After the Cure - Deirdre Gould (best fantasy books to read txt) 📗

be careful, but aren’t you dying to know what’s out there? Aren’t you tired of the same old gated City, the same sad people day after day?”

“Well, yes,” she admitted, though she felt a serious gash in her heart when she thought of leaving Sevita and Christine behind. But his excitement swept the thought away like a stray leaf in a gale. He pointed to the map directly over the head of the bed.

“There’s New Guinea. I’ve been thinking it would take us about three months if we sailed straight, but of course we would want to stop everywhere on the way . . .” Frank talked cheerfully about routes and boat building and supplies until Nella was dizzy. She didn’t stop him, the conversation was as bright as their earlier ones had been dark. She wondered if that particular map had ended up where it was after their lunch at the prison. She suspected that it had, and hoped it had been a source of several bright dreams for him. At last, he wound down and sat on the end of the bed, patting the spot next to him. She recoiled and immediately regretted it when she saw the nervous hurt return to his face, wrinkling away the ease that she had just seen.

“Oh Nella, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean- I have a spare bedroom I can sleep in-”

“No, no,” she said quickly, “it isn’t that. It’s just that-” her voice dropped to an embarrassed whisper as if the neighbors might hear, “I’m filthy. I can’t mess up your nice clean sheets.”

Frank laughed and the worry scattered. He scratched his thickening beard. “Yeah,” he said, “I don’t think I could stand this thing for one more minute either. I can practically feel it crawling.” He pointed to a dark wooden door. “The bathroom is adjoining, I’ll get some towels for you.”

She blushed and hesitated for a moment. Discomfort won out over pride. “Frank, I can’t- would you help me wash my hair? I can do everything else, but,” she half raised her wounded arm.

“Of course,” he said, before she could finish.

He opened the door to a small bathroom and then left her to find towels. The room was badly lit and the mirror was spotty with age. But it smelled sweet and strong, like warm soap and shaving cream. She felt less grimy just walking into it. “You can get in, if you want,” said Frank from behind her, “I just want to shave first. I’ll be quick. Look what I’ve found.” He handed Nella a slim bottle of real shampoo and rubbed his own head with a grin. “I won’t be needing it.”

Nella smiled, but she sat on the edge of the tub and made no move to get undressed. She watched him mix shaving cream and draw out a slim razor, like a shining bone and set it on the lip of the sink. He scrubbed his face with water and then realized she was watching him as he straightened up.

“What?” he asked, dabbing foam on the stiff hairs.

She shrugged. “It’s just that you’re one of very few men whom I’ve met that still shaves every day.”

“Ah. That’s because shaving cream is hard to come by these days. And I can’t imagine trying to shave without it. I had to carry buckets of water for the barber’s wife, Mrs. Avoncetti, every day for a month before the water was turned on in this sector. After that he finally agreed to teach me how to make my own.” Frank stopped talking as he picked up the flashing rib of a blade. She watched the scarred side of his face emerge as if the razor were erasing shadow and care with each long, slow stroke. It was impossible for her to watch the smooth, graceful flick of his hand on the razor and not think of him touching her.

She shouldn’t be here. He’d already rejected her once, hadn’t he? Why torture herself? But he had said that he loved her. He’d shown her only kindness and care. More than that, he’d wanted her. She had felt it. But he seemed to want nothing to happen until after the trial. And though she felt stronger than she had during her fever, she knew she ought to take it easy for a while.

She was jarred out of her thoughts when Frank groaned lightly and she realized she’d still been staring at him.

“Nella, please don’t tell me you like the mountain man look. I don’t think I could stand it.”

She laughed. “No, I like seeing your whole face.”

He squinted at her as if trying to decide if she were teasing him. He bent over to wash his face again. He sighed with relief as he ran a hand over his smooth chin. Nella looked at her feet and tried not to feel the gentle ache on the surface of her lips, longing to kiss the line of his jaw. She tried to bully herself into being rational, but it was too difficult, surrounded, steeped in the clean smell of him, sitting so near to him, in his own space.

“Well? Did I miss a spot?” he asked, leaning over her to turn on the shower. Nella smiled and reached up to stroke his smooth cheek. He caught her hand and kissed her palm. His lips were so much softer than she remembered, though she had kissed them just a few hours before. Tiny echoes skipped across her skin, as if he had kissed a hundred places at once.

“It’s perfect,” she said at last, remembering he had asked her a question. She stood up, feeling the steam creep up her back in warm puffs. He untied her sling and she straightened her arm cautiously.

“I think we’re going to have to burn these clothes,” he said as he peeled off his shirt, “They’re never going to be the same after this week.”

Nella had started to unbutton her shirt. She clutched it closed. “Frank, I just realized I have no extra clothes here. We left them with the other pack.”

He grinned wickedly at her. “Oh no,” he said, gently moving her hand and continuing to unbutton her shirt, “whatever shall we do?”

She laughed and blushed. “I’m serious!”

“Relax, I’ll go to your apartment tomorrow and pick up some things.” He drew the fabric gently from her wounded arm.

“Until then?”

He shrugged and unzipped her pants, tugging them over her hips. “I’ll turn up the heat.”

“I thought you wanted to wait- until after the trial.”

His brows drew together in confusion and he stepped back from her, “What gave you that idea? I mean, I’m okay with waiting if that’s what you want-”

Nella shook her head but couldn’t speak past the boulder in her throat.

“Is this about what happened at the Cure camp?” The space between them evaporated and his fingertips grazed the side of her face. They were like tiny rocks in a pool, the feeling rippling and bouncing over her in larger and larger rings. “That place was filled with misery. The very air was tainted.” He leaned forward and whispered into her ear, “You’re sacred Nella, a bright dream at the end of the world. I don’t want to remember you in that dark place. I don’t want to think about that sad time any more.”

She closed her eyes but they leaked anyway. “But I was in a place like that. For a long time. It’s part of my life. It’s part of your life.” Her voice creaked at the end, though she tried to control it.

His arms slid around her, his skin warm and damp from the shower steam. “I know. I know it was. But it doesn’t have to part of our life. Not any more.” He let her go and cleared his throat. His eyes were red, but he smiled at her and continued undressing.

“Come on,” he said cheerfully as he picked up the bottle of shampoo, “the water heater in this place isn’t that big. I’ll be washing your hair in the dead cold before long.”

Nella stepped carefully into the warm cavern of the shower after him. The shower didn’t hurt her shoulder as badly as it had done before and she took that as a good sign. She stepped into the stream of water, turning her back to him so the water soaked through her filthy hair. She closed her eyes. Her breath caught as one of his hands wrapped around her stomach and his fingers grazed the bottom of her breast. The other hand tangled itself in her wet hair. She could feel the strands of grass from the fight with the Infected hit her shin as they washed away, and the clots of blood that had caught in the ends from her wound dissolved as he carefully slid his fingers through the tangles. Her head felt heavy from the extra weight of the water, but the rest of her felt lighter, younger as the week’s dirt sloughed away. His hands slipped away from her and she smelled the sharp sweetness of chemical citrus as he opened the shampoo bottle. She smiled to herself. It had been years since she’d even seen real shampoo, but she recognized the smell immediately. She felt the weight of her hair disappear from her neck as he gathered it up and the rough pressure of his hands on her scalp. He tilted her head gently to one side and kissed the base of her neck with his soft lips. The lobe of her ear vibrated with his breath. “You didn’t think that I didn’t want you, did you?” his voice was heavy in her ear as the feathery foam of the shampoo slid down the small of her back, tracing slow rivers into her skin. She shivered. The soft weight of her hair slipped back onto her neck as both of Frank’s long arms wrapped around her waist and good arm. He kissed the top of her good shoulder and she felt the hard bone of his cheek brush her ear. She leaned back into him and he tightened his arms. The last of the shampoo dissolved and streaked away and she felt as if she could follow it. “You can go to your grave eighty years from now knowing that a day didn’t pass since we met that I did not want you.”

She turned to face him, his arms loosening to let her. The thin stream of water began to grow cool between them. She leaned through it and tilted her face up toward his. She kissed him as the water wicked the heat and soap out of her hair and down over his arms and her legs in a last warm gush. The water turned frigid and he let her go to turn it off. She stepped out on shaky legs. She began to wrap a towel around her, but he stopped her, tossing it aside and pulling her into him. His skin was sun-baked stone, a tumbledown ruin left to the wind, all the jagged edges smoothed away.