The Undesirable (Undesirable Series) by S. Celi

mine, comforting and illicit. I knew I didn’t want to stop.
    Fostino pulled on one of the thick sleeves of the dress. I reached up through the small space between us and pulled open the first button of my dress. Past the point of caring about anything anymore, past the point of worrying what anything meant, I reached for the second button. That’s when Fostino pulled away.
    “No,” he said. He shook his head to emphasize his words. “We shouldn’t do this.” His eyes glinted a little. “Not after what you told me. I won’t do that to you.”
    I blinked twice, unable to hide my surprise and disappointment. “Okay.” 
    Fostino held his body above me. His chest muscles stiffened. “I don’t want this to be random,” he said. “I don’t want this to mean nothing. Not this time. Not like this.” I held my eyes on his as I tried to process what he said. “I want you, but it’s more. I want to protect you. I want to make sure you survive. I want you to still be here when The War ends, whenever that might be.”
    “No one’s ever wanted to help me before. No one has ever really cared,” I admitted. I gulped. “No one.”
    “That’s terrible,” he said. “I’ll change that.” I took in his words. I’d never been this close to anyone. Then suddenly, exhaustion overwhelmed me. I yawned.
    “I need to go to sleep.” I didn’t care I hadn’t made it underneath the blanket on the bed.
    “You do need to sleep,” he said. “Me, too.” He stroked my hair with his right hand.
    “Mm mm.” Each muscle relaxed in my tight back. Fostino got up and flipped off the single fluorescent light anchored to the popcorn ceiling before he pulled one side of the blanket so it covered my legs. Moments later, sleep took over my body.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

    The incessant roar of the sewing machines made sure I didn’t fall asleep at my workstation. I looked at the clock.
    2:45 PM.
    Every day, these 12-hour work shifts seemed to grow longer and take longer to finish. I knew if the soldiers didn’t kill me, the sheer monotony of the work would.
    I focused on the huge portrait of Maxwell Cooper that hung on the wall at the end of my row. I stared at his face while I made another shirt and remembered President Mary Anne Phillips. I remembered the day the newscasters told us she’d been assassinated during a trip to Toronto she took to once again negotiate the status of the Keystone Pipeline and the Canadian tar sands. An anarchist disguised as a waiter shot her in cold blood at a dinner with the Canadian elite.
    I finally realized the gunman could not have been an anarchist, but one of Cooper’s supporters and probably someone from The Party. I didn’t remember a trial.
    Had there been one?
    3:00 PM.
    “Maxwell Cooper is our father. Maxwell Cooper is our leader. Maxwell Cooper will take care of us,” droned the woman on the stool in the center of the room.
    The clench of the gears in my sewing machine brought me back to reality. I almost sewed my fingers into the fabric. I pulled at the strings, saved the shirt, and glanced around at the other women in the room.
    Had they ever stopped to think about all this? Ever thought about another life? Had they lost hope, like me? How long would they take this? How long would I take this?
    The soldiers paced back and forth around the room while my hands finished another shirt with a few deft movements of the sewing machine. I lost count of how many shirts I had already made, how many I had made for The War Effort in total.
    Not that I ever really cared.
    We all heard the unmistakable sound of boots on the stairwell a few minutes later. Heavy feet clanged and crashed their warning as the door to the far stairs flung open. The Colonel from the day of the massacre darkened the door. I gulped.
    “Stand up!” He shouted in that clipped accent of his. I shuddered in fear as his words crawled down my back.
    Without a word to each other, we put down our shirts, took our feet off the sewing