Bastian: A Secret Baby Romance

by Lauren Landish

  Following his hand, it took me a moment before I recognized what I saw. It was a majestic deer, in full late autumn splendor, his antlers wide and full. Watching him munch on the bushes nearby, I was awestruck. It was so different than watching on television. Even though he was farther away, I could see details that you never really notice on TV, like how his fur was clumped on one side, or how his muscles seemed to be constantly trembling. The moment only lasted a minute or so before something made a noise, and the buck looked around and noticed us. I took a step back in surprise, and that was all it took for him to take off through the woods. “That was amazing.”

  “Next time, don’t move. If he doesn’t smell you, he won’t notice you,” Wes said to me with a smile. “They see by detecting movement, not pattern. Stand as still as a statue, and you’d have a chance of him walking right up next to you.”

  We kept going, Wes stopping to check out the bush the deer had been nibbling at and pulling off a berry to taste. He spat it out quickly and wiped his mouth. “Damn, that’s bitter. Don’t think it’s dangerous, but I am in no way eating that.”

  It took us until mid-morning to reach the lake, and by the time we did, I was glad. Our canteens were empty, and we had walked out of the snowy areas, which meant we couldn’t even get clean snow to melt. While we weren’t desperate yet, I was really getting thirsty and was overjoyed when we stopped and took off our backpacks. Wes rooted around and pulled out what he called the Survival Straws.

  “We can drink right from the lake with them if we want,” he said. Taking out one of the thick plastic bags we used for our rations, he filled a bag up with lake water. I was suspicious at first until he stuck the straw in, and started sucking. I watched as the brownish-green water went up the first half of the straw, a flexible hose sort of thing, before going through the filter, only to come out clear on the other side before disappearing into his mouth. Wes took a big drink before sighing and handing me the straw. “Each straw can filter a thousand liters of water before we need to change the filter, and even more if we partially purify the water by boiling it first.”

  I sucked on the straw, and found that drawing the water through the filter was kind of like drinking a semi-thick milkshake. I wasn’t giving myself any brain embolisms, but it wasn’t as easy as drinking a lemonade at a restaurant. Still, the icy cold water flooded my mouth, and I sucked hungrily, taking deep draws of water until almost the entire bag was gone.

  Wes took our big water bag, a three-liter thing that had been empty since yesterday, along with the straw and a little pump from his pack over to the edge of the lake to fill them up. I took the time to observe the water, and I felt my heart catch again at the beauty as the mid-morning sun glinted on the water.

  Wesley

  After I finished filling the water bag, I turned around to see Robin still awestruck by the natural beauty of the wilderness we were in. She was standing still, her knit cap halfway off of her head, just watching peacefully as nature unfurled in front of her. It was the look I had hoped to put on her face when I had invited her to come out here with me. I swear, I had no intentions of trying to seduce her. It just happened, although I’m glad that it did.

  I let her watch the lake for another few minutes while I filled both of our canteens and put them back in our bags. We now had five liters of water, but more importantly we were right next to hundreds of thousands of gallons of fresh lake water, glacier fed and icy cold. The lake would lead us to another, and another, and another, until we eventually reached somebody who could help us. Even better, it was now almost impossible to get lost; all we had to do was follow the shoreline to our destination.

  “Hey, you okay?” I asked after strapping in the last bottle and finding her still staring out at the lake. “You look a bit stunned.”

  Robin nodded, pulling her knit cap the rest of the way off to hold in her gloved hand. “This is beautiful, Wes. I can see why you like coming out here when you can.”

  She reached out to take my hands, and we stood side by side, watching. “I guess I started because I thought about what made me happy in the military,” I said, for the first time unburdening myself of the things I’d carried inside for years. “And I realized, regardless of whether I was in Kabul, Mosul, or back in North Carolina, the thing I loved most was the nature. The Earth doesn’t really care about us, as arrogant as we are. Nature’s masterpieces make anything any human artists created look amateur and silly. All we seem to be able to do is destroy, not create.”

  Robin blinked and turned away from the vista to look at me, her black eyes deep and accepting, knowing I had something more to say. “Tell me what happened.”

  “It was my last deployment, when I was in Iraq,” I said, feeling my mind going back into time. “We were in the Green Zone, ironically, supposedly in the safe area where we could at least partially relax. Pete Townsend and I were doing a simple buddy patrol of the streets along with one of the Baghdad cops. Pete was my squad leader, and was one of those guys you just knew was going to end up on TV for either doing something stupidly heroic, or just plain stupid and getting court martialed. Pete was single, thank God, because no woman could put up with his shit for too long, but with us guys, he was awesome. He broke rules, and the Lieutenant was constantly on his ass, but Pete was a good guy and had a good heart.”

  “Anyway, we were walking down the street when this little kid—couldn’t have been older than maybe nine or ten—comes up to Pete. Pete was a sucker for kids, and always had some candy or something for them. It kind of became a trademark of his. This kid, though, pulled a pistol from under his shirt and shot Pete. We were wearing body armor, so he should have been fine, but this kid was so weak he couldn’t control his aim, and his second shot hit Pete right in the femoral artery. I couldn’t even get my damn field bandage out before he bled out on me. Meanwhile, the Iraqi cop we were working with unloaded on the kid, blowing him away. It was then that I just knew I had to get away. When my time for re-enlistment came up a month later, I turned them down.”

  Robin watched me for a few seconds, then in a move that totally surprised me, she pulled me in for a deep kiss. Her tongue was soft and supple in my mouth, nowhere near as demanding as when we first made love, but just as arousing, if only because it was so tender. We kissed for what seemed like ages before she broke contact, her arms around my neck, her forehead against mine. “Whatever it was, whatever has happened, I love you and am glad you are here with me now.”

  We kissed again, more passionately than before, and suddenly we were pulling at each other’s clothes, finding zippers and buttons and opening them. It was still too cool for us to strip totally naked, but I didn’t care, I needed Robin then and badly. My lips found her neck, kissing and licking the tangy sweat from her skin, relishing the slightly salty flavor. We were both dirty, but we didn’t care. I pulled her to the soft forest floor, relishing the soft weight of her breasts in my hands. Rubbing my thumbs over her nipples, I grinned as she squirmed.

  I had noticed the first time that Robin had sensitive breasts, and I wanted to explore that as much as I could. She had already pulled off her field jacket, so I lifted her warm shirt and undershirt, pushing them up over the tops of her breasts. They were a wonderful C cup that I’d always thought were perfect, and they fit my hand perfectly. Her sports bra actually fastened in the front, a feature I took advantage of to free them to my hands, softly pinching her nipples as soon as they were visible.

  Robin started crying out, mewling sounds of total arousal that spoke straight to my cock, which was aching inside my pants. My belt was loose but the pants were still up, our hips grinding against each other through the fabric. “Oh fuck, Wes, yes!” she cried when I pulled her down into my hungry mouth, licking and sucking on her right nipple. “Make me come!”

  I kept sucking, letting Robin grind herself on top of me until she stiffened, her sharp cry of climax echoing across the lake. If there was anyone in the area, they would have heard us for sure. When
she came down, Robin grinned at me and got off of my hips. My disappointment lasted only seconds, though, as she unbuttoned her pants and pulled them down enough for her ass to come into view, which she promptly turned around and wiggled at me. “Well, cowboy, you going to ride or not?”

  Robin was almost as tight as she was our first time in the plane, which wasn’t helped by the fact that her thighs were somewhat pinned together from her pants still being partially on. I eased into her as slowly as I could, holding myself in as tight a control as possible given the circumstances. My hands went to her waist, and I started thrusting in and out. Each stroke was like heaven to me, a rippling soft vise that massaged my cock from head to base with every stroke. “Robin . . . ”

  I just didn’t have the words, not without sounding nasty or obscene, which I didn’t want to do with her. Instead, I let go of her waist to slide my right hand up to her breast again, tweaking her nipple. She pushed back into me, and I almost lost it right then, it felt so damn good. I’ve always loved Robin’s hips, and the sight of my cock disappearing into her from behind was so erotic that I felt my mind slipping, losing control.

  “Harder,” she moaned, and I responded, my hips speeding up while my fingers pinched harder and were joined by my left hand over her other nipple. The movements lifted her upper body up some, which I promptly pressed back down into the pine needle carpet of the forest, hammering her harder and harder. I couldn’t stop myself, my cock needed a release so desperately. Besides, she was loving it, her wails coming more and more loudly with every slap of my hips against hers, and I felt myself reaching the tipping point.

  I’ve never understood the pleasure some guys get from riding that edge of orgasm, trying to delay the moment. I mean, the edge is painful in my experience, where your nerves are lit up to the point of overload, and it seems like even the wind rustling through your hair is both pleasure and pain. Finding myself on the precipice, I thrust one last time, my cock shooting deep within her. I could hear myself growling, my fingers tightening maybe painfully on Robin’s breasts and nipples, but she kept moaning in pleasure as I emptied myself into her.

  When it was over, I knew she was still on the edge, so I rolled us both to the side, my right hand dropping between her legs to rub her clit while I kept my cock inside her. Between my left hand on her breast, my right on her clit and my cock still twitching inside, she came again quickly, this time her voice failing her as she stared out at the lake, stunned, with her mouth open.

  Chapter 7

  Robin

  Wes damn near drove me into a sexual unconsciousness, and it was lunch time before I could really move again. Still, the rest allowed both of us to recover and rehydrate, and to eat some lunch. After a day and a half of walking and a couple of amazing orgasms, I was happy to take the two hours off.

  While I rested by lounging against my upturned backpack, Wes hunted along the shoreline. When he came back with a handful of what looked like tiny clams, he was grinning. “We’re in business now!” he said, before freezing, his eyes widened in fright.

  Before I could ask him what the hell he was looking at, Wes moved faster than I have ever seen someone move before, his hand a blur to his hip before I heard the snick sound of his knife blade burying itself in the dirt near my head. I rolled to the side, scared out of my wits, and was on my feet before I knew it. “What the fuck!”

  Wes covered the distance between us in four big steps, kneeling down almost exactly where I had been laying, and pulling his knife out of the ground in order to plunge it down again. He pulled his knife out of the ground and wiped the blade on his pants leg before sheathing it again. I stood mute as he reached down and picked up what I first thought was a long piece of rope, or maybe a tree branch, except that it hung limp. It wasn’t until my eyes traveled down the thing that I saw the pattern of scales on the back and realized Wes was holding the body of a snake, one that was at least as thick as my wrist through the body.

  “Sorry, but I didn’t want to startle it by making you move,” he said, turning the carcass upside down and letting the blood drip out onto the ground.

  Wes carried the body of the snake over to the lake, washing it off before setting it on a rock. “I know this sounds weird, but these things are actually delicious. I found out the hard way during my work in Eastern Europe. And it’s a lot easier to prepare than those clams that I dropped.”

  At the mention of his work, I cocked my ear. “Uh, Wes?”

  “Yeah? I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  “No,” I said, waving it off. “That I understand. What I wanted to ask you about was your work. What’s a computer engineer doing eating snakes in Eastern Europe?”

  Instead of replying, Wes stuffed the envelope of snake meat into one of the outer pockets of his bag. Kneeling there, he looked lost in thought for a moment, then turned to me. “What’s your security clearance? DoD-wise.”

  “The Pentagon has me rated top secret, but you know that’s only for the projects I’m cleared on,” I said. “Why?”

  Wes pulled his backpack on and waited while I followed suit, picking up my walking stick. Wes started off, breaking out a ration pack from the side cargo pocket of his pants as he did. “Well, imagine if you can, a young soldier who has just left the military to go to college. He’s fit, well-trained, and has a flair for computer science, as well as a strong desire to serve his country, although not in the strictest of military ways any longer.”

  “Imagine that while he’s at school, he’s approached by some gentlemen who know who he is and offer him a job. Strictly off the books, strictly freelance, his job is to hack the computer systems of other countries, gathering intelligence for certain government agencies. Most of the time, his work can be done from the comfort and safety of a normal office. But his specialty is getting into systems that aren’t linked into normal networks, isolated Intranets that are used within government facilities only, the type of data that when it has to go off-site is loaded onto portable hard drives and carried via armed courier. And finally, let’s just pretend that this person’s last assignment wasn’t so much in Eastern Europe as it was in Russia.”

  I looked at Wes’s face as he kept walking on silently, studying him for any signs of deception or bullshit. He was dead serious, though, and I stopped for a moment, considering yet another change in how I saw the man that a week prior I thought of as just my handsome, yet sometimes aloof, stepbrother. Wesley Brandt, secret agent? “So, uh . . . wow. I have a Mr. Bond on my hands?”

  “Great story, huh?” Wes said as we kept walking. We kept the lake on our right shoulder, the more open terrain and grassland making walking easy. “This person, if they did exist, has seen data files that makes him doubt the sanity of humanity. He’s got blood on his hands, and is getting tired of the game.”

  “I could see that,” I said, keeping my mind working in the same deception he was using, even though we both could easily see the truth. “This person might be a bit lonely, while at the same time desiring isolated getaways.”

  “He might.”

  “What does his family know?”

  “His parents wouldn’t know anything, although if he could, he’d tell his stepsister, since he’s been in love with her since they were teenagers.”

  I lengthened my stride to catch up with Wes, reaching out to take his gloved hand. We walked in silence for a while, stretching at least a mile or so of lakeshore, before I spoke again. “So, this freelancer, does he make good money? Because his stepsister probably isn’t exactly having the most success in her own career. She doesn’t want to end up destitute and leeching off her parents, after all.”

  Wes smiled and glanced over at me. “Let’s just say that he’s got enough of a nest egg that he could retire right now and live well for a very long time. One of the perks of his contract is that if he can hack enemy financial institutions, he’s allowed to. Right now, he owns shares under various aliases in about three dozen major corporations, as well as a decent-sized Sw
iss bank account.”

  “Well, if such a man like that existed, I think his stepsister would be one lucky girl to have him then,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze. “And would love to be part of his life, as close as he can let her be, at least.”

  In normal Wes fashion, instead of answering with words, he smiled and handed over a granola bar from the ration pack. We kept up our companionable walk for the rest of the day, giving the cryptic talk a rest. We took ten minute breaks every hour to stretch, rest and make sure we were both staying hydrated. At about four in the afternoon, the shadows started getting long, and we started looking for a place to camp. We had gotten all the way past the first lake, and were now following the river that connected it with the next lake in the chain. It wasn’t that big, maybe only about thirty yards across, but it was pretty.

  At this point, I was actually starting to enjoy our little adventure. I just wish it hadn’t started the way that it did.

  Our campsite that night was actually pretty comfortable. Some long-ago avalanche or something had tumbled boulders along the valley we were currently in, their humped forms slouched and worn after who knew how many years of weathering. After carefully checking the wind, Wes had us set up our lean-to on the calm side of a pair of boulders that had come together into a kind of V shape. With our fire going, it was halfway decent, although I was still cold.

  Using sticks, Wes and I roasted our snake meat over the fire, looking for all the world like we were roasting marshmallows. Sadly, the meat was bland, like unseasoned chicken, until Wes broke out another ration pack and mixed the meat with the stuff inside. It was weird eating spaghetti, meat balls, and snake with a seasoning of Tabasco sauce, but it was filling, and I went to bed with aching feet, a full belly, and the strong arms of the man I loved around me.

  Wesley

  We kept up our travels for the next day. I was impressed by how little complaining Robin did and how quickly she adapted to the rigors of cross-country travel. She got really good at identifying edible bushes and plants, although she was always careful to double check with me. We gathered as we hiked, always keeping our eyes and ears out for any sign of humanity.