After (56 page)

She took his book from him and set it on the table beside the candle. “Roll onto your side. Face the window.”

She wondered at his look of sad horror until he said, “Nix. I wasn't doing anything out there. Nothing to betray you.”

She laughed. Not at him. At them. “Gareth. I'm not here to shoot you. Do you see a gun? Or a knife?”

She put her arms out in a 'T' and turned three-sixty. Her tank and panties didn't offer many places to hide a weapon. In the warm light of the candle it was hard to tell, but Gareth may have blushed before he smiled and rolled onto his side. She blew out the candle.

For a minute, she just stood there in the dark. She felt weighted down, like a small boat that's taken on water, that can't resist sinking, finally, below the surface.

Down, down, away from light, through all that cold water, down to the murky sands where fish have no eyes.

He stayed still and quiet, even when she dragged her fear to the edge of the bed, and sat. Even when she lifted her feet from the floor, pulled the covers over them both, and lied down beside him. Even when she turned onto her side, slid against him, molded her body against his, and put her arms around him. The only movement she felt from him was the swell and shrink of his back as he breathed, rapidly at first, then slower, slower, until she could feel the faint trembling of his body.

When she crept away in the morning, he didn't stir.

Later he found her in the kitchen. With an amused smile: “I think maybe I had a strange dream last night.”

“I hope it didn't cost you a good night's sleep.”

“Maybe a little. But it was worth it. It was a nice dream.”

That night she went to him again. Even though he hadn't been to the woods.

After she knocked, as she came near, Gareth gave her a warm, lingering smile, then rolled onto his side. Turned his back on her. Even though he couldn't see it, she smiled.

When she'd blown out the candle, slid under the covers, and put her arms around him, there was a long, still silence between them.

Then he whispered, “You like it, too. You don't do it just for me.”

“Last night, when I came up, maybe. But not tonight. I liked how it felt.”

“Me too. I've never felt this good. Not since I was a kid.”

She liked how his hair smelled, the way it tickled her nose and cheek. And the warmth their two bodies made in the pocket of air under the covers. And the feel of his skin against hers. His smell, his heat, the feel of him, she'd dreaded it all, but come anyway. Strange, now, how it stirred that low, sweet, heaviness in her belly, how that feeling was bigger than the tightness in her gut that stretched taut through all her limbs.

That strain she always felt when there was a man close. When anyone touched her.

If he'd invited her to go upstairs with him the next night, she wouldn't have gone.

But he just said “good night” the way he always had. As if he expected nothing. So she went up again. This time, while he lied still in her arms, she brought her hand up, and touched the soft waves of his dark hair, first just noticing how a curl would curve against her finger, as if it would hold her there, then letting her fingertips sink into that soft, yielding warmth, tracing lines and curves over his scalp.

The next day she said, “In bed, it's good that you don't touch me. Are you still glad I come?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“When we're like we are now, not in bed, you can touch me, if you want to.”

He smiled again. “There are lots of times when I want to. I don't, because... I don't want to scare you. Or hurt you.”

“You won't.”

It was strange to see that rough, scarred face, with those cynical gray eyes, go shy and sheepish. Holding her gaze, he reached out and brushed the back of a finger lightly over her hand, coaxed her fingers away from her forearm, slid his palm under hers.

Later, when he told her good-night, she asked, “Should I come up with you?”

He smiled. There was a pause. “Give me ten minutes.”

She smiled. Laughed. “Don't do that, tonight.”

Quiet, serious, he answered, “Alright.”

They climbed the creaking stairs together. She watched him get out of his jacket and shirt and socks and pants, and he got in bed and turned to the window while she stripped down to her tank and underwear.

Why was she? To test herself? Hurt herself? Console him?

She could back out. Turn and leave. Sleep alone. Or stay, but only like before.

Press herself to his back. Comb her fingers into his hair. Breathe him in. Sleep in his still warmth.

Heart thumping hard, she turned back the covers and slid under. The sheets were cold against her skin, but even across the empty inches of air she felt his heat.

With the tips of her fingers she touched his bare back, ran her touch over his skin, smooth and warm. By the candle's light, just behind his right shoulder she could see the white weal, heavy and bunched at the center, tapered and smooth at the ends.

She feathered her finger up and over, and with a gentle pull, coaxed him to turn toward her. Beneath her the mattress creaked and shifted as he lifted and turned his body toward her and settled down on his side. Strange, eye-to-eye. They'd been this close. In bed. Out of it. In bed, it was always his back. Out there, he had almost a foot on her.

No part of them was touching.

“Are you hard?”

Long, silent seconds.

Then, “Yes.”

The words were in her mouth, but they wouldn't be born.

“It doesn't matter, Nix. All I want is this. You, close. Or, if you want to put your arms around me.”

“Give me your hand.”

He put his hand in hers. Warm. Large. Soft, except he already had calluses on some of his fingers from playing the guitar. She coaxed his hand down between them, molded his palm and fingers over his erection.

“I'll hold you. You can put your arm around me, too,” she said.

“Nix. I don't need to.”

“I want us to.”

“You want to lie here with me while I...”

To reassure, she gave him a smile.

“I don't want to if you'll think it's scary. Or ugly,” he said.

“I won't.”

“I can put my arm around you?”

“Yes.”

“Is this alright?”

He threaded his hand, his arm through the hollow between her neck and the bed, and his hand lit lightly on her bare shoulder.

She smiled. “Yes.”

“Do you want the light out?”

“No. Do you?”

“No.”

They left the candle burning. For a long time he was still, just looking at her, until she brought one hand up and touched his face. Combed her fingertips through the dark waves framing it. Traced the shape of his ear. His lips. Looking startled, almost afraid, he moved his hand a little, rocking it across the hard flesh bulging under the gray cotton underwear. Under her hands she could feel him straining. Trembling. She gave him a smile. Touched a light kiss to his forehead.

Hurled by a rough wind, rain spattered against the window, a staccato rhythm cascading and fading in arrhythmic bursts following, matching, slipping back and racing ahead of Gareth's frantic breaths, the wax and wane of his tense quivering, his body going lax.

She kissed his shoulder. Bared his sex. Gazed at it a moment, then coaxed his hand back, watched his fingers curve over, feather up, slide down. She'd touched him so roughly, that day in the kitchen. The way he touched surprised. Slow. Soft. Fingertips brushing here, there, differently. She'd always thought of that part of a man, treated that part of a man like a simple thing. An undifferentiated pole of flesh. Watching Gareth's fingers move over that upturned spine, that flared ridge, that ripe crown, she wondered if his was unique. No cock had ever looked that way, before.

When he finished, panting, shuddering, she put her arms around him, pulled him close. Held him through all his trembling. Held his gaze when he looked up and met her eyes.

The next night, after he'd lain in her arms and shuddered and spilled his sap, when he'd turned on his side, toward the window again, and she'd nestled in behind him, trailing touch over his bare arm, he asked her, “Nix. Do you ever...”

“No.”

“And that pleasure. What I feel when...”

“I've felt it. But not in a long time. Not since I was a wife. My first few months out of the girls' facility.”

“Maybe you could feel it again. With time.”

“Maybe. I'm not sure I want to.”

He turned to her and said, “I like feeling it with you. Even if it's me, making it happen. When it happens I feel small. Weak. And I like giving up my strength with you.”

He gave her one of his small smiles, which made him look sad. “I can see why you wouldn't want that.”

They were quiet for a while.

“Gareth.”

He stayed silent. Just smiled.

“In a few weeks, there's a rendezvous. I'll be leaving in the morning. Going to rejoin the others.”

His smile faded, then came back altered.

“Alright.”

“If you want, I'll bring you.”

Now his smile faded completely. “You're sure.”

“If I weren't sure, I wouldn't ask you.”

“Then I'll go with you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

In the morning they packed weapons and supplies and set out into the early, slanting light. East. Always east. The gray drizzle hissed overhead on the leaves that hadn't fallen yet, and underfoot, on the carpet of yellow and red. Before the first hour had passed, their clothes were wet and heavy.

Gareth said, “Tonight, I can get us a couple horses.”

“We're better off on foot. Horses are too visible. For a start, stealing them gets everyone on the lookout. They're easy to track. And half the time, there's nowhere to hide them at night. We have plenty of time to make our rendezvous.”

“Your knee's holding up alright?”

“Fine. We'll only do half a day's travel today.”

He laughed. “Yes, General.”

Heat rose and tightened her chest. She'd let him come along. To be nice. Maybe he could fight. Shoot. But she was the one who'd been fighting this guerrilla war for the last fifteen years. Fuck if she was going to take orders from him.

He was still smiling, walking beside her, keeping her pace. When he felt her gaze and glanced over, his gray eyes were light two shimmering, sun-lit pools. That tight heat dissipated. She laughed.

“I'm bossy. I know. I'm used to working alone, and leading. I'm not used to consulting much.”

Smiling, he said, “Most people try to make it seem like everyone gets a say. Then they just do it their way, anyway. Boss me around all you like. This is your thing. Your op. I don't know how to fight, the way you fight. And I've never lived, needing to hide.”

But Gareth, who'd crisscrossed a vast expanse of terrain all the years she'd been plodding her way east, knew the area better than she did. They only had to make it past one large town, its one-time population of twenty thousand, spared worse carnage thanks to its remoteness from any large city, merely whittled, in the dying, to a few thousand. In the decades since, that population had nearly doubled, as travelers fleeing more decimated cities and towns found the relatively populous berg comforting.

But, for the first few days' travels, once they slipped past the village fifteen miles east of their ghost town hotel, they would be fairly safe traversing country that was rural and sparsely populated, even before the dying. Miles of empty land and abandoned structures would give them easy passage and plenty of spots to rest where the odds were against discovery.

By the time the sun was at its zenith, the rain had stopped and the clouds had cleared, leaving everything clean and dewy and brightly lit where the tall trees yielded to the sun, letting it pass to the life below. Nix and Gareth clung, always, to the edge of the woods, where they could retreat at the first sound of hoof beats. Beyond that veil of trees, though, Nix spotted a small lake, still, smooth, a perfect reflection of the blue sky above and the greens of the pines and the yellows and reds of the maples and oaks and the scrubby grasses fringing its border. So often she'd seen something like this, still, peaceful, a beauty that almost hurt her eyes, her chest, and wished that it were the whole world. That people, men and everything they'd made would vanish, and she could live out her life alone among the trees and stones and grass and birds.

They filled their canteens and returned to the shelter of the forest, going on until the sun was at their backs and the nearest town was a good twenty miles behind them.

When one of the hundreds of farms scattered through that region came into sight, Gareth went on alone. Nix crept a little deeper into the woods and settled onto the trunk of a fallen tree, lifting her foot into the fork of a branch straining toward the sky as if the dead oak's leaves could still drink the nourishment of the sun's light. Already Gareth was just a dark spot against a white rectangle in the distance. Twenty minutes later, he reappeared, and she watched that dark smudge grow and resolve into a man. Before he got close enough to see her there in the stretching afternoon shadows, she lifted her stiffening leg from the prop and walked to meet him nearer the edge of the woods.

“All clear,” he said.

The barn was so dilapidated, boards long stripped of any paint rotting away and falling down to make houses for worms and beetles and pill bugs, that it was easy to look through from one side, and see the fields and the woods beyond on the other, and if she turned her gaze upward, she could see blue sky through the holes rust had eaten through the tin roof. Between that structure and the house was a graveyard of trucks, tractors and back-hoes, their rusted corpses sunk toward the earth on their lumpy beds of exhausted tires.

The house didn't look much better than the barn and the machines. But it was good, going into a strange place while the sun was still up. Even after all these years, she could never sleep in a place she hadn't seen in daylight. It was like being a little girl again, never sure there wasn't a monster under the bed, in the closet, behind some forgotten door. Even though Gareth had gone through already, she had to check it all out herself, from the root cellar up to the attic before she could relax enough to sit down.