"You can't possibly be serious." She does a little gagging noise. "This is ridiculous. Preposterous. Where have you ever even found a ring in this place? It's- Ha, It's laughable. You audacious and ridiculous little man."
A-'s face remains unchanged- an amused little smile without teeth and very very soft eyes- throughout her barrage. His hand doesn't shake.
He's resting on his side, weight of his torso on his lean elbow, and M- is sitting before him with her legs together on her side like a mermaid, the effect enhanced by her washed out pink hair falling off her shoulder like seaweed.
He looks at her with the mesmerized and expectant serenity of the yet-to-be-drowned sailor. "And your answer is?"
She gives a perplexed little gasp laugh. "Obviously yes. I'll marry you."
They're lying together in a much too small bed for both of them --- too short for A-'s legs and too narrow for M-'s girth ---, as naked as the corpses populating the facility, leeching off of each other's heat in the cold night.
He had fucked her until she shook like convulsions, it was an ugly sight and it made him want to burrow into her even harder. Which he did. Then he fucked her until sweat was beading on her skin, and he could smell her in the air. A-, she had chanted like a demand. He then came with his nose pressed to her cheek, breathing sharp and raggedly like an animal.
Softly, he bit her cheek, then her earlobe, sickened at his insatiable hunger for such a mean heart.
They had lain there quietly, letting the sweat dry off, looking up at the ceiling until the lines blurred. Then she had gotten up some thirty minutes later to piss and get them some water, he pulled the ring box from inside his bedside table drawer. Little morganite stone that matched her hair in insipid shades of peach pink.
While she brushed her hair, he had placed the open box between the two of them and no question needed be spoken, not really.
Now he doesn't smile, but there's humor in his face. He pulls her down and kisses her gently with the tranquility of a man who had known she'd say yes, of the sailor who had sailed just to meet his fate in the throat of the siren.
She doesn't smile either, with the focus of a woman victim to the inevitability of this occasion.
Natural like entropy was natural, they'd marry each other, they'd exchange vows, they'd share a house and a life and plans, they'd have an exotic pet, and plants to die under their neglect, they'd learn all about each other's diseases and be aggro about it, they get old and bitter together but the important part is the together, if they ought to grow bitter either way might as well do it in suitable company.
Whatever happened externally was inconsequential; even if the world goes up in flames or they get shoved into the cryo tanks, their corpses would only rest in peace side by side. Husband and wife, cruel companions.
She holds his face with one hand, his soft, heavy-lidded eyes stare lovingly. "You won't own me."
"If that was my plan, I would've bought you."
"Yourself. We all have a price, dove."
She lies parallel to him, lets him knead the soft fat of her waist. He looks a thousand years old, he looks thirty something, he looks so incredibly tired, M- knows she won't ever have eyes for another.
She already knew the answer, but she asks anyway. "To whom?"
"John." She laughs a little. "John and his dreams. This forsaken planet. If at the end of it, it's all for nothing, I at least want to go holding your hand."
She rolls her eyes. "How romantic." She kisses him. "How would you like it? Fire? Lava? Starvation? Violence? Tsunami?"
"What do you think of nuclear winter? Though the bombs will be more likely, unmade even before the light hits us."
"Or maybe some virus," she says with the wonderous tone of a child. "We have enough corpses for something fun to sprout. Something new and clever."
"If that's what brings you joy." He kisses the back of her hand. "You'll want a dress?"
"Of course. Not white, though. I already wear enough white as it is... and you better wear a suit."
"But of course, I rarely get the chance lately."
"But where will we get all of that?"
"I told you, I have my ways."
"Don't tell anyone yet. I would rather have this take place after we're done negotiating the nuclear deals."
"As you wish. It's not like we'll be going anywhere." He squeezes her thigh. "Beautiful wedding photos with the cow wall for backdrop."
"Bone soup as an appetizer. Barbecue for the reception, entreé, and dessert. Perhaps some marrow for a palet cleanser."
"I hear some sort of sweet can be made by adding sugar to the boiling water of the hooves."
She heaves. "Mouthwatering."
He laughs, finally, full-chested. "M-, I love you."
She makes a face. "Terribly saccharine."
He brushes her pink hair off her forehead, caresses her soft, plump cheek. She has a face that would've driven kings and prophets mad some thousand years back.
"Like humankind has loved the moon and its mysteries. For millennia, in dreamlike wonder, in poetic reverie and fascination."
"Cloying, nauseating. All mine." She nods, rests her head on his chest, and hears the droning sound of his heartbeat. "John might own our brains, but my heart, all yours. Do with it as you please."
