by Stasia Black
Riordan pushed the bowl away and slammed the spoon down on the table. “Jesus, Ma. I’m nineteen. When are you gonna stop treating me like I’m six years old?”
“Here we go,” Ross muttered under his breath from where he sat at the table beside him. Ross scraped the bottom of his bowl like the good little boy he was, and Riordan shook his head in disgust.
“Maybe I’ll stop treating you like a six-year-old when you stop acting like one.” His mother put one hand on her hip and stared him down.
She was short and had the rounded profile of a keen-eyed bull terrier. And like a bull, she was prone to plowing down whatever obstacles lay in her path. Including her own sons. Sometimes Riordan thought she’d taken her survival from Xterminate as proof from the Almighty that she should always get her way. Especially since their dad had died not long after The Fall.
“Now. Finish. Your. Stew. And then you two need to march yourselves down to the town square to put your names in for the lottery. A new girl was just brought into town.”
Riordan had heard about the knife-wielding wild woman that had been picked up earlier today. Apparently she was practically feral. She’d been brought into town covered in blood, head shaved, and skinny enough to barely count as a woman.
At least that’s what he heard. It wasn’t like he was ever allowed to be on the front lines of anything.
Riordan shoved his chair back and stood up. “No.”
His mother’s eyes widened. “What did you just say to me?”
“Riordan,” Ross said, standing up with his hand out, obviously ready to play the mediator.
Riordan turned on him incredulously. “Grow up! You don’t have to be so damn compliant all the time. What if your name gets called? You don’t want to get married any more than I do.”
“Ross will do what I say he needs to do,” their mother said. “Because he’s a good son.”
Ross dropped his gaze to the ground.
“You know they don’t give out merit badges for being a mama’s boy, right?” Riordan asked.
Ross’s eyes shot up with a quick murderous look before dropping again to the floor. Ross had always had his heart set on becoming an Eagle Scout. The world had gone to shit when they were twelve and even though the Boy Scouts of America no longer existed, Riordan knew Ross was still secretly working toward it. He was always such a dog with a bone.
Riordan would catch him pouring over all the old scout books and practicing knots or reading about what mushrooms would kill you, or setting up wilderness shelters from scratch. That was the perfect example of who his twin brother was—the kind of kid who loved rules and order so much he spent all his spare time following them to reach a completely pointless goal. So he made unofficial Eagle Scout? So…? Then what?
Riordan was done with all of it. Ma. Ross. Always being compared. Never good enough. D-O-N-E.
“Enough,” his mother said like it was the last word on the issue. “You’re both going to go down to the town square tonight.” She looked Riordan in the eye like she was daring him to talk back.
He smirked but didn’t say anything.
“Then you’ll put your names in that box. Between the two of you, I’ve doubled my odds at having a son settle down. I could have a grandbaby by this time next year.”
“Jesus Christ. A baby?” Riordan exploded.
Was she even listening to herself? They were nineteen. They were barely starting their own lives. Give them some time to live before saddling them with the responsibility of marriage and a damn family.
Actually, strike that. That was the kind of shit Ross might want—someday. But Riordan was gonna be a lone wolf forever, making his own damn way in the world. No one telling him what to do. Maybe he’d join up with some smugglers.
Or he could even leave the New Republic and head out West. New Mexico or Colorado… According to the rumors, they were lawless territories that would be just the kind of place for a maverick like himself.
“Riordan Sean O’Sullivan,” his mother came forward and grabbed his ear in an awful pinch, yanking him down so that he was eye-level with her five-foot-four frame, “I ought to wash your mouth out with soap for using the Lord’s name in vain. Now. You will go to the square right this minute with your brother and you will put your name in that lottery box. Am I making myself perfectly clear?”
Riordan swallowed, shame and self-loathing rose up to choke him as he adopted the same posture as his brother, eyes to the floor. And then he did what he had done every day of his nineteen years on this earth. He gave in to the domineering woman who ran his life.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Three
MICHAEL
Michael sat on the edge of his bed and watched Ana, the woman who lived in the house next door, through the gap in his curtains. The sun had set about an hour ago but she had several oil lamps lit, so he had a perfect view from his garage apartment.
The first time he’d watched, it had just been through the tiniest gap and he’d only taken furtive glances. But as the nights and months progressed, he’d taken to leaving his curtains open wider and wider.
Because Ana? She left her own bedroom curtains all the way open, as per usual, and the lights on, of course.
For tonight’s performance, she was wearing a red lace bra and matching panties cut high on her long legs. When she turned her back to the window, Michael sucked in a breath at the sight of her firm ass cheeks split by the red thong.
Ana was twice his age, nearly fifty, but you would have never guessed it to look at her. Sometimes he felt bad about watching, but never for long. She knew he was there. And she gave these shows just for him. They started shortly after she asked him about his clothes.
“What’s with the outfits?” she asked one day when they found themselves stepping out of their houses at the same time.
“The outfits?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She gestured at his body, drawing her hand through the air in a vertical line. “White tank top. White basketball shorts. You’re like the sixth Back Street Boy.”
“Who?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Never mind. Ancient history.”
“Oh.”
“So you’re not going to tell me?” she asked.
“Tell you what?”
“What gives with the clothes? Every day it’s the same thing. You must have a closet full of them.”
“Oh. I do.”
“And…” she said, prompting him to go on.
Sensory processing disorder was not something Michael like to talk about. Not then. Not now. Not ever. There was enough disease, death, and loss in this world to trouble anyone with his lame issues. Besides, SPD was kind of a conversation stopper.
The short story was: Michael couldn’t bear to be touched.
He didn’t shake hands. He didn’t go to the clinic. It was the reason he had this garage apartment instead of living in the men’s dorms with everyone else—too much chance of being touched or jostled. After one too many panic attacks that ended up with him screaming on the floor in the fetal position, the Commander had taken pity on him and given him this place.
God, even the feel of most clothing was too much for him to handle for longer than a few seconds. How anyone could wear a wool sweater was beyond him.
The only thing he’d ever managed to tolerate for long periods of time were these tanks and loose basketball shorts because—one—they left most of his skin untouched and—two—they were made of one hundred percent silk, no scratchy tags, and no dyes, either. Basically, they were a whole lot of nothing.
Sometimes Michael felt like he was a whole lot of nothing.
His mama, God rest her soul, had always bought his “nothing” in bulk.
When he took a chance and explained all of this to Ana, she seemed more fascinated than pitying. He was grateful for that. To be seen and not judged, especially by a woman, he wanted that more than anything.
“No interest in a wife, then?” she aske
d.
He laughed out loud. “Loads of interest. Just no way to get close enough to consummate.”
“So if a woman touched you…?” She took a step closer, and he backed up.
Ana was one of the women in town who’d elected not to enter the Marriage Lottery, an option for women who were either too old or for some other reason unable to have children. She’d come with her son, Danny, to the town so long ago both of them were practically pillars of the community. Especially considering the fact that Ana, like several other of the unattached women, became very popular because they shared their favors widely with many men.
Michael held up his hands in warning and took several more steps back. The idea of being one of the men who visited Ana’s bed appealed to him, but it was impossible. “Best case scenario, I run. Worst case, I scream and bawl like a baby.”
That’s what Michael’s father had called him: a big baby. “He’ll never be a man,” he’d said. “Helpless…crying…disappointing…baby…” Michael hadn’t seen the man since he was ten but still his words banged around noisily in his head.
Ana glanced up at his window, the one that faced her house. “I hope you’ve got an old stash of dirty magazines in your room because, bless my soul, darlin’, you’ve got to have some kind of outlet. If you don’t, I know some men who have a whole stack in their closets.”
“Nah,” he said. “That’s okay. I’m more of a three-dimensional-woman kind of guy.” Ana’s gaze moved over his shoulder to look at his bedroom window.
The window shows started shortly after that.
In no time, Michael became the virtuoso of voyeurism, not to mention, the maestro of masturbation. And he developed quite the sophisticated palate for both. At least he could handle his own touch. Thank God for small favors.
He was partial to the solo scenes Ana played, the slow strip teases. He’d work himself up, stroking, grinding against his palm as he watched her lower one bra strap, then the other… He could get lost in the arch of her spine as she unclasped the back… Then mesmerized by the shimmy of panties over sweetly rounded hips. When she’d turn and bend, dropping them to the floor and flashing her privates like a pretty pink petaled flower… Poetry.
Other times, one of her gentleman callers would join the show. The men never looked Michael’s way. He didn’t think they knew about their audience.
He often wondered how it would be, being a normal man and being with a woman like Ana. Or better yet, being one of the men chosen in a lottery. Having a wife of his own.
Tonight, Ana sat on the edge of her bed and spread her knees wide, sliding her hand down over her stomach. Her eyes locked on his. Or at least he thought they did—he only had one oil lamp burning on low.
But the next second he’d forgotten all about it because Ana was sliding her panties to the side and driving her finger into her cunt.
Michael stroked himself faster. Shit, she was so hot.
What would it be like to touch that pussy? To have his cock sliding in between those slick, wet lips?
A fucking fantasy, he knew, but still. What would it be like to have a woman like Ana, all his own…?
Right now, men were in the town square, putting their names in the ballot box for the lottery. Later, names would be called and a new clan would be created.
Michael would be there. Not because he’d put his name in the box. That was out of the question. No, Michael was a journalist. He covered the local stories only, so it was his job to cover the lottery for the Gazette. He’d take notes, consider the men who were chosen. He’d imagine himself in their place. Maybe later he’d wonder what it would be like to take their new bride home for the very first time.
He could do all this from the periphery of the crowd—away from the jostling and involuntary touching. He shuddered just thinking about it.
The bedroom door opened behind Ana, and a furry-chested warrior guy walked in. Michael recognized him. He had something of a standing appointment on Mondays.
A sly smile spread across his face when he saw what Ana was doing to herself. He came closer, bent and sucked on the side of her neck. She tipped her head to give him more access and his hand slid down over her body until he replaced her fingers with his own.
This went on for a few glorious moments.
Michael was ram-rod hard. His ink-stained fingers moved swiftly over his cock, getting closer…closer…when the man suddenly looked up.
Michael froze. Had he been seen?
The man narrowed his eyes and scrutinized the parted curtains on Michael’s window. Then the man slowly rose, took a few steps, and yanked Ana’s curtains shut.
Michael exhaled with relief—though his orgasm was lost—and thought about the lottery again.
If he had a bride of his own? It would be one thing to share her with four other husbands. She’d still be his to wake up to in the morning. To talk to at dinner every night. To watch up close and personal while she stripped and one of the other husbands—
Too bad you’ll never have that, freak. Always the voyeur.
Michael’s hands clenched into fists and he jerked his shorts up.
Time to go do his job—reporting about the lives of other men living out what for him would only ever be fantasies.
Chapter Four
VANESSA
Everything happened for a reason. Vanessa believed that with her whole heart. She had to. There was no other way to explain surviving for as long as she had, all on her own out in the wilderness.
Luck.
Fate.
Karma.
Whatever you wanted to call it, Vanessa was one lucky girl.
Okay, so a lot of the time it was bad luck, but hey, she was still alive. That was more than most women could say. Her life had balanced on a knife’s edge one too many times for her to believe in anything other than Fate being on her side.
Take the last twelve hours, for example. In half a rotation of the earth, she’d been almost recaptured by Lorenzo Ramos, one of the scariest human traffickers left in the whole of the Republic, held two of his crew at bay with their own weapons before giving them the only ending they deserved—aaaaaaaaand then she’d humiliated herself by fainting and needing to be “rescued” by some dudes from Jacob’s Well.
She came-to in the back of their truck only to be driven the last hundred miles to the exact place she’d been trying to get to. Then when she got here, she was fed, cleaned up with actual soap and hot water, then brought to a very pink bedroom for a nap and was tucked into a bed that had—she still couldn’t believe it—pillows. The soft kind with freaking feathers inside.
Suffice it to say, it was a lot for one girl to take in—even for Vanessa, who in her twenty-three years, had endured more than her fair share of shit.
Now it was late evening, and she was about to find out if all the rumors about Jacob’s Well were true.
So far things looked promising.
Earlier in the day, the leader of Jacob’s Well Township, Commander Wolford, and his exuberant daughter Sophia (whose bedroom she’d been given for the nap) told her the plan for her continued stay in Jacob’s Well. They’d explained the necessity of the arrangement: a lottery to marry her off to five local men, which was when Vanessa’d cut them off, informing them that she already knew all about it.
“I know,” she’d said matter of factly. “That’s why I was heading this direction. I want to become a lottery bride.”
Despite her isolation in the wilderness for the last eight years, Vanessa was well aware the world had changed since Xterminate had wiped out ninety percent of the earth’s female population.
Women were vulnerable. She understood vulnerable. She’d lived that for years, both at home before the Fall and then afterward, alone and out in the wilderness. Didn’t mean she couldn’t protect herself, though. She knew all about that, too.
The Commander and Sophia had done nothing to hide their surprise at Vanessa’s declaration. They’d obviously been told about the knife fight.
Or maybe it was how she looked that had them pausing.
Vanessa passed a trembling hand over her head. She’d once had long, thick, chocolatey locks. Now it was shaved close, in some places so close you could see the nicks left on her scalp by her knife.
She’d shaved it out of necessity. Long hair was a stupid vanity when you were out in the wild and too often on the run. And she was determined to look nothing like herself after her last close call with Lorenzo… she shuddered even at the name.
She’d first run into the bastard six years ago. Back then, she’d camp off grid, but sometimes she found a group here or there to hook up with for a while. She’d been hanging out with this group that was camping out just past the badlands of the fallout zone east of Austin. There were several other women in the group and Vanessa had hidden in the trees for several days, watching, and only approached after seeing they were treated well.
No one knew exactly where the fallout zone ended and safe land and/or water began. There was a UT professor in the group who’d done some calculations based on the wind direction and speed on D-Day and he felt confident the area was safe.
It was back before the territorial control had been solidified by the various factions, when the war with the Southern States Alliance was waging and everything was pretty much chaos. So hiding out in an area others would stay away from sounded like a great plan to Vanessa.
They used an elaborate soil filtration system to clean their water, and hunters went out further east for meat and foraging, so Vanessa wasn’t too worried about radiation poisoning.
What she should have been worried about, however, was the fact that most in the group were scientists, professors, and Austin hippy types.
When Lorenzo and his gang raided the camp a month and a half later, the inhabitants never had a chance. All the men were slaughtered immediately.
And the women, they were—
Vanessa clenched her eyes shut and took a deep breath.
She’d been spared only because she was a virgin.
