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CHAPTER TEN--GRAVESTOWN
"What the hell is that?" S'Leah raised a hand to shield her eyes from the harsh sun. The movement lifted her breasts and Duster eyed them appreciatively She'd made it clear she wasn't interested, but if she was going to sit up here beside him with her tits in the breeze, he was going to look at them whenever he damn well wanted. It was odd—his ponies had theirs out and bouncing around all the time, but watching them didn't do anything for him. He guessed it must be because they were ponies and didn't have any choice in the matter.
"That's Gravestown."
S'Leah studied the row of dark forms stretching across nearly the whole horizon. She couldn't tell what she was looking at because the heat mirage turned everything in the distance to boiling soup.
She'd spent the whole first day in the coach, sleeping, planning, and pleasuring herself. They'd overnighted under a massive overhang, and Duster built a fire to keep the team warm. Out in the desert he kept them in their leathyrs but unhitched them—there was nowhere for them to wander off to. The sight of the team huddled together on the ground against the cool air brought forth a torrent of memories of her life in the royal stables. As difficult as she'd been there'd still been many nights when she slept with the other mounts. The musk of leathyr, rubber, and cocoa butter lotion filled her nostrils as they lay side by side in their armbinders and ballgags in the royal stables. As high-performance mounts heavily doped with hormones and bred for speed, there was hardly a night when the Royal ponies didn't fall asleep after hours of grinding against each other's thighs. During the day they ridiculed it, but at night the other mounts appreciated S'Leah's veiny organ. Its head, of course, was ringed to the underside of her scrotum, but her stablemates could still effectively rub themselves against its hard curved length, bringing themselves and her off. Shins, knees, buttocks and toes were also popular grinding surfaces—pretty much anything they could wrap their thighs around. None of the trainers made an issue about her seed, so S'Leah assumed she was sterile.
Duster shot a large hare with the coach gun and cooked it on a spit over the fire. He fed his team by hand as they knelt in a semicircle around the blaze. S'Leah sat on a rock and watched the whole thing, eating her meat, her face expressionless. The rabbit was tasty, but her appetite was soured by having to watch him finger feed the morsels to the mounts. They ate PonyMix too, and drank a lot of water before lying down together. For an hour they'd been nothing but an undulating pile of flesh. Duster had waded in, and in gratitude for the tasty rabbit flesh, and perhaps to expend the energy they all had after a relatively easy run on what had turned out to be an unseasonably cool day, the ponies had buried him with their writhing bodies. S'Leah had slept in a ballgag all her days as a pony, but Duster only bitted his ponies when they were in harness. His ponies seemed to prefer tonguing each other to grinding, and the overhang echoed with the sounds of their pleasure.
S'Leah had quickly retreated into the coach, telling herself she was disgusted, even though the tightness of her pants said it was more than just disgust she was feeling. She'd only decided to ride with Duster the next morning because the coach was making her claustrophobic.
They were several hours past the noon water stop when she'd spotted the dark line on the horizon. As the ponies jogged the line turned into a giant ragged fence, stretching from the edge of the road in front of them to the east for at least a mile, until the mirage melted the sky and earth into a molten sliver shimmer.
When the coach was a mile out the jumbled forms finally resolved themselves into row after row of huge airplanes. She'd seen pictures of them in history books, but hadn't realized they were so big. There were too many to count, crouching in the dirt like a huge swarm of rusting locusts.
"Airplane graveyard," Duster told her. "And heliochoppers, big mechanical wagons, and a bunch of other things I don't know the names of." He cursed at the hot sun and wiped at the sweat trickling down his nose. She still wore her rubber top and leathyr pants, but he was damned if he could see one hint of sweat on her. Hell, even his mounts were sweating, and it hadn't been that long since their last water break.
"People live here?"
He nodded. "They search the graveyard for salvage, which they sell for supplies, food. I take their finds to a dealer in Greenwood, he gives me money, and I buy what I can from their shopping list at the mercantile."
S'Leah could hardly think of a life more depressing. Living in a graveyard of lifeless, rusting steel, picking the carcasses for crumbs, surrounded by a sea of barren rolling hills.
"Why don't they do it themselves?" she asked him. It would give them an excuse to get the hell out of this desolate place , she thought, if only for a few days .
"Do the trading?" He shrugged. "They could, but they like keeping to themselves. That's why they're here, in the middle of nowhere. Most of 'em haven't had much luck fitting in most places. They wandered in one at a time and decided to stay."
They kept rolling closer and closer, and the line of machinery just extended alongside the road as far as she could see.
"How much land does this cover?" she asked in wonder.
"Miles," Duster told her. "Their . . . meeting place is near the midpoint. Once we past the first hulk we've got another mile and a half."
A short while later they passed the first dessicated plane fuselage, lying on its side near the road. Most of the other planes were in better shape and lined the right side of the road. Some still perched on landing gear that hadn't collapsed.
S'Leah stared at the corroded hulks, surprised at their complexity. The rows were evenly spaced and stretched away from the road as far as she could see. There was no sign of human life anywhere.
"We're staying here for the rest of the day?" she said, pulling on her grey jacket. The rough cotton against her nipples made her wince.
Duster shot a small smile her way. "Trust me, it's more inviting than it looks." The ponies had increased their pace as soon as they'd caught sight of the row of planes. They were always happy to end a run, but for some reason they seemed to like Gravestown more than most of their stops. He tugged on the reins, slowing them to a fast walk, so they wouldn't cramp up when they stopped.
A break in the endless line of dead machines appeared before them. In a gap big enough to park several planes a handful of buildings had been thrown together. They appeared to be made of salvaged parts, bolted or welded together to form small misshapen huts.
"Stables, water tanks, refuse pit," Duster said. "They actually live in the field, in and amongst the planes."
As the team slowly clip-clopped toward the cluster of buildings S'Leah looked around. Still no sign of people.
"They'll most likely be out in the fields, scrounging parts," he said to her unanswered question. "But there's bound to be someone around, they know I'm coming."
Duster halted the team alongside the largest of the conglomerated buildings, a two-story boxy steel structure. A wide metal door had been rolled open on the south side of the building, the shaded side. The inside was pitch blackness.
"Hello there!" Dusty boomed, his voice fading away flatly into the distance. "Stagecoach! Supplies!" He stood up and slowly climbed down off the coach on stiff legs. S'Leah heard a clank and a silhouette appeared in the doorway.
"Dusty, you goat, what the hell you yellin fer?" The woman stepped into the light and squinted at him. "You know we're never more'n a toss away."
The drawl was a bit unexpected, as was her appearance. S'Leah had been expecting miners, or their equivalent. This woman was in her twenties, had long blonde hair tied into a ponytail which was pulled through the hole in the back of her billed navy blue ball cap. She wore stained dark blue coveralls, and from the way they hung on her she had to be rather thin. Her tiny hands confirmed S'Leah's suspicions that she was smallboned and skinny. The woman had an attractive face, lightly tanned with strong cheekbones, which looked totally out of place above the dirty and stained coveralls. A nametag on the left side of her chest read MIA. Mia had a wide black smudge on her jaw. She was, oddly enough, barefooted.
"Got someone wit ya this time, I see," she said.
"Heading to Ironheart," Duster said. "She's, uh . . ." he waved a vague hand at S'Leah. "Hell, I don't know who she is."
"S'Leah," she introduced herself.
Mia smiled and nodded, stuffing her hands in the front pockets of her coveralls. "Pleased to meet ya," she said.
S'Leah almost jumped back as a huge shape glided from the doorway. Mia looked down and absently patted the Great Dane's head. Its shoulders came up to her hips. It blinked slowly, having just awakened form its midday nap. The dog spotted S'Leah and came toward her. She tried not to look nervous as the big dog approached, but all it did was bury its nose in her crotch.
"Were you able to get everything on the list?" The question came from the doorway, and another woman stepped into view. This one was middleaged, with a creased, tanned face and a warm smile. Her stocky body was shapely, but thirty pounds the far side of voluptuous, and her light blue coveralls strained at the seams. Her cleavage was, in a word, abundant. Her black hair was brushcut and peppered with grey, and she wore a silver ring through each earlobe.
"All but the toggle bolts. What, not even a hello, how do you do?" Duster said, feigning hurt feelings.
"Awww, you poor baby," the woman said. She moved quickly to Duster, cupped his chin in both hands, and planted a wet kiss on his lips with an exaggerated smack. "Feel better now?"
Duster smiled. "Only if you're going to help me unload this wagon."
A second dog emerged from the shadows, this one a Doberman Pinscher. Only the short-haired breeds had survived the germ years, S'Leah knew, and the bigger they were the better they'd done. The Doberman came directly over to S'Leah and pushed its nose into her crotch, snuffling hard.
"Just push them away, they won't bite," the older woman told he, nudging the dog's muzzle. She looked around for the Great Dane and saw it was in amongst the ponies. It had pushed its nose between one of the mounts' legs and was busy licking her with his wide tongue. The pony was quivering with delight and had widened her stance and cocked her hips to give the dog better access.
"Dusty," the woman said, and jerked her head at the dog. "Should I grab him?"
Dusty gave it just a second of thought. "Aw, let 'em have their fun," he said. The mount was grunting against her bit and pushing her hips into the dog's snout. The dog licked and licked and licked like a mindless automaton. She would've been on the balls of her feet if the hoofboots hadn't forced it of her anyway. The Doberman left S'Leah and wandered toward the ponies. A few of them saw it and turned as well as they could in their harnesses and spread their legs invitingly.
"I'm Gwenda," the woman said, extending her hand. S'leah took it and gave her name.
"We don't have much, but we've got a coldwater well and some shade," Gwenda told her jovially. "After sundown we're gonna start a fire or three and have us a barbeque. You're welcome to join us."
"Those rabbits doin fine?" Duster asked, loosing the ties that kept the supplies from shifting on the coach's roof.
"Hell, we catch 'em quicker'n we kin raise 'em," Gwenda said.
"Am I gonna get any help up here or what?" Dusty demanded.
"Keep yourself cool," she chided him. "Georgie!" Gwenda called out. "Georgieee!"
S'Leah heard mumbling and another person emerged from the shed. He was a hulking brute, and walked uncertainly, like he'd just learned how. His forehead bulged oddly, and his tongue was far too big for his mouth. He looked around, with a gaze so vacant S'Leah wasn't sure he even saw her. He wore stained coveralls too short in the arms and legs, and smelled like he hadn't taken them off to wash in weeks.
Georgie mumbled to himself, the sounds garbled and unintelligible, and looked around slowly until he spotted Gwenda. She pointed to the top of the stagecoach.
"Supplies, Georgie!" she said. "Grabby grab. Help grabby grab."
He gave a forceful grunt, said three nonsense syllables that barely made it past his tongue, and walked toward the coach. S'Leah got out of the way as Dusty began tossing down forty pound bags of fertilizer and flour. Georgie caught them like they were feathers.
Mia walked into view around the back of the building. S'Leah hadn't noticed her leave, but while she'd been gone she'd changed her clothes. The longsleeve blue coveralls had been replaced by grey bib overall shorts, but she'd kept the billed cap and still hadn't put on any shoes. She approached the group, hands buried in her front pockets, looking bored.
Her legs were far too skinny for S'Leah's taste. They looked like twigs coming out of the shorts, but she realized her perception of what skinny legs were was forever skewed by her time around ponies. Mia had apparently nothing on under the canvas overalls. The bob front covered her breasts, barely, but the openings on the sides went down to her hipbones. Her breasts were mere swellings on her chest, her ribs prominent.
"Mia, this is S'Leah," Gwenda said. Mia put out her hand.
"We've met," S'Leah said, looking at the hand.
"No no, that was Mia ," Gwenda told her. "This is Nia ."
"Oh," S'Leah said with a bit of confusion, but shook her hand anyway. Twins, she supposed, although physically she couldn't detect any difference. Identicals?
"We've got running water in here," Gwenda said to S'Leah. "Let me show you, maybe you'll want to clean up while they're unloading and taking care of the team."
The Doberman wandered over to Nia and stuck his snout inside the loose pantleg of her overall shorts. Wet snuffling sounds came from inside Nia's overalls. S'Leah stared at the dog and Nia with the bored expression on her face as she followed Gwenda into the building.
The combination stable, supply closet, and maintenance shed was dark and surprisingly cool. Gwenda led S'Leah to an alcove across from a ponywashing stall. A stained sink was set into a scored wooden counter. Gwenda pointed out the chunk of soap and found a small hand towel for S'Leah that was stained but clean.
"Yer welcome to wander around," Gwenda told her. She slid shut the chest-high door that separated the sink area from the rest of the building and leaned her elbows on it. "Not much going on now. Once it cools down we all migrate toward the center of the graveyard. We got some cooking pits out there, and tonight we're going to have some rabbit and lizard. Someone'll show you the way, the field's pretty big."
"That's very kind of you," S'Leah said. "I wasn't expecting to get fed. How much do I owe you?"
"Now don't insult me by offering to pay for what's just common courtesy," Gwenda scolded her. She watched as S'Leah took off her jacket and beat it to remove some of the embedded dust.
"Well, you're surprisingly well equipped," Gwenda remarked, apropos of nothing. When S'Leah gave her a strange look Gwenda smiled and straightened up.
"I'll leave you alone to wash up," she said brightly. "Hope you've got a good appetite." Gwenda strolled off with a wave.
S'Leah undressed and scrubbed herself down with the small towel. The soap was harsh and the water trickled from the rusty faucet, but it still felt wonderful to scrub the road dirt from her pores. S'Leah rinsed off her rubber titshirt and slid it back on still wet. She used the towel to wipe her leathyr pants off inside and out before putting those back on too. She wore no underwear, never having gotten used to it after so many years as a pony. Just getting used to the feel of outerwear, pants and shirts, had taken her months.
As she was finishing up Dusty led his team in. He hosed them off two at a time before locking them into a plain cement-floored room at the back of the building where they would sleep. By the time he'd finished with the team the sun was sinking toward the horizon and the oppressive heat had slackened somewhat. After spreading out a few ratty blankets to protect his ponies from the concrete, which could get very cold at night, Dusty found S'Leah leaning against the open door, staring out at the dessicated airplane hulks.
"Well, the team's all set," he said, making conversation. She glanced at him and he made a point of looking at her face, instead of at her chest. She still wore her rubber titshirt, and had foregone the jacket.
"How many people live here?" she asked him. He could just make out a few figures in the distance, moving among the planes, as tiny as ants.
"I don't know, thirty or forty," he said.
"How many men?"
"Oh, just Georgie, and maybe two more like him," Dusty told her. "No real men."
"Then why'd you lock your mounts up?" she asked him. One of the distant figures was heading their way, walking slowly.
"The dogs," he told her. "There's dozens of 'em wandering around here. I don't want them humping my mares, they won't run well."
That explanation didn't ring particularly true to S'Leah. He didn't seem too worried the night before when he'd been the one humping his ponies. Jealousy, maybe? Well, they were his ponies.
The figure grew close enough for S'Leah to see it was a woman, a brunette, with an awkward gait. The reason for her lopsided walk grew apparent as she drew close—her belly was distended with child.
"Hello, Dusty," she called out between pants. She wore a light yellow dress that billowed around her slender legs. Her belly was very large. S'Leah guessed she was due anytime. The woman's breasts strained the buttons running down the front of the dress. It look like they'd doubled in size since she'd bought the dress.
"Hi there Miri."
Her breath was ragged and she was sweating profusely. "I need some water," she said, then looked at S'Leah. "Hitchin a ride with this ne'er do well?" she asked.
S'Leah smiled and nodded and introduced herself. Miri had a wide pretty face, with light brown hair cut short and feathered around the edges. She didn't seem to have on anything under the dress and still she was sweating heavily. Technically she should have been at a birthing center, or under the personal attention of one of the territory's roaming midwives, but S'Leah knew how problematic that could be. She couldn't imagine what it was like, being pregnant. Miri's belly led the way wherever she went, huge and alien to S'Leah's eyes. Pregnant women weren't common sight; she couldn't remember how long it'd been since she'd seen one.
Miri headed into the building and S'Leah was left alone with Dusty again. "Well, I think I'm going to head in," he said. "They tell you how to get there?" he asked her.
"No, not really."
"Just head down this row here," he pointed between two planes. "When you get to the big red plane on the right, turn left, go three rows, turn right, and you'll run into the clearing. Easy to find." He pushed off from the doorway and started walking across the dusty ground.
Gwenda had said to start heading toward the cooking pits at sundown, but S'Leah didn't want to try navigating through the creepy phantom-like husks after dark. She headed back inside to grab her bag and found Miri nude in the washing stall, hosing herself off. S'Leah couldn't help but stare at her distended belly. She'd never seen a pregnant woman nude before. Miri's breasts were swollen to an enviable firmness and her big palm-sized nipples were a dark brownish-red. Suddenly she noticed Miri was watching her.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to stare," S'Leah said, averting her eyes and spinning away to find her bag.
"That's okay, I'm used to it. That's the only good thing about this belly, it gets me attention." Miri's sex was swollen and distended, its lips dark and hanging down several inches. S'Leah didn't know if this was because she was pregnant, fro the weight of her belly above, or….she tore her eyes away again and found her bag.
"Nice to meet you," she muttered, and hurried away.
Miri smiled and closed her eyes as the cool water trickled over her hot body. She rinsed the dirt and grime out of her hair, then shut off the water and waited to drip dry.
Dusty had locked up the ponies in their stall again, she saw. Didn't want the dogs in with his mounts. Too jealous. Nice man, but not the smartest guy around. She put her eye to the crack in the door and saw the outline of the dog door in the outside wall of the stall. It sounded like there were at least three dogs in there already with the team, although she could only see the tip of one wildly gyrating tail. The dogs would be in and out of there all night, and gone for good before Dusty ever got the pen unlocked in the morning, none the wiser. As usual.
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