The day after: An apocalyptic morning (44 page)

              "Hi, Jase," she said, flashing the smile he had become increasingly infatuated with. "How was chow tonight?"

              "It was bitchin," he said enthusiastically, setting his plates down. "Did you cook it?"

              "Me and Sara did," she told him. "It's kinda hard to keep from getting boring when you only have canned food and powders to work with, but we try. I'm glad you liked it."

              "I did," he said, giving her his own smile. "It was like totally the bomb. Really."

              "So you heading out for watch now?" she asked, her hands moving plates from the large cart to a smaller, wheeled one.

              "No," he said. "I'm off tonight."

              "You get a day off?" she asked, surprised.

              "Skip makes all of us take at least one day off a week. He calls it a mental health day."

              "So he's not quite the slave driver everyone thinks he is, huh?"

              He shrugged. "I'd actually rather be on shift tonight," he said. "What else do I have to do anyway?"

              "If you're bored," she told him teasingly, "you can always come back and help us do dishes."

              He thought about that for a minute. "Okay," he finally said.

              She looked at him strangely. "I was kidding, Jase," she said. "You don't really have to help us."

              "So I can't then?" he asked, disappointed.

              She looked at him as if he were insane. "Are you trying to tell me that you want to come back and help with dishes?"

              "Why not? Like I said, what else do I have to do around here?"

              She shook her head a little, the way one does when one realizes they are dealing with the mentally challenged. "If you wanna help clean up after these slobs," she said, "then I sure ain't gonna stop you. Start grabbing some dishes."

              He got a crash course in Garden Hill kitchen clean-up operations over the next two hours. Though Sara Gillian, who had been a cafeteria worker at the elementary school before the comet and who was the official leader of the "culinary department" as it was called, thought he was crazy too, she had no problem putting him to work. The hot water hose that normally supplied the bathtub had been run into the kitchen area and was used to fill the trough with soapy water in which the dishes were soaked and scrubbed. They were then moved to another trough full of cold, clear water from the fire engine where the soap was rinsed off. From there they were given a final rinse with running water supplied via hose from the rain gutter before they were neatly stacked on drying racks until the next morning. Jack was put on rinse detail, making him the middle of a chain of motion.

              "Hey, Sara," Stacy said at one point as she scrubbed the grime from a bowl, "did you know that Skip makes the people on his detail take a day off every week? What do you say about that?"

              "I say dream on," she answered. "Until that cunt Jessica decides to assign me a few more women to help out in here, we're both stuck working every day."

              "Like that's gonna happen," Stacy said bitterly.

              "Yeah," Sara said, "because we can't have women of breeding working as mere kitchen hands, can we?"

              "God forbid," Stacy said.

              "Even if most of them don't have any assigned jobs from day to day."

              "Wait a minute," Jack said, wondering if he was hearing correctly. "Are you saying that the two of you work in here every day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and that you never get a day off?"

              "That's the way it is, sweetie," Sara replied.

              "Jessica refuses to force any of the town women onto kitchen detail," Stacy clarified. "And you can imagine how many volunteers we get for the job. So, unless someone is getting punished for fighting or something and gets assigned kitchen detail, it's just the two of us. We're here from 4:30 every morning to almost 7:00 every night. We can usually get a little bit of a break between lunch and dinner, but it ain't much." She shrugged. "It's our lot in life I guess."

              "Yep," Sara said. "That's what we get for being poor women in a rich town. We're not part of the clique so we've been turned into the servants."

              "Don't ever let anyone tell you that the old ways are dead, Jack," Stacy added. "Believe me, they're alive and well."

              "Would you care to see a lady safely home?" Stacy asked Jack after the kitchen was finally shut down for the night. "I hear that there were bogeymen out there today."

              "Uh... sure," he said doubtfully, opening the back door of the community center for her. She waddled out into the darkness and the rain. He let the door swing shut behind him and then he quickly trotted after her to catch up.

              "Thanks a lot for helping out tonight, Jase," she said once he fell in step with her. "That was really sweet. We got done almost twenty minutes early because of you."

              "I'm glad I could help," he said. "It gave me something to do. And I mean what I said. I'll talk to Skip about talking to Jessica about getting some more people assigned to you."

              "Well," she said, "I won't hold my breath or anything. I've heard Jessica routinely turns down anything that Skip asks for."

              "Maybe I'll have him ask to keep the kitchen staff just the way it is," he suggested. "You know? Reverse psychology."

              She laughed, slapping playfully at his arm. "It just might work," she told him.

              They walked on through the rain, their feet splashing through puddles of backed up rainwater on the sidewalks, navigating along by using the ambient lighting of the houses they passed. They went up three blocks and then turned right, onto a street that backed up to the western wall. Most of the houses out this far were uninhabited and dark. Finally they came to a single story house, the same model that Jack, Skip, and Christine lived in.

              "Well, here it is," Stacy said, digging in her pocket for a key. "Home sweet home. You wanna come in for a little bit?"

              "Come in?" he said nervously.

              "Yeah," she told him. "I don't get company very often. And we won't have a chance to have our little talk in the morning since you're not on guard duty tonight."

              "Well... uh..." he stammered, suddenly nervous for no good reason.

              "Come on," she prodded. "I'm not gonna bite you. It's me, Stacy, remember?"

              "All right," he finally agreed, following her as she waddled up to the front door.

              She lit two oil lamps and two candles, bathing the room in soft, orange light. In the formal living room portion of the house, her laundry was hanging by a line, drying in the air. He saw several pairs of the stretch pants and stretch jeans she habitually wore as well as a variety of flannel maternity shirts, bras, and even some cotton panties. He blushed when he saw this, quickly turning his head away.

              Pretending not to notice his embarrassment she hung up his rain jacket for him and then led him into the family room of the house, which was just adjacent to the kitchen area. "Grab a seat," she told him. "I'm gonna go change into my jammies and get comfortable."

              "Uh... okay," he said, walking over to a couch and planting himself on it.

              "Don't I have a nice TV?" she asked as she disappeared down the hall with a candle. "It came with the house. Turn it on why don't you? Find us something to watch."

              Jack dutifully laughed at her joke although inside his stomach he almost felt as if he was going to throw up. What was going on here? Why had Stacy invited him into her house? Was it really just for company, as she had said? Or was it... something else that she wanted? Surely it couldn't be that, could it? He was just a kid! And she was pregnant! Pregnant women didn't do things like... like... sex did they? He didn't know but suspected that they didn't. After all, they were already pregnant. What would be the point of their body making them horny?

              In the five minutes it took for Stacy to change her clothes, Jack went through several cycles in which he first convinced himself that she was definitely trying to seduce him and then convinced himself that she just wanted to talk like they always did. He would first envision her emerging from the bedroom wearing a see-through negligee straight out of a Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue and then the vision would degenerate to a baggy sweater and a pair of sweats. He would talk himself into believing that she wanted him and then, just as quickly talk himself right back out of it. He was a kid for Christ sakes and she was a full-grown woman! Sure, she liked to talk to him, like to hug him, and had even pecked his cheeks a few times when she was feeling particularly affectionate. But desire? Need? He thought not. But still, maybe if she...

              "Much better," she said at last, walking out of the bedroom.

              He looked up at her with a little jump, seeing neither the negligee nor the baggy sweater. Instead, she was wearing a matching set of very proper, non-revealing silk pajamas. They were gold in color and appeared to have been specifically designed for pregnant women to wear since the hem of the top did not ride up and show her belly.

              "You like them?" she said, noting his interest in her attire. She gave a quick spin around, modeling them for him. "Pretty high class, huh?"

              "They're uh... nice," he almost croaked, not failing to notice the jiggle in her chest as she spun. He knew from living with Christine that that jiggle meant she was not wearing a bra. When he saw such a thing in his sister it always made him mildly disgusted for having noticed it. Seeing it in Stacy however, he felt a wave of desire wash over him. Blood began to rush to his penis.

              "They were probably about a week's salary for me before the comet," she said, setting her candle down on the table and plopping herself into the couch next to him. "But there's tons of shit like this in the supply room at the community center. Maternity wear for every occasion. I guess those rich bitches were good for something, weren't they?"

              "I guess so," he said, seeing that she had a bottle of something in her right hand. She tucked it in one of the cushions before he could see what it was.

              She put her bare feet up on the coffee table in front of her and leaned back into the couch. "Ahhhh, relaxation," she said. "This is my favorite time of the day. I can just kick it for a few hours until it's bedtime. Usually I just read or something but now I have some company." She smiled, her hand reaching out to touch his arm. "Did you know that you're my very first guest here? Not even Sara has been over to my pad."

              "I'm uh... honored," he said.

              "Well you should be," she said, keeping her hand where it was. "It's not everyone who gets invited over to the pregnant hussy's house you know. I do have an image to maintain in this community."

              That broke the tension a little bit and they shared a laugh. A moment later they were talking naturally together, as they did in the mornings at breakfast. Jack hardly noticed when she scooted closer to him, edging her bottom across the cushion inch by inch. It was only when their hips came into contact, when he felt the warmth of her touching him, that he became cognizant. His penis, which had softened back up during the talk period once again became interested in the goings-on.

              "Can you do me a favor?" she asked him, turning towards him a little.

              "Uh... sure," he said.

              She reached into the couch and held up the bottle that she'd had in her hand earlier. He saw that it was baby oil. "I have to put this stuff on my stomach every night to keep stretch marks from forming. Would you mind doing it for me?"

              "You want me to... put oil on your stomach?" he asked slowly, his penis taking a huge lurch in his pants at the very thought.

              "If you don't mind," she said. "I usually do it myself but it kind of hurts my shoulders to reach forward like that now that I'm as big as a whale. And since you just happen to be here..." She gave him a pleading smile.

              "Uhhh, well..." he stammered, wanting desperately to do what she asked but not wanting to seem too eager. After all, she might think he was a pervert or something.

              "If it grosses you out, I understand," she said. "Really. I'll just go in the bathroom and do it."

              "No no!" he nearly shouted, sensing his opportunity slipping away from him. "I'll do it."

              "Are you sure?" she asked.

              "Yes," he said. "What are friends for?"

              She smiled and handed him the clear plastic bottle. Its surface was already slightly oily from many previous handlings with greasy fingers. His hand trembled as he took it and it almost slipped from his grasp. Stacy pretended not to notice this. Instead, she grabbed the hem of her pajama shirt and pulled it up, uncovering her bulging belly to his gaze. Her skin was smooth and tight, very pale from the lack of any recent sunlight upon it. Her belly button was small and protruding slightly outward from the pressure behind it. She ran her fingers over the bottom third of her stomach and the sides. "Here's where you get stretch marks," she told him. "Be sure to rub it in really good down there."