27 Prison Is Prison

For a few weeks, everything in our gilded cage went well. Psi was still around, but all he did was sulk and he never came in to work so he wasn't a problem. Production speed picked up as our builders got better, and we started making sleep rays. The high power directional antennas made them more complicated, so we didn't turn out our first sleep ray until a month after I took over. There was always some amount of ingenuity involved because our materials were whatever Merced could lay his hands on, but the team surprised me with their ability to improvise when it came to enclosures and antennas. They even refined component layouts to make builds faster and easier to test.

Final device tests and examinations were the most important part of the build, since it caught any errors, and I was able to delegate quality assurance lead to Valerie. She had some prior education in electronics, and she had QA experience from the software industry. Everyone else rotated through the process in groups: the pick/place group would handle component selection and soldering, enclosures made cases and built antennas, and QA tested everything. Teams rotated their duties every three days.

We delivered finished devices to Sergeant Alvarez, who promised they'd be tested on real zombies before they found their way into the field. I volunteered to have my people take care of that step, but the wary sergeant claimed it was safer if we stayed put. It was a lie, I am sure. Our success made us too valuable and he couldn't risk any of us trying to escape. It was easier for him to keep us locked in the fenced compound, watched by guards, than take a recurring risk of field trips to the zombie pens. He definitely wasn't worried zombies might get us: we hadn't seen a wild one since coming to the park. The Damned Codgers had found most of them and winter kept the rest in hibernation.

Motherhood ceremonies were once a month, after all the women received pregnancy tests. Three of our builders traded their "recent mother" knots for "expectant mother" knots. We expected good news for the rest soon. As for Sandy, she cried and jumped up and down when Matron Murali handed her a motherhood knot. It was shocking behavior from the quiet, watchful woman, but the others celebrated with her, circling her with their arms and jumping up and down with her. It was a lot more noise than I was used to, but they seemed genuinely happy for her. To celebrate, we passed out fresh cinnamon rolls made from Sandy's and my special rations. Each roll was only a mouthful, but the cheer in the room was palpable.

Later that night, when we were alone in the house, I was struck by a whim. "Come here and sit on my lap," I told her, and Sandy came, skirts a-swish, to sit prettily on my lap. I put one hand over her womb and used the other to smooth her hair. "You are doing so well," I said, "with everything. I'm so happy we're going to have a baby. Rachel will be too, when she finds out."

Sandy leaned against me, breathing a little heavy. "I'm a very lucky man. Unbutton your blouse, so I can look down your shirt. I like looking at you." While she worked the buttons with shaking hands, I moved my hand under her skirt and stroked her calves, her thighs, and up to her hips. She liked my hands on her hips, and kissed me with a needy full-body undulation. I stole glances down her shirt as I touched my lips to her ears and neck, her lips, and fingertips.

We ended up making out, and then making love, on what was frankly an inhospitable chair. We had tried sex without the Abigail props before, but it was always an awkward and unsuccessful affair. That was the first time I felt like we really connected without them.

❖ ❖ ❖

If we had been home with the Sojourners, or even if we had been on our own, those few happy days could have been extended to months, or even years. But we were in New Kingdom and nothing could stay good for long. They had to remind us who they were, and of our place under them.

One morning, before breakfast, we heard a woman's crying and shouting. Half the compound rushed to the mothers' house where the noise was coming from. Dragon Ball was there, on the porch, his orange orb with its seven stars lit bright by the overhead LED lamp, casually zipping up his pants. A young woman I had rarely seen, barely more than a girl, was bent over the railing with her skirts up to expose her below the waist, wailing out her pain and her shame. Dragon Ball looked around at his audience then walked away, strutted, reveling in the commotion he caused. There were at least twenty men gathered in front of the mothers' house and every last one of us watched him leave. What else could we do? Half of us were army and would fight on the side of the greenie, and the other half were unarmed.

Murati tried to comfort Dragonball's latest conquest but the girl threw off the matron and ran back into the house. The matron's response was patient, composed. She followed the girl inside, and I heard her direct one of the caretakers to clean up the trail of blood drops she had left behind.

I found Hector standing with the soldiers, face twisted in distaste. I don't know what he had expected from a nation that forced women into pregnancy, but it clearly wasn't that. I approached him, hands empty and relaxed so I wouldn't be interpreted as a threat. Once I was close enough to be heard, when I knew he was looking at me, I said, "Great decision, bringing us here Hector. Well done."

"It's not all like that," he stammered, "the kingdom is making progress!"

"If Genghis Khan is progress," I sneered at him, "then maybe."

Other greenies had come and gone from our compound to have their share of the women. We knew them by names like Green Unicorn, Goofy, Monkey King, and Dark Star, but none of them were as wantonly vicious as Dragon Ball. Maybe Hector couldn't see the difference between compliance and consent, and that was how he guarded his ignorance of what the kingdom really was. I'll never know how he really felt about it because I was always too enraged at him to ask.

❖ ❖ ❖

A few days after the Dragon Ball incident, I got attacked by a woman. She caught me, uncharacteristically alone, as I was going between the workshop and the house where Merced and his people quartered. "Tackled" would be a better word, since I ended up in a snowdrift with sore ribs and a girl on top of me.

She was tall, with latte skin and pale green eyes. Her wide mouth was painted an inviting shade of bronzed rose. She was very striking, gorgeous even, and if her skin tone had been a few shades lighter she would have been in the palace instead of our compound. I had seen her around, noticed her lingering near Psi, but never talked to her.

"Hi there!" She had her full weight pressed against me, with no overcoat to keep her warm, nipples against mine. "I'm Tamala."

"You're Psi's woman, aren't you?" I pulled my knife and put the point between her ribs, just hard enough to be a warning. "What do you want?"

Tamala looked down at the knife, then back to me with an undaunted smile. "There's no need for that. I'm here as a friend. I want to trade up. Don't you?" She started rubbing herself against me, until I pushed the knife forward, enough to pierce her clothing and touch skin.

"No thanks. No mercenaries allowed."

"Really? It's no secret, you know, that you and Sandy don't get along. Not really. Perfume?" she said archly, "dress-up? The same costume every night? She's not exactly hitting the right spots for you, is she?" Somehow, Tamala pressed into me even harder, her face near enough to kiss. Hands gently stroked my thighs.

Her voice lowered to a whisper. "I can do better."

I pushed the knife forward, forcing her up and back, until she was off me.

"No." I am not witty at times like these, so I have to make do with brevity.

"Decisive. I like that in a man." Tamala walked a short distance away and retrieved her coat from the snow. She kept talking while she buttoned it up, gradually covering her curves in puffy outerwear. "Psi is such a loser, but he has connections, you know? I don't know how he'll crawl out from under this mess, but watch your back. He really hates you." Transformed from gorgeous siren to pretty puffball, Tamala crunched away in the snow.

I should have paid attention to Tamala's warning because two days later Psi tried to kill me. It happened during dinner, while I was telling the story about the whales who beached themselves in Norcali. My only warning was a row of eyes showing white in alarm. I looked behind me just in time to see Psi with a knife and, thanks to Jaida's drills, twisted out of the way in time to earn a shallow gash instead of a perforated aorta. Psi was even less of a fighter than I was. When he missed me he fumbled his footwork and ended up with his face smashed against the edge of the table. The soldiers got a firm grip on him before he could get back on his feet. I could hear him try to say something, half unconscious, not able to form coherent words yet ranting at me, as soldiers hustled him out the front door. The whole episode was over and done with in seconds. I figured that was the last I would ever see of Psi.

"You're bleeding," Sandy said, sounding a little panicked, "a lot. Murati!" She put a napkin against my side, where Psi's knife had grazed my ribs until the bone was exposed, and pressed hard. She hustled me next door to our house.

I spent the next half hour sitting in our kitchen, getting sewn up by Murati. Men didn't normally rate her attention unless they were seriously hurt, and if I had been most other men in the compound she would have tossed me a vial of superglue and called it a day. But I was the Engineer, so she worked her needle swiftly through twenty stitches while Sandy glared at me from the opposite side of the table.

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"You're angry," I tried to prompt her, "what did I do wrong?"

"You don't know?"

"Well, I didn't get stabbed," I reasoned, "in my book that's a good thing. I guess I should have been faster."

"Then Rachel wasted her time trying to pound any sense into you." That criticism burned me some, I'll admit it, especially coming from a woman who was normally so meek. Rachel had tried to teach me to be more careful about my surroundings, and I owed her better than dying to a random non-combatant. "I had my back to the door. Remind me next time, and I'll change seats."

"Now he remembers," mocked Sandy, "too late to save his hide, though. How can you overthink the simplest things, and then not pay attention to where you're sitting?"

"I'm sorry. I'll do better. Okay? Look, I'm going to be fine, all right? You don't have to worry."

Then there were tears on her cheeks, seemingly out of nowhere. "You don't get it. Your life is my life. If you die then I'm alone here, in New Kingdom, anybody's fuck toy. You claimed me! You said I was yours! At least try to give a damn about your own life, even if you don't care about mine!"

She stormed off then, a bit like Psi had done before, but it felt much worse because this was Sandy being mad at me and she had actual cause. She shut herself in the basement, slamming doors as she went.

"A word of advice, young man," said Murati as she packed away her kit, "settle your disputes quickly. She's not safe in New Kingdom. None of us are."

"Can I offer you tea, or something?" I swear I wasn't trying to change the topic, at least not consciously. "I think we have a lot of dried herbs in the cupboard."

"I have plenty at home. But, I wouldn't say no to a couple ounces of bacon if you have it."

I ended up giving her a quarter pound of what we had in our fridge, a red meat that was either beef or horse, or maybe bison. It was something red at least and, I'm ninety percent sure, mammalian in origin. In exchange I got a handful of pills with the kingdom's flag pressed into one side and "McCook NE" on the other.

"The kingdom makes these?" I must have sounded doubtful.

"Basic penicillin," said Murati, "and they work. One pill, twice a day, until you run out. No hoarding."

After Murati left I made tea for Sandy, remembering she liked nettle and mint. We didn't have anything for sweetener, but I didn't think she would mind. Then, in an uncharacteristic act of courage, I went into the basement. It would be nice if I could lay claim to some kind of bravery in that moment, but I was more driven by desperation. There were only the two of us in New Kingdom, and we needed each other. I didn't want her to die any more than I wanted me to die.

Sandy had not locked the door to our bedroom, which I took as an invitation to go in and talk to her. She was sitting in the one chair, really a stool placed beside the bed, with a tissue in her hand but her eyes were dry. I put her tea on the end table and sat on the bed, near her. For a long while I didn't know what to say.

"You're right," I said at last, "I let myself get careless. Comfortable, even. From now on I'll sit facing the door, and do my knife drills in the morning. We can't afford to die here, not when Rachel and her baby are waiting for us."

"Thank you." Sandy still wouldn't face me.

"Tamala ambushed me a couple of days ago," I said, dropping the news I should have already told her. "There's a rumor we don't get along well, so she thought there was an opening to change guardians. She knew about Abigail's perfume, and the lingerie."

Sandy squeezed her eyes shut, pressing out tears. "Valerie," she said. "Or someone overheard us. I'm sorry."

I took the tissue from Sandy's hand. "This place," I declared, dabbing at her tears, "it's like they want you to forget it's a prison, until they feel like rubbing your face in it." I realize now, as I write this down, it was a foolish thing to say. The women could never forget. The threat to them was too constant.

After another minute I added, "We can't let them see daylight between us, but I just don't know how to reach you. The day we found out you were pregnant, I thought we were on to something, but no matter what I try I can't get the same reaction from you. Nor you with me. Not without Abigail between us. So I need your help, Sandy. Tell me what you like."

It was a simple question, one I should have asked her weeks ago. The truth is I didn't have a lot of experience with intimate relationships or else it might have occurred to me sooner to simply ask. I only had a few years with Abigail, and there had been a few half-hearted girlfriends before her.

Sandy mumbled a bit, but I couldn't catch it. I put my ear closer to her. "Tell me louder."

She hesitated, then she said in a small voice, "I like it when you tell me what to do."

"So, you want me to tell you what to do? Control you?"

She nodded her head, but cast her eyes down. I supposed she was afraid of that admission, afraid it would chase me away, afraid I might not accept someone who was a little strange. But words like strange and normal didn't have the same power as Before.

"The peaches," I said in realization. I immediately thought of our first weeks together, and that last small box of peaches I had parceled out to her, one by one, as they ripened. She ate every one of them as slowly as she had eaten the first, and I had watched her in fascination. She had savored them more than any one person should be allowed to enjoy a mere fruit, but it wasn't the food alone. It was the fact that I had told her to eat them slow, and I had paid attention.

Then I thought of all those times I had seen her work with a smile. Perhaps she was smiling because I was watching. I could understand a need for undivided attention. In the hands of her previous owners, neglect meant starvation: she was nearly dead from it when I found her. I didn't understand her need to be ordered around, but did I need to understand it? Maybe it would be enough to accept it, figure out what worked, and worry about the why later.

"Let's try something. Put your stool here, in front of me, get a hair brush, and then come back and sit with your back to me." She did those things, which put her head at chest level to myself. I checked the tea to make sure it wasn't too hot, and put the cup in her hands.

"Hold this, nice and pretty." She supported the cup in one palm while she steadied the handle with the delicate fingers of her other hand. "You will only drink the tea when I tell you to." Then, I brushed her hair. As I finished with each section, I allowed her a sip before going to the next.

"Tomorrow you will ask the other women how to get a trim. I like this cut, so don't change it. Just neaten it up. If you need some kind of payment, then I'll arrange it. You may drink."

When I was done with brushing her hair, I made her tidy up the room. Item by item she moved things to where they belonged. This new game was strange to me, but I quickly learned it was most effective if she could see me watching her, could make eye contact while she carried out her task. Her fingers lingered over objects, her breath quickened, her eyes became large and dark. All of that, just from moving a few things around the room while I watched.

I thought I would feel a sense of power over her, an ugly kind of power I didn't want over anyone, but every time she complied with an order what I felt was entirely different, more akin to the growing pains Rachel teased me about, my grinchly heart growing larger.

"You kept the handcuffs didn't you." It wasn't a question. I had thrown them aside the night she said she didn't need restraints, but then they had gone missing.

"Yes." She had just finished dusting a lamp, and had to lean her back against the wall for support. The duster dangled idly in one hand.

"Do you still have them?"

"Yes," she breathed, hopefully.

I let my eyes wander over her. The skirt that hid her form, the frilly blouse buttoned up tight, her breasts reduced to modest bumps. It didn't suit her at all. She was more natural as a tomboy, or in a sundress and blonde curls, or a prim instructor of builders, or a seductress in her Abigail costume. What she wasn't was bland and faceless and average. I imagined the body that waited for me under the default kingdom costume.

"Get them," I said, and she rushed to the closet. She pulled out her go bag, opened it, and plunged her arm all the way to the bottom, came back out with the steel loops in her hand, victorious. She returned to me and held out the cuffs with both hands, an offering.

I took them, and held them away from her. "Not yet. Lose the socks." I made her undress, one article at a time, watched keenly as the woman emerged from the layers of kingdom clothing. Because of the way we always had sex up to that point, I was never able to look to my heart's content.

"Lay down," I said, and she took the bed, both hands above her head, expectantly. I locked one loop around one wrist, and the other onto the headboard.

"Your free hand is for touching. Whatever you like, if you can reach it." He hand shot between the buttons on my shirt to grab a nipple, rather firmly, and I laughed. I let her one free hand be my guide, and disclosed whatever she wanted, as she wanted it.

When I entered her that night I did it gradually, face-to-face, chest-to-chest, her free hand clutched in mine, and never looked away. She made a noise I had never heard from her, almost a scream as if surprised, and her first climax came soon after.

My own climax too much longer, I think because I wasn't used to looking my partner right in the eye as it happened. But every orgasm Sandy had made her more and more wanton, until the doubts and restraints in my head were obliterated in the liquid motion of her hips, her thighs locked around me, her hand in my hair and everywhere else. When I came there was nothing between us. No ghosts or kingdoms or doubts. Just us.

Sometime in the early hours I released the cuff that was latched to the bed and fastened it to my own wrist. My left hand was shackled to her right. With that arrangement we could comfortably lie next to each other, or spoon, or she could lay on top of me. As the ratchet closed she rolled on top of me and said, "you belong to me now. I claim you, and you are mine."

"You remember."

"I remember everything, E. You were the cleanest person I had met in years. And the peaches! I thought, 'I want to do this every day. Eat peaches for the man with kind eyes while he watches me. He'll wipe away the juice after, and maybe one day he'll kiss it away.' And, here we are."

"I think you skipped some parts," I laughed, and stroked her back. Not for the last time, I wished I had more hands so I could touch her in more places at once. She didn't mind my wandering hands, or try to catch and hold them. Instead she stretched herself long like a cat in the sun so I could find all of her.

"Don't you ever worry that you've just imprinted on me because of circumstances, and that's all this is?" It seemed to be my night to ask long-deferred questions.

"It doesn't matter if that's what this is. We're here now, like this." She tilted my face up, away from her breasts and towards her eyes. "How could you do everything you've done for me, without love? Maybe you didn't notice because we missed the falling part of it. We're not like the books or the movies, but the falling part isn't the important bit. Everything else is."

After that day we experimented a lot. Our early efforts were awkward, sometimes embarrassing, often hilarious. Sexual commands were obvious and rewarding things to try, but over time we would learn the power of the nonsensical. If I told her to wear mismatched socks, I got to watch other people point out her "mistake" to her all day long and then watch as Sandy, with pleasure-flushed glance in my direction, try to convince them the badly paired socks looked excellent together. I could order Sandy to abstain from fruit at breakfast, then observe as she pushed aside bits of her food while we made intense eye contact. Every discarded raisin was a tease for the night to come. If you want to know what other games we played, well … that's for us to know, and you to mind your own business.

It was strange by Before standards, but it worked. Sandy got the attention she needed, and I … think it wasn't an accident I quoted the Perfect Masters when I took her, nor was it some random brain flash dredging up vaguely salient memories. I like to believe my subconscious knew exactly what she was and what she could mean to me, and I grabbed her before I could think about it too much.