“How was it out there?” I asked, curious
about the state of the world.
“Worse. A god damn ghost town full of Skin
Eaters.
“Skin Eaters?”
He shrugged. “Gotta call em’ something,
right? But, you don’t wanna hear the gory details.”
He was wrong; I did want to hear them. I
wanted to hear everything about the outside world. I’d been in camp
since the very beginning of the disaster, with my ear glued to a
radio until the batteries had run out. After that, I’d begun
bombarding the raiding teams for as much information as possible.
But he interrupted me before I could push.
“Next time we go for a raid, can I get you
something? Maybe some Midol? Or I could just offer my own services.
It’s so obvious what your needing, Trin.”
It was my turn to smirk. “Xan the fact that
you even know what Midol is makes me happy enough. I’m feeling
better already.”
His grin turned upside down and he scowled at
me. “I have a mamă you know.”
I nodded knowingly. “Uh huh, I’m sure that’s
why.”
Xan pulled a black t-shirt from his back
pocket and wiped the sweat off his face. Next, he pulled a
cigarette out from behind his ear and a lighter from another
pocket. He took a long drag, blew the smoke out slowly and then
pointed the cigarette at my chest.
“You’d be a worthy sparing opponent Trin…if
only you didn’t have those pesky boobs distracting me all the
time.”
I didn’t answer him. I was momentarily
fascinated by a bead of sweat running down his chest, I watched it
hit his rippled abdomen and dissipate into his skin.
Xan snapped his fingers in front of my face
as the corners of his lips began to curve. “You with me fată?”
I glanced up at his face, embarrassed. This
morning’s encounter with Gerik had left me feeling quite
unsatisfied. I could only hope Xan hadn’t noticed what was wrong
with me.
“You know he’s only using her to take the
edge off. They’ve been doing that dance since we were kids. I don’t
really understand what the hell is up with you and Gerik and I
don’t really care. But if you want me to take that lush little body
of yours for a ride…”
My head snapped up. Xan was grinning at
me.
“It’s not like it would be a chore, Trin. Not
with those sweet curves of yours and that long black hair …damn
fată, how many times could I wrap that ponytail of yours around my
hand? Five, six maybe?”
He snapped his teeth at me and I felt my
entire body flush.
Bastard.
Xan caught my fist long before it connected
with his stomach. Not that my punches would have done him much
damage anyway.
“You know where to find me…”
He released my fist with a wink and headed
toward his motorcycles, his movements hard and predatory. Whereas
Gerik reminded me of a large cat, his movement’s fluid and graceful
despite of his size, Xan was more like a bear. He would never waste
time stalking his prey, he’d barrel right into it, his jaw wide
open, without thinking twice about it.
He was reckless in a way no one else in camp
was. Not only was Xan an adrenaline junkie but there was a chip on
his shoulder that was dug in deep. It made him cocky, hot-headed
and downright mean at times. I believe it had a lot to do with the
fact that he’d been born without magic in a clan of Gypsies that
held magic in such high regard. He had a Gaje father, some biker
that his mother Drina had some whirlwind love affair with. His
father hadn’t been allowed to join the clan and Drina hadn’t wanted
to leave.
Like the rest of clan, he too followed the
carnival circuit. Xan had performed dangerous show stunts riding
his bikes, but unlike the rest of the clan, he’d developed outside
relationships with the Gaje world. He’d grown extremely good at
refurbishing old motorcycles and selling them, amassing in quite a
lot of connections outside of his Roma life. Some thought he might
have even preferred life outside the clan. Or so Becki had
said.
The smell of cooking meat and steaming
vegetables finally tempted my empty stomach enough to bring me
meandering over to the food tent. Becki and her mother Jaelle were
dishing out stew so I helped myself to a large bowl.
“Saw Gerik.” Becki pursed her full red lips
and winked at me. Becki and I weren’t just roommates; she was the
closest thing I’d ever had to a best friend. She was only two years
older than me, and had befriended me instantly upon my arrival. We
shared a common interest in a lot of things, especially our hatred
of all things Onyx. Hell that made us soul mates in my opinion.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I screwed up but-”
“Bah!” Jaelle jumped backwards causing her
enormous breasts to bounce as she spattered stew all over herself.
“Too hot!”
Taking a helping of stew herself, Becki threw
an arm around me. “Taking a break, mami.”
Outside, we leaned against the back of a
truck. She didn’t say a word. That was what I loved about Becki,
she wasn’t chatty and annoying. She didn’t push. She was just there
when I needed her and let me come to her in my own time.
“It happened again this morning,” I
sighed.
“Woman, you need to just let nature take its
course. You’ll feel a lot better once you get it out of the
way.”
“He’s going to want more than that and I
can’t give it to him. I can’t even bring myself to give him that.
I’m not ready.”
“You might change your mind once you take
that ride.” She cut her dark brown eyes at me, a knowing smile on
her face.
“Ugh.” I rolled my eyes. “Clan living…” I
shook my head.
“Hey! It was a long time ago. But it was…”
She grinned. “Memorable.”
“Speak of the devil.” She nodded back toward
the food tent. Gerik was rounding the corner, coming directly from
the living lot.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “His hair is
braided.”
“Let it go. It’s just hair.” Becki
muttered.
“I doubt it was just hair.”
His long, blonde hair was braided with a few
new beads woven throughout them. I always braided his hair in the
morning and took them out in the evening; he had me doing it for
the past two months and it had become part of our routine. I liked
it, it felt…good and not just because being near Gerik felt
abnormally good. I had always brushed my little sister Tahyra’s
hair and styled it.
Three guesses at who braided it today? I
wondered at what else they had done? My stomach knotted at the
thought of them together intimately.
“Nice hair,” I said without thinking about it
first. That was me, always doing without thinking. My mouth had a
brain of its own. My daddy always said one day it was going to get
me in a world of trouble.
He froze mid-step at the sound of my voice
and turned to look at me. “Don’t start this with me, yeah?”
Start this with him? What a joke. He
completely crossed the line this morning and he knew it.
I crossed the distance between us, my body
instantly reacting to the nearness of him. I ignored it, as much as
anyone could ignore an onslaught of emotional and physical
perfection. But he didn’t, he never could or would; his eyes grayed
and his face tightened.
Willing my frustration and lust to turn to
anger, I shoved hard against his massive chest. He didn’t move. I
was suddenly sick of all these men and their bodies made out of
solid rock. Give me a pudgy stomach to sink my fist into. I’d at
least like to hear a nice grunt or something. Any sort of
acknowledgment of pain. Even a little grimace would’ve been
nice.
I pushed him again. In return he heaved
forward with his chest. It was just a small movement but it was
enough and I stumbled backwards.
“Is something wrong Trinity?” His nostrils
flared. “Something you want to talk about?”
I laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh and I
shouldn’t have done it but there was no middle ground when it came
to Gerik. In order to ignore this anomalous attraction, I had to
try and shut down completely. I became cold and distant, repressed
my brains normal responses to him to be flirtatious and sensual. It
was the only way: black or white. There was never any gray area
with Gerik and me, unless it was the color of his eyes and that
color that was for me and me alone.
I turned to leave but he snatched my wrist
causing heat to flare where he touched me. It shot up my arm,
arrowed through my chest making my breasts swell and ache, then
spiraled down toward my stomach before settling in between my
legs.
I faltered.
It took every ounce of sanity left inside of
me to glare at him but I managed it and he glared right back,
unwilling to release me.
Both our bodies were tense and strung as
tight as wires as we silently fought. He wanted everything from me
and I wanted… Well that was the problem wasn’t it? I didn’t know
what I wanted. The emotions pouring out of us were already past
excessive and well on their way to redundancy.
“You feel that, yeah?” He leaned downed and
pressed his lips to mine. His kiss was like a shock to my already
overloaded system. My heart was thumping hard and fast against my
chest feeling like, at any moment, it might explode.
“That’s me inside you, Trinity. I’ve always
been there and always will be.”
I gasped against his mouth as my body
betrayed me and swayed forward, collapsing against him. The
electric sensations he was somehow creating within my womb spread
like wildfire across nerve endings. My insides writhed and stilled,
thrashed and throbbed until the final explosion left me grasping to
stay standing, fighting for breath, as it threatened to end me
completely.
Gerik held me steady against him until the
quivering inside of me had subsided, and I was again able to hold
my own body weight. Nevermind the fact that I was still breathing
quite heavily.
“Feel better?” He whispered, his breath
against my cheek beginning to stoke a fire inside me that had yet
to die. A fire I feared, that with Gerik, would never die.
I swallowed hard and tried to nod.
“It’s only you, Trinity. I keep telling you
that, yeah?” He tilted my chin up until I was drowning in his two
deep blue pools of blue. I never wanted to leave his arms, never
wanted to let go, never-
“Gerik?” Becki said softly, appearing next to
us. “Trinity and I have clothes to wash and if you don’t let her
go, we’re not going to get them done before daylight runs out.”
I’d never been so grateful for dirty
underwear before.
I followed Becki to a large metal basin where
three large piles of clothes waited for us. She threw me a large
clump of soap and I dutifully started scrubbing clothing against a
washboard.
I had never before been a big fan of manual
labor. It had also never crossed my mind that someday I would find
myself burdened with such a large amount of it either. Here my days
are longer than ever before, eaten up by washing clothes and
dishes, cooking and serving food and playing with children who are
not mine. I fall into bed at the end of the day bone tired with
aching muscles and sore feet and yet…I feel a fulfillment that I
can honestly say I’d never experienced before.
Technology, even the simplest forms of it,
had made people’s lives so much more accommodating but it had also
disconnected us. But here, in this Romani camp, we are forced to
interact just to survive. It was a forgotten way of life, yet, to
the Romani it was all they’d ever known and they worked hard to
keep it that way.
Staying in tune with the earth and keeping
their families close, passing knowledge along to the next
generations was what the Gypsies considered the right way to live.
They never wasted a thing. They didn’t litter or purposely pollute.
Everything had a use or a purpose. The land we lived on was sacred,
it gave us life and in return they gave back to it. That, to me,
felt right and I respected them for it.
“So…” Becki said.
I paused in my scrubbing to rub the itch on
my nose with the inside of my elbow, careful not to get soap on my
face. “What’s up?”
“How would you feel about cooking duty
tonight?”
I narrowed my eyes. “No one cooks at night,
what are you talking about?”
“I’m supposed to make jerky tonight, but I
promised Hockey I’d meet him in the back lot later.” She scrunched
her face up at me like a cute little puppy dog.
“Pretty please, Trinity? I’ll be your best
friend!”
I rolled my eyes. “You already are.”
She jumped up, clapping her hands. “Great! I
so owe you one! I’ll be right back, I’m going to go tell him we are
on for tonight.”
She ran off, her hands still covered in
soap.
Hockey and Becki had been together for a few
months. They were polar opposites. Whereas Becki was loud, Hockey
was quiet, Becki liked to drink and Hockey didn’t, Becki wouldn’t
read a book to save her life and Hockey constantly had his nose
buried in them. Becki had dated half the guys in camp and I’m
pretty sure Hockey hadn’t dated anybody until Becki. Still, they
were pretty adorable together; she did all the talking while she
dragged him around behind her.
“Trin, do you ever smile?” Xan appeared out
of nowhere and threw a large green duffle bag at my feet.
“Didn’t you already fill your harassment
quota for the day? I asked.
“I’m just dropping off dirty laundry, not
here to fight.” He nodded at the canvas bag he’d left at my feet.
“Mostly Pitti’s underwear and socks. Knock yourself out.”
I groaned. Pitti Moldoveanu had the smelliest
feet in the world.
“Xan?” I called out as he turned to leave,
wanting to ask him something that maybe only he might have a
familiarity with.
He turned, one eyebrow raised, his eyes dark
and hard. I thought about his explosive temper and changed my
mind.
“Never mind," I said quickly.