After (7 page)

“I can’t give you work in the fields or around the compound, I’m afraid. It wouldn’t be safe to have you out among the men.”

“So I’m stuck in this room for eternity? Prison laborer by day, concubine by night?”

“I won't compel you to do the paperwork. In truth, Quenlin barely has enough to keep him busy. Let me know, though, if you change your mind. Having a sense of purpose has a way of making time bearable.”

For a while she is quiet, gazing at Smith as if she is weighing him with her eyes.

“Don't you think being the mother of the human race should be enough of a purpose for a humble girl like me?” She says it like a challenge, as if she's daring him to confess this latest sin.

“Yes, I suppose it would be. For any of us,” he says, somberly.

He rises to go, but seems to remember something. The bag. He picks it up, reaches in, extracts a small stack of books.

“I don't know if you enjoy reading,” he says, “but I thought you might like to have a few books.”

With an indifferent gesture, she takes the volumes from his hand. But her voice wavers, heavy, laden with feeling. “Thank you.”

* * * *

When John gets in after his day of work he pays Smith a visit, then makes his way to Eva's room.

“Come in,” she says with a small smile when she sees it's him.

“You know we don't have to do anything tonight. You don't have to invite me in, if you'd rather be alone.”

Her smile gets bigger. “No. I'm glad to see you. Really. Come in.”

“I convinced Smith to let me escort you out, if you'd like to get out of this room.

Stretch your legs.”

She looks like she might be about to cry. She puts on her shoes and they leave her little prison. They walk out to the perimeter wall, then begin strolling, circumnavigating the compound. At first they walk in silence. Then John speaks, quietly, watchfully.

“How are you doing?”

“It’s not a tenable situation. I can’t go on like this, day after day.”

“Maybe…I hope that as we get to know each other better it won’t be so hard on you.”

“I didn’t mean that. I mean being a prisoner in that little room, locked inside twenty four hours a day.”

“I know. I think Smith's right about the men, though. I don’t think you’d be safe working in the common areas.” He crashes on the word ‘safe.’ “Of course you’re not safe in your own room, are you?”

“Not really.”

A few men emerge from the mess hall. First one, then all stop stone still, eyes fixed on Eva. Her breathing speeds. John's body goes taut, his hand goes to his side, curving loosely over a heavy bulge beneath his jacket, but he says to her in a soft, calm voice,

“Don't be afraid. They've all got too much to lose, now. They won't try anything.”

“You think Smith's right.” It's an accusation.

“I think he's adept with the carrot and the stick. But right in the moral sense? No.”

They keep walking, John's hand at the ready like an Old West gunfighter, Eva tense and watchful.

“Would you rather go back in?” he asks.

“No. It's bad enough, being as much of a prisoner as I am. I won't be driven into my cell by that pack of hyenas. By fear. It's probably good. Them seeing me out. Doing something other than fucking you.”

As twilight creeps over the compound they head back toward Eva's. As they approach, the guard watches them.

“Will you come in with me?” she asks John.

Eva is outside, so the door is not locked. They go in, the guard's curious gaze following them.

“Excuse me a minute?”

She slips away into the bathroom, then returns with a smile she only ever shows to John, even if the others get to glimpse it, now and then, on the monitors.

“Your dinner's been brought. I should go so you can relax and eat.”

“I can relax and eat with you here. But I don't want to keep you, if you'd rather go.”

John looks at her for a moment, like he's studying a problem. “No. I'd like to stay,”

he finally says, smiling. They sit down at the little table near the window.

“Have some,” she says, “they always bring me too much.”

Her portions are the same dished out to the men after a day of hard physical labor.

“I've eaten. But thanks.”

“Given Smith's obsession with orchestrating everyone's lives and fates, I'd think he'd optimize the rations a little more cautiously.” Eva spoons a dollop of reconstituted mashed potatoes into her mouth, then notices John studying her again. “What?” she asks, hiding her mouthful of potatoes behind her hand.

“You are aware, aren't you, that you don't talk like a normal sixteen-year-old.”

“Eighteen.”

“Yes. But. When you were left on your own.”

“Fifteen, then. And I am aware. But as a rule, only other fifteen-year-olds tease me about it,” she comes back with a good-natured smile. “I understand it's a consequence of having two professors of literature for parents. Growing up in a home humming almost non-stop with discussion and debate warps a girl's speech habits, apparently.”

John is grinning.

“What's that look for?”

“Nothing.” He tries deflecting her with a smile.

“Come on, John.”

“I tend to be drawn to exceptionally intelligent people. Like you. Like Smith.” She cocks an eyebrow. “You do remind me of him. A little.” Eva is silent. “I'm sorry if that offended you.”

“It didn't.”

“You must wonder how I can like a man like that. Think of him as a friend.” She shrugs. “No?”

“I was so, so scared that first day. But Smith. I don't know, even through my fear, he was...compelling, right away. Seductive. Not even in a sexual way. If that makes sense.”

“I know what you mean.”

“He came to see me this morning.”

“He told me.”

”Hearing him defend everything that's going on here, I can see—god, it's so twisted, so wrong—but he actually had me half believing in his intentions.”

“That's the scary thing about Smith. His gift of persuasion. Especially his knack for convincing himself.”

Eva is done eating; she's decimated the mashed potatoes, having used them to camouflage the unsavory looking peas and carrots, shriveled and gray. The mysterious piece of meat lays untouched at the edge of the plate, vaguely resembling a bit of flesh flayed from a squirrel or raccoon by the friction of a tire and some pavement. When she stands, John rises.

“You know,” she says, pressing her palm to his chest, “what I said before, outside, about the men seeing me doing something besides fucking you. You know, when I say things like that, I mean the arrangement. I never mean anything against you.”

“I know. Mostly. But it's nice of you to tell me. It's hard not to feel guilty.”

“I know.”

Eva's other hand cradles John's jaw, and she goes up on her toes and brings her mouth close to his. Inviting him. His fingers weave themselves into her hair and he takes her up on the offered kiss. A tender, lingering press of lips. Then he breaks gently away.

“I should go.”

“You're invited to stay.”

Smiling, lingering against her, he may be considering. “Will you be all right for tomorrow if I don't?” She nods. “I'm going to go, then,” he whispers, and with a final, soft kiss, he is off.

* * * *

“I'm sorry about last night, Eva,” John tells her when he arrives after his shift and before the monitors come on.

Smiling, she approaches him, takes his hand, brings it to her lips, kisses his palm.

“No need to apologize.”

When they have given the evening's performance, John invites her out for a walk.

Looking eager, even happy, she dresses in her olive drabs and they set out. Both are quiet as they stroll the cement paths that wind through the campus, between barracks and mess hall, improvised field and storehouse, and along the perimeter path below the towering, curving brick wall encircling the compound. None of the men are in sight.

“May I come in with you?” he asks before they reach the threshold of the mansion.

“Yes, if you want to.”

Inside, she drops onto the love seat, and with a look draws him down beside her.

She smiles at him, studying his face as she draws an index finger down the inside of his arm.

“John,” she begins with a little laugh that makes her seem nervous. “I know you're trying hard to make things as easy for me as you can. But you shouldn't...I don't want you to feel obligated to hang out when we're not...when you don't have to.”

He gives her a melancholy half-grin and takes her hand in his. “I enjoy your company, Eva. It's no chore, spending time with you. Being with you,” he adds with an affectionate little nuzzle into the canopy of hair draping her neck. “It's just a little hard, sometimes, letting myself get so close to someone.”

Eva nods and smiles and puts her arms around him, pulling him to her. Kissing his hair. They pass a quiet evening together, John reading, Eva writing in a journal he obtained for her when she asked. Now that she gets to leave the room, each time she finishes writing, she carefully, furtively leaves something—an eyelash, some crumb—

among the pages she's penned before closing the notebook.

When they go to bed, John curls up behind her and she snuggles back against him. His arm curves over her waist, and they lie there, close and still and quiet.

In the morning John wakes first. He carefully folds back his side of the blanket, leaving her covered, and slides to the edge of the mattress, preparing to prepare for work. She wakes, turns over. They look at each other.

The blanket, folded down near his waist, is not hiding his chest. She is looking at it, and he can see that she’s looking at it. Broad, hard, defined, smooth, almost no hair.

Her gaze moves down to his belly, muscular yet vulnerable with its shallow navel and a fine trail of dark hair running away under the covers. She puts her hand on the blanket where it rises and falls over the center of him. She looks up for a moment to let him read her face, to read his. Then she looks back down and pulls the blanket back.

She has exposed another inch or so of that little trail, hiding now under the white ribbed snugness of his underwear. She stares at the topography of that white landscape, the long rounded crest of hill that starts suddenly just below the elastic band, curving slightly into a soft swelling mass and dipping away over the horizon between his legs.

“Is it always like this when you wake up?”

“No.”

She lays her hand on it. The vulnerable belly flexes. She looks up to his face.

Alarm. Confusion. Excitement. She moves her hand up a little. Down a little. The belly is bouncing fast and shallow. Up, down, first with the touch of a spirit that might not have been there, then with delicate softness, then with questioning firmness.

“Is that okay?”

“What are you doing?”

“I want to learn how to touch you. Am I hurting you?”

“No.”

“Are you afraid I’m going to hurt you?”

“No.”

“It seems strange. I've hardly touched you. I want to learn. Does what I’m doing feel nice?”

From behind his look of uncertain fear he smiles.

“Yes,” in a gentle voice that puffs out on a pant.

She goes on touching him, varying the path and power of her touch, watching his face and gauging his breath by the clenching, rising and falling of his belly. She explores the firm length of him and the delicate softness below. Then her hand leaves him and she teasingly fingers the very edge of the elastic striping across his abdomen.

“I’d like to see you. Touch you,” she says, looking up at him.

His hands go down to his hips. He studies her face for a moment, then pulls his underwear down on this thighs. Prometheus unbound. She stares at that strange, exciting, frightening, gorgeous configuration of flesh. Then she carefully begins to touch it. Her eyes go from his cock up to his face with a little look of surprised wonder, then turn back to the task at hand. She asks and he tells her what feels best. She does it to the death. A flex. A flex. A flex. Pearlescent threads and droplets on his belly and chest and neck. He watches as she takes some with the tip of her finger, looks at it, then makes it disappear between her finger and thumb.

He looks at her for a long time, then touches her cheek and invites her into a kiss.

“Will you let me...would you like it if I touched you the way you've touched me?”

She hides her face against his shoulder and quietly answers, “No.”

He cradles her head against his arm—pulling her to him would risk getting her dirty—and says, “It's good, you telling me no. I hope you know that I'm your friend. You don't have to play at being my lover to keep me on your side.”

He presses a kiss to the crown of her head, and starts to rise.

“John.” He lies back down. Meets her eyes. “I didn't do that just now to...manipulate you. I wanted to. Part of me...I'm curious. And I...like you. I woke up feeling your body, your warmth. I woke up wanting...something. Maybe it's dumb, because we've fucked—does that sound ugly?”

“No. Not when you say it.”

“Maybe it's dumb, but it's hard for me to let you touch me. It makes me feel vulnerable. But when I touch you, when I hear you, see your body shudder, I feel...strong. A little in control, I guess.”

“It's not dumb. I understand. I enjoy giving you pleasure—or imagining I am,” he kids, smiling, “but I never mean to push you.”

Eva nods. John snatches his watch from the nightstand and checks the time.

“I'm late.”

He gives her a smile, then speeds through a shower. He does not say goodbye as he goes, but she sees him pause by the door and gaze at her a moment before he knocks and mumbles to the guard outside. The bolts scrape back and the door opens, closes, and the bolts slide home again.

CHAPTER FIVE

The cameras are rolling.

With a coquettish grin Eva pushes John back, and crawls onto his lap as he drops down onto the love seat.

She is nearly writhing under his mouth when he brings his hand to her knee and lightly draws it up her thigh. Then over, down, up again, along the underside, palming the contours of her ass, then tracing a delicate fingertip along the crease where thigh and pelvis meet. Their bodies close and warm, their kiss a tender union, her breath growing each moment quicker, husky.