The Murdered World 40

Frank was a little surprised at Christina’s refusal. She’d been more than enthusiastic last night. But he supposed that was more psychological than physical. He’d deprived her of closure with Angel by killing the man before she said her piece to him. Fucking Angel’s executioner was her way of getting back at him.

He’d thought the sheer pleasure of the act would be enough to convince her of its worth in and of itself. But women liked to overcomplicate things. It would take time for her to convince herself that she wanted to use his body as much as he wanted the use of hers.

For the time being, though, he couldn’t concern himself with her or her sister. He was in lockdown for six weeks. He couldn’t get soft; he doubted the outside world would be when the door swung open.

He went to explore the gym and found that it was almost too much—the fundamentals, useful weights and machines, but also wig-brained body-sculpting stuff that he doubted had ever done anyone any good, least of all Angel. Well, he didn’t have a better place to put any of it. He resolved to ignore the crap and focus on what worked.

Monday: Lower body workout. Squats, lunges, deadlifts, and leg curls.

Tuesday: Cardio. Long-distance treadmill running.

Wednesday: Chest and back. Push-ups, pulls-ups, and bench-presses.

Thursday: Arms. Cables, dumbbells, and dips.

Friday: Shoulders. Dumbbells, barbells, cables.

Saturday: Core. Sit-ups, crunches, twists.

Sunday: Rest.

That would kill at least two hours a day. Sunday, he’d make a feast of something, a cheat day. He couldn’t have them burning through the high-protein items every day of the week, even if they did need to use up the perishables first. He’d work something out with Christina, then they’d bring Emma around to it. If he tried talking with both of them at once…

Well, Frank’s usual solution to interpersonal difficulties involved gunpowder. He didn’t want to resort to that here. There hadn’t been enough redheads in the world before the nuclear war kicked off.

God help us if Ireland isn’t around anymore…

Frank checked his watch. It was Tuesday. Running. He went up to the first level and checked on his gear. The Geiger counter read no radiation coming off his running shoes. He took them downstairs, grabbing a pair of socks from the supply room. One thing to be grateful for: Angel had stocked the bunker with various packages of new socks and underwear. Frank decided he would keep his shoes and several packages of socks in the gym, putting them on to exercise in, saving them wear and tear otherwise.

He went back to the gym. Emma was there, trying out the punching bag. Trying out because her technique was terrible. She held back the weight of her body, froze her hips, and simply swung her arms like she was hammering in a nail. Popping her fist against the heavy bag and barely making it spin, let alone sway.

“That’s a good way to break your hand,” Frank told her. “And it won’t do any damage.”

“I’m just exercising, okay? I’m not looking to break anybody’s face.” She watched him mount the treadmill. “Assuming that things are going to be all Mad Max when the radioactive dust settles… maybe I should practice running away and you should use the punching bag.”

Frank started up the treadmill slow. “I know how to throw a punch.”

“Alright, I don’t.” Emma threw her hands up. “I took a foxy boxing course for two weeks before I switched to aerobic pole-dancing. It seemed more feminist.”

“Did you keep your receipt for the two weeks?”

“Funn-eh.”

Frank looked at the little LCD screen, the arrows on the treadmill. He could turn up the motor, drown out her little wisecracks with the noise it would generate as he went into high gear. Or…

Frank shut off the treadmill. “Show me your fists.”

She held them up for him. The two weeks hadn’t been entirely wasted. She had her thumbs in the right place.

Frank held up his hands like two catcher’s mitts. “Now show me a punch.”

Emma threw a punch; a weak effort like a beanbag tossed underhand. Frank let her get in a few blows at either hand, showing her she couldn’t even move his callused hands, before speaking.

“Alright, you have a decent jab. Do that with your left hand. You’re not a southpaw, are you?”

“Huh?”

“A leftie?”

“No.”

“Good. Jab a few times with your left. The guy you’re fighting won’t like getting hit any more than you do, so tapping on his block like this will keep him off his game. Now throw a straight punch with your right.”

“What’s a straight punch?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. Now, put your foot back while you’re punching. Your power isn’t in your arms. It’s in your hips and your feet.”

He kept showing her how to punch for the rest of the morning. After a few hours, she had a good combination down and could get through his block with some regularity. She was also turning red. Emma was in good shape—she probably jogged, did yoga, all the usual hot girl shit—but there was burning fat and then there was lugging tires. Clearly, Emma had never lugged tires.

“That’s enough for now,” Frank said, insisting on her drinking some water. “Wouldn’t want to strain a muscle your first day down here.”

“Why not? What else am I doing?” Emma asked. Despite her bravado, she chugged her Dasani down until it was ready for the recycling bin.

Another of Angel’s ideas; there was enough bottled water in the supply room to irrigate Las Vegas, in addition to the water in the bunker’s tap system.

“Do all the women in your family enjoy pain?”

Emma boggled a moment. “You didn’t just say that.”

“It’s going to be a long six weeks if we can’t say that’s what’s happening is what’s happening.”

Emma pursed her lips consideringly, before nodding. “So how was she?”

Frank wasn’t rattled. “You know how good she is just looking at her.”

“Shit, man, if you’d told me she sucked at it, maybe I would’ve had to defend the family name.” Emma smiled at him, giving him the full risqué. He remained stone-faced. Started to turn away. “So, that’s punching covered, but c’mon. How many people do you punch to death?”

“A lot,” Frank deadpanned.

“This is the twenty-first century, bro! If I’m going to defend myself, I need to know how to use guns.”

“You load them, you point them, you squeeze the trigger. If it’s still there when the magazine is empty, load more bullets, shoot more. So easy, the Army can do it.”

Emma nodded in mock agreement. “You really don’t think I should learn to shoot? You. The Punisher.”

Frank took a deep breath. “Any more questions about your sister or do you actually want to learn?”

“Believe me, if I wanted to hear about my perfect sister all the time, I’d never have moved out of my parents’ place. Let’s shoot some shit!”

“We’ll need a room… I don’t think we’ll be using the kennel anytime soon. Wait for me there. I’ll figure out some targets.”

Emma clapped her hands. “Are we going to shoot some empty cans?”

“We’ve been here one day,” Frank pointed out. “We don’t have any empty cans.”

***

Frank found Christina in the supply room, working on a self-portrait. She’d set up an easel and canvas, with a mirror just past it, so that she looked from her reflection to the work in progress, back and forth, back and forth.

She was good, in a prodigy sort of way. Her brushstrokes were carefully considered, but never stopped for too long; she flowed from one to another deliberately, only pausing long enough to wet her brush, wipe it off, sample another color on the palette, and make another mark.

She was good, alright, but Frank didn’t think there was a painter alive—and certainly not now—that could capture those aristocratic features in the perfection that God had set them up in.

Look at me, coming up with lines like I was a gawking teenager trying to get a girl to prom.

The paint that had smudged Christina’s unknowing face only made her more approachable, more attractive. Until he realized that shade of purple was too much like a bruise. Maybe Christina didn’t realize it. She wasn’t the type for bruises, or to check on that part of her face now that she’d finished its counterpart in the painting. But Frank didn’t like it.

I could fuck her, I could fuck her right now, he thought, and the idea seemed repugnant with that bruise there, even falsely. Not that her ass was in better shape, probably—at least Emma couldn’t see that.

He licked his thumb, then announced himself by running his knuckles from her hairline down to her jaw. She stiffened, shuddered, but he didn’t think it was because she’d just realized he was there. He’d been looking at her too hard for her to possibly be unaware… he daubed his wet thumb against the smear of paint, wiping it away while Christina made a face.

“You picked a bad time to make a mess of my face,” Christina announced. “I’m almost finished…”

“No such thing as a bad time,” Frank retorted, “because it’s impossible for that face to be anything but…”

Frank trailed off, wondering what he was doing. Getting flirty with this girl? Why? Because he’d been inside her? Hell, what should that buy her? She’d enjoyed it more than him, which was a mean feat when he’d spent so much time in her mouth…

“You might’ve liked how I looked after you did what you did to my face,” Christina remarked caustically, before he could think of his line. “But it was a mess, believe me.”

“A hell of a mess,” Frank remarked, which wasn’t innuendo, it was the simple truth.

“Do it again. Maybe I can do a second self-portrait.” She gripped the brush like she’d hold a martini glass if it was full of one of those thousand-a-night mixologist concoctions. “God knows there isn’t much else to paint down here.”

Frank rubbed with his thumb again, this time to the edge of Christina’s well-cushioned lips. He hooked the side of her mouth and used that to pull her head over and once she was in position, he covered her lips with his until they spread warmly. Let his tongue in and a little moan out.

She came away from him as soon as she got a taste of his tongue. And despite her lips being parted, swollen, and her chest heaving, when she spoke, her voice came out chilly as the two icebergs she was eying him with.

“Do you think you can just fuck me whenever you feel like it?”

She could make her words as cold as she wanted, it didn’t matter. Her velvet voice was still gasoline poured on a fire.

“Why not?” Frank asked, feeling the gathering hardness between his legs that was even more an answer to Christina.

Christina kept up the ice queen façade like he hadn’t seen for himself just how hot she could burn. “Are you going to rape me?”

“Maybe I should—might remind you of how much you like it.”

“Like is irrelevant. We have an arrangement, not a commitment. I’m not obliged to anything from you and you’re not obliged to do anything for me. If I want something from you, I’ll find you… I’m sure you’ll have it for me.”

Frank tried to avoid sneering like a high schooler who’d gotten the brush-off for the first time. “So it’s like that?”

“It is like that. You want to drop me as soon as the doors open, that’s fine. Just know that I’ll ditch you just as readily.”

She was good. She could turn her voice into a scalpel without batting an eyelash. If he didn’t know for himself what a sweet ride she was, he’d probably be turned off. As it was, he felt like a 1969 GTO Judge with a Ram Air IV under the hood, fully fueled and with something loud firing out of the radio—but the speed limit was 30.

“If you’re not interested, you’re not interested,” Frank volleyed back. “One less chore to do.”

He looked around. The supply room was a walk-in identity crisis. Everything neatly set up in rows and rows on precise, straight shelves… and then there was everything else, junk drawer after junk drawer, exploded without rhyme or reason in-between the actual essentials. He saw the bottles of acrylic paint and other art supplies; grabbed a brush and one of the bottles and took off, trusting his hard-on to go down before he met Emma again.

What a world: Christina would get the wrong idea if he stopped throbbing away after her dismissal and Emma would get the wrong idea if he was still hard when he found her. Luckily, control was something he’d never been short on. As he left the room, he could about convince himself that he’d never spoken with Christina at all.

But he couldn’t lose the feel of her. If Emma so much as said her name, he felt like his erection would spring back to life. Frank wondered if she knew what she did to him. Hell, maybe she liked it more than the sex. A fuck both people enjoyed; this she could get off on all by herself.

“Don’t waste that paint!” Christina called after him. “It’s not like we can order more!”