***

There was an unspoken rule in their faction.  Sex was forbidden.  The
males and females who daily fought the alien invasion had no time or
energy to waste on meaningless dalliances.  There were no married
couples left; either their mates had been killed or they had been
separated by the war.

Everyone knew, however, that the strange pair from the East Coast was
breaking the rule.  And no one dared say anything, because they were
two of the strongest fighters in the faction.  Smartest, too.  They
knew what they were doing.

They weren't locals, that was all that was known about them.  They
flew into the Denver Airport a few days before the first ships had
arrived.  No one knew what their business had been, but the clothes
that they had with them were business suits.  When the airport had
been destroyed, they had been some of the first to get out of town and
start organizing relief and rebuilding some kind of social structure.

He had immediately started creating a resistance movement.  He found
guns, ammunition, trained men and women who were scared out of their
minds to kill without remorse.  She had medical experience; she helped
those who had been wounded in the first battles and helped to keep
them alive out in the high desert.  And they were both among the
finest fighters they had.

Trinna knew that they were close.  They had been business partners
before the invasion and were obviously friends.  She was young,
though, and was one of the last to find out that their relationship
did not stop there.  She realized in hindsight that all the adults
knew.  They cast the pair resentful looks whenever they thought about
it, and made snide remarks when they were out of earshot.

Trinna had trouble sleeping. She had ever since she had watched her
brother be taken from her in the middle of the night when she was
eleven.  She paced the old army barracks floor, looking at each of her
compatriots, asleep in their beds after a long day of toil and
strategy.  She wished she could exhaust herself into oblivion.  But
she was too young to take on much of the heavy labor.  Only...fifteen
was it?  Last July. However long ago that was.  It must have been six
years since the invasion started.  She wondered vaguely what she was
missing in comparison with those who had had the time for a normal
life.

It was too hot inside the barracks.  She slipped out the door, taking
her gun along with her.  The aliens hadn't been seen in this area for
several months, but you could never be sure.  And there was always the
threat of sympathizers, hidden within the faction, just waiting for
someone to let down their guard and kill them quietly in the night.

She heard a voice and stopped dead in her tracks.

No one should have been up at that hour.  The patrol was far away from
here, casting a net that covered the entire county, or what had once
been a county.  Voices were a bad sign.  Trinna crouched low and moved
towards the sound.

There was an old shack just a few yards away from the barracks door.
They used it to keep supplies; Trinna was often entrusted with the
task of carrying water to and from the barracks.  The door was
slightly ajar.  Moving slowly, she sidled up to the door and peeked
inside.

There was a candle lit and placed on one of the water barrels.  It
illuminated the pair from the East, sitting together on an old blanket
on the floor.  Trinna would have moved away, thinking that they were
discussing tactics, but for the look in the man's eyes at that moment.

They sat staring at each other for a long time.  Trinna frowned.  She
couldn't understand what was going on, unless...

As if in answer to her sudden thought, the man leaned towards the
woman slowly.  They kept their eyes on each other until their lips
touched, and then lashes drifted lazily shut.  He kissed her softly,
without haste, moving his mouth quietly across hers, sharing breath,
warmth.  Trinna bit her cheek when the woman parted her lips slightly
and let her tongue peek through to gently lave his lower lip.

It was the slowest, gentlest, most erotic kiss that Trinna had ever
witnessed, and her young body was burning up with a suddenness that
startled her.  She had never seen people kiss except in the heat of
desperation, and that had been before the rules had slowly evolved so
as to preclude that sort of thing.

"You are my touchstone," he whispered softly to her.

"And you are mine."

As if that was a signal between them, the woman reached out her hands
and began to unbutton the man's shirt.  He watched her do it silently,
not taking his eyes from her face, even when she used the palms of her
hands to map his contours, running them over and over the lean
musculature of his pectorals and his abdomen.  She tangled her fingers
in the hair around his nipples, and Trinna saw him lick his lips.

Trinna couldn't remember, afterwards, how they came to be naked in
each other's arms.  They must have removed their clothing slowly,
without fuss.  All Trinna could recall was their kiss.  It seemed to
stretch on forever.  They did things with their tongues that Trinna
had never seen before.  He sucked on hers hard, biting it, drawing it
into his mouth so that Trinna wondered how the woman kept from
gagging.  She used tiny white teeth on his lips, bruising him surely.
There was no rush to this kiss, but it seemed to fill up Trinna's
whole body, with its hard passion and focus.  She wondered if all sex
was like this, so careful and measured, yet so rough and thorough.

And then Trinna saw the flash of the woman's pale breast in the
candlelight, and realized that she was easing her body gently over
his.  She straddled his folded legs with her own, pressed her bosom
against his, and pushed herself down onto his lap.

Trinna knew enough about male anatomy to guess what they were doing,
and could feel a strange trembling take over her limbs.  She was
aching with heat, sweating in the cool night, wondering how on earth
it could be possible that the man was inside the woman.

Oh, God.  She realized with sudden clarity that *this* was what it was
all about.  This was what sex was.  It began with the kisses and the
nakedness, yes, she had known that, and ended...where?  At some point
after the man put himself inside the woman.

Trinna watched, fascinated and terrified, as the woman rose up over
him, stretching her body like a cat, and moved back down slowly,
pressing hard against him even when she could get no closer.  Trinna
watched as his eyes lost focus and slipped shut.  His hands were on
her hips, guiding her, his knuckles white.  She wondered if his grip
hurt her, if she would be bruised when it was over.

They went on for a long time, moving together sinuously, their breath
becoming more ragged and their skin taking on a sheen of sweat, like
new recruits before an ambush.

"Over me," the woman gasped out suddenly, and the man responded by
clutching her against him and moving so that she was flat on her back
and he was now the catalyst, thrusting in and out of her as she had
moved over him.  He took her thighs in his hands and pushed them up,
up, as high as she could hold them.  Trinna saw, for the first time,
his cock moving in and out of her.  She wondered if it hurt, then
realized that it must not.  The woman was obviously not in pain.

She almost changed her mind, however, when the woman gradually began
to gasp louder, her head thrown back, her chest heaving with exertion.
Her hands grasped convulsively at the man's shoulders, clawing him,
becoming more and more frenzied until she seemed to seize up, her
limbs stiffening and her face contorting in agony not unlike that felt
with a claw wound.

He was not far behind her, his body also shaking and stiffening just a
few moments later.  When it seemed to be over, the man collapsed on
her, sobbing for breath and wrapping his arms around her back.

"God," she whispered.

"You are incredible."  The man kissed her temple, drawing in a shaking
breath.  "Thank you."

Trinna bit her cheek, trying not to make a sound to interrupt this
strange union of souls.

"How can we go on like this?"  The woman asked in a low voice.
"Fighting for our lives one moment, fucking like animals the next..."

Trinna blinked, quickly making the connection between that familiar
word and this strange, unfamiliar act.  It made sense, she supposed.

"I can't live without you," he told her, stroking back her hair and
staring her in the face.  "You are what keeps me alive every day."

"Yes."  She sighed deeply. "How long has it been since we made love
gently?  Without desperation?  It must have been months.  It's so hard
to love you like this.  It takes so much out of me."

"I will give it back someday, Scully.  I swear."

The woman smiled and hugged him to her.  "I know.  Someday."

Sick with discovery, shaking and hot and not knowing why, Trinna
slowly crept away, back to her bed.  She wondered why the others
glared at the man and the woman for doing what they did.  She wondered
why they found it wrong and treacherous.  Nothing like that could ever
be wrong.  Not even in a world as screwed up as theirs.  It surely
must be a sacred act the world over, only indulged in by the strong
and the just.

Mustn't it?

Finis