The Cell Mate Pt. 04

I was used to sleeping for hours in my cramped little cell, always in darkness. It was the only way to pass the time. I was used to washing in cold water when I could get enough and I was used to freezing on the uneven concrete floor. Then again, I was used to eating actual food, even if it was gruel. So as I lay on my back, baking my skin blissfully under the full force of the Kragosa noonday sun and skinny dipping in the lukewarm oasis spring when I got too hot, I considered my luck to have evened out. Sure, my stomach was eating itself in desperation and okay, my pale, sickly skin was burning rapidly in the bright light, but all told it was an improvement on the last eight months of my life.

I had tried eating a few of the reeds and flat leafs in the spring in hopes they might be edible, but those had been long odds and I wasn't quite that lucky.

Several hours later I saw it, another furry little critter like the one outside the village. Its long ears dragged along on the ground behind it as it hopped closer and closer to the edge of the spring. It just wanted a drink. I could sympathize. It got close enough I could almost reach it. I sat perfectly still. Then I pounced, grabbing its ears in one hand and breaking its neck over my knee with the other. Yikes, I thought, looking at its eyes bulging out as it lay there limply, body cooling. I'd never actually killed anything with my bare hands before and my guilt was doubled by its cuteness. I was such a girl.

I washed it in the spring and found another sharp rock and began to skin it messily. Not exactly the easiest thing to do without a proper knife. I peeled the flesh from the bone and separated the guts. I never did like eating the guts. Too visceral I guess. I was a dyed-in-the-wool hypocrite. I took the fleshiest cuts and hung them from a spiny bit on the prickly plant facing the sun and waited a half hour or so before turning them. They had gone from a bloody pink to a bright, tender white on the cooked side so I waited another half hour and gobbled them so quickly I could barely taste them, let alone worry whether or not they were actually cooked. My belly full and my thirst sated, I passed out on the shore.

I awoke a few more hours later to hear the hum of shuttles overhead. Not again, I thought, my head swimming as I stared up to the sky to try to make them out in the sudden brightness. There were two this time, only a few kilometers away, scanning the skies no doubt. I looked around for shelter and saw only the tall, prickly plants that afforded no shelter and the leafless shrubs shaped like fans. And the spring. The hum grew louder and I turned then, wading back into the shallow water. I took a deep breath and plunged my head underneath as I tried to open my eyes in the clearness to watch the skies.

And of course they lingered. I was no marathon diver. I had a minute of air in my lungs, tops. Nothing was ever easy. I remember watching an old vid where the hero hides from laser fire underwater, staying under for over an hour because he was breathing through a hollow reed. Well, no such fucking luck. I felt my heart pounding and my lungs burning against the strain. If I resurfaced, they'd see me. Or maybe the water was so shallow they had already seen me. I let out a slow, careful train of bubbles, trying to last just a bit longer. I strained my eyes in the water again. I couldn't see one of the anymore. Had it landed? The other one began to move away too and as it did I knew I would have to inhale if I stayed under a moment longer. Spots danced in front of eyes.

My head crested the surface of the water and I inhaled as deeply as I could, feeling the delicious burning hot air scorch my empty lungs. I blinked away the water and scanned the air. They were both moving away, heading north. Maybe to the docking station. Well, with Perikos there it was sure to be a breeze.

I crawled out of the water on my hands and knees and made it a few feet from shore before crashing underneath the fan-shaped shrub. At least it afforded a little cover, I thought, looking up at the sky mosaiced behind the brittle, snarled branches. I felt exhausted all over again but I suppose I was used to sleeping most of the day and night.

I reached down to stroke the bulge at my belly but my thoughts were hardly maternal. I missed Perikos and not just the protection it offered. How much different, I wondered, would my stay at Kragosa have been if we had shared a cell? Or just had neighboring cells? And it wasn't just the sex, although that was twisted and complicated and wonderful enough. It was the kindness, the gentleness. Having someone to talk to, having someone to listen to. I suppose it wasn't any more affectionate or caring than a human would have been, so maybe I was just seriously deprived after eight months without any human contact but then again I didn't have anyone else. No close friends on Ferox 4, no boyfriends ever. It always seemed so overrated, so transient to date. I never wanted anyone enough. Renny and Dad had been killed on a transport mission almost two years ago. I was going to lose the house and Mylon was never any bloody help. He joined the Academy and I went into debt to keep our property. Colonies opened up all around, other plantations paid better and I lost all my workers and defaulted on my loans. And somehow wound up in Kragosa rather than a debtor's or women's prison. Anyone who knew anything about Kragosa knew anyone sent there never really expected to get out again. I grinned in spite of myself. We'd already beaten the odds.

But there were questions I couldn't answer and I was running out of time. If I couldn't go to Ferox 4, I couldn't go to any Union Colony and humans tended to only live on Union Colonies. It made sense. I supposed I could hide out somewhere in the Union so long as it was nice and isolated, some unspoken-for piece of land on some forgotten outpost. Somewhere warm. I could try to build a house and maybe a garden and live like a pioneer. But risking contact with other Union Colonists was too risky. TransmitNet was omnipresent and omnipotent. Then again I had lived almost completely alone for less than a year and that had been more than I could stand. And whether I wanted to admit it or not, there was something to what Perikos had said about darkness and fear. I reached my hand down to trace the outline of my still-swollen lips. I closed my eyes but the sunlight penetrated my eyelids. I fingered my clit, pinching it between my fingers and tugging softly. I felt only the slightest jolt of arousal. It would never be the same.

I felt something like a nudge or push need inside myself, not a product of my imagination but a real, intimate bump from within. My eyes flew open and my heart skipped a beat as I looked down at my bloated belly. I actually saw the skin just below my bellybutton twitch and stretch as I felt it bump me again from inside. Like a baby kicking I thought, though again my feelings were anything but maternal. Perikos felt me touch myself, felt my arousal and responded, probably with encouragement. Mastubating would have helped, would feed it, I thought as I idly traced my fingers around my slit, closed my eyes again and tried to recall every detail from the night before. The feeling of being bound and gagged, of struggling in darkness, of having my legs pulled apart and relying on someone else just to breathe. I tried to remember the feeling of having my ass stuffed and stretched while my pussy remained so painfully empty. Of the way it tugged and squeezed at my breasts and pulled at my nipples.

But it wasn't enough, I realized sadly, opening my eyes. I was never particularly good at bringing myself to orgasm before I ended up here, apparently because I never really knew what turned my crank. Now I knew what did, knew exactly what did but it didn't make it any easier. I seemed to have particular tastes and maybe nothing less than eleven inches of telepathic darkness that defied the laws of physics penetrating my holes while holding me down could really get me there anymore. And that was a pretty big problem in and of itself because I needed it.

I rolled over onto my side so I could feel the little weight inside me better. It felt good there, solid and reassuring. That alien bulge, however small, made me wetter than touching myself had. My eyes drifted shut again. There was more than four hours till nightfall, of that I was certain. I was tired but mostly I was tired of spending them alone.

I woke again when something inside me stirred and chased away dream fragments of toothless snakes on Ferox 4. My eyes flew open again and my mind was fully awake as I saw the starry sky peeking and winking from the other side of the shrub branches. I clenched my teeth as Perikos stirred inside me again and then I felt something cool and smooth and almost thin as air slip from the heat of my body, past my still-damp slit to pool in a heap of cool darkness between my thighs. A tendril curled along my frame to stroke my belly where I had touched it earlier. I reached down to run my hand over the dark mass. Perikos allowed it for a moment and then the darkness took on a life of its own, wrapping itself around my wrist and up my arm, spreading itself over my arms and shoulders and breasts like a blanket before sliding tendrils up into my dusty hair. One settled near the shell of my ear again.

"Did you sleep well, Little Shade? You have had food and water. Have you any food left over?"

"No, there wasn't a lot of meat of those things. Why, were you hungry?" I couldn't help but grin as I felt the darkness coat my upper body.

"Perhaps, but not for animal flesh of course. However, we have little time here and now and urgent matters to attend to at the docking station. I was asking to make sure you ate and drank before we left."

My disappointment that Perikos did not need to feed from me must have showed in my posture or blood pressure or something. The tendrils in my hair rubbed lazy circles against my scalp while another stroked my cheek before tracing over my mouth, careful not to push inside. "You regret I do not have time to pleasure you?"

I could have kicked the bastard. My blushed deeply, my skin already burnt hot red from the sun. I pursed my lips and tried to think unsexy thoughts.

"There is no shame in wishing it," Perikos continued, tweaking my nipples from within the blanket of darkness. "I felt you begin to give yourself pleasure earlier. Why did you stop? It would have been very satisfying indeed."

I was not dignifying that with an answer. I sat stock still, trying to think about fuzzy animals or poison stingers or anything but Perikos.

"Shadeling?" Perikos' tendril captured my chin, held my face still while it twisted into my hair. Its tones were mild, teasing. "Why did you stop?"

I felt under closer inspection than I would have if it had eyes. I tried to turn away, to break its hold but Perikos weighed down my shoulders and held my face in its tendrils. After a moment I couldn't take it anymore.

"Can't," I muttered as quietly as I could.

"You do not find pleasure at your own hand?" It wasn't a taunt however much it felt like one.

"Yep. Can we move on now?" I tried to get up again but soft tendrils trailed over my eyelids and temples before entwining themselves in my hair with the others. I shuddered.

"You mean to say you have become…addicted to my caress in way that cannot be replicated?"

I heard the humor, the fondness in its tune but I didn't share the sentiment. There was nothing funny about what I was going to have to give up. Maybe my shallow breathing gave me away because without another word, Perikos helped me to my feet. It uncoiled from my body to move beside me, except for the tendril by my ear and a thick black appendage that encircled my wrist. I felt a rush of gratefulness interrupt my bitterness. Perikos seemed to understand that I needed to be touched. Bloody hell, I never used to need such perpetual contact. It made me feel weak, pitiful. The tentacle squeezed my hand, bringing me back to the present and our current priorities.

"We have approximately fifty-three kilometers to travel before reaching the docking station. We must take care as we approach the last five kilometers. We may well anticipate their judicious use of ultra-violet lights, laser cannons, incendiaries and momentum-based metal projectile artillery. I ought to be able to withstand the laser cannons and metal artillery and I believe I would survive the use of incendiaries but ultra-violet light, as you know, is quite lethal. I believe this benefits us, since you are invulnerable to all but the highest doses of ultra-violet light, at least in the short term. If we begin now we should arrive at the forty-eight kilometer mark in less than two hours and from there we may decide our next course of action."

My next course of action was going to be to shit a brick. Maybe I had relied too heavily on the idea that Perikos was gonna sweep in there, kicking ass and taking names. Maybe I'd been more excited about the idea of getting off Kragosa, or just getting off, to concern myself with the real likelihood of bullets and lasers and firebombs, to say nothing of the doubtless presence of ultra-violet light, which meant we were going to be on my watch again and so far that hadn't really worked out very well. Who knows why I thought it would be a cakewalk, why the reality that we were fighting for our lives trying to steal a ship from what was supposed to be an inescapable planet never really occurred to me before now. I guess I thought someone would take care of me, make everything easy for me, which was stupid and naïve and hopelessly childish. After all, I'd gotten through the worst of this escape on my own with hardly any help. But the very real possibility I could die even with Perikos at my side from what we were attempting tonight couldn't be ignored any longer.

If Perikos sensed my fear, it didn't comment on it, which I took to mean it was scared too. That didn't make me feel any better.

"How are we getting there?" I asked.

"The best way I know to travel here is to rely on the darkness to move us swiftly. If you have no objections, I will not hold you as freely I did yesterday for I fear we would be easier to spot in our approach."

That seemed reasonable enough. I nodded, forgetting it couldn't see me but perhaps its tendrils understood my assent. The darkness coating my upper-body expanded then until it covered all of me save for my eyes, nose and mouth and then it began to swell. Just as before I felt the ground fall away from me as Perikos' darkness blended into the inky night and it held me high off the ground. I tried to wiggle my fingers and toes but instead felt the darkness clasp them, encircling each little appendage as it began to drift forward, each movement a smooth, vast glide like some kind of huge whale moving through an ebon sea.

I felt something thick and dark pressing against the cleft of my legs as the darkness pressed at my clit. I tried to keep my murmured moans silent as pleasure pulsed through me, pushing me to the edge twice as we rolled through the desert. I panted as Perikos ceased its abuse of my sensitized clit, shamefacedly imagining the extent of the wetness clinging to my thighs.

"I thought we didn't have time for that," I said, my voice sounding more husky than affronted.

"Every little bit helps," Perikos' music was too tense, the lightness it attempted sounded strained and superficial.

We moved together a while longer in tense silence but I could think of nothing useful to say. It wasn't until I saw the barest hint of lights ahead that I snapped to attention.

"We're almost there," I said, trying to make out the shape and size of the docking station.

"Yes. We are approaching the forty-eight kilometer mark. We will need to stop and form a plan."

"Actually, I'm surprised you haven't covered my eyes yet. Usually you're so keen to keep me in the dark," I mused out loud. I was babbling out of sheer nervousness.

"It is dark enough and there is enough fear that I needn't enhance it," Perikos said.

"I thought every little bit helped?"

"Now I think of it, every little bit of silence helps us remain undetected from their scans. They will be scanning the area and I don't know the range of their instruments." It's music sounded suddenly cross.

I began to point out that we were going to have a hard time discussing a plan if we had to do it in silence but I was cut off as Perikos's mass enveloped my mouth. At first it just covered my lips but after a moment's hesitation a thick tendril pressed past my teeth and against the roof of my mouth, weighing down my tongue. I frowned but I didn't fight it.

"Forgive me but I cannot help myself. I meant to silence you simply but I take so much pleasure from to heat and texture of your mouth that I could not resist."

I blushed deeply, which was stupid. That was the least of my worries right now.

Perikos slowed to a stop, holding my body still and keeping my mouth full. "I doubt any but the most technologically advanced equipment could pick up my volume and intonations at this range." Its music was unmistakably softer than usual. I had to strain to hear it even in the empty desert. "At any rate, if they must learn our plan, I would prefer they not know you are with me. I do not believe they think I am capable of caring for another being or that another being would choose to care for me. They may think I have consumed you by now and if they do it would only benefit us for they are less likely to use force lethal to your body and so you would have a chance to board the ship with me inside you."

I wasn't sure I thought much of that plan but hey, it was good to be prepared.

"Since I do not want to risk any sounds they may detect on long range scanners, if you assent to what I say, please move your right foot. If you disagree, then move your left. I intend to use the darkness to get within 200 meters. I believe even their powerful ultra-violet lights will be easily avoided at that distance considering the scope and density of the darkness around us. During our approach it is critical you do nothing to give us away."

I wiggled my right foot as much as I could.

"At 200 meters we will storm the docking station. I believe the ships themselves are suspended twelve meters above the docking platform, which is itself raised an additional seventeen meters off the surface of the planet. I shall certainly help you board the docking platform but from there I anticipate the use of ultra-violet lights. It will be very difficult for me to communicate with you throughout most of this and therefore you must do your best to be aware of where I am as well as where our attackers will be, in addition to the locations of any docked ships and how to board them. In the event there are no ships there, I will disembark the platform with you and we will retreat until we find somewhere safe to regroup. However, I believe there will be at least one ship at the docking station. I will do my best to protect you and myself regardless of our locations relative to one another once we are on the docking station. Your first priority is to find an appropriate vessel. Your second priority is to pay attention to your surroundings and protect yourself. Your last priority is to protect me. I will be covering you. Do you understand?"

I wiggled my left foot. Apart from the fact this was sounding more unfeasible by the minute, the very idea I was more capable of finding a suitable ship and getting it running than Mr. Know-it-all was positively laughable. Even I could admit that.