Keys to the Sun

"Summer! Oh my God! Are you OK?" Jesse's voice was too loud in the small room. When he jumped down from the hole in the ceiling, she had to scoot quickly out of the way or he might have landed right on top of her.

She caught the irresistible scent of his skin, musk and spice and something like soil, and she threw herself into his arms.

"Jesse! Bill locked me in here! Now Sun Day is over! I couldn't get out, now I'll never get out!"

Jesse pushed her damp hair from her eyes and tilted her face up to his.

"We still have time. Maybe more than an hour. I'm sorry it took me so long to find you."

Summer's heart leapt in her chest. An unbearable hope threatened to crush her.

"How did you know?"

Jesse's brow furrowed. "It was Rocky. He was behind Bill and those bitches. When they passed me outside the seedling room, he paused long enough to say, 'Summer wants to go outside too, but she's locked away. That's not fair.' It was loud enough in the Rotunda that the others didn't hear him. He kind of pointed towards this side of the hall, but it still took me several tries to find the right room."

Summer stared at him in disbelief. Poor dumb Rocky. What would Bill do to him when he realized what he'd done?

"Can we get outside?" A sick feeling turned her stomach. Had Jesse given up his first Sun Day in seventeen years just to join her here in a locked room? She wasn't sure she could bear that heavy a burden.

Jesse put his hands on his hips and blew his copper streaked bangs out of his eyes with a quick breath. He turned in a small circle and surveyed the room.

"I can't unlock the door. Only Bill's Key can do that. I think I can get us outside. But I'm not entirely sure where we'll be once we're out."

"I don't care, Jesse, please just get me outside."

He nodded thoughtfully and slid a row of metal shelves away from the wall, uncovering a ventilation grate. Multitool in hand, he unscrewed the bolts and pried away the grate, leaving a hole in the wall like a gaping dark mouth.

"You ready?"

Summer peered into the black hole, where there was a tangle of pipes and wires and electronics. She took in a deep breath.

"Ready."

It wasn't until Jesse's boots had disappeared into the dark maw that she thought to ask.

"Jesse? If there were no way out, what would you have done?"

His voice echoed back to her. "I would have stayed with you."

"And when Bill came back?"

"What better revenge than for him to find us together, his prize already taken?"

Summer flushed hot at his words, then smiled as she followed him into the darkness.

****

She couldn't tell how long they had been crawling through the ventilation shaft, before she noticed a change in the air. It smelled and tasted like a hot day after a sudden storm: humid, damp, lush with the scent of wet vegetation. Her heart beat hard in her chest. She listened but there was no sound of rain.

Jesse stopped short in front of her. She almost crawled right into the back of him.

They crouched in front of a small grate, smaller than the one they had crawled into. Summer could see a fenced in space, and bulky metal machinery to each side of the grate. She could smell the warm air, and spy a strip of pale blue sky. She wrapped her fingers around the grate and shook it.

"There aren't any bolts on this side, we'll have to kick it out." Jesse's handsome features were smeared with gray dust and dripped beads of sweat. Summer imagined she looked just about the same.

They wedged themselves together against the sides of the small tunnel, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, hands clasped, and kicked with both feet as hard as they could. Summer wished for work boots instead of her canvas slides, the impact of her feet against the metal grate sent shocks all the way up to her hips.

The grate shook but seemed determined to hold. Summer let out a great gasping sob. Jesse's grip on her sweaty hand tightened. Together they kicked like their lives depended on it.

With a groaning screech of metal scraping metal, the grate popped loose and fell away. Summer and Jesse quickly followed, tumbling with entwined limbs to the ground below.

Summer sprang to her feet and immediately looked up, reached her hands high, but all she could see was the metal underside of some sort of overhang. She looked around, and everything was in shadow. A high gate, impossible to climb, ran in a large square past the corners of her field of vision.

"Where's the sun?" She wanted to yell, she wanted to grab Jesse by his coveralls and shake him.

Jesse looked around them and took a few cautious steps.

"We're in the generator ventilation area. On the other side of the dome from where the loading bay doors are. We're fenced in pretty good. Wait —"

He grabbed her hand and pulled her to his left, running, and she followed, hardly noticing the springiness of the fleshy vegetation under her feet, or its weird grey-white color.

Summer saw immediately where he was going, pulled free, and actually beat him there. A lone, rectangular patch of sun, no bigger than two mattresses pushed together, fell just inside the length of fence where it formed the corner of the small ventilation area.

She shucked off her shoes as quickly as she could. She stood in the bright white rectangle and jumped up and down like she was jumping on a bed. The springy, grey vegetation that served as grass on Venus felt like rubber under her bare soles. Relief and joy bloomed into euphoria and she laughed like she hadn't in five long years. Maybe ever.

The sun! Its warmth beat down on her head and arms. Her eyes watered as she tried to look at it. It was huge! Larger even than from Earth's skies, a pale white giant in a pale blue sky. She twirled like a child in dizzy circles until she fell down breathless from laughing, bouncing on the strange Venusian grass. She pressed it down with her hand and watched it spring back up.

"This is so weird, isn't it? It doesn't feel at all like I imagined."

"It's so much better than the sun lamps."

His soft voice reined in her attention. She shielded her eyes and looked up at him. He stood still as a stone at her feet, head tilted back, eyes closed, copper streaked hair shining in the bright sun.

"Come down here with me." She pulled on his pants leg until he lay on his back next to her, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.

The sun was too hot, but Summer didn't care. Let it scorch her, burn her up into a tiny pile of ash. It would save her from having to go back inside, it would keep her from the rain she knew was waiting to drum itself back into her head.

She could hear, far away, the sounds of others: all the inhabitants of the dome shouting, laughing, somewhere on the other side of the dome. They sounded like children on a playground, but distant, like from a dream.

Jesse heard them, too. "I'm sorry I couldn't get you out there. You deserve to be."

"I'm in the sun, Jesse. That's all that matters."

"I didn't believe you when you said how hot it was. How bright." He cupped a hand over his face and squinted at her. "It is like a fire, but with no flames. Were you really outside, all the time, on Earth?"

"All the time." Summer smiled, and closed her eyes, remembering. "We would go to the beach, swim in the ocean. The cool water felt like heaven on your skin when you'd been playing in the sun all day. My friends and I would spend the summer in our swimsuits, getting a tan, flirting with boys. At least, until we couldn't anymore."

Jesse's voice was low and dreamy. "Swimsuits? Getting a tan?"

The sun's heat lay on Summer like a new skin, and it changed her. She felt giddy with it.

"Like this."

With a quick twist of her arms, Summer arched her back, pulled her shirt up over her head, and flung it aside. She wriggled out of her pants and they quickly followed her shirt into the shade. She lay there in her dome-issued thin white bra and panties, and it felt like the most beautiful bikini she had ever owned. She rolled to her side, head propped in her hand. Jesse stared, his mouth agape.

"Like that? Outside? All the time?"

Summer grinned at him. "Your turn."

To his credit, he didn't hesitate. A quickly pulled coverall zipper, shoes discarded, a t-shirt flung onto the pile with hers, and in moments Jesse stood over her in just his tight black boxer briefs. He was like a living memory to Summer, a dream of older boys she saw when she was thirteen, fourteen. She and her friends would watch them surf, stare as they sat on the hoods of their cars and changed out of their wetsuits. Summer had loved the curling hair on their chests and arms. While he wasn't built quite exactly like those strong surfers who braved the powerful waves of Earth's beaches, Jesse had a man's body, thin but muscled from hard work, and with soft, curling copper hair on his dusky chest.

She propped herself on her elbows and looked down the length of her body, seeing herself as Jesse saw her. Pale skin, translucent even, small breasts, flat stomach, narrow hips. Her legs were long, and shapely from all the bending and squatting she did tending the gardens in the grow room. Her arms were too thin, but toned. Her sheer bra did nothing to hide her dark pink nipples, now tight and protruding with a rousing desire. Her panties were sheer as well, and she could see the outline of her soft pale patch of pubic hair.

She squinted up at Jesse and drank in how he looked at her with half lidded eyes, felt his gaze roam her body, saw the bulge in his briefs, a testament to his arousal. The heat that ignited in her belly and between her legs had nothing to do with the fiery sun. She wanted him. She wanted his hands on her, she wanted to touch him, to feel him move inside her.

"Jesse," she whispered. It was a statement of need she didn't have the words for.

He dropped to his knees over her, straddled one of her legs with his. The bright light made a halo of his hair before he bent down over her, a hand on either side of her head, and brought his face mere inches from hers.

"Hi," he whispered. His smile was brighter than the pale sky above him.

"Hi." She smiled back. "Thanks for breaking me out."

"You are very, very, very welcome." He punctuated each word with a kiss, on her shoulder, on her neck, on her forehead.

When he brought his lips to hers, it wasn't like it had been the night before, a soft kiss with a slow burn. This one had heat from the start, fed by the lingering adrenaline of their daring escape and the hot sun hovering over them in the pale blue sky. Summer grasped his forearms in her hands and arced her body up to his. She wanted to feel his skin against hers, she wanted to feel his hardness pressing into her.

"Summer."

"Mmmm?" The salt sweat taste of his skin was on her lips as she brushed them across his shoulder. She pressed her palms into the small of his back, pressed her hips to his, felt his hard-on straining against the thin material of their underclothes.

"Summer, wait." He pushed himself up on his forearms and stared into her eyes. "My birthday is next week. I'll get my Key. I'll save it for you. Only you. If you want to wait, if you want a room ... time ... privacy ..."

Summer put her hands on his chest, felt his soft hair under her palms, followed the crash of his heartbeat that had never been enslaved to the rain.

The rain. How much time did they have? She searched the sky over his shoulder. The same pale blue, the same enormous, blazing sun.

Fuck the Domes and their stupid customs. The Keys. She wanted Jesse under the hot sun, she wanted the earthy scent of his skin and the ocean blue of his eyes.

"Save your Key for me, I want you to. But I want this now, Jesse, please. I don't want to wait."

It was like her words broke down the last barrier in him, shattered his resolve to hold himself back. His mouth burned on hers, blazed trails down her neck, across her collar bones. Deft fingers unfastened her bra and cast it aside. His tongue licked the beads of sweat from between her breasts, traced wet circles around pink areolas, flicked nipples hard as little stones, one and then the other, and back again.

Summer dug her fingers into his dark copper hair and moaned with every move his eager mouth made. She writhed under him, her skin prickled with throbbing desire, her thigh muscles tensed.

She ran her hands down his back to the waistband of his briefs, hooked her thumbs inside, and pushed them down. A quick move from Jesse had them all the way off, and hers soon followed. A clock had started ticking softly inside her head. The sun still ruled the sky above them, but time had to be short.

"Jesse, I don't want to lose the sun, I don't want to run out of time," she begged. She wrapped her legs around his waist and felt his hard shaft pulse against her engorged, outer lips.

"I don't want to hurt you." He breathed into her hair.

"You won't. Please, Jesse, I want you inside me."

He groaned softly in her ear, but needed no further prompting. He guided the head of his cock to her slick opening. He rubbed himself against her gently, teasing her clit in small circles until she was panting with desire.

"Tell me if you want me to stop or slow down, OK?"Jesse's flushed face was just inches from hers. His sweat dripped and mingled with her sweat. She thought she might drown in his ocean eyes.

She nodded, breathless. She imagined it would hurt when he pushed into her, and it did, for a moment, but after that first tight thrust, arousal and instinct took over. She gasped with pleasure at the feeling of fullness, and the friction of Jesse's careful, slow thrusting.

"Summer, oh, man, you feel so good," he panted over her.

"Oh my God," she gasped aloud. It was Jesse. It was the sun. She was on fire, every nerve, every inch of her skin felt the licking of flame, and the origin was the blazing hot wet place where their bodies connected.

Jesse panted her name as he thrust faster and harder into her, his caution abandoned, his need something she could taste on his sweat drenched skin. She tightened her legs around his waist and rose up to meet him as best she could, any pain overwritten with an intense pleasure she had never expected.

He came inside her with a deep grunt and more than a few curses, "Oh, Summer, fuck, ohmygodfuck, Summer, Summer," and collapsed onto her, spent. She released him from the grip of her legs and he rolled off to the side, his hand splayed on her trembling belly.

"Are you ok?" he whispered.

"More than ok."

"You are amazing, Summer."

"I bet you say that to all the girls, every time you do that," she teased.

"Oh my God, Summer. I have never done that before. That was incredible."

Summer smiled under the blaze of the hot sun, and the warmth of Jesse's hand on her belly. She could tell by his breathing that he had fallen asleep, and after a few moments with eyes closed against the sun's glorious heat, she did, too.

****

They woke with the whisper of a cool breeze, and a few sudden cold drops of rain. Summer looked up and saw a gray mist had covered the Sun. Lightning flashed in the distance, and she knew soon the beating drum of rain would start up, here, outside, as well as in her head. She swallowed a sob. She wouldn't cry. Not now.

They dressed quickly, without a word, and walked slowly back into the ventilation shaft. The wet rubbery vegetation squeaked unpleasantly under their feet. They climbed inside the narrow tunnel, and it seemed to take no time at all to reach the closet Bill had locked her into hours ago.

Jesse's expression mirrored her own when they saw the closet door was unlocked and propped open. Bill had come back. He must be furious. But why had he left the door like that?

Jesse shrugged. "Are you thirsty? I'm parched. Let's find a drink, I feel like celebrating." Summer answered Jesse's grin with a shy smile, and together they opened the door to the Great Rotunda, where tables would be set up for an end-of-day celebration.

The crowd was thick and loud, sun reddened faces smiled and laughed, everyone eager to share the story of their hours outside.

"Next week, I'll give you my Key, and you can tell me when you want me," he murmured in her ear.

She took a step back and looked into his ocean eyes. "All the time. That's when I want you."

He grinned and went to fetch two cold glasses of fruit flavored water.

"Summer, Summer!"

She turned to face several young people from her school group. Their faces were flushed dark pink, their eyes bright with excitement.

"We never dreamed it would be so big, so bright, so hot!" They exclaimed.

"It was just like you always said it would be!" Their words jumbled together as they all vied for her attention. They touched her hair and grabbed her hands. It didn't occur to any of them that these were the first kind words they had spoken to her in years.

Suddenly, she saw them. Bill and Alice and Sasha and Rocky.

Rocky spied her and waved enthusiastically. But the others could only look at her from the corners of their eyes. Their faces were all the same. Regret. Despair, even. Summer couldn't believe Bill's face was even capable of making such an expression.

It was a morose little party of four, and they didn't stay long. They passed by Summer on their way out of the Rotunda, and Sasha drifted close enough to say something in a low voice.

"We just never believed you."

****

That night, as she changed for bed, she looked in the mirror for the first time in months. Had her time in the sun, her time with Jesse, changed her? Her skin was flushed all over from her hour outside, her eyes were blue, her hair bright as the sun. She looked ... happy.

She lay on her bed, with her t-shirt pushed up, and traced the outline of Jesse's hand that the scorching hot sun had left on her body. She pressed her fingers into the white ghosted image, outlined by her own warm, pinked skin, and fell asleep with her daylight bulb shining on her face.

*

*Author's Note: This story, as some of you may have realized, was inspired by Ray Bradbury's short work, "All Summer in a Day." My apologies to Mr. Bradbury. I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you liked it, or even if you didn't, a vote or comment would be much appreciated, as this is an entry in the Summer contest. Thanks!