Ishq Factors

by Suleikha Snyder

  Six years. Ever since I took the job with the Wyndhams.

  They needed a mech, I needed a ship. They gave me four—three sleek cruisers and Bella, the classic beast. “My great-grandfather had a whale of a Caddy named Bella,” old man Wyndham had wheezed and chuckled as he showed me around the garage, bigger than any quarters I’d ever had and all just for his toys. “You don’t even know what a Cadillac is, do you, Kid? Well, this beauty here, she’s the closest I’ve got.”

  That closest thing was a hulking, shell-shaped junk with tall windows for eyes and squat little legs that would fold up after take off. A B-class family carrier, sometimes used for deep space smuggling, since it could fit contraband just as well as six or seven rugrats and a dog. I’d recognized the history in her, but appreciated the keys to the hangar far more. The keys meant a job. The keys meant the old man saw past my tits and to what I could do. Most importantly, the keys meant three squares a day and a place to sleep.

  So, it wasn’t love at first sight for Bella and me, but now I know that it’s the kind of love that lasts, the kind that won’t break my heart. The ships aren’t off limits. The ships are within reach. What’s out there, beyond the hangar doors, in the black and amidst the stars…that’s not for me.

  The knowledge doesn’t stop me from tucking my rag in my back pocket and scampering down the ladder, though. And it doesn’t stop me from walking across the cool titanium flooring of the dock. Just beyond the compression doors, outside the reinforced windows, is the Wyndham family station. A glittering ball of lights and life. It might as well be my sun, because it’s what I navigate by and to.

  They’re the wealthiest family in the system. Old, old money. Some say blood money, and I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s above my pay grade to speculate, but that kind of cash tells its own truths. Most people live on small carriers or group stations, but the Wyndhams have their very own space station. Some of the other mechs and techs I’ve bumped into on runs call it The Hill. I call it her house. Little Miss Wyndham. The old man’s granddaughter. Sitara. And every night, after I wipe down Bella and her fancy sisters, I watch the lights and look for a flicker, a sign, for anything that means there’s hope.

  “When it’s safe I’ll send up a flare,” she told me once. “I’ll send up a flare, and then we’ll be together. No one will be able to stop us.”

  So, I always look for it…but it seems like it’ll never be safe enough for her to send.

  I don’t know which side of the sphere she lives on. I wouldn’t dare knock on her door even if I did. Her granddaddy signs my credit chips and her daddy is my boss man. I just have to be content seeing her whenever I can. On a short trip down to the surface. A zip over to Calliope Station for a friend’s wedding. A shopping trip to Clio with her mother. All those little moments where I can help her up and down the ramp, carry her packages and share her pretty smiles. All the quick jaunts where the Wyndhams trust a mech to fly instead of their high-paid pilot.

  He lives on the station with them. A pilot doesn’t have to bed down with the toys. Not that I mind. Bella is warm and safe and constant. Bella is still there when I turn away from the hangar windows. Bella doesn’t care if I break down a little and then smudge grease all over my face as I wipe at the tears with my sleeve.

  See, I was born on the wrong side of the system. I came out screaming, mad at the world, and my sand driller mama died on the spot. I had no history, no name, nothing to me except the mech training the orphanage put me into as soon as I was old enough to walk. Even now, people put me down because of where I was born. Greasemonkey. Mechmouse. Space trash. I’ve heard it all.

  But never from Sitara.

  The first time we met, she slipped her hand into mine without even flinching and followed me on board. The second time, she laughed this bell-like laugh and told me I fly better than a dozen fancy pilots. The third and fourth and fifth time, we couldn’t keep our eyes off each other. The sixth time, she whispered “kiss me,” and so I did. Even though I don’t fit into her high society, even though most people just call me Kid because they don’t care if I have a name, I think she actually loves me.

  “We’ll be together someday. I promise. Just wait,” she said…and I believed her.

  So, I work and scrimp and save every credit in the hopes that I’ll see that flare. In the mean time it’s Bella that’s with me. It’s my ship that holds me at night. It’s my best girl that gets me through. I tell myself that mechs are better off loving metal, loving wires, loving engines and computers and radios…and I try not to think of soft human skin and the leap of a pulse and the sound of a gasp when I press my mouth to a sensitive place.

  I finish my night check, giving the cruisers another once-over before I pull the ladder away from Bella’s hull and park it along the side of the hangar. Then I scurry up the ship’s ramp and into her hold, where I keep my pallet and my gear.

  Some nights I collapse into bed in whatever I’m wearing. Sometimes I steal a precious shower in the main cabin, letting the sonic waves shake the dirt from my bones. Sitara and I made love in that narrow cubicle on the way back from Calliope. The only thing that shook then were my knees. I can’t face that memory tonight, so I shuck off my coveralls and slip under the thin thermal blanket in my tank and shorts—with grease still layered under my nails and dust hiding in the crevices of my skin.

  I guess that’s one thing my mama did leave me. Skin. A dark brown map that stretches from head to toe. Marked in places by pale nails and curly black hair. I have hills and peaks, valleys and curves. I might not know enough about the fancy world outside the hangar, but I know my own land. And I know who it belongs to.

  “You’re beautiful,” she whispers sleepily, nuzzling her cute little nose against my ear.

  Erato glistens outside Bella’s windows, like our own private moon. If I squint, I can pretend the settlement lights are all craters. That there’s nothing out here except Sitara and me. Sitara and me and her sweet lies.

  “I’m not beautiful,” I tell her, slipping my arm around her waist, where she’s soft—softer than me—and just the faint bit ticklish. “I’m practical.”

  Her fingers loop in my curls. She tugs. “This isn’t practical,” she points out. “Us. Here.”

  “No,” I agree, turning to catch her hand against my lips and kiss her curious digits. “This is beautiful.”

  She smiles, then. If Erato’s our moon, she’s the sun. And I don’t want to live without her light.

  I’m almost asleep—in that comfortable haze where Sitara’s reaching for me but I still feel Bella’s embrace, too—when I feel the tremor. Then the entire hangar shakes, and the ship goes sideways, throwing me across the floor before it falls back on its landing gear.

  BOOM! Now it’s an explosion rocking the bay, and I scramble up, grabbing my coveralls and heading for the ramp. Shit. Shit. Shit. This isn’t supposed to be happening. This part of the system is safe. Wyndham Station is well-guarded, with drones circling and waiting for any UFOs to cross into its perimeter.

  I practically skid off the ramp and hit the floor face-first, ass hanging out of my pants.

  When I spit out blood and look up, big black boots fill my vision. Fine Earth leather. Probably from real cows. I remember when they were bought. Clio, six months ago. Sitara modeled them for me on the flight home and then I set them firmly on either side of me as I fucked her with my fingers and my mouth. They’re spectacular boots. And an even more spectacular woman’s in them.

  She stares down at me, a smile quirking at her mouth and a blaster resting on one shoulder. Little Miss Wyndham has one big gun. Who knew?

  Sitara reaches her free hand down to me. Our fingers entwine and she hauls me to my feet. Behind her, through the hangar bay windows, I can see all the lights of her station…all the lights and more. Fire behind reinforced glass.

  The old man’s palace is burning. And his granddaughter is staring at me with nothing but wild conviction in her big gray eyes.

 
“Didn’t I tell you I’d send up a flare?” she says, pulling me close as we watch the world go up in flames.

  I’d say it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but that’s a lie.

  The most beautiful thing is after. When it all goes quiet. When we clamber back up the ramp together. When Bella takes us out into the stars, and the universe stretches before us. My best girls and my best chance. No one will ever call me Kid again, I tell them both. “From now on, I’m more than a mechmouse. I have a name.”

  “You’ve always had a name.” Sitara’s nose crinkles when she laughs. It’s so damn adorable paired with her boots and her blaster that I pull her down into my lap. She twists her fingers in my hair, tugs.

  “Now you have a place, Mnemosyne,” she murmurs. “And we have at least four of your daughters left to explore.”

  So we do. And we never, never do look back.

  Leo Rising

  The hotel lobby is quiet. Discreet. All palm fronds and polished marble. The men at the desk don’t even look up as you head straight back to the elevator banks. Do they know? Do they care? Do they see this kind of thing all the time? The questions excite you and prickle your skin with nerves in turns.

  The elevator doors swallow you up into a gilded cage, the walls so clean, so gleaming, that you can see yourself reflected. A little windswept, a little disheveled, your lips slicked with gloss and your eyes bright with need. You look like someone half-done, not quite awake. But that will all change soon enough.

  You watch the numbers on the strip light up as the floors fly by. Thirteen. Of course, it’s thirteen. Because you make your own luck.

  The hallway is dark, narrow, accented by the occasional standing vase filled with flowers, but the beige patterned carpet is lush enough to sink with each step you take. It must be a bitch to clean. But that’s not a thought you need to concern yourself with. Not here. Not now.

  Two turns, one right and one left, and you’re at your destination. The key is suddenly slippery in your hand, but you fit it into the slot and when the indicator turns green, your breath expels in a whoosh. The tension of the day goes with it. The day, the week, the month, the year.

  As he knew it would.

  He’s kind of a gorgeously prescient man that way.

  When the door swings open, it’s to reveal a modest-sized, tastefully expensive room. And him. Waiting.

  He’s sprawled across the king-size bed, careless only on the surface. Because everything he does is deliberate. He staged this just for you: pristine white sheets wrapped around his narrow hips, just below the sharp cuts of bone that point like arrows to his hidden erection. Because he is hard. As hard as you are soft.

  All he’s wearing is the watch you got him for your last anniversary, his ring and the smile he’s given you every day for the past six years.

  You wouldn’t have it any other way. You wouldn’t have him any other way.

  His dark eyes go half-lidded with knowing, with need, as you walk all the way into the hotel room and kick off your shoes. “Surprised?” he murmurs, the word muffled by how he rests his cheek against his arm.

  “Always,” you say.

  He’s not relaxed. Not really. He’s…leashed. Waiting. Flopped on his stomach because he knows you want to press your mouth to it. Shielding his cock because he knows you want to get your hands on it. Teasing you because he knows how much you like it.

  The keycard was in an envelope on your desk when you got to work, a room number and a time scribbled on the front in his unruly hand. You don’t know how it got there, and it doesn’t really matter. Messenger. Courier pigeon. Owl. A late-night break-in. You can picture him writing, hunched over a pad of paper, his long hair falling into his eyes. Just the thought of the bare patch of skin between the edge of his sleeve and the base of his palm is mesmerizing. There are bits and pieces of him that, by themselves, could fascinate you for hours. The whole package is almost too much. But it’s all yours. Naked and golden and dusted with fine dark hair.

  You want to sink your teeth into the firm flesh of his shoulder. Bite his thigh and nibble on the curve of his ass cheek. Not yet. So you focus on the teeth of your zipper instead. Buttons. Laces. You strip for him as he watches you, still with that sheen of sensual abandon, of languor. Like he’s already been fucked into glorious submission.

  Laughable, considering he’ll turn on you the moment you’re in his arms. He’s your sher, your lion. It’s all the pretense of repose and then the leap. He’ll go for the jugular, tearing incoherent moans and pleas from your throat.

  “Rough day?” He tugs at the sheet, turns just enough for it to slip down over the rise of his cock and the wiry thatch of hair that nestles it. He’s never been shy about his body. You’ve never been shy in your appreciation of it. You’re certainly not going to feign the vapors now.

  “It’s getting better all the time,” you laugh, finally closing the space between you. A little swing in your step and sway to your hip. A devil in your grin.

  He reaches out and catches your fingers, pulling you the last few steps. The friction of the thick silver ring on his thumb against the side of your hand is almost enough to make you come.

  Because the anticipation alone has had you on the edge of orgasm all day. You wanted to escape the morning staff meeting, lock yourself in a bathroom stall and touch yourself. You wanted to call him at noon just to hear him whisper in unprintable Hindi. But you didn’t. You held out.

  Because this is better. Going to him. Skimming across the mattress on your knees. Until they meet his chest. Until his lips find the ticklish spot under your left arm. His mustache drags along your skin, his beard stubble rides the goose bumps in its wake. But you don’t giggle. No, you just gasp and lean in to his open mouth and his wet tongue, his “hello” kiss in the strangest, sweetest of places.

  And then you push him down, straddling his hips, finally divesting him of the stark white bed sheet. A model without a shoot. That’s what he is. Art without an artist. And a lover with only minimal patience. “Tease,” you whisper.

  He folds his arms behind his head, stretching out beneath you like a vast array of warm sand. “Nahin. I am no tease.” His voice is a wave hitting the shore, all gorgeous ebbs and flows of consonants and vowels. “Teases don’t follow through.”

  He always does. A key on your desk. A filthy voicemail. Two simple words in a text message. A caress, a tap, a squeeze. They’re all promises he keeps. Like to love, to honor and to cherish. And sometimes—only sometimes—to obey.

  You reward him, and yourself, with everything you’ve wanted to do since you walked in the door. A lick of his flat, hard belly. A nip at his shoulder…just sharp enough to make him buck upward between your thighs. And then you take hold of him, hot and throbbing and ready, and you stroke until all his playing at calm turns wild. Until he turns wild. Your sher, your lion…your man-turned-beast.

  “Surprised?” You ask against his lips.

  “Always.” He gasps into your mouth.

  Everything he does is deliberate.

  Everything you do together is effortless.

  Loving each other like this is at the top of the list.

  Indian Summer

  His shirt is that crisp, bleached white that begs to be wrinkled, dirtied. It’s a stark contrast against the black of his suit jacket, the loose knot of a tie that’s already been tugged, and the suntanned warmth of his skin. She can’t stop looking. She won’t stop looking. Not tonight. She’s waited too long. Hours. Days. Years.

  He knows this without even having to ask, because he just leans against the door, so recently shut and locked with a definitive click, and waits. Lets her take him in. His eyes are smoke-blue with desire, and his lips are holding back laughter. His mouth is already stained with her gloss. A smear of dark pink on the bow of his lower lip.

  God, he’s beautiful. Fuckable. He always was, but he’s twice that now. This long, lean creature with shoulders and hips and hair made for her grip. His ha
nds are fists at his sides. She told him not to touch. Not to unbutton or unzip. And his knuckles are white with the effort of not baring himself to her. His cock is a hard line in his perfectly cut dress pants. Impatient. Begging. Saying everything he’s been advised not to speak.

  He could speak. They both know that. There are so many things they need to say. Both filthy and pristine. Apologies. Explanations. Forgivenesses and blessings. But this hour is about silence, about need. About her need. The girl she was. The woman she is now. He remembers one but doesn’t know the other. And they each want something different from him. All with the same result.

  And still he waits for it. For her. Exhaling sharply when she finally closes the distance between them.

  The taste in the elevator wasn’t enough. Pressing him to the mirror, arching up on her toes, licking into a hungry, crazy kiss. A bite between floors. A preview before the bell and the light and the doors sliding open. He whispered her name in a half-sigh, half-growl. The last time before the hush. There is so much anticipation in the lack of words. In the way air holds everything instead. His exhale. Her inhale. The brush of her dress against his jacket. The rasp of her fingertips against the stubble lining his jaw. He should’ve shaved, it’s at odds with how elegant he looks, but he never did care about symmetry. And maybe, just maybe, he left it rough for her.

  She’s slick with lust already, with holding back. She crossed and uncrossed her legs a dozen times in the hours leading up to this, trying to stop it…no, trying to grind it to completion. It’s wild, this thing between them. But she’s always been good at taming the beast.

  I can’t…I can’t hold on…baby…I’m gonna come.

  No. Not in my mouth. I want you in me. Please, Chris. Come in me.

  She could say that to him now, and he would still listen. Maybe that’s why she does this all without her voice. Relearning his face, counting the new lines with her fingertips. Tasting the hollow behind his ear and the jut of his collarbone. She smells him, too. Breathes in the scent of his skin and his cologne. In twenty years, that hasn’t changed. He’s the sea, salt air and sun. Lazy hours at the beach. His body arcing through the waves. A summer boy, even in the depths of winter.