Amnesia Read online

  Just get through the remainder of the night, she told herself. You can do this.

  She didn’t realize Ryan’s speech was over until loud, boisterous cheers and applause went up in the room as well as outdoors below the balcony. Chastity, a tall blonde even without heels, leaned over and whispered down to Gaia. “Get ready. They’ll be announcing you at any moment.”

  “Chastity?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  Gaia knew it wasn’t the appropriate time to ask a wardrobe question, but she was nervous and needed a distraction. “Why aren’t you wearing one? A lock, I mean.”

  Her green eyes widened. Astonished at first, she proceeded to giggle as though Gaia had told a wonderful joke. “I took you seriously there for a moment,” the stylist laughed. “An unwed woman wearing a lock. Imagine that!” She giggled again.

  Gaia forced herself to smile back, though inside she felt rather queasy. This lock and key business was as unsettling to her as watching the protestors get beaten up by the police had been. These people were a character study in contrasts. Hair covered, but cleavage on display. Locks for married women with their husbands holding the keys, while unwed females weren’t required to virtue signal. It was as if the novel The Handmaid’s Tale and Caligula’s Rome had bred a new society together.

  “How I envy you your lock,” Chastity quietly mused. “I can’t wait to marry so I can turn in my chastity belt for a beautiful lock. These belts are so uncomfortable.”

  Gaia swallowed—hard. She hid her wide hazel eyes from the stylist, looking to the balcony instead. “That’s understandable,” she forced herself to squeak out. Clearly UCA was more Handmaid’s Tale than Caligula, but the latter still played a part. Women were expected to look like sex kittens and behave like Sunday School teachers. “Can’t blame you at all.”

  If she had thought the evening couldn’t get worse, she was wrong. Never one who craved the spotlight, all eyes turned to her when the announcer came back on. Her breathing hitched as she realized the time to walk out onto the balcony was now.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the disembodied voice said, “May I present the First Lady of United Christian America…” Drums literally rolled. Gaia thought she might faint. “Mrs. Gaia Marie Evans!”

  Gaia forced herself to walk with as much poise as she could muster. The party attendees clapped for her, making a wide berth for her to approach the balcony. Ryan was waiting out there for her, his smile wide, which helped calm her nerves to an extent. He extended his hand, anticipating her arrival at his side. Once she reached the balcony, she was practically blinded by the lights and camera flashes—and nearly deafened by the gasps of shock. She took her husband’s proffered grasp and held tightly.

  “Oh my God. Is that… is that…? Oh my God!” someone in the crowd yelled out.

  “Jesus, take the wheel!” a Southern woman proclaimed.

  The audience, she realized, was deciding her fate. Perhaps not in the literal sense, but definitely in how the country was likely to react to her from here on out. She didn’t understand precisely why her person was evoking such visceral reactions, but she remembered what Ryan had said earlier about her moment of notoriety. Maybe it had something to do with that?

  “It’s a miracle!”

  “She’s been saved by the light!”

  “Glory be to God!”

  “Hallelujah!”

  The crowd broke into raucous applause, cheering and whooping as she stood there beside Ryan. She relaxed a little, but not by much. She didn’t know why, but she sensed she had just been saved from a proverbial social guillotine. Ryan, inscrutable as ever, remained steadfastly calm and self-assured.

  “Traitor!” a woman with a megaphone yelled out. “You’re a traitor!”

  Gaia tensed back up. Her plastered on smile wavered. Who was she calling a traitor? Ryan? Herself?

  The crowd turned angry against the protestor and quickly silenced her. Gaia could hear the woman screaming as the megaphone was ripped from her hands and her clothes were ripped from her body.

  “Whore!” someone spat out at the woman.

  “Jezebel!”

  Gaia gasped. This was just too much.

  “Stop! Enough!” Ryan told the crowd. His jaw was tensed. “I said enough!”

  Gaia felt like she was going to be physically sick. She opened her mouth to speak, but was waylaid by her husband.

  “Say nothing,” Ryan quietly warned. “Let the police deal with it now.”

  Would they deal with the stripped naked woman the way they’d dealt with the other protesters? She started to shake. From anger, fear, or both she couldn’t say. “I don’t like this,” she bit out. “Make it stop or I’m leaving this moment.”

  “I can see her being put into a squad car,” Ryan said under his breath. “They put clothes on her too. She’s fine.”

  Fine? This was his definition of fine?

  “You repulse me,” Gaia whispered. “Get this fucking inauguration over and done with before I walk out.”

  “Gaia—”

  “I’m serious.”

  “We’ll discuss this later.”

  “There’s nothing to discuss.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  The inauguration carried on as though a woman hadn’t just had her clothing ripped from her body by an angry, allegedly Christian, mob. The crowd was back to praising Jesus every other second and shouting blessings at Ryan and Gaia. By the time the surreal scene ended and Gaia was whisked from the balcony and back into the party, she’d had enough. Acknowledging no one, she walked through the crush of partygoers and out through the double doors. She kept on walking, not even certain she was heading in the right direction, but needing to be away from all of it.

  Chapter Nine

  Frank found her and guided Gaia back to the presidential suite. “I’m sorry you had to see that, ma’am. People haven’t calmed down enough from the wars yet. They’re still on the bloodthirsty side.”

  “The crowd,” she gasped, panting. “They pulled that protestor’s clothes right off her body!”

  Frank sighed. “I’m sorry. Let’s just say I’ve seen worse.”

  “My God.”

  “Give your husband a chance to calm the turbulent waters,” Frank advised, opening the double doors that allowed her entry into the suite. “He’s a good man. I promise you.”

  She neither agreed nor disagreed. “Thanks for seeing me back, Frank.”

  “I’ll be just outside if you need me.”

  She offered him a brief, tentative smile. “Thanks again.”

  Once alone, Gaia frantically tried to remove her dress, but couldn’t get out of the thing to save herself. She twisted and turned, but the contraption was held together in the back by that damned lock. Her teeth gritted and her nostrils flared as she warbled out a cry of frustration and anger.

  “Need some help?”

  Gaia’s gaze flew to Ryan. She hadn’t heard him come in.

  “I want out of this fucking thing,” she ground out. “Now!”

  “Gaia, calm down.” He took the key off his lapel and walked towards her. “Turn around and calm down please.”

  “Get me out of this thing!” she half demanded and half begged. Tears filled her eyes. “I can’t do this! I can’t be whoever it is you expect me to be!”

  “I expect you to be you,” he said with his characteristic composure. He fiddled with the lock on her dress. “I know this is my fault. You should have been better prepared for all of this while in the hospital.”

  The lock clicked open. Gaia tore the dress from her body, oblivious to her own nudity. She didn’t care what he saw. Let him look.

  “All of you people are insane,” she muttered. Her breasts and butt jiggled as she walked briskly into the wardrobe. She desperately searched for clothing she could actually wear. “Complete lunatics.”

  “Gaia.” She could feel his wolfish gaze on her, all over her. “Would you please calm down so we can talk?”
/>   “Fuck that and fuck you!”

  A stinging smack on the ass reverberated in the wardrobe. She gasped, her hazel eyes round, as she turned to confront him. “How dare you!” she seethed. “I am not a damn child!”

  “Then stop behaving like one.”

  The tears came back. “I just want some clothes and I want to get out of here.” Even she could hear the desperation in her voice. “Please.”

  His jaw was set. “You are not leaving,” he bit out. “Ever!”

  She wasn’t in the mood to hear that and doubted she ever would be. She left the wardrobe and scurried into the bedroom, hoping to find her gray t-shirt and yoga pants. He followed hot on her heels.

  “Damn it, Gaia!” He grabbed her shoulders and bodily forced her to turn around and look at him. “Calm down before you hurt yourself.”

  “Before I hurt myself?” She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She had forgotten she was still wearing the chain linked headpiece and metallic high heels. “Last I checked I wasn’t spanking myself.”

  “It was one small tap on the ass.”

  “Whatever.” She made to move away from him. “Let go of me!”

  “I’ll never let you go,” Ryan vowed. His hands moved to her arms, holding her prisoner. She could feel the tension and anger exuding from him as if those emotions were a living thing. His possessive gaze raked over her face, her breasts, her body. “You belong to me.”

  “Maybe I do here in Crazy Town, but there’s got to be some place left on earth where women are free.” A worrying thought struck her. “You do own me, don’t you?”

  “Just as you own me.”

  “I mean legally.”

  A tic started to work in his cheek. “I didn’t create the rules, Gaia. I took over the presidency to make things better, not worse. You don’t know how bad things got at the end of the wars. If the extremists had gotten their way, women wouldn’t even be allowed to vote or own property.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Stop equating me to UCA. Give me some damn time to make changes!”

  Her breathing grew labored as she considered how much worse things could be—and how bad they likely were for women not married to the country’s president. “I-I can’t have any part of this,” she stuttered out, backing away from him. “What they did to that woman…” She was terrified and supposed it showed. “I’m sorry, Ryan. I can’t—”

  “You can.” His face flushed and his musculature tensed. Ryan backed her up against the bedroom’s dresser. “And you must.”

  His mouth came down on hers hard. She pushed at his chest with her hands, but didn’t break the punishing kiss. When he thrust his tongue inside, they dueled for control. His large hands found her breasts, his thumbs raking over her nipples. She broke the kiss on a moan and pushed him away from her.

  “I can’t,” she breathlessly repeated. Her pulse racing, Gaia wiggled away from the dresser and headed towards the wardrobe. She got no further than the bed when two domineering hands clamped down on her shoulders and spun her around to face him.

  “You can,” Ryan said hoarsely. His breathing was as ragged as hers. He tore off his cufflinks and threw them aside, his jacket, tie, and shirt soon joining them. “You have to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need you.”

  His mouth came down on hers again, this time claiming it. She offered no resistance as his hands roughly explored her body, touching and kneading all of her intimate parts as if branding them. Her pulse skyrocketed. She met him passion for passion, a maelstrom of dark and light emotions coalescing into primitive desire. She handled him just as coarsely, tearing at his pants and pulling them down.

  “Turn around,” he said thickly, ending the kiss. He bodily nudged her toward the bed. “I want to watch that sweet ass I own jiggle while I fuck you.”

  Gaia was too turned on to offer resistance. She climbed up onto the middle of the bed and stayed on all fours.

  “Ass up, head down,” Ryan commanded as he joined her on the bed. “And spread your legs wider. I want to see my pussy.” His voice grew deeper with every order. “Beautiful,” he rasped, holding an ass cheek with one hand and rubbing her clit with the other. She moaned. “That’s right,” he growled, “moan and get wet for daddy.”

  She recalled their age difference. The mental image his words conjured was naughty, but effective, the pressure on her clit sublime. She couldn’t have stopped herself from coming if she’d tried. “Oh my God,” she gasped. Her orgasm was so hard it bordered on painful. “Ryan.”

  She could feel him guiding his cock to her entrance, could hear his raspy breathing grow heavier. “Good girl,” he thickly praised. “Now do that again when I’m inside you.”

  Ryan surged into her pussy on one deep, long thrust, filling her completely. She groaned at the exquisite invasion, her hard nipples brushing against the sheets as she dropped her torso lower. “Mmm,” he purred. “My cunt feels so damn good.”

  Gaia moaned as he palmed both her ass cheeks and fucked her pussy hard. She threw her hips back at him, meeting him thrust for thrust. He fucked her harder and faster, over and over and over, again and again and again. She could hear the sound of their joined flesh colliding, could smell the scent of their combined arousal. “Faster,” she all but begged. “More.”

  Ryan picked up the pace, his breath sucking in and coming out in pants as he pounded into her from behind. He impaled himself deeper, harder, faster, fucking her with possessive strokes. “I’m coming, baby,” he ground out, his fingers digging into the flesh of her ass cheeks. “I hope I get you pregnant.” He fucked her once, twice, three times more and, his entire body tensing and convulsing, spurted hot cum deep inside her. She didn’t stop fucking him back, not until every last drop of semen had been milked from his cock.

  They collapsed onto the bed, spent, neither of them saying a word. Their breathing equally labored, Gaia laid on her side and Ryan spooned her, territorially holding her close to him as they slept.

  Gaia awoke hours later to the feel of her pussy being stretched and filled up. This time, however, she was lying on her back and Ryan’s hands were all over her body. There was such possessiveness in his touch and in his love making, as if he were marking her as his. Maybe, in his own way, he was. She decided to enjoy the fierce attraction they shared for one another rather than question and analyze it. Reaching for his buttocks, she dug her fingers in as he fucked her, whispering to him of his sexiness. She could tell he liked hearing it, loved her hands exploring his body. For tonight, at least, she would let her worries go.

  Chapter Ten

  The next few weeks passed in a sensual haze. When they weren’t having sex, Ryan was obviously thinking about it, for he never stayed at his office more than a few hours at a time before returning to their private suite. Some days he would go back to work following an afternoon tryst and other days he kept to their home in the White House. Today, their anniversary, was supposed to be one of the latter days.

  “I’m sorry,” Ryan said, breaking their kiss. “There’s an important vote coming up in the senate and I need to try and sway a few more minds.”

  “It’s okay,” Gaia assured him. She smiled, her dimples showing. “I could go for a nap anyway.”

  He playfully swatted her on the butt then bent down to quickly nip and kiss it. “We’ll have a nice dinner tonight.”

  “Just the two of us?”

  “Of course. It’s our anniversary.”

  “Good. I’m not in a very entertaining mood. I swear I don’t know how you deal with being in the company of the vast majority of those people on a day-to-day basis.”

  “That’s my job.”

  Ten minutes later, Ryan was showered, dressed, and back to work. Gaia decided to take a quick shower herself before putting on a robe and padding into the living room. Making herself a cup of coffee, she grabbed the remote, turned the TV on, and wondered what idiotic show would soon spring to three-dimensional life from the
consul.

  “Oh good,” she said sarcastically, putting cream in her coffee. She reached for the sugar cubes. “Another snoozer edition of 60 Minutes with Jesus.” She rolled her eyes as she stirred the cream and sugar into her coffee. “What ridiculousness will be on today?” She sighed as she walked to the sofa and sat down.

  The older gentleman wearing the toupee that fooled no one was back on his high horse about something or another. Daniel was his name, if memory served correctly.

  “I, for one, am glad the rebels were finally sentenced today by a jury of their peers,” Daniel pontificated. “The scene they caused at President Evans’ inauguration was beyond the pale.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” the blonde hostess—Esther—seconded. “Let’s go to Abraham for a more detailed account of today’s decision. Abe.”

  Gaia stopped mid-sip and put the coffee cup down on a table. Her pulse picked up as she watched the news report unfold. Although biased in its coverage, the account was more or less accurate. Or it was, at least, until it reached the part where the lone female protestor had been stripped naked by the angered crowd.

  “She stripped herself naked in front of all and sundry—the president and First Lady included—and began screaming like a banshee,” Abraham finished. “It was an unforgivably brazen act of wantonness that the jury had no choice but to punish accordingly.”

  “That isn’t true,” Gaia told the TV. She swallowed roughly. “Not even close.”

  The 3-D image flashed to the jury delivering a guilty verdict before switching over to show the punishment phase. Gaia smashed her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming as the naked, lifeless body of the female protestor swung from a tree in the town center.

  Gaia gasped from behind her hands. Her stomach roiled, its contents threatening to come back up. Horrified and traumatized, she ran into the master bathroom, lifted the toilet lid, fell to her knees, and vomited up her breakfast. She held her hair back with one hand as she continued to wretch over the toilet. Pain lanced through her head as a memory jarred her.