I, Cassandra

70 | CASSANDRA VALLIS

I scramble to pull my jumpsuit back on.

'Don't bother,' Amadi says without opening his eyes. 'I've already seen you.'

I stop. I don't know what to think, or do, so I just wait. I weirdly wonder if he thinks I'm attractive, then feel ashamed for thinking it.

'I brought you something,' he says and pushes his basket over to me, his eyes still closed.

'If you've seen me,' I say, 'why are you keeping your eyes closed?'

He shrugs. 'Just waiting for you to give me permission to open them, I guess.'

I peer into the basket. At first I don't know what I am looking at, it's just a big clump of what looks like a nest woven with tiny fibres. I reach in and pick it up. It's soft, dense, and the colour of night.

'What is it?'

'It's for your period,' he says. 'It's a nest from the bat birds, or whatever they are. They eat the rushes and regurgitate them into this material.'

'You stole their nest?' I ask.

'Well, it's an old one. So no. They abandon them when they are done.'

I look at the gift he has brought me with new eyes. It's densely made and feels like it can absorb a lot. I tear free a piece that can fit into the gusset of my underwear.

'You really think of everything,' I say. I look back at him to check if his eyes are still closed. They are.

'You're quite beautiful,' he says out of nowhere. 'You made my day when I came back. You laying there sleeping naked is the nicest thing I have seen in a long time.'

I wait. He still doesn't open his eyes. I pick up my jumpsuit to put it back on.

'You can open your eyes,' I say. He does.

He gives me a long look. I have seen that look before. I put the jumpsuit back down. And then he kisses me. And I realise I am ok with that.

Once we start we don't stop for a long time. I don't know what it is, but it's not love, or even attraction. It just is. It's the need to feel someone there, to be close, to have that contact and considering we ride each other like animals it seems we are starving for that. When we are done, the sun is at its lowest point, which means we have been fucking for hours. The air stinks of us, of sweat, of him, of my period. Of sex. I feel good. The period cramps are gone, and I feel lighter and happier than I have in a long time. I turn to look at him. He smiles through his beard at me.

'I should have brought you a nest sooner.'

And I laugh, because it's true, and because he's nice, and because maybe it's not so bad after all to be like this, free, alone, and the rulers of this world.

We sleep on the same side of the fire now. I don't know what I feel for Amadi, friendship at least, affection at most. Nothing more. The sex is rough but good. It satisfies something deep inside me, anger maybe, I don't know. But I give him as good as he gives me. There is no tenderness between us. I don't think there ever will be. Sometimes he says Adiana's name when he comes, sometimes I say Ryan's. Neither of us talk about that.

While we work, we speculate who's in the pod and make up stories about them, where they lived, what they looked like, what they ate and owned. I wonder if it's the Prime Minister. He says he hopes the fuck not. I ask him if he knew him. He nods but doesn't look happy about it. That's as close as I have gotten to knowing who Amadi once was.

I also wonder what my companion looks like under his beard and dreads. I ask him what he looked like before and he tells me I couldn't handle it, that it's better like this so he doesn't break my heart, which makes me laugh. He never asks anything about me. I don't ask him why, but it troubles me, because his lack of curiosity tells me something, I just can't figure out what.

It's been a month since we found the pod. It perseveres in stoic silence on its cold, monolithic journey, its passenger frozen in a moment of time ten thousand years old while we sit and swelter in the sun, stripping leaves from vines and wearing nothing more than our underwear to 'stop the insects from getting into our cracks' as Amadi puts it.

'What if it's a woman?' Amadi asks.

I look up from my work. He tilts his head at the pod. 'Inside?'

'Is that what you're hoping for?'

'Hell no. One woman to find nests for is enough. It's a long walk.'

I laugh, but my heart isn't in it. I know whoever is in there is going to end what me and Amadi have. It won't work, three of us here, surviving together. And unless it's a child, no matter who it is, man or woman, or how decent they might be, the sex will make it weird and create tension. It always does, just like it did with Zee. The jealousy, the anger, the threats. I don't want to go through that again.

'I hope they don't make it,' I say and lean back on my elbows to avoid his look of condemnation.

'I get it,' he says. 'It works like this. It's easy. No stress.'

I close my eyes and let the heat of the sun's rays drift over me. 'It's too easy,' I say. 'That's why something is going to fuck it up. Even here, the same rules apply.'