Page 49 of The Compound

“You can keep the things I gave you, even though I earned them.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You aren’t going to say thank you?”

“You’re forcing me out. Sorry if I don’t feel particularly grateful.”

“Do you know,” he said, “if there weren’t rules in place, I’d knock some manners into you. You’re a slut, Vanessa, and now everyone knows it.”

I heard him take a step back toward the bedroom. I stepped back, too. “You’re not going to walk me to the boundary?” she asked, her voice high. I thought about how frightening it would be to go into the desert with only the dim light of early dawn.

“No,” Tom said. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

I stepped deeper into the shadows and let him pass by me. He walked back to his bed and stopped briefly by the bedside locker. There was a stuffed teddy sitting there, which Vanessa had won a few weeks ago: a cheerful-looking polar bear. Not daring to move, I watched Tom lift it and consider it, its white fur glowing in the dark room. In one quick motion, he ripped its head off, and dropped it to the ground. Then he got into the bed where Becca lay alone, curled on her side like a question mark. I knew that she was awake: I could see her fist, tiny and white-knuckled, clenched around the blankets.

Ten

With Vanessa gone there wereeight of us left in the compound. It made carrying out Communal Tasks very easy, and for a time we gathered five, six, seven rewards in a day. Even if it was only a simple reward, we received a vast amount of it now, or a very high-quality version. The compound was now truly thriving. We had enough food to last us for months—it was good food, too: marinated meats, a range of vegetables, fruit, snacks, and dried goods. We had so much food, in fact, that we used one of the empty rooms beside the kitchen as a food pantry. We visited the pantry often, not just when we were hungry, but to look at all that we had amassed. Anyone would have been impressed. We now had an impressive array of alcohol, which we kept in the kitchen: beer and wine and champagne and gin. And there were no longer only tasks to do to pass the time: we had a functioning tennis court, a blue plastic slide that led into the pool, goalposts for football, a basketball hoop, a dance floor, a karaoke machine, mats and poufs for yoga, and enough beauty products for a salon. It was up to each batch of contestants what they wanted to leave behind and what they wanted to take back with them. Looking at the compound, I thought that I would want it to stay just as it was. But I had the feeling, too, that if—when—I had to leave, I would be reluctant to leave behind all of the things that I had earned.

Sam and Jacintha were committed to their roles maintaining the house, and now helped Carlos with Yard and Pool Maintenance, too. We had working doors for the bathroom and the front of the house, and we’d used some of the leftover wood to secure the fence that marked the perimeter. There was still a great deal of it left, most of which was stored inthe shed. The shed, though I didn’t like it—it was too much the boys’ domain—was now our Cave of Wonders, as more and more rewards spilled in; the spare rooms on the bottom floor had filled with things and still there wasn’t room. We kept a lot of our rewards, therefore, in the shed, and at any time of day there was usually one person there, looking over the things that we had received. It was a varied collection: tools, lamps, a drum set, yards of fabric, a snow globe, a toy plane, a stuffed bear’s head that we all hated but didn’t want to throw away. I wasn’t immune to its draw—in fact, I went three or four times a day myself, to look at the gleam of the lawn mower, or the hardwood deck chairs, or the sports equipment, or the boxes of fairy lights that we couldn’t find the right place for. There was a chocolate fountain we kept for special occasions, and fancy wineglasses that we kept for the same reason. Of course, there never actually were special occasions, as every day was the same as the last—but there were days when we needed a boost, and it felt like the same thing.

I felt shy with Sam following the first night we spent together. I worried that he had come to my bed out of a sense of obligation, and that he felt that I had thrown myself at him in an effort to keep him from straying. I wandered around the northernmost part of the compound for most of the morning, cursing myself for making a simple thing complicated, and yet unwilling to face him. When my feet grew blistered and red, I walked back to the house and ate a bowl of cereal in the outdoor dining area. A few minutes passed, and he came and sat beside me, sliding over a cup of coffee. I thanked him and said no more: absurdly, I felt as though I might cry.

He said nothing either, and the silence became protracted. I could see some of the others in the distance, Andrew engaging Carlos in a water fight while Jacintha watchedon.

“Lily,” Sam said. I looked at him. The sun was in his eyes, and his expression was grave. “I need to ask you something.”

“Okay,” I said. In the distance, Andrew pushed Carlos to the ground and sat on his chest. Jacintha had drifted away. I watched them as you might watch dogs in a park.

“Do you regret last night?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Do you?”

“Of course not. But, Lily—I’m older than you. You were in a vulnerable position. I don’t want you to think that that’s what I intended to happen.”

“I wanted to,” I said. I looked away, toward the pool. “I wanted to since the night with the ducks.” When I glanced back at him, I saw that he was gazing intently atme.

“I think that the way we’re living now,” he said slowly, careful not to break the rules and mention that we were part of the show, “preys on the idea of desire. It amplifies it to the point of absurdity. You have to find someone to share a bed with, or you’re out. You have to make someone want to share a bed with you, or you’re out. And then they throw these tasks and rewards at you, and you keep living in this uncertain state, lurching between wanting and having. I think that must affect all of the decisions we make here, don’t you?”

I didn’t understand what he was getting at, and tried to hide my uncertainty.

“What I mean to say is—I liked you before all that. I liked you immediately. You were quiet, but I could see you taking everything in. I thought you had everyone figured out from the first day. But I know how things get here. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything with me to keep your position here. I’d make sure that you were safe, no matter what the circumstance is.” I thought briefly of Becca, sharing a bed with Tom. He had been cold with me all day, walking past me when I had said good morning and watching me and Sam get coffee with a look of disdain. There was no jealousy, I knew; Tom didn’t want me—only he was displeased that he had offered help, and was turned down.

“You think I slept with you to keep myself safe?”

“No—no, I don’t think that. I’m saying that for me, it’s real. That’s all.”

A slight wind lifted my hair and brushed against my neck. Across the compound, beyond the boundary, the desert sand shifted in the breeze. “It’s real for me, too,” I said. He looked at me, and smiled, shyly at first, and then more fully, wrinkles forming by his eyes. He took my hand and kissedit.

He led me to the garden and showed me the vegetables which were starting to sprout and would be ready to eat in the coming weeks. Jacintha and Sam had planted a large number of crops over a wide span of land; they were sure that not all of it would make it, Sam said, so they were overcompensating. Even with an irrigation system, the climate was too unforgiving for much to grow, but they checked on it constantly. He seemed almost shy as he told me aboutit.

“Whenever they’re ready, I’ll give you first pick.”

“Thanks,” I said, oddly touched. “What can I eat first?”

“The lettuce, maybe, if it ever does come to be something.” He met my eye, at once bashful and intent. “I have this very strong desire to feed you the food that I’ve grown. Isn’t that strange? I’ve never had that thought before.”

I sat beside him in the dirt, careful of the crops. “I should have chosen you on the first day.”

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