Page 27 of The Compound

After two further challenges(name fifteen capital cities—a tin of white paint; reveal who we voted for in the last election—baseball hats for everyone) we were exhausted and starving. We’d finished the majority of the food. There were still one or two bananas left, but we were all sick to death of them.

“I know everyone’s tired of them, but think about it,” Candice said. “The bananas were the first food reward we got. And we must have got about two hundred of them. The next food reward we get will last us for a long time.”

Andrew blamed himself for not having us do the task from last night in exchange for pasta. He sighed a lot, and muttered to himself, pacing around the living room, then sat in front of the screen for a while. Eventually he slapped his legs and got up, calling, “Let’s go again, folks! I’m feeling good about the next task. We are seriously on the crust of something here!”

No one was particularly eager to do this next task. It was for another stupid reward, a pair of garden shears. Only Jacintha was up for it. “I can use them for the hedges,” she said. I gave her a look, but for her, I said, “We’ll do it quickly and have it over and done with.” Luckily, it was a task that required no physical labor: we simply had to reveal our phobias. It took us two minutes to complete, but when we went back to the screen, it had not yet changed color.

“Did we miss someone?” Mia asked. We puzzled over it for a while. We wondered if we hadn’t spoken loud enough. We read the instruction again:Everyone must reveal their phobia.

Tom was frowning, confused. “Let’s do it again,” he said. “Everyone speak clearly.”

My phobia was being buried alive. Ryan’s was snakes, and Jacintha’s was a fear of small holes. After we had all spoken again, the screen still hadn’t lit up green.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Candice said. “Someone’s lying.”

There was silence, during which we all looked at each other. I startedto feel nervous. Was my phobia really being buried alive? Did I have a greater fear? I decided, after a few moments, that I had told the truth.

“One more time,” Andrew said. “Everyone, there’s no need to be embarrassed. We’re a family here.”

Everyone said their fear a third time, while listening carefully to spot the liar. It was Marcus: his fear was not spiders, as he had said, but the cold, dark void of outer space. He looked straight ahead as he spoke, and no one said anything, but I saw Jacintha smile softly to herself, as though charmed by his confession. The big screen lit up green, and the new task appeared:

Task: Spit in your bedmate’s mouth

Reward: Sun loungers

There was a chorus of disgusted groans, and exclamations of dissent.

“They know that we’re desperate,” Carlos said.

“We should just wait until morning,” Seb said. “That’s fucking gross, man.”

I thought that Tom looked inclined to agree, but Andrew was clearly torn. Waiting until morning was another night without food. “They won’t let us die,” he said with certainty. “But…I suppose, they did offer us food last night and we didn’t take it. No, they won’t let us die, obviously, but we could certainly get very uncomfortable.” We watched him, and he sighed, and said, “Let’s take a break, anyway.”

Candice said, “Everyone be sure to have a glass of water. There are a couple of bananas left, too.” By the time we had drunk our water the bananas were all gone. Ryan had managed to get one for me. I gagged a little at the smell but ate it anyway. The two of us sat outside in the grass, a light wind rippling through the green. I sighed. Ryan ran his hand through the grass, a couple of inches long, no longer yellow-tinged. It was now a muted green. Ryan had been watering it, and this, added to the work of the sprinklers, had improved it in only a few days. “I’ll cut it tomorrow,” he said, satisfied. “We’re always sitting in the grass. It would be nice to have sun loungers.”

I looked at him. “You’re not serious. You’d spit in my mouth? You’d let me spit in your mouth?”

“If it was you, sure.”

“You’re disgusting,” I said, but his statement pleasedme.

“Come here,” he said, smiling atme.

“No,” I said.

“Come here,” he said again. I inched forward. He kissed me gently, deeply, stroking my jaw with one hand and my ribs with another. His tongue slipped between my lips and mine did the same. It was a nice kiss, but I found that I couldn’t entirely relax into it. I kept thinking about what I looked like, kept wondering from what angle the camera was capturing our romantic moment.

“Now,” he said. “Was that so bad?”

“It’s not the same. You didn’t…you know. Spit.”

“It’s the same thing, sweetheart.” He grinned at me, his eyes flashing. “I bet you’re conservative in bed, too.” He stroked my neck, a little firmer now, along the column of my throat.

I pulled back, a little. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I said. Perhaps I had known him only a short time, but we had shared a bed and a hundred other intimacies. People often had sex in the compound. The cameras couldn’t legally show the actual act, though they gave a fairly good idea of what was going on. When I watched the show I had always said to myself that I would never have sex for the whole world to see. But it felt different, now, living it. I was no longer sure about what I would and wouldn’tdo.

“I’m going to get another glass of water,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He lay back on the grass, relaxed, and watched mego.

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