The Wanderers

The air had already started to grow cooler, the sun setting in the west down the road that led out of town. I pulled my cowboy hat back onto my head, drawing in a deep breath before forcing myself up to my feet. My body tensed, waiting for the split second I would have from hearing the sound of a pistol to diving out of the way but no noise came. My eyes scanned the storefronts as I waited, looking for the smallest of movements to give away the position of the other hunter.

I slowly stepped out from behind the concrete planter and off of the boardwalk, carefully placing my boots into the dusty earth. The second hunter was out there still, somewhere, but even though I had given him a clear shot he wasn't taking it; perhaps that meant he was still in pursuit of Richie. This would give me just enough time to check his partner for an extra clip or grab his weapon to use the remaining shot stored in it. I increased my pace now, crossing the street at a trot. When I got to the other side, I was met with a gruesome sight; my aim had been a little off in my hurry and the shot caught half of the downed hunter's face. Gone was his right eye, cheek and ear, the energy pulse had cauterized the wound so no blood was seeping out of him but the stench of burnt flesh and bone hung in the air, mixed with the pleasant tinge of the singed wooden door behind him that had caught the tail end of the charge. His weapon was lying next to his body, his duster splayed open from the fall. I had just begun to lean down to pick his pistol up when I heard the high pitched whine zinging out.

I sucked in a sharp breath of pain when the shot caught the side of my abdomen, the burning immediately raging out across my skin as my fried nerve endings were vaporized. I let out a loud cry of agony as I fell to my knees, glancing up in time to see the remaining hunter rise to his feet a few stores down on the same boardwalk. He raised his gun again and I knew that this shot would end me. I grimaced when the loud hum of the weapon zipped through the air.

It took me a moment to process everything, the pain in my side was too great for my brain to focus all of its attention on what I saw—the hunter's head jerked to the side when a hole was blasted into it. His lifeless body crumpled to the ground. I caught a glimpse of Richie running towards me with his rifle in his hand, before the whole view tipped on its side and I fell like a tree.

They say when you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. I guess, in a way, it was true—I saw Carolyn, young and spry as the day I first met her. I watched her belly grow, full with the life inside of it that would become our son. I watched Richie take his first steps.

Intermixed with those memories were the last fleeting sights of my current desolate situation. Richie carried me into a building and laid me down on a large metal table. The overwhelming smell of disinfectant and the bright, ghastly white walls told me it was the doctor's office. I heard a distant voice, "I'm sorry, he's not going to make it."

Dada, Richie's little baby mouth fumbled with his first word. He was such a cute little shit back then. He grew like a weed, into a boy, into a young man. He stood beside me, doing his best not to sob at his mother's funeral.

"Aldrich!" My son cried, his hands frantically grasped the collar of my duster. I tried to form words with my mouth but it was hard to force them out. He was crying now—I can't remember the last time I saw tears hit his manly face. The agony in his voice cut me deep, "Father!"

The rich smell of real coffee tickled my nose as I sat at the kitchen table of my ranch home in the desert of what was then California, watching the news unfold with a frown on my face. I watched those missiles launch up towards that massive starship in the sky and I felt completely helpless that I could do nothing to stop it. Then, I saw her—Vega. Hell, she was such a magnificent creature, her shimmering skin and glowing eyes barely hidden by the darkness of the hood drawn up around her head.

"Be calm, Aldrich," her lyrical voice hummed to me, drawing the entire focus of my attention to her perfect plush lips. Her body hovered over mine, her ethereal form like fog over water. It wasn't until I felt her heat envelope my cock that I realized I wasn't caught in a memory, because this hadn't happened before. This was happening now.

I groaned out, low and deep when I felt her hips rocking in a circular motion over me, the foreign swaying of her body gripping my rod while her eyes bore into mine. With each second I felt our connection grow beyond the physical, the pleasure blooming to the point where I wasn't sure where I stopped and she began. Her head dropped down, eyes drifting closed while her chest rose and fell faster with her panting. I no longer hurt, no, instead my body was flooded with such cosmic bliss that I didn't feel anything but her.

Her long, narrow hand drifted up, palm pressed to her forehead. Her entire body shuddered with restraint, sending a ripple into me that crept up my spine and out of my mouth in a moan. When her voice floated out of her lips, the soft chant was mixed in with her mewls, her tone punctuated with whimpers of bliss as she called forth from the depths of her being. Her hand dropped down to her sternum while her head tilted back, the volume of her cries increasing in time with her pace. My own breath was caught in my throat, I felt my body responding to her need as she ground against me. My muscles tensed as I tried to restrain.

I watched her palm pull away from her chest, a conical golden green glow being drawn from within her; once the tip was free of her skin her head fell forward and her eyes latched onto mine. She tilted her hand to aim the cone of light at my heart and slowly started to push it in. The second it pierced my skin, an overwhelming, immense feeling overcame me—it was pain and pleasure, need and satisfaction, hunger and sate, it was every emotion in a never ending sea of time and distance, an indescribable vast contradiction that threatened to suffocate me. Her torso followed the movement of her hand as she pressed it into my chest and leaned her perfect golden frame down onto me. I felt the soft puffs of her pants against my face. When her full lips touched mine, her movements ceased and her body tensed momentarily before she hit her release and shuddered on top of me.

I felt the ripple of her bliss in a plane beyond the physical, in a spiritual connection, in an emotional connection as if she had just fucked my soul. I cried out at the almost violent explosion of my own peak, my ecstasy reverberating back and forth between our beings like competing ripples in a pond. My arms drifted up of their own accord and I wrapped them around her clothed back, holding her body close to mine while we rode out the waves of our bonding.

We stayed like that for a long time. The pain in my side had vanished and I felt the cool air against the fresh skin that had appeared, sadly knowing that underneath her plaid blouse there was a chunk missing out of her side. She had chosen to come here, to save me by bonding my soul to hers. I didn't know if I would ever understand why she did it for either of us but I knew one thing for certain—Richie and I would never leave her. When the time came, we would venture into the unknown, leave the mother Earth that bore us to wander the stars with the nomads of the universe.