After (17 page)

John's voice is soft. Steady. “You want someone else to father the child.”

“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. I haven't thought about much else, really, for weeks. This decision must be made very carefully, not just for the sake of the individuals immediately involved—me, the father, the child—but in anticipation of what is going to follow, in the long run. She pauses. As things are now, I am your property.”

“Eva—”

“I’m not accusing you. But Smith's been very careful to ensure that one man, and only one man, has fucked me. I don’t believe that it’s out of concern for my delicate feminine soul. It’s to be certain of paternity. So that when I bear a child, it has a father.

“The way things are, there’s some sense to that. Genetically, I mean. Whoever fathers my child won't be able to father the next generation. But there’s a long, awful history that’s linked with the concern over paternity. Women kept in more or less pleasantly disguised sexual slavery so that a man could always be certain he was the father of his children.”

She goes quiet, looking at John like she's taking a reading before she goes on.

“If I'm going to do this, if I'm going to get pregnant, if I'm going to be responsible for the expansion and continuation of this group, I want to be as sure as I can that my son or daughter will be safe, and also make sure that we're not putting some fucked up cycle of sexual enslavement in motion. Because we're off to a pretty shitty start.”

“Yeah.”

“I have an idea for getting around these two problems.”

She waits for him to ask, “What?”

“I'll choose three men. And these three will all be the possible fathers.” John is silent. “Maybe you should say something now, John.”

“How would you choose the men?”

“I thought before going into detail, you might like to accuse me of being insane.”

“I think the worst I could accuse you of is a frightening rationality. And strange courage.”

“It makes sense to you? What I'm saying?”

“Your conclusion seems radical. Unorthodox. But the things that are worrying you, scaring you, they've been scaring me, too. So I’d like to hear the details. How would you choose the men?”

“Based on two criteria. Age, and allegiance—for lack of a better word. Happily, I suspect the two overlap conveniently. Who are the three oldest men?

“Smith. Myself.” John pauses and pales. “And Riggs.”

Eva's expression remains unchanged. “So, in those three men, we have you, the civilian, representing the interests of me, Jake, and possibly any future arrivals. We have Smith, respected leader of the men. And we have Riggs, one of the boys, so to speak.”

“You can’t be considering letting Riggs…”

“Why not?” she flares, her voice high and tight. “Better me than my thirteen-year-old daughter.”

John flinches, then looks down at the grass.

Eva comes back, her voice low and soft this time. “If he fathers the child, the child is, one hopes, safe from him. And by my count, there aren't many men here not guilty of rape.”

“So, you propose that the three of us…”

“I have sex with all of you until I conceive.”

“And then…”

“And then, our baby has one mother and three fathers. It can't be just a sperm donation. It only works if all three of you love and help raise the baby, and if the others see the child as all of yours.”

“Yes. I mean, I agree about that. But I meant...”

“Us?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. That’s sort of up to you.”

“What do you mean?”

She puts her palm to his face, kisses his lips. “Whether you want to go on living with me.”

“You want me to?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will.”

“I don’t want you to do it for me, just because it’s what I want.”

“I want to be with you, Eva.” He puts his big hands gently to the back of her neck and draws her near for a kiss. It's getting dark. The cool air seeps into their clothes, chilling their skin. “Have you thought about what will happen, about the labor, Eva?”

“Yes.”

“You know, no one here is a doctor.”

“Alas, no epidural for me. Hopefully someone will come forward and say they’ve trained as a Lamaze coach.”

“Eva…”

“I’m sorry. I’m scared, so I'm being flip. I’ve thought about the pain and the danger. And now I don’t want to think about the pain and the danger anymore.” John gives her a sympathetic smile. Then a kiss on the crown of her head. “Trying to get pregnant at this age…I never would have imagined.”

“You’ll be an amazing mom.”

“Maybe.”

“How are you going to persuade Smith?”

“I don't think I will. I wanted to be up front with you. I don’t feel much obligation to do that with him. Or Riggs.”

“Riggs won't be a problem. But Smith is going to be tough.”

“I'm not his type?” she teases, smiling.

John laughs. Then, tenderly, “Eva, if the odds were reversed, you'd still be irresistible. But Smith is basically discipline incarnate. I can't see him breaking a rule he expects his men to follow.”

“I'll figure it out.”

John grins. “I have no doubt.”

“So,” she says, nervous again. “We’ll start right away?”

“Whenever you say.”

“Tonight, then,” she says with questioning eyes.

He smiles, and she smiles back. There is no laughter.

They go to their little room. They only do the fantasies, only fuck for the camera, three nights a week now. This night is their own. Together they shower off the dirt of the day in the field, then towel dry, then get into bed together. When they make love, they are very quiet, very tender. After she is still and faraway.

* * * *

Two days later Eva goes with John to work in the field. At the end of the day, they go together into a supply building, and there they find a corner where she can hide, tucked away behind boxes of stored goods. John takes up a position near the barracks and waits until he sees Riggs leave, on his way to the mess hall for dinner. John intercepts him, almost colliding with him. He and Riggs have not spoken, or been in close proximity since the day in the orchard. Riggs nervously backs away from John.

“Hey Riggs.”

John’s tone is an ominous beige.

“John.”

Riggs avoids John’s eyes as he moves to walk around him.

“Would you help me get something from the supply?”

“What?”

Riggs’s face goes a bit gray.

“The beans were off. I told Jake I’d bring him a couple more cases. If you carry one I won’t have to make two trips. Come on.”

He has made no effort to give Riggs a believable lie. John makes no effort to hide his smile as Riggs becomes more fearful. He puts his hand on Riggs’s shoulder in a gesture that suggests they will be going to the supply room together, however unhappy the thought might be making Riggs. They walk toward the building. John opens the door and gestures for Riggs to enter. Riggs looks as though he is being shown to the electric chair. He steps inside. John follows and shuts the door.

“Down at the end, Riggs.”

Riggs plods forward, pale, damp, weak-kneed, into the trap. Eva steps out from her hiding place. Seeing her, Riggs halts like he’s hit a brick wall. Breathing hard and fast he looks from her back to John, whose huge body virtually fills the narrow corridor between the boxes lining the walls. Now Riggs is shaking, panting panic as he turns back to Eva. She is walking toward him slowly. When she is about three feet from him, she stops and looks at him for long, silent moments.

“What?” Riggs blurts. It's almost a sob. Riggs is red, shaking with fear or rage.

“We're not planning on hurting you,” Eva says. “If I can trust you not to hurt me, John will go over there and wait by the door while we talk.” She studies Riggs for a minute. “You're not going to hurt me, are you?”

“No.”

Eva gives John a look. He hesitates, but then he turns and moves off toward the entrance.

“I know about the arrangement you guys have,” Eva says to Riggs, her voice soft, her look steady. “I know what you're doing to Evan and Jake.”

Riggs crosses his big arms across his wide chest and looks away, toward the floor somewhere off to his right.

“I want to make a deal with you.”

She waits. After a while, without looking at her, he says, “What?”

“If you'll leave them both alone from now on, I'll fuck you.”

His head snaps forward and his eyes lock onto Eva's face.

“Here,” she adds. “Now.”

“Bullshit.”

“No. I'm serious.”

“I'm not fuckin' stupid.”

“I know what I'm saying is strange. But I mean it.”

“Yeah. As soon as I drop my shorts, John'll split my skull with his blackjack, and you'll tell Smith I jumped you.”

“No,” she says, her voice low and even.

“Why the fuck would you?”

“I told you. I want you to leave Evan and Jake alone.”

“Why the hell would you do something for them? You don't even know them.”

Eva locks eyes with Riggs, and undoes the top button of her shirt. “Does it really matter?”

“Smith'll cut my goddamned dick off,” Riggs breathes, staring at her fingers where they've lit on the next button.

“No. He won't.”

At the other end of the room, John turns away as she goes on, button by button, until her shirt hangs open and a narrow band of bare, amber skin is visible. Riggs fixes his eyes on that exposed flesh, breathing hard. Eva touches his elbow and his eyes flash up to meet hers. But his body stays stock-still. She draws her fingers down his forearm, to his wrist, and brings his hand toward her, guides it into her open shirt, and cups his hand over a breast.

For a minute it's like he's paralyzed, standing there with his hand inside her shirt, not breathing. But then he's panting. And then he's moving, cupping her tit in his hand, fingertips roaming back and forth over her nipple.

“Promise me,” she says, her voice tight.

“Yeah,” he says.

She catches his wrist and pries his hand from her body. For a second it's like he might swat her hand away and take what he wants, but he seems to check himself.

“Promise me,” she says again.

He looks wide of her, like he can't meet her eyes. “I promise.”

“You won't touch them again. Diego, either.”

“No.”

“Or help anyone else.”

“I promise.”

“From now on. Even if you never see me again.”

This time he hesitates. But finally he says, “Yeah.”

Eva twitches a little, like she's bracing herself, then pulls her shirt aside, baring one taut, dark-tipped breast. Eyes fixed on her tits, Riggs is motionless except for the heaving of his chest.

“You can touch me,” she says, her voice even but fragile.

Riggs shoots a last glance down the length of the room, as if to make sure John is still safely out of range, then seizes her breasts in both hands, kneading the smooth flesh, pinching, tugging her nipples. Eva's face contorts, eyes shut tight, lips bitten, maybe in pleasure, maybe in pain.

Riggs fires another look toward John, standing in profile, not watching, except maybe out of the corner of one eye. Squeezing her tits, Riggs bends and buries half a breast under his open mouth, licking and sucking.

Maybe he's forgotten about John, now. Riggs lets go of Eva's tits, first with a wet slurping noise, then releasing them from his squeezing, kneading hands. His eyes drop down to her fly just long enough to get his bearings and start working it open, then his eyes are fixed on her tits again, one nipple glazed with his spit.

Touching again, gentler now, fingers teasing and tweaking one nipple, his other hand works its way down the front of her pants, into her underwear. Eva lets out a little whimper as he works a finger into her. Eyes closed, now, he leans into her, groaning his exhales as he fingers and fondles.

Then, suddenly, as if he's logged his quota of foreplay, or maybe verified her body is ready for his, he puts his hands to work getting her pants and panties down, struggling to strip them past her boots, then stares at her cunt as if hypnotized while he rushes to get his belt and fly undone and brings forth his ruddy erection.

For a moment, it's like he's not sure what to do, as if he doesn't believe, after all, that she will let him. Eva perches on the edge of a large carton and draws Riggs to her with a hand at his waist. Breathing hard, he goes into her. Riggs makes a low grunting noise and John turns away, pressing his forehead against the door.

Riggs leans forward, drives Eva back onto the carton. Holding her tits in both hands, he pumps into her, grunting with each thrust, the thrusts and grunts coming faster and harder. It's over in less than a minute. He pulls out and zips up. He is looking at his feet, shuffling in place.

Eva touches his arm and says in a quiet voice, “Help me.”

Riggs squats down and threads the leg of her khakis over her boot. She slips down from the carton and tugs her pants up, zips and buttons. Then she catches his hands, guides them to her shirt. Button by button, Riggs finishes dressing her.

“Thank you,” she says.

“I still don't know why you did that,” Riggs says.

“Not to hurt you. Don't worry.” Then she says, “It's important you don't tell anyone. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Come back here, the same time, just before dinner, one week from tonight.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Will you come?”

“Yeah.”

“And keep your promise. Leave Evan and Diego and Jake alone.”

John watches Riggs walk down the length of the shed, and keeps his eyes on him as he steps aside and lets him leave. Riggs scurries away, flooding the building with the fading evening light as he opens the door to flee. Riggs keeps his eyes down and never once looks at John. When the sound of the door closing echoes down the corridor, John goes to Eva.

John's approach is slow. Cautious. They watch each other, their eyes locked.

“Are you all right?” he asks her, and she nods. He reaches out, but pulls his hand back before he's touched her.

“You don't want to touch me, now?” she asks in a wounded voice.

“No. I just don't know if you want to be touched right now,” he says, his voice soft.