In the Company of Strangers

The bar was dim, and Avon very nearly turned and left again. He didn't want a half-lit haziness, but light, clear and crisp and sharp. But it was late, by his own body's time if not by local clocks, and he was tired. He didn't want to leave and search the noisy port for someplace else to sit and have a drink. Besides, he saw, the front of the room was adequately lit, though the tables in the back were obscured. He pushed his way through and took a seat at the bar.

Blake had taken them far into the Outer Worlds this time, and the bar was only minimally automated. Human tenders moved behind the plastic counter, pouring drinks and taking money. He fished in his pocket, pulled out a crumpled bill, and laid it on the table in front of him. Not local money, but worth enough in any case. One of the uniformed waiters saw it and stopped short, then took his order with noticeable respect. Perhaps the note was worth more than he had thought. No matter; there was plenty more aboard the Liberator. Not that it was likely to be of much use, there.

He ordered scotch, smooth and amber in the glass tank on display behind the counter. It arrived with speed, along with a scattering of local coins: his change. He tucked them into a pocket without bothering to count them. No doubt he had been cheated on the exchange.

He was rather surprised that Blake had given them this leave. Avon turned the small glass in his hands, thinking. Odd how he automatically phrased it that way: Blake had given them leave. As if it were his to give, as if the rest of them were under his command.

Well, the alien, Cally, certainly was. Her political ideals matched Blake's own, that had been clear from the start; and Blake had welcomed her with the fervor of a religious fanatic welcoming another believer in the midst of heretics. The lower grades, Gan and Vila, took Blake's orders as a matter of course. Vila in particular had been pathetically grateful for the chance to lose himself in this port's fleshpots for a few hours.

That left himself and Jenna. He certainly did not consider himself under Blake's orders. But the Liberator was a better option than any other, just now; certainly better than returning to the Federation's jurisdiction with a sentence of transportation hanging over his head. If humoring a political fanatic was the price he had to pay, he was willing. And the chance to investigate the technology of the ship they had stumbled upon was worth almost anything. He had worked with voice-activated systems before, of course, but nothing like the one that called itself "Zen." The others even treated it as though it were self-aware: an interesting philosophical, as well as technical, problem.

And Jenna. He looked down into the drink in his hands, turned it to catch the light. Jenna had a mind of her own, and a roughness that he had noted almost immediately aboard the London, carefully non-impressed. She had taken to the controls of the Liberator as if they had been made for her, while he had still been trying to gain a first insight into Zen's workings. And over Cygnus Alpha, she had been tempted, he knew. He had goaded her, to find out who she was, how she would react, since it seemed they were to be shipmates--would be whatever her answer, whether or not they abandoned Blake. And she had been tempted.

But probably would not be so now. Blake had the most damnable ability to convince others of his reasonableness, to make the most ridiculous philosophies and strategies sound, if not natural, at least possible, worthy of consideration, until Avon would abruptly realize that he had been giving credence to something quite ridiculous. And without losing any of her sharpness, Jenna was being drawn into Blake's enchanted circle, turning her mind to Blake's castles in the air.

Well. If he was to be among revolutionaries for the foreseeable future, he would simply have to accommodate them, and ensure that Blake didn't get him killed. Other than that, they weren't such bad company, really. He had been without company, as such, for months now; the drugged torpor of the holding cells' inhabitants had been nothing, and on the London they had for the most part avoided him, resenting his upper grade and aloofness. Only Blake had sought him out, persisted, refused to leave him to his cold aloneness.

For his own purposes, of course.

And before the holding cell had been the days of hiding, waiting for his shoulder to heal enough to try to escape the dome; and before that-

He saw the liquor in his hand, threw his head back and downed it, harshly forcing himself not to choke as his throat burned. Blinking fiercely, he slapped the glass back on the bar and pressed the back of his wrist to his mouth, against his teeth, hating the clichéness of the gesture even as he did it. He wiped the back of his hand across his lips.

She's dead. There's nothing you can do.

There was nothing you could do.

And the small voice, again, saying, there should have been...

Enough. The past is, he told himself; let it alone. Think about the future. The immediate future--another drink, perhaps two, and ten hours yet before he was due to take his watch on board, fifty before they left the planet. The distant future--investigate the Liberator, certainly. The bits of technology that were throwaways to the ship's creators could make him a wealthy man on any number of worlds. He could be rich again; safe. With care, he might in time even return to Earth; not as himself, not to his friends, but perhaps to places, at least, that he knew.

Unless, he thought wryly, the revolution comes, first.

Someone slid smoothly onto the stool beside him, said something he didn't hear. One of the bar's resident whores, he thought, and glanced up to send the woman away.

It was Jenna. She straddled the stool, legs apart, and looked at him appraisingly, and as he tried to take in her presence where he had thought himself alone she turned away, speaking to a passing waiter.

After a moment, he realized she had bought him a drink.

It rested before him, murky amber next to the transparency of whatever she was drinking. The uniformed servitor was already walking away, taking with him Avon's empty glass, his fingers still remembering its shape as he had grappled it. Now this new glass awaited him, bought by the woman silent at his side. He looked from the liquor to her, waiting.

She picked up her drink and sipped, watching him across it. He could smell it as she swallowed, sharp and acrid, burning in his nose. He couldn't identify it, but then she was a smuggler, an outlaw; she was probably familiar with brews he'd never wanted to know of.

He was aware of her body, so close. His head was ringing slightly from the alcohol he had gulped, against all habit; and on an impulse he took up the new glass and drank its contents off as well, welcoming the warmth which spread through his stomach, smeared itself across the inside of his skull. He had not been warm in so long, and now if he closed his eyes slightly he could see himself, seated at a bar with a woman friend, sharing drinks...

God, no. She was nothing to him, nor he to her. He had seen her watching Blake, the last few days. And Blake, carefully not avoiding her gaze, carefully not noticing it. Pathetic, really, and he had no intention of being caught in it.

Why had she bought him the drink? Had she been here all along, watching him? Why join him now?

And more important than any of these, what did he want to do about it?

She met his eyes, then deliberately turned, taking his gaze with hers to the side wall, and the stairs to the brothel rooms above.

Ah.

His first reaction was anger, a fury that she would expect him to take her lead, play Blake for her in tawdry fantasies. Then he saw her face, the intent expression on it, watching him. She knew who he was, that was certain; it was him she was so-subtly propositioning. Not Blake. Perhaps she truly did want him, then, for whatever cold comfort.

He took in the sight of her body, her breasts and slim thighs, spread slightly on the stool as she watched him. The slow, swelling heat began in his groin; it had been months. Since that last night, before he was shot, and he had been alone since...

All right. For whatever reasons, perhaps only because she was the closest to any real company he had on the Liberator. He pushed his glass away and stood up, beside her. She rolled her half-finished drink in her hands, then set it down and walked with him, unspeaking, up the stairs.

But when they had locked the flimsy door behind them and she pulled him to her, he found he could not bear the sight of her, her hair too long and blonde, not golden. He twisted away and shut off the light. That was better; it was more than dimness he wanted now: blackness, solid and unforgiving. Unseeing. Naked, they tumbled onto the bed.

He lay atop her, pressing her down as his mouth roved from throat to nipple to chest, and she moaned and rubbed at his back. He remembered that last time with Anna, so intense, so silent, and he tugged at the nipple again with his lips to make her cry out, make it different. Then to his surprise she pushed him away, rolled him onto his back and attacked him as he had been doing to her, before her mouth moved lower and sucked him in.

He gasped and could not help but thrust upward, but she pressed him back down and held him immobile as her tongue slicked his cockhead and stabbed along the throbbing length of him. She was lying over his legs, an arm across his stomach; he tossed his head in the empty air above him and clutched at the cheap bedding. He needed to touch her, to know that she was there, another human being with him, and he pulled her away and up, rolled over her as she had him and pushed himself inside, to her center.

She was hot and wet and strong, pulling him in and sucking at his tongue, and he buried his face in her hair, trying to find her, as he shuddered with the sensation. In the darkness he could see nothing, not even himself, and he felt so alone, thrusting and thrusting in the emptiness. He thought of Anna, closed the thought off; he ran his hands over her skin, trying to pass through it, to plunge himself into her as his cock was in her body, but she pushed him away.

All right. All right, then. He took his weight on his palms and arched away from her, until all that touched her was his penis, straining. He felt the excitement building with an odd detachment. What was it to him? To her? He did not know; clearly he should not want to inquire.

His orgasm, when it came, was joyless, a hot pulse in his balls; his back arched until it hurt and he was still, racked with it. He heard her harsh breathing under him, and he let himself down onto her body and pressed himself aganst her, rubbing at her with fingers, mouth, cheek. God, to be rooted, to be connected to something, to have a foundation...

She twisted under him, recalling him to himself. She had not come, and he abruptly remembered Anna, in his wide, sunny bedroom, sobbing with pleasure as he made her come again and again, until she pulled him into her and he felt her convulse around him one last time... Perhaps Jenna was as lonely as he was, in this dark closet with the pit of her stomach aching. Whatever else, that was somehing he could give her. Relief, and company, of a kind.

He slid down between her legs, found her with his mouth. He licked rapidly, circling her clitoris and pushing into her with first one finger, then two, his aim not to tease or heighten but to finish, to give her all, it seemed, that he could. It didn't take long; she caught his head between her hands and cried out once, clamping around his fingers in pulses like a heart. He gentled her through it, then moved up to press himself against her one last time. To reaffirm their presence: both here, if not exactly together.

But after a little time he began to feel self-conscious, sprawled over a woman he scarcely knew, for all they had done to each other in the last half-hour. He sat up, turned the light on. Half-tempted to turn away he made a point of facing her instead, and found her gaze no more informative than he meant his own to be.

Whatever. They had shared something, and it was over; been company to each other for this little time, but if it had been meant to mean anything it would have been different. They had not even spoken to each other. He thought of Vila suddenly, and the thief's eager description of the willing whores he planned to find; women whom he would ply with drink and jocularity until they tumbled each other into endless romps. He had gone on rather at length, until Avon cut him off, disgusted.

Vila would come back full of stories, each more raucous and obscene than the last. Avon would let him babble; he himself would bring back no tales from this leave. The dark room, and the silent body with him, would remain in his mind, locked away from light, and sound, and touch.

Jenna was moving about the room, gathering her clothes; she glanced at him as he stood up and followed suit, settling himself in his briefs with some relief. He tucked his shirt neatly into his trousers, sealed the tunic's sideseam, and looked at her, waiting. She had led him through this strange time, black night by their bodies' clocks though it was only afternoon to the port. He would follow her out again.

Then she laughed. He turned, startled, to see her laugh again, smiling at him as she contemplated some private joke. He could see nothing funny, and wondered what she was thinking of. He did not ask, however; whatever they had shared, speech had no part in it. He followed her down the stairs, and when they came into the bar again, he looked over at the place where they had sat. She had left her drink, he remembered, and he half-expected to see it still there, awaiting them, the imprint of her fingers still upon it, the stools warm with their thighs' heat.

But the drink was gone, and a drunken labourer sprawled where he had sat, and spilled beer on the place his hands had rested. He looked about for Jenna, and found her gone.