That night I met Vince in the library. He stood near the shelf of vintage children's books that towered over him. He ignored the digital tablets that stored every book and tons of information, preferring the hardcover book he had splayed open in his palms.

Next to him, on the wall, a digital poster flicked through several images and messages. The first message on the poster was a report of toxicity levels from the outside, and then came a list of recent deaths or major injuries in the facilities—which was always short or blank—and other news. It transitioned to a second poster with a picture of a smiling young man and woman, their fingers interlocked, and the words: Save a life. Think twice. Take eX-lement in bold letters at the bottom.

eX-lement—a mandatory medication administered to prevent pregnancies and diseases, including those that were sexually transmitted. I always scoffed at the ridiculous tagline, especially the line Think twice. As if we had a choice. The stuff was flowing through our water. It has been traveling my system since entering the facility as a child. And Save a life referred to the dire condition we'd be in if we continually had children.

The philosophy was every life required a death, and vice versa. The more people we had to feed and care for, the less we had for ourselves, threatening our survival within the facility. If our survival in the facility was ever endangered, then we jeopardized our possibility of returning to the surface and repopulating Earth, if we ever found a cure for the noxious atmosphere.

The phrasing of the tagline was necessary. I assumed the people behind it had learned to create the illusion of freewill to prevent disobedience. I understood. It was a necessary evil. Still, after the unforeseen deaths of many people years ago due to the breach, I anticipated the day the news would include announcements of births. I guess all the reproductive planning was still in progress.

The entire facility was housed in an underground sphere made of mostly metal and concrete that would never oxidize. The spherical design was much stronger than an angular structure, evenly distributing the tons of weight, preventing it from collapsing under the immense underground pressure. At least anytime soon.

There were two halves. The lower hemisphere was the habitable zone—what we called the southern or lower hemi—and contained ten floors, each floor built to house up to one hundred adults comfortably. Each floor was equipped with a cafeteria, medical center, recreation center, and even empty neonatal nurseries among other rooms where the machinery to make synthetic products and goods—like plastics and polyester—were kept. Thanks to the upper hemisphere being sealed off due to the rupture somewhere in the upper air system, causing a contamination leak, with so many crammed into the habitable half of the facility, news of pregnancies or births probably wouldn't appear for quite some time.

"Hey." Vince spotted me and waved me over. "Have you read this one?" He lifted the book titled The Wonders of the World.

At eight years old I had read it a dozen times. "Probably." I shrugged. Not sure if I wanted to confess. Vince enjoyed surprising me with knowledge every once in a while. I imagined conversation not being so interesting if the person you were speaking with knew damn near everything.

"You've read this whole library, haven't you?" His golden gaze met mine. A hint of disappointment flickered across his expression.

"No, I haven't read that one."

"Good." He grinned.

Being that I did knock the hell out of him during my attempt to watch his back earlier, I couldn't keep the images from replaying in my mind. "You okay?"

"About training?" He swiped the air and smacked his lips. "I'm fine. We work out the kinks in training to get it right for the real thing." His way of saying, it wasn't a big deal, which eased my mind. "Look at this."

He flipped back a few pages and pointed to an illustration of a furry, four-legged mammal with floppy ears and canine teeth. If there were children in the facility, they would've been surprised to see a dog, maybe even intrigued by the different kinds of creatures and plant life that used to inhabit Earth. Although the probability of life surviving on the surface was extremely low, there was reason to believe that a collection of plants and animals specimens was kept alive, or stored as DNA samples, in some of the other underground facilities. This collection would ensure Earth would contain biodiversity when repopulated in the future.

But I wasn't surprised at the image of a dog. What coursed through me was a longing, an empty space that continued to get wider, deeper, and would never be filled, especially by lousy illustrations.

Maybe Vince felt it too.

He looked up at me, a tiny smile on his lips. I would have stared at it forever if he hadn't spoken and made it disappear. "Just like Titan, right?"

I nodded. "Don't know what breed Titan was, but he could've looked like that."

Vince studied the picture, swiping his narrow fingers along the black ink. "I used to think animals were dirty and gross." He chuckled, but a hint of sadness broke through as he sighed. The way his voice cracked spoke volumes too. He cleared his throat, and kept his eyes glued to the illustration.

Please look at me again. Please.

Searching his face, I hoped he would look up and catch a glimpse of my grief. Grief was something we shared that wasn't against the facility's ethics or rules. Although it was considered debilitating, and everyone encouraged you to work through it, no one ever got punished for expressing the emotion. Vince and I could mourn our losses together—our mothers, my father, beautiful animals and exotic plants, our childhood innocence—and not care who saw because it was okay. It was normal to grieve.

When he didn't look up from the pages, I took advantage of our privacy and placed my hand on his, allowing his name to whisper across my lips. "Vincent?"

His head shot up and angry eyes met mine. "Don't call me that!" The bass in his voice absorbed into the shelves surrounding us, and for a second, I imagined the books rattled.

My gaze dropped, and a huge lump ached in my throat. Shame? Rejection? Heartbreak? I couldn't put a finger on what it was, but no doubt, it hurt like hell.

There was no getting through to him now, but one day he would let me call him by his given name again. Too bad it wouldn't be anytime soon.

"Sorry." Still unable to look up, afraid of intensifying the ache in my chest by meeting his gaze, I didn't fight the urge to hide my embarrassment and pain.

"No, I'm ... sorry." He huffed, and I glanced up in time to see him rake his hand through his short, wavy locks. He looked around and behind him. "Damn it, Connor." He slid the book back between a couple others on the shelf and put some distance between us, moving to the other side of the room.

Memories flooded my thoughts. "There was a time—"

"I don't want to talk about that. All right?" He glanced at me, then sheepishly looked away again.

But, there was a time... I was eleven years old and Vince was nearing fourteen, the period long before we were drafted. Vince had intervened when a group of peers attacked me in the urinals. Most of them were younger than me, but Ralph Thomson was older by four or five years. He had ordered the others to hold me down against the cold, piss-stained tiles, pull my pants to my ankles, and jam wads of raw polyester fiber in my urethra all because he convinced the others I was gay. I neither denied nor confirmed it. I only screamed and wept until the pain stopped.

I knew better than to speak aloud of my sexual urges or preferences. Population control was a major issue. When the time was right, they would allow people to conceive, but its success required calculation. Everyone between the ages twenty and forty were encouraged to take a romantic partner—of the opposite sex—build a relationship, and eventually make a family, if chosen. Homosexuality wasn't part of the equation. There was fear that promiscuity and homosexuality would result in resentments and unhealthy associations.

When questioning this tactic, we were told that conceiving and raising a child would be successful if the parents truly wanted and loved the child. As if children raised by homosexual couples wouldn't be equally wanted and loved. Crazy, but we couldn't change the laws. I didn't find it a coincidence that the laws were created by withering old men who held on to some of the crazy beliefs and fears of the outside world either. But who knew really? Maybe they were right. Maybe their laws and regulations were how we survived for so long.

Although promiscuity and same-sex copulation were violations—penalized and treated with behavioral conversion therapy—I still heard rumors of others sexually experimenting with several partners or the same sex.

Much like Vince and I had.

But those days between me and him were over.

Vince refused to look my way. "Well..." His voice still held a melancholy tone. "You still want that lesson?"

The training lesson, or the intimate lesson I hope would follow? Deep down I knew he only meant training, but damn, the puns were killing me!

The hidden meaning behind every word we spoke to each other tore my heart into microscopic pieces and I felt every fiber slowly being stripped away with his blatant denial.

"I'll be in the training room if you want to go through with it." He left the room, leaving me alone in the library, meaning every word that spewed from his lips ... but literally. Vince's ambitions were about one thing, pleasing his father. His mind had only been on one thing, excelling. And now, when he spoke to me, there was no hidden meaning or secret message to interpret. Not anymore.

But there once was.

Long after Vince kicked Ralph Thomson's ass for assaulting me, and thwarting Ralph's threat of "putting a hole in us fuckers," Vince and I were connected at the hip. Not as literal as I had wanted, but we trusted each other with everything, especially our secrets. I had even let him touch my dick on several occasions, during mutual masturbation sessions. He never let me touch his though, always afraid of the repercussions, believing I didn't know how to control myself and stop before going too far.

One distinct time, a few years ago, Dr. Randolph almost caught us. We were sitting side by side in the seats at the back of the empty movie room. The instructional film onscreen played for fifteen minutes before I mustered up the courage to pull myself out through my open zipper. The thrill of being out in the open, the cool air of the room wafting against me got me erect instantly. I waited another two minutes, allowing the cool air to tease my hard-on until I knew I had to convince Vince to touch it.

With my eyes glued to the screen, as if fascinated by the scenes, I allowed his name to whisper from my lips. "Vincent." The sensation of his name on my tongue aroused me more. I lowered my voice. "Wouldn't you like to direct your own movie?"

No doubt it was cheesy, but it got his attention.

He looked into my lap then back at the screen with wide eyes. His fingers twitched, and he sunk into his seat. His Adam's apple bounced. He moistened his lips with his tongue and peered into his lap where his hand had fallen. His fingers crept toward his thigh where his swollen erection rested under the leg of his pants, the outline clearly visible. My memory immediately provided me with a detailed visual of what he had concealed.

I swallowed. A rush of heat to my groin made me lightheaded. "Wanna see how this one ends?"

He moaned like he had many times before. It was usually a drawn out, pleasure-filled groan, but this time he cut it short, and squeezed his hardened thickness through the upper leg of his pants. I whimpered, sensing his pleasure and wanting the same treatment.

Deciding to toss out the cryptic messages and get straight to the point, I licked my lips. "Vincent. Touch me."

His breath drew in at my command and he finally placed his sweaty palm over my hardness, shielding it from the cool air surrounding us. His fingers encircled the shaft and his grip tightened. My head dropped back, and I sighed at the relief. He managed to get a few tugs in before Dr. Randolph entered at the front of the theater, commanding Vince to join him for dinner. That was the last time Vince allowed me to call him by his given name. The last time anyone had, actually. Nearly getting caught by your father with your hand on another guy's cock was a sure way to soften a stiffy.

He hadn't touched me since.

And Ralph Thomson? We had all agreed to keep mum after threatening to expose him for his deviant sexual interest in boys, be it true or not. He swore to stay far away from me if Vince and I showed him mercy. I had enjoyed having power over him, watching him make room as I passed in the hall. He never put his hands on me again, or anyone, for that matter.

~~~

I didn't make it to the training room. Instead of turning our time together into something more awkward, I locked myself in the cadet quarter's urinal to ease some of my tension. I learned long ago, an orgasm could make any problem go away, at least for a few minutes. I tried desperately to get images of Vince's translucent golden-colored eyes off my mind. When the images faded, his deep, lustful voice replaced it, then sounds of his heavy pleasure-filled breathing crept in. Before finishing, an entire lewd session had played out in my head.

Pathetic.

And I was supposed to be advanced enough to control those things.

I leaned against the stall, unable to direct my thoughts to anything positive. Teetering back and forth from one extreme to another. I either fantasized about inappropriate sex-a nice blowjob that I had yet to experience-or imagined my mother and father's insides being eaten away by outside's atmospheric toxins when I tried thinking of anything other than sex. How agonizing that must've been. I gulped.

Maybe a walk will fix me.

I languidly strolled down the brightly lit corridors connecting to other halls and rooms, following the white florescent lights above, and the faint smell of chemical cleaner, passing animated posters and their "think twice" messages, and other residents who I acknowledged with a small smile or a slight nod.

Because of the breach years ago, the lower hemi was overcrowded from accommodating the upper hemi survivors. I couldn't turn a corner without running into someone during working hours. Thankfully, most people were settling down now. According to the many digital wall posters that displayed the time and date in most halls and rooms, people were either in the cafeteria for supper or in bed for the night.

The stringent smell of cleaner emitted from the rec room. I peeked inside to see Mrs. Cutler spraying glass cleaner on the mirror that covered an entire wall of the large room, the mirror some of the girls used for practicing their face painting skills when they weren't getting traditional ballroom dancing lessons from Mrs. Cutler. Lessons only for the girls, who all insisted were important not only for a healthy body but also a healthy mind, as creativity helped build strategic skills that come in handy for problem solving. I believed dance classes were just one way to keep everyone occupied during times when they weren't working or training, another way to keep everyone focused and out of trouble.

She caught a glimpse of me in the reflection and smiled. "Come on in, Cadet Nichols."

I wasn't wearing anything with my name visible, but she had attended several combat training sessions. It still surprised me that she even recognized me because most of the time her sights were on Vince. That wasn't so strange, most girls enjoyed looking at him, flirting with him, complimenting his hair and eyes, his bashful smile, playfully touching him, or asking him to flex his muscles so they could cop a feel. What was strange, however, was that Mrs. Cutler enjoyed participating in that behavior with Vince too. She been married to Dr. Price Cutler, IT specialist, for twenty years.

And most importantly, Vince wasn't interested.

"Look at you!" Her eyes widened as I moved closer. "You seem to grow more and more every time I see you."

I produced a smile. "Yeah." What was I supposed to say? Thanks?

Her eyes deliberately traveled my body and her gaze pierced my polyester bottoms, making my flesh crawl. "Wow. You're filling out rather nicely." Her giggle hurt my ears.

"Thanks?" I chuckled nervously.

She looked beyond me and toward the entrance. Her face crinkled with concern. "Where's your buddy, Cadet Moore?"

"Vince? He's training."

"Oh, I sure do love watching you cadets train." She fanned herself with the washcloth. Her artificially colored blonde locks blew back from her face, revealing tiny clusters of age lines around her sea blue eyes.

Had she forgotten she was married?

"How's Dr. Price Cutler?" I cocked my head as if really interested.

She stopped fanning and bit her lip, avoiding eye contact. "He's ... uh ... busy. As usual."

I nodded, casually stuffing my hands into my pant pockets.

Her husband was well-known and respected for his work in communications for Control, where him and a few other men operated and managed the intricate systems that ran the facility. Mrs. Cutler had shown interest in working for Control for years, but after a lot of opposition from some of the specialists, including her husband, she gave up a couple years ago and started a dance class. Was it a coincidence that those who decided her fate were men, as she so frequently complained?

"Well..." She lifted the spray bottle in her hand. "Gotta get back to cleaning."

"Right." I nodded and pivoted.

"If you see Vincent let him know I asked about him."

I swallowed my annoyance and faced her. "You mean Vince."

If I couldn't call him Vincent neither could she.

"Yes, honey." She wiped furiously at a spot on the mirror. "That's what I said." She paused and looked back at me, probably sensing my irritation or seeing my irritation in the mirror. "Would you pass that on for me?"

There was that concerned look again. I forced a smile. "Sure will, ma'am."

"Thanks, honey." She continued swiping away streaks and fingerprints. "Call me Sandy."

Never.

As soon as I got to the hall, my pace quickened. How was it not against the rules for a married woman to flirt with another man? And why did that man have to be Vince? The more I let the questions rattle around in my head, the more an urge to hit something nagged at me. And Vince's face wouldn't leave my mind.

Get control of yourself, cadet. People are going to look up to you. Show your shit.

I stopped walking, thinking, breathing. My back slammed against the cold wall and I allowed my eyelids to close. Finally, I took in a steady cool stream of air into my lungs and let it out just as gradually.

Control. Get it together.

When I opened my eyes, I was less than twenty feet from the training room. A few steps from the entrance, where the sound of Vince's angry grunts and fists blows emanated.

~~~

I appreciate your support! What do you think of the events of this chapter?