Why was he smiling? “I believe you.”
“You’re smarter than you look.”
After snapping his fingers, Joan appeared out of thin air to his call. How she already had a cup of beer, Eugenia couldn’t say. But it was there, and he took it, pressing it to her hands.
“I’m not drinking that shit.” A clear head was needed at all times these days.
“Drink it or I’ll put my fingers back in and keep them there all night.” And he’d enjoy it—his smirk said that plain as day.
But she was no simple opponent. “Do yourself a favor and escort me off the boat.”
“Try again, siren.” He pushed the earthenware cup closer to her lips, fingers coated in her drying blood.
She would not take a drop into her mouth, considering what might lurk in homebrew garbage… until her eyes cut to Table #2 and the terror on Brooke’s face registered.
All of it sunk in at that moment. It was more than this fucked society, air conditioning, whoring, and fingers ripping membranes. It was more than her at stake, which is what made the captain’s system so indescribably wrong. Every soul on this ship was tied to a well-oiled machine of expectation and consequence. Eugenia’s hostility would cost another far more than it would cost her.
The captain was indeed smarter than the lazy cowboy persona he projected.
And he knew it. And he knew the precise moment she knew it too.
“I will drink. I will go back to my table and verbally entertain your men… on one condition.”
Voice husky, he said, “I do enjoy negotiation.”
“I’ll bear Brooke’s half of the responsibility when you command your men to dump their food and drink on our bodies as if we are worthless come dumpsters. And I take on the remainder of her tickets.”
“You’d rather play the hero than the damsel?” Cocky, already lazing back without going to the trouble of wiping his fingers on his shirt, the captain said, “You’re not going to like it.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
Hazel eyes closing as if to drowse, he muttered, “Very smart. Drink up.”
She did. Her first real taste of beer since the bombs. Good beer to boot.
Brooke got to go inside, lighter twenty-thousand tickets—not close to half of what she still owed, but enough to make her glow with appreciation.
It took more willpower than Eugenia anticipated to get up off the deck and resume her duties at Table #2 alone. The virgin jokes, the way the men—and not just from her table—all of them, seemed to find a reason to drop by, staring at the smeared blood on her exposed thigh.
They touched it.
Because those were the rules. Anything not covered by clothing was fair game.
So she described, in detail, how each sexually transmitted disease affected the body and mind. Puss, sores, sterility. All of it. The internet had been gone for six years, but in its place, human imagination had become vivid again. Enough, but not all of them, were scared away by graphic detail, so she didn’t start screaming.
No one raped her. Sex was taking place, for tickets, at the other tables. Where other young women dressed like pre-war strippers bent over with no foreplay and took it.
And then, after hours of conversation and fake smiles, every last bastard at the party walked past, dumping his food and beer on Eugenia’s head on their way out the door. Laughing at the uptight virgin with the big tits and puffy nipples you could see through her shirt if you splashed leftover beer just right.
As Brooke had warned her, every rule existed for a reason. And it didn’t take a would-be pediatric surgeon to figure it out. No woman would grow attached to a man who did this to her. No man would see her as a person in need of help. The nightly event was a show and nothing more. With no winners, and one massive loser.
Her.
She did cry that night in the shower, alone where no one could see.
Chapter Four
The routine was much easier to fall into than Eugenia would ever admit to herself. Wake up, alone, her room the perfect temperature, thanks to air conditioning.
And get to work.
Swab the deck, swab the toilets, swab her room, swab herself.
It grew painfully clear that Eugenia had no interest in tickets—three weeks having passed without her accepting a single one. Nor another morsel of food, a shiny bauble, nothing. She would sit on the designated lap, the opportunity to host her on a cookie sheet a privilege men paid extra tickets for in those first few days, until they saw the shrew who out-conversed them, outplayed them, and would never fuck them. Her novelty wore off and the other women warmed up.
She wasn’t a threat to their freedom or their favorites—though that was also on the list of rules. No favorites allowed. Though even Eugenia had them. Neil wasn’t so bad, and he really did just want to hold a woman when he got assigned to her table. But he absolutely fucked at the other tables, waiting in line with the other men, if the lady was willing to give him a ride.
Some of the men chose her because sex was not on offer. They wanted real snark, honest conversation, a female mind to connect with. And as she saw it, she hurt for them as much as they sickened her. For all of them. Everyone trapped on the boat, in a dead world, was living out a painful fantasy with no end in sight.
At first, she preferred the nights serving as waitress to the nights serving as hostess to lonely, horny men. But if she was not engaged, she was shadowed.
The captain had struck her that first day. There was no question he’d sexually assaulted her with no thought for her as a person. And now he lurked wherever she went.
After all, her threat to burn down his ship had not been made in vain.
If she was scrubbing dishes in the kitchens, her hair tied up, out of nowhere, a finger would trip down her nape. The first time, she screamed bloody murder, so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t heard him coming. And dropped a dish, which shattered over the floor she just mopped.
All southern drawl, he smirked to see her so undone. “You should be more careful with my things. That’s another five-thousand tickets.”
Hand to her breasts, positive her heartrate was in the unsafe levels, she snarled, “Fuck your tickets, and fuck you too!”
“Anything else you’d like to add?”
“Yes, in fact. I was offered five-thousand tickets last night—the going rate, if I understand correctly—if only I’d bend over the table and take it from some guy named Amos.” Crossing her arms under her breasts, she faced him, wet and sweaty, soap bubbles up her arms. “I’d like to think sex is worth more than a single plate. Not that I give a fuck about your ticket scale, but wouldn’t you consider your pricing a bit askew?”
“It was a very pretty plate.”
“You are an asshole.” One who liked to get her worked up each time he caught her alone. “Go away. I have chores. Also, I’m menstruating. According to your rules, I don’t have to be in the presence of men. Bye now.”
Rubbing his hand over the scruff on his cheek, the man’s eyes went down to her apron-covered belly. “Are you regular?”
“Keeping a calendar?” It could be exceptionally smart if he was. After all, when making the duties schedule, ovulation wouldn’t be the best time for his slaves to service the patrons. Pregnant whores were not as useful.