by Addison Cain
“Stop right there, little lady. Fresh as you are, we’re taking a risk on you. Not the other way around. All men are required to wait six months before they can even petition to join this soiree. Secondly, each man, each night he earns the right to dine, goes through a pretty uncomfortable medical check.”
“With petri dishes and blood work? This ship doesn’t have a lab, a microbiologist, or a hood.” Why had the world grown so dumb? “Many STDs are invisible upon visual inspection, especially concerning men. So, pleasant southern accent and all, Neil, I do not want to trade a bite of food for my physical or mental wellbeing.”
“I like this one!” another man at the table—one who clearly had not earned a cookie sheet or a girl on his lap—said with a grin.
And what was there to say to that? Nothing.
Hearty, healthy men wanted to fuck. Lived in a society that set up the opportunity to earn tickets though labor or trade. Had women sit on their laps with only cookie sheets, scraps of clothing, and the barter of tickets or favors between them.
And, if Brooke had spoken the truth, these same charming men would dump their home-brew beer and leftover food over women’s heads while they walked out the door. As if they had not just fucked them or shared hours of cuddles.
It had been three days since Eugenia almost died from dehydration. She was weak and already tired just from bathing and sitting on the lap of the stranger palming her stomach.
But she was far from giving up.
Coquettish, batting her lashes, she said, “I’ll tell you what, sweetheart. Take a big bite of my soup, and I’ll show you the best ride of your life.”
“Don’t!” Brooke shouted, reaching forward to knock the bowl over before Neil might grab the spoon.
And there they were, shards of glass, of clay, bits of jagged rock. Did these women not think she’d chew?
Probably not. Everyone must have been dumped on the ship starving.
“What happened here?” Joan, like the final judgement herself, landed at the table.
“I spilled my soup when I saw broken glass on the spoon. Brooke was kind enough to try to stop the mess.” A mess that was spilling into the laps of the scrambling guests Eugenia had been ordered to entertain. “Chain me and whip me, Madame. I’m too weak from hunger to satisfy these men. And though glass contains silica, it's nutrient deficient in all other ways.”
“For Christ’s sake, child. Your flair for drama is—”
“What is it? Worse than hidden shards of glass in your food? What good is a slave of breeding age if she’s a corpse? Three days max, these men could hump the body before it began to swell. After that, it will release gas and fluids. Ever seen a corpse fart? I have. It’s extremely unsexy.”
It was clear Joan didn’t want to laugh, that she fought back the tic at the corner of her mouth to snap her fingers at the women tasked with serving the ship’s fancy soiree. “Clean up the mess. Fresh tablecloth, extra beer for these men, a half-cup for Brooke. Eugenia has chosen to fast tonight.”
As pretty, half-naked women rushed forward, Eugenia set her elbow to the soiled tablecloth, pinning it in place when they thought to tug the mess away. So they had to look at her when she said, “Indeed, I have. Call it a hunger strike in female solidarity. After all, we only won the right to vote about one-hundred years ago. But then the world blew up… and now here we all are. I think we should petition for an increase in minimum wage. Fifteen tickets an hour.”
Plump-lipped with waving chestnut locks, one of the women wiping up the mess hissed, “Shut up before he hears you!”
Oh, let whoever he was hear. But not until the other women heard her first. Voice dropping to a whisper, unsure if the striking brunette was even the culprit, Eugenia said, “Serve me glass again and I’ll use it to cut your carotid artery while you’re sleeping.”
Eugenia’s elbows went up, and just like that, the table was clean. Fresh linen in place, beer aplenty for the men, and nothing but a baking sheet between the majority of Neil’s lap and Eugenia’s ass.
How had society come to this? How did that collection of adults seem so comfortable with the rules?
Looking to Neil, Eugenia asked, “We all can agree that this is ridiculous, right?”
“You don’t have to go hungry.” Despite those spread fingers on her belly, Neil had been remarkably polite… aside from the offers of a kiss for a bite of cow. “Just eat what’s left.” And it visibly pained him greatly to add, “I’ll give it to you.”
Never look a gift cow in the mouth. Especially when the majority of a steak was on offer. As she had agreed not to touch anything sharper than a spoon, lest she receive a beating that had been described in enviable detail, Eugenia scooped up the steak and ate it just as she’d eat roasted squirrel. All hands and teeth and hollow-stomach starvation.
They had salt on the ship. They had pepper.
She moaned from the taste.
The cooks made food that took a girl back to before the bombs, before everyone she knew scattered to the wind. Before the universe utterly failed her.
“Well, Neil, if I didn’t hate that you were trying to buy me instead of genuinely get to know me, I would give you that kiss. But hey, love is dead. I was sold by an idiot I found wandering the road with no pack. That’s mercy. And him being chained in the engine room—or so I have been told—is karma.” Picking her teeth with her pinky nail, she cooed, “Tell me, did you sell one of these ladies to have access to steak?”
White teeth in a splendid grin, Neil gave her the dopey puppy look that always ended badly. “I think I could just love you.”
“Handsome as you are, the feeling is not mutual.”
“You’ll change your tune. After all”—southern drawl in full effect—“fate won me your time tonight. You feel like cream, and you smell like strawberries.”
“It’s the shampoo.”
Looking even more enamored than jackass John, Neil rubbed little circles on her belly. The same belly now full of his steak. “I’ll save up to see you again. Once you settle in, you’ll think better of me.”
“All just slaves to the machine, eh? Let’s fuck until the world totally dies and humans are replaced by radioactive cockroaches. That’s the same drivel John tried to feed me too.” Throwing an arm over Neil’s shoulders, Eugenia set her lips to his ear, whispering, “And guess what? He couldn’t get me to fuck him either.”
He held a bit tighter. “You’re missing the point of the game if you think what the men up here want is sex.”
A nasty scoff was offered in response.
“We’re lonely, not enough women around no matter how hard we look. If we don’t share, we can’t function as a unit. You think we don’t fall for you? That we don’t sacrifice to find baubles and buy favor?”
“You make it sound like I have the power.” And, boy, that diatribe was not going to work on her.
But the man’s unguarded glance was nothing but exposed. “You do. You even get to keep the babies we’re never allowed to hold.”
All that steak was about to come up. “Stop talking to me.”
“Fine.” But Neil’s response was resigned. Weighted down by God only knew what.
Yet that hand remained on her belly, his chest to her back.
And though that should have eaten up all her attention, in the hour that followed the men’s hard-won dinner, her scrutiny landed on another.
The intruder so close she couldn’t imagine how he had been missed.
Sitting on the floor, jean-clad legs stretched out, and the wall at his back. Not ten feet away. Boots pointed right at her. A man who looked every bit the cowboy yet utterly a pirate, lounged. So relaxed he had melted into the scenery.
Not dressed as finely as the men who’d spent their tickets for a few hours of shared female company. Lacking the tilted hat over his brow or the bit of hay that should have hung from his lips, he watched all around him in the lazy way of someone not to be trusted.
Eyes of an indeciphera
ble color from this distance took in everything.
And everyone made way for him, unless, like Joan, they approached in reverence.
How odd it was to listen to the madame list a quantity of items required for the girls. How easily the captain nodded that he heard her and acquiesced.
He could not have shaved in a week.
Probably smelled more like a man than the perfumed collection at Table #2.
Those boots caught the sun. Polished. Worn yet cared for.
Which spoke about character and habit. Drew Eugenia to slink off the lap of the man who’d traded tickets for a cookie sheet and access to uncovered skin. Yet, it wasn’t facing off against the captain that kept her feet going; it was inspecting those boots.
Crouched down until at eye-level, tapping her finger against metal embellishments, she said, “These might just be the cleanest shoes I’ve seen in six years.”
“Your ass is in the air. Unless you’re offering to the panting crowd, you might want to tuck your tail.”
That voice. Eugenia knew that voice. “It was you who pulled me from the water.”
“That I did.”
Dragging her gaze from those boots, she ignored all the rest of him—the open shirt, the exposed chest, the dark hair shining and in need of a cut—to get directly to the point. His eyes.
Hazel. Lined. Not a day under forty.
“I want off this ship.”
The man might have set a cigarette to his lips and lit it. But there was no cigarette, and lighters were worth more than a fast fuck. “No.”
“I won’t whore for you.” Not ever.
He gave her nothing. “We’ll see.”
“Listen to me, slaver.” She crept nearer, overcoming his legs so they might negotiate eye-to-eye. Woman-to-man. “You’ll be disappointed.”
The corner of his lips lifted. “I doubt it.”
Had he just winked at her?
Asshole.
Confrontation was no different than an elite university’s oral exam. He was no different than any of the men who might have had her in their clutches for a short time. No different than dirt. A prick deserving of the clinical Eugenia who aced every test and never said die. “This is a ship with three-hundred or so men and less than two dozen women. Where, from what I understand, thirty men a night dump their saliva-laden food and drink on two of the aforementioned women. I’m amazed there hasn’t been some outbreak that killed off half your slaves. And, as condoms are no longer produced and those available would have expired last April, I’d rather not be exposed to gonorrhea, which asymptomatic men spread despite the supposed physical examination all these rapist undergo—”
It was so fast his backhand landed on her cheek before she’d seen him go from lazy, lounging cowboy to typical violent male. The taste of blood in her mouth, the throb and heat that came each time a man had put his hands on her, led Eugenia to turn her head right back toward the captain. Again, they were eye-to-eye.
Life, tickets, baking sheets, and shared scraps for sex. It wasn’t worth it. He needed to know she knew that.
She needed to know how far he’d go.
Limits set parameters for escape. Violence defined a man.
Push hard. Mouth off. Let them know she might be scared, but what did it matter? The whole fucking world was scary.
And this ship, this society he’d designed? No.
Make the big, bad pirate slaver do what the men at her table wouldn’t do in the name of rules and trades. Make it public and grotesque in this fake civility. Make a statement. “Captain, if you’re going to hit me, put some effort into it. That was barely a swat.”
And he obliged, so predictable she hardly blinked an eye when her back hit the deck.
Grip on her throat, his free hand snaking up that sorry excuse for a skirt, he hissed, “You think you’ve got something more precious—”
But his own efforts, his own violence, stopped him dead in his tracks.
She’d known rape might take place before the final stomping, but she had not imagined the asshole would push aside her panties and delve in.
It never went down that way. Ringleaders didn’t just force the goods when a profit could be made; they lathered up the crowd. Made a display to get their followers panting in submission.
Yet the captain had, in less than a heartbeat, shove three of his fingers as deep as they might go.
The behavior didn’t match the boots.
Rough grip cutting off proper blood supply to her brain, Eugenia still grimaced, squeezing her eyes shut from the burn.
There would be blood on his hand. And by the scandalized look on his face, he had felt the membrane ringing her vaginal opening give under careless penetration. What she had spent a lifetime guarding, he could have traded for a whole herd of cattle. Gone, because she’d goaded him.
And, yes, she grasped that there was no proof of virginity, that all bodies were different, but after enough pap smears, Eugenia knew hers was a bit more. That band of skin unstretched and there.
Shocked enough to loosen his grip, Eugenia found the air to snarl right in the captain’s face, “Get your fingers out of my vaginal canal.”
Those fingers fluttered in place of retracting. “It isn’t possible…”
Still in her, the sting only growing when he continued to wiggle them as if to make sure it was blood squelching over his touch, Eugenia fought to keep her legs as they were. To show no fear and to remember that she could cry over this later where no one might see. But not now. “Perhaps you find the concept outdated. But believe it or not, I was waiting for a worthy man to spend my life with. What you just stole was my gift to give, not yours to take. You also just made me far less valuable to trade off this ship. Well done.”
It was only then she realized how intimate this violence appeared to the crowd. How he hovered over her, inside her still… smiling even as they gathered to watch. “You’re a virgin.”
The label was a bit sticky, though she had been waiting until marriage to enjoy penetration. “Was. You just tore my hymen, which I will never forgive you for.”
“No cock was in you. You’re still a virgin.”
Heart racing, unwilling to back down, she spat, “Don’t debate physiology with me, slaver. Finish what you started. Show me why you polish those boots every day. Show them all just what you really are. A monster who exploits women and sexually assaults strangers.”
His hand left her neck, stroking a stray curl off her sweaty forehead. “Oh, they know exactly what I am. Just as we all know why I won’t damage a valuable, beautiful, red-haired virgin. The men wouldn’t stand for it.”
“This joke of civility you stage here each night? Utter bullshit.” Rolling her body under his weight as if she stood a chance to displace him, Eugenia added, “I. Will. Not. Whore. For. Fucking. Tickets.”
Fingers still burrowed, her blood making its slow way down her crack, he put his lips to her hair. Breathed her in. “Give head for tickets if you don’t want to be fucked. You can save your pussy for your nonexistent Prince Charming.”
“What an elegant solution!” Though he was still in her and it still hurt, she made sure the whole deck heard her crystal-clear. “Try putting a dick near my mouth and I’ll bite it off. Let me off this boat now and save yourself a pile of trouble. I’ll upset your system. I’ll twist your rules. I’ll take the beatings. Hear me when I say this. I’ve faced down far worse than any of you.”
“Well then, siren.” Finally, the captain pulled his fingers out of her body, pinioning weight against his prize while he inspected the blood on those digits for himself. Red, fresh, and more copious than she’d expected, his three fingers shined crimson in the setting sun.
And she stung where the membrane had been torn, hating to think of what dirt might have been under his nails when he thought to subdue her with something so…
When he took something so…
She wouldn’t call it precious. Because it wasn’t anymore.
Because this world’s elders fucked it up for everyone. Long gone were wedding nights and tender men. They had Johns, who she’d saved and who’d tried to trade her person for fucking water.
“The shock will wear off. Look at me.”
“What?” That’s right. She was on a ship, dressed like a tramp so she might earn tickets to freedom for sexual favors.
And the man who had just jammed his fingers with true violence inside her was adjusting the gusset of her lacy panties, smearing her thigh with virgin blood.
“Get off of me.” Her voice shook, and she hated herself for it.
“I think you need a drink. Also, just so we’re clear, you’ve added one-hundred thousand tickets to your price.”
Oh, she was going to kill him. Which didn’t need to be said. It was right there in her glare. “I will find a way to take something from you of equal value. Then I will burn your goddamn ship to the bottom of this rancid lake.”
Why was he smiling? “I believe you.”
“You’re smarter than you look.”
After snapping his fingers, Joan appeared out of thin air to his call. How she already had a cup of beer, Eugenia couldn’t say. But it was there, and he took it, pressing it to her hands.
“I’m not drinking that shit.” A clear head was needed at all times these days.
“Drink it or I’ll put my fingers back in and keep them there all night.” And he’d enjoy it—his smirk said that plain as day.
But she was no simple opponent. “Do yourself a favor and escort me off the boat.”
“Try again, siren.” He pushed the earthenware cup closer to her lips, fingers coated in her drying blood.
She would not take a drop into her mouth, considering what might lurk in homebrew garbage… until her eyes cut to Table #2 and the terror on Brooke’s face registered.
All of it sunk in at that moment. It was more than this fucked society, air conditioning, whoring, and fingers ripping membranes. It was more than her at stake, which is what made the captain’s system so indescribably wrong. Every soul on this ship was tied to a well-oiled machine of expectation and consequence. Eugenia’s hostility would cost another far more than it would cost her.
