After the End Ch. 19

Author's note:

This is the seventh chapter of After the End - Part 3, the final novel in my dystopian erotic romance trilogy. If you enjoy intensely provocative sex with a power play twist, handsome male heroes in emotionally satisfying relationships, and unconventional happily ever afters -- you are in the right place! These books are full-length, publication-quality, and currently being offered free of charge. :)

Descriptions of each book can be found in my bio by clicking my user name. Feel free to drop in on specific chapters or sections based on your mood or interest, but the dramatic tension is strongest if you start from the beginning of Part 1. As always, I appreciate hearing your reactions and feedback. It truly does help me create the best stories that I can for readers to enjoy.

Content warning: This chapter depicts a character assisting another character to process difficult emotions related to a past experience of sexual violence. This chapter also depicts a character experiencing anxiety and panic.

Tags for this chapter include: #bisexual male, #future, #dystopia, #novel, #romantic, #married, #male submissive, #polyamory, #triad

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Julian:

The morning after Graham's declaration, I was summoned abruptly from sleep by the all-too-familiar sound of brusque rapping on the door and a predawn messenger calling my name. I was out of bed and pulling on clothes before my conscious mind even started calculating possible reasons for the visit, my motions so practiced they were almost pure reflex. A report this early could only mean trouble, but I heard nothing beyond the muted ambience of Fort Laurel waking for the day and my two companions stirring behind me. A true emergency would be heralded by sirens rather than the single camouflage-clad soldier I found when I slipped out into the faintly firelit January chill.

"Patrol in sector twelve just radioed, sir," the messenger announced. "They're taking fire and have engaged enemy combatants near Route Four. Reinforcements requested."

I gave her a quick nod in acknowledgement. "I'll inform Captain Lansing."

It was known within the community that Graham spent most of his nights in our quarters, and he and Avery were already mostly dressed when I stepped back inside. I sent my husband to marshal Fort Laurel's guards while Graham and I hurried to Third Battalion's base to hear the report's details and coordinate a joint response to the skirmish, on the northeastern border of the lands we defended. Squads from Bravo and Echo Companies had been helping keep watch in that direction since the attack that left Avery stranded, and no aggression had penetrated to populated areas, but any bullet could be the one that ends a life. We hadn't yet learned much about who was responsible; our attempts to make peaceful contact had been met with violence, and the few homesteaders in the region could only tell us that the threat was new.

Our counter-offensive mobilized quickly, but by the time additional troops reached the remote woods, the raiders were gone. We posted extra patrols and searched most of the afternoon for possible bases of operation, but we had little to show for our efforts by the time we trekked home beneath the pastel winter sunset.

Avery volunteered to cover a shift on watch that evening for one of the guards who'd been reallocated to the east, and Graham needed to report back to his commanding officer, so after grabbing a quick dinner in the main hall, I walked home alone.

I took advantage of their absence to tidy the place up a bit. Avery tended to throw things onto whatever surface was nearest, including the floor, without regard to the amount of time it would take later to dig through haphazard piles of clothing and supplies when he needed something. I, on the other hand, believed in the old adage: a place for everything and everything in its place. I always knew exactly where to find my things, because I always returned them to the exact same location. Items I shared with my husband, or that he'd borrowed, took longer to locate.

With Graham's return to our relationship, Avery had been paying even less attention than usual to keeping order. We didn't even own that many belongings -- no one here did, when every scrap of material was so laboriously produced -- but with none of them being put away, they seemed to have multiplied. I made the bed and folded the extra blankets, collected our toiletries back onto the washstand, and hung his scattered shirts on their pegs by the door. Then I straightened: the boots and moccasins into a row under the bench, the books and notebooks by order of size on the desk, the trio of candles into formation on the nightstand. Some have called it obsessive, but my preference for order doesn't arise from fear or discomfort. I simply find it easier to focus when errant shoelaces and mismatched corners aren't distracting me.

Avery tries to be considerate of my desire for neatness, but since it doesn't actually matter to him, he finds it challenging to be mindful of where he's putting things every morning and evening. With only a single small room split between us, I simply did most of the picking up myself. I found it annoying at times, but in another sense, I appreciated that he was relaxed enough to be unbothered by chaos.

With my surroundings satisfactorily organized, I seated myself at the desk to add notes to the logbook I kept of Fort Laurel's tactical situation. The official reports and statistics were filed in the command center, of course, but keeping my own records helped me perceive patterns that weren't always apparent from a granular perspective. When reading my notes back several months later, I often noticed different details, which could be useful when planning for similar situations or seasons in the future. It also helped me track what factors impacted our security the most and how we could best prioritize limited resources and manpower.

I was still jotting down my summary of the conflict with the unknown aggressors to the east when Graham knocked and announced himself at the door. I hadn't been expecting him, since he knew Avery would be away half the night. In the couple of weeks since our reunion, most of the time we'd spent together had included the three of us. After watching my husband mourn over the captain for all of November and December, I was more than happy for him to occupy most of our new partner's attention.

Yet despite the late hour, Graham had come to see me, alone. A disconcerting flurrying sensation started up in my gut as I went to let him in, which intensified at the sight of his familiar features -- sharply defined jaw and cheekbones, jaunty eyebrows, and near-permanent hint of smirk about the mouth.

"Hey, Major," he greeted me as he often did, using my title as if it were a nickname he'd personally chosen.

"Hey," I replied, withdrawing to prop myself at the edge of the desk while he shut the door. He leaned one shoulder against the frame, the sculpted swells of his chest and crossed arms outlined by his snug knit sweater. No matter how much discipline and command I had over my body, I'd never felt at ease in it the way Graham seemed to in his. Even the most casual stance exuded confidence, despite him not being particularly tall. And those surprisingly green eyes, sweeping me with the same trained fighter-pilot precision that allowed him to scream toward targets at twelve hundred miles an hour and pivot the jet at any angle under extreme gravitational forces without losing track of position... He was bold without being obnoxious, direct but rarely with the intention to offend. Unapologetic in a way that was magnetically attractive.

Technically we were on my turf, but there was an edge to his open gaze that made me unsure where our boundaries were. And that stirred more of the nervous anticipation I wasn't sure what to do with.

"Avery's on watch," I sallied, but one side of Graham's mouth cocked up slightly, as if he saw through my attempt to use my partner as a smokescreen and found it amusing.

"I know. Came to check in with you." The words were benign, yet his flirtatious tone crackled dangerously with static electricity.

I couldn't think of anything to say, which wasn't a difficulty I was accustomed to. Thankfully, after a moment he went on.

"So things got...kind of intense, last night. If I overstepped..." He trailed off, but his bright, curious eyes watched for my reaction.

"Not at all," I told him. Perhaps candor would deflect further scrutiny. "I'm pleased you and Avery care so much for each other. You're a wonderful partner for him."

"Glad to hear it," Graham replied, yet the challenge in his inflection only strengthened the electric pull I could sense between us. As did his unwavering study of my face.

I sought for a lighter tone, a desperate attempt to diffuse some of the charge before it generated a current I couldn't control. "I don't expect you to feel the same way about me that you do about him. I'm well aware that I'm not Avery."

It didn't work. He pushed off the door frame and moved toward me, deliberate and seductive. "Well I'm certainly not Avery. But I was still hoping you might find room for me in some small corner of your heart."

When he finished speaking, he was much closer, and all the oxygen seemed to have been consumed in some sort of instantaneous chemical reaction. There was nothing to protect me from him anymore: no buffer, no distance, not even an atmosphere. And his mention of my heart kicked it into high gear.

"You have more than a corner," I heard myself confessing before I'd actually decided whether that was a safe response. When Avery was here, I was better at keeping myself in check. He liked the captain so much -- loved him, even. He was still recovering from the months they'd been apart. I didn't know yet whether he'd be jealous if...

I let the rest of the sentence fade without taking shape. I wasn't sure how it ended, even in my own mind.

"Good." There was an enticing cast to Graham's melodious voice and a smoldering fire lit behind his irises. "Because as I've told you before, your husband is not the only person living here who I care for."

I stared at him, paralyzed within his electromagnetic field, our heads level since I was leaning against the desk. Unsettling yearnings raced invisibly along the axis from gut to brain. It had been so long since anyone had unearthed these raw, unregulated impulses inside me. My passion for Avery was intense, but for the most part it flowed in a certain direction. My husband didn't see me this way; didn't want to see me this way. Our dynamic allowed me to be available when he needed support, and even though he cared for me just as deeply, he didn't generally have the emotional capacity to be able to reciprocate.

Graham was a different matter. He'd easily been able to handle anything we'd thrown at him so far, and after observing him with my partner, I suspected he hadn't come close to reaching his ceiling with me. He'd fully respected my request to take things slowly since he rejoined our relationship; he hadn't tried to kiss me or introduce anything more than limited contact during sex. But him standing so close, watching me with that knowing glint, had me ready to speed all the way up.

When our mouths met -- mine hesitant but hungry, his resolute and direct -- sparks flew. This longing he'd coaxed from me was far more than physical; it was rooted in formless, murky depths I'd never surveyed or tried to expose to the sunlight. There were nameless fears down there, and painful experiences I'd carefully banned from my consciousness, and needs I dimly sensed could upend my entire life if I let them escape. It was safer to keep them all contained -- to live without the rewards so I didn't have to take the risks. Yet Graham's kiss, and his grip anchoring my body, somehow made those risks seem a little more possible to tolerate.

I didn't want to stop, but we were very much starting to break the rule about what we were allowed to do alone, so with effort I separated our mouths just far enough to speak.

"We haven't talked about this with Avery yet," I pointed out on a rushed breath.

Graham didn't fight me, but he didn't remove his hands, and his breathing had quickened too. "Maybe we should."

"Yeah." Soon.

We exchanged air for another few moments, then he pressed a final chaste kiss to my lips and stepped back a little, letting the energetic force field dissipate. I filled my lungs completely and tried to regain my bearings.

"I don't want to keep you from your alone time," he said in a more casual manner. "But I thought maybe I could stay and hang out for a while."

I hesitated, gaging his motives, but he laughed and raised his palms toward me in the classic gesture demonstrating no weapons held. "I'll keep my hands off, I promise. I can sit on the opposite side of the room if you prefer. Or feel free to kick me out. I just haven't gotten to see you much one-on-one lately. Thought this might be a good opportunity."

"Alright," I said, the pit of my stomach still unnervingly unsettled. It felt like agreeing to a first date with a new crush, or maybe a third date. Like I had no idea what might happen, even though Graham and I had been alone many times during the past eight months.

"You need to finish your notes?"

I closed the notebook and returned it to the stack. "Tomorrow is fine."

We ended up on the quilted bedspread, me sitting against the headboard on the side where I usually slept, and him safely settled at the far edge, sprawled on one hip and an elbow propped beneath his shoulder. We talked for a while about less consequential topics: winter weather in Louisiana versus southern California; theories about who was raiding from the east and how to neutralize them; and Rae's latest feud -- with a council member who'd opposed one of the other captain's proposals, after Rae had reportedly made some unflattering comments about the member's husband at a private party.

"She can get loose when she drinks," Graham said from his position near the foot of the bed, "but Hector was there, and he didn't think Rae said anything that was untrue. Cormier's husband did hit on her last month, when he offered to 'walk her home' from the main hall at an unsociable hour."

"I suppose he has a right to hit on anyone he wants," I replied. "But that's between him and his wife. I don't know why Cormier needs to take that out on Rae. Still, your Captain Larsen seems to have an uncanny talent for making enemies, especially out of other women."

"Can't deny that. She gets along way better with men. I think her mom passed on a lot of baggage, and she died before Rae was old enough to unlearn much of it."

"I haven't noticed she gets along particularly well with me," I commented, which prompted a smile.

"You're a little too buttoned-up for her taste. She does fine with Avery. They had this whole bit going at the card game the other night -- it was hilarious."

"No doubt," was my dry reply.

"You'd know if you'd been there," Graham returned playfully.

"Do you actually think I would have found it amusing?"

His grin widened. "Well...maybe not."

"Exactly."

"Come on, Julian," he appealed. "I know she's wilder than you tend to prefer, but if you two got to know each other, I think you could find common ground. Once she's bonded with someone, she's loyal to the death. Look at her and Rowan."

"I'm not really in the market for new friends. I'm quite content with the four or five I have," I joked at my own expense, though it wasn't incorrect.

"But she's my friend," he coaxed. "I want her to see how special you are."

Something inside me glowed like steel in the forge, but I kept my voice level. "Doesn't she trust your judgment?"

He shrugged with the shoulder he wasn't leaning on, and by his expression, it seemed I may have uncovered an actual bone of contention between them. "I think it's easier for her to understand why I like Avery, than why I like you."

It was quiet for a moment while I weighed my response. "I guess Rae and I have something in common after all."

Graham's head tilted to fix me with a look both sympathetic and appraising. Then he sat up, though he didn't approach.

"I've always wondered why you keep me at a distance, when we connect so well," he said quietly. "Both literal distance" -- he gestured to the expanse of bed between us -- "and emotional." He studied me some more. "Do you truly doubt my reasons for wanting this relationship? Or is that just what you tell yourself, to avoid getting more involved?"

I didn't look away, despite his direct hit. This was the kind of question Avery would rarely be secure and self-aware enough to ask. I wasn't sure whether to feel anxious, offended, or relieved.

"It isn't easy for me to...care about someone," I settled on as a compromise.

"You think it's easy for me?" Graham countered.

This time I shrugged. "Truthfully, I've seen no sign that it isn't."

"Julian, I know I'm a pretty laid-back guy, but my heart's made of flesh just like anyone else's. I will be as patient with you as I need to be, but that doesn't make it...less difficult...to want to be with you, and not be able to."

Maybe it was unfair of me, but this conversation was veering into hazardous territory. "Two weeks ago, you wanted to be with Jade."

He stared at me for another moment, then he sighed, sounding frustrated. "Yes. I know. I made a bad call, and you're going to punish me for who knows how long, because Major Demos doesn't make allowances for mistakes. Get it right, or don't bother showing up tomorrow," he parodied almost bitterly. "But I need it to be clear that I always wanted to be with you, ever since you first invited me for sex. Especially after what happened between us on your anniversary. I tried being with Jade because I thought..." He broke off with an outrush of breath. "I believed it was a more realistic possibility. But it wasn't any easier for me to be apart from you during those months, than it is now."

A pang of guilt struck me unexpectedly. I hadn't actually considered that my reticence might be causing him pain.

"And while we're talking about this," he added, "it's probably worth mentioning -- not to cast blame, but just to help you understand -- that if you'd shown any openness to a serious relationship with me in the fall, I might not have felt a need to seek one elsewhere."

That possibility I had considered. It haunted me at night after he and Avery had fallen asleep: the chance that I might have been able to prevent my husband's broken heart, had I been less selfish with my own. Maybe neither of them deserved the excuses I kept making.

I let my lungs empty all the way before capitulating. "Just...come over here," I told Graham, indicating the patch of quilt beside me.

He didn't move. "Is that actually what you want?"

"Yes," I sighed again.

He moved to mirror my position at the headboard, letting his shoulder and drawn-up knees come to rest against mine. I turned the lamp down to one of its lowest settings, softening the room's textures and shielding us in shadow. The captain grabbed one of the spare blankets and spread it over our legs to ward off the late-evening chill.

I let the quiet, fragile intimacy settle in for the space of a few breaths. Closeness for its own sake scared me much more than sexual congress. His respirations and radiation heated the air while I gathered courage. He seemed to be waiting for me to speak, and I supposed it was my turn to trust him with some vulnerability.

"I wasn't intending to punish you," I confided. "I just don't know...how to do this."