Editor’s note: “Cameron” (Sergeant, Major, or Lt. Colonel but always just Cameron) is the six-one, hard-muscled and deeply scarred, no-nonsense protagonist of this post-apocalyptic women’s-prison romance-adventure story. Just so you know.
Here is my book review.
One table
Two chairs
One bottle of scotch
Twenty Camel cigarettes (unfiltered and horribly unshared)
Two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc
Cameron
Me
I do not think you would listen for a moment except if you had reason. You must have reason because you stay where you are and light a cigarette and pour yourself a glass of scotch.
Taking your silence as permission to talk with you I begin –
The world you live in is horrible, truly terrifying. I would be dead in two minutes unless I was lucky enough to be taken in by you. I suspect that I am too soft for you and would bore you, but if you will spend one evening with me I would like to tell you what I think.
You are a bit of a shock to an English girl. You did not make a gentle entrance, in what I read of you. I can see your eyes glinting with some terrible, leery comeback to that, which I will ignore and continue. I think you will let me; you don’t seem to have a problem listening to women.
I understand that you live in a brutal world and that the option you offer the ladies did have a mutual advantage – they were safer with you than in normal prisons or being farmed out. I have to say that before anything else, because it matters to me. I am a woman and I have no time for anyone who wishes us ill, and I would not waste one moment on anyone who does. So I get it, and I must believe you do too.
But I cannot talk to you at all about the depth of feeling I have about the way you chose to exert your will over those women, to allow your needs to be expressed like that, I can’t. It all sounds so awful, so ferociously simple, I can’t.
From the way you introduced yourself, you came across as the sort of man who not only would I never wish to meet but also the kind of man I would quite cheerfully see dispatched henceforth and forever to some distant place. We did not see eye to eye at first. I thought you were arrogant (I still do), I thought you were bullish (I still do), and I thought you were bored and simplistic (at times I still do but even this is growing on me). But the early deal breaker for me was that I thought you were unkind.
You see, to use a word that often gets bandied at you, there are arseholes and there are arseholes. (Shut up and let me finish – that is not an invitation to your sort of comment.) Now this is not a word I use, but you do seem to get called it a lot and for good reason most of the time. I think that it would help if the women you know had a better vocabulary, but I understand there are more pressing issues in your world than improving one’s vocabulary, and the skill sets that the women around you have are pertinent. In any case, I really do not like that word but I will use it to explain what I mean.
I think you are the sort of AH (that suits me better, thank you) who is an AH because you have learned to listen to your own judgment and to adhere to it. You are the kind of AH who ignores others when you consider their motives or methods wrong, whether they be immoral, rude, patronising or whatever, regardless who those people are. I think this makes you seem patronising, and because you can rarely be bothered to explain yourself you will remain patronising to people who do not see enough of you to understand you.
However, I don’t think this makes you truly an AH. (I am certain now that you are amused by my dislike of that word.) I think it makes you strong willed and overwhelming. I suspect at times I hate you for it, and I suspect that, more often, I adore you for it.
The things that made me change my mind about you are your kindness and your desire for individuality – not just yours but of others. Your defense of the “other” even at great cost to yourself is something that you show time and time again but never tell anyone about. You are silent about your own sacrifices unless it bubbles out of you in a particularly cynical and bitter moment. You are also erotic, in a way that I find most disturbing, overpowering, and intimidating.
If you will insist on this demure (eyebrows down please) English girl’s telling you what she finds so erotic about you then I will, but only because it seems you stay away so long as I am talking. I can talk for a very long time. Ask anyone. And I know I am kidding myself about that. You stay away because you want to.
Things that I find erotic about you – and before we start, “erotic” is the easiest word I could find and lets me off the hook as it is quite innocuous. It is not the right word but you can play gentleman for once and let me use it.
I am getting flustered just saying this to you, and I think that the wall to your left is fascinating so I will look there while I talk. Despite all of your active service you appear to have excellent hearing so I will whisper, since the clipped tone I have used to defend myself so far against my feelings for you has suddenly deserted me.
Right, then – a list, I think. That is efficient, and efficient is good. (If you don’t stop laughing at me I won’t say a word. Now drink your whisky and give me a chance.) There are the easy bits to say – you understand the needs of the women that you … engage with (shut up – I can use any word I want). You made sure that Gaylin came after you did, and you seem so aware of all their pleasures and desires, the women with whom you … engage. I know I am saying this badly, but if you want articulate you should be less … whatever … and then I would be perfectly able to find appropriate words and phrases.
Back to the list – it is almost totally filled with things that I should not want and things that make me cover my eyes with my hands, and things I would argue against with every breath in my body, desires that would lose any value if I were given a choice. If my will existed then my desires would dissipate.
I will say just one thing. There was a moment that surprised me; a moment that I did not think would speak to me like it did. There was a moment – an image of the plug, the sandpaper, the time, the nipples, the lack of choice, and your humour about the whole thing that, against my will, I found erotic.
But I suppose that is the point of you in many ways – you are all about the will. Your will so overwhelms and so intoxicates that it becomes erotic in and of itself. Your desire, by existing and being expressed in the manner that you express it, becomes my desire; your will becomes my will, and I am in awe of that.
I would very much like a cigarette please. Oh, all right. You smoke it and I shall enjoy it vicariously, though I fail to understand why you have to be so strict about this.
So, would I join your new life at the end of the book? Yes, like a shot, once out of the prison wherein it was your desire only, once there was the hint of choice, even if that choice is to have no choice whatsoever at times. I suppose you are the kind of man I would follow. That I desire this appalls me.
I think.
I don’t know.
But you know, don’t you? From the way you smile at me, I know you do.
I think your strength, both physical and mental, scares me, and I need to see the tender bit of you to help me know that when I am with you I could continue to be the strong person I am. Truthfully, the world you live in scares me far more than you do – indeed you seem to be the safest thing in it.
However I will argue with you tooth and nail about your philosophies and quite enjoy that, especially your views on gods and what we all are doing here. I will look you in the eye about that, and I suspect you will let me and enjoy the debate.
I believe you relax in a very, very difficult way, like a physical submission, when your body fights long and hard and then realises all is lost, and suddenly peace ascends. Despite the vortex of passions that surrounds you there is tranquility at your centre for those girls lucky enough to get there.
I also think, Cameron, that although I find you overwhelming and captivating, I believe you would find me dull, and for this reason I would not let myself love you. Or at least, that is why I never would let you know that I love you.
