Free Anything for Food - A Post-Apocalyptic Erotic Tale by Amy Morrel Page B

change?”
    “Well, I'd like to be able to say
no or ask you to stop, every once in a while, without being run off.
I promise not to do it very often.”
    “Is that all? Of course we can do
that.” Jake said.
    “That isn't quite all. I'm still
wondering if I should ask for the other thing I'm thinking of.”
    “Go ahead and ask, the worst I
can do is say no. Besides, Allan has me thinking that I'm more than
just a little in debt to you now.”
    “Okay then, I want it to be
reciprocal. I want to be able to tell you when and how
we'll have sex also. You can say no or ask me to stop if you want,
just like I can.”
    “Is that all? Of course we can do
that. Like I'd turn you down when you wanted sex. Even with my
problems before I would've thought you'd notice that there was some
serious interest on my part. I was having problems because I was
trying to credit your looking like Shelly as the reason for my
interest. That might have been what caught my attention at first, but
by the end of the first day it was more than that.”
    “What? I kept catching you
looking like you were elsewhere. I figured you were doing me and
pretending I was her or seeing me and thinking you were seeing her.”
    “Some of the time I was, I'm
sorry. Some of the time I was actually feeling guilty because I
wasn't thinking about her and was actually thinking about you. Like I
said, I was trying to keep her memory alive. When I was mostly a
hermit it was easy. After you were here for only a few hours, it was
already getting harder to keep her in my thoughts all the time.”
he said.
    “I'd say I'm sorry for that but
I'm not. I think your friends were right and that it wasn't healthy
at all. I was worried that you were going to do something stupid when
I couldn't find you after you left.”
    “Well, I certainly didn't want to
be found by you at that point. I'll admit to still being a little
upset with you even now. It was a comfortable fantasy I lived in for
these last two years and now I need to live in the real world again.
But since the world is not what it was, it's probably a good thing
that you snapped me out of it. Nowadays living in my own dreams could
get me killed.”
    “Is it going to be okay? I mean,
with me here if you're still upset with me?”
    “It's fine, it's more on the
level of feeling stupid when someone points out one of your mistakes
than anything more serious. I may have done more foolish things than
getting lost in my memories for years but I'd be hard-pressed to
think of them if I have.”
    Andi decided that Jake had exposed
enough of his soul for the moment.
    “I did what chores I knew how to
do while you were gone but there are probably some other things that
still need doing.”
    “There wasn't a lot left that
needed doing today. I was trying to get as much as I could done this
morning. So we ought to be okay until tomorrow. Thank you, though,
for doing what you could.”
    “Hey, like you said: the world
isn't what it was. There are some things that need to be done and
can't be put off. I don't know which those are yet so I did the
things I could in case they were some of them.”
    “You'll learn. I think you'll
learn quickly.”
----

Chapter
10 – What She Wants
    Andi and Jake spent the next couple of hours chatting. There was
an uneasy feeling in the air at the start but as they talked and
opened up to one another more, it slowly faded. Despite not having
really gotten to know one another well yet, they had to go back and
start over. This time, the specter of Shelly's memories seemed to
intrude less and Jake was willing to talk about his ex-love more
freely than he had with his earlier guarded comments.
    Jake proved to be cheerful company now that he was living in the
present again. His melancholy moments were fewer, further between,
and shorter than they had been over the past couple of days. Andi
found herself enjoying his company more now that he was in the
present and she wasn't seeing the haunted look in