She has a Name

A few hours later I lay looking at the bottle of water that sat just a few feet away. I berate myself for touching the woman. As long as I was quiet and I kept my hands to myself she seemed happy to be near me. To talk to me. To take care of me. By touching her back I had upset her and scared her off. I had only myself to blame for the burning feeling up and down my ragged throat. Or for the depressing silence around me now. I missed her voice.

I had focused for a time on freeing my my good arm, I hated being bound plus it gave me something to concentrate on, but I had hit a roadblock. I discover that she had actually tied my wrist twice over. By the time I had the one binding loose enough for me to start to pull my hand free I find that the other bond had tightened almost to the point of cutting off the blood getting into my hand. I'd given up for the time being. I needed to rest again.

I slept fitfully for a short time but the slumber wouldn't stick. My mind was too preoccupied by by either managing my pain, which was getting easier, or thinking about this strange woman. I was starting to get worried about her. She'd been gone a long time. She had talked about heading up to the over pass. Is that where she was now? Or was she getting food? Or finding clothes? I wished I knew. Was she okay? Maybe she was hurt, or maybe she had finally thought better of caring for an Orc and ran off. It was so frustrating being this helpless. This immobile. This useless. The boredom didn't help either.

I lay, I listen. I hear the breeze. I hear buzzing insects. I hear crows. I hear the nearby skittering of small animals from time to time. I feel as the heat of the day continuously rises. I am able to get the blanket off of me with my semi mobile injured arm. The light outside was taking on a more harsh bright white look as the sun now baked down directly from above. The breeze began to die off and it was getting real quiet outside. The cool of the previous night was long gone. It was going to be a scorcher. I hope the woman finds shelter where ever she is. Sometimes these sorts of days could cause unprotected skin to blister in mere minutes.

As the sun nears its zenith I hear the trotting of soft foot falls at a jog. The woman comes into view carrying a makeshift sack. I am so thankful to see her again. She stops and checks on the water she had left in the sun. Feeling it with her fingers. Then she walks up and enters the shelter. I see she is sweaty and flush from the heat and her exertions.

“It's getting real hot out there.” She says, slightly out of breath. She didn't seem upset anymore. If anything she seemed happy to see me. She puts down the tied off bundle. She takes a long drink of water straight from the bottle. I watch as beads of sweat trickle down her smooth cheek and slender tan neck. She then turns and pours some slowly into my mouth. I gratefully swallow down every soothing drop she gives me. Again she doesn't check my bindings, this time I don't even see the knife. Once again I think that she really shouldn't trust me as much as she is.

She sets the water to the side and just stands there for a little, fanning herself and peering outside. Looking and listening for any threats. “This is a really good spot. You picked a good place to fall.” She looks back toward me. “From the outside you can't even see this little clearing. Just looks like a pile of wreckage. I hope the water holds out for a while.”

Kneeling beside me she opens her little sack and folds it out. She was excited to show me what she had found. “Look at this.” She holds up a large pair of khaki shorts. The edges were frayed on the right leg but the garment was otherwise in good shape. “I found it in a bus. This too.” She pulls out a black tank top with a dark stain across the middle of it. “I think they'll fit you Filth. I didn't find shoes but I don't think you'll be walking for a while. I found some pepper spray too. Still sealed and everything. I'm pretty sure it'll still work.” She shows me the aerosol can. “It's not a gun but it's something.”

She then holds up a half foot thick chunk of spongy yellow foam cut into a square. She'd obviously cut it out of something with her knife. “I figured since you can't move you might appreciate this.” Leaning forward she carefully tilts my head up and slides the cushion under it. She was leaned right over my face, her shirt brushing my nose and forehead. I could smell her! My sense of smell was returning. I smell her musky sweat along with dust and oil. It was intoxicating. She puts my head back down to rest upon the soft foam. “Better, right?”

I nod. This was too much. She was too much.

She nods back. “Good. Oh! And I really hit the jackpot here...” She keeps shifting closer to me as she spoke. The side of her calf was now right up to my hand. “...booze!” She shows me a half full bottle of old world rye whiskey. “I tried some, it is super gross. But I thought you might like it. Maybe help with the pain right?”

Her face brightens into the most lovely smile I had ever seen. She is smiling at me...simply because she felt good to see me. She wasn't sneering at me or laughing at me or gloating over me, as I would experience with my gang mates. It wasn't the false grin of a slick trader or a hired whore.

She seemed so genuinely happy to be doing something for someone else. To have someone to care for, to have someone to care about, to have someone to come home to. I realize that she must have been very lonely out here on her own. I had met enough loners and hermits in my travels to know that loneliness could be one of the more insidious challenges of surviving the Wastes, it drove many scroungers mad.

I smile back...which causes her grin to vanish. She turns her gaze away from me awkwardly. “You're so ugly Filth. Please don't look at me.” She says softly. I continue looking, I can't stop myself anymore. She shakes her head. “Anyways. Um...I didn't find anything food wise yet, but I'm going to take a break. It's going to be too hot out there to do anything soon. On the bright side the bath water is nice and warm.”

She pushes her newly found treasures off to the side and gets up to head outside. She grabs the bucket by the lip and drags it backward into the shelter. She pulls a quasi clean rag from her pack and tosses it into the bucket.

She sits beside me once more. She really seemed to like sitting close. Her hand comes to rest on my bare shoulder. “I used to have to bathe my sister when she was really little. Never thought I'd bathe an Orc. Probably no one ever bathed an Orc before, you being such filthy creatures. I can say I was the first to do it. I'm going to do it now so you can't stop me. Don't be mad. You'll feel better and smell better. Maybe you'll even like it. Maybe there's still a little human in you mutant.” She looks over my body and starts brushing away the larger bits of dust and dirt with her bare hand. She was going about it like any other chore that had to be done.

She continues her wonderful one sided conversation, I was greedy for every word. “Back home I could take proper showers when the reservoirs were full. Those were nice. You could get clean, like truly clean. Everywhere. So nice.” She laughs as she pulls the bucket closer. Her eyes were off in the distance, thinking of her memory. “My dad would yell at me. He'd say:” She puts on a mock fatherly masculine voice. “Gabby! Quit using all the water! You're not that big, how can you use so much water!?” She laughs again. “My name is Gabriela but he always called me Gabby. His girl Gabby...”

Her name was Gabby? This talkative little woman's name was Gabby? This girl that rarely ever stayed quiet? I start to chuckle. It evolves into a proper laugh. I turn my head away from her and continue laughing. It hurt to laugh, and I didn't want to offend her, but I just couldn't help it.

She turns nervously, worried about my sudden spasms. Her small hands feel my chest. “What's wrong! Oh my god, what... Are...are you laughing?” I feel her tension relax as she settles down beside me again. “Are you laughing at my name? That's rude.” She sits a moment watching me. “I suppose you're real name is...uh...puppy...kicker...or some stupid Orc thing.” She says in offense.

Puppy kicker!? I laugh even harder. I shake my head, my eyes squeezed shut, and heave with laughter. It is a wheezing rasping laugh, my throat and side pulses in agonizing pain. But I can't stop.

I hear her start to laugh as well, caught up in my jocularity though she was fighting it. “He he...stop it...what's so funny about Gabriela? He he he...stop it Filth. Don't be mean. He he he.” She straightens up and says proudly. “Ahem...I happen to think it's a pretty name.”

I slowly stop my chuckling, taking time to control my breathing again and get my pain under control, then I look up at her. I give her a long quiet gaze. I thought it was pretty too. It was the perfect name for her. Gabriela. I had never heard such a nice name before.

Gabriela shakes her head at the ridiculousness of it all. “You are a silly Orc Filth.” She gets up and very carefully moves my injured arm out away from my body. “I don't want to get the wrapping wet. I cleaned under there yesterday.” She says. She settles down once more, now in the space between my arm and torso. She pulls the wet cloth from the bucket and wrings it out. She turns back to me. Her soft brown eyes run down the length of my body. I see them pause at my large breasts, I see them pause at the sizable bulge in my underwear. She asks the question I'd been expecting for a while now.

“Filth...are...are you a man or a woman?”