His Princess (A Royal Romance)(3)

They’re all smart as hell, they take to the computers and tablets we provided like fish to water, they just don’t have the tools to understand. I’m amazed that kids who have been through so much can even bring themselves to care about the hackneyed wisdom of a talking spider.

I mean, to me, Charlotte’s Web is just a cartoon. I didn’t even read the book until I came here.

Exhausting as it is, I still feel good about myself at the end of the day. Older boys and girls, kids really, have come back from the fields and construction projects to walk their siblings and cousins home. Some of these kids are the heads of their households, and take care of their younger family and their grandparents at the same time.

I get a lot of attention from the boys but quietly and graciously ignore it, doing my best to greet them and wish them well in broken Solkovian. I speak the language at about a fourth-grade level now, pretty good for six months in. Melissa is a better speaker. She’s been here for a year.

I’m not really afraid anything will happen to me, but we have a buddy system. The two of us walk back to the volunteer camp together. Along the way, Brad shows up.

He tests Melissa’s vows of chastity. It’s funny to me how blatantly and obviously she gets horny just at the sight of him. I can practically hear her getting wet. She turns beet red, stares at his package and coughs, then keeps looking at him as he draws near.

The man has a similar effect on me. He’s been with the org for two years now, and however he looked when he left, it’s given him a great body and a rich, dark tan that contrasts with his sandy hair in a strangely macho way, like some fifties bodybuilder from Muscle Beach. He’s covered in dust and soot and it only makes the effect more intense, like a sexy construction worker from a calendar. Short shorts show off long, carven legs without an ounce of fat, bulging muscles, and an ass that could crack bricks between his cheeks. The tank top he wears shows off his massive shoulders and pulls tight around his thick, broad chest.

I’m sure if Melissa could, she’d run over and lick his stomach. She’d be pushing me out of the way. Conceptually, anyway. I’m not really that interested in him. He’d be good for a lay, but he’s too…cheery. One day he and Melissa are destined to settle down, have passionate missionary sex, and breed a new generation of missionaries.

Heh, missionary.

I snort and make to wipe my nose as if it were from the dust. Brad jogs up, pecs flexing mightily, and my lusty animal brain forces my eyes down to his package. He’s the missionary girl’s dream, all muscle, all for the Lord, and his libido held in check only by faith. I kind of fear for Melissa when she finally hooks up with him. She’s not going to be ready for that thing.

Kinda wasted on her, really.

I wouldn’t be thinking about this if it weren’t for my own dry spell. It’s been two years, and I can’t exactly take care of business with Melissa in my tent. You know how, in romance novels, there’s always this shy virgin who’s never even had an orgasm despite being twenty-six years old or whatever? That’s Melissa. I think she’s tried to masturbate a few times, but the first time it feels good, she gets too embarrassed and quits.

If I’ve ever met a guy who’s never jerked off, it’s Brad. It’s going to be interesting when they finally hook up.

God, I’m creepy. I need to get laid.

“Evening, ladies. Mind if I walk you back to camp?”

“Yes, please do,” Melissa chirps up.

Guys probably find her refreshing in her directness. I know she dated a local teacher here for a few months before he got tired of dealing with her, since she won’t go past an openmouthed kiss without a ring on her finger.

Brad eyes me up and down as we walk and I know I’m testing his vows. I don’t know why. I’m not much to look at beside Melissa.

“How were the students today?”

“Great,” Melissa pipes up. “They’re taking to the material so well. Every day working with them gives me so much hope. How is the construction going?”

“The first families should be moving into their houses next month. These people work so hard, it’s incredible. I feel shamed how I lag behind. They never stop to rest and we have to convince them to take lunch breaks.”

Melissa continues to moon at him.

“You’re always so quiet, Penny. Is something troubling you?”

“No, everything has been great. I’m scheduled to make my phone call this afternoon.”

I make my excuses as we walk down the path of planks into the volunteer camp. It’s fenced off, and something about that has always struck me as especially ominous. The gate is usually open, but at eight o’clock it’s closed and locked with a heavy chain and padlock. A guard sits by the gate all night, too.

The phone is in a small tent off to the side, with its own dish and generator. They make sat phones now that look like cell phones and fold up to fit in your pocket, but that’s like CIA stuff. Ours looks like it came out of a Russian submarine from 1976. It’s a big gray box with a control panel and a hardwired handset that weights two pounds, or at least feels like it does.

I sit down and push the buttons in the right order to connect to the satellite. There’s no dial tone when I first pick it up, just a hiss that turns into a computery squeal and then finally a dull drone. I tap out my parents’ phone number and wait. I’m allowed three tries if they don’t answer, and then I lose my turn for the week.