Hopeless Romance

Part Four: Love Lost and Found. Chapter Ten.

I thought May’s solo runs, or her runs with Robert as it sometimes turned out, would break me in gently before she left for RR missions.  I was still totally unprepared for them.  It felt nothing like early March when she left to recruit and rescue.  Robert also did RRs and they’d sometimes be sent to back each other up on dangerous missions.  I was grateful someone was watching her back.  I also felt jealous as hell because I knew he was mostly watching her butt.

When she was out on a mission it felt like I held my breath for days. I couldn’t focus.  I had headaches.  Not breathing can do that to you.  I’d jerk awake, sweating, crying as nightmares replayed Mother shooting May and haunted the nights she was away.  Pod would jump up from her place at my feet and bark.  When May left, Pod was my shadow, very different behavior for her these days.  If she wasn’t with May, where she’d even sleep occasionally, she was with others of the community.  She had been adopted by everyone it seemed.  When May was away, Pod knew I needed her warmth and companionship.  It’s cool how dogs can pick up on their human’s feelings.

When May returned safely, full of life and adrenaline, face flushed with joy at freeing someone else, she was at her most beautiful.  I watched the Welcome Speech, watched her on the stage with Frank, and Robert standing next to her, always too close.  I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself, grateful she was back.  My heart raced every time she found my eyes. 

She had gone on a few RR missions.  She was always horny after her RR adventures.  I longed for her return, her safety, her kisses, but on some level I dreaded the time after the Welcome Speech.  Things had been heating up fast between us.  Too fast. 

Anyway, this time, we were finally on our way back to our rooms after the Welcome Speech and showing her new recruit around the caves and to her room.  When we got to her door, she pulled me by the front of my shirt into her cave.  She surprised Pod by gently pushing her away and saying, “go”.  Pod just wagged her tail.  May said more firmly, “Go.  Now!”  Pod looked at me then back at May.  Then she ran off.  May’s kisses were more passionate, physical, primal than they had ever been.  She wanted more.  She was kissing my neck, down my chest, touching me in all the right places.  I was touching her.  I was so turned on.  I hated that I was turned on. 

“I want you” she whispered.

“I’m yours.” I replied.

“You know what I mean.”

“What if you get pregnant?”

She pulled a condom out of her pocket.  “Going above ground has its perks.”

Shit, I hadn’t thought of that.  It was my fail proof excuse.  No one would want to bring a child into this world, although Frank encouraged it.  He said often, “Add to our population.  There is strength in numbers. We have plenty of food for all.” 

“Hello?” May was angry.  I had wandered away from her again, into my brain.  She was always fully present in the moment and could get frustrated at my silence.

“May, you know I love you.  We don’t need to do this.”  Parts of my body screamed at me for saying this.  My brain was the most powerful.  It silenced the others.  I escaped into myself, into my thoughts.

My parents were both very physical people.  They weren’t academics, they rarely read, they had attended a couple years of college.  They ran marathons, lifted weights, and lived in their bodies.  May reminded me of them.  Smart, with a quick, sarcastic wit, but she didn’t live in her head like me.  She lived in her body and her heart.  My parents never really got me.  I didn’t want to be in any sports.  I worked hard to get straight A’s, always, always a book in front of my face.  After filling out a form here about myself, my talents, and all I was assigned to the Research and Strategy department.  My brain was often tired at the end of the day, and I was enjoying feeling that once again. 

Most of the rescued were now girls and women.  This was an idea I came up with in the Research and Strategy department.  For generations the Rachesie had told its citizens they could only have one child.  Historically the male child in a family would grow up and care for his parents; the females would join her husband’s family.  So, when Rache, trying to control its population explosion, passed a one child law, couples would kill or abandon their daughters.  Many of the abandon girls had been adopted by Alumen couples who took pity on them.  This had left Rache with many more males than females.  In our R&S meetings I had learned that besides comp girls, Birth Mothers, garbage workers and other miscellaneous support roles to the Rachesie Government (including delivery operations such as May had pretended to do), females were being sent to Rache and forced into marriage.  I wanted to deprive Rache, as much as possible, of the one thing they really needed. 

I was aware of May moving away.  She sat up, and moved as far away as she could get on the bed.  She was crying, her knees pulled up to her chest.  “What are you ashamed about?  Why are you shutting me out, pushing me away?” She had this uncanny way of knowing how I was feeling.  She was much better than I was at reading body language.  Asking if I was tired before I realized I was, stuff like that. 

I guessed we were going to talk about it now.  There were too many stalled conversations, crossed arms, down looking eyes.  Too many times she had wanted to go farther and I’d stopped it.  Many times I’d just walked away when things got too hot. 

“What is it? Talk to me.” She said in a pleading tone.  “Is it me?  I see you are turned on, I know you want me.  Is it because of what happened to me?  Do you feel sorry for me, disgusted, what damn it?”

I wanted her with every fiber of my being.  But, getting turned on now also made me feel nauseous, and May was right, ashamed.  Getting turned on would make me remember the Comp Girls. I didn’t know what was wrong with me.  Again, all this was just in my head.  I was gathering my thoughts.  What to say.  She wasn’t done.

“Okay, fine.  Keep your secrets, don’t trust me or share with me.  I was completely honest with you, right after you came here!  I was afraid to tell you about my past, that you would judge me, that I would lose you. You talk to me about ideas, books, me, everything but this!  It’s been almost a year.  You are 20 and you won’t have sex with me! What’s wrong??”  She sat there staring at me, I stared back. 

She waited, expectant, hopeful.  There were no tears now.  I still saw the love I always saw there in her emerald eyes.  She had an expectant, hopeful look.  But simmering underneath, for the first time, I also now saw a burning hot anger too.  Her anger closed me up tight.  She couldn’t force herself into my head.  This was the one place I could be free, safe, keep my secrets.  No one could come into this one private place.  She thought she wanted in, but she didn’t.  Be careful May what you ask for, I thought. There was no way I was talking after her tirade, truthful as it was.  There was no way I was prepared for what she said next.

“Get out of my room.  If you don’t trust me, you don’t want to be with me.”

 I walked away, never uttering a word the whole conversation.  I didn’t look back.  I should have gone back to her, stood outside her door, tried to explain even if I felt exposed with others listening.  Nothing could have been worse than the hell that awaited me.