Chapitre 2: NYC - Nights, Youth, Cracks
I woke up close to midnight. It was incredibly dark out, due to the lack of electricity that used to feed the streetlamps. Joline had gone home hours ago, she never stayed the night. She never offered it and I never asked. I thought about it a lot.
After stretching myself and yawning repeatidly I sat up and swung my legs out of bed. During my university years I'd started to wake up in the middle of the night and had made a habit out of walking around the city in those late hours. It used to be more dangerous with all the crime. But crime had gone down in NYC. Narts weren't up this late either. I had nothing to fear except my own insanity.
Hunger drove me to the kitchen. My cupboards were almost empty. I only had one egg and a bag of stale chips left. I'd have to go scavenging tomorrow. I threw a glance at the sink: I hadn't cleaned up breakfast. Fuck it. I grabbed my coat off the coat hanger and unlocked the door. On the inside there were only eight locks and a metal bar which I always slid shut. Even if someone picked the locks it would take extreme force to get through that barrier.
I thought about waking Joline up and asking her to take a stroll with me but I resisted the urge. When I told her I often walked she asked me to waken her if I did again and wanted company, but I never had.
I left the apartement and crossed the street. Night walks are so much better than walks during the day. The city belongs to you; no one else is there. To be fair; there wasn't anyone else anyway. But at night your adrenaline kicks in, keeping you on your tippy-toes. I'd turned into an adrenaline-junkie.
I took the route I always took. It was a route I'd often taken in my youth. That was back when all my friends did graffiti. I'd tried it but realized I couldn't draw for my life. I only came for the pot.
I used the night walks to reminisce or to come up with new plans. Leaving NYC was inevitable. I'd have to go sooner or later. But I also had to be sure where to go next and find the ressources to go there. I'd also have to deal with leaving Joline. Not that I loved her. I just didn't have anyone else aside from myself.
My uncle's farm wouldn't be a bad place to head to. But it was too far to reach on foot alone. That would be far to dangerous. It was in the country. I'd have to walk for about three days, it'd be pitch black at night and I often wouldn't find a safe place to spend the night. I couldn't be sure that there weren't any nocturnal animals that had turned into beasts like the Narts. And I didn't want to find out alone ten miles out of NYC.
I turned a corner and immeditaly backed up again. At the very end of the alley something was going through the garbage. The moon and the stars gave off enough light for me to tell that it was human-sized. That didn't mean much anymore. I turned around and continued down the main-road.
I only had my pocket-knife with me so I had to be careful. I sighed and thrust my hands into my jacket pockets. I started to hum a tune I knew from before the war; I remembered the melody but not the lyrics.
If I had known that the war would turn to this I would have read books about evolution and survival in the wild. I'd taken a self-defense class and learned how to shoot but I knew nothing about plants or animals. I'd been to lazy to raid the library but I that night I made a mental note to do that. Theory brings you only so far, but it's better than knowing nothing at all.
My promenade was cut short by a sudden change of weather. The sky started to get cloudy. The wind had picked up so suddenly and the clouds had moved in without warning; I wouldn't make it home before the world turned pitch black. I looked around me, trying to find somewhere safeish to wait.
There was a diner two streets down that I'd been in sereval times. I'd stolen some of the gas I used to fuel my hearth. I hurried along the street. Five minutes later I swung open the door to the diner.
The rusty red bell over the door rang. I walked past the first three tables and sat at the far end of the room. The abandonned diner looked like something out of a horror movie. All the chairs were stooled up on the tables, the machines didn't even blink and you could almost see the stuffy air that lacked enough oxygen over you.
The second my butt hit the chair I felt a wave of exhaustion hit me. I'd trained myself to wake up at even the slightest sound, so I decided to let myself drift off into sleep. It didn't take long for me to fall into the world of dreamers.
Ding-a-ling. My eyelids popped open. Someone had just entered the diner. I dropped off the chair and onto the floor queitly. I peered through the maze of chair and table legs. I found another pair of legs. Humans ones. In jeans. They stood still, right in front of the entrence. Judging by the light the clouds must not have totally covered the sky yet; I couldn't have been asleep for long. The legs turned, the feet pointing at me. I realized my heartrate had accelerated. Click-clack. The shoes were high-heeled, I could tell by the sound. Whichever motherfucker was daring enough to wear high-heels at the end of the world had to have balls the size of bombs.
Evolution kicked me in my balls. Survivors think alike. The person picked my table to sit at. Probably because it was at then end of the room, in the shadows and provided good vision of the rest of the diner and the street outside.
Whoever sat down. The jeans lifted up at the ankles. Their legs weren't hairy. Must be a woman. I noticed how beautifully her ankles were formed. The second thing I noticed were how high the heels were. At least four inches. Damn. The nerve. I decided it best to speak. If I moved she'd probably kick me out of fear.
"Don't kick me!" I said loudly. I heard her gasp and the chair flew backwards as she stood up. I crawled out from hiding and stood up as well, only on the other side of the table. "Hey." I said as we stood face to face. "My name's Mack. I live around the corner. I came here for the same reason as you did; it was too dark to stay on the streets." I paused. She glared at me.
"You should have said something when I came in." She finally said.
"I know. I should have. You're right. I wasn't thinking straight. I apologize for scaring you."
"It's alright." She forced herself to smile.
"If you want to, you can have a seat." I offered. "I can't order you a coffee though."
"Gosh you flirt terribly." She said with an eye-roll that I couldn't see but knew had taken place. She sat down anyway. "What was your name again?"
"Mack." I reached my hand out. She shook it. "Pleasure to meet you." She smiled stiffly again. "And your name is...?
"Margot."
"Mack and Margot. Sounds like a comic strip." This joke made her smile a bit. It made me guess that she was a comic fan. A few moments later I dared to ask her another question. Fuck it. I had nothing to loose. "Are you alone, or with others?"
"Alone, obviously. If I had someone I wouldn't walk alone. What about you, Mack?" She said my name as if it weren't a real name. Which it wasn't I guess.
"I live alone. But there's some people in my building." I answered vaguely. I didn't want to tell her about Joline. The air turns into a body of silence, almost crushing me with it's density. But I didn't want to seem like a creep.
"You know, Mack." She started and leaned forward, elbows on the table. "I haven't had sex in a long fucking time. Do you wanna take me down here and now?" I was surprised at how straight-forward she was. Then again, I was an accountant. I knew straight-forward like the palm of my hand.
"Do you have condoms?" I asked.
"Of course not." She snapped and leaned back again. "But it doesn't really matter does it? We won't see each other again. If I get pregnant you wouldn't know anyway."
"I'm not an asshole Margot." I said. But I stopped in the middle of my explaination. Why in the fucking world would she believe me. "Let's go to the back." It wasn't more private, but it was a bit warmer in the back. She stood up and lead the way. I noticed that she had a slight limp. Strange. I hadn't realized that before.
Margot pushed back the flaps to the kitchen. We entered. She sat herself on the counter and dropped her pants to her ankles. I unbuckled my belt. She grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me close. My hips pressed agaisnt her thighs. "Do it roughly please." She said. Her tone hadn't changed. She must not have been very aroused. To my surprise I could enter her easily.
We were done in what felt like an eternity. I wasn't as relaxed with her as I was with Joline. And due to the lack of lubrication I can't imagine that it felt very good for her. I was lucky I was a man. She did moan towards the end.
I pulled out before coming. Reducing the chance of pregnancy was the best I could do. She stared at me. I felt a bit self-conscience, a feeling I hadn't felt in forever.
"Why is there not that much of it?" She asked, referring to my come. I tucked my little friend away again. "Did you have sex earlier or do you jerk off that much?"
"I had sex with the prostitute in my building." I chose honesty.
"Alright." She said emotionlessly. "Alright." I stood in front of her in silence for a bit. It had gotten considerably darker. "Let's go back to the front. But I don't want to talk."
We went back into the restaurant and sat at the table we'd both chosen. I didn't speak again that night, neither did she. She just traced the cracks in the table with her nails. I watched her. She didn't mind me doing that. I can't say the time that the clouds cleared up. But once they had, after a slight downpour of rain, she got up and left without a word. Not even a good-bye.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone