The day after: An apocalyptic morning (70 page)

              "This is going to be quite an experiment," Skip said, looking from one of his women to the other.

              "What happens," Christine asked Paula, "if both of us... you know... want some at the same time? I'm sure that will happen from time to time."

              Paula smiled. "That's one we'll just have to work out when it comes up, won't we?"

              Dale died at 7:30 that night. There were no dramatic last words, no brief instant of awareness, he simply died, his breathing coming to a halt as his body, suffering from severe hypovolemic shock, finally gave up the battle to keep delivering oxygen to his brain. Paul watched him go, feeling helpless and impotent at his inability to do anything to prevent it. He covered him up with his sheet and then simply sat there, staring at the covered corpse while Sherri snored away behind him.

              He did not know how long he stayed that way but finally Janet's voice, gently calling his name, stirred him from his trance. He turned and beheld her standing in the doorway, her pretty face framed by her short black hair.

              "Hi, babe," he said softly, standing up and walking over to her.

              "Is he gone?" she asked, casting a look over at the bed.

              "Yeah. Just a few minutes ago. He never really had a chance."

              "You did what you could," she said, putting her arms around him, offering him what comfort she could.

              "Which wasn't a lot," he said bitterly.

              They held each other in the doorway for awhile, neither one speaking. Gradually, he began to feel a little better. Just a little.

              "Are you going to sleep here tonight?" she asked him.

              "Yes. Sherri might need me. I'm the only medical person we have. Never thought that me and my EMT card would be able to say that."

              "Do you want me to stay with you?" she asked. "I can go get us a couple of cots out of the supply room. Maybe give you a hand if you need it?"

              He smiled at her, giving her a kiss on the nose. "That would be nice," he said. "I could use a little company. You get the cots, I'll move Dale into the supply room."

              Thirty minutes later, the cots had been moved in and placed on the far side of the room and Dale was zipped into a sleeping bag and in storage. When Paul returned from washing up he found Janet had spread two sleeping bags out and was lying atop of them.

              They held each other, enjoying the closeness, and whispered back and forth, talking of the events of this most amazing day. She told of how terrified she had been, cowering with children in the breakfast room while the sound of gunfire popped continuously from just outside. He told her of his horror when he saw the condition of the wounded for the first time, as he realized that he was not equipped to deal with what had happened. Gradually, after exercising the demons of the day (partially anyway), their talk turned to the meeting that night.

              "I feel ashamed of myself now," Janet told him. "I can't believe that I was just as ready to vote Skip out of town as everyone else was. I let myself be led by Jessica. Just like Skip said, I was a fucking sheep."

              "Don't feel bad," he told her. "You weren't the only one. Jessica is an expert at twisting people's opinions to match her own. Especially when it's something that we were all taught to be opposed to in the first place."

              "I'm still not sure how I feel about it," she said. "I mean sixteen is awfully young. But I can also see Skip's point. Who are we to let Christine kill for us and then turn around and tell her she's not allowed to have an adult relationship with someone? After all, she was out there fighting for us and I was in here huddled with a bunch of kids and peeing my pants."

              "Skip does have a way of convincing people when he wants to, doesn't he?"

              "He has a way of making us take a look at who we are," she corrected. "At least he does if we bother to listen to him. What do you think is going to happen to Jessica now?"

              "She'll be kicked off the committee," he said without hesitation. "I've been complaining about her vote stacking this entire time..."

              "I know you have."

              "Yes, I guess I did dump that on you a lot, didn't I. But anyway, now that it's become an official issue, now that there is something tangible, like deaths and invasions, to hang upon it, she's gonna go down. When everybody gets a good look at all of the things she's voted against just because she didn't happen to like Skip, or because of some other petty issue... well... we're talking about Watergate here. She's finished."

              Janet smiled a little. "I can't say I'll be sorry about that."

              "Me either."

              Silence ruled for the next few minutes as they continued to lay there with their arms intertwined. "Did you hear the latest?" Janet finally asked.

              "No, what might that be?"

              "Well, the rumors about Skip and Christine moving in with Paula were apparently correct. They all three went back to Skip's house together, walking arm in arm no less."

              Paul sighed, wishing for a cigarette. "I wish they would have given everyone a few more days before they sprang this. Freakin' polygamous relationships? Can you believe it?"

              "Actually," she said slowly, "I can. I'm afraid that it makes a lot of sense given the circumstances."

              He looked at her as if she was mad. "What?"

              "Surprised I would say that huh?" she said, a strange smile upon her face. "Believe me, I never would have thought I'd ever speak in favor of such a thing. It goes against everything I believe in about marriage and relationships. When I first heard that they were intending to do that this afternoon, I was outraged. Two women living with one man? Absurd."

              "But you don't feel like that now?"

              "It's better than the alternative that we are living with," she said.

              "The alternative?" he asked, feeling he was treading on shaky ground.

              "Let's speak freely, Paul," she said, pulling back from him a little and giving him a serious look. "You're a good man, a caring man, and I love you a lot, even more, I think, than I loved my husband before the comet. But I know that I'm not the only one that you've slept with."

              Paul looked at her aghast. Had he really thought that she knew nothing about his little trysts? He really had. And did assuming that seem a ridiculous notion now? Yes it did.

              "I understand," she said. "Really, I do. I don't think that a normal man was meant to withstand the kind of pressure that we have in this town. It hurt a little, knowing you had done that, but, strangely, in a way it made me love you even more."

              His jaw dropped a little more. "Uh... how is that?"

              "Because you try not to," she said. "You give in to the temptation on occasion, that is true, but you're not like most of the other men in town. You don't have three other women that you're stringing along with promises that you're going to leave me soon. You haven't dumped me and made someone else your official companion. You try to be faithful in an environment where it's probably impossible. But you see, it does hurt to have you sneaking around on me. That will always hurt any woman no Micker what the circumstances."

              "What are you saying?" he asked her.

              "I'm saying that maybe Paula and Skip and Christine have the right idea. Maybe having more than one woman would keep you from straying and sneaking. Now I'm not saying that you should go out and drag someone home right now, but... well, if there was someone that we both could get along with... I would rather we... you know... have it official and in the open than have you seeing her on the sly."

              Paul looked at his woman in amazement. He had thought that the day had given up all of the surprises that it had to offer. Apparently he had been wrong.

              A candle burned on each side of the bed, imparting a soft, romantic glow upon the bedroom. Skip was naked, his erection sticking out rigidly before him, his hands sliding over the soft firmness of Paula's breasts.

              "Mmmm," she purred, her hands covering his, her lips kissing his neck. Moisture dripped from her sex, the odor permeating the air.

              The trio had decided, after an absurdly long conversation in which both women tried to out-kind the other, that Paula would have the honor of sleeping with Skip on this first night. Christine had finally demanded it. "Let's just get this over with," she'd said. "Skip, take her in there and fuck her right now. Then this will all be real, then I'll have to accept it."

              And so he was doing what he had been told, with Paula's enthusiastic cooperation. It felt very strange to be naked with Paula, in the same bed that he had shared with Christine, while Christine was in the very same house and not only knew about it, but had told them to do it. The knowledge was strangely arousing in a way that was part guilt, part glee.

              "Suck them, Skip," she moaned, moving her hands from his up to his head. She gently pushed downward. "I love my titties sucked."

              He kissed his way down her neck and across her shoulder, his tongue tasting her salty flesh. He moved down, burying his face in the valley between her twin globes, feeling the firmness enfold his cheeks as her fingers twined through his hair. Finally he circled in on the target, sliding his tongue around the aureole of her right breast a few times before capturing the rigid nipple between his teeth. He began to suckle.

              "Ohhhh, yesss," she moaned, her hands dropping down to his back, enjoying the delicious sensation coursing through her. From her position on the bed she was able to see the door to the bedroom, which she had purposely left slightly ajar. She could see nothing on the other side of the small gap since the rest of the house was darkened, but she had a feeling that someone was there all the same.

              Christine sat on the couch for as long as she could stand, thinking about what was going on in the bedroom just fifteen feet away. She did not know how she should feel. Her emotions were locked in a turmoil of shame, jealousy, disgust, and sharp, undeniable sexual arousal. She could not deny this last sensation, could not even pretend that it was something else. Her nipples were hard little points against her shirt. Her vagina was leaking so much lubrication that it almost felt like she'd peed in her panties.

              "My God," she thought breathlessly, wondering if she was perverted or not, "I'm getting turned on thinking about Skip and Paula making love." This realization only served to arouse her more. Her arousal served to make her feel guiltier, and more disgusted with herself, which in turn served to accent the jealousy. Never in her life had she experienced such a conflicting mix of feelings. Never had she even imagined such a thing.

              She stared from the darkness of the couch towards that small glow of light coming through the crack in the bedroom door. She heard Paula say "suck them Skip, I love my titties sucked," and she couldn't stop a groan from leaving her mouth. She began to twist and squirm on the couch, crossing and uncrossing her legs, her fingers twining together restlessly in her lap. She let her index finger slide slowly across her crotch and she felt heat and dampness emanating from the blue jean material that covered it.

              Finally, she could take it no more. Maybe it meant she was sick, maybe it meant she was a disgusting peeping tom, but she had to see what was going on in there. She had to.

              She got up slowly, her breathing heavy, her nipples aching, and made her way through the darkness towards that small strip of light that marked the doorway. Why had that door been left open? Why were there still candles burning in the room? Didn't Paula and Skip have the decency to close the door while they were... while they were... making love? Especially if they were going to leave the lights on? Had it been deliberate? Had they wanted her to hear them, to see them? And if so, why?

              She crept quietly, feeling like a criminal, telling herself to just keep walking until she got to the spare bedroom, to go in there, slam her door, and put a pillow over her head. Intellectually she knew that she should do just that. But she didn't. She was drawn towards the door like a magnet. When she reached it, she peered through the four-inch gap, at first seeing nothing but the dresser and the nightstand. A slight adjustment of the angle however, and she was looking at the bed and the two naked bodies upon it.

              Paula was lying on her back, her brown hair cascading over a pillow, her feet facing towards Christine. Skip was lying partially atop her, on his stomach, his mouth fastened to her right breast, his tongue and lips working it over. His right hand was between Paula's widely spread legs, the fingers probing through her black curls, sliding slowly in and out of her vagina while her hips moved gently up and down to the rhythm. It was an act of foreplay that Skip often did to her when they were making love and she knew how good it felt, how crazy it could drive her. Seeing it done to Paula now, looking at it from the perspective of an observer instead of a participant, made her draw in a sharp gasp of air. She stared at his fingers going in and out of her, watching as her glistening lips pushed and pulled with the intrusion and retreat. She felt a fresh pang of jealousy stabbing through her heart. At the same time, she felt a fresh gush of moisture between her legs, felt the hardness of her clit pushing against the cotton of her panties.