Scott Cleveland - Pale Boundaries

“It’s beautiful,” Virene breathed.

He held it out to her. “Accept it as a token of my eternal devotion.”

“I love you, Terson,” she smiled.

Any lingering doubts about their decision evaporated then and there.

The sun sank bloodily into a cloudbank on the horizon while they put out the fire and gathered their things. An enormous moon took over, casting its pale, cold light through the trees. Terson shouldered the backpack and turned to the forest. The reassuring light of the moon stopped dead at the tree line, making him wish that they’d packed up a little faster. There’s nothing on the island bigger than your forearm, he assured himself, but nineteen years of conditioning were hard to overcome.

Terson gripped his rifle and stepped into the darkness. Humidity clung to the tree line like a damp shroud; goosebumps raised as the forest closed around them. His eyes flicked, scanning the shadows. A drop of condensation splattered down his right arm—he started to bolt, held fast, spine buzzing with cold terror.

Virene walked on, oblivious to the battle waging inside him. Terson forced his attention away from the jungle, concentrating on the woman walking beside him, the future they were making and the family they would have one day. The cadence of his heart and breath slowed again; he was okay.

But later that night, he saw Jack Tham die again.

Chinche wings whined in the jungle around them. Jack reached inside his pocket for a pipe and tobacco. The whine grew more intense, sharper, like a fly deep in his ear. Terson rapped himself on the side of the head with the heel of his hand, trying to knock it out .

“What’s wrong, pal, need a hit?” Jack held the pipe out to him, wisps of mildly narcotic smoke swirling around his hand.

The jungle rustled and thrashed, each stem and branch moving of its own volition. A huge leaf fell. It melted and stretched, gained mass, solidified into a chinche. Terson yelled; no sound issued from his throat. He struggled to raise his bushgun, but the harder he tried, the slower it moved. The jungle collapsed, flowing toward them, a living wave of chinche. They brought Jack down from behind with sheer numbers, hacking, stabbing with knives of cured razor grass. Jack’s fingers dug furrows in the dirt and he looked up at Terson with an agonized, accusing expression.

The chinche began to feed.

Terson ran, Jack’s screams echoing behind him in the dark. He felt the chinche leap on him, felt them pummel his body, felt the blood on his skin. The ground went liquid, climbed up his legs, dragged at his feet until he couldn’t run anymore. Blood gushed across his eyes, ran from his chin.

“Terson!” A blinding flash of light ripped at the darkness, shocking his eyes, turning the blood to water.

He stood up to his waist in the lagoon. Virene stood next to him, brushing aside the lock of hair channeling water into his face. Terson pulled her into a fierce embrace and buried his face in her hair, letting her warmth melt the twisted knot of ice in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t realize how badly he’d been shaking until he stopped.

“Honey, I need to breathe,” Virene said. Her voice barely overcame the constant rumble of thunder. Terson let her go with a pang of guilt. She gave him a squeeze and drew his arms about her again. Lightning flickered in the clouds. “The way you ran out of there, a girl would get the idea you didn’t like sleeping with her,” Virene said.

“What do you mean?” Terson stammered.

Virene put her hand over his mouth. “I’m teasing, Terson.”

Terson felt a twinge of annoyance that must have shown on his face, because she laughed and leaned away from him, stretching her arms over her head. Rain spattered her upturned face and shoulders, cascaded over her taut breasts.

“Are you trying to seduce me?” he asked.

“Yes,” Virene giggled. He let go of her. She went all the way under and came up sputtering. “Wait until Mother finds out her son-in-law would let her daughter drown for a cheap thrill.”

“I was hoping you’d need resuscitation.”

Virene snaked her arms under his and began to kiss his neck. She had never asked about the dreams, even when they’d been a nightly plague. The worst ones taught him to trust her, when she held him and cried with him without knowing why, and what passed between them never found its way to her friends. He didn’t have anyone who understood. Having someone who cared was enough.

He kissed her shoulders slowly, cupped her face in his hands and met her lips with his own. Lightening split the sky so close the ground jumped. Virene grasped his wrist. “Wait, wait,” she gasped. “If we don’t drown out here, we’ll get electrocuted.”

Inside the tent their skin still tingled from the rain’s battering. Terson stroked her cheek with the back of his finger, felt the edges of her mouth curve upward. She kissed his knuckles, then his wrist, then took his face in her hands and drew him down to her. He’d never believed he could feel what he felt for her, could still hardly believe that it was his touch she wanted, his touch that made her shiver.

They held each other for a long time, kissing tenderly. Virene rubbed the backs of his legs with her feet, nuzzled her face in his neck and shoulder to inhale his musky male scent. His hands slid under her shoulders and cradled her head. It was times like this she felt closest to him, when they managed to put passion aside for a while and really experience intimacy. “I wish I could hold your whole body inside me,” she murmured in his ear.

“I do love you, Vi,” he whispered.

Her body was softer, silkier than anything he’d ever felt. He buried his face in the warmth of her flesh, flicking his tongue against her skin, sucking up the beads of water clinging to her body. His head buzzed, drunk with her. She kneaded his back, felt the power in his muscles.

They were one, bodies and souls moving toward a single purpose. Her desire to possess him matched his desire to possess her; she accepted that part of him that needed to be accepted and he filled that part of her that needed to be filled. Virene’s breath came in gasps and a tingling ache built in her loins. Terson moved against her slowly and deeply, her head swimming with the pressure of his thrusts. Her desire hovered on the edge of fulfillment and she pushed against him desperately, crying out as the pull in her loins built. He raised his head and called her name as the climactic shock raced through his body.

The storm outside drowned out their exclamations.

Noise was a constant companion to those who lived and worked at God’s Saucer. During the rare moments when the supersonic boom of starships and shuttles died away and the distant howl of engine test cells faded the air gave out a long moan as if it had exhausted its ability to meet the demands placed on it by human activity.

It was during one of these lulls that Cormack MacLeod heard dogs baying amid the scrapped hulks of starships and aircraft behind him. He quickened his pace toward the edge of the boneyard, skinny frame bent beneath a backpack full of stolen property.

It had taken longer than expected to pry the instruments and circuit modules out of the hulk he’d scouted days before, long enough that the effects of the drugged meat he’d tossed over the wall had worn off. It might have been wiser to abandon his burden, but MacLeod decided that he’d be damned if he let a pack of filthy animals rob him of what he’d gone to so much trouble to steal.

He reached the wall as the pack emerged into the open less than fifty meters behind him. The baying fell silent abruptly as the animals spied him and broke into a full sprint. MacLeod shrugged out of the straps and spun once, twice, three times. He let go, sending the backpack arcing over the top of the three-meter wall.