Lust for Tomorrow by Sweeney Dana

Author:Sweeney, Dana
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

I feel utterly composed and determinedly patient as I wait with my eyes closed.

As soon as the blindfold is in place, I say, “Tom, I—”

“Forget it,” he says brusquely, clearly having anticipated some attempt on my part to address the issue.

“But—”

“No. I was being childish.”

“You weren’t,” I say, expecting to be cut off again. When he doesn’t immediately speak, I take the chance to push ahead. “I was only thinking about my fears. Not… your feelings.”

The rest of it, that I resisted the reality of his having feelings to consider, hangs in the air.

I force the simple confession out. It’s a formality at this point, but I need to say it. “I knew your name. Of course I knew. I’m sorry.”

A single bitter chuckle precedes his rueful reply. “Yes, I know what you lot call me. I know it’s not a compliment.”

I dare to reach out. I find his chest, his arms, and I move in close to press my body to his, wordlessly asking him to take me in his arms. After a moment, he does.

“Nina, what is it you’re so afraid of?”

I take a deep breath and press myself more closely to him, burrow my head into his shoulder. “There are no happy endings, Tom.” I startle myself with the words, but they give me the start I needed to say more. “In the old world, what was there to fear? Rejection, or bad relationships that wasted your time. Or maybe, if you wound up really happy with someone, then you’d have to start worrying about something happening to them… but here, after everything we’ve been through, and with everything we go through daily… every fear is real, all the time. And that’s just the life-and-death stuff.”

“Just the life-and-death stuff?“ he repeats, clearly amused at the seeming understatement.

My voice drops to just above a whisper as I admit the worse parts.

“The rules here… isn’t there something kind of punitive about them? You can fuck as much as you want as long as you don’t like each other too much, but the moment you do, you’d better be ready to start making babies.”

His arms close around me more tightly as his tension eases. “I think I understand,” he says quietly.

“It’s the other reason I like the blindfold,” I tell him. “I love the excitement, the sense of surprise, the way it heightens things… but it also made it easier to believe I could avoid getting to know you, liking you… and even as that lie fell apart, it’s been a kind of safeguard. No one could prove I—” my throat chokes on words I can’t believe were on the tip of my tongue to say, and I pivot uncomfortably. “If I can’t even pick you out of a lineup, if you can walk by me without any reaction on my part, that’s safer. We can stay secret, and this doesn’t have to change our lives. If it even would, I mean, I don’t want to presume—”

He pulls back to look at me.

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