It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling
me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be
true to yourself,
If you can hear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
Harper leaned his forehead against the plexiglass on the Obs deck. Its coolness soothed him, but nothing could ever sooth him enough.
I left Brendan behind a long time ago, he told himself. I’ve been assuming he was dead for years. So why should this bother me so much now?
Because I’d always hoped he was still alive back there, still fighting. And I had to leave him all over again. Worse, he realized, I left him to a certain death this time. And why did I bother to leave? I’m dying anyway.
Eyes scrunched shut, his mouth twisted as he resisted the tears. Useless tears, he’d learned a long time ago. Tears never moved any Uber or Magog to pity, to mercy. And the people of Earth ran out of tears in their teens.
Probably because he was so stressed, one of the larvae in his gut twitched several times before settling down. God, how he despised that sensation.
I shouldn’t have left. I should have went down fighting. Better to die like that than Magog ripping out of my stomach. And maybe I could have saved Brendan. Why did I leave? Why didn’t I stay and fight?
Leaving to save his own life would not have been pointless. But the end of his life was drawing near anyway. And he might have saved other lives while dying a more merciful death. It would only have been a little sooner, that’s all.
Do I really believe Tyr? “Where there is life there is hope”? No. I’m just hanging onto a string that’s unraveling. I should have just let go.
He left the Obs deck, walking slowly. Nowhere to go, just wandering the ship, pondering why he’d allowed himself to survive.
<><><><>
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your
own.
Without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company you keep in the
empty moments.
He ached to be comforted, but who could comfort him? Certainly not Dylan, whom he felt had failed him and Earth, albeit apologetically. Nor Tyr, who had left rather than help him and his fellow humans fight. He had not been unkind in his refusal, but he was a Nietzschean and would only fight when the cause mattered to him personally or there was some profit in it. Rommie was sympathetic, but she looked on the situation with an AI’s logic. Cold comfort that was. Beka had felt that Earth was an unimportant slave planet to begin with, no matter how polite she was about it. And politeness wasn’t one of her strong suites, although he rarely told her that. Hell, he thought, Tyr could be more polite than Beka when he felt like it.
He knew the answer before he even completed these thoughts, truth to tell. He was in the hydroponics garden. Looking around, smelling the air. The scent of earth, green growing things and freshly blooming flowers. The contrast was not lost on him. He was dying, feeling hope draining away from him, and this was a place in which every breath brought the promise of life.
He sat down by one of Trance’s favorite trees, resting his back against the bark. The branches were heavy with fruit, not ripe yet. When ripe they turned a rich red-gold and one fruit could perfume a room. He remembered their taste when ripe –lushly sweet and sour and strong, yet not cloying- but could not remember what it was called.
The tears almost came again, just all of a sudden, and he forced them down. Then he froze as he heard someone enter the bay. Crap, he thought.
He saw her before she saw him, her purple skin glittering just a little in the light. So beautiful, so fragile-looking, but he knew she was much more than she appeared.
She saw him then and smiled brilliantly. “Harper, what are you doing here?” she asked sweetly.
“Oh, nothing much,” he answered as she bounced over to sit beside him. He decided he’d been wrong; he didn’t want to be comforted, he’d rather be left alone. But she paid no attention to his withdrawn attitude and put her arm around him.
“Feeling better?” she asked, seemingly oblivious to his tension.
“No, not really.”
“Harper, you mustn’t blame yourself. None of what happened was your fault.”
“Wasn’t it? I could have stayed. I’m dying anyw-“
She silenced him by placing her fingers over his lips. “No, you’re not dying. Not yet. And I’m not going to let you die.”
He tried to speak again, to say there was no way to fix him, but her _expression became surprisingly stern. “Hush.”
He closed his eyes, fighting the tears yet again, and was shocked to feel her lips on his eyelids. “It’s going to be alright, Harper.”
People always say that, he thought, and they’re always wrong. But what else could she say?
“How is it-“
“Hush,” she whispered as she laid his head on her shoulder.
They sat together like that for almost an hour, her scent lulling him into a quiet melancholy. He thought of his parents, of Brendan, and so many others, long gone now.
<><><><>
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your
own,
if you can dance with the wildness and let the ecstasy
fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning
us to be careful,
be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being
human.
Her lips were soft and sweet, he found. Nor was she surprised when he kissed her. Perhaps she’d been expecting this.
He moaned against her mouth, his kiss growing more intense, more passionate, his hand caressing her cheek. She kissed him back, her hands busy. She was removing her clothes, he realized. He started to shake a little. He hadn’t considered what would happen after he kissed her.
She pushed him down on the floor gently, her lips moving over his face and neck. After a moment, she stood up, gracefully removing the last of her clothing, her eyes never leaving him.
She was so beautiful. Patterns of glitter on her breasts, around the nipples, and on her belly and thighs, sparkled in the light. He was literally breathless. He rose up, caressing her with his hands and she practically purred at his touch.
A sigh as he traced the sparkly patterns on her skin with this tongue. His tongue moved downward to her pubic hair and she moaned as he found those soft inner lips. She tasted so strangely sweet, different from a human woman, but still very female.
Her hands on his shoulders as she pushed him back down were surprisingly strong. She pulled his shirt off and began kissing his chest. Her lips and tongue worked over each nipple and her cool breath blew on them. Down his stomach, unfastening his pants, her tongue caressing the line of hair from his navel to his genitals. Her tongue played with his pubic hair and he groaned as she worked over his balls, slowly. Too slowly. He bucked his hips in anticipation.
His groan became a hoarse cry as her mouth went down on his cock, her tongue curling around the head and shaft. She moved her head from side to side and sometimes just up and down with him in her mouth. His cries and moans became more urgent. And then she began to hum, the vibration making him tingle. He pumped his hips to her mouth and she throated him. More up and down, her tongue never still, the humming vibrating her soft, moist lips on his cock. He came, clutching her hair, only vaguely hoping he wasn’t hurting her, but she made no sound of complaint.
The she sat up, leaning back, her hand on his thigh, watching him intently. A predatory _expression, or just judging her work? He couldn’t guess.
“Oh, God, Trance,” he gasped when he could speak again.
“Shhh.” She smiled, looking down at him. “I’m not finished yet.”
<><><><>
I want to know if you can see beauty
even when its not pretty every day,
and if you can source your life from God's presence.
“How do you that, that squeezing and pushing thing with your, um, your vagina?”
They lay together on the floor on their cast-off clothing, the fruit tree's branches silhouetting the light over them, his head on her breast.
“Practice,” she sighed.
“I’ve never felt anything like that before. Is that just your people?”
She giggled. ”A human woman taught me that when I was young.”
“Wow.” He stroked her hair and she sighed with pleasure.
“Still my purple princess?”
“Always.”
He snuggled to her, neither of them knowing that wasn’t true. One never knows about tomorrow.
He drifted off to sleep, remembering how in the quiet of the early morning sometimes in his youth, he had seen the beautiful world Earth had once been. Perhaps one day it would be so beautiful again.
But nothing would ever be the same.
~~end~~
<><><><>
BB,
3eyes