Swallow it Down

by Addison Cain

  She hated when he found her amusing. Hated when he smiled. That fucking southern good ol’ boy accent she hated most. “I’m not servicing you next week.”

  “But you just confessed that you possess the rare deepthroat skill.”

  “I’m not joking, Captain.”

  “I have told you twenty times, my name is Aaron.”

  “It’s a stupid name.”

  “So is Eugenia.”

  “On that, we can agree.” Knees aching, somehow having forgotten he still cupped her cheek, she pushed off his hand and climbed to her feet. “Take me off your schedule, or the acting out you’ve seen will be nothing compared to what I’ll unleash. You should be shaking in your polished boots.”

  “Ten-thousand tickets a night for a game of chess and a foot rub.”

  “No.”

  “Fifty-thousand.” He wasn’t joking.

  Which was ludicrous!

  Gesturing wildly, because this was too crazy to hear, she shouted, “Have you actually lost your mind? You put me in your room and I find one sharp object, you’re dead.”

  That earned a serial-killer smile. “Seventy-thousand.”

  “I don’t understand how a man as clever as you has failed to realize that I am not interested in your company. Take those seventy-thousand hypothetical tickets and shove them up your ass. I’d rather fuck every man downstairs than touch your feet with my magic hands.”

  “Even John?”

  Hmm. He had Eugenia there. “You might marginally outrank John, but don’t take that as a compliment. He’s scum. Not that you’re not scum too. You are.”

  Laughing, the captain took a step back and leaned his weight on her dresser. “Chess and a foot rub. I’ll even see you dressed in conservative clothes. The regular rules apply.”

  “You’re only pushing this for show. You know I’m going to tell everyone you have a small dick and are terrible in bed.”

  Still chuckling, running a hand through his long, dark hair, he countered, “Tell them what you want. I don’t care.”

  “A foot rub…” Negotiations of this level required pacing, leaving Eugenia bounding back and forth between her walls. “And one nightly game of chess. Standard clothes that cover all of me. And no sexual anything. Not even innuendo.”

  He had a dimple, one on full display with a cockeyed grin. “You still think you’re going to find that one, forever guy?”

  “I didn’t get where I was because I let assholes like you make decisions for me. I’ll get off your boat, and I’ll find someone special. The whole world can’t be like you.”

  Was that pity? “Eugenia, you’ll find nothing better than this boat. It might take some time for you to figure that out, but you’ll come to accept it.”

  Ignoring him, she went on. “And I’ll keep breaking the shit they leave at my door. Let them spend their tickets on the others.”

  “Raoul has gathered intel on your preferences from the first night he saw you. Risked the wastes to hunt down things the other women told him you’d like. That’s a bit coldhearted.”

  “Oh,” she singsonged. “And then he falls in love and you kill him.”

  “Naw. He’s had them all. The boys downstairs are running bets on who plows you first. He’s got a lot of tickets riding on winning you with a box of crap.”

  How could she be so dense? “And that’s why you’re bribing me to come to your rooms.”

  “So what if I am?”

  “You’re worse than Wall Street… just without the slick suit or the manicured nails.”

  By God, he actually looked down at the grit under his fingertips as if it had never registered it before.

  And she laughed at him.

  And it felt good.

  “You are hands down…”

  Hazel eyes landed on hers, penetrating through her. Possessive, and creepy, and uninvited. “Hands down what?”

  That she was not touching with a ten-foot pole. “I gotta get back to Table #2. Screw intellectualism. Who needs education and a functioning brain when they were born with tits and an ass?”

  Brushing past her tormentor to escape, she almost crossed the threshold before he seized her hand and pulled her back. Pushing a tube of Chapstick against her palm, the captain closed her fingers around it. “Cherry flavored, your favorite.”

  Knowing by feel alone what was in her hand, she raised her eyes to his, and said, “I think I really will kill you next week.”

  Then she popped off the safety plastic and swiped it on her mouth. Smacking her lips once she recapped the tube and threw it right in his face. It bounced off his forehead and landed on her sheets. A corner of the room she had no intention of going near so long as a man was lurking, smirking, and disgustingly pleased.

  So she flipped him off and turned.

  At her back, he chuckled. “I’ll be thinking of your special skill while Chloe is sucking my cock later.”

  Shouting down the hall, she countered, “I’ll give her some pointers before she comes up to your rooms.”

  ***

  Up until it was her turn to service the captain overnight, the “trades” kept coming. One box outside her door even contained a live chicken.

  What the fuck was she going to do with a chicken?

  Not that she didn’t pick it up and pet it, finding the feathers soft and the animal willing.

  Had it been a puppy, that man might have won the bets.

  Human anatomy was one thing. Poultry was another. But they’d let her loose around knives in order to get chores done, and the pretty, cuddly bird was ended quickly.

  A butcher’s knife to the neck.

  And just like wild game she caught back when she’d been free, she sat on the deck, looked over the view of a dead forest, and pulled the feathers so they might fall like snow. So she might have some repetitive action to distract her while she looked upon a world that had failed everyone in a way.

  The bird was roasted and served to her table, set down in a bed of potatoes and carrots. The head served alongside. She didn’t eat a bite.

  “I really did think the chicken might have won you.” It was Malachi who laughed, patting his full belly. “Think of the eggs. You could have traded those for more tickets.”

  “I live in a closet and have nothing to feed it.” And yeah, she did feel a bit bad for killing the poor, aromatic thing.

  “Of course you do! The other girls live in multi-room suites. Much nicer than the bunks we share downstairs.” Nudging the guy at his side, he said, “Right, Verne? You and I both know Jessica’s room well.”

  “How much does that cost?” Because this was fascinating information.

  “Oh, twenty-five thousand tickets a night! But it’s a real bed, not a pallet. And there is a private toilet and a soft woman.”

  Jessica was nice. Quiet, disassociated. Kept to herself. Wasn’t the kind to put broken glass in the new girl’s food.

  Someone deserving of a fine room to rest in, considering the shit she had to put up with.

  “I like her.” Which should be said. “Jessica’s cool.”

  The men at the table toasted Jessica’s name. Clicked their glasses and shared a moment of comradery Eugenia knew better than to analyze.

  And then she saw him watching her.

  Because this was his night to “win” the bets. She’d be in his rooms for a week, and he wanted every man here to know it. So he’d hold the prize. So he’d run the money.

  Dirtbag.

  A dirtbag who came to collect her when the bell was rung and the men lined up to dump their food and drink on Scarlett and Kim.

  Where everyone could hear, he said, “We struck a deal, siren. Come along now, and let’s discuss that deepthroat you claimed to be an expert at performing.”

  He led her away by the hand, wrapping an arm around her middle, as she hissed, “I’d throw myself off the side of this boat before I’d take your sorry penis in my mouth.” She was tempted to do it at that moment. Which was precisely why he’
d put that covetous arm around her waist. “How many women have jumped overboard?”

  His reply was easy. “I haven’t lost one yet. In fact, all those who leave always come back.”

  “Bullshit.”

  But Joan. Nice—as much as Eugenia hated to admit it—helpful, accommodating Joan had come back.

  Brooke would be leaving after ten more men fucked her. Something she might accomplish in as little as three days. And no way was that girl ever coming back to this place. Not when she’d worked so hard to earn her way off.

  Eugenia couldn’t wait to see her go, to wave and well wish, and taste a bit of freedom she’d never earn. At least not with tickets and whoring.

  Chapter Six

  The captain’s rooms were…

  Much nicer than hers. Music came from an AI in the corner, Alecia. A device Eugenia had not seen in six years. A bit of hoarded history not one of the women had mentioned when they gathered for breakfast to poke fun at her turn.

  And she’d thought she’d heard it all. His sexual preferences—hard, fast, from behind. His tendencies to brood if he wasn’t in the mood or the girl talked too much. Captain’s competitiveness at games and the way he refused to touch after sex.

  The women were allowed to sleep on the bed, at a distance, but most chose the couch after it was over.

  And he never, ever ejaculated inside. Same rules on the deck. The ol’ pull out and pray method.

  Despite Eugenia’s lack of interest, they had given her a primer on the animal.

  Manus dickus assholeus.

  The music though…

  “Hold on for a moment, eh?” Her smile dropped as he pulled her inside. Eugenia had not heard pre-bomb music in so long it felt like stepping on the moon.

  “I had a feeling you’d like PJ Harvey.”

  Stricken, she listened, memories flooding in of campfires and lovers. Marshmallows and making out in their tent. The ground shaking to this exact song when the world ended as she climaxed from some extremely satisfying sixty-nineing.

  But the ground kept shaking, and the camping party figured it had to be Mt. Saint Helen.

  Not nuclear war.

  There was cell signal enough to listen to the screams of newscasters as more cities blew apart. And then there was the quiet of the woods.

  Which were not quiet at all. They were deafeningly loud.

  Her entire family was gone, and they wouldn’t have wanted their brilliant daughter braving radiation to pick through garbage for their corpses.

  Not pragmatic Mom and Dad. He worked for NASA; she was a brain surgeon.

  And this was the last song Eugenia heard when almost everyone who mattered to her was obliterated in radioactive ash. The song—had the world not shaken with such force that they were knocked apart—she suspected Li Wei intended to propose to her once they’d caught their breaths and shared a long kiss.

  She’d seen the ring in his pack. The simple band and inset diamonds—exactly to her taste. Something she could wear under surgical gloves. He knew her so well, treated her with respect.

  Was willing to move against his family’s hesitations despite the fact that she was not Chinese.

  Eugenia was ecstatic to accept. All of their future planned out after graduation. He’d run a family practice. She’d further her education until ready to specialize in pediatric surgery.

  But his beloved family was in one direction and hers was in another.

  And everyone died.

  Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea.

  And how did the bastard Captain know the power of this song?

  How could he be so cruel?

  Playing that warbling, beautiful, aggressive songstress. Eugenia’s guts would have spilled out all over the floor. Fortunately, they were held tight by a conservative, cotton summer dress.

  Steering her toward a set of damask sofas, facing one another as if they were on the fucking Titanic, the captain offered, “There’s wine.”

  “Yeah.” Wine would be good, a whole fucking bottle.

  Li Wei had been so handsome, so smart, so kind. Suave yet funny. Perfect. A sharp dresser yet not pretentious like his parents… or hers.

  Sitting on that couch, Eugenia swallowed the full cup of Bordeaux in three gulps.

  All of this witnessed by the man mirroring her seat on the opposite couch. A man to whom she’d never lied, and who had never lied to her.

  A man waiting for an explanation for the look on her face.

  “I would have said yes… to this song. I would have said yes, had a wedding, saved children’s lives on the operating table, maybe even had one of my own. But the ground started shaking, and he forgot to ask in the chaos. I don’t know what happened to the ring. Maybe still at the campsite?”

  “Did you want a boy or a girl?”

  This was too much to bear. Grief hard enough, and anger far more comforting. “Why the fuck are you playing PJ Harvey?”

  “Because you hum her songs while you work.”

  “I do not!” Humming was for suckers and fools who thought there was a happy ending in this shit place.

  “Alecia, play Arcade Fire.”

  And the torture ended, the captain refilling her glass.

  She sipped the second round, accepting that every last survivor had some kind of PTSD, and unfortunately hers had been witnessed by someone who’d use it against her.

  A man she knew hated small talk during his scheduled sex sessions. So small talk it would be. “I saw Arcade Fire live when I was seventeen. Lied to my parents and snuck out. Got a wristband to buy beer and sat on the shoulders of some bruiser whose name I don’t remember. Small venue, but the best show I’d ever seen.”

  Lifting his glass, the captain saluted her. “My favorite was MUSE, the Simulation Theory tour.”

  “Oh… that was a good one.” No argument there.

  Li Wei had stood at her back, cuddling as they rocked to the music. As they marveled at the monster when it burst out over the stage. Both of them drunk on Goose IPA.

  “What was his name?”

  “None of your business.” Truly and deeply. Abso-fucking-lutely none of his business.

  “So you weren’t looking for the one. You already had him.”

  “The fact that you think I might reduce my happiness to the outdated concept of the one goes to show how little you know me.”

  That earned a smirk. “Did you just call me old?”

  “You are old.” Maybe not old enough to have fathered her, but still old.

  “And you are very young.” Followed with another raised glass and a devilish grin.

  “But I won’t be your brand of young in ten years, assuming I fuck one of your men every night.”

  “You never answered. Boy or girl?”

  Okay, maybe small talk wasn’t working.

  Standing, wine glass in hand, she left the couch and the game of twenty questions to poke around his room—touching everything in an effort to annoy him. To feel. To remember regular things.

  There were so many colors.

  She had not realized how her blank walls and pale sheets were so lacking.

  Reds, purples, the green of living plants that were no more.

  Fortifying herself with another sip of honest to God wine, she turned, feeling a real skirt swish around her knees, and decided to wrap it up. “Where are you going to do it?”

  How indulged he looked. Every bit the pirate king on his stolen throne. “Do what, Eugenia?”

  “Rub my feet. As per our agreement.”

  And he laughed again, understanding he’d lost her word game. Setting down his glass on a pristine coffee table, standing to remind her how much larger he was.

  The jaw, the cheekbones, the lips, the hair.

  Rouge pirate through and through.

  “Anywhere you want it.”

  Considering all the fun she might have at his expense if he played along, she batted her eyelashes. “Anywhere?”

  Yet he was already th
ere, toying with curls Joan had spent ages battling into submission for Eugenia’s special night. “Right here will do.”

  “You said I got to pick.” It was a half-complaint as he brought them both down to soft carpet.

  Thumb pads to her insoles, he said, “You took too long.”

  Jesus Christ was he either gifted with fingers from the gods, or she was literally that in need of human touch. Groaning, her head fell back.

  For an hour, she endured the best foot rub known to womankind. Utterly brazen in her groans, happy enough to fall asleep on soft, clean carpet.

  Distraught to wake in a strange bed, the arm and leg of a man she hated weighing her down.

  Breaking his own rules, because where their feet tangled, her skin was bare.

  Since the sun was up, her duty was done, and she didn’t have to stand for this. Moving out of his arms, she scampered for the door—the unlocked door—like a complete coward.

  ***

  “Did he do that tongue thing?”

  Noodles today. Handmade by Chloe, the same woman who struck up a conversation all the other women must have all shared in the past.

  “No.” Eugenia didn’t have a thing for the rugged, evil type who traded in human currency.

  “Please, sweetie, you don’t have to pretend here. We’ve all fucked him dozens of times. The first time, you always get the tongue thing. A glass of wine. What music did he have on?”

  “PJ Harvey.”

  Slurping up a noodle, Chloe asked, “Who’s that?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” And it didn’t. It never would again.

  Prepping another bite of good noodles in bad broth, Chloe said, “Just do the week. Let him tie you up if that makes it easier. Let him fuck you a little too hard. And move on. It’s only six more days.”

  “You have got to fucking be kidding me…” Bondage was his thing? How cliché for a pirate.

  “He really didn’t fuck you.” And the whole table, Joan included, stared.

  “Oh, we fucked all night. So much fucking. Didn’t you see me walking funny?”

  “Jesus, are you in for it, kid.” Pink-cheeked and teasing, Chloe added, “I’d bet tickets he’s breaking you in. Considering the size of his uncut cock, he probably needs to. No reason to damage the merchandise.”