Agent on the Run (The Agents for Good) (6 page)

She looked back to me her eyes turbulent, but she didn’t say no. I brought the T-shirt away from her, as I grasped one cool metal alloyed arm and pushed it down through the whole of the sleeve and then the other arm. Not sure if I wasn’t going too far I grasped the bottom of her shirt and pulled it up over her head.

She had a full chest bound within the confines of a sports bra that showed prominently with the rapid rise and fall of her breathing. We were both breathing hard. I soaked in the sight of her near nakedness and wished that the sports bra and the shorts were gone to. I was getting ahead of myself, but it was hard not to.

“Be kind Utah. Be kind.”

I took the mentoring words whispered into my consciousness to heart and my passion turned to concern, as I noticed something I hadn’t in my former passioned gaze upon her. Her skin was so white that I hadn’t noticed the deeper white of the scar lines.

I touched her bare shoulders and ran my fingers down her upper arms feeling the raised outlines of skin, until near where metal and tissue were fused together above the elbow the buried lines came up out of the surface of her skin to reveal fiber-optic like cords that plugged into her artificial arms. Glancing down I let my hand run down over the skin of her toned belly, but there were no scars. On her sides however they were deep scar furrow after furrow that edged around from her back to head downward to slip beneath the band of her shorts, only to reappear flaring around her whole thigh to come out of the surface in a meshed array of cords that fused into the artificial legs just as it did at her upper arms.

I closed my hand over her shoulder to turn her to see her back, but she resisted me. My eyes found hers only to see that she was crying.

Her lips quivered as she said, “Please don’t! I want to stay pretty in your eyes!”

I wiped the tears from off one porcelain cheek, my fingers black against her skin in opposite color to hers, but somehow perfect in terms of connection. I met her watery gaze, “You will always be beautiful in my eyes Flicker.”

I tugged on her shoulder and with an increase of tears slipping down her face she obediently turned, her head sinking down to her chest, as she pulled her hair around to her front over one shoulder.

‘Oh God have mercy!’ I thought, but I kept from saying it out loud just barely. It was already abundantly clear that she had a very low opinion of herself, which I wanted to break down instead of enforce.

The firelight should’ve revealed the sensual arched plane of a female’s unblemished back, but instead it revealed an ugly interlaced patchwork of scars too numerous to even count. It was a horrendous butchery to behold, but it wasn’t what dominated her back the most in terms of shocking scenery.

Her spine was literally encased in a steely matrix of alloy metal the same as her arms and legs. No thought had been given to the cosmetic appearance of the changeover by those who’d butchered her. Her back was literally torn apart.

The steely casing that protected her spine tapered off into the small of her back and disappeared from view. My eyes drifted down to her toned and well proportioned rear, which appeared to have gone untouched from the butchery above. It gave me the opportunity to say something positive into this setting, when all she could think of would be a negative.

“You’ve got one hot derrière girl!” What I’d said was the truth, but maybe I’d infused it with a little bit more enthusiasm than I would typically. I really wasn’t the kind of guy to comment on a woman’s assets whatever they may be.

At my words her head had sharply turned to look at me over one shoulder. She stared at me in an incredulous fashion. I met her gaze honestly and responded, “What? It’s true!”

I moved away from her then and picked up my extra shirt and the bar of soap, which I then gave to her. Hesitantly I offered, “If you leave-year-old clothes by the stream I’ll wash them for you after you’re done.”

She had the look of a befuddled little kid and gently I pushed her toward the stream. She started to go, but then mumbled something.

“What do you need?” I asked quickly.

She turned her back to me and in lieu of an answer she gestured to the back clasp of her bra. My hands rose to unclasp the back of the bra, which I imagined was something else that was very hard for her to do. The deep red impressed lines that my action revealed echoed the fact that the bra hadn’t come off for a while.

It was hard to ignore the ridge of cold metal that my fingers brushed against in the act of releasing her. How someone could survive such a procedure was a miracle in and of itself. The pain had to of been unfathomable. She stepped away from me into the darkness holding her bra in place with a metallic hand.

Strangely it wasn’t the desecration of her back or the shifting metallic rhythm of her arms and legs that held my attention as she walked off into the dark. She really did have a perfect bottom.

I looked up, as she stepped back into the firelight and swallowed. Her hair was all wet and well somehow she looked really good in my shapeless oversized shirt. She was tugging rather firmly on the hem of the shirt, which is when it dawned on me that my shirt was all that she was wearing.

I had said I would wash her clothes hadn’t I. Quickly I left the fire and headed out into the darkness eager to escape our little campsite that had suddenly gotten much too hot to handle. There was still light overhead enough to see by and I found the little pile of clothes easy enough.

I stared a moment at the little pile of clothes. I had done a lot of wild and promiscuous things throughout my teenage years, until God had gotten a hold of me in my early 20s and straightened me out. Of all the erotic experiences I had philandered my way into none of them were even half as erotic as what I was experiencing now with just the feel of so intimate an item of simple cloth and lace in relation to the woman that I wanted most of all the women the world had to offer.

A profound truth occurred to me then and it was this, there is a lot to be said in involving asking God for help in the search for a lifelong mate with which to share your life, dreams, and passions with.

I knew what it had been like without God and now I knew what it was like with God’s influence and blessing. Everything was more powerful in feeling, emotional intimacy, and pureness of spirit. How had I not waited to experience this the first time?

All of my experiences up till now with love and passion seemed empty and tasteless in comparison to the bold richness that was unfolding in my life in the course of but a single day. Thankfully I truly was free of my past mistakes thanks to the atoning sacrificial blood of Jesus that had washed all my sins away.

This time would be done the right way. This time I would focus on pleasing God before I pleased myself. A good place to start doing that was to pray, as I was but a weak man faced with a powerful temptation sitting by my fire awaiting my return.

Flicker glanced up as Utah came back into the firelight. He still hadn’t put a shirt on and she let herself gaze in appreciation. She liked the sight of strength. It reminded her of her brothers and the few treasured memories she still had of her father.

She tugged on the edge of the shirt, as he leaned down to her and said, “These are pretty much dry.”

He laid her shorts down beside her before moving away to lay out her other close to dry by the fire. He then turned away with his back to her to wait and she quickly rose to step into her shorts.

“Okay.” She said husky voiced and he turned back around and she sat back down by the fire quickly glancing away from him, only too aware of her bare thighs.

Silence ensued and she reached up to get a tangle out of her hair. The tangle of hair was knotted up royally. It was impossible!

One metallic finger shifted into the form of a blade and she sliced through the knotted up hair tangle. Several locks of hair fell to the ground and she jumped with surprise, as Utah called out gruffly, “Hey!”

He sounded angry. Why was he angry?

Flicker stuttered over her words, “I had a tangle and I don’t have a brush.”

“Well that’s not the way to do it!”

Before she could even respond he was up on his feet coming over to her to kneel down behind her. She was unprepared for the feel of his fingers combing through her long hair. Her long hair was one of the few vanities that she still had.

Her hair really was more trouble than it was worth and she had debated more than one time about hacking it all off. She held still, as Utah worked the tangles out gently but firmly. She really appreciated what he was doing.

“Don’t be cutting off your hair again like that!” Utah said reprovingly.

“Okay.”

Why was she listening to him?

His fingers left off stroking through her hair to move down upon her scalp in a pressured massage. She almost groaned with the pleasure of his massaging touch. Back and forth all over her head, her ears, her temples, even her jawbone and face. His touch was absolutely divine.

Sweat rolled off my face, as I worked back away from her face to her scalp again. I didn’t think she knew how much noise she was making. I was quite curious as to how she heard at all. Sometimes I caught her reading my lips, but other times she’d heard me without seeing my lips. It was a mystery.

It was rewarding giving her a massage and yet very frustrating. Innocently meant or not the sounds she was making was like listening to an erotic soundtrack over and over. It was pretty hard to listen to and keep acting like a disinterested third party, but that was the sum total of the game for now.

Cautiously I let my fingers work down the back of her scarred neck to either side of the exposed alloy metal that encased her spine. Her moans grew deeper, but I felt hesitation to continue given the sheer mass of scar tissue that I felt beneath my fingers.

“I’m not hurting you am I?” I asked wanting to be sure.

Her voice came back to me in a husky whisper, “Don’t stop! Oh please don’t stop!”

I didn’t. As I worked away gently but firmly on the healed over scar tissue she gradually crept over, until she was lying on her front. I massaged rhythmically across the roughed up terrain of her back. My thought was that surely I had to be hurting exposed nerves, but instead it seemed like I was relieving a great tension within her.

She lay melted against the rocky ground beneath her in a deep sleep. I didn’t stop though, because she was asleep. Her moans and sighs told me that she was very much still enjoying the attention and I liked giving it to her. I doubted that she’d had any attention in a long time and it was good to give.

I decided to stop because the urge to continue the massage on down to her bottom was becoming overwhelming. That would be more about me than of any benefit to her. What was the use of tormenting myself any further than I already had this night?

I turned away from her and lay down to stare at the stars overhead. Patience it seems at times can be the hardest of all lessons to learn, often because it requires patience. She was dead to the world and I was very much throbbingly awake. It wasn’t fair.

Chapter Six

Partner?

Flicker’s eyes blinked open. She took a moment to collect her thoughts and then smiled, as she remembered last night. The sound of heavy breathing with a hint of a snore to it had her turning her head to the other side. Utah was asleep on his side beside her and with a quirk of an eyebrow her eyes traced down his top arm to where his hand lay splayed across her bottom possessively.

Well he’d been telling the truth about his fascination with that area of her body anyway, she thought to herself with a little grin. It was nice to know that even being half the woman that she was that she could still attract a man, a good man.

Why he was so interested in her she couldn’t fathom, but he was and she certainly wasn’t going to dissuade him. This was a dream come true for her. She had wanted Utah ever since that night when the Code had fallen and she had regained her freedom.

Something about the man, who her brother and several others had to restrain from returning to his fallen friend had called out to her in a deeply emotional way. Beyond that there had been a physical connection upon eyesight and now here he was and he thought that she was hot.

The smile fell off her face. A bitter urge for the impossible rose up in her. She wished…….

She wished she had a pair of toned calves and sweetly formed feet that she could have sashayed up to him in a pair of high heels with real fingers to have reached out and felt the texture and warmth of his skin. She wished that she was whole!

A single bitter tear coursed down her cheek, as she lay watching him sleep. She had to get a grip on herself. Life wasn’t a fairytale, as well she knew and what she needed to do now was realize all the many ways that things could be worse than they were.

She knew the truth of that, but still she wished she could have been more whole for this man than the odd collection of parts and scars that she was made up of. Surely it must almost be a sacrifice for a perfect man like him to be with a woman like her?

He didn’t seem to think that way though. He had given so unselfishly of himself last night. She’d never felt so physically relaxed since the day she had awoken a monster. She wanted to give him something back in return, but what?

“You gave him back his life did you not?”

Yes, she had and how has she done that?

Flicker’s eyes tracked over to the metallic combination of indestructible parts that served as her makeshift hand. First she had saved her brother and then perhaps the world, then Asia, then both of her brothers and now she could add her man to the growing list. There were certainly reasons to be grateful for her cursed state of being.

Her recent successes did make it more bearable to be as she was. Bearable, as long as Utah wanted her anyway. If he rejected her she didn’t know what she’d do.

Utah was starting to wake up and she watched the progression to conscious awareness completely fascinated. His hand shifted and squeezed one of her bottom cheeks firmly, which caused her smile to come back out. His eyes abruptly shot open and his hand quickly moved away, “Sorry about that!”