The Bleeding Crowd (19 page)

“Sex is fun?” Jude repeated.

“Can be,” Dahlia said. “Have you
never...?”

“Oh no, I have. Multiple times. With multiple
women for that matter. I was just amused how you said it.”

“Glad to be a source of amusement,” Dahlia
said, moving in another direction. “Have you all been around town
then? Ben said you were spying on us.”

“Most of us.” Jude followed. “We took some of
the younger guys’ numbers in exchange for our protection and sent
out our men in the lottery more often than would happen normally.
Better odds you know. Played up to important women, legislators
mostly, did our best to piss off the unimportant women so we’d get
sent back after three weeks, and started again.”

“Was I important then?”

“What?”

“Ben made up some cock and bull story about
why he didn’t want me to send him back at three weeks.”

“Ah,” Jude said. “No. That was just Ben. I
think you fascinated him.”

“Swell,” she said.

“Well, it makes perfect sense.”

“What does?”

“Ben being fascinated with you.”

“Why is that?”

“You’re very pretty.”

She looked at him.

“Ben’s always been easily caught by beautiful
women and you’re very attractive.”

She slowed her pace. “You think so?”

Jude turned to face her, “This can’t be the
first time you were ever told that. I know Ben would have at
least—”

“Just surprised you said so.”

“Why?”

She shrugged, looking him over. “How many
times have you been chosen?”

He frowned, seeming to look for some sort of
trick. “Why?”

“Just looking for a rough estimate.”

“Again, why?”

She continued to look at him.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Twenty
maybe?”

“You’re how old?”

He continued to look at her suspiciously, but
answered, “Twenty-five.”

“So you’ve been eligible for the lottery for,
what, nine years?”

He nodded.

“Pretty good turn over.”

He nodded. “Why?”

She moved closer to him. “You know, I only
turned twenty a few months ago.”

“Ben said something like that.”

“Haven’t had...” She touched his chest
lightly. “Much time to—”

“Okay,” he stepped back at once. “Let’s not
go there.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Go where?”

“You know where.”

She shook her head, playing the innocent.

“I’m not buying the whole ingénue
routine.”

She smiled. “Well, why shouldn’t we go
there?”

“Ben would have my head for one.”

“Why?” She touched his good shoulder, letting
her hand slide around his neck.

“Because he’s completely hung up on you.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Dahlia, really.” Jude tried to back up, only
succeeding in forcing her off-balance, her body falling against
him. “Dahlia...”

She caught her balance, but stayed pressed
against him. “You think I’m attractive. You just said so.”

“Yes.” He frowned at her. “I did.”

“Do you not want to have sex with me?”

He laughed nervously. “I just think there’s a
lot of other baggage to be taken into consideration if we were
going to...”

She waited for him to complete his sentence
before shifting against him lightly. “Do you really care about that
right now?”

“He’s my best friend.”

“And?” she asked. “He could have been out
here with me right now. He chose not to be.”

“Yes,” Jude conceded, “but—”

“It’s not your job to play envoy between us,”
Dahlia said. “Point is, do you want to have sex with me or
not?”

He hesitated for another moment before
kissing her. Whatever pangs of conscience he had about the
situation faded as her body reacted so fully against his. He
released a breath, hands going to the back of her shirt and pulling
it off over her head. He kissed her neck.

She released a short gasp, hands moving
straight to his pants.

“You’re—” he began.

“Shut up.” She pushed him back, ending up on
top of him.

Chapter Eleven

Dahlia shifted, trying to stretch her
shoulders and becoming relatively certain that she had at least
half a dozen leaves stuck to her back. She’d have to get dressed
soon anyway, it was getting colder, and the heat that they had
worked up wouldn’t last much longer. She rolled her neck.

“You know, I’ve never had sex outside
before,” She said.

Jude panted, still trying to catch his
breath. “What?”

“Just saying.” She shrugged, sitting up and
brushing herself off. “You’re quite good at that, by the way.”

He looked at her. “Thank you.”

“We aren’t far from the creek, are we?” She
looked around for her clothes.

“Just over that hill I think.” Jude forced
himself to breathe deeper. “Why?”

“I need to wash my clothes or try to at
least. Wash me for that matter.”

“It’s too cold for you to get wet. You’ll get
sick.”

She just gave him a quick smile. “Go on up to
camp. The moonlight is pretty bright here. I’ll be able to make it
back in a straight line.”

“And if you aren’t?”

“I’ll stop moving and shout until someone
finds me.”

He frowned. “Might not be the right people
who find you if you do that.”

“We haven’t seen any sign of any other human
for...it’s got to be kilometers at this point. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t worry about me.” She touched his hand
gently.

“I worry about just about everyone out
here.”

“Because you’re sweet like that.” She smiled.
“You can come and check up on me if I’m not back in fifteen
minutes, okay?”

Dahlia picked up her clothes and moved in the
direction Jude pointed her, the sound of running water leading her
after a few meters. The creek was barely enough to be a stream and
so cold that it seemed to burn when she touched it. The desire to
have some semblance of cleanliness outweighed the painful tingle
she got when she cupped the water in her hands. She squatted, her
legs shaking enough that she half sat, half fell to being
cross-legged. She set her clothes next to her and took some of the
pebbles at the bottom of the water and used them to rub the dirt
and sweat out of her shirt. The method seemed oddly familiar,
though she couldn’t place where she had learned about it. A book
about primitive cultures perhaps.

She cleaned her clothes until her hands went
completely numb before splashing herself enough to wash some of the
grim from days of walking in the forest off her skin and out of her
hair. She began to shiver, her skin tightening to try to save heat,
but the feeling of being relatively clean was enjoyable enough to
ignore the fact that she was freezing.

“I don’t know if this should be arousing or
not.”

She turned her head fast enough to whip her
face with her wet hair. She focused on the shape in the moonlight,
realizing who it was at once and going back to washing her face.
“What do you want?”

“Well, I think you woke up the entire forest
with the noise you were making.” Ben crossed his arms. “Where’s
Jude?”

“Went back to camp as far as I know.” She
shrugged, not looking at him.

“He left you here?”

“I wanted to wash up.”

“Needed to, no doubt,” he said bitterly.

“I’m tired of oddly snide innuendo.” Dahlia
sighed. “For once will you just say what you mean?”

“Fine,” he said. “You just fucked Jude.”

“Another colloquialism, I take it.”

“A lewd one,” he said.

“An expletive, yes? You’ve used it
before.”

“Will you stay on topic?”

“What’s the topic?” She looked over her
shoulder at him. “Yes I had sex with Jude, if that’s what you want
to know.”

“You admit it.”

“I just did. I see no reason to lie about it.
Why? Do you care?”

“About you fucking Jude?”

“Fucking,” she repeated. “It’s a regular verb
then? To fuck, fucks, fucking, fucked—”

“Does it really matter?” Ben cut her off.

“Just wondering how many ways one really
needs to be able to say ‘have sex’,” she said. “Seems
unnecessary.”

“Depends on how clinical you want to be.” He
waved it away. “Stay on topic.”

“We’re talking about sex aren’t we? Or
fucking as you just put it. There are a couple other ones,
yes?”

“Why did you fuck him?”

“Jude?” She stood up.

“I don’t know,” Ben said. “Are there
others?”

“What do you care? You haven’t looked at me
twice since we entered this miserable forest.”

He eyed her, his survey stopping at her
chest. “Cold?”

“It is cold out.” Dahlia crossed her
arms.

“And you chose to take all your clothes
off.”

“Easier to wash them that way,” she said.

“You haven’t put them back on.”

“They’re wet.” She looked at the clothes on
the ground near her. “I’d be colder with them on.”

“Convenient.”

“Convenient for what?”

“Distracting me.”

Dahlia scoffed. “Yes, since my every move I
make is calculated by what effect I think it will have on you.”

“Why else would you sleep with Jude?”

“If you’re going to insist on colloquialisms,
can you at least pick one? It’s much harder to follow you when you
keep changing them.”

“I’m not hearing another reason.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Because I wanted to?”

“Yeah, because you and Jude are just so right
for each other,” he said sarcastically.

“What do you care?” Dahlia walked towards
him. “If you wanted me it would have been easy enough to say so.
Since you preferred to sulk, I don’t think it’s any of your
business with whom I chose to have or not have sex.”

His jaw clenched.

She raised her eyebrows in challenge and then
turned to move back to the creek.

He grabbed her hips, pulling her back towards
him, not caring about the surprised yelp. He took a deep breath,
resting his forehead against the crown of her head. “Are you doing
this just to get to me?”

“Why?” She swallowed. “Is it getting to
you?”

He paused, he fingers gripping tighter around
her hipbone for a second before he released her altogether. “Was he
good?”

Dahlia hesitated and then moved to her
clothes. “Why? You want me to compare the two of you?”

“If you don’t want me to be snide with you,
maybe you should return the favor.”

“Well, how am I supposed to answer that?” She
glared at him.

“Maybe with an answer.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, studying
him for a moment before looking back at her clothes. “Yes. Yes, he
was.”

He released a breath slowly through his
clenched jaw. “Get dressed. You need to come back to camp.”

“My clothes are still wet.” She sat. “You
don’t have to babysit me. I’m not a child. I’m perfectly capable of
taking care of myself.”

“Yeah, you’ve proven that.” Ben crossed his
arms.

“Look, I’m up all by myself. I must not be a
newborn.”

“You’re in the middle of the forest,” he
said. “Naked.”

“We haven’t seen another person in
kilometers. Should I come up against something non-human and
dangerous, I doubt it would care about me being nude or not in the
general thought process of wanting to eat and/or maul me. Being
dressed wouldn’t give me any superpowers that would help me fend it
off, so—”

“It’s going to get colder.”

“Wet clothes won’t keep me any warmer.”

Ben sighed and then pulled his shirt off,
tossing it at her.

“I don’t need your clothes.” She didn’t move
to catch it, letting it fall near her.

“Will you stop being mule-headed and put it
on? You sit out here naked and you’re going to get sick. You’re
already slowing us down in your current state.”

She picked it up, flicked the shirt back
towards him. “I don’t want it. Go back to camp.”

Ben caught it. “You’re putting this on.”

“Make me.”

“Believe me, I’m tempted.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she said. “Anyway,
it smells.”

“We all smell,” he said. “We’ve been walking
for days in the same clothes.”

“Why do you think I just washed myself in an
ice-cold stream?”

He caught her under her arms, pulling her
towards him.

“Ow!” She squirmed, but managed to keep her
feet under her.

He wrapped his arm around her waist to keep
her relatively still, using the other to straighten out the
shirt.

“Let me go!”

He pulled the shirt over her head, grabbed
her arm, and forced it through the sleeve.

“Let me—!”

He pulled the shirt down the rest of the way,
hooking his arm under her elbows to force her arms back. “Face it,
you aren’t going to be able to overpower me, Lia.”

“You’re hurting me.” She bent, trying to
lessen the pressure the position was putting on her shoulders.

He wrapped an arm around her waist again,
letting her arms go.

She forced her weight against his arms,
breaking away, spinning to face him, and breathing heavily. “I
should have left that damn chip in you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I had some sort of misguided idea
that you might like being alive. Obviously I was grievously
mistaken. You were looking to be a martyr.”

“
Don’t be idiotic.” He watched her, his
face dark. “Even if I wanted to be a martyr, what good would dying
in some subterranean cavern do? We’d just ‘disappear’ like every
other undesirable man in the camps does.”

“Then catch me up, Ben. What do you
want?”

He released a breath and then rubbed his
arms. “It’s cold. Get your clothes together. I think we convinced
Des to let us build a fire tonight. It’ll dry you off quicker than
sitting here.”

Dahlia frowned, but nodded, letting the
conversation fizzle. She didn’t have the have the energy to attempt
to draw out the next series of thoughts she’d have to have to
understand what Ben meant.