Chapter 10

10

The next morning I wake up hours before dawn because I have some period cramps.

I go to the bathroom to pee and wonder why I’m having cramps on the last day of my period when my flow is so light it’s barely there. My period has been weird ever since Impact, occasionally skipping months and never remaining consistent. There’s no telling what my ovaries and uterus are up to at any given moment. So I take a couple of ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet and then climb back in bed beside Mack.

He’s still mostly asleep, but he mumbles out, “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m good. Just going to the bathroom.”

“Stomach still hurt?”

“No, it’s fine. Some period cramps, but no big deal.”

“Okay. Way too early to get up yet.” He sounds fond and groggy. He pulls me over so I’m cuddled up beside him. “So get over here by me and go back to sleep.”

I rub my face against him and resituate to get more comfortable.

Even half asleep, Mack is the most tender, considerate man I’ve ever known.

I close my eyes and drape an arm around his middle, hanging on to his side as I try to relax back into sleep.

There’s no reason I shouldn’t. I can usually doze back off when I wake up this early in the morning, and the cramps aren’t bad enough to really bother me. But I’m thinking about Mack—enjoying the warmth and strength and bigness of his body and the sweetness of his soul—and it makes me think of a conversation I had with my friend Layne more than two years ago.

Layne, Travis, and the kids have lived in a cute little cabin in the woods, tricked out by a prepper like Chloe’s grandpa’s cabin since Mack and I connected with them after Fort Knox fell. They’ve managed to scavenge and save enough gasoline to fuel their Jeep, so they’ve been able to stay on their own there for years, although they come fairly often to Halbrook or New Haven to help with jobs, visit with their friends, and get provisions.

One of their visits lasted longer than they expected because the construction job Travis was helping with ran into issues, so Layne needed to run back to the cabin to get some extra supplies for the baby. Travis stayed to work, and Faith and the others at New Haven were happy to watch the kids, so I rode with Layne so she wouldn’t have to travel alone.

It was a fairly easy drive in the Jeep, and Layne and I had a great time on the trip, talking about life, reminiscing about the English class I taught her, and reciting our favorite poems. We only stayed at the cabin for an hour since we wanted to return to New Haven before dark. On the way back, we continued talking, but the topics got more serious.

She was pregnant with her third then, and I asked whether she and Travis were planning to keep going. She told me they were. Being pregnant as well as labor and delivery have been easier for her than for a lot of other women, and she loved having babies around more than anything. Travis adored having kids as much as she did, and she wanted to keep going as long as she remained healthy and strong enough to do so. Even back then she knew they’d have to move into town when their oldest reached school age.

Our talk transitioned from there. She asked me if I ever wanted children, and I told her the truth. I did. I always wanted to be a mom when I was younger. When I married Josh, I assumed he and I would start trying as soon as I finished college. But at that point it was clear to me that he was an angry, difficult man, and I wasn’t going to bring a child into that environment, so I gave up the dream.

After Impact and especially after Josh died, things were different for me. I still kind of wanted children in the back of my mind, but I wasn’t in a position to be a good mother—not when I wasn’t settled and was still trying to find myself.

“So,” Layne said, the words slow and very careful, “You’ve never thought about it with Mack? Having a baby with him, I mean.”

I swallowed hard, filled with the anxiety that always overwhelmed me back then when I thought about belonging to a man in a permanent way again. “I’ve thought about it.”

“And?”

I shake my head. “We’re not together for real. We can’t have a kid. I mean, it might happen accidentally, and we’d deal with it then, but we’re always pretty careful about it. The timing and everything. We don’t want…”

“He doesn’t want it either?” She was being so incredibly gentle, but it felt like a slap in the face just the same.

“He says he’s happy.”

“I know. I think he is happy. Ever since you and he hooked up, he’s seemed happy. Content. I just meant…” She focused on the dirt road in front of us and thought for a minute. “He’s always struck me as a traditional guy. I guess I always assumed he’d want to get married and have kids.”

She was right about him. I knew she was no matter how defensive her questions were making me. “Maybe he would. In a different world. In a different relationship. But I check with him all the time, and he keeps telling me he has what he wants. Why would he lie to me?”

She had an answer. I could see it on her face even though she wasn’t getting it out.

“Just say it,” I blurted out.

“Maybe he’s lying to you because he doesn’t want to lose you. Or maybe he’s lying to himself and has convinced himself he has everything he wants out of life. Or maybe he’s making do and not letting himself hope for more. Or maybe I’m completely wrong about all of it. I want the best for both of you. I want you both to be perfectly happy. And if this relationship is what makes you so, then I completely support it. I know why you can’t commit to more, and I totally understand. So does Mack. But I’ve always thought maybe… maybe beneath it all… he…”

“Wants more,” I finished for her. Brokenly. “He wants more than me.”

“No! He wants more than what you can give him right now.” When she glanced over and saw me on the verge of tears, she hurried on, “I’m not saying that’s how it is! I promise I’m not! But maybe you can check in with him. Sometime soon. If he tries to brush it off, don’t let him. Make him tell you honestly what he really wants in a relationship and in life.”

“I thought…” I sniffed and squeezed my arms to my belly, horrified and grief-stricken by the idea that Mack wasn’t as happy with things as he always told me. “I th ought I’d done that. I worry about it sometimes. Of course I do. But he’s always told me he wants to be with me exactly as we are. It’s not like he’s in love with me or anything.”

Layne gave me a sharp look with a jerk of her head.

I bit my lip hard. “You don’t think… I mean… we’ve been clear about things. He wouldn’t…”

“I don’t know,” Layne whispered. “I really don’t. All I know is that sometimes he looks like he…”

He looks like he loves you .

I knew how she would have finished the sentence if she could have gotten the words out.

I was so torn up by the possibility that I could barely stay composed for the rest of the drive back to New Haven. Mack wasn’t even there. He was traveling, doing one of his rounds of help and assistance in the area.

So I had to wait two more weeks before he finally stopped by New Haven. I’m sure he was expecting for us to have a few days of fun and companionship together, but what happened was that I forced a conversation neither one of us wanted to have.

He tried to brush my questions aside, exactly as Layne had predicted.

Then he tried to minimize his own feelings by sounding real casual about it.

But I kept pushing, and eventually the truth came out.

He wanted more. He wanted something serious with me. He wanted a wife and a home and a family .

And back then I was absolutely certain I’d never be able to give that to him.

So I ended things. I crushed us both. And nothing was the same between us again.

We were friendly and polite anytime our paths crossed, but they didn’t cross nearly as often. I had to hear about all the women he was dating in the surrounding communities—fortunately he dated no one at New Haven where I was spending most of my time—and I had to make myself be glad about it since I sincerely wanted him to be happy.

But I wasn’t happy. Not entirely. Not anymore.

Not until I found him holed up in this cabin in the woods and I had him in my life again.

The memories roll through my mind like a movie reel, and I feel all the same stress and uncertainty and upset again. I don’t cry, and I manage to keep my body still, but I’m not anywhere close to sleep.

Until Mack finally bursts out, “What the hell is going on over there?”

There’s no over there . I’m snuggled right up against him. But I know what he means anyway. “Nothing’s going on!”

“Then why are you getting all upset for no reason! Are the cramps worse? Or are you sick again? Like yesterday?”

It is kind of like yesterday when I was crying in the bathroom. “I’m not sick. I’m fine. I was trying to sleep. I thought you were asleep. ”

“Well, I was, but then I was getting hit by all these stressed vibes from you. It was very disturbing.”

I sigh and give up trying to convince him of something that isn’t true. “I wasn’t really stressed. Just a bad memory. Sometimes they hit me, and I can’t push them away, and I feel it all again.”

“Yeah. That happens to everyone, I think. What bad memory are you thinking about right now?”

He asks the questions as if he’s absolutely certain that he has a right to the answer.

I exhale deeply again. Stroke his hip. His lower back. His tight butt, completely bare as usual. “Honestly, I was thinking about when I broke up with you.”

“Why were you thinking about that?”

“I don’t know. Just a random, passing thought. But once it was lodged in my brain, it wouldn’t budge.”

“And it upset you that much?”

“Of course it upset me! It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

He’s fully awake now. He eases me onto my back and rolls over on top of me, propping himself up on his arms so he can look down at me. “It was hard for me too.”

“I know it was. I felt like shit for doing that to you. And I felt like shit for not realizing the way things… things really were a lot sooner.”

“No, that part is my fault. All mine. I’m the one who told you all I wanted was the casual thing. I had my own self half-convinced it was the truth. Why wouldn’t you have believed me?”

“I don’t know. But I felt guilty anyway. Still do a little.”

“You shouldn’t. I’m a big boy, and I can use my words to ask for what I want.”

I giggle at this, as he probably intended. I lift my hand to play idly with his beard. “I’ve never wanted to use you, Mack.”

“You never have. Not even once. It was hard for me when you broke things off, but you didn’t do wrong by me then or any time before then. I might have… I might have done a little wrong to myself.”

I gulp and slide my palm up to his cheek. I wonder if I can possibly find the courage to tell him that my feelings have started to change.

“But I know things are different now,” he continues. “I’m not holding on to any secret hopes or dreams about you anymore. I know we’re just together for right now, and I know that’s best for both of us. But I still want to have these last few weeks, if that’s okay.”

I nod, my heart breaking a little but not enough to really matter. I knew what the situation was when I started having sex with him again, and I can’t guilt him for doing the same thing that I myself did for years in the past. Assume the spoken boundaries around our relationship were genuine on both sides.

“You still seem a little upset,” he murmurs, peering down at me in the darkness of the room .

“I’m just emotional. From all those memories and probably because of my period. I’m really okay. And I want these last few weeks with you too.”

He leans down to kiss me. Then rolls over and pulls me back into our snuggling position. “So try to get some more sleep so maybe we can enjoy ourselves later.”

I laugh at that. And I purposefully blow out the angst from my mind so I can finally fall back to sleep.

I sleep a couple of hours. Long enough for some gray light to be coming in from the cracks around the curtains when I open my eyes again. The sun must be starting to rise.

Blinking up at the ceiling, I process my location and position.

My location is in Mack’s bedroom in the cabin. And my position is beneath him. He rolled me over in his sleep and is lying half on top of me the way he occasionally does. His face is buried in the curve between my neck and shoulder.

The tense emotion in my chest from earlier has settled. I want to smile at Mack’s heavy form and deep breathing. He feels really relaxed. I bring a hand up so I can stroke his back and then slide it up to caress his smooth head.

“Mmm,” he says in half mumble, half moan. “Feels nice. ”

I snicker and keep running my fingertips over the stretched skin and rippling bones of his skull. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“I was. Then you started petting me. Not gonna sleep through that.” He presses a few sleepy kisses against my throat. “You feel okay now?”

“Yeah. I’m better.”

“That’s good.” He mouths the pulse at the base of my neck. The spot he’s always trying to suck hickeys into.

“I’m not sure I have enough energy at the moment for your athletic brand of caveman sex though.”

He huffs with laughter against my skin, still kissing my neck and shoulder sweetly. “Caveman sex?”

“Not in a bad way. In a primal, vigorous, sexy way. It takes a lot of energy.”

He’s still laughing as he nuzzles my cheek and then pushes up my gown so he can get to my breasts. “It’s not like that.”

“It definitely is like that. You’re way more sexually creative and ambitious than most men, and you’ve gotten more so these past weeks. I have no complaints about that, but sometimes I want to take it easy.”

“Well, you can take it easy. I don’t mind doing the work. I’ll try not to be too… vigorous.”

Now I’m laughing softly the way he is. He spends a while teasing my breasts and then moving down to kiss my belly. When his mouth moves even lower, I stop him. “ Huh-uh. I told you my period is still going. Not much but a little.”

“You know perfectly well that’s never slowed me down in even the smallest way.”

“True, but seriously that’s too energetic for me this morning.”

“Okay,” he replies agreeably, moving back up to my breast. “Nothing too energetic. How about one finger?”

“I might need more than one finger!”

He can’t seem to stop chuckling even as he has one of my nipples between his lips again. “Nah. Can’t be too vigorous. Gonna have to be one finger.”

“At least two!” I’m holding his head in place at my breast since what he’s doing feels so good.

“Nope. One’ll do just fine. You gotta trust me.”

“I do trust you. But I like two fingers better.”

“I got a good size finger.” To prove himself, he slips one hand between my thighs, strokes me open, and then slides his index finger past my underwear and into my pussy. My period is so light I didn’t even bother with a tampon or pad this morning.

I gasp and arch up slightly as he starts rubbing my inner walls. There’s no way to be self-conscious about my period with Mack since he’s so clearly not bothered about it at all. He’s moving his finger firmly. Purposefully. He finds my G-spot and starts pushing into it.

I make the most ridiculous, stretched, high-pitched moan. It goes on for a really long time as the pleasure and need throbs through me. I reach my arms above my head to clutch at the headboard.

“See? One finger’s gonna do just fine.” He keeps pumping against my G-spot, lifting his head from my breasts so he can watch my responses. “You’re really gettin’ into it now.”

“I’m… I’m…” I don’t even bother trying to finish the sentence. I’m whimpering again, arching my spine and tossing my head as I try to hang on.

“Be careful. Don’t wanna get too vigorous this morning.” Even his teasing tone doesn’t distract me from my mounting orgasm. “Your pussy is getting all tight around my finger now. You want this bad, don’t you?”

I’m making a lot of embarrassing, wordless sounds, and one of them might have been an affirmative answer.

Mack assumes it is. “That’s what I thought. I love to see you this way. Letting yourself feel so good. It’s what you need, and I’m gonna give it to you.”

This time, even as I’m trying not to writhe and ride his finger in my eagerness, I manage to mumble out, “Mm-hmm.”

“Yes. You’re doing so good.” He pushes his finger harder and faster, barely pulling it out. “Let me give this to you. I’m the man who’s going to do it for you. Just me.”

“Yes!” I gasp, pushing the headboard against the wall a few times in my urgency. “Mack!”

“That’s right. Me. I’m the only man who gets to do this for you. Let go, angel. I want to see how hard you can come. I want to see you let go.”

I release a ragged sob as all my tension shatters into orgasm. He keeps pushing against my G-spot as my pussy grabs onto him hard, and he’s smiling when I finally fall back limply on the bed and beam up at him in complete satisfaction.

“There,” he says, sounding quite pleased with the situation. “Now you should feel better.”

I pant and choke on giggles and wrap my arms around him when he leans down to kiss me.

“That wasn’t too vigorous or energetic or caveman-like, was it?”

“Well. It might have been a little caveman-like. But I yet again have no complaints.”

He clearly appreciates my words. He kisses me again, warm and affectionate. But he’s also very aroused. It’s evident from the tightness of his muscles and the erect length of his cock.

“Roll over,” I tell him, giving his chest a little push. “So I can take care of you too.”

He does as I say, but he’s scanning my face with real concern. “You said you weren’t feeling energetic this morning.”

“I’m not. But doing this doesn’t take much energy.” I sit up, holding his cock in my hands and staring down at it greedily. “I like it. And you never take too long this way.”

“If you’re sure. I don’t want you to push through just ’ cause you think I—” His sentence breaks off abruptly when I lean over and take him in my mouth.

I don’t play around because he’s already so far gone. I give the head of his cock a quick suck and then let him go to rearrange my lips better. Then I slide them back down, farther this time, and move into a fast rhythm of hard sucks.

He lets out a loud burst of sound as his body jerks in response. Usually he likes to hold my head with both hands, but this morning he reaches up with one arm to grab the headboard like I was earlier. He keeps his other hand curved around the back of my skull, guiding my speed and pressure with thrilling possessiveness.

“Oh fuck, Anna. Fuck!” His shoulders come up off the bed in his effort to keep from thrusting into my mouth. “Yes, I love when you do me like this. I love the feel of your hot mouth. All around me. Taking me so good.”

He’s talkative today, and I love it. I’m mumbling out encouragements around the thickness of his shaft in my mouth.

“Yes, I need…!” His spine arches up as his head falls back and his eyes squeeze shut. “I need you. I need you just like this. Take me all the way.”

I manage to get him a little deeper, and that does it for him. He lets out an uninhibited bellow as his body starts to shake. I swallow him down and keep sucking as his body gradually relaxes and his cock starts to soften. He keeps moaning out carnal, satisfied sounds that deeply answer something needy inside me.

Eventually he lifts my head so that his cock slips out of my lips. He’s flushed and slightly damp and fully sated. “You good?”

“Oh yeah,” I tell him honestly. “I’m good.”

“You sure? You said you didn’t want anything too?—”

“I told you the truth about what I wanted, and I wanted to do that.” I let him draw me back up so I’m draped over his limp body.

He keeps checking my face until he’s convinced that I’m being honest. “Okay. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome.”

I settle my head on his shoulder, and he strokes my hair softly.

“So you really do like doing that, I guess.”

I giggle. “Yes.”

“You should have told me a long time ago. I could’ve had years of that kind of treatment.” He’s light. Mostly teasing. So it doesn’t upset me.

But I do say, “No, you wouldn’t have. In the past, you wouldn’t let me give you blow jobs very often. And definitely not like that .”

“I guess not. I was worried it would be… hard or… degrading or something. Since you told me Josh used to expect them from you.”

“Yeah.” I’m feeling pretty good overall. The orgasm took care of the last of my period cramps, and I feel sated and close to Mack. Even the mention of Josh doesn’t bring down my mood very much. “But it wasn’t really giving him blow jobs that was the problem. He used to expect sex every day. He never forced me or anything. But I was only nineteen when we got married, and I had no experience with men before him. So I was completely innocent, and I believed him. A wife was supposed to give her husband sex every night. I wanted to be a good wife.”

Mack snarls slightly. “Bastard.”

“Yeah. He really was. But I should have been… I don’t know. I keep thinking I should have made better decisions and saved myself from the whole thing. Anyway, I tried for the first year to always have sex when he wanted, but then I was into my practice teaching, and I was stressed and exhausted and didn’t feel like sex every night. So I started giving him blow jobs because they were quicker and easier for me.”

“He didn’t deserve anything from you.”

“No. He didn’t. He wasn’t terrible the whole time, but he definitely got worse. We were both young, but he was always kind of angry. And he got meaner and meaner with me, especially when I got that teaching job in Meadows and was really enjoying it and was getting a life that wasn’t about him. He never hit me though. Not then. He just got louder and meaner. I’d run myself in circles trying to predict and manage his moods so he wouldn’t lash out at me.”

“You shouldn’t have had to do that.” He’s playing with a bunch of my hair, holding it and then letting it slip through his fingers.

“No. I shouldn’t have. The ridiculous thing was my dad was similar, and I saw my mom doing the same things I was doing in my own marriage. I guess I’m textbook. Repeating the same patterns. I had a mean, angry dad and then married a mean, angry husband.” I pick up my head to smile down at Mack. “But I’ve made much better choices since he died.”

His expression softens. Then he says almost hesitantly, “You’ve never told me how he died.”

“What?”

“Josh. I knew he was dead, but you never told me what happened to him.”

“Oh.” I swallow. Put my head back down on his shoulder since it seems safer that way. “I thought I had.”

“You haven’t. I figured it was too raw and hard for you, so I never asked directly. You don’t have to tell me now if you don’t want.”

“No. It’s okay. After Impact… After Impact, he got worse. A lot of people did. All the fear and the stress and the struggle to even survive. He eventually started to hit me. He’d do it once and then act all sorry and promise to never do it again. He’d be good for a while, but then he’d do it again. In the old world, I think him hitting me would have been a hard line for me. I really think I would have left after the first time. But after everything fell apart… I felt trapped. I was trapped. How the hell was I going to survive on my own in that world right after Impact. Everything was chaos. And so incredibly dangerous.”

“So what happened?” he murmurs gently.

“It went on like that for about six months. Then one day he hit me in the face. I tried to cover the bruise with the makeup I had left, but an older lady in town noticed and asked about it. I… I told her. The truth. That he was hitting me and it had been going on for a while. Nothing I did would make him stop.”

Mack is silent. His hand is still now as it rests on my back.

“Then… Then the next day…” I take a ragged breath. “Maybe it was just a coincidence. I never knew for sure. But the timing… Anyway, the next day he went off into the woods with a hunting party like normal. He never came back.”

“Fuck,” Mack breathes out.

“They said it was an accident. Someone else was shooting in the area and must have mistaken him for a deer or something. But he was wearing orange, so… I don’t know. But he was dead, and I was…”

“You were what?”

“I was so relieved. Not sad at all. Just relieved.”

“Of course you were. Anyone would have been.”

“And it was then I decided I was going to make the best of my freedom and new start. Even though we were going through an apocalypse, why shouldn’t I finally try to learn how to be strong? ”

“You did.”

“Yeah. I think I did okay. I did get stronger, and maybe I’ve also finally figured out that real strength isn’t what I used to assume it was.”

“That makes sense.” He pauses. Then adds softly, “I’m proud of you. Thank you for telling me.”

I press a little kiss against his shoulder since I can’t get any words out.

We lie in peaceful silence for a few minutes. Then Mack says, “You don’t talk about Josh much anymore.”

“I know. He used to fill my mind, even long after he was dead. But he doesn’t now. Honestly, I barely even think about him anymore. I think that’s good.”

“It is good. He never deserved even the smallest space in your head.”

I smile and find the energy to pick my head up so I can kiss him. We don’t take it very far since both of us are tired and sated.

After a few more minutes, we adjust our positions so I’m at his side and his arm is around me. We go back to sleep that way, and we don’t wake up until midmorning.