by Zara Zenia
“Is it working?”
I kissed him hard on the mouth, his soft lips pressing firmly against mine. He slid his tongue in my mouth, making my stomach flutter. He gently cupped my breasts, which were now starting to spill out of the cups.
I broke away. “You don’t find my body gross?” I was very self-conscious. I had always had a flat stomach and hard, muscular limbs. My butt and hips were just noticeably softer and a hard mound protruded over the area where I could once see my abs.
“Not at all,” he murmured, kissing my neck. “You’re as sexy as ever.”
I wasn’t going to argue. Not now anyway. I didn’t want him to stop touching me.
“Is it okay if we—” he nodded toward my stomach again. I knew what he was hinting at.
“I think so,” I responded. “It’s not like I can get more pregnant.” I slid underneath his sheets.
“I suppose not,” he said, kissing me on the head and joining me under the covers.
Before I could make a move on him he swiftly pulled off my jeans and disappeared under the covers. He slowly separated my legs and I could feel his hot breath on me.
He seemed to know exactly what I wanted before I could suggest anything. Admittedly, I was tired from visiting the area’s bar scene, so I closed my eyes and relaxed as he did all of the work.
Elijah was a skilled lover. His warm, slippery tongue started off slowly and increased speed the harder I clutched his forearm. When I was nearly overcome with pleasure, he slowed his strokes, teasing and toying with me. After a few rounds of this, I needed him inside of me.
I reached down and pulled him up from under the sheets, when his torso was aligned with mine I began to unbutton his fly. He followed my lead and took of his pants and underwear, revealing his rigid erection. I got on all fours and his pushed his pelvis against my back side.
When he pushed inside me, I couldn’t help but moan. It had been too long since I last felt him inside of me.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, concerned.
“Oh, God, don’t stop,” I cried out.
Months of pent-up sexual frustration dissipated with every thrust. He controlled the speed with my hips, pulling and pushing them back and forth frantically, then slowly. We did our best to keep our stamina up, but the sensations were too much for the both of us.
He moaned and I came hard, every nerve in my body tingling with pleasure. We rolled over onto our backs, exhausted, but satisfied.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Dana,” he said panting. “But I think you’re even sexier now than before.”
“I could say the same about you. Your new look is pretty sexy. And your new name,” I added. “Do you want me to call you James in bed?”
He rolled his eyes at me and pulled me tight into his chest.
“I can’t believe I ever gave this up.”
I didn’t know if he was referring to our mind-blowing sex or just my companionship. I suppose either would be fine with me.
I basked in the afterglow of our reunion sex. It was even better than the memories I played over and over again in my head when I was alone in bed.
“What time is it?” I yawned.
He glanced over at his little alarm clock. “A little after four.”
I grabbed my pants hanging over the side of the bed. “I should catch a cab.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said, throwing a fresh t-shirt at me. “You’re staying the night. You can check out of the hotel tomorrow.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”
He switched off the light and pulled me back into his embrace. “Stay here until you’re ready. I won’t have my girl and my baby out on the street,” he mumbled sleepily.
“Your girl?”
No response. He was snoring softly into my ear.
I replayed the night in my head. I knew that he had feelings for me, and that he cared enough about me to let me crash at his place for a while. While he was understandably confused, he didn’t seem completely horrified at the fact that I was carrying his child. We even had sex, which is something I was convinced no one would ever want to do with me again. Tonight went better than I had expected.
But still, something wasn’t quite right. I know he apologized, but who leaves their home in the middle of the night without packing up or even saying goodbye? Elijah made it seem like this was a normal occurrence and that I shouldn’t be offended by it. For as much as he said he missed me, I knew for a fact that if I didn’t find him, he wouldn’t have come looking for me.
Deep down, I think I knew that Elijah was trouble. If one of my friends told me that they were shacking up with the father of their child after he mysteriously disappeared, I’d probably tell her to ditch that guy! Still, he fascinated me, and I wanted to spend all of my time with him. I just wasn’t sure if he felt the same.
Chapter 18
Elijah
I woke up earlier than usual the next morning, inches away from falling off of the bed. Dana was sprawled out on the mattress like a starfish. I thought about pushing her back over to her side of the bed and going back to sleep, but she looked so tired that I didn’t have the heart to wake her.
Instead, I silently cleaned my little apartment, mildly embarrassed that she had to see it this way. Apparently, I had forgotten my military cleaning expectations, because I rarely even made my bed these days.
Could I live like this forever? Could I spend my mornings tidying up while I watch Dana and the baby sleep? Could I get a better paying job to support them?
Nothing this good could last forever. When she first told me about the baby, I thought it was some sort of trap. Whatever infection I had or whatever they were giving us in The Organization made us sterile. That was one of the few things they told me about my new body. Luckily, my virility didn’t affect my sex drive. If anything, it had amplified it.
After I got over my initial shock, I was weirdly excited. Growing up without parents made me want to become the best father a kid could have. I wanted to give a child all of the things I could never have. I wanted to love someone in the way that I was deprived of as a child.
I still wasn’t entirely convinced that the child could be mine, but I wouldn’t go through a paternity test to prove it. I wasn’t sure what my DNA would even look like at this point, but I was sure my results would be sure to raise a million red flags, and could put me in grave danger.
Even if I wasn’t the father, I could accept some of the responsibility. I didn’t want this child to grow up not knowing who their father was. That was something that haunted me to this day. No one needs to feel that pain. I couldn’t promise that I could be there for this child, but at the very least, I could be a name, a story.
Dana mumbled something incomprehensible in her sleep. She was adorable. It broke my heart that it couldn’t possibly last. I hoped that she found a new place to live before The Organization came looking for me. I had been in the city too long for my comfort. Once a day, I considered grabbing my things and disappearing again. I couldn’t do that to Dana. Not with her in her current state. Eventually, though, I would have to leave Dana and the baby behind. I had no choice.
She finally woke up to the smell of me cooking some eggs and toast. If I had known she would have been here, I would have done some shopping.
“How long have you been awake?” she asked, voice scratchy from sleep.
“Oh, just a few hours,” I said casually. “Hungry?”
I handed her a plate. She sat up and scooted so her back was resting against the headboard. She nibbled on a piece of toast.
“How did you sleep?” I asked, sliding a serving of scrambled eggs onto my plate.
“All right, once I managed to fall asleep. You were out instantly, though.”
“I tend to do that. I have to go to work a little early today. Will you be okay here alone this evening?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing.
”
I wasn’t about to fall for this trick. “Spill it, Dana.”
She paused. “I’m not a jealous person. I don’t want you to think I’m crazy either. It’s just—” She paused again.
“Yes?”
“I know you’re hiding something. You have all of these explanations for everything, but nothing really adds up. My ex-boyfriend was like this too. It turned out, he was fucking some sorority girl while I was at home, or when I was working.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at this preposterous accusation. “You think I’m sleeping with someone else?”
“Maybe. How could this possibly be funny to you?” she scowled.
“I don’t know, maybe because we were basically acquaintances who liked to have casual sex together every now and again. I also remember you saying that we could see whomever we wanted. Did something change?”
She sputtered, her face turning pink.
“Yes, something changed!” she shouted. “I love you, and I don’t want you to be with anyone else but me!” she blurted.
She covered her mouth like she let some deep, dark secret out.
“Love? Really? I’m pretty sure you fucked me in your dad’s office out of pure spite. When did love suddenly factor into this?”
“I couldn’t help it. This is not some sort of infatuation any more. I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“You can’t,” I sighed.
“Because you’re seeing someone else?”
“No,” I said, cupping her face in my hands. “I can promise you that you were my first in many years, and there’s no one else I’d rather be with than you.”
“So whatever instinct I had about you was completely wrong?”
I thought carefully for a moment before answering her question. If I could trust anyone with my secret, it would be Dana.
“No,” I started. “You’re right. I’m not who you think I am.”
“Who are you, then?”
“I don’t know where to even start. Okay, the part about me growing up in foster care? That was all true. I never knew my parents and didn’t have a great childhood. That’s why I joined the army after I graduated from high school. That’s where the story I told you and the truth diverge.”
Her face was pale. I didn’t like putting her under this sort of stress.
“I was in the army for a long time. Before I left the army, I was stationed in a dangerous war zone. I got shot, and not just grazed by a bullet like I told you. I had shattered bones, injured organs, and lost a ton of blood. I was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital.”
She clapped her hands over her mouth.
“To the rest of the world, I was dead. There was even a death announcement in my hometown’s newspaper. A death certificate was made and everything. Elijah Hall died about a year and a half ago.”
“If you’re dead, how are you here?”
“I was taken to an experimental military hospital. The people that operate it call themselves “The Organization”. They managed to bring me back to life.”
“Then why did they tell people you were dead when you clearly weren’t?” she asked, like it was just some sort of mix-up.
“What they were doing to myself and other mortally wounded soldiers wasn’t really in line with most physicians’ ethics, I suppose I could say. We were tested like guinea pigs on a daily basis. Bringing a dead person back to life is complicated business—I think I lost some humanity that day.”
“How so?”
“I didn’t always look like this,” I said. “My eyes used to have expression, like a little glimmer to show I was alive, and they were a bright green. My skin had freckles, and scars and bruises. They made me feel different, too. Suddenly, I went from having a completely broken body to one that could run faster and jump higher. I was stronger, despite not having to exercise. I felt good all the time, like my body was a well-oiled machine. Before the accident, I was in pretty good health, but every now and again, I felt like—”
“Like shit,” she answered.
“Exactly.”
“So how is this a bad thing?” she asked. “I mean, you’re in the best health of your life. Wasn’t this organization doing good?”
“The doctors managed to bring me back to life, but my body is more artificial than not. That’s the reason I find it hard to grasp the fact that your child could be mine. I’m not even sure I could be classified as human any more.”
“You seem completely human,” she said, shocked.
“Well, I have been feeling more like myself ever since I left. Maybe that’s because they aren’t putting new parts into me, or filling me with mystery potions.”
“That’s in the past, though,” she said. “What’s keeping you from contacting the army and saying their records were just a mistake?”
“The Organization. They’re not just a hospital for the mortally wounded. We were prisoners there, basically brainwashed into believing we could be a great benefit to the military once we were ready. Imagine some sort of mix between James Bond and Captain America. That’s what we were touted to be.”
“That sounds awesome,” she said. “Why wouldn’t you want to? You’d already committed your life to the military. Why not take it a step farther?”
“Maybe it would be cool once they perfected their technology, but it wasn’t ready. Another soldier got word that there would be a test run. Basically, this first batch of us were being raised like cows for slaughter. We didn’t know when, but at some point, they were going to put us out in a war scenario without any defenses and they would try all of their different weapons on us to see if we lived.”
“Are you kidding me?” Dana screeched. “How could our government do that to its own soldiers?
“Very few people knew that we existed. They wanted to keep it that way. That’s the reason why they faked our deaths. In the event of our death due to our own military, there would be no paperwork to fill out. They just have to incinerate our bodies, and try again with another soldier.”
She frowned. “If you were basically in a prison, how did you get here?”
“The guy that figured out their plan told me. He was the mastermind behind our escape. He got a guy from the outside to give us IDs and some cash to get out of town.”
“So where’s your friend now?”
“Dead. They killed him the night we were supposed to leave. They said that he was sick and died during a routine test. I knew that was absolute bullshit. I knew him; he was in great health. They killed him. That night, I met the guy, took off running until I reached civilization. I took a few different buses and I wound up in Springfield. I met you the next morning.”
Dana was speechless. I tried not to leave out any details. I wanted her to understand the gravity of my situation.
“The night I left Springfield, I was on my way to your house to deliver a note to you. I was going to apologize for being so weird. I never got that far. I was followed by two men in suits and tinted glasses. They were sent from The Organization to find me.”
“Why couldn’t they just let you go? You aren’t going to hurt anyone.”
“Think of the information I just told you. What would happen if the public knew that a government organization was experimenting on and killing wounded combat soldiers?”
“It would be chaos,” she said quietly.
“I don’t want to run any more,” I explained. “If I could, I would stay here with you and the baby and we could start a life together. I just can’t do that, and I needed to make sure you understood why. The Organization is very powerful, and if they found me in Springfield, they can find me anywhere. I’ll try to make sure you’re taken care of the best I can, but then I have to go.”
Her eyebrows creased like she misheard me.
“None of this makes any sense. This is absolutely ridiculous.”
“I know. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t experienced it first hand. I just need you to trust me and do a
s I say. If I tell you to run, it’s because you’re in danger just being associated with me. I don’t know what The Organization would do to you if they knew we were together.”
“So there is no chance that we can ever be together?” she looked me straight in the eyes.
“In an ideal world, maybe you could find me when this has all cooled down. I could flee the country, and you could join me once I have everything set up for us. I just don’t know, though.”
“If that’s the case, should I leave?” she said coolly. “I don’t want to be in your way if you have to run.”
“Where would you go?”
She shrugged her shoulders indifferently.
“Stay here for a few days, at least. Save your money.”
I gave her the key to my apartment. It was already time for me to go to work.
“I have to go. I want you to keep the front door locked at all times. If you see anything suspicious, run. I’ll be back late.” I gave her a kiss on the forehead and walked out the door.
Chapter 19
Dana
After Elijah left, I put on yesterday’s outfit and left his apartment. My hotel was just a few miles away, so I decided to enjoy the nice weather and walk.
The past 24 hours had been an absolute rollercoaster of emotions. My hopes were lifted and destroyed several times, just today. I had been wrong; just knowing that Elijah cared about me wasn’t enough. I didn’t want to raise our baby without him. I didn’t want to live without him.
I still didn’t know what to make of his story. It all seemed too convenient. He made it seem like he wanted to be with me, but couldn’t, just because he was on the run. I felt him push away when we were having sex in my dad’s office. I find it hard to believe that he couldn’t be affectionate with me, just because he was scared of getting caught.
I still wasn’t sure what he was. To me, he was a normal guy. I could believe that he had some artificial bones and joints put in, and maybe some skin grafts, but that wouldn’t make him less human. The way he was describing himself, he acted as though he was a robot. He couldn’t possibly be that artificial, could he?
