Alien Terrain (11 page)

“What else is there to do?” Jane said. Her voice was small
and quiet.

Raj gave the matter his attention. “More of the same can be
good.”

“More of the same is great. But I’m still curious about the
rest of it. For one thing, I want to hear more about the domination. You don’t
seem like the type.”

“Are you asking me to show you?”

“Can I have a miniglimpse? I’m pretty sure I’ll hate it.”

Raj was certain she would love it. “A miniglimpse is
possible,” he said. He pulled himself up and moved to the foot of the bed. “Lie
on your back, arms at your side, and look up at the ceiling. If you hold the
posture long enough to show me your obedience, I’ll give you a reward. If not,
a punishment.”

He watched as she complied with the request, adjusting
herself meticulously into just the pose he’d described. His cock twitched with
anticipation as he perceived her willingness to be commanded. When her lashes
fluttered and the skin around her breasts began to gather, he leaned over her.

“Very good.”
He took one of her
nipples into his mouth, licking gently. The other he caressed with thumb and
forefinger. She moaned with pleasure and he drew away. “That was your reward.”

“What would the punishment have been?”

“The same.”

“The same?”
Jane’s eyebrows rose.
“Good game,” she said.

“The only difference is that now I’ll let you choose if you
want more.”

“More discipline?
Or more of you?”

“Discipline and I
are
the same
thing.” He slid a little lower on the bed.
Kissed her hip and
then her thigh.
“Obedience is my touch, my tongue, my cock.”

“And disobedience?”

“The same.”

“I want to fuck.” He took in this announcement as a
statement of her inner weather. Raj brushed his fingers down the inside of her
thighs.

“You’ll be fucked when you deserve it,” he informed her.
“Stay where you are. Look at the ceiling and don’t move.
Don’t
even move your mouth.
Not one word out of you.” He kissed her once.
“Obey me.” And he left her there.

STILL AND LISTENING for his movement, Jane did as she’d been
told. She assumed that he was standing by the bed, not moving, not speaking,
only
staring at her. But in fact, she wasn’t sure.

A few faint sounds came from the kitchen, proving she was
wrong. She heard light scraping.
Cabinets opening and
closing.
The tiniest chill in the air raised gooseflesh on Jane’s arms.

He wouldn’t know it if she moved and yet she lay completely
still. It wasn’t difficult. It was actually good. Anticipation of some sweet
reward lulled her into a deep, sensual haze. She let herself drift with phantom
memories of sex.
His flesh.
Her
flesh.
What would he do to her next?

Maybe nothing.
Maybe he’d just
leave her here to ride the tide of wanting him. Would that be a reward or
punishment? Maybe he was right and it was all the same.

Suddenly he leaned over her body. Jane gasped. The heat of
him was so good that the sound inside her shifted closer to a moan.

“Shh.” He pressed his fingers to her lips. Jane cut the
sound off in her throat too quickly and had to clear her throat.

“Come.” He helped her up. They moved together to the
kitchen. He was amiable, relaxed, so much so that she thought it might be over.
Just the miniglimpse she’d asked for.

Then she noticed all the changes in the kitchen. The small Formica
table had been pulled out from the wall. A folded towel was draped over one
side and there was something tied around two of the legs. He’d also pushed both
chairs against the wall. Jane glimpsed a bottle on the floor. What was it?
Olive oil?
Hard to see because the only
light came from the partially open door to the bathroom.

Jane searched his face. No change in his expression.
Still smooth and regal and alive.
She dared a look along his
body, all of him restored and perfect now. As a person he was wonderful. As an
object he was breathtaking: smooth brown skin over so much curving muscle and
that delicious cock of his already risen, at the ready.

He turned her toward the table and bent her over it,
facedown. The towel was there to pad her hips, a reassuring hint of sweetness
in the strangeness of it all. The tabletop was cold against her breasts; her
nipples gathered and she felt herself exposed.
Up on her
tiptoes by necessity.
The lips of her pussy parting.
Utterly indecent.
Another person.
Not Jane Bard at all.

He took her hands and tied them one after the other to the
table legs with strips of something soft and silky. Jane looked a moment at her
hands and finally saw it was his ruined tunic torn into long strips. Something
in that made her feel another pull of tenderness.

The knots he’d made were firm and comfortable. They were
effective too. She really couldn’t move. The bondage didn’t hurt, but it was
strange. Strange enough to speed her pulse and make her feel her thoughts were
spinning.

Did she like this? Was it okay? He’d stop if she said stop,
so should she say it or just let him do this to her?

Intensity became disorienting. Air moved over her exposed
pussy, which was wet and tingling. When she wriggled to get comfortable, the
chill of the Formica made her nipples gather tighter. A wave of doubt took hold
of her. Was this a punishment? Had she done something wrong?

Jane drew a breath. Raj flattened himself over her. His
chest was hot against her back. His cock fit perfectly into the groove between
her buttocks.

“It’s time you learned to read my body, Jane. You’ll become
quite good at it in time. First feel my cock.” He rocked his hips against her,
sliding his erection up and down her ass. “The message there is clear enough, I
think. I’m hard and wet and you can feel my heat, but what else can you feel?
When I speak to you, do you hear that hint of wetness in my mouth?”

She nodded.

“That’s lust,” he said.
“And what about
the air moving into my body?
In the midst of full arousal, the breath is
deep and slow but just a little bit unsteady. If you pay attention, you can
hear a pause and then a jerk. When you do you’ll know you have me right against
the edge.”

He waited flush against her while she took him in. What she
heard amazed her. A whole world revealed by just a rasp and hitch of breath.
She thought she felt the slightest twitch of muscle in his thighs. His skin was
hot, flickering against her. His movements slowed by lust.
For
her.

Jane stretched her body out along the table, giving in to
touch and feel and longing. She arched her back and bumped her ass against him.
Raj slid his hands under her hips and pushed his cock into her cunt. One
shocking thrust up to the hilt.

“No sound,” he said. She quieted her gasp as best she could.

She was completely full. She felt his balls against her
labia. It wasn’t what she’d been expecting. It also wasn’t what she’d wanted.

Raj stopped, his teeth grazing her neck. From the corner of
her eye she saw him reach toward the floor and grab the bottle. He straightened,
fumbling slightly until oil dribbled from the base of her spine slowly down the
center of her ass.

The kitchen was completely quiet.
As quiet
as the empty town and the deserted night.
She listened to the slow, deep
rhythm of his breath. At each perceived irregularity, Jane got hotter. She
spread her thighs a little farther open for him.

Raj seemed to be playing with the oil now—dabbling in it,
drawing words and shapes onto her buttocks. Eventually, he stroked his slippery
fingers back and forth over her anus, and it felt extremely good. Anticipation
spread through her like venom, paralyzing everything but her accelerated
heartbeat. He was going to do it. Finish things. Take her all the way inside
this sexual adventure. And she was relieved and grateful and turned on because
he always made the things he did so
good
.

Jane circled her hips while he toyed with her. Chills made
her tremble—hot and cold coming together in light shudders moving up her spine.
The fine hair on her arms stood up, her torso cold against the tabletop, but
her ass felt scalded by his hands, his skin, his cock, and his attention.

He got his fingers into her. One or two or three, she didn’t
know. Muscles straining with impatience, Jane pulled
herself
a fraction higher on the table until the edge put pressure on her mound. Raj
stopped, removed his fingers. He lifted her off the ground, spreading her legs
until the tendons pulled, and he moved his cock inside her.

I’ll come. I’m so hot
I’ll come from nothing. From just thinking what he’ll do.

He pulled out of her pussy and released her so the balls of
her feet were back on the floor. She couldn’t help the whimper of regret.

“Console yourself,” he said and fit the fat head of his cock
against her ass. “Push back against me.” He was leaning over her, his breath
hot at her nape. “Pretend you want to keep me out.”

She followed those instructions. While the thick, wet head
of his cock slowly breached her, Jane moaned. He clamped his hand over her
mouth. She stretched and strained to get more of him into her until there was
all of him. He’d done it to her. Somehow all of him was deep inside her ass.

Jane tried to hold the feeling, keep it present in her
consciousness forever. She wanted words, a sure way back to this one perfect
moment.

It was like holding a big block of ice inside a sauna.

It was like standing still while the whole world collapsed.

It was like a cock. A thick, hard cock thrust deep where it
just shouldn’t be.
So hot.
Extremely
fucking hot.

His hand lifted away; his head dipped back into her neck.
“Now tell me,” Raj said. “Speak.”

“I want you,” Jane whispered.

He thrust into her deep. “Is that enough?”

“I want to see you.”

He
shifted,
his long torso curving
until his forehead rested on her shoulder. He pulled the silk ties free and
straightened. Hands clenching her ass, he helped her rotate, one leg swinging
up and over him until he’d repositioned her and they were face-to-face.

There he was.
His expression tight with
lust.
There was
a heaviness
inside his eyes
that made him look for once as naked as she always felt.

He lifted her up onto his body, holding her with one arm
like she weighed nothing at all. He still filled her, and it still felt so
good. Better now she had her arms tight around him.

“Make me come,” she whispered, nuzzling his neck.

“How many times?”

“Fifteen thousand.
No.” Jane took
it back. “Much more than that,” she said.

“You have my word.” He walked with her toward the bedroom.
They fell together on the bed. He pulled back to his knees, pulled the pillows
underneath her head. Suddenly he grabbed her hand and licked her fingers.
“Stroke
yourself
,” he told her. “Stroke, Jane.” She
rubbed her fingers up and down her pussy. He used his hands to touch her
breasts, sometimes pinching in a way that made her buck against him.

“Don’t stop.”

“No,” he promised. Was he growling or just clearing
something from his throat?

She felt sensation like a buzzing panic gather in her pussy.
There was delirium between her legs. A long, slow-motion scream was building
right there where his cock was pushing into her. Jane waited till she couldn’t
any longer; then she looked at him and begged.

“Please,” she said.

The look he gave her made her shudder. He licked his
fingers, closed them on one of her nipples, until that mad scream inside her
body broke. Her muscles tensed and jerked and she was moaning, grabbing blindly
for him. He kept fucking her like a machine, teasing her nerve endings to their
limit until she’d finished writhing underneath him.

When the crisis was over, Raj lowered himself over her and
gathered her ass with one hand, breathing hard and looking down at her.

Slowly Jane came around and met his gaze. “Now you,” she
said. And he obeyed.

As bright midmorning light began to filter through the
blinds, Raj was finally deeply asleep and Jane was wide awake. She felt buzzed.
Antsy to be doing something.
More than anything, she
wanted to cook so she could serve him food that didn’t come out of a can. And
so she got up, dressed, and snuck out of the house.

A quick trip to the corner market should have been an easy
thing. Instead, a bag of onions, garlic, and zucchini ended everything for
Jane.

The tiny local store’s existence had seemed a big bonus when
she’d first seen the small house. It was a dark and fairly dusty shop. A little
sinister, despite the picture of the blessed mother painted on the side. The
closet-like interior was full of products that never expired—fatty, salty foods
full of preservatives, or peanuts in spun sugar. Outside, however, there was a
small collection of locally grown produce.

Jane was a good cook. She wanted Raj to know. To have
another beer with him sitting at the table with his long legs crossed at the
ankles and his handsome face tilted in that way that said he knew her, but not
well enough.

The walk had taken less than fifteen minutes. A child of no
more than twelve had taken her money, and she’d been on her way, ready to make
it home before Raj even knew that she’d been gone.

Halfway up the block, in the middle of a vacant lot, Jane
saw Bill Dancer’s pickup head toward her. Because she couldn’t run, she stood.
Stood and waited while her mind went over both the best and worst she had to
hope for. At worst, Dancer would kill her where she stood. Not likely he’d put
all the effort in to find her just for that. She wasn’t worth the trouble of
revenge. More likely he would want his Bod. Or he would want the money.

The money he could have.

The truck pulled over. Rick leaned out the window on the
passenger side. Jane shrugged. Her mouth pulled into just the look
kids
wear when they know they’ve been caught. She realized
for the first time how well her body lied to Rick. How practiced at falsehood
she’d become from head to toe.

“Hi, baby,” she said.

“Dammit, Janey.”
Rick was fumbling
with the ancient locking system on the car. He got it open and lurched onto the
sidewalk.

“You came,” said Jane. The tears were real. Rick scowled at
the rare sight of her emotion. The distaste was obvious, but it also stopped whatever
he’d been going to say. She forced a wobbly smile.
Sniffed.
Wiped her cheeks and eyes.
Somewhere inside the real
emotion, she managed to look glad to see him. He wrapped an awkward arm around
her, using the other to pat her back, and she knew she was home free. Rick
never passed on the opportunity to believe the things he wanted to be true. And
he clearly had a stake in thinking that she’d left him on a whim and instantly
regretted it.

“What’s that?” He pointed at the plastic grocery bag.

Jane opened it for him to look inside. “I’m on a diet,” she
explained.

Rick’s posture eased a little more at that. He thought diets
were silly and her being silly worked for him. He gave her stomach a quick
squeeze.

“Well, if that ain’t the most goddamn touching thing I’ve
ever seen.” Dancer was glaring at them over the shiny roof of his refurbished
truck. “Where’s the freak and where’s the goddamn money?”

“Oh.” Jane gratified the man with her most frightened look,
although as usual he barely glanced at her. She turned to Rick, chewing on her
lip with eyes set somewhere between hopeful and apologetic. “I took him to
Saint Mary’s up in Nordhup. Father Steven had a visitor who promised to take
him back to the city with him when he left. I’m sorry.” She crossed her arms
around her chest and looked down at the rocky ground. “I wish you wouldn’t kill
people,” she said.

“They aren’t
people
.”
Rick was relieved. Not angry.

She risked a look into his eyes. “Can we go home?” she said.

Rick looked at Dancer, who spit on the ground and swung
himself back in the driver’s seat.

“Come on,” Rick said. He flipped the seat up. Jane crawled
into the tiny backseat, thankful for the concealing blackness of the dark
interior. She leaned against the cool synthetic leather and closed her eyes. An
uneasy feeling made her open them again. Dancer’s hard gaze was narrowed at her
in the rearview mirror. “Where the fuck is the money?”

Jane blinked. She made her jaw go slack, her posture slump.
No brains. No threat. “It’s in the bank,” she said.

“No, it ain’t,” Dancer said. He was doing eighty on the
bumpy road, looking at her in the mirror for what felt like minutes at a time.

“I switched accounts.” She looked at Rick. “But it’s still
there.”

“What do you mean you switched accounts? How the hell they
let you switch accounts without your husband’s say-so?” Bill kept barking at
her like Rick wasn’t even there.

“I signed his name.” She used her smallest voice for what
was actually a false confession. The people at the bank all liked her. When
she’d asked to open a new savings account, they’d all been pleased as hell, and
no one had asked a thing about it when Rick’s name had been left off the new
account. Was that discretion? Help?
Incompetence?
She
didn’t really know, but there was no point setting Dancer off against them if
she didn’t have to.

“Forgery’s against the law,” he said.

“Is it?” She shot a frightened look at Rick,
then
peered down at her knees in the dark car. What was and
wasn’t law was up for grabs these days. The southwest had opted out of central
government in favor of local control. Local control was supposed to be
community.
Consensus.
People helping
people.
All of that.
What it had ended up being
was bullies and survivors pissing on whatever didn’t suit them. Now that Jane
had woken from her five-year nap, she was starting to get a little annoyed at
the state of the world these days.

Thanks to Dancer driving like the psychopath he was, they
were at the garage in less than fifteen minutes. The car kept speeding forward,
and Jane felt real nerves for the first time since she’d seen the car. If they
were going to Saint Mary’s, it was over. Father Steven wouldn’t know enough to
play along. She cast her mind around for some secondary lie and couldn’t find
one.

“Where the
fuck are
we going?” said
Rick.

“The bank.”

Jane concentrated on the slump.
The
blankness.
Then she had a thought.

“You need the money right away? Did you guys find some nice
old cars to buy or something?”

Silence.
So the money wasn’t for
the business. This was all about what Dancer wanted, which meant it wasn’t
good. He took a hard right into the empty lot outside the bank.

“It’s closed,” Rick said.

“What the hell?” Dancer turned to Jane.

“Is it after one?” she asked. In truth she had no idea what
time or day it was.

Dancer was already stepping down from the cab of the truck.
Jane hoped to God the tellers had all gone. No one needed to meet Dancer in
this mood. As to whether or not the so-called authorities would stand up to
him, she’d rather not have to guess. She closed her eyes and waited until the
door opened again.

“We’ll get it tomorrow,” Rick said, sounding reasonable.

Again Dancer glared at Jane in the mirror. Suddenly she
understood why he’d been in a hurry. Once he had the money, he could deal with
her. Until then, he would have to wait. Patience wasn’t Dancer’s strong suit.
The car skidded back onto the road, and Jane knew she had one day to get out of
there.

At the sound of tires spitting gravel, all the boys at Rick’s
Body Shop came strolling out. Jane dared a look into their faces and didn’t see
much. No real hatred or relief. Just a vaguely pissed
I told you so
, like the parents of a known fuckup.

She went straight to the kitchen. A good meal, a few beers,
and it would all just be a story.
Fucking Janey.
Not
bright enough to see the difference between an alien freak and an actual human
being. All that fucking trouble ruined by some broad whose head was softer than
her heart. Ha-ha.

She set the bag of vegetables down on the counter. Then she
swept them up again and put them in the pantry where she couldn’t see them.
That way she wouldn’t have to think about Raj.

He’d know by now that she was gone. And he’d be worried. She
just prayed that he’d stay safe and not go looking for her. It was too damn
dangerous for him to walk out on the streets. Anyone, including that kid who’d
sold her the food, would know what he was in an instant. In polished company,
he was impressive. Around these parts he really was a freak. A talking bear
would cause less of a stir.

Wonder. Worry. But be
smart
. Despite all his denials, she thought Raj could hear the things she
thought. Never more than now had she wished it were true.

Rick was still outside with Dancer. She could never hear
what people said outside.
Something about the open space, the
wind.
Voices didn’t carry to her window. Usually that was a blessing,
but today she’d have loved to have known what they were hashing out. Dancer
spit again. She wondered at his phlegm production. He left Rick standing there
and walked to the garage.

More hangdog than usual, Rick came back into the house.

“Should I start cooking dinner?” She washed her hands in the
sink, wiped them on a dish towel. Rick came up close behind her. At first she
pulled her arms in, thinking she was in the way. His hand slid to her ass. He
sighed into her neck. Jane understood.