Dry, No Lube Ch. 04a: Desperado

Pixy felt her face get all warm and buzzy. "I'm not impressed by your presumption, Mr Jeyne," she lied. She found she needed to clear her throat, then glanced around to ensure nobody was eavesdropping. Not that it mattered; the whole ship would know who the bedwarmers were by tomorrow morning. That was the way these things worked. "You know where my quarters are?"

"I'll find out, ma'am."

"Will you? Fine. If you do, you may come by later. I'll give you my answer then." She made the words sound carefree, even offhand. "Nice meeting you, Mr Jeyne."

"Ma'am." He drew himself to attention smartly enough, and as Pixy spun on her heel and strode away, she knew she'd gone scarlet.

* * *

She sat at her little travel tabslate on the hard chair they'd left at the desk. The cabin was nice; she had to admit that. Pixy was still getting used to a Fleet world without roommates in transit, though there were so few officers aboard this passage that only the Junior Lieutenants had to bunk together.

She knew that because Captain Uulmar had made her do all the cabin assignments.

Jeyne had helped her in his quiet, diffident way; even Jukarlo had stepped in for a moment, stinking of booze, and that's when Pixy figured out why he'd drawn such a shit posting. But the paperwork had still been a pain in the ass, and now Pixy sat stripped to her workout gear, sweating quietly, swiping listlessly through the newest Cleared Fleet Bulletins after a rough workout in the Shasqua's bare-bones gym.

The ship slept around her, already superlight, with the crew haunting the corridors and the passengers bedded down. Or not bedded down; whichever. Pixy was expecting one or two of them to break one of Uulmar's sacred rules tonight, meaning she'd get a one-way sparring partner in the morning sometime. She wasn't worried about it; she'd done this sort of thing before. A public beating from a superior officer, if it was bloody enough, usually meant nobody else would mess with said superior officer for at least a week.

She leaned back in the chair, her eyes closed, her bunk and desk and case awash in wavy, lurid light. The Senior Passenger, it turned out, got a hullside berth, and the endless stellar view almost made up for all the extra work.

Almost.

Pixy was trying hard to think about nothing but an exhausted crash into the narrow bedrack when a confident knock shook the hatch. She frowned at herself in the photomirror. "Yes? Who the fuck is it?"

The voice came back deep. "It's Jeyne. Ma'am."

Pixy snapped her head down, staring at herself in the mirror, remembering; it had been a busy afternoon, and she hadn't even been thinking about her awkward conversation with Jeyne. She glanced out at the stars. "No shit." She sighed, her head flopping back again. "You may enter, Mr Jeyne." The door slipped aside on its whispery track, letting in red light from the nighttime corridor, and Pixy didn't look that way. "You found out where my quarters are."

"Seems so." She heard him step in. "I'll be honest though, ma'am. This is the third hatch I knocked on."

Pixy barked a laugh despite herself, the decision making itself; she had standards for bedwarmers, but if they could make her laugh? That trumped almost everything. She felt herself relax, eyes closed, leaning back; she knew how her workout clothes stuck sweat-slick over her body, knowing he could see the quiver of her nipples under the tanktop, but whatever. She understood already, with that coughed laugh of hers, that she was going to say yes; he'd warm her bed tonight. He'd see everything she had, anyway, so a sweaty nipple hardly mattered. "You're here for your answer, Mr Jeyne?"

"I mean, I came all this way..." and she once more felt herself smile. She heard him sit on the rack, the creak of the pad.

'Don't be so dramatic, Mr Jeyne. I made sure you got your own room." She sighed, then eased upward in the chair. "I know where it is, too. You only came about thirty meters to find me." She rested her head on her arms, the pool of light from her new lizard bathing her.

She'd bought the little creature just before she reported aboard. She'd even named it. She already liked it.

The cabin was still for almost a minute, the stars fleeting eternally past through the transparent hull. When Jeyne spoke, Pixy was surprised to hear him closer than the bed; he'd gotten noiselessly to his feet and crept across most of the cabin. "I've never seen one of those light-lizards, ma'am."

A smile ghosted across Pixy's lips. She stirred, her head still in her arms, her eyes still shut. "Light-lizards," she recited, "are the thing to have at Yule this year."

"We don't celebrate Yule where I'm from. We do Saturnalia." The light through her eyelids dimmed as he leaned in to study the little creature. "He's cute."

Pixy sighed heavily. "What's this, Mr Jeyne, your second ship? Ever?"

"Yes ma'am." She could feel him, the heat off his body through his utility uniform as he drew close to her. She sensed nothing from him except his solid, soothing presence, and she shuddered.

Guy might make a good bedwarmer, after all.

"And did you have a bedwarmer in your last ship, Lieutenant?" She still didn't look at him, even when she felt his dry, warm fingertips flanking the top of her spine, rubbing gently at her sweaty neck.

"For most of the time." He seemed not to want to discuss it, or maybe he was merely shy; she'd find out. "A man."

Pixy didn't care. His hand felt good on her neck, digging, prodding at her bones, and obscurely she did not want to let him know that. "A very complicated thing, the bedwarmer relationship," she mused. "I've had many. I enjoy the companionship. The warmth. The security."

He hesitated, but his fingers did not. "I can be warm," he said flatly, and once again Pixy felt the laughter start. "Secure, too."

"I bet." She sighed deeply, arching up into his touch, and when he responded with more fingers she nodded, her forehead grating against her forearms. "When you asked me about this," she went on, "did you want to bang me?"

This time, he didn't hesitate. "I told you want I wanted, ma'am." Jesus H Buddha, even his voice was soothing. She was beginning to be very happy he'd approached her; if she was being honest with herself, there was a better than even chance she'd have picked someone else over the next couple of days. She was glad she seemingly wouldn't have the chance now.

"You just want a goddamn bedwarmer," she muttered. "And here I am."

"And here you are," he agreed, his hand slipping lower along her spine.

She sighed again, this time along with a slight groan. Shit, this felt good. The man seemed to know just what she needed. "I don't always fuck my bedwarmers, Mr Jeyne," she warned. "If that's what's on your mind, then your mind needs to change. Comprehend?"

"Aye aye, ma'am."

"Good." She probably would fuck him, though, she knew. He knew how to touch. A man who could touch like that? He could send her body to oblivion. No doubt. "Then my answer is yes, you can warm my shitty little Transport bed. For now," she added, sharply.

He said nothing for a few seconds, his fingers strong and knowing against the bunched muscles between her shoulderblades. Then his voice came, rumbling from the body beside her. "Good," he nodded, "for now. You're a cynic, ma'am."

She did laugh then, another short bark. "Fuck you, Mr Jeyne." She stirred up in the seat, his hand drifting away off her shoulder, looking up at him at last. He looked back down at a heart-shaped face beneath thick, short hair that had to be a sweaty mess right now. "You'll find out soon that I don't usually need much sleep," she went on conversationally, "but shit. Right now? Lightspace after almost a year dirtside? I'm wiped."

"Same." He'd leaned in again to peer at the lizard again. "Did you name this thing?"

"Yes," Pixy said sleepily, getting slowly to her feet. The rack beckoned her. It was not as wide as a standard cabin rack, and Jeyne was big, but it would do. "Its name is Fucknut." She was listening for a gasp from him when she slid the damp tanktop off her body; it was normal, when people saw the wretched scar at the base of her back, but as the shirt flew off and its bra-field released her little tits into the air of the room, she heard nothing at all. "Use the name to turn it off when you come to bed," she added, dropping her shorts, now stark naked with the usual Fleet casualness. "I sleep naked."

"I can see that." He did not sound awed at the sight of her butt, though she'd noticed he had great control. He was probably staring straight at it.

"Feel free to do the same." She slipped into the stiff, coolly institutional coarseness of the Fleet standard sheets, her head finding the expected practical comfort of the same kind of shipboard pillow she'd been using for years. This was one of the things she loved about Fleet: you moved all over the fucking galaxy, your surroundings changing constantly... and yet, the important things always remained familiar. Soothing.

But the bedwarmers changed, she reflected as she heard him activate his staytab. His utilities would slough off him and fold themselves away, she knew, unlike her simple workout wear. But even that would get swept off the deck and sent straight off to be laundered, by a robot in the night. "So... I just tell it to turn off?"

"Like this." Pixy had just read the manual and taught it the commands before he'd come in; settling in now, with her face to the wall, she raised her voice. "Fucknut! Switch off, buddy." The cabin plunged into a darkness lit only by the faint, everpresent glow of the light-drive just aft, and by the billions of everpresent stars.

"Huh." His feet were bare now as he padded across the deck. "Nifty." She heard him stop at the edge of the rack, and was just about to roll lazily over to see what the problem was when he whispered, "Whoah. All those stars."

"I love the view out here," Pixy confessed. "It's the best thing about being in Fleet." This was what bedwarmers did: secrets told, desires felt, comfort given.

Beds warmed. It was an amazing tradition.

"I've never been in a hullside cabin before," he admitted as his knee found the mattress, his tall body sliding under the covers with her. Pixy was not surprised to find that he was nude, his body smooth and hairless but for a thick dark bush that ticked her skin as he pushed against her. His penis nestled at half-mast between the cheeks of her ass, Pixy pushing herself back firmly against him. He felt good. "Perks of being a commander, ma'am."

"Nonsense." She leaned her head back against his broad chest, smelling sweat, nodding to herself as his arm curled protectively around her. She liked to spoon. "I had a cabin just like this as a senior Lieutenant, when I was a First Officer. You'll get there."

"If you say so." His hand found her breast with only the slightest hesitation, his grip tightening when she didn't object. Pixy loved being held. She didn't realize how much she'd missed it, planetside in student quarters. "Good night, ma'am."

Pixy sighed, the comfort sudden and delicious. "Do you have a first name, Mr Jeyne?" She felt a slight twinging tightness from her nipple, answered by a tiny lurch from his dick, and smiled to herself. Yes, there was every probability that they'd fuck.

Not tonight, though.

"I'm Felix, ma'am."

"And I'm Pixy, Felix." She reached back and squeezed his thigh. "Nice to meet you. This was a good idea."

"I think so too, Pixy." The ship shuddered around them, and Pixy Pfeiffer was home.

* * *

Her intertube chimed hard the next morning, Pixy waking up with that forever sense of disconnection she always got during the first days of a long transit, the feeling that her organs were traveling at a slightly slower rate than the rest of her body. Her mouth tasted like old cheese, and her whole body felt gummed. Fuck, she told herself, I knew I should have showered after that workout. And she'd meant to, but then Jeyne had showed up, and she'd been so tired.

She pressed back, sampling the man behind her. His hand had fallen off her nipple in the night, but he'd compensated by producing a hard-on in her asscrack. One out of two wasn't bad, she reasoned; it was always nice when a new warmer didn't try to put the moves on. No, he'd been fine: he'd been a warm, comfortable human presence, just like he was supposed to be. She sniffed, slipping out of his arms with her scar giving her its usual morning ache, to slap at the 'tube. "Pfeiffer. Go," she croaked.

The voice that came back was cool, Transport-efficient. "Captain wants you, ma'am. In the wardroom."

Fuck. Well, she'd been expecting someone to break the rules. Jeyne stirred behind her. "When?"

"Now, ma'am."

Double fuck. Definitely, someone had broken the rules. The rage started in her legs, as usual, the muscles there tremoring. Rage was good. It would make it easier to give a kicking. "Fine. I'm moving."

"Good morning." Jeyne's voice was as soothing as last night, and as she sat painfully up she tried to smile.

"Switch on, Fucknut." The lizard flared, caught, the room now bathed in a diffused bluish light that challenged the endless starfield. "Not so good, actually." Pixy twisted on the rack, looking down to see him nude for the first time. "Huh," she grunted, nodding down at his erection. "Is that a normal thing, Mr Jeyne, or did you have something in mind?"

He was looking at her scar when she found his eyes again, contemplating it. "Pretty normal," he allowed, and then he smirked. "If the captain wants you, now, in the wardroom, it wouldn't matter whether I had anything in mind."

"Good point." He was sprawled out, unashamed of his body's reaction to her, which was in keeping with all the other ways in which he was confident. She felt a sudden flush spread down her chest to meet the rage boiling up past her belly, and wondered what Uulmar would say if she showed up twenty minutes late and freshly fucked. "Look, do you have an hour or so? That's as long as this should take. Then I can come back and we can go over some ground rules."

"I'm a passenger," he said simply. "I have noplace to go, ma'am."

"Good," she yawned, summoning a uniform. "Make yourself at home, then."

* * *

It's not likely that Commo Technician Second Class Chad Polye was expecting his evening's adventure to go completely unnoticed. After all, he had been caught snorting Crystal off the housing for the Pritz compensator, in a part of the ship he wasn't supposed to be in; all of that was in contravention of the Rules, and one of the Shasqua's crew had caught him and sent him sternly back to bed.

So he had to be expecting some sort of punishment. But it wasn't likely he was expecting quite what Pixy Pfeiffer doled out the next morning in the mess hall.

She caught up to him in the chowline, surrounded by about a hundred other passengers; this, to her mind, was all to the good, and she strode up behind the line wearing last night's sweat and this morning's rage. Her voice dominated the room as soon as she opened her mouth. "Which one of you shitfucks is Polye?"

The line of sailors turned curiously to find her standing there with her fists balled up and her face scarlet. One of them, suddenly pale, raised a hand. "Ma'am."

Pixy nodded, her whole body trembling with the need to unleash herself against this little fucker. Uulmar had been pissed, and shit rolls downhill. Polye was at the bottom. "Do you remember me from yesterday, Polye?"

His eyes flickered up and down her body as he tried to figure out what he should do with his tray. "Uh, yes ma'am."

"Okay. So you remember me saying I'd kick the shit out of anyone who got caught breaking Captain Uulmer's rules? Yes or no?"

He hung his head now, pretty sure he should have found someplace else to get high. "Is this about the Crystal, ma'am?" Everyone in the room was frozen, the food techs staring over their steam tables. Pixy wasn't certain she was in good enough shape to look good throwing a kick to his face, but figured her form wouldn't matter if the rest of the passengers saw enough teeth go flying. Her foot lashed out high and fast, catching him just under the chin. Polye went smashing down onto the steam table, his tray whirling across the room in a flurry of bacon and eggs.

"Yes or no, Polye." Pixy nearly gasped from the pain, figuring she'd pulled her groin at the least, but there was already blood on Polye's mouth and more to come. Her rage sang in her brain, the savage joy of violence, as good as any hit of stim. "That's all I'm looking for, is a yes or no." He stared back up, his hand wiping at his ruptured lip. "And stand at attention, for fuck's sake."

The man drew himself up, but slowly and with more than one glare. So Pixy went at him again, another kick, pushing with the flat of her sole into his chest. He staggered. "Move faster, sailor. Come to attention and give me a 'yes ma'am' or a 'no ma'am,' and do it without any fucking attitude." He drew himself up, wheezing, now definitely glaring. Pixy didn't mind that, though. Part of her wanted him to throw a punch. "Remember what I said?"

The blood was running freely now, a clatter of stools behind her as people rose from their meals. "Yes, ma'am," Polye grunted.

"Okay. Good. So, you know what you've got coming. Right?" She slapped him when he didn't reply at once. "Yes or no, Polye. You know what you've got coming." Her foot screamed from that first kick, the pain running all the way up her leg. Should have stretched, she raged at herself.

"Yes, ma'am." He was already braced, she noted. Already prepared to flinch.

"Okay." She let her brain loose then, the attack obvious; that first kick had impressed some people. Now it was about humbling this little motherfucker, and she grasped his arms and dragged him hard toward her, smelling his foul breath in the brief instant before she smashed her forehead into his nose. Her knee was in his groin before he could even grunt, and she let him slither down to the deck gasping. A lieutenant had come up beside her, she noted dimly: grey uniform, probably the mess officer, undoubtedly about to tell her to lay off, but she wasn't in the mood.

The joy built quickly, coming out of her in teeth-clenched growls as she put the boot in. Polye's face was a wreck now, his hands scrabbling in a crimson pool as his ribs gave out under Pixy's feet, five savage pounding stomps that left him whimpering. She nodded down at him. "Better," she said under her breath, her own blood pumping hard. She whirled to face the officer in grey, in the mood for more. "What the fuck do you want?" she snarled.

"Uh." The man's mouth had flopped open, staring at the bloody heap on the deck. "Why..."

"Get a fucking corpsman up here to see to this man," she snapped. She usually found it best, at times like this, to take charge loudly and efficiently. She saw the command take effect, the man blinking as he realized he was being given orders. "Then you can tell your captain his discipline problem from last night has been dealt with. And then get this deck cleaned up." She prodded Polye with her pained toes; by this time, he was vomiting. "It's a fucking mess, lieutenant. Comprehend?"

The man swallowed, his eyes riveted to Polye. "Uh, yes ma'am."

"I'll return in an hour to make sure you've done all that." She glanced over at the food techs, the steam table, the ruin she'd made of the chowline. She loved it, the adrenaline firing through her body. It was almost sexual. She badly wanted to attack someone else. "My usual breakfast is matzoh with cream cheese, a little salt. Make sure you've got some for me," she went on. "Strong coffee. Add anything to it, and you'll wind up in sick bay with this piece of shit. Right?"