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“Wait. Who is flying this thing?”
“I am,” Order says. “It’s my plane.”
“You’re a pilot?”
“I am many things,” he smiles. “Having six hands comes in very handy. Are you ready to go?”
I have an impulse to say no, but in reality, the answer is yes. There’s nobody to say goodbye to, and that’s a sad revelation. Everybody I cared about, and everybody I thought cared about me, has picked sides, sides that exclude me. Order and I are leaving to escape our lives and the people we care about most. That makes us both somewhat morose, and I end up spending very little time back in the lovely passenger cabin. Instead, I take the copilot’s chair, and Obigor and I curl up next to Order as he sends us skyward.
Sometimes, solving problems is as easy as running away from them.
Right?
14
Months later…
I am wrapped in a million strings of silk, hanging happily in the shade of an old gum tree. Heat makes the red and gold rocky sands extending out into desert seem to shimmer and dance. The tree trunk boasts a sleepy spider. I would have freaked out about that once upon a time, but I’ve become so accustomed to bug related content that the massive beast barely registers on my radar.
A whip cracks in the dusty air, making motes of red sand dance in the slowly setting sun. It is propelled by the upper right hand of my arachnid lover, and the tip of the lash has just finished licking against my ass.
“Owch!” I make the noise mostly to satisfy Order.
My twisted master has set me in slow, spinning motion, his web not quite entirely covering my scantily clad form. As I turn slowly he is flicking the tip of the whip against the parts of my skin he can reach. Thanks to the devilish wedgie, that includes the lower parts of my ass cheeks, and my sensitive thighs. I, as usual, have been a bad girl.
“Have you learned your lesson?” He asks the question with far too much hope for my liking. Of course I have not learned my lesson. I am not even sure what the lesson is supposed to be. It’s far too warm and I am far too cozy and sleepy to learn anything.
Order is naked from the waist up, aside from a broad-brimmed hat with corks hanging from little strings. They’re supposed to keep the flies off, but I would have thought a spider like himself would welcome the occasional fly. He is tanned as hell, every single one of his six arms bearing the hallmark of an antipodean sun. The red line down the center of his chest has taken on a deeper bronzed hue as well.
He has adapted to our Australian home, which is an old farm house located deep in the outback where basically nothing happens and nobody lives. These are Aboriginal lands, and also home to some farmers, though what they’re specifically farming, I am not sure because the farms here are millions of acres in size and it’s common to not see an animal for years at a time. Unless you count snakes, spiders, scorpions, lizards, and dingos as animals, in which case, they’re everywhere.
Obigor is asleep on a deck chair, which is underneath a multicolored striped parasol. He sleeps most of the day out here, which is fine because there’s very little to do. This is a land of spindly trees and making your own entertainment.
I, of course, am in trouble. That has not changed since we lived in the USA. Being all the way in Australia means Chief Connor can’t call me with his magic wolf handling powers. I’m free of the obligations of my unintentional family. But I’m not free of my own instinct for getting into trouble.”
“Why are you doing this to me again? Not that I mind,” I grin cheekily. Spinning me up like this takes a lot out of Order. He doesn’t have endless web available. I watch his muscles ripple as he takes a long drink from a water vessel before turning each of his eight eyes back to me, slightly narrowed.
“The locals are developing tales about a man-spider and a she-wolf.”
“They’re very imaginative people.”
“Or you’ve been running your mouth, or worse, they’ve seen us as we truly are.”
If my arms were free, I’d wave his concerns away.
“People out this far aren’t as worried about that sort of thing as people in other places. You and I are basically mythological creatures, and this is a place where myth still lives.”
“You’re very good at talking,” he says. “But I know you’re lonely. You miss your friend. But that doesn’t mean you can make new ones here. We have to keep to ourselves.”
“I am good at talking. I’ve been doing it for quite a while.” I don’t address the part about missing my friend. I miss Sally a whole lot. Order is great, but there’s something about having a good girlfriend that cannot be replaced by a lover, even one as wonderful as him.
“We have to keep our secrets to ourselves. Stories spread, even out here. They’ll be looking for us.”
He’s talking about both factions of the war. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that ructions are never far away when I am concerned.
“Maybe I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in hiding. Maybe there’s some way we can be something other than monsters in the outback.” (Though I do actually really enjoy the way monsters in the outback sounds.)
“You’re going to spend the rest of your life secured in silk if you don’t start behaving yourself,” he lectures. I try not to grin too broadly.
