by Ines Johnson
Men were perverts, her mother insisted. They only wanted sex, and would draw a woman away from her true calling as a thinking, rational, sacred vessel. Women were a repository of knowledge, not semen, her mother would say. All women, thought her mother, would be best to leave the brutes to the judgment of the Goddess for their wicked ways.
Chanyn listened to her mother's words. She read the required texts. But she'd also read books on the banned shelf of their home. Those books with their racy covers showed men embracing women. They told of chivalry and alpha males and true love.
Chanyn dreamed of that world. A world where a man looked at her with the intensity Khial gazed upon Dain. A world where a man caressed her body with the care that Dain showed Khial.
Chanyn panted along with the men as they both reached their climax. The ache between her thighs nearly unbearable, with the possibility of relief so close, separated from her only by cloth and glass.
She pressed her thighs together as Khial curled up on Dain's chest and fell asleep. Chanyn had slept alone her entire life. Her mother never once tucked her in, as she’d read in children's books. Or gave her a hug, like she read parents did, in the books in the young adult section of her home.
So, this is what love looked like; beautiful, peaceful.
What would it be like to be held? To be kissed? To feel that sense of security in another's arms?
As though he heard her heart's plea, Dain turned his head towards the glass. His eyes looked right at hers.
Chanyn gasped. Embarrassed, she jerked back.
But Dain continued to regard her with neither a smile nor a frown. One hand rested behind his own head to provide a cushion for himself, the fingers of the other hand played along the sleeping Khial's spine. Both men lay in their full glory on the mattress. Dain made no move to cover himself or his lover. He simply regarded Chanyn with an open expression that allowed her to look, as though asking her to... consider.
Chanyn's hand instinctively covered her pounding heart. She closed her eyes and rose from her place on the floor. On quiet feet, she made her way back to her room, in the darkness. The sun had set. The moon gave her little light, but she knew the way like the back of her hand. Once in her room she sank down onto her mattress with eyes wide open. Her mind whirling as she tried to grab onto its myriad of thoughts. It should not have been so difficult. Her mother raised a rational thinker.
Earlier, she'd thought Dain took an interest in her. His encouraging smiles sparked hope in her chest. His amused laugh made her want. With all the attention he'd paid her, Chanyn thought perhaps Dain might be interested in her. And then, to see him in the thralls of passion with his lover...
Perhaps, Dain was simply setting her straight about with whom his interests lay?
Or perhaps, Dain wanted her to join them in the bed?
Chanyn hoped it was the latter idea. She saw no commitment ring on either of the men's fingers telling that they were bonded to a woman. Perhaps they were looking for one. If they were, Chanyn would volunteer in a heartbeat. It was everything she'd ever wanted. To be loved, and to give love in return.
The idea of being nestled inside that cocoon of love shared between not one, but two, men was more than Chanyn ever hoped for. She sent up a silent prayer to the Goddess, clinging to the dream as she drifted off to sleep.
* * *
In the morning, Chanyn woke with a start. She'd dreamed of running her fingers through sun-colored hair while strong brown fingers caressed her body. Her sheets were soaked, but her chest was full of hope.
Making her way downstairs, she saw that the men were already awake and dressed. Khial sat with his pack over his shoulder, glancing impatiently out the window. He looked up when she approached, his face closed. Chanyn remembered his face from the night before, so open and vulnerable as he'd taken his lover on the mattress. No look of wonder or love now, in his eyes, as his gaze slipped over her.
Chanyn's hope dissipated.
"Good morning, my lady. Did you sleep well?"
Chanyn turned to the dining area by the fire pit. They'd been in her garden. She saw a plate of berries and a few strips of yesterday's meat laid out for her. Towering over the offering was Dain's smiling face. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt that highlighted his tanned skin and golden locks.
"I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of making your first meal."
Dain held the plate out to her then pulled out her chair. Chanyn's knees went wobbly at the chivalric gesture.
"Thank you," she managed, as she sat down.
Dain rested a hand on her shoulder, giving her the same brilliant smile he'd been free with the other night. "It's my pleasure."
The twinkle in his eye made Chanyn's lips part.
"I'm surprised you could grow such a bounty out there, in your garden."
Chanyn popped a berry into her mouth and nodded. "It’s receded some since my mother went to the Goddess."
Dain nodded in understanding. The ground was only fertile when women were present. Now that there was only one woman, Mother Nature only saw fit to provide for the one.
Dain brought a plate over to Khial. He brushed his lips against the other man's forehead. Khial accepted both the plate and the affection.
Chanyn tried to look away, but couldn't. Though she knew it was fruitless, the yearning in her held her eyes fast. Dain turned back to her. His eyes told her that he knew she'd watched him, both now and last night. What Chanyn couldn't figure was whether he mocked her solitude, or extended an invitation.
"We're leaving soon, Chanyn."
Chanyn's face fell. So that look last night had been to set her straight. He was in a bond with Khial, and there was no room, nor desire, for her.
"You deserve to be put up in the comfort and luxury for which your sex affords you." Dain glanced around the room.
It was the first time Chanyn had seen the man frown or look displeased. She looked around her home and tried to see it from his perspective. The crumbling paint on the wall. The dust that never went away. The worn furniture and dreariness of the ruined establishment. Suddenly she felt embarrassed by the way she lived, though she knew no other way.
"I cannot leave you here alone," Dain continued. "It would go against everything I believe in."
Chanyn nodded, a spark of hope lit her chest. At least they would take her with them. There would be other males in the city. Many more. She was sure to find love there. She just hoped they had the kind eyes and easy laugh of Dain.
"So, you'll come with us?" Dain looked surprised, as though he'd prepared more words to convince her.
Chanyn needed no convincing. She would never achieve her dreams here, alone. More than comfort or luxury, Chanyn wanted human companionship, love, and a family of her own. The city was the only place she would get that.
Dain came forward, his hands outstretched. Chanyn's heart sped up. She'd read about hugs. Saw couples embracing on paperbacks. Saw parents with their arms around children on hardbacks. She'd seen small squirrels wrestling each other over nuts, jumping on each other’s back. In her youth, Chanyn had watched the animals from up high in a tree. So rapt that when she leaned in for a closer look, she lost her balance and fell to the ground. She'd limped to her mother with a huge bruise on her leg, sniffling, she held her arms out. Her mother backed away from her as though she saw signs of the plague, and she'd told Chanyn to get busy with the first aid kit, and then get dinner ready.
Now, looking up at Dain, Chanyn held her breath with anticipation. But instead of an embrace, Dain clasped her shoulders with his big hands and squeezed. His face shone radiant as he looked at her. Chanyn's heart did another flip and she stared up into his lovely face.
"Pack your things, my lady. We will be in the city before nightfall."
Dain released her and began clearing away Chanyn's empty plate. When Chanyn glanced up, she met Khial's clear blue eyes. For all the joy Dain displayed, Khial looked none too pleased about this decision. His scowl reminded
Chanyn of her mother's distaste when Chanyn tried to seek comfort after falling from a tree.
Chapter Four
From the outside looking in, Khial's childhood home resembled a palatial estate befitting his family's ancestry. But from the inside, looking out through a child's eyes, it could best be described as a jungle. A wild, treacherous place where one wrong turn could lead to eminent danger. An empty hall could quickly erupt with adults spewing hot words meant to scald anyone in their path. A man lying wounded in the corner was never a candidate for pity or help. A scar behind Khial’s ear proved that. Most importantly, a woman's smile was never a good sign. It was a mirage that could lead to injury or death.
In the bright morning sun of the ruined city in the Wasted Lands, the dark haired girl came up beside Khial with a tattered bag slung over her shoulder, a crate of books in her hands, and the naive, trusting smile of a wild animal who'd never encountered mankind before. Khial glanced down at the books in the crate to see tanned men, some with long golden hair, others with dark waves about their faces. In each picture the men embraced a woman. The girl, noticing Khial's perusal of her reading selection, smiled shyly. Khial's blood went cold. He turned away from what his past told him was a trap and slid into the front seat of the conveyance.
With the car loaded, heavier by its new addition and the remnants of her solitary life, Khial had a decision to make. He could take the high road, turn on the hover craft capabilities of the car and sail safely through the skies back to the city. Or he could take the low road, which was actually a road. The old highway systems of what used to be called the States of North America. The intersecting tar pavements crossing the barren land were reduced to rubble in most spots, ending at collapsed bridges in others. The pathways were filled with roaming beasts such as lions, bears, and apes, which were once held captive in enclosures called zoos. It was a treacherous place, those wild lands, a jungle where men no longer roamed.
Khial peered up at the clear, cloudless sky. He turned the ignition, and pulled out onto the road.
It was Khial's first time out of the city. He'd wanted to see with his own eyes the ruins of man. Towers touched the sky with half of the face of the building gone. The land lay barren, dry. The few patches of green here and there was evidence of female animals who maintained the favor of the Goddess.
For the majority of the trip, Dain peppered the girl with questions about her origins, and how she came to be in the ruins. The girl only knew that her mother came from the city, the only remaining city on the northwestern continent. A few settlements remained in the southwestern hemisphere, where the land was more lush. The continent of Europa was nearly barren, as well as all of the northern Africas. That part of the world had been blown to bits by nuclear bombs and left mostly uninhabitable by the resulting radiation. The people who did survive fled to the islands of the Australias and Asia.
The girl chattered on, gazing at Dain with stars in her eyes. If the romance novels hadn't already decided Khial's mind about her, the stories the girl told of her mother confirmed Khial's conclusions. The girl's mother had been a female separatist, a small sect of women who believed the female gender were the chosen of the Goddess. Their aim was to complete Mother Nature's work by shutting out men from the cities and leaving them to their own devices to die out in the barren wilds of the earth. It was an illogical argument if you followed it to its conclusion: extinction. Khial did not argue it. He was happy to leave women to their own devices. So long as they left him to his.
It looked as though the girl's mother had been the only one of her sisterhood to put stock in the separatist beliefs and leave the city and its men. What the mother miscalculated was that fanaticism of the parent often leads the child in the opposite direction. Khial ran to the opposite end of his parents' ideologies, straight into Dain's arms. Straight into Dain's open home where laughter burst from each corner, and love flowed in abundance.
It appeared this girl ran from her mother's ideology as well, but more askew of it. Where her mother believed in the utter uselessness of men, the daughter, as it appeared from her reading fodder, believed men were meant to entwine themselves with women, inextricably, in the name of love. The problem was that she was trying to entwine herself into Khial's place of refuge.
The girl smiled demurely over her shoulder at Dain. As she turned, Khial's eyes caught the delicate curve of her neck. Fine hairs curled around her nape. The whimsy of those curls seemed out of place on a girl who felled and skinned a wild animal the day before. Khial's eyes dipped and met with the swell of one breast. She twisted in the seat and he saw the mound inside the flimsy cloth that barely covered her. The edge of a dark, brown nipple sent a shockwave to his dick and Khial lost control of the steering for a moment.
"You all right, Khi?" Dain asked from the back. "Do you need me to take over up there?"
Khial shook his head, eyes firmly on the road, hands gripping the wheel. No, Khial did not need his lover seated next to this temptress while he took a back seat.
They drove on in silence for some time. Dain dozed in the back. Khial kept one eye on his lover, looking for any signs of distress. When she wasn't gazing stupidly at Dain, the girl pressed her nose against the car window, awestruck at the devastation evident in the ruins of the previous society. A few times, both she and Khial leaned forward in unison to peer out the window at some wonder. Once, their shoulders met and she glanced at him with a small smile. Khial turned and spat out the window. She did not look at him again.
When Dain awakened sometime later, she gave all of her attention to him once more. Dain tried to bring Khial into their conversation, but Khial had no interest in getting to know the girl. His homespun mistrust of females aside, Khial knew the girl wouldn't be staying with them for much longer. So he grunted, shrugged, and then became mute, until Dain gave up.
By late afternoon, they'd reached the edges of the city.
The phallic skyscrapers and high-rises all fell in the Great Destruction. The domes that topped all structures of the surviving city rose no higher than two floors. Women believed that one must remain close to the earth. Solar panels, society's main power source, gleamed atop the domes, reminding Khial of a woman's tit. Steam rose in the air near the surrounding bodies of water, as an alternate to solar power. None of the cloying black soot from the use of coal and fossils of the 21st century remained on the outskirts of the city. No wires zigzagged across a skyline obscured by cell towers. Only radio communication and its short range waves were in use. Those waves only reached just beyond the borders of the city. There was little to no communication with other settlements outside the northern hemisphere.
Khial pulled up at the gates to the city. The peace officer glared when he saw a woman in the passenger seat. Women were far too precious to allow in harms' way, outside the city gates. Dain handed over his gold identification card and explained the situation, but the peace officer became more perturbed when he learned the girl had no identification, and was, in fact, being brought into the city for the first time.
By then, weary from the drive, Khial wanted to get home. He withdrew his platinum identification card and handed it over to the officer.
The officer did a double take. He turned, pointing at the platinum card. Two more sets of eyes peered over his shoulder, gaping at Khial. Khial felt Dain's tension expand from the back seat. Khial's nose stayed elevated. With a regal flick of his wrist, he motioned for his card. The officer obeyed, letting them pass without another word.
He could see the girl's look of surprise from the passenger seat. Apparently, she still clung to the racial stereotypes of the twentieth. He had no desire to explain himself or his status. After all, she would be departing from them shortly.
Khial navigated the clean city streets. Boys left the schoolyard after a day of learning. Young men gathered in fields for a few hours of sport before last meal. Grown men locked up storefronts and factories on their way home to their lovers.
That's all Khial w
anted at this moment: a hot meal, a cool shower, and the feel of his lover's body beneath his own.
A young family strolled by. One father pushing a pram, the wife hanging on the arm of the other father. The baby's carriage was the green color of the earth, indicating that the child inside was a girl. Men and women on the street oohed and aahed from a distance. A look of deep affection passed between the child's parents. That look, some might call it love, was rare in triad bonds. But, so were baby girls.
When Khial pulled up to Dain's manse, he saw that they would not yet be afforded the simple luxuries he craved. But they would be getting rid of the girl sooner than he expected.
"Wait here," Dain placed a hand on the girl's shoulder before exiting the conveyance.
Khial saw the hostile figures in the archway. A bag slung over one shoulder, caught in the act of fleeing. Throughout the long drive, Khial had held his tongue, knowing this moment would come one day soon. The people on the step would put an end to the designs being drawn by both Dain and the girl, and Khial need do nothing but stand aside and soothe his lover after the fallout. He would be held blameless when Dain realized he'd have to part with his latest stray.
"Is everything all right?" the girl asked.
Khial glanced at her. Those liquid gold eyes threatened to pull him under once more. Dain had designs on keeping her. She had designs on staying. When she learned what lay behind Dain's family's wealth, she would be sure to run far away from them, along with the rest of polite society. Hell, when she met Dain's extended family and saw their greedy, hateful ways, she was likely to wake from the fantasy she'd dreamed up about Dain.
"Everything's just fine," Khial smiled. He heard the raised voices of the intruders from inside the car. A break every now and then meant Dain tried to reason with them, in his charitable way. Khial realized he probably didn't have to revise his plans of simple luxuries after all. He'd simply reverse the order. First, hold Dain against his body to comfort him. Then draw that bath for the both of them. And finally feed his lover in their bed.
