The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (30 page)

He got up suddenly, thrashing his way out of the huge beanbag.

“You ok?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” He walked out of the store and stood on the concourse a while. When he turned to walk away, she saw the outline of his erection by the dim light of day.

Clinically, she diagnosed it as long celibacy coupled with talking more explicitly about sex than he probably ever had before. In the part of her that was not clinical, she clenched up and throbbed for just a second, everything hot and aching inside her.

Winter in the Mal
l

Can barely stand them. Either one of them. Honus = almost interesting. Right on the edge. Sometimes I can get a whole conversation with him, like tonight. Mostly = goofy about his wife and such an optimist I could vomit. Jodi = so dumb I can hardly stand it. If she wasn’t pregnant I’d have dropped her ass off back in Huntsville by now.

But my dreams = fucking them both. Hasn’t been that long. But fuck. FUCK.

Going to get my own vibrator before we leave.

* * * * *

They drove back on separate snowmobiles and Dusty was relieved. She got used to it pretty quickly and found that it was capable of terrifying speeds. They stopped at a house near theirs and Honus dropped off one of his bags there.

“To surprise Jodi later. If I bring it in the house, I’ll totally give it to her now.”

Dusty smiled.

They arrived back home and Jodi had hot soup waiting for them. She was anxious and worried, but they told her the trip had been fine.

Winter, every day is exactly the same

Tension = ridiculous. Pretty sure Honus feels it too, but Jodi doesn’t have a clue. Every time she’s out of earshot, we’re talking about sex. How to touch her, how to talk to her, how to turn her on. He says he’s not jacking off because it’s wrong but I doubt it. Think I’m doing a good job of hiding it, but I’m down. As down as I’ve ever been. Shit. Trauma, loss, assault, afraid for my life, and yet. Compulsion to fuck is so strong in our species. In all circumstances, always. Remember what it was like when I was with my first girlfriend in college. Was head-over-heels wanting to fuck her all the time. We barely went to class until we both flunked that anatomy test. Ironic. This feels like that. Stir-crazy inevitable come-and-fuck-me crazies. Probably crazy for nothing.

Not Jack not Jack no one is. Hope you’re out there, hope you made it. Somewhere. Never find you never find me find me. This is not that.

* * * * *

In the time before time ran out, everyone at UCSF who wasn’t sick had been taken by medevac helicopter to the airport and then flown to a CDC-FEMA camp established at a base in the Ozark Mountains. Dr. John Eberhard (Jack to everyone but his mother) was among them. He showed no sign of fever. He had to be sedated. He would not leave his lab voluntarily. He awoke as the plane landed bumpily in Missouri. They replaced his equipment. They did not replace her. For days he worked at convincing himself that she was dead. She must be dead. There were four women in the camp. Fifty five men. No children. He was the only medical professional who had been evacuated from the west coast. Everyone he met was from the south, a few from New York. They worked together with the samples that the CDC provided them. Quarantine was absolute. In a month, they isolated it. They knew its DNA and thought they knew its origin. They developed a vaccine and a FEMA crew flew it into St. Louis to find infected persons on whom to test it. The crew did not return.

Jack intentionally infected himself without telling a soul. He did not develop symptoms. He confessed his breach to Dr. Austin Calhoun, a man from Atlanta who had seen three daughters into death. Calhoun nodded without judgment. He later did the same. Both men were immune.

It was nearly summer before they found an infected young girl in St. Louis. She was pregnant. She would not speak. They took every possible precaution and administered the vaccine. When she died, they took the baby by C-section. A small girl, born grey. DOA. They debated whether the two of them had already been too far gone before the test began. They debated whether the vaccine had killed them. Mother and child were autopsied and no conclusions could be agreed upon.

The day after he sliced the infant’s brain to be pressed between glass, Jack calmly administered a fatal overdose of morphine to himself.

His last thought was that to die in such peace in a world like this was the most privileged and selfish act he had ever committed.

Chapter Nine

THE BOOK OF HONUS OBERMEYER

CONTAINING THE STORY OF THE FIRST HIVE

AS SCRIBED BY THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE

Day 53

We’ve been with Amanda in her hive, as she calls is, for two days. They caught us that night on the roof and brought us here. They forced us to drink strong drink, and then there was dancing with strange drum music. I was so frightened. I broke the Word of Wisdom. I was stripped nude and force-fed more alcohol. I was given a pipe to smoke and I smoked it. I think it was marijuana. It smelled like the kids I knew were trouble in high school. The feeling of it seemed to go on for days and days. I lost track of time. I forgot who I was. I woke up sick and with my mouth dry and my head pounding. I thought I would die, but I did not.

Amanda is a tall, beautiful girl. She has long blonde hair and bright green eyes. She wears clothing that barely exists, like bikini underwear and see-through dresses. I can always see her breasts. I try to look away. She doesn’t speak to us, she speaks to all the men as though they were one person. There are about twenty men here. They are all on drugs. Most of them have tattoos. I don’t know what this place is but there are no windows and there are four or five stages in the room. Maybe it’s some kind of theater. They barely eat food, preferring to drink and smoke. Langdon is in a haze constantly. I tried to leave and drag him out with me, but a group of the men stopped me. They were making this terrible noise. I’m terrified.

Day 54

I was called in to speak with Amanda in private. She made me kneel in front of her as she lay naked on a couch. I tried not to look, but it was such a trial. She asked me where we were from. I couldn’t think of any reason not to tell her the truth, so I did. She seemed very happy that we were LDS. She said we would be her ‘prettiest boys.’ I showed her my ring and told her I was married right away.

She said that all the other girls had died and she was all that was left. I told her not my girl.

She got up and told me to sit on her couch. She traded me places and knelt in front of me, her breasts against my inner thighs. I fought temptation, I struggled like Jacob struggled with the angel. She tried to unzip my pants but I stopped her. I told her no.

She said she was the queen of the hive and she needed more drones to bring her honey. Nothing about that made sense to me, but I didn’t want her. I wanted to go home.

She seemed to go blank then. She had been all sweet-talk and seduction until the moment I said no, then she went totally blank like she had no feelings at all. She told me to get out and send in the other one. I asked her if she meant Elder Langdon. She laughed a little and showed me a tiny blue pill with a dolphin stamped on it. I shook my head and she put it in her own mouth. I walked out of the room and the guards were already pushing Langdon through the door.

I waited in the main stage-room with the other men. They were all drinking alcohol or taking drugs. It seemed like that was what they did all day. Some of them were dancing on the stages using the poles. They all seemed to be naked or on their way there. Some of them were having sex with one another. I’ve never imagined anything like that in my life, even on those occasions when I was tempted to view pornography and gave in. I didn’t know where to look. I thought I might be able to get away while they were all distracted, but then Amanda burst out of her room into their midst. She held Langdon’s hand. He was naked.

She said something like, “Drones! Today a new bee joins your number!” They all hooted and clapped and some of them buzzed. I tried to get Langdon to look me in the eye, but he was obviously high as a kite.

I asked him if he had taken the dolphin from her.

I am the dolphin, he told me.

Amanda led him to the largest central stage and told him today was his day. She laid him down and straddled him and I tried to run away then but I couldn’t believe this freaking abomination was really happening. Every man in the room rushed the stage and I could see them reaching for her with their dicks out, trying to jam them anywhere near her. They became an inhuman pile of the most disgusting sex I can imagine.

I started to back away when one of them grabbed me. It all happened so fast that I barely understood what was happening. He wrestled me to the floor, trying to kiss the back of my neck. I could feel his erection against me and I just panicked. He was so rough and out of control and I tried to pull away but he just kept on. I tried to turn around and push him off me, I ended up elbowing him straight in the eye. I kicked him hard once he was off me. My heart was hammering and I couldn’t even see straight.

I ran. I found the room where they had put my clothes and my pack and I got as dressed as I could and ran for the back door. The whole back side of that building was like a maze of little rooms and hallways and there was no light. Eventually I hit a door that burst open and I couldn’t believe it was daytime.

Out back there was a dumpster overflowing with dead bodies. Some of them lay half out of it, like laundry hanging out of the hamper. More of them were piled on the ground. Live bodies were piled up inside and dead bodies were piled up outside.

I threw up. The smell and the drugs and everything I had just been through was just too much. I ran away, still vomiting, just wanting to get out of there. I didn’t stop until I got to a little house and broke a window to get in.

I prayed for Elder Langdon. I don’t know if he made the choice or the choice was made for him. I just know I can’t go back for him. Never ever could I go back.

* * * * *

Dusty sat back from the book and stared at the candle. Her mouth was dry. It made sense that Honus had not wanted to share this. She was more than halfway through his diary.

She slept in and woke up to the sound of Honus splitting wood outside. There was more than enough wood on the side of the house. It had become a signal between them that meant ‘come outside and talk to me.’

Jodi was where she always was: in the kitchen. Dusty looked at her posture, the way she held the lordotic curve in the small of her back with her hands; the way she waddled. It would be soon.

They had everything Dusty thought they might possibly need. She had taught both Jodi and Honus to time her contractions with a watch they had brought back from the mall. She approached Jodi and asked permission before palpating her belly.

“He’s kicking all the time! He stopped doing somersaults, though.”

Dusty’s hands found the baby’s head. The kid was turned and faced Jodi’s spine. He was ready. “I don’t think he has enough room to do that anymore. How are you feeling?”

Jodi fidgeted. “Ok. Bored, mostly. And anxious. I want to have the baby already. Like meet him and hold him. You know?”

“I know.” They had brought home formula in case Jodi couldn’t breastfeed. They had hidden it from her, in case things went wrong or she felt insulted by it. “No pain or weird feelings?

Nightmares?”

“Yeah like crazy nightmares! Like I lost him or someone is trying to take him from me. All the time!”

“That’s pretty common. If you get scared in the middle of the night, you should go wake up Honus. He can comfort you, and help you get back to sleep.”

Dusty had tried suggesting before that Jodi seek her husband’s comfort in the middle of the night. She had tried innocuous ways and explicit ways. She had tried to ask Jodi about sex. She had been met with suspicion and disgust. It was not a subject they could talk about.

Jodi pulled back from her now and returned to the business of cooking. “Oatmeal soon. With raisins or craisins. Your choice.”

“We got any nuts?”

“Yeah I forgot you like them. Some walnuts.”

“Good.” Dusty went outside.

Honus swung the axe over his head and brought it down in a neat arc. He had shucked down to his over shirt, and Dusty could see the wing of muscles down his side flex and extend.

Latissimus dorsi, whispered the part of her brain that was always preparing for exams in nursing school. She sat on the woodpile.

“How’s Jodi?”

“She’s fine. But I do think it will be soon.”

Honus’ face lit up. “I can’t wait.”

“I can wait forever. They’re both healthy right now, I wish I knew that would stay that way.”

“Don’t worry so much. Have faith.”

Dusty said nothing, hoping the moment would pass.

“Don’t you have any faith at all? Weren’t you raised with any?”

“My parents weren’t religious.”

“Weren’t you ever curious what it was all about?”

“I had a phase in college when I went to church with a bunch of my friends to see what they were so crazy about. I didn’t find anything I wanted.”

“Did you ever have a feeling like the presence of God?”

Dusty thought about storms gathering over the lake before she had had to kill to defend it. She remembered days at the beach and hikes in the woods. She thought about the raw wonder of birth and swiftly her mind plunged into memories of orgasm. Her college girlfriend scream-spasming with Dusty’s whole fist inside her. Coming together with Jack at the best of times, like an electric circuit completing itself. The birth of the baby approached and all Dusty could think about was sex. She was already out of batteries.

“I’ve felt something,” she finally said.

Honus put the axe down and started to stack wood against the house. “Do you know the Bible?”

“Pretty well, yeah. I had to take a class in it as an undergrad.”

“How well do you know the life of Jesus?”

She sighed. They had had moments before when she had the distinct feeling he was working on her. She hated it, especially that he thought she couldn’t tell. She looked back in the window to see if breakfast was ready yet. It was not.

“Pretty well. I could tell the whole story if I needed to.”

“Did you know he was married?”

“I know some people think so.” This was already tiresome.

“Did you know he had two wives?” Honus looked at her mischievously.

“What?”

Honus put one leg up on the woodpile. He had her full attention. “So you know the story where Jesus is teaching in the home of two sisters, Mary and Martha. And Mary sits and listens to Jesus talking while Martha works in the kitchen. And Martha gets mad and comes out and complains to Jesus like, ‘Hey Jesus! This isn’t fair! Make her come help me.’ And Jesus tells her that Mary made her own choice, and they’re both good ones.”