Jenny Plague-Bringer(62)

The rain fell faster as he lay her across the bed, splashing against the glass and making the steel hull echo with thousands of tiny pings.

He kissed her slowly, touching the tip of his tongue against hers. His hands moved from her hips and across her stomach and ribs, not hurrying at all, as if he wanted to feel every part of her. He had the rough-skinned hands of a boy who’d grown up working hard for little money.

She sighed when his hands touched her breasts through her bulky, starchy cotton bra. She unlatched it for him, then shivered in delight when he touched her bare skin. He kissed her and she held his face close, unable to get enough. He tasted like sunlight on her lips.

His hands moved down her body, at a speed she found agonizingly slow. His fingertips brushed low on her stomach, beneath her navel and just above her cotton panties. Juliana traced her hand down the muscles of his abdomen and touched the erection that strained against his undershorts. She took a breath and reached inside, touching him without any cloth barrier. He felt scorching hot in her fingers, and he grew more rigid as she explored his length with her fingertips.

He slowly drew down her panties. They lay naked for a moment, looking at each other in the silver moonlight as a thunderstorm ripped across the ocean, rocking the vast ship around them. Juliana embraced him, kissing him hungrily and pressing her body against him. He wrapped his arms around her, and the feeling of their bodies wrapped in each other was better than she’d ever imagined. She wanted to stay just like this forever, his skin on hers, his breath on her lips.

“I was dead,” she whispered. “You brought me to life.”

Her fingers touched his lip, and his hand brushed down her side. They kissed again, and his fingers rubbed her gently at just the right spot between her splayed legs. Her body filled with a roaring fire, and a burst of lightning filled their cabin.

He climbed on top of her and slowly entered her. She bit her lip in pain. After a lifetime of solitude, the intimacy hurt almost as much as the physical loss of her virginity. She clung to him while he was inside her, and her breath came out in short, hot gasps. She had never felt so close to anyone.

“I love you,” she whispered afterward, too low for him to hear over the rumbling thunder. She lay against him and let the ship rock them to sleep.



* * *



Eighty years later, telling the story to Seth and Mariella, Jenny would skip the more intimate details of their first night on the ship...but she would pause and give Seth a secretive smile, for reasons he didn’t even remember.





Chapter Eighteen




After a week of travel, which Juliana and Sebastian spent eating, drinking, dancing, and playing, the Eurydice reached Le Havre, France. They marveled at the massive number of ships from all over the world porting at the sprawling industrial city. Juliana wanted very much to visit Paris, but it was three hours each way by train, so they didn’t have time.

The ship carried them into the cooler weather of the North Sea, around the Netherlands, then south along the River Elbe towards Hamburg, Germany. Farms and woodlands lined the wide river, and heavy boat traffic flowed both ways.

Juliana stood on the deck, gripping Sebastian’s hand as the German port came into view. It was a beautiful city, full of canals, bridges, and symmetrical neoclassical buildings. Trees lined the streets, and the spires of cathedrals soared here and there along the skyline. The city looked both ancient and extremely modern, even futuristic, and it was situated in the center of Europe. It felt like they were arriving at the center of the civilized world. As their ship approached the busy docks, full of cranes unloading automobiles and railroad cars, a sudden stab of panic struck Juliana.

“What’s wrong?” Sebastian asked, seeing the look on her face.

“What if this is a mistake?” she whispered.

“Then we’ll go home.”

“What if they don’t let us?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” He looked into her eyes. “This is what you’ve always wanted, a chance to be cured of the demon plague. It’s why you came looking for me in the first place.”

“You think we made the right choice?”

“We don’t have much to lose, do we?”

Juliana thought about their life back home, scratching out a meager living as they traveled America in the middle of the Depression. Strange men paying pennies to leer at her diseased, nearly-nude body. Her body had thickened in the time since they’d met Mr. Barrett, and her ribs were much less visible.

“Not much to lose at all,” she agreed.

“With modern science and the latest technology, they can find a cure, if there’s one to be found,” he said. “Mr. Barrett was right about that.”