by Tom Harem
"I like what's underneath," she said and laughed, again with the yapping from before, "it will be our secret, a long, dirty secret."
I knew I shouldn't do it, but was I really supposed to stop her? After all, I would only be on the ship for a few days and then I would never see her or Amelia again. One time wouldn't hurt anybody, and it was always good for relieving tension. After racing through a whole new city, wounding myself and ending up tipsy in an unknown ship, having fun and then going to sleep didn't sound so bad. It sounded quite the opposite. My head was spinning as her lips came down my length. She moved her tongue while bobbing her head back and forth. All I could see was her blue hair and the threads falling on her face, as well as the brown root. I leaned my head against the wall, struggling to control my wheezing and placing one hand on the edge of the bed trying to hold it. Not that it did any good. The bed shook like an earthquake happening under our feet. Matilda's gagging sound energized my guts and made me even harder. It didn't take us long to toss the clothes to the floor, the brown disappearing under her colored clothes. Warm and humid, she squeezed me with every move, sometimes curving her back and throwing her head back. She was lost at the pinnacle of the moment, a temporary ecstasy by the way she bounced on me, biting her lower lip and pressing my chest with her hands.
She begged for more with no shame, the light eyes hiding behind the hair when it leaped forward toward her face. The moans filled the room until they overshadowed the possibility of being caught that lingered in my head. I didn't care anymore. I was too lost in it for another thought to have space in my mind. Her tits bounced up and down onto her chin. She lay on my chest and I took the opportunity to put my hands on her chubby ass.
She speeded up until I was close to losing control and could barely release a warning without being interposed by a moan. She got off me and knelt before me, ignoring the splinters on the floor, and opening her mouth until her tongue was not enough to cover the bottom of her throat.
She winked at me and asked me to be quick.
I watched the thick white liquid flow down the back of her throat while I still had my hand on my dick and my breathing was faint. The pressure I applied when I put my feet on the ground woke up the pain in my leg once again.
"I knew we'd have fun." Matilda said, still smiling, with wet lips and sweat running down her neck and in that curved space under her breasts, "it does help to relieve stress, doesn't it? And, you know, Amelia can't find out. I promised her I wouldn't get involved with anyone else inside the ship. Although I don't think she even believed it."
"She won't find out. It's okay. Now what? Shall we rest? Didn't Jessy say we only had a few hours?"
"Yes, it depends on the captain's mood. If she's tired, she'll go for the slowest route. I don't think we'd even take this kind of mission if it was only her choice. She's more the type of mission involving guns, not that you haven't figured that out yet. But yes, that leg needs rest. And it's not the only thing on your body." She said and winked at me.
She lay down on top of me and after a few minutes without moving around, it was as if I received a second discharge of the ointment and the pains vanished again. We ended up falling asleep in that position, her tits flattened against my chest, the hot breath on my right cheek.
Chapter VI
I woke up with a metallic voice coming from the corridors telling us we were arriving. I still had my eyes half open when the voice was replayed. Probably a tape being played, I thought.
"Damn it. One of the bullets must have hit the communicators. I better get dressed and get out of here before Amelia comes to my room and complains." Matilda told me, getting off of me and grabbing her pink panties and light blue bra, "hopefully we'll do it again before we drop you off at another port," she added.
She took the remaining clothes and left the room only in her underwear. I listened to her footsteps along the hall and then another door being opened. Silence descended on the entire ship and, for the first time since I had entered it, I was able to put my head down on a sturdy pillow and let out a long sigh, as I began to think about everything that had happened.
I had saved a wanted captain. I had stood up to a man twice as big as me, hitting him with a glass over his head and had been involved in an escape. But most of all, I was traveling. Sailing through space towards another ship, on a mission and then going to another port, another ship, explore other planets. One step away from achieving everything I've always wanted.
"Are you really still like that?" a familiar voice said, "We're minutes away from docking on the other ship. If you're late, you don't get paid."
I turned to the entrance and Amelia was there, looking at me, with me still naked, and I could feel her eyes wandering through my body.
"I was just about to get dressed," I said to her and I got up. Not for a moment did she take her eyes off my body or my semi-erect dick, "Are you going to stay there while I get dressed?"
"Is that a problem?" she asked me, "For someone so brave, are you embarrassed at all?"
"I'm not used to having someone look at me while I'm getting dressed."
"I'm not the first person on this ship to see you like that, boy." she told me, filled with certainty and a half-closed gaze, half-face shaded by her hat, "these walls are not that thick."
"Ah...I... didn’t know." I told her, "It's not Matilda's fault."
"You're scared, aren't you? I can see it in your eyes. You don't have to. I told her to stop, but apparently it's a tradition that no one on this ship follows the rules." Amelia said.
Our conversation was interrupted by a horn loud enough to be heard throughout the ship. This was followed by a recording, still with a metallic voice, saying that the ship was going to land on top of the other and that we could witness turbulence.
"Hurry up, okay? I don't like delays." She said and her eyes went through my dick and body one last time and I could swear that for a fraction of a second, she smiled.
The door closed behind her and I was alone again. I got dressed in seconds, made the bed and left the room.
It proved tricky to walk the corridors when the ship began to land, the hexagon points moving sideways, trying to gain stability. I lost control of my legs, my knees trembling, and I was thrown pitiless against the walls. I was about to reach the cockpit. Amelia's hair covered half of one of the elongated red chairs, when gravity disappeared and, unlike before, this time I was thrown against the ceiling.
Fortunately, it only lasted a few seconds until the ship landed and gravity returned. I was still getting up when Jessy walked up behind me and helped me get up.
"You've never been on a ship, have you?"
"No. Only on a carrier. But I didn't want to tell them."
"Don't worry. I'll keep your secret. We all have secrets here." She told me and took a break before she went on, "Is your leg better?"
"Yes, thank you. That ointment worked. There's something I'd like to ask you."
"It's about the arm, isn't it?"
"Yes, what happened?" I asked as we walked to the cabin, just a few steps away.
She stopped before she started, "I don't usually talk about this, you know? But, well, you won't be here tomorrow, it makes no difference. Before I became a member of this ship, I worked in a hospital in a war zone. I always wanted to be a doctor, save people, you know? It was my dream, no matter where I was. One day... shit, it's still hard for me to talk about it and it's been almost two years. A group of rebels, space pirates, attacked the place. They didn't stop until they killed almost everyone until they made sure there was no way we could get it back. Amelia was in the hospital, on a mission she never told me about. She saved me. During the shootout and the getaway, she got hurt and I ended up taking care of her. After that, she invited me to join the crew. I accepted if in return she would promise me that she would accept altruistic missions from time to time. Matilda was already here but she doesn't know why Amelia's was the hospital either. She's got a lot of secrets. It's something y
ou get used to."
"Stop talking. We're here. Let's hurry up. I and the boy are going aboard the ship. You two stay here. Any problems, let me know through the communicators." Amelia said, and looked at me, "Shit, you need one too. Matilda will get you a communicator. And while I'm gone, fix these recordings too. I can no longer stand my metallic voice." Amelia said.
She confirmed if she had a gun in a holster, on each leg, under the black skirt up to her knees. She also had lace socks that went up to her hips and made it easier for her to hide a knife in each shoe. I was so distracted by them that I hadn't even noticed the infinite space beyond the ship's glass. A black blanket that stretched out in all directions; some shining, stars perhaps dying in the distance, and others, just a frightening void.
A vacuum of nothing where somebody could walk for hundreds of years until they find somebody, something, anything that wouldn't revolve around wandering through a never-ending labyrinth.
Someone tapped my shoulder until they got my attention back.
"Take this," Matilda said and handed me a transponder as soon as I turned around. A black object, small enough to fit in the ear, "just speak up and we can hear you. You don't have to scream. As soon as you get out of here, I'm going to see what's going on with the communicator and confirm if anything else is broken. Well, someone on this ship has to take care of everything," she added.
"It's your job. Now let's just get going. No more wasting time." Amelia said and bumped into me as she walked past me, "Follow me."
I looked one last time at Matilda and Jessy before I followed the captain down the hall. The ship was wobbling but not enough for me to lose control of my legs once again. One more time, we stopped by the black wall, a few meters away from the infirmary, and she pressed the blue light cluster. A transparent door arose, this time leading us into a kind of pod with a black hatch in the center. It was a small room with nothing else inside except for that and two proper white suits for exploring space.
"No way. We don't need to use them." Amelia said, as soon as she saw me staring at them, "you'll have time to use them on another ship."
I didn't answer her. She opened the hatch and stepped down the stairs surrounded by a lightless vertical tunnel. It was pitch-black and I almost slipped twice on the way down. I heard her land. Her shoes hit the metal from the other ship's floor and the sound echoed through the supposedly empty corridors.
"You took your time." She said when I reached her, "Just follow me. The boxes are in the warehouse. Let me see a map of this." She said and removed a tablet-like machine from her pocket. I had never seen anything quite like it before. She pressed a few buttons until a two-dimensional map of the ship and a red dot appeared over the room we had to go to.
Chapter VII
We were in a room like the one we had come from. It also had the two astronauts’ suits but there was no hatch. The floor was made of metal with bumps all over it. Amelia opened the door and signaled to follow her.
Everything there was different. The corridors, rather than the black ones, were white and the floor was made of blue and white tiles. Despite the clarity, there was a melancholy and dangerous sentiment prevailing in the air. Something was not right there; I could feel it even if we had just arrived. It reeked of gunpowder and Amelia wouldn't take her hand off one of the holsters. Even she could feel something wasn't right.
"Are we on the right track?" I asked her, as we followed the shortest route to the warehouse.
"Yeah. You better not talk now." She answered me and peered into the next hallway before we turned, "Something's not right. It's too peaceful. If the lights are on, it must not have been a technological problem. But there are no bodies either. I have no idea what happened here. I don't like this."
The light in the right corridor blinked incessantly and the bloodstained walls teamed up to look like a scene taken from a cheap horror film that made me gulp drily. Just the kind of movies I never liked watching. Amelia put her finger in the blood, sliding and licking it, "it's still fresh. Be careful." She warned me.
The further we went, the more the smell of fresh blood became strong and overlapped the gunpowder.
"Matilda, confirm if there are any people aboard this ship. Something happened here." Amelia told her.
Matilda's voice popped up on the communicator a few seconds later, "nothing on the screen. Do you need help?"
"I don't need any help. I just wanted to make sure we were alone." Amelia answered and turned off her communicator, "Turn off yours too. We don't need help."
It didn't seem like the right time to disobey the one person who could protect me if anything happened. A few steps later the sound of our shoes drowned out. The heavy air and the stronger smell, now putrid puke, as well as the blood on the walls that were now massive brushstrokes of color on a white canvas.
"Shit. We're on our way. Don't get off my back. I knew I shouldn't have brought you." Amelia said and pulled one of the guns out of the holster.
"Shouldn't I have a gun too?"
"Do you know how to shoot?"
"No, but it can't be that difficult, can it?" I asked her.
From afar, I could see the room where the warehouse was located. The two black doors were jagged and the walls around them whispered, looking like someone was following us closely and blowing on the back of our heads. Never in my life had I felt so close to danger. I had been in risky situations before. More than one landslide in the mines, that time I ran away from two robbers who followed me all the way home as soon as I left an old watch restoration shop, and even one of the many times my mother freaked out and tried to hit me with the iron that should be used to ironing the clothes. But nothing, nothing like now, nothing like my heart about to jump out of my mouth, my throat dry and my toes wriggled.
Finally, we got to the warehouse. The broken lamp shards were on the ground before us. The room was only illuminated by the three refrigerators where there were labeled vaccines, in groups of five and in different colors. At the back of the room, dozens of brown boxes, which had already been opened, some of the strips that used to fasten them on the ground. Someone had opened them to see what was inside but seemed to have run away before using the tape instrument that was still on the only table in that room. What was not lacking in those walls was blood and red marks of more than one person being dragged out of there on the floor. Amelia tried to turn on the comms, but they only broadcasted static. Nothing there worked well. We seemed to be trapped in a bubble where nothing or no one else existed.
"Grab as many boxes as you can," Amelia said, "We're going to have to make some trips. The faster we go, the better. This place gives me the creeps."
I was going to agree with her when I saw a shadow walk by the door. It was only for a few seconds, but I knew I couldn’t overlook it. A black spectrum that was waiting for us on the other side, perhaps it had been waiting for us ever since we got there.
"Amelia," I called her.
"Why are you talking so low?"
I signaled her to the door with my eyes. I probably looked like someone having a seizure, with my eyes blinking and the irises in my corners, but it was the only way to make her understand without anyone on the other side listening to me.
She took a spatula from the table, drew closer to the door and threw it against the outside wall. As soon as it hit the wall, an echo rang all over the ship and a man, wearing only a white bloodstained shirt, threw himself to the ground. His knees collided with the tiles, cracking them.
As soon as he realized it was just an object, he raised his head and turned to us. Despite the blood-drenched face, it wasn't enough to hide the bulging, dark and spacey eyes, much less the superficial cuts on the body and his slightly angled nose to the right.
Amelia kept the gun pointed at him, her face serene and her finger on the trigger ready to fire at any sudden movement.
"Go ahead and put the boxes you can carry in one go on the table. Make sure the bottom's not torn." Amelia told me, "I'll take
care of this."
The man grabbed the drill, brought it near to the owl's tattoo he had on his chest and crawled to the opposite wall of the doors. He pressed the button several times until he calmed down, the spinning sound of the metal, muffling the noises emanating from the walls. He pointed it at us, seated on the floor, his tattooed arms glued to his shoulders and his legs quivering. Whoever he was he didn't seem like a killer. On the contrary, there was fear in his eyes, in his cracked lips and shuddering whenever he tried to open his mouth, as well as in his cheeks and nose as red as the pool of blood he had left on the way.
"Who are you? What the hell happened?" Amelia asked, getting close to him, the boots stepping on the tiles that the man had broken.
"She's coming. We've got to get away fast. Quickly." The man said, repeating himself, his voice being like a desperate cry, the last appeal before succumbing, "she killed everyone."
"Her? Her who? Finally, a bit of action." Amelia said and an evil smile arose in the corner of her mouth. She was loving it, "Who knew such a simple mission could get so exciting."
"You don't understand... She's not doing well. She's crazy. She killed everyone with no hesitation. All of them. Understand?" the man said, his hands still trembling, and his joints swollen, "it wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't!"
"Didn't you say this was just a ship carrying medicine?" I asked as I continued to carry the boxes to the table.
I could take 3 or 4 at a time if I could walk slowly or two at most, at the same time, if we went running.
"Yeah, it was supposed to. That's what they told me. You'll find that most people aren't completely honest. Half-truths are the cradle of humanity." Amelia said, never taking her eyes and her gun off the man who was still resting against the wall, now looking around as if he was waiting for someone, "You, control yourself. What happened here? Tell me, quickly. And that's if you want to get out of here alive."
"He's... he's right." The man said, the words coming out of his mouth as if they were being plucked away with iron, "just some medicine for the other part of the universe. A standard mission, that's what they told us. I believed it, you know? We all did. But it wasn't just that. Only the captain and a few of his close colleagues knew what was in one of the locked rooms. They told us it was just old stuff, junk, but they had someone there. She'll be here. We don't have much time. We better go now." He said, saliva dripping down his mouth. He no longer had any control over his own body. All the blood had flowed into his shirt and leather pants, and on his face remained only the dried red.