After (6 page)

“You all right?” he asks. He is being careful not to touch her, now.

“I'm fine.” She sounds calm. Almost hollow.

“I'll get a towel.”

Without touching her at all John gets off the bed. The water runs for a bit in the bathroom, and she pulls the sheet up as far as she can without getting it dirty.

“It's warm, but not too hot,” John tells her, then carefully mops up the little puddles with the damp cloth.

As she gets out of the bed and moves toward the window, the filmy fabric of her gown unfurls, covering her indifferently. While she stands there, staring out, John pulls on his uniform, his socks and boots. He goes to her slowly. Her gaze stays fixed on some point in the distant dark.

“I don't know if you remember. Your first night here, after...the mess hall. I brought you back here. You were only semi-conscious, and I was worried for you, so I stayed. I slept in your bed with you. Held you. It would be nice to sleep like that again, holding you, sometime. If you ever think you'd like that. Just tell me, if you ever want me to stay.”

“Okay,” she says. “But now I want to be alone.” She doesn't come to the door to say good-bye. Her habit is to stay away from the door. John reaches for the first deadbolt, hesitates, then turns back toward Eva. “I'm okay, John,” she says, still looking out the window. “I just need a little time to myself.”

“Sure. I understand.” His voice is low and sad. “Tomorrow night,” his voice trails off.

“I know.”

He hesitates for a moment, then says, “Goodnight, Eva.”

When the door shuts and three deadbolts click into place, Eva turns out all the lights in the room and pulls a chair up by the window. She sits there, staring out, for hours, and only goes to bed after watching the sun rise.

CHAPTER FOUR

In what used to be the officers' conference room, which, on Smith's orders, three of the men have converted into a kind of theater, a bank of monitors blinks to life. The din of male voices goes silent. Fourteen men fix their stares on the twelve screens, peering anxiously at four facets of Eva's room.

There's no movement. No life. No flesh. Only the austere planes of floor and ceiling and walls, intersections in corners, the cold angles of furniture.

* * * *

John knocks. No answer. He unlocks the door, opens it, steps through. The little red lights glowing below the lenses mean the cameras are on. But they're always on.

Eva's nowhere in sight.

When he calls her name, her voice emanates from the bathroom, telling him to come in. He enters, then closes the door. Behind him, locks scrape and click into place.

Eva emerges from the bathroom and locks eyes with John. A little tremor runs through him. As he stands there, already panting, his expression morphs from surprise bordering on alarm to what might be admiration.

She is naked.

When she moves toward him, John takes a small step back, then, with visible effort, roots himself.

“Get undressed,” she tells him in a low, even voice.

Her eyes wander over his body as he removes his clothes.

* * * *

In their makeshift theater the men watch four shots, from four different angles, of John entering an empty room. Most of them are already hard. A few are rubbing their hands over their crotches, though none have opened their flies yet. All the faces are tense—some with anticipation, some with violence just in check, some with fear.

Smith is not there. But this room, like Eva's, is monitored, and the men know it.

So probably everyone is safe.

* * * *

“You're hard,” Eva says, her eyes fixed on his stiff cock. Then she looks up at him. “Do you want to fuck me?”

John flinches a little. Then, after a long, still silence, he answers. “Yes.”

“Come over here and fuck me, then.” Her words clash with her voice, soft and vulnerable.

John takes her hands in his and takes her toward the bed. Stepping backward he leads her forward. He sits down and pulls her to him. Looking more brave than eager, she comes close, straddling him, leaving barely an inch between his chest and her bare breasts. Her full lips are curved in a teasing grin, and one eyebrow arches up boldly. But something in her eyes gives her away.

She moves the tiniest bit and kisses him. The way he kissed her at first—just the faintest brush of her lips against his. Then warmer. Deeper.

When Eva looks at John again the coquette is gone. Her gaze is kind. Tender. He gazes back at her like she's a wondrous sort of alien.

“Touch me,” she says, her voice doing even more than her eyes to undermine the illusion that she is only eager.

Holding her gaze John brings his hands up, touches her face. Her lips. The faintly downed curve of an ear. Her neck. Then he kisses her. His soft, tentative kiss becomes deep, seeking, aroused. And then it is excited, hungry when she answers him with slowly warming welcome.

As they pant and kiss into one another's mouths, John's touch plays over her smooth skin. Fingers explore back, in from hips, up from waist, palms pressed to fine muscles, pinkies swimming the shallow canal of her spine, up, up, out over shoulder blades, then swooping, slow-motion, down the inward curve leading to her waist, thumbs almost meet by her navel, palms press her hot, fluttering belly. Then up, hands gently cup her breasts, then caress. Her exhales are whispered sighs.

He kisses her again, caressing her, warming her with his mouth and with his hands. Then she moans a deep and breathy moan and he almost echoes it as he mouths her neck and, with delicate fingers, learns the contours of her breast, tracing smooth swelling curves, rising, dipping, circling, gently holding, warming, withdrawing a moment, letting her hot skin feel cool evening air, then coming back to warm her again, to caress and tease. When he touches her nipple she sighs and shudders, and he takes her mouth again with his.

Smith has told him the men must see.

Her arms are around his neck, her body pressing against his, against his hand.

Still kissing he seeks her wrists, draws them down, back, puts her hands behind her, on his knees, coaxing her to lean a little back. She is pliant, her body lax, her breath heavy, her eyes void, almost, of fear, almost drowsy in arousal.

Now her back is arched, her breasts lifted to his gaze, to his mouth. To the cameras. He kisses her nipples, first with sweet uncertainty, going lightly, then, when she doesn't protest, no resistance, taunts her with his tongue, sucks them, hard and swollen, between his lips, making her whimper softly.

* * * *

Their eyes fixed on the wall, darting from monitor to monitor, most of the soldiers are fisting their hard cocks. But at the back, near the door, two of the soldiers, and Jake, seem torn between the spectacle displayed in the monitors, and the hard breathing, the small frenzied movements and taut bodies in the room.

* * * *

Standing, John lifts Eva with him, lays her down, lies down beside her, kissing her breasts, touching her lightly between slightly parted thighs. He cups her sex in his gentle hand and feels her writhing beneath his touch.

John moves over her, bringing his hips between thighs he has gently parted, sinks slowly into her. She is panting. He does not pull out and thrust again, but stays still inside her for a while, then begins a quiet pulsing, a gentle throbbing inside of her. She softens beneath him, breathes again. His little pulses gather and build until he is slowly making love to her.

* * * *

In the theater the men watch as John rises to his knees, revealing to them the girl, her face, her breasts, her swelling and dipping belly, her dark triangle. They see him fucking her, the X-rated penetration shot.

* * * *

After just a second John comes back down to join Eva, to kiss her, to caress her.

When he touches her breasts she moans softly, and he begins to explore her pleasure.

Now she whimpers quietly as his rhythmic pulses rock her. One hand at the back of his neck, one arm around his waist, she is pulling him to her, and with her body seeking him. Now she is clinging to him, her quiet moans echoing with an urgency. And now the shudder, the relieved panting, the trembling. He holds her close in a comforting embrace, motionless for a very long time. Then she moves beneath him, urging him to finish. It is a matter of just a few slow, deep strokes. They lay together for a long, warm moment. Then John gives her a small soft kiss, and rises. He steps into his shorts and grabs his pants.

“John.” He looks back. “Do you still want to spend the night here with me?”

He turns and smiles at her.

“Yes. But only if you want me to.”

“It sounds nice, feeling you next to me while I fall asleep.”

He lies back down beside her. More so than at any moment that night, she seems shy, now. Under the covers he touches her hand, traces the outline of her fingers with his fingertip, then leads her to him. At his coaxing, she lays her cheek on his chest, presses the length of her body against his, curves her arm along his waist. He holds her to him, cradling her head against his chest, stroking her hair.

* * * *

Smith stands erect just inside the locked door of his office, hands clasped behind his back, his thumb absently playing over the tiny rubbery keys of the remote, vacant eyes fixed on some arbitrary point low to the floor across the room. With cold, mechanical gestures, like taking target practice, he points the remote at the ancient VCR below the television, and the blackish snow resolves into four facets of Eva's empty room. About three minutes in, two quarters show a door opening. John entering.

Then, after the door is shut, Eva materializes in two of the images from another quadrant. Naked.

Smith's tempered facade melts from stoicism to some intense but suppressed and ambivalent feeling. At first, he might be about to cry. Then he seems to be almost laughing. Smith moves closer to the set and touches a button, swelling one of the four facets up to the full width and height of the screen. When he hears Eva direct John to get undressed Smith's mouth bends into a definitive smile. And when she tells John, in a voice suddenly quiet, to fuck her, a little tremor seems to ripple through Smith's frame.

He watches it all, and only takes aim at the VCR one last time a moment after he has watched John's naked arm stretch forth from the bed to switch off the lamp on the night stand, and all four facets of the room have dimmed black.

* * * *

In the morning, not long after John has left, Eva hears a perfunctory knock, then the bolts slide in their locks. Smith enters. She retreats from him, backing away, keeping her eyes on him.

“I hope you’ll learn not to be alarmed by my presence. You can be sure that I won’t lay a finger on you.”

She stops backing up, but her chest is heaving violently.

“I’ve brought you something. A gift.”

“You’re a fucking monster.”

It looks as though rage has stepped in for fear to make her tremble. Her hands are balled in white-knuckled fists at her sides. Her eyes are red and wet, but no tears spill. He sets aside the bag he's brought. Meets her eyes.

“I don't deny it, Eva. I sacrificed you. I stole your liberty from you. I subjected you to...what happened in the mess hall; it was tantamount to torture. And now, a kind of slavery. When what I'd wish for you is...well, a very different fate.

“I know this is madness. I know it. But the world has gone mad, and we can’t be sane and survive. The men have been locked up here for more than two years, now. In all that time, since the dying, you’re the only woman they’ve seen. We had all but lost hope that any women had survived. The day of your arrival I know you saw first-hand how strong a reaction your presence stirred in them.”

Standing stiffly by the bed, she breathes hard as she listens to what he is saying.

“I devised this plan in order to protect you, and to preserve order among the men.

I want you to know that I did not come to this decision lightly, that I considered every possible way of dealing with this situation, and that I based my decision on what I believed would be best for the community, as a whole, in the long term. Under the circumstances, it just isn’t possible to look after the interests of each individual in the way I would if things were different.”

She is pale, shaking.

“I could think of no way to protect you from the men completely, short of locking you away in an ivory tower. What happened in the orchard, despite the men knowing how they'd be punished,” Her jaw flexes, “makes that plain. However carefully I tried to ensure your protection, each and every one of them would be awaiting his chance to catch you off guard and attack you no matter the consequence. No matter what punishment I threatened.

“So I chose a different way. I know it seems perverted. That it is perverted. But I am convinced it is the best way, both to protect you and to preserve the delicate balance we depend on for our survival.”

She is mute, shaking, glaring. Smith comes nearer to her.

“Eva…” She steps back and bumps up against the nightstand. “listen…”

He puts his hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!” she growls.

She pushes him away with all her strength. He pounces on her, clutching her arms in his talons. He pulls her to him.

Their faces are an inch apart. Hers full of murderous wrath. His firm, stoic.

“I notice,” he says with quiet calm, “that you’ve already learned not to mind him too much.” She tries futilely to shake him off of her. “And I’m glad. None of this is being done to hurt you or frighten you.” He lets her go and takes a seat in the armchair by the window. “I was thinking you might like to have some work. No doubt you're going a little mad, locked in your room all day, with nothing to do.” She is silent. “Do you have any skills?”

“I have a lot of experience fighting off men who are trying to tear my clothes off.

But I don't seem to be very good at it.”

“We could start by giving you a bit of administrative work. Setting the men's schedules, reconciling the inventories, things like that.”

“How gender appropriate.”