Sex War One

Sex War One – my dystopian Sci-fi novel – is available for purchase in all eBooks & iBooks stores & devices. “Fast-moving plot and skillful characterization,” said the Science Fiction Studies journal. “This book unifies within it the principles of major Science-Fiction literature,” said This World. Kindle Edition & Smashwords Edition (for iTunes, Kobo, B&N & more.) For further details please check my books page.

To give you a taste of the book, I’ve been posting segments of my award-winning short story, “The Monster,” which serves also as the basis for the book. Here then is the twenty-fourth segment:

He paused again, advertently this time, realizing only now that when he had asked her in the colony’s shack to gather food, drinks and fire-balls, he had done so not just as an excuse, or as an incentive to get her going. There was a deeper, predestined reason for his decisions and actions.
“The air is clean, it seems,” he said. “You will be able to live here for a while, in this cave.”
He saw that she was trembling, and realized she understood the full meaning of his words. She was scared for the first time since they had left the colony.
“I’m so sorry, Z.Z. I don’t…” he couldn’t finish the sentence. He choked, as drops of fluid – yes, tears, for the first time in his life – were beginning to well up in his eyes. He turned and rushed toward the cave opening. He knew that he had to run away from here. Leave her alone. Escape her presence while he still could. Go back to the colony. Return to the cold…
“No!…”

It was an alien shout: more like a scream. A wild scream. Before he was able to stop and turn, Z.Z. was in front of him. Her blanket fell down when she stretched her arms to catch him, to hug him with a strength he didn’t know she possessed.
D.L. stood still. A simple, yet momentous revelation flashed in his head: she talked! She called on him not to leave! The one thing he had been trying so hard, for such a long time to get her to do, as she used to do in her childhood – before the brutality and cruelty of the other children had taken it away from her – came back to her now. Out of her mouth, so naturally. In this dark, isolated cave.
He moved her slightly and gently away from him, looking at her lips. He smiled at her. The fire and dizziness in his head were gone. The rapid racing of his heartbeat was gone. Everything was crisp as the air: she had uttered a coherent word. She called on him not to go away. Not to leave her here alone.
He looked at her naked body now and thought about the women in the colony; thought about their lean, white bodies; thought about their small, upright breasts. But here, in front of him, Z.Z. had fuller, rounder breasts. Her nipples were deep brown, not light pink, as were her belly and her thighs. Just like the color of the ground in the cave, down below her bare feet.