Work Text:
Life, I had to say, was good. I had what I wanted, I could go where I desired, I could do what I wished. Certainly a lot better than the old days, which I didn't care to think about too much.
If there was one downside to all of this, it was that I did have a lot of work to do. My beautiful ship, the Star Road Wanderer, was, indeed, capable of being crewed by one person, just like the advertising material said. Those ads had also said that one person was the bare minimum and recommended a crew between two or three people to actually stay on top of everything.
As such, I was up to my guts in the ship's guts, carefully swapping out an empty canister of coolant for a full one and making sure none of it dripped. And knowing what I would need to do after that. And what the next task would be after that.
Still, my own starship, my own life, my own freedom to choose what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. You couldn't beat that, even if I spent a lot of my free time with my nose buried in technical manuals to find out how to deal with whatever the next problem was likely to be.
As I twisted in the tank, hearing the satisfying click that said that it was securely in place, I heard another sound from overhead. A kind of thumping sound and not one of the half-dozen thumping sounds I was used to hearing onboard. I stuck my head up out of the crawlspace I was in and blinked.
There was a pair of feet on the far side of the common area and a hint of ankles before they vanished behind the table. And I had thought that I was alone onboard, my last attempt at hiring a crew member crashing and burning before we ever got back to the loading bay.
"Um, hello?" I asked, straightening up and putting the empty tank down and picking up a wrench that lay nearby. "What's going on?"
There was nothing bult silence as I pulled myself out of the crawlspace and onto the deck. I glanced around but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Status lights blinking on wall panels, the distant throb of the ship's reactor and the soft music that I had playing every hour I was awake.
I took a deep breath and slowly circled around the table, glancing down the corridors and seeing nobody and nothing. Then I got my first real view of who was laying there and dropped the wrench.
"Holy shit!" I started towards the young woman laying on the deck before twisting around to grab at the medical pack hanging off of one wall.
At a glance, I could tell that she was tall, skinny, pale-skinned and with curly black hair. She was also bleeding from two wounds in the forehead though at least not from her severed arm. And, thankfully, she wasn't awake for any of this.
I was no doctor but all I really needed to do was press a self-sealing bandage around her forehead to stop up the bleeding from there. Then I just had to scoop her up (and she was very light, a morbid joke about losing limbs being the ultimate weight-loss plan running through my mind) and fucking sprint down to the small med bay right next to my cabin.
It was highly automated, every single part of it. An actual doctor could improve on the results, of course, but for someone like me? It was a godsend. It was going to be a godsend for this girl, too, since she just might live through it.
I placed her down on the slab, slapped the auto start button and watched it get to work. A dozen different arms descended from the ceiling, some of them bearing hypos filled with various medicines, some with scalpels, some with other tools entirely. I shook my head as I watched her clothes get cut off of her and then frowned as I studied said clothes.
They were awfully strange, not going by any style I was familiar with. A mix of white and blue in some parts and a dark grey in others, which didn't blend that well. They were tough, too, quite a bit tougher than I would have expected and the scissors had to really work to cut through them. And I couldn't see any kind of makers tag on them, no sign at all of where she might have gotten these clothes.
I let them drop back down into the biohazard waste box and turned back to look at her. I was no expert in anatomy but wounds like that, two circular wounds, those looked like gunshots to me. From a weak gun if they didn't blow open the back of her head, which was a thought I tried to drop as soon as it came to me because ew.
Well, there were weakly powered guns out there and that was secondary to the fact that she had ended up here in the first place. That I couldn't give any answers to, beyond that teleportation apparently existed. And that it was a hell of a shot to have missed the twisting, destructive blankness on every side of the Wanderer as it tunneled through phase-space to have ended up on my ship. Hell, not even that but close to me instead of in the cockpit or the cargo hold, where I wouldn't be visiting for hours at the very least.
Mystery upon mystery and I didn't have any answers. Maybe the girl would be able to shed some light on the subject when she woke up. And if she woke up.
Still… there was nothing that I could do here for now and the Wanderer did have more work that needed taking care of. I looked at the mystery girl as more robotic arms hovered over her and shook my head. And here I had thought that the next bit of excitement in my life would come after making port. Silly me.
***
I had, of course, synched up my pad with the autodoc to give me updates on pretty much anything that the girl did. She didn't do much for a long while, which was no surprise with the amount of sedatives in her system. But when she finally did start to stir, I was there, pulling up a chair and staring at her in thought as she slowly opened her eyes.
She was dressed in one of the three medical gowns the med bay had (and I had already made a note to buy a new one) and was looking a lot better. There was some color back in her face now, though she was still quite a bit paler than I was. And, of course, the dimples on her forehead were so shallow that I could only see them because I knew she had been shot.
And even more noticeably, while her arm was still wrapped in a membrane, it was there instead of wherever she had left it. All in all, she was looking much better and from what I could understand of the auto doc's readouts, she was going to wake up in her right mind and in a body a lot better than what she had probably remembered having.
There had even been a bit of work done to restore her to 'optimal genetic expression' which, according to the manual, meant that malnutrition she had suffered had been corrected. I couldn't tell the difference, but then again, I had first seen her with blood covering her face.
Those bullets had gone inside of her brain, too. The autodoc had done its best and had insisted that it had restored her to full neural capacity. But from what I knew, even a human brain surgeon would still have wanted a neural scan of her before the injury before making that kind of promise. This mystery girl was going to be functioning fine, I was sure of that, but how much of her was going to be like who she used to be was a question that only she might be able to answer.
And now her eyes were fluttering upwards as she woke up. I leaned forward, my sense of curiosity burning inside of me. I had no idea what I was going to learn from her but I was very interested in learning everything I could.
"What?" She slowly said, slurring her words in what might be an accent and might not be. She was speaking Galstan, which was something. "Where- argh."
She lifted her good arm to rub her forehead and then stated to look down at herself and around with increasingly wide eyes. Then she caught sight of me.
I didn't think that I looked that bad. I was a handful of centimeters taller than her, with black hair that that was shorter than hers. And, of course, my brown skin was a lot darker than her pale hue. Though I supposed that if I had really wanted to make a great first impression, I should have changed out of my overalls and work vest.
"Howdy," I said, leaning forward in the chair and carefully studying her face. "Feeling better?"
She didn't answer at first, looking down at her restored arm. She gingerly patted the blueish-green membrane covering it but thankfully didn't try to remove it. She was starting to take some deep breaths, her slender shoulders rising and falling as she panted. I made a concerned sound and stood up, not wanting to send her into a panic attack.
"Hey, now, it's alright," I said, holding up both hands. "You're safe here."
"Where," her voice cracked and she swallowed hard, "where is here? Who are you?"
"I'm Captain Treve Voils," I said, placing a hand against my chest and shooting her my best smile, the one I used when I was angling for a better shipping contract. "And you're my guest aboard my starship."
"Starship," she flatly, staring over my shoulder at the thin slice of corridor visible through the open doorway. "Your starship."
"Yes," I said, studying her with care. "Mine. And you are…"
"I'm… dreaming," she said the last in a low voice, taking a deep, deep breath. "Has to be a dream."
"Some philosophers have said that but if it's a dream, it's one nobody seems to wake up from," I said easily, giving her another big, reassuring smile. Now that she was actually awake and talking, she seemed a bit on the young side to my eyes. Very late teens, very early twenties, maybe? "Anyway, I found you laying on the deck of my ship, bleeding pretty badly. Any idea how that happened?"
"No," she said, the lie written all over her face as she rubbed her forehead again. "I remember…" she didn't finish the thought and turned her face from me. "Anyway, my name is Taylor. Taylor Hebert." She studied my face carefully as she spoke. "Some people call me Weaver, though. Or Skitter."
"Must be quite the story behind having two nicknames," I said, trying to see if any of those names ran a bell and coming up blank. The closest I could get… "I can see the sense in calling someone named Tailor Weaver, though."
She made a face at that and shook her head, though she didn't expand on that reaction to me. Instead, she was staring down at her bad arm again, a funny look on her face.
"Even the scars are gone," she muttered, rubbing just above her elbow where there had been some pretty nasty burn scars, like heated metal bars had been pressed against her. "Okay, Mister Voils-"
"Captain Voils," I interrupted. "I don't have many points of pride but that certainly is one."
"Captain," she said with a nod. "I've never heard of you," who had? "I've never been on a starship before and I can't see how I could possibly have arrived here."
"Well," I leaned back and crossed my legs as I looked at her. "it started pretty recently. I've got some answers and maybe you can fill in the rest."
And maybe she would even share some of those answers with me as well.
***
"Not enjoying the spices?" I asked, glancing down at Taylor's nearly-full glass of herbal mead.
She just grunted at that, looking over my shoulder at the bar and constantly moving her head back and forth, trying to look at every single point and person at the same time. She was lucky we weren't in some of the bars I had been to, where staring at someone even for a short time was an invitation for a knife to be pulled.
As soon as we had found a table, she had put her back to the wall, leaving me with my ass hanging out towards the rest of the room. Again, this bar wasn't the kind of place where that could be a death sentence but her constant wariness was starting to put me on edge in turn. I kept on fighting the urge to glance over my shoulder to see if some hooded and masked figure was creeping up with a blade.
"It's very sweet," Taylor said after a long moment, taking another miniscule sip from the glass and putting it back down on the sticky table.
Personally, I was trying out a new brand of beer and finding it alright. I was hardly a connoisseur of booze but I had no regrets over having downed half of it already.
"It's always worth celebrating a little after doing a good job," I said, taking another sip as I finished the sentence. "Whiling away the hours in transit can be awfully boring, so why not spend the pay on a reward?"
Taylor grunted again at that and took another small sip. At this rate, we would be here for an hour or so.
"And you deserved some of that pay as well, since you helped drive the lifter once we docked," I continued, trying to find anything that would get a reaction from her at all. "Made the job a lot easier."
It certainly had left me free to dicker with the cargo's new owner about whether I had done a good enough job in getting here fast enough and clean enough to deserve a bonus. I was just glad they had been facing away from the cargo when lifter when a box had started to fall off. Taylor had managed to stop it in time but that would hardly have strengthened my position.
"is this how you normally celebrate after a job?" Taylor asked, looking around the bar. It was half-empty at this time of the afternoon, a few people at the counter watching the local sports on a mounted screen and the bartender idly polishing a glass in between infrequent orders.
"Well, I'm sure not getting drunk onboard my ship," I said dryly. "Though the port before last was a maritime port, too. This lovely beach just a few kilometers away for me to relax on."
And to be pretty glad that the swimsuit style for the locals tended to the skimpy, too. A real treat in so many different ways. I kept that little tidbit to myself, though. And not just because there was a bite in the air that said it would get below freezing once the sun set on this planet.
"It was good of you to pay me," Taylor said after a long moment. "Though this drink took almost everything I had left after I went shopping for clothes."
Taylor was looking better now that she was actually wearing clothes that fit her instead of some of mine. We both preferred dark colors though mine had more, well, colors in them. And not all of those colors were from oil splashes or the like, either!
"True enough," I said with a shrug, finishing off the last of my beer and debating if I should have another.
"And I don't know how much a room in this town would cost but it's probably more than I have," Taylor said after a short while.
"I wasn't going to kick you out of the crew cabin," I said. "Though as soon as the train arrives with my new cargo, I'll be heading over there to start loading up and taking off."
"So…" Taylor sighed deeply and looked me straight on for pretty much the first time in this conversation. "If you'll have me, I'll keep on working for you."
"Sure thing," I said, reaching across the table to shake her hand, which it took longer for her to catch on to than it really should have. "Welcome aboard once again, Ms. Hebert."
Taylor flashed a quick, tight smile that held no humor in it at all as she shook my hand. She took another small sip as I started figuring out what I needed to teach her to make sure that she really would be useful as a crew member. There was… a lot.
She had remained damn tightlipped about where she had come from or how she had been injured or how she had ended up bleeding out on my deck. But she didn't seem that familiar with at all with a ship and how to work at it. I had never thought of myself as much of a teacher but, hell, she wasn't some pre-steam tribal pulled from some world where the colonization efforts had failed.
Taylor had kept on looking over my shoulder the entire time but now her eyes fixed on something. As her face grew tight, I peered over my shoulder as well.
"Hell," I muttered.
It seemed that this was the type of bar that the rougher side of port life came to. They just didn't do their drinking in the middle of the afternoon. There were three bulky bastards standing in the doorway and looking around. I supposed the symbols on their black leather jackets might have meant something to the locals but it was all just flash to me. And less worrying than the pistols and knives that they had on their belts.
I would have been quite happy to wait for them to clear out of the doorway before leaving. They had other plans, though, the biggest of them getting a nasty smile on his face as he saw the two of us. He started over to us as the rest of the clientele turned their backs and focused on other stuff.
"You're in my favorite spot, shippy," he said, a wave of bad breath saying that maybe he had started drinking in the middle of the afternoon, just not here.
"Then you can have it," I said, in the faint hope that it might work. "We're done here. Right, Taylor?"
She nodded, standing up behind the table and still holding onto the glass of mead.
"That ain't good enough, shippy," the brute said, his hand landing on my shoulder and squeezing. "You don't go around drinking at other people's spots, not in this town."
Part of me was wishing that I thought it was a good idea to draw the gun on my hip right now. Another part would prefer not to leave town with an empty cargo hold and three arrest warrants for murder on my back. The biggest part of me was interested in getting out of this alive and even better, with the rest of my payday still in my wallet.
"I'll remember that for the future," I said, standing up as well. "Thanks for the information."
His mean face got even meaner and I had just enough time to realize that he was going to punch me but not enough time to do anything about it. I staggered backwards, hitting the table. A hand grabbed my vest and I blinked up at the thug as he drew his hand back for another punch.
Then one of his friends lurched backwards as Taylor threw her drink into his face. And not just the mead but the entire glass, pegging him with a pretty good throw and breaking his nose. Then she was sliding across the table and slamming her booted feet into the other guy's gut. That sent him stumbling backwards as well but before she could follow up, the leader was swinging at her with a huge, scarred fist.
It took her in the stomach and she wheezed, hunching up. It might have gone pretty badly for her but I lashed out with a punch that took the man right in the chin. It hurt like hell, of course, but it didn't do him any favors either.
None of those were close to knockout blows and the three of them were already getting to their feet with murder in their eyes. I preempted them by drawing my gun and holding it on the leader. I didn't want to shoot him down but if he made a move towards either of us, I would.
He could see it in my eyes, too, pausing and snarling at me. I didn't look to the side as Taylor got off of the table, standing upright and with her shoulders hunched forward in a pretty aggressive set, especially for someone as twiggy as her.
"There's your table," I said, taking several long steps around them and putting my back to the exit. "You enjoy yourself, alright?"
The man spat on the floor and kept on fixing me with a glare. His friends were looking pretty pissed as well and it was damn stressful, keeping an eye on all of them and making sure that they didn't go for their own pistols.
None of them did anything, though, as we backed up towards the door. I only started breathing when we were through it, though, burying my pistol back in my belt as we turned around.
Thankfully, they weren't just the first of their gang to arrive. The stretch of road in front of the bar was empty except for passing traffic, none of which gave us more than a glance. There was a part of me that was quite tempted to give the bikes in front of the bar a good kicking and scratch up their fancy, garish paintjobs but the less time we spent around here, the better. At least the sight of internal combustion engines made me feel better. If they were the kind of macho idiots who would pay through the nose for something like that instead of electrical batteries, just for the thrill of having a lot of noise and smoke, it was hard to see how much of a danger they could be to the pair of us now that we knew to look out for them. Or keep our ears peeled for them, of course.
I shuddered, cold sweat breaking out all over me despite the nip in the air. I kept my eye on the door and my hand on my gun as we put some distance between us and the bar, neither of us needing to speak to know that it was time to get back to the Wanderer.
"Never been in a bar fight before," Taylor said after a few blocks with no signs of pursuit and my heart starting to slow down to a normal pace. "Didn't last as long as they do in the stories."
"Yeah, well, those have an entire bar getting in on the fun," I muttered, remembering a few situations I had been in. "And those guys weren't interested in a fight."
"Just bullies looking for someone to pick on," Taylor agreed, throwing another glance over her shoulder. "I know the type."
And those few sentences made up a good portion of everything I had learned about her, too. I didn't comment on that and just kept on walking quickly back home, glancing over my shoulder constantly as I did so.
I didn't see anything and I didn't hear anything and as the landing bay drew into sight, I could feel the tension in my shoulders slowly coming undone. I let out a deep sigh of relief and turned more of my attention towards Taylor.
She seemed… calm. Wary but calm, not very worked up over what had happened at all. I had to admit, if our positions had been reversed, I didn't think I could have handled the situation the way she did. Not without a bit more time hyping myself up towards it, just like the thugs had been doing in a much quicker way.
There was probably something worth commenting about that but I was damned if I could think of what it was. All I could really do was clear my throat as I punched in the access code for the landing bay. Taylor glanced at me before returning to gazing out over the street behind me.
"You been in a lot of fights?" I asked as the hatch slid open, revealing the green and black paint scheme of my Wanderer as it sat in the middle of the bay.
"One or two fist fights," she said in a tone that did not invite further inquiry on the subject.
"Well," I said, ignoring that tone, "maybe we can see about getting you something better than a tumbler next time you get into one. A town like this," I glanced around once more as we both stepped through, "I can't imagine there's a shortage of weapon stores around."
"I'll pay you back for it as soon as I can," Taylor offered as some of the tightness went out of her shoulders as the hatch closed behind her. "Though since you're the one paying me, I suppose you can just take it out of my share."
"We'll figure something out," I said, glancing at her slender build. And remembering the cold fire that had been in her eyes as she had kicked that goon. One could compensate for the other well enough, I figured. "Can't have you getting into fights without any options."
"There's always options in a fight," Taylor said, her words completely certain on that point. "Believe me, there's always something that you can do." She paused for a moment and then nodded, a short, sharp, decisive gesture. "Though if you can talk it out with someone before then, that can be good too."
Well, nice to know I wasn't hiring on a twig-thin berserker, at least! I nodded in agreement and got to planning the rest of my day, now that I wouldn't be spending it relaxing with a nice drink with my crew.
***
The man hit the floor pretty hard but at least he had plenty of padding to cushion the fall. I stepped over him and sat down at his desk. The important thing was that the transit authorization orders went out from this computer, not that he was the one sending them.
"Thanks for the help, Taylor," I said, giving her a quick smile as I settled down behind the desk, pulling the keyboard towards me.
"Not a problem," she said, still staring down at the port's quartermaster, her baton clenched in one fist. "And there's another one if he tries to move."
The man didn't, content to just lay on the floor and whimper as he clutched his hand. I dismissed him, turning back to his console.
"Really, if you had just taken the usual bribe instead of wanting more, I'd have paid it," I grumbled, tapping away at the keyboard. "Now, though…"
Sadly, all I could do from here was just authorize the Wanderer to lift. No chance of compensating the two of us for our time and trouble. Oh well, that was still a few hundred novas that would be staying in my wallet instead of his. As Taylor tied him up to the desk leg and gagged him, I considered asking her to grab his wallet as well. Nah, I had a certain level of class, I liked to think. I didn't stop her from pocketing the pistol he had in his belt, though.
"Thank you for your time," I said, pressing one final key and standing up. "We'll get out of your hair now." I looked the fat man in the eye. "And I'm sure we won't have any more trouble with each other in the future, will we?"
He shook his head, scowling petulantly up at the pair of us. It might still be a good idea to avoid Roran's Landing for a year or two, I figured. Well, there were plenty of planets and plenty of ports out there.
We let ourselves out and in just a moment or two, we were out in the fresh air of the city. If that was what you wanted to call it. It was actually decently quiet at this time of day, the locals having enough sense to stay inside, out of the white-hot sun that was beating down on the city. I hadn't gone two steps before I could feel the sweat beading on my skin.
And Taylor must have it even worse, since she was wearing, as usual, a pretty dark outfit. Today, it was one of her dark brown and green outfits, a one-piece bodysuit that clung quite tightly to her. She was a few steps in front of me and despite knowing that I probably shouldn't, I let my eyes drift down along her long legs and then rise up a bit to see the butt that was rather nicely presented by the tight suit.
Then I refocused, because even with the streets almost empty, that didn't mean that they were safe. The sooner we were back onboard and making for space, the better.
Also, of course, there was the fact that leering at a woman who was so causal with violence towards people might not be a great idea. Sure, as soon as the quartermaster had started talking about extra expenses and the cost of living these days, violence had probably become the only option since I wasn't going to pay and was leaving the planet but still. She hadn't even blinked before the baton had come out.
So I just swallowed any commentary I might have had on how things had gone back there and quickly walked after her to the docking bay. The quartermaster surely had muscle he could call on and he wouldn't stay cuffed to his desk forever.
He did stay cuffed long enough for us to make it onto the ship, though. I sighed in relief as the hatch hissed closed behind me and as my eyes slowly adjusted to the darker lighting onboard.
Taylor had read my mind and was already heading to her spot, looking over the reactor readouts. I left her to it and went for the cockpit, strapping myself in. And would you look at that? I had launch clearance and I took it before anything could happen.
In half an hour, we were up in space, well away from anything else. I heard footsteps behind me and swung around in my chair to look at Taylor.
I had to admit, she looked almost as good from the front as from behind. Her legs were just as long, after all, no matter the direction. And while she had next to nothing in the way of breasts, at least her bodysuit showed them off as well as could be. I was almost certain she didn't see how I looked at her as she sat down in the cockpit's other chair.
"Five days till we see port again," she said, staring out at the stars as we climbed towards the limit, where I could engage the drive and take us into phase-space. "Twenty two hours on land."
"There's some people who live almost their entire lives on ships," I said, glancing at the readouts as I did every few seconds when I was in here. "They die of old age having never spent an entire year inside a gravity well."
"I like fresh air too much for that," Taylor muttered, leaning back in the seat as much as it would allow. "And getting to see an ocean again would be nice, too."
"Well, Hydro III is well named," I said, pulling up the databank's entry on the planet. "Might not want to go for a swim in its seas, though."
"Ew," she said, leaning to the side and reading about the parasites that lived in the water world's oceans. "At least I can look at it."
"And," I sighed heavily, not sure if now was the right time for this or not. But it was the first chance I had, so I might as well take it, "you can stay there if you want."
"You're firing me?" Taylor blinked several times, sitting up straight. "But- I thought you were- What for?"
"No, no!" I paused and laughed, struck at the absurdity of it all. "What I mean," I reached into a pocket and withdrew a small package, handing it over to her, "is that you've got options."
She opened the box and relaxed in her seat, plucking out the plastic ID card that lay on top of some other documents in the box. She twisted it back and forth, looking at the small photo of herself imprinted on it and all the other text saying she was who she was and where she had come from.
It was a pretty good ID, too, almost as good as mine. If one of the more thorough government agencies started poking at it, it would unravel but short of that, she had several different cards and documents to wave around, saying that sure enough, she was Taylor Hebert, from the depths of Landing Prime on Sterling, which had collapsed two years ago after an info-virus had deleted most everything on its data net.
"Captain, thank you," Taylor said softly, her hand going down to her pocket where she kept the much-less convincing ID that I had been able to scare up for her on very short notice. "I… thank you." She tossed her head from side to side and blinked quickly. "I would never even have thought to do this."
"Well, unless you want to stay on a tramp freighter with me for the rest of your days, you'll need something a bit more convincing than what you've currently got," I said, nodding at her pocket. "That will get you to any planet or station that lets strangers visit." It had damn well better, with what I had paid for it, but never mind that now. "Use it well."
"I hope I won't have to," Taylor said, removing her wallet and swapping the cards. She flashed me a rare smile. "Thank you, sir. Thank you a lot. This really means a lot for me. But," she took a deep breath, "I don't see a reason to use it any time soon. I'm happy being here with you for now."
"And I'm quite fine with having you staying onboard as my crew," I said, giving her a much bigger smile. I had to admit, I had been worried about what she would do. She was damnably hard to read and pretty wrapped up in herself but who wouldn't enjoy knowing that she wouldn't be tossed into jail under fake identity charges? "For as long as you feel like."
"I feel like staying here for quite a while." Taylor said after a half-minute of thought. "But not as crew. As partners, alright?"
"Sounds good to me," I said. Hell, she'd been getting an equal share of the pay as it was and I had listened to her thoughts on what I should do. What was the difference? "I'll even let you wear the captain's hat if you really want to."
Taylor just laughed at that, glancing up at the squareish, brimless red hat that I wore to mark my station. She shook her head and smiled again. Two smiles in one day, what a record.
"Should I remove the other berths in the crew cabin so it's as big as yours?" She asked. "Or do we swap who gets the big room?"
"You're getting me out of my cabin in an urn," I said with a snort. "But maybe we can do something to make it more clear that you're my equal."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Taylor whispered underneath her breath. "But something to celebrate sounds pretty nice. Maybe once we make landfall."
***
I was hovering in the doorway of my cabin, really unsure about what I was supposed to do here. I certainly hadn't been expecting anything more than a bit of reading before going to sleep.
And now there was a naked girl here, lounging on my bed and staring up at me. I looked at her for a long, long while, trying to think of what I should do next.
My dick had several ideas on that and my brain wasn't coming up with any other reasons for why Taylor would be here, entirely naked except for a corset that only hide her stomach and a black band around he throat. And she was staring up at me with a strange expression on her face.
"Aren't you going to come in?" Taylor asked in a soft voice, one that I had very rarely heard from her. "Get comfortable?"
I did take a few steps inside of the cabin, letting the door slide shut behind me. I kept on staring at Taylor, trying to decide just what I should do here.
"What is this?" I asked cautiously, trying to keep my eyes on her face and failing more often than not.
"I said that we should celebrate," Taylor said, not quite looking at me. "Don't you want to?" She lifted one leg, letting me almost see her vagina. Her breasts were already on full display. "You've been looking at me all this time, after all."
"You noticed that, huh?" I asked, adjusting my stance as I felt my erection pressing against my pants.
"Not many people have looked at me that way before," Taylor said with a blush gracing her pale cheeks. "It was pretty… unusual." Her tongue flicked out to run along her lips. "And when I found out the other stuff you've been looking at, well…"
She nodded at the computer and it was my turn to blush. I hadn't really thought to hide my porn, since I was living by myself. At least until Taylor had seen some of it and I had thought that she had just had time to look at the thumbnails, which had been explicit enough. But if she had gone digging and found the various videos and stills of slender women or women with black hair, to say nothing of the bondage and slavery photos…
Normally I would have apologized about that, but normally, someone who found my porn wouldn't then come to my cabin and strip almost completely naked. That kind of suggested a situation other than the norm here.
"So," I said, trying to get myself on track and engaged with the game, "did you like what you saw?"
"It was very… intriguing," Taylor said with a blush as she shifted her position slightly on my bed. "I've never had much time to look at that sort of thing before but now," she blushed even more strongly than before, which was a really cute look on her, "it's certainly very interesting. Really… nice to see that. And," she took a deep breath, "it made me think about what it would be like to try that sort of thing out myself. With you," she added, as if I hadn't gotten that part.
"I see what you're saying," I said with a smile as I got closer to her, smelling a perfume that I couldn't name and hadn't known she owned. "And I agree."
Well, how could I not? I visited brothels every so often but it wasn't a constant thing and I couldn't recall ever repeating a round. But with someone like Taylor, that seemed a lot more enticing of an idea. I looked her up and down some more and nodded. A lot more enticing.
I pulled my shirt and vest off of me, unbuckling my pants as I got onto the bed with her. Taylor was taking some deep, deep breaths now, the look on her face very cute and sweet and making me want more from her. A whole lot more.
I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in to me, kissing her deeply. She made a sweet sound at that and kissed me back, the two of us locked together as we made out. I could feel my pleasure stirring inside of me, the need growing as I kept on kissing her. A hand slid up to her breast, squeezing down on the small mound and drawing an even sweeter sound from her as I did so.
We drew apart as we both took some deep breaths. I shivered as I looked at her, smiling in arousal as I realized that this was actually happening. And how much fun it was going to be, too. She was looking in the mood for some fun as well.
"Is this going to be your first time?" I asked, realizing that I had never actually fucked a virgin before.
"No," Taylor said. And it looked like I still wasn't going to! "But it has been a while." She looked off to the side and licked her lips. "A long while."
"Then we should make up for lost time, shouldn't we?" I asked, stroking her some more and loving the sounds that she made as I touched her body. It was getting me really riled and worked up, my cock an iron bar inside of my pants right now as I looked down at her.
Taylor was looking fine as she looked up at me. Very… delicious. Good enough to eat, really. The flush on her cheeks and the light burning in her eyes made her look so much hotter than she might have as just some girl on a screen. I got onto my bed, pushing her down and looming over her. She was taking some pretty deep breaths now, panting for air, her small breasts rising and falling constantly. It was all getting me more and more aroused.
I pushed her down to the bed and loomed over her. The excited sound that she made at that made me smile and feel even better as I looked at her. I spread her legs apart, noting how she was completely hairless down there, just the way I liked it. And my wandering hand found even more, too.
Taylor let out a sound I wouldn't have thought she was capable of, arching her head backwards and moaning. I smiled and kept on rubbing at her pussy, feeling the wetness and the heat down there. It was quite fun, watching her squirm and moan as she got fingered.
There was also the fact that her pussy was very wet and tight and the thought of me pushing inside of her and filling her up with my cock, well, that promised to be very, very fun indeed. I felt a thrill run through me as the thought occurred to me and I couldn't wait to actually do it.
Her own hand was outstretched, as far as it could go to allow it to wrap around my shaft. I wasn't complaining about that, though there was a whole lot more than just a handjob I was hoping for here. It still was pleasant to have her stroke my shaft, pump her hand up and down along it.
It was nice and certainly helped keep me arouse. But my main interest right now was in feeling Taylor up even more. She made more and more sweet sounds as I touched her and stroked her, playing with her body and feeling how she responded to my wandering fingers. Though one hand did keep on working at her pussy.
I toyed with Taylor's pussy a bit more, leaving her with a very cute smile on her face and a neediness in her eyes that I loved seeing. I shifted position slightly, pinning her down on my bed and looming over her. Her eyes went to my face for a bit but then they drifted downwards, to my cock. I was really hard and really ready to use that on her right now. And she could tell.
In fact, she spread her legs apart to show more of herself off. That made her look even better and I smiled as I ran a hand up along her side, more than happy to fuck the hottest woman I had met in quite a while.
My other hand was at her breast. Hardly a big breast but it still felt very nice in my hand as I kept on squeezing it. And devoting some attention to that stiff nipple was terribly fun as well, something that got her squirming in a delightful manner that made me swallow hard and made my cock throb.
She was still stroking it, at least some of the time. But her hand would also glide down to cup my balls, running her fingers back and forth along them. I grunted and smiled at that, wondering just how much cum I was going to pump into Taylor. Or on her. I was fine either way, really, not caring that much about what I did to her exactly.
Just so long as I got to fuck her. Though getting a blowjob from her would also be quite nice, I was sure. I had no idea how good she was at sucking cock, of course, but just the thought of her wrapping her lips around my shaft and bobbing her head up and down along my rod sent a lovely tingle all through my body, made me really interested in finding out how good that might be.
I took several more deep breaths as I looked down at Taylor's nearly naked body, all of her most important parts displayed. Frankly, she had no reason at all to be wearing a corset but it looked so fine on her that I wasn't going to complain at all. I just stroked her body some more and listened to some more sweet sounds and felt the fire of arousal growing hotter and hotter inside of me as I kept on feeling her up.
"Please, go ahead and fuck me," Taylor moaned softly. "Treat me like one of your porn videos."
"I don't have the equipment for that," I said with a snort, "though it seems that you've been finding some replacements on your own," I added, tracing her collar with one finger.
She just shrugged at that and smiled. If she wasn't going to say anything more on the subject, then I wasn't going to say anything more either. Not when I could fuck her, which was something that I was really looking forward to.
It had been a long, long time since I had gotten a woman and even longer since I had gotten one without paying for it. Well, I supposed that I was still paying Taylor even now but that wasn't so important to me. What mattered was that I was about to fuck her and I was really looking forward to that. So was Taylor, of course. There was no way to look at her and not realize that. Especially if you looked at that wet, wet pussy.
I leaned forward, pressing the tip of my cock against her pussy. It was wet and hot and inviting me inside and there was no reason to hold back. I licked my lips and pushed into her, filling her up and making her moan as she got stuffed with my shaft.
I couldn't believe how good it felt to fuck her. Her pussy was so tight, wrapped around me like this. Every centimeter that I slid deeper inside of her, I felt myself getting kneaded by her inner walls. And she was very wet and hot on top of that. I could already tell that she was the finest fuck that I had ever gotten or was likely to get. And the hottest, too. I kissed her again as I started to push in and out of her, plunging back and forth again and again.
It felt so very good to be taking her like this, to be filling her up like this. Her arms were wrapped around my shoulders as she stared up at me and she was taking some deep breaths as I kept on taking her, fucking her good and hard.
And I was using some force with her. Part of that was my own natural instinct and part of that was because it was obviously what she wanted. I did my best to fill her up as much as I could with every single thrust, burying myself deeply inside of her time and time again. It was so easy and natural to fall into a steady rhythm like this.
And she was loving it, too. It was written all over her face and inside of her body, how much she was enjoying this as I took her. I grinned and kept on plowing her, driving myself deep inside of her time after time. The way she was squeezing down around my cock meant that I couldn't do anything else, never mind all of the other reasons.
"It's been so long since I got fucked," Taylor mewled, her hair splayed out around her like a dark halo. "I'd forgotten how good it feels."
I nodded at that and kept on thrusting away, burying myself deep inside of her time and time again. Each thrust felt great as I lunged forward, impaling her on my cock. Her body rocked and swayed underneath me, shivers constantly running through her as I kept on going. I licked my lips, looking her up and down and just enjoying everything that I was seeing as I took her.
And far more than what I was seeing, I was enjoying what I was feeling. The way that her pussy squeezed down around me never stopped being great and I grunted as I drove myself in again and again. Drove in pretty deep, too, really filling her up as I stuffed her with cock. Taylor made a little gasping sound each time I did so and the steady repetition of those noises turned me on a ton.
Nothing was as good as the feeling of her pussy wrapped around my cock, of course. How could there be? The way that she squeezed down and kneaded my shaft as I kept on plunging into her and filling her up was just divine. I kept on pounding away, loving how she responded to everything that I was doing. The arousal written all over her face made it clear what sorts of heights she was occupying and I didn't mind at all if I got to those points as well.
I slid one hand along her side, feeling the smooth material of the corset underneath my fingers before returning to the soft, warm skin. Very warm skin, outright flushed and burning. Though her sides still weren't running as hot as her pussy was. And it was wet, too, so damn wet. What a great combination. That felt awfully nice to touch as well and I swallowed hard as I kept on pounding away, driving in and out, in and out.
Taylor's moans were taking on a pitch I had never heard from her but that I found myself liking a lot. It was really sexy to hear her gasping like this and to see the light burning in her eyes as she kept on getting screwed. It made me want to go harder and harder, to keep on fucking her and to hammer away and make her feel as good as I possibly could.
And she was certainly making me feel awfully good as well. This was the best fuck I could remember and I had to do even more with it. I kept on taking her, plunging in and out, back and forth, stuffing her as much as I possibly could and loving how it felt.
Taylor was loving it as well. The way she was gasping, she was clearly about to cum. And I wanted to see that happen. I kept on fucking her and watched as I pushed her over the edge. She made a whimpering sound and her entire body seized up from this. It was something really special to watch and made me swallow hard as I looked at her thrashing around underneath me, caught up in the bliss of this all.
What a sight. What an amazing sight. I grinned as I watched her squirming around on my bed, her face nothing but pleasure as this happened to her. What a special sight and one that I knew so few people had ever seen before.
And the way that her cunt clenched down around me was pretty nice as well. I most certainly couldn't ignore that feeling as she tightened around my cock, firmly squeezing and kneading it with a strength that was impossible to describe. It made me thrust back and forth some more, driving in and out of her a few more times.
I was getting decently close to my own orgasm and the importance of reaching it was rising inside of me with each thrust. I really, really wanted to cum and the thought of seeding Taylor, of filling her up with my cum, that was an idea that put a real tingle down my spine, put some fire in my belly.
"You look so sexy like this, Taylor," I growled out, taking her in. "Wearing a collar, wearing a corset, looking like, ah, looking like a slave."
She made a mewling sound, the red covering her cheeks and most of her face. She nodded along, taking some short, sharp pants for breath as I kept on thrusting into her. I squeezed a small breast and kept on going.
"Looking like this, who wouldn't want to fuck you? Who wouldn't want to tie you up and find out every secret your body has?"
Taylor didn't respond so well to that. There was a flash of something, guilt, maybe, that washed over her face. I had no idea what that could be about but decided not to ask. There was something much more interesting that I was focused on right now, anyway.
I shifted position slightly, straightening up and pulling her onto my lap. She wasted no time in wrapping her legs around and starting to bounce on my cock. Taylor impaled herself on my shaft again and again and looked so damn hot and sexy every single time that she did so.
Honestly, she was managing to set a faster pace for herself than I had done. I wasn't complaining about that. Not when it felt so good for her pussy to wrap around my shaft like this again and again. I just licked my lips and let my hands wander up and down along her back, stroking her skin and feeling the heat radiating off of her body.
I reached up and wrapped one hand around some of her hair. It was just a firm grasp at the moment but we both knew what might come next. She looked at me and nodded.
And I pulled on her hair, making her head snap backwards. Taylor let out a sound that was even sluttier now than before, a primal sound of need as I did this to her. I swallowed hard, aroused beyond belief by what that sounded like. Her pussy got tight, too, really squeezing down around my shaft and making me swallow hard as I felt the way that her inner walls were working against my rod.
My other hand was down at her butt, squeezing down firmly. I could feel the muscles underneath the skin moving there as she kept on bouncing up and down. And, of course, there was always the pleasure in grabbing a girl's ass, especially when it was as tightly toned and fit as this one was. The sounds Taylor made as I did so only added to what I was feeling as I felt her up some more.
It really was too much for me to bear. It just felt too good and Taylor was looking too hot for me to stand any more of this. All I could do was orgasm. There was only so much a man could be expected to withstand and a hot woman like Taylor could provide all of it in spades. And she clearly wasn't concerned about anything, going by how she kept on bouncing and rocking back and forth on top of my dick like this.
I grunted, feeling the muscles in my neck standing out underneath my skin as I started to shoot jet after jet of semen inside of Taylor's pussy. She yelped and whined as this happened, her eyes going wide as her hips rolled back and forth. I could only guess what it felt like to her but it felt amazing for me. Seriously wonderful, just the best to be filling her up like this and stuffing her full of seed.
"Sir!" Taylor squeaked, her voice wobbling almost as much as it had when she had cum. "It's good! It's so good! I, I, oh! Ah!"
That was the sort of thing a man liked to hear and it made me enjoy myself even more as I felt myself filling her up. I took several deep breaths as I did this, feeling my heart hammering away inside of my chest as my cock throbbed a few more times.
It seriously felt like I was emptying all of my balls into her right now, not leaving a single droplet of semen left inside of me. It just felt so damn good to be fucking her like this and I couldn't believe how much fun it was to do this to her. I clutched her to my chest as I finished unloading inside of her.
Finally, I sagged backwards, propping myself up with one hand and panting hard. Taylor was looking pretty flushed as well, strands of black hair sticking to her pale skin as she took deep breaths. She looked fine right now, just really hot and sexy. It sent a stir all through me and made me feel even more glad about what I had just done than I already did.
"Well," I said, trying to think of something to say, "that was…"
I had no idea how I might have finished that sentence and it didn't matter much, not as Taylor took me in a deep kiss. I quite happily kissed her back, holding her tightly as I locked lips with her. My hands slid down along her back to grab at her ass, firmly kneading and squeezing it. She made a few sounds that were really pleasing to the ear at that and I tightened my grip a bit more before letting go.
Well, this certainly promised to open up all sorts of new fun with my crew, didn't it? A much better way to pass the days in transit than doing constant repair work.