The red-boots girl circles the 180-Dock, prances over fuel and vomit spills.
Your shore-girl — ‘cos pilots know civvies won’t ever get it. Your machine does, but you can’t fuck the machine — least per new regulations, and field-issue tech. So you take the closet thing; their warm, cock-waving, hole-haver flesh-hearts, and settle for that.
And civvies are soft, and weak, and… even over the smoke and oil she smells good.
You’re still in the combat-romper, short-short at the shoulder and thighs — mount-points for the gun show; her hands run on its centre-torso, over coolant hose that weaves into spooled intestine. No point in extra effort — ‘cos it’s never real with a civvie.
And she’ll just want a knight, in oil-stained armour, to strut her into the fanciest do on the station’s promenade and let her pouted lips sip on 200u cocktails — as if she’s bored.
“Who’s it now?” you ask, as if you’ll take her back when you’re on a merc’s pension.
“Repairman, see ‘em on C12-Deck on commute sometimes,” she says, matter-of-fact and eye-fucks the silverwear set worth more than rent. “Bigger than you, gets more scars from vending machines than you do yours—” There’s a pleased purr to the peg-lower. “—Waitress at Amputel — shit-hole dive on 270-Dock. Small like me, locs down to the ass. Think I could tangle up in her till neither of us can get free. And the—”
She runs on — down till you’ve hit the C-Deck Airlock — each ‘rival’ is hotter and richer than the last. They got fake at some point; maybe when they got better than you — but that’s near enough all of them.
Like she’s not worse.
“Do I have to remind,” you snarl at your H-Deck sump-rat — who owes dinner, boots, and half-rent to daddy. Owes you. “Why you’re supposed to wait for me?”
She stares past, at a passerby that looks you up-and-down, then her. You squeeze her hip, tight, as if to screw suspender bolts into your machine’s lower-torso.
She squeals sweeter than it does, “I did.”
The civvie gets a smile, different ones from both of you. You hover, interposed, till they’ve decided she’s yours, and crossed the lock in the opposite direction, then lift her up and onwards.
She’ll never get as high as the machine can; isn’t as good, “So where’s my gratitude?”
Lance-mates bark over your shoulder when your phone pings; confiscate it, and howl at her nudes and the closet moon while one falsettos out her texts in-between leering asks.
Shore-girl likes to be sweet, doesn’t it?
You like it?
Lance Sirocco’s got a new girl.
How fuckin’ tight is it?
Should ask her out. She’s real.
How’d you make it do that?
“I’ve paid enough for this ass,” you tell both, breathing on her tits as they stutter with her till she’s backed into her door. “Did all the fuckin’ work. I know-you-know you owe it to me.”
You stare at the cabochon that crowns her wreathed neck, at its reflection.
“Come on then — jockie-girl,” she bites. “Claim it.”
So your hand slides down, lifts her till she’s braced on the door and wrapped around you. Her fat oozes under the red velvet crop-top, like guts spilled from the pile-driven centre-torso of that dumb kid who should’ve ejected into the now-pink snow.
And she’s soft, and weak… when you press your lips to hers.
“And apologise,” she mutters into your mouth, and reaches for the door control. “You make me wait far too—” Zhweep. You fall into her quarters — on top of her, “Owww.”
It still wouldn’t hurt if she wasn’t soft, but it’s nice.
Your faint smile is target-locked, and she giggles; has to break character at last, and her roommate shadows the doorframe, “Ol’ Candlish called me, worried sick. Said you’d been accosted by a nair-do-well.”
She snorts, “Hey.” And rolls you over, ass-to-the-carpet. It’s not soft.
“So have I met your fabled pilot-girlfriend at last?” her roommate teases, it doesn’t seem to hurt. “Ya know, the one you can’t seem to shut up about?” Though there’s a bloom in her cheeks, the same colour as her top.
“Yes,” you cut in, in giggles too, before she says 'no.' An engineer would rip that soundbite outta the CCTV and make it loop in your machine on boot-up. You’d choke them out for it.
Get reprimanded.
Do it again.
“Guess I’m gonna go see Belle,” her roommate responds. “I heard she’s got the Core League footie on video. Ta-ta!”
It takes one hand to haul your girlfriend up.
She nestles in close, looks down; feels soft, and real. It’s nice to have someone to ground you, 'cos the machine won’t; to ground into the pillows, tell her what each new scar earned to spend on her. So she can be weak; herself. So the machine doesn’t take it all.
She reels back, still looking down — at the romper you’ve worn all night.
“Is that your strap under there!?”