blindfolding her. Hilda, if you would?”< N">

Heather took the gauze and started wrapping it around Casey's head. She struggled and I stroked her thigh, as if gentling a skittish animal.

“The sensory deprivation will allow Celeste to concentrate on sensation. It will be necessary to induce several paroxysms before she can be released. It is my theory such treatment, applied regularly, will relieve most symptoms of nervous hysteria.”

Someone in the audience snickered. I elected to ignore it. Casey looked absolutely edible all strapped out like this. I wanted to go down on her, but that wasn't in the plan.

“Celeste, we're going to begin the treatment now that you're secured,” I announced.

She nodded. I saw she still had the jingle-ball in her hand. If she got into bad headspace, she'd let me know. I watched the slow rise and fall of her breasts, and smiled. She was slipping into subspace, if her breathing was any indication.

“Now, in order to draw out the subject's zones of hysteria, we will cup her. Hilda, Bertha, your help please.”

Heather lit a candle and Beth took out two glass cups. We'd practiced this long and hard, getting it exactly right. Casey loved it. I used the candle to heat the inside of the glass cup. Once the air inside was hot, I put it over her right nipple. The air cooled and drew her nipple up into the cup. Very cute and she moved her hips just a little at the sensation. I did the left one too. She gave a soft little whimper around the mouth screw, which made my own twat clench with wanting her.

“We'll let those draw for a moment,” I said and picked up a pin wheel. It always made me think of a spur with extra long barbs. The pins weren't sharp like sewing pins, but Casey would feel them. They tended to leave lines of little red dots on her skin. “For now, we'll awaken her skin with this.” I glanced up to make sure the close-up was showing up on the large monitors so everyone could see. It might be non-period, but I didn't fancy using an enormous magnifying glass.

I rolled the pin wheel along Casey's thighs and inner arms. She squirmed a little, and made the glass cups on her tits bounce. I rolled it harder along her forearms and the soft skin just outside the labia majora. She made more of those sexy little noises as the skin near my hand turned a deeper shade of pink. I ran it over the outer lips and she squirmed as much as she could. They plumped right up and turned red, as if begging for more. When I rolled it, very gently, in between the majora and minora, she groaned and pressed into it as if begging for more. I decided to see what would happen and rolled it right over her clit.

The room gasped and Casey yelled around the mouth screw. She leaked clear fluid and I could smell how turned on she was.

“Her skin is nicely awakened now. Let us see how the upper zones fare.” I checked the cups. Her nipples stood up bright red and thick from the blood pulled into them. Perfect. “This is very nice. In order to keep the humors where they need to be, Hilda and Bertha will remove the cups and apply rubber tourniquets to her bosom.” The girls popped the cups and Casey yelled through the gag again. They tied off her pumped-up nipples with rubber bands, making them stand straight up.

While they did that, I took out an extra-large vaginal speculum. It was aluminum, but we had painted it to look like shiny brass, and sealed it with a couple coats of polyurethane. We wanted the audience squirming. I'd altered them a little to add gears that operated the spreading mechanism. All they lacked from being a nightmare was a row of serrated teeth. But this was a steampunk medical fetish scene, not a horror one. Maybe someday I would do up the one with teeth that looked like rusting iron. That would be fun for watching audience reactions.

“We will open the subject like so,” I announced and eased the speculum into Casey's sweet cunt. She opened right up for it and relaxed around it. She knew this part well. She had a real thing for speculums. I turned the crank at the bottom and the speculum slowly spread her open. She rocked her hips the little way she could move, but I kept going. I wanted her spread wide open, stretched tightly enough that the speculum would stay. She started whining around the gag, but she didn't shake the ball.

“I'm working on a permanent device that could be implanted in a lady. Just think, no more difficulty accommodating your husband. No more discomfort at the doctor's. Just an easy twist and you are as opened as you need to be.” The hideously sexist words came out of my mouth and I added, “Conversely, a lady would be able to close herself off tightly, that she might not be outraged by the violent and dangerous men of the city.”

The crowd gave an approving murmur, on cue. I wrapped a pair of straps around Casey's thighs and attached the light clamps at the end to her labia, holding her even more open. Her pretty little clit stood straight up, begging for attention. I wanted to rub it and lick it and make her come so hard she shouted the mouth-screw right out. But there was more before we got there.

I held up two pairs of small locking forceps. They were stainless steel, painted to look as if they were rusting and sharp, and sealed with polyurethane. They didn't need to be sterile for my uses, but they sure looked they had come straight out of Jack the Ripper's bag. Some of the audience made noises of disgust.

“Her nipples, adequately drawn out by the cupping, must now be stimulated constantly. For this, I find forceps are best.” I pulled the rubber band off her purpling nipple and clamped one of the forceps on it. She whimpered around the gag. I made sure it was tight enough to stay on, but not unendurable. We'd learned that the second notch was just right for this.

I could smell her getting even more aroused. She twisted in her bonds, which made the forceps slide. She whimpered loudly and held still.

“You're doing fine,” I whispered as I passed her head. “You're beautiful and hot and every woman in this room wants to fuck you until you scream.”

I circled her once more, letting the tension in the room build. I stopped between her legs and addressed the audience again.

“It is my theory that nervous hysteria is caused by a lack of stimulation to the female genitalia. Therefore, we shall proceed to induce paroxysms of pleasure in our subject until she sweats. After that, she shall have a brief rest while I take questions. Then, we shall have a second round of induction and see whether she is greatly improved after that.”

“< Nre, we font size="3">Quackery,” shouted a male voice from the back row. I looked up and saw a man in a top hat and elaborate, multi-lensed monocle start down the stairs. “Everyone knows that such stimulation is actually quite dangerous for women of quality. Lesser women can endure much of it with no ill effects, but the flower of British womanhood should not be subjected to such outrage in the name of medicine.”

I simply laughed as he reached the floor. “And what would a man know of the illnesses of women? Has he endured the monthly curse? Has he been subject to the whims of the moon and of his own body? Has he borne children in pain and blood? You know nothing, sir. I doubt you know which hole produces healthy infants and which produces only waste. I am quite sure your mother's midwife did not, for she seems to have discarded the baby and kept the other product.”

The audience laughed at that. He tore off his hat.

“Demme, woman, do you mean to say that you, with your feeble brain, have more knowledge than I?”

The crowd roared.

“Indeed I do, at least in this one area. Should we test our relative enlightenment in the field of appearing a jackass in public, I doubt I should prove the better.”

That got an even bigger laugh, He winked at me and we went for the big finish.

“This poor unfortunate, lying immobilized on the table behind us, can clearly endure any of these coarse uses you put her to, and more than likely has on many occasions. But the ladies of quality, such as are assembled in the rows and watching, could not and furthermore would not, tolerate such violation of their modesty.”

As if we'd coached her, one woman on the second row stood up and yelled, “Oh please, madame doctor, violate me next!”

The rest caught on. “No, me!” “Me after that!” filtered around until all the women were on their feet begging to be in Casey's position. I held up my hand for quiet.

“If our oh-so-learned colleague will take his outraged morals back to his seat and there use them for a cushion until such time as our demonstration is done, we shall proceed. After the demonstration, provided it works as it should, there will be a subscription sheet for treatments and for my newsletter.”

Alex clamped his hat back on his head and stomped up to the back row, fuming and muttering under his breath. He'd played it perfectly. Now, I hoped he had the sense to slip out before the end and change his costume before some of the ladies decided to re-enact a Rite of the Maneads on him after the show.

“As I was saying before our omniscient colleague chose to enlighten us poor feeble-brained women about the true natures of our bodies, we shall induce in the subject a series of ecstatic paroxysms created by stimulation to her vulva, vaginal cavity and clitoris, aided in part by the pressure on her nipples.” I dropped all semblance of the neutral physician. “Who is ready to watch her writhe?” I shouted, and snapped my goggles over my eyes with a maniacal laugh, all mad scientist now.

Thunderous agreement from the audience encouraged me. I gestured and Heather brought over a N" wcart, the wheels squeaking menacingly. I laid my hand atop the cloth-draped item on the top shelf. The sheer bulk of it was intimidating at best. I heard a lot of indrawn breath.

Heather set the brakes on the wheels and chocked them, making a big show of it. Nervous laughter came from the middle of the room.

“Ladies, colleagues, I give you the Anson Inducing Oscillator, my own invention for the rapid induction of ecstatic paroxysms and the cure for nervous hysteria.”

Casey looked down between her legs as I whipped the cloth off of the machine and flipped a large switch on the side. She trembled and fought, as if trying to get out of her straps. She shook her head no, her eyes wide. Great performance. We'd both tried the machine at home and neither of us could get enough. She liked me to kiss her clear through a session with it.

The audience gasped. I revealed a basic fucking machine, with a few steamy modifications and a specialized phallus for the thrusting part. The brown paint job, the actual rotating gears on the side and the small chimney which gave off puffs of smoke at intervals all made it look appropriate to the era. It looked as if Casey was about to be fucked by a steam-powered dildo.

And what a dildo we had rigged: three inches across, and ten long, it would shame almost any human man as it pistoned slowly forward and back. Around the base, a textured rubber mat covered in lots of small, rounded, flexible spikes, like tiny tongues, waited to arouse her vulva. And at the top, a small shaft, the size of my little finger, flickered back and forth to tease her clit.

“I assure you, sister physicians, that the specifications are quite necessary to induce the most intense and most rapid paroxysms possible. While the size may look excessive, being much greater than the ordinary man, it is purely functional.”

“Size queen,” one of the front row women said in that meant-to-be-overheard voice. Her friends shushed her. I could barely see past the lights but it looked like one of them kissed her.

Casey thrashed some more as I wheeled the device in close and positioned it, letting it tease her first, with just the bare head probing at her lips. She pulled away, as if frightened, but succumbed quickly, reaching her hips toward it, as if begging for more. I pushed the cart into the proper place and locked its brakes.

The machine fucked my girlfriend in a nice, steady rhythm as she rose to meet it. She made little noises around the mouth screw. Her whole body arched and she cried out.

“Ah, good.” I patted her thigh approvingly and pushed my goggles back to the top of my head. They looked great, but I couldn't see a damn thing through them. “That's very good, my dear Celeste. Six more, I think should be adequate to provide at least a temporary cessation of the hysteria. As you can see, ladies, the first paroxysm was quite rapid and intense. Ordinarily, a woman requires about half an hour to reach the point where our Celeste is now.”

Casey interrupted me by coming again, more showily than the first. If she kept this up, she wouldn't have anything left for five and six. I worried that she might be rubbing wrong against the straps and checked her wrists and ankles.

“As you can see the sheer violence of her motions requires her to be confined. I have had patients pushed to such extremis that they actually broke bones, but in the pleasure of their convulsions, they didn't notice this until after the treatments.”

Casey came twice more, writhing. I could resist no longer and ran my hands along her taut body, cupped her breasts and unlocked the forceps from her nipples. She screamed her way through the fifth orgasm until I thought she was going to lose the mouth-screw.

She lay panting until I wondered if she had gone past plateau and orgasm and into numbness. But after a moment, she put my fears to rest and started riding the machine again.

“Very good. One more and we shall see how you fare.” As I saw her starting to peak again, I used a pair of long-nose tweezers to tweak her nipples.

Casey screamed again. When I moved back between her legs to shut off the machine, I made a mental note to be sure and mop up after this scene. My luscious lady had gushed everywhere in her pleasure.

I switched off the machine and rolled it out of the way. “Now, simply removing all stimulation can be as dangerous as overstimulating the patient.” I stroked her red, sodden twat with slow, careful fingers. She rubbed against my hand.

I could have fisted her if I wanted, but that wasn't part of the show. I'd have to see if I could script it in for next time. Instead, I ran slow, gentle fingers over her lips, calming her down. She lay limp in the bonds.

“Bertha, the mouth-screw if you please. Hilda, prepare our patient for public company.” I walked to Casey's head, stroking her body as I went. “As you can see, I continue with light stimulation until the patient is completely calm,” I told the audience. “Celeste, how are you feeling?”

Casey could only pant, but my lapel mic picked it up. “Better,” she managed. “I doubt I can move much after all that.” I kissed her very flushed forehead.

Heather and Beth helped unstrap her. We eased Casey to her feet. She wobbled a little but steadied.

“As our patient, Celeste has declined to wear any clothing other than her chemise during her stay. Are you ready to be dressed, Celeste?”

Casey nodded. “I am. I feel quite calm now.”

Heather pulled the chemise off the rack and slipped it over Casey's head. Casey looked at me.

“Am I to have no pantalettes? Or even, God forbid, bloomers?”

“They're unhygienic and unpleasant. Open air is by far the best after your treatment,” I told her as I handed her socks. She bent and put them on. Heather brought her a chair and she sat to button the gray boots.

When she stood up, Beth started lacing her into her corset and bustle. I held up the wine-colored dress and gestured to the hatbox.

“You're going to be lovely, dear Celeste.”

“It feels,” she grasped the table and gasped as Beth yanked the corset tight, “it feels good,” she said.

“Very good.” I popped the dress over her head and Beth made short work of the buttons. Some work with a brush and hand mirror soon had her wild, sweaty curls into something more respectable. I set the silly little hat with its feather cockade on her head and pinned it to the bun in her hair.

“Ladies of the Academy, I give you Miss Celeste duPuy, clothed and in her right mind.” They applauded and Casey dropped a little curtsy. I went on. “The patent of the Anson Inducing Oscillator is pending. However, blueprints are readily available, through my newsletter. Sign-up sheets for treatments are available at the exits. I thank you for your attention and hope you have found today's demonstration enlightening and edifying.”

The ladies applauded again. The house lights came up. Heather and Beth joined Casey and me, and we all took a bow as the applause continued.

“Best con demo I ever saw,” I heard the loudmouth on the front row say.

All I wanted to do was to get my girl back to our room and take her out of all those clothes.

I never knew I had a taste for medical scenes until I stumbled on some Sherlock fanfiction. And throwing steampunk and a kinky convention into the mix seemed like a natural idea.

fnwer wor

Recovery

I

“Of all the beings in all the worlds, I am probably the only one talking to a rock.” Zora kept her eyes on the wind-scoured sandstone five centimeters in front of her nose. She clung to the shallow handholds and toeholds that held her to the cliff face. “Probably. Then again, it's a big galaxy.”

She didn't dare look up at the endless expanse of blue sky, clear of clouds, that soared above her for kloms in every direction. It had made her a little lightheaded to realize how vast it was. Looking down would be even worse. She'd climbed about two hundred meters up the cliffs.

She cleared her mind and thought of Talla.

Pretty Talla, all pointed ears and furry tail, a Felina. The humanoid cats came in a variety of colors, but Talla was a rare tri-color, mostly white, with black and orange spots. Ordinarily tri-colors were more a patchwork of black and orange with white markings. The spotted ones were much rarer and considered quite lucky among her people.

The climb had begun easily enough. There N׷/, I am prowas a path, steep but smooth, and she had followed it. It narrowed and became more treacherous as it went until it ended a hundred meters up. The next phase offered handholds and footholds, carved into the rock, obviously by the Xingas family. These would likely peter out, leaving her grasping for a fingerhold on the rock.

She took a deep breath, imagined Talla under the mediwebbing, her pointed ears twitching even in sleep, her whiskers quivering at every change in air movement, and her silky tail held immobile to mend. The image started her climbing again.

The early part took little more exertion than climbing a ladder. Zora had scaled the furniture, trees and walls of her house with her favorite stunt since she was a toddler: climbing the hallway like a lizard and dropping from the ceiling, much to her da's dismay. She and Talla had climbed most of the local rock formations, growing up together, each daring the other to climb even higher this time. Talla's Felina tail gave her the balance advantage, but Zora's primate hands were more flexible for gripping. Talla's people had only evolved opposable thumbs a few millennia ago. The climbing skills returned quickly and without thought.

The handholds and footholds did become shallower about two hundred meters up. Zora rested on the last solid ones and caught her breath. She was halfway to the cave.

The winds were stronger up here. She pressed to the rock face, leaving no place for an errant gust to get under her and pluck her from the cliff.

She plotted her next climb. There were still shallow holds in the rock, as high as she could see, but she would have to stretch for them. Taking another breath and holding the image of Talla in her mind, she began.

This part of the cliff took a good deal more concentration. Zora’s fingers began to ache as she sought each placement, clinging to crevices that were barely a knuckle deep. Once, her toes lost their hold and scrabbled sickeningly against the rock, knocking loose a pebble that rattled clear to the base of the cliff, taking a minor landslide with it.

She stopped then, heart thudding, adrenaline coursing through her, and clung to the rock until the panic subsided and the hot adrenaline rush and cold shakes both passed. Her next move was slower and more cautious, but she continued upward.

She had to do it. Talla was depending on her. Their very freedom depended on her getting to the cave. Slowly, painfully, every bit of her weight dragging her downward, Zora pulled herself up the cliff, handhold by toehold. Three hundred meters she climbed, exhausted, shaking, sweating.

She levered herself into the cave, too sore to be pleased at having made it. She lay panting on the floor, trying to recover herself. The air burned in her lungs, and the thought of climbing down frightened her.

After a while, she sat up and looked around. The cave was cool and dry, with no lifeforms. A single passage led into the rock. She checked the equipment in her waist pouch. The Xingas had made a few small concessions to her task, a chrono with communicator and location devices, a luma and a thin, lightweight rope of near-indestructible tensasteel, two kloms long.

No food or water though. She wasn't supposed to take long enough to need them If she Vighwasn't back by tomorrow, they would kill Talla. Time to get moving again.

Switching on the luma, she tied the end of the rope to a stalagmite near where the external light faded and began paying it out as she walked. The cavern was unnaturally smooth and easy. The way led steadily down, with none of the usual side passages of a naturally formed cave.

Zora ventured deep into the darkness, only the pale blue light from the luma guiding her, feeling more alone than she had ever been. This was worse than the time she and Talla had gotten lost in the Dunes of Karthjak, almost as bad as that first dreadful night after the crash, when she had been so afraid Talla would die.

II

Brightness rushed upon her, dazzling her slow-to-open eyes. Something wet dripped in them and she swiped away blood. A cut made her wince when her fingertips found it. A low moan from the floor behind her brought her fully alert.

“Talla?” she rasped.

The moan came again, a little louder, and Zora fumbled for the release on her safety harness. Aside from the cut on her forehead and some bruises, she seemed intact. Her legs bore her weight, but she still held on to the little ship’s seat as she worked her way back.

Her beloved Talla was not so fortunate. They had been forced down so swiftly and so hard she had not gotten her harness fastened. She’d been thrown from her seat on impact. Her felinoid body would have instinctively bounced and tumbled to avoid the worst of the shocks, but some of the stowed crates had come loose as well and two lay atop her legs. Zora didn’t like the way they sat, too level and too close to the floor. She couldn't see Talla's tail, and that worried her. Legs could be set, but the tail was a much more fragile organ.

"Talla?” Zora looked for a docbox from their cargo among the items strewn through the ship. She found one half hidden in a pile of blankets and boxes. She stroked the white fur atop Talla's head, rubbing the orange spot that was Talla's favorite skritch place.

One yellow eye opened and fixed on her blearily. “Hurts.”

“I can guess. Here.” She used the doser to administer an analgesic. “This will keep you more comfortable.”

“Good thing... the cargo... is med supplies.”

“Shh. Let me see how bad it is.” Zora stared at the readings on the box’s scanner. Talla was losing blood, not rapidly, but it had to be stopped. She looked pale in the emergency lights.

“Wish I couldn’t feel my legs. They’re broken.” Talla groaned, and Zora saw how sweaty her fur was, all sticking up in spikes. The analgesic would work soon and she'd quit hurting.

“Crushed, more like.” Zora left her side to check the controls of the anti-grav lifter they’d used to load the crates. “The lifter is low on power but fine. You’re going into shock.” Zora pawed through a crate and came up with a blanket. She wrapped it around Talla and took a sec Vr bond reading. No need for an IV, according to the box, which was good. “You stay still, and I’ll have these off you in a minute.”

“Not goin’ anywhere, kitten. Just hurry.”

Working as fast as she dared, Zora moved the first heavy crate off her lover. Even with the lifter, it took a good part of an hour. One leg was free, but the other crate still pinned Talla’s left shin to the floor.

“Zora, did you trip the distress beacon?”

Zora swore softly. She double-checked the console. They weren’t going anywhere, but the distress call still worked.

“It’s set.” Zora sat down heavily beside Talla, who was almost as pale as her shirt. “The good news is we have plenty of survival kits and docboxes. The bad news is we’re stuck here until we get rescued, and the lifter is out of juice. You need another shot?”

"‘M okay.” Talla's gritted teeth belied this sentiment. “You better clean that cut. Last thing I need is for you to get infected and die with me trapped under a box of docboxes.”

Zora irrigated the cut with an antibacterial, and put an artiflesh square over it. That done, she looked at the last crate. Talla’s pants already looked too tight for comfort on her swollen thighs and Zora didn’t like the damp spots she saw where the blood was darkening the medium blue material.

“Talla, I’m going to have to cut you out of your pants.”

No answer. Talla was out. The docbox beeped, sounding almost impatient. Now she had to start an IV. The docbox gave very explicit directions, but even so, Zora spent precious minutes hunting for a vein. She taped the entry tube over it, and the programmed needle inserted itself. The solution trickled into Talla’s system at the proper rate. The box produced a series of prefilled dosers, and Zora applied them. She was relieved that the combat docbox was programmed and designed with non-medical people like her in mind, and that it could handle most species.

She breathed easier as the readings stabilized into normal levels, and Talla started to come around. Zora cut the pants off with medical shears and blanched at the sight. The white fur of Talla’s thighs couldn't quite cover a colorful mélange of damage, and a long gash bled slowly. "We've got a fair-sized docbox, but I don’t think I can set a fracture." She dropped to sit on the ground and put her head between her knees as her da had taught her when she felt nauseous or faint.

"Kitten?" Talla's voice on their preferred affection term sounded weak and fragile. Zora knew she had to get under control and help.

Zora nodded. "In a minute." She breathed deeply and counted backward from a hundred to calm her flip-flopping stomach. By sixty, she felt suitably braced, and picked up the deluxe docbox to examine Talla's leg. She looked the injury over, consulting the diagnosis and treatment readout.

It took half an hour, and a second, larger dose of pain-killer for Talla, for Zora to get the gash under control. Her hands trembled as she stitched, and she suspected Talla would carry an ugly scar from her amateur medic work. A full service V, fo center could clear it up later.

Talla, groggy from the painkiller, stared at her for a second, as if trying to remember words, and asked "Water?"

"Right." A thought hit Zora as she got Talla's drink. She pulled out a couple of meal pouches, grabbed a couple more water bottles and went to sit by her lady. Talla took the water bottle and drank while Zora popped the "heat" tabs on the pouches. Solid for her, and some soup for Talla. She didn’t want Talla vomiting while trapped on her back. They ate, watching the sky darken through the cockpit canopy.

"Tomorrow, I'll see what's outside," Zora said. "The emergency beacon will lead Rafe's Rebels right to us. They'll know something is wrong by tomorrow when we don't show up with the supplies."

"Need to warn them ‘bout the mines," Talla mumbled around the food. "’Least we didn't depressurize." She took another drink. "Zora, we got another problem. I don't think I can fit the crate into the head."

Zora looked puzzled for a moment. Talla wouldn’t be walking to the head on her own, let alone taking the crate with her, for some time.

The head! Zora bounced to her feet and rummaged in one of the crates that held the contents of the portable field hospital they were delivering. She held up her find and Talla groaned. Zora dropped off the plastic container and said, "I'll go for a walk. Back soon."

"Be careful, huh? Don't get eaten by anything."

Zora patted the energy pistol she wore, made sure her machete was at her belt and stuffed a hunting knife in the top of her boot. She slipped out of the small freighter's hatch and automatically looked for landmarks.

She heard Talla’s soft swearing as she got a good look at herself. Zora had cut away Talla’s underwear as well, and knew there were some spectacular bruises around her groin.

She knew their employer would find them. Rafe Fioved was waging a one-quadrant war against the Xingas crime syndicate, which controlled most of the sector. She needed every credit, every piece of equipment. Zora expected the docbox she had used would be taken out of their pay. That was fine. She was just hoping to live to see payday.

The drifting mine had latched onto their hull and blown out the engine when they came out of d-space. Creeping burnout had left them piloting a not-very-aerodynamic rock. Zora walked around the ship, checking the rest of the damage. The crash had destroyed the landing gear and the thrusters. The Mercy Mission wouldn't fly again. She was thankful it hadn't been their beloved Snowstar.

She leaned her head against the crumpled hull, the metal cool on her cheek, and breathed deeply. Worry for Talla forced its way back into her thoughts until it nearly choked her.

There was no time for panic. She breathed slowly until she was calm again. She’d done all she could. Talla would be fine. She had to be fine.

For something to Vine.do to take her mind from her worry, Zora took stock of her surroundings. The night was cool, yet comfortable, and they were in a temperate forest. Zora saw nuts in the branches of some trees and walked to one not far from the ship. She took a leaf for analysis and went back in.

Talla dozed, still under the painkillers. Zora cleared away the remains of their meal, emptied the container, and set it back in easy reach. She made sure a full water bottle was also in Talla's reach before she settled down to figure out exactly where they were.

The computer still ran off its sealed power source, and she spent some time tracking where they had landed and adding that information to the rescue signal.

The databanks informed her that the leaf she had picked was from a krin tree, and the nuts from it would ripen within another tenday. It then produced a copious list of recipes. She also read the rundown on the edibility of the other local flora and some of the fauna as well. Zora decided if they were still here when the krin nuts ripened, they'd eat the local food and save their supplies. Assuming foraging didn’t take her too far away or from Talla for too long.

The little ship did not retain heat well. It was distinctly chilly by the time she got up from the console to get some blankets from the supply crates.

A thought hit her, and she nearly smacked herself for her thoughtlessness. She opened the crate that still pinned Talla's leg. Carefully, she removed and stowed as much equipment as she could.

It had been one thing after another earlier, and she had been too busy running from crisis to crisis to think logically. She checked the lifter again. Still dead. The powerpack was not a rechargeable sort. She checked for a spare, knowing it was unlikely with Rafe’s limited resources. The shielded crate was too heavy for her to move, even empty, but maybe when Talla woke up, they could think of a way to budge it.

She got the blankets and covered her lady with another one, then checked the docbox. The docbox listed her as stable. She settled on the deck near Talla and meditated, as was her habit.

After meditating for a while, Zora felt much better. Her mind was clear and she could plan for the day to come. She was also quite aware of the aches and pains manifesting all over her and the deep bone-weariness that threatened to knock her out before she could accomplish anything else.

She lay down beside her friend and lover with a groan. The deckplates were hard, and she resolved to make up something more comfortable for Talla in the morning. She moved in a little closer to share body heat in the rapidly cooling ship, and was asleep between one breath and the next.

III

The path broadened and leveled, expanding into a room. The luma left the ceiling and the far corners in shadow. In the center stood a red clay jar nearly as tall as a man decorated with blackwork paintings of battles and kings, and writing in an alphabet she didn't recognize. Zora knew she’d never manage to get it out of the cave, let alone down the mountain. She circled it, looking for an opening. There was no lid and no ap VAshe didn'parent way to move it.

She sat for a minute and thought. Traps like this were commonplace when it came to the sort of thing she was seeking. If she were hiding documents valued in the wealth of whole systems, how would she sow confusion and despair among the seekers?

She ran her hands over the jar. It was immobile. She couldn't lift it to smash it open. There was probably some nasty gas or something for anyone who tried smashing in.

Zora sat and thought some more. An idea hit her and she crouched, setting her shoulder to the side of the jar. She twisted it low, at the base. It didn’t budge. She turned it the other way, to her right, as if to tighten it down. This time it shifted infinitesimally.

Zora unscrewed the jar from its base and found a small sealed box. She could see the scrolls through the transparent crystal lid.

She stuffed it inside her shirt before tightening down the jar and began the climb back to the cave mouth.

The rope led her back up, letting her pull herself when the steep path became too much. The return trip took much longer, and she didn’t realize she was in the main cave until she found the knotted end of the rope. The sky outside was black, sprinkled with unfamiliar stars.

Zora, drained to the last of her energy from the day, collapsed to the ground and sat watching the stars. She was thirsty, but braving the cliff in the dark for a drink of water was suicide, even with the rope. Knowing the sun would wake her, she lay down near the mouth of the cave and slept.

She dreamt of Talla.

IV

In the chill darkness, Talla shifted against her and Zora woke. She heard the little whimpers her lady made, which turned to mewls of pain.

Talla cried out and woke herself up. Zora held her and stroked her.

“Shh, shh, you're all right. I'm right here. Do you need something?"

“It hurts a lot.” Talla's voice sounded thin and higher than her usual throaty purr. “And I'm cold.”

“I'm sorry, kitten.” Zora checked the docbox. “You can have another shot, but I can't help the cold. The heat is gone. But I can make us more comfortable.”

After administering a second dose of painkiller, Zora scrounged around and managed to get Talla mostly onto a cot mattress, and got a second one for herself. She pushed it right in close to Talla's. “I should have done this earlier. I didn’t want to wake you.”

She draped a couple more blankets over Talla. They were rated for twenty below freezing, so if they curled in close, it should be warm enough.

Talla kneaded at the mattress and burrowed as much as she could into the blankets. She purred, but Zora knew that could mean anything from expressing pleasure VAthe to soothing herself in distress. After a moment, she reached one paw up. “Zora, you did fine. Sleep now.”

Zora joined her on the mattresses and snuggled under the blankets. Talla helped her shift until they were both close and comfortable. She didn't want to cause Talla any pain. Her lady's purring sent her right to sleep.

The days stretched to a week. The last crate had moved with judicious application of a lever early on the second day. Zora applied the circulation stimulator and splinted both legs to hold them steady. A full-fledged medicenter was Talla’s only hope of completely regaining use, and the nearest one of those was on the other side of this sparsely populated planet. But she was free of the crates and wouldn’t lose any limbs.

Zora ran snare lines and hunted, bringing back meat that she barely seared. She liked it cooked a little more, but the docbox's readout insisted that Talla needed the mineral replacement and Talla liked it that way. She gathered, trying to stretch the emergency rations and survival kits they carried for as long as they would be needed. The single layer of field rations in each crate, camouflaging the med supplies, would last about a month if they subsisted on those exclusively. A spring nearby yielded pure water.

Zora was careful not to be gone for long at a time.

The krin nuts ripened and Zora prepared them. They ate these until they were sick of them, and filled a crate with roasted ones against the first cold. In the evening, they did their best to stave off Talla’s increasing cabin fever. After the first week, most of which Talla spent half-conscious from pain-killers, she was more alert. Zora knew she still slept most of the day and the night as well.

They played cards, using the krin nuts as tokens, until Zora figured out not only that Talla was cheating, but how she was doing it, and started cheating right back. Talla had laughed then, and kissed her. They were very careful not to try anything too arousing. Talla wasn't strong enough for that.

They slept curled close to each other, sharing the blankets, and she loved waking up with Talla’s arms around her. They cuddled even closer as the nights got colder and Talla got stronger. Talla's half-naked state left her constantly aroused, but Zora wasn't taking advantage.

“Can’t figure why Rafe hasn’t made it yet. Is that signal still going?”

“It is. It’s been going since last night, when you had me check too.” Zora’s temper was starting to fray on this issue. She took the readings from Talla’s legs with the docbox. “I wish we could get you some more caltric. It would help you heal. You could use some acicit too. The vitamin pills aren’t enough.”

“Zora, will you quit fussing over me? I’ve broken things before.”

“This badly? And with no real med-center?”

“You're worse than my mother,” Talla grumbled. “Pretty soon, you'll be licking my fur, because I'm a silly kitten who can't clean myself.”

“Silly kitten.” Zora kissed her for that, nice and slow, ignoring the practical side that said she shouldn't fire up the engines if they weren't Vsedgoing to be lifting.

The kiss shut Talla up. They cuddled a little, then Zora looked at the readout again and scowled. She settled into a snuggle and threw the blankets over them.

“Someone will come for us soon. They have to.” Zora said the words by rote, a promise that maybe she could believe if she repeated it often enough. “Do you want anything else tonight? Last call before I get comfortable.”

“Yeah. I want. Want you, pretty.”

“You’re not strong enough.” Zora leaned down and kissed her, a soft brush of lips, barely a promise, finished almost before they had begun. One hand went down to cup the back of Talla’s head.

“I’m fine.” Talla pressed up for another, this time letting her tongue tease Zora’s lips. Zora opened for her and returned the kiss more vigorously. When they parted, she looked at Zora, catching her face between softly padded paws. “I've missed you.”

“We shouldn’t. You’re not strong enough,” Zora insisted. The protest might have been more convincing had she not breathed it across Talla's cheek.

“I feel fine.”

“Liar. Your algetic numbers are off the scale.” Zora kissed her lady anyway. If Talla felt well enough to lie to her for more kisses, who was she to withhold them? “You lead. I don’t want to push too fast. If anything hurts, we’ll stop.” Zora gave Talla her sternest look as she laid a gentle hand on Talla’s bare thigh.

“Rim-runner’s oath.” Talla mock-saluted, tapping her index and last finger to the tip of her eyebrow.

Having her lover's promise, Zora kissed her again, a slow, sensual exploration. Talla opened to it. She ran a hand down Zora’s face, and then down her chest to open the pressure seals on her tunic. Zora's breasts came free, pale in the dim light of the luma.

“Took care of me for three weeks. Let me take care of you.”

Talla moved stiffly from the enforced bedrest, but she stretched enough to unfasten Zora’s pants as well as her tunic. Zora released her breath with a shudder when the strong fingers stroked her. They worked the whole perimeter and then slid along the cleft, caressing and coaxing.

“Ah, Talla...” she struggled to keep her balance, bent over Talla as she was. The delicious friction and subtle taps were bringing her off faster than even her own experienced touch. She planted her hands one either side of Talla’s head and lowered herself for another kiss against the imminent orgasm. Her mind reeled and she saw sparks as Talla’s tongue invaded her mouth again, teasing and promising, while the rest of her exploded into delicious fire.

“Musta done something right. You gushed like a geyser.” Talla brought the sticky fingers to her mouth and licked one. She pulled Zora down to lie beside her. “Tastes good. I can’t wait to kiss you, there again. Lap you right up like sweet cream.” They lay together in silence, Zora listening to Talla’s heartbeat, strong and steady.

“What can I do for you, Talla? Wha Vher tut’s not going to hurt?”

Talla licked her whiskers, a move that looked cute to anyone else, but Zora knew covered distress. “Kitten, everything hurts. Let’s wait till I get out of medwebbing. Then, you can pay me back.” She licked the tip of Zora’s nose. “With Syndicate level interest.” She shifted on the mattress with a groan, and Zora went for the painkiller again. “That’s one debt I’m looking forward to.”

They slept closer than ever after that, and Zora relished every kiss: the ones Talla woke her with, the one she stole before going out to hunt, the ones that rewarded her on her return, and the ones that followed her into sleep. She dreamed of the day when Talla was well enough to share other pleasures.

Zora returned from a trip to the spring, a pair of the small herbivores called cirtha dressed out for their dinner. Talla liked the little beasts better than any of the others Zora had caught with the snares.

She sensed something was wrong even before she entered the clearing and saw the Xingas thugs supervised by a human woman in the green of a Xingas underboss, carrying the supplies out with lifters.

She slipped behind a tree, trying to cook up a rescue plan in a few seconds. The cold touch of metal just below her ear told her she was already too late.

"Gun-runner," the reptiliod thug growled, her vocal cords not used to Galactic Standard. "Your presence is requested by the Lady Eska Xingas."

Zora very carefully raised her hands, knowing she had no chance of escape. The thug knocked the waterjug and the cirtha away before putting binders on her, then took her pistol, the scalpel she was using for a dressing knife and her boot knife.

Three more goons fell in with them as they approached the ship bearing the House of Xingas crest. Her stomach plunged into her boots at the sight of the markings. Clinus Xingas had been third in line to lead the Galactic Parliament, a wealthy and powerful man, with many systems in thrall to him. When an assassination attempt on the Parliament had left him and a dozen other dignitaries dead, as well as the crew and passengers of the luxury star liner, he’d left behind three adult children who not only squabbled for his wealth, but blamed Rafe's Rebels in general--and Zora and Talla, their gun-runners, in particular--for their father’s death.

Zora heard a blue humanoid goon inform her officer "That's the last of the cargo, boss," as she marched up the ramp.

Eska Xingas sat straight in the commander's chair of the shuttle. "Gun-runner," she spat. "Once more, you complicate my life."

"Where's Talla?" Zora was determined to give the youngest of the Xingas no information. She had tangled with Eska before. While she had barely escaped with her life, she had made Eska Xingas look foolish, which was an unforgivable crime against the aristocratic pride and ancient name of her house.

"Your companion is safe aboard my liner. The med droids are examining her. She is in very bad shape from your atrocious landing. If you’re going to be successful outlaws, you should really not encrypt so much information into your messages."

"What do you want with us?" Zora had a sinking feeling she already knew.

"I want what you stole from me!" Xingas was on her feet and in Zora's face before she could blink. "I want the power I should have, the family's wealth that my brothers robbed me of and the favor of the Prime Minister. All the things you took from me when you murdered my father!"

She brought herself under control. "I want these things back, and you are going to get them for me. It's only fitting. You took them from me, after all. In return, I will get your friend proper medical attention, the best in the galaxy."

"Leave our cargo." Zora's boldness shocked even her. Talla was the bold one, the one who faced nobles and slavers and other scum and treated them all the same, with as much respect as they showed her. Talla was the brave one. Zora was just along to be smart and make her happy.

"What?" Xingas looked puzzled at the demand.

"Leave the cargo. A rescue ship will come for us, and those medical supplies are still needed. I hear the plague's still going on Katulla. Leave it, or we don't cooperate." Captured or not, Zora would fulfill her mission. Lives depended on it. Rafe depended on her.

Lady Xingas smiled mirthlessly. "You don't have an option."

Zora tried for all the authority she could muster. "Perhaps not, my Lady. But you wish to be known as a ruler. And a ruler takes care of her people, especially the ones in distress. This costs you nothing, and the publicity will be excellent.”

Eska Xingas stared at her for a moment. Zora knew she had the woman's number.

“Do as she says, dear sister. She is right about this.” Byct leaned closer to counsel her. Months earlier she had coaxed her clever brother over to her side, leaving their eldest brother on his own. Byct seldom spoke, but when he did, his advice was worth heeding.

“The cargo stays,” Eska decided. “Major!” The green-uniformed officer came to attention. “Reload the cargo. And take gun-runner to her friend.”

Two thugs delivered Zora to where Talla lay manacled to a stretcher from their supplies in the cargo hold of the Xingas shuttle. The goons chained Zora to a conduit and began moving the supply crates as per their lady’s orders, leaving them alone.

“You got brought along too, kitten?”

“Wouldn't miss it. She said you were aboard the liner being examined.”

“And you believed a Xingas? Especially the one who hates us for her father getting blown up? Kitten, you are so gullible sometimes.”

The little shuttle lifted smoothly and they felt it land a short while later. Two goons with a repulsorstretch came into the hold for Talla, and chained Zora to the side of it. The repulsors made sure they could just steer instead of having to carry Talla's full weight.

Vrcra The women were taken to a holding cell on the liner, and a med droid came to them. It went over Talla, the only sounds beeps and whirrs, with none of the reassurances of the commercial droids’ pseudopersonalities and bedside manner.

It left without treating Talla. Zora moved in close, and took one of Talla’s hands.

“We’ll get out of here, Talla. Trust me.” They felt the ship make the jump to D-space, and a few minutes later, Eska Xingas appeared at the cell door. She held a printout and wore a cold smile.

“All right, gun-runner. Here is the deal. When we come out of d-space, we will be in the Wylstr system. I will have your friend put under a mediweb. You will go to the fourth planet of the system and retrieve the Scroll of Kesturyl. I’ll give you the coordinates, but you have to get it. This won’t be easy, and just to add some security for me¡K”

She passed through the forcefield and slapped a collar around Zora's neck. “This will keep you from doing anything foolish. It has a microcharge added, courtesy of my techs. If you take more than two days, it will blow your head off.”

“Why’s this scroll so important?” Talla demanded. “Why should Zora go and risk her life?”

“Why? Because she owes me, pussy-cat. You both do. You two helped murder my father. Men loyal to me are too valuable to risk. Ordinary prisoners have no reason to help. But with you incapacitated and dependent on my good will, she has incentive to follow orders.”

“Your father was a casualty of war,” Talla snarled.

Eska ignored Talla. “Your bombs killed him as he slept, gun-runner. Does it make you proud to know you carried the explosive that eradicated two thousand people? Do you know that at least a third of them were sleeping when that liner blew, and they woke up gasping in hard vacuum? I hope the reward was enough to let you sleep well.”

She spat on the floor in front of her, then recovered herself. All ice once more, she explained. “The scroll contains the deeds to my family’s lands. If I have those, the Parliament is much more likely to grant me the family fortune as well. My brother has tied up the money for a year in the courts. I want it.”

Zora patted her mate's hand, trying not to feel the claws Talla was letting out of their sheaths. “Talla, it is a reasonable request. Lady Xingas, I will restore what I can to you. I want to see her under the medwebbing before I leave.”

Eska gave a brief nod and left.

Talla’s grip tightened. “Zora, I have a really bad feeling about this.”

“I’ll get her deeds, Talla. You concentrate on healing.”

The next morning found Talla lying, sedated, on a hospital berth with a silvery mesh spread atop her, and monitored by a med-droid. Zora accepted nondescript clothing and a directional comlink with built-in chrono.

“The Scrolls of Kesturyl, Lady Xingas. I will have them for you at the rendezvous point b Vsize="3"efore the charge goes off.” She rubbed the collar that counted down the hours of her life. The shuttle and pilot awaited her and they plunged, without a word, into the cloudy atmosphere of Wylstr 4.

V.

She awoke stiff and sore, the early sun in her eyes. Moving each muscle took an effort of will and she groaned at each motion. Slowly she stood, stretched and limbered up. She ran through a couple of training moves from her unarmed combat courses, taking them at half speed. She was desperately thirsty, and there was no way she could take the cliff as stiff as she was.

That left the rope. She had learned to rappel as a child in the survival course that was mandatory when she got her ground-and-atmospheric vehicle certifications. She and Talla had slid down most of the cliffs in the vicinity of their small town. She loved the moment when she stepped out onto the air and flew, only a thin line anchoring her to the ground. It had never been more than an amusement until today.

Now, she looked down the six hundred meter drop to the valley floor. She'd never leaped so far or flown for so long. If she did it wrong, things were going to end very messily. They had practiced emergency rappel for one week in survival training, and she hoped she remembered it right. If not, it was a long way down.

She removed her jacket and made sure the case was secure inside her shirt. Anchoring one end very firmly to the stalagmite that had served her last night, she tossed the other end down the cliff.

Using her jacket as padding to protect from the worst rope burns, Zora straddled the rope, and brought it up over her right hip, across her chest and over her left shoulder. This was primitive, but she didn’t have the harness or slideloops found in a general emergency kit.

She backed to the edge of the cliff, gripped the rope with her right hand just below her butt and pulled it tight against her back for a brake. She leaned out, sitting on her fist six hundred meters up.

“I love you, Talla.”

The rope held. She began letting it slide through her hand and wished vainly for gloves.

She took the first few meters slowly, walking herself down the cliff side. Then gaining more confidence, she swung free to avoid a jagged outcropping. The rope spun through her hand and around her body, becoming harsher and more painful with every meter.

She slid, thinking of Talla, knowing that the same webbing that was aiding her lover could patch her up, too. She could almost hear the Felina say something about “rope burns and hickeys, can’t leave you alone for a minute.” She’d be pleased enough just to hear Talla’s voice again. Let her tease as she would.

The slide took a full minute, the metal cable growing hotter, tearing away skin and cloth. Gloves, chaps and a leather jacket, padding as well, she decided, should she decide to rappel this way again.

Her hands, hip and shoulder bleeding, Zora reached the bottom. She radioed the shuttle pilot that she was on her w V

She applied antiseptic gel to her hip, hands and shoulder as the shuttle took her back to the Xingas liner. It cooled the burn and she could almost feel the little germs dying in it. She felt tears sliding down her face. The pain washed through her, making the world go gray at the edges.

Zora limped aboard and presented the case to Eska Xingas, who waited at the foot of the shuttle's ramp. Eska tossed her head and looked down her long nose at Zora, ignoring her mangled hands.

“Excellent. You are resourceful.” She removed the collar, barely seeming to care. “However, your friend needs another few days of web treatments. Six hours a session, five sessions minimum, the docbots inform me. After that, she will be in therapy for a few weeks. I don’t think I need expend such effort on a doomed criminal.”

“We had a bargain,” Zora protested. “You said the best medical care.”

“So, we shall make another. This time you traded your body for hers. Now, what will you trade to keep her in her mind?” She waved the viewscreen on. Somewhere in the liner, Byct held up what looked like a metal helmet before setting it down to tinker with some wires on it. “That is a mind-wiper. My dear Byct is very partial to his favorite toy. He’s always improving it, and always looking for new test subjects. I will keep her as my own, once she’s forgotten you. I always wanted a housecat.”

Zora had nothing to say. She could only stare at the helmet and think of Talla, whose entire life was about to be ripped from her. “What do I do?”

Eska gave her a smile, cold as the spaces between stars. She turned her hand to show a little energy pistol, very dainty and doubtless fairly low-powered, but lethal.“I have a taste for illicit thrills. I think you can convince me not to give your pretty Felina a try.”

Zora trailed her from the docking bay, trying not to hear Eska's added “Or perhaps encourage me.” She followed Eska Xingas through the corridors of the ship, fretting. She used a calming technique to keep control of her temper.

She thought of how easy it would be to reach out and snap the noblewoman's slender neck. She tried to still the itching in her fingers. Killing the bitch would not make them any safer, especially aboard a Xingas liner. She bided her time, her normal cool ready to fray.

Eska stopped outside a hatch as laserfire suddenly rocked the ship. Zora clutched the bulkhead while Eska tumbled.

Zora snatched the little ladylike gun that Eska carried and aimed it at her.

“Who? What?” Eska demanded.

Zora just waited, wondering. A welcome voice came over the ship's speakers.

“Hullo, my darlings. Had a spot of trouble with the drop, did we?”

Talla's voice over the intercom made Zora jump. “Rafe! Get us out of here before I work myself into a hairball.”

V

“I'm here too, boss. Is this a real rescue or are you picking us up for our spankings?” Zora asked. She held the gun trained on Eska.

“Zora, my eternal love, you are lacking some vital equipment to tempt me into spanking you. Now, Lady Xingas, order your crew to allow me to board and reclaim my wayward pilots and we'll have no further unpleasantness.”

Eska gave the order with bad grace. Zora made a gesture with the gun. She felt the grapple of the Fortunata's airlock hose on the hull of the Xingas liner.

“Take me to Talla and take us both to the airlock,” she said. Eska seemed resistant, so Zora jabbed her with the gun. “I can make you hurt a lot before I shoot you, Xingas bitch. Take me there.”

“Bring the Felina to the airlock,” Eska ordered into a panel.

Zora followed her back to the lower parts of the ship. Talla was waiting by the airlock, ungroomed, her fur going every direction, her tail held funny and her ears flat against her skull.

“So you are coming along. I was wondering if this hairless primate had seduced you away.” Her fur bristled as she looked at Eska.

“Never, kitten. Not ever.” Zora kissed her lover and waited for the airlock to finish cycling.

Rafe Fioved himself, with his ever-present contingent of very large bodyguards with very large weapons, stepped through the hatch when it opened. His slim, angular form was almost lost in the elaborate finery he wore, all soft cloth and fine lace in fanciful swoops and arcs, topped with a flamboyant hat with enormous feathers. But no one who looked into the cold gray eyes in his delicate face could mistake him for anything other than the lethal pirate with the fifty-thousand-credit bounty on his head.

Eska and the Xingas just stared. Zora suspected they were seeing only a strutting popinjay in the place of one of the most feared raiders in the galaxy.

“Ladies, onward. Time is money, my girls, and you're wasting both. Be glad I can't dock your salaries any farther.” Rafe swept off the hat and bowed to the Xingas crew. “Thank you for your hospitality, my lady. We shall trouble you no further.”

Zora didn't breathe easily until the airlock cycled behind them and the air tunnel was retracted to the Fortunata. She watched the jump to D-space just to be sure they made it without Xingas interference.

Rafe's doctor had already taken Talla to sickbay, fussing over her half-healed injuries, including the crooked tail. Zora joined them. The doctor frowned, her six-fingered hands gentle on Zora's brutalized shoulder and hands.

“I think you two will be just fine. But no adventures for at least two months.”

Talla reached over and patted Zora's arm. “Think we can manage that?”

Zora shrugged. “Maybe we can.”

The doctor shook her head. “Star hoppers are all alike. Just promise me you'll try.”

They nodded. Adventures were the last thing Zora wanted right now.

Zora and Talla were original characters in a fanfiction universe years ago. Talla was originally human. I needed a piece to help round out this collection and they insisted on being included.

fnwer wor

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Eli came dashing across the fields just at sunset with Shep close on his heels, panting too hard to bark. I was trying to calm a skittish colt enough to halter it and he blew that prospect all to hell.

“Ma Cat!” he yelled, gasping for air. “Ma Cat, you better get over to the sheep pen.”

I hung the halter on the fence post and got a glare from the colt, a pretty black stallion with a white blaze, where he’d retreated to the other side of the paddock near the barn and his mama. “Spit it out, boy.”

“S’bad, Ma Cat,” he panted. Shep flopped on the ground, too tired to do anything else. “Ma’s out there now, but you better bring the shotgun.” He dashed into the barn and I reckoned I knew what he was going for. I grabbed the Springfield and ran for the paddock.

The sheep pen was at the far end of the spread, about half a mile. I wanted to clean Amanda’s plow for making Eli run it, although he could do it in less than seven minutes by my pocketwatch. I swung onto the paint bareback like an Indian and kicked it with my heels.

Amanda and John’s ranch butted up against mine and Luke’s, and what with both of us being widows now with three sons between hay and grass and four daughters not old enough to marry, it seemed only right to smash them together to get more work done.

Eli, Hannah, Melissa and Abigail were Amanda’s kids and they all looked like her and Luke: short, pretty and very, very fast. Abigail was her baby at twelve and a better hand with a needle we wouldn’t find in all of Indian Territory. John had died when she was just a tyke, caught a fever clearing a swamp.

Better way to go than my Luke. My Luke had been smart, too damn smart for his own good. Read all the time he wasn’t farming and kept trying to build the stuff he read about. Arky Meedy’s Steam Cannon blew up in his face about five years ago.

Men and their new-fangled ideas. Difference engines to keep count of people and clockwork wings to make them fly through the skies. Burt Newley’s principles to take them to the moon. Steam weapons and gadgets. And all so V wings torts of stories of clockwork servants coming out of the cities since the War. I was glad we'd lit out for Indian Territory right after Luke came back. Those things weren't nothing for people to be messing with.

I yanked the paint’s mane as we came close to the paddock. He slowed and stopped. I saw the problem right away.

We’d been hearing weird tales outta Louisiana for a long time now, about slave-holders who couldn’t give up free labor after the War and had just killed all their slaves and had voodoo men bring them back. Hadn’t thought much of the stories and never quite believed them.

But I’d seen drawings in the newspapers and in the penny-dreadfuls that Jack and Billy liked to read. I knew what the slow-moving thing was. It used to be a man; now it was a zombie. It sorta dragged itself along, like a bear with a broken leg. The skin was nasty rotten gray except where there was blood on it. In a couple places, the flesh was gone completely and bone showed through.

It was headed to the barn. I felt kinda bad for the man who'd been in that shell. He'd been an Indian by the look of the thing's long black hair. I shot him in the chest and he never even stopped. He just kept coming. I saw him closer than I wanted to. Oh, this was bad. I gave him the other barrel between the eyes.

I reloaded and took aim at the other big ugly critter that was eating one of my sheep. That one had been a Negro. Amanda and the big girls had the sense to hole up in the barn and bolt the door. I blew that dead gray head right off. The body toppled over.

A third shambled out of the shadows and I saw the half-eaten carcass of Sorrel, Amanda’s gelding. I blew that zombie’s head off too.

Eli made it back about then, carrying the one fool thing my husband had built that worked. He drew back the pump and fired a ball of burning kerosene onto the stinking corpses.

“Eli, you make sure that fire doesn’t spread.”

“Right, Ma Cat.” He tried to keep my boys away from it. At sixteen, Eli fancied himself the man of the house. He knew better than to sass me though, since I could still dust his britches and outshoot him.

I went to check on Amanda and the girls. They were fine. Sweating some, but fine. Amanda had armed them with chunks of wood and grabbed the pitchfork for herself. “Why were you out without your Remington anyway, Amanda?” I asked.

“It’s jamming,” she said. “I cleaned it good, but Eli insisted on working on it,” she mumbled, looking at the ground.

I rolled my eyes. By the time Eli got done, the gun would either be unusable or it’d spit fire along with the bullets. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the boy was my Luke’s son. “They got Sorrel. I’m sorry.”

Melissa and Hannah sniffled at that, but there wasn’t anything to be done. After Eli had burned the bodies, I got him and my boys to haul Sorrel and the dead sheep well away from the barn and burn them too, so the coyotes and buzzards wouldn’t come to the carrion. I wasn't gonna let my people eat after those things. I didn't know how that zombie thing could be caught and I wasn't taking any chances on my fo ^elilk or the local critters getting it.

We didn't talk at dinner. The boys didn't go on about the stock and the fields. Hannah wasn't all agog at an airship she'd seen passing over. The table was quiet as a graveyard, except for somebody's spoon making the occasional noise. All of us were too upset to eat much. I expected there'd be nightmares tonight, too.

When the kids went to bed, Amanda and I sat for a while and listened to the wind howling up from Texas. I tried stitching on a stirrup and she wasn’t paying any attention to the spoon she was carving.

“They’re real.” I finally said. “Gives me the shivers to think that out there someone is using dead people to work the fields and tend the stock.” I thought about the zombie, its face buried in the sheep’s innards. “Well, maybe not tend stock. Work all your life and work after you're dead. T’aint right.”

“The real question, Cat, is how do we keep them away from the children and the farm?”

Amanda was smart, easy as smart as Luke. Smarter than me by a long chalk. She was thinking how to keep ‘em away, and all I was thinking was whether I had enough shells to fight 'em off. Keeping them away would be even better.

“I don’t know. Dunno nothing about zombies, 'cept the word. When we go into town Sunday, let’s do some asking.” She leaned over and kissed me. I smiled at her. “You never done that where the kids could see before.”

“If there are zombies around, I figure I should let the people I love know it. And that means you, Catherine Anne McAllister.”

I bussed her quick. “Love you too, Amanda.” After a moment, I kissed her slower. Amanda always tasted good to me, her soft lips under mine. I held her 'round the waist, feeling the hardness of her corset and the softness of her under it. I finished kissing her mouth and kissed her ear, too. “Love you a lot.”

I knew it didn’t much matter if the kids saw. They knew we slept together in the big bentwood bed that John had made. We’d started out with Amanda living in her big frame house, and me staying in the sod-cabin Luke had put together. But that got tired real fast. Weren’t any sense to cooking two meals, cleaning two houses, not when we were trying to keep a ranch as a going concern.

The kids and I had moved into the frame house about three months after the last funeral. Amanda and me, we’d drawn up all the legal frou-frous about the ranch and inheritance and all of that. We were friends, but we’d seen trouble even between the closest of blood-kin over this kind of thing.

I’d moved into the main bedroom, instead of sleeping on the settee, about six months later. The night she’d kissed me had surprised me. I’d been thinking of kissing her. Amanda was gorgeous, like a painting with brown hair and big brown eyes. She should have been married to some big eastern banker, eating good food off of real china and wearing fancy dresses, not trying to run a ranch in Indian Territory, working herself to the bone.

After that, we were just like married folks. We’d kiss in the bedroom and hold each other close. As many nights as not, I woke up with her cuddling up to my bosoms. Once in a while, one of us would ^ld feel daring and slide a hand under the other’s night-dress. She was soft and slick in her secret parts, all smooth. I’d rub her and listen to her make little noises like a night-bird and hold her when she squirmed. I liked to kiss the place on her neck that made her nipples go hard.

I never let her see me lick my fingers afterward. The taste of her made me want to do it more often. It made me want to kiss her there, in the secret places, like Luke had done me a few times. I wasn’t sure she’d want that. She never went anywhere but my titties when she got under my nightie.

Maybe there would be more tonight. The way she was kissing me sure seemed to say there might. Then there was a knock at the door. I let go of her quick and grabbed the rifle. She rolled her eyes.

“Them things don’t knock, Cat.” She opened the door, but I didn’t miss her hand on the poker.

It was only Half-Moon, John’s ma. Her unwilling mama had been Choctaw and her pa had been a U.S. soldier. Her mama had never married and Half-Moon stood outside both Choctaw and white camps. Either one would consult her and use her as a go-between, but neither one trusted her.

But John’s daddy had been a French Zouave who thought Half-Moon was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He'd married her as fast as she'd said yes. Half-Moon considered Amanda and the kids part of the tribe and checked up on us regularly. We let her in and I got her a cup of coffee off the stove.

“Bad things are happening, daughters.” It was the first time I’d been included in that. “There are stories and many of our animals are found dead and eaten.”

We nodded. “I blew the heads off a couple of things that was trying to do the same,” I said. I didn't want to tell her all of it.

Half-Moon sipped the coffee. “I heard such tales when I traveled, of ravenous gray things, always eating, never satisfied. The northern tribes call them Wendigo. Jean-Pierre would have called them zombie.” She set out a dozen baskets, several blankets and other things. “The townsfolk say we have called these monsters with our dancing. They will not buy our goods. Can you sell them? We need salt and bullets and gunpowder. Lots of salt.”

“Why, Mother?” Amanda asked.

“Salt reminds the monsters they are dead. They cannot cross it. They cannot taste it. We would circle the camp and the pens with it. You would be wise to do the same.”

Amanda nodded. “We will. And we will sell your things for you.”

Half-Moon smiled and kissed Amanda’s cheek. “I will peek at my son’s children and be gone. ‘Twould do you no good to have Choctaw visitors in the night.”

I cleared my throat. “Half-Moon, one of the things I killed...It was Yellow Pine.” I'd met Yellow Pine a few times. He was one of John's cousins.

Half-Moon stopped at the foot of the steps. She gave a slow nod. “He is not the first of our strong young men who has taken work from a white man and then disappeared. But no one cares when it is only Choctaw men who vanish.”

She slipped up the stairs like smoke. I heard the doors of the kids' rooms open and close. I kissed Amanda quick, acting like a guilty boy caught getting fresh while he was supposed to be courting.

Half-Moon came back down. “Much salt, don't forget.” She nodded to me and pecked Amanda on the cheek before she slipped out the door. I covered her with the rifle as she got back on her horse and headed into the darkness.

Amanda looked at me when she barred the door. “Cat, I've never seen you so nervous. Why didn't you tell me it was Yellow Pine before Eli set it afire? We could have buried him.”

“Not taking any chances with you and the kids, darlin'.” I held her very close. I was a little taller and feeling real protective tonight. She laid her head on my shoulder. “You meant it?” I whispered. “About loving me?”

She looked up, with that half-amused, half-disgusted look she gives me when I'm being slow on the draw. “Cat, I love you like my wife. Because you are. We don't need a preacher to make it official.” She kissed me then and I just went all to mush, my knees getting soft and my belly going wobbly and my nipples poking out hard. Her hands got hold of my titties and she squeezed a little. I thought I was going to explode right there.

I wrapped my arms around her waist to hold us both up and got to kissing in real earnest. I could almost forget about the monsters and the sleeping kids and the trip to town tomorrow and everything.

Then a little hand tugged on my elbow. “Mama!”

Elizabeth, my baby Betsy, was staring up with big, wide eyes in her round eight year-old face. “Mama, I had a bad dream about an Indian come into my room.”

I let Amanda go. “Might heat her some milk.” I herded Betsy to the front room. “Baby, there was an Indian in your room tonight. That was Half-Moon, Abagail's grandma, peeking in on you girls to make sure you were all okay.”

Amanda came in with the warm milk. I was surely glad Betsy and Abagail had been at the house this afternoon, getting dinner ready and making bread. She was a good girl, but she'd had strong dreams since she was a baby.

Betsy drank the milk. “I know Grandma Half-Moon's not bad like the paper says Indians are. She just scared me a little.”

“Betsy, the Choctaw aren't bad,” Amanda said. “It's the Apache out west that hurt people. They'd leave us alone too, if we didn't move in on their land and kill them first. Now, you go to bed. And don't you let your brothers tell you stories from their penny-dreadfuls anymore.”

Betsy giggled, caught out. She loved stories of any kind. She got up and kissed me and Amanda, then washed out her cup and went to bed, climbing the stairs with a huge yawn that was half for show.

“Maybe we'd best head that way ourselves,” I suggested. I put out the kerosene lamp in the living room and Amanda picked up the candle from the kitchen to light our way to bed.

I shut the door and shucked my clothes, not hurrying into my nightgown lik ^ hee usual. Amanda set the candle down and eased out of her dress and down to her corset. She didn't lace tight, so I undid her. Couldn't stand the things myself and I'd had awful rows with my own ma about it for years.

She let me help her out of her shimmy and we stood there and looked at each other in the candlelight. Five years we'd lived together and been friends for a lot before that, but we'd never seen each other naked before.

Amanda was all curvy from her corset, which made her chest and hips look big. I ran my hands over her sides, feeling her skin and all the little creases cinched into it from her corset. She touched me, feeling my own straight up-and-down shape.

I looked at her pretty breasts, all golden and creamy with the dark points at the end standing right up. I had to taste them. She was warm and a little salty and they felt wonderful on my tongue and lips.

I rolled one with my tongue and it just got harder. Amanda gave a soft little sound and her hips twisted before she caught herself. I moved back up to her mouth and traced my hands over her curves, letting one drift to her bottom.

Her strong arms went around my neck and pulled me closer for more kisses. I got bold and played in that little patch of curls at the bottom of her belly. She pressed harder and harder against my hand until I went ahead and touched her secrets.

Then she just melted in my arms, kissing me and sighing through her nose. I let go of her mouth for a minute to help her into the bed.

“Amanda, honey, could I?” I asked, not knowing any fancy words for what I wanted to do and afraid the words I did know would make her grab her night-dress and sleep downstairs.

“What?” she asked. Her eyes had gotten really big in the candlelight, deep and dark like I could fall in.

“My Luke used to kiss me a special way. I want to kiss you that way, Amanda. Just real gentle.” I pushed her thighs aside and ran one finger over her slick, smooth skin. “Want to kiss you here.” I slid a finger over the hole and around the lips and up to the little nub at the top. She watched me lick that finger and laughed.

She sat up, threw her arms around me and kissed my mouth, shoving her tongue in, bolder than she ever had before. “Yes, please yes. John used to and I miss it so.” She kissed me again. “Let me taste you, too.” Her fingers went down betwixt and between to my own cunny and she pushed right in.

It had been so long, but I was wet from kissing her. I couldn't help rubbing on her hand like some brazen chippy. I laughed, too. “Just waiting for the other to suggest it, I think. Oh, Amanda.” She kissed me again and pulled me to lay down beside her. I got my own fingers inside her and we rocked together like that, just kissing for a while.

I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. It started slow, like a head of steam building, like a watch-spring being wound up tight low in my belly. I kissed Amanda more and thrust my fingers harder, showing her what I wanted her to do. She understood and went faster.

And I exploded all into flinders. Leastways, that's what it felt like. She let out a l ^oghtow little groan and my fingers got really wet. She kissed me more and whispered, “Kiss me, darling Cat.”

I didn't need telling twice. I kissed her mouth once more and then licked her neck, all tan from where she'd been out in the garden without her hat. I found the spot that made her nipples wake up, so I sucked them for a little bit until she squirmed.

“Cat,” she begged. I began again, although I wished I could have stayed longer where I was.

I spread her legs apart and looked. She was bare here, the brown curly hair stopping at the top and a pair of plump red lips just waited for me to kiss them.

So I did. They were wet and salty and soft on my lips, so I kissed them some more. I sucked on one and the other, and then tried to remember how Luke had done it. I licked all around the soft redness and then put a stripe right up the middle.

A little button at the top made her wriggle even more when I licked it. Oh yeah, I remembered how that felt. I studied a little how to make it work the best, licking or sucking or even a light nibble. Amanda got wetter and noisier until I worried she was going to wake the kids. I slid a couple fingers into her, trying to coax her along for more.

She yelled, “Yes!” My whole face and hand got soaked. I heard Abagail's voice in the hall and hurried to scoot up and throw a blanket over us.

“Nice work, darlin'. Now they're awake,” I teased her. I stole a kiss, but broke when I heard the door scrape open.

“Ma, are you all right? I heard you yell.” Abagail stood in the door, holding Betsy's hand and I saw Eli and Hannah behind her.

“We're fine, babies. We're fine.” Amanda smiled and then burst into giggles. “Go back to bed. Your Ma Cat just told me a funny story and I made too much noise.” She leaned over me and held up a candle. “Go on. Get. We have work to do tomorrow.”

The kids drifted out. Amanda blew out the candle. We curled up together and I kissed her as we giggled a while more before sleep.

Sunday morning, after chores and breakfast, we loaded up the farm wagon and I put on a dress. Amanda insisted I wear one for church. All the good folks went to church, so we had to show up. I wouldn't if it was just me. There was work to be done.

We herded the kids in and sat quietly. Eli sat in a different pew, next to Jane, the pretty girl he'd been sparking for a couple months. I'd hate to lose him around the farm. It was just about to pay off. Or maybe he and Jane could move into that old sod house of mine and still work the place. We'd wait and see. I reminded myself he was too young to get serious.

I ignored the parson and looked around. Pretty much everyone around came to church. I noticed the Johnsons were missing, but I remembered they were under quarantine for measles. Old man Jasper was missing, which was unusual for him. He was a pious old skinflint who even made his hands come to church. Most people offered, but didn't insist.

As the service broke up, people went about the business of setting up the picnic lunch afterward. I caught Li ^ont za Collingsworth, Jasper's nearest neighbor on the town side.

“Liza, the old man never misses a dinner. Not when it means he doesn't have to feed his hands. Is he sick?”

She shrugged. “Not that I hear.” She pulled me aside, well away from other ears. “Catherine, we saw something around the barn last night, kinda like a man. Looked like a man, moved like a bear. One of our calves was mostly eaten this morning.”

“Burn what's left of it,” I said shortly.

“But Catherine, that's still a lot of meat.”

“Burn it.” I lowered my voice. “That was a zombie what ate your calf. We lost Sorrel and a sheep to some yesterday. Stay in of a night. Sprinkle salt around your pens and barn and house.”

She looked at me cock-eyed. “How do you know so much?”

It wouldn't do to tell her the truth. I jerked my head at Amanda, where she was making sure Abagail and Betsy ate instead of playing tag. “Her John was half-Zouave outta Louisiana. I hear they have a lot of them down there.”

She pressed my hand. “Thank you for the word. We'll be careful. You stay safe too.”

We ate lunch and talked to our neighbors, keeping the disturbance at the ranch quiet. In most towns, the stores were closed on Sunday. Around here, they opened up in the afternoon between morning and evening church so the families from spreads farther out could get what they needed without taking an extra day away from the work of their farms.

Amanda and I took Half-Moon's stuff over to the store before most people were done with lunch. Things were quiet, but we didn't see much reason to remind the folks in town that our kids were an eighth-part Choctaw by showing off the goods we were trading. We unloaded at the back of the store, on the dock.

Old Sam looked over the stuff, frowning. “Can't move it, sorry, Miss Cat.” He went over it again, making marks on a tally sheet. “Maybe a couple blankets. Nobody wants Indian stuff.”

“Maybe all of them.” I leaned against the wall, looking as mean as the dress would let me. Lordy, I hate bargaining in skirts! “We don't need cash, Sam, just some stuff. Sell 'em to traders going to Texas or something.” I pulled out the shopping list but Amanda took it out of my hands.

“Please, Sam?” she said, giving him the smile that always made me melt. “We really need it.” She teased him a second with the list. He gave a low whistle when he saw what we wanted.

“All right, all of it. Just for you, Widow Pomeroy.” He stared at the list. “You ladies butchering? That's a lot of salt.”

I loomed a little. I'm as tall as Sam, as tall as most men.

He shut up except to say, “Let's fetch it into the wagon.” We situated about a hundred and fifty pounds of salt, some nails and shells, a saw blade and a box of bullets. Fifty pounds of flour and some other stuff. I bought each of the kids a stick of candy, then surprised Amanda with her ^. Sha bofavorite wintergreen stick as well.

I clenched my own spearmint in my teeth like a cigar and drove back for evening services. Jasper still wasn't there. Parson Jaimson was on a tear tonight and it was well past dark when we started back for the ranch. I gave Eli my Springfield and Amanda cradled a Colt. Billy and Jack had their squirrel guns. I couldn't shoot and drive.

I pushed Midnight as fast as he could trot, pulling that heavy wagon. Amanda tried to keep the lantern from bouncing too much. I wasn't sure I liked it. It kept us on the road, sure, but it also showed us off to anything that might be lurking.

I was surely glad Oklahoma wasn't Tennessee. There weren't a lot of trees in in our area, mostly just flat prairie. We still had to drive through a little wood about half a mile from the farm. I checked on the kids. Betsy was asleep and Abagail had curled around her as the night got cooler. Hannah and Melissa were sitting upright, looking worried.

As we got closer to that wood, the full moon showed us one of the zombie things a long ways away. I knew what it was by the way it moved. Eli saw it too, and cocked the rifle.

“No, son, not unless it comes for us,” I said, soft and low, clucking Midnight to move a little faster.

“But, Ma Cat, those things are an abomination. They got no business in this world.”

“Don't you wake your sisters,” Amanda hissed.

“Yes, Ma.” Eli kept his eye on the thing until it vanished from sight over a low rise.

We ducked under the eaves of the wood, the darkness here thicker than it had been out on the moonlit road. Dark always seems to seep out of trees, cluster under them. Every bush looked like a crouching monster.

I slapped the reins on Midnight, making him pick up more speed. I couldn't push him, not much. The wagon was almost too heavy for him. I shot a glance where I thought I saw something move off to the side.

Billy had seen something, too. He had his gun ready. I drove steady, not trying to draw attention. Amanda watched off the other side of the road.

“MAMA!”

Oh Lord, Betsy had seen or dreamed something. I heard Abagail shriek, too. Eli fired first, then Billy and Jack shot behind us. I heard bodies falling to the road. I lashed Midnight and he went into a run.

Amanda held onto the seat with one hand and shot over the kids' heads with other. “Abagail, you and Betsy stay down!” she yelled. “Hannah, Melissa, you get a couple handfuls of the salt and throw it behind us. Cat, I love you. Drive.” She touched my arm and then braced her pistol on my shoulder to shoot. The report like to deafened me.

“Nice shootin’, Ma,” Eli said as he fired again.

We broke out of the woods at a dead run and I slowed Midnight to look. About five of the zombies had stopped where the girls had thrown the salt. One stepped into it. He crumbled like he'd been hit with a sledgehammer. No more zombie, just a d ^riive of tead man rotting in the road.

I let Midnight catch his breath. We were only about half a mile from home now. We went slow, keeping an eye out. Amanda sat beside me, reloading. The boys all had cartridges ready. The little girls were crying and the big girls did their best to comfort them.

We just made the gate when a dozen Choctaw melted out of the shadows and surrounded us. The girls wailed louder.

“Hush,” Amanda scolded. “It's just your cousins, come to get what we bought them in town.”

Half-Moon came to Amanda. She smiled at the girls, who calmed down enough to greet her.

“We heard the shots, daughter. Are all well?”

Amanda nodded. Eli gave the woman a smile. “I got two of 'em.”

“A fine young warrior.” Half-Moon stroked the little girls' hair, not seeming to care whether it was Abagail or Betsy she soothed. They quieted under her touch. “Did it go well?”

“Very well. We have everything you asked for.” Amanda shooed the girls out of the wagon-bed. The men started unloading the salt and other staples. “Be careful, Mother,” she said.

“We are alert, child. Our thanks.”

As quickly and silently as they had appeared, the Choctaw vanished back into the night. The boys watched them.

“All right, let's not lollygag. Get that stuff in the house, double quick. Eli, you unhitch the wagon. And rub Midnight down good, hear?” I scooped about five pounds of the salt into a gunny sack. Amanda got the girls indoors, carrying all the stuff. Eli took Midnight around to the barn and I started my task.

It took some doing but I finally managed to get a good solid line of salt around the house and barn and corrals. For extra safety, I sent a line across every gate, window and door-step. When I went in, I made sure not to step on the salt. Eli'd been careful, too.

“The kids are in bed, Cat,” Amanda said as she got up and came to kiss me.

“Ah, darlin', that was fine shooting tonight.” I gave her that kiss and more besides. “But I'm too beat to do more than kiss.”

She smiled. “I figured as much.” She picked up a glass with a little bit of liquid in it. “I found an old bottle of John's whiskey. Thought it might help us sleep.” She took a mouthful and passed the glass to me.

I never liked whiskey, but tonight it glowed through me, calming down my nerves. I set the empty glass on the floor and kissed her again. “Amanda, I love you.”

She smiled. “I know, honey. Come on to bed.”

It was a couple of days before I could make time to ride over to the Jasper place. Eli wanted to come along, but I wouldn't let him. He caught me in the barn and tried again.

“Ma Cat, if you get into trouble over there, you need ^ri>

I looked him over. In the five years Cat and I had been together, he'd grown to a man. But right now, those deep brown eyes were still those of the little boy who'd held my hand at his daddy's graveside. I moved his hand off my saddle and hugged him.

“Eli, if I get into trouble, it'll likely be more than both of us can handle. Your Ma needs you here, just in case I don't come back. You're the man of the house now. I'm proud of you, boy. You take care of your Ma and your brothers and sisters.” I let go and climbed onto Midnight.

“Come back safe, Ma Cat,” he said as he handed me up my rifle and slung the saddlebags with the extra ammunition behind me.

“I will. Take care of things, hear?” I rode out, setting a nice easy pace. Never knew when I'd have to ride for my life.

The seven miles over to the Jasper place went easy enough. The sun got higher. I wasn't going to get caught out at dark again.

The Jasper place was quiet, too quiet. It stunk. The odor felt like a skunk had crawled up my nose and died about two weeks ago. I coughed and spat, then pulled my neckerchief over my nose and mouth.

Midnight balked at the stink and I didn't blame him one bit. I chambered a cartridge and didn't dismount. If there was trouble, I didn't want to be caught away from Midnight.

“Hiram Jasper!” I bellowed. Amanda always said my yell could bring the kids in from the far pastures. “Hiram Jasper! It's Catherine McAllister. Come on out and say howdy!”

Nothing moved. Not even a prairie breeze cut the heaviness of the October sun. I nudged Midnight forward and yelled for Old Man Jasper again. Midnight took two steps and snorted. He wasn't going any farther.

Then I saw Jasper's Buck, his white fur all gray with dirt and the liver spots and nose muted. Something, and I was willing to bet good cash money it was a zombie, had been at that dog, leaving the dust to soak up his blood.

When a zombie edged around the barn, I knew I'd been right in my suspicions. I blew its head off and then took a better look at the bright red suspenders with the gold flowers. Hank, Jasper's foreman. Oh Lord. I backed Midnight out of the gate and rode a line along the fence, leaving a line of salt.

Hopefully that would hold them on the farm until we could get them all killed. I kicked Midnight and headed for home at a canter. I had a plan, but I was going to need help.

That afternoon, I sent Billy riding east and Hannah riding west. Melissa went north and Amanda headed south, down to the Choctaw village. I stayed around the place and gathered what I'd need, but made Jack do the outside chores. Eli banged around in the barn until the little girls started jumping at every explosion and clang.

Betsy and Abagail stayed very close to the house, still pretty spooked after Sunday. When Betsy started hanging onto my pant leg after a really loud bang, I sat down with her for a minute. She just sat on my lap, her eyes too big, and stared. Abagail came over and ^ zom="0">

“Mama, can those things get us?” Betsy sounded like she was trying to be brave and not even coming close.

“No, baby. We've done all the protecting we can. They can't come on the farm or anywhere near the house.” I kissed her and Abagail. “Now, I need to check on Eli. Can you two make some cornbread to go with the beans? Your ma and them will be hungry when they get in.”

I didn't tell the girls that the big kids were under orders to stay at the last farmhouse they came to and not to try getting back before dark. But I expected Amanda and Half-Moon would be home for supper.

Eli came to the door of the barn, covered in soot. He pushed Luke's old goggles up, leaving two white rings in his blackened face. I grinned and he grinned back.

“You look like a backward raccoon,” I teased.

“Yeah, but it works, Ma Cat. It really works. That last loud bang, that was the test shot.”

“Let's be ready to use it tomorrow, then. You did fine, son.” I ruffled his sooty hair. “Go wash up and come inside. Tell Jack to get in before dark, too.” I tried not to let him see me look at the sun, watching it slide down the sky. Amanda would be fine. Half-Moon would see to it.

Amanda made it back at supper, Half-Moon with her. The little girls turned out the cornbread, very proud of their accomplishment. Eli and Jack came in, damp from washing at the well.

“Mama, where's Hannah and Melissa and Billy?” Betsy glanced out the window, frowning at the dark.

“They're at the Carters' and the Petersons' and the Calverts',” Amanda said. “They'll stay the night and come back tomorrow with help. We're going to make all the bad things go away, punkin.”

That satisfied Betsy. She ate, chattering at all of us between bites. She didn't think Half-Moon was so scary when the old woman was eating her cornbread and smiling at her stories.

We cleared supper away and sent the kids to bed. Half-Moon stared into the fire. I had another drink of the whiskey. Nasty stuff, but it steadied me.

“I want to go tomorrow,” Amanda said, coming down the stairs from tucking the kids into bed.

“Sugar,” I started, meaning to talk her out of it nice and smooth.

“Catherine Anne, don't you 'sugar' me! I want to go. I'm a good shot and you need all the help you can get.”

“And I need someone to take care of my kids if I don't make it back,” I snapped, feeling short-tempered and mean. “If Eli and me can't take these critters...” I slowed because of the scarified look on her face. I got up and met her at the bottom of the stairs. “Aw, Amanda,” I soothed, wrapping my arms around her waist, “I'm not trying to scare you or be morbid. I just --”

She kissed me, not even caring that Half-Moon was still there. Long and deep and sweet, with her soft tongue sliding all in my mouth and ^innot her warm breath on my cheek. I felt too big betwixt and between, like my cunny was trying to jump right out of my waist-overalls.

“I know,” she whispered. “But Eli... You're taking Eli. My boy.”

I held her tight at that. “I know, Amanda. I wouldn't, but he's the only one can run the contraption.”

She clung tighter. “My son and my wife.” I thought for a minute she was going to cry. I kissed the top of her head. She looked up at me, her eyes hard as gunmetal. “You go. You kill those monsters so our babies can sleep again. And you come back in one piece, you hear me, woman?”

“Yes, Ma'am.” I was pretty tempted to smile, but she needed me to take her serious. I kissed her again, longer and harder than she'd kissed me. “Promise.”

We stood at the foot of the stairs for a long time. I knew it might be the last night I held her. Finally, she nodded at where Half-Moon was slumped before the fire and wriggled out of my arms.

“Mother,” she said, softly, laying a hand on Half-Moon's shoulder. “Come up to bed. Hannah won't mind if you use hers.”

“Daughters,” she said, almost a rasp, as she beckoned me in to sit before the fire “Not all who go out will come in. The dead will be dead again. And we will help. My young men will come at dawn. That is all I can do. I ride with the warriors tomorrow, daughter.” She kissed Amanda's forehead and went upstairs.

I banked the fire and checked the door and window bars, and the salt across everything, to buy some time. I knew Amanda wouldn't want me to see the tear-tracks on her pretty cheeks.

“Come on upstairs, honey.” I helped her to her feet. “Come on. Let me love those night-fears away?”

She nodded and let me lead her upstairs. She wrapped her arm around my waist and laid her head on my shoulder. I could feel the tears soaking the old gingham shirt I wore.

“Oh, Amanda,” I sighed, as I helped her out of her corset and into her night-dress. “Wish I didn't have to go. Wish Eli could stay here safe.”

She looked up at me, her jaw set in as stubborn a line as I've seen. “You just go do what you gotta do, Catherine. Eli'll do the same. And we'll be here when you come home.”

I kissed her for that and smudged away a lost tear by the side of her nose. “I love you, Amanda. With everything I got in me.”

We lay in bed a long time, not frolicking like we had, just holding each other like a couple of scared kids. It was like the first nights after Luke had died, when I just clung on like she was the only real thing left in the world. When I got to sleep, all my dreams were bad.

Amanda and Half-Moon were up before dawn. She slipped out of bed without waking me. The smell of coffee did that job for her quick enough. I dressed fast. There might be guests for breakfast. I had just pulled on my boots when Jack knocked at the door.

“Ma?” He saw I was dressed and came over to give ^in

I nodded. “I won't lie, baby boy. If I don't come back, you mind Ma Amanda and look out for your sister, hear me?”

He nodded, his freckles standing out where he'd turned pale. He looked like a short Luke. I missed my man. I didn't want to leave my kids orphaned. I took a deep breath. I had to do this, for the kids and for everyone. I just wouldn't tell Betsy I might not come back.

She was in the kitchen, helping Half-Moon with the griddle cakes and calling the old woman “Grandmother.” Amanda was nowhere to be seen. Betsy set down the plate she was carrying and came over to hug me. I scooped her up and spun her around like I did when she was little.

“Morning, Mama,” she said and kissed me. “Grandma and me made breakfast. She says you and Eli need to eat a lot.”

I hugged her tight and set her on her feet. “Are they yummy?”

Betsy grinned and I knew Half-Moon had slipped her the first one. “Very yummy.”

I had just poured myself a cup of coffee when Amanda came in with a basket of eggs. Bill Donner from over the hill was with her, carrying his own basket with eggs, too. I gestured with the coffee and poured him a cup.

“Thank you. The missus thought you might could use these for breakfast. Sounds like you're having a deal of company this morning.”

Amanda took the eggs and start cracking all of them in a big bowl. I like mine fried, but scrambled went farther. A knock on the front door interrupted my watching. Phil Carter and his two younger boys stood there, carrying a side of bacon. I expected the oldest had been left home, like Amanda would be.

By the time I said grace over breakfast, ten men had filled our kitchen. Before we were done, the girls and Billy were home safe and twenty-five men ate griddle cakes and coffee and eggs. Most had brought their own cups, a packed lunch and something to add to the breakfast. I wondered where Half-Moon's people were.

After we ate, Eli helped me herd them out to the barn. I stood up on the wagon and waited for them to settle down. The Choctaw men came up, carrying clubs and tomahawks. Some of them had bows, and I wished it was more. The farther everyone could stay from the monsters, the better.

“I'm not much for speechifying. You men know what's going on. You know what's been out there in the dark eating your chickens and cows and sheep. We're gonna fix that.”

A murmur rippled through them. Tom Jackson, who lived nearest the Jasper place to the south, didn't seem to notice the big tears rolling down his face or the way his knuckles had gone white on his rifle.

“Tommy,” he whispered.

His boy was about six or seven, younger than Betsy. Oh no. Oh Lord, no. Since his wife died last winter when the new baby wouldn't come, he thought the sun rose and set on that boy. I hoped the boy had just been bit and not eaten outright.

“Old Man ^l in boJasper was a skinflint and we all knew it. He got notions from down in New Orleans. I expect he brought a hoodoo up here to make him his zombies. He took to killing Choctaw men and making them work in the fields afterward.”

Half-Moon had appeared beside the wagon. “The zombies do not last. Our men are missing about every two months.”

Aaron Watson spat on the ground. “Y'all gonna listen to a skirt and a squaw yammer on? We gonna march beside a bunch of indians? Or are we gonna do something about these monsters?” A low shuffling told me I had better talk real fast or they'd go charging out.

“Just what are you going to do, Aaron? Go in, blasting away until they get you? Or do you want to kill them fast and clean and make sure they stay dead?” The other men murmured and I went on. “Salt makes these things know they're dead. Blowing off their heads stops them. Shooting their bodies or arms or legs, that just slows them down. Fire keeps them really dead.”

I patted the contraption on the wagon behind me. Or I would have if it hadn't been hot enough to singe my fingers. “We got us a cannon. Eli got it working right and we can put a firebomb in it and burn the place. These critters can move by daylight, but they don't much seem to like it.” Eli walked through the crowd, passing out salt.

“We're going to go in and we're going to clean this out before more people and livestock die.” I ordered men to cover the house and the barn, others to search the fields and cellars and woods around the Jasper place.

Half-Moon sat in the wagon-seat, holding the reins. “Are we ready, daughter?”

“You're coming along?” She'd said as much yesterday, but I wasn't sure she would.

She nodded. “Amanda and my grandchildren need you. The best way to make sure you come back is to go with you.” She slapped the reins across the mule-team's back and they pulled us out the barn door. Eli came running up and jumped into the bed.

“Gonna be a hard slog, Ma Cat,” he said. “Half the men think you're crazy and none of them are happy you're a lady and giving orders like a general.”

“Kinda like you sometimes, huh, boy?” I ruffled his hair.

“Sometimes,” he said. “It's a good plan. Hope they stick to it.” He glanced back, looking nervous. “Hope they stick to killing monsters. My cousins might give them a run for their money.”

“They will.” I sounded more certain than I was. “They will.”

We got to the Jasper place just before noon. Everyone soaked his neckerchief in a bucket of water and tied it over his mouth. The stench was worse than before. We got the fire bucket for the cannon down from the wagon with a lot of swearing and a couple burns. Eli set up the cannon as the men started swarming over the place. I'd chosen the three steadiest, Phil and his boys, and given them the fireball-spitters.

Eli handed me Amanda's Remington. “This works, Ma. Go get 'em. When you need the house and barn burnt, yell my way.”

“You stay ^inuseout of the fighting, hear?” I handed my Springfield to Half-Moon. “Keep an eye on him, will you? Amanda will skin us both if he gets so much as a bruised knee.”

Half-Moon smiled. I went to help roust the zombies from wherever they holed up by day.

“Widow McAllister!” Bill Donner yelled from the house. “You better see this.”

I hurried in. Hiram Jasper was a bachelor man and his little sod house wasn't much. He set great store by his horses and had made them a fine pole barn, but for his own living, he had just one room. He lay on the bed, looking like he was sleeping, a heathen-looking charm tangled in his fingers.

“Been dead a while, Widow.”

“We'll burn him and the house. Looks like they hain't been eating him at least.” I headed out the door. I didn't look at the charm any closer. It wasn't nothing for me to be messing with. I blinked in the light after the dark house and headed to the barn and the lean-tos he'd put up for the hands.

I heard a “whoosh” sound and a ball of fire ate up one of the lean-tos. Phil gave me a grin as he pumped the fireball-spitter.

“I like this one, Widow. It sure has power.” He fired another of the lean-tos.

I circled around the barn, hearing the shot from inside. The door slammed open and Aaron charged out, trying to run and reload. He saw me.

“They got Tom and it's all your fault!” he yelled at me. He turned to the door, fired both barrels into the gloom and started chambering more.

“How many?” I demanded.

“A dozen. Two dozen. A goddamned hundred. Who knows? Who can count?” He fired again.

I wasn't going to see if we could save Tom as long as Aaron was blasting away at the door. Elijah and Hank came over to help him.

“Stock's all eaten, Widow,” Hank reported. “Phil's boy helped us burn the bones like you said.”

“Go help Aaron. If you can save Tom, even better.” I made my way back to the wagon. Eli had the butt of the cannon in the fire and a pair of tongs to aim it.

I grabbed a piece of leather and helped him move it. “We're burning the house first. Hope this thing works like you say it will.”

Half-Moon fired my rifle not far enough away from my head. I looked up. A bunch of zombies were coming out of the woods, ten or more. How the hell many hired men had Old Man Jasper killed? “Change of plan, Eli!”

He yanked the cannon around so fast it almost fell out of the fire. I shot at one of the things, barely remembering I had the Remington. A puff of steam came from the chamber and a spray of flaming shot flew toward the zombies.

Half-Moon fired as I reloaded. Eli lit the ball of tar and poured a little cup of water into the hot end of the cannon. Nothing happened for a second. I fired off again and while I reloaded, there was a “ph ^in inut” sound and the flaming tar went toward those monsters neatly as a chucked rock.

The ball fell apart and strings of fire dropped all over the zombies. They caught, not noticing or caring they were burning, and kept coming. Now there was not just a herd of zombies, but a herd of flaming zombies.

Half-Moon shot again. I let out a Rebel yell, like the ones my brothers had taught me back in Tennessee. Some of the men looked over and saw what had happened. I put down the rifle and started with the six-shooters. They were close enough for that now.

“Burn that house, Eli,” I ordered.

More guns started popping zombie heads like they were ripe melons. Some went down with arrows in their eyes. The things smelled even worse on fire as their hair and skin burned. I knew I was going to be sick. I was so tired of blood and dead stuff. But I fired both pistols empty and ducked behind the wagon to reload.

The “phut” sound came again and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the house start to burn. I shot a burning zombie that was getting too close. It spattered gobbets of flesh and brains all over. After thinking a second, I grabbed the bag of salt and threw a line in-between them and us.

“Shoulda done that a lot earlier,” I grumbled and reloaded. I breathed easier when the last body went down in a flaming heap. Hank came up beside me.

“Barn's clear.” He shook his head. “We lost Tom and Aaron.”

“Burn the barn, son,” I said to Eli. The cannon went “phut” again.

The last of the men straggled back, pulling down their bandannas and trading weary smiles, red and white alike. Phil and his boys were soot and ash all over and grinning like they'd gotten out of school for naughtiness. I expected there might be a few more fireball-spitters in the area soon. Eli started dumping dirt on the fire for the cannon.

I climbed back on the wagon, knowing I looked as rugged, all covered with soot and blood, as any of them. “What we had here was greed, gentlemen. Greed and too much time worrying about ourselves. We didn't notice when young men started vanishing from the Choctaw village. We didn't care that Negro drifters never drifted on from our town. We just didn't care until it was our stock and our people getting hurt.” I looked over them all and they kinda shuffled their feet in agreement, looking shamefaced.

I went on. “We didn't find the voodoo man here today, neither. Maybe the raising is over, what with Jasper's place all burnt. Maybe him dying was what loosed the monsters from their orders and sicced 'em on us. But I tell you this, and I swear it on my Luke's grave, if I find out any of you has found that hoodoo and made the same stupid mistake of trying to skip paying the hands by killing and raising them, the rest of us are gonna come do this to your spread. We ain't gonna have that bullshit here.”

A dull murmur rose and then they cheered. “Damn right, Widow,” Stu Calvert yelled. “Any of you bastards think using dead people to work is still a good idea, I'll volunteer yours to be the next balls out of Eli's cannon there.”

< ^"3"> I'lfont size="3">The men laughed at that. I let them have it for a minute and then raised my hand again.

“Now, there are worried ladies and sons wondering if their men are coming home. Y'all git. We'll see you come Sunday. And gentlemen, thank you. Not every man is brave enough to follow a lady general, but you all did just fine.”

They drifted off in twos and threes. Phil laid the fireball-spitter in the wagon. “I'll go see Widow Watson. T’aint nobody at the Jackson place. It was just Tom and the boy, since Mrs. Jackson died. We'll bring their stock in to town on Sunday and parcel it out.”

“Thank you. And give your missus a thank you. We couldn't have done it without you.”

He and the boys waved. I sat down, feeling like someone had used me as a ramrod for the whole battle. My arms ached. My trigger fingers hurt. Blisters had raised up on my thumbs. Eli got the cannon and fire bucket aboard and collapsed next to me. Half-Moon clucked the mules into motion.

“I think I'm gonna be sick, Ma,” he whispered. “My stomach feels all loose.”

“Well, fire over the side, son. I don't need it on me or I'll be sick, too.”

He chuckled at that. Half-Moon said over her shoulder. “No one is to be sick. Catherine, you are of sterner stuff, and Eli, you are Choctaw. We are not sick in the face of death.”

“Yes, Grandma,” Eli said. He sat up, his face green as old cheese. He swallowed hard, but nothing else.

I must have fallen asleep while we drove. The next time I looked at Eli, the sun was setting. It was almost dark when Half-Moon drove us into the barn. The Choctaw men had turned off toward their lands before we got to the house.

“I will send the other boys to help you unharness.” She patted the mules, then came around to pick up the untouched lunch basket. I figured a lot of wives would be finding their food uneaten after this day's work. “You both fought well.”

I managed to stand up, although everything ached and the world went round too fast when I did. Eli leaned on me and I leaned on him all the way into the house. Half-Moon had already made it there and Jack hurried across the yard to help us.

“See to the mules, son,” I said, waving him off. “If you unbalance us, we're going to fall down in a big pile.” We staggered in the house, where Amanda was holding a lit lamp. She had a bucket of water heating and a washtub steaming so we could clean up.

The smell of coffee woke me up more and I took the cup Betsy was holding. It was too hot but I drank it anyway. I'd care about my scalded tongue tomorrow. I dunked my head under the warm water in the washtub and held it there until I needed to breathe.

Eli and the boys had gone to wash up outside with the other bucket of warm water. I stripped off my sooty, smoky, bloody clothes and threw them in the water. I washed with soap, getting all the filth from the hard day cleared away while Hannah stirred my clothes in with the soapsuds.

Betsy just smiled. Amanda ha ^witnded me my nightdress and called the boys in once I had it put on. Corncakes and molasses waited on the table and Eli tucked right in. I nibbled the crispy edges, not really hungry after all of the day. I picked at the food, mostly just letting the warm kitchen soak into my tired bones and the voices of my family buzz around me like crickets on a hot night.

A warm weight on my lap startled me awake. Betsy smiled up and laid her head on my shoulder. “Told ya she was sleeping,” she said to Abagail and stuck out her tongue.

“Bed time.” Amanda said firmly. “March.”

Betsy slid off my lap and kissed me. I watched her follow Abagail upstairs. Half-Moon smiled after them.

“Good night, daughters,” she said, sliding out the door, silent as a shadow.

Amanda pulled a chair over and wrapped her arms around me. “You came back,” she said and I felt tears on my neck.

I stroked her back. “Of course, I did. McAllisters take a lot of killing and those critters never even got close.”

She looked up at me, big eyes still full of tears. I kissed her, sweet and soft as a May evening. She smiled. I knew then it had all been worth it. The danger, the gore, all of it. Worth it just to keep this feeling safe. Not just safe for me, but for all the neighbors, the men whose wives had waited up with food and kisses and smiles, just like mine had.

“You need some rest, Cat. Now that we're all safe.” She blew out the lamp and led the way upstairs with a candle. I followed my wife up to bed.

This was originally published as a single shot by Torquere Press in 2006. I was one of the few writing steampunk then, and this was inspired heavily by the Deadlands rpg.

fnwer wor

Rock Us All Down

"Her heart is hissing, children, come

for Mummy Medusa will rock you all down."

-- Skinny White Chick

She dreamed of greenness. Her pregnancy rode badly in those early days and she craved vegetables. She ate ravenously of her garden: spinach, kale, chard, and endless lettuce. But the garden of Gothel, over the forbidding wall, tempted her with the jade of mustard leaves, the peridot of cabbages and, most of all, the emerald of rampion.

Her husband made excursions, gathering these jewels and praying that her hunger would lessen, lest they starve in the winter. Once and twice, he went a-robbing and escaped with whole skin. But the third time, Gothel caught him reaching for a particularly ripe cluster of the rampion.

"I thought the slugs were unusually active this year. You have robbed me thrice. What will you give me not to haul you before the magistrate?" Gothel let him beg and squirm for a time, watched the fear and desire in his face.

"Your wife is pregnant. Your patch of land yields barely enough for the two of you, let alone a child. I am wealthy, but lonely. If you will send your daughter to live with me after she is weaned, I will see that she has the best. And you will be just beyond the wall."

The bargain was struck, and the packages of rampion came nightly. She ate herself hale again on Gothel's bounty, and tried not to think too much about the years to come.

The child came, hair as black as midnight and eyes of an odd muddy shade that darkened to green in a few months. At the end of her first year, her parents held her hands as she toddled up the flagstone walkway to the great gate.

"Ah, my little Rapunzel. Welcome." Gothel scooped her up and carried her inside. Green fire flashed around the edges of the closed door. A pair of statues, a merry wife feeding stone geese and a cheery gnome leaning on a hoe, had been added to the garden.

Rapunzel retained no memory of her first year. She had always lived with Mother Gothel, always tended the herbs and vegetables, always learned the language of power and helped in the magical workroom.

She grew into a woman of marriageable age. There were tutors and music lessons and other lessons from Gothel herself. Her hair was never cut.

* * * * *

Medusa lived alone by necessity. Immortal, ageless, she had endured the passage of time, neither reveling nor rejoicing. Her island temple was generally assumed to be no more than a haunted ruin.

She had all she needed. Food from her wild, overgrown groves that were nourished by hidden springs. Fish swam from the ocean by secret ways, for Poseidon had never forgotten her.

She shook her head until Athena's worms hissed and rattled their scales. One night of love, a single night in the wrong place, and the Owl-bitch had cursed her for eternity. But Poseidon still came to her in her exile, on nights when she bound the serpents in a kerchief and walked on the shore. He was a god, if faded with the ages, and her eyes could not petrify him.

She heard the stories the sons of men told, making the love an attack. She knew their tales of how Perseus had beheaded her¡ªbraving her boar-like tusks, her claws of brass, her wings of gold to petrify the Kraken and save his lady. She alone knew the truth of it.

How she had bound her head in a linen bag, fed the young man and given him wine, sung for him¡ªAthena had left her that at least¡ªand lain with him teaching him the magics that would save his Andromeda.

But that had been centuries, nay millennia, ago. fsmilt would sa Storytellers had come at her behest, thinking her a disfigured widow. They were replaced with scrolls, and later with precious, priceless books. Now, the Visigoths had created a machine that would write the books a whole page at a time. They had become notably less expensive in the last years.

So the world came to her, since she could not go to it. She lay on the greensward and looked up at the sky, tracing the legends that the gods had set above her. She smiled at the image of Perseus, holding her talisman up and shielding his eyes. Near him, Cassiopeia sat spinning in her chair, vain old fool, and, beyond the Triangulum, Andromeda remained chained to her rock for eternity.

She'd had enough and walked back into the temple. Her bed was in the back chamber, a lavish affair of sea greens: the shades of pale light in the water, mosses, kelp, seaweed, and the jade, jasper, and chalcedony of sunken cities. Poseidon had brought her gifts to furnish it.

One of the snakes was inquisitive, and she shoved its green scaly body back behind her ear. It hissed, and she snapped her fingers on its snout. They had come to a truce over the centuries. The snakes did not come into her line of sight and she no longer tore them from her head until she fainted from loss of blood.

It did no good. They always grew back before she awakened. But there were still nights, fewer and fewer now, when she clawed at them and shrieked her rage in the direction of Olympus for the curses the Wise One had laid on her.

She drank strong wine and lay back to sleep. Tomorrow or the next night she would walk on the shore and call Poseidon to her. He would rise with eyes of sea green and kelp in his beard. She would have comfort from her loneliness for a night.

* * * * *

"But Mother Gothel, why must we leave? There are balls and suitors and all the pleasures of the city."

"You have forgotten your purpose, Rapunzel. There was never yet a married witch, nor will there be. Our power is over life and death. There is no chance for a normal life."

"But I want a normal life, with a family. I don't want to be a witch."

"You have no choice. You have the knowledge, you have the powers. A man. Paugh! One to get you with child at his pleasure, beat you for his amusement and whore about until your substance is wasted and you are rotted with the pox from the drabs. You are meant for higher things, my dear."

The tower loomed up out of the plain and the blackthorns grew thick about it. "And here we are at last. Far enough to be inconvenient, but findable by those in need, oh yes."

Rapunzel's rooms were at the top. As the years passed, she forgot her youthful wishes. What were stolen kisses to power that could bind demons, save children or change the course of a life? She called forth herbs and vegetables and fruit from the bare lands and Gothel praised her.

In the evening, as she had been taught, she sat in the window seat of her room and sang th f>

* * * * *

He had been riding for many months. His father had charged him not to return without a wife and great deeds to his name, as befit a prince. Alas, the lands were void of dragons, giants or any sort of monster. The few witches had been mumbling, toothless crones with a few bits of herb lore and house-rhymes to make lost things return and butter come quickly.

He had heard the legends of Gothel, of her powers, of her witchery, of her beautiful daughter who was her hostage or her lover, depending on who told the tale. The tower was where the townsfolk said it would be. The city was prosperous and the families not overlarge. He knew the marks of a competent herbwife. But he had hoped for more sport.

Vanquishing the great sorceress would be a deed of renown. Another midwife would be of no use. He despaired of finding a true challenge.

He heard the voice before he saw her. The sweet soprano carried over the plain as the sun set. He made camp in the shelter of the blackthorns, trusting them to hide him from the tower. As the voice continued, he crept around the periphery and spied out the singer.

She sat combing a waterfall of night, blacker than that which rushed over the horizon. An older woman appeared and took the comb. The cascade reached beyond the girl's feet, cloaking her in ebony hair. He listened as they talked of the night's ritual. Not mother and daughter, but witch and apprentice, then. He slipped back to camp.

A pair of sorceresses would be a true mark for his ledger. Unless, of course, he could woo the girl and come back with both deed and bride. A wife with herblore would be of great use, getting only with sons and only when he desired them. He slept and his dreams were tangled in jet and ebony.

The next day, the old woman rode out, heading toward town. He strode boldly to the front gate, and knocked. The girl opened the gate. She was maybe twenty, well past marrying age. Her hair was braided about her head and fell in a long braid down her back.

"I come on an errand, lovely Rapunzel. My royal father has set me a great quest, yet I can find no great deeds. There are no hopeless quests, no doomed undertakings. I was born too late to be a hero. Can you or your mistress aid me? I hear you can see around the world or converse with spirits and tell me of troubles I can correct."

"Mother Gothel will be gone for a time. Perhaps I can aid you." She took him into the scrying chamber, her heart fluttering and her liver feeling most peculiar. She hadn't felt like this since the night the miller's son had stolen a kiss under the summer moon.

She made the passes, concentrating on the ritual and the words. "Show us great evil, a wrong that requires a hero."

The mirror showed warlords that plundered the villages of the herdsmen of the steppes. It showed pirates along the coasts of Africa. It showed many wrongs, some better suited to armies or fleets.

Then a glimpse of a green temple.

"Wait. That. What is it?"

Rapunzel coaxed the mirror back to the place. A female figure moved through it, but the mirror seemed reluctant to focus. Rapunzel rapped it sharply and commanded it with a Word of Power. It obeyed, showing the woman from the rear, snakes cascading down her back.

"Medusa. She was killed by Perseus. Every schoolboy knows that. Your mirror is faulty, witch." He rattled his sword. "There are penalties for false magic, woman, and you know them."

"Obviously, Perseus exaggerated," Rapunzel smiled. "Most heroes do. Would not killing a Gorgon out of the mists of legend build your reputation enough?"

The prince looked at Rapunzel. She was fairer by day than by night. He skin gleamed like alabaster, her hair shone like polished ebony and the emeralds of her eyes pierced him to the core. He would have to write a sonnet, or, better, a roundelay.

"Lovely princess, may I do so in your peerless name?" She smiled again, her teeth perfect pearls behind ruby lips. A treasure beyond purchase, he decided, but one destined for his storehouses.

"Indeed you may."

"Then, lovely, priceless Rapunzel, I go forth to do battle. I shall return with the Gorgon's head, and you shall be my bride."

She unbound a lock of her hair, braided it and cut it. She tied the ends around his wrist and whispered spells over it. "This will guide you. Go quickly, fight safely and return to me."

He strode from the witches' tower, untethered his horse and turned his face to south¡K and Greece.

* * * * *

Medusa sat in the high seat of the watchtower. The boat she had spied two days before was closer now. It was not her usual supplies coming, for that boat was still three months away. The little one-man craft was indeed making straight for her island. It would be here by nightfall.

She descended and washed. Her robes from her time as a priestess of Athena were clean and she pinned them about her. She found a heavy linen kerchief and bound the snakes in it, to their hissing displeasure, before draping an opaque veil over both hair and face.

He strode into the temple, polished shield held before his face, bellowing loudly for the monster to come out and meet him. All was silent. He kept the shield before his eyes, scanning its polished surface for the slightest hint of motion.

He found her before the altar, seated on a high stool, weaving in the smoke of three braziers of incense. The veiled priestess looked like a ghost of the past, dressed in classical garments and heavily veiled.

"Greetings, O prince. I knew you were coming. What do you seek f roo>

"I seek the Gorgon from the mists of fable. I am here to slay her."

A laugh like silver bells. "I am nothing but an old priestess. I alone keep the old ways. I keep the old gods from disappearing completely. There is no monster here, your highness."

The prince lowered his shield at the same time she dropped her veil.

"No monster save you, who comes with armor and weapons to slay the unarmed and undying," she snarled as her eyes met his.

The stone started at his head, his hair going white and the expression of terror now frozen in stone. It washed down his arms, turning armor, weapon and shield alike. Then his legs and feet became solid stone and a new statue stood in the temple.

She laid a hand on his stone cheek. "I am too much in the habit of living after all these centuries to stop for the sake of your reputation, O prince." She looked him over and decided he did not fit the room.

She dragged the statue out to the courtyard and set it with the collection of the better ones. At least he had not panicked and thrown his arm before his eyes as so many did. She settled him under a tree, where he looked like a tired knight just taking a rest.

* * * * *

Rapunzel had followed the prince's journey in her mirror, stealing the time from her chores and studies, sneaking moments when Gothel was not watching. She saw the final confrontation, and the outcome.

She did not scream or weep. That was for lesser women. She was a witch.

Her plans were laid with all the cunning she had learned in her twenty-two years. She laid out the things she would need and, on the night when the moon slept between death and rebirth, she left.

Gothel woke, the tower oddly empty. She found a long rope of black hair, braided neatly and left coiled near the door. She knew at once what had happened, but smiled to herself. Rapunzel would be back. Where else could a witch go? She would soothe the wanderlust that burned in her and return home soon enough.

Secure in the knowledge she had ruined her student for mere mortal life, Gothel set about her day.

* * * * *

Rapunzel traded the fine silk gown for a horse and boy's clothing in town. She bought travel supplies and followed the map she had drawn from the mirror. The pale glowing dot of her progress moved south and east, toward the coast of Greece, with each passing day.

The roads were safe enough. She set wards about herself as she slept concealed in the heat of the day and in the dead of night. She was careful as she ate and traded, not revealing herself to strangers as fe ha woman.

In Greece, she bought a boat and set sail for the Gorgon's island. The seas were bright blue, and the sky faded blue above them. Her hands, once soft alabaster, were now brown and callused from weeks of riding and she handled the sail with a newfound strength.

On the fourth day, the small island came in sight. It filled the horizon by the fifth day. She saw the prince's boat, beached well above the tide, its sail furled. On the crest of the hill, she saw the temple.

Carefully, she made her way along the gravel path. She paused inside the door of the temple, took off her hat and cloak, and approached the altar reverently. She did not know which god held this ground sacred; respect cost her nothing, yet was the best coin for trading with deities.

She looked up and saw the priestess.

Medusa took her time readying herself for this second visitor. She waited, and watched the movement of the youth who came to her now. Obviously a woman, who preferred to be thought a boy. It would be safer. She would let the other think she was fooled.

"What do you seek, my son, here in the place of the old gods?"

"I come seeking my brother. He landed here a month or so ago."

"Yes, most ill-advised. He laid hands upon me. The gods do not share what is theirs."

"They slew him?"

"No. He is petrified like so many fools over the years. Would you like me to show him to you? He's quite safe, really, unless an arm gets knocked off."

Rapunzel hid her horror. "Please, mother, show him to me? To which god does this temple belong?" she asked as she rose to her feet.

"It is Poseidon's temple, but I am a priestess of Athena. I am the last who still believes."

"Thank you. I would not offend any of the gods."

"You are wise for one so young. Quite wise enough to know it is safer for a boy to travel than a woman. But a boy of your beauty would not be as safe as he might think."

Medusa led her visitor through halls of men and beasts all frozen into stone. Here a Roman legionnaire kept company with a Turk and there a philosopher held counsel with a Visigoth. A pair of Greeks played chess, the pieces eroding with the passing of centuries, their blind stone eyes never seeing it.

Rapunzel, used to the statues in Mother Gothel's garden, paid them no mind. Her stare was fixed on the statue beneath the tree, resting on his shield.

"He is dead then?" She went to the statue and traced the handsome face, then down his arm to where the bracelet of her hair rested around his wrist.

"No, merely petrified, child. However, the only way to get him back is through petition. Since the offense is so recent, I doubt any of the gods would be willing." ft="0"

"May I stay here, mother? Perhaps, if I devote myself to the gods, they will hear my petition."

"You may certainly stay, but I do not promise they will hear you." Medusa looked at the girl, her boy's clothes and cropped hair not hiding her beauty, but rather lending her a different sort. "Yes, I would be glad of the company, child. I am often lonely here."

She took Rapunzel's arm. "You must be weary after your journey. Let me show you the bathing pool and the bed."

Rapunzel bathed, ate some of the fruit the priestess offered, and then slept in the great green bed. She dreamed of snakes in prayer.

* * * * *

Medusa unveiled and spent the night meditating and praying. She wasn't sure to whom she addressed the prayers anymore. The Olympians manifested so seldom these days. She just sent the general prayer, knowing it was as sweet as the incense smoke that still rose. It would keep the gods alive a while longer. As long as they lived, she lived. The years were wearisome, but as she had told the prince, she was too much in the habit of living to let it go.

With dawn, she covered the snakes and veiled her face. It would not do to petrify her guest. She baked flatbread and woke the girl. Over breakfast, they talked, learning a bit more of each other. Medusa did not give her name.

"Mother," Rapunzel finally asked, "why are you always veiled, even at table?"

"One of my vows. Please do not try to see me, child. It is an offense for which many have been petrified."

Rapunzel nodded. She rose and cleared her dishes. "Show me the ways of the temple."

Medusa spent the morning showing her all the secrets she deemed good: how to sweep the floor as Hestia demanded; the writing of poetry to please Apollo; the libations to be poured out for Zeus and Hera; the springs to be kept clean for Poseidon; the flowers Hades preferred; the blood symbols Ares required; the myrtle to crown the statue of Aphrodite; a song on the lyre for Hermes; the small weavings to be offered to Hephaestus; and the silver deer of Diana to keep polished.

After a lunch of olives and cheese, Medusa announced she would sleep through the heat of the day. Rapunzel stopped her as she went to the bedchamber.

"Mother, you have taught me of the honors due to eleven of the Olympians. Why say you nothing of grey-eyed Athena?"

"She is my charge and mine alone, child. We will speak more of her later." Medusa drew the curtains about the bed.

Rapunzel walked the gardens, naming the things that were sacred to each of her new gods. She whispered prayers patterned after the ones she had learned in childhood, for it had behooved Gothel to make at least a pretense of churchgoing.

She walked in t f to eemhe cool shade of the temple garden, examining the statues, one by one. She wondered what sin the little girl in the Roman clothing had committed. The ages rolled out like a panoply, captured in stone. The wild barbarian, his beard in braids and his hair wild and spiked, waved his stone spear above his stone head, his mouth open in a shout he had never finished. The wise-looking scholar from the time of Charlemagne, his scroll still in his hand, kept silent company with a knight of less than a hundred years before.

Always, she returned to the Prince. She poured out the tale of leaving Gothel and of her travels into his stone ears. She told him of the coarse men in the inns, who cared not a whit whether she was a woman or a boy, but saw her as prey. She told him of nights of rain, days of hunger between towns, when the last of her food had been eaten and she would not reach a new inn for another day. She told him of stealing ripe peaches from trees and melons from fields, of being chased by a farmer's dogs.

The days of her stay in the temple melted into a week, and then another. Rapunzel kept the rites of the eleven Olympians. She never asked the name of her hostess. There was no need.

It did not matter. She had sent a handsome man, one who had come with promises for freedom and a normal life she could never have, to slay a monster. Now, she thought more on the sort of man who would attempt to kill a praying woman and the sort of woman who would send him to do it.Another week, and another. Rapunzel's prayers changed. She no longer implored the Olympians for the return of her prince, but rather for knowledge and wisdom and guidance to use them.

Medusa, for her part, watched her guest. She overheard the change in the whispered prayers and saw the diligence with which she attended the needs of the gods. The child was finally growing up.

At night, she meditated and watched the mirror, leaning more of Rapunzel's history. A clever girl, and a powerful one, indeed, but Gothel -- in her own need -- had kept her ignorant and naive, easy prey for any flattering man. She had taught the girl power and control, but never reality.

More days, more weeks, and summer melted into fall. The days grew shorter and the nights cooler, but frost never settled on the island in the warm sea. The trees continued bearing fruit and the nuts grew ripe.

Rapunzel spent the winter, with its long days of rain, listening to the old stories and learning the songs of the Olympians. She liked her teacher and no longer feared her. As Yule passed and the new year rolled in, she thought more on her feelings even as she went about her duties to the gods.

Lately, the prayers to Aphrodite had begun to resonate more and more with her. She meditated and prayed to the Cyprian much more than was the goddess's due. Medusa honored the old ways and February was a month devoted to extensive cleaning. As St. Valentine's Day, the old Roman Lupercalia, approached, she sent more and more prayers to Aphrodite.

On the saint's day, Rapunzel bathed more carefully than usual, and arranged her hair, which was growing long again. A crown of myrtle completed her dinner preparations. She made the food, the olives and cheese, the fish and flatbread. She added apples and pomegranates, limes, quinces and a bowl of roses, all sacred to Aphrodite.

Medusa joined her at sundown, veiled as always. She looked at the food and at her companion, noticing the extra care taken. She ate and they talked of the day, of the things planned for the morrow. Finally, she asked, "Why the myrtle?"

"It is sacred to Aphrodite."

Medusa laughed. "Child, I served the Cyprian for two thousand years before you were born. Think you I do not know my own faith, the one I taught you?"

"My lady, I am grateful for all you have taught me. But tonight," Rapunzel marveled at her own boldness, "I wish to learn more. Aphrodite hears me. She tells me this is right." She leaned across the table and kissed her hostess through the veil.

Medusa drew back, stunned by her first human touch in millennia. "Child, do you wish to die? You know what I am."

"I do not lift your veil, my lady. I will not try to see your face. But I do love you."

Medusa nodded slowly. "Bathe then in Aphrodite's pool, and come to my bed when Diana is at her highest."

Rapunzel looked at her. "You... are willing?"

The veiled lips grazed her forehead. "It has been long since I had a lover in my bed. You will be in no danger, my sweet Rapunzel. Go bathe. I have preparations of my own to make."

Rapunzel went, her head spinning. She had not expected it to be so easy. As she slipped into the perpetually warm water of the myrtle-surrounded pool, the lime slices and rose petals floating around her, she had a distressing thought. What if she would be the next statue added? She decided it was of no matter. She would love her lady.

She took her time, cleaning well and giving her lover time to make her own preparations. After she dried herself, she twisted another crown of the myrtle leaves, listening to the doves coo as they settled for the evening. She added a white rose from the bush beside the pool to her crown.

* * * * *

Medusa made her own preparations. She scented the bed with rose and myrrh. She bathed rapidly in her private bath, ensuring she would be acceptable to her lover. She bound her eyes with emerald silk and wrapped her snakes in a bag of the same. She filed her talons, rounding them until she would not scratch the girl.

She stretched herself upon the bed and waited. She was quite surprised to feel actual arousal as she anticipated Rapunzel. It had been centuries since she had lain in her bed, with a mortal, rather than underwater with Poseidon.

Rapunzel stood in the door, an emerald chiton pinned on one shoulder, the myrtle and rose crown in her growing black hair. She hesitated only a moment, and came to the great green bed where Medusa awaited her, her bare feet silent on the jasper floor.

"Beloved teacher, my lady of invisibility," Rapunze freenl whispered.

"Invisible?" Medusa asked, surprised. "Do you not see me, girl?"

"Aye, but never your whole face. When you hide your face, you hide yourself, beloved. I know, it is but for my safety." She kissed the green-tinged lips that remained outside of the coverings.

Medusa, long untouched so gently, grasped her around the waist and kissed her deeply, learning the recesses of Rapunzel's mouth with her forked tongue as she knew the grottos of the caves below her island. The girl tasted of lime and roses, smelled of the myrtle. Her skin was soft, warm and pliable, a delight after years of stone and the cold touch of the ocean god.

"Sweet Rapunzel. Child of my immortality, love of my long years. Know you anything of the ways of women?"

"No, Medusa." The name tasted sweet on her tongue. It was the first time she had used it and she had to say it again. "My Medusa," she whispered against the pale skin.

"Then I shall teach you, my little one." Medusa's hands were gentle on her face, drawing her back for another kiss, this as slow and sweet as the first. "Know you anything of men?"

"No, Medusa." She loved the taste of the name, of the Gorgon's lips. She loved the woman beside her, the emerald bedroom, the smell of the roses and myrtle.

Medusa kissed Rapunzel a third time, holding the girl pressed to her, warm flesh against her own. She pulled the chiton pin and let the cloth tumble to the floor. Rapunzel's body was fair and slim, her breasts small and high. Medusa ran a slow hand down her side and circled her waist, pulling her onto the bed.

* * * * *

Rapunzel went gracefully, stretching beside her lover. She gently pulled back the green silk sheet that covered Medusa's body. She wasn't sure what she had expected from listening to legends, a snake perhaps, or the head-snakes going all the way down. Instead, it was a woman's body, curved and soft, with full breasts whose nipples bore the slightest green tinge. The narrow waist flared to full hips. No nest of snakes hid in the vee of her legs, simply a triangle of dark curls.

"Beautiful Medusa," Rapunzel whispered, bold and hungry. She kissed the Gorgon again, then lowered her head to suckle at one of the greenish nipples. Medusa hissed, almost like her snakes, and stroked the girl's hair.

Rapunzel lingered at her breasts, kissing and stroking with a look of wonder on her face. Medusa lifted her face to kiss her again.

"You like those, sweet Rapunzel?" Medusa's voice had grown silky and sibilant, caressing each hissed sound.

"Yes, my beloved. Very much."

"Let me taste yours, sugar blossom." Her tongue slid over the girl's lips and face, moving down her throat. She flicked the forked tip out, snakelike, barely touchi f to to fung Rapunzel's nipple. Rapunzel giggled and she moved down to kiss it with her whole mouth, rolling it on her tongue and sucking at it.

Caught in desires she had no name for, wanting things she had no knowledge of, Rapunzel squirmed. "More, please, beloved."

"One mystery at a time, sweet child." Medusa lingered, tasting her fill of the small, high breasts, teasing them until the pale, soft, shell-pink nipples blushed red and stood up straight and hard. She sucked at them, listening to the myriad tiny noises coming from Rapunzel's throat: all the little gasps and moans and half-sobs and giggles.

She kept her touch light along the soft skin of the girl's body, tracing the gentle shape of it before dipping her tongue into the navel. Rapunzel giggled again.

She ran the forked tip over the sweet curve of her belly and flicked it along the edges of the triangle where her thighs joined her hips.

Rapunzel was breathing hard, barely able to concentrate. She spread her thighs as Medusa pressed her legs apart and drew a sharp breath as the forked tongue stroked along the sensitive skin inside her thighs. She wanted that touch higher.

Medusa was careful with her fingers, making sure not scratch with her talons. She stroked the tender skin of the inner thigh before moving to spread Rapunzel open with one very gentle hand. She pressed her mouth to the greedy little lips that swelled with blood, growing dark and hot and wet under her kiss.

She slowly flicked her tongue over the whole of the cleft, tasting the different flavors, feeling all the textures. She suckled first at one labia, then the other, before parting them entirely and sliding her tongue along one side to flicker very fast over the clitoris.

Rapunzel let out a loud gasp of surprise and arousal, before twining her fingers into the silken wrap Medusa had put over her snakes. She could feel them writhe beneath her fingers and let them wind themselves around her hands. She wanted more. She couldn't stand any more. She was dying and being reborn at the same time. As all of the world exploded behind her eyes, she screamed her pleasure. She lay panting for three breaths before becoming aware that Medusa had not stopped.

* * * * *

Medusa felt the first orgasm, smiled and kept going. She brought her fingers up, the talons cut short and smoothed, and slipped one inside. She never stopped licking, making sure she stroked her tongue over all of the soft, wet skin. She moved her finger gently, concentrating more on her mouth's motions.

Rapunzel shuddered under the delicious sensations the slow forked tongue inspired in her. She stroked the snakes through the silk, little wordless cries coming from her as Medusa continued loving her. After a third and a fourth orgasm, she pushed her lover away, begging "No more, please."

Medusa withdrew from Rapunzel's body, kissing and licking her way back to her side. She kissed the girl deeply, letting her taste her own flavor. "Is all well, my sweet?"

"It's amazing," Rapunzel sighed. "I thought I would die of pleasure, but your kisses revived me every time." She lay quietly for a time, the water reflections playing on her face, making unfelt waves in the kelp-colored bed. Making love here was like being underwater. She felt slow and weightless, as she had when swimming. She wished Medusa could see her smile.

Instead, she spoke softly, letting her voice carry her pleasure, and used her fingertips to trace the warm skin of her beloved. "I had never imagined it so. Gothel always spoke of the flesh as something to be ignored, as a mere container for the true person."

Medusa smiled, turning her blindfolded face to the smile she could hear. She had seen the girl smile many times before and could imagine it now, the grave and beautiful face lighting up, the green eyes dancing like sparkles on the ocean waves. She pictured the lips that kissed her so fearlessly parting and curving up.

She ran a hand¡ªthe talons already starting to curve back out where she had filed them¡ªover Rapunzel's cheek and up into the night-black hair. "My sweet child, so much of the world is infested with the heresies of Plato, dressed in the letters of your churchmen. We who keep to the gods know better. There is only the self, which is both the person and the body as you said."

"I would know my body better, beloved."

Medusa stroked along her face to lift her chin into a kiss. "I am your devoted teacher in all respects, my sweet Rapunzel."

"You teach me of life," Rapunzel said, kissing her lips. "You teach me of the old gods." She punctuated this with a kiss on Medusa's blindfold. "You teach me of power." She kissed Medusa's throat. "You teach me of love." Her hands were doing their own kissing, feather-light touches that barely grazed the Gorgon's skin.

"Is there any difference between those things, child?" The words blew soft across her shoulder, kisses following them.

"None at all. For life and love create power from which the gods are born." She gave another long, deep kiss. "What comes after all this, beloved?" Rapunzel untied the silken scarf that held Athena's snakes. They looked as drowsy as Medusa herself. She ran one finger along the gold-edged scales of the nearest, liking the way it felt. It coiled sinuously and flicked a tongue at her.

"They bite," Medusa said, half-asleep.

"They won't bite me," Rapunzel said, sure of herself. She made the small hand sign for Controlling Colubridae and the snake slithered against her hand and licked her fingers. "Beloved, why do you hide them? They are beautiful." She stroked the dry skin of the snake.

"I hide them for I have a long quarrel with their mistress, Athena."

"Perhaps you should resolve it?" Rapunzel leaned over and kissed her. Like a kitten, she licked over Medusa's whole face, seeking out the last traces of her own juices. She gave another kiss, slow and p fen,robing, then smiled as she began her own exploration.

She tasted her beloved's mouth and sampled the hollow of her throat before trailing her tongue along Medusa's collarbones and breasts. The Gorgon's skin was smooth and cool, like the snakes, but was not scaly like them.

As Rapunzel nuzzled Medusa's breasts, she ran her hands in long, light strokes down her lover's body, feeling the cool smoothness of her skin, the muscles beneath. She pressed Medusa's legs open and ran an urgent hand along her cleft and up inside her. She had to know if it felt as good to do the touching as it did to be touched.

It did. Even here, Medusa was cooler and slick. She felt the soft skin of the folds, then the rings of muscle inside. She left off her kissing and moved down to look. She needed the sight.

This was the cave that the priests called the mouth of Hell. This was the origin of the whole world. She understood the shape of the bedchamber now. She understood many mysteries. She worshiped at the true altar of Venus with a kiss.

One became two. Drunk on the kisses from the jade lips, now flushing emerald, Rapunzel laughed and added two fingers back to her feast. Above her she heard the snakes shifting and Medusa's low laughter.

"Oh dear Rapunzel. My own sweet." The words gave way to short gasps then a long low cry.

"Is all well, beloved?" Rapunzel rose from her pleasure, worried.

"Again, my love." Medusa's smile reassured her. "All is very well."

Rapunzel, reassured, smiled and continued the kisses until Medusa shuddered under her again. She added a third finger, only to draw them out and use her tongue briefly before replacing them.

She would have stayed at her devotions for much longer, but Medusa drew her away, pulling her up for a kiss. The Gorgon sucked her fingers, cleaning them of all the collected dew.

"Sleep now, sweet Rapunzel, and dream of the kisses. We shall share many more in all the days to come."

"My own beloved Medusa," Rapunzel whispered, settling into her shoulder. Medusa wrapped an arm around her, holding her near.

They slept, the silken hangings stirring like the green waters of the Aegean. Even the snakes were quiet, almost drowsy, stretching at length instead of writhing and coiling. Rapunzel cast off the arm to curl into a ball of her own. Medusa curled around her in sleep.

The next morning, Medusa woke to the scent of tea. Rapunzel came in and sat on the edge of the bed and offered a mug after bending in to claim a kiss.

"Breakfast is waiting, my love.”

"You're up early." Medusa noticed the sun was barely above the horizon.

"And full of excitable humors," Rapunzel added, cheerily. "I rose, washed, made obeisance to the Olympians, cooked and came to find you still a slug-a-bed." She f

Medusa smiled. "Pity on your old teacher's lazy bones, child. When you have four millennia of stiffness from sleep, you, too, will lie abed after the sun is up."

Rapunzel's laugh was merry in a place that had heard no laughter in many years. Medusa sat the teacup aside and pulled her close for a kiss.

"Child of my aged stone heart," she whispered. "Listen. Can you hear it? It hisses your name. 'Rapunzel. Rapunzzzzzzel. Come home and let your hair down over your lover.' It lulled me to sleep many nights with that hiss and keeps me awake by day."

"Beloved monster, I am home." Rapunzel shook her head, the cropped black hair just starting to brush her shoulders after many months. "When I was with Gothel, I had hair to my ankles. I was pleased to be rid of its weight. Now, I wish I had it again, so I could drape you in it."

Medusa kissed her again. "Breakfast awaits us."

"Let it. The fruit will not spoil nor the bread turn blue in these few minutes time." She pressed the Gorgon back onto the bed for many more kisses and touches, and their sighs filled the dawn.

Life continued as it had, for the most part. There were duties to be made to the gods, long hours of prayers and study. Rapunzel tended the garden and the statues, no longer paying so much attention to the prince. Spring came in and she roamed the island, bringing back herbs that Gothel had taught her how to find and transplanting them into Medusa's garden.

The herbs and flowers flourished. She had pruned back the fruit trees in the winter and they bore copiously, even the tiny apricots that Medusa had despaired of long ago. They ate well, made the daily sacrifices of all the lushly blooming plants and loved often. Medusa no longer walked the beaches in the evening and called for Poseidon.

Spring was melting into summer by mid-May. Rapunzel's words inspired Medusa, and she no longer neglected the Prudent One. All the Olympians had their due and a mild prosperity lay on the island. Athena's feast day drew around and Medusa made a decision.

"Rapunzel, bathe tonight and come with me."

Into the sacred grove of grey-eyed Athena, wise warrior virgin, Medusa led her lover. She went through the daily ritual, slowly, carefully, before beginning the Sacred Day ritual.

Rapunzel knelt, watching, as libations of oil and wine were poured out. A small fire of olive branches burned on the altar and, into it, Medusa cast the first new olives of the season and began the hymn to Athena.

"Athena, hear me, Aegis-bearing maid,

Thou daughter of the Mighty Father, aid

In every bold endeavor, standing by,

Companion on whose guidance I rely.

Thou knowest I've fulfilled my every f>Compa vow,

So please, I pray, be friendly to me now,

And hold thy hand above my works and give

Success on this and all the days I live."

Rapunzel listened, trying to impress it into memory. She knew she would do service to the Wise One soon enough. She heard a soft hoot and a small owl landed on the branch above the altar.

Medusa smiled. "Too long, Wise Maid, have I been absent your presence. Too long have I harbored anger against you for your chastisement. Too many centuries have I warred with you in my heart. You are mighty, Athena, and no mortal may conquer you, nor yet the Gorgon whom you have made immortal. Hear me now as I humble myself before you, bringing with me Rapunzel who would know your ways."

Rapunzel came forward to the altar, the owl a welcoming sign. She knelt before it and chanted, in well-rehearsed ancient Greek, the Thirty-First Orphic Hymn.

"Mother of arts, imperious; understood,

Rage to the wicked, wisdom to the good:

Female and male, the arts of war are thine,

Fanatic, much-form'd dragoness, divine:

O'er the Phlegrean giants rous'd to ire,

Thy coursers driving, with destruction dire.

Sprung from the head of Jove, of splendid mien,

Purger of evils, all-victorious queen.

Hear me, O Goddess, when to thee I pray,

With supplicating voice both night and day,

And in my latest hour, peace and health,

Propitious times, and necessary wealth,

And, ever present, be thy vot'ries aid,

O, much implor'd, art's parent, blue-eyed maid."

She cast her olives upon the fire and watched as the smoke ascended. They remained kneeling as the fire burnt itself out, then rose and left Athena's shrine.

"Do not expect an immediate answer, little one. The gods are slow these days, sluggish with age and lack of worshipers. But you have been presented and she has not rejected you. We will make the daily rituals together from this day on."

Rapunzel nodded. It had been a disappointment. She wasn't sure what she had expected. Certainly not the goddess coming down in fully armored glory and personally blessing her and lifting Medusa's curse; although, in her heart of hearts, that was her secret prayer. Even a change of color in the flames would have been nice. Just a little something to let them know they had fsing her anot gone unheard. The owl had helped.

Life went on. Summer came to the island. Rapunzel made her duties to the gods and sweet love to Medusa. She learned to spin and weave well, arts she had previously thought beneath her as a witch, tasks suited for ordinary women. She tended her gardens faithfully. She learned more poetry and the lyre. Medusa taught her to read the ancient Greek scrolls and to speak the language without rote memorization. They drew honey from the hives and mingled it with spices and lemons to make mead, pouring out the libations of it before Dionysus and Hestia. She tended the statues, keeping them free of birds' nests. She found less time to spend with her petrified prince.

They led a pleasant life. As the year turned on, summer fading into fall, Athena's great feast day came around again. Again, there were hymns in the shrine and offerings. Again, not so much as a flicker of green or blue in the flames to indicated they were heard.

Two months later, Medusa walked the beach alone, calling to Poseidon. Rapunzel watched, from high on the hill. Although Medusa had warned her before they went, she was horrified to see the great god rise from the depths, a great wave in his wake, and overwhelm her lover, sweeping her off the beach. She ran down the hill, but not even Medusa's footprints were left.

She went back to the temple, immuring herself in the bedroom, wondering if the underwater caves where her Medusa now lay with the sea god were much the same as the room. She fell asleep waiting.

At dawn, Medusa was seated on the edge of the bed, holding a cup of tea for her.

"Good morning, my dear one."

"My love? Are you well? I saw you swept away." Rapunzel shuddered. "All my dreams were of the sea, of drowning, of water I could not breathe engulfing me."

Medusa set the tea aside and drew Rapunzel into her arms. "Darling child, I am sorry you saw that. I did not imagine it would affect you so. Poseidon accepted my offerings for another year, and we shall have water and fish."

Rapunzel kissed her then, yielding and sweet, craving reassurance and receiving it in the coolness of Medusa's mouth and the slow dance of her tongue. They parted and Rapunzel picked up her tea, to trail her beloved in to breakfast. There was much to be done, and even here, on an island in the sea in the center of the world, the days of December were short.

Winter did not truly come to the island. There were chill rains, but none of the frost and snow Rapunzel associated with winter from her northern youth. They stayed in the living quarters of the temple, working near the small fire in the brazier and making love often under the green covers of the large bed.

February came around, bringing with it Aphrodite's day. They celebrated by making love in the shrine and the myrtle trees scattered their fragrant leaves upon the women. There was much to do in the spring and summer. The transplants were bearing well and the fruit trees blossomed.

* * * * *

The years passed, each one like the next, the slow turning of seasons, each with its holy days and festivals. In time, Medusa noticed something about her lover: Rapunzel was not aging. She should have been near thirty, fairly old for her people, but she looked no different than the pretty youth who had arrived a decade before. Medusa made thanks offerings to all the Olympians.

She went last to Athena. Ten years of service did not atone for several millennia of neglect. For the first time, she begged the curse be lifted from her, that she might have her beloved. There was no answer. She had truly expected none.

Rapunzel ventured to the shrine alone on the night of May that was Athena's for evening rites. Her hair fell to her knees again, uncut during her life on the island. On the altar, glimmering in the fading light was a sliver of something she had never seen. It looked rather like the flesh around a pomegranate seed but it was too large. She touched it gingerly. It was soft and red.

Inspired by something, Athena herself perhaps, she sniffed it. It was sweet to smell and she touched it to her lips. It tasted like nothing she had ever eaten, sweet and bitter, sharp and smooth. She had barely touched her tongue-tip to it before she found herself swallowing it.

She shuddered, heat and then cold wracking her. Medusa arrived a moment later, in time to see her tumble senseless to the floor of the shrine.

"Rapunzel, child?" She dropped to her knees and cradled her lover. She turned her blindfolded eyes to the altar and the watchful owl behind it. "What have you done?" she cried at the bird. "Was cursing me not enough, O Athena? Must you take my beloved as well?" Grains of sand trickled from under the blindfold, her deadly eyes turning even her tears to stone.

Rapunzel stirred in her arms, the sharp spicules powdering her face awakening her lover. "Medusa? My love."

"What was it, sweet? Why did you fall?"

"I ate. It was on the altar, gleaming red like a pomegranate, like jelled plums. Oh, sweet and bitter and hot and cold, all at the same time."

"Ambrosia." Medusa knew the food of the gods. She remembered the night Athena had forced a sliver into her mouth before cursing her. "You are immortal now. And I shall never lose you."

She helped Rapunzel to her feet and turned to the altar again, prostrating herself before it. "O wise and glorious Athena, Aegis bearer, mother of arts, the least of your servants, a wayward, ungrateful child, bows before you in thanksgiving for this great gift."

Rapunzel knelt and offered her own prayer. She would never die now, never grow old. She would be with her lover forever. She rose silently and slipped away quietly, returning with pomegranates and olives, which she laid on the altar.

Rapunzel took up her cithara and sang a hymn she composed herself, one she had planned to offer this night but which now seemed to resonate more than when she had written it. She finished and went into the Homeric hymn and then the Orphic. Medusa never rose, never stopped her prayers. The devotions to Athena came fir fintst in the days after that. All the Olympians had their due, but Medusa had reconciled with her beloved Athena, her only grief that she had been gone so very long.

The years turned, summer into fall and winter and back to spring. They worshiped and tended, loved and studied, and in all ways grew wiser together than they had been apart.

Always, there were kisses of the emerald lips and the coral ones. Nights of laughter, wild romps in the sea, slow lovemaking in the glades and on certain dates in the shrines themselves all had their place and time, all brought joy and comfort to the Gorgon and her lady.

Rapunzel's powers grew with each passing year, the knowledge of the old gods feeding the knowledge Mother Gothel, now surely long dead, had given her. They weighed upon her, compelling her to action.

Her own prayers to Athena took on a new cast now, a new urgency. She had knowledge and wisdom, surely it was not right for her to hide here, keeping it away from the world. The answer came back clearly that it was time for her to go.

Rapunzel told Medusa all this over their dinner that night. She could not see her lover's face for the habitual veil.

"I knew this day would come, child." The voice held no surprise, no anger. "You are still young. The world lies awaiting all your gifts. I am old. So very old now. Go forth and return when you are ready. And bring me books upon your return." She kissed Rapunzel through the veil, wet silk pressed into both their mouths.

* * * * *

The preparations took several days, until at last, clad in breeches and a jerkin, Rapunzel braided her ankle-length hair. "Medusa, my beloved monster, I would travel as a boy again. Cut my hair, my love, and keep it to draw me back to you." She sat at her lover's feet and handed up the knife.

With a rueful sigh, Medusa cut the heavy rope of night-black hair. She evened up the ends, and smiled at the lovely youth that stood before her. "Go with my blessing and those of the Olympian gods." She kissed her lover and went to her sea-green chamber.

On impulse, Rapunzel went to where the statue of her prince stood beneath the tree. "I go. I shall return. Perhaps, I shall find the great deeds you could not." His nose was beginning to chip under the weather and moss had grown over his legs.

The wind blew fair and fine and it blew her hither and yon. In every place, she shared her knowledge. The time was right. The witch madness of her time was over and science was all the rage. It had swept out of the east, through Italy and permeated all the continent.

Her herbs and medicines were eagerly taken up by doctors and midwives alike. She taught all who would hear the old poetry, the music of ancient Greece, of Homer and Sappho.

No longer was it merely monks who wrote. She taught the songs of love to noblewomen and their scribes, preserving what she had learned with her lover. All marveled at the knowledge of the stripling, the beautif fheiul beardless boy. She traveled the countries, much more confident now than she had been as a young witch following her beloved prince into unknown peril.

At last, she came to the tower of Gothel. She knew it had been a century or more. It was tumbled down, the stones pulled apart by the blackthorns that Gothel had trusted for protection.

She sought the garden. Most had gone wild and jumbled about. She found a cluster of her namesake, rampion, and ate. She twined a crown of myrtle and olives and sang to Aphrodite and Athena.

It was time to return home. She knew her way this time and held her course.

* * * * *

Medusa no longer watched from the top of the hill each morning and night as she had in the first five years. She made her duties to the Olympians, tended the garden and ate alone. She called Poseidon to her on his feast day but no more often. She would not replace her beloved with another.

She was in the garden, fixing a new gnomon on the sundial, when a sail caught her eye. It was not the time of the supply boat. She fetched the spyglass that the last adventurer had carried. Behind the sail, singing herself up a wind, sat her own Rapunzel, wind blowing through night-black hair grown long again. She continued working. The little boat was many hours away and there was much to be done.

As it drew near, Medusa hurried to the temple and bathed. She dressed and veiled herself before flying to the beach. Rapunzel tacked into the cove and beached her craft, leaping lightly over the gunwales, her breeches better suited to running than Medusa's chiton.

They flung themselves into each other's arms with many kisses and tears of joy. When they caught their breath, Medusa held her lover at arm’s length and laughed.

"That country girl has witched my wishes, all dressed up in her country clothes and she hasn't got the sense to hitch her rags above her ankles!" she cried.

Rapunzel laughed. "Sappho. You did miss me. Oh my love, I have stories and songs and much to tell you." She took out five crates from the small boat. "Your books, one for each month I was away, one for each of Athena's days I missed and one for each of Aphrodite's. Seventy-five, in all, my love. Enough to keep even you reading until the supply ship comes."

Medusa lifted her veil, keeping her eyes covered, to kiss her without the intervening silk. "Let's take these to the temple. You shall have a bath after your long journey, sweet. And I will make dinner."

Rapunzel smiled. "It's very good to be home, beloved. I have missed you terribly. The world is changing, rapidly, beyond this island."

"It always does, child. I have seen Alexander conquer the world and die. Rome conquered it and fell to the Christians and barbarians. I have seen the Turks march and the Huns and the Magyars. It has always changed. It always will. We alone will not."

Rapunzel set fo Att;Sappho the crate of books on the floor of the temple's library. "But my wanderings have changed me. The books shall change you. We too change, only more slowly."

She sank into the warm waters of the bath, listening as Medusa prepared the meal. It was good to be home once again. She had missed the simple bread and cheese and olives. She had missed her lover's hissing laughter.

They made their evening devotions to the Olympians, pausing long in each shrine so Rapunzel could thank each for the blessings they had conferred during her expedition. To Athena and Hermes, she made special obeisance and small sacrifices.

They lay together on the great green bed in the undersea bedchamber. Medusa had unveiled herself, her blindfold firmly in place. They made love slowly, almost shyly, reacquainting themselves after their long parting. The kisses were long and deep, their hands gentle yet greedy, grasping as if unable to get enough of the other's skin and flesh.

They both wept at the end and lay in each other's arms. Rapunzel ventured to stroke the serpents again as she kissed her lover. "I will go forth again," she whispered, "but not for many years. The knowledge of the old gods will not be lost now, my love."

Medusa said nothing, but kissed her again before sleep took them both.

The idea came from Skinny White Chick's song “Mummy Medusa,” which is where Medusa and Rapunzel fall for the same man. She said if she wrote it, they'd probably fall for each other. So I took the idea and ran with it and Sooj loves it. For her work, go to http://www.skinnywhitechick.com

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