After the Fall Ch. 02

She nodded reluctantly.

He spent a few moments caressing her nipples to sensitize them. The soreness became a pleasurable ache. It was strangely soothing. She bit her lip and looked away. She didn't want Michael to see the way it made her feel, but he didn't allow her to hide. He tilted her chin up until she met his eyes. When he leaned down to kiss her, he was slow and gentle. He deepened the kiss until he heard her breathing become erratic.

When he pulled away, she had the slightly dazed look he wanted to see. He gave each nipple a gentle pinch and flipped the band of lace back up. He raised the neckline of her blouse up to cover her breasts. "Thank you, sweetheart. We can get going now."

Mariah tried to process what just happened as Michael drove the cart to the exit. Beside the tunnel Jack took yesterday, there was a ramp leading up. A button on the golf cart's dash opened a sliding panel in the ceiling at the end of the ramp, and they drove up the ramp and out into the sunlight. The exit from the garage came out on a small cement pad not far from the house. From there, Michael steered towards a path that curved around behind the trees at the back of the lawn.

The landscaped lawn ended at the line of trees. Beyond, the land was beautiful in its natural state. Small stands of aspen edged meadows and crowned hilltops. Wildflowers grew interspersed with the meadow grass. They drove over a wooden bridge that spanned a small creek and arrived at the edge of a cultivated field. A potting shed and greenhouse stood beside the field, and a golf cart was parked nearby.

"We grow our own produce here, and what we don't use finds its way to Lois's shop in town. Seth's probably in the greenhouse fussing over flowers. He handles the gardening and the groundskeeping and still finds time to grow flowers nobody knows what to do with. He's Paula's husband. I think you met their son, Andy."

"Yes, Andy helped bring up my things when we moved my stuff. Nice guy."

A spry man with graying hair and vividly blue eyes hurried out of the greenhouse to meet them. "Mariah, this is Seth." Seth nodded.

"I'm glad to meet you, Seth. Michael was just mentioning that you are responsible for all the landscaping. I don't know how you have time to do that and grow food, too, but it's gorgeous."

"Oh, I like to keep busy." He offered her a hand, then withdrew it with a laugh when he realized his hand was covered in dirt.

Henry took the opportunity to introduce himself by snuffling Seth's hand and sneezing.

"This is Henry. He really likes dirt."

"Nothing wrong with a little dirt!"

"But it probably shouldn't be inhaled," Michael remarked. "So, since the entire compound is one big gossip chain, I imagine you've heard that Mariah and Henry are staying with us, right?"

Seth's eyes twinkled. "I believe the Missus might have mentioned it once or twice last night."

He turned to Mariah. "Don't listen to him. Only about half of us are gossips. The other half just listen." He grinned. "But don't let that bother you. Everyone is just happy you're here and excited to meet you."

"Michael, do I have time to show her around before you whisk her away?"

"That's why we came to see you first, Seth."

"Excellent!" He took them into the potting shed. It held rows of trays of seedlings under lights. "This is where I start them out. More of them survive that way. I like to keep an eye on the little 'uns anyhow. Starting the seedlings in advance gives us a head start on the vegetables that need to be replanted after they're harvested. If I pull up a carrot, I have a seedling ready to take its place," Seth explained.

"That's a good system. So, how do you know when to start the next batch of carrot seedlings to be ready at the right time?"

Seth looked like he had been waiting all his life for someone to ask him that question. He led them over to a desk and file cabinets in the corner of the potting shed. He pulled out two large ledgers and laid them open on the desk. "I've kept planting records and harvest records since I started working here. I use them to forecast what we'll need and when."

"Could you work backwards from your records to figure out what supplies would be necessary to replicate your production elsewhere?" Mariah wanted to know.

"Sure, I could do that."

"Mariah and I are talking about an agricultural project for people in town," Michael explained. "We'll fill you in before long, but in the meantime, could you try to figure out the amount of land, seeds, fertilizer and tools that would be necessary for a family to maintain a garden that could produce enough to meet their own needs?"

Seth looked intrigued. "I can estimate most of that. I can't be very accurate about how much produce is necessary to support each person because a certain young man has been pestering me into keeping the garden going at maximum capacity for years. Since so much of the produce goes mysteriously missing between here and the kitchen, it's hard for me to say how much is needed per person."

Mariah grinned. "Young people these days!" Michael rolled his eyes at her.

"Maybe you could get together with Marcus. I bet he could help with that."

Seth nodded. "I'll talk to him. Now, let me show Ms. Mariah the greenhouse."

Michael and Mariah trailed around after him as he showed off the greenhouse. Two rows of orange, lemon, and lime trees were permanently planted in the ground down the center of the building, where the ceiling was highest. Seth explained that the citrus trees could not survive the winters outdoors. There was also a section of potted apple, cherry, peach, and pear saplings in several different stages of development, ready for the next several fall planting seasons.

Other than the fruit trees, most of the greenhouse was empty during the summer. Mariah did spot a collection of orchids, though. Perhaps they were the flowers Michael thought nobody knew what to do with. Seth insisted on giving her a plant with purple blossoms for her room before they left.

By the time Michael got Mariah and Henry herded back into the golf cart, they were already behind the schedule he had planned. He was feeling a little frustrated until he looked over at Mariah and saw her happily examining the orchid Seth gave her. She had a little pollen on her nose, and he couldn't resist the temptation to brush it off with his finger. "You had pollen on your nose," he explained.

"Oh." Mariah blushed, and he wondered why.

When they left the garden, Michael drove to a long shed not far away. It was an industrial-looking building with large hanger doors along the sides. Inside, Michael showed Mariah an array of lawn and garden equipment, pointing out lawn mowers, tractors, combines, bobcats, and other machinery. Michael noticed Mariah's attention wandering as he went through the inventory. Catching her beneath her arms, he lifted her and sat her on the hood of a small tractor.

"My naughty little kitten wasn't paying attention."

"I was looking! I just couldn't tell which machines are which. That's all."

"I see."

"And I'm not your naughty little kitten."

"Oh, really?" Michael grinned as he pulled her neckline down below her breasts again. He folded the lace down, exposing her nipples. "I'll give you a pass for at least making an effort to look at the equipment, but since your attention doesn't appear to be devoted to the machinery, I'm going to find something else to occupy it." He outlined her areola with his fingertip. "Any idea how I'm going to do that, kitten?"

"I'm not a kitten."

He leaned forward to give her right nipple a sharp nip. He soothed the sting with the warmth of his tongue, then sucked her nipple suddenly between his teeth. She yelped. He kept sucking as he pulled back, until her nipple popped free. He blew across her wet skin, then repeated the treatment on her left nipple. "Look at me, Mariah."

She tried to scowl at him, but her eyes were unfocused. Michael maintained eye contact as he slid his hand up her thigh beneath her skirt. "Keep looking at me," Michael demanded when she started to look away. Her eyes widened when his finger slipped under her panties. He slid it up and down through her folds. "So wet, kitten. So hot and wet." He fingered her clit gently. "I don't think this is from hearing about the equipment. What do you think?"

When she ignored his question, Michael gave her clit a little pinch. "What I'd like to know," Michael said as he returned to stroking her clit, "is whether you were more excited because of what I was doing to your nipples just then, or more excited by the idea that I want to keep your them aching and tender all the time." He tapped her clit and Mariah squirmed.

He withdrew his finger and brought it to Mariah's lips. "Open up, kitten." She wrinkled her nose and frowned, but she let him push his finger into her mouth.

"Suck." Mariah didn't look happy about it, but she did.

"You may not appreciate it, but I do. Lay back." When she did not immediately comply, he pushed back on her chest until she did. He quickly flipped her skirt up and pulled her thighs apart. His tongue stabbed into her channel, probing and circling.

She gasped and tried to sit up, but he held her still. He dragged his tongue through her pussy and stopped just short of her clit, ignoring her low whine. He repeated the long licks up through her folds until he was satisfied. Then he closed his lips around her clit and sucked it firmly. She shuddered.

He stood back and paused to admire his handiwork. Her pussy was swollen, flushed, glistening wet and looked oh-so-fuckable. With a sigh, he pulled her skirt back down and helped her sit up. He gave her nipples another tweak before he raised the lace band and pulled her blouse back up over her breasts. He lifted her from the machinery and set her back on the ground.

He took Mariah's hand and pressed her palm to his jeans where his erection strained against the denim. He felt her fingers moving beneath his hand and heard her nails scratch across the fabric when she tried to get a grip around his shaft through the thick denim. She was more successful wrapping her hand over the head of his cock. She squeezed it. Her grip shifted and she began rubbing her thumb and index finger firmly against the sides of his shaft, right below the head. He pulled her hand away. The idea was to drive her crazy, not the other way around.

Michael pulled her along after him through the rows of machinery, back to the cart. She still looked dazed. He considered trying to get her attention, but he decided he would rather not distract her from the way she was feeling. Keeping her arousal high was turning out to be even more enjoyable than he had anticipated.

Henry hopped in the cart with them, and Michael drove to their next stop. It was a large array of solar panels. Mariah was very interested, but he could tell that she was having trouble focusing. Her voice had a far-off quality, but she still had questions. Even though her questions lacked her usual sophistication, Michael thought it was clear she was taking in the details.

"Why is it in a box?" she asked. "The whole thing, I mean. Like a building that fell apart."

It took Michael a moment to decipher what she meant. A metal frame was built around the array. It consisted of vertical posts at each corner and horizontal posts in a rectangle connecting the tops of the vertical posts, like a line drawing of a shoe box. There were diagonal braces, but the panels were left as open to the sun as much as possible. Metal walls laid on the ground at the sides of the foundation.

Michael explained. "This is designed so that it can close to protect the array. Each of the solar cells is precious. We have some more panels in storage, but once those are gone, there is no way to replace them. We need to be able to protect them from storms. Everything is sitting on a big concrete block buried ten feet in the ground. The metal floor you see is a series of metal panels, bolted to each other and bolted into the concrete foundation."

"See that pillar in the middle of the array? We can use the chains you see going up to it to pull the walls up. They're on a motor we can start from inside the compound, but we have to finish manually. The roof is a flexible panel of overlapping plates that rolls out of one of the walls. We just pull the pieces together and bolt them to the frame."

Back in the cart, Mariah was still mulling over the solar array. "Do you think that if we got power to a solar panel factory, it would be possible to produce more panels?"

"I don't know enough about how the factories operated to be sure, but I'm not optimistic. I found information about how the solar cells are made, but I still don't know if the factories have the facilities to make the materials used in their construction. If the silicon was produced somewhere else, powering the plant wouldn't help much. I don't remember all the details about how to make the silicon, but you start with sand and use all sorts of chemicals. It's pretty involved. The only reason I haven't given up on the idea is the hope that there's a large stockpile of the right kind of silicon already made."

"That doesn't sound promising."

"I'm afraid not."

Michael started the cart's engine again. "On a lighter note, do you think Henry might be ready for a break? I wanted to show you the pond. He has a disreputable look in his eye that makes me suspect he'll take a running leap into it. He'll get to see the pond eventually, but it might be best to show it to him when we're not going to be riding around in a golf cart with him afterward."

"Good point," Mariah agreed. "Henry, he's onto you." Henry wagged his tail innocently.

Back at the house, Michael parked by the front door. While Mariah took Henry and her new orchid upstairs, Michael picked up the picnic basket Marcus had ready for him in the kitchen.

Michael beat Mariah back to the golf cart and stowed the basket in the locker on the back. He had time to radio the twins about their project before she got back. When she returned, he was back in the cart. Driving along the path he pointed out the night before, they reached the pond in only a few minutes. She was out of the cart as soon as it came to a stop.

"It's beautiful"

The pond was surrounded by low-growing fescue grass. Gold and lavender irises proliferated around the water's edge and weeping willows grew on the banks behind them. The water itself was smooth as glass and sprinkled with lily pads. When Mariah walked to the edge, a frog jumped in with a loud plop. She poked around the edge of the pond for a while, looking under rocks, peering into the water, and smelling the irises. She came back to Michael with another smudge of pollen on her nose. He brushed it off and pulled her in for a kiss. "Ready for lunch?"

"But we just got here!"

"Exactly." He pulled the picnic basket out of the locker on the back of the golf cart. As he hoped, Mariah was pleased and surprised. Marcus had thoughtfully included a blanket that they spread on the grass beneath a willow tree. The curtain of the tree's fronds made the spot feel secluded without impeding their view of the pond. Michael began unpacking the basket. He was going to have to thank Marcus again later. The picnic basket held chardonnay, wine glasses, slices of cheese and pear, a half-loaf of French bread, pasta primavera salad, and even some amaretto biscotti for dessert.

Over lunch, they talked about the agricultural aspect of the project.

"I bet Seth is going to be excited to find places for all his extra plants," Mariah commented.

"I'm sure he will be. I wish I had half the energy he has. He's an old softy, too, so he'll be happy about growing food for people."

"He's not going to be able to do it by himself, though. How do you think he's going to feel about more cooks in the kitchen, so to speak? He seems pretty attached to his setup."

Michael nodded. "You're right. I think the best way to handle it is to keep our garden separate and under Seth's control. I want to keep our resources separate, anyway. If Seth wants help from any of the people who move in, that's great, but he can keep running it like he's running it if that's what he wants. I want to see him in more of a teaching role so that every family can have their own garden."

Mariah thought about it. "You don't think the people who move in should share a communal garden? They could share the labor that way, and it would foster cooperation and trust. There's a problem now with people's crops going missing. It gets blamed on outside "raiders," but I think it's really people stealing their neighbors' crops."

"I didn't know about that, but I'm not surprised it would be a problem. If your kids are going hungry, you're going to do what you have to do. And there are always people who are just fundamentally dishonest. A communal garden would just give them more opportunity to take things for themselves. I prefer individual plots for each family for other reasons, too. I think it is important for people to have direct responsibility over their own welfare. People need the satisfaction of benefiting from their own work."

Mariah pretended to cough to disguise the laugh that almost escaped. It wasn't that there was anything fundamentally wrong with Michael's idea. It was just funny to hear him talking about the satisfaction of hard work. In her admittedly limited experience, rich kids were rather prone to romanticizing the hand-to-mouth existence of subsistence farmers and other laborers as independent, noble, and rewarding.

Michael had no idea what even a single day of working in a field would be like, much less planning for a winter after a failed crop. Before this was over, she was determined to make sure he experienced a day in the field, and see to it that he grappled with the problems the new compound inhabitants would face when things did not go as planned. She hoped he would meet those challenges well.

Despite Michael's limited perspective, there was merit in what he was saying. She just was not convinced that the benefits of individual plots outweighed the benefits of communal farming.

"What if we did both?" she suggested. "We already know that we want the people inside the compound to grow enough to send extra food to people outside. We could set up a communal garden large enough to meet everyone's needs, and each family could have their own plot they can use to grow specific produce for themselves or extra produce for trade. That way we would get the efficiency and social benefits of the communal plot along with the individual incentives that the family plots could provide."

Michael frowned at first, but he couldn't find any obvious problem with the suggestion. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. "I think we should do that. Let's see what Seth thinks before we make a decision, though."

"Do you think he could spare any of those fruit saplings so the people in the compound could start their own orchard?"

"I'm sure he could. We always have more fruit than we need. Seth just likes growing things, so he keeps growing them whether or not we can use them. It's not as if the extra fruit he grows goes to waste, since Lois is always happy to offer it in her shop. Still, we don't really need any more fruit trees for our use."

Mariah smiled. "This is exciting. I can't wait to see it really happening." Michael smiled back at her. They finished their meal in companionable silence.

Michael leaned back against the trunk of the tree as they finished off the wine. "Come here, kitten." She scooted a little closer. "No, on my lap, facing me." She shook her head.

"You're going to have to do it, so you might as well be good." She gave him a rebellious look. He quirked an eyebrow and began counting aloud. "One... Two... Three..."