Wasteland

The door creaked open. It seemed much louder than it had before. She noticed the other sounds of clashing glasses and clanking plates was gone, as was the laughter and loud banter of drunken locals. Wondering how long she'd been, and if her benefit would be upset with her for keeping him waiting, she considered risking the theft and making a run for it then instead of waiting. She promptly reconsidered when the ghoul appeared out of the kitchen once more, as if he'd been waiting for her. She felt as though her heart could be heard pounding in her chest, afraid he knew what she'd been thinking. To her amusement he offered her a sandwich and an attempt at a kind grin. She took the sandwich from him, returning the grin.

"Thank ye." She said softly.

The ghoul nodded back and turned back into the kitchen. She looked after him for a few seconds, then shrugged off her own paranoia. The simple sandwich of mole-rat and slimy lettuce was gone before her foot touched the first step. Food was food. It made little difference how it tasted, if she ate it slow enough for it to matter. The wood planks creaked and moaned as she climbed the warped and grayed planks. The first two doors at the top of the landing were shut tight. Beyond them she could hear the soft moaning and panting of harlots earing their caps. She could not judge them. She was no better than they. Going to the beds of men whose names she'd forgotten, if she was ever told them, in hamlets that were just the same. Only her payment was the safety of the walls and the comfort of food and drink, the promise of rest in a warm bed and provisions to send her on her way. These things were worth more than the caps to purchase them, though she often wondered what it would be like to buy her needs in a legitimate manner. Her father would have been in a rage of disappointment in her, ashamed to call her his daughter. Shame was something she didn't have the luxury to worry about any more. As she neared the last door she pulled the key from her pocket. She'd stored it there to eat the sandwich, which was settling with familiar discomfort in her unaccustomed stomach.

The key unlocked the door as easily as it had the washroom door. The door creaked softly on the hinges as she entered the room. She was surprised to find it empty of the man she'd expected to find waiting for her. He would come, of that she had no doubt. She cared not where he was at the moment. If he forgot their arrangement and wandered off with some other willing woman, than it was all the better for her. Draping her damp clothes over a line strung up on the far side of the room, she proceeded to search the wardrobe for a spare tee she could 'borrow' to sleep in. There was precious little in the moderate space. The wardrobe through which she currently searched, an old mattress on a tired looking brass frame a few feet away, and a worn out oriental rug between the two pieces of furniture for decor. Finding nothing but a box of matches and a candle in the wardrobe she resigned herself to sleep in the nude. In any case, it wasn't as if she wouldn't end up that way by dawn. She looked up at the ceiling. There were no holes there that she could see, but there was a window that looked out onto the center of town. Keeping her jacket closed with one hand, she leaned against the window sill and gazed out over the makeshift buildings to the darkness beyond the walls and the stars above. They were the one thing she loved about being out here in the desolate fields of ruin. Stars were a thing one only saw in books or paintings drawn by children when she lived in the vault. The first time she saw the open sky and the brightness of the sun she thought she'd died and landed in hell. But when the coolness of night came and the stars shone bright next to the perfect circle of silver in the velvet black, it was a beauty she'd never dreamed could exist. Even now their brilliance and mystery held her captive, drawing her attention way from the creaking of the door as the bar keep slipped wordlessly inside and locked the door behind him with is own key.

"I heard tale," He began.

His words nearly scared her out of her skin, but life in the wastes had tempered her against actually jumping at every unexpected sound. Instead she continued to look out at the night sky, turning her ear to him ever so slightly to let him know she was listening.

"That if ya stare too long out int' the black, it consumes yer soul and leaves ya empty as an egg that ain't got noth'n inside it."

"I would have t' tell ya that it ain't so." She replied softly, tearing her eyes from the tiny dots of brilliance to look at him as he undressed by the bed. "I would have t' say that it's quite the opposite. I feel as though m'soul is filled with the light that shines through like as a candle behind black paper full of holes."

"Ye speak well fer one so young." He grinned at her, and motioned for her to join him by the bed.

Reluctantly she left the sill and slipped her boots from her feet. She left the rest on. He seemed the type, in her mind, to be one who enjoyed opening the present, so to speak. She would be right and she would be wrong, for it wholly depended on his mood at the time. As it was, that night she was right. He'd left his denims on for the moment. His broad, hair covered chest exposed to her in the dim light that filtered in from the moon. His coarse hands gripped the collar of her jacket, pulling it back and slowly down over her slender arms, then letting it fall to the floor. He didn't tackle her the way she thought he might, but he did ask her a question she wasn't often asked.

"What's yer name?"

His eyes were not on her breasts as she assumed they would be, but on her eyes as he softly spoke the words. For a moment she couldn't remember. So rare was the occasion that she needed a name, she had nearly forgotten it. The sound floated up to the surface of her thoughts as a bubble rises from the depths. She could remember the feeling of it on her tongue like licking the roof of her mouth, then 'own a' something or another. The name almost formed itself on her lips as the old memories of a life that might have been a dream ticked the back of her mind.

"Leona."

"It's lovely." He smiled, then fidgeted.

It wasn't a gesture she expected from a grown man who boasted control of a town. She began to feel awkward standing bare chested in front of him.

"Thank ye."

She took a step toward him, reaching decisively for the buttons on his fly. He didn't back away, but he didn't move to touch her.

"Do ye wanna know mine?" He asked.

"Do ya want me to?" She answered him with another question.

"It's Jack." He replied.

"Okay. Jack. It's a good name."

That seemed to make him happy. For whatever reason, that seemed to be what he was waiting for, as if they needed to be properly introduced before he could take her to his bed. Yet, he still did not suddenly pounce on her. Instead his rough hands pushed her newly clean fingers away from the buttons on his fly and unfastened hers with quick, experienced movements. Peeling back he open fabric, Jack pushed the waist of the pant down over her naked hips until they were loose about her thighs. The dry skin of his hands grazed up over her hips to her waist where he picked her up and sat her squarely on the bed. She couldn't help but be impressed with his strength as his chest flexed before her. He took hold of the hem of the denim and slowly pulled them the rest of the way off her legs, leaving her exposed with moonlight drifting over her narrow shoulders. Finishing what she started, he removed his own denims. The thing that protruded from him was more than she'd ever seen a man wield, and she worried that she had not the ability to accommodate his length or girth. In her mind she tried to think of a way to deter him from his lust as he climbed up onto the bed and repositioned her so that her head could lay on the flat, hard pillow.

The bed beneath squeaked under the weight of him as he palmed her knees in his hand and pushed her legs wide for his access. She resisted weakly, then let him open her. He admired her body in the faint light for a few moments before he settled over her. His rough hands fondled her breast that were little more than handfuls in his grip. Her mind began searching for something to focus on, but there were no peek holes for the stars above. The fabric of the mattress felt smooth from age under her finger tips as she tried to grip something to steel herself for what would soon come. The man's heavy breath was hot on her chest. His mouth left wetness behind were he suckled her malt colored nipples and nibbled the swell of her breasts. When his kisses trailed up her neck to her chin her fingers worked frantically for a hold. His dry lips took hers in a kiss that pulled a moan from her. The bulk of his weight settled on her, pushing a sigh from her as her breath was pilfered. Pressure presented itself to the delicate flesh of her entry. With no finger holds yet found she wrapper her arms around him instead, digging into the muscles of his back.

One of his hands released her, his mouth parted from hers as he looked down at their sexes. He worked the head of him, stroking it between her small, pink labia, spreading his precum to moisten her entry. Satisfied with the slickness, he supported himself with his free hand and slowly pushed himself inside her. He groaned his pleasure as he watched her open up around his head to oblige his mass. He took his time to penetrate her, allowing her time to adjust to him. She could feel her body yielding to his persistence, grateful he did not just plow into her. She felt him stretching her to fit him, delving a little deeper when she would whimper beneath him. Pained memories of her deflowering sifted to the surface of her thought, helping her to abide the intrusion. After a few minutes of no end to his insistence, she wondered just how much more of him she could take without ripping when the finality of the heat of his pelvis pressed against her. She sighed with a measure of relief that the hard part was over. Jack must have taken it as a sigh of pleasure, for he immediately began to pump himself slowly in and out of her petite frame.

His eyes stayed on the point of their joining, as if mesmerized by the displacement of her flesh around his manhood. His eyes would close during the moments he chose to lick her nipples or kiss her mouth. Rudely his tongue would force it's way past her lips and probe her mouth, or lap at her neck as if he found honey there. She tried to imagine the stars above her, that his shadow rolling over her was a fevered hallucination. While he was handsome, and she was attracted to him, she did not feel the passion he inflicted on her. But her body betrayed her mind, wetting with physical excitement, encouraging him to thrust harder and faster into the building heat and quivering tightness. Her lips willingly accepted his probing tongue. Her head rolled to expose her neck for his delight. Her hips bucked and her back arched with waves of ecstacy that rolled over her physical form. Moans escaped her throat. Her spine tingled at the sounds of his groans. Fire blazed in her loins as liquid heat squirted from her when her body climaxed. Her skin was ablaze with carnal desire where he touched her, spreading her willing thighs to pound her eager lust.

Breathing came in heavy, panting cries. Delicate fingers gripped the dull brass bars of the head board while rougher ones sought to tease and explore the intricacies of femininity. Lust, seemingly unabated, endured until the first rays of dawn peaked over the horizon and cast a pale, warm glow over sweat slick skin. The improvement of light only further enticed masculine yearning for the swollen and reddened flesh on which he wrought his ceaseless fervor. When at last completion came and filled the persecuted void with white-hot release, dwindling rage left the accepting embrace of surrender. Exhaustion lulled them both to a dreamless sleep and held them there until the suns light told of looming dusk. Man woke to earn his bread, pausing first to accost the vulnerable slumbering.