Jason Frost - The cutthroat

She chuckled and began humming "Hail to the Chief."

"Jezz, how romantic," he said.

She didn't have to see him to know he was smiling. She wriggled her buttocks and back closer, pressing herself flush against his solid body.

Eric let his hand brush lightly over her breast, swirling lazy circles like a child doodling in the sand. Feeling the nipples grow longer, harder. He thought about the crops growing upstairs, preferred the ones they were raising right here. He cupped her breast in his rough hand and massaged the nipple between thumb and forefinger, pinching harder and harder until he feared he might be hurting her, knowing he wasn't. Her breathing was shallow now, a husky panting.

She reached behind her, groped for his penis, finally snagging it with a firm grasp. She squeezed and he could feel her callouses and blisters pricking his tender skin. It made him harder, hungrier. Still, he was cautious.

"I'm wounded, Eric, not dead," she said. "We can do the slow gentle bit later. Right now, I just want to get laid."

He smiled, dipped his head over her shoulder to kiss her. Their eyes were open, staring deep into each other's as their tongues bumped like playful dolphins. The orange light sizzled along Eric's scar and she squeezed him harder, using her other hand to crush his hand tighter over her breast.

"God, Eric, it's been so long."

He understood. The mechanics of sex were much different in this California than they had been before. No more birth-control pills. Prophylactics were rare anymore. Those that cared, reverted to the rhythm method, the only one that didn't require any devices. Big Bill Tender-wolf had once told him about using stoneseed roots to suppress the estrous cycle, but Big Bill had preferred a vasectomy. Eric could have had a vasectomy done at University Camp when they were being encouraged, but he'd seen no need to since Annie was no longer able to give birth after Timmy. Now he was glad he hadn't. What if anything should happen to Timmy? Would he ever want to start over again with another family? With Tracy?

It made him guilty to even think such thoughts. As long as Timmy was alive, that was all that mattered.

He skated his hand over her buttocks, nestling between her legs into her soft pubic hairs. They were matted, wet and sticky, and he calculated how long since they'd last made love. Two weeks, three. They'd run out of rubbers, the little boxes of Trojans they'd carried in their backpack along with other necessities of life. He hadn't used one since and that made him feel like a high school student, fumbly and sweaty. When they'd run out, Tracy had just passed her menstrual cycle. She was within days of her period; he could relax.

Tracy lifted her leg slightly, guiding his engorged penis to her. The head bumped, then skidded along the slippery path, disappearing.

Their movements were smooth, less energetic than usual in deference to Tracy's wound. But there was something almost more passionate about this, a sense of ritual that touched both of them. He could feel the filmy sweat bristling over her skin as they rocked together. Her eyelids fluttered as usual, her mouth wide open and sucking air. Morbidly it reminded him of when she was drowning earlier. Then all the air rushed out of her lungs and she clenched her teeth. He felt her vaginal muscles rippling like a strong tide along his penis. He hurried a few more strokes, tensed his buttocks, and gushed bubbling lava into her.

They hugged without words for a while. He watched her eyes close, her face relax into sleep. Her lips puffed loosely. Watching her in the dark, he realized something he'd avoided accepting for too long. "I love you," he whispered.

She opened her eyes and turned to face him. "Gotcha." She smiled.

He smiled back, pulled a ragged blanket over them.

Book Three:

Let me have the fire. The first thing is to purify the place.

– Homer

"How's the hip?"

Tracy looked up from The Argo's railing where she'd been leaning, watching the water foam and boil against the slick hull. "Hi, Blackjack."

"Hi yourself. Getting plenty of rest?"

"Too much. I'm antsy."

He smiled. "Good sign. Just don't try to overdo it."

"Considering where we're going and what we're going to do when we get there, that's kinda dumb advice, wouldn't you say?"

He laughed, his mouth wide and his dark eyes twinkling. "Yeah, I guess so. Where's your partner in crime?"

"Eric? He's sitting over there, on the other side of that sail. See him?"

Blackjack cupped his hands around his eves like binoculars, shading them from the brisk wind and glare of the sun. "Right. What's he doing?"

"Thinking, I guess."

"He's a tough man," Blackjack said, admiration tinting the words.

"He's a good man," Tracy corrected. "There's a difference."

"Well, let's go interrupt his meditation and discuss the dull business of kidnapping."

Tracy limped across the deck using the special cane Eric had fashioned for her out of the remains of that Piper Cub. It clomped on the deck of the ship as she walked after Blackjack, and it made her feel a little like Captain Ahab pacing with his peg leg, raking the ocean for Moby Dick. Her hip still alternated between dull throb and sharp ache, but both seemed to be lessening significantly. She could even run now. More painful was the knowledge that she would walk with this slight limp for the rest of her life. What disturbed her the most wasn't so much the fact of the limp, but that it was a flaw that she could never improve. It wasn't like dry hair or oily skin or chubby thighs or bad posture. All of them defects that had plagued her at one time in her adolescence, all of which she'd overcome. The only thing that had helped her live with it so far was Eric's support. He helped her without pampering her. Didn't give her the chance to feel sorry for herself. Sometimes he even called her Peggy, short for peg leg. Others on board thought him cruel, but it made her laugh.

"How do you like our colors, Ravensmith?" Blackjack asked.

Eric was sitting cross-legged on the deck, wrapping something around his wrist. He glanced up at the flag being hoisted up. Skull and crossbones. "Catchy."

"Great, huh? I bought it at Liar's Cove. Somebody had taken it from Disneyland."

"What's that, Eric?" Tracy asked, pointing at his wrist.

He quickly unwrapped the leather thongs attached to a small leather patch and held it up. "A slingshot. I stripped the leather from one of those executive chairs back at the farm settlement." He started rewrapping it around his wrist, knotting the end with one hand and his teeth. When he was finished it looked like a crude leather watchband. "This way even if they take my bow, I'll still have something."

"Nice," Blackjack approved. "That's just the kind of soldier's thinking we hired you for."

Eric looked up at him. "I heard you were a soldier too. In 'Nam."

"Nope," Blackjack shook his head vigorously. "I was there, but never any kind of a soldier. I was a CO."

"A CO.?" Tracy asked.

"Conscientious objector. It wasn't a dodge, either. I really was morally opposed to any kind of violence. I'd had enough as the only black kid in a fancy white neighborhood in Philly. Only my draft board didn't see it that way. It didn't compute that a nigger wouldn't take to fighting like he would to dancing. So, like magic I was transformed from a promising basketball player to a medic."

"What happened to that conscientious objector?" Eric asked, looking up at the skull-and-crossbones flag flapping overhead.

Blackjack laughed bitterly. "The kid's grown up."

"Has he?" Eric stood up, stared across the bow of the ship at the wedge of land on the horizon. "That it?"