An Unexpected Memory

Tormi was in a bad rut. That wasn't new. He'd been in many bad places before, and each of those scrapes and snags was now just a memory tucked snugly into his belt. But still, this rut was something special. The hole he was in now only got deeper with every passing day.

The ice wind raced across the flatcar, trying to pry the warmth out from under his layers. He smacked his mittened hands together, trying to warm them back up. "Why couldn't we stow away on a boxcar instead?" he moaned.

Lyrska turned and looked at him—Lyrska, the cause of all his troubles, but also a traveling companion who had saved him from many more. He owed her a debt of four hundred and twenty copper tips, more than a month's wages. It hadn't been much when he'd first borrowed, but after a few unexpected lean weeks, his debt had grown like a weed. And at the end of those weeks, she had announced she was leaving town, and he either had to pay up—which he couldn't— or follow her and keep trying to pay her back.

It wasn't as though Tormi was a stranger to travel. He had worked as a farmhand, a newsboy, a meat packer and, when he had absolutely no other choice, a grave robber. His had been a rootless life.

"Hey!" said Lyrska. "Are you listening to me?"

"What?"

"I said, the next city's less than half an hour off. Can you hold out until then, or will you freeze?"

"Dalečistran already? It's a week's trip, at least!"

"We're not getting off there. We're going to Najbližje."

"That's not what you said before!"

"I changed my mind."

Tormi did not complain. One strange new city was as good as another. And if one city happened to be closer, so much the better.

As soon as the train stopped, they stole onto the switchyard, then into an empty old building that still had most of its windows. They built a garbage fire and sat on opposite sides of it, thawing themselves.

Lyrska contemplated the fire, staring through the stray white locks of her hair. Tormi would have tucked those in, the better to keep warm. 'But what do I know?' he thought.

"This is a crummy way to start life in this city," said Lyrska. Even as she said it, she smiled, as if it only amused her.

"It's pretty average for me," Tormi shrugged. "At least the mornings here are nice and warm. That's what Yeven told me, and he used to live here."

"That's good, because you'll have to get used to this."

Tormi shot her an offended look.

"You can't afford a place to live while you're paying off your debt to me. You're going to be sleeping on concrete for a long, long time."

He sighed, staring at the ground. "I know." 'Someday,' he told himself. 'Someday this debt will be just another memory, tucked snugly into my belt.'

"Hey, don't look so down."

"Why not?" Anger twinged in his chest. "Why the Hel not? I'm in the hole and I'm having a rotten time getting my feet under me, and there you are..." He glared into her insufferable, unworried smile. He boiled over. "I've decided. After I get a job, I'm renting a room, first thing. I don't care what you do to me, but I'm not going to spend the next year living like this, like an animal!"

She looked at him in a way she never had before, like he had just guessed the answer to a riddle. She was planning something, that much was clear. "Now that I think about it," she said. "You're right. That was mean of me. Get your rest. We'll make a fresh start tomorrow."

Tormi opened up his bag, bolted down some of the beet rolls he had saved up, then found a pool of clean water on the building's roof. He soaked a rag, warmed it with his cigarette lighter and bathed himself, then brushed his teeth with his worn old toothbrush. Cleanliness was the one comfort more dear to him than shelter.

At the fire, he unrolled his cot and slept like the dead.

In the morning, he felt squeezed. When he breathed, his chest expanded, but his stomach refused to. In the struggle before his eyes opened, he noticed that he was face-down. That was odd.

"Good morning, pretty boy," cooed Lyrska's voice. "So nice of you to wake up. Here I thought I was going to have to slap that pretty face of yours. That would be so mean, wouldn't it?"

Tormi had never heard her like this. Her mocking tone was not new; in fact, mockery was the only tone she seemed to have. But in all their travels, she had absolutely never called him 'pretty.' He craned his neck around to see her kneeling astraddle his waist, working a thin industrial rope around his wrists. He gasped, "What?"

"Oh, hush, hush," she said, keeping her eyes on her work as she bound his wrists behind his back. "This is just a little idea I've had, off and on."

"What are you doing to me?"

"You missed your calling, boy, do you know that? If you got yourself a nice haircut, dressed in a good kilt and went out as a street he-whore, you'd be rich in a week."

"I-"

"And a vest. Men should wear more vests."

"What are you doing to me?" he demanded.

She flexed her legs and lifted her weight from him just long enough to turn him onto his back. "Take a wild guess."

"Oh my gods..."

She pulled a flat paper packet from her bag—a condom—and bit it open with a toothy smile. She pulled the little rubber thing out, one centimeter at a time. She held his eyes as she did it.

"You guessed it," she said, scooching back onto his legs. "You've got something any girl wants. If you didn't want me to ravish you and watch that sweet, sweet face of yours while I rock your cock, you shouldn't have said you don't care what I do to you."

Before he could answer, his cock was out, exposed to the still-chilly air. Even despite the cold, it swelled.

Lyrska did not seize it as he expected her to. She did not jump on him, or kiss him or anything else like that. He half-expected her to suck on it, but she didn't. Instead, she put two fingers gently around his shaft and rolled it between them.

Tormi winced. "Ugh..."

Lyrska bit her lip. "Yeah, keep making that noise. I love it!"

"Urgh..." he did want to please her, but at the same time he did. "Ugh, spirits, you're good at this."

"You're wet for me."

"Wet? I'm a man, you idiot!"

"Oh yeah?" She pumped his cock twice, and it made an obscene 'sluck' sound. "Do you hear that? That's the juice that makes it easier to fuck you. It's just like how a girl gets wet from looking at you." The condom descended, then wrapped tightly over his cock. The thin rubber pulled his foreskin in every direction.

"Ooh," she said, "you like that?"

"It's so tight!" he gasped.

"You haven't seen anything yet." She crawled over him, her face directly above his. She took off her hood, letting her white-as-snow hair fall in a curtain around his vision. "Get ready..."

She took him in. It was a light feeling, lighter than Tormi had expected. She pressed herself over his pelvis, shifting, moaning, and Tormi let out another male gasp. Lyrska beamed, and she beamed so hard she drooled a little on his face.

Then she started bucking. Tormi couldn't watch, but only feel her shifting and bouncing, squeezing his cock and letting it go. She was wild, unpredictable. She yowled with pleasure as if she was the tsarina in her bed and he was a brand-new royal consort.

"Yes!" she crowed. "Almost there!" She mashed her lips together. "Come on, use your hips. Push into me!"

Without the use of his arms, that was a tall order. He flexed his stomach, his legs, even his palms, and he surprised himself with a powerful thrust.

Lyrska whooped as she lifted off him, then crashed back down. One more bounce, and her whoop turned into a scream. She sang out with an orgasm.

Lyrska slowed. She stopped. She pushed a few more times, stuffing him into her. She lowered her white-haloed face to his and kissed him, a strong, moaning kiss. She lay like that for one long minute, soaking him up.

"Now," she said. "I want you to make me cum one more time. Except this time, I don't want you to use your cock." She laughed voraciously. "I want your tongue." Her face constricted, she blushed even deeper, and suddenly she panted. "Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods..." She clenched around his cock, her body tightened into a knot of stress and pleasure, and she belted out another orgasm.

"Guh," she muttered, as she lifted off his still-erect penis. "I came just imagining it. She put a finger on his nose, toyed with it a little. "That's how pretty you are, do you know that?" She laid herself down beside him, using his shoulder for a pillow. Her fingers plucked idly at his erection and brought him maddeningly close to the edge.

They lay there for maybe an hour. Lyrska never let his cock go soft, nor did she let him cum, and every time he opened his mouth to speak, she stopped him with a kiss.

Finally, Lyrska stirred. With a groan like a woman getting out of bed, as innocent as could be, she got up onto her knees, stretched, yawned and gazed at him. "I really should untie you now, shouldn't I?"

Tormi had gotten the knot halfway undone, and his fingers were scraped raw from the effort. "Thank you," he breathed.

As she reached under him and snatched the knot loose, she let out another sigh. "You really are a natural, Tormi."

"And you're a rapist," he grunted, stretching his aching shoulders. "Enjoy the afterglow now, because I'm ratting you out to the police. I don't care what they think of me. I'll do it!"

"Or you could thank me for making your life simpler."

He thundered, "How is this simpler?"

"You've just paid your debt."

"What?"

"You were so set on getting a nice place to live, and I was about to take your money away just because of some silly debt, and I thought, 'I just don't have the heart.'" She gave a heavy-lidded smirk. "So I took your virginity instead."

Tormi's cheeks flushed so hard that they tingled.

"It's okay, I knew," she said. "You've got what you wanted. Now go, be free."

Tormi stuffed his cock back into his pants. Then he stood up and looked out over the urban horizon, pink and blue in the sunrise. Suddenly, freedom and a place to call home were no longer years away. They were just around the corner. They were here.

He felt a slap on his butt. "Go on, get out of here!" said Lyrska. "Do you want to be free or not?"

Tormi scrambled to gather his things. In the fifty seconds it took him, the irrational fear gnawed on him that he might magically contract a new debt and go back to where he was. It didn't happen. He walked out of the building a debtless man.

He took one last look back at Lyrska. She gave him a wink and turned away.

Tormi marched out onto the streets of Najbližje. Lyrska would be just a memory now, along with the debt and how he had paid it through his first ravishing. He tucked that memory snugly into his belt.