Into the Violet Gardens

by Isaac Nasri

  Chapter 25

  Alana cracks her eyes open, motioning her arm gently away from Troy’s bare chest. The light glints from the blinds, giving spark to the darkness in her bedroom. Troy’s bandage wraps rest on top of her drawer to where her lava lamp stands inactive. The cyborg’s hand over hers slips; she rises, letting the blanket slide from her cleavage. Her nipples sting slightly from last night. Alana stretches down on her damp hair, and while rubbing her eye, she looks down mesmerizingly at Troy in his slumber. His body heaves on the mattress, and his breath whistles soundly. The light shines on his visible abdominal muscles. Bubbles foam inside of her, knowing she couldn’t get enough of his sight.

  She pats his member gently, leaning to kiss him on the lip before skidding down from the bed. The sheets release away from her body as Alana lands on the carpet and stalks. Her feet press down inadvertently on one of her heel pairs from yesterday, and she bends, picking and dropping them behind a silver sneaker box of hers in front of the closet. Troy’s boxers rest on top of her storage handler, where the sun shines light on her dark high waist panty and the red color blocks emblazoned on her wireless bra inside. The stains inside of her molded cups have dried, leaving an immaculate layer on the garment material.

  The room’s gentle air strokes her skin. She turns an ear toward the door to where Troy and Alana’s clothes hanged together, loitering on her feet as she nears her table. Her chest cools to the fan rotating in a circular position. She couldn’t walk out like this, not with uncle spotting Troy inside by random. It was mere coincidence that she and Troy managed to share a space without notice at least yesterday, and she didn’t even consider the time the two arrived that night.

  To her amusement, Alana glosses to her left, spotting Troy raise his head from the pillow. The Virtual, blanket veneering his lower body, leans to stroke his eyelids. His prosthetic hand cradles the sheet like a wanderer attempting to taste the substance of sand in his palm. Alana leans her arm on the table, fixating her gaze on Troy gathering himself.

  “Aye,” she greets in a light tone, moderating her voice.

  Troy let’s go of his eyelids, and blinks surprisingly to Alana’s stare. It changes once he relaxes, offering a sheepish smile that is interrupted by his yawn.

  “Must be in a goddamn dream,” a dozy Troy mentions.

  Alana shakes her head, baffled. What went down was as close to reality as it can get, and the alluring memories rush like a swift river in her head. If only she could initiate it once more.

  Troy hops from the bed, but not before sitting in place and locking glance toward the bedroom door. His pupils glisten, and he remains in place until he nods.

  Guess we safe again.

  Alana opens the drawer, grabbing the soap inside all the while her tongue salivates to her boyfriend’s naked body striding peacefully from the mattress’s edge and toward her. He wheels his upper arm, and a crack pops. A strong odor permeates the room, but nothing to nauseate Alana’s senses.

  “You’s condom bust,” she teases, nose tickling to the dense air and her small prints on Troy’s member. She sets a hand to her chest, cajoled. No doubt the two needed another shower, and it was a shame she wouldn’t be able to massage the soap on him this time.

  Troy stumbles onto his black underwear lingering on the handler. He glosses at the door and murmurs. “Guess I need my boxers.”

  Alana’s cheeks redden. She examines the drawer, locating her soap inside. Her mouth opens to warm hands smacking her buttocks. The sound of the slap resounds in the room. Alana shoots him a glance as she slants back to his body pressed against hers, preceding his sultry hands groping and caressing her rear end. His lips dart on her neck.

  Oh naw, Troy. You doing it all over.

  She attempts to say his name, but Alana lets it vanish without protest as she gives in to the furor drowning her. Alana seals her eyes to his lips, sailing across her upper neck. Melting to the torrid sensation of Troy’s hands skidding and pinching on her jiggling bottom, she rocks an arm around his neck. Arbitrary pictures and colors shift at a rapid pace. His hands snake toward her breasts, nuzzling them and eliciting respiration that rushes out of her mouth. Her thighs tickle to a light drizzle all while espousing such a gentle fever running down her. Her brain rushes and she hears her breath vibrating into the bathroom once again. Her dopamine bubbles in as his hands peel away her bra forcibly, gaining his hands access to her supple and dewy bosoms. Her hair pulled and swirled to his grip. What a day to wake up to, something she couldn’t forgo so obliviously.

  Alana lets away her grip off Troy’s head once his palms pinch and stroke her bosoms one last time, preceding his lips releasing from her skin. She rotates, meeting his mesmerizing gaze as her chest pounds. She pulls her hair and slopes on the table.

  Stars twirl around her. That alters once she spots Troy’s rising member. Alana bites her finger, trying to hold back a chuckle and she pants. She shoots a gaze nervously toward the door.

  With one hand grappling his boxers, Troy winks his eyebrows at Alana, but she can only reciprocate with a slow shake of her head. Troy sneaks a hand over her shoulder and takes the new soapbox. She taps her hands at the now upraised and rigid phallus, attempting to bring it down while biting her lip. Troy freezes and stares at her like a naïve puppy frolicking on his lap. His cybernetic hand catches her hand gently to where it sealed on his manhood.

  Brushing her hand away, Troy gestures with the soap and looks directly at her even as he stalks out of the bedroom. The air causes her thighs to tremble, and she rubs her hind foot against her ankle. Alana catches her breath upon the door creaking, but not one disturbance hits. The sighting of his organic shaft stimulates her nerves. The fan continues to spin and the light air tickles her erected nipples.

  ***

  Alana rests on top of a boulder, head snuggling on Troy’s shoulder as her hand connects to the small Virtual icon on the panel. The two sit on top of their coats. The verdant leaves on the tree shake to a squirrel landing on the bark, and an acorn plummets on her knee. The park’s shallow river streams behind the two, and her ear alarms to a sudden PLOP into the water. Several cicadas mingle on the narrow dirt pavement. Despite the eeriness, the sight was nothing for her to take the threat of. At least to her, that was tolerable to adjust alongside rather than anyone else passing by.

  “You’re already getting used to the platform, I see,” Troy comments, resting a hand on her shin. Chewing on his mint, he brushes a leaf off his newly white shirt’s sleeve, a shirt she bought him yesterday. The cyborg’s shaved chin gleams like a washed cup in the kitchen sink after days of being left in the dirt.

  “Yeah,” Alana mentions. She tickles his chin. “Not many around here, you’s seeing boo?”

  Troy shrugs a shoulder. To this very hour, Alana had only encountered up to three Virtuals on the platform, and the paucity created a question that burrowed in her mind like a bone hidden deep in the soil. She surmised she was putting more analysis on the situation than she needed to.

  His hand brushes its way upward between the upper thighs of her cerulean mesh biker shorts. Alana plants her lips consecutively on his cheek, and the mist elevates around her. The human reminiscences to the warmth flowing inside the bathroom, gasping silently to the sky to Troy pressed on her rear, caressing his jolting fingers over her soft groins in exhilaration and his lips sailing graciously on her neck. Her nipples were erected. Her naked body moistened to Troy’s own pressed to her haunches, thrusting inside of her rapidly. Her hands stretched against the tiled wall with his chained around her neck tightly as she moaned before the shower rained over their unionized bodies.

  No one in the family, not even her uncle, knew about Troy and her. In fact, the silence was the only way to keep the two partners secure at hand. Unlike her family, she couldn’t say the same for the anathema that was still alive and well in her people. Alana couldn’t be so assured. Nevertheless, she couldn’t step back, no matter how apprehensive. This relationship was all th
e more authentic to her, and Troy was going nowhere. She loved it.

  “Only between us,” she says gently. Her breath beats against his lips, even from a distance.

  Troy nods, having already let the notion sink in long ago in the bedroom where she slept with him. Alana returns the tablet in Troy’s hands and uplifts the lower band of her snakeskin sports bra. Its frontal neckline crossed comfortably in a deep and smooth V cut on her breasts, the kind of sporty aesthetic she adored secondary to the range of Latin textures she dazzled in. Dual-rooted braids planted on the side of her hair. Stretching an arm of hers upward and alleviating the strain in her muscles, Alana removes her indigo sneakers, placing her feet into the pair of roller skates Troy once loaned her on the grass. The human wobbles in her stance until she reaches for Troy’s hands. A smile snakes on her lips, and Troy’s eye twinkles to her expression as he mounts.

  Troy sets a hand on her round buttocks as he leads her toward the pavement. Something she feared for long since almost tumbling over a bridge has become another recreation she embraced in gratitude to Troy, who broke her from that past. This has to be her third time strolling alongside Troy, albeit in the absence of a fitness center, and she enamored the moments of his cybernetic hilt skidding on the ground.

  The breeze plays alongside her as the two sway in the park. Her blades skate on the concrete and the dust settles like vapor. Her legs tremble to an incoming chill in the wind, but the torridity spreading in her chest undoes the minor discomfort. Skidding, Alana twirls her body like a ballerina on the ice. Set back by his boots, Troy looms to take her by the hand, and Alana cyclones toward him. She yelps excitedly to her boyfriend’s hands ascending her by the hips, and Alana rolls smoothly over Troy’s back.

  Alana makes a landing, and her breast bounces. She rotates, settling her soft hands onto her boyfriend’s shoulder as she motions backward with Troy. Her hips sway in a swagger fashion, and their gaze holds onto each other. She gazes up and chortles to a hand of his, massaging her firm rump, and she tingles to the titillation. They were like partners, ones in their own silent tango. The clouds move aside from the sun, giving way to the light raining on the park.

  ***

  The green light activates, and Alana presses on the pedal. Her jeep drives untrammeled on the vertical road on the way to Pelham Parkway, and a gamut of cars remain parked in the lots. The ice within the soda cup clatters as she rotates the wheel. She frowns to a faint orange glow blazing from a distance in the neighborhood, and she grimaces to a transitory engine growling in the night.

  No damn ass clue what this means.

  Alana catches Troy grunt cautiously, attention focus on the window on his right and unzipping his bag.

  “Catching a bad signal on my end,” Troy admonishes.

  “I’s feeling it also, Troy,” she tells him. Alana looks at Troy, but the cyborg still has his gaze directed at the window. She catches his reflection on the glass staring at her, somehow eager to clear her doubts but unable to do so in a transparent manner.

  She reaches for Troy’s hand, caressing it as her knees shake. His attention diverts from the window, tightening her grip. Alana’s speed augments, and her mouth hangs, quivering to a bright tangerine flare as she nears. Piercing wails roar outside the car.

  “Goddamn,” Troy swears.

  “You good, boo?”

  The Virtual turns down the phone in his grasp, all while the pistol rests between his legs. “I’ve gotten a terror notification.” He pauses. “There’s been a riot—code red.”

  “Code red?”

  “Ottoman’s been killed. One large scale attack just hit the entire Middle East—”

  Alana’s head thrashes to a crash. The impact causes her world to spiral, and she loses the stability of the car wheel. Her grip on Troy snaps. Shards beat against her car window. Her jeep skids until it halts, and she slaps a hand to her temple, panting rapidly.

  She exchanges a horrified glance with her boyfriend, witnessing a blood streak swell in his eye and his shoulder rising from the door stand. The pistol held like a hammer in his grasp. Not one scratch on his skin. The Virtual gazes at her deeply, loading a magazine into his arsenal and signaling her to stay calm. Her mouth shuts. He ushers her off the car, and Alana opens the door reluctantly.

  Alana shakes to the blaze’s heat flowing in the streets and her skin reddening to the dense humidity. Troy lowers, and she follows his gaze downward, catching her breath to a hideous blemish that tore toward her frontal car light. Three aerial warships whoosh above, startling her. The cacophony howls clearly in her eyes, and a chilling presence catches her attention.

  Troy levels the pistol, stepping back. Civilians scram across her. The doors on a truck sling open, and she blinks to the lights aiming in her direction. Alana’s hair rises to two bones crackling, and she gulps to bare steely hands liberating from the wobbly head of a tattooed civilian. A cyborg, wearing torn pants, eyes frozen in place and conspicuous in his augmentations, sets his foot on the corpse’s spine, as if pondering on the worth of the life he took.

  “I see him, Ezra!” a female’s voice calls out. “Right there with that human!”

  To her oblivion, two other intruders, heavily armored and bionic arms glinting, shoot their attention quickly at her. The agents stood three inches above her, and if it weren’t for the shadow, she could’ve judged them to be twins. A rifle locks in Ezra’s hands and the female cyborg’s fingers glisten. Alana takes a step back, and her blood becomes frigid to a familiar emblem emblazoned on each of their single shoulder plates.

  Oh naw…them PMCs.

  Spotting the corpse, the images of the bodies from yesterday snap in her vision. Her eyelids turn heavy upon the correlation coming into place. It all made sense.

  “Pretty uncomfortable out here, isn’t it?” Ezra remarks aloud at Troy. He wanders his glance at the scorching tree and barks tumble onto the cars in the parking lot. Cries flood the neighborhood. The agent shoots a plasma bolt at a random stranger, tripping him off his feet. Silent, Troy levels the pistol sharply in his direction, but the enemy stalks in a nonchalant manner. “How about you come down with us quietly for a brief cha—”

  Alana bolts to a crackling POP. The second shot forces her to duck, and an astute edge plunges into her ears. Troy seizes a hand around her arm, forcing Alana on her feet.

  “Get inside, Alana!” he warns. “Get in!”

  Alana rushes her feet into the driver’s seat. Her boyfriend opens another fire, hitting the disarmed PMCs shin, and the enemy groans. Radiating energy lingers in the air. The bullet protrudes into the rifle’s energy reactor, and the moment it rumbles Ezra juggles with the weapon.

  While Alana covers her eyes to the brightening flash, Troy pulls the trigger toward the agent’s partner but the latter flips sideways, evading the bullet like a cat. Despite the darting gunshots, the agent manages to scurry her way toward the giant vehicle unscathed.

  Swearing, Troy races elsewhere, returning to the passenger’s seat on Alana’s right. She rotates the key, giving life to her jeep until two consecutive bullets ricochet from her car door. Her attempt to close the door gets thwarted by a sudden lash. The Virtual, in the exact torn pants, raises his fist until Alana grabs her cup and hurls the cold drink at his face. Once he flinches, Alana thrusts her foot at him, and she shuts the door, all while driving at a rapid pace.

  She looks over the rear window and the disarmed agent is no longer in sight. Alana pants and her trepidation only ascends to the inferno shrouding at her side. Civilians stagger from the blaze and tumble, raising a hand in plea as they disintegrate. The truck storms her way, followed by a series of buzzing tailing her way.

  I got a call tio and Gabriel right now!

  “Leave the quads to me!” Troy states as he reloads and directs his pistol outward.

  Alana spots her phone on the holder and dials her uncle’s home number without a glance. The phone rings, meanwhile her chest flutters. The line activates.

 
“¡Tio!” she cries. Alana gulps to a storm of shots jabbing at the car glass. She dives to the rapid-fire drilling and the sound of Troy’s gunfire clash like an explosive synergy. Her grasp on the wheel slips once again, and her body shifts to her car skating laterally. Troy fires a shot at the eye of a quad, and the combustion implodes the piece to where the small debris scraps his shoulder. Another scrap stains on his shin.

  She witnesses Troy fire behind, targeting the anterior of the enemy truck. The first shot lands upon the wheel before the second round prevails in shattering a hole in the front window. The JOA chasers endure an abrupt halt that elicits a vile screech on the road.

  “¡Tio!” Alana calls out. She continues to drive, hair flying as she sped. Her voice turns crisp, and a lump trails down her throat. “¡Tio!! Gabriel!!”

  The connection cuts and Alana lands her head on the seat, moaning. The tension tailing her and Troy ceases with the exception of the tumbling debris in the streets. She didn’t love where this was leading her, but Alana couldn’t hold back. She can hear the voice urging her as she raced. On the other hand, there was no deceiving to what Alana witnessed. She flashes to the iciness she seen in the last cyborg’s eyes. Something about him was barren as if he were possessed by a very minacious substance. She couldn’t understand it. This destruction, the cyborgs have shown themselves, and Alana could only imagine how far their rage has taken them. Now they were after her inamorato.