Skin on My Skin (13 page)

“That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile,” Jenna said, almost echoing my thoughts. “It’s not too bad. I bet the girls loved those dimples when you were little.”

I stood, taking the empty plate and heading to the kitchen. When I was little… what a crock. Children had died with the Preacher’s Plague. The world killed them all.
 

“Come on,” I told her, wanting to change the subject. “Let me show you around.”

I was proud of what I had accomplished in the apartment, but I didn’t realize how proud I was until I attempted to tell someone about it all. I showed Jenna my hidden solar panels, the small wind turbines, and the banks of batteries that stored all that power. I couldn’t help but laugh when I turned on the record player, Marvin Gaye singing sweet love songs, at the look on her face. She was delighted, even managing to twirl about on those bloody sandals she used as shoes. I showed her my hidden gardens and the view of the city from the balcony. She stared out there, in the direction of Fortress, silently.
 

“Do you miss that place?” I asked her.
 

“No,” she said softly. “Not the way you think I might. Sure, they had electricity, running water… it was sort of safe there. You could get by. They are getting by. But I left something there, something dear to me. Woody always promised to help me get it back, but never did. He was always promising things like that, when he was on me. I don’t know why. It’s not like I could have went anywhere if I didn’t agree.”

She didn’t want to tell me what she had left in Fortress and that was fine. I don’t know that I wanted to know, not with what I with the sudden plan that was suddenly taking shape. I felt slimy.
 

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the large black tank I collected rainwater in. I was happy she’d interrupted my thoughts.
 

“Water.”

“Is it heated?” she asked hopefully.
 

“On demand,” I told her.
 

“I can have a tomato and a hot shower? I haven’t had a shower since… well since Fortress. Big Woody wasn’t much into cleanliness. It’s been even longer since I had a tomato.”

“Yes. You can have whatever you want.”

She hugged me and it was… unexpected. I didn’t know quite how to react to the feel of her breast, beneath the baggy shirt, pressed against me. I tried not to think about it and patted her awkwardly on the back.
 

“Thanks for coming back for me,” she said, scampering off towards the bathroom.
 

I watched her go. She wouldn’t be thanking me later.
 

I changed out the record, going for some light rock, and began putting together a meal. My stomach did flips as I cooked bear steaks and prepared a fresh salad. The MREs never sat well with me and I was looking forward to some real food. I wondered if the President’s men, while they were still alive buried in that fortress known as Mount Weather, had died with their last meal being an MRE. What a horrible way to go.
 

I just couldn’t relax, so I opened a beer. It was old, but cold and refreshing. The alcohol warmed me and I stood there, listening to Mick Jagger sing about not getting any satisfaction and boiling bear meat to make it less tough. It was hard to concentrate on anything knowing she was naked in my bathroom, wet and soapy. I couldn’t help but think of different porn movies I’d watched with just that scene playing. The sun would be setting soon and I was going to have to lock the penthouse down, light wise, but for the moment I was trying to enjoy the breeze wafting in through the open balcony doors, trying to relax.
 

I had more problems facing me from one jaunt into the city than I’d had since I’d left my father’s home. I had someone stalking me through the ruins. I was safe, up in the penthouse, because I controlled the only two ways of getting up here. The single platform was docked and I controlled the power for the freight elevator from here. Unless the graffiti artist had a helicopter, they weren’t coming up here. And I could stay up here for a long damn time.
 

But I was going to have to leave, at some point. I couldn’t stay up here forever. I don’t think I could raise enough food to survive. I was going to have to go down at some point and while I’d gotten lucky today, traveling across the city, I wouldn’t stay that lucky. I’d been damn stupid in first letting the suit out of my sight and then traveling without the seals. I’d risked death over…

A girl. That’s what it was about, when you got down to it. Jenna was a distraction bigger than all others. I couldn’t think straight even knowing she was in the next room. She influenced every decision I’d made since I met her and those decisions hadn’t been particularly good ones. I’d even unknowingly set out across the city based on a little light source because of her. Not her fault, sure, but hell. I was half angry, though I didn’t fully understand why. I was extremely frustrated.
 

That anger faded and then extinguished completely when she stepped into the room, towel wrapped around her hair and then wearing one of my t-shirts and nothing else. She smiled and that smile looked all the brighter, what with all the dirt, dried blood, and grime gone. She was beautiful.
 

“That was amazing,” she said, still smiling. “Do you know how long it’s been since I had a real, honest to god hot shower?”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember the last one. It’s funny what you forget, right?”

Funnier still what you remember.
 

“Dinner’s cooking,” I told her. “I don’t know how good the bear will be. I’ve never cooked bear before.” I hadn’t really cooked much in the way of meat period. There had been dogs, back in the early days, but their numbers had gone down as the survivor’s hunger rose.
 

“It smells amazing. I think my stomach is about to leap for joy. I can’t say it enough,” she said, the smile turning solemn, “but thank you for coming back for me. I didn’t think… at first I thought you were just there to… well…”

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Honestly, that probably was the first thing on my mind.”

“That’s okay too. I understand that completely. I’ve been around guys like you since… since it all happened.” She was quiet for a long time. “Thank you for not doing it. Thanks for not making me do it again, like that.”

I didn’t answer. Instead I did my best to fake a smile. If she only knew what I had planned, she wouldn’t be as thankful.
 

“Do you want a beer?” I finally asked her, offering another of the sixteen- year-old brews.
 

She took the beer and studied it. “I’ve never had one. Or any other booze, actually. The best by date is a little dated.”

We both laughed and I opened the bottle for her. She took a tentative sip and then a longer, harder pull.
 

“Wow,” Jenna finally said, wiping her mouth. “That is good. I wonder how much better it was fresh?”

“I was going to try to brew some,” I told her. “But I couldn’t find any hops to grow. I don’t even know if they’d grow here anyway.”

“You’ve done quite a lot in here,” she said, looking around. “How long have you been here?”

“Ten years,” I told her. I’d kept time by old electronics since even before I came to the penthouse. I didn’t know what I was going to do when all those electronics finally died.
 

“You’ve done a lot in that time,” she said. “This place is nice.”

I turned the stove off, made our plates. “I hope you like it.”

“Can we eat outside?”

The sun hadn’t set yet. We’d be okay for another half hour or so. “Sure, but we have to come back in when the sun gets too low and block the windows.”

“Or someone will find you like you did Big Woody?”

“Something like that,” I said, taking the plates out to the table on the balcony. I returned, got a couple more beers, and took those out as well. The city was filling with shadows in the dimming light and, if discounting the lack of lights, the absence of sound, you could imagine that nothing had happened. You could imagine that life was continuing like it always had.
 

“It’s all so peaceful,” Jenna said, picking at her food, drinking beer, and unable to take her eyes off the dead city. “It’s hard to imagine all the people out there, hiding, just trying to get by. There are more than we think, out there. We should do something about them.”

“What can we do? Most of us aren’t lucky enough to be Touchers. We die if we get near each other.”

“It’s not my fault I’m a Toucher,” she said, finally looking at me. “I didn’t do anything special to deserve this. Trust me, I wish I’d have died right along with my fathers. It would have been better than what came after.”

“I’m sorry.”

She took a big swig from the beer, took mine, and downed it too. “It’s not you. I’m sorry. It’s just been a crazy day. I’ve thought too much about what’s happened and not what could happen. That isn’t your fault,” she said, the smile returning. “I haven’t thought anything good could happen for a long time. You changed that. Thank you.”

We ate in silence. I was scared to look at her and I think she felt something similar. The air was cool, not quite crisp, and the wind had picked up. I smelt smoke on the wind, and a hint of the ocean. Twenty minutes passed and I still couldn’t bring myself to say much to her. Instead, I stood, gathered up the plates, and began shutting down the penthouse for the night.
 

“We have to go in,” I finally told her. “I have to block out the light.”

“We can come back out in the morning?”

“Sure,” I said, knowing with what I was planning it was probably a lie. “It’s all going to be okay now.”

She smiled, looked back once more, and then came in. I sealed the doors behind her.

Jenna helped me with the dishes and, for a moment, it seemed like we were stuck in some old romantic comedy. Right then we could have played like the Preacher’s Plague hadn’t happened and life was normal. We’d fall in love, something would drive us apart, and then we’d figure it all out, going on to live happily ever after. I’d watched a hundred movies with just that story line. The only problem I could see was the thing that was going to drive us apart was too big to get over. She kissed me on the cheek before slipping into the spare bedroom and into the bed surrounded by cases of water and MREs.
 

I lay in my own bed listening to the silence in the penthouse. I imagined I could hear the rise and fall of her chest and wonder if she slept without clothes on when she had the choice. I did, out of habit, but tonight I’d stayed in shorts. It seemed appropriate.
 

I was kicking myself for what I had to do, but there really wasn’t any way around it. It was a horrible plan based on a day or horrible ideas. I felt like shit for even thinking about it, but there just wasn’t any alternative that I could see. I didn’t get to think about it long, though, and froze when I heard noises in the penthouse. I quietly pulled the pistol out from under my pillow and listened. Moments later, I saw her outline in the bedroom doorway.
 

“I don’t want to sleep alone.”

“Okay,” I said, a little too quickly, maybe a little too eagerly. My heart thumped in my chest as she scampered across the room.
 

Her small body was hot when she slid into the bed and, those places her skin touched mine, felt like they were about to explode. Her scent was… it wasn’t like my mother. It was something else entirely, something brilliant and intoxicating. I breathed it in deeply, trying to still my body and not squirm away from her. It was hard. I stared at the dark ceiling and willed myself to ignore her presence, to ignore the fire it was causing in my loins.
 

“I like you,” she whispered in the dark as if someone might hear us. “I don’t think you’re a bad guy.”

The guilt I felt at what I planned paled in comparison to the sudden excitement that filled me. I was a bad guy. She just didn’t know it yet.
 

“I… I like you too,” I said and felt silly for doing so. I felt like a junior high kid with one of the team’s cheerleaders under the bleachers at half time.
 

I felt her hand touch my side, fingers exploring softly, and had to force myself not to cringe. The touch was two things. First, it was the most erotic thing I’d ever experienced in my life. No amount of porn watching could have prepared me for a woman touching me in a moment of affection. Second, it was terrifying. I still hadn’t fully accepted the fact that she was a Toucher and of no particular harm to me. It was an odd place to be in.
 

“I’m… I think I’m a little drunk,” Jenna told me, her mouth inches from my ear. Her foot came up my leg as her hand rubbed my chest. “I can leave if you want me to.”

She must have sensed my inner tension. If I didn’t know anything at all, I knew I didn’t want her to go.

“No,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound like a desperate little schoolboy. “Please don’t go.”
 

She didn’t say anything else, but I felt her tongue brush my ear, sending shivers up my spine. Her hand found my nipple, rubbing it hard, and she scooted closer to me on the bed, pressing her breasts against my side.
 

“I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. “I’ve never done this.”

“Just let me,” she whispered. “I’ll take care of you.”

I did as told and lay still, simply soaking up her nearness. She kissed me lightly on my neck, first, and then licked down my shoulder, making careful, slow circles. I reached out, tentatively, and touched her skin. It was just as electric as the first time I’d done so. My erection bulged painfully and I winced as she felt her way down my abdomen, then lower, fingers grazing through my thick pubic hair. I finally did jerk when she took hold of my cock, gripping it firmly in her hand.
 

“Oh,” I said, letting out a little gasp.
 

“Are you okay?”

“I am great,” I said, somewhat giddy.