The E Utopia Project (30 page)

Cruz raised his eyebrows. “I
think someone is trying to do me a favor by assigning the most beautiful woman
on the planet to be my maid. Is she the only one who volunteered?”

“The admiral asked the newly trained
recruits if they could cook. Four of them said they could and the admiral asked
me to choose from the four and I chose her.”

“Why her?”

“I don’t know, sir. I thought
you might like her.”

“So you want to play
matchmaker now?”

“I’m sorry if I offended you,
sir.”

“Offended!” Cruz laughed. “Of
course not. No man would be offended at being served by such a beautiful woman.
However, we must not give E Utopian pioneers the impression that we’re here to
exploit women. Women are our equal partners in the green cause.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Let’s get inside and have
dinner. I hope her cooking is as good as her looks.”

Cruz and Hitchcook entered the
presidential palace and sat at the dining table. The table and chairs were made
of metal because E Utopia had no timber. Their mouths watered as the curvy
ensign served the dinner.

Cruz impatiently pulled his
plate closer, forked a piece of meat and chewed it. To his surprise the meat
was not the soft pulp that was made from cells grown in culture solution. It
was hard fibrous meat that had no doubt came from the muscle tissues of an
animal.

“Where did the meat come
from?” he demanded.

Hitchcook swallowed his first
bite of the meat. “From the rain forest biome.”

“From where!” Cruz thundered,
shaking with rage. “Hitchcook, are you guys feasting on the animals in our
biomes?”

“No, Mr. President. The
number of bongo antelopes is now too high to be supported by the biome. So they
culled the oldest male and—”

“Hitchcook, you should have
given the bongo carcass to our leopards, wolves, hyenas or crocs.”

“We gave the carcass to the
biome’s carnivores. We only spared a little steak for you, Mr. President.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,
Hitchcook. I’m not a hypocrite. I practice what I preach. It is such hypocrisy
that led to needless degradation of Earth’s natural environment.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Alright, Hitchcook. Apology
accepted. Don’t do this again.”

“I won’t, sir.”

“Okay. Let’s eat.”

Cruz’s temper cooled as he
chewed the meat. The ensign knew her cooking. She cleared the table when they
finished their meal and they sat in silence for a couple of minutes before
Hitchcook bared farewell and left for his house.

Cruz sat at the dining table
for more than fifteen E Utopian minutes, recollecting the events of the day,
before he realized the ensign was standing at attention, waiting for orders.

“At ease, ensign. Come here
and sit down.”

The ensign hesitantly walked
to the table and sat opposite the President.

“What’s your name, ensign?”

“Jennifer Ladley,” she said.

He studied her. She was of
mixed Caucasian, African, Mexican and Asian descent and she had inherited the
best of each one of the races of her forebears. She had slanted blue eyes, high
cheekbones, full lips and a body that many women would readily undergo surgery
for.

“Where are you from, Jennifer
Ladley?”

“Houston, Manchester.”

“Are you friends with Vice
Admiral Frankson?”

She rested her elbows on the
table. “No, sir, but I used to see him a lot when we were demonstrating.”

“Demonstrating against the
pollution of your neighborhood by oil companies?”

“Yes. Those companies were
killing us.”

“Can I ask you a personal
question?” Cruz asked.

“You can ask whatever you
want, Mr. President.”

“What was your favorite
perfume when you were on Earth?”

“I didn’t use perfume, sir.
Perfumes and other aerosol sprays contain
CFCs
which pollute
the air and deplete the ozone layer.”

Cruz felt a stir in his pants
when he looked at Jennifer’s ample bosom. He had made love to his fair share of
women, many of them as beautiful as Jennifer. He was a famous billionaire and women
inevitably swarmed around him. Jennifer’s devotion to the green cause set her
apart from all the good-looking women he bedded. Many of the women Cruz dated
wouldn’t think twice about spraying perfume or wearing a mink coat. He had
never been alone with a beautiful woman who shared his passion for Mother
Nature. This could be his best chance to get himself an attractive woman who
shared his values.

“Are you married?”

“No, sir.”

“Children?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you have a boyfriend
here, a senior officer perhaps?”

“No, sir.”

“Jennifer Ladley, you’re a
very attractive woman and you’re obviously used to having men chase after you.
I’m a rich and famous man and I’m used to having women chase after me. So that
makes us two of a kind.” He smiled when a blush reddened her face. “Jennifer
Ladley, I have had many girlfriends in my life but none of them gave a damn
about the environment. I don’t know you, Jennifer, but I feel like I know you.
I want to raise a family here on E Utopia and I want to do so with a woman who
shares my values and will pass those values on to my children. Do you want to
be that woman, Jennifer Ladley? Can you be that woman?”

Jennifer’s lips twitched. She
fixed her eyes on the table, unable to meet his gaze.

“Right now, I’m not speaking
to you as your president or as your commander-in-chief. I’m speaking to you as
a man and I want you to answer freely. I won’t punish you if you say no.”

“I don’t know what to say,
sir,” she whispered.

“Please forgive me, Jennifer.
I shouldn’t have asked. You’re dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.”

She rose from her chair and
walked away without looking at him. She stopped and turned before she reached
the middle of the room.

“Yes!” she said, walking back
to him.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Cruz sprang to his feet and
walked to her. He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her. When she was a
little girl, she had always dreamt of marrying a rich prince. Now she was going
to do more than that. She was going to marry a king who ruled an entire planet
and was about to conquer a second planet.

“What if someone enters,” she
said when he unbuttoned her uniform.

“Nobody has been cleared to
enter,” Cruz said, working on the second button.

Cruz worked on the last two
buttons in record time and unhooked her bra. Her breasts bounced out in their
full majesty and his hands darted for them. As he squeezed the breasts, he felt
his erectile member fighting with his pants. He undid the button of her
trousers and pulled it down. When he pulled off her panties, he discovered that
she applied her conservationist principles to her body. She had a thick bush
that hadn’t been tampered with for a long time.

He peeled off his clothes, raring
to press his naked body against hers. Unlike many of his previous lovers, she
had untarnished natural beauty: no tattoos, no piercings, no makeup, no jewelry.
She was a natural and as pure as Mother Nature at her best. For more than half
an hour, he explored her body with his hands, lips and tongue before he finally
decided to deepen his exploration. He answered her moans with his groans in a grotesque
love song that went on for another half hour.

When it was over, they lay on
the floor, thanking their luck. He ruled a planet and now he had found a queen
who shared his beliefs. She had found the man who was going to help her bring
her family and friends from devastated Earth to the E Utopian paradise. An hour
ago, she had just been an ensign waiting on the President. Now she was the
First Lady.

“We can’t spend the whole
night on the floor,” she said when she realized he was in no hurry to get out
of the dining room.

“You’re right, honey,” he
said, rising from the floor. “Let’s go to the bedroom.”

They picked their clothes and,
arm-in-arm, they walked to the bedroom. Jennifer’s mouth gaped when she entered
the bedroom. Adorned with beautiful metal and glass furniture, it was more than
four times bigger than the room which she shared with six other new recruits at
the barracks.

When she lay on the bed, she
felt like she was floating in zero gravity. The bed was much more comfortable than
the beds at the barracks. He snuggled close to her. The change from the dining
room’s hard floor to the soft mattress turned him on. She moaned when she felt
him hardening again.

* * *

Sara looked at her phone,
willing it to ring. She had spent most of the weekend praying the phone would ring.
She desperately wanted to receive a call from Zack or from the Administrator of
EPA.

“Relax, Sah,” George said,
toying with her hair. “They’ll phone.”

“Why haven’t they phoned,” she
whined. “They’re our only hope of stopping the shenanigans that are taking
place above the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean. They’re our only hope of
catching the people who want to kill me.”

“Maybe the EPA Administrator
is still arranging a meeting with the President.”

“If the President doesn’t
classify this as important, then we made a disastrous mistake when we voted for
him. The man at the White House must set his priorities right. The world, the
United States included, is facing an environmental disaster that has never been
seen in living memory. If I was the President, I would work closely with the
federal agency that fights for environmental protection and I would see the head
of this agency on short notice. Maybe he’s busy talking to the NSA and the CIA
about some spying program.”

George put a hand on her
cheek. “Relax, babe. It won’t do you any good to worry about things that are
out of your control.”

“Okay, I will stop worrying
about Zack and his boss.” She smiled. “Let’s watch TV.”

They sat in front of the TV
and she did a good job of pretending to enjoy his favorite comedy. It was impossible
to take her mind away from the fact that she was going to bring a child into
this deteriorating world.
Perhaps the pregnancy test gave me a false-positive
result,
she thought.
Maybe I’m not pregnant.
“Maybe I’ve cancer,”
she said to herself when she remembered reading an article that said some c
ancerous cells
produce HCG hormone.
Oh my God, I can’t
believe that for a moment I actually preferred cancer to my own baby.

When she couldn’t wait
anymore, she picked her cell phone and dialed Zack’s number. Zack, as always,
quickly answered.

“Zack, did your boss talk to
the President?”

“This is off the record,
Sara,” Zack said. “My boss met the President.”

“I thought he was going to
let me know the result of his meeting with the President.”

“No results yet. The President
said he wants to consult with the Secretary of Defense and the Director of
National Intelligence.”

“He’s wasting time,” Sara
squeaked. “This is an environmental matter. He should take your boss’ word for
it.”

“Apparently, he also sees it
as a national security matter,” Zack said. “And I think he’s right. If indeed
something is happening in the South Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean, it will
need a military solution.”

“So when will the President
get back to your boss?”

“My boss will let you know
when he gets the President’s response.”

“I hope the President will
give the matter the urgency it deserves. Thanks, Zack.”

She put one hand on George’s chest
and slipped the other hand into his trousers. Making love was the only thing
that could temporarily take her mind away from El Monstruo. He didn’t wait for
another invitation. He swooped her into his arms and carried her to the
bedroom.

* * *

Jennifer woke up early on her
first morning as the First Lady of E Utopia. Yes, the events of the previous night
were not part of a dream. The President himself was lying next to her.
What
will Teresa think when she finds out that I’m now the President’s woman?
Jennifer’s
joy dissipated. Her best friend, Teresa, was in the barracks, waiting for her
to come back. How would she feel when she learnt that Jennifer wasn’t going to
come back to the barracks?

She got out of bed and went
to the bathroom. She was always careful of her appearance but now she had to be
extra careful because she was now the First Lady of an entire planet. She took
a long shower and spent close to twenty minutes doing her hair before she
hurried to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

She opened the fridge and
raided a chunk of meat from yesterday’s leftovers. She closed her eyes,
enjoying the antelope steak. It was more than a year since she last ate such a
big chunk of real meat. Yesterday she was just an ensign and was scared to
feast on the President’s food. Now she was the First Lady. Planet House’s
kitchen belonged to her. A feeling of guilt surged inside her when she imagined
Teresa eating rice and tofu in the barracks.