Page 60 of This Vicious Hunger

It is nearly three weeks before things change.

It starts slow, barely noticeable at first. It takes me longer to fall asleep, worries about Petaccia and the antidote creeping in, thoughts of what she’s doing on the outside, and whether Leo is worried about me.

They don’t all come at once, not a steady stream but more of a drip.

So insidious I don’t truly realise the difference from those early days of abandon until it is too late.

I notice Olea is sleeping less too. Neither of us has had her monthly courses (and truly I suspect we might never have them again), but our moods rise and fall with the same rhythm.

Olea becomes irritable, prone to hours in the afternoons where she wanders out of sight and does not reappear until dinner.

And the hunger—we both begin to eat more.

It is fun at first, cooking together in the cramped cellar.

We concoct strange dishes from potatoes and onions and dried pasta, mushrooms and rare fruits we pick from the garden’s hidden hollows that Olea knows well.

We cook vats of the stuff and then pick at it for days between sex and books and games.

The weeks pass and the food lasts hours instead of days, though neither of us gains any weight.

We fuck like rabbits, abandoning the books in favour of the garden more nights than not.

“It’s not enough,” I growl one night. We lie panting at the base of the stairs to the top tower room, since we couldn’t even make it to the bed.

Olea is stripped of her nightgown to the waist, her breasts covered in bruises that are already yellowing and faded.

I regret the teeth marks in an abstract sort of way, and in the same breath long to create them again, to draw blood and taste its metallic tang on my tongue.

“It will settle,” Olea soothes. She pulls the straps of her nightgown up, hiding her flesh away.

A flash of annoyance takes me, a stabbing kind of jealousy, but I push it down.

“These urges are… They’re normal, because of the plants and the toxins.

You’ll see. I’ve had them in some form or other my whole life. ”

“Worse than this?” I ask. I narrow my gaze. “Are you saying you’ve always wanted to carry me halfway up a staircase and fuck me until I scream?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Because I can’t imagine anything worse than this.”

“You can’t imagine anything worse than three orgasms in a row?” Olea raises an eyebrow.

“No, I’m sorry, I just mean—”

“I know what you mean.” Olea swats my arm playfully. She grows sombre then, thoughtful. “It will pass,” she says again. “It has to. I always thought the urges I had were my body adjusting to new plants, new toxins, different exposure to seasons and lights, pollen and dust.”

“Do you think it’s normal now , though?” I press.

I hold out a hand and help Olea to her feet.

We climb the rest of the way to the tower room and collapse together amidst the mass of blankets and cushions we’ve piled around the trundle bed, which is too small for both of us unless we’re lying virtually atop each other.

My stomach rumbles, although we ate not long ago.

“What, exactly, about any of this is normal, or has ever been normal?” Olea bites her lip. “I may not know much about the outside, but I know that.”

“All right, I know it’s not normal. But you know more than I do. And if we don’t talk about it—”

“I don’t like talking about it,” Olea mutters childishly. “I just want to go on as we are. Why can’t we just keep pretending?”

“I’m trying, Olie,” I say softly. “This is all so new to me. It wasn’t like this at first. The world’s slowed down but we’ve sped up. Don’t you get frustrated?”

“Of course I do.”

We’re speaking around the subject, neither of us wanting to acknowledge what we’ve both realised: something is changing.

I can’t be sure if it’s because of anything we’re doing, or if it would have started to happen anyway.

Maybe the doctor was right: We should have been keeping notes, records, for how else will we understand the changes?

Already those early days after our awakening feel like nothing more than a dream.

It is as if we are growing, too much and too fast, and the tower and its gardens are getting too small to contain us.

“I can’t stop thinking about things.” I run my hand over my face, and it’s damp with sweat. We didn’t sweat much at first either. My hands tremble with the exertion of our lovemaking—and this, too, is new.

“Thinking isn’t going to change anything.” Olea shrugs.

“I know it won’t. But I can’t shake the unfinished business. How long are we going to keep doing this for? I’m not convinced Petaccia has a plan for any of this. How long before you get bored of fucking me?”

“Unfinished business,” Olea repeats. She raises herself on her elbows and looks at me. “Like Leonardo, you mean.”

“Like everything I left out there.” I throw my hands up in exasperation. “Why are you so scared of leaving? I know how badly you want to.”

“Why are you so scared to stay?”

“I’m not scared. I’m tired of feeling trapped.”

Olea goes quiet. Frustration gurgles inside me and my hands are clammy. I should have fought more about her mentioning Leo, but now isn’t the time. Whatever she thinks my relationship is with him, it doesn’t make my point less valid. Olea has never thought about the bigger picture.

“This isn’t just a holiday,” she murmurs.

“That’s what I’m trying to say. It isn’t a holiday, but we’ve been treating it like one. Is this what life looks like now? The same thing forever? How long do we do this for, until we die? How long before we get bored, before all of this feels too small?”

“It’s barely been a month.” Olea levels her gaze. “And you’re already chomping at the bit.”

“Aren’t you?” I snap. “You were ready enough to come with me before. Why are you so insistent that we stay now?”

“You’re adjusting,” Olea tries to soothe.

“You know why we can’t leave, Thora. I know this is all new to you; the toxicity of our touch is…

it’s terrifying. I know that. But it will get easier to understand, and at least we have each other.

We’re still finding the rhythm. It’s bound to be like this at first, a little excess.

Why not? You said yourself, we deserve it. ”

Frustration claws at my throat. “It isn’t just a little excess. I need more .”

“More what?” Olea demands. “More food? More sex? We can try different things—”

“More of everything!” I exclaim. Anger is a torrent, storm water destroying all in its path.

I wriggle out of the blankets and get to my feet.

I want to stomp my feet; I want to smash things.

“It isn’t enough. None of this is enough .

” There’s a fire burning in my belly and I don’t know how to explain it.

It’s growing, every second bigger and hotter, consuming everything in its path.

I don’t believe that Olea can’t see it; it must be burning up my very soul.

“It will settle,” Olea says. Her voice is like cool water, but even that is not enough to douse the flame. “You can’t see it yet, but the anger is normal. It’s normal to feel trapped. It will pass, though. It will .”

The night is thick and black as smoke. Autumn is finally coming, bringing the unrelenting storms from the mountains along with the ice-pine bite on the wind. I carry two bottles of wine down to the fountain, staggering a little between the trees.

These are my sixth, maybe seventh bottles of the night.

It’s taking more and more of the stuff to make me lightheaded, never mind drunk.

What I want is to obliterate it all, drink it into the blackness of oblivion.

I want to see stars and wake up with a pounding head and the rank stench of alcohol in my pores.

There’s something so human about it, so alive .

It doesn’t work like that any more.

I chug the first of the two remaining bottles before I’ve even slumped down by the fountain.

Olea is going to be livid when she finds the booze gone, as we’re not sure when the doctor will next be back, but that’s not my problem until it happens.

If she’s so determined to live in the moment, then fucking let her.

The wine is rich, deep and spiced with nutmeg and cloves and hints of black pepper. I hardly taste it. It is like the early days of my exposure to the garden: everything tastes ashy, dry, and powdery.

The second bottle has a deep cork wedged in it.

I spend long minutes picking at it, trying to shove it down with a stick, and in the end I give up.

I smash the top of the bottle against the rim of the fountain, sending shards of green glass flying.

They scatter across the ground beneath the paint stains we left only days ago—it seems like a lifetime already.

My thoughts turn quickly maudlin. Neither Olea nor I have really discussed the subject of the distant future.

Olea won’t talk about it, no matter how hard I try.

Petaccia alluded to it when she took our notes, wanting clarification on the slow beat of our hearts—one of the few things we didn’t lie about.

A slow heartbeat after what can only be described as medically induced death…

What does that mean for the rest of our lives?

It’s the thought that’s been eating me up inside, every minute like a grain of sand in an hourglass of indefinite size. How long can this go on?

“Are we living?” I ask the garden softly. “Or is this death?”

Of course, the garden doesn’t answer. I drink the wine from the smashed bottle, savouring this one a little more than the last. I’m careless, though, the swing of my arm loose and strong, and as I bring the bottle to my lips I slice the tender flesh.

It splits like the skin of an apricot, blood dribbling onto my chin.