“Love and Family During the Great Death”
Chapter 12: A Lot Left Unsaid
David, Sara and Linda got up early, hoping to quietly steal away into the early morning, but it wasn’t to be. The others got up just after they did, and while they were loading the car the rest fixed them a going away breakfast. While it was appreciated, David was worried about making progress on the bad roads of the interstate. However, he was further delayed, as everyone tried to give him a personal goodbye outside. While he couldn’t chide them for wanting to say goodbye, he still felt a bit uncomfortable with it. Since they had no real idea of what they’d be facing, he was hardly comfortable with the trip that lay ahead of them.
As they pulled away, the others headed back into the house, having told him about their plans to do some more shopping now that a few more stores had reopened in the region.
When David approached town he noticed an unusual sight. There were a string of people walking along the road, heading into town. It struck David that, with the power still out and with few resources, that most people had probably exhausted the little gas they’d had in their gas tanks driving back and forth to town over the past week. Thus he assumed walking to town in the early morning hours was the best option for these people.
He slowed down, contemplating offering someone a ride, when he observed one woman in particular. He wasn’t sure why he focused on her, but she started coughing, and it soon degenerated into a real hacking cough. When she got her cough under control, she spit what she’d brought up onto the street, and though it was brief, David could clearly see it was a mixture of phlegm and blood. Looking up quickly one last time, he noticed the woman had bloody marks on her face. Driving along further, he observed additional people either having trouble walking due to sickness, or bearing the tale tell signs of the virus, as varied as they were.
He immediately swung his SUV into a quick U-turn, catching his passengers by surprise.
“What the heck are you doing, David?” Linda asked as she and Sara braced themselves to avoid being jostled. “We were on our way to the interstate.”
“The trips off,” he answered shortly. “I’ve decided it’s too dangerous.” Instead he dug his portable radio out of his pocket and called the house with it.
“Hey there, it doesn’t sound like you’ve gotten very far,” Maggie answered.
“We’re not going. It looks like the sickness going around is more widespread than we’d thought. Tell Bob, and I don’t want any of you leaving the house.”
“But we were going shopping, just like you’d told us to,” she countered.
“Look, when people are sick, they stay home from work and rest in bed, except when they have to feed their families. Thus the only place they’d venture out to is the grocery store. Don’t go there from here on out. If it’s necessary I’ll start hunting for dinner, but from now on the grocery store is to be considered unsafe.”
“What did you see?” she asked.
“It looks like the lack of electricity and gasoline has stranded people, so they haven’t been able to get to the hospitals. Thus the hospitals aren’t aware of how bad the situation has become. Instead, people are walking or biking to their local stores, jeopardizing anyone they encounter. Have Bob convey that information to the hospital, they’ll need to know it. Meanwhile, I’m heading to the building supplier here to pick up some more professional masks for us to use. The kind that filter out things like Asbestos. I don’t exactly trust those chintzy things the hospitals use if there’s a contagious disease spreading.”
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Maggie asked, growing concerned.
“Like I said, sick people are only going to do what’s absolutely necessary. Making home repairs won’t be high on their list of priorities, so I’m assuming I’ll be OK. Also, have Bob contact Sheriff Adams. I’ll stop by and warn your husband. Actually, I’ll get him a better mask as well, as he’s likely to be exposed to it sooner than the rest of us.”
“Do you know if it’s deadly yet?” she asked.
“No, but I do know it makes people very sick, thus it makes no sense to subject ourselves to it, especially if we don’t know what it can do.”
“OK, we trust your judgment. After all, it’s kept us safe for this long. Take care and make sure you get back safely,” Maggie said, concluding their brief conversation.
“So we’re not going to look for my mom?” Sara asked, already guessing the answer.
“No, I’ve decided it’s too unsafe. First of all, we have no idea where to look for her, and secondly, the closer we get to the city the more at risk we’ll be. It’s my responsibility to keep you safe. I think your mother and the rest of your family would appreciate that decision.”
Sara didn’t respond, but he could tell from the firm set of her jaw that she was disappointed, even if she understood his concern. He didn’t blame her, but still, he was worried about more than just her at the moment.
“Do you really think it’s that necessary?” Linda asked, still clutching the dashboard.
“Do you see the people by the side of the road?” he asked. “I saw one, a woman with a hacking cough that was coughing up blood, who also had open sores on her face. She didn’t look very healthy, and I think we need to take this more seriously than we have been.”
It didn’t take him long to reach the building supply store. Insisting the others remain in the car, he ran in, trying to avoid any congregations of people, already growing paranoid about his exposure. He found the specialized tool department where they sold things like routers, drills and other tools that typically kicked up a lot of fine dust particles. He managed to quickly find several high quality masks and filters, buying out all they had remaining, which wasn’t a lot. He again jogged to the front of the store, not wanting to remain inside amidst the public any longer than he had to. Luckily there wasn’t a large line that early in the morning, and he managed to make it out without too long of a wait.
When he reached the car he gave masks to both Linda and Sara, telling them to get used to wearing them, as they’d be wearing these whenever they were out in public, probably wearing the simpler surgical masks around the house. The masks effectively cut off any questions, and they watched him nervously as he drove to Reggie’s.
Parking in front of the drugstore, and again issuing a warning for them to not follow him into the store, David jogged into the store. He ignored the people at the front of the store, including Reggie’s two beefy guards, and headed directly back to the pharmacy. Seeing him approaching, Reggie thought it odd that he was wearing a facemask in his store.
“What’s up, David?” he asked, interrupting his interactions with his current customer.
“Here,” David said, his voice sounding odd through the mask, “wear this. It turns out the reports of illnesses have been underestimated. You’ll need to wear this to prevent getting infected. You may want to restrict anyone with a cough from entering the store. You can take their supplies out to them, but it’ll be safer for everyone if they don’t come inside and risk spreading their infection.”
The older man standing in front of the counter’s eyes grew larger, and he glanced nervously at the people around him. Reggie was about to argue with him about it, but thought better of it. So far David had been pretty well informed and better adapted to the current environment than anyone else. If he was worried, then there were probably good reasons for it.
“Thanks, I guess,” Reggie replied, his voice sounding odd even to himself after he’d gotten it fitted on himself. However, his speech was still coherent, and if it kept him safe he’d be able to help those in the community longer than he could otherwise.
“Hey, remember, we protect our own. Besides, Maggie would kill me if I let anything happen to you,” David answered as he headed back out.
As they drove out of town, they were all more aware of the many people walking and cycling in and out of town. Linda noted that several seemed to be quite sick, and she also noticed that several had the open sores that David had described. She shivered with the thought of what that might imply, but no one said much on the topic, simply reflecting on what it would mean to them in the near future.
David, though, was relieved. He’d been worrying about what the trip to the city to look for Betts would mean. Unless they arrived at her home to find her happily working on a busted engine, any other options would be, at best, problematic. If they didn’t find her, Sara would want him to search for her indefinitely, meaning she wouldn’t be able to resolve her issues during that entire time. If she’d died somehow, they’d never know it. If she was at home but sick, then she’d expose them all and Sara wouldn’t want to leave her, meaning they couldn’t leave either. There were really no good outcomes, aside from the one unlikely one, whereas there were dozens of terrible ones.
This way Sara would be crushed, but at least everyone would be safe and Sara’s life wouldn’t fall apart. Again, it wasn’t an optimal solution, but then David wasn’t sure there were any ideal resolutions anymore. Instead, all that was left was coping, and some things were easier to cope with than others were. And dealing with an angry teen was easier than dealing with a crushed one, especially if it meant she’d be an angry safe teen.
“So you really think it’s that serious?”
“Yes. The people I saw today were quite ill, but they were in no shape to make it to a hospital, both because they were too sick, but also because they had no gas to get there and no phone to call an ambulance with. So I think the hospitals are only seeing the very tip of the iceberg. The larger mass of the problem is hidden below the surface.”
“Damn, that’s what I was afraid of,” Bobby responded. “I’ve been talking to a bunch of people since you contacted us earlier, warning them about your observations, and they’re all very concerned about it. Yet they also don’t know how to respond. They can’t put everyone who comes in under quarantine, or else no one will approach a hospital. Besides, they’ve got no justification to do such a thing, because there’s no real evidence it’s a realistic threat. We need either a substantial number of sick people or a fair number of deaths, and if the numbers are hidden we have neither. What’s more, we can’t very well go searching for sick people scattered across the country, because the infrastructure is so damaged and the rescue vehicles they’d have to use were so wrecked.”
“Yeah, it’s a mess, and I don’t have any ready answers, but I think the problem is much worse than anyone suspects yet. The only thing that I can come up with is that we need to play it safe. No one is leaving the house without a face mask. It’s fine inside the house, but even venturing out to pick blueberries you’d better have a surgical mask on. And if you’re interacting with the public you’d better have more than that. I’ve got a couple of the better masks. They’re designed to stop the fine dust particles that a router kicks up, which are fine enough they can pass right through the nose, moving from the inside to the outside, forming pimples. That’s a very fine particle, and a simple surgical mask won’t stop anything that small.”
“But we still don’t know if it’s airborne or not,” Linda argued.
“No, but I saw sick people coughing, and they were very sick. And if they’re coughing, they’re sending a lot of particles into the air. So whether it’s airborne or contact related, it doesn’t really matter. We still need to avoid contact with people until we determine just how dangerous this is.”
“Well, if nothing else, this should get more people off their asses. If they think it’s a larger problem they’ll assign more resources to it, so hopefully they can learn more about what’s involved. After all, they’ve found the virus responsible for it, so hopefully they can figure out how it’s carried and what organs it affects.”
“Yeah, but we already know that it affects everyone differently. There’s a whole variety of disparate symptoms, so I’d guess it’s affecting the immune system, and it’s reacting differently with each person.”
“Shit, I’d hate to be responsible for medical oversight right now,” Bobby said as he headed back to his radio room.
“What are we going to do about food if we can’t go shopping?” Linda asked.
“We still have a lot of food here, and there’s more in the refrigerator/freezer downstairs,” Ellen said.
“There are also the berries and ferns outside, and we can always hunt for animals instead of buying hamburgers,” Maggie suggested.
“Actually, I’ll handle that if it’s necessary,” David told her.
“What? You don’t think I can shoot? I’ll bet I’m a better shot than you are. Studies show that women have better visual acuity, so they’re better at target shooting.”
“That isn’t what I was saying,” David replied. “I just don’t want to scare the animals away from here since I like them. I know a place a little ways away that’s a fair distance from any nearby houses that I could try.”
“You’re talking about poaching then, aren’t you?” Linda asked.
“Linda, desperate times,” Ellen reminded her.
“Hey, if it keeps all of you safe, I’m willing to pay a fine for poaching, or even for trespassing, though I don’t think it’ll come down to that. Right now everyone is stretched to the limit. The fish and game people are trying to clear the waterways and open the roads to the parks; they’re not going to be trying to find people hunting out of season.”
“Well, you can at least take me,” Maggie argued. “After all, you could use help carrying a deer out.”
“Could I help?” Amy asked. “I’d love the chance to come along with you? Please? I’d really like to learn, and I wouldn’t get in your way and I’d do whatever you wanted me to.”
“You? What about me?” Alice asked. “I already know a lot about hunting, and I have more experience moving quietly through the woods. While Maggie has more experience shooting, I doubt she’s all that quiet moving through the trees.”
“Look, we’ll work all those issues out later. Right now we have plenty of food, so we’ll just wait and see what happens. Hopefully this will all pass over. Those people that are sick with it will get better, they’ll develop antibodies to it, and everyone will be fine after getting sick for a little while. But we need to be aware of what’s going on, so that we can adjust as things change. OK?”
Everyone agreed, although David wasn’t really as sure as he sounded. This could be messy, and although he was isolated here, he couldn’t guarantee he could keep everyone safe for much longer. And actually, he hadn’t kept Betts safe. Although he didn’t know what happened to her, he’d already lost one of the people he’s promised to protect. How long could he keep the others secure?
“I’ll clean up in here, you start the shower and I’ll be in there in once you get the water warmed up.”
“You know it doesn’t take long for the water to warm up. I’ve got it cycling constantly so it stays warm and it keeps the water from settling in the pipes too long. It’s nicer, and it’s better for the whole system.”
“Still, go get ready,” Ellen answered, swatting him with a towel.
The previous day had been interesting. Everyone had been anxious when informed that David didn’t think it was safe to mingle with people anymore. Sara had been upset, obviously, but she’d been resigned to it. David knew he’d have to talk with her before long, but for now she didn’t seem to represent that much of an issue.
He knew he’d have to do something to keep everyone busy. So far he’d been doing a good job of it, not only wearing them out, but letting them get to know the community, the people, and developing their own sense of worth. It had been quite a successful enterprise. But they’d gotten used to it, and no one would be happy being cooped up in the house for long. It had been hard enough during the initial storm. What little yard work there was had already been finished up. He could probably fend them off for a day letting Alice lead them off on an adventure in the woods, but that had its own problems, and it would likely only last for a day on the outside. Any longer than that the girls would likely get restless and start causing trouble.
Now that Flora had passed her cautionary period, she’d been a bit more active than previously. While Ellen had never restricted her from flirting with him, figuring it was good motivation for her, Flora had kept her distance while doing it. But that was apparently gone now, so she’d been sure to sit by him whenever she could. She didn’t actually touch him directly, but there was a lot of leaning against, pressing into, and rubbing up to him. It was a bit disconcerting, but he’d never seen any indication it would progress beyond that, and neither Ellen nor anyone else had seemed concerned with it, so he’d simply chosen to ignore it. As long as she kept to the rules that Ellen had laid out he was happy.
The girls’ stress was already increasing. They’d been bored last night, so they ended up wrestling on the floor, first with each other, then with Bobby, and finally with him. It had started with another game of Twister, but had moved to playing around and finally into all out wrestling. It was all in good fun, but it showed just how bored they were, and how much energy they had to burn off. He hoped he could funnel that energy in some way today.
David stripped off his clothes and started the water. Once he got it set, he climbed in and grabbed the soap.
“Water’s hot,” he called out, hearing no response. Figuring she was busy with something he started soaping himself up.
“Hey there, sailor,” Ellen called from the bathroom doorway a few minutes later. “I’ve got a surprise for you. Make sure you wash your face, ‘cause no one wants to kiss a dirty mouth.”
David smiled to himself and did just that, scrubbing his face and then rinsing it off as she climbed into the shower behind him. He didn’t know just what game she wanted to play, but he was looking forward to it. Aside from their teasing about Linda’s bedroom talk concerning him spanking her, they hadn’t tried any playacting, so if she wanted to try it for once….
He felt her press herself against him, her breasts pushing into his back and her arms wrapping around his chest. She took his soap from him and began soaping up his chest with her loving caress. He grinned, leaning his head back against hers as she nuzzled his neck. It was strange, though, that she seemed to be having an easier time reaching his ear than she normally did.
Smiling, he started to turn around, but she wordlessly held him in place as she sank down to her knees. Once she was positioned, she released her restraining grip on him and he turned around, swatting her with his erection. Knowing what was coming, he leaned back and grasped her head as she starting swallowing his dick.
“Ah, that feels wonderful, Ellen.”
She didn’t respond, although he could hear her slurping around his erection. He rubbed her head again, luxuriating in the sensations he was experiencing, and then glanced down at her.
“WHAT THE FU…?” he yelled before catching himself.
The woman now sucking on his cock didn’t have blonde hair and a buxom build. Instead she was thin and redheaded.
“What are you doing, Flora? You know what Ellen said about following the rules. ELLEN—stop that. NOW!”
Flora pulled herself away from her current target of desire to respond. “I know. I’m following them,” she said before diving back to continue sucking him off. Despite his best attempt, his cock couldn’t help responding to what she was doing to it.
“ELLEN!”
“You don’t have to shout,” Ellen responded from outside the shower. “After all, there’s no reason to alert the whole household.”
“What the fuck is going on? Flora, would you please stop that? I thought you two had talked about this?”
“We did. We came to an understanding,” Ellen answered, making no effort to intercede and rescue him, and Flora never slowing down. “As long as she plays by the rules and respects everyone’s position, she’s entitled to the rules of the house.”
“Rules of the … what the fuck is going on here? Honestly, Flora, stop that,” he said, bending over and physically lifting Flora’s head off of his cock. She couldn’t resist, she giggled at him.
“Ellen, a little help here, please?”
“Hey, I thought for your first time you two should have your privacy,” she responded with a playful lilt to her voice.
“First time? What the … would someone tell me what the hell is going on?”
Flora was at least standing now, though she was holding his erection. She wasn’t doing much with it, but she seemed to relish simply grasping it. However, she was also leaning into him again, pressing her nubile breasts against his side. For whatever else you said about her, Flora certainly had very firm breasts.
“My only stipulation was that she play by the rules,” Ellen clarified. “She’s merely doing what Linda and Maggie did, so she’s not doing anything the other women haven’t had a chance at.”
“The other wo … Wait a minute. Does that mean the girls are allowed to have sex with me as well? Ellen, this is insane!”
“No, no,” she assured him. “They’re still girls and that would be illegal, and I know you’d never do anything like that. But I couldn’t very well tell Flora she wasn’t entitled to what the other women were already doing.”
“But—”
“She told me it was up to me to get you to agree,” Flora told him, sliding an arm around him and grabbing his ass. “I tried flirting with you all evening, but you never took the bait.”
“That’s when she came to me,” Ellen said, still from outside the shower. David stood on his tiptoes and saw she was sitting on the closed toilet seat, fully dressed, watching them as she calmly tried to explain what was going on. “She said she couldn’t get through to you. I figured you were just being dense, like you so often are, so I told her I’d arrange things.”
“That’s why she got me when you started the shower,” Flora continued. “She’d told me to wait for my chance this morning. So I was already outside your room when she called me.”
“Wait a minute. No one is answering just what is going on. I thought you’d talked to her, Ellen? Why are you on her side now?”
“I’m not on her side,” Ellen corrected him. “I’m playing my role of mistress of the household. I’m your conduit. I’m not going to allow anyone to screw up the relationships we have in the house. After all, we don’t want anyone getting hurt, or force anyone to leave the house, having their feelings hurt or something. I—”
“Wait, I still have no clue what you’re talking about,” David reminded her. “I thought you were telling her she wasn’t allowed to get involved with me. Why did you change you mind?”
“Oh, is that where we went off the track?” Ellen asked, sounding surprised. “I’d thought I’d made my position clear the other day. I have no problem giving the other girls access to you as long as they can do it in a way that doesn’t disrupt anything. I’d never thought I’d have gone for this, but it seemed to have worked so well with Linda, and when Maggie asked I couldn’t see how I could refuse when I’d already said yes to Linda.”
“So you’ve been planning this the whole time?” David asked, finally forcing Flora back and pressing himself against the far shower wall so he could address both girls at the same time, even if he couldn’t see Ellen and didn’t want to see Flora. Damn, she really did have a nice body.
“Yeah, when you got upset the other day, she took me aside and we discussed things,” Flora explained, trying to ease David’s mind. “She said the problem wasn’t that I was interested in you, instead, it was that by trying to jump ahead of everyone else I was likely to upset people, and in a household with so many people in it, all moving at cross purposes and with their own agendas, it was likely to cause some serious conflicts.”
“That’s when I told her that I needed to be sure she could play by the rules we’ve established,” Ellen continued. “She had to show she was mature and understanding enough to not just grab whatever she wanted whenever she wanted it. But I also said that, as long as she didn’t break those rules and could keep from upsetting anyone, then she was equal to anyone else here in the house.”
“WHAT THE … You mean you’ve been planning this … seduction all week?”
“David, please don’t yell. You’ll attract the girls, and that’s the last thing we need; having them all coming in here to see what the issue is. I mean, Alice is mature for her age, but I don’t think she’s ready for that yet.”
“I’M … OK, give me a second, and stay away from me for a moment, Flora.”
“Oh, come on. It likes me. Can’t you see how he keeps waving at me?”
“Flora…,” he warned her. “But seriously, you mean …”
“Look, you seem to have gotten caught up, and I’m just getting in the way here,” Ellen said, standing up and heading to the door. “I’m not sure I’m helping much, so how about I just—”
“ELLEN!”
“Taa-taa, have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Well, unless you plan on screwing me in the shower,” Flora called out, “I’m not sure that applies.” They heard Ellen laugh as she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her with a final click as the latch caught.
“Flora,” David tried to warn her, but she was eyeing his cock with a certain undeniable hunger in her eyes. And his cock wasn’t doing its part in trying to dissuade her either. It kept twitching, leaking tiny beads of precum, and it was aching for her touch. He groaned, closing his eyes and bowing to the inevitable.
“Did you notice how clean I am? I’m almost like a little girl. Say, do you think Alice is this bare? Or possibly Erica? My little pussy looks just like theirs, don’t you think?”
“Flora, please don’t start. I’m not into—”
“Oh, I don’t know. You could have fooled me. When I talk about them while playing with myself, your cock is growing, it’s reaching out to me, and you can’t take your eyes off of my little cunny.”
“Please….” David pleaded with her, even though he didn’t pull away as she approached, dancing around erotically as she did.
“Why, Mr. Scott, why ever did you call me out of class while your girlfriend is out of town? Did you want to see me twirl my baton in my little skirt?”
“Aaargh,” he responded as she got close enough to touch, but still kept away, dancing so tantalizingly close he could feel the heat from her body.
“Oh, dear, look at that. You got me out of my skirt somehow, Mr. Scott. I seem to have a hole in my soul that can only be filled with the love of a mature man who’ll protect and—”
David had finally had as much as he could stand. He reached out, grabbing her by her hip, pulling her against him and pressing his erect cock against her lower stomach. She laughed, rubbing herself against him, kissing him.
But David wasn’t in the mood for quietly making out any more. Although he’d been fighting it for a long time, he’d been staring at Flora’s young tight body for some time as water continued to stream down it. He’d been dying to either touch her firm young breasts or himself, but hadn’t been willing to do either, so he was ready to explode. What’s more, he was filled with frustration and anxiety from the continuous teasings of the previous day, and he was in a mood to burn away both with some wild sexcapdes.
He spun her around, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her against him by her breasts as he proceeded to hump her ass. Flora giggled, wrapping her own arms around them both and grabbing his ass. Growling, he bent her over so her head was under the shower spray. This presented her cunt, bare of any intervening coverings or fur, winking at him. He stepped up and aligned himself with her, then pulled her back onto him, sighing as she sank onto his length.
Flora braced herself, pressing her hands on the edges of the shower, grasping the shower dish as a handle she could use to maneuver herself on and off David with. They started up a randy, hurried, aggressive fuck session, not gentle lovemaking, and they didn’t share anything but each other. He blocked everything else out but her, and he buried himself in her depths, in her scent, in her hair, in her flesh, and in the sound of her voice calling out his name.
David and Flora descended the stairs, walking into a kitchen crowded by a whole cluster of young girls who all burst out giggling as soon as they saw them. While David was feeling guilty about what he’d done, Flora looked like she was dancing on clouds, her still damp hair shining as she smiled as bright as the dawning sun, and she positively skipped down the stairs beside him.
“So, I’m guessing someone had a good time?” Julie teased.
“I have no idea what you mean,” Flora answered, much too gleefully to be believed, “we both managed to take showers in two separate rooms. David only got clean once, but I managed to get clean a couple of times.”
“Geez, I don’t need to hear this,” Alice groaned. “The guy’s my father, after all.”
“She’s right,” Caitlyn said, “how about you tell us about it in the other room.”
“Well, there’s really nothing to tell, and I wouldn’t really say anything even if I did, but…,” she said, glancing at David and Ellen before coming to a decision, “but OK, I guess I can discuss my shower in generalities,” she said, getting up and running off with the other girls, giggling wildly.
Alice glanced at her friends who’d abandoned her and the adults sitting at the dining table looking awkward, and shrugged her shoulders.
“Hey, I may not like it, but I’m curious, too,” she said, before turning and running to catch up with her friends.
“HEY, just remember, this is the LAST one, OK? No more shower surprises,” David yelled at the girls in the other room, which produced a chorus of “Ahh”s.
“And you,” he said, pointing at Ellen, “this ends here, got it? No more pimping me out for good behavior, no more setting things up behind my back, and no more trying to get me to do what I’m morally opposed to. Got it?”
She stared back at him for a few moments then lowered her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I thought you’d be interested, and I really couldn’t see refusing the other girls after I’d already agreed to let you get together with Linda.”
“How about: ‘No, he’s my boyfriend’, or maybe ‘Not until I talk to him’, or even my favorite, ‘Are you out of you friggin’ mind?’?”
“I think she did it initially to—” Linda started to argue, trying to defend her.
“I know why we did it initially. She thought we had unresolved issues, which it turned out we did. But I had no unresolved issues with the others.”
“Now, hold on,” Ellen responded, “you may not have any unresolved issues, but the other girls in the house did. Need I remind you why you slept with Linda the second time? It was because she was distressed by seeing death up close, and she wanted to cuddle with you as a way of dealing with it. As a way of reconnecting with the living. The other girls are going through similar things.”
“OK, maybe so, but that doesn’t mean you have to cater to each one. After all, I’m sure Alice was disturbed by seeing her first dead body. Did you expect me to make love to her as well? Am I expected to sleep with anyone in the county who’s had an unfortunate experience? How about you leave my sex life to me? I’ll decide who I’m interested in, and if I’m so inclined, I’ll do something about it on my own?”
“Ah, but that’s the problem, you won’t,” she countered. “You’re so upset with ‘proper behavior’ that you would never have slept with Linda if I didn’t force the two of you together. Just like you wouldn’t have with Maggie, even though both she and her husband told you they were fine with it. And don’t forget that Flora was signaling you all night that she was interested in fooling around and—”
“And I wasn’t interested,” David argued. “One woman is fine with me. I don’t need a string of them. Hell, for that matter, I’ve been on my own for a long time. If I get an itch, I’ve learned to handle it on my own, without taking anyone to bed,” he said, growing agitated. He didn’t notice that Julie had left the conversation in the other room and was standing by the door, listening to the conversation.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love what we have together, but I’m not looking to get my damn rocks off here. I’m looking to build something. I’m hoping we can have a future together. What kind of future can we have together if you’re going to set me up with every Tina, Dora and Henrietta that comes along?”
“Look, I’m sorry if you’re upset, and I already said that I’m sorry, but this is not a typical situation. Everyone here is going through something drastic, and so far you haven’t dealt with that. So far everyone is ignoring what’s happening. That the world is going to hell in a hand basket out there. How about we deal with that?” Ellen asked, getting worked up herself. Although she wasn’t about to let David off the hook by acknowledging it, she noticed that Erica had joined Julie by the door, listening to her and David going at it.
“Ah, come on. Yes, everyone is having issues, and I can see addressing it, but not by sleeping with everyone. After all, once this is settled everyone is going to—”
“Would you get your head out of your ass for a minute?” Ellen said, standing up and leaning into him, her face only inches from his. “The world’s suffered from a monumental crisis. This is our generation’s Pearl Harbor, our 9-11, except it’s happened to everyone, and not just the people who happened to be in a specific location at a specific time. No one is going to be the same after this, and the world isn’t going to get better in another week or two. Face it, you’re stuck with everyone here, especially if you’re trying to protect everyone from a possible outbreak of an unknown disease. And even if someone does happen to leave, they’re going to be irreparably changed by what they’ve been through. Anyone they meet will understand that, because they’ve been through it as well.”
David just stared at her, taken aback by having the conversation turned back on him. He’d been trying to stress how she was making assumptions and forcing her own views on him, and suddenly they were talking about everyone’s response to the disaster, something he had to admit that he’d been avoiding. He had no clear answers for her.
“Ellen’s got a point,” Linda said, trying to acknowledge her new friend’s point as a way of tempering the heated conversation, aware of the growing crowd they were attracting. “We haven’t dealt with what’s been happening to us. Instead we’ve been sublimating it. We’ve been flirting and doing yard work instead of actively discussing what’s happened to the world, and how the world’s likely to have changed as a result. Thus no one has dealt with what we’ve experienced. At least Ellen is trying to address it somehow. I’ll agree the way she’s done it was a bit underhanded, but—”
“Fine, so because everyone in the country is upset, maybe I should get in my car, driving across country, sleeping with everyone I meet? After all, everyone has experienced the same thing, surely they’ll need my magical emotional treatment?” David asked her rhetorically, not expecting or even looking for an answer to his overreacting suggestion.
“No,” Ellen calmly replied, changing her tactics since her previous approach didn’t seem to be getting through to him. “What I’m suggesting is that maybe it’s time we addressed what’s been driving everyone in the house. Now maybe I was overreacting, but I was trying to address a certain level of tension in the house that I saw developing. I think I was following your lead in that I didn’t address the problem directly, instead trying to ignore it and deal with the fall out, but you’ve got to admit, we have yet to have a serious discussion about what our future is going to be like.”
“No, I’ve got to agree to that,” David conceded. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve got to become a damn gigolo.”
“You’re hardly acting like a gigolo,” Maggie said from the other end of the kitchen, where she’d been listening while leaning against a cabinet. “You aren’t being paid to do something that you don’t want to do. Instead, you’re helping each of us put off dealing with what we’re all experiencing, including yourself. Why do you think you’ve been so easy to convince? You talk a big deal, but after a few minutes you had no problem making love to me. I think it’s because it’s merely a distraction for us. It’s easier to get carried away by the situation than it is to deal with the underlying issues that we’re worried about.
“We each know that life won’t be returning to normal. Chances are it’ll take at least the next decade before we get everything that was damaged repaired; the roads, the power and telephone lines, the bridges, houses and buildings. Then there are all the deaths. They may not be as bad as they could have been, but they are pretty terrible. I’m guessing we lost more people in the last week than we lost during 9-11, and these touched more than just the people in New York. Then it was because of foreign madmen, and all we had to do was close off our borders and assign people to guard our airports and we were fairly safe. But we don’t have that luxury this time.
“Here we have no one to blame but God, and we’re all stuck asking why neither he, nor anyone else, is responding to our plight. Face it, David, so far, the only one who’s come to our rescue has been you.”
David tried to respond, but he was unable to find the words, probably because he couldn’t formulate coherent responses to the questions being posed. His mouth opened and closed as he tried to say something and found himself unable to.
“That’s the problem when you find yourself a capable partner,” Alice interjected from the door, where she’d eventually joined her friends. David twisted around, only now recognizing that everyone was there, listening to a conversation he’d thought was private. “She’s strong, she’s determined, and if she can’t address something head on because you’re belligerently ignoring them, she’ll find another way of addressing them. Face it, Dad, Ellen has been carrying half the load here. You’ve been keeping everyone busy, making sure we’re protected, busy and out of trouble, but she’s been helping everyone here avoid facing the difficult discussion that no one has been willing to have.”
“So … so what am I supposed to do?” he asked, glancing around at everyone around him.
“I think we need to have that discussion, but frankly, it’ll only be an awkward first attempt, as I don’t think any of us is really ready to address it yet,” Ellen explained, speaking in a calm quiet tone of voice intended to get everyone to calm down. “But until we manage to resolve those issues, I think we’ve got an ongoing issue. You yourself have been keeping everyone busy, trying to distract everyone. Distracting oneself and sublimating issues works to a certain degree, but it always comes back to bite you. Usually it involves years and years of therapy. Who knows, maybe we’ll all need therapy after this, but for now I think you have to consider that you’ll need to extend your physical comforts at night, just as you do your work projects during the day.”
“But what am I—” he struggled to argue.
“You’re not expected to do anything with the girls. Both we and they know that much. But they’ve been sublimating things as much as we have. Why do you think they’ve been teasing you so incessantly? And coming to your bed on such a regular basis? They’re seeking the same comfort the rest of us are, but they’re trying to work it out in a slightly different way than we are.”
“But shouldn’t they—”
“Don’t even go there, Dad,” Alice warned him. “You know as well as I do that finding some random boy out on the street is no solution. First of all, you’d go ballistic if we tried. Secondly, we’d have no way of knowing if they were dependable or just a one-time attempt to take advantage of us, and us of him. Finally, if you’re worried about a potential plague, you surely don’t want us trading saliva and other bodily fluids with anyone.”
“Please, I’ll concede the idea of you fooling around with someone else is a bad idea if you’ll agree not to talk about trading ‘bodily fluids’ with anyone,” David replied, groaning at the idea of Alice doing any such thing.
“They have a point,” Bob said, walking in from the other room where he’d been listening. “So far no one has tried to tackle the key issues. While I don’t think a single discussion is likely to resolve the issues we’re all dealing with, it is a sensible starting point.”
“All right,” David responded with a heavy sigh, “you’ve convinced me. Let’s reconvene in the living room where we can discuss this. Alice, could you pick some calming music to keep us from getting into another shouting match. Ellen, Linda, could you fix us all something to drink. I have a feeling we’re going to be talking for a long time, as there is a LOT to discuss here.”
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