My brain found itself outvoted in a sudden upset sponsored by the body and supported by every hormone I had. I was reaching for her, and she was reaching for me, and then her fingers were unrolling the condom along the length of my cock, and then coherent thought took a backseat for a while. Its services were no longer required, or really wanted. Everything that mattered was in the bed, and none of it took the slightest bit of thinking. All I had to do was act. So I closed my eyes, cupped my hands against the side of her waist, and let the moment do the driving.
I don’t know how long the moment lasted. Long enough that when it ended, I was even more exhausted. It was a better exhaustion, it was just… all-consuming, the kind of tired that it’s almost impossible to fight. I helped clean up the mess with my eyes half-closed, fumbling as we got the damp sheets and the used condom into the appropriate hampers and waste baskets. Then I sagged back into the mattress, relaxing utterly as my head hit the pillow. It felt like all the tension was finally running out of me, leaving me floating in that wonderful horizon between half-asleep and all the way gone.
Fingers trailed down the length of my chest, coming to rest just above my navel. “Good night, Shaun,” whispered a voice, inches from my ear.
God. For the first time in longer than I could remember, the world felt like it was actually back the way that it was supposed to be. I brought up a hand to brush my knuckles against her cheek, smelling the sweet-salt-sex smell of her, and smiled.
“Good night, George,” I said, and slipped away into sleep.
Mankind’s history is littered with singularities—big moments that changed everything, even if nobody knew they were coming The discovery of antibiotic medicine was a singularity. Before that, it was normal for women to die of “childbed fever,” a simple staph infection making them die slowly and in great agony. Cavities killed. Antibiotics changed all that, and less than fifty years later, the thought of living the way people lived before antibiotics was alien to almost everyone.
The industrial revolution was a singularity. As you sit reading this, consider that, once, electric lighting was considered a luxury, and some people weren’t even sure it would catch on. The idea that someday the entire world would be run by machines was crazy, preposterous science fiction… but it happened.
The Rising was a singularity. The way we live today isn’t just a little different. It’s alien. Our paradigm has shifted, and it can’t be shifted back. That’s why so many of the old rules of psychology don’t apply anymore. Once the dead are walking, crazy’s what you make it.
—From Cabin Fever Dream, guest blog of Barbara Tinney, April 20, 2041
Tonight’s watch-along film is that classic of the genre, The Evil Dead, wherein a truly spicy young Bruce Campbell—yum—is menaced by demons, evil trees, and his own hand. I’ll be opening the chat room at eight Pacific, and live blogging the whole movie for those of you whose attention spans won’t tolerate anything longer than a few hundred characters.
I hope to see you all online, and remember, last person to log on owes me a drink.
—From Dandelion Mine, the blog of Magdalene Grace Garcia, April 20, 2041
Sixteen
I woke sprawled buck-ass
naked on the guest room bed, surrounded by the furry mounds of sleeping bulldogs. Groaning, I pushed myself up onto my elbows. The door was open about a foot—just enough to explain my unwanted guests. I scrubbed at my face with one hand, trying to wake up enough to start worrying about my clothes. “Guess it’s time to deal with another fucking morning, huh, George?”
Ringing silence answered me. I pulled my hand away from my face and sat all the way up. “George?” Still no answer. “You’re starting to freak me out here, George. What did I do to earn the silent treatment? I’m doing what you asked me to do. I’m actually stepping up to the plate. So could you stop fucking around?”
She didn’t stop fucking around. She was still there—I remember what sane felt like, and this wasn’t it; sane didn’t come with the constant low-grade awareness of George sitting at the back of my head—she just wasn’t talking. I scowled.
“Fine. If you want to play silent treatment, we’ll play silent treatment. See how you like it.” I scooched my butt along the mattress, eventually gettin to the point where my feet hit the floor. Every muscle in my legs ached. I could already tell I was going to be applying Icy-Hot and gulping aspirin like M&Ms all day. I guess that’s what you get when you go and outrun an outbreak.
“And yet somehow better than the alternative,” I muttered.