The State Series Box Set

by M. J. Kaestli

  Freya could hear a certain tone in his voice, as if he was trying to sound casual and serious but was repressing laughter. “What the heck was that all about?” she nearly shouted at him. “You just wanted to come up with a project name? Really? That was all you were doing?”

  Colin lowered his hands and turned on the sofa to look at her. “What, over there?” he asked, pointing to where she was standing. “Wait. You didn’t think I was going to actually kiss you or anything, did you?”

  “Yes! What else would you have been trying to do?” she said, an octave higher than before.

  “I already stated—and rather clearly, I might add—that I was trying to figure out if you are, in fact, asexual. Clearly, you’re not. I had no intention of kissing you,” said Colin. “I only needed to know if you wanted me to.”

  “And now you don’t want to kiss me?” If it wasn’t for the fact she was still so angry at him and his little game, she would have shown the sudden hurt that had come over her.

  “I never said I don’t want to kiss you. I said I won’t kiss you, and that’s totally different—so different I don’t quite know how you could confuse it, actually.” His smug look had been spreading, and now it was starting to eat at Freya.

  “Well, forgive me for my mistake. Perhaps you would like to explain the vast difference between the two,” she said with her hands on her hips and her face twisting into a scowl.

  “Gee, I thought you’d never ask! I’m happy to explain. See, Freya, you’ve hurt my feelings so many times by constantly rejecting me—and quite harshly, I might add—that I decided I won’t actually kiss you. I think you should be the one to kiss me. Frankly, I’m just not sure I can handle another rejection,” he said, starting to lose control of the straight face he was forcing, his mouth twitching giving away his repressed smile.

  Freya let out an odd noise in frustration, almost a growl, then walked into the bedroom and slammed the door. She quickly changed into her sleepwear, hoping he would not walk in on her. Although she did not want to open the freshly slammed door so soon, she really had to use the bathroom, and that made her even angrier. When she opened the door, she saw Colin still sitting on the sofa. She made a run for the bathroom and decided to do everything she needed to do in there to get ready for bed.

  When she was finished, she went back into the bedroom just as quickly as she had left it. She hopped into bed, grateful that Colin was not there, and pulled out her tablet. She thought a puzzle might calm her nerves, or at least hopefully give her a little distraction. To her disgust, Colin came into the bedroom not long after she started her puzzle. She refused to look at him, clutching her tablet like it might fly away somehow.

  Colin undressed without saying a word, and of course he stripped to his undershorts.

  Freya clenched her jaw, and her entire body stiffened. She feared she might implode at any second. “So? What puzzle are we playing tonight?”

  Her eyes bugged, she took a deep breath to calm herself before responding, “I am already doing a puzzle, for your information. Feel free to choose your own.”

  “Are you mad or something?”

  “No! Why would I be?”

  “Hmm, you sure sound mad to me. You know what I think?”

  “I’m not sure you think at all,” she muttered.

  “I think you wanted me to kiss you, and when I didn’t, that made you mad. Is that it, Freya? Did that make you mad?”

  “Nope, I’m fine,” she said shortly, her jaw getting even tighter.

  “Freya wants to kiss me. Freya wants to kiss me.” Colin chanted.

  “I hate you!” she screamed and threw down her tablet.

  Colin seemed completely unfazed by her outburst. “No you don’t. You can’t possibly hate me if you want to make out with me so badly.”

  Completely losing control of her temper, Freya grabbed a pillow and hit him with it. That simply wasn’t enough, so she proceeded to repeatedly slap him with both hands. Suddenly, Colin grabbed her by the waist and slid her into the center of the bed, pinning her lower body with his. It was harder for Freya to slap him with his body weight on top of her, but she kept trying anyway.

  Colin deftly grabbed both of her wrists and firmly pinned her down. “Freya, you’re dealing with a Security officer. I can take people down who are three times your size. Physical violence is not the answer here.”

  Freya tried to squirm and wiggle to break free. She even tried to bite his wrists, but he had put just enough distance between his arms and her mouth.

  “I’ve got to admit, for a poster child, you’ve sure got a lotta fight in you, kiddo.”

  She finally let her body go limp, but turned her head to the side, refusing to look at him.

  “If I let you go, do you promise to be good?”

  She still would not look at him, but she slightly nodded after a moment’s pause.

  Colin let go of one hand, and she remained motionless. He slowly let go of the other, and she still didn’t move. He carefully eased off her.

  Freya waited until he had completely moved away from her, then quickly rolled off the bed and left the bedroom. She lay down on the sofa. There were no blankets, and she knew she would eventually catch a chill, but she was too angry to go back into the bedroom. Her entire body was practically vibrating with anger. She could not even fathom how angry she was or why. There were so many thoughts swimming through her head, so many feelings, but she couldn’t understand them herself.

  She shot up off the sofa and headed back into the bedroom, flipping the lights on as she went in. Colin was sitting up in bed, propped against pillows, playing on his tablet. He watched her walk in, storm over to the closet, and grab her exercise clothing. Next, she marched into the bathroom to change, then left the apartment. What she needed most was a run; she was sure only that could clear her thoughts.

  When she got to the elevator, it didn’t open, and so she palmed the scanner as usual, but nothing happened. She palmed it again, again, and again, but there was still no response. There was not even any indication that access had been denied; the device simply did not acknowledge that she was there.

  Like a cloud blowing in, she was overwhelmed with the realization that she was truly a prisoner. Security would not let her out of the building because there was no reason for her to leave, so she would be kept in her cell till morning. Unable to contain all the horrible feelings coursing through her, shifting from anger to the panic of being utterly trapped and powerless, she slid down the wall and began to weep. At first, there were only a few tears, but the awful feelings built upon one another, until her entire body was convulsing. She was sure the entire floor could hear her loud crying. Something told her she should hurry back inside and hide in the shower, that she had to do something other than what she was doing, but that voice quickly lost its power, and she continued to cry.

  Suddenly, Colin swooped Freya up in his arms and carried her back into the apartment. She didn’t fight or resist him, as she had no fight left in her. In their room, the blankets had already been pulled back, and he gently laid her down on the bed and tucked her in. He then left the room and returned with a few handkerchiefs. He rested them near her hand, so she could reach them, then brushed some pieces of hair off her face, pausing momentarily to rest his hand on her cheek. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead once again, then walked out to sleep on the sofa.

  As Freya lay there, she was still incredibly upset, but a few things became clear to her. To her own shock and amazement, she wished Colin was sleeping next to her. Part of her wished he was there to hold her tight while she cried. She had always wanted to be alone, and that was who she thought she was, but now, she wasn’t sure. Part of her anger came from the fact she was dealing with feelings that were completely foreign to her. After all this time, she realized that part of her really wanted him after all. Although she could not even begin to comprehend how that was possible, she knew it to be true.

  Another realization that came to
her was that she was truly hurt. Everything seemed to be a game to him; he didn’t really want her, he merely wanted to prove a point. He had talked about the other girls from his past like they were nothing more than vague memories, as if there was nothing special about them, and he had used every last one of them in his little games. Freya did not want to be like those other girls.

  For someone who had never wanted to be with anyone, she found it quite ironic she had any expectations about who she wanted to be with or how she wanted to be treated. She really did want Colin to care about her in a way he was not capable of caring about anyone else. Momentarily, she recalled him saying he had chosen to stay with her, but that memory was swiftly discarded. He loved playing his little games so much that if he actually did choose to stay with her, which she somewhat doubted, it was most likely because she rejected him. She was a greater challenge to him than those silly girls in the common rooms, and that sounded like just the sort of thing Colin would desire in a female.

  Freya was so deeply distracted by her thoughts that she did not hear Colin come back into the bedroom. She froze when she saw him, unsure of what to do.

  Colin sat down on the bed close to her, while she lay on her side, half-curled up. In fact, he seemed to sit almost right in the curve her body was making. He put his hand on her hip and began to rub it gently. “Freya, I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget how hard this is for you. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’d like to sleep in here with you, if you don’t mind.”

  “You can sleep wherever you want.”

  “I know I can, according to the State, but I am asking you if I can.” He’d gone from gently rubbing her to lightly running his fingers up and down her leg and hip.

  Still too upset to make eye contact with him, she simply nodded in agreement, but even as she did so, she resented that she was being so nice.

  He walked over to his side of the bed and climbed in. This time, he stayed put, and he didn’t reach out for her.

  “Why would you choose to stay here?” Freya asked, still lying on her side, facing the wall. She knew it was not the best time to have a conversation with him about it, but she was struggling to sort out her feelings, and she thought talking to him might help.

  “Do you really want to discuss this now, when you’re so upset?”

  “Yes, I need to know. I need something to make sense to me right now.”

  “Well, okay. Do you remember that day I first saw you, when I was up on the skylight and you were walking below?”

  Freya flipped around in the bed to look at him, intrigued by his question. She said nothing but offered him a nod.

  “I looked deeply into your eyes that day, and I just knew. That’s the girl for me, I thought. Somehow, I just knew you felt the same as I do about the State coupling system,” he explained, the corners of his mouth upturning slightly.

  Freya let out an exasperated grunt and shook her head.

  “That was the first thing we bonded over, Freya. It was special. Don’t discredit it.”

  “Are you going to answer my question or not? I know you wouldn’t have chosen this,” she retorted, feeling defeated. “In fact, I don’t even know why I bothered asking.”

  Colin turned over on his side to face her. “Freya, I know I babble and make jokes at inappropriate times,” he admitted, “but I don’t lie. I chose to stay here with you. I wanted to then, and I still do.”

  “Why? It doesn’t make sense. You could have been coupled with someone who would have been all over you the second you walked in the door. You could have had someone who will gush over you and find you funny and charming all the time, but instead, you just got…me.”

  “Yeah, and then what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What comes after that? She laughs at my jokes, we head to the bedroom, she thinks I’m great, and then what? What’s left after that? Nothing, that’s what. Freya, I’ve seduced females before, but then it’s just…over. I have no more interest in them. I have never really enjoyed their company beyond any physical activity. You’re different. I actually enjoy your company, I like having you around. I like that you don’t make everything easy, because that keeps things more interesting. I like that you take shots at me and can put me in my place. I think one of the best parts is that I got to choose you. I’ve never been able to choose anything in my life,” said Colin. “You’re a pretty big deal.”

  “You enjoy my company more than you enjoyed being with other females?” she asked, shocked. “What about the guys at work? Don’t they make fun of you constantly about us?”

  “They did when you first got here. Look, I could tell this was not gonna head anywhere physically fast, and of course that disappointed me. Yes, when the guys started to make fun of me, I got frustrated and didn’t want to give them more ammo, but I make fun of them just as much about a lot of stuff, maybe even more. It’s not really that big a deal. As soon as we stopped fighting and started joking around a bit, I knew that in the long run, we’ll be a good fit. It’s just gonna take us a bit longer to get there. I think I would have gotten bored if they matched me with another girl, but you’re different, more interesting, and I like that.”

  Freya looked away from him, wanting to sort out her thoughts before speaking to him further. She did feel a little better, a little lighter.

  Colin rolled onto his back and looked at her. “C’mon. Put ‘er here,” he said, patting his shoulder.

  She looked at him, confused.

  He grabbed her and pulled her into him. He directed her head to his shoulder, almost forcing it, then wrapped both his arms around her. “No more fighting tonight. I’ll behave,” he said, then kissed her on the forehead.

  It pained Freya how much she was starting to enjoy lying with him. The comprehension was setting in, and she had to accept that there truly was no way out of the coupling. The only choice she had was to do her best to enjoy it or spend the rest of her life being miserable. He may have a flawed past, and at times he lacked sensitivity, but he had made one valid point, things were more interesting between them. His humor could infuriate her, but it was also what she enjoyed most about their relationship. It would not be an easy path ahead, but she figured she may as well learn to enjoy it.

  Chapter 9

  Colin gently traced his fingers over her stomach, then over her hips and thighs, and returned to her stomach again. He gently kissed her neck, her collarbone, then returned to her lips. She had her arm underneath him, running her fingers up and down his back, feeling utterly blissful. She loved the way his strong body felt next to hers. She reached out to touch his chest, and he grabbed her and pulled her halfway onto him. They kissed as she continued running her hand down his chest and stomach, then deepened the kiss.

  Freya sat up abruptly in bed, her heart pounding. She looked down at herself and saw she was still dressed in the exercise clothing. Colin was asleep beside her. Feeling anxious and a bit embarrassed in her realization that it was all just a dream, she climbed out of bed and checked the time. The alarm wasn’t due to go off for another thirty minutes, but no part of her wanted to get back into bed, so she wandered to the shower and readied herself for the day. Once her heart rate settled down, her mind started to try to put together the pieces. What was that? What just happened? Never before had she wanted to even kiss a male, yet now she was having dreams about a lot more than that.

  Her mind raced, and she had no idea how to cope with those new feelings that were bombarding her, even in her sleep. Did Colin’s little experiment do something to me? She thought maybe it was just because she’d finally come to accept that she had to stay with him. Or maybe it’s just the normal feelings people have, finally catching up with her. She was beginning to feel sensations in her body like none she’d ever felt before.

  Suddenly, the shower stopped; apparently, she had been doing more thinking than washing, and she’d used up all her rations before she had time to finish rinsing. Frustrated, she toweled off and looked in the mirror. T
here were still suds in her wet hair. She tried her best to get them out with the towel, but it was a lost cause; she decided she would just have to put her hair in a bun and deal with it looking greasy all day.

  She put on her work uniform and was ready to leave, but first, she wanted to put her dirty clothes away. She walked back into the bedroom just as the first alarm went off.

  Colin rolled over and looked at her. “Why are you up so early? Come back to bed,” he said in a half-coherent voice.

  She put the dirty clothes in the hamper, then walked to the door.

  “Freya, bed,” Colin spoke without opening his eyes.

  “I can’t sleep, so I’m going to the State House early.”

  Colin finally opened his eyes again. “What the heck is wrong with your hair?”

  She sighed, irritated it was so obvious. “Ran out of water before I could rinse it.”

  “Hmm. Well, you can share my shower if you want,” he said with a smirk.