PULP! - Adventures in Bad SciFi

PULP! Episode #5 - The Wailing of Men

PULP! Episode #5 - The Wailing of Men

"I was beginning to think you didn't want me." Nebis said, nestling her face into the cup of Erika's hip, breathing in the scent of her clean skin, silky where their bodies made contact. The hand curling through her hair took pause, the calloused edge of her trigger finger tracing Nebis's cheek.

"No, I always want you." Erika breathed, stroking the girl's face, knowing that the last day and night had been rough. They rarely spent more than a few hours in the Abyss, and the effect it had on Nebis was profound...the usual oddities, gills, dark eyes, cool skin, became exaggerated, her teeth became sharp and hooked, her eyes wept dark ichor, and as Erika lay there, she could feel those ever-present tears as chilly puddles, and ignored them. "Even if we're stuck here, that won't change."

"But I might." Nebis said quietly, turning her cheek to kiss the skin nearest her, "I have strange hungers here," she confessed, "I want violence, I want you in a way that shouldn't be. I want to sink my teeth, and eat flesh, and fuck, and laugh all in a single giddy stroke. I always want to hurt you, and I don't like it."

"You won't, baby." Erika sat up, leaning on her flattened palms, watching her girlfriend's features shift between different conflicting wishes and wants.

"How can you want something like that?" The Deep One asked, feeling her chest ache, that unpleasantness coiling in the pit of her stomach, she hated it. The woman staring down at her looked like prey, the wide innocence of her eyes, the pulse visible in her throat, the smooth, fecund curve of her high-set breasts, pale and so very soft, she knew.

The single rising bruise of a bite mark on Erika's belly brought her back to that ever-present guilt. An oval of spreading purple spots, bloodied at the center, lamprey-like and deep. It had been a lone, unguarded moment, and she would punish herself for it for months to come. Nebis looked away, even as her girlfriend realized what held her attention and pulled the sheet over it.

"I'm with you." Erika said. "Not just when the weather is fair. I know who you are. I accept you even when you get a little carried away. You accept me even when I shoot people in the face, for money."

"I love you." Nebis said, finding it hard to speak.

"Good. Now kiss me before we both start to cry."

"Okay."

###

A light sleep, punctuated by the near-silent murmur of women's voices across the hall.  Donut lay in his bunk wondering what had awakened him this time.  Blinking against the darkness, he took a breath and held it, listening to the walls.

Erika and Nebis were at it again, and he tried not to hear them.  Rosebud was shuffling across the hydroponics lab one deck below them, but the movement was too slow to be recognized further. The engines were warmed up, he could feel the vibration of their activity even in the bunk, but the ship was unmoving. He caught himself following its near-silent purr, but the timing was off...he needed to go down there and adjust the...

"No...no...no." Donut scolded himself. "I'm not a hero! I don't want to be the 'skilled-at-virtually-everything-hero'! I want to be the comic relief!"

Turning in bed, he buried his face in the pillow and tried to tune it all out, the water bubbler, the engines, the women...especially the women. Every shred of him was hyper-aware, skilled, honed, and perfect, and it was inescapable evidence of the trope he was bound to follow. It was all spinning up to some kind of apex...something horrible was about to happen, he could feel it coming with every fibre of his being, the need to raise the alarm, the need to right the wrong and fix the broken, all those things that a hero was driven to do.  He rebelled against it all.