Swallow it Down

by Addison Cain

  The captain was indeed smarter than the lazy cowboy persona he projected.

  And he knew it. And he knew the precise moment she knew it too.

  “I will drink. I will go back to my table and verbally entertain your men… on one condition.”

  Voice husky, he said, “I do enjoy negotiation.”

  “I’ll bear Brooke’s half of the responsibility when you command your men to dump their food and drink on our bodies as if we are worthless come dumpsters. And I take on the remainder of her tickets.”

  “You’d rather play the hero than the damsel?” Cocky, already lazing back without going to the trouble of wiping his fingers on his shirt, the captain said, “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Isn’t that the point?”

  Hazel eyes closing as if to drowse, he muttered, “Very smart. Drink up.”

  She did. Her first real taste of beer since the bombs. Good beer to boot.

  Brooke got to go inside, lighter twenty-thousand tickets—not close to half of what she still owed, but enough to make her glow with appreciation.

  It took more willpower than Eugenia anticipated to get up off the deck and resume her duties at Table #2 alone. The virgin jokes, the way the men—and not just from her table—all of them, seemed to find a reason to drop by, staring at the smeared blood on her exposed thigh.

  They touched it.

  Because those were the rules. Anything not covered by clothing was fair game.

  So she described, in detail, how each sexually transmitted disease affected the body and mind. Puss, sores, sterility. All of it. The internet had been gone for six years, but in its place, human imagination had become vivid again. Enough, but not all of them, were scared away by graphic detail, so she didn’t start screaming.

  No one raped her. Sex was taking place, for tickets, at the other tables. Where other young women dressed like pre-war strippers bent over with no foreplay and took it.

  And then, after hours of conversation and fake smiles, every last bastard at the party walked past, dumping his food and beer on Eugenia’s head on their way out the door. Laughing at the uptight virgin with the big tits and puffy nipples you could see through her shirt if you splashed leftover beer just right.

  As Brooke had warned her, every rule existed for a reason. And it didn’t take a would-be pediatric surgeon to figure it out. No woman would grow attached to a man who did this to her. No man would see her as a person in need of help. The nightly event was a show and nothing more. With no winners, and one massive loser.

  Her.

  She did cry that night in the shower, alone where no one could see.

  Chapter Four

  The routine was much easier to fall into than Eugenia would ever admit to herself. Wake up, alone, her room the perfect temperature, thanks to air conditioning.

  And get to work.

  Swab the deck, swab the toilets, swab her room, swab herself.

  It grew painfully clear that Eugenia had no interest in tickets—three weeks having passed without her accepting a single one. Nor another morsel of food, a shiny bauble, nothing. She would sit on the designated lap, the opportunity to host her on a cookie sheet a privilege men paid extra tickets for in those first few days, until they saw the shrew who out-conversed them, outplayed them, and would never fuck them. Her novelty wore off and the other women warmed up.

  She wasn’t a threat to their freedom or their favorites—though that was also on the list of rules. No favorites allowed. Though even Eugenia had them. Neil wasn’t so bad, and he really did just want to hold a woman when he got assigned to her table. But he absolutely fucked at the other tables, waiting in line with the other men, if the lady was willing to give him a ride.

  Some of the men chose her because sex was not on offer. They wanted real snark, honest conversation, a female mind to connect with. And as she saw it, she hurt for them as much as they sickened her. For all of them. Everyone trapped on the boat, in a dead world, was living out a painful fantasy with no end in sight.

  At first, she preferred the nights serving as waitress to the nights serving as hostess to lonely, horny men. But if she was not engaged, she was shadowed.

  The captain had struck her that first day. There was no question he’d sexually assaulted her with no thought for her as a person. And now he lurked wherever she went.

  After all, her threat to burn down his ship had not been made in vain.

  If she was scrubbing dishes in the kitchens, her hair tied up, out of nowhere, a finger would trip down her nape. The first time, she screamed bloody murder, so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t heard him coming. And dropped a dish, which shattered over the floor she just mopped.

  All southern drawl, he smirked to see her so undone. “You should be more careful with my things. That’s another five-thousand tickets.”

  Hand to her breasts, positive her heartrate was in the unsafe levels, she snarled, “Fuck your tickets, and fuck you too!”

  “Anything else you’d like to add?”

  “Yes, in fact. I was offered five-thousand tickets last night—the going rate, if I understand correctly—if only I’d bend over the table and take it from some guy named Amos.” Crossing her arms under her breasts, she faced him, wet and sweaty, soap bubbles up her arms. “I’d like to think sex is worth more than a single plate. Not that I give a fuck about your ticket scale, but wouldn’t you consider your pricing a bit askew?”

  “It was a very pretty plate.”

  “You are an asshole.” One who liked to get her worked up each time he caught her alone. “Go away. I have chores. Also, I’m menstruating. According to your rules, I don’t have to be in the presence of men. Bye now.”

  Rubbing his hand over the scruff on his cheek, the man’s eyes went down to her apron-covered belly. “Are you regular?”

  “Keeping a calendar?” It could be exceptionally smart if he was. After all, when making the duties schedule, ovulation wouldn’t be the best time for his slaves to service the patrons. Pregnant whores were not as useful.

  Reaching past her to grab an apple off the counter, it was like he could read her thoughts.

  In her personal space. Much, much too close, a full head taller, he crunched that first bite of forbidden fruit and gave her a wink.

  How the hell he even had apples was… something she didn’t want to know. How they had any of this bounty couldn’t be anything but bad.

  “Are you really going to just stand there?” Inches away, so close she could smell him, all woodsy and leather. That she’d nudge him if she turned around and went back to scrubbing dishes.

  He took a second bite of apple. Chewed and stared.

  She gave it right back to him.

  He ate that whole fruit down to the core, smiling as he snacked.

  When she just couldn’t tolerate another moment of his antics, she groaned to the heavens and threw up her hands. “Fine, stay. I’ll leave. After all, it is your ship. I’m just an endentured guest here… trying to wash your pretty dishes, so your ugly men have something eat off of when they cash in their tickets to visit your sex slaves on Level 15.”

  She hadn’t made it a step before he ended her retreat, grabbing her by the bicep and yanking her close. “The books in your pack. You a doctor?”

  He knew just where to land a verbal blow. Her eye twitched when she stared toward the door and put her weight against his grip. “Do I look old enough to be a doctor?”

  “No.”

  Mimicking his drawl, she tugged against his hold. “Well, aren’t you smart?”

  “Eugenia.” The way he said her name, it was as if he knew all her secrets. “You wrote your name on the inside cover of both books. They were wrapped in plastic to protect them from the elements. Weighed a ton, and you’ve carried them since the world started over.”

  And he had them, and she wanted them back. “How many tickets do you want for them?”

  His brow arched. “You’d fuck for those books?”

 
“Volumes, slaver. And no. But I give great foot rubs and I’m happy to bet on chess. Your idiot brigade has not been able to beat me yet. And believe it or not, I’ve found three whole tickets while sweeping up at the end of the night. I’m rich!”

  “Foot rubs?”

  “Your mistake is thinking that all these men want is to get their dick wet.” Of course they wanted that, but they needed so much more. Including verbal punishment she was happy to dole out.

  Leaning closer, all lecher, he grinned. “Oh, I know what they want, sweetheart.”

  “Eww.”

  “Neil offered me three times your price. Came to my office with his hat in his hand. Fancies himself in love.”

  That deserved another eww, but Eugenia wasn’t going to acknowledge how absurd the conversation had grown.

  “And now I’m going to have to kill him for it.” He set her arm free, watching her scowl. “You can’t let these men fall in love with you. I don’t have enough women to go around, and you’re singlehandedly messing up the game by drawing them in with the virgin angle.”

  She couldn’t help but feel a bit proud. But far more than proud, she felt disgusted. “So you’re going to kill a man for wanting a woman? He doesn’t even know me. And though he is handsome, he is not my type. Wait,”—maybe she had something to work with here—“could he afford me?”

  “No. He’d be indentured for the next forty years.”

  Frowning, she asked the question no one had answered for her yet. “Exactly how much do I cost?”

  “Aren’t you going to beg for Neil’s life?”

  The whole idea was ridiculous. “You’re not going to kill Neil. That would be stupid and a waste of a resource.”

  Deadpan, the captain said, “Twenty million.”

  As in tickets? “No woman on this boat has a quarter of that price! Why must you be such a dick?” And just to drive home her point, she picked up one of his pretty plates and smashed it on the ground. “And there is another five-thousand.” And broke another one. “And there’s another five-thousand. I might as well just break them all!”

  Voice dropping, he warned, “Break another plate and I might just get mad.”

  “Twenty-million tickets at five-thousand tickets a fuck, is four-thousand fucks. One fuck every night of the year would take more than ten years to pay off! Don’t look at me like that. Yes! I can do fucking math!” And fucking math should have been funny, considering the context. Normal Eugenia would have snorted. But nothing was normal. And nothing, not even air conditioning, was good. “Brooke is going to be out of your hellhole ship in two months, and you’re telling me you think you deserve ten years of my life? YOU DON’T DESERVE ANY OF IT!”

  “I like it when you wear your hair up.” He tugged a tiny curl at her nape. “You look pretty.”

  “I hate you!”

  Leaving with a chuckle, the door swung back and forth upon his exit—a panting, furious, sad, and all the other emotions Eugenia grinding her teeth in his wake.

  ***

  After the ambush, shirking chores while her uterus sloughed off last month’s cells, Eugenia stayed in her room until her period was over. When she emerged, tired of staring at the walls with nothing to do, and tired of not sleeping, she went to Joan and accepted the night’s outfit.

  Naughty nurse—chosen by the captain himself, no less.

  At Table #2, staring at the white tablecloth she’d be washing later, resentment pinned her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

  A hand landed on hers, shaking her out of the gloom. “All the new girls go through this. In a week or two, you’ll be your old self again. Neil was a nice guy, but he knew better.”

  Dragging her eyes up took more effort than it should have. “What about Neil?”

  The guest said it again. “He knew better.”

  But that would mean...

  “Excuse me, I need to…” Inelegantly climbing from the cookie sheet, the lap, and over the other men in the way, she muttered, “use the ladies room.”

  Of course the captain was standing there, leaning against the wall. One leg crossed over the other as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Tipping his chin, he greeted her, “Eugenia.”

  None of it made sense. None of it. “What if I had actually liked him?”

  “Then I would have let you go.”

  Unsure why she was crying, especially where people could see, she said, “All he wanted was to hold a baby and be a daddy. He told me so six times at least!”

  “And all you wanted was that one special guy to give your virginity to and live happily ever after.”

  Senseless murder because some schmuck fancied a woman who didn’t like him back? “How could you?”

  “You’re unattainable. Three hundred men will grasp that now.” Scratching his unshaven chin, he added, “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Did he suffer?”

  “No. Never saw it coming. I told him he could have you, then shot him in the head as he walked away. Happiest I’ve ever seen him.”

  There was no lie in it. Because as far as she had seen, neither of them had ever lied to one another. “I’m going to throw up.”

  Pushing open the door, he murmured, “Go on in then. Take the night off. I’ll have Joan check on you later.”

  On her bed in her tiny, private room were both volumes of Nelson’s Textbook of Pediatrics. Old friends she’d missed terribly. Old friends she fell asleep clutching to her chest as she curled up in the fetal position. Too tired to even climb under the blankets.

  It was dark, late when the door opened and a weight sat at her side.

  Warm hand landing on her hip, he sighed but said nothing. Did nothing but sit there with her, the sound of water lapping at the side of the ship.

  “He wouldn’t have made you happy.”

  Death grip on her textbooks, lashes salty from dried tears, Eugenia said nothing.

  Chapter Five

  No stunt she pulled, public or private, could entice the captain to hit her again. To hurt her, to do something other than just be around. No matter how far she pushed or the damage she wrought, she couldn’t get the bastard to raise his fist.

  She broke every plate she could get her hands on in the kitchens.

  He moved her to another portion of the boat, under guard, to make pottery. Which apparently the other ladies enjoyed and had failed to mention to the mentally unstable newcomer. The psychology was obvious. It was harder to break something she’d made, watched fired in a kiln, and held in her hands. But she did that too.

  She’d slapped the captain right in the face in the middle of one of his dinner parties. Only for him to catch her hand and kiss her palm. Patting her on the rump, and he sent her back to Table #2.

  When offerings began to show up outside her door, just like they did for the other women, Eugenia took the box of treasures and dumped it on the deck where that night’s guests might see. Chapstick—something she confided to the other girls was a luxury she missed from before the bombs—a pretty green sweater, because air conditioning was divine but perfect when one had a cardigan. Hard candy, which she’d never mentioned nor did she care for. Perfume.

  Eugenia had always hated perfume. But she had loved scented candles.

  And one of those was in there too. It smelled of apples and crisp fall air. A three-wick beauty from a big chain store that had been popular for their soaps and bubble bath before they were blown off the map and the world had caught on fire.

  That irreplaceable candle cracked against the deck; the glass-encased scented wax fractured just like her insides.

  The last thing to flutter out of that box, unseen under all the crap a fool had thought to buy her with: bruised wildflower petals some dope had carried in his pockets from God knew where to make this extra fancy.

  Petals she crushed under her shoe as she glared at the gawking men waiting for their dinner and fuck time. And if that did not make her point strong enough, she spit on the pile of debris.

 
; And still, the captain didn’t strike her.

  Though he did drag her away, a grip of steel about her nape. Led her to her tiny room and forced her to her knees.

  At eye-level with his crotch, she snarled, “I swear to God I will bite it off if you whip it out!”

  Was that actually heat in his face? Had she made him mad? Perfect.

  “I don’t want to fuck your mouth. I have Chloe to do that with a smile. Besides, I doubt you’d even know what to do with it.”

  His rotating, scheduled harem assignments meant nothing to her. The fact that next week she was on the board to service the captain in his private quarters was the stupidest gauntlet the man might have thrown down. “I’ve sucked cock, you prick. I can deepthroat like a goddamn champion. Just because I was a virgin, did you assume I’d never had a serious relationship? I was never a nun, though I keep waiting for you to whip up that outfit for me.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Eugenia!”

  “Stop leaving things in my room.” There it was. Said straight out. “You can’t buy me with textbooks and notepads. I don’t want your fucking reading lamp.”

  Releasing her nape to take hold of her hair, the captain yanked until her back bowed and she struggled to hold his eyes. “I don’t need to buy you. I already own you.”

  “What made you like this? It’s only been six years, and you must have been normal once. I’m not buying the lazy cowboy game you’re running! The murdering slaver who fails to partake with the men.”

  His hand left her curls, palm trailing to cup her cheeks so his thumb might roughly trace her lips. Pulling them in a way that was overly suggestive. “Sorry to disappoint, but I was always this way.”

  “Psychotic? There is medication for that, you know. I’m sure your raiding parties might still be able to find some. I’ll make you a list and proper dosage. Better yet, grow some weed and roll a joint.”

  “You are something tonight, sugar. And this isn’t just about the box a man slaved to prepare for you.”