After (15 page)

* * * *

The men have retired to their quarters.

Smith has taken the tape to his office.

Eva and John are lying in bed, close and quiet in the dark.

“Ever think about how ironic it is? What's happened?” she asks John.

“What do you mean?”

“About how, just when it seemed like people might get to live practically forever, the dying starts. I mean, I don't remember, really, how it was before, but of course we learn, in school, and just hear about it—heard about it,” she corrects herself, “all the time. How there used to be cancer and AIDS. And in other places, famines and droughts. And they finally fix everything—at least, made it seem that way—and then the dying. And now this. Smith's menagerie of perversion.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I think about it.” John is quiet for a long time before he goes on.

“I thought my little girl was going to grow up in this perfect world. That she'd never have to be afraid of terrorist bombs or nuclear accidents. Or cancer. AIDS or herpes. I thought she'd get to live to be a hundred, a hundred and fifty, in good health.”

“God, John, how can you be so...why aren't you more bitter? More angry?”

“At who? Smith didn't do this. Riggs and the men didn't do this.”

“But why aren't you more cynical?”

“You mean, why do I think it's worthwhile, starting again?”

“Yes.”

“I guess because I was happy, before. I had a good, a beautiful life. I know not everyone did. But I believe—I don't know how
not
to believe—that that's how it's supposed to go. That the worst suffering that's gone on—that humanity put in motion—

was a mistake. A mistake of history. Maybe if we start again, those mistakes won't happen. Maybe most people will have a life like my life was.”

She is quiet. Quiet and still.

“Eva...” It's a conciliatory pronunciation of her name. Like he's back-treading.

“What?” She smiles, sad-looking. “You can't say 'is.' I know that.”

* * * *

Hovering over her, John gives Eva a little kiss on the forehead, then goes back to looking at her. They are naked. His bare ass is nestled between her lax, parted thighs.

They haven't kissed, yet, or really touched.

“What's that grin for?”

“Because. I'm about to give you the best orgasm you've ever had.”

She laughs. “Kind of full of yourself tonight, aren't you?”

“What? It's not bragging when I'm only talking about improving on a personal best, is it?”

“And what makes you think, at this stage in the game, that I'm not competition?”

she teases.

“Mmmm,” he purrs, almost growls by her ear. “I hope you are. I'm going to enjoy trying to outdo you.”

Sinking down, he teases her lips with his, promising a kiss, but keeping it from her, until he dips down and nips her bottom lip with his teeth. Then a tender little kiss where he's bitten, then back to teasing. By the time he gives her a real, deep, kiss, she's straining for it.

He goes on, teasing her with his warm breath, barely touching down with lips, with tongue, drifting over her mouth, her neck, her ears, her mouth again, her throat, her breasts. Slipping down, kisses tickling her belly, teasing her nipples, then sucking them rigid, flushed and full, making her grunt and pant. Her belly quivers under his tongue until he's kissing the tender flesh just inside her hip-bone. Down.

“John.” He looks up.

“Please. Let's not do that.”

“Eva,” he says, grinning, raising a rakish eyebrow. “Trust me. You're going to like it.”

“I don't want to,” she says, an angry edge making her voice sharp. “Come on, let's just do...whatever it is, for tonight.”

“Eva...” His grin, his teasing voice are gone.

“Oh,” she says, her voice small. Hurt. Then, resigned, “Okay.”

He comes back to her, petting and nuzzling. Without breaking eye contact he finds her hand with his, brings it to his lips, kisses her palm.

“I know you're shy about this,” he whispers to her, “so I haven't pressed. But this is something I love doing. And I've been wanting to, dying to, with you. So you don't need to feel embarrassed.”

Eva nods and even smiles, but she doesn't quite manage to hide the effort it costs her.

“I promise you,” he says, a little of the teasing tone back in his voice, “I'm going to love tasting you. The feel of you under my mouth.”

She is still and quiet.

“Close your eyes,” he whispers, stroking her hair. “And I'll keep my eyes closed, too. Hmmm? Now it's just us, in the dark.” He kisses her cheek. “It's just us. You and me.”

“Okay,” she says, almost mastering her voice, producing a nearly-believable smile.

She keeps her eyes closed and he keeps her hand in his as he goes down, planting little kisses along the way. When the tip of his tongue touches down on those delicate, dewy crenelations, a little tremor ripples through her body and the tiny muscles of her eyelids.

Breathing, deep, slow, rhythmic. Eyes closed. One hand in his, the other stiff, open, flat on the bed beside her. Under her lashes, at the corners of her eyes, crystalline beads gather, gather, merge and spill, slinking down her temples, into her hair. But she keeps her face smooth, her breathing steady.

He sighs, moans as he licks her, maybe to reassure her, maybe because she has told him to show his eagerness. He licks her, and she makes a little noise, now and then, that might be for pleasure. Little by little the tentative, delicate touches of his tongue get bolder, explore deeper, until his whole mouth is working over her, eager and hungry.

Eyes closed, legs open, she gives in. Her lips part, her breaths come in ragged huffs as her tears gather under her lashes, roll down into her hair. Gather and roll, gather and roll, her thighs and hips flexing, lifting her cunt to his hungry mouth.

He holds her hand, cradles, caresses her hip, her thigh, kissing and sighing over her wet, blushing sex until she's twitching, bucking under his mouth, sobbing her climax through clenched teeth, tears streaming into her hair.

After, he kisses his way up her belly, back to her.

“Eva,” he practically sobs when he sees.

“What else?” she manages in a choked voice.

“For the cameras? Nothing.”

“I don't want them to see. I don't want them to know I'm crying.”

He wraps her up in his embrace, pulling her into the crook of his neck, holding her to him.

“It's all right. They can't see,” he whispers, keeping her hidden from the cameras as she cries.

Hours later, in bed, in the dark she says, “It was dumb of me. For some reason, I thought they'd never ask for that. I had this idea that that was one thing I could keep for myself. One thing I could really give you when I was ready, by my own choice.”

In the dark he pulls her closer, holding her, kissing her face, a little trail of kisses from temple to chin.

“The thing I have to remember,” she says, her voice even, cool, “is to never put any of my hope, my sense of my self in the things they can take away. My body isn't me.

Smith can do whatever he wants to my body. I suppose he could put me in a coma and just use me as a living incubator, if he decides to. The only thing they can't touch is me.

Inside. The person I choose to be. They can't degrade, violate me, unless I let them.”

CHAPTER TEN

Eva and John startle and stir. Blinking against the morning light, they fix bleary gazes on the door as the deadbolts clack back. The door opens, and Smith steps through. He gives the guard a terse, “Eyes front, soldier,” as he shuts the door.

“Please pardon my barging in after such a perfunctory knock,” he says to the couple in the bed, “but I don't have much time this morning.”

He locks eyes with John.

“Please excuse us. I'd like to have a few words with Eva in private.”

John says nothing. He only rises from the bed, naked, and puts his towering, muscled bulk between Smith and Eva.

“It's okay, John,” Eva says. “Go ahead.”

When John has dressed and gone, Smith turns his attention to Eva, still in bed, sitting up, the sheet tucked up under her arms.

Smith gestures toward a straight-backed chair by the window. “May I?” he asks.

“Please.”

Eva's voice is cool and low.

“How are you getting on, Eva?”

“I'm not sure what you mean.”

“I understand that things aren't as you'd like them, but under the circumstances, are you reasonably comfortable? Are there supplies you need that we didn't think to provide you?”

“If I think of anything, I'll let you know.”

“Good. Do.”

Eva swings her legs over the edge of the bed and rises. She is naked. Smith stiffens, but doesn't turn away. He watches as she walks to the dresser with an unhurried, natural gait, pulls a pair of white cotton underwear from a drawer, steps into them, slides them up her calves, up her thighs, over her bare ass.

Smith's voice is almost normal, just a little tight. “There is something else I'd like to discuss with you.”

“What's that?”

“You understand, don't you, this arrangement, the real point of it; the critical thing is that you get pregnant.”

“And the live porn is just gravy. John told me.”

She pulls the hem of her t-shirt down, veiling her breasts and belly.

“And you are trying?”

“Why ask me? You've got hours of video footage to consult. I can't imagine you'd trust me more than photographic evidence.”

“No.”

Eva tugs her pants up on her hips and zips. Smith's eyes follow her as she navigates around the corner of the bed, draws near, slips by, and lowers herself onto the chair opposite him.

“As you might imagine, I have consulted the evidence,” Smith resumes.

Eva smiles an ironic, one-sided smile.

“Pardon me for being blunt, Eva. But it's necessary.”

“I'm sorry this is so difficult for you.”

“In some of the recordings, it looks like John is pulling out.”

“Pulling out?”

It's hard to tell if she's really unsure what he means, or if she's just playing with Smith.

“When you and John have sex, Eva, does he ejaculate inside you?”

“Even when his cock is in my mouth,” she says, meeting Smith's eyes.

“Has John explained what will happen if you're not pregnant when six months have gone by?”

“You're going to hold another lottery.”

“Yes.”

She smiles, then waits until her smile provokes the hint of a perplexed expression.

“But you'll do that, anyway,” she finally says.

He freezes in place. Silent.

“When I've had John's baby, you'll pair me with someone else.” She gives him a moment to deny before she goes on. “If you really believe we might be the only ones left, if you really mean for us, for me to give rise to the next generation, and the next after that, that's what you'll have to do. It's necessary. For genetic diversity.”

“Yes,” he says after a long, still silence, his voice low but firm.

“And after that, you'll pair me with a third man. Then a fourth. If I haven't died in childbirth by then.”

“Yes.”

“Right through, down to the last man on the base.”

“Yes,” he breathes.

“And John doesn't know.”

This time Smith hesitates before he confesses. “No.”

“And my children. My daughters. As soon as they get their period, at fourteen or twelve, it'll be the same for them.”

“Yes.” Smith peers into Eva for a long while, as if he is trying to read her thoughts.

“I understand, Major, that after some period of time, if you decide I'm willfully defying you, you can make my future even less pleasant than the scenario we've just discussed. Don't worry. I won't do anything to force you to keep me in restraints twenty-four-seven, being force-fed and enduring my conjugal visits while tied down.”

This small speech makes Smith turn away from her eyes. Eva smiles.

“Smith.”

She waits for him to face her again.

“Do you have a first name?”

“Avery.”

“May I use it?”

“If you'd like.”

She rises from her chair and leans back against the window frame, gazing out for a moment before she turns and locks eyes with him.

“Avery,” she says, testing his name with a soft voice.

It's hard to say how his face changes. Maybe it's just that it's possible to see that he is working to keep it composed.

“The day they caught me, your men, then John, the day you brought me to your room. I thought it was going to be you. I thought as the leader here you’d claim me as your own prize.” Smith's body stiffens. His face seems, somehow, to become more like marble. “I was so frightened, so tired and shaken up; my memories of that day are vague except for a lot of impressions. Feelings.

“I remember, scared as I was, that when you left me alone in your room, I felt for the first time in more than two years that I was in a home. A warm room with furniture and water and soap and books. And when I went into the bathroom to take my shower and I saw your robe, I remember pressing my face into it and smelling it. I was terrified of you, but the smell of you, another person, was such a comfort. And then I resigned myself to what I thought would be my fate. I even convinced myself that when you came back for me, I wouldn’t fight. I would give myself to you quietly.”

Smith’s face is enigmatic stone.

“Did you consider it? Keeping me for yourself?”

He doesn't answer.

Eva goes on, “Left alone in your room that afternoon I imagined what was going to happen to me when you came back. I was really terrified. I don’t know if you can guess what it’s like to be a girl, knowing you’re completely at the mercy of twenty strange men. I promised myself, over and over, that it wouldn’t be a…that it wouldn’t be all of you. But I knew something was going to happen. I figured it would be you. I comforted myself that you seemed…I don’t know, not violent. Not like Riggs and those men. Not like John seemed to be. I told myself that you wouldn't be violent or cruel. And I remember hoping that you’d keep me, not just use me for a day or two then throw me to the pack.

“I pictured the whole scene. I would be sitting on the bed in your robe. You would come in, close the door, look at me meaningfully. I imagined you sitting down beside me on the bed, me frightened and reticent, but resigned. You would kiss me, I would submit, knowing that fighting would only make the inevitable more brutal. I imagined your kiss would be tender, and that even through my fear I would feel something else, a little.