by Aya DeAniege
I selected a pink dress with a gingham pattern on it and a six-inch white lacing along the bottom. There were no sleeves to the dress, which was one of the reasons I had selected it. The top was almost like the tank tops I used to wear to work and hugged my chest in a similar way.
When I walked into the entertainment room, Nathaniel almost dropped the remote.
“Didn't expect you so soon,” he muttered in excuse as he sheepishly set the remote on the coffee table.
The entertainment room looked like a living room from just before the collapse. Nathaniel liked to decorate different rooms of his home in different eras. The ballroom was more a 1920's feel, while the grand ballroom was styled after those found in the 1700s.
A large television was mounted to the wall. Not an extravagant sized thing like most rich people had. It was only fifty or so inches large. Underneath the television was an entertainment unit with little black boxes sitting in the cubbies.
The couch Nathaniel sat in was far enough away from the wall that the picture was crisp and clear, but still dominated one's view. Between the couch and the television was a short black coffee table with nothing on it but for the movie case. The table had a glossy surface that almost appeared to be glass, but still had the fine lines of wood grain in its dark colouring.
The couch was neither too soft, nor too hard. It was long enough to fit four people, which meant that it was long enough to lay across with spare room at the one side. There were throw pillows on the couch and a blanket over the back of it. Just like all the furniture in Nathaniel's estate, the couch had no damage to it.
I still marvelled over each bit of furniture I saw, delighting in the fact that it hadn't been used and abused by people before me. I could definitely see the allure of being rich, being able to afford new and shiny things.
But at my heart I still, and always, was a poor person. I couldn't fathom paying for new furniture when second-hand at many of the shops outside of the slums was still nearly new. Or at least new enough that I had a hard time telling the difference.
Clearing my throat, I moved to the couch and sat while Nathaniel got up and left the room. I heard him say something to the servant before he came back in and sat beside me. Awkwardly I wiped at my dress, pushing out a nonexistent wrinkle.
The servant returned and set a large bowl of popcorn on the table, then two bottles with a dark something in them. Beside one bottle was placed another smaller one with clear liquid in it.
I looked to Nathaniel as the servant left again. He reached out and picked up the bottle.
“What? You've never seen soda before?” he asked.
“Our soda was usually the cream kind,” I said, picking up the second bottle.
I opened the bottle and sipped it.
The soda bubbled the way carbonated items do. It had a darker flavour than that of the soda I was used to. Cream soda and grape soda amongst other things.
Nathaniel drank a bunch from his bottle, then picked up the second bottle and opened it. He poured some of the clear liquid into his soda bottle and then glanced at me.
“That's alcohol, isn't it?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, setting his soda on the coffee table and holding out his hand for my bottle.
I handed it over, and he sipped a little more before topping it off with alcohol.
“I have had alcohol before,” I said as I accepted the bottle back from him.
“Until I know your tolerance, this is the way we will do it.”
I brought the bottle to my lips, aware that Nathaniel was watching me closely. With the liquid in my mouth, I held it there as I considered the strange mixing of flavours between the new soda and the clarity of the alcohol.
I almost swallowed before I remembered, and dribbled the soda back into the bottle. Wiping at my lips with the back of my hand, I glanced at Nathaniel.
He smiled in response.
“Damn, thought I'd catch you.”
“May I drink this?” I asked.
“You may,” Nathaniel sighed, still smirking as he reached for the television remote.
He played with the remote as I sipped the soda. I was impressed at how smooth the alcohol tasted. When I had held the alcohol on my tongue, it had seemed good. It hadn't burned the way slum alcohol burned. There was no cringing tingle as if I had pressed a battery to my tongue. On the way down, though, it just seemed to slip right into my stomach, curling in the pit and teasing me with the promise of a good time.
Slum alcohol was pretty well the same as gambling. One never knew if a sip would knock them out, or where they might wake up unless they went to trusted venders.
I set the bottle down and reached for the popcorn.
Nathaniel smacked my hand away from the bowl without looking away from the television.
“Ow, you didn't say I couldn't!” I said, holding my stinging hand to my chest protectively.
It wasn't like the smack he had given me in the gym, or while I had been standing on the stool. That smack hurt.
“Sorry, tradition. You don't start eating until the movie starts,” Nathaniel muttered, clicking a button. An introduction blared across the screen. “Now you can eat.”
I took a piece of popcorn and tossed it into my mouth. As I bit down, I stopped. My mouth didn't seem to comprehend what was going on. For a moment I thought perhaps the alcohol had done something strange to my tongue.
Popcorn in the slums is just that.
Popped corn.
Rich people put butter and salt on their popcorn. Some put powdered flavouring on it as well, but those people were just mad. I knew what salt tasted like, but we hadn't had butter in the slums. We had that fabricated butter substitute.
Over the days with Nathaniel, I had tasted butter with my meals, but hadn't understood what it was that I had been eating.
“You want to eat the whole bowl,” Nathaniel said, picking it up off the coffee table and setting it between the pair of us.
“No, I'm not greedy,” I said in response, swallowing the bit of popcorn.
“Mr. Wrightworth ate three bowls his first night with me, even tried to bite me when I asked for some," Nathaniel said quietly. "Thankfully it's not something that can make you sick."
He picked up the bottle and drank from it as I watched him.
“Why don't you drink out of glasses?” I asked.
“Force of habit,” he said. “Rich people see a bottle and think it's just soda.”
I looked around for the alcohol bottle. The bottle was suddenly missing. That seemed suspicious to me, that he'd pour us drinks in bottles and then make the alcohol bottle disappear.
I turned to Nathaniel with a frown.
“I don't have a problem. My father does," Nathaniel muttered. "Watch the movie."
“What are we watching?” I asked.
Nathaniel sighed loudly, head dropping to the side as he made the exaggerated sound. He reached over the couch and picked something up, tossing it at me. I caught the item and looked at the movie case. I had never held one in my hands before.
“Vikings Versus Zombies: An Erotic Tale?” I asked.
“It's a B-rated movie, I like them.”
“An Erotic Tale?” I asked again.
“Are you one of those people who talks through every movie?” Nathaniel demanded.
“No, but is this a movie or pornography?”
“It's, well, that's complicated,” Nathaniel muttered.
With a frown, I turned to the television screen.
We ate popcorn and drank our sodas in near silence. I wanted to ask all sorts of questions about the movie, though they were all about the setting. I wanted to know if people really dressed like that, were there always so many lights, and where did the poor people live?
Given the fact that it is a B-rated movie, few have seen Vikings Vs. Zombies: An Erotic Tale.
It was made right before the collapse when everyone was spending money on everything. Of course, no one had the money to spend, an
d this movie is a good example of that. Even though it had unknown actors who couldn't act—and a camera man who couldn't keep steady, and a sound technician who kept getting in the shots—the equipment used was the very best.
The movie almost had the look and sound of a good, real movie.
The opening credits take place back in history when Vikings lived and such. A young male Viking is at dinner the night before his first raid and chokes to death on a piece of meat. As they're laying him to rest, one of the onlookers says in another language—which was not a language Vikings would have used. I think the film producers used Russian!—that it was a shame the young man would never make it into Valhalla. Another onlooker responded that all those who died in such a way would be given a chance to redeem themselves in the future.
Pretty certain that's not how the Viking belief system worked.
Fast forward to 'Present Day' as the movie helpfully tells us.
In the slums, we weren't allowed to watch such movies for fear of it causing envy, and then a riot.
Four friends walked out of a bar, drunk as could be and done up like rich people. They wore layers and layers of clothing that weren't even made to be warm. They passed others dressed the same way. Even their homeless people had nice looking clothing. The friends debate getting food, but one of them says she's on a strict diet to lose an extra ten pounds.
She was the smallest woman I've ever seen. Shut up and eat something before you blow away!
They walk around a corner and come on this man standing in the middle of the sidewalk, groaning quietly to himself with his back to them.
Cue the trope of, “Hey man, you okay?” even though they ignored the homeless guy as they walked by, then rolled their eyes and made fun of him.
And they all die.
Because these are not the main characters of the movie.
There is then the bit where newspaper headlines are shown, and news anchors speak over top of the dropped newspapers. Some month and a half goes by and then the time stops moving out by the docks with two guys.
They're standing there looking out over the water in the middle of the night.
In the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
As they stand there, a Viking boat slides out of the darkness and fog. Oh, and zombies attack them because they were standing out on a pier at night during a zombie apocalypse, making a bunch of noise.
So they run for their lives as the Vikings touch down and start murdering all the zombies. A group of Vikings have a conversation about the lack of women available to slake their desires just as the two men run by screaming. The Vikings look at one another and shrug.
“If it screams like a woman,” one of them says.
I think the audience is supposed to laugh at that.
The Vikings chase the pair, capture them and take them back to the boat. But one of them has been bitten, one of the humans that is, and hides it. He turns into a zombie on the boat and then, despite not being on land, the Vikings are fighting for their lives as one by one, they start turning into zombies.
The boat puts down in a park and the one who has claimed the remaining human, who happens to be that young man from centuries ago, also happens to be the last remaining Viking alive. He lights the boat on fire, locking everyone but the human on board and whispers something about Valhalla before turning his back and dragging the human off.
The boat explodes, naturally.
They walk a distance, there's a struggle, the Viking ends up having sex with the human. I don't know why they didn't do it before if the Vikings claimed him, but when in a B-rated movie, follow the rules.
The pair goes further after sex and gets attacked. While the zombies set upon them, another group of Vikings finds them and saves them, meaning to take them hostage. The Viking who claimed the human recognizes someone and instead of being taken as a slave or whatever, he ends up joining them.
Except the human has been bitten.
And hides it.
These movies make people before the collapse out to be absolute idiots. I find it necessary to say here that despite them causing the collapse, the people from that time in history were some of the most brilliant minds of all human history. It was their work that allowed us to watch this damned movie over a hundred years after it had been filmed despite the fact that the original physical copy was destroyed.
They also provided medical and scientific patents that we used to do a great deal after they had all died and ruined the world.
Anyhow, the Vikings go back to the new ship where they celebrate, and the one Viking continues to have sex with the human even though he knows the human is turning into a zombie.
Yeah, ew.
The Viking chains him to the bed to keep him from eating other people and then still continues, saying something about now they were both dead, until the zombie's hand falls off and he escapes.
Human is caught, Vikings want him put to death, the first Viking agrees to do it. Goes to kill the zombie but gives him one last kiss. After the killing blow, as the head rolls across the deck of the ship, the Viking makes a comment about feeling funny and starts changing into a zombie.
Apparently, in this movie, the zombie virus was also a sexually transmitted disease.
As his companions try to take him down, he kills several of them. Then is finally killed himself. He wakes up in a hazy field, with the human beside him. Both are wearing Roman style clothing and they laugh and have sex.
End of movie.
I should add that at no point did the human ever say he wanted it or pretended he liked it or was romantic in the least with his captor. Personally, I was horrified. I had just witnessed a man be raped at least three times on screen and then have to spend eternity with his rapist, serving his every desire.
“No,” Nathaniel said when I protested as much. “He's a masochist. He likes being hurt, just look at how he reacted to being chained up.”
“When he was a zombie? All he did was moan!”
“In some parts of the community, moaning is the same as consent,” Nathaniel said nonchalantly.
My mouth dropped open, and my eyes went wide.
“I'm kidding," Nathaniel said in reaction to my look. "I've watched that before and the person I was watching it with suggested that the human wasn't actually there at the end. He suggested that heaven is what we want it to be, so the Vikings wanted a sex slave for all eternity and got one because according to his religion, he earned heaven by dying in battle."
“So then where's the human?” I asked.
“Given his lifestyle and the predominantly Christian area he grew up and then died in, I'd say burning in the fiery pits of hell because he had gay sex before death. Unless, of course, he was an atheist, then according to this person's theory, nothing happened after death. He simply stopped existing because he believed that's what happens."
“If I were God, I'd make atheists live in the heavens of other people for all eternity."
“Then by your thought, that could have been the human, living in his version of hell because he thought life after death didn't exist. Also, according to your version, he deserves to be raped for all eternity."
“Not what I meant,” I said.
“Or maybe you just like seeing others in situations where consent isn't exactly clear.”
“I...” I stammered off into nothing, uncertain if there was something I could say that didn't make me seem like a worse person.
I told myself I couldn't protest that I didn't believe that because I hadn't run into that situation before. Nathaniel was opening my eyes to the ways of his world, and I was suddenly hesitant to say no to new things.
“I bet, with your background, you'll enjoy watching a man be tied up and beat for your pleasure,” Nathaniel said, chewing on one of the last remaining pieces of popcorn. “You probably liked the sex in there in some way, which is why you didn't protest during the movie like most women do.”
My mouth dropped open again. I couldn't bel
ieve what I was hearing from him.
“That's not true at all.”
“Oh, one of those," Nathaniel muttered as he stood.
The man busied himself moving the popcorn bowl to the table and placing the movie back in the case as I gaped at him. I wanted an answer as to what he meant but was afraid of what his answer might be. As he reached for his soda, still half-full, Nathaniel stopped and blinked at me.
“What?” he asked.
“What do you mean, one of those?" I demanded.
“You like to see men tied up," Nathaniel said, unscrewing the top to his soda bottle. He even took a swallow before replacing the top and setting it back on the table. "You like being in control of males, but you wouldn't find it arousing unless it was a strong male you had tied up. Me, for example. You'd like to see me tied up and submitting to someone else. Just try not to pair me with Mr. Wrightworth in your mind. That man can be mean."
“I would never—”
“No? Never? It's a taboo, the forbidden. You know he's gay, right? He also doesn't believe play and sex can be separated, but that's just his experience so far.”
He was baiting me again, though I didn't know it at the time. Nathaniel was aware that his commenting on ritualized fantasies had altered my fantasy from the night before and was pushing the limits of what he could do. He wanted to see just how much of a suggestion I could take.
I'm not ashamed to say that I played with the idea.
Even men in the slums talked about their love of watching two women together. There are those who serve in the sex trades and do so successfully. Slum pornography is rather tasteful. It's all image based, and full nudity rarely happens. For whatever reason, a woman enjoying watching two males together, no matter how far they got, was seen as disgusting.
But try to tell the men that some women are disgusted by their idea that two women should kiss in front of them.
“Uh-huh," I said in response.
“Disengaging is a defensive mechanism,” Nathaniel said. “Let me walk you back to your room.”
“Sure,” I said, uncertain what was expected of me after the movie.
Nathaniel held out his arm, and I slid my own through it. We walked out of the living room and down the hall, pausing in front of a painting when I gawked at it.