Bane

It just fucking figures that the mark I’m chasing to earn my freedom is a cock hardening, curves that don’t quit kind of journalist from Earth. I thought I was chasing a man, though I’ll take the blame for not asking more questions. All I was given was a device to follow the tracker that she is wearing. I followed it to this tavern and figured it had to be a guy getting out for a stiff drink after a long day of meetings and diplomatic bullshit. It turns out, the tracker led me here, to her, and I can’t believe my damn luck. I haven’t set eyes on a woman in years. When I look at her I feel even better than when I took my first breath of fresh air after years of rotting away in a decrepit jail cell.

She has tits as large and round as those kericots drooping from the branches of the Udret trees. Just the thought of filling my hands with them hardens my cock. This is the last problem I expected to be dealing with tonight.

“I want to apologize again for spilling my drink all over you back there,” she says, so formal and proper. I can still smell the stink of the cheap mead wafting up from my jacket. It’s made to help you get drunk fast and cheap. Not something made to pleasure the taste buds. “I’d still be happy to grab a towel to wipe it off.”

She’s nervous. It’s obvious with how she can’t sit still and she’s drinking way too quickly. Her mug is already half empty. I suppose I can’t blame her. I haven’t been around people in a long time. My social skills are rusty and the years spent down in that dungeon have hardened me…even more than I was when I went in.

When I still haven’t answered her, she continues. “I’m sorry, do you have a name?” she asks impatiently.

“Bane.” I finally say.

“I’m Elena.” She looks at me and this time she doesn’t look away. “I’m visiting Kosmora with the Diplomatic mission from Earth. I felt like getting out and getting something to drink and I could hear all of the noise from my room at the Embassy. I decided to check it out.”

I don’t answer her right away and she looks away. In a normal conversation this is where it’s my turn to speak. Instead of thinking about what I should say, I’m staring at her mouth. Her lips are full and lush, glistening with moisture from the last time she took a drink. She’s so damn beautiful. Unlike anything or anyone that I’ve met in all of my miserable years. Her hair is dark like mine but it has these curls that are so perfect I could slide my finger in one and it would wrap perfectly around it. Not to mention it is long enough that it rests on the curve of her tits, enticing my eyes to constantly gaze at the point of her shirt where her ample cleavage begins. I want to wrap her hair around my wrist and pull while I plunge my cock deep into her sweet, tight pussy.

After a bit, she continues talking. “We arrived here a few days ago and most of our schedule has already been planned for us. A lot of meetings, you know? But, there is a break in the action until tomorrow night so I thought I’d do my own exploring. The Embassy is wonderful, of course, but I’m really interested in how the villagers live.” She puts her head down and takes another drink. “This is really good by the way.” She points down to her glass. “I prefer sweet drinks to ones that taste like hot animal piss.”

I’m raising my mug to my lips when her last comment catches me by surprise and I feel the corners of my mouth start to curl up in a small smile. It feels strange and foreign. “No one can blame you for that,” I say, and it feels natural. I finish the drink, all the while watching how the light from the streetlamp outside bathes her in a soft glow even in the middle of this dark and dank establishment. “The bartender should have intervened and offered you something more reflective of the various tastes of Dune Colony.”

She looks surprised that I’ve finally found my voice. “I should have asked but I never stopped to think that I should have researched what kind of alcohol you have here, or even the types of foods that you eat for that matter.” This time when she takes another drink, I notice the pink glow of her cheeks and the way she finally relaxes back into her chair instead of perching on the edge of her seat like she might need to run out of here at any moment. There’s a small swell of pride in my chest that I was finally able to say something to help her relax with me. “Do you live in the village?” she asks.

My drink is already finished so I can’t take a drink to stall. It wasn’t my plan to sit down and have a drink with her. Or get to know her in any way. Or most of all, talk about myself. That just complicates things and everything is already very complicated. “Yes,” I answer simply and then look away.

She smiles and finishes the rest of her drink. Instead of getting up to leave, she pushes it aside and leans toward me placing her elbows on the table. “So tell me Bane, why all the men in here. The women of the village don’t enjoy a night out at the tavern?”

I shrug my shoulders. “I’ve been gone for a long time. I just recently returned to Dune Colony.”

“Well how about the rest of Kosmora?” she says. “Is this fairly typical, would you say?” I know it’s time for me to end this meeting. It isn’t smart to continue to drag things along. But I’ve been down in that dungeon of a prison cell for so many years. I’m indulging myself and I know I shouldn’t. If there’s anything I know, it’s that this won’t end well. And yet, the thought of her saying goodbye and walking out of the door makes my chest feel tight.

“From what I have seen, yes, this is typical. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, really. I’m just trying to learn more about Kosmora. Things the people know but the diplomats won’t freely talk about.”

I nod my head in understanding. “Where is the rest of your group tonight?”

“Back at the embassy.”

“And what is it that this diplomatic mission from Earth is trying to accomplish?”

“Oh, well…Earth and Kosmora have many similarities. The treaty is basically an arrangement for resources. Earth needs more of them and Kosmora has plenty.” She stops suddenly as if she was about to say more but stopped herself.

“Sounds like a good treaty,” I say, all the while watching her reactions.

“It is.” She reaches for her glass but it’s empty. The fidgeting is back. She pulls her hands into her lap and starts looking around again.

“And what is your job in all of this?”

“I cover the story behind it all. I’m present during the meetings and the treaty signing and I write about it and film it for the people back on Earth to see.”

I lean back in my chair, stretching my arm out on the table while I lean my other arm over the back of the chair. “Why don’t I get us another drink.”

I’m already on my feet and moving toward the bar. It’s possible that she’ll take off on me while I’m getting the drinks but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. It won’t be hard to track her down and find her again anyway. There’s something else going on here, more than I’ve been told. I shouldn’t care why I’m supposed to silence her, but I do.

The bartender sets two more mugs in front of me. I drop the correct number of chrono chips on the bar, one of them landing in a small puddle of liquid. The noise and chaos continues to thunder around me, vibrating through me. The fingers of my right hand brush over the capsule in my pocket while my left hand massages the back of my neck where they put the implant. It would be so easy to pour the contents of this vile in her drink and be done with it. A quick poisoning and my freedom is assured. They’ll remove this tracker that I can feel pressing against my spine and I’ll be free to go anywhere I please. Except I’ve never killed anyone before, especially not a woman.

But then I picture his smug face as he sat before me in that sterile room. After ten years the first person I got to talk to was the bastard that put me in jail in the first place. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest, I crave a breath of fresh air, or the familiarity of my cell. How fucked up am I after all of these years?

I realize I’ve been standing here staring at the mugs in front of me. Leaving the vile in my pocket, I reach out and take the drinks and make my way back to the table. Before being locked away in that prison, I followed orders blindly and became a man I didn’t recognize. I’m not going to do that anymore.

I shoulder my way through the crowd back to the table, once again getting knocked into and spilling some of the drinks. It feels like a damn feat when I finally make it back to the table, until I look up and see that it’s empty.

Elena is gone.