AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She had three aquariums filling a wall of the trailer, warmed by a space heater. Valentine peeked inside and recognized a diamondback rattlesnake and a cottonmouth, plus something near black he'd never seen before.
"What's your name?" Valentine asked.
"They call me 'Snake Arms.' "
He wasn't sure he'd heard the name correctly and asked her to repeat it.
"Snake Arms. They tell me it's how the Grog name is rendered in English. Tethmot or something like that, with a purse of the lips and a spitting sound before or after to signify that I'm a captive. Hope you don't mind Grog spittle, every time you get an order you'll get a sprinkle."
"I'm guessing they gave you that name."
"I'm a praise-dancer. I've got a way with rattlesnakes and such. Can we get this over with, I need to hunt mice for my creepies and if I go to the grain pits after they close they might think I'm stealing."
Valentine wondered how much to the hilt he'd end up playing this role.
"They call me Scar. You-fine reward," he said, keeping to his role as an ignorant Scrubman who was learning fast.
"Your first time in a Grog pit? The Baron's not interested in your pleasure. He wants strong, healthy babies for his next generation of soldiers. It's Orders. They want some offspring combining valuable traits."
Valentine had experience with this sort of thing. Southern Command ran a controversial program for a period before the return of a few Lifeweavers where they tried to breed a new generation of hunters by pairing up likely candidates. As one of the very few male Cats, he was called on. It wasn't unpleasant, but it made him feel like a prize bull.
"Like dogs," Valentine said.
"How do you think they ever made Shepherds. They picked two mutts with features they wanted and got a litter. The Baron's thinking long term."
"Hey, I'm off all duties but sewing while you're trying to impregnate me, so I'm happy with it. Under all the wear and rust, you ain't half bad looking, plus you have that intense Indian thing going, so I've got no problem with taking it twice nightly for a while if he wants me knocked up. Thing is, I have to check in at the doc's dripping spunk, or they'll take me off procreation and put me to berry picking or beekeeping or cleaning chicken coops and so on, and that's sticky work. We only get two hot baths a week. Otherwise it's a basin and rag, or the spring when no one's drawing water."
She disrobed as she spoke. She was a little on the fleshy side-Valentine couldn't help but think of milk-skinned Molly, that summer in Wisconsin-but nicely proportioned. She'd probably been chosen for her hips and breasts.
"I'm kind of looking forward to this," she said, approaching him. Her eyeline only came to his midchest, he could look down and see the direction of growth in her hair.
"You smell-sweet," Valentine said.
"I dusted a little lavender in my hair. It's in bloom now."
Her body, soft and ripe and smelling of the spring water and salty sweat, suddenly seemed to be touching his, from toe tips to eyeline, as though they were magnets with perfectly aligned poles and curvatures.
His hands started at her shoulder blades and explored south.
She had deceptively strong muscles under that jiggling flesh. He felt one buttock tense under its padding, it might have been an oak banister carefully curved by some woodworker. They fought a brief war, her leg against his hand, and she let him win, bringing her calf up and tight against his own, tucked in between buttock and thigh.
Valentine had experienced all kinds of sex in his travels. Tender and tentative, loving, exhausted, mechanical, professional, enthusiastic, angry . . .
For him, it was a form of oblivion. He could wipe away everything when between a woman's thighs the way some lost themselves in drink or drugs.
But this woman, a gift to him in his labor pit, was outside his experiences. She reminded him of one of those Old World robotic toys, where once plugged in or batteried up, lights roamed across it and noises sounded from hidden speakers and it began to buck and jump.
The first few strokes of penetration seemed to trip a hidden "on" switch within Snake Arms. She suddenly came alive and apparently grew another set of legs and arms, like some Indian idol. Were those hands or legs on his buttocks, and if they were hands, what on earth was clasping at his latissimus muscles.
Still, he stayed gentle. She seemed like a bird in a cage, tucked under the arc of his limbs.
"Faster and harder, Scar. I can take it ... All of it, now."
"I much bigger than you," Valentine said.
"Tougher than I look." She made a face, as though trying to remember a foreign expression. Valentine felt her inner muscles work him, pulling at him.
"Jesus," he said.
