Blue Light of Home (12 page)

Skye groaned and pushed weakly, futilely, at his immoveable chest. “Oh, why are you even asking? You’d never ask a Vaaji woman!”

“I’d never sleep with one either. Or laugh with one. Or play foolish computer games in front of one.” He growled under his breath, and said, “You told me once that who you are matters more than what you do. I like being who I am when I’m with you, and not some mindless honor-machine for the Empire. I like it enough even to like being here, in this sun-forsaken metal box, where I can do nothing but tap through the detritus of some other planet’s media, eat, sleep…and be with you. I want to know that you love me.”

“I have to. There’s no one else here.” Skye sniffled, scrubbing at her tear-damp cheeks until Vala moved her hand and firmly brought her chin up to face him. She looked into his alien face and could not remember how it had felt to find it unfamiliar, unreadable. Her heart ached. “Would I get all crazy like this if I didn’t?” she asked in a voice that cracked.

He waited.

“I love you,” Skye whispered.

“And you want to be with me.”

“Yes.”

“On Earth, for however long we have, and on the homeworld thereafter.”

“I don’t know if—”

“I will give you a courtyard in my house with a garden and a pool of your own, and you will never scrub floors again if you wish it. You will learn the ways of a proper Vaaji woman and you will adhere to them when there are eyes upon us, and we will both disregard them when there are not.” He started to speak, fought and mastered some flare of intense emotion, and then said, “We will be partners.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Nothing about you is simple,” he muttered, and rubbed her back. “I want you anyway. A Vaaji warrior fights for what he wants, what he cares about. If it means fighting with you first, so be it. I have never been defeated.”

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” Skye said, pushing her face against his chest.

“Good.” His hand moved gently up and down along her spine, then slipped down all the way to cup one throbbing nate and lightly squeeze as she squirmed. “Because now I want to make love with you.” He paused, and awkwardly added, “Damn. That was insidious.”

She giggled, still tasting tears.

He was quiet, his expert fingers kneading and caressing her, stealing away now and then even lower, to stroke at her from below, as if he were attempting to transfer heat from one point to the other. It was working. Still, she didn’t move, drowsing in this moment as hurt turned inexorably to bliss.

“I’ll let you be on top,” he said finally.

Laughter burst out of her again and took away the last ghost of misery. “Vala, you
deviant
!”

He grinned and lay back in her bed, still holding her against him. When the blue light of Earth finally poured in through her window, neither of them noticed or cared. One planet or another didn’t really matter at that point. Home was where the heart lies, and both of them were home.

The End

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robin Smith is an inveterate liar who lives in the middle of Nowhere, where she has disguised herself as a very poor person so that she won't upset the natives. She shares a dilapidated old house with an assortment of family members, furry animals, and surly turtles, and in addition to the massive stacks of accolades she's received for her writing over the years, she's also been awarded Deadliest GameMaster five times. Her first publication was in her fifth-grade newsletter, but she has since appeared in all sorts of periodicals, including "Dagger of the Mind," "Dark Desires," and "Hustler" magazine. She hopes to someday win the coveted Golden Tissue for her work in mainstream erotica, just as soon as they start awarding one.

A MESSAGE TO MY READERS

If you enjoyed reading Blue Light of Home, I would appreciate it if you would help others enjoy this book, too.

Recommend it:
Please help others find this book by recommending it on readers' groups and discussion boards.

Review it:
Reviews help authors a great deal, particularly on Amazon. Please tell others why you liked this book at Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, and / or Blushing Books.

Other books by Robin Smith

Agent Vogle’s Eagles

(originally published as Eagle Eye)

Alpha

The Blue Light of Home

The Casablanca Cruise

Charla’s Shadow

The Clearwater Chronicles

Digging Up Bones

Hopler’s Happy Toads

The Many Adventures of Nick and Virginia and the Mesopotamian Marital Aid

(originally published as The Challenge)

Millennium Falls

Naughty Tails 1

Naughty Tails 2

Naughty Tails 3: Spankings Thru the Year

Penitent

Reiko

X on the Beach

Also:

The Complete Adventures of Owl and Dylan: Warrior of Gaia

which includes:

Fourteen Hours on Flathead Mountain

Five Nights in Dead Horse Flats

A Long Weekend in Emerald City

Eight Days in Hell’s Canyon

Enjoy this excerpt of Robin Smith’s next novel,
Hopler’s Happy Toads

Chapter One
:

It was the last straw, that’s what it was. The proverbial camel-breaker. The end.

Tom was late for dinner.

But no, it was more than that. Eve Hopler, nee Ferguson, was not the sort of woman who flaked out just because her husband of twelve years wanted to stop at the store on the way home. And shop for a few hours. On their anniversary. Without calling. That would be forgivable, and if that was really what it was, that would almost be a cause for celebration.

But no.

Eve sat at the table watching the candles burn down, watching the little bubbles in her champagne glass float and pop, watching the juices from the pot roast—Tom’s favorite—slowly dry. One hour had become two, become three, become four. He wasn’t at the store. She didn’t know just who he was with at the moment—Caroline had been last month’s flavor; Rina was always a possibility, she was such a loyal secretary; and there had been a new girl recently, but she didn’t know the name, wasn’t even sure Tom knew it—but wherever he was, he wasn’t at the store.

‘You don’t deserve to feel bad,’ Eve told herself, and it was true. This was all her own fault.

When she’d met Tom, he had been the stereotype of a tall, dark and handsome older man, as well as intelligent, charming and ambitious. He’d told her that he needed her, that she was going to be the foundation for his climb up the corporate ranks. She hadn’t realized then that her position as his ‘foundation’ meant exactly that—she was beneath him.

Things had begun to change even before they were married. Oh, she’d heard all the rumors about him and his other girlfriends, but Tom was a good-looking man. There were bound to be a few hangers-on, bound to be some difficulties in convincing the more obsessive of them that it really was over. She understood when he told her that he had to let them down easy. She’d never had anyone fall madly in love with her, never had anyone look at her twice, and she didn’t know the burdens of a man like Tom. During their engagement, she’d had to endure all sorts of petty gossip and pitying looks, but Tom was always there with reassurances…and little criticisms on the way she dressed, how much time she spent on the phone, the way she wore her hair, but it was all for her own good, he said, because no one could ever love her like him. Her friends were dominating her time, he said, turning her against him; one argument at a time, he erased them from her life. And then, of course, after they were married, he’d taken a position at the company that involved a move across country, and now she had no one. No one else but him.

And then it got worse. He insisted that she stay home, that she let him take care of her, that she keep his house and together they could live in their own little world of perfect family values, and for a while it did seem perfect…

Except…

Except he went with her everywhere, even to the grocery store and the post office. He insisted first on driving, and then on holding her car keys ‘for her’ while he was at work. In the early days, she thought that was chivalrous.

Except he wouldn’t let her have her own money, and why should she, he would argue, when he earned it all, he paid the bills, he bought everything? If she wanted something, she just had to ask and he’d consider it. He wanted to take care of her. So chivalrous.

Except they didn’t have a land-line telephone, just two cell phones, his and hers, because he said they were cheaper, and hers was a kiddie phone that could only call his number and 911. And God help her if it rang and she didn’t answer it. These days, she even took it into the bathroom with her when she showered. Not even Eve could tell herself that was chivalry.

Except for those tiresome old clichés—the lipstick on his collar and the motel receipts and the occasional giggle in the background when she gave in and called his cell phone on late, late nights. The drift of perfume on his clothes, oh yes, the perfume he wouldn’t let her wear at all because he said only cheap girls wore it. The love-bites on his shoulder, the scratches on his back, and the girls themselves, the angry girls, the ones who came to her house after he was through with them to sit her down and tell her just how it was.

She knew how it was.

She used to confront him, but it was nagging like hers that drove him into the arms of more understanding women. It was coming home to dirty dishes in the sink, to her mousy unkempt hair, to cold dinner or no dinner or dinners she knew he didn’t like that made him so angry. It was her fault when he hit her, her fault for not being able to learn any other way. He told her she was lucky he still came home to her at all.

Sometimes she believed him.

And that was all pretty bad, yes, but after twelve years of marriage, she had learned that she didn’t deserve to feel bad. She kept the house spotless for him, kept the yard neat, kept the curtains drawn, and kept meals on time. She had a system, and most months, she only felt these moments of misery only on the weekends, when she couldn’t get away from him, but he always went back to work on Monday and he always came home to her Monday night. Eventually.

But now…

You are so lucky I love you, Evie
.

On their anniversary…

No one else would ever put up with a bubble-head like you
.

After twelve years of cooking and cleaning and smiling…

You need me. You’d be nothing without me
.

The camel’s back was good and broken. Eve Hopler had finally had enough.

Just walking out, running away, wasn’t an option. She had no one to call, no trusted friend to pick her up or wire her money, no family to go home to. She’d have to plan and plan carefully, but already she felt the hard knot of resolve soften into a doughy mass of hopelessness.

“But I’m going to get out,” she said, speaking aloud into the silent kitchen. Mechanically, she dished up the dinner for herself and sat down at the table. She began to eat so that she would have strength, not because she felt hunger. She was going to need that strength tomorrow. Because tomorrow, she was getting out.

* * *

She saw Tom out the door in the morning, accepting his hurried kiss on her cheek and the distracted pat to her hip that was his daily good-bye (as well as his offhand remark that she could stand to lose a few pounds. She was staring to look like a whale in this blue dress, he said. He had bought her the dress last month, how could she possibly put on all that weight so fast?). She waved to him from the window and then went into the kitchen to do the morning dishes. An observer might have thought she’d forgotten all about the day before, but then, an observer could not hear her heart pounding or feel the swimming of her stomach as she busied herself with chores. She hadn’t forgotten anything; she was waiting to see if Tom was really off and gone for the day, or if he would pull out and then come back for some little misplaced something (he did this every now and then, just to check on her). But no, he was gone, and after the dishes were washed and dried and put away, Eve stepped out of her slippers and into her shoes, picked up her purse, held her head high, and walked out the door.

Tom had the keys to the car, but she didn’t need a car. She would walk to town, to the little store on the corner where she did most of her grocery shopping, and she would stop everyone who went in and ask for a little change for the phone. She didn’t care if she had to ask a hundred people, and she didn’t care if every one of them thought she was a bum. She would ask and eventually, someone would give her that little change, and then she was going to open up that phone book and find some sort of service for women like her (oh God, how she wanted to cringe, even thinking that! How did she ever allow herself to become a ‘woman like her’?) and they would come and get her. The important thing to remember was that by the time Tom came home tonight, Eve would be gone.

But within a few minutes, scarcely a hundred feet from the house, Eve’s surety began to slip. Was there really a service out there who would care if Tom slept around and controlled her money and only let her use a kiddie phone or would they tell her to call back once he put her in the hospital a few times and then hang up on her? Even if they would help, would they come and get her or would they want her to come to them? Would they come right away or would she have to wait by the store for hours? What if he came home in the middle of day and found her missing? What if he came home and stopped at the little store for a soda and
found
her there, asking people for money? What if some of the people she asked for change called the cops on her because they thought she was a bum? Or the manager of the little store? Would the cops call Tom if they picked her up for panhandling? Oh God, they might.