My eyes lingered on her stunning décolletage. Charlie grinned.
The pager buzzed. I swore and looked around. The tall blonde was draped halfway across the polished wood of the bar, and Chris was backed up against the rear counter. She held up the pendant, gesturing frantically. Across the room, the twins had closed in, and Weegee’s head vanished from sight.
I looked at Charlie and Moira.
“Modern technology—who needs it?” I asked, shaking my head.
I turned the pager off.
Wire
Elspeth Potter
Harrah elbow-crawls through oily black mud on a planet called Swan Aleph. There are two giant people-eating turtles having sex fifty meters to her left, skidding and squelching away. Harrah watches, hidden in plain sight. They’re kind of sexy. She likes the way whatever they’re feeling makes their beaks snap open and closed and their tiny tails flutter.
She’s wearing mecha, a sleek silver suit needling into her body via nanoprobes. Her mecha keeps the turtles from sensing her, if she’s careful to stay out of their direct line of sight. The mecha also hides her from sensors around Swan Aleph’s prison compound, the only structure on the whole planet. Harrah takes advantage of the enhanced strength and agility mecha provides her and scales the first wall inconspicuously as an ant. She creeps across an open area that someone is supposed to be watching but isn’t. Then she scales a mundane fence and pops neatly into the back door of the prison.
Prisons really shouldn’t have back doors like that.
There’s a soldier from the Other Side in the prison. Her name is Riesel Flood. Harrah escaped from her custody once, which is why Flood is here. Harrah has decided to get Flood out. Rescue her enemy from her enemy. It’s a fun vacation.
Flood will be surprised to see her.
There aren’t any guards because everything is remote. Harrah suspects nobody really watches. There are no executions, but if the prisoners get out, the turtles eat them. The Other Side isn’t sorry if that happens.
Still, she takes precautions. Harrah’s mecha blurs the sensors in here, too. Anybody watching would just see glitches.
There aren’t any cells. There are just tables, spaced out, with prisoners strapped to them, one per. The prisoners don’t know Harrah’s there because they’re hooked up with wire. Harrah takes her time, ambling along the rows of naked bodies. She’s not much interested in the men with their flaccid little dingles—but the women, well.
She sees Flood. Flood’s hair has grown out some; small black curls, each ribboned with silver, cling to her scalp. Her dark skin looks more sallow, but that might be the light, which is poor; the hood sensors in Harrah’s mecha amplify available light or she wouldn’t be able to see at all. Flood still looks strong, though, and her arms and legs have muscle tone. Harrah isn’t too late.
The next trick is to get the wire out. Mecha soldiers all have a little port behind one ear or the other, where the original wetware download happens. After Initializing, soldiers stick plugs into the ports, made out of gold or platinum, or sometimes diamond, for decoration. But when a soldier’s mecha is taken away, the plug comes out and wire goes in.
Wire puts a brain on hold. The bad thing is you know you’re on hold. Not fun.
Harrah commands her hands and the mecha ripples like a disturbed pool of mercury until tools form over her fingers. The table straps will have to be enough to hold Flood still. Harrah sets to work. She has to stop when Flood’s body twists in pain, then she resumes.
The wire smells burned as she finally withdraws it from Flood’s port. The smell is illusion, her mecha letting her know the job’s done. She lets the wire slither to the floor and steps on it while her gloves go back to normal. With her mecha, she’s able to crush the wire to dust.
Flood’s face muscles twitch ever so slightly. Harrah is pretty sure Flood is awake; she makes a decision and peels back her hood. She can barely see now, but she can smell again: bitter tang of metal, and greenish scent of disinfectant mist overlying human skin. Harrah says, “Hey, Flood! I am here to rescue you. You are remembering me?”
It’s comical, the way her eyes fly open. “You,” Flood says. “Fuck you.”
Harrah laughs. “You are not getting deadbrained, then.”
“Dream.” Flood’s voice is stronger now.
“No. You are not getting so lucky.” Harrah reshapes her mecha gloves and rips open the table straps. “Time to move. I am wanting to get out of this nasty place.”
“Turtles. Mecha. I don’t—”
“You are talking too slow, almost deadbrained. Have a see.” Harrah springs up to the table and sinks to her knees, straddling Flood’s waist. She’s a little person and isn’t afraid of crushing her. She takes Flood’s left hand and places it on her waist, then the right. Flood’s hands tighten automatically.
Harrah opens her mecha’s pubic flap. She’s depilated bare as metal beneath. She can tell that Flood has no idea why she’s doing this and it makes her grin. It’s strange to grin without feeling her mecha stretch over her face. Harrah says, “I am not going to all this nuisance so turtles can eat you.” Flood looks confused. “I am having mecha. For you.”
Flood asks, “Where?” Her fingers are digging into Harrah’s hips. If it weren’t for the mecha, Harrah might get bruised.
Harrah sighs. “I am showing you.” She uses both hands to hold open her own cunt lips and rubs her clit with her thumbs. She says, “Mecha is rolling up small, you know?”
Flood laughs. Harrah feels it shake her belly. Flood says, “Crazy.” Her eyes roll to the cameras that stud the ceiling.
Harrah says, “If anyone watches, it will be taking them only seven months to reach Swan Aleph.” She looks down and is distracted for a minute by Flood’s big tits. Harrah likes them naked and spread out below her. She reaches down and plays with Flood’s right nipple. It stiffens up quickly. That’s still working, then. But Harrah has other things to do. She continues, “No other way of carrying mecha hidden. And sex will loosen you up so you can be walking out of this nasty place. Two birdies, one rock.” She stops and takes a breath.
“Crazy,” Flood says, but her skin temperature rises a few degrees; Harrah feels a rush of warmth along her skin as her mecha translates. Then Flood’s big hands slide around and cover Harrah’s, and her breathing changes.
Harrah wishes her hands were naked. Too bad there’s no time for that. She can peel her hood back without much trouble, and the pubic flap where there are no nanoprobes, but everything else is more complicated. She settles for pressing the backs of her hands against Flood’s palms before she pulls free.
Flood’s thumbs take over where Harrah’s left off. Her hands are hot and the whorls of her skin still have that slight roughness mecha soldiers get. It’s been a long time since Harrah’s had any sex, especially skin to skin. Her clit is so sensitive it feels like the top layer of skin was ripped away. Three swirls of thumbs across her clit and Harrah’s chest is heaving and she’s forgotten she meant to stroke Flood’s breasts while her ass grinds into Flood’s mons.
The little sealed cylinder inside her passage feels unyielding, unliving. Harrah wants fingers inside her instead. She works her suited fingers into her cunt and teases out the package, letting it drop onto the table. The impermeable wrapping is wet with her own fluids and smells like sex. In case Flood gets the idea they’re done, Harrah says, “Keep going.”
“What about my mecha?”
“Shit!” Harrah yells. She picks up the cylinder and fumbles it before she can unseal the seam. Silver spills out, expanding, rippling onto the floor. “Satisfied?” Harrah says.
“Not yet, but soon.” Flood grins. Harrah realizes she’s never seen Flood grin. It’s startling. Flood must be reading Harrah’s mind because she grins bigger, showing sharp canines.
Harrah wants more action, and now. She drops forward and presses her whole self to Flood and does a thing with her mecha that isn’t in the manual, brushing Flood with a hot furr
y brush, all over, all at once. Flood makes a sound like nngh and hooks one leg up around Harrah’s ass. This is more the thing. Harrah grabs Flood by her shoulder and waist, shifting them over onto their sides in one easy movement because she’s as strong as six people with her mecha on. Then she grabs Flood’s arm from where it’s pinned between them and puts it where she wants.
Flood’s shaking because Harrah hasn’t let up with the furry brushes thing. Her finger finds the mark anyway, sliding in and curling and pressing. Another finger goes in just as quickly and then a third one. Flood’s stroking forward and Harrah feels it deep inside like Flood’s pulling something out of her. Something’s not enough and she doesn’t know what until one of them stretches her neck and Harrah’s mouth touches Flood’s. Harrah’s trying to suck in someone else’s air; she’s kissing her enemy. Flood’s tongue swoops in like her fingers and that’s all it takes to make Harrah come.
Harrah didn’t mean to do any of that. It’s too late now. They turn onto their backs and Flood kisses her neck while she pants in aftershocks and Harrah remembers she meant to get Flood’s muscles working. That’s her excuse for doing what she wants to do anyway. She pulls away and slides down Flood’s body. Harrah thinks about finger-fucking but ends up licking around Flood’s lower lips instead, using just her tongue-tip, like she’s marking referent data points. Harrah wants to touch Flood with something other than mecha, and if that’s not what Harrah expected to want, she’s not going to think about it now.
Harrah uses her hands to smooth down Flood’s thighs while she eats her, being careful not to hurt her with enhanced strength. Flood isn’t talking and her body undulates with each stroke. When Harrah nips at her belly now and again, she can see Flood’s jaw is clenched tight. Once the back of her head hits the table, thunk. Harrah thinks she could maybe go on forever like this. Except then they’d never get the hell out of this place.
Harrah finds Flood’s clit. It juts enough so Harrah can swirl her tongue around and around while she presses Flood’s cunt lips open and kneads the insides of her thighs. That pushes Flood over; she comes in a series of deep groans from the belly and Harrah wonders if she could make her ejaculate sometime. The idea makes Harrah hot all over again but it’s smarter to get the hell out of this prison right now.
Flood’s still gasping when Harrah rolls off the table and pulls her hood on. She seals the neck and her pubic flap, sealing off the warmth in the air and the smell of their sex. She scoops the mecha off the floor and drapes it over Flood’s waist. “Put it on,” she says.
The mecha slithers out of Flood’s grip but she grabs it on the second try. There are no sonics to clean her off; neither of them mentions it; Flood will just have to clean the dead skin cells out of the mecha later.
Harrah ambles out of the prison with Flood at her side. Flood’s an old soldier and moves in the mecha like it’s her own skin, and she’s pragmatic enough not to look at any of the wired soldiers they’re leaving behind. Harrah admires that. Maybe that’s why she came here, because Flood wouldn’t expect it in a million years. Flood probably forgot about her as soon as the court-martial was over.
They climb the fence and crawl around giant people-eating turtles having a party, or at least banging their shells together and churning up more mud. Harrah almost swims through a few places, but then they are out of range of anything worrisome and she leads Flood to her shuttle at a lope. Wearing mecha, it’s not much of a trek.
Flood doesn’t ask where they are going. That’s good, because Harrah doesn’t know, not in the ultimate sense. Not that Flood seems like a person to ask about ultimates. She’s a soldier and she lives in the now.
Right now, Harrah has to go back to her ship. They won’t like what she’s bringing with her. Flood’s their enemy. But Harrah wants to keep her around, and Harrah’s in charge. She’ll have to tell Flood that one of these weeks. Maybe after they’ve had another adventure like this one. Harrah could live with that. She has a feeling Flood won’t mind, either, and if she does, there’s always the wire. It’s fucking perfect.
Educating Billie
Betty Blue
She had a voice like Judy Holliday’s, and a body to match. Not that Billie would have known what the hell Whit was talking about if she tried that as a line. Probably wouldn’t even get the allusion to the “Billie” character. Maybe it was the name that had gotten Whit thinking about Holliday, but from the moment Billie had shown up (it was billiards night at the local dive and Billie had just dropped herself into the game with a smile), Whitney was hooked. She hadn’t intended to go along when the group decided to go dancing, but Billie had wheedled her with that voice, and she’d just spent half the evening watching Billie perch against the pool table to take her shots, that amazing ass in the air.
Whit felt too old to be dancing here at Red, and definitely too old to be ogling Billie. It wasn’t as if she’d seen Born Yesterday on the big screen (she had to keep reminding herself of that; she wasn’t old enough to be Billie’s mother, not quite—at least not for a “good girl” where Whit had grown up); she just had a weakness for ’50s Hollywood femmes. But her other weakness was for sweet kids like Billie that nearly were born yesterday. There weren’t a lot of twenty-year-olds these days built like Rita Hayworth or Kim Novak; low-rise would never make it on a pair of hips like those. But Billie—holy shit, Billie stopped Whit dead in her tracks.
From the safety of the bar, she watched Billie dance, hips hopping up in little twists to the backbeats. God, it was painful.
Billie caught her eye and grinned and came hopping her way, spinning as she reached the bar and falling back with her elbows propped against it. The gorgeous ass scooted back on the red vinyl stool and nearly missed and Billie laughed and threw her head back, sweat dripping a dangerous trail from her throat into the cleavage of her tight, cropped tee.
“God, I love dancing! Why aren’t you out there, Whit? Come on!” The high-low voice wouldn’t have worked for anyone but Billie; it came out like a sexy little croon, starting soprano and ending up alto.
Whit shrugged and tipped her bottle of beer. “I don’t really dance.”
“Oh, please,” said Billie, rolling her eyes. “Gimme a break.” She grabbed Whit’s free hand and started pulling her away from the bar, and when Whit hesitated, Billie took the half-empty beer out of her hand and slid it across the bar.
“Hey!” protested Whit, but Billie was tugging her out onto the dance floor, already swaying and bouncing to the next song. “I don’t really—this isn’t my—”
Billie had sidled up to her, sweat-slick belly pressed against Whit’s; with the bottom button of her cotton shirt undone, Whit could feel the warm skin, and she put her arm around Billie’s waist involuntarily. Billie hooked into her, letting Whit’s hand slip down and rest at the top of her Holliday ass. The slick red lips were saying something, but it was lost in the throbbing house music, and Whit was lost in the disco-ball glints off the blue points of Billie’s cropped, bleach-blonde hair, and the wrinkle of her nose as she smiled. The black, baggy jeans pressed in closer to Whit’s leg, and Billie began to rock against her thigh in a smooth, deliberate stroke. Her wide grin was glowing ultraviolet.
She said something else, leaning close so that her tightly cupped breasts mashed into Whit’s. Whit shook her head with a questioning look, still unable to hear her; she probably wouldn’t have been able to understand if she could hear her. Billie smelled so good and felt so soft that Whit couldn’t even think.
Then Billie had grabbed her hand and was threading through the crowd, Whit stumbling along after her, wondering if she’d had too much to drink and was just imagining that Billie was sending signals.
Billie dragged her into the dark, cramped bathroom meant for one, letting the door with its heavy layers of red club paint slam behind them. It opened inward, and Billie was pressing Whit against it and sliding the bolt.
“Billie, I—”
“You talk too much,” said Billie in that
lazy inflection that managed to be in both high and low cadences at once. “I think you should kiss me.”
“You think so, huh?”
Billie rolled her eyes and made a mocking pucker at her, lips black in the red light of the bathroom. Whit pulled the warm hips in close and Billie dug her hands into Whit’s hair and offered up the lips in earnest. They were soft and tasted like watermelon gloss and Billie was making a tiny humming noise against Whit’s mouth.
Whit let one hand slip from Billie’s hips up over the tight crop-top to squeeze her breast lightly through the fabric. She could feel the nipple stiffen through the bra.
“Yeah,” breathed Billie against her lips, and wriggled closer.
“So I guess you—”
“Geezus, Whit, shut up!” Billie insisted, quickly working her way down the row of buttons on Whit’s top. She pushed the sleeves back against Whit’s shoulders and tugged down one bra strap and dove in, dragging the nipple into her mouth with a rough tug that made Whit’s knees buckle.
Yeah, this looked like a good sign.
Whit stopped wasting time and tunneled her hand underneath the white crop-top and black bra, pinching the tight nipple, earning a squeal from Billie, who somehow managed it without opening her mouth. Billie was yanking Whit’s belt from its buckle, and Whit gasped as the cold paint of the door met her skin at a quick nudge of her pants from Billie. Billie moved them out of her way just enough to get her fingers between Whit’s legs, and burrowed in.
Whit was bucking in time to the muffled beat from outside the bathroom as Billie’s fingers spread her lips.
“Geezus, you’re wet,” said Billie as she snapped her mouth away from the captive breast and dropped down to a crouch to press it into the spot her fingers had opened up for her. She was working her fingers as fast as her tongue, making those tiny humming sounds again like she was drinking a really great chocolate shake and didn’t want to let go of the straw.
Best Lesbian Erotica 2004 Page 12