Page 23 of His to Mate

11

A week passed,a week of late nights, late mornings, and sweet little gifts from Rager. He’d taken the day off, and they were out in his transporter so they could explore the city together.

“There are parts that even my soldiers haven’t explored yet,” he said as he put the transporter down on a clear spot between two very tall buildings and turned the machine off. “None of us have been out here, and I assume you haven’t either?”

He turned to her with a smile and she shook her head. “No, I don’t go this far out, even with that soldier you assigned to me.”

“Good. It’s not necessarily dangerous but the breeding group has started to let animals out and some of them might be aggressive.” They stepped out of the transporter together and walked out into the debris of what had once been part of a major city. “Not that we’ve really started on predator animals yet.”

“I wish you’d leave snakes off the list,” she said as she walked beside him, her eyes on the buildings. She scanned each one to categorize them into things that might be useful. A pharmacy that had likely been ransacked already, a jewelry store that was also likely empty, and a few more. Clothes, food, survival. That’s what she mainly wanted and she found those on the other side of the street.

“But they control rodent populations,” he answered and waited for her to finish her roundup. “We’ve already seen some rats in other parts of the country. It won’t take them long to breed enough to travel.”

“Non-venomous snakes then, please. Let’s look in the camping store first, shall we?” she asked and headed in that direction. She glanced back and saw he watched her with amusement. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, just your dislike of things that slither. You aren’t afraid of my tongue, thankfully.”

“Or your fingers. But right now,” she paused and turned to him with a flirtatiously impish look, “we need to see if there’s any survival gear left in this little store. Focus, Rager.”

She didn’t exactly try to stop the way her hips swayed as she walked into the open door of the bedraggled shop.

They didn’t find much in the shop, a few cylinders of propane, some lantern wicks, but some rain jackets in bags and a few tents might prove useful to others in the future. Rager loaded those into the transporter and met her at the pharmacy. There she found some gauze, a few plastic toys, and some braces for a variety of joints that might be sprained. They put those in the transporter too. She looked down the aisle for women, and found a few things she could use. She crammed a few bottles of lotion into a backpack she carried and the packs of tampons and pads that she found.

She turned around to scan the shelves behind her and found boxes of pregnancy tests and not much more. She left the tests where they were, fear a knot in her throat. Others might be happy to use them, but she didn’t want to take them. Not right now. This was all still new to her, and she didn’t want to think about it. Not yet.

“Find anything in the men’s section?” she called out and walked over to him. She found him in front of a display of razors.

“I can’t believe you were all still using these,” he said, mystified.

“Well, your little light zappers aren’t permanent either, I noticed,” she said, a little miffed, but deep down she knew his remark hadn’t really stung, she was simply reacting to the sight of the pregnancy tests still.

“No, I don’t mean that, I meant that the technology is so old. We designed our system to allow hair to grow back, if it was wanted, but these were so brutal, and caused so many problems that we left them hundreds of years ago.” He looked up at her and she quickly turned to look at the razors.

“We were working on laser hair removal. It was still new to us, though, and really expensive.”

“You all placed value on the strangest things,” he said and they left the store. “Shall we have lunch over there?”

She turned to look at where he had pointed. There used to be a tiny café between two of the shops, and a table and two benches, all made of concrete, were still there. “Sure, that looks like as good a place as any.”

She unloaded the food from the transporter and Rager brought some tableware with him. Together they filled their plates with a bean casserole that she’d thought up and some salad. She had a couple of glass bottles filled with tea and they sipped at that as they ate.

“The cream is from our cow,” she told him proudly. She’d searched quite a few books before she found the one that told her how to make sour cream and butter from cow’s milk. She’d also learned about pasteurizing the milk to make it safe. She’d been glad when she found that section.

“Is it? It’s very good,” he said and added another dollop to his casserole. It was made from pinto beans and spiced with some of the lovely spices she’d found in her explorations. “I’m glad you’re settling into this, Ann.”

“It’s not been easy. So much has changed. But then, I guess it has for you as well. What kind of food do you have on your planet?” It had only just occurred to her that there might be different plants and animals there.

“We mainly eat a vegetarian diet, as we do here, but we have more fish. Some you don’t have here because they died out long ago, or they bred into different kinds, but most of the things are the same. We even have cheese on our planet.”

“I’ve tried to make some cheese. I miss that stuff. We’ll see in a few weeks how well I’ve done.” She didn’t say that she had a lot of hours to fill in the day since he’d started to work so much. She just told him about the things she’d done. “I’m glad you’ve taken today off. Kind of.”

“It was time. We needed some time together. You’ve been looking… stressed.” His eyes examined her, and she felt like a bug under a microscope. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing really. I’m just very busy. It leaves me tired, all the things I manage to get done in a day. When we were still in the bunker there wasn’t a lot to do. Sometimes I’d stay awake for two days reading a book, then I’d sleep a few more. There wasn’t a lot to do. Even when we tried to stay busy, there were times when I was actually bored.”

“I would hate to be locked away like that for so long.” He rested his elbows on the table and looked at her, his head propped in his hands. “I’m glad we came here.”

“Were you considering going somewhere else then?” She smiled but she watched him, curious.