Reawakening (8 page)

He didn’t look cross, though, exactly, when he saw them both. He looked more…bemused, she thought. Like he’d caught them doing something wonderful and terrible all at the same time.

She could hardly catch her breath to assess his expression fully—and for some reason couldn’t stop tugging at her sweatshirt, as though the thing had risen up to reveal her tits or something—but there was an undercurrent, there. Of pleasure or being pleased or…God. She didn’t know.

Why did she even care if he was pleased, or not? Or if Jamie was? It only mattered that she was pleased—or maybe if Kelsey would have been, too. Yeah. There was always that last one.

Would Kelsey have been pleased, to see her dancing on the graves of six billion people?

“I have to…go upstairs, now,” she said, but it came out abrupt and awful. Like something only a total social reject would say. If she’d crouched and pooped on the carpet she didn’t think it would have made her seem any dumber, or more awkward, or what was that thing she was supposed to be aware of, now?

Oh yeah. Social ineptitude.

Though thankfully, neither chose to remind her of how much she sucked at living. Or at the very least neither of them shouted the words
social retard
up the stairs after her, which was a bonus, she felt.

Though it was less of one when she finally shut herself in the bedroom, and realized she couldn’t have made sense of anything that had just happened with a map, a flashlight and a guidebook entitled How To Navigate Social Landmines Before You Poop On The Carpet.

She hadn’t meant for it to all go that way. Dancing and saying where she had to be hadn’t seemed like social landmines, before. But that was the thing about landmines, wasn’t it? You didn’t know they were there, until you’d already blown yourself up.

Chapter Four

They’d tied her to the bed. Of course, they had. She’d gotten wise to these sex-dream-pretexts by now, and what was better at taking responsibility away from you, than tying you to something? Especially when they had an excellent reason for doing so. She’d become a danger to herself, and they’d caught her trying to run away into the landmines, and so they’d just
had
to tie her up.

Of course, the nakedness was something of a question mark. And contrary to the nonsense person her dream-self apparently was, she did actually find the wherewithal to ask why they’d taken all of her clothes.

To which they answered that her clothes were dangerous. Very, very dangerous. They’d become infected with zombie viruses. Of course, they had! And so she had to be naked and tied to a bed.

It all made total sense. Even in the places where it didn’t and the places where it should have been totally frightening. Only it wasn’t, and that was probably the worst part. If they’d done this in reality when she’d first gotten to the cabin, she’d have known and understood that it was a terrible thing. That
they
were using some insane pretext, in order to justify their mad lusts.

But this far down the line and in dream land? It just wasn’t like that. Instead, she found herself wanting to squirm. And maybe beg. They kept standing over her—on either sides of the bed like those breakwater posts she’d thought about—talking and talking about stupid scientific things like clothes viruses until she wanted to kill them.

Why didn’t they care that she was naked? Because that was the overriding feeling. Even her conscious self was completely aware of it—this sense of being ignored in some fundamental, probably psychologically damaging way.

Even though the opposite should have been true. She knew it should. This was her nightmare—being caught by two big, hairy guys. Strapped naked to a bed, to be used at their convenience.
That
was the psychologically damaging part. The apocalypse was the psychologically damaging part.

And especially when she thought about all the ways in which nothing could ever be the same, anymore. Like sex. Sex could never be the same, now. No dates, no courtships, no picking someone because you loved them or desired them or even if you did, maybe they wouldn’t want you because they’d experienced something awful that had fucked them up inside.

Or maybe they just couldn’t have you because you’d picked someone else, instead. It wasn’t as though there was a lot of choice, anymore. People couldn’t just go out and get a new girlfriend to blot out the memory of the old one. Or the one they couldn’t have.

There was no one left, no one left at all, just this and even this wasn’t enough.

“You okay, June?” Blake asked, and she looked up into his strange blue eyes. Jamie had funny eyes, too—but in a different way. They were a deeper blue and had maintained a sharp, sparking life all the way through them.

Whereas Blake’s…

“I’m okay, Blake,” she said only it came out fuzzy and funny and like a question she hadn’t asked. There it hung behind the words, unspoken—
but are you?
She didn’t know if he was, not at all, then to the right of her still naked and unable-to-stop-squirming body, Jamie said—

“You should put the oil on her, you know?”

The word pretext became something giant and flashing and bathed in neon. But there was another word, too, behind the ones Jamie had asked.
Something like permission
, she thought. The word was permission.

Though really all she could think was—
oil?
What in God’s name had her brain come up with, now? Oil! Jesus. If he coated her in black stuff she was going to be very upset.

“Yeah?” Blake said. He sounded weirdly hopeful. She didn’t even want to consider what that said about her subconscious.

“Yeah. She needs it, to get the infection off her skin.”

She thought of Blake saying about the gel, the hospital gel they’d rubbed all over her. Ahhhh. So now it made sense. Her subconscious wasn’t just flying solo into crazy land! It had rubbed two sticks of reality together to make a fire of total stupid.

“You’re right,” Blake said. “But are you sure you want me to do it?”

She hated her subconscious right at that moment.

“Yeah. Yeah. You do it.”

What a nice person Jamie was. Really generous. Not a mean bone in his body. Though she had no idea why that notion of him went through her, right at that moment. Or why said conception felt so warm and right—even more warm and right than Blake’s hands suddenly on her naked body, all covered in slippery oil.

He looked nervous, which probably wasn’t right. She wasn’t sure if Blake ever looked nervous, back in reality. But then back in reality he hadn’t laid two oily hands on her bare breasts, so maybe it all evened out.

She wondered why he’d started there. But then realized how stupid that was. Of course, he started at her breasts. If she’d had the opportunity to touch his spread out and very naked body anywhere she chose, she’d have started with the most obviously male thing. The thing that stood out—that was standing out right now, in one jutting ridge against the material of his trousers.

As it was, she couldn’t take her eyes off it. Her mind told her body what the ropes around her wrists would feel like and she twisted her flesh hard against the fibers. Just to ground herself. Just to get everything straight inside her aching, shivering body.

She tried to remember the last time she’d touched someone’s cock. It wasn’t even two years—it was longer, far longer than that. And she hadn’t exactly explored it in great and varied detail at the time, she knew that much.

Though she wished she had right at that moment, with Blake half-kneeling on the bed beside her, and that strong shape looking so promising and intimidating, all at the same time. She struggled to get closer, to show him that she was cool with all of this and he didn’t have to make up some stupid thing about oil, but he was wily. He kept just out of reach—even as he slid those slippery hands over…oh. Oh.

It was excruciating. Like being massaged by a gorgeous eunuch. He didn’t even pretend to do it like a medical professional, either. His eyes were heavy with what could only be termed all-consuming lust, and when she couldn’t help squirming or sighing, he did the things that made her squirm and sigh again.

Like rubbing his palms right over her nipples. Yeah, oh yeah. That turned her inside out, all right. Real nerves swapped with dream ones and in her sleep she lunged upwards, to get more of it. More contact, more rubbing, just more, more, more.

“I think she likes that,” Jamie said, and she didn’t know which one of them was worse. Blake for actually touching but not giving her the thing she needed, or Jamie for all of his pointed little comments.

Why was he the one who always had to talk? He’d done so in the last dream, too, she was sure. As though he’d become this whole other person in the back of her mind, and that person liked to talk kind of dirty and teasing.

It made her wonder if he was really like that. If her brain had picked up on something about him that hinted at a penchant for faintly suggestive and very arousing little prompts and observations. Maybe he talked that way about pancakes, usually, and her mind had just translated it.

I think she likes blueberries
became
I think she likes you almost touching her pussy. Do it again. See if she’ll arch right up off the bed. Oh would you look at that? Yeah, she will.

She wanted to shout at him to stop being so cruel but the thing of it was—it didn’t feel cruel. It felt a-maz-ing. Like being dipped in liquid heat. Like everything he said—no matter how innocuous sounding—went directly to her sex and touched all the places Blake wouldn’t with his sweeping, slippery hands.

Then Jamie said, “Touch her pussy, now, touch her—she’s dying for it.” And everything in her melted down to nothing. Blake didn’t even have to obey—though it was good that he did.

When her legs practically fell open, he just slid his whole big hand right between her legs, right over her too-swollen and too-heated mound.

It was like before. In the dream, before, when touching her there had given her a sense of this incredible
filthiness.
He didn’t even let a finger slide between the lips of her sex, but the filthy feeling remained. It was like getting split open—it wasn’t the same as any of the other similar touches she’d had in the past.

His hand was big, and it gripped the entirety of her sex as though he needed to anchor himself, somehow. Feel all of her out, before he progressed any further.

She couldn’t help moaning, and barely cared if her sleeping self moaned, too. His hand on her felt so
lush
. Decadent, almost, and especially with Jamie there drawling on about how she felt. Like this? Like this?

“Hot,” Blake said, then after a moment, “I can tell she’s really wet, too, without touching her right there.”

God, that was…specific. Were dreams usually this specific? She couldn’t even remember having dreams where people actually said things, never mind all of this nonsense. They weren’t operating within pretexts, now. It was all sex one hundred percent of the time, and they were definitely as horny as she was.

What else could it mean, when Jamie said things like—“Go on and touch her, then, so we can see.”

It was so
rude
, after all. Even ruder than Blake’s hand on her. Though Blake’s hand soon progressed to something worse and better, all at the same time. He just slid two fingers all the way down, down through her slit, spreading everything as he went.

Then she forgot her own name and where she was and whether she was dreaming or not.

Something was blooming hot and bright between her legs. It felt like some kind of inferno, only there was a muted sense to it, the way feelings sometimes got during dreams. A kind of charged, slowly pulsing thing that threatened to reach a terrible crescendo at some point.

Though the truth was, she wanted it to get there. Her body needed it to get there. Apparently it was really, really mad at her for denying it some masturbation the other day, and now it wanted to wriggle against Blake’s imaginary fingers and urge that feeling on until it got what it so badly needed.

Like his thumb against her clit. Oh yeah. It needed that, all right. His thumb against her clit was heaven, it was glorious, oh God, was Jamie saying something weird like
rub it in circles, in circles
?

She felt sure he was. Then he was talking directly to her, too, and she just couldn’t take that. Not on any level.

“You like that, baby?” he asked.

Lord only knew who this version of Jamie was. He looked curious and hungry all at the same time, with his head on one side like that. And his deep blue eyes had little sparks right in the uppermost corners, as though the whole enterprise just made him feral and thrilled and like he wanted to just fuck her right. Now.

She thought about telling him that he was a tease. But her dream-self wasn’t allowed to talk, apparently. Her dream-self didn’t even answer his question—she just let him go on, rambling in this completely horny manner.

“You want him to touch your clit a little more? Just tell me. I’ll get him to do it, no problems.”

Her dream-brain flashed up with the words—what
a nice guy
. Her dream-brain was nuts, clearly.