Orion's Belt - A Dark Sci-Fi Western Romance

“Orioooon,” she whines, drawing my name out. “I’m tired.”

“Come on, girl,” I growl. This was supposed to be a treat for her, but I’m seriously considering taking my belt off and using it on her bare ass if she doesn’t settle down.

“I’m not going another step,” she says, her voice strident.

“Yes, you are.” I turn around. My horse turns around too, equally unimpressed. Her horse is stuck behind her stormy form. “Come over here. Now.”

“I don’t want to follow you around anymore. You never tell me what we’re doing or where we’re going. You don’t think anything matters. Nothing means anything to you.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten up your rear, missy, but I’ll tell you one thing. You’re going the right way to feeling my belt again real soon.”

She snorts and spits.

“Yer really asking for it.”

“Am I, mister big outlaw? Am I asking for your belt?”

If she could just damn well follow me another couple dozen yards I know I wouldn’t be dealing with this attitude, but, true to form, she’s picked the worst possible moment to act out.

Josie

He comes striding over to me, all stern and gruff and I don’t care. I’m done. I’m tired. My feet hurt. My ass hurts. And my heart hurts. I made love to him for the first time. I gave him my virginity. And he said it didn’t mean anything. I couldn’t care less what he thinks or wants or does. I’m just following him at this point because he’s my ticket off the planet.

“What’s gotten into you? You think because we slept together, you don’t have to have a respectful tongue in your head?”

“No, I could lose respect for you without sleeping with you.”

His eyes flash with irritation. I know I’m annoying him. That’s kind of the point. I want a reaction from him. I want to know that on some level I do have an effect on him. Even if sleeping with me didn’t make a difference, I want to make him roar one way or another.

“Now what the damn hell is going on, Josie?”

“Nothing. And even if it was, it wouldn’t mean anything.”

He looks at me with a perplexed and irritated expression. He doesn’t even remember saying it. Bedding me and then telling me that it meant nothing. I guess he’s so used to using women it doesn’t even occur to him that some of them don’t like being used. I didn’t want to just fuck him. I wanted him to love me. Just the thought of that fills me with complete shame now. I thought he would love me? How ridiculous. He’s never pretended to care about me much more than what I can give him, either my land or my body, or I suppose both.

“Are you about to bleed, is that it?”

A crude reference to my cycle comes in place of any attempt at understanding. I want to slap him.

No sooner does that thought flash across my brain, than my arm whips through the air. I must catch him by surprise, because my palm makes contact with his cheek with a loud slapping sound which echoes around the forest. The horses knicker and step back. Orion stares at me. I stare back.

I don’t think he knows what to do with that.

“What did I tell you would happen next time you tried to fight me?”

“I’m not trying to fight you.”

Orion takes hold of me, reaching around me to grab me by the collar. There’s nothing sexual about this grasp, it’s the way he’d grab a kitten who swatted at him. He yanks me up off the ground, letting me feel his power. It’s not even his metal arm he’s using. It’s the flesh part of him which alone is strong enough to make me completely weak.

“Remember,” he says. “You asked for this.”

“I never asked for nuthin!” I squeal as he throws me over his thigh, which he’s propped up on a tree stump. It makes a mean fulcrum for my body, bent at the hips, my butt high and exposed to him as he yanks my britches down and starts spanking me with hard swats, that damn metal grip making it impossible to escape him.

“Ow! Ow! Fucking ow!” I curse up a storm, but Orion doesn’t care. He’s heard worse than anything I could ever say to him.

“You do not hit me, missy,” he lectures, the irony apparently lost on him.

“Does that metal arm of yours make you stupid as well as strong? Because you’re hitting me right now!”

“I ain’t hitting you. I’m spanking you. And I’m doing it because you need some discipline, girl. You cannot run around doing whatever you want, mouthing off…”

“Why not!? That’s what you do!”

“Because I’m running this show. I’m tryin’ to get us both to safety.”

“No, you’re not. You’re trying to get you some land that don’t belong to you.”