After the Fall: Close and Confined (Taboo Erotica) (Eden Harem Book 1) (7 page)

Molly did it before he could, leaving Jack alone to face the music.

I knew it was a bad idea…

“I can explain.”

Jack had gotten his boxers up, but one of the legs of his pants had turned itself inside out during his panicked rush to preserve his modesty. He gave up on putting them on and set them aside.

“I don’t think it’s necessary.” She walked over to the bed with soft, slow steps, each one opening up a tiny, enticing slit along the side of where the ends of her towel met. “It’s clear to me what the two of you were doing.”

“Mom, you don’t understand, though.” Jack struggled to find words for what he was feeling, and what had led to the strange encounter. “She’s up there all alone, by herself, with no hope. I was just trying to… help.”

If I really wanted to help her, I’d find a way to get her back to Earth.

Rebecca sat down next to her son. Her face was a mixture of anger and amusement.

“I’m sure that it was very helpful for her,” she said. “And I can relate to what she’s going through. It’s what we’re all going through.”

As she spoke the last sentence, she slid in closer to him, as though to emphasize her words. Jack’s cock was still hard, and still eagerly pressing up against the fabric of his boxers.

“Mom… you’re only wearing a towel.” It was a stupid thing to say. Jack felt as though all of the blood required to think clearly had abandoned his brain in favor of his cock. His mom smiled at him and set one of her hands down on his thigh.

“I’m not mad, and I can see how it happened,” said Rebecca. “Especially after the conversation we had yesterday about.. the things we need to do now, the lengths we have to be willing to go to.”

Her hand slipped closer to his crotch, her fingers drawing swirls up his leg as they went.

“But she’s not down here, sweetie, and I am.” She leaned her face in close to his ear and whispered each word, all of them landing in his ear like hot bombs of seduction. “I am here. I’m right here, and I love you.”

She slipped Jack’s cock out of the flap of his boxers and wrapped her fingers around it.

“Oh god, mom!” Jack let out a moan and felt his cock threaten to cum prematurely.

This is so weird, so different from playing around with Molly.

“We have to keep moving forward, Jack,” whispered his mom. “We can’t give up on the future. And that means making sacrifices and pushing forward into new territory.”

Jack was at her mercy. His mother was stroking him off with long, tender pulls, and it was incredible. It was just like it had been the night before, except the lights were on, bringing the experience to the next level.

It’s really happening. I can see her doing it.

Jack clumsily reached his hand over to her towel. He managed to unhook it, and it dropped about an inch before his mother quickly caught it an rewrapped it around herself.

“You’ve already seen a set of breasts tonight,” said his mom. “Mine are still off limits. But there is something that I can do for you, something that Molly can’t.”

She locked eyes with him, her hand continuing to pop his cock up and down as she repositioned herself. His mom ran her fingers through his hair and then slowly pulled his t-shirt up.

“Just relax for this, honey,” she whispered. “It’s going to feel different from what we did last night.”

She can’t really be planning to do what I think she’s going to do… can she?

Jack’s excitement was threatening to get the better of him. He hadn’t gotten a chance to calm down after being teased by Molly, and now his own mother, of all people, was kissing her way down his chest. He ran one of his hands through her hair, still wet from the shower, and felt an overwhelming mixture of shame and arousal.

“Mom…” He felt like he had to warn her. She was still pumping his cock with perfect, loving strokes, pleasuring it in a way that revealed just how well she knew the boy she’d raised. Her kisses were leading her mouth towards it, but it was a slow and sensual process, and…

And I’m at my limit!

Jack sucked in air and tensed his stomach muscles up. His mom had reached his waist and quickly pulled his boxers down, diverting her kisses to her thigh before bringing her lips to the tip of his cock. She planted a soft, wet kiss on it, gently pushing her tongue out to join in the fun. It was more than Jack could take.

“Oh god!” His cock began to explode, spraying cum directly onto what was in front of it, the face of his sweet, caring mother. Rebecca stared up at him. Her eyes were full of love, lust, and shame. It was a moment like no other, and as pleasure ripped through Jack like a tempest, all he could do was lean back against the bed and dig his fingers into the mattress.

“Jack…” she whispered, sensing his confusion. “It’s okay. This is what we need to be doing.”

She stood up and turned away from him, using the towel to clean her face off.

“And I love you.” She lied down next to him and planted a chaste, motherly kiss on his cheek. “No matter what.”

“I… I love you too, mom.”

Jack wasn’t sure how much time had gone by when he woke up. His mother was sleeping next to him in bed, clad in a large t-shirt and pajama bottoms. It was hard for him to know if it was still afternoon, early evening, or the middle of the night.

I guess it doesn’t really matter underground.

The room wasn’t entirely dark, and when he glanced over at the TV screen, he instantly saw why. A familiar message was flashing across it.

CONNECTION REQUESTED

Doing his best to stay quiet and not disturb the bed, Jack climbed to his feet and walked over to it. He tapped on the accept connection circle on the touch screen and saw the space station and Molly fill the frame.

“Jack? Finally, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for-“

“Shhhh,” said Jack, holding a finger to his lips and pointing to his mother with his thumb.

“Sorry,” whispered Molly. “Just didn’t want you to miss out on the fun.”

She held her hand up, and Jack recognized what was in it at a glance. It was a bottle of bourbon, with about a third of it already missing, the alcohol inside dancing and trying to get out through the thumb Molly held over the opening at the top.

“You’re getting drunk?” asked Jack. “That doesn’t seem very professional.”

“We had webcam sex earlier today,” giggled Molly. “I’m surprised that this would surprise you.”

We did, but before that, we’d been talking about something serious.

Jack watched as Molly took another shot of the bourbon and began humming a tune. She let herself float freely, rotating into a slow, balled up backflip.

“Molly…” said Jack. “Are you okay?”

“Can anyone really be okay, given the circumstances?”

Jack shrugged.

“You know what I mean. Did something happen? You’re acting like you don’t even care anymore…”

Molly pulled back in close to the camera, letting her face fill the screen. She took another small sip of the drink, and let her finger circle around the bottle’s opening.

“There’s something that I should probably tell you.” She took a deep breath, and then exhaled. “One of the station’s oxygen scrubbers was damaged by a hunk of debris right before the asteroid struck Earth. It was probably in a nearby orbit, pulled in by the big one’s gravity.”

Jack shook his head, not fully understanding.

“But, you’re still here,” he said. “And as far as I can tell, you’re still breathing.”

Molly forced a smile.

“For now. I… thought I’d be able to fix it on my own, but there is just no way. This is something that would usually trigger aborting the mission.”

Jack shook his head. He had to suppress hi first impulse, which was to reach through the screen, to pull her into a hug.

“How much longer do you have?” he asked. “There has to be something that we can do.”

“By the day after tomorrow, it will be impossible for me to breath. I can use the StarX capsule’s oxygen for a while, but that will only last for a couple of hours at best. Might as well just climb into my own coffin.”

“You have the capsule up there!” Jack struggled to keep his voice quiet, not wanting to wake his mom. “You can come back down… can’t you?”

“I don’t have any ground support, Jack. It’s not like I can just pilot the capsule down and then climb out of it. Even just a couple of days in space is enough to weaken a person when they reenter Earth’s gravity, and I haven’t been keeping up with my training regiment.”

“We’ll be your ground support,” said Jack. “You can wait until the shuttle is over where we are, and try to drop down nearby.”

Molly still looked unconvinced, and increasingly drunk. She took another shot of bourbon. Jack wished that there was a way for him to take the bottle from her.

“Even if I did somehow manage to land on target like that, and even if the two of you were there waiting, the reentry vehicle is designed to be piloted by two people, minimum. It would be suicide for me to try it on my own.”

“Molly…” said Jack. “You have to try. If you stay in the station, you’re just giving up.”

She looked scared. Jack didn’t break eye contact, trying to impart some of his determination to her, a thousand miles away.

“Okay.” The word was barely a whisper on her lips, but it took all the resolve she had. Jack watched as she set picked up the bourbon bottle’s cap and slipped it back into place.

“I’m going to wake up my mom,” said Jack. “We need to get this planned out tonight, if…”

If she’s going to stand any chance at surviving.

“You want to do what?”

Rebecca was sitting up in bed, still in the process of wiping the sleep out of her eyes. Jack waited for her full attention and then repeated himself.

“We need to get Molly back down to Earth,” he said. “The closest landing she can make, given the orbit of the space station, is about 30 miles to the north of us.”

“That’s with a margin of error of a couple of miles on either side,” said Molly. “If we sync up our timing so that you’re in position before I come down, you’ll see me enter the atmosphere, like a shooting star.”

Jack’s mother was shaking her head.

“It’s too dangerous. Molly you’re going to get yourself killed. And Jack, we don’t know what kind of danger might exist on the surface. The ash storms could start up again, or the earthquakes, or-“

“She’s running out of oxygen, mom.” Jack gave her a serious look. “The only other alternative is to let her die.”

Rebecca chewed on her lip for a moment, deep in thought.

“Okay,” she said. “We don’t have a choice then.”

Using an old-fashioned paper map that Jack had found in one of the survival kits, the three of them planned out the route that Jack and his mom would need to take. It would take them through what had formerly been a large expanse of New Hampshire and Canadian wilderness.

“There’s no telling what we’re going to find on our way. You’re right about that, mom.” Jack set his hand on her shoulder and tapped on the map.

“Hopefully, between the surface scrubbing of the atmospheric fires and earthquakes, it should be a relatively open and easy route,” said Molly. “But we don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of new geological features all over the continents. I can’t zoom in enough to get a detailed look for you.”

“We’ll manage,” said Rebecca.

“She only has two days, mom, and it’s 30 miles.” Jack traced his finger across the map. “We have to leave as soon as the sun comes up.”

Rebecca moved closer to Jack and pulled him into a hug.

“Alright,” she said softly. “Let’s start packing.”

The emergency shelter contained a wealth of survival equipment, enough for Jack and his mother to have their pick of what to bring with them. Jack made sure that they had the essentials covered, packing away a two-person pop tent, sleeping bags, a fire-starting kit, and clothes.

Rebecca took stock of the food that they had and packed as much of the high caloric density food away as she could. Jack watched her for a bit, surprised by how easily she made decisions about what was essential.

“I used to hike a lot, back before I married your father.” His mom smiled at him, a sad, mournful smile. “I think… I think he’d be proud of us, if he could see us right now. For surviving, and pushing forward.”

Would he be? Would he be proud of me, lusting after his wife and my mother? For doing the things that we’ve done?

“Jack, here.” His mom tossed something into the air, and he realized what he was as he caught it.

“Duct tape,” he said. “Good thinking, mom.”

Once they had everything they needed, the two of them climbed back into bed to sleep for the few hours they had left before sunrise. Jack thought that it would be hard for him to manage to get any rest, given how tense he felt, but the second he’d closed his eyes, he instantly drifted off.

“Wake up, sweetie.” Rebecca was shaking him up after what felt like only a couple of minutes. “It’s time for us to get going.”

Jack dressed quickly and then walked over to the TV. He found Molly’s connection address and requested a video chat. She picked up after only a few seconds.

“Hey.” Her voice was quiet, but resolved. “Is it time?”

Jack nodded.

“We won’t be able to talk to you again until we see you on the ground.” He smiled at her and saw the effort it took for her to smile back.

“I guess this is goodbye then,” said Molly.

“Only for now. Tomorrow night, we’ll be meeting in person for the first time.”

Molly nodded slowly.

“It’s been nice talking with you. With both of you.” Molly took a deep breath and then let it out. “It’s hard for me to describe how much it’s meant to me.”

“I know, Molly,” said Jack. “I feel the same way.”

Rebecca walked up next to Jack, her backpack already over one shoulder.

“We’ll be waiting for you, Molly,” she said. “This isn’t goodbye. This is just… see you later.”

“Yes, of course.” The astronaut ran her hand through her loose, gravity unbounded hair. “I… I want you both to keep in mind what I said. The most important thing that I said.”

Jack glanced over at his mother, feeling a little uncomfortable about what he knew she was about to bring up.

“Keeping the human race going is the most important thing now, the only thing now.” She leaned in closer to the webcam, emphasizing her point. “Even if you are his mother, and he is your son, you always need to remember that.”

“We will,” said Rebecca. “That’s a big part of the reason we need to make sure this rescue goes off without a hitch.”

“You’re right,” said Molly. “You should get started.”

Jack felt his heart ache slightly at the prospect of having to turn the connection off.

“Goodbye, Molly. I mean, see you later.”

“Goodbye Jack. Goodbye Rebecca. Stay safe.”

The screen went black. Jack continued staring at it for another couple of seconds, until his mom finally took his hand into hers and pulled him towards the door.

“Come on. We don’t have any time to waste.”

Jack was overcome by a powerful feeling of finality as he followed his mom up the stairs and out of the shelter’s main door. His backpack weighed heavily on his shoulders, and he gave thanks for the time he’d taken to dig out the earthen stairs leading from the bottom of the cellar to ground level.

The outdoor scenery looked very similar to how it had the day before, almost eerily so. This time, Jack wasn’t as shocked by it, and it was a little easier to overlay a map of the way things had been onto the destruction. He could see the remains of his neighbor’s houses, their cars, and in one instance, of an inground swimming pool that he had always been a little jealous of.

“We’re headed almost due north, but this is still going to be a little tricky.” His mom was holding the map in both hands, alternating between looking down at it and ahead at their path. “Most of the landmarks are going to be useless.”

Jack glanced back at the cellar, and the heavy reinforced door leading down to the shelter below. It had been their home for the past few days, the only thing protecting them from the harsh, apocalyptic elements. He was a little sad to leave it behind, even though he knew it was necessary in order to save Molly.

We can always come back. It’s not like there is anyone around to steal our stuff while we’re gone.

“Ready?” His mom was looking at him expectantly. Jack nodded.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

The family’s house had been on the south side of town, which meant that they had to walk through the ruins of their old life on their way forward. Calling anything in the landscape a ruin was almost giving it too much credit, as Jack soon realized.

There were no buildings left standing, and even things like cars, fire hydrants, and lampposts looked as though they’d taken a dip into a bath of molten lava. Jack expected to feel sad, to mourn for what had been lost on his way through, but there was hardly enough left to trigger his memories.

As they passed by what had once been his high school, now just a slightly thicker pile of ash than what covered the surrounding area, Jack found himself thinking about all of his friends, teachers, and fellow students that had died in the impact.

“We should build a monument or something,” he said. “Something to honor all of the people that have died.”

His mom looked over at him. Her expression was a mirror of what he was feeling on the inside.

“I don’t think that’s a bad idea,” she said. “I had the same thought when we passed by your father’s office building. Your father… he was most likely in that building when it happened.”

My dad is dead. It still doesn’t seem real, even days after the fact.

“But,” continued his mom. “There’s no point in having a memorial if we’re the only ones around to look at it. Right now, we have to focus on the people that are left for us to save. The… person, who is left.”

“I’m not sure if I’m as pessimistic as you and Molly are,” said Jack. “Just because we haven’t found anybody else out there yet doesn’t mean that we’re the only ones left.”

Rebecca glanced around the surrounding area as they walked forward, as if allowing it to make her argument for her.

“Maybe,” she said. “But until we find anyone else, it’s not going to make any difference.”

The two of them traveled in silence for long minutes, eventually hours. The sky was totally clear and brilliant blue, more vivid than Jack had ever seen it before, back when planes and pollution were a regular part of life.

It was juxtaposed against a landscape that looked as though it had been imported from Mars, or Venus. Fine ash covered the ground, so thickly in some places that it reminded Jack of pictures he’d seen of massive deserts.

This isn’t sand. I would take sand over this dust, this wreckage, any day of the week.

The wind blew softly across the wasteland ahead of them. Rebecca was in front of Jack, and he watched as dust flew through the air like pollen, painting a light coat across the fabric of the tight jeans his mother was wearing.

“Try not to breathe it in,” she said.

“I know.”

It was late in the afternoon when they came across something that didn’t fit the pattern of the old or the new. It appeared on the edge of the horizon, growing as they approached. It was a ridge, one that clearly had not been a part of the continent before the asteroid, and it carried with it a sense of alien newness.

“That wasn't here before,” said Jack. His mother smiled and nodded at him, politely acknowledging the obvious.

“We’ll have to climb up it,” she said. “It doesn’t look like we can go around.”

The ridge went on in either direction for miles, sinking off into the distance. Jack felt vaguely reminded of pictures he’d seen as a kid of the Great Wall of China.

I wonder what it looks like now, after all of this.

As they drew closer, the enormous size of the ridge became abundantly clear. It was unlike anything Jack had seen before. He’d climbed mountains before, some higher than the massive earthen wall he saw before him, but none of them had ever been like this.

The ridge was beyond steep. Jack and his mother stopped a couple hundred feet away from it and spent a minute just staring at it.

It’s almost straight up. How in the world are we going to make it to the top?

“Jack, sweetie…” His mom looked even more concerned than he felt. “I take back what I said before. I think maybe we should try to find a way around.”

Jack scratched his head and tried not to let his frustration show on his face. He walked over to his mom and reached into her back pocket, pulling out the neatly folded map and unintentionally copping a feel of her soft behind at the same time.

“Mom, there’s no easy route around.”

“Honey, the map is of the old landscape! There very well could be a way by, and maybe we just can’t see it from here.”

Jack held the map in front of her, pointing to mountains to the far east and west of where they were.

“If I had to guess, I’d say it probably stretches the distance in between them.” He shook his head. “I have the rope with me, still. I can climb up first, and then pass it down to you and help you up.”

A look of fierce protectiveness came across Rebecca’s face. Jack could tell that she wasn’t going to be convinced, but he felt just as determined and stubborn about pressing forward with their schedule.

Molly will be screwed if she lands down and we’re not there. We won’t be able to find her, and she won’t be able to find us.

He turned away from her and started jogging north, towards the ridge.

“Jack! Listen to me, we have to go around!”

His mom was following after him, but she wasn’t as tall as he was, and her stride wasn’t as long.

“Mom, we can do this,” he called back. “I know that we can. We have to!”

The ridge grew larger and more imposing as he approached. His heart began to beat as though it were taking measurement of it, letting him know just how dangerous a fall from even the halfway point would be. Jack estimated that the it was at least a hundred feet high, with far fewer crags and hand holds than he’d been hoping for.

Here goes nothing…

Jack didn’t wait for his mom to catch up. He took a second to shrug off his backpack and pull the rope out of it, looping it around his shoulders diagonally before stepping forward and committing to the climb.

Jack knew himself, and he knew his mom, and he knew that if he gave her the chance, she could talk him out of it. He almost wanted her to.