Agent in the Dark (The Agents for Good) by Guy Stanton III

out a piece of jerky, “It really is just bear meat. I don’t do the whole consume one’s neighbor thing.”
    She kept my gaze for a moment, and then she took the jerky from my fingers. The taste must’ve surprised her, because she started gobbling it down.
    “Easy! Don’t eat too fast you’ll hurt yourself! There’s plenty more take your time.” I said gesturing to the tray.
    She did slow down some, but it was an effort on her part. An hour passed by like that, a cup of water then a piece of jerky or some other native food I had brought along with me. Her stomach had shrunk and I could tell when she was full after only a few pieces of jerky. She was looking tired again too.
    “How would you feel about a little dessert?” I asked pulling a Hershey chocolate bar out from a fold in the covers.
    I chuckled, as I saw her eyes light up with yearning and I handed the chocolate bar to her. She said something, as she took the chocolate from me that I didn’t here.
    “What?”
    “Thank you.” She said, only slightly more audible in tone.
    I watched her eat the chocolate bar and had to admit to myself how rare the few times in my life were, when someone had ever thanked me for anything. The other side of that was that I hadn’t done much to deserve a thank you.
     
    She was really enjoying the taste of the chocolate, but in some ways it was much more than that. “It’s nice to taste the way things used to be isn’t it?”
    She nodded understanding my meaning. I had been refe rring to just a brief time before, when a candy bar had been a thing of commonality, with a million gas stations supplying them in never-ending supply, but now they were all but a memory in just a little over two years.
    “Probably just tastes good too.” I said watching the relish with which she consumed every morsel of chocolate. She stopped and shocked me by breaking off several chunks in her hand to hold out to me. I stared at her offered hand and what it contained in disbelief.
    She was sharing her food half starved as she was, with me, the man holding her captive!
    My voice husky sounding I said, “No you eat it. There’s more where that came from.”
    She pulled her hand back and I studied her curiously, as she finished off her chocolate. Her gesture had been oddly touching and it led me to a question.
    “Are you a Christian?”
    She looked up and nodded.
    That explained a lot about her. Oddly I wasn’t put off by that like I normally would have been. Instead I found myself wanting to sit and talk with her and discover all I could about her. There was a wealth of knowledge in her eyes that I was fascinated to discover. I wanted to kiss her again so badly! I’d better leave now before I let myself go too far.
     
    I glanced at the blanket she had firmly tucked beneath her arms. Some part of me just wanted to leave her naked for my enjoyment, but she was a person worthy of respect. And r espect made me need to offer the basic human need for clothes. I reached down and brought up a pile of clothes, which I dumped on the bed.
    “Something here should fit you, if not there’s plenty more that you can go through tomorrow.”
    I didn’t miss the look of relief that flashed across her face at the sight of clothes. She liked to be decent. That sort of made her special in a way, as I hadn’t really known any women like that before. The women I had been with were all aware of what beauty they had and they flaunted it to good effect. There had been nothing shy about them and yet it almost seemed like a character trait with Asia.
    I wasn’t sure I liked that trait of hers yet or not. It made me want to protect her in some way. Protect her from what? Me? Her hand was fingering the lacy cloth of a shirt that had fallen near her.
    She didn’t look up, as she asked, “Am I your captive?”
    Quite honestly I responded, “Yes.”
    In a way I suppose that she wasn’t, but what I wanted from her wasn’t something she was likely to give freely