Swallow it Down

by Addison Cain

  Sincere, gentle, that prick said, “You’re not getting off the boat.”

  “Shut up. Of course I am.”

  So earnest it made the fine hairs on her neck stand, he asked, “But why? Don’t you like the life we give you?”

  “Give me twenty-million tickets and I’ll explain it in grand detail.”

  There was no reason for a random man to look at her that way. “We all like you. You like us, right?”

  Blinking, Eugenia cocked her head. New math forming in her head. He was a strapping man, young enough to be useful. Gay as the day was long. “I could show you how to live. Hunt for us. Teach you what to look for. Why not come with me?”

  “That’s it. I’m done here.” And Stewart was done. “I don’t care if I get in trouble. You’re nuts, and I’m not gonna stand here and watch you be nuts anymore.”

  “I’ll see you at dinner, handsome!” she shouted at his back.

  And she did. But it was an uncomfortable feast—Juanita was sobbing hysterically as she learned just how horrible her new heaven was.

  And every guest, every server, every girl scheduled to entertain knew why.

  Pretty Juanita had mentioned one particular man too many times. Was extra excited to see him. She’d fallen in love.

  And so had the man Juanita favored.

  But unlike Neil, he had known better than to offer for her.

  Instead, he slapped her, hard, in front of them all at a party. The big man crying and sputtering the whole time he called her a whore.

  It wasn’t a secret that Eugenia and the captain traded words every day—a few minutes here and few minutes there—but it was the first time besides the night he ripped her hymen on dirty fingers that she’d approached him.

  The captain…

  …who was watching her and not the tableau on deck. Who had been watching her the whole time.

  “Aaron,” she offered.

  A tip of the chin. “Eugenia.”

  Arms around her middle, the day having been a shit waste of her time. Feeling naked under his stare for a reason she could not pin, she said, “I think you should let them be together.”

  “Why? Why should they get what the rest of the ship can’t have?”

  How could he sound so reasonable when two people were in so much pain?

  Hard to think, even harder to say, Eugenia bared her thoughts. “Because they love each other. The real kind.”

  Hazel eyes bearing down upon her as if she were the only person on that entire crowded deck, the captain said, “They’ve known one another a handful of weeks. Love? That ain’t the real kind. Nor would it last as she kept playing around, which she would, because she likes the attention, the favors, the upgrades, and cock.”

  How he could continue to reduce them all to comfort sluts, she couldn’t grasp. Why couldn’t forever be real in a place that was so bad? “What if you’re wrong? What if that love at first sight bullshit is true?”

  Throat bobbing, he swallowed before he might speak.

  Not that she refused to give him the stage to wax poetic on his crazy rules. Not when someone might actually find joy in all this shit. “Can I take her inside?” The request was followed with a quick, “I’ll come right back, work both tables, and be the dumpster in trade. Give Faith and Chloe a night off. Give Juanita a chance to… think.”

  Raising a knee, he let his boot rest against the wall at his back. “But you don’t even like her.”

  Which didn’t matter at all. “I don’t like anyone. I’m antisocial and a pretentious jerk; you know that.”

  Laughing, a bitter, hard sound, he laid out the cost. “You’ll owe me a favor.”

  “And you owe me so much more than that.” Which led to a stirring of dark feelings swallowed way, way down. “You owe me so much more, Aaron.”

  The cocky bastard smirked. “That lip is going to cost you another ten-thousand tickets.”

  “Fuck your tickets! I don’t need them. And yes, you’ll have your favor, though I suggest you don’t abuse it.”

  “You know I will, darlin’.” The lazy cowboy act, the accent. All of it a show as he brushed her cheek with his knuckles.

  In a way, it was hard to admit she knew him on a level the others didn’t. “I’m going to take Juanita inside.”

  “If you need to talk it over, I’m here.”

  “Suck the fattest cock, Aaron.”

  Sobbing, crying into her shoulder the whole way, a girl—a brokenhearted girl who’d been struck by a brokenhearted boy—wept out her grief.

  And there was nothing to be done for it but share the ship’s ugly truth.

  Eugenia told her about Neil. Whispered that if she wanted to enjoy her lover, Juanita had to keep it secret like the other girls did. That she’d never have more than a quick kiss and tryst in the hall. That she had to be careful to show him little favor in public. That the captain could never know—and if he found out, her lover was a dead man.

  So buck up! Earn tickets with enthusiasm, buy her freedom. Maybe he could buy his; they could leave together. Wouldn’t that be great?

  Which, even as Eugenia said it, she knew it would never happen. The game was rigged, and Juanita was too good a treasure to lose. A whore enthusiastic to be fucked, and not just to earn tickets. She loved sex when it wasn’t forced. And who could blame her?

  Which led to the thorn ridden path of self-awareness—the real reason Eugenia didn’t like the exuberant new girl. She was jealous.

  Of the participation. Of the orgasms. Of any shred of fun others might enjoy when there was nothing but work and service and the never-ending foiled attempts to escape.

  Eugenia couldn’t let go or live up.

  How clever the captain had been, stroking her when she’d been in his rooms. Growling at her ear that he cared. Urging her to explore her body in private and remember how wonderful masturbation had felt.

  The release, relearning her body.

  Her own fingers slipping through sensitive labia, twisting over a hooded clit. Until it poked out and she tapped it just like she used to.

  How beautiful it was to come.

  Every night. In private.

  To fantasies dug up from memory. To Li Wei’s sexy body, to his voice, which had grown deeper, his weight more pronounced when it pushed her down in that sleeping bag.

  Eugenia touched herself. Fantasized about freedom, equality, a man who loved her. A man near her intelligence level who accepted she was smarter. A doctor…

  She fantasized.

  Ached for the kind of fulfilment she’d never find the way sweet Juanita had, bent over a table and plowed by the line of eager men for tickets.

  Sweet Juanita who was looking at her with beautiful, wet, wide brown eyes. Who needed the comfort of a wiser, older person.

  Eugenia had not felt like a person in quite some time.

  “The captain is giving you the night off. Have a shower and a good cry. Sleep.” That was the best advice she might offer, leaving an apartment almost as nice as the captain’s to get back to the party.

  Pausing outside the door that separated the women’s rooms from the party deck, she found the captain waiting for her.

  So she confessed, “I learned something about myself tonight.”

  Passing a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other, he asked, “Care to share your newfound wisdom?”

  Detached, she told the captain, “No.”

  A thing like him wouldn’t understand.

  A thing like him should not have reached for her arm and pulled her back. “You did a good thing tonight, Eugenia. I’m proud.”

  But anger was the first and only thing she knew. “He hit her because you made him do it.”

  “And?”

  And what? “I have work to do. Enjoy your nightly show, slaver. Fuck a trafficked person later, tying them up so they don’t look at you while you do it. I hope you hate every moment of it as much as I think you do.”

  Chapter Ten

  Whi
te-knuckling the railing, far above the faded, red nonslip carpet gracing the gangplank, Eugenia strained against the heat of the captain at her back. Saw the way his hands banked hers, and screamed.

  Nothing could be worse!

  The favor—a few minutes of her time, he’d said.

  Where no one could see the pair of them together. Where their view was unobstructed. Where he pinned her mercilessly. Where she was engulfed in a larger, stronger body. Not out of intimacy, but to keep her from running away. Or jumping to her death when she began to panic.

  Because the ship’s lights were on.

  And though it was a long, long way down, a familiar voice carried up. “Please! I beg you! Please let me back in!”

  Even from the distance, it was clear who it was.

  Brooke—emaciated, limping, and covered in filthy rags—staggered toward the lake, waving her arms. Beseeching the waiting men for help.

  Wretched. Broken. Sick.

  With their guns on their backs, the men were at the ready. Prepping a dinghy to fetch the pleading woman before she might accidentally drown in her fervor to stamp through the lake and get back on the ship.

  “NO!” Eugenia screamed.

  And screamed.

  What was this life but endurance past pain?

  But the captain had clamped his hand over her mouth, her muffled warning lost no matter how hard she fought.

  And she fought with all she had. Kicking, throwing elbows, biting at his palm to warn the girl away. That it was a trick. That real life was out there.

  Why would she come back to this?

  She should RUN!

  But his arm, like iron around her waist, was so much bigger and stronger.

  He caught her strikes, took her wrists in hand, as if he’d done it thousands of times.

  Just like he had with the other women tied to his bed so he might fuck them from behind and they might sleep on his couch.

  Brooke was fetched. She was carried on board.

  The show was over.

  Subdued by muscle, mouth freed, hate roaring, tears flowed in an excruciating, embarrassing way. “Why would she come back? At least one good place is out there! All the bad places had been marked on that map! She has to explain!”

  Though his grip was unbreakable, his voice was infinitely soft. “Brooke won’t be coming back to Level 15.”

  “I... I don’t understand.” Could hardly even breathe. Couldn’t look at him. Only at those boots. At the deck and her splayed fingers, white as death, scratching as if they might find something to hold.

  A kiss lingered on her temple before he said, “You won’t like it. You won’t like why Level 9 exists. Which is precisely why you’ve never asked about babies or children. Because you are so close to growing up, and so scared to face it. You’ve blinded yourself to the obvious.”

  “Stop talking!”

  “Neil told you that first day. The men don’t get to hold the babies, but they do get to breed them, provide for them. Know that there is a future. A future the men know they will never have. The best they can do is make the women comfortable, feed them good food.”

  Hands over her ears, pressing as hard as she could, Eugenia failed to keep his words out.

  “It’s a big ship, Eugenia. An entire society of people that function with minimal violence and maximum growth. The perfect equation, a tight rein on circular history.

  “Brooke will earn her keep as a breeder, as a mother, finding her peace with it like they all do. As will Hellen, Juanita, Chloe...”

  She was going to be sick, right there on his boots, yet raised her eyes to look at the monster, to read him like she could. “How many women have you done this to?”

  “Only the pretty ones of a certain age experience Level 15 and the workload involved. Everyone else is hosted on Level 9. Twenty-four women counting Brooke.”

  It didn’t seem possible that she could have thought worse of this place, of him. But it was so much worse than she’d imagined. “Can they buy their way out?”

  “No. I can’t have them taking babies off the boat.” Holding her eyes as if his gaze alone might pin her in place, as if it might change her thinking, he gestured to the dead forest and the dirty lake. “Children don’t belong out there. No one knows that better than you. Brooke will be given time to adjust and heal. She may already be pregnant, which will buy her more time to settle in with her baby before she will be expected to do her part and submit to the man who purchased rights to her cycle. All copulation is monitored, genealogies tracked, and the men know they have to try to please their lady for the month. Foreplay is required. It costs them a fortune, and there is a waiting list a mile long. Level 15 is what tides them over while they wait to play house.”

  Foreplay? He was the king of foreplay, and she was the queen of surviving bullshit. “How many of the kids are yours?”

  “None.” He shook his head. “I don’t go to Level 9.”

  “Why? Can’t look them in the eye when you can’t even fuck Level 15 slaves face-to-face?”

  “Work out the statistics, work your math, and admit to yourself that I’m trying to save the world.” He had not been that harsh with her since the day his fingers tore her hymen. But he was sharp as a razor as he condemned, “I know you don’t want to face the truth, because you’re too damn bitter over what you lost. Everyone lost, Eugenia! And everyone had a part in it. And now everyone pays.”

  Not on this boat. “Except you, in your fancy room with your music and rotating harem of pretty girls of a certain age. You’re a monster, Aaron.” Slinking out from his touch, she skittered back. “I don’t ever want to talk to you again. I don’t even want to look at you.”

  Standing tall, he sighed. As if he was the one hurting and she was the one causing it. “You’ll come to accept it. They all do.”

  He walked away, leaving her as she was—because they both knew she wasn’t going to throw herself over that railing—Eugenia screaming at his back, “When I get off this boat, I won’t ever come back!”

  ***

  Ironically forced to dress in the same outfit from that first, awful night—the naughty schoolgirl—Eugenia prepared Table #2. Stacking the pile of linen to the side for the men to shoot their load into. Grasping why they never complained about not finishing in the girls.

  Because it would break their fancy toy if that human got pregnant. After all, everyone went to Level 9, and they’d have their shot later.

  And they all knew it when they teased, kissed, adored, fucked, and offered for Level 15 girls.

  They weren’t straight evil. The captain was. And she could see how some of them had hinted. But who could doubt for a minute that outright spilling the beans about Level 9 led to instant execution?

  Couldn’t upset this well-oiled machine of mind games and carnival tickets, now could they?

  Fuck up the party if the party girls realized the ride never ended.

  So, what was down there? Women chained to beds? Is that why he liked to tie the other girls up? Get them accustomed to it.

  What did the men trade for the opportunity to breed an entire cycle?

  Five-thousand tickets? Five-hundred thousand?

  Whatever Brooke had just survived might make that woman go mad if a man tried to touch her. Maybe the captain’s version of acceptance was just a bunch of broken shells with functioning wombs and severe psychological trauma.

  Brooke was in bad shape.

  She limped like the dying limped.

  But stranded on Level 15, Eugenia couldn’t help her. Spending her hour analyzing a gait she’d seen only once from hundreds of feet away.

  Remembering that scream for help.

  Knowing she was being mocked all the time by the captain. The only person on that whole fucking ship who had been her “friend.”

  God, she was an idiot.

  The things she had told Aaron in their daily banter.

  The ways he would have to suffer before he died.

  Did the
men all laugh at her below deck? The fallen virgin who thought she was so damn smart? Who they all knew would end up as some kind of breeder on Level 9 no matter how long she held out.

  Who they indulged.

  Men she knew. Who she’d conversed with for months. Men who sat at her table that very night as she brushed lint from the white tablecloth. Men who presented their cookie sheets for her to sit on. Who bantered and dined on ribeye, just like that first night.

  There hadn’t been ribeye since…

  Not that it mattered. Twenty-million-plus tickets she owed. Ten fucks a night, she might get off the ship in two years. Walk south and never stop walking. Never stop.

  Ever.

  The man with his hand splayed on her belly, who served as her chair, said, “You’re awfully quiet tonight. Are you okay?”

  On no level was she okay. “I’m just doing some math… a bit stuck on the numbers.”

  How many plates had she broken? How many extra fucks had she added to her tally?

  If she could convince ten of them to fuck her a night, how many nights would that be? There were only five men at her table, so she’d have to draw the other men, get competitive over tickets. Would ten men even want to fuck her every day, or would she look as worn out as Chloe? Who was no doubt going to be transitioned to Level 9… because she’d almost earned enough by whoring the hardest.

  That was why Chloe had put glass shards in Juanita’s food her first night. Fresh and pretty competition extended this hell. And that’s why Juanita was warned about the glass, just like Eugenia had been—Captain’s orders, no doubt.

  That’s what affected their price. How much ride the captain thought he could get out of all of them.

  “You look pale, Eugenia.”

  The things she had confided in these men. Her history. Her achievements and blunders. Funny childhood stories and the names of her dead parents. Despite never intending to, she had connected with them on an extremely fucked-up level.