“Yes, like a horse. How old is he?”
“Fourteen.”
Millicent’s eyes narrowed as she considered Rachel’s obvious lie.
“And he’s your real son?”
“No,” she said. “His family lived in my neighborhood. I found him wandering the streets after it was over. Couldn’t leave him behind.”
“Bless his heart.”
Rachel took another bite, slightly bigger this time, and took in her surroundings. Plain bedroom, about eight by eight square. A chest of drawers opposite the bed. The bed she was convalescing in sagged in the middle but was comfortable enough. The ceiling dingy but free of water stains. The bedroom connected to an open powder room, gave her a sense of place. They were in a hotel.
“What happened?”
“You collapsed,” she said. “We found you and your son on the street in that town. Just in time, from the looks of it.”
“How long have we been here?”
Millicent closed an eye and tilted her head as she did the math.
“Two days.”
“Two days?”
“Y’all were pretty out of it. We got some fluids in you first, kind of a sugary saline mixture we have, to bring you back from the edge. Got you cleaned up as well.”
“Well, thank you,” Rachel said. And she meant it. Whatever came next didn’t matter. This woman had saved their lives and for that, she was owed their hearty appreciation.
“And my son is okay?”
“Yes, relax, Momma.”
Rachel took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Whether now or later, she would have to pay the piper. Nothing in this world was free. It would nag at her until she knew.
“So what now?” Rachel asked.
Millicent leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other. Her face was fresh and smooth and radiant. Her skin was creamy ivory. She was thin, of course, but not distressingly so. It was hard to tell how old she was. Framing her young face was a mane of blonde hair streaked heavily with white. She pulled it back in a ponytail, tying it off with a hairband looped on her wrist.
“Well, sweetie, that’s up to you.”
Rachel stayed quiet.
“These last couple days of Southern hospitality, well, that’s our gift to you. Things have been good for the last few months. But if you’d like to stay, and you are welcome to, you’re going to have to work for it.”
Still, Rachel said nothing.
“Have you ever been to Lincoln?”
Rachel shook her head.
“It’s become quite a busy little town,” she said. “We even have a governing body, although that’s probably a bit generous of a description. We see a lot of traffic. It’s the first big settlement coming out of the plains between here and Denver.
“Anyhow, I’ve been here since it happened. I was here on business, up from Montgomery, couldn’t get home after they grounded the airplanes. Things were so crazy that it seemed smart to ride it out here. Of course, I didn’t know I’d be one of the few people still alive when it was over.”
“But I digress.”
“The longer you take to tell me what it is I’ll have to do, the more I’m guessing I won’t like it.”
“I won’t lie to you,” she said. “It’s not for everyone, and it can be dangerous. But you’ll be fed. You’ll be safe. And that sweet little boy will be too.”
“What will he do?”
“That’s up to you,” she said. “There are some older teenagers around town that we can introduce him to. We got books, libraries.”
“And me? What, do I have to sell my body for food or something?”
Regret knifed through her before she had even finished saying the words. She could almost see them spilling out of her mouth like milk from a glass that had tipped over. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and she closed her eyes, waiting for a dressing down from her host. When she opened her eyes again after a few seconds, Millicent was looking at her with a bemused look.
“You seem embarrassed,” Millicent said.
“I’m sorry, I just…”
Just what?
She didn’t know what she was thinking.
“Sweetie, there is nothing to be embarrassed about,” Millicent said. “You and I, and the other girls who live here, we have a commodity. One that is in high demand. One that men pay plenty for. And as fate would have it, we’re down a girl.”
Rachel’s head was spinning as Millicent spoke. She recalled Vania, the hooker (and already the word felt wrong, so wrong) from the Market, and how she sounded like this woman Millicent. It was a product. A thing to sell.
“What happened to her?”
A sheen of gloom spread across Millicent’s face.
“Oldest story in the book. Thought she’d fallen in love with a client. She went to live with him. Turned out to be a lunatic, like so many of them. One night, he had too much to drink, got rough with her, she tried to run. He didn’t let her. That was that.”
Millicent told the story matter-of-factly, with nary a hint of emotion. Not that Rachel could blame her. People died every day, for good reason and for bad. For reasons one could never have believed before the plague, and for reasons that were entirely pedestrian and stupid before the plague and still were long after.
Matter of fact.
She’d been offered a job as a prostitute as casually as a job serving up lattes at the long-defunct Starbucks Corporation.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Millicent said. “But it’s tough out there. Tough enough for one person, let alone two.”
“And what do we get in exchange for my work?”
“Safe place to live, food.”
“What’s the food supply situation?”
“We’re part of a larger group,” she said. “The people who first established the community here spent those early years assembling a food supply. One was a climate scientist who predicted the problem with the crops. Before the gas went bad, we spent eighteen, twenty hours a day collecting canned goods, packaged foods. You wouldn’t believe how much we pulled together.”
“And how much work do I owe you?”
“Four clients a night,” she said. “Five days a week. We start when the sun goes down and work until we’re done with those four.”
Her head was spinning; she could not believe she was having this discussion. Sex with twenty different men a week. For how long? Forever? Until her body was old and battered and used up and she couldn’t feel anything from the waist down or the neck up?
“Do you use protection?” she asked.
“Condoms ran out years ago,” she said. “We’ve got a homemade device we use, but it’s not perfect. I recommend all the girls wear it, but I can’t be in the room all the time. And some of them like it when the guys finish faster. Like I said, there’s a risk. We’ve been doing this for seven or eight years. We’ve had infections that antibiotics take care of. No HIV or AIDS we’re aware of. We think one girl had hepatitis a few years ago, but she died of an overdose before the disease advanced too far.”
“And pregnancies?”
Her face darkened.
“We’ve had a few. Nine.”
“And?”
“After the first three, we figured out what was happening,” Millicent said. “After the baby’s born, we all spend time together, holding the baby. When the baby starts to show signs of Snake, we wait. We wait and hope they pull through. But they never do. And that’s that.”
Rachel’s stomach flipped and her skin felt hot. She wanted to yell not just no, but hell no, she didn’t have to subject herself to this degradation, serving herself up as a fluid depository for lonely post-apocalyptic losers; but then her hand drifted to her flank, touching ribs that were jutting out, pressing so hard against her it was a wonder her skin didn’t tear. Feeling herself go mad a little bit at a time. To say nothing of watching Will starve.
“They ever get rough?”
“We have some muscle here. Big
guy named Lumen, really looks after the girls. He has a little discussion with each client before they go in. That’s usually enough. Every now and again, a client will forget his manners, and Lumen reminds them. We’ve had a few black eyes, a broken arm, but nothing too terrible. Like I said, there are risks.”
“So it’s about as safe as anything these days.”
“Pretty much.”
“How would I keep Will away from this?”
“This here is the residence. We work next door. Honey, we don’t eat where we poop. There’ll be someone to look after him when you’re working.”
“And if I say no?”
“Sweetie, it’s still a free country. Tomorrow morning, we say farewell and wish you luck.”
“Don’t suppose there are other jobs you need filled?”
Millicent laughed.
“Sweetie, I need you filled.”
Rachel winced. She walked right into that one.
“Sorry. I couldn’t resist. I know it’s not a glamorous life, probably not how you imagined your life playing out. You’re what, thirty, thirty-five?”
Rachel nodded.
“I’m forty. You think I ever saw myself as a madam? I have a marketing degree from Missouri. I traveled for work forty weeks a year. I had Cobalt status with American Airlines. The year of the plague? I’d already taken sixty-five flights. After my trip here, I had a trip to Costa Rica planned. I still have the plane ticket in my room. And here I am.”
“What are the clients like?” she asked softly.
Simply asking the question made her lightheaded.
“We get all kinds,” she said. “Lumen has the right to refuse anyone. Some shy, some loud, some think their shit smells like roses. Some are lonely. Some are sweet, and some you want to hurry up and the get the hell out.”
This. It had come to this.
“Sometimes it’s not too bad. Some aren’t bad looking, and you know, they know what they’re doing.”
Now Rachel did flush with embarrassment. The idea she would enjoy selling her body was too much to wrap her head around. It went against everything she’d learned during her formative years, when the thing that made Rachel Fisher who she was had been baked into her.
The words of her middle school health teacher, Ms. Burns, echoed loudly inside her head.
DON’T GIVE IT AWAY GIRLS! IF YOU DO YOU CAN’T GET IT BACK! MAKE SURE YOU LOVE HIM, MAKE SURE HE LOVES YOU. WAIT UNTIL YOU’RE MARRIED AND IT WILL BE SO MUCH BETTER.
Lordy, lordy, lordy.
But they weren’t in that world anymore, the world of health classes and sex ed and girl power memes on the Internet. Or maybe they were, and she was looking at it all wrong. These men were willing to pay for a few pumps and a squirt between a pair of thighs, and all she had to do was lie there, maybe put on a little show, and she would eat. And Will would eat and grow and live. And if she got sick and died, if one of these men lost it and smacked her too hard, well, it would be worth it.
“What if something happens to me? What happens to Will?”
“Once you join us, it’s for keeps. We look out for each other. Always.”
Rachel looked down at her tray.
“Why don’t you rest and think about it,” Millicent said. “You can let me know what you decide in the morning.”
“No need to wait.”
“There is,” Millicent said, pressing an index finger to her lips. “Don’t make a rash decision. Think long and hard about it.”
21
In the end, there really hadn’t been much of a choice at all. She did think about it, as Millicent had suggested, all night, staring at the ceiling, considering her offer, considering the alternatives. If it had been just her, she wouldn’t have done it. She would have managed on her own. But that was not the hand she had been dealt.
There had been no other options. Far to the west lay Denver, but in between was a no man’s land where food would be almost impossible to find. To the south, Kansas City was the best bet. But even if they made it that far before starving to death, there was no guarantee they’d be able to survive there either. It was unlikely she’d find another offer this good. She’d probably end up dead; Will would be roasted over a spit.
There was no hope.
And the absence of hope did a funny thing to people.
When Millicent came to see her the next morning, she had cast her lot in with them. After she accepted Millicent’s offer, they gave her a week to regain her strength, get her system accustomed to regular caloric intake again. She spent her days with Will, who asked few questions, apparently satisfied with her explanation that they had found a new place to live. As the days slipped by, the color returned to his cheeks and his clothes began to fill out again. They read books and played board games. This time, she didn’t let him win. She swelled with happiness; she slept soundly. She had kept the Reaper at bay, perhaps for a good long while this time.
On the night she started her new job, one of the other girls, Rebekah, played cards with Will and made him a special meal. Rachel waited in her room, wearing nothing but a tattered thin robe. Shortly after dark, a knock on the door, and he came in, escorted by Lumen. He was an average looking guy. Shaved head. Thick beard. Not much taller than she was. He was thin, but he wasn’t emaciated. He could spare the hefty fee of a dozen cans of food for twenty minutes with Rachel.
“My name is-” he began nervously.
“No names,” she said, cutting him off. It was out of her mouth before she’d had time to consider it. She really didn’t want to know his name.
“OK,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Her heart raced and her stomach churned. She was glad she had skipped dinner, seeing how vomiting on a client who hadn’t requested such a special service would probably be frowned upon.
She had already equipped herself with the homemade birth control device, a kind of female condom that would hopefully maintain a barrier between her insides and the client’s liquid gift. She motioned for him to join her on the bed.
“This your first time?” she asked, trying to hold the trembling in her voice under control.
“No,” he said. “I always get nervous though.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he sat next to her on the bed. She pulled the knot on her bathrobe free and it fell away, leaving her naked before this man that she had never laid eyes on. Her breath felt ragged and shallow and she was worried she would pass out from fear. His gaze dropped from her face to her breasts and then even lower, and it took every bit of willpower not to cover herself up because he had paid for this view and he had paid for a whole lot more than that too.
“Nothing to be nervous about,” she said, a shimmer creeping into her voice. “We’re just gonna have a little fun.”
She lay back and stared at the ceiling and she saw Will’s happy face there, and what the hell was that about? Should she really be thinking about her preteen son as she began her life as a prostitute? She pushed his face away and zeroed in on the task at hand.
The room was quiet but for the sound of the man’s belt unbuckling, the susurration of his jeans sliding down his legs, the discordant jingle of the buckle hitting the floor. He leaned down against her, his body against hers, their faces inches apart. He smelled musty but not entirely unpleasant. He did not attempt to kiss her. A soft gasp broke free from her throat as his hardness slid up against the inside of her thigh, and then up against her. He started pushing inside her, but it wasn’t easy because this wasn’t sex for love or lust or even because she was bored and lonely. It was for her very survival, for Will’s right to live another day.
She took long slow breaths and focused on relaxing her midsection, telling herself that the quicker she relaxed, the quicker this would be over. Above her, the client grunted, his eyes closed, his face contorted into a visage that appeared equally happy and sad at the same time. Then he was inside her, and he held himself up with his hands, his heavy mass pressing down on
her abdomen. Her hands slid around his waist to his back, Rachel hoping this added touch, this little bit of extra intimacy would rush him along the path to completion.
His body rocked back and forth above her for a few moments and a rush of pleasant heat spread through her. It faded as quickly as it appeared; she didn’t know what to make of this. It never occurred to her that she would derive any pleasure from this act, this commercial transaction that was as far removed from love and happiness and togetherness as she could imagine.
After another minute, the man’s thrusting ramped up in intensity. Then a shudder, and his body went rigid as he finished. She bit her tongue as she felt the warm spray of fluid inside her.
Great.
The homemade condom had failed.
He sighed deeply and let out a long slow exhalation, the ripples of a man whose most primal desire had been satisfied.
He withdrew from her wordlessly, pulled his pants back up, left.
A little while later, she took her second customer of the night.
#
Dusk fell as she sat on the balcony outside the room she shared with Will, smoking a wretched-tasting cigarette, sipping the even-more-wretched moonshine that was popular with the girls. Her period was in full swing, so she was off this week. It had been three months since she’d started her new job; her time working for Millicent hadn’t been as bad as she feared, but it hadn’t been easy, either.
This week, she was nursing a black eye and a broken nose, a gift from a client who had unexpectedly turned violent in the middle of the act. The nose would forever be slightly off-kilter, and a large bruise covered the upper right quadrant of her face. The assault had earned her attacker a pair of broken arms, courtesy of Lumen when she’d managed to cry out for help. He was lucky he was still alive. Lumen had proven to be a decent man who took his job of protecting the girls seriously.
The broken nose had left her in a perpetual state of congestion, and her eye had a tough time rising above half-mast. The time off her back had given her time to rest and recuperate; it was her first long break since she started working. By her estimation, she had had sex with at least forty different men, some more than once. Most were harmless and were done quickly, but a few frightened her, although she could not articulate specifically why.
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