A few hours later, I sat up to the island in Eric’s kitchen while Alicia poured me a second glass of iced tea to wash down the delicious plate of lasagna I’d just eaten.
She glanced up at me with a little smile. “You sure you don’t want any more lasagna? Or any more garlic bread or salad?”
Taking my glass from her, I said thanks, but no thanks. “I’m totally stuffed. I haven’t eaten so well since before the Chaos. I haven’t had such a nice, hot shower either. In fact, I’m kind of wondering…are we each allowed a hot shower every single day? I’m already looking forward to my next one.”
Having a seat on a bar stool opposite me, Alicia beamed. “You can take a nice, hot shower whenever the heck you feel like it. You can take several a day if you want. Our solar power makes it so that no house in our community ever runs out of electricity, including electricity to heat the hot water heaters.”
Just then, Alicia’s friend, Jessie, returned to the house, having left earlier to bring over more stuff for me. Huffing and puffing a little, she came in the kitchen and set a large box on the side of the island. “Here’s some more clothes. Also, some decorative candles and other things for the house, some more toiletries, and even some brand-new jewelry and makeup for you too, Ellie. You’re lucky…some of our men cleaned out an abandoned department store some fifty miles from here about a week ago…and that nice score greatly helped to replenish our supply pantry.”
After taking a look in the box, I thanked Jessie, smiling. Aside from having to deal with the strange, complicated situation with Eric and Ryan, I was already loving my new life in Silverfield, especially the two new friends I’d already made in Alicia and Jessie.
However, once I’d finished my iced tea, Alicia said that she and Jessie had better get going. “With all the daily security patrols that our husbands have to take part in, dinnertime is usually the one time of day when we’re certain to get to see them and spend a little time with them.”
More than a little forlorn, I hid it, saying that I understood. “But will you guys come back and visit me tomorrow?”
Alicia said that I could count on it. “And as for getting through tonight…like I said earlier, don’t worry. Jessie and I unpacked your first few boxes of clothes in your own bedroom upstairs, meaning, that you don’t have to go into Eric’s bedroom or Ryan’s unless you want to. And you don’t have to let either of them into your room either.
No matter what questionable decisions he sometimes makes, Eric isn’t some kind of a crazy rapist or anything; and not that I know him very well at all, but I’m just guessing that Ryan isn’t either, and I’m just basing this off what some of the women in his group told Jessie and me while we were bringing over your dinner and all the other stuff. So…just feel free to do whatever you want to do tonight, and sleep wherever you want to sleep, Eric and Ryan be damned. Once you get a good night’s sleep in a real bed, you can figure out all that stuff later.”
“Well….” I said, a little uncomfortably. “I think I’ve kind of already made up my mind about the situation with Eric and Ryan.”
Jessie lifted her dark eyebrows. “You have?”
I nodded, tucking a strand of long, dark blonde hair behind one ear. “Yeah. I’m just going to be with both of them, I guess, if that’s what they both want. I mean…in a way, I just don’t feel like I really have a choice. My community desperately needs all the things that Eric offered as part of the deal, so I’m going to keep up my end of the bargain. I just can’t see myself doing anything else.”
Moving the box of clothes and other things she’d brought to one side, Jessie had a seat on a barstool. “Well…that’s fine if you’ve made your choice, but I just want to make sure that you do feel like you’re making a choice, and that you’re doing all this willingly, as a way to help yourself and your community, and maybe get some other benefits that you want in your life.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is that none of us women here in Silverfield want any other woman to get into any kind of a mating relationship feeling like she’s being forced into it, and feeling that she basically has to submit herself without her full consent or something. Because that…that would not be cool here. However, if you say that you’ve willingly made your choice to help your community and maybe even gain something that you want at the same time…well, that’s totally fine, of course.”
Alicia sighed quietly. “You may as well just tell her your story, Jessie.”
With her olive-toned skin flushing pink, Jessie looked at Alicia. “Well, I don’t know if that’s necessary right now. Maybe some other time, but-”
“All right. Since Jessie is a little shy, I’ll just say it,” Alicia said to me. “Basically, and I’ll leave all very personal details out, but several months ago, Jessie was living in falling-down shack twenty miles from here, nearly starving to death on a diet of crayfish and clover, and fighting off Creepers with an aluminum baseball bat.
Our men stumbled across her one day and carried her back here for medical care, kicking and screaming, I might add, because Jessie had a life-threatening fever from a badly infected cut on her leg. Once she was all healed up, two men from our community laid claim to her, basically saying that they both wanted to marry her. Jessie didn’t quite know what to think.
Well, fast forward several months, and I’ll just say that Jessie is now a very, very happily married woman with two husbands. Now, like I told you earlier today, Ellie, this isn’t a situation that I know would ever work for me…but I’m just using Jessie as an example to tell you that some women ultimately decide different things, because that’s what they ultimately decide that they want. And as long as a woman decides that she wants that, of her own free will, then that’s okay with our community, and that’s okay with us women. Do you see what I’m trying to say?”
I was pretty sure that I did, but when I didn’t respond fast enough, Alicia continued.
“Basically, what Jessie and I are trying to say is that if you want a two-men-one-woman sort of thing, that’s totally fine. It’s totally accepted here in this weird new world. However, if you’re grossed out by any of this, or if you think that you might end up feeling taken advantage of, or if you think that you might even end up feeling like you were raped on any level because you really didn’t have much of a choice…well, just pump the brakes, and tell me and Jessie.
We’ll put a stop to things. Now, whether that might entail us lobbying Ryan and Eric to let you pick just one of them or something, I don’t know. I really honestly don’t know what Jessie and I would do. But, at any rate, just know that we look out for all other women here, and even if you were to decide that you want to break the deal and go back home, we’d try to figure out a way that your people would get some kind of a benefit from you traveling here to check things out.
We’d try to figure out a way that your people would at least be given a month’s worth of food for your trouble or something. This would be the worst-case scenario, though. Like I said, maybe we’d first try to see if we could get Ryan and Eric to agree to let you pick just one of them or something. After all, that would only be fair, since Tom told you back in your community that the deal would be you being mated to one alpha only.”
With many different thoughts racing through my mind, I felt my face warming a little for some reason; I took a moment or two to carefully choose my words before responding to Alicia, avoiding her eyes while I did so. “I guess all I can say is that even though I do feel a little…maybe I’ll say, ‘hemmed in’ by feeling like I have to uphold my end of the deal, no matter what…well, I’ll also just say that I don’t really want you and Jessie to intercede on my behalf at this point. I guess because…well….”
With my face becoming even a little hotter for some reason, I paused to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear again before continuing. “I suppose I don’t find the idea of sharing a bed with two men at once to be completely disgusting or anything. So, maybe once I get to know Eric and Ryan a little better, maybe I’d…well, maybe I’d be fully willing to explore the type of relationship where….”
With my face feeling as if it had burst into actual flames, I swallowed, unable to finish my thought.
Beside me, Jessie made some strange noise that made me think that she’d stifled a tiny little squeal of excitement or something. And when she spoke, her voice held a tiny, unmistakable hint of excitement as well.
“You’re right that a two-man-one-woman thing isn’t ‘completely disgusting,’ Ellie. In fact, it’s…well, it’s…simply put, it can be a really good thing. I come from a pretty conservative background, so I didn’t want to come right out with the details about my own life and have you think I’m strange or perverted or something, but…just trust me. If you’re open to the kind of mating union that I have…I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”
Just then, noise coming from the direction of the front door made Jessie, Alicia, and me turn our heads that way, and we soon heard someone call out.
“Anyone home? It’s Ryan.”
Even though I couldn’t yet see him, the sound of his deep voice alone made some current of electricity race though my body from my head to my toes.
Giving me a tiny little wink, Alicia hopped down from her barstool. “Guess we’ll be going now. Good luck, Ellie, and just remember, Jessie and I will meet up with you again tomorrow. We’ll give you the grand tour of Silverfield.”
I said okay, and before I knew it, she and Jessie had left the kitchen. Knowing that Ryan would probably soon be coming in to say hello, I suddenly felt extremely self-conscious and felt the need to busy myself doing something. So, not knowing what else to do, I hopped off my barstool and began rummaging around in the box Jessie had brought me, quickly pulling out a few long, red taper candles and brass holders. I was working to secure the candles in the holders when Ryan entered the kitchen, making me experience a little rush of electricity again with the sound of his deep voice.
“So, you’re setting up house?”
Trying to make one of the candles stay put in its holder, I glanced up at him. “Yes. I guess so.”
Moving slowly, he made his way over to the island before responding. “Well…I’m glad to see that, but…if you’re staying here, if you’re accepting Eric’s deal…I just want to make sure that you’re truly okay with all this. If you’re not, you can go back to your own community, you know. If you want to, I can’t say that I’ll make sure your community gets everything that Eric promised, but I’ll try to make sure that you all at least get something. Even if it’s just a few flats of canned goods for your trouble in traveling here, or something like that.”
Having a flash of déjà vu, I glanced up at him again. “I just basically had this same discussion with Jessie and Alicia, and…I think I’m fine accepting Eric’s deal. I want everything he promised for my community, and I don’t want there to be any problems.”
“So, you’re not upset with Eric, then?”
Unable to get the stubborn candle to sit upright in its holder, I glanced up at Eric yet again. “Oh, I didn’t say that I’m not upset with Eric. I was told one thing when Tom came to my community, and then I was told another thing when I came here. So, obviously, Eric changed the terms of the deal on me, which I think is a little underhanded and sneaky. However, at the same time….”
Feeling increasingly awkward, and not wanting to continue with my thought, I told Ryan to just never mind, then went back to trying to wedge the candle into the holder.
Silently, making me feel even more awkward, Ryan slowly came around the island to stand beside me before speaking in a low voice. “‘However, at the same time,’ you’re hungry.”
Surprised and confused, I suddenly looked up at him. “What? No. That’s not what I was going to say at all. I just had the biggest, most delicious dinner I’ve had since the Chaos started.”
With his green eyes twinkling with clear amusement, he cracked a little smile. “I didn’t mean you’re hungry hungry, like hungry for food. I meant hungry, as in, maybe you’re thinking that you’re a little upset with Eric for changing the terms of the deal; ‘however, at the same time,’ as you said, maybe you’re still willing to go through with the deal, because you’re a little hungry. Maybe a little hungry for some masculine attention, and maybe a little hungry to see what it might be like to have two alphas in your bed.”
Stunned and embarrassed by his frankness, I went back to my candle and holder, face flaming. “What you just said shows that you can’t read minds, because that isn’t what I was thinking at all. Not in any way, shape, or form. I wasn’t thinking anything even close to what you just said, in fact. And, now look what you’ve done with talking in such a vulgar way around me. You’ve made me mess up fitting this candle in its holder for about the thousandth time.”
With his fingers firm yet gentle, Ryan pried the candle from my hands. “Here. Let me help.” While I watched him silently, he took the candle over to the sink, where he turned on the hot water and just looked out the window while it warmed up. Once steam was coming off the water, he stuck one end of the candle beneath the flow for a few seconds, just long enough to heat up the wax and make it pliable, and then shut the water off before returning to me at the island. “Now, let’s see if we can slide it in.”
Reading a bit of sexual innuendo in his comment, I just stood by, hot-faced, while he easily secured the candle in the holder by giving it a few gentle twists.
“There we go. Just like that. See, sometimes, when you have an object that’s rock-hard, like a candle, you just have to work at things for a bit until you can easily slide it into the holder. Usually, it’s the holder that needs to be thoroughly warmed up first, but in this case, it was the candle itself.”
Finding myself bizarrely tickled by his over-the-top, clear sexual innuendo, I suddenly laughed. “Are you trying to tell me that you feel like you need to go stick your dick under the faucet, Ryan?”
Wincing a little, he broke into a smile at the same time. “Okay. Was all that a little too over-the-top?”
I laughed again. “Yeah. Although I do like a little bit of dirty talk.”
Shocked at myself, I couldn’t believe I’d just said what I had to a man I barely knew.
With his full, delectable lips still twitching with amusement, Ryan just lifted his dark brows at me. “Oh, really? You like a bit of dirty talk?”
Now deeply embarrassed, I grabbed the other candle and holder and began heading over to the sink. “Let’s just get this other one in its holder.”
After we’d accomplished that task with less sexual innuendo, Ryan began helping me put away a collection of little bud vases that Jessie had brought me. After that, he helped me load my dinner dishes in the dishwasher, showing me how to program and start the dishwasher along the way. Once that was done, we just stood near the dishwasher, Ryan standing casually with a hip against it, and me just kind of standing awkwardly, trying not to think about the outline of his hard chest beneath his t-shirt, and trying not to think about how badly I wanted to run my hands over his muscles.
With a hand propped against the countertop, he just surveyed my face, expression unreadable, before speaking. “Do you want to kiss me, Ellie? Because I really want to kiss you.”
Screwing up my courage, I answered him with complete honesty. “I do want to kiss you…but I had lasagna and garlic bread for dinner, and I’m a little worried about my breath.”
Ryan’s reaction was a loud, immediate chuckle, which brought a smile to my face in spite of my nerves.
Once his laughter had subsided, he grabbed a piece of garlic bread from a plate of it that Alicia had left on the counter. “Here.” He proceeded to take a big bite of the bread, then chewed and swallowed quickly. “Now, we both have garlic breath. So, there’s nothing left to stop us from kissing.”
With butterflies rioting in my stomach, I found myself unable to wipe the big smile off my face. “All right.”