Quake

by K. R. Alexander

  “Oh, God! Brook! Fuck!” Jackson thrust franticly, talking to me, pumping until he was holding in all the way, “Fuck yes, Brook, ah…” While I felt him, reminded again of no protection, not giving a shit as his rush and the extra burst in my own arousal at seeing another man lying there watching us sent me into a second climax.

  I was still dazed, head lulling, arms and legs limp and draped about pointlessly, when Jackson’s thick cock pulled from me, dripping. I let my legs crumple. They pushed them back up, three separate hands, manhandling my knees and thighs, and I blinked down just as Trent’s hot glans broke into me.

  Air popped from my lungs as my muscles tensed against another shock. This time, Trent ignored me. Jackson helped him move my legs up while Trent leaned over me, staring me in the eye, one side of his face lit and one dark, burying himself.

  I gripped his wrists, looking back, silent now, as he was, suddenly so intense, he took my breath, like a black and white noir film leaving you on the edge of your seat in a dark theater.

  He lifted me to a final orgasm with his own, our eyes locked the whole time. I raised up to meet him, threw back my head, but kept looking as he thrust and I felt the second man in my life fill me without a latex sheath between us.

  Jackson watched us from inches away, leaning in to kiss my arm and lips and breast after we’d come, Trent still in me. Jackson was touching himself, breaths ragged. He was too sensitive for it, not able to get hard again so fast, but watching Trent have me had excited him so much he wouldn’t quit. In a shorter time than I’d even known was possible, with Trent on his side, kissing my lips while I turned my head, Jackson parted my knees again and worked himself into me. He was still capping off his own erection, taking a moment more to get the rigidity he needed. Then he was slow, easy rocking back and forth, building his pleasure while he kissed me, sharing with Trent.

  I didn’t feel anything from him when he found another orgasm, only his pleasure as he held onto me, saying my name between kisses. Then he eased off to my left side, away from Trent, the wet trail of our arousal pulling from me to coat my thigh like a paintbrush. Each tucked in close, arms and legs over me, faces against mine.

  There was an actual bed one room over, but no one rushed to move.

  Chapter 17

  Trent woke me with his erection between my thighs, spooning in tight, cupped down so it seemed I sat on his lap—although both on our sides in bed. Bed? Yes, we had made it to the bed after all. Up and washed off, got bad news about the radio, shared soup, went to bed. Now the room was faintly gray with dawn; time to wake up, get up, and make use of every second of light. Instead, Trent wasn’t going anywhere besides into me.

  I moved my right leg a few inches and Trent followed by propping a bit on his left elbow. The tip felt me out, sliding past, making me shudder with pleasure by failing to penetrate anything but out the other side of my legs.

  I reached down, slow and silent because Jackson was asleep right in front of me, turned toward us, mouth open and arm cast partly over his own face. Almost like he was giving us privacy. If only he knew. I smiled, slipped my fingers around the head of Trent’s erection, and guided him back while he whimpered and kept trying to thrust.

  “Brook…” The faintest whisper in my ear. “Last night… I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about protection. So not cool…” He was meaning this contact then, like our moment in the kitchen.

  “Thanks for saying so,” I answered just as softly. “But you don’t have STDs, do you?”

  Puff of breath in place of a laugh. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the past six months?”

  “Exactly. It’s okay, Trent.” And he wasn’t the one who’d started it. I was sure Jackson felt as I did. “One day at a time right now, that’s what we’ve got.”

  Limited thinking was, in fact, all that was keeping us sane. I couldn’t imagine a reason to get all serious and start talking about babies anymore than we were talking about how many had just died, or friends, homes, and material lives we’d all lost.

  Trent blew out a slow breath against the back of my neck as I touched him. With a hint more shifting, he entered me, groaned, and relaxed into the deepest thrusts he could find, rocking us both and the whole bed. Any moment Jackson would wake up.

  It got better and better as Trent pushed, then faster, faster, more, there. “Trent…” I clenched my teeth, turning my face into the towel I was using for pillow, while Trent muffled his cries in the back of my neck.

  Jackson never stirred, snoring slightly, arm still on his face, the dope. Trying not to laugh, I kept my nose in the towel another minute.

  Eventually, I rolled over to face Trent. It took another minute to break long kisses. “Hey, so…” Another kiss. “Trent, I should tell you… You know I met Jackson online?” I whispered. “We connected because we were trying to find people in the Capitol Hill area who were interested in polyamorous relationships and going to meetups. But it was a terrible time, right when everything started shutting down, then distancing and all that.”

  “Is that like … polygamy?” Trent whispered back, frowning.

  “What? No, that’s one man with multiple wives, right? Usually religious reasons? Polyamory is any plural romantic relationship, more than ‘one plus one,’ but any grouping. Can be gay, can be straight, often bi. Can be three people or, I don’t know, seventeen people.”

  Trent snorted, almost shouting a laugh, tucking his face down below my chin.

  Jackson finally budged, giving a jerk and grunt behind me, then shifting in a stretch.

  “Sorry,” I was also laughing, still whispering. “Just an example. And I only wanted to say something because … maybe we kind of shocked you last night.”

  “No, I mean, well, yeah, you totally did. Only … that was fucking hot. I don’t even think I’ve heard the word, but, Christ, we have bigger problems right now than creative relationships. It’s just really good to be with you, Brook. With everyone. Not how I’d have wished to end confinement but…”

  We rested our foreheads together, sharing breaths.

  “None of us did. But we were all going crazy.”

  “We’re all getting sick now,” Jackson said behind me.

  I sighed. “Thanks, Jackson.”

  “But what the hell?” he went on. “We’ll get through it like all this, won’t we?”

  “Yes, we will,” I whispered. “Because we’re the lucky ones. Cups running over.”

  “Fuck,” Jackson groaned as he rolled to his back.

  “You don’t think so?”

  “Not you. I’ve got to pee and don’t want to get up. Cold and dark and no fire.”

  “Pee out the window. There’s no glass. Although … you’d be our extra special hero if you did go out and get the fire started. Everyone will be up in a minute.”

  Jackson heaved a sigh and sat up.

  Chapter 18

  All through scavenged breakfast and boiling water, more washing, drinking all we could hold, tending to wounds and finding a few bits of clothing to dress along with what we could keep of our own, Ramak was restless. While the rest of us were breaking smile records and teasing one another, he paced and searched the houses for a better radio.

  “What difference does it make if we don’t have any news?” Trent finally asked, though in a whisper in my ear, I noticed. “Shit has officially hit the fan, okay? What’s he want?”

  “He wants to know what they’re doing.” I murmured over our shared pot of warmed up canned cream of mushroom soup. Meant to be used in recipes, by the way, not so great solo. Still, the heat and salt were super welcome. “Where is there help, where is there power, where are all the people from North Bend, for that matter?”

  Trent shook his head. “We have to sit tight either way, right? There’s nowhere to go after this. Not without a car.”

  Across the fire from us, Jeff was nodding along. He told us their plan, of staying and hoping emergency crews were coming in this way. “They’ve got to
be able to get over the Pass, or everyone couldn’t have made it out. They’ll be here soon.”

  “That’s not what Ramak thinks,” Christine said softly.

  “Why?” I asked. “What’d he say?”

  “He said there’s a reason they’re gone, and no one coming in—that it’s a bad sign.”

  “Of course they’re gone,” I said. “They had the quake, heard about the wave, and got out. Who wouldn’t want to evacuate?”

  “Exactly,” Jeff said. “We wait, we’ll get more survivors showing up just like us, and eventually get help. Nothing else to do.”

  “With the water starting to recede, we might be able to get back and help more people also,” Nazia said with her hands held out to the fire.

  I glanced around, down the hall of the rambler through the side door, but couldn’t see Ramak anywhere. Jackson was also inside.

  “Ramak doesn’t agree?” I spoke quietly.

  “He’s all doom and gloom.” Jeff waved a dismissive hand. “Lawyers.”

  “What?”

  “They’re all pessimists,” Jeff explained. “They have to be.”

  “Does anyone know what he actually does?” I sipped more soup, trying not to sound too invested—which I totally wasn’t. Just a question.

  “He’s a criminal prosecutor,” Nazia said. “But he didn’t mean to be.”

  “Didn’t mean to be?” I cocked my head. “Who stumbles into that sort of pit-bull work?”

  “Hey, Brook? Can you come here?” It was Jackson and I got up with unanswered questions.

  I expecting a ploy—that Jackson wanted a quickie in the bathroom—but no. He legitimately wanted help with the antibiotic ointment on scratches in his back before pulling on a flannel shirt, not his tattered T-shirt. He helped me with a fresh patch on my shoulder as well.

  “We shouldn’t be taking these people’s clothes. Hopefully they’ll be back to reclaim things, start rebuilding. Sometime…”

  “I know.” Jackson rubbed his eyes, clenching his jaw to suppress a yawn. “We’ll see what we can get from stores for a change of clothes, not personal things, okay? Make a day of it.”

  I nodded, glad he agreed and I didn’t have to explain how I felt about this. “Did Ramak find anything?”

  “I told him there wasn’t a radio in here. He went out to the garage.”

  “Go eat something else. There’s more stale bread and soup and chocolate. I want a last look in the kitchen with the light.”

  Standing in there a moment later, I spotted Ramak, not in the garage but the gloomy backyard, clouds nearly blotting out treetops, mountains vanished. He listened to a distant helicopter, then pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger and stood there, chin tipped down, silent, thinking.

  He wasn’t the only one who felt like something was wrong, more than a little uncomfortable about things not adding up right now. But what were we supposed to do? Jeff and the others were right. North Bend had to be our home for a while.

  I watched him, moving almost unconsciously to the open wall, then glanced past the kitchen table as something colorful drew my eye. Heaps of construction paper, coloring books, makers and crayons.

  Some of the glass had been swept up, some of the furniture righted and cabinets cleared out of food and water bottles. The Megaquake happened, the wave, then all the people had fled over the next day or two. Total evacuation, which meant government orders, maybe military in here enforcing it. People didn’t just up and leave when they had nowhere to go, even from shattered homes.

  There was no glass or debris on the paper, bold pictures and smears of color, red, yellow, black, blue … where a child had scribbled while parents loaded the car? Was that a huge wave over a tiny city in crayon? Was that a bunch of black and brown trees, or broken neighborhoods? Was that…? Was…?

  “Ramak?” My voice came out a whisper. I swallowed, breaths suddenly short, almost painful. “Ramak.”

  He looked around quickly from the backyard, not having known I was there. Something in my voice effected him because he almost bounded to the empty wall, crunching though the shattered sliding glass door to join me.

  I pointed.

  Ramak bent to pick up a bright yellow rectangle of paper, crayoned with a black and green blob, white on top, in a rough triangle shape. Above the white, billowed smears of red and orange in marker.

  Ramak sucked in a sharp breath through his nose and seemed to hold it, rigid as he stared at the page.

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered. “They did get news.”

  “We have to get out of here.” He dropped the page, spinning to face me. “Now.”

  “Wait, it can’t be that bad.” I grabbed his wrist, lungs shriveling even as I tried to convince myself. “It’s so far away. There’s no way, no way…”

  “For the lava, yes. But it must be less than fifty miles from here as the crow flies. A massive eruption would blanket this region in ash so thick we’d all suffocate. And who knows what it’s really capable of? No one’s had a chance to study Rainier after the Megaquake, have they? But whatever they’re seeing so far has made them send over helicopters to watch it and tell this whole area to get the hell out.”

  “Shit…” We headed down the hall. “We need a car. With keys. And gas in the tank.”

  “We’ll find one. Two.”

  We burst out on the others at the fire, making everyone look around.

  “We’re leaving.” I hardly refrained from shouting, yet my dramatic entrance was not met by anyone leaping to their feet or dashing to action.

  “What’s wrong, Brook?” Only Trent even got up.

  “The volcano,” Ramak said. “It’s about to erupt—”

  “What volcano?” Trent asked.

  “What do you mean?” I snapped. “Mount Rainier!”

  Trent’s eyes grew huge. “I thought it was dormant?”

  Everyone was standing now.

  Jackson summed the whole situation up with two words. “Oh, fuck…”

  Chapter 19

  We had our first big argument, and first split, in our team-spirited group when we tried to flee North Bend.

  We found a battered old Ford station wagon in a garage with the keys in it, and a cramped Acura sedan, forest green, with the keys easily found by the front door. We threw toiletries and towels in bags, I left a thank you note for our hosts inside their refrigerator, in case it was soon the only thing in their home not blackened, and we rushed to the outlet mall and grocery store. We dug out what we could, grabbed shoes, clothes, camping gear, microfiber towels to use as masks, more flashlights, backpacks and bags, food, and finally found bottles of water, large and small.

  In ordered haste, speaking only about what we were getting and seeking, we gathered, packed, and met up with the two vehicles.

  Then everything broke down. In the growing rain, with the sky savagely dark, Jeff said, “So head for Monroe? Whatever that road is?”

  Christine was nodding along. Trent said, “Okay.” But the rest of us just stared at him.

  “North?” Ramak asked, getting a whole lot of tone into the single word. A whole lot of, What the fuck are you smoking?

  “Yeah,” Jeff said, at once getting defensive. “The volcano is south, so…” Shaking his head and getting in just as much duh tone back.

  “That’s following the tsunami line,” Jackson said—like that’s a thing, like a coastline. “If you don’t hit flood, you’ll hit a broken up road.”

  “Where are you thinking you’ll go?” Jeff demanded. “You do know where 90 goes? It’s skirting Rainier.”

  “Only at first,” Ramak said. “Then it’s away from the danger zone, farther and farther from ground zero and the volcano. No one evacuated north. Not after all this. They went east.”

  “Where?” Jeff crossed his arms. “Spokane? Idaho? You’ll be lucky to reach the other side of the mountains before running out of gas, forget the other side of the state, and then what? You’ll be just as close as you ar
e now.”

  I would trade half the provisions we’d gathered for a map right now, totally unable to place all these directions or where the roads ran or how far away the volcano really was. Saying nothing, I had to wonder if Jeff and the others were right. Only Ramak and Jackson didn’t waver.

  “Then we’ll walk,” Ramak said. “There’s nothing north. More of the tsunami, more of the quake. The only way to get to safety is east. Beyond the Cascades, east as far as we can go. That’s where help will be, where people will be, and where safety will be.”

  “What about the people here?” Christine’s eyes filled as she spoke. “We wanted to reach safety. We didn’t want to abandon them. We can’t just leave everyone who’s still trapped. We should be going back.”

  “With what?” Ramak asked more softly. “A box of crackers and a rain coat? They need thousands of gallons of fresh water, medical supplies, ten thousand airlifts. Right now, that’s not happening. Of course we would help people if we could. But turning around now and dying in an ash cloud isn’t going to save anyone else. It’s just going to add to the body count. That’s why people were evacuated in the first place. While they still could. While someone could be saved.”

  “We have family here,” Nazia said, glancing at Jackson—who’d already told us on the road that his parents had left Seattle for the affordability of retiring in Spokane years ago. “If there’s any possibility of helping… At least going north means there’s still some chance. We have no idea what the volcano will really do. We’re so far away already…” Looking into Ramak’s eyes, willing him to soften.

  He only looked back. The hush was powerful. Not a bird called. Only rain and our own breaths. And was that very distant thunder? Or something else? Was it only the power of suggestion?