Flash and Burn: First Five Read online

  Flash and Burn: First Five

  by E.J. Swenson

  Copyright © 2014 by E.J. Swenson

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  1. Alone

  "I've never done this before." She giggles nervously, placing her bag on the floor."I guess everyone says that."

  "It's OK to be nervous. I was nervous, too, when I started looking for women through Craigslist. There are unsavory people out there. I'd be a little frightened, too, if I were a woman." He smiles, a little too broadly, like he's hiding something. His posture is loose and weak, like an old man's, although he appears to be in his thirties. "Let's get something out of the way right now. I'm not going to touch you. I have congenital immune deficiency, which means I have to stay behind this plastic curtain."

  She nods. Her expression is uncertain. "Can't you get a bone marrow transplant or something?"

  He shifts with impatience, and his smile dims by a few watts. Everyone always asks this question "No. My condition is genetic. That means the doctors can't just irradiate all the bad cells and replace them with good ones. My illness is built into all my cells. It's a part of who I am."

  She stands frozen like a statue. Her face is both taut and vacant. She can't think of anything to say, and it bothers her.

  "Don't worry about it. I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I just wanted you to know why my sex life relies so heavily on commercial relationships." He rubs his hands together, and his posture becomes straighter and more confident. "Let's begin, shall we?"

  She nods.

  "Please undress for me."

  She shivers from fear. It has begun. "All the way?"

  "Yes, please."

  She shucks off her coat and unzips her silky red dress, the one it took hours to choose.

  He shakes his head with irritation. "No, no, no. Do it slowly, like you're undressing for a new lover. Someone you want to be vulnerable with, even though the relationship is new and fragile. Someone you want to tease."

  Her cheeks flush. She pulls one long, gym-sculpted arm from the dress and then the next. She lets the filmy fabric slide over her flat midsection. She waits a beat and steps out of the skirt. She is now wearing nothing but a pushup bra and transparent panties.

  He plays with the drawstring of his pants and pulls out his cock; it is fully erect. She finds herself strangely aroused.

  "Very nice. Your breasts look as if you've served them up on a platter just for me. They've done their job. Why don't you set them free?"

  She undoes the back clasp and shrugs off the bra. Her nipples stiffen into hard, brown pebbles.

  "Beautiful," he sighs. "Your areolas are the size of silver dollars. I wish I could take them in my mouth and nibble on those stiff little nips."

  He strokes himself. She shifts her position slightly, noticing an unfamiliar dampness between her legs. I'm only doing this for the money, she tells herself.

  "Take off your panties. Show me that slick, hungry pussy."

  She pushes her thong over hips slowly, as if her boyfriend were watching. He gasps at the sight of her slick, bare mound.

  He takes off his own pants, and then makes a series of quick deft movements with his hands. The plastic curtain falls away.

  Her hand flies to her mouth. "Oh my God, what have you done?"

  His smile is toothy. Wolfish. "We all have to die sometime."

  2. Beach reading

  The night is her day, the moon is her sun, and the asphalt rooftop looking out on the city's lonely, twinkling lights is her beach. She wears a tiny red bikini, and her slim pale body--too pale for both health and fashion--rests on a plastic chaise. She reads something forbidden on the glowing, lozenge-shaped device that has fascinated her for almost a year. Her thick chestnut bangs fall into her eyes, and she sweeps them back with a shake of her head. She's absorbed in her book; she wants to know what happens next.

  A loud thud disrupts her reverie, and she springs up, moving with predatory swiftness towards the noise. She feels rather sheepish when she almost knocks over her new neighbors. They are a matched set of excessively good-looking graduate students--one light and one dark--who live on the ground floor and eye her with wary desire, exactly what they are doing now. In fact, they seem mesmerized by the sight of her long pale body and the tiny strips of crimson cloth obscuring what they probably think of as the good parts.

  She smiles widely and unhooks her bikini top, freeing her tiny, strawberry-shaped breasts. The sight of her blushing nipples, erect in the soft evening breeze, causes both men to inhale sharply. The more confident one--the dark one with shoulder-length hair the color of night and a lean, rangy build--steps forward. That's all the invitation she needs. She pulls him to her and lets his lips and tongue jostle with hers. She deftly unbuttons his shirt and slides it off, tasting his warm, minty breath.

  She's undoing his belt buckle when she feels warm, sure hands around her hips. The other roommate--a cool blond with an obsessively gym-toned body and slightly stiff mannerisms--slides her bikini bottoms over her rump and thighs until they fall to her feet. She steps out of them and leans into him, sighing softly. He moans and reaches his hand around to the mound between her legs. She worries for just a moment about stubble--how long has it been since she shaved?--and then relaxes into pleasure. His manicured fingers part her plump, lower lips and find the juicy berry within.

  As her excitement builds, she teases and nibbles the dark one's lips and pushes his jeans and shorts over his hips, freeing his long, straight cock. The orgasm hits her with sudden, thigh-clenching force, and she cries out, pushing the dark one into his own climax. The smell of his semen as it hits the humid night air awakens something else--something ancient--inside her, and she plunges her teeth into his sweet neck, her fangs piercing his jugular in the same easy way a straw slides into a juice box.

  When she is sated, she releases him, and his lifeless body slides bonelessly to the ground. She turns slowly, her eyes bright with life and her mouth red with gore, and sees the blond staring at her, terror and rapture mingling in the strained contours of his face. She smiles. "So what are you waiting for? We need to move the body."

  3. The druid

  The altar is made of oak. The naked woman bound to it wears a crown of mistletoe. She lies with a stillness that resembles death, drugged into a dangerously torpid sleep. The monk knows his duty. He must open her veins and let the earth drink her blood. It's the only way to save the crops from a summer drought that has lasted since the Equinox. The bronze knife in his hand is pleasantly warm, as if it thirsts for the offering. It feels good in his hand.

  And yet he hesitates. He has never before seen a woman unclothed, and his eyes drink in the sacrifice with a seemingly unslakable thirst. Her hair is a pale, shimmering red that glows in the late afternoon sun, and her fair face is dusted with freckles. Her body is a creamy vessel that tapers and flares. Her breasts are soft, round moons tipped in blood. The cleft between her legs is both confusing and inviting. As a monk dedicated to serving the villages of the valley, he is no stranger to self-denial. His body is strong and lean from hard labor and frequent fasting; it has been conditioned to obey his will.

  He steels himself and raises th
e knife, only to let it drop to his side. Part of his body--the steel rod under his robe--is rebelling against his discipline and the gods of the harvest. It is unpleasantly stiff and insistent, thrusting into the fabric of his robe like a hungry goat. He considers relieving himself--he is required to be celibate but not to suffer--and lets his hand creep slowly inside the rough, folded fabric. He touches himself experimentally, but finds the sensation strangely lacking. He approaches the sacrifice and lets his robe fall open.

  This is weak and unseemly, he thinks, cursing himself. He places the knife against her neck, just as he would do with a tender lamb, and her eyes pop open. They are wide with fear and the same vivid green as the choicest pasture in springtime. "Take me!" she murmurs. He thinks she is a willing sacrifice, that she wants to die for their people. A wave of defiance flows through his body, and he shakes he head. No, I can't let her do that.

  He removes the knife from her neck the same moment she turns her head towards his cock. Her lips are plump and rosy, an echo of the pink softness between her legs that he finds so compelling--and terrifying. He lets himself slip between her lips, and the sensation is like nothing he has ever experienced before. The warmth flooding his member fills his body with a fiery pulse. He is the blazing noonday sun beating down on the countryside, taking its green, young juices into himself. He spurts his greed into her mouth, feeding her stolen life. Her eyes widen, and then she swallows twice.

  His member shrivels and falls from her reddened lips. He feels weak and drained. Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes are bright with hope and wonder. Now he knows why the monks must be celibate. He retrieves his knife; it is time to drain the sacrifice and save the fields.

  4. Open window

  She leaves her window open when she goes to bed. She likes it when the summer breeze tousles her hair and caresses her face. She always sleeps naked. Otherwise she wakes up sweaty and tangled. Her bedroom is dark and quiet, and she lets her eyes flutter shut. Her mind drifts to the melodic trills of night birds and tree frogs. Her boyfriend will be making her a special dinner tomorrow for her twenty-fifth birthday. She imagines his strong hands and slightly beaky nose and smiles.

  A low mechanical sound plays at the edges of her consciousness, like the soft rev of an electric car, but she isn't alarmed. Her neighborhood is small, safe, and perfumed by blossoming trees. She dips under the glassy surface of sleep, dreaming of her boyfriend's hands and how his expert touch can miraculously heal anything from a damaged engine to a shy, retiring clitoris. If only he weren't so worried about damaging me, she thinks.

  The metallic thud of a heavy-booted foot kicking through her window screen rips her out of a groggy half-sleep. The thick, steel-toed boots are attached to a tall, muscular body, and his head is obscured by a dark-colored balaclava. This man could really hurt me, she thinks, and he's on her in seconds. He uses zip ties to secure her writs to her wrought-iron headboard and places a strip of duct tape across her mouth. She reminds herself to breathe through her nose and struggles with futile, floppy motions of a hooked fish. He tears her sheet away and watches her squirm. She is acutely aware of her long, curved legs, the blond wisps at their apex, and her shell-pink nipples. She arches her back as if to display herself more fully, and marvels at her depravity.

  The intruder wastes no time, running his hands all over her as if he's probing for weak spots. He handles her breasts roughly and pinches her nipples. She snorts with a mixture of sharp pain and involuntary desire. All too soon, his hands find her blond wisps. He strokes them gently and then wrenches her thighs apart, inspecting the responsive pink flesh that glistens in the moonlight. He pauses a moment and glances at the wrecked window as if he's deliberating a course of action.

  His deliberations do not last long. He unbuckles his belt and pushes down his pants and boxers just enough to expose a slightly curved cock. With no preliminaries, he climbs onto the bed and straddles her writhing body, pushing her knees back towards her shoulders. She tries to scream, but the noise gets caught in her throat, becoming a vibrato moan. He plunges into her warm, wet depths, and she wonders at her body's capacity for inappropriate response as he takes long, greedy strokes. When she shudders from pleasure torn from her very core, he cannot stop his flood of molten seed. After a moment of rest, he is all business, cutting away the zip ties, putting away his cock, and ghosting out the window.

  He is gone; she is raw and hollow and strangely satisfied. Her legs shake slightly when she rises from the bed and walks slowly to the window. She closes it and returns to bed, smiling and rubbing her wrists. She can't believe her carefully considerate boyfriend actually came through with the best birthday fantasy ever.

  5. The reluctant assassin

  The assassin lurks in the closet. Dim illumination creeps in from the crack under the door, turning the silky suits and velvety robes that surround her into ghosts. Everything that touches his skin must be soft, she observes. The Captor told her nothing of her target except that he lives alone in the Hollywood Hills and has a cobra tattoo encircling his neck."It's supposedly very realistic," he said. And yet that's all she needs to hate him.

  Rich, affected man, she thinks. He probably takes drugs so his mind is as frictionless as his wardrobe. She tells herself that this one is going to die young of an overdose, that it's just a matter of time.

  The bedroom light turns off with an audible click. Finally. She slips on her night vision goggles and waits for her target to stop shifting around in his massive king-sized bed. When she is satisfied by the length and depth of the silence, she removes a surgical instrument from a slim black case. Then she unzips her jumpsuit and steps out of it. She always kills in the nude. It makes the clean up so much easier.

  She pads across the room to the bed. The moon is full and bright, and he didn't close his curtains. She inhales sharply. He is young and shockingly handsome. His eyes are fringed with long lashes, and brown curls frame his innocent face. The arm thrown outside the covers is strong, tan, and sculpted. She should plunge the instrument into his heart--she's been trained, she knows how--but she waits a moment and watches him sleep. At least his last moment will be peaceful, she thinks, as he grabs her wrist.

  "I knew you were coming for me," he whispers. She tries to slash at him with her instrument, but his grip is powerful. Irresistible. He pries her fingers from the weapon and lays it on his nightstand. "My god, you're beautiful," he murmurs, taking in her sleek, muscular form, heavy breasts, and dark, generous areolas. So are you, she thinks, letting her eyes wander from his tender, sculpted face to his taut abdomen.

  He shifts the covers, exposing his thick erection jutting out from a thicket of black curls. "See what you do to me?" His voice is part supplication, part moan. She licks her lips. Inexplicably, she wants him. I've failed, she thinks, what I do doesn't matter anymore. He sees the desire plainly writ on her face and reaches one hand between her legs and explores her secrets folds, gently at first, and then insistently. "So wet," he marvels.

  Shivering with the abandon of the damned, she slides onto him and rides this hard-smooth man with the face of a hungry cherub until pleasurable tension coils deep in her belly. He watches the sway of her breasts, not her hands. When he closes his eyes in ecstasy, she strikes. Her eyes well with tears.

  Blood and semen. Red and white. My husband will live for one more day.

  Should this series continue?

  Should there be a Flash and Burn: Second Five? Or even a Flash and Burn: Second Ten? Send me an email at [email protected] and let me know.

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  Official-sounding bio

  E.J. Swenson is a business journalist by day and a writer of quirky, romantic, and downright dirty stories by night. She writes under a pseudonym because her colleagues and family would be shocked―SHOCK
ED!―to see the dark and twisty places where her imagination likes to roam. When she's not tethered to her computer, she's avidly reading all kinds of genre fiction, baking (and resisting the siren call of excess baked goods), and keeping track of her two small children.

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  E.J. Swenson, Flash and Burn: First Five

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