After the End

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With a pounding head and blurring vision I woke up hours later, and opened my eyes. By the look of the light in the room if was very late at night. I sat bolt upright, then crashed back down clutching my head. "Ow." I managed to mumble. "Oh, your awake." As fast as I could without increasing the pain waves in my head, I turned to where Rob was sitting on the other end of the sofa where he must have moved me after finding my unconcious body. I asked the obvious question that had first popped into my mind. "How is she Is she ok?" He looked at with sadness and pity in his face, and his eyes slid away from my gaze. My heart dropped like cement. He didn't have to answer, but he did anyway. "Crystal's dead." Every nerve within me froze. My whole body went cold, I felt as I was frozen in time, the love of my life was dead. Then my heart burst. My voice cracked as I let out a wailing screech. I tried to get off the couch, but my legs wouldn't work, and I stumbled and landed on my knees beside the couch. Rob wrapped his arms around me, and I yelled again and began to sob into his shoulders. Unbridled grief would be an understatement. Dead! Dead! She was dead! I would never see her beautiful face alive again! No more smiles, no more of her shining blue eyes! Nothing! Nothing! Nothing ever again!! Nothing! I pulled away from Rob and somehow made my way up the stairs. I rushed into her room and gasped. She wasn't awake to greet me this time. She lay quietly. her eyes closed, her hands lay folded on her chest. I ran over and knelt by her bed. I wanted to think she didn't look dead, but she did. Her face was pale and her lips were blue. I was afraid to touch her. Still, slowly, i moved my trembling fingers towards her still face. She was cold. Her skin was hard. But the most chilling and awful part that I experienced, was her breath. It wasn't there. No breath came from her lips or her nose. It was that final experience that drove it into. Crystal was dead. The only person I had ever really loved, was dead. She was gone from me forever. I don't know how long I knelt there by her deathbed. But then I heard Rob's voice behind me. "Do you have a desicion now?" I wrenched my eyes away from her cold face to turn and look at him. "She's dead, Jamie. She's gone. And now, there is nothing here for you. Will you help me lay down her body? And after that, will you leave with me?" I didn't know what to say. But I did tell him that I wasn't going to tell him whether or not i'd leave the valley with him after Crystal died, until after she actually died. And now....now the time had come..I had to make a decision. I looked back at Crystal's pale face and passed my hand over her face without feeling her breath. I shut my eyes and sighed, turning back to Rob slowly. My decision was made, and I slowly opened my mouth to answer.

Then...I opened my eyes. I was in the living room again. The light in the room showed me it was very late at night. What the....didn't this already happen? I sat bolt upright, then, once again it seemed, the pounding in my head forced me to throw myself back on the couch. I was too dumbfounded to say ow. Again clutching my forehead, I growled in pain and confusion. I was on the couch again! What the hell was going on, didn't I just go through all this?! I tried to settle down and calm myself. This wasn't possible. Did God hate me so much he was making go through the torture of learning about my love's demise again? Did that tumble down the stairs kill me and this was my purgatory?? Or was it......something else...no it couldn't be. I gasped. No way...it couldn't be possible..was all that had just happened a vision? Was waking up and learning that Crystal was dead all.....all a dream? "Oh, you're awake." I sat up again, forcing myself to ignore the pain. Rob was sitting there. "NO!" I screamed. Not this time! This time I was finding out for myself! I stumbled clumsily up the stairs(I was still a little lightheaded) and to Crystal's door. I paused. I didn't know what to expect, I had never felt this much anxiety before. But I wasn't going to find out anything by just standing there, so I held my breath and thrust the door open wide. The room was empty. The bed was empty. She wasn't there. Now I was more confused than ever. And I was getting really pissed off. Leaving the room, I ran down the stairs, but as I reached the bottom the fact that I got up too quickly from a near-concussion caught up with me and I nearly fell down a second time. Luckily arms were there to catch my fall. "Hey, easy." I heard Rob say. I looked up, expecting the voice to match the face, but what I saw stopped my heart dead. Crystal's face was above me. She was holding my shaky frame in her delicate hands, and she looked at me with concern. "Are you alright?" She asked softly. Rob was just a few feet behind her. Her voice nearly brought me to tears. It sounded the same as it did when we first met. Bright and cheerful, yet with definite seriousness. It was the most beautiful thing I ever heard. "Crystal..." I breathed. Her lips formed a small smile as she helped me down to the floor to sit. I looked at her body....she was dressed in my clothes, a small white cotton t-shirt and some pajama bottoms. She looked dry, and she sat still, no more feverish sweating or uncontrollable trembling. Timidly I reached my hand up to touch her face. Yes! Her skin was warm and soft, and...oh God! I could feel her breath on my wrist! I started to cry gently. "Oh God," I gasped. "You're alive!" Crystal wrapped her arms around me and I fell into her embrace. I never thought i'd feel those arms around me again. I hugged her back hard and cried and sobbed into her golden long hair. Suddenly, to my surprise, I could feel her hot tears hitting my back and neck. "Yes," She said. "I am alive. And i'm going to stay alive. It's because of you. You helped me live." I drew back to look at her. "You gave me hope. Thank you." She whispered. Her eyes were clear, and her tears were running down her cheeks; I gently brushed them away with my hand. It was all I could do to keep from smothering her newly healthy body with my love. I couldn't say anything else, I don't know if there was anything else to say. I turned my had and leaned forward but hesitated. Somehow I felt like I didn't know what to do next. My senses were almost overloaded. But she took my face in her hands and brought our lips together, and we kissed again. Sparks when off in the pleasure centers of my brain as our lips touched That was the most wonderful kiss of my life. My arms went around her shoulders, and our kiss deepened, as our tongues wandered out of our mouths to meet each other. As we sat there on the floor, and slowly french kissed, it felt as though we were kneeling in a pool of light. Our tongues danced in and out of each other's mouths, tasting each other's flavor. Our hand were in one another's hair, we reveled and each other's softness, purity, and exsitence. Nothing could be, or had ever been more perfect than that moment. After a few minutes Rob spoke again. "I guess I don't have to tell you that Crystal is alive. What happened in the bedroom before you got knocked out was just like an aftershock, like a last reprecussion after the poisoning has passed. According to all of my tests, though, i'm pretty sure she'll be ok. I'm glad you're ok too, Jamie, you took a really bad blow to the head, there." Crystal and I finally parted lips. "Yeah." I whispered, not really paying attention. I looked her right in the eye then, my face serious. "I love you." "I love you, too." She murmered. Then we embraced again. I would never love again the amount of love I felt at that moment for her. Time was momentarily stopped as we held each other, memorizing the feeling of each other's soul.

The next few days were spent making sure Crystal got a lot of rest, and was in full health to travel. Because now that it was sure she was going to stay alive, we began to make plans for leaving the valley. Rob had been right; no matter what, there was nothing left for us in it. All it was was a reminder of the pain and suffering that had taken place in it since the world ended as we knew it ended. It would be for the best to leave. As Crystal rested, I tidied up the house and yard. For some reason, I wanted it to be clean when i left it. I guess just to make it feel like I had finished here, like I didn't just leave without having time to make things right. We packed as much as Rob's small car could carry. I was disappointed that i'd have to leave the big things behind, but it was worth it. In the end we took some clothes, some jewlery, and a few books with us. By the end of the fourth day of Crystal's recovery, we decided the time had come. I was finally going to leave my little house in the valley. We all dressed in the bright blue radiation suits. Both Rob and Crystal had had an extra when they came into the valley so I was set. As we piled into Rob's car, I hesitated, looking back at the place that I hadn't left for months and months that felt like years. Now, I was kind of afraid to leave it. I gazed for awhile, then felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked over to meet Crystal's vision. "It's scary, isn't it?" I nodded. "Will you be ok? "Yeah." I said. "It's just....it'll be hard to change after so long, you know?" She leaned her head on my shoulder. "I'll be here to help you through it." I sighed. "I don't know how else I could." We got in, put on the helmets, and Rob started the car.

It was a two day journey, one of which Rob had luckily brought enough fuel. As we drove through the neulear-wasted southwestern landscape, I saw for the first time the horror the world had become outside of my little haven. There was nothing green anymore. There was no grass, just the barran, dusty dirt. Gnarled stumps of what used to be trees were scattered along the terrain, and the remains of skelotons of deer and coyotes and other creatures were littered about. The sky was an eerie combination of dull orange and blue. It was an awful sight to behold. "I've never actually seen it." I said breathlessly. "I mean the world after the end of the war. This is the first time I've seen it..." Crystal looked out of the window gravely with me. "Yes." She said. "I wandered through it for over a month, and i'm still not used to it. It's such a waste." "Yeah." Rob. "But the place I found is a lot like the valley you lived in, Jamie. It's perfect compared to this." "Anything is perfect compared to this." I said with a hint of bitterness in my voice. Near the end of the last day, as we passed over the California border, nervousness stirred within me. I expressed my thoughts to Crystal. Ever since she got better i'd been talking to her and Rob constantly, I suppose to make up for no one to talk to for months and months. I never really though before talking anymore, so I just told Crystal about my anxiousness as soon as I felt it. "You know I haven't been around other people for....for quite a long time. I'm uh...i'm feeling a little..well, nervous, you know?" I stammered with an awkward laugh. She smiled at me. "Yeah, it'll probably be hard getting used to acting around people again right?" "Well its not just that." I lowered my voice to a whisper. "I mean, when you live by yourself for a long time...you start to develop practices that...well that one wouldn't normally do when there are a lot of..people around...like uh..." She lowered her voice and grinned at me. "Like walking around the outdoors naked and forcing yourself on unsuspecting strangers?" I blushed madly. "Well that....and walking around naked indoors as well...and masturbating yourself on everything in sight." Crystal nodded. "I thought your place smelled a little like pussy." I cocked an eyebrow. "How, may I ask, do you know how pussy smells?" Now it was her turn to blush. "Well...i'll explain later...but as for forgetting old habits like that, I think it'll be easier than you think. It'll be ok, don't worry about it." She snuggled up to me, and even though it must have looked silly with us wearing our blue suits, but it felt good to have her so close. She was right, it would be ok. Meanwhile, my mind was swimming with ideas on how often she had gotten close enough to a woman's cunt to take in it's scent....

Our small red car drove into the town Rob had found, probably a little after 11 PM. It was dark, but we could see distant flashes of light come up in the distance as we made our way in. The town was in a valley, a little bigger than the one I had inhabited but otherwise just like it. The flashes of light, as it turned out were flashlights, and they got closer and closer as the people holding them ran towards us.We pulled up to a stop eventually, and when we got out, there were about 20 people there to greet us, all of them looking extremly happy and relieved. We took off our helmets and introduced ourselves, then after about an hour of explaining, we were all quite exhausted, and we retired to the house Rob had been living in. As we entered, he explained where we were to sleep. "I've made a nice bedroom out of the basement. I have a cot set up, and then a mattress because originally, I assumed you'd be sleeping seperatly. But now..." He looked at us with a mischivous smile on his face. "Am I correct in assuming you only need the cot?" Crystal and I looked at each other, and I blushed again. "Only if it's alright with you, my dear." I said. She gave me a small kiss and smiled in response. I sat alone on the cot in the basement about 15 minutes later, in my nightie, waiting for Crystal to finish changing into hers upstairs. When she came down, I stood and embraced her. Our lips met breifly, but we were tired, and slipped into bed quickly. She lay on top of me, her arms around my middle, and my arm draped around her back. "I'm so glad we're here, together." I whispered "Me too." She breathed sleepily. "Goodnight, angel." I closed my eyes and sighed with happiness. "Goodnight."

The next day, we got ourselves moved in. We walked around town and met some more people, and learned what it everyone did and stuff. That night, after we ate a little dinner, Crystal and I ajourned to our room where we did something that we not yet done before. We sat down, talked, and got to know each other. That night I learned she was born and raised in Oklahoma, went to college at Ohio State, that her favorite color was green, and that she had always had a liking for showtunes. I told her I was born in New York, spent my teen years on a farm in Arizona, and that my favorite animals were horses. We talked for half the night. Finally we got around to the question I had been aching to ask. "Crystal, have you ever been with another woman? Other than me?" She looked at her feet suddenly, as though she were ashamed. "Yes...I've always been a lesbian....but in a last couple years i've tried not to be." This surprised me. "Why?" "Because of my family. They disowned me when I told them, and I wanted them back. I started dating Rob to show them I was straight, I just wanted them to love me again." She was beginning to cry quietly. "I only wanted them to love me. But now they have to be dead." I put my arm around her. She continued. "But i've gotten over that. And i've accepted what I am once and for all. I like women." She turned to me and looked into my eyes. "And I love you." I smiled. "May I ask how many partners you've had? I'm just curious, thats all." She flushed again. "Well, not that many really. My best friend in high school became my lover for about a year, and after that I only had a couple more girlfriends before I went through my little straight phase ." "Were you in love with her? You're high school sweetheart?" "I think I was...but she cheated on me and I left her. Looking back we didn't make a very good couple. We only made love once. In fact that's....that's the only time i've ever made love to a woman. That's why I said I didn't really know what to do when we..." Her voice trailed. I knew she was referring to the first and only time we had properly made love. "Hey it's ok, don't be ashamed to say it." "It's not exactly that, it's just that, I'm worried...that time, did I do alright?" "Did you do alright! Crystal, you were wonderful! I've never felt that good!" "You're just saying that." She said smiling widely. "Well...if you want the chance to do better..." I let the sentence hang, and trailed my fingers along her arm. She shivered and licked her lips. I drew her close and craned her neck up, and kissed her forehead. Then the bridge of her delacate nose. I kissed the places of her face, tenderly, breathing on her softly. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was getting more shallow. Finally I moved onto her lips. She held me tight as our lips touched, making our kiss loving, yet passionatly urgent. "I love you so much, and I want to make you feel so good." I caressed her tongue with mine. "I want to take you as hard as I did when I first saw you. But this time I want your permission." She looked at me. There was hunger and lust in her eyes when she answered. "You have it." I pulled our lips together again suddenly, and shoved her back roughly onto the bed. I pinned her arms down and told her to keep them there, as I moved my mouth onto her neck and began using my teeth on it, biting her. She let out a moan of arousal. With my teeth still attached to her neck, I moved my hands down to the fly of her pants, and shoved the zipper down, and her pants and panties went next. I found myself staring at her naked pussy again. I growled my need, but I had said I wanted to take her like I did the first time I saw her. I withdrew from her beautiful pussy and she looked at me with such longing it almost looked like she was in pain. I postitioned my crotch near her face. "Take off my pants." I said hungerly. She grabbed the zipper and pulled it down so violently I thought she was going to rip the inseam out. Then, once again with almost ripping strength, she tore off my panties. With them off, I moved on top of her again, and looked her straight in the eyes as I lowered my pussy onto her, and pushed my hips down. Her eyelids closed at the contact, and she moved her hands on my hips, trying to force me to hump her. But, I grabbed her hands, and pinned them down. Like the first time, I was going to fuck her at my own pace. Which, I might add, was very fast, and very hard. I lifted my hands from hers to massage her breasts. She didn't move her hands after I left them. I sucked on her almost rock hard nipples as I humped her madly. Too deaf I had been the first time, to hear her noises of pleasure, but I let myself hear them now loud and clear. Her moans and cries of lust went through me, heightening my pleasure. She was so loud I wondered if Rob could hear us. "Jamie! Ohhhhhh god harder! ohhh god!" I began to moan in earnest now, our clits were sliding against each other, I rubbed our pussies together harder, my cunt sliding up and down hers, our erect, hard clits throbbing against each other. We were fucking so hard, it didn't take long for us to reach the orgasm we both so desperatly needed now. With a loud groan and a hard shudder for both of us, we came. I think it had taken about three minutes. We lay panting and breathing heavily in each others arms for a moment before moving again. Finally she moved her head to look at me, and I looked at her. She was so beautiful in the afterglow of orgasm. She looked at me for a second, then, to my immense surprise, she raised a hand and slapped me straight across my face. I wasn't sure what the hell that was about. Before I could ask, Crystal whispered, "The first time you took me like that, I was so shocked and it felt so good, I forgot to get mad. I guess what I did was a delayed reaction, but that was for raping me." I thought for a second, then nodded and said, "I did deserve that. I am sorry for what happened." She held my face within her hands and kissed me gently. "I understand." I held her closer in my arms and we french kissed tenderly and lovingly. It was perfect. Niether of us had a care in the world at that moment, there was only us, Crystal and I framed in this everlasting moment. Time became oblivious, as we lay there in each others arms for I don't know how long, no feeling dwelling inside other than the love we felt. Nothing mattered, not the fact that the world had been reduced to a gray waste, or that as far as we knew, our newfound colony was the last remaining human habitat on earth, and that we and the 60 other people in this town were the only people on earth alive. It didn't mean anything to us right then, it was only Crystal and I. There was nothing else, and nothing else mattered. We were our own world. Finally the spell of our kiss lifted. We we staring in each other's eyes again. Two words suddenly came to mind. "Your shirt." Crystal wriggled her arms underneath her t-shirt and threw it off, and she helped me to the same with mine. Instinctivly I took one of her breasts in my hands and began massaging it, playing with the nipple, which was fast growing firmer. She groaned slightly and leaned forward, kissing in my cleavage. When I felt my nipple get enveloped in her mouth, I moaned and put my own mouth to her delicate neck, while my hand travled down between her legs, finding her already beginning to leak her heatedness onto my hand. I moved my face down, between her breasts, over her naval, and down to where the most treasured part of her body lay. My tongue dragged from the bottom of her naval to her mound, over that to her clit. She trembled and whimpered. My tongue went in circles around her clit slowly, before I surrounded the sensitive button with my mouth, then released it, pulling on it slightly. She let something between a sigh and a moan. "Jamie......." Her clit went into my mouth again, and this time I sucked slowly, while tracing my finger around and around her hole. I didn't tease her like that for long, she was already so wet when I sank two of my fingers into her. She began to moan and tremble in earnest now. "Ah! Ohhhh Ohhhhhhhh harder, please.....ohhh my......" By "harder" I didn't know if she meant my sucking or fucking, so I increased my speeds of both. That was the ticket. Her hips were now moving up and down, forcing me to use my fingers harder. Opening my eyes, I looked up at her. There was a look of absolute pleasure on her face, she was in heaven, I could tell. I wanted to keep her there forever, but I also wanted to make her feel an incredible orgasm. So I gently nipped at her rigid clit with my teeth, and, tenativly, moved the little finger of my free hand to her asshole. I massaged it gently, and when I felt her whole body stiffen, I thrust my finger inside her tight ass. Crystal's back arched as she let out a loud scream, her hips bucked and her warm girl cum spilled out of her cunt as she came. Feeling her vagina and ass close around my fingers at once was almost too much for me, as I had a mini-orgasm just feeling and watching her. I massaged her clitoris as she came down, setting off another small climax for her. After she was done, she opened her eyes to find me looking into her face. She held me around my neck and buried her face in my hair, and just breathed. "That was sooo good..." She might have been relieved, but I wasn't even close. My arousal had been brought up to very high levels while making her cum, and now I needed her to make love to me. "Crystal..." I breathed, and moved her hand to my breast. "I need..." I almost laughed; somehow I couldn't tell her. But Crystal didn't need words to understand me. She looked at me breifly, with love, and moved us up so that we were both kneeling. Then her mouth moved to my tit, suckeling my nipple. I moaned, I needed her so bad. But again, as if there were a telepathic link between us, her hand was suddenly between my legs, fondling my pussy. "Mmmmmmm unhh" I groaned as her fingers found my throbbing clit, and began to stroke it. She moved her mouth to bite the nape of my neck. Suddenly my whole body spasmed; I felt her teeth dig into my skin, and my mouth opened in a silent gasp of pleasure; she had given me a hickey. I barely had time to recover when she thrust not only three fingers in my soaking cunt, but her pinky finger slid into my ass. I couldn't kneel any longer, with a loud moan I began to fall back onto our bed, and she helped me lower down so that I didn't land hard. Without removing her fingers from me, she moved her mouth to my ear and said, "That felt really good when you did it to me. I knew you would like it too." "Please Crystal....honey, please fuck me, make me cum!" I begged her without shame to give me the pleasure only she could give. With most of her hand still inside me, she kissed me, and then moved her face down to my mound. She began pumping me much faster and harder, and gave my erect clit the oral attention it needed. I felt it go into her warm mouth and get sucked hard. Finally I reached my peak, thrashed wildly and came harder than I ever had; i'm sure I coated her hand with at least a gallon of my love fluids; I could almost feel it squirting out of me. I screamed out loud and moaned over and over until I finally came down, what had to be a good forty seconds later. I lay back on the bed, panting, unable to move until my breathing finally returned to normal. I was exhausted. Her arm went across my chest. Opening my eyes I looked at her dreamily. Crystal gave me a small smile, and leaned closer to my face. Her fair face was now serious. "Thank you for everything. I don't know what else I can say except...." She smiled again. "I love you. I love you so much." I thought I saw tears of happiness in her eyes. I know they were in mine. "Thank you." I whispered. "And I love you so much too. I want to be with you forever." She leaned forward, and we kissed again, sweetly, but with enough love to fill my entire being. When we pulled away, she said the words that truely gave that wonderful night a perfect end. "You will."

We slept away the rest of that night, peacefully. It is now six months since then. Crystal and I are still together, and are still very in love with each other. Not much has changed, we're still living in Rob's basement, since there is no where else to go, but we've taken an active role in helping our new community sustain us all, and be as good as it can. Rob's been elected the leader of our little group, which is great. He has wonderful leadership skills, and as a scientist, he can really help us learn to live in this post-war environment. He says that in about another six months, the radiation levels will be low enough for us to venture out without radiation suits, to see if anyone else is out there, to see what's left. There isn't a lot of hope among most of us that we'll find anything, but I know better. Crystal and I knew better. We know that it is useless to give up hope, because even when we do, it might find us anyway. Crystal had unwittingly been my hope, and I unwittingly hers. Now I wonder...did Crystal find me? Or is it vise versa? Both? It doesn't really matter I guess, but it's interesting to think about. What does matter is that we were both found, we were saved from a life of hell, alone and lonely after the end. Crystal and I are still here, still together, still in love. We still hope.

Thank you so much for reading my story, and being so patient with how much time it's taken. Questions and/or comments are welcome at hyperspiderfight@aol.com, or specialpopcorn@aol.com.