F6: Sing a Dirge in Heaven

In Paradise.

The three century old Luna terraforming project, the brainchild of the Queen family, was the lifeboat. The Colonists from Mars, without any of the vital resupplies from Earth ever coming again, had been forced to abandoned their hard centuries of work and flee back here. There were more than bitter words about that. Dozens had been murdered. Scientists, men, and women that had tried to help the Luna colonies get established, by being on the ground. Trying, with the own sweat and blood, to help correct what they had caused. Well, their blood probably made poor fertilizer in the already too iron rich Luna soil.

My cubical didn’t have a door, simply a curtain of saved plasma welder beads. Not many do down here in Downside even have that much. Walking through my door, I did a quick visual check but like always nothing was missing. There may be a few down here that hate me and the ground I walk on, but they wouldn’t steal from me. They might murder me in my sleep, sure … but taking something was a terrible social no-no.

Akin to farting in church.

Dropping the sweat soaked yarn cap next to my sink, so I can wash it before my next work cycle, I grabbed a protein bar and vita-a-juice packet, I collapsed onto my pallet of salvaged shipping foam gratefully. The cold of space was still in every bone, soaked into the marrow by the long hours working. My body ached from pushing against the pressure of my suit to move normally. Bone deep, muscle deep aches that never really went away. They simply compounded day to day, month to month, year to year into a poisonous fatigue that drained me of all life.

And what the hell was I living for anyway? I knew, without a doubt knew, that I would never be chosen to be one of the breeding stock suppliers need to keep the human gene pool viability pure, but variable. Beyond the scientist that were, of course already preselected, the lower class people had to prove themselves worthy to be allowed to breed. Resources were scarce and not every bloodline was needed or desired.

Some were being encouraged to die out. Like those of Roma decent.

And who was there to tell these people in charge they couldn’t do that? No one. The governments of the Earth were gone. Mars’ colonial government was not being recognized. And the various stations leaders, scattered between dead Earth and muddy-swampy Luna, were simply doing as they wished to do.

And there were none to tell them differently. There were many versions of the Cinquedea developing on other stations, or at least that was what he had heard from Sumer, one night when the pilot was drunk enough to forget his normal decorum and risk his ability to return here by speaking bad of the …

Sipping my drink, I knew the words I wanted to use. They were on the lips of more and more people of late. Too many scared lips, whispering words that had been dead for centuries. Nobility. Royalty. Leadership caste. Dominus.

Frightened people who were looking desperately for someone, anyone, to save them and were willing to put up with anything, no matter what, so long as they lived. The thought being, it will be far better to live on your knees than to die trying to breathe vacuum.

“Not me,” I whispered softly, no caring about rumors of listening devices in the personal quarters. “Better the last cold breath sucked from frozen lungs.”

Shaking off the dark mood, I pondered what to do this night. Go chase down a phantom smell through endless miles of service ducts, and water supply pipes? Maybe give into my curiosity and invite Sumer Si Kumen, from drinks, to see if I could get him smashed enough to maybe learn some more of what was going on at the other stations. Such passing of knowledge was discouraged in extreme fashions. Loss of station privileges was light compared to some of the rumors making the rounds of Downside.

People who asked too many questions had a tendency to vanish. Not an easy trick in an enclosed, vacuum surrounded, space station.

As the hunger aches dropped to manageable levels, other hungers began to make themselves known. Those images of Sumer with Lindy had been far too detailed.

“Why not?”

It’s been forever since I decided to scratch the eternally reoccurring itch and get a bit of sexual relief. Hadn’t I earned it? Didn’t I keep the very air in this metal balloon? Were these people, from arrogant Cinquedea to their Dominus scientist parents all the way down to the poorest beggar starving in the back corridors, not beholden to me? Should I not seek out pleasure for pleasure sake, enough others did. Hiding their fears between the thighs of whatever made them sweaty.

“Why the hell not?”

Using some of my water rations in an act of vanity, I cleaned myself up head to toe. I wanted to be clean for Lindy. That stopped me. Why did I want to go to her? There were plenty of others on the station that peddled their charms for extra ration cards, the general form of payment used on Paradise station.

Grabbing more cards than I thought I could ever use, just in case she wanted more, I headed out and towards the part of the station that had been set aside for … entertainment. Level B-7.

Knowing I would be following Sumer I quavered a bit more on choice but in the end I decided Lindy was still the best. Besides, the chances of sex with a redhead were dwindling fast. Their days were numbered, the ones choosing the pure breeding stock didn’t care for the color.

Like black hair, it was being culled.

Lindy has a doorway, but not a door ... or even a curtain like I have. I really must make one for her. True she and body-privacy parted ways a long time ago but still everyone deserves the comfort of a covering of some kind on the way into their home.

“Hey, beautiful. Busy?” I did pause at the door and not walk in like her home was just a common corridor. For a half second, I saw a tired resigned look pass over her face but then she was smiling and her normal flirty looking eyes captured mine and she winked.

“Never too busy for you, handsome.” She stood up and her hand went to the knot holding the simple wrap on that was covering her plush body. “Come on in.”

Moving forward I placed my hand atop hers before she could get the knot undone. “Not yet. Here, for you.”

She looked at the small, thin, decorative cloth wrapped box I was holding out to her. A delighted smile took years of resigned worry and drudgery from her face. “A present? Why, Templar Devereaux you naughty man, you didn’t have to do that.”

“I know.”

“Or are you wanting something especially kinky and think you need to bribe me with gifts?” her teasing tone and that smile told me she was joking as she unwrapped the thin scarf, it in itself a part of the gift. There would never be another roll of gift wrap made. Never another Christmas morning of shredded paper and discarded bows.

There were so many now. So many never-going-to-be-done-again things. Too many. Far, far too many.

Her delight at the box of ribbon scraps was beautiful to see and painful for its very delight. That a box filled with the discarded scraps–which I had pulled out of a derelict station–someone in the past had no doubt risked a lot to get those spools of ribbon up out the Earth’s gravity well. Had enjoyed their secretive hobby and had in some, no doubt fun way, used up the spools of ribbon. Leaving these scraps behind.

Now they were more precious that gold. Harder to come by that jewels, and in a few years would be worth even more.

Puzzlement began to show. “Why? Why give these to me?”

I stood trying to figure out how to answer that then swallowed. “You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a girlfriend.” I smiled at her suddenly wide eyes. “I come see you, we talk, and then we have sex and say goodbye till the next time.” I shrugged. “As close as I’ve ever gotten, or figure I will. Besides I figured you needed something nice. All pretty ladies need something nice.”

For a moment I thought she was going to cry, but then she smirked. “Why Templar, if I didn’t know better I would think you were trying to seduce me. You know my goods are bought not given. I’m not rent to own.”

I tossed the normal number of food ration cards on the table next to me. Now it was my hands undoing the knot hiding her body from me.

“I know.”

When her heavy breasts appeared with puffy, cone-shaped nipples as silky and pink look as any ribbon in the box I learned my head in and let my lips brush them in a soft kiss for each.

“Ever the gentleman, Templar. Except for those times when you don’t want to be gentle. Which is it this cycle?” She asked cupping my head, holding my mouth to her breasts.

As I licked, sucked and nibbled those soft cones till they hardened, I thought about that. What mood was I in? This day was in no grand way different from any other. Even the arrival of the shuttle was no uncommon thing. Stations were being consolidated, the shuttle had fewer posts to travel to. It came by more often.

“Temp?”

“I don’t know, really.” I shrugged and went back to enjoying the delicate appetizers that her nipples offered.

She laughed softly, cradling my head. “You just want to get laid.”

I looked up at her eyes framed by that fiery hair. “I want a memory. A good one. I have too many bad ones already.”

Lindy’s face froze, then she gave a small nod. She understood. She has as many bad ones herself. She took my hand.

“Come on. Let make one.”

I let her lead me to the curtained-off corner where her bed was, not that I needed a guide I had been in it before. Enough times to know it by smell. Her smell, body perfumes and sweat. Male smells, from harsh to eye watering. Sex smells, a completely different type of body odor that, the musky scent of the rut. Running my hand across her plump hip, I began to fashion a new theory of where the unidentified stench of the Downside was coming from.

Humans. In all our myriad odors.

Then she and I were in that smelly bed and such abstract thought passed, to wherever distracted thoughts go when they are not being thought about. There was simply no more time for them.

Lindy normally will work her profession with a sure hand, and sure touches here and skilled caress there, but no greater emotional investment from her than dancing with her would have given. Tonight maybe because of the gift or maybe, like myself, she had the need to make a good memory so she put more into it.

Tasting her lips, then her neck my mouth traveled to that warm valley between her breasts as she guided me above her, positioning my body to her satisfaction. Lindy bit the corner of her bottom lip as her legs open wide and wrapped my hips. Then she took on such a naughty smile as her hand went between us and caught hold of my cock. She held me in place and nodded, then guided me into her.

When I was comfortably inside her fiery-hedged pussy Lindy pulled me closer and held me tight.

“Just rest. I know you’ve had a long day, I’ll do the work.”

With her hands caressing my back, I felt her roll her hips, a soft thrust upwards that moved my cock into and out of her barely an inch but felt better than anything I had ever thought possible. Then I felt her belly ripple under me, rolling from bellow her breasts and popping her body up to meet me with a sharp smack, then it was that soft rippling motion again. I wanted to never move, to let this woman simply hold me here in her arms, to feel taken care of, body and soul, till the last bit of air escaped the station. I wanted her, I wanted this.

I want …

As I looked into her eyes and she smiled back I realized a very important thing about myself. To survive isn’t enough if the wants are not ever going to be taken care of. Then I saw the edge I had been walking on, a precipice so deep that it fell away forever and ever, and I was dancing along it like I had no care in the world.

She hissed when I gave her a hard thrust and nodded.

“Yes. Now. Take what you need, it’s there for you.” She caught the back of my head and pulled my face down to her chest, holding me like a child needing comforting. And was I any less than that for all my sexual needs? Harder and harder I let my body push, driving my cock into her.

Sitting back, I placed myself on my knees between her legs, lifted her legs higher and with pops of my hips drove the whole length of my cock into and out of her. Lindy cupped her breasts, pinching those pink nipples. She was panting, watching me fucking her with a naughty smile growing. She could see me already fighting my bodies need to cum.

I wanted this moment to last forever and my will would have done that very thing. But the body? The body wanted satiation. It wanted resolution, a hard pulsing ending that would leave it to shatter. Every stroke showing me it had wants too and didn’t care in the least about what I might want.

Lindy hooked a foot behind my back and made me drive into her harder.

“I know you like it rough, Templar. Let it out.”

Then I was down on her, holding her hands flat to the bed, she wiggled and writhed under me as I pinned her flat, fucking her with a growing need that was not going to be denied. I winced when she sank her teeth into my skin, then I bit her back simply because I wished to, and she moaned. I was now ramming her body with all had, trying to make one of us break, not caring in my lust if it was I or her that shattered. She struggled to get free of my hands, but I held her tighter making her know that for once I was the one in charge.

The as every breath began to be a struggle I felt her quiver under me in a way I had not felt from her before. She used strength I would not have thought she had and slipped a hand free. Her fingers tangled in my hand and she pulled my mouth to hers. The kiss was brutal! An affair of smashed lips and teeth; our mad tongues at war with each other for dominance.

“Please, Templar … please …”

What exactly she was begging me for I didn’t know but I was willing to give my last breath to make it happen. And more and more that seemed to be just what it was going to take. My very last breath. Holding my body ridged, I gritted my teeth at her clawing nails on my back, a pain that was a pleasure. It was also the key for the locked door I didn’t want to open and yet yearned for with all my being.

With a feeling both ecstatic and draining I felt my orgasm begin. Then, with mad thrust after thrust, I tried to rid myself of the feeling of gripping fullness. And then that deep aches when I had no more to give but wanted more to come out.

“Yes!” she moaned by my ear. “Just like that.”

“Would you fucking look at this shit!”

I looked over my naked, scratched bloody shoulder at the sudden voice that started me terribly. There was a young man standing at the edge of the partition curtain, with others behind him. They were also watching. I knew by their clothes that these were Cinquedea. The sons of the scientist come down here to Downside to slum among us lower class. The speaker looked particularly important.

“Would you fucking look at this shit!” he repeated. “This gypsy fuck scum has just ruined my fun. Hey, whore didn’t I tell you I would be back to see you one day? Did you not get it when I told you that? Your cunt is mine now, who the fuck do you think you are to be still peddling it out to bastards like this fucker? Huh?”

Trying to catch my breath, I moved from on top of Lindy, placing myself between her and this young scion. For a half-second surprise flashed across his face, then contempt replaced it.

“Get the fuck out my way, gypsy scum. I’m going to take a pound of flesh out that whore’s ass for letting you wreck her pussy before I got here.” He moved his hand to his crotch, shifting an already hard cock. Watching Lindy and I must have turned him on.

“No.”

I’m not sure who was the more surprised at that moment him, me or Lindy. Or possibly his friends. They gasped and began to whisper among themselves. Then laugh. I think that made their leader here do what he might not normally have done, simply to save face. He snarled and stepped up and tried to shove me over backward onto Lindy’s sweat and sex-soaked bed.

I didn’t budge.

Far bigger and tougher men than this young punk have shoved me. I simply looked at his surprised face. No more than that, but no less than that either. A simple look from the eyes of one man into the eyes of another. There were words in that exchange of gazes. He and I stood there, testing the will of the other the way the samurai of old were said to have done. He knew that I was, by station law and with banishment awaiting me, not allowed to touch him. I could also see that he was afraid. He was afraid that I was a person that didn’t care about that.

Still, he was an arrogant as hell little bit of Cinquedea scum. He had been born with privileges in a place where people were at the point of eating each other to fill empty bellies. From his earliest memories, he had been told that the Paradise Station was his playground and that the people in it were going to be his toys. Break them if he felt like it and don’t worry, they’re not that important.

To him, that’s what I was. Unimportant.

This little wormy maggot didn’t know or care that he owned his life to my skills at keeping his home from crumpling like a crushed beer can.

Again he tried to shove me and again I didn’t budge. I had to fight to keep my hands at my side. I wanted things then. Dark things. Things that many on this station wanted. To kick the ever living shit out of one of these young arrogant assholes. To feel my knuckles hurting and to see his blood on the floor. I wanted that so bad …

“Do you not know who I am, you scum!” He looked back over at his friends. “This gypsy slime is too stupid to even know when he stands before his betters. He thinks himself equal to us.”

I didn’t look away from him, but I saw the sudden anger flash on those other young men’s faces.

“Templar, just leave. I’ll be fine. Just go.” Lindy’s voice behind me was a quavering plea for sanity, in a place where sanity was lost.

And had been lost. As I looked at the growing madness in the Cinquedea’s eye I knew that no one was going to be looking for sanity anytime soon either. Then his equally over-privileged-born friends moved forward into the room, that was really too small for this many people. Most men would have backed up, when naked and being pressed by unequal odds, but I knew there was no room behind me. There was nowhere to go. I was on the precipice I had seen in an orgasmic vision earlier.

Then they were upon me. With a rain of fists coming in at me, hands grabbing, pulling and by sheer numbers doing what he alone could not, moving me backward. The back of my legs crashed into Lindy’s bed, and then I was flat on my back trying to avoid the pummeling hands. I rolled away from their fists and crashed to the floor. But then it was boot tips in my ribs and stomping heels in my kidneys.

“End him!” screamed the youth in charge.

When their knives appeared that was when my hands came up to defend myself. Banishment was no longer my greatest fear. These bastards wanted my life! Well, so many things have tried to kill me since I first left the gravity well, that five youths with knives were not even that terrifying. Dangerous certain, deadly yes, but terrifying … no.

With grunts, rage screams and all my considerable strength I now tried to fight my way clear. Swinging my fists to punish, gouging at faces when I could, fighting in nasty, dirty ways I had learned in bars across the years. If there had been more room for me to work or maybe one less of them to fight I would have gotten clear and either escaped or gotten a better chance … but

The knife hit me in the lower back. A thick wide blade that tore into my flesh! Pain like fire, as if the knife was still hot from its time in the forge, took my breath. Then a second one hit. Or perhaps it was the first one a second time, not that it matter to me at that time.