Anything for Food - A Post-Apocalyptic Erotic Tale Page 2

  “I normally give them some scratch when I let them out in the morning. It keeps them from being lazy and staying inside.”

  She looked at him, confusion evident on her face, so he continued.

  “Scratch is kind of like candy for chickens. It's a bunch of grains they love, all mixed together. Anyhow they're all out now, let's see if they've left us some eggs this morning.”

  Jake ducked into the shed through a man-sized door. He came out smiling with a small basket holding four eggs.

  “That ought to do for breakfast for the two of us.”

  A single small brown chicken exited the second door Jake had opened. It immediately announced its presence to the world. Andi decided that it must be the rooster since the sound it made reminded her vaguely of the classic 'cock-a-doodle-doo'.

  “Anyhow, those are my ladies. That bum is just a bum, he'll keep squawking like that all day long until I put him back in his coop. The ladies pay their way with eggs though and are much more quiet. I've only been keeping the rooster alive because I thought I might need to start breeding my own chickens.”

  “Oh,” Andi exclaimed, “will these ones keep laying so you get eggs every day?”

  “Yes, as long as I can keep them fed. They'll forage for a lot of their food, that's why I have the big enclosure. But I need to add grains to their diet if they're going to stay healthy and keep laying.”

  Andi's mind was swarming with ideas, Jake's got a big garden, surely it provides more than one person needs. He's got chickens so he has meat and eggs as well. I thought I'd given up finding a place to work for my keep but maybe... One more shot, I'll try it. I bet I can get him to keep me around, I saw the way he was staring at my breasts. If it comes down to it, I'll gladly whore myself out for some security and regular meals. All my other options are worse, so what do I have to lose?

  Andi carefully kept her thoughts from showing on her face.

  “That's nice. You were saying something about breakfast?” was all she said.

  “Yeah, I need to set up my stove though. For now I'm just using a propane grill but once things settle down more I've got a wood stove I'll use for cooking. I just don't want to put up a trail of smoke leading to the house right now. Come on in.”

  Jake led the way back around to the front of the house. This time when he went in, he held the door for Andi. She entered the house and looked around. The room was brightly lit, primarily from the sunlight streaming in through the window. There was also a string of what looked like Christmas lights tacked up around the top of the room. She didn't think they were on but couldn't tell due to the bright sunlight.

  Jake moved past her, closing the door behind him, and left the room. She followed him into a small kitchen where he laid a board over the sink and opened the window above it. He moved the camping stove he had mentioned onto the board and started it.

  “You need good ventilation for these, so I'll only run it inside if it's right under an open window.”

  She watched him pull a loaf of bread from a cloth bag on the counter. It looked slightly irregular, like the artisan breads she'd occasionally purchased, and the irregularity triggered a thought for her.

  “Where did you get the bread? Is there a bakery still open near here?”

  “Nah, there's nothing open, I baked it myself. I don't worry so much about the smoke at night so I can fire up the wood stove and use it then. I baked last night. I'm not too surprised you didn't smell the smoke though, it tends to drift down along the valley and dissipate from the breeze. It does drift up over the ridges some farther down which is why I'm careful about when I use the stove.”

  “I don't get it. You baked bread? How? Why?”

  “Because if I want it, I have to make it myself and I happen to like bread. So I bake it a couple of times a week. As to how, it's an easy recipe.”

  “No, I mean how do you still have the ingredients to make it.”

  “Oh, I get you now. Do you promise not to laugh?”

  Andi nodded, being careful not to drool as she did so. Just the thought of eating a slice of bread had her salivating.

  “I'm a prepper. You remember that show, Doomsday Preppers? Well, they only showed the batshit crazy prepper types. I started prepping like the FEMA folks said, with only a few days worth of supplies but I figured that if a few days worth of food and such was good, then more would be better. It got to be a habit so I've got a fair bit of supplies tucked away.”

  “I would have laughed at you if you'd told me that a couple of months ago. Now I'm just envious.”

  “Well, the pan's heated. Let me whip up our eggs and we can sit down and eat. Then you can tell me about Bend and what things were like there when you left.”

  She saw Jake put one of those camp toast makers on the stove, so in addition to scrambled eggs they had warm toast as well, slathered with butter. Jake didn't comment as to where he got the butter from, he just asked Andi if she wanted it or not.

  Andi wasn't sure if it was hunger or the homemade bread and fresh eggs that made this one of the best meals she could remember. She finished it so quickly that Jake offered her some more toast, which she accepted gratefully. The bread was fresh, heavy, and delicious. It was so different from any store bought bread that she'd ever eaten that it might as well be something else. By the time she finished her extra toast Jake was finished eating as well.

  He turned to face her and began to ask question after question of her. Some of them made little sense to Andi but she answered them as best as she could. When he'd finally finished with his questions, she asked him a single question in return.

  “So, what was that all about? What did it tell you?”

  “Mostly that I don't think things will go back to normal any time soon. It sounds like the big banks were in worse shape than anyone admitted and when they finally went bust, they took everything else with them.”

  “Oh” said Andi, dispiritedly.

  What the hell do I do now? If nowhere is still normal, everyone will be hoarding their food. I better figure a way to get Jake to keep me here with him. Otherwise I'll be dead or worse in a few more days.

  * * *

  Chapter 3 – The Proposition

  Andi caught Jake staring at her again. His glance swept from her feet to her hair and back again. With an extra pause, however slight, each time his gaze swept past her generous chest.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Would you like to get cleaned up? I don't mean to be rude, but you're quite a mess.”

  “You try running through the woods and hiding for weeks on end. See what you look like.”

  “No thank you. That's part of the reason I prepped, so I wouldn't have to do that. But... the water won't be hot but it should be at least lukewarm if you'd like a shower. You can rinse your clothes out too. I'll loan you a robe or something to wear while they dry.”

  “I accept. Are you trying to bribe me or something? You fed me and now you're offering me a shower. All I did was answer a few questions.”

  “Nope, I was just wondering what you looked like all cleaned up and this seemed the easiest way to find out.”

  Andi grinned slyly as she dangled her bait.

  “Well, I accept. Show me where the shower is and get that robe you mentioned please. You can see what I look like clean in the robe, but it'd take more than a meal and a shower to see the rest of me.”

  “I need to warn you first, there's only about eight minutes worth of warm water before it gets cold. So you might want to rinse, suds, and rinse. If you shut the water off while you suds up and wash your hair it should last for the whole shower.”

  “You know, my first inclination was to bitch about that.” Andi said bemusedly, “Then I wondered where I'd find that much hot water to get clean with anywhere else and stopped myself. Thank you, for everything. If I bitch about something, just tell me to shut up, okay?”

  “Can do. Let me get you that robe and I'll show you the shower on the way.”

 
Andi followed Jake down a short hallway. Halfway down the hall he opened a door and gestured her towards it. Inside the door was a small bathroom with a shower, sink, and toilet. Out of curiosity Andi turned the tap on in the sink. Cold water came gushing out. She sighed with relief and thought, Running water. I'm excited that he has running water. What's the world coming to? Wait, I don't think I really want to know the answer to that.

  “Here you go.” Jake said, handing a soft, fuzzy robe in through the door, “It works just like a normal shower but you won't have a lot of pressure on the hot water. At this time of day, just run it straight hot. The sun hasn't had a chance to really heat the water yet. There's soap and shampoo in the stall.”

  “You use the sun to heat your water?”

  “Yeah, my regular hot water heater is electric and I don't generate enough electricity to use it. So I rigged a solar hot water heater on the roof. It works, mostly, as long as there's any sun in the sky.”

  “You generate electricity? Hold on, you know what? Let me shower, we can talk after.”

  “Good plan. I've got a few chores to do so I'll leave you to your shower. Like I said, there's only about eight minutes of warm water before you'll be back to just cold.”

  “Okay.”

  Jake shut the door and she heard him walking down the hallway. She stripped off her filthy clothes. They were ragged in places and caked with dirt. She tossed them onto the floor of the shower, figuring they could start getting clean in her own rinse water. She'd scrub them a little and rinse them out after but that she could do with cold water.

  Andi stepped into the shower and turned the hot water handle. As he said, there wasn't much pressure, but just feeling the warm water sluice over her body was wonderful. She paid attention to his warning and just ran the water long enough to rinse herself off and soak her skin and hair. She scrubbed herself with the soap and shampoo, finding her just longer than shoulder length hair horrendously snarled. Once she soaped herself up and shampooed, she turned the water back on.

  She rinsed all the suds out and the water was still warm. She took advantage of that and spent the last minute or two that the warm water lasted letting it run over her body, luxuriating in the feel of it. She stepped out when the water started getting colder. After shutting the hot water off and turning the cold on, she scrubbed her clothes as well as she could and then rinsed them out. She didn't see anyplace to hang them so for now they went over the shower door.

  She used the single towel visible in the bathroom. As she dried herself off with it she smelled a masculine odor on the towel. Unsurprisingly, it smelled like Jake.

  Once dry, she borrowed the brush on the sink and tried to run it through her hair. There were several snarls that just weren't coming out no matter what she did. She shrugged mentally, There isn't much I can do about that right now.

  Andi donned the robe and tied it shut. It was larger than she anticipated and, like the towel, it smelled of Jake. She thought back for a moment, she hadn't really paid much attention to how he looked but when she scanned through her recent memories she realized that he was taller than average. He was also very well developed with a large chest and muscular arms. She guessed that his legs would probably match but she hadn't seen them, yet.

  She left the bathroom and walked back down the hall. The hardwood floors beneath her feet were chilly until she got to the living room where throw rugs covered the floors. She spotted Jake sitting there, cranking a handle on a small radio. His eyes flickered to her when she entered the room.

  “Is that one of those hand crank charged radios?” she asked.

  “Yes, but it's more than just that.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, the regular AM and FM channels aren't broadcasting any more but this radio also picks up a limited selection of shortwave bands. There are still a few private broadcasts on the shortwave bands. I try to listen to them whenever I can to pick up more news about what's going on.”

  “Oh, you can talk to them?”

  “No, damn it. I never got my license for that. This is just a receiver, I never got a transmitter because I didn't have my license. I probably should've made that a higher priority. I didn't realize just how much I'd miss talking to people.”

  “What, you don't talk to anyone?”

  “Well, there's this guy I see once a week. Even before things got bad, I'd trade him some eggs for some goat's milk since he has goats but no chickens. He isn't the most talkative type though.”

  “Well at least you get to visit with him.”

  Jake stopped cranking the radio and started fiddling with the dials.

  “Yes and no, we don't meet at either one of our houses. He doesn't know where mine is and I don't know where his is. We meet at an intersection down on the road at a scheduled time each week. I assume he's in walking distance of it just like I am but that's all I know.”

  “So, in essence, you're alone here.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “That's sad. But not as sad as having nowhere at all, alone or not.”

  Jake stayed silent, the look on his face suggesting that he agreed with her. He turned the radio off with a sigh.

  “No-one's broadcasting right now.”

  “So, you said you wanted to see me cleaned up. Here you go. There's a few snarls in my hair that I couldn't untangle, I might have to cut those out.”

  Andi loosened the belt on the front of the robe and let it slide open a little. Enough to show more cleavage but not enough to show anything else. She cocked her head and looked at him inquisitively:

  “So, what do you think?”

  “Not bad at all.”

  Andi harrumphed.

  “Only not bad?”

  “I'm just going from what I can see. You're stacked and you have an attractive face but that's all I can tell.”

  Andi tried to set the hook hidden within the bait she'd offered earlier.

  “Hey, I know where you're going with that. I told you before, it'll take more than a meal and a shower to see the rest.”

  “Well, what exactly do you want and what exactly are you offering?”

  Andi was unprepared for him to be that blunt so she was caught off-guard.

  “I want... Well, what I want is a place to stay and something to do to earn my keep.”

  “That's kind of steep for just seeing the rest of you. I think that you need to offer more if that's what you really want.”

  Andi found herself tongue-tied. The conversation was going where she wanted it to; the only problem was that Jake was taking it there, and far more quickly than she was prepared for.

  “I'm offering... Oh hell, I don't know. What do you want?” she said.

  “Well, I don't really need that much help. I designed the place so I could take care of it all on my own. I could use some help though since it would give me more time to do other things. What I need is companionship. But I'm not going to let you stay just for the company.”

  “Then what else do you want?”

  “You said you'd do anything for food earlier. I'll offer the same things I provide myself; food, shelter, the whole nine yards. What I want from you is help in the regular chores around the place and... Well to be blunt, I want you available to me for sex, whenever and however I want.”

  “What? I can't believe you just said that!”

  Andi stared at Jake as he watched her, waiting for an actual answer.

  She gave it some thought, blushing as she did so. It wasn't all that different from her own plan. When she was offering herself as bait she was thinking of sex. The big difference was that her plans involved her setting the hook, not him. The 'whenever and however' bit was surprising to her also. She bit her lip as she considered.

  Two weeks, I've been looking for two weeks and found nothing. He isn't ugly, it looks like he'll have food coming in right along, and he's all set up for this situation. I don't know if I can be at his beck and call for sex though. I like sex and all but...

  Wh
at the hell, sex is fun and it's no big deal to me. The worst that happens is that he wants it a lot more than I do. There are lots worse fates. Maybe I can convince him to relax those restrictions over time, maybe threaten to leave if he doesn't.

  Oh hell, who am I kidding. Even as offered it beats starving, running for my life, sleeping in the woods, and all that bullshit. I'm lucky I didn't get raped yet. If I leave here and survive long enough that's bound to happen too. I'd have to be a fool not to accept his offer and momma didn't raise no fools.

  “Could we work into that? I don't even know much about you but your name.” she said.

  Jake shook his head.

  “That's my offer, take it or leave it. If you leave it I'm sure I can find another refugee to take it sooner or later.”

  “Fine then, I accept.” she said.

  “Good” he said, “I want to mention one thing before I'll hold you to that. I don't care if you consider yourself my paid companion or whatever. I'll even listen to you if you tell me to stop. But if you do say 'no' when I try to do something or tell me to stop then I'll consider that to be your resignation and you'll be on your way shortly thereafter. If you're still willing to go through with it just let me know and we'll call it a deal.”

  Andi winced slightly at his conditions but she didn't even think about turning him down.

  “Yes, I'm willing.”

  “Good, then strip and we'll seal the deal.”

  * * *

  Chapter 4 – Sealing the Deal

  Andi slowly stripped the robe off of her body. She arched her back slightly to make her breasts more prominent. They were large and that was about the only positive thing she could think of about them. They sagged when not supported, they weren't very firm, the nipples were too big. She could go on and on about the deficiencies she saw in them but she also knew the effect that they normally produced in men. Jake proved to be no different than the rest of them in that regard.

  Andi had been slightly stocky until just recently. The last month had trimmed off most of her excess fat. Hard living, lots of walking, and running for her life had trimmed the fat off of her body, replacing portions of it with muscle. She was now more trim and toned than she was two years back when she graduated from high school. She always thought that she was in the best shape of her life as a senior in high school but she now put that level of fitness to shame.