“We’ll be waiting,” replied several of the group as they laughed at the pretense of bravado. “Time for a drink?”
The crowd hooted in unison and dug into the coolers.
Chastity kissed Jeremy on the cheek, and he did not know why. He called Mary to his side and gave her a vigorous rub of affection. As he rubbed her neck and head, he asked Chastity why she had kissed him. “’Cause you never backed down, silly.” Squeezing his bicep with one arm, she hugged his neck with the other. “Man, you got some stones on you,” she declared proudly. Jeremy thought he knew what she meant, but he was not entirely sure. To avoid another episode of appearing dense, he did not ask. He just smiled and swallowed the compliment.
“Thank you, Chastity.” Then he kissed her on the lips, a kiss she engaged and locked onto, her tongue diving deeply into his throat. Although Jeremy did not really know what that meant either, he felt a tingle in his groin, and it felt good. Maybe tonight would be even better than the last. He grabbed a couple of beers, popped the tops, and the two wandered over to the fire pit, found a place to sit and called Mary to join them. The conversation among the group was lively, and the aromas of food grilling on open fires set the mood for a fun night under the stars.
As forecast, passing clouds spilled some rain as the sun set, and everyone huddled under one tarp or another as they enjoyed the community and drinks and waited for dinner. The fires blazed, smoked, and spread the aromas of pork ribs, chickens, and turkey legs. Potatoes roasted in foil on the coals. Pots boiled with collards and string beans seasoned with strips of smoked bacon. Someone placed a pot of rice on the side to simmer. The smells lifted everyone’s spirits while they drank beer, wine, and whiskey. After a full day of meeting each other, they felt close the way a large family can. They trusted each other. They believed they would each defend the others. Without expressing their individual responses to the assholes who threatened them before leaving, each felt better with the implicit expectation that the group would not tolerate bullies.
Sitting near the fire, Chastity and Jeremy relaxed with Mary and chatted with others nearby. Where you from? What you do? How long you been in the MAG? Common questions for people getting to know each other. Neither Chastity nor Jeremy said much about themselves since they had just met the night before and did not want to explain how they had developed such a close and affectionate relationship so quickly. They need not have hesitated as everyone there understood the appeal of new sexual partners. Unspoken was an ancillary benefit of the MAG, meeting new people who shared a sexual intensity that seemed to run within the anxiety and anticipation of the group. Still, Chastity was content to attribute their closeness to chemistry, but she was uncomfortable that Jeremy would understand what she meant, so she said nothing.
The sexual attraction likely arose from the threat of danger, doomsday and TEOTWAWKI. The end of the world as we know it. Whatever the spark, it lit more than a few of the members’ libidos. Some was transitory, a weekend training session with camping under the starlight. Some was more enduring as people attached to their weekend acquaintances and developed a longer relationship based on mutual protection and benefit. Jeremy knew nothing about that part of the MAG. Chastity did, but she kept it to herself. She wanted something more than what a horny man on a weekend training exercise might expect. What she suspected but could not verify was that Jeremy was simpler than the kind of men she had hooked up with previously. Simple, but also sincere in his own way, Jeremy was a sexual novice, but he was a man. Chastity could not articulate the mix, but she could feel it, and it warmed her heart as well as other anatomical parts.
One of the cooks announced dinner by banging a ladle against a pasta pot, a quotidian signal to the hungry group who would not realize how common the metallic rhythm should be to each of them. Time to get in line and collect a drink, paper plates and utensils. As Chastity and Jeremy rose to their feet, Mary jumped up also. She had been eating human food and anticipated the dinner as a delicious and slobbery variation from the cheap dog food that Jeremy could afford. Famished, Jeremy strode swiftly to the forming line. “Kind of like summer camp, isn’t it?”
Chastity raised one eyebrow and jovially replied, “I guess so, but I don’t recall so much sex when I went to camp.” Her mischievous smirk alerted Jeremy to her expectations for the night.
“Me either. It’s the organization and scheduling, the orderly manner of queueing for meals.” When Jeremy noted the perplexed expression on Chastity’s face, he asked “Why the look?”
“Where did you learn a word like ‘queue’?”
“I dunno.” Jeremy’s hands slipped deeper into his jeans. Like a shoplifter stopped at the door of a store, he wanted to return his words. He knew that sounding smart could be a curse among groups like these rural preppers.
“’Queue’? Really?” Chastity was not letting go. “I’ve only heard that in British TV shows. You watch much British TV or BBC 4?”
“Not that I recall.” Jeremy had decided it best not to look Chastity in the eyes. She would see through him, not that he knew how, but he knew it nonetheless. He realized that he was on the precipice of exposure, a crumbling edge of deceptively solid footing where he had lost control of his outward appearance. He needed to find a shadow or a hole, a timewarp where he might dematerialize before Chastity identified his true self, an alien embodied in a human form. Silence had offered a veil of deceit, but now he had lost his clutch on the shimmering shield of invisibility. In his mind, his thoughts tangled in a turmoil as if a centipede was wringing all its hands at once.
Suddenly, surprisingly, Chastity started to laugh. What began as a soft friendly chuckle as if two friends traded a private joke grew to a belly laugh and expanded into a convulsing guffaw, a contagious and unending response to what had to be one of the funniest stories anyone ever heard. But, of course, it was not. Chastity merely projected the folly of Jeremy having a brain that functioned anywhere above baseline. Jeremy’s own laugh ended as abruptly as Chastity’s had begun. She viewed him as the joke, not the butt of a joke, but the joke itself.
“So, you think I’m too stupid to know a word like ‘queue’?”
Not yet under control, her lungs heaving with the unstoppable coughs of laughter, Chastity managed to bark a reply, “Yeah.” She paused long enough to add, “Not that I mean to be mean about it. Just honest. You want me to be truthful with you, don’t you?”
Looking at the ground and kicking the grass beside his feet, Jeremy was not so sure. He said nothing as the food line edged forward down each side of the long tables arrayed with a cornucopia of edibles. Jeremy held his paper plate, napkin and plastic fork in his left hand as he surveyed the dishes and scooped servings with a large spoon in his right hand. Salads of kale, spring onions and cherry tomatoes, casseroles laden with pasta or potatoes, steamed vegetables, dark purple beets, smashed pale turnips, bowls of rice and the ubiquitous pinto beans, lowly child of the preparedness corps because they were so cheap to buy in bulk (few knew how to convert the beans and rice into a technicolor Mexican feast rich with a variety of multi-color flavorful peppers, mole sauce and fresh tortillas).
Someone had burned a few loaves of whole wheat bread; it was a toss up as to whether the bread was intended for consumption or as a projectile, but the members collected slices regardless. After all, the weekend was all about preparation, and maybe rock bread was a necessary weapon under duress and a dearth of defensive resources, kind of like 19th century sea biscuits, hard tack, that could survive preservation in kegs for a voyage of two years and more, weevils supplying spontaneous additional protein. The newbies embraced the unknown as if everything made sense.
Common sense in prepping was frequently scarce among the freshly ambitious. After all, who would drink the thick green and brown liquid of algae-congested lake waters or the dense syrup of slow shallow streams rimmed with household garbage and the detritus of modern society? Brown and white garbage bags, old bottles of bleach, broken boxes of beer, discolored water bottles, candy wrappers and foil bags from chips and snacks bars, multi-colored condoms and bottle caps. Who would slake their thirst in a broad shallow pond where beavers frolicked and tail-slapped the surface to alert the rest of their colony? Giardia anyone (a revoltingly malodorous and uncontrollable evacuation of bowels that can persist a few weeks if untreated)? A wicked way to lose weight quickly. Because of the critical importance of water to survival in the first three days (and debilitating effects in fewer days), one of the earliest prepper lessons was the need for sterilizing chemicals or portable filters. In the meantime, a thirsty apprentice would regularly be tempted by the cool clear flow of a small stream as it passed from a small woods on its way to a bigger creek. In the heat of a summer afternoon, knowing nothing other than the sweat and dehydration of activity afield, moron newbies often indulged in the chilly water at hand -- face, neck, and head were fine -- then their dry throat and headache beckoned irresistibly. They never forgot the lesson. And some were cured from prepping forever.
As Jeremy and Chastity moved down the tables collecting food on their plates, neither spoke. At the end of the table, Jeremy passed on the desserts in favor of crystal clear moonshine. From the aroma, Jeremy feared it would burn through his plastic cup, but he poured a full measure anyway. Feeling self-conscious about her poorly timed humor when dinner began, Chastity gestured toward a couple of chairs set back from the main group, several feet beyond the fire pit. She hoped Jeremy would join her.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, Jeremy.” Chastity’s words struck him as faintly sincere. He met her apology with silence and without looking in her direction. “Should I sit elsewhere and give you some time?” He liked the idea mostly because she was capitulating, and he felt a certain degree of superiority, an emotional victory, but he remained silent. “I’ll leave you alone for a while. Maybe we can talk later.” Chastity turned to walk away.
Jeremy did not want to lose the physical connection of their relationship, so he declined. “No, there’s two seats near the woods. You take one. I’ll collect myself soon enough.” In prepper parlance, Jeremy reflected on the need for a partner and, ultimately, a breeding partner. How else would the community grow or perpetuate itself? Yep, the Catholics had sorted it out before the fall of Rome. Populate the known planet or lose control of the religious fervor that fueled wealth and authority. No, Jeremy did not know the history of the Catholic Church, but the rumor among his school mates was that Catholic girls were supposed to avoid contraception, a practice that felt good but created a paternal risk that he chose to avoid.
He and Chastity ambled across the field toward the woods, passing other new lovers eating off their laps on blankets in the rough grass. As a partially conciliatory gesture, Jeremy paused for Chastity to take her seat first. He managed to juggle her plate and cup along with his own. Chivalry of a sort. Still, he maintained his silence even when she smiled and said “Thank you.”
Jeremy was not unmoved. He was trying to establish his manhood with this headstrong woman who had gripped his heart and groin. What began as a weekend like Woodstock on a small scale had quickly evolved into a seventies era free-love experience foreign to Jeremy. What started as an experience in preparing for the end of the world as we know it had shifted swiftly to something else, something that Jeremy had yet to define for himself. He entered the weekend as a failure in his own mind, but his understanding of himself and his ability to contribute to the group had shifted in a matter of hours as he witnessed Chastity and the others show no more competency in prepper skills than Jeremy could. In fact, most showed far less interest in developing new skills than Jeremy felt. Jeremy embraced the evolving sense of self-sufficiency that took root with each new lesson. Of course, as a smoker, he could already strike a match, but now he could revive a “cold” fire. He could sanitize water, gather some odd and edible weeds, twist cordage from green bark, make a lean-to shelter with a knife and armsful of branches.
Jeremy felt his manhood swelling inside him. He saw himself beginning to dominate Chastity and her aggressive womanhood. He may not have known the word for his feeling, but it was nascent misogyny, a cocky bitterness toward any woman who seemed stronger than Jeremy felt. Regardless whether his perspective was accurate or not, it was the view of himself that he had grown during the prepper weekend, watching the actions of others and listening to the preaching of the teachers who supposedly knew how to survive the unsurvivable. Empowerment surged through his veins unnoticed by other attendees, those who had been present but not engaged. Sitting at the edge of the field beside the woods, he finally decided to gaze at Chastity and see what he might read in her expression, her poise, her attitude.
The sun fell below the treetops, projecting a long shadow over the field. Night and stars eased over the horizon as the sun vanished behind the forest. Jeremy and Chastity looked at each other but said nothing. Chastity was confused by the apparent change in Jeremy’s attitude, and Jeremy could see it in her eyes. He was pleased and thought about his next move. Silence or affection? He decided both. Then he suggested they return to the fire pit and join the others lit by the dancing of the flames as people tossed their paper plates into the fire. “We can sit just outside the light. In the grass. Should I grab our blanket?”
Unsure of herself, Chastity hesitated as she replied, “Sure. Sounds good.”
“Back in a minute.”
She could see his shape weaving among the others who were scattered along the outer edge of firelight, a headlamp guiding him through the bodies sitting, prone, entwined or swaying to the soft beat of primal music. As he approached, he suggested, “Let’s move back a bit. More darkness could be romantic. If you don’t mind.”
Still puzzled by his change, Chastity agreed with a slight nod of her head and half crawled, half slid her body back from the light that quivered as the flames leapt and fell. A warmth crept into her body, a welcome affection for the revised Jeremy. He dropped a couple of pillows and lay the blanket beside her. She rolled on her side and smiled as he lowered himself to the ground facing her.
“A beautiful night,” Chastity observed.
Jeremy laid his right arm across her waist, slipped his hand under her shirt, up her back to her neck and pulled her face gently to his lips. “I think we need to begin again.”
“What do you mean?”
“It seems you wanted to use me for a selfish purpose. Frankly, I felt the same about you. But I’ve been thinking, and I think we should be serious about what we each want and what we will commit to.”