Explored By The Mountain Man In Space Read online

  Pink light streams through the window, and it is dead quiet. Eerily quiet. The bed is empty and I run my hand on the empty spot on the mattress trying to catch my breath, remembering how I got here. Where I came from. I look out the window, seeing a sky washed in pink and purples, and I wonder for a moment if I will ever see a blue sky again.

  I don’t think so.

  The reality of my choice washes over me and for a moment I forget to breathe. Falling back on the pillow, I try to center myself. I chose this. I want to be here. Last night was magical. This is not bad. This is everything I ever wanted.

  Except for the living in a shack part.

  For all the good of last night, I still have a lot of doubt nagging at me. I close my eyes, picturing Nick’s distant face when I introduced myself yesterday. Remembering the way he smirked and scoffed at me in the rover on the way to his cabin.

  But then remembering the other things too... his hand on my cheek, his body pressed against mine, being filled with him so completely.

  The two versions of Nick don’t seem to match, and I sit back up and wrap the bed sheet around me, trying to brace myself for whatever version of Nick I’m going to see this morning.

  I know which version I want.

  Pushing aside the curtain that divides the main room of the cabin and the bedroom, I realize how badly I have to pee. The cabin’s empty, but I notice a fireplace in the corner, handmade—obviously—but a fire burns softly, warming the cabin.

  I look around, but there are just the four walls of the house and a front door, there are no doors leading to a restroom.

  Opening the front door, a gust of cold wind covers me, it’s really cold out there, and it’s still early. Still, I’m not going to pee in a bucket.

  I find my boots in the bedroom and shove my feet in them.

  Outside, with the sheet tucked under my armpits, my eyes scan the woods looking for Nick. Where would he have gone?

  The rover’s still here, so that’s good. And in the distance, I hear the sound of chopping. Okay, I’m guessing he hasn’t left me for dead. But I can’t go looking for him yet. My bladder’s ridiculously full and I don’t exactly want to get a UTI on day one.

  Happy honeymoon!

  Several meters from the house I see a tiny wooden... outhouse. Lovely. Snapping twigs beneath my feet as I make my way to the bathroom, I am in awe of my surroundings. Everything is Earth-like... but painted in a palette fit for precious jewels. Vivid blues and greens, pinks and orange. Everything is bright as if the best Instagram filter has been placed on this entire planet.

  Pulling open the wooden door I see the rustic toilet seat, and unfortunately, even though everything outside is majestically out-of-this-world, this is a good old fashioned, homemade, porta-potty.

  State-of-the-art my ass, Marcus Farrow, I think as I squat over the toilet. When finished, I step outside wishing for hand sanitizer. It’s a relief to see a makeshift sink next to the outhouse. A 5-gallon container of water has been set upon a wooden workbench.

  I dip my hands in the water and dry them on the sheet that wraps around me. Then I follow the chopping sound.

  Walking around the perimeter of the cabin, I marvel at the massive blue trees surrounding this place and I realize the cabin has been situated nicely on the land. Behind it is a thick forest, in front an expanse of long blue grasses, swaying gently. The wind isn’t as fierce as it was yesterday, and as I crunch over the twigs and fallen sticks, I try thinking of myself as a pioneer woman.

  Those women from the Wild West wouldn’t have huffed over an outhouse. They would’ve been grateful for something besides a hole in the ground. I can be grateful too.

  I see Nick, but he doesn’t see me. His shirt’s off, it’s tucked in the back of his blue jeans, and his arms are ripped. His chest glistens. I don’t believe in aliens, but I swear to God this man is sexier than any human I’ve ever seen on Earth.

  It’s cold outside, but he’s worked up a sweat. There’s an ax swinging over his head, hitting straight into the orange wood he has placed on the stump, splitting it in two.

  I don’t know if he likes to pass the time cutting wood, but he’s clearly done it a lot. There’s a mountain of chopped wood beside him, and I guess there really isn’t much else to do out here.

  I hear some animals, but I don’t see them, just hear their little scurrying sounds. I look above me and catch sight of a yellow winged creature; some sort of bird. I silently ask it to come closer so I can get a better view, but it’s as if the animals here know I’m an outsider, someone they can’t yet trust.

  I hope Nick trusts me.

  “Hey,” I say, stepping closer to him, waving one arm out as I hold the sheet around me with my other. “Good morning,” I say.

  “What the fuck are you doing outside in a sheet?” he asks, looking at me as if I’m crazy.

  I swallow, preparing myself for the asshole version of Nick. Damn.

  “I didn’t know where my clothes were. I think they’re still in the rover. Would you mind getting them for me?” I ask.

  “Sure, princess. Guess I can’t expect you to get them on your own.”

  I shake my head, annoyed at his assessment. But I suppose I could have gotten them. Honestly, I didn’t even think of it.

  “Bet you’re hungry too.” He drops the ax and wipes his brow with his forearm, then reaching for his shirt and tugs it on.

  “Do you chop wood most mornings?” I don’t really know what Nick does for a job, maybe he is the wood-chopper of Vitaie. I have no idea.

  “You want a fire, don’t you?”

  “I thought you said you had a generator?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not powerful enough to heat the place up. We use it for the hot plate and charging the rover. Anyways, I thought you might not be used to waking up somewhere so cold, so I made that fireplace before you came.”

  “Oh, you didn’t use one before?” I ask, remembering the crockery in the corner of the room and the chimney above.

  “Nah, I stay warm enough, even when it’s fucking frigid out,” he says. “Remember, I’m a real man.” He smirks, and I remember him pounding his chest last night, being Tarzan, telling me I am his Jane.

  Suddenly that feels like ages ago.

  “You built the fireplace for me?” I ask.

  He shrugs not admitting anything.

  “You’re gonna freeze your ass off,” he says. “You head inside, I’ll bring your luggage.”

  I nod, my arms covered in goosebumps.

  He turns from me without offering a morning kiss, a hug. Not even a smile.

  If there was any doubt about which Nick I’ve woken up to, I have my answer.

  8

  I open the trunk in the bedroom and choose some clean clothes. I’ve packed some gifts for Nick. Touching them reminds me of home—the pocketknife, the fresh clothes, the bottle of whiskey.

  I want to give them to him right now, to make a good impression, but then I think that maybe there will be a better moment. My stomach growls, and I decide that maybe we’ll be in better spirits after we eat breakfast.

  Dressed, I step into the main room with a bag of toiletries. He’s over the hot plate cooking something.

  “Do you, uh, use the kitchen sink to get ready?”

  He looks at me like I’m insane like he’s never seen a woman holding a toothbrush before. And maybe he hasn’t. I have no idea what he was like before coming to space.

  “I use the water outside. This sink leaks all over the place.”

  I smile tightly and leave through the front door, determined not to get disappointed. But. Um. No running water is kind of a letdown.

  When I get back in, Nick has served up two bowls of oatmeal with raisins.

  Sitting, I let my shoulders relax, maybe this meal will be our chance to open up on a personal level... because opening up on a physical level hasn’t exactly gotten me anywhere.

  “So, what do you do during the day?”

  “I work i
n the mines.”

  “Oh, I remember you mentioning that yesterday. So when you’re there, I’ll...?”

  “You’ll stay here.” He looks intently at his oatmeal. And seriously, I’m not bragging here, but I am his wife. Aren’t I even a little bit more interesting than a bowl of oats? “You can’t come to the mines, Nova. It’s dangerous there. I know you just got here yesterday, but I still have to work.”

  “Oh. I thought maybe we could get to know one another a little better today.” I’m thinking about the gifts I want to give him. Wedding gifts. After hearing that he made this fireplace for me, I’m especially glad I brought them.

  He looks at me, raising a brow. “We’ll have forever to get to know one another. I can’t just sit around here and hang out, there’s work to be done. That's why I came here in the first place.”

  “I see. I mean, I know.” I nod my head, trying my best not to take this personally. “I know you have work to do.”

  “There’s work for you to do, too. I haven’t had time to wash my clothes, and all the pantry staples need to be gone through. You need to see what we need before we go back to the main landing site. If you think we need some more dehydrated food, make a list so we can grab it when we go get your cargo.”

  “Oh, yeah that makes sense, uh, how do you wash the clothes, exactly?”

  He snorts as if I’m an idiot. But we don’t have running water—I’m not asking how a washing machine freaking works.

  “Boil water on the stove, there’s a big pot, some powdered detergent in the pantry too. Nothing’s gonna get very clean, but it'll better than it is now. The mines are covered in thick red clay, it’s hard as fuck to clean. So anything’s an improvement.”

  I purse my lips together, hoping I can manage this. I read survival manuals before I came, but Farrow’s presentation of life on Vitaie was drastically different than the reality.

  “Look, I’m not trying to rush out of here and leave you, but I came to Vitaie to work.”

  I nod, understanding this. “A job at the mine, that’s one of the positions that offer bonuses if you find Candeo?” I ask, referring to the natural resource that Farrow is after. I remember the articles I read about Candeo before coming. When Farrow sent rovers here, and then his first explorers, they found traces of Candeo in the air.

  That is why he sent more people with the hopes of colonization in the first place. The shape planet Earth is in isn’t exactly sustainable. But Candeo could change all of that. Could change everything.

  Candeo is critical to the function of the fusion generators Farrow invented. Sounds fancy, but I kinda get it when it’s broken down like that.

  It’s the reason this planet was such a coup. If they found large amounts of Candeo, it could change life for people on Earth, but definitely improve the quality of life for those of us up here. It’s a lightweight mineral, so it would be easy to transfer back to Earth.

  The only problem is, so far, they’ve only found dust particles in the air. Still, there has got to be more of it somewhere. A dime-sized amount of Candeo can be converted to enough energy for 50,000 modern humans.

  Even the dust is the most precious thing ever discovered in the history of mankind. The real hope is that they will find more of it on Vitaie, and apparently, the man to do the job is my husband.

  “Were you a miner back on Earth?” I ask, realizing I know nothing about his backstory.

  “I was a geologist. That’s why I got this gig, I went to college with Farrow, actually, and he recruited me for the job. The timing worked out.”

  I nod, realizing my new husband must be really fucking smart to have landed this opportunity.

  My own insecurities about never having gone to college rise up at me as Nick starts talking about the geology of Vitaie and the way the mine works, and the equipment he uses. I try to focus, but it’s hard; the words used uses aren’t a part of my vocabulary.

  “It sounds complicated,” I tell him, realizing he’s done talking.

  “It is. That’s why you’re saying here. The mines are dangerous.”

  I nod, knowing that I came here to be a wife and a mother—not a miner on the prowl for Candeo. And the truth is, being a wife is a hard enough job, one I hope I’m qualified for.

  Wanting to prove to myself—and to Nick—that I can do this, I take our dishes to the sink and tell him not to worry about me.

  “You sure you got this?” he asks.

  “Yes, I can wash the dishes, I’ve done that before.” I grin widely, wanting to convince him of it. The truth is, I’ve never actually had to wash the dishes after breakfast before, but I can certainly manage.

  I mean, hell, if Nick is going off to the mine to find a natural resource that could change the entire universe, fix the disaster that has happened from global warming and drilling for oil—then I can stay here and wash dishes. If I can lighten his load, I will.

  After all, it’s what I signed up for.

  9

  I hope like hell Nova doesn’t get herself into any trouble today. The truth is, I can’t wait to get away from her. The moment I woke up I needed to leave her side, start working with my hands to focus on something other than the woman I spent the night caressing.

  So I started chopping wood. At dawn.

  Once I start, I can’t stop because if I do I’ll think about when I woke up and looked over and saw Nova’s profile. Saw the rise and fall of her beautiful breasts, saw her upturned nose and porcelain cheeks, her hair unfurled from the braid because last night we were wild. Animals devouring one another as if we hadn’t eaten in years.

  Truth is, sounds like neither of us had.

  But when I woke, I looked over at her and all I saw were the faces of my family.

  So, I start chopping wood because it’s better than the running monologue in my head.

  I need to stop thinking.

  I just need to work.

  With my hands, with my body. So I leave the cabin after telling her that I’m headed to the mines. I don’t tell her I can’t look at her in the light of the day. I don’t say that every time I do, I can’t help but think about how my mother would look at me. How my father would look at me. Their disappointment in me—at the reality of who I’ve married—would break me.

  Nova represents everything that was taken away from us.

  So, I leave Nova in the cabin alone and get in my rover and I drive to the mine. Maybe if I keep working, keep focusing on finding the damned Candeo—something I’ve spent 5 years looking for without a single clue—it will make all this worth it.

  Hell, maybe if I find what Farrow sent me after, he’ll let me out of his lifelong contract and I can go back to Earth. I can give my parents the money they deserve, and I can part ways with Nova.

  She doesn’t really want this life anyways, I saw her face when I told her how to wash the clothes, how to brush her teeth. She was sold a bill of goods that Farrow is not coming through on.

  It’s a three-mile route to work. It’s easy to navigate the path because it has rover tracks from the crew coming and going. I look through the windshield at the bright pink morning sky, feeling that while this is an amazing view to behold, I have paid a high price for it.

  If my parents heard that I was married to a Maraday, I don’t know if they’d be able to look me in the eyes.

  And that makes me feel like I can’t look at my reflection.

  I park the rover and head inside through the geodesic tent that is our ground zero site. We store equipment here, file our daily logs, sort specimens we find. No one is here, of course.

  The crew is off because we knew our wives would be arriving and we all decided that we would take a few days off. Even though we’re all after the Candeo, we thought we’d take a few days and treat ourselves to a woman’s touch before we get back to work.

  Besides, most of us have given up hope that there is ever gonna be a payout like Candeo. Who knows? Maybe it never originated on Vitaie... maybe it just happened to be floating
in our atmosphere.

  But even if the miners here have their doubts, it’s still fascinating, back-breaking work. The kind of work us men were made for.

  I head through the dome and enter the cave. I head right—obviously— any other direction is a fucking death trap. It’s dangerous in here, and going left at the entrance can mean death.

  Once I get through the underground maze of red clay, I find our workstation as we left it yesterday.

  As I turn on the massive digger and direct the coordinates to the west side of the site, I think of Matt, the motherfucker that works alongside me here in the mine. He’s my right-hand man, but a fucking barbarian. I wonder how he’s holding up.

  He wanted a wife because he wanted a piece of meat. But isn’t that what I ended up wanting, too? I certainly don’t want to know Nova as a person, and last night I just cut straight to the fucking chase.

  And damn, that chase was so fucking good.

  But I can’t have her again, otherwise, I’m just as bad as Matt—looking for a piece of ass.

  It’s not like Nova and I can actually have a relationship. Sure, she may have said a few things that surprised me: liking history and some shit. Oh, and being a motherfucking virgin.

  But there really isn’t anything else I need to know about her. She showed up on Vitaie in her designer work boots, and top of the line gear. She may be trying to look like a woman who can rough it, but I saw her eyes when she saw the place she’d be living.

  The look of fear.

  So, no one’s here at the mine today, everyone’s off fucking their wives, but here I am turning on the gears getting the drill ready, ready to get to work. Truth is, I’m planning on pouring myself into this job.

  I’m gonna find the Candeo.

  And then I’m gonna convince Farrow to let me out of the contract. Because I can’t be Nova’s husband and also be a Hugh.

  I make a choice.

  I focus. I get to work. Because as badly as I want to run my hands over Nova’s ass, take hold of that curvy body, … as badly as I want to press my mouth to her perfect pussy, there are things I want more.