Mercury Going Down

by Brambach, C. S.

  “I’m gonna go home and eat a decent meal and then get a good nights rest so I can go to the Doctors tomorrow, get my check up and then go to the port and start poking around.”

  Which is exactly what I did.

  7.

  The Bell Tolls, But Not For Me

  Day 7

  I woke from a dream where I was riding a tiger. The tiger was flying and I could feel the pull of the gravity well in my gut with every dip and climb. Then the tiger and I were on the ground and the tiger turned and bared its fangs, and it had the face of my wife. It tried to flee and I grabbed its tail....and I woke up. I had to whiz like a race horse.

  I tip toed to the bathroom and leaned over the toilet to facilitate pissing with full wood.

  I then went back into the bedroom and as quietly and as gently as I could I slid into bed beside me sleeping wife. She was laying on her right side, back to me. I began to gently

  run my hand down her side, stroking her. I softly caressed her ass. I slowly inserted my hand between her legs and began to touch her pussy with little feather touches. She murmured in her sleep.

  “Mmmmm.” I parted her lips, and, finding moisture, snuggled up next to her in a spooning action that soon found the head of my aching cock pressing against her inner vulva. Soon I was sheathed in her twat and was stroking away gently, ever so gently.

  Halfway to a nut, she half woke up.

  “What?” Her hand reached back and found the upper arm of the hand that was softly massaging her ass as I kept pumping away.

  “Oh, I always wanted to fuck while I was sleeping.” She spoke in a throaty half asleep voice. “Ooooh, yeah.” I reached over and grabbed her left breast and started squeezing it, softly.

  “Go back to sleep, you’ll enjoy it more.” I whispered. She reached down and started to work her clit. She moaned softly as we both came.

  Afterwards, as she got up to go to the bathroom I swatted her ass, playfully. When she was done she came back and lay in my arms. She kissed my cheek.

  “Starting the day off right.” She said into my chest.

  “Hey, would you be down to do an interview with, or on, Good Morning World?”

  She poked her head up and smiled.

  “Sure, that would be great.” She didn’t sound too enthused.

  “We could mention your art. Bitchin’ occasion for a gratuitous plug.”

  “If that’s the case, count me in. Whole heartedly.” Done deal. Diplomacy or the hard sell. Whatever it took.

  While Karen was in the shower and Jazz was whipping up breakfast I had a call from Communications Central. A call from Earth. Mr. Ray Zacari. Attorney. I took it.

  “Good day, Mr. Dunn. I’m Ray Zacari. How are you?” As if he was interested.

  “Quite well. What can I do for you?” Neutral.

  “Direct, to the point. I like it. The reason for the call is what I can do for you.”

  “And that would be?” Curious. Lawyers worked angles, what was his?

  “Well, if there’s malfeasance or product defect that caused your trauma, you definitely have a case. Also I can offer you top notch representation for any personal appearances.

  Any time you are shown on vid you are owed a fee.” That roused my interest.

  “No shit?” Flabbergasted.

  “No shit.” He said, confident.

  “Well, Good Morning World wants to book me and the Misses for an interview. Through Lou Chin, head of PR.” I could hear him chuckle.

  “Yeah, all PR guys care about is the company that signs their paychecks. Route him through me and I’ll make sure any remuneration is routed to your account. Minus my ten percent of course.” I sensed caring rather than just unchecked greed.

  “Done. You want my e mail so you can forward me a contract? I’ll have Lou Chin call you to set it up for tomorrow morning.” Too trusting? I would see.

  “I’m old fashioned, I’ll take your word for it.” Now who was being too trusting?

  “I was raised to believe that all a man is worth is his word. So I don’t break mine barring accident, acts of God or death. And I ain’t religious. I’ll give Lou Chin your number.” He had impressed me, for sure.

  “It will be nice working for you Mr. Dunn.”

  “Call me Drew. Oh, and you’ll be working with me Ray. Work with me.”

  I heard him laugh.

  “It’ll be my pleasure Drew, my pleasure.” I then called Lou Chin and gave him the good news for me and the bad news for him. He took it with a stiff upper lip and booked me for the next morning. After he took Ray’s number.

  After breakfast I saw Karen off to work and called Jake.

  “Hey Jake.”

  “Hey.” I heard him grunt. I heard what sounded like a lash strike flesh. I heard chains creak and rustle. A fun morning romp at Jake’s. In progress.

  “I’d ask what you were up to, but then you might tell me, and I don’t want to know that bad.” Different strokes all right.

  “Cool. I think I’ve cracked the RT code stream. Oh, and Lakshmi was definitely laundering funds through the gambling concession. Seems to track back to Jim Simpson. There was some irregularity in his ordering schedules. I’m looking into Supply and the port manifests. If you could go down there and snoop around maybe help me link in down there, they’ve the tightest code locks on planet. Harder than Religious Therapy.”

  “Harder than Security?” He laughed.

  “Security is a creampuff compared to Port Systems. And Jim Simpson has a direct line down there.” The web widened as the mystery deepened.

  “Yeah, actually, after I see the Doctor this morning I could look up an old friend I have down at the port.” I heard a snap of leather and a low moan.

  “Excellent. As soon as you can get in to Port Systems, call me. I’ll be on it like a shark on a seal pup.” The lash cracked again. I banished the picture it called to mind.

  “All right. I’ll call you and give you a heads up this afternoon.” I signed off.

  On the way to the Med-Unit I called Chief Fonagy. Traffic was light on the moving walkway. The amount of well wishers was calming down.

  “Hey Drew. New info coming in. Lakshmi was stabbed with a porters tool.”

  “Great. I’m going to nose around the port today, after I check in with Dr.’s Wali and Barber.” Not quite a full alert concern. More like know where the weapons are rather than actually hefting them. On guard.

  “Be careful. Want me to train a monitor on you?” Was that worry?

  “No, that shouldn’t be necessary. I’m going to visit with an old friend, Tim Harris. I should be safe enough.” I didn’t count on Jazz being with me. I was feeling fine though.

  “I’m going to do it anyway, standard operating procedure.” Anxiety I hadn’t known was there slid from me.

  “Thanks. Better safe than sorry.”

  “The company takes care of it’s own. Oh, you’ll be interested to know that the suspects in your attack, thanks to monitor tapes and DNA evidence gathered at the scene have started to roll over on each other. Denner and his girl rolled on Marge Chu. They’ve been sentenced by the Company Court to full rehab for Denner and partial reclamation for his girl Reesen. They’re both sedated waiting for shipment back to Luna for processing. Seems Marge is or was Hugo’s assistant in Ent. and was attending your wife’s promotion party and got wind of your itinerary. All of the Arts department and about half the Entertainment section was at that party. She was pretty lit, but she clamed up as soon as we picked her up. Doc Barber is working on her now. As for the Religious Therapy tie in, seems that there are four or five more Religious Therapist’s on the payroll than are actually in the city. Those credits were finding their way to Jim Simpson’s company account. A side account he had set up as a slush fund of some kind. Which makes the fact that he’s been out of touch for the last day and a half even more interesting.”

  “His locator chip?” I asked.

  “It’s like he’s off grid.” He replied.

>   Once off world on nongovernmental jurisdictional planets or bases, you signed a waiver that said you agreed to company justice. Company courts. Fuck arbitration. Fuck lawyers. Company as judge, jury and executioner. The Company as Big Brother. The Company takes care of it’s own, in more ways than one. The only bad thing about the chips was that they only had a range of ten Kilometers. So to lose them you either had to leave the city, which wasn’t likely, or dig it out. Which was painful or bloody or both.

  “That would explain the porters tool.” A macabre chuckle from the Chief. A porters tool was a handy combination of a knife, box cutter, screwdriver, crowbar, small garden shovel, all purpose dock workers tool that every worker at the port was issued. You could always recognize a dock worker by his porters tool. They wore them as badges of pride and honor. They wore them everywhere they went, all the time. It was said that a ‘docker’ that didn’t take his tool to bed with him wasn’t worth his salt.

  “Yes it would. All the more reason for you to be cautious down there.”

  “Yeah, I’m taking that under advisement.”

  “Do that.”

  “I’ll call you when I’m done down there.”

  I saw Dr. Wali in an exam room while Jazz went to get ‘recalibrated’.

  “How are you?” He asked giving me the once over.

  “Okay. Still a little stiff.” He nodded his head.

  “That is to be expected. You know Drew, there is nothing you could have done to save Dave. The tox screen came back showing he had a high amount of stimulants in his system. Which caused an accelerated use of oxy. Which in turn helped cause his demise. So there is no need to be depressed.” He had confused my hangdog look for depression.

  I was really just sorry to see Jazz go. What was I going to do without her? The thought of having to break in another nurse/bodyguard was daunting to say the least.

  “I’m not depressed Doc. I have too much on my mind right now. Sorry.” He shrugged. He finished running the scan over me. As he studied the readout, Jazz walked in. He turned to her.

  “Ah, there you are. I’m recommending a course of physical therapy that will be bluefanged to you. You can start him on it tomorrow.” He looked at me. “I will phone ahead to Dr. Barber and tell her you’re on your way. You need to talk to her about whatever it is that is really troubling you.” He waved and left.

  I smiled at Jazz.

  “So, how’d recalibration go?” Bummed she wouldn’t remember me or our shared past.

  She smiled a big smile. A happy smile.

  “Oh, I just went in for a check up.” She looked down at her sneak’s.

  “Does that mean?” She nodded her head in the affirmative.

  “Yes. I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t bare the thought of not missing you.”

  “Excellent. Saves me from having to break in another support unit.” She looked at me with an expression I could only describe as hurt.

  “Shit. What I mean is that I was already missing you and I’m glad you didn’t go through with it. I mean it, okay?” Like clouds fleeing the sun, her expression changed to one of sheer happiness. I thought, Jeebus, too human, too human.

  Dr. Barber wasn’t in her office so we cooled our jets in her waiting room. Jazz flipped through the latest news vids and I idly looked through the newest

  psychologist-psychiatric vids. The usual ad’s for mood stabilizers, mood enhancers, and remembered a quote from an old sci-fi book that moods were for cows and making love, which struck me as funny.

  As if life could be broken down to a series of emotional response sequences. I was sad today so today sucked. I was happy today so it was a good day. Clap trap.

  Then I came across a fascinating article that discussed humans DNA hardwired disposition for faith. Since the culture wars of the last century had abated with the victory of capitalist democracy over the fundamentalist fascism of the Islamoextremists, faith and the freedom to practice it had become secondary to making a buck to improve one’s lifestyle. Improvements in education had had a quite a bit to do with it. That and the fact that China had become overwhelmingly Christian, and, in alliance with Hindu India had bitch slapped the Muslims into submission, economically as well as militarily, had been a deciding factor.

  There was still no consensus on why man needed faith to get by. I saw it as an inherent defect in man’s character. A fundamental lack of will to accept responsibility. It was easier to blame God, to let him or her take responsibility, than to take on the mantle of ‘fault’. For me it was all about attitude and timing. Keep your head up and go with the flow and if and when your moment came, if you could keep your head clear and your eyes open, you could seize it with both hands.

  After an hour and a half, Dr. Barber breezed in and after standing and kissing both cheeks in the obligatory traditional French greeting, ushered me into her office.

  “So good to see you Drew, Jazz. How have you been?” I tilted my head and looked at her. She had her hair back in a ponytail. Both ears had multiple piercing’s with silver rings dangling of various sizes. What struck me was that her ears were pointed. Elf ears.

  She saw me looking. Smiled and waved a hand in front of her face.

  “Oh, the ears. Oui. My parents had me genetically modified in utero. They were big fans of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. No big deal. Many of my class mates growing up were doing the cat modification therapy, so I was not the ultimate freak. Far from it.”

  Towards the end of the last century a gen-mod trend had peaked in Europe. Thousands of rich, bored teens had had their looks modified to resemble their favorite animals. Real werewolves had been stalking the streets of London. Vampire modification had been especially popular in Paris. Thank goodness the near vampires weren’t really immortal. Something about the gene recessives involved interfered with the Immortality Syndrome Vaccine. Grow fangs, drink blood and avoid sunlight or live an extra 200, 300 years. Seemed no choice to me. Far from it.

  “No, I like ‘em. They look cute.” She practically blushed.

  “Thank you.” She looked at her desktop, shuffled some papers before looking up at me.

  “Dr. Wali said you might have some issues to discuss with me?” She raised an eyebrow. Quizzically. I nodded.

  “Yeah, my dreams are starting to freak me out.” I told her about the dream with Dave and the girls and the one with the tiger. She shook her head.

  “Oui. You are obviously suspicious of you wife. Or, rather, your subconscious is. Is there any reason for you to be jealous of her?” I snorted, almost derisively.

  “Hell, no. She’s a big girl. She can do what she likes, as long as she doesn’t bring home any kind of evil crotch rotting disease and give it to me, I could care less.” I meant it too. Our marriage contract hadn’t included an exclusivity clause. Plenty of latitude. Which suited me fine.

  “Well, you are suspicious of her none the less. What are you going to do about it?”

  “I asked her if I could attend services tomorrow with her and Susan and she said yes. So I’ll be checking out what goes on at that.” She gave me a thumbs up gesture.

  “Very good. Confront you problems head on. Very healthy.”

  “As long as no ones feelings get hurt, I should be okay.” This raised both her eyebrows.

  “That is so mature it is refreshing.” Maturity, oh, man...

  “So maybe you could tell me and my maturity what if anything you found out during your interview with Marge Chu.” Looking her in her eyes and she looked me dead back.

  “Ah, yes, Chief Fonagy said you would be interested. He is allowing you to help in the investigation. Very good. After subjecting the suspect to truth drugs and hypnosis a link was found between Hugo Lakshmi and Jim Simpson. Money from Religious Therapy was being laundered through the gambling concessions here in the city, but where it went from there? Marge had no clue. She simply assisted him in transferring the money to a slush fund under Jim’s name. They had the money shifted from the false pa
yroll accounts to the gaming programs, and then the winnings were shifted to Jim’s accounts.”

  One part of the puzzle fit. Now how was Supply and the Port involved? More digging was necessary. Maybe the answers were at the port. This was all running through my head as my eyes kept shifting between Dr. Barbers elfin ears and her breasts which were showing a more than modest amount of cleavage in her low cut camouflage coverall.

  When I didn’t answer right away she gave me the once over and smiled as she saw the growing bulge in my lower coveralls. She patted the seat next to her desk.

  “Sit her mon cher.” I stood and moved to the chair. She quickly kneeled between my legs and unvelcroed the lower portion of my coveralls freeing my throbbing shlong.

  “So big. Looks like you could use a little intensive therapy.” Left hand wrapped around the shaft, right gently cupping my balls, her mouth descended on the head. That woman sucked a mean cock. I looked over my shoulder at Jazz and pointing at the bobbing head said,

  “This woman knows how to work it, you should be taking notes.” Jazz leaned over my shoulder and watched intently. After ten minutes I had her sit back in her chair and, freeing her luscious rack from her coveralls I proceeded to tittie fuck her. The skin of her breasts felt like hot silk as she bowed her head allowing the head of my cock to slip in and out of her open mouth which kept it coated in lubricating saliva. Her hands squished her huge hooters to tightly wrap them around my hard cock. Another ten, fifteen minutes later and my come flew out of my dick at hypersonic speed. It ricocheted off the underside of her chin to slide down her exposed chest. She wiped it up with a tissue just as a drop was about to fall from her erect right nipple and laughed. She leaned forward and licked the head of my cock one last time before helping me tuck myself back in.

  “That was fun. You must come over to my place for wine and cheese. Then you can pleasure me to an orgasm of psychologically significant proportions.” She stood and kissed me there as I leaned against the edge of her desk coming down from the rush of popping such a wild nut. Reality settled down shortly as she suited back up.