Chapter 4: Erased?

A time did come, however, when even these threadbare shreds of solace were denied me. On the evening in question, Sharon brought my tray as usual; but her face held more than its customary concern. “Graeme, I know you despise me right now. But you need to listen. Things are going to get even harder, for a while. There’s a ... change in our situation. I won’t be able to stay with you anymore.”

I glanced up at her accusingly—trying to summon anger, but finding only cold despair. “He won’t share you with me any longer?”

“Something like that...”

“I never asked for his cast-offs, you know. Or your pity, either. You can just fuck off, both of you.”

Her eyes were wet. “If it’s any ... I’m not sure he’ll last another three months...”

“Then we’ll die, knowing you whored yourself out for nothing. And I hope you don’t think I’ll forgive you for ‘doing what you had to do’ either.”

She was silent a moment—steeling herself to leave, but unwilling to depart on such acid terms. “Try to be strong, Graeme,” she said at last, “that’s all. I love you.” She set the food beside me on the floor when she left.

I wasn’t strong. Overcome by blackness and self-loathing, I stopped shaving, stopped eating, and hardly even moved. Sharon kept bringing me meals and pressing me to take a few bites. She’d urge me to clean up a little; or come talk with her and Andy for a while, or get started on some new bit of Mars research. Urged me to do anything, in other words, except self-destruct.

But she only ever lingered a minute or two—visibly conscious of the ticking seconds. Then she’d bolt, abandoning me to my solitary fugue again.

A couple of times I crept out, late at night, and gazed at her. At them. My wife slumbered next to Andy now—sprawled together on a single bunk, in a lazy jumble of mingled flesh and tangled limbs. I don’t know why I tortured myself that way. It was like picking at a fresh scab.

And I wish I could say that was the worst I suffered. But what really tore at my guts, more than anything, was the sounds Sharon made while giving herself to that man.

As I mentioned, hearing the two of them rutting wasn’t entirely new. In the past though, Sharon, at least, had striven to keep a lid on it—whether out of consideration for me, or sheer embarrassment. But that was over now. Every time they fucked, my ears were assailed by her panting, her groaning, her giddy shrieks. And it wasn’t just the baying of animal exuberance either. No, she talked to him: telling him what she wanted, lauding his skill and physique, and (most damning to my ego) lavishing praise on his cock.

I don’t think she meant to hurt me. In fact, I’m not even sure she realized her manner had changed. Intellectually, she must have continued to see herself as doing what was necessary, not what she chose. Probably believed she was keeping Andy at some emotional remove, even now. But that was when she was in her rational mind. Once intimate touch and subconscious desire took over, she wavered—falling under the influence of her baser impulses, and driven to suck all the nectar she could from their union.

Yet, how could it have happened? Sharon’s first, reflexive orgasm had been hard enough for me to swallow—how could she have fallen so much further, as to yield herself this entirely, and this freely? While I listened to her fawning words and whimpers through the thin partition of my berth, I obsessed over that question. And knowing her as I did, I could guess the answers.

For one thing, as I’ve said, my wife was a compartmentalizer. Doubtless part of what made such surrender possible for her was the fact that I was out of sight—and therefore, out of mind. She was spending all day with Andy, and not me. He was the man she mated with now, not me. His actions kept her alive, while I skulked in a cupboard. So intuitively, when the clutches of passion took over, it simply wasn’t me she was thinking about anymore.

Add to that, she admitted finding the current situation more bearable than what came before. Her guilt had been assuaged; her physical strains eased; her anxieties soothed by routine. From ‘bearable,’ it wasn’t really such a leap to ‘pleasurable.’ Grown comfortable with what she was doing, and with whom, she naturally became liable to more primal feelings—feelings of excitation and arousal that, in the heat of the act, had the power to overmaster her brain, and come spilling out her mouth. And every time she was transported that way, it became only that much easier, that much more addictive, to give into it again.

So yes, I thought a lot about what was happening, and felt I comprehended it. But comprehension did not bring me peace.

For days on end, I suffered like this. I suffered when they made love (if that’s what it was), and heard my wife moaning her ecstasy and desire aloud. And I suffered other times, too—pondering the what and why of my erasure, and living in dread of their next inevitable coupling.

I didn’t think of killing Andy anymore. Not that I wouldn’t have loved to. But the moment for it had passed. All the original objections still applied. And moreover—to act against the dying man now, after he’d eclipsed me so completely, would only have emphasized my impotence and spite.

Yet eventually, I did reach the point that something snapped in my psyche, and I couldn’t go on this way anymore.

“Harder!” Sharon’s cries carried to me from the main room. “Harder! Ohhh yeahhh. That’s it. Again! Again! Oh Goddddd yeahhhh...” And it was then that the switch flipped in my head. Suddenly, I had an urgent need to face what was happening. I couldn’t hide away from it, couldn’t remain invisible this way, for even one second longer.

When I emerged from my bunk, I saw they were once more going at it on the table. This time, my wife lay atop it, on her back—ruddy nipples straining skyward; legs elevated and flung wide. And standing lodged between those creamy thighs of hers was Andy, railing her out with brutish abandon.

He cradled her calves with his forearms—hands wrapping round and gripping on, as if to pinion her spread-eagled before him. But Sharon had no mind to resist. The ecstatic glow on her face and wild spark in her eyes showed that for the length of this encounter, at least, she’d set all doubt and hesitation aside.

I failed to catch her attention when I crawled out from under my rock. Her glassy, overheated gaze was locked with Andy’s, bound up in some private tete-a-tete. With every ounce of her being, it seemed, she prodded and coaxed him, demanding more of what her instincts craved. “Faster,” she snarled. “Harder! Use that cock of yours Andy. Fuck me like you mean it!”

The man responded—elevating his already brisk pace; banging up against her haunches with sharp, rapid-fire lunges. Her flattened teats traced big, obscene circles on her chest, keeping time with the cadence of his thrusts. She closed her eyes and draped her head back so that her hair hung down over the edge of the table. “Yeah, that’s it. Fuck me like that Andy. God yeah, Andy: fuck me!”

Spellbound, horrorstruck, I edged closer to peer over the engineer’s shoulder, barely aware of what I was doing. Sharon’s clean-shaved gash was unfurled to him, like a rose in the final, ripening stages of bloom—thick, ruddy labia gaping lazily apart, so the delicate folds within splayed out in gaudy fashion. She had a convulsive hand thrust toward her mound, two graceful fingers teasing her clitoris with light, frenetic strokes. And brushing up against the tips of those fingers—penetrating her feminine flower and laying claim to its generative potential—was Andy’s grotesque, meaty, ruby-red shaft.

Sharon was flushed all over, fingers flicking madly over her fat, pliant nub. And in between the suck and thrust of penis, I saw lustrous white fluid pooling on the table beneath her ass. Fuck—Andy had already come inside my wife; yet, remained as erect and engorged as ever. And double-fuck—if he’d already come, then this was entirely for her benefit!

She was panting like a schoolgirl by this point, high-pitched and flirtatious. “Yes, Andy, Yesss, Andy ... Oh, stick it in me deep, Andy. Deep...!” He obliged by slamming into her hard, sending her thighs rippling. Then, holding himself there and going up on toes for purchase, he ground his pelvis into her crotch—his pubic hair smashing up against her clit, while her slender digits remained sandwiched between the two. “Ahhhh,” she breathed, voice airy and quavering with delight. “Ahh ... ahh ... ahhhhh ... Oh God Andy...”

Then she was gone. For the second time, I watched while the rapist brought my wife to orgasm. And this time I couldn’t tell myself it was just a function of her weakened faculties and clamoring nerve impulses either. Whatever her mindset may have been before or after, right then, in that moment, Sharon was fully there, and she wanted it. Mewling and moaning, she thrashed on the tabletop. Her hips bucked uncontrollably, massaging her vagina against his pole; and with her free hand, she clutched one breast, kneading it roughly with fingers and palm.

The climax stretched on, seeming never to end, and I felt dead inside. The euphoric frenzy of it made her frame shudder, her back flex, her toes curl. And the longer it went, the more obvious it was that I’d never given Sharon a release like that. Thinking back on it later, I couldn’t help wondering what caused it. Was it his length and girth? The way he moved inside her? The indecency of the circumstances? Or something else entirely...

Eventually, of course, her convulsions did begin to subside, and she coasted gradually toward a relaxed, deep-breathing stillness. Andy remained as stiff as ever; and seeing her coming off her high, he began to thrust again—firmly and steadily, but with less force and rapidity than before. She seemed to enjoy it, and lay quiet for a long while, eyes still squeezed shut, and lips curving in an enigmatic smile.

At last, when she was ready to return to the world, she opened her lids and glanced up at the engineer with a gratified expression. “Andy, that was—Ohhhh FUCK!” The abrupt change in Sharon’s face as she caught sight of me hovering there was remarkable. Her eyes went wide, her mouth dropped into a startled ‘o,’ and her post-coital blush morphed into a blotchy beet-red.

For a few frantic moments, she floundered and squirmed like a beetle flipped on its back—seeking to extract herself from the man’s penis and lever herself upright. But he held her ankles firmly, and never once broke tempo as he went on penetrating her. After a bit she gave up. “Graeme,” she gulped, “it’s not what you ... Andy, stop!”

“Naw babe, I’m almost there,” he groaned.

“Again? So soon?” she gasped.

“Why not,” he gloated, “gotta keep you topped up ... Yeah that’s it ... that’s it ... fuck yeah...” Tossing his head back, he let loose with an alpha-male growl of dominance and pleasure. And even as he continued to spear her, I saw his glutes contract, his balls tremor, and his shaft pulsate—and knew that once again, the bastard was flooding Sharon with his seed.

He kept on ejaculating for some time, accenting each throbbing jet of semen by ramming up hard against her ass. And as her defilement spun out, Sharon’s eyes remained on me, trying to gauge my reaction. I saw my own misery and disgust reflected in her gaze. Silently, I asked—how could she just lie there and allow him to pump her full of sperm? But she had no answer to give.

Finally Andy had finished with her, and pulled his cock out—leaving her pussy swollen, and cunt yawning wide. My wife rose as soon as she was free, causing fresh, runny dollops of cum to spill from her tract and trace down her legs. She beckoned toward me, reaching out a hand, but I shied away. Rebuffed, she directed a scowl at Andy. “Why’d you have to do that?”

He chuckled. “Well, I’ve been wanting him to watch us for a while, but you kept saying no. Now that he’s here, I didn’t want him to miss seeing me come inside you. After all—what we’re doing affects him too, doesn’t it?”

“Just shut up Andy.” Then she turned back to me, her gaze becoming misty. “I’m sorry, Graeme ... You shouldn’t have ... I didn’t want you to see...”

I couldn’t take any more. Cowering pathetically, I gathered up my pressure suit and retreated to the airlock—closing the inner door, so it would lie between them and me while I pulled on my gear.

After that, I tried to avoid them both entirely. Andy hardly ever did EVAs anymore, and by rotating between his suit and mine, I could stay out nearly 20 hours a day. I subsisted on cold survival rations that I could gnaw in the airlock; and waited until I was sure they were sacked out before slinking inside for a few hours’ sleep.

And somehow, I went on that way for weeks. I don’t know why I didn’t just kill myself. Maybe I simply lacked the strength.

Then one day, wandering aimlessly as far from the Hab as the rover’s batteries would take me, I saw a cloud of dust on the horizon. While I watched, a black dot hove into view, and gradually resolved into the hauler. Eventually, after long minutes, it pulled up to me, with Andy in the driver’s seat.

He dismounted and shambled over. I assumed he’d come to finish me off—tired of sharing my wife with even the dwindling shadow of me. I didn’t intend to fight him. It’d be a relief just to end this torture, once and for all.

Strolling close, he motioned for us to touch helmets so we could talk.

“Where are you off to?” I asked lamely.

“West,” he said. “But first I wanted to see you. Followed your tracks.”

“So—here I am.”

“Yeah ... look, Graeme, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I’ve been a fucking asshole to you for fucking months now. I guess it’s this thing in my head, I don’t know. But I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you, Andy.”

“It’s ok, I don’t need your forgiveness. Only—don’t take it out on Sharon, you know? This was all me. She was just doing what she had to.” Even through my faceplate he could see me roll my eyes. “Ok, like ... did I get her off? Of course I did. You’ve seen my cock. But she didn’t ask for all this. She didn’t want it. That’s the truth, and I’m man enough to admit it. You’re the one she loves ... Which makes fuck-all sense to me, if I’m being honest—but that’s how it is.”

“Very persuasive.”

“Just think about it, that’s all. Ask yourself: are you really going to let me keep taking what’s yours, even after I’m gone? If I were you, I wouldn’t.”

“When I need the advice of a rapist and murderer, I’ll let you know.”

He didn’t seem to mind the rape charge, but the mention of homicide deflated him. “Shit. Yeah, like I said, I’ve been an asshole; and people died because of it. But honestly, I didn’t set out to kill ‘em. It was an accident.”

“Spoken like every murderer ever.”

“Fuck you. You weren’t there. If Cho hadn’t frozen me out, it never would have happened. See, things were all share-and-share-alike when we started in the capsule. Cho was splitting her bunk-time between me and Foster, you know? And that was cool. Kept us all happy and on-task. You two never threw Glover any bones?”

I shook my head in a terse ‘no,’ and he shrugged.

“Poor guy. Well, for a while all of us were getting some. But then, after we’d been on-planet a few months, Cho and Foster got serious and paired off. That didn’t bother me. Good for them, right? I’d already had her, you know—and like I said before, I always knew I might be signing up for a dry patch here. Figured to earn back all that missed cunt with interest on the back-end. But then I got cancer, and started leaning on Cho, saying she oughta show some compassion for a dying man. She told Foster, and he and I got into it, while we were doing an EVA. I only meant to scare him, intimidate him, but I managed to crack his helmet and he choked out before I could do anything.”