After (16 page)

Then, maybe, I thought you would take off your shirt before pulling at the sash of the robe—your robe that I was wearing—so that I would feel a tiny bit less vulnerable because you were undressed, too.

“I don’t think I really imagined what would happen after that. Only that I would be very quiet, very submissive, so that it wouldn’t be too hard.”

His face is still stone, with the suggestion of a very fine, nearly invisible crack.

“But when you gave me to John, I didn’t have the strength to be quiet. I misjudged him, very badly. I would do anything, now, not to see him hurt.”

“As he would for you, I think.”

“Are you at all afraid for him?”

“Why?”

”Because of me.”

“A little.”

“You're really fond of him, aren't you? I mean, you consider him a friend.”

“Yes.”

“But still, in a few months, if he hasn't made me pregnant, you'll break us up.

You'll have another lottery. Give me to someone else.”

”Yes.” He says this quietly, firmly, looking calmly into her eyes.

“And who will win that lottery?”

His record skips at her scratch.

“Do you ever regret, Avery, not keeping me with you?” He is silent. “Do you think, maybe, if it comes to another lottery, maybe you…”

“A leader who takes too much for himself isn’t trusted for long.”

* * * *

“Why the fuck did he barge in here first thing in the morning?” John's voice is soft and low as ever, but even so the tinge of rage can be heard. “He could have come any time. It's not like he's got a heavy schedule to work around.”

“My guess? He's testing you.”

“Gauging where my loyalty is.”

“You know, you don't have to be afraid of him raping me,” she says.

“No.” John curves his hand against her waist. “He'd never touch you, not like that.

But god knows what he'll think of. What he's capable of doing. If he decides it was a mistake, putting us together...”

“It's important, John, that he not imagine we're in league against him.”

“In league?” John laughs. They do that, sometimes, laugh at painful moments.

“Hey, spawn of lit profs, remember?” she teases.

“He knows I care for you. That I won't do anything to hurt you.”

“That's fine. But he has to believe that you think the best way of looking after me is to go along with his ideas.” John gives her a nod and a sheepish look from under his brow. “And really,” she says, “that's pretty much the truth. So it shouldn't be so hard to make him believe it.”

“No,” he says as if he is confessing a crime.

They are quiet together for a while, and then John asks, “Was there something else? He didn't come here just for that. Just to test me.”

“No. He grilled me for a while about whether we're really trying.”

“You convinced him?”

“He doesn't need convincing. He'll bide his time, and if he doesn't like the results when our time's up, he'll stick me with someone else.”

John doesn't say anything after that. After a long quiet between them, Eva touches him in the dark.

“Don't be afraid for me, John.”

“I am afraid for you. And for me, too. I don't think I'll be able to do it, let Smith raffle you off to one of them.”

“He won't let me go to just anyone. I'm too precious. He'll be sure I end up with someone safe.”

“And what? You'll be fine? It's all the same to you, if it's me fucking you for the cameras, or if it's Nichols or Washington or Baldwyn?”

Eva is quiet. She just reaches out in the dark to touch John's face, stroke his hair, pull him to her.

“John,” she whispers to him, “why are you saying these things? Just say what you really mean.”

After a long silence he says, “I don't want to be parted from you.”

Eva kisses his face.

“I know,” she whispers. “I know. I don't want us to be separated, either. But I won't make a child to protect myself or to keep us together.”

“I wouldn't either. You know that, don't you?” he asks her.

“John?”

“Hmmm?”

“You really want to be a father again? After the way you lost Juliette?”

There's a long silence before John says, “Honestly? For myself? I didn't think so.

I don't think we should give up on humanity. But for me, fathering a child, I thought it would be a kind of sacrifice. Not because I wouldn't love the child. Only because...”

“You're afraid.”

“Yeah.”

“But?”

“It's scary, caring for you so much, with things so fucked up, knowing we have so little control over what will happen to us. But it's still better. Better than before. Not caring about anything anymore. And even though it broke my heart, watching Juliette get sick, watching her die, I wouldn't erase that pain by undoing her birth. I'm glad I got to be her daddy for almost three years. And I want that joy again. Being a father.

Holding a baby in my arms. Seeing her smile for the first time. Hearing her first word.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The cameras are going, and in the other building the monitors flicker and resolve into four familiar facets of Eva's room. Rapt, hard, the men watch Eva, naked, sink to her knees, watch John press his cock to her lips, watch him drive his hard length into her mouth, watch his fingers rake into her hair, watch him pump his hips.

Soon he his panting as he fucks her mouth. His body goes stiff, his hips thrust forward, his cock deep in her mouth. Eva's hands slide up the backs of his thighs, grip his ass, pull him hard to her. Someone in the room mutters, “Damn.”

John sinks down and the lovers smile and tip their foreheads together. They are talking, but not loud enough for the men to hear. Then John nudges her gently onto her back, holds himself weightlessly over her, kissing her mouth, her face, her neck, her shoulders, breasts. When he kisses her belly it flutters and she gasps. Eva looks a little uncertain, almost afraid as John coaxes her legs open.

When he puts his mouth on her, she cries out softly. She looks down, watches what he is doing, then collapses back on the pillow, closes her eyes. She moans quietly with each exhale, her hips writhing in the gentle grasp of his large hands. When she tenses and cries out, he takes her all the way through long moments of pleasure.

Then, when she relaxes and her breathing goes quiet, he takes her into his arms and holds her. They look at one another, their faces very close together. Her eyes shift from his eyes, down to his mouth. A languid smile bends her mouth.

“I smell myself on you.” She touches his lips with two delicate fingers. “Kiss me.”

He kisses her lightly on the lips. She parts his lips with hers, deepens their kiss, ends it, and smiles like a naughty little gnome.

She invites him, and he makes love to her.

After, they curl up in each other's arms.

In the mess hall most of the men rise and leave. A few stay behind to watch Eva and John cuddle and whisper in the fading light.

Night after night, the soldiers watch John and Eva enact one of the fantasies they have submitted to Smith. At first the fantasies are simple. Instructions referring to positions, to body parts to be exposed and touched, with a smattering of adjectives directing how hard and how fast she is to be grabbed, pinned, licked, bitten, penetrated.

Many suggest coercion.

Most of the epistles are written as directives to John: “You bend her over and fuck her doggie style…” Some are written in abstract third person perspective: “He squeezes her tits and sucks her nipples...” One is written in the first person: “I shove her onto the bed. She tries to fight me but I rip off her panties and spread her legs…”

One evening when John arrives at Eva’s, she greets him with a warm kiss, but she cools and withdraws as he holds out the evening's instructions.

“It's nothing bad,” he hurries to assure her. “But this one I think you should read.”

I come to Eva. She smiles at me with that sweet smile of hers. The smile I’ve
never seen except through the camera because she hardly ever comes out of her room,
and because when she comes out she doesn’t smile. Because we scare her. But she
smiles at me, and I smile at her, and I realize I never smile anymore. She reaches out
with both of her hands, and I put my hands in hers. Her hands are small and warm and
soft. I can’t remember the last time someone touched me. She steps forward and I put
my arms around her. Then I feel her arms around me. I didn’t think I would ever get to
hold someone again. It feels so nice, I’m afraid I’ll cry. We take off our shoes and get in
bed. I lay my head on her belly, and she strokes my hair and my face for a long time. It
reminds me of when I was a little boy and my mom used to tuck me into bed, and she’d
stroke my hair for a while before she turned out the light and left. It reminds me of when
my wife and I used to lay in bed and talk and touch and sometimes make love,
sometimes not. Eva strokes my hair like that for a long time, and I finally fall asleep, and
this one night, with Eva holding me, I don’t have any bad dreams.

Then there are a few days of the usual fantasies: “her on top so we can see her ass and her tits while you fuck” “sixty-nine,” “he pins her arms over her head and fucks her good and hard.”

Then, one day, there is another peculiar epistle:

You come home to her. You know that when she sees you she’ll embrace you,
and she does. You talk to her in a soft voice. The voice of a lover. And she talks back to
you in her lover’s talk. You lay down together on the bed. You look at her. You touch her
and she touches you. You pull her close against you, and her warmth is a comfort. You
just lay there like that with her. Her presence, her kindness, the way she touches you
and looks at you makes all the rest of it bearable. You hate everyone a little less. Then,
after a while, you forget your hate altogether. You have a friend. You feel safe. You feel
hope.

* * * *

Usually in the morning, John slips quietly out of bed to avoid waking her. Today he watches Eva sleeping for a moment, then wakes her with a few soft kisses on her cheek. She stirs and gazes at him, her eyes groggy and heavy-lidded. At last, she is awake. She smiles and kisses him.

“I have a little surprise for you.”

She waits with a sleepy smile.

“I’ve convinced Smith to let me take you along to work today.”

“I get to go with you? Work outside?”

“Yes.”

She looks as if she might actually cry.

“It’s not a permanent change—just today, then if everything goes well, he said maybe you could go out with me once or twice a week.”

“I’ll get dressed.”

* * * *

“John,” she says one evening as they sit beneath a tree after a long day of work.

“Yes?”

”I don't think we're alone.”

He looks around, then looks at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I survived. You survived. And Jake. And the others here. That's not just four separate sets of survivors—we're just the ones that found each other. Even though I saw whole cities that seemed empty, even though there's been no radio communication, no other sign, there's no way there aren't more survivors.”

“No. You're right. There's bound to be others, holed up in some fortress somewhere, just like us. Probably there are a dozen or fifty or hundreds of little outposts scattered across the continent. Nevermind everywhere else.”

“And if I lived, then probably I'm not the only woman.”

“Probably not.”

After a long silence Eva says, “So I don't think me having a baby or not having a baby is going to mean the difference between survival and extinction.”

John gazes at her, then gives her a sad smile.

“You've decided. You won't get pregnant.”

“I wonder what's going on out there,” she muses. “Is it like here? Worse?”

“I don't know.”

“I keep thinking, somehow, almost all the survivors are men. That everywhere some cluster of people find each other, the women are outnumbered—I don't know—

three-to-one? Twenty-to-one? What do think is happening to them?”

“I don't know,” John breathes.

“Societies always make up rules to order the chaos. All the groups that have come together, they're deciding how to order their little worlds. Just like Smith decided how to order this little world.”

“Yeah.”

“And over time, these little worlds are going to bump up against each other, destroy or absorb or merge with each other. And the stronger groups will impose their rules on the others.”

After a long quiet Eva picks back up. “You know, when I first got here, after all those months on my own, wondering if anyone besides me was left, this place seemed so fucking awful. The men in the orchard, the lottery, what you've told me about Evan and Diego, about Jake.”

“Eva....”

“But I keep thinking, what's going on out there, it's probably worse than what's happening here. Maybe a lot worse. And here, I think things can be better than they are.

Our little group, we're not the seed of the human race. But what we do, what happens here is important. More important than my happiness or yours. It's bigger than whether Jake and Evan and Diego are safe or not.”

For a long moment Eva looks and John, her eyes glimmering and red.

“If,” she says, then stops. She is rigid and pale, her eyes wide and fixed. She looks scared. “If I get pregnant,” she draws a slow, deep breath, “you do understand, John, what will happen? That I must have girls. And when they reach sexual maturity, they'll be in the position I’m in now.”

“I know.”

“No matter what, a child is going to be vulnerable, here. If I give birth to a girl, the men are going to see her as a ripening prize. If the baby is a boy, I'm scared they'll look at him as a future threat. Competition who'll be getting stronger as they get older and weaker.

“So it's important that any child born here must be the child of the whole community—everyone must share in loving it, raising it, protecting it. You and I are strangers, outsiders, apart from Smith and his men. I'm scared that no child of ours would be accepted as part of the group.”