Chapter One: Sullen Skies — Part 1

“This day is awesome.” ChoCho says, lying on his back, staring into the sky.

The crystal blue seems to lay over them like a ceramic bowl. The ground is a parched, ruddy mixture of dry clay and barren stone, contrasting the sky both in texture and hue. Above and below are separated by sage blue leaves on nearby bushes that surround the young lovers on all sides. ChoCho helped clear out the picnic dishes nearly half an hour ago, and is finishing up with cleaning while Jynx lies on her belly, staring at the dragonflies as they hover in the wind. She is older than ChoCho by nearly three years, and taller than him even without her patent thick-heeled jump boots. Her calves are muscular, their thickness only slightly enhanced by black and white striped stockings that come just short of her knees.

Not bothering to adjust her short black and red plaid kilt, Jynx sits up slowly. The inflatable mattress is remarkably quiet in response, its fragile underside shielded from the harsh earth and sharp stones by a stiff reed mat. She pulls a comfortable calico quilt stuffed with polyester batting around her shoulders, offering half of it to ChoCho. The boy settles in next to her, allowing a smile to play across his face. Jynx lets her fingers wander, and ChoCho is, if only momentarily, distracted from the evening sky. In short pace, the pure, passionate blue of the sky turns silver and gray, and Jynx pulls the blanket over both of them, pushing ChoCho onto his back with enough force that the mattress responds with an audible thump. ChoCho suddenly feels the evening chill he had been ignoring moments before. The shiver he tries to suppress cannot be blamed entirely on the unexpected cold, however, as he is nervous about the control Jynx suddenly has over him.

“Jynx.” ChoCho starts to say something serious but her index finger stops him from talking, pressed gently against his quivering lips.

“Promise me we’ll work through the awkward shit.” Jynx says, her voice raspy and deep. “Promise me we’ll always be able to hold hands.” She lets her finger drop from his lips to his chest, tracing the contrast of his chin and throat with her black painted nail, moving slowly down across his belly button, resting on the clasp of his belt.

“I promise.” ChoCho says, as easily as he says goodbye to his parents.

Jynx undoes ChoCho’s side buttons, pulling back his heavy black canvas skirt from the left ankle, working it free all the way up to his hip. The skirt is cut into three zippered sections, breaking halfway above the knee, just below the knee, and ending at the ankle. Kissing her way up his hairless leg while her fingers work quickly to bare his flesh, desire causes her fingers to shake. Trembling, ChoCho keeps his eyes on the sky, the sun falling out of view. The stars begin to flicker as a chill sweeps up between ChoCho’s legs, replaced by the sudden and unexpected warmth emanating from Jynx’s cheeks and lips. The skyline pulses as Jynx sucks firm passion into his young frame. She puts her fingers just at the edge of his penis and pulls firmly against the edge of doubled over flesh. He feels suddenly taught as Jynx fully exposes soft pink flesh with almost the same passion she had put to opening his skirt just moments before. She looks up at his face with a yearning in her eyes before dropping back down to finish what she started. ChoCho is leaning on his elbows, and he pulls a hand up to stroke her neck even as she pulls something from her shirt pocket, tearing the square package open over his chest so he can see what she is up to.

Jynx brings the package back down and out of sight. Using her tongue and lips, she slips a condom into place, causing ChoCho to moan unexpectedly. Digging her fingernails into his lower back, she kisses the inside of his legs, then moves slowly upward, pausing only a moment to unbutton his shirt before working toward his throat and lips. Slipping her black lace panties free of one leg, Jynx lets them hang on one ankle, pushing her body against his. Pulling her short skirt up to her belly, Jynx is now looking down onto ChoCho’s face. He stares into her eyes with fresh yearning. She slides onto his hips, bringing him slowly upright and into her arms as she takes him inside, grinding against him with fast, urgent passion. ChoCho exhales in surprise, his eyes dilating as lust and confusion overwhelm him. Jynx sets the pace, taking her pleasure in slowly building spurts of rhythm. She has the power to keep him yearning for his first release with another until steady waves of orgasm drench her entire being in sweat and exhaustion.

The pace becomes unexpected, fast, uncontrolled. The vibration is phenomenal, but nothing like Jynx has felt with others. Jynx thinks ChoCho is the cause, ChoCho suspects his body is betraying him. Both of them let out a simultaneous and involuntary moan. Jynx’s fingernails bite ChoCho’s skin, leaving telltale trails of blood in their wake. The vibration intensifies, and Jynx feels ChoCho stiffen and exhale. Her entire body pulses with what feel like a hundred tiny orgasms, and she catches her breath unexpectedly.

“Slow down, honey, we’ve got all night. I want you to come when the darkness swallows my face, when I can become anything to you.” Jynx says this even as fresh spasms of ecstasy overtake her.

She always says things like that, having been born into a Latino culture while becoming a student of the Gothic subculture. When she says Gothic it sounds like ‘goat-thick,’ partly because of a very slight accent given to her by her parents, but also because Shakespeare would have said the word in a similar fashion. Both her dominant culture and the powerful subculture have somehow blended into her like hot candle wax of two different colors bleeding together, solidifying into a shape and form that is both desperate and inseparable. Jynx doesn’t think of these things consciously, and in fact the cultural byways of her personality are the last things on her mind as ChoCho tightens his grip on her body. She kisses his lips gently, the edges of her face already close to fading as the sun slips behind the horizon. The rapid, almost violent pulsation begins to build, and Jynx feels herself start to lose control. She squeals unexpectedly, and then moans longingly.

The vibration intensifies for several seconds more, and then stops, inhumanly fast, even as ChoCho feels something he has never felt while embracing another. ChoCho feels as if his entire body is exploding, coming so hard that his eyes seal tightly shut against the world, his forehead dropping to her shoulder. The two are intermingled as one, their hearts beating fast staccato against each other’s rib bones. Each is so impassioned that neither of them notices the 2007 Dodge Ram 3500, known affectionately as The Girl, dancing in the aftermath of an earthquake. The Girl, a lurking four wheel drive monster with a quad cab, Laramie Chassis, and a 6.7 liter Cummins Diesel engine, settles after a few minutes, and ChoCho thinks the entire shake and shuffle of ground must be his imagination.

Twenty minutes pass like raindrops, the lovers holding tight to each other, each of them afraid to let the moment go. Jynx feels ChoCho going soft, and carefully draws herself from his lap. She takes a moist towelette from the picnic supplies, and cleans ChoCho off, tossing the condom into the bushes. She never breaks eye contact as she works one cloth on him, and a second on herself. Jynx lies close to him, listens to his heart and breath as the pace slows and broadens. The hair on her arms and legs starts to tickle. This has never happened before. Jynx wonders if this is love. Darkness has stolen almost every detail from the land and sky. If only for an instant, darkness becomes the moment. Then Jynx smells the wild scent of rain even though there isn’t a cloud to be seen, and wonders if she might not be imagining the increasing tingle on her skin.

The bushes are now mostly invisible, and darkness is supreme, until the sky opens up with light. ChoCho’s eyes grow wide even as Jynx begins to point behind him. A wave of clouds is ripping at them, a lightning storm building with the ferocity of a raging horde of demons. Jynx sees the wave, but ChoCho is looking opposite her, speaking urgently and incoherently in her ear. She turns, sees an identical broiling of pitch clouds moving swiftly at her, visible only because they glow with fury every so often while they rapidly swallow the sky. As she turns, she realizes that the clouds are coming from all directions, swirling in on each other as if they are being pushed and pulled into a spiral of angry, flashing death. Thunder screams unceasing from all directions, and the sky looks ripped to pieces by claws of light, only to be swallowed by darkness both absolute and unimaginable.

Two frail bodies cower under a blanket as the clouds collide and release a torrent of rain across an unusually reticent desert scrub landscape. Unprepared for the onslaught of such a vicious storm, trying to get back to their truck, the two are thrown against The Girl by a stiff wind, Jynx and ChoCho struggle to get inside the truck and close the doors against the storm. Jynx puts the keys in the ignition and listens for the radio, but there is no signal. Darkness and silence overwhelm them as Jynx puts her keys back in her purse. Where once had been twilight and moonlight, distant city lights on the mountainside and starlight, now only blackness envelops them. The Girl groans and quivers with the gusting wind until it dies down to a breeze, and the two shake in fear until the thunder is but a distant moan. After an hour of broken clouds and random drizzle, starlight and moonlight finally reach the land, every drop, puddle, and stream of water glowing brightly so that one cannot immediately tell where the sky starts or ends.

Jynx and ChoCho don’t bother trying to start the truck, as each is too shaken by the sight of water all around their knoll to consider moving. The darkness and the flood will keep them pinned down until morning. The city in the distance has not lit back up, even though the stars and moon seem brighter than they have ever been. The radio is only static, no matter the station, AM and FM reflecting the lightning that is still pounding away somewhere distant. The moon is but a hopeful thick sliver halfway between mid-sky and horizon. Jynx collapses the back seats into the floor compartments, making a space. Opening sleeping bags and emergency blankets that had been packed tightly in the cab, she sets up pillows and undresses for bed, urging ChoCho to do the same. Sleep will come in fits between nervous shivers and half whispered thoughts. Even with ChoCho’s warm body next to hers, Jynx is covered in goose bumps.