by Beth Martin
Ava shook her head, giving her own bot a hard time as it tried to apply fresh cosmetics to her face. “Trust me, if I had any other choice, I wouldn’t be staying here.”
Leona wanted to ask what could possibly be so bad about staying here with the Smith family, but Ava’s stony expression let her know she wouldn’t get any more details—at least not at that moment. The androids finished getting the two young women ready, styling their hair, applying glittery lotions to their skin, and helping them dress in formal gowns appropriate for dinner. Leona didn’t feel entirely comfortable in her tight red dress and matching red lipstick. She preferred muted colors. Ava, on the other hand, looked absolutely stunning in her deep purple dress with her hair swept up in an elegant twist.
“Let’s go,” Ava said. Yet again, Leona was barely able to keep up as they rushed through the house. “Don’t say anything unless you’re asked a direct question, and even then, keep your answers as short as possible.”
Leona nodded. She didn’t feel like talking and would have no problem following Ava’s instructions.
Dining with so many people was never an intimate affair. The nine people attending dinner that evening—the three Smiths, Ava’s family including her older brother and his wife, and Leona—all sat at an enormous table, the entire time surrounded by robots, which were kept busy serving several courses of food and refilling wine glasses. Leona barely touched her beverage, while Ava kept drinking glass after glass until her speech was slurred.
Ava’s mother, Rita Evanko, was the first to acknowledge Leona presence at dinner. As everyone nibbled on their desserts, she said, “It’s so wonderful to see you in good health, Leona. I can’t tell you how grateful we all are that you’ll be testifying against that terrorist.”
Leona glanced at Ava, who was taking a long sip from her glass, before saying, “You’re welcome.” She wasn’t sure what else to say, but as she scanned the faces around the table, she saw the other dinners were no longer paying any attention to her.
As dinner came to a close, Watkins stood from his seat and announced, “Thank you all for your company. I’m going to retire to the lounge for a game of cards. Any of you are welcome to join.”
Although she wasn’t particularly good at card games, she figured she could use the distraction. Before she could get up from her seat, however, Ava reached over and grasped her hand, squeezing it tightly. She stayed in her chair as Roger along with Ava’s brother and mother followed Watkins out of the room. Ava’s father addressed the remaining people at the table. “I’m going to take a walk around the garden. Would any of you ladies care to join me?”
Penny, Ava’s sister-in-law, nodded. “I’ll come.”
Ava made a show of yawning before saying, “I’m exhausted. I’m going to turn in.” She gave a firm squeeze to Leona’s hand.
“Me too,” Leona added quickly.
Ava excused herself, and Leona walked with her back to her bedroom. As soon as they were in the room, Ava said, “Bot, get us both a vodka soda.”
Leona plopped down with her friend on a comfy sofa in the sitting area and accepted the glass from the companion bot when it returned. Although she didn’t particularly want to drink, she took a sip before setting the beverage on a side table.
“All right, now that all the pleasantries are out of the way—” Ava paused as she took a long swig of her drink, “—why the hell did you follow me here?”
Leona inhaled deeply, trying to decide how to sell her idea to Ava. “After Tina attacked my estate, I stayed at a settlement for a while. They were really great, and gave me shelter and food when they barely had enough provisions for themselves. I wanted to give back in some way after all they did for me. I’ve got the tools needed to start over, everything except for labor and a fertile plot of land. I was going to invite all the members of the settlement to my estate. They could farm and grow their own food instead of relying on charity or theft to feed themselves.”
Ava nodded as she listened, taking another gulp from her glass.
“We were going to set up a commune of sorts on my land, but the government seized it since I couldn’t pay the property taxes. I’ve been squatting illegally at my own house. I was hoping—”
She was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. Ava set her glass down and grasped Leona’s arm. A terrified expression crossed her face. “You need to hide in the bathroom. Lock the door!” Leona glanced from the bedroom door to the bathroom. Although hiding next to the toilet seemed like a silly thing to do, more frantic knocking put her on edge. “Go! Now!” Ava urged.
Leona got up and ran to the bathroom, and the sturdy door slid closed behind her. As she stood just inside, she heard someone burst into Ava’s room. “I’m here!” sang a male voice. “Where’s my other beauty?”
“She’s sick,” Ava said. Her voice sounded more like a frightened child than a young, confident woman. “She’s lactose intolerant, and she ate all that custard—”
A loud crack followed by Ava screaming made Leona jump back.
An edge of annoyance crept into his voice. “I was looking forward to entertaining two lovely ladies tonight.”
“I’m so sorry, Roger,” Ava pleaded. “I should have warned her not to eat dessert.” Another whacking noise, even louder than the last one, came from inside the bedroom. Leona stumbled back from the door and took a seat on the smooth floor, hugging her knees to her chest.
“You’re going to have to make it up to me. Get on the bed.” She heard shuffling and what sounded like sobs. “There’s my good girl. Now, tell me what you want.”
“I’m tired, I just want to sleep,” Ava said. Another crack pierced the air followed by a sharp cry from Ava.
Leona hadn’t seen any injuries on Ava’s body aside from the black eye. She assumed Roger was using some sort of electric shock to get her friend to comply.
“I know what you want,” he said in a dangerously quiet voice. “I’ll give it to you if you promise to behave. Will you be a good girl?” Ava whimpered. “Hold her down,” he instructed, probably to whatever robots occupied the room.
Leona squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears with her hands. She tried to ignore all the sounds from the next room, appreciative that Ava had warned her in time and saved Leona from a similar fate.
4
ROEMELL WOKE UP to the morning light filtering through the thin green canvas of the tent. It took him a minute to remember where he was and what had happened during the night. He was lying on a flimsy mattress with a head of dark hair tucked under his chin. Tammy smelled both sweet and slightly stale at the same time. Across the tent, he counted two cribs and three babies. He couldn’t remember if that was the correct number of children. At least there weren’t any kids in the bed.
One of Tammy’s arms was tucked around her breasts, and the other was draped over his waist. I never stopped caring for you.
An intense desire to wake her up and explore her body gripped his gut. Through her thin tunic, he could see the curve of her hip and the lines if her panties. In his mind, he could imagine peeling off every layer like unwrapping a gift. But instead of letting his hands wander as she continued to sleep, he carefully sat up and extricated himself from her limbs. He sat at the very edge of the bed and grasped his head in his hands. “Fuck!” he cursed under his breath, trying to temper his desire.
Suddenly, all of the emotions from the previous night flooded over him. He was angry and confused, but couldn’t deny that he had lingering feelings for her as well. The thought of staying with her was exciting and comforting, but also made him feel incredibly guilty about the position that would put Leona in. If he decided to really be with Tammy, he would still need the supplies from Leona and would have to work with her to get the commune started. Continuing to work with a woman he just dumped would be awkward, to say the least.
But remorse over the lost child was the main emotion which drew him to Tammy, not any desire to rekindle their relationship. Even though they had
history, he didn’t want to hurt Leona. He had been through so much with Leona already, even though he had just met her a couple weeks prior. They had only shared a few kisses, but he still felt a strong connection. No matter what he decided to do, he would have to let one of the women down.
Normally, he would have gotten up and taken a walk along the beach to clear his head, but he wasn’t ready for the rest of the community to know he was here. Instead, he tried to focus on the reason he had returned to the settlement: Ivan. He got up and approached the crib which held the tiniest of the three sleeping babies. His nephew had the same straight black hair as he and his sister. He knew babies’ eye-color could change in the first few months, but at the moment they were a vivid blue-green.
He extended a hand into the crib, gently brushing a finger on the baby’s cheek. Ivan yawned and stretched, freeing his little arms from the tightly wrapped blanket. Since Ivan was already awake, Roemell lifted up the infant and cradled him in his arms. He was amazed that such a small person could thrive and grow. He tried to imagine his nephew growing into a healthy child. Once big enough, Roemell could teaching him how to kick a ball and swim. There was so much potential in such a tiny package.
“If you bring him over here, I’ll feed him and he’ll go back to sleep for another couple hours.” Roemell turned to find Tammy still lounging on her side. Her shirt was already pulled down. He wondered if she had exposed herself prematurely for his benefit.
Doing his best not to stare, he gently lowered his nephew into her arms. The baby quickly latched on and started nursing, and Roemell took a seat on the edge of the bed near Tammy’s feet.
He could feel the tension in the air and decided to fill it with small talk. “Three little boys must keep you pretty busy.”
She smiled, stroking her fingers through Ivan’s hair. “I’ve got them on a routine now, so it’s a lot better than it was. And the older residents love helping out, so I’m not overwhelmed.”
Shuffling his feet against the thin rug on the floor, he added, “Still, that must be a lot of diapers to change.”
Tammy sighed. “Well, Gina launders them for me. Sure, sometimes it feels like I’ve constantly got a kid attached to my boobs, but if I go too long without nursing, they start to hurt.”
“Can’t they use a bottle?”
“Sometimes Archy and Georgy do, but Ivan’s so little he needs more than just powdered milk can provide.” She sat up and burped Ivan before placing him back in the crib. “See that? Out like a light.”
He glanced down at the already fast asleep baby before letting out a heavy sigh. “I wish I had known. If you’d told me, I would have stayed.”
Tammy sat down next to him. “I wish you had, but you’re here now. I have a bunch of responsibilities I’m juggling, but I’ll always make time for you.” He couldn’t help the tears prickling at his eyes. She touched her fingers to his chin and turned his head to face her. Her brown eyes were full of emotion as she looked at him. “Stay this time. Please.” She closed the gap between them, pressing her lips against his. Her mouth tasted sweet, and her skin felt so soft. This time, he didn’t make his body resist.
• • •
Leona wished she could scrub the events of the previous night from her brain. She had been afraid to go back into Ava’s bedroom, even though she desperately wanted to charge in and rescue her friend from Roger’s aggression. Instead, she had curled up into a ball, trembling on the bathroom floor until Ava had knocked on the door and told her it was safe to come out.
As she sat up in the comfy bed she glanced over at Ava, who was peacefully sleeping next to her. Looking at her now, dressed in her nightgown, her pale cheek pressed against a white pillow, Leona could pretend that the torture her friend had endured the night before had never happened.
Leona crept out of bed and went to the bathroom to get dressed. The clothes she had worn when she arrived had been laundered and were neatly folded on the vanity. After brushing her teeth and sweeping her curly hair into a ponytail, she got dressed, then returned to the bedroom.
Ava was sitting up in bed. “Are you all right?” Leona asked.
Her friend held a hand to her temple. “Yeah. I’m fine.” She opened the top drawer of her nightstand and dug out a flask of something, opened it, and took a long pull before replacing it and closing the drawer.
Leona sat down next to her friend. “Does he do that every night?”
Ava nodded. “Most, yes.”
“Why don’t you leave? You shouldn’t have to put up with that—”
“I made the choice to be here.”
Leona examined Ava’s face, her features set in a stern expression. Ava got up and pulled her nightgown up over her head. There were burn marks all over her torso that hadn’t been there the previous day. Ava looked over at Leona, who was staring open-mouthed at the numerous injuries, and said, “It looks worse than it is. The redness goes away pretty quickly.”
“Even staying in a tent with barely any food would be better than submitting yourself to that sadistic asshole.”
Ava walked to the bathroom and said, “You may enjoy slumming it in the forest with your little vagabond squeeze, but I have my entire family to think about. No one wanted to take us in, so when Roger expressed an interest in me, I negotiated a deal to keep my parents, brother, and his wife safe.”
Leona followed and stood right inside the doorway, watching as her beaten friend stepped into the steamy shower. Instead of letting one of the companion bots wash her, she used an exfoliating sponge to scour her pale skin until all of it started turning red.
“Does your family know how he treats you?”
Ava continued scrubbing, getting even more aggressive as she got to her pelvis and inner thighs. “They don’t need to know.”
“Yes, they do, Ava.” Her heart was breaking for her friend. Even though their relationship had never been particularly deep, it made her sick to her stomach thinking about what Roger must have been doing to Ava every night. “You shouldn’t let anyone treat you this way.”
“Increase water temperature,” Ava commanded. Steam rose from the intensely hot water, the extra humidity causing Leona to cough. “You don’t understand.”
Leona took a seat on the damp floor. Her coarse hair reacted to the moisture in the air, a halo of frizz escaping from the hair-tie. Ava tossed her sponge aside and leaned against the tile wall, letting her body slowly slide to the floor.
Leona spoke softly. “What don’t I understand?”
Ava let out a short sob. “My sister-in-law Penny is expecting. I fucking hate your friend, Roemell, but I still felt bad about what happened to his sister. I don’t want my brother’s wife to suffer a similar fate. Not if I have the opportunity to get her the care she needs.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Climbing back to her feet, Ava took a towel from the waiting companion bot and dried off her face. “I don’t want anyone else to know either.” She gave Leona a pointed look.
“Of course not. I won’t tell.” Leona desperately wished there was something she could do for Ava and the Evanko family. Then she remembered why she had originally come to see Ava. “Actually, I might be able to help. I mean, it won’t immediately solve your problem, but it will make a future without Roger possible.”
Ava stretched her arms up as the android slipped an emerald green blouse over her head. “How so?” she asked as she stepped into a pair of pants the robot held out for her.
Leona explained briefly how the VanStratens had given her supplies to start over, but without access to her family’s estate, she had nowhere to grow a garden.
“How am I supposed to start over without automation systems?” Ava asked as her bot applied makeup onto her face.
“Use people.” Leona got up from the floor. “There’s a bunch of people at the settlement I stayed at for a while who would be happy to work. They would be thrilled with a chance to live off the land.”
Ava gave her
a skeptical look through the mirror. “You’re offering to just give me everything you have? What’s the catch?”
Leona shrugged. “No catch. Just, when Roemell and I return from the capital, we want to be a part of it as well.”
By the expression on Ava’s face, she figured the answer would be a solid no. She was surprised when Ava finally said, “Okay.”
Leona rushed up to Ava and pulled her into a tight hug. “Thank you so much.”
Ava pushed her away. “Don’t mention it. Please.”
Leona backed away a step, but couldn’t help the huge smile on her face.
“I expect you to tell absolutely no one about Roger.”
“Of course,” Leona agreed.
Ava got up from the vanity then strode out of the bathroom and back into her bedroom. “Roger should wake up any minute. You’ll want to leave before that happens. He sometimes likes doing a morning encore.”
“Right,” Leona said, nodding her head. “I need to head out, but I’ll try to come back and check on you soon.”
“Ciao.” Ava gave a little wave, and Leona exited the bedroom. Benobot was waiting for her in the hallway.
“Let’s go,” she said, addressing the bot. It led the way through a handful of rooms before they exited using a side door. As they walked around to the back of house, she saw the bike and cart parked next to a courtyard. Both had been thoroughly cleaned and glistened in the sunlight. “We’re leaving the cart.”
“Are you certain, Miss Leona?”
She nodded quickly. “Yes.”
The android detached the wagon full of supplies, then examined the bicycle. “Without the cart, this vehicle only carries one. You should ride, and I will travel next to you on foot.”
“All right.” She hopped onto the bike and started pedaling, while Benobot jogged right behind her. Although she longed to go to the settlement, she wanted to be alone even more.
She now had a solid plan and knew what she needed to do, but she also had a sinking feeling that something terrible would happen.