Double Grades

by Kristine Robinson

  I couldn't believe I was hearing Emma speak so candidly to me. Maybe seeing me shot and bleeding on the floor had softened her to me a little bit. I wasn't really sure. But whatever it was, I liked it. Even though I hated myself for it, I liked Emma's touch, the way her hands were gentle yet firm. It was so unlike the coarse touch of a man, and so unlike any other touch I'd felt before.

  “You're really good at this,” I said. “We're you ever a nurse or anything?”

  Emma shook her head no.

  “Where I grew up we had to take care of each other in the most literal sense. There was no town doctor, no one to run to when things got bad,” Emma said. “When someone got sick, we'd have to seek out the help of an Indian healer, and sometimes what they would charge us was unreal. But they did make people better, most of the time.”

  Emma started to wrap my neck with a bandage.

  “You'll need to take it easy with this neck injury, or as easy as you can take it,” Emma said. “I know that right now there really isn't much chance that we'll be able to just lounge around and wait for everything to die down, I'm just asking you to keep it in mind that you just got shot in the neck and you really need to avoid infection.”

  While she talked, Emma moved her face close to mine, examining the wound on my neck. When she looked up, it was straight into my eyes. At first, I wasn't sure what she was going to do, but then, before I realized what was happening, she leaned in and pressed her lips to mine. They were soft and supple, the kind of lips that I could dream about for a hundred years and never really get it quite right. The way she pressed them against me was amazing, and I could feel my entire body tremble.

  “Whoa, now,” Emma said. “We don't want you going into shock or anything.”

  “I'm not shaking because of the shock,” I said. “I'm shaking because I've never kissed another woman before.”

  Emma looked surprised.

  “Never,” Emma said. “Not even once when you were a kid?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Not ever.”

  “Wow,” she said. “Well, I'm glad to be your first.”

  Before I could respond her lips were on mine again, but this time her tongue probed forward, running across the length of my lips before darting into my mouth and playfully sliding under my own tongue. For a few seconds I didn't know what to do. I wanted to kiss her back, but we were already in the middle of a kiss, and that meant I couldn't kiss her further. But that didn't mean that my hands didn't suddenly have minds of their own, exploring Emma's body, slipping under her clothes and groping parts of her I would have never dreamed of touching before she kissed me.

  “I thought you'd never done anything like this before,” Emma said. “For someone so inexperienced you sure aren't afraid.”

  I wanted to pour my heart out to her, tell her how afraid I really was. I was scared of being shot again and scared of my wound being infected. But more than that I was scared of the chance that I might be having feelings for the very person who I'd come to apprehend. Emma was the person who would make me rich, but right now she was also the person driving me crazy. I couldn't believe how good she felt, and how amazing she smelled. It was like being in another world, one of touch and smell, want and longing.

  “Oh, God,” I said. “My neck. It feels like it's seizing up.”

  “Then it probably is,” Emma said. “Here, let me massage it.”

  Emma gently moved her fingers along my neck, being careful not to touch the wound itself. Her fingers had an incredible amount of dexterity in them, something I couldn't help my mind from going somewhere dirty with. I wondered what those fingers could do to my body if only Emma would feel me like I was feeling her. As she continued to alleviate my pain, I slipped my hand down her pants. Emma lifted herself up and away from me, and planted her lips on mine, hard. I knew then that I was in for something I had never felt before, and as her hands started to caress and tease the rest of my waiting body waves of pleasure washed over me. I hadn't known how much I was anticipating her touch.

  The way her hands knew their way around my body without ever having been there before was such a turn on for me. I combed my fingers through her black hair and kissed her neck as her fingers fondled their way lower and lower, until they undid my pants and tugged them down. It wasn't long until I was gripping both of her shoulders, my forehead pressed against hers, as I moved toward ecstasy.

  It was all so surreal, everything that had happened in the last day culminating in this. I'd just been shot in the neck, but now I couldn't even feel it I was so overwhelmed. The way that Emma touched me was like magic, but not the phony kind of magic that kids believe in—real magic. The kind of thing that would make a person drop to their knees it was so great. I knew that I needed to keep my wits about me, but at this point, it was too late. There was no way I was going to ask Emma to stop when I was so close. The way her fingers moved inside of me was like dancers on a stage, each one knowing where to step and where not to step; each one knowing how the dance would end, and in no hurry to get to that point.

  Finally, after what seemed like forever, I climaxed. Gripping Emma tight to me I felt my whole body shake. It was a dam inside of me had broken, and all the pleasure it had been holding back, hiding from me, poured out all at once. I gripped Emma close to me as the tremors slowly subsided.

  “Jesus,” I said. “I've never felt anything like that before. How do you know how to do that?”

  Emma laughed.

  “I guess I just knew, no one ever showed me,” Emma said. “But I can show you if you'd like. Maybe not right now, but when we aren't in danger of being shot or hung or burned alive if those bandits decide to torch the town.”

  Suddenly all of the ecstasy gave way to anxiety. I felt good still, but now the dread of the circumstances which surrounded us crept back into my thinking. We needed to figure out where the sharpshooter was, and we also needed to figure out how many bandits were out there in the night. Emma crawled away from me, careful to keep her head down, and I adjusted my clothes back to how they had been. I wondered if the moment we'd just had would be repeated, or if Emma would never touch me again. I hoped that she would. It had felt like something new and exciting had been awoken inside of me, and that was a pretty great feeling. Emma said that she'd just known how to do that to a woman, and I wondered why I hadn't been born with the same carnal knowledge. I wanted to be able to make her feel the same way, to make the dam break inside of her the way she had breached mine. There was something really special about what had happened, while at the same time being completely and totally normal. I didn't want to spoil the moment by saying anything, so I adjusted the bandage on my neck and tried to act normal.

  “Hey,” Emma said. “Be careful to stay low. I know it's easy to think that there is only one shooter, and therefore only one line of sight, but I'm not sure that's what's going on. There could be a couple of them, all posted up on the slight ridge line you can see out of the window in the daylight.”

  Emma really knew her stuff, and that was something that I hadn't considered about her when I'd first started pursuing her. I'd figured she was just some country bumpkin who, like Billy the Kid, had managed to make a name for themselves through bushwhacking people. But it seemed like Emma was more of a professional fighter than just a mere bushwhacker. This was something I filed away in my mind for later, when, eventually, I would have to apprehend Emma.

  “I'll be careful,” I said. “What should we do? Head out into the night to help stand post?”

  Emma didn't answer at first.

  “Do you hear that?” Emma asked. “It sounds like something burning.”

  My heart sank. If the bandits had started to torch the town that meant that we would quickly be forced to choose between staying and fighting a losing battle or taking our chances in the desert. We made our way out of the hotel to find another building on fire, and the town's people fleeing. I felt so defeated, watching the former inhabitants of the town running off into the desert to tak
e their chances with the bandits. I heard Emma speaking with one of the few young men who had called the town home.

  “Are you going to stay and fight, or run. Running might be a good option, especially with all the yahoos who took off keeping the bandits busy,” Emma said. “Or you could dig in here, maybe hide in the cellar. I know you've made it so you can walk your horses down a hidden ramp.”

  The young man looked around, surveying the grim scene. There wasn't much to stay for, considering the fire was now spreading down the main gangplank. Soon the entire town would be engulfed in flames. The old timber made to build the structures and gangways had been dried to a crisp by the sun. Some of them had even dry rotted to the point of being highly combustible. It was strange to see fire leap from timber to timber like it had a mind of its own. The hunger I saw in the flames reminded me of the hunger I felt for Emma. It was a pang of hunger that I wanted to deny, but one that I knew that, like the flames, would remain and spread.

  “I guess I'll dig in,” the young man said. “It's a goddamn shame that everyone took off for the hills. That's just what the bandits were waiting for. I'm sure most of them won't make it too far, not that they were really thinking about longevity if they were willing to abandon everything here for the coyotes.”

  “I know it's hard,” Emma said. “But you have to think about you and your family now. You were one of the best people in this town, and still are. I know it's hard to see everyone's courage break like that, but that's how people are in this world. When they had a lawman, even an old used up one who had no business even pretending he was part of the law, people felt better here. They could hide behind him. But now that they have to stand for themselves things seem harder. And even though they could have put out the flames if they'd all worked together, it was easier to run.”

  The young man nodded and headed toward his home to get ready to weather the storm. His was set apart from the rest and made of stucco instead of wood, so there wasn't any chance of it catching on fire, although the bandits would most likely loot it in the morning daylight. Already cries and gunshots were echoing from the foothills. Those people who had run off were finding that this wasn't the first time the bandits had done something like this.

  “I say we head for the mesa,” I said. “I know it sounds crazy, but it's the last place they will expect us to go for, especially because that's where they were hiding a few days ago. They probably have the leftovers of a camp set up, and we could scavenge some of their goods, if there are any. And, besides that, I'm a really great shot with my rifle. If I crawl up onto one of the mesa's crags, there's no way they can approach us in the daylight without taking causalities.”

  Emma looked me up and down. The night air filled with the crackling of buildings and homes going up in smoke, and the light from the fire dances across our faces.

  “You've got a good idea, there,” Emma said. “And I'd be happy to loot their camp and then kill them as they try to come back to it, bloated off of the booze and food they're going to loot from this town. They'll most likely return to the mesa tomorrow in the afternoon, coming to this town in the morning to take what they can.”

  We both moved to our horses and mounted up. The ride out of town was one we made at a gallop, while shots and screams continued to echo down from the hills miles away from us. I'd never seen anything like this before, the way the town was all aflame and the silhouettes of people ran to and from buildings, some of them digging in, some of them leaving. It was hard to imagine what it would be like to be them, watching all their worldly possessions go up in flames. I was glad that it wasn't my town burning to the ground, and sorry that I'd shot one of the gang members. I should have just ridden it out and made it to the town. But it was easy to think that now that I was safe, and shots weren't flying past me right and left.

  One of those shots could have just as easily passed through me, killing me, instead of passing by. That was something I had to be real about. I'd defended myself out of necessity, and the town should have as well. But instead, they'd decided to run. That was their prerogative. Some people didn't have what I considered pride, or backbone. Some people were just trying to get by in this world, and that was something I understood, even if it wasn't the way that I live my life. I wished there was a way to go back in time and really ready the town for the onslaught, but that was long past. Now all we could do was push forward, and ready ourselves for tomorrow.

  Emma took the lead, her horse seemingly having no problem finding its footing through the night. My horse was less sure of foot in this terrain. As we rode, I wondered how Emma had known the tactics the bandits used. Had she ever been a part of them? Was that why they posted up outside of the town, to wait for her to leave? These were questions that were going to have to wait for the following day, and questions that I knew I most likely wouldn't like the answers to. Emma didn't seem like a bad person, but she was defiantly someone that did what she had to do to get by. That meant there were times when she did things she didn't entirely agree with to survive. I could understand that, but that didn't make me any less curious. As I rode, I realized that I needed to be much more cautious of Emma, but that was hard considering what was going on between us.

  ~*~

  When we got to the mesa, we found what we both had been expecting, the remnants of a camp. The coals were still hot from when the bandits had cooked dinner before heading to sack the town. Emma quickly stoked the coals into a fire, and we made some food out of the outlaw's leftovers.

  “So,” Emma said. “You think you'll be able to take care of them with your long gun as they ride up?”

  “I sure do,” I said. “I mean, they won't know what's going on until the first one goes down. I'm a good shot, and I'll let them get close enough where they either have to charge us for 100 yards or so, straight into our revolvers, or retreat while under fire. After that I think they'll probably head back to the town, or to the foothills beyond.”

  Emma nodded and stared down into her meal.

  “Emma,” I said. “Did you used to be a part of their gang? I just can't see a very good reason for a group of them to stop by this mesa and just wait . . . for what? A few peoples' wallets?”

  Emma looked like she didn't want to answer, and I didn't blame her.

  “You've figured it out,” Emma said. “I left the gang because they're terrible, terrible people. I hope you can understand that sometimes I have to do things I don't want to survive.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  Emma put down her bowl and stood up. At first, I wasn't sure what she was doing, but then she sat down next to me. She leaned over as if to whisper something in my ear, and then slowly moved her tongue from my earlobe to the top, and then down again.

  “Do you want me to show you how to do what I did to you?” Emma asked.

  I didn't know what to say, but that was all right. Emma already knew what the answer would be. I just hoped that I didn't make a fool of myself, that there wouldn't be a point where I was embarrassed or had to stop and ask for directions. I knew that Emma was willing to teach me, but I didn't know how quickly I would pick it up. It was one thing to have another woman turn me on and press all my buttons, but it was another to do it back to her in a meaningful way.

  “Just show me what to do,” I said.

  Emma took my hands in hers and started using them to caress her body. It made me feel good to know that I could have this kind of an effect on a woman. She was visibly turned on, and it gave me the courage to keep going instead of backing off. Because there was a big part of me that wanted to back off, wanted to run and hide. But Emma wasn't about to let that happen, not with the way her breathing had quickened and her pulse had spiked.

  At first, Emma moved my hands for me, but soon I was feeling her body on my own. She felt so good underneath her clothes, and it wasn't long until we'd tugged her pants down and lay side by side. She kept moaning as I moved my fingers through her most private parts, her eyes rolling. It felt powerfu
l to make someone feel so good, as if I were some kind of God animating a statue. Emma wasn't just receiving pleasure, though, she was also giving it to me. It was wonderful how our arms tangled together, and I nearly passed out when she threw her leg over mine and started grinding against me.

  I'd never even thought of doing anything like this before in my life. I loved how it felt, the way Emma pulled me close and wouldn't let me go. It all felt so good, and I couldn't believe it was happening. There really was something about Emma that I couldn't put my finger on, and that meant feelings because there wasn't a place I'd yet to run my fingers across on her body. As we made love, I knew that what I was doing wasn't the smartest thing. I was letting my guard down, and that was always the number one rule never to break—a good bounty hunter always kept their guard up.

  But maybe this circumstance was different and special. Maybe there were parts of Emma that she didn't even know about. That was what I was hoping for, anyway. As our bodies moved against each other, I could sense the feeling of ecstasy nearing the brink for her. The dam that had broken in me earlier was going to let loose in her now. I gyrated my hips more, sticking my tongue in her mouth and squeezing her gently. She loved it, and let loose a moan that reverberated through my lips. Her whole body started to vibrate, and then she was in the throws of passion. For Emma it lasted longer than it had for me, and it made me proud of myself. If I could make Emma feel this way, what couldn't I do?

  When we were done, we lay by each other and ran our hands over each other's bodies. I wasn't sure exactly what I was feeling, but I knew I wanted it to last. I wasn't sure how to make that happen exactly, especially given present circumstances.

  ~*~

  When I woke the sun had already crested the horizon, and Emma was gone. I looked around the campfire and found a note.

  “Dear Samantha,” the note read. “I'm sorry to do this to you, and it's not that I doubt your ability as a marksman, but I'm riding out of here at first light. The Rooster Gang will see me and pursue me, just like they have every other time they've seen me. Don't worry, they won't catch me. They're too afraid of me to ride up on me, and apart they aren't much. Because they aren't willing to break apart the group, they are a cumbersome bunch.