Page 28 of The Compound

I tried not to take her reticence personally; I understood that she was missing Marcus.

I tried to think of how I would feel if Ryan left without me.

Problematically, I felt equally panicked at the thought of Sam leaving.

It was harder still because I liked Becca; she seemed to me to be one of the least conniving people here, and she had a quiet intelligence that I appreciated.

It was easy to fantasize about being with Sam, but not so easy to consider how that would leave Becca vulnerable.

I liked Becca, but I wasn’t sure that many other people did: if Sam left her, she would surely be banished the next morning.

A few days later, when the other girls were on the patio drinking coffee and the boys were in the shed talking about whatever boys talk about in a shed, I cleaned the kitchen before checking my little screen for a Personal Task.

As the original department system had accounted for sixteen people, we had fractured off some of the roles, but mine was the same.

I didn’t mind doing it; it steadied me. Someone else was assigned to clean the bedroom and bathroom, but there were gray areas of the house which I also had taken upon myself todo.

If I didn’t force myself to do my chores before looking at my screen it was too tempting to do nothing but Personal Tasks, and Andrew had made it clear that, while they were necessary, an overdependence on them was selfish.

The task was simple, as they often were.

Task: Use the outdoor shower

Reward: Pajamas

This prospect pleased me immensely. I had, in recent days, earned a couple of lovely items of clothing.

Each time I collected a new garment from my postbox, I was amazed at just how much it suited my exact taste.

I felt seen: I felt like the producers knew me, anticipated my desires as they manifested.

I already had two pairs of pajamas, but would have liked another just the same.

I took my towel and went outside to use the shower.

Around the front I saw Carlos and Jacintha, in the garden.

Jacintha was sitting cross-legged and making daisy chains, and Carlos was lying on his side, watching her as she worked.

There was no one else around, and the compound seemed oddly quiet, the slap of my flip-flops against the concrete like gunfire.

Before I rounded the corner to the back of the house, I heard the sound of running water.

I wasn’t bothered by the possibility of glimpsing someone showering.

I had become used to seeing the others in various stages of undress, and no longer even had any qualms about using the toilet when someone else was in the bathroom.

We had become close, all of us, even if we didn’t truly know each other.

I didn’t stop when I heard the shower running, but I should have when I heard the moaning.

A second before I rounded the corner I knew what I would see, and yet still it shocked me: Ryan and Vanessa, wrapped around each other, her naked back pressed against the wall, her face tilted toward the sky.

Her mouth open, catching drops of water.

I don’t know if they saw me—I stood there for longer than I should have before I ran off, my flip-flops slippery under my feet, hitting clumsily off the ground.

I went to the northernmost part of the compound, an unremarkable patch of trees and grass.

I knew that no one would come here and I wouldn’t be easy to find even if they did look for me.

I tried to arrange myself next to some bushes, so that I wouldn’t be easy for the cameras to notice, and though I knew that it was futile, I took some small comfort in pretending that I had some control over the situation.

Stupid girl, I thought to myself, my head on my knees. Stupid, stupid girl.

I stayed there until the sun had moved a hand’s width across the sky. I wanted to stay until it was dark, but I heard Andrew’s whistle and moved obediently to the living room along with the others.

“Where were you?” Jacintha asked. I shook my head. Ryan stood beside me, glancing sideways at me. Did he know that I had seen him?

“So, guys,” Andrew said. “This one’s kind of wild, but I think it’ll be funny. We’re all friends here, right?” A couple of people tittered, and others stood stiffly. I looked past Sam and read the instructions.

Task: Every resident must kiss each other

Reward: Barbecue

“No,” I said immediately. “I don’t want to do it.”

“It’s only fun, Lily,” Tom said.

“It’s stupid,” I said. “I don’t want to do it.”

“A barbecue,” Andrew said. “Think about it!”

“If she doesn’t want to do it,” Sam said, “let’s just leave it. People shouldn’t be made uncomfortable by the tasks. We have everything we need now.”

Ryan said, “It’ll be funny. We’ll get a laugh out of it.”

He hadn’t seen me, then.

Sam was looking at me, trying to be discreet aboutit.

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

Andrew and Tom debated where to carry out the task—I think they both wanted to do it in the bedroom for further intimacy, but wouldn’t say so.

Candice interrupted. “We’ll bring the beanbags outside to the lawn, beside the pool.

” It was the best idea. The sun was softening, nearly disappearing for the day.

On the beanbags, in the grass, we would be like teenagers again. At least, that was the intention.

Outside, I settled on my beanbag, trying to look relaxed.

Jacintha was on my right, and Ryan on my left.

He took my hand, and I let him. “Who wants to go first?” Tom said.

There was silence. We all looked at each other, and I’m sure to an outsider it might have seemed like shyness, but we were no longer shy with each other.

We looked at each other as a player might eye their opponents on the field.

“I will,” Andrew said. “It’s all a bit of fun, anyway.” He laughed, and the boys laughed, too, but the girls were looking at Candice. She was smiling.

He came to her first. He kissed her deeply, and she pressed her hand against his head, keeping him there, and then gently pushed him away after a few moments.

He then went around to each girl and bestowed a chaste, friendly kiss.

When he took his seat, the boys cheered.

Candice raised a brow. She was the picture of elegance, wearing a long dress with her hair twisted behind her head. “What are you doing? You’re not done.”

He grinned. “You want another kiss, Candy?”

“The boys,” she said. “?‘Every resident must kiss each other,’ it said. Not ‘every boy must kiss every girl.’?”

Jacintha and Vanessa started to laugh, and I joined in a little, though I didn’t feel like it. The boys looked everywhere but at each other, and Andrew frowned at the ground for a few moments. Then he sprang up, and said, “No problem. Lads: pucker up, if you will.”

He went to Tom first. He clapped his hands on his cheeks, as though to keep Tom’s face from moving, and gave him a loud smooch, his lips making an exaggerated smacking sound.

“All right, all right,” Tom said, trying desperately to hide his discomfort.

We all were laughing now, and Andrew sauntered around the circle, a showman entertaining his audience, making jokes and professing his undying love for Sam before they locked lips.

Because Andrew made a joke of it, it was easy for him and for the boys he kissed; but every other boy was visibly nervous, and when they kissed each other, it was an awkward, clumsy affair.

In a way, it made me feel sorry for them.

Candice was next. Every eye in the circle was glued to her.

She went to Andrew first, too, and sat on his lap, and kissed him so sensually that we called out to get a room.

She went around the circle then, boy, girl, girl, boy, boy, giving kisses that were not over the top, but not prim either.

When she got to me, she said, “Hello, gorgeous,” and kissed me, long and heated.

I was a little surprised, but not a lot; it was like something she would do.

It was a fantastic kiss, and when she broke away, she stroked my arm seductively and blew a kiss over her shoulder to me.

The others had gone crazy at the spectacle, cheering and hooting.

It wasn’t a competition, but Candice still somehow managed to win.

No one else was nearly as remarkable as Andrew or Candice, and as the two of them sat together, holding hands, I thought that they would certainly win it: they would be the ones who got to stay here, in the end.

Some of the other kisses did stand out. I dreaded Tom’s, though I tried not to show it. He hovered in front of me for several seconds, and I met his eye, but with difficulty. He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. I felt his tongue push into my mouth. I pushed him away. The others cheered.

Next, I watched Ryan go around the circle, acting the gentleman, even with Vanessa.

When he reached her, Vanessa looked at the ground, then flicked a smile up at him; I wondered if I would have realized, from her look alone, that he had been sleeping with her behind my back.

I looked at Tom, and wondered if he knew, too.

He was looking at her possessively, but he always did that.

When Ryan got to me, he stroked his thumb across my jaw, the way he knew I liked.

He tipped my head back so that I could look into his eyes.

I looked at him with all the coldness, all the disgust I could muster.

I could see the precise moment that he knew that I knew.

Still, he dipped his head toward mine, slowly, as though I might pull away, and I kissed him as I had always kissed him.

When he pulled back he scanned my face, uncertain now.

I smiled at my feet in the same demure way that Vanessa had.

Jacintha went next, then Sam. Everything depended on Sam, I thought.

He kissed Becca sweetly, but briefly. He kissed the boys with the same detached seriousness with which he kissed the girls.

When he got to me I saw him hesitate a little as he knelt before me, and then his lips were on mine.

He kissed me a little longer than the others, but not long enough to draw any attention.

But I wanted to draw attention, so I slowly, deliberately ran my tongue across his lower lip, then very lightly bit down.

I felt his eyes open. He pulled away but didn’t move for a moment—only a moment, but I felt it like an age—and when he turned and moved to the next person, I felt the urge to grab him, to cry at his feet and to grab at his hair.

I felt mad; I felt ready to make a fool of myself, which, I suppose, was the intention of these challenges.

I waited until there were only a few of us left.

I wanted Ryan to have to wait, and I allowed my eyes to flick over to Sam’s every couple of minutes.

More frequently than not, when I looked over at him he was already looking at me.

By the time I rose from my beanbag, night had fallen, and we could see each other only from the lights of the pool, a rippling, blue glow aroundus.

I went to Vanessa first, and kissed her, only our lips touching. She tasted of watermelon. I was surprised, when I kissed her, to find that her lips were naturally plump: I had thought that it was filler. She was just naturally beautiful, Vanessa.

I went to Ryan next, and knelt between his legs.

I leaned in slowly, as he had, and he whispered, “Lily,” but I didn’t want to hear anything from him.

I kissed him for a few seconds, and let him feel the nothingness of it, then rose and moved on to Jacintha.

I moved from person to person, delivering light pecks.

I hesitated before Tom. He looked at me impassively, watching my hesitation.

I didn’t want to kiss him, but the worst thing that I could do would be to show that I didn’t trust Tom.

I left Sam till last. I floated over to him like a butterfly landing on the brightest flower.

I knew his features in the dark. His face, the little of it that I could see, was serious as he looked at me, but searching, too.

I placed my hand on his cheek, and kissed him, soft but deliberate, and I felt his lips meet mine, expecting, I think, just a moment pressed together; but I placed my other hand around his neck, and kissed him deeper, and his hands came around to cup my face, and then he was tilting my head to kiss me deeper.

There was some cheering, but that quieted too, when we didn’t let go of each other, and our lips met again and again.

Silence fell around us, thick as the cover of night.

Eventually I pulled back, and saw his eyes stay on mine as I rose above him.

We disbanded shortly after, and when I saw Ryan stepping toward me I slipped away quickly and quietly, the inky darkness swallowing me.

I went to the orchard, where the grass was high and the leaves swayed in the rare summer breeze.

I could see the house in the distance, a lovely glow of whites and yellows.

I waited there for a while, shivering. I told myself that I was hiding from Ryan, but I knew that I was waiting for Sam, because he often checked on the vegetables before we went to bed.

I stood shivering, my head swinging around at every sound, but he never came.

I went inside before it became embarrassing.

—

That night, I felt the bed dip beside me later than usual. Ryan had been in the shed for a long while, putting off our conversation. It was dark, but I knew it was him.

“Lily,” he said. I kept my back to him. He put his hand on my shoulder, and I jerked so violently that he lifted it, and didn’t touch me again.

After a minute, I felt him turn. I didn’t sleep at all that night.

I stayed in bed until I was sure that the sun had risen, and when I stepped outside the house with my coffee I could see bushfires burning in the distance, raging and writhing, miles away from us, but moving closer, inch by inch.