Anything for Food - A Post-Apocalyptic Erotic Tale (8 page)

She sat on the basement floor, Jake's
heart-wrenching sobs drawing her own misery from her. There was
nothing and no-one in her past life that could ever have drawn that
kind of emotion from her. She sat and thought.

Am I better off because nothing can affect me that way or have
I missed out on something important because nothing means that much
to me? I can hear his agony, what must his life have been like before
to cause this much pain now? Can anything ever be that important to
me? Would I want it to be?

This is all my fault. Should I just wait until he comes out?
Should I tell him that I'm here if he needs a shoulder? Would he even
want to acknowledge my existence right now?

Andi firmed her courage, stood, and
walked to the door. She knocked on it firmly.

“Jake, I'm here if you need
anything. I'm sorry for what I said, I didn't think about it at all.
My mouth just opened and spewed that garbage.”

The crying abated, or at least
softened, as she spoke. When she was done speaking, she could hear
him on the other side of the door. He was trying to get his crying
under control.

“Leave me alone. I need some
time.”

Andi's bitchy side really wanted to
comment here, something along the lines of 'If more than two years
hasn't been enough for you to come to grips with your loss, is
another hour going to help?'

Lips clamped shut on her vitriol, she
climbed the stairs. There were some chores she knew how to do
already. She'd go and do any of them that still needed doing today.
That would give him some time to himself. If he was going to do
something stupid, then he would. She couldn't get through the door to
stop him if that was his decision.

She ran through the few things that she
was confident she could do correctly, finishing by checking the
chicken coop for eggs. Once she was done, she found herself sitting
on the ground outside the coop, holding one of the hens that had been
making noises as though it were trying to talk. A palm full of
scratch in one hand had the chicken contentedly staying in her lap,
pecking at the treat as she stroked its feathers.

Her mind was racing again. She was
trying to decide why, exactly, she'd come out with that statement
when Jake sighed his ex-lover's name. There were only two reasons
that came readily to mind and she wasn't sure that she liked either
of them.

The first possibility was that she was
being demanding. Their deal stipulated the physical only, that her
body was his for sex whenever and however he wanted. It said nothing
about feelings or emotions. Was she insisting that he acknowledge her
just for keeping to her end of the deal? His offer made so much more
sense to her now. He wanted a body to fuck while keeping his dead
lover foremost in his mind.

The second possibility frightened her.
She thought it was probably the correct one though. Could she be
falling for Jake? Their two days of acquaintance didn't seem like
enough time for that to occur but she found herself worrying about
him as much, or more than, she worried about herself. Was she trying
to replace Shelly? Drive him out of his melancholy memories, bring
him into the present, and get him to fall for her? She thought about
being the focus of positive emotions that were equivalent in strength
to the negative ones that had left Jake sobbing and was, in equal
parts, scared and thrilled at the concept.

Andi sat and thought as time passed.
She was sure there were other things that ought to get done but she
didn't know what they were or how to do them. Within the first
fifteen minutes she'd returned the chicken to the coop. Once the
scratch was gone it was no longer interested in staying with her.

Now she simply sat and listened to the
chickens clawing at the ground and making strange little noises that
she'd never known chickens made.

An hour or so passed before she heard
the door at the front of the house open and close. She sat and
waited. Equal parts of hope and dread filled her as she waited for
him to come around to the back of the house. But she waited in vain,
time passed and there was no sign of Jake.

Finally she got to her feet and went
around the front of the house. There was still no sign of Jake
anywhere. She wandered around outside, searching all the areas that
he'd shown her so far. When she still didn't find him, she searched
inside.

She entered the house to find that he
wasn't in the living room. A few steps told her that Jake wasn't in
the kitchen either. She went down the hall to the bedroom, glancing
in the bathroom on the way. He was in neither of those locations.

Andi began to panic. She was still
worried that Jake might do something stupid. She headed down into the
basement. First she checked the library, empty. The store room was
full of supplies, but still no Jake. She walked over to the third
door and knocked gently. The door swung open.

The room was about the same size as the library. It was sparsely
furnished with only an armchair, a coffee table, and a low table
butted up against one of the walls. The illumination came from
another string of LED lights, which had been left on. A variety of
objects were scattered about the tables.

On the coffee table sat a paperback romance novel, a bookmark
protruding from it. Beside it was a stuffed animal, a black and white
cat. A scarf lay entwined between the book and stuffed animal.

The low table held a bottle of perfume, its scent lingering
faintly in the air. A hairbrush, honey-brown hair tangled in its
bristles, rested beside the perfume. A silver necklace with a Celtic
knotwork pendant was coiled in the middle of the table. A greeting
card lay beside the necklace and a white-gold ring with a small
diamond set in it claimed an entire portion of the table for itself.

The wall above the low table was plastered with photographs. Andi
looked at them and saw that Shelly was the subject in nearly all of
them. In many of them she resembled Andi even more than she had in
the picture Andi found upstairs.

One photo stood out from the rest, it wasn't a true photograph but
a small black square with blotches of white on it. Andi recognized it
easily enough, it was an ultrasound picture showing a fetus in the
womb.

She understood immediately that Jake had lost more than just a
girlfriend in the crash. She'd bet her life that he'd also lost an
unborn child. The ring on the table suggested that Shelly was more
than just a girlfriend. She realized that his behavior was far more
in keeping with her suspicions than it would have been if Shelly was
only his girlfriend. Once again she felt a rush of worry about what
he might be doing.

Andi made sure to touch nothing in the room. She left and closed
the door behind her. With the door left open and the lights on, she
suspected that Jake intended for her to see what was in there. What
she didn't know was why.

Is it an unconscious cry for help? Is it him trying to show me
just what I've ruined for him? Was it just an accident because he was
so distraught? It's so confusing to not know. I don't even know him
well enough to make an educated guess.

Andi went back upstairs. It was nearly
an hour since she'd heard the front door. She didn't know the area
very well yet, just the spots Jake had shown her, so she couldn't
even guess where he might be. She'd looked in all the spots he'd
shown her so far.

Okay,
she thought,
the last
thing Jake told me to do before the sexual fiasco was to read his
books.
I'll go back to that and hope that he returns soon. If
he does, and he sees me reading the books, maybe he'll know that I'm
still willing to abide by our bargain.

Andi grabbed a large glass of water and
the book she was currently reading. She went out to the bench, sat
down, and started to read. She tried to concentrate on the chapter
she was starting, 'The Importance of Community', but had a hard time
focusing on the words. She made slow progress until the third page. A
quote caught her attention that could well explain what Jake was
doing.

'The importance of having a good
relationship with your community in general, and specifically your
nearest neighbors, cannot be overstated. In times of crisis, they are
the ones that are most likely to be present or available to aid and
assist you. In return you should let them know that if they need aid
or assistance you are willing to provide it if possible.
Self-sufficiency is a misnomer. You will need the support of anyone
else in the local area to be self-sufficient. From selling excess
food products or hand made goods, to getting assistance with
livestock, your neighbors are important. You may even find that they
are the best people to discuss any problems with should they arise
with other people in your homestead.'

The last line was the key for her. If
he truly believed what he had written then perhaps there was a
neighbor who he was visiting with. Maybe it was just the time of the
week he normally exchanged eggs for milk. Maybe...

She knew she was grasping at straws but
she was out of ideas. She returned to her reading, able to
concentrate on it better now that she'd decided he might not be doing
something stupid.

She finished the chapter and was
mid-way through the next one when she heard someone coming up the
driveway. They were whistling cheerfully, which wasn't something
she'd heard Jake do. She slid inside the house and shut the door. A
carefully drawn back curtain allowed her to watch the last fifty feet
of the driveway.

Jake came walking up the driveway, a
jauntiness to his step that she hadn't seen there before. He was
alone so he must be the person who was whistling. Andi stepped over
to the door and opened it. When Jake saw her his face froze over for
a moment before thawing.

She looked at him as he stared at her.
His eyes were in the present now and he was seeing Andi. The moment
stretched out before she gave in and broke eye contact, gazing at the
floor underfoot.

This is it. He's going to tell me to leave,
she
thought.

They spoke simultaneously:

“I'm sorry...”

“Thank you...”

They each stopped and Andi's gaze moved
to his face again.

“Go ahead, I didn't mean to speak
over you.” Jake said.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say
what I did. I don't know where it came from.”

“It's okay. I want to thank you
for saying it. I think I needed that.”

“You aren't going to kick me
out?” Andi asked.

“No, no... I've been told I'd be
a complete and utter moron if I did that.”

“By whom?” Andi snapped,
“I'm sorry, I shouldn't be nosy like that. Where were you? I
looked all over for you.”

“That's okay. I realized that
there were things I should be doing that I wasn't. It was your
statement that snapped me back to thinking about now and not about
years past.”

“Like what?”

“You looked for me downstairs,
yes?”

She nodded, thinking of his shrine to
Shelly and blushing slightly.

“Well, you saw that we're very
well stocked up. I have neighbors who aren't. One set of them, in
particular, I thought might need some assistance. Once upon a time,
they were good friends of mine, and Shelly's. I've ignored them
horribly for a couple of years now but I realized that if I kept
living in the past, I'd have no future.”

“I don't understand.” Andi
said.

“When Shelly died, I retreated
into a shell. I had the crazy idea that if I kept her in my thoughts
that she'd continue living in some fashion. These friends, they
happen to live only a mile or so up the road, told me that I
shouldn't be doing that.

I reacted poorly to their unasked for
advice. I tried to ignore them when they told me that but they kept
telling me over and over. Finally I started snubbing them, avoiding
them whenever I could. They kept trying to get through to me but I
ignored virtually everything they said.

Since they were Shelly's friends as
well as mine, I thought that they were betraying her memory. I
convinced myself that they'd been jealous of us because Shelly and I
were engaged to be married and because she was pregnant when we got
engaged. My friends had been trying for a child for a couple of years
at that point. I convinced myself that they were glad that she was
gone because she'd gotten pregnant so easily. I told myself that they
weren't really my friends.

Today, they proved to me that I was
wrong.”

Jake paused before continuing.

“About a year and a half ago,
Becky got pregnant and I was furious. It was the final straw for me.
I totally ignored them after that. Once she'd given birth, I heard
down in town that she and the baby were healthy. People knew that
they used to be my friends and felt the need to keep me updated on
their situation so I was aware that they were doing okay before
things went bad.

With a new child around I was guessing
they probably didn't have any extra money before things went to shit
and because of that, they might be short on food. So I brought them
some, along with an apology for my mulishness. While I was there, I
admitted to them that they were right. That what I was doing wasn't
healthy. They forgave me for being such an ass and drew the story out
of me about what made me see the light.

Allan told me straight out that if I
had found someone that could get through to me, after he and Becky
couldn't, that I would have to be an idiot if I did anything but beg
that person's forgiveness for how I'd acted with them.”

Andi stayed silent as Jake paused
again. His face contorted, like that of a young boy caught
red-handed, before he spoke.

“So, I'm hoping that you'll
forgive me for being such an ass to you. You're more than welcome to
stay without the sex. I'll let you out of the bargain entirely.”