A hiss escaped her as she rocked her hips in shallow thrusts, stretching around the smooth wood. Pike’s hands found her waist, trailing, squeezing at her thighs then back at the curve of her hips, pleasured sounds huffing from her with each thrust, twisting the oar against her ring of cunt-teeth.
Marlowe’s cunt spasmed and pulsed and she sank down further, spreading her knees against the truck bed and gritting her teeth. She sloppily rocked her hips, nails biting into Pike’s chest as she anchored her hands and fuckedherself, knowing she’d be bruised, sore for a week, her own blood joining between them, but oh,this was worth it.
This pain Marlowe welcomed.
Pike tipped her head back, needle teeth bared, tendrils snapping around her face and pondweed strands splayed across the rusted truck box. Webbed hands grew desperate, searching, urging Marlowe into a steady rhythm she pushed herself to keep, legs trembling as she drove the wood deeper between them, harder, aggressive, hips angled—
The wind left Marlowe’s lungs in a rush as she doubled over. Pike hissed at the same time, thrusting into her once, twice, and Marlowe swore, stuttering into an intelligible moan, leaving bloody grooves across Pike’s chest as her cunt gushed over her tail, heartbeat slamming against her bruised ribs, her throat.
Marlowe thought she ground out her name, riding through her orgasm and chasing each jolt of pleasure with the graze of webbing against her swollen clit, but the night was hazy like her mind, and Pike’s tail thrashed under her like a frenzied snake, driving the oar deeper, deeper. Marlowe pinned her down and spit into the feathery slits of Pike’s neck, thrusting her tongue into them, tasting herself and the lake and Pike until they came with a ragged, snapping snarl.
The high took as long to leave as Pike’s venom, in slow, easy washes of pleasure. Marlowe’s breathing finally evened. The wood stake clattered against metal after she carefully, nicely withdrew it from Pike and threw it to the side.
The emptiness settled moments after, bare skin stretched against the hard metal of her truck bed. Pike lay next to her, tail draping off the end, gill slits softly fluttering. Marlowe closed her hand over Pike’s and brought it to her lips, grazing over soft, mottled flesh tasting of fish and lake.
Heather stared at her from the other side of Pike. Marlowe reached across and brushed her eyelids shut. Marlowe just had one more promise to keep before this was finally over.
In The Rearview
Even after sixteen hours of sleep, Marlowe still felt like she’d been run over with a truck. She blinked the sand away from her eyes and dragged herself to the shower.
Her bathtub wasn’t clogged anymore after she drained twenty-three gallons of industrial acid.
The pipes loved it. She hoped.
Marlowe wouldn’t be around much longer to find out—a hospital two hours up north, nearly at the border, had returned her call to offer her an immediate position. It took five minutes to pack up her things from Mercy Hospital and two to interrupt the missed-shift blustering and say she quit.
She’d shoved her backseat full with the rest of her life, gingerly bracing her bruised shoulder against the door to close it. Once she left this town, she was never coming back.
There was only one thing Marlowe was missing.
Mud speckled her freshly washed Chevy as it rumbled through the woods, and the late-night breeze snapped at thick plastic tied in the box. There hadn’t even been any cops on the road tonight, which boded well for her sneaking Pike away.
After she collected Pike, she’d take back roads through the dense pine forests, avoiding any wandering law enforcement and making a straight shot to the great lake where Pike would be safe—drownings were common among the cliff-jumpers in that remote section of the lake and cops had declared anyone who crossed the road blockade to be trespassing.
But a little caution tape never stopped reckless people. Pike would be fed, and the lake was so large she’d never be caught.
Marlowe could almost imagine their disgustingly domestic future, all bare feet and fins and loon calls—a cabin on a forgotten corner of the lake, with a tub bigenough for Pike.
Someday, mildew on ugly floral curtains and a lake-water flood in their bedroom would smell like home, and Marlowe could make paper boats from Sunday comics instead of Bible verses.
The truck tilted in soft loam and she accelerated and fishtailed around the copse of trees. Her tires would leave a scar behind her, but it didn’t matter. This would be Marlowe’s last time at Camp Atonement.
She hummed, powered by too many cups of grainy downtown-diner coffee and four cigarettes, the remnants of the latter piled in the ashtray next to her. Reaching for a fifth, Marlowe leaned halfway across the bench seat, fumbling with the pack.
The wheel drifted. Crushed and bent at an odd angle, her cigarette caught and she shook the pack with an irritated noise, leaning further over the passenger seat. It slid a half inch before bouncing out of reach. Marlowe glanced up.
A thick pine loomed in her headlights.
Marlowe swore and jerked the wheel to the side. Teeth clacked as the truck thumped across a fallen log and sideswiped a tree, branches shrieking across the metal.
She slammed on the breaks and her truck skidded to a lurching stop, tilting on two wheels. It crashed back on all four with a rusty wheeze.
“Jesus Christ.” The crumpled cigarette lay on the seat, free of the pack. Marlowe grabbed at it with shaky hands, foot still pressed on the brake. A wry laugh escaped her. At least she’d gotten to the lake in one—
Marlowe’s laugh died on her lips.
Blue and red lights bled across the dark water from the opposite side.
