Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A WARM PLACE

THE ORIGINAL SERIES

by

Crystal Candy

&

Misty Vixen

A WARM PLACE

CHAPTER ONE

I can’t remember the exact day it started to snow.

I used to remember that day. For awhile there, it was burned into my mind. But all I know now is that it was June of 2025, somewhere near the middle. Sometimes I think it was the fifteenth, others I’m absolutely positive it was the twenty first.

I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.

All I know is that I was in Florida when it happened. We had been getting a lot of freaky weather since the late two thousand teens. Hurricanes they kept saying were ‘unusually powerful’, and then ‘out of season’, over and over again. One of them literally wiped Miami off the map. Then you kept hearing about wildfires burning California to the ground. Tornadoes ripping through the Midwest like it was no one’s business, tearing apart whole cities. Earthquakes everywhere. Rain for days all over the place. And it kept getting worse.

I swear to God, it was like a fucking disaster movie.

But even with all that, snow in June just totally blew me away. A lot of us, really. The city was practically immobilized, but not from the two inches of snow we got, obviously, but from total shock. Eventually, the shock wore off. But then the snow came again. Harder, stronger. And not just in Florida. It was everywhere. I remember seeing pictures of snow in the goddamned Amazon Rain Forest, on the pyramids in Egypt, in the fucking Caribbean, during summer. When the end of July hit and we were still getting snow, like real snow, I think that’s when I twigged to the fact that something was wrong. As in, major fucked wrong.

I still wonder how long the politicians knew. Obviously the scientists knew, but I wonder how many of them were kept silent...or silenced.

There’s a lot of things I’ve wondered.

And then, one day, it started to snow. And it didn’t really stop for eight months.

Everywhere it snowed, which I didn’t think was possible.

That was the beginning of the end, I think.

…

The first notion I had that something was wrong was the scream.

A woman was screaming somewhere nearby.

“Shit,” I whispered, shrugging my rifle off and dashing forward through the stand of dead trees. I’d been traveling through this forest for most of the day and I had just been preparing to take a break, my stomach rumbling. No time for that now. That scream again. I kept running, wondering what it could be. In this shit new world it was probably a person. There were too many people out there who saw the general lawlessness of the world decided to do all the nasty things that normally stay locked up in people’s heads.

There, movement, I saw it.

A woman was running through the forest and something was chasing her.

Fuck, a wolf. It was going after her in a gray-furred blur. This was going to be tough. I dropped to one knee and brought my scope up, tucking the rifle hard against my shoulder. Holding my breath, I tracked the wolf.

Slowly, wait for it, wait for that perfect shot, wait…

Just wait…

There!

I squeezed the trigger. The wolf was dashing between two trees and abruptly it let out a yelp and went sideways, a lot of blood spraying out. I let out breath in one long sigh and hit the bolt action, then got to my feet. Had to see if that woman was okay, and that was a probably a few meal’s worth of meat right there on the wolf.

As I approached the wolf, I saw the woman was too, slowly.

She saw me coming and stared with wide eyes. She looked like she wanted to run, but something compelled her to stay.

I decided to try and be helpful. “I won’t try to stop you if you want to leave, but I won’t hurt you or anything if you stay. I’m alone,” I said. I’d gotten good at being calming and chilling people out, which was a great skill to develop in a world like this. For whatever reason, I’d always been good at it, something about my voice, I think. Back before all the shit went down, I was actually thinking about trying to break into voice acting.

“I...thank you, for saving me,” she said, relaxing a little.

“You’re welcome. My name is Christopher Weston. You can call me Chris,” I said.

“I, um...Laurie. Laurie Porter. But, I go by Lara.” She looked from me to the wolf, then back to me again. “That was a fucking amazing shot.”

“Thanks. I’ve had a lot of practice,” I replied. I came to stand over the wolf. It was leaner than I’d hoped, which was probably why it had been so damned desperate to get to here. It was indeed a good shot, though, right through the neck, at the base of the skull. Clean kill.

“Do you, um, do you know how to like...skin and clean it?” Lara asked hesitantly.

“I do,” I replied. I looked up, really got a good look at her for the first time now that I wasn’t moving and she was drawing closer.

She was a fucking looker.

Tall, very pale, beautiful brown hair coming down beneath a skullcap beanie, the most amazingly bright green eyes. She looked a little filled out, too. It was hard not to notice the way her coat pressed out a lot at the chest. She must have big, beautiful tits.

Fuck, it had been too long since I’d gotten laid.

But, like everything else in this world, sex was a luxury now.

Although it was at least a lot easier to get laid, given women were way more prone to putting out in an apocalyptic situation.

“Why do you ask?” I asked, wondering if maybe I could talk Lara into sex.

“Well, um...” She stood there, shifting uncomfortably, no doubt trying to figure out how much to tell me, if anything at all. I didn’t blame her. People were shifty, and it was dangerous to trust the wrong person. “My friend and I aren’t in the best situation,” she said slowly.

“And you could use some meat?” I asked.

“I...yes, we could. Maybe we could...trade for some?” she asked.

I looked over at her. There was something suggestive in the way she’d said that. We locked eyes briefly, and I realized she was blushing, and breathing a little more heavily. Yeah, I could probably talk her into sex.

“I think we could work something out,” I said, and grabbed the wolf.

…

She didn’t say much as we walked back through the woods, and what we did say was really her just asking me questions.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Not really sure, to be honest. At this point I’m just kind of wandering,” I replied.

“You’re really alone?”

“Yeah. I have been for about a month now.”

“You’ve not seen anyone for a whole month?”

“No, I saw people, I just didn’t travel with them. Best I did was trade with them.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Where were you...when the snow started?”

“Florida. Orlando. You?”

“Fucking LA, man,” she muttered.

“Wow. How’d you get all the way to...I’m not even sure where we are now. Missouri? Wisconsin? Nebraska?”

“I think we’re in Nebraska,” she murmured.

“Guess it doesn’t really matter now.”

Lara sighed heavily. “No, not really.” Another long pause, then she looked at me almost beseechingly. “Are you, like...a fucking psychopath or anything?”

“No,” I replied. “I mean, whatever that’s worth. I don’t hurt people who don’t try to hurt me. I don’t steal. Mostly I keep to myself, but I help people if I can manage it. Why?”

She sighed and chewed on her lower lip. It looked really fucking sexy. “I don’t get bad vibes from you...but I’ve also not traditionally been the best judge of character. I guess...if the other person I’m staying with is okay with it, would you be interested in sticking around for a little while? Maybe helping us?” She smiled at me suddenly. “I could, you know, make it worth your while.”

“Could you now?” I asked, already getting a hard-on.

“Yeah,” she said, and she sounded pretty confident, “I could.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to see,” I replied. “I might need some convincing.”

“I can definitely convince you,” she said.

Oh yes, I was fucking her brains out tonight.

I was so very fucking glad that I’d had that vasectomy before the snow started falling.

A few minutes later, we came out of the trees and into a larger clearing where a small house was built. I studied it as we approached, looking for weakness and strengths. It seemed decently built, but the trees to either side got up pretty close to the house, meaning it’d be easier to sneak in. And it looked about the same for the back. Not great for protection. As we approached, the front door opened up and a short woman with black hair and a grim face stepped out holding a pistol.

“Who’s that, Lara?” she called.

“It’s okay, Susan!” Lara called. “This is Chris! He’s okay!”

Susan remained silent until we were maybe twenty feet away. “That’s close enough, Chris,” she said. “Lara, get over here.”

I stopped. “Understood,” I said, and kept still. Susan was smart, get Lara by herself to confirm whether or not I was holding her hostage. I’d seen that before. Lara hesitated, frowned, then walked over to the porch. I heard a quick, quiet, and somewhat stern conversation between them before finally Susan sighed and lowered the pistol.

“Okay, fine, come on,” she said.

I walked over and up onto the porch.

“You killed that yourself?” Susan asked.

“Yes, I did.”

“He saved my life,” Lara said, “it was the most amazing shot I’ve ever seen.”

“Uh-huh.” Susan stared at me for several seconds longer. A cold wind blew. I shifted a little. Finally, she sighed. “Fine, come in. Try not to get blood on the floor.”

“Okay,” I replied.

We went inside and I looked around the living room. It was sparse: a loveseat, a reading chair, a shelf packed with books, (a gold mine nowadays), a TV covered in dust, (were there any channels left, I wondered, there must be some, it had only been two years since the worst of it had gone down and society had basically shattered), and a fireplace. She led me down a short hallway, and I peeked into a bathroom, a kitchen, and a pair of small bedrooms before getting to a stairway that led down into a small basement.

“This is where we gut,” she said.

“How are you at hunting?” I asked.

“Not as good as I’d like to be,” Susan muttered.

I just grunted. Maybe this would be a good place to stay for awhile. I was tired of walking, and of being alone. Especially at night, sleeping by myself. This did seem like a nice place, and there were two very attractive women here. Susan was a bit standoffish, but that could change. I’d seen it change more than once rather quickly, and I knew why. People wanted to trust other people. It felt good. It felt great nowadays, where trust was so rare and hard to come by. People wanted to be comforted by other people, to be comfortable around other people, to confide in them. I wanted that myself. And their desperation often got them to lower their guard faster than you’d think. I didn’t take advantage of it...but I certainly didn’t turn advances down.

Sex felt good, and not enough felt good nowadays.

I set the wolf down on a bloody table that at least had the right instruments. I had my own, obviously, but it would be good.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” she asked.

“Probably an hour altogether,” I replied. It would take less, but I wanted to give them time to chat it up and decide whether or not to keep me.

“Fine. I’m going to go talk with Lara.” She began walking away, then stopped, then said, “Please don’t do anything stupid.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I replied.

She lingered for a bit longer, then kept walking until she was out of the room.

The pair of windows high in the wall didn’t let in a lot of light, so I reached into my pack and pulled out the solar powered lantern I had on me. It was small, but powerful. I turned it on, set it down, then pulled out my knife and set to work.

CHAPTER TWO

Half an hour passed. I heard the women talking for awhile, and pacing, I thought it was Susan doing the pacing. Eventually the door opened and Lara came down. She was smiling, beaming really. “What’s the news?” I asked.

She walked over to stand next to me. “Susan said you can stay, if you help you. In her words, ‘a fucking lot’. But I think that won’t be hard for you.”

“I can more than pull my own weight,” I replied.

“Which means, I’ll have to pay you...a fucking lot. So, um, if you’d like...I could stay doing that right now.”

“Right now?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Her eyes flashed. Man, she must be horny if she was okay with doing it in a basement that smelled like blood where I’d been carving up a wolf for half an hour. But I had to admit, after all I’d seen and done over the past few years, I was more than ready to get it on.

“Okay,” I said, and grabbed a towel nearby.

I washed my hands in a bucket of water that seemed to be there for the task, dried them off, and then turned her.

She looked hotter than ever, and she stepped right up to me and kissed me.

Kissing her was like electricity, or being tipsy. As we started locking lips and twisting tongues together, I felt lightheaded, remembering just how long it had been since I’d been with a woman. One month, give or take. I’d shacked up with a woman I’d rescued during a blizzard, though that still felt more about keeping warm than anything else.

There was no mistaking Lara’s intentions though: she was fucking into me.

And I was really into her.

She’d taken off her coat and now she wore a sweater. I started pulling it up, and she helped me, stopping the kissing for a second to pull her shirt up all the way and reveal her tits. Holy fuck, they were great. They must not be doing that bad for food, given she still had some nice curves to her. She had like doubled tits and fuck did they look good. I reached up and started groping them, and felt a shudder run through me. I’d forgotten how good tits felt in my grasp. She let feel her up for a bit, then we resumed kissing.

I grabbed her ass next, squeezing and groping it, feeling it through the jeans she was wearing. And then she stepped back again and dropped to her knees.

“This is for saving my life,” she said softly as she worked my pants.

I let her get my cock out and then she was sucking me off. Oh fuck. I groaned loudly, putting my hand on the back of her head.

“Holy...that’s a good fucking girl,” I whispered, breathing heavily now, the pleasure just slamming into me like waves pounding a beach.

Lara moaned loudly. She looked incredibly on her knees with my cock in her mouth.

She went fast at first, bobbing her head like a good slut, and she looked like she was knew what she was doing. She still had her tits out. I thought about her naked, on her back with her legs spread, getting fucked by me hard as hell, hearing her scream, the feel of her bare pussy on my dick. How long had it been since I’d gone bareback? It was easier nowadays to talk women into going bareback, risky, but that just kind of made it more fun. So far, I hadn’t caught anything as far as I knew, and they had to trust me that I wasn’t lying about the vasectomy, which I wasn’t. But that chick I’d last hooked up with had had a condom on her, and I wasn’t really in the habit of pushing, so I’d worn the rubber. It had been a good fuck, but…

Absolutely nothing in the world beat raw pussy.

Just thinking about it made me…

“Aw, fuck!” I groaned and started coming in her mouth.

Lara moaned loudly, taking my cock all the way in, swallowing with the head partially down her throat, and I felt all those hot, wet throat muscles convulse around my dick as it was squirting off, emptying my stuff into her. She did this three or four times, sucking my nuts dry as I blasted off in her mouth, and I kept my hand on the back of her head the whole time. I let go and she finished sucking me dry, and then she looked up at me, and that look of submission in her eyes, and lust, that was the exact second I knew I had one fucking stellar chick on my hands.

She took my cock out of her mouth and stood up. Pulling her shirt back down into place, she then wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “I’ll give you your first...payment, tonight, when it’s time for bed.”

“I’m really looking forward to it,” I replied.

“Me too. It’s been too long since I’ve been with a man, and way too long since I’ve been with a real man.” She reached down and ran her fingertip up the length of my cock. “And you’ve got a big fucking dick.”

“Thanks,” I replied. I glanced up as I put my cock away. “Are you and Susan...”

“No,” she replied, and she sounded a little glum.

“You want to be?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’ve...been with girls before. Susan never has, but I think...with the right coaxing...”

“She’d eat some pussy?”

Lara grinned big. “Yeah.”

“Well, maybe we could make that happen? People get...needy, when they’re around other people having sex, I’ve noticed. They get anxious and worked out, and maybe even a little desperate. Especially if they can hear the sex...unless you aren’t the loud type.”

“Oh, I’m the loud type,” Lara confided with a devious smirk.

“Good. I have to admit, I’d love to fuck both you.”

“That’d be so hot,” Lara murmured, chewing on her lip again. She looked so damned good when she did that. “Well, I gotta go. Firewood needs chopping.”

“I’ll help as soon as I’m done.”

“Thank you!”

She left me after that, and I went back to work, thinking about what the two women might look like naked together, kissing, eating pussy, both of them licking my cock…

…

After I finished with the wolf, I disposed of the remains and gave the meat to Susan, who stored it in a pretty smart place: a cooler on the roof, accessible via a hatch in one of the bedrooms. After that, I helped Lara gather and chop firewood, and took the opportunity to check out around the house. If this was going to be my home, I wanted to see everything. After that, I checked the interior, finding that it wasn’t very big. I’d pretty much seen it all during my first trip. There were two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen, living room, and two closets, and the basement. The place had a wood-burning stove, which was a godsend.

When we finished with the firewood, I came in and found Susan reading in the living room. I looked at my backpack, which I’d set beside the couch, out of the way. There was a lot in that big thing. My whole life, basically.

She followed my gaze. “Oh, I guess we’ll have to figure out sleeping arrangements...” she murmured uncertainly.

“He can share my room,” Lara said immediately as she walked in behind me.

Susan looked up at her, then at me. “Oh...I see,” she said, and didn’t say anything else, but she didn’t look happy about it.

I picked up my pack and followed Lara back into the smaller of the two bedrooms. Not much around, just a dresser and a double-wide bed.

“So this will be our room,” she said, smiling at me.

“Not bad,” I replied.

She stepped up to me. “Is that me? Am I ‘not bad’?” she asked, grinning.

“No,” I replied, looking into her green eyes, “you’re miles better than not bad. You’re pretty fucking great.”

“I’ll show you just how great I am tonight,” she said, then she kissed me and walked out of the room. I watched her ass the whole way out, and felt another erection in my pants. It was hard not to try and talk her into fucking right now.

But I had things I wanted to do.

Namely, hunt. And see what the food situation was. In fact, there was a lot I needed to learn. I left and returned to Susan.

“We should talk about your inventory,” I said, going and leaning against the fireplace.

“What about it?” she asked, setting her book aside.

“If I’m going to be staying here and helping out, I need to know what we’re working with,” I replied, trying to be reasonable.

Susan stared at me for a few seconds longer, then finally sighed and stood up. “Fine, what do you want to know?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“First, food. How much food do we have?” I asked.

“Not as much as I’d like,” she replied, and led me into the kitchen. She opened up one of the cabinets. “This is it, except for some venison leftover from when I killed a deer two weeks ago. It’s frozen up there with the wolf meat now.”

I frowned as I studied the materials. A jar of pickles, half empty. A dozen cans even. Some of them corn, some of them beans, some of them fruits. There was another glass jar that had some wild onions in them, and another with what I recognized as rose hips. There were also a handful of spices. Well, they’d make the wolf meat taste better, at least.

“Tell me you have some food on you,” she said.

“Not a whole lot,” I admitted. “I’ve got a few cans of tuna and sardines, some walnuts, some barberries.”

“Shit,” she muttered.

“Yeah. Altogether, with what we got now, I’d say to keep our strength up, we’ve got a week of food here, maybe ten days.”

“That goes by too fast,” she growled.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Okay, okay, what about weapons?” I asked.

“My pistol and two full magazines, some knives, and a bow with some arrows. You?”

“My rifle and a dozen bullets, my combat knife, nothing else,” I replied. I’d lost my own bow during a blizzard. I’d fallen down a damned hill and lost it and my quiver, which still pissed me off. “How many arrows?” I asked.

“Eight,” she replied.

“Good. I can hunt with a bow and arrow. Where’s the best hunting grounds?”

She sighed. “I’ve only really been able to find anything east of here. Mostly just rabbits, but a few deer too. And apparently wolves...” she hesitated, looked away, then slowly looked back. “Thank you, for saving Lara. She’s...all I’ve got left at this point.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied. “What about medicine?”

“Shit. We got lucky and ran into someone who’d stocked up on some of the stuff they’re producing in the cities that still ‘function’,” she muttered, hooking her fingers in the air, “so we’ve got a bottle of antibiotics, and some expired painkillers, some gauze, and I managed to find some burdock root that I prepared and is ready to go. And some nettles. Nothing else though. You?”

“Some cough syrup and bandages.”

She frowned at me, probably thinking the same thing I was: we weren’t great shape. But it could be better. I had a good immune system, I hadn’t been sick for awhile, and even when I did, I could just generally tough through a cold. Really, food was the biggest problem.

“Are there are problem people around? What’s the region like? Do you have a map?”

“I’ve been working on one,” she replied, walking back to the living room. She moved over to a desk in the corner and pulled open a drawer, then pulled out a piece of paper with a surprisingly detailed and well-crafted drawing covering most of it. “That’s us,” she said, pointing to a small X near the middle.

“You drew this?” I asked.

“Yeah, why?” she replied, sounding defensive.

“Nothing, it’s just...you’re really good at drawing,” I replied.

“Oh...thanks,” she murmured. I glanced at her. She was blushing, and she tucked some hair behind her ear, staring intently at the map. I joined her in looking at it, trying to not to get distracted by her. Lara was prettier, but there was a kind of grim beauty to Susan. She was smaller, slimmer, gaunter, but there was no denying some raw beauty there in her face. And she had very nice blue eyes to go with her raven black, shoulder-length hair.

“What are these numbers by the xs?” I asked.

“Oh, reference,” she replied, and turned over the map. On the back was a list of numbers, each one had a small description next to it.

The first one read Cabin, abandoned, searched. The next House, two story, not searched.

“Wow, very nice,” I murmured. I tuned it back over and studied it. Rough guess, there were a dozen structures in walking distance.

“As for problem people, there’s this kind of vacation area maybe a mile from here. It’s a great place, it’s got two cabins, a house, some sheds, there’s a group of people staying there. They seemed friendly enough, I guess. Lara and I found them randomly when we came into the region and they offered to let us stay, but then they got into a fight about it, and finally we just left, to not make things difficult. We’ve traded with them a few times. The women seem nice enough, but the men are assholes, it seems. I think they’re like, rich people. I know the guy ‘in charge’ used to be like a banker or something. I talked to his wife a few times. I feel bad for her.”

“Why?”

“She’s got a daughter, eighteen or nineteen years old, and that’s got to be tough. She seems like maybe she’s stuck there with the guy. I don’t really know. I think there’s some people here,” she said, and pointed to what looked like a lake. “This place is a big deal. I just found out about it like two days ago. There’s some cabins around this lake, and ice fishing huts.”

“Shit,” I muttered. “That’d be a great source of food.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I saw smoke coming from one of the huts, so I don’t know if that was someone from the vacation area or something living around there or from some totally other area.”

“All right. Can I borrow your bow and arrows?” I asked. “I want to check out the hunting grounds.”

“...yeah, okay. Just be back before dark. I think it’s going to be really cold tonight.”

“I will, thanks.”

CHAPTER THREE

I had to admit that I was distracted, although I at least could blame my lack of findings during my hunting trip on bad luck more than my own distraction. Or, at least, I hope so. I went out and hunted for three hours, making my way through those woods and a few fields. I didn’t see shit except for two rabbits, both of which I managed to shoot and snag. Not a lot of meat, but better than nothing. I was thinking about fucking Lara, because how could I not?

The world seemed pretty fucked now.

It had been three years since the snow started to fall, two years since society seemed to finally just got nuts as everyone realized that this wasn’t going away. There were still people living in big cities, hell, there was even still internet supposed in some places, but a lot of people had died since then as power grids failed, crops failed, a lot of things failed when the snow fell and didn’t stop for that long. We got reprieves, and now it was basically just like one long, perpetual winter. Some plants still grew, but it was hard to grow real crops in anything but industrial hydroponic gardens. A lot of people had said ‘fuck it’ and gone to live on their own.

For whatever reason, survival shit worked for me. I was just good at it. I’d kind of had one foot in both worlds back then. I lived well enough in the city, but there was a part of me that loved going on vacation out in the deep country. Hunting, fishing, honestly surviving. Back then I’d gone camping with friends in the middle of nowhere to feel like a badass, (and to get pussy, honestly), but when the shit had gone down and I’d started piecing together that I’d be safer away from bigger cities, it all had just kinda clicked.

I found myself oddly well-suited for this strange new frozen world.

When I got back, Susan and Lara were making dinner. Although really it looked like Susan was making dinner and Lara was sitting at the table. I had the idea that Susan was the one in charge of this friendship. Susan struck me as the kind of woman who led, who got shit done, whereas Lara followed. Well, that was fine by me. To be honest, I kind of liked the idea of living here quietly with these two women, fucking one or both of them regularly. (Ideally both. Susan was hot in a way that only tough chicks could be.)

I said my hellos and took the rabbits down into the basement. By the time I’d skinned, cleaned, and prepared them, dinner was ready. I wrapped the rabbit meat up and put it up in the cooler, then joined the women for dinner. It was dark by then, and the wind was rattling the windows. It felt good to be inside.

“So how’d you two meet?” I asked as we grabbed dinner. She’d fried up some of the wolf meat with some seasoning, and garnished it with wild onions.

“We met in college ten years ago,” Susan replied. “I was two years in when she enrolled. We had several classes together and just...clicked.”

“Yeah,” Lara said, smiling fondly. “Those were nice days.”

“Yeah,” Susan muttered. “Great days as I pissed away my life chasing a goddamned teaching master’s.”

“Couldn’t find a job?” I asked.

“Oh, I could find a job, I just found out I fucking hated teaching. Lara I grabbed an apartment after a year and when I graduated and got a job in California, she dropped out and followed me.”

“Any particular reason?” I asked.

“I liked Susan more than anyone else I knew at the time, and I liked the idea of living in LA more than getting more debt to go to college for a damned business degree, since I hated business and I was shit at it.”

“So what’d you do in LA?” I asked.

“Would you believe the lucky bitch started acting?” Susan asked.

“Wow, really?” I asked.

“Yeah! It was a cliché situation,” Lara said, grinning big. “I was a waitress. Some big shot producer started hitting on me and I kinda liked him so I let him take me out for a night on the town. We...had fun, and then he actually offered me a role as an extra in this TV show he was making. It was the pilot episode, something called...shit, something with ‘blue’ in the title. It never made it on the air, but I got paid, and connected. I started doing commercials and being an extra and I even got to be a model for some perfume ads that paid surprisingly well. They said I was photogenic.”

“You are,” Susan replied, a little bitterly.

“Not that that counts for much anymore,” Lara said.

“Oh bullshit. Half the great deals we get are because of your tits and your face. It’s obviously how we got him,” she said, sticking her fork at me.

“Not the only reason,” I murmured, but that was almost a lie.

I really wanted to fuck Lara. After she’d sucked my cock, she was all I could think about. Especially with the way she was looking at me.

“How’d you find this place? How long have you been here?” I asked, trying to restart the conversation.

“A month,” Susan replied. “You want the whole story or just the most recent one?”

“Whole story,” I said.

“Fine then. We were in LA for about nine months after the shit went down. Lara was dating some rich douche-bag, and he wanted to take us up to his like winter retreat in Colorado to ‘ride this out’. I thought it was nuts but then people were getting desperate and after a pretty bad breakin at our place, we ended up going to stay at his fancy house, and finally he talked us into it. This was back when they were still flying some planes, so we managed to make it to the Utah-Colorado border before the plane developed malfunctions. We had to put down at a private airfield, which it turns out the military had ‘appropriated’, and they kicked us out. They almost shot us because the rich asshole wouldn’t leave. And we ended up stuck in this little shit town for like four months. We finally had to leave there because someone started a fire and burned half the fucking town down. We stole a car and started driving east, he still wanted to get to his vacation home, which he was convinced would be our fucking savior.”

“It could’ve been...” Lara murmured.

“Lara, fucking Christ, you’re still defending him?”

Lara opened her mouth, then sighed. “No, I guess not. He was kind of an idiot. But after a month on the road, we did actually get there, and with a few other people too. We almost had a little convoy going.”

“So was it your savior?” I asked.

“What do you think?” Susan replied, rolling her eyes. “The place was wrecked. People had obviously come and gone awhile ago. The windows were smashed and anything of any real value was broken or stolen. He kind of lost his shit after that and we finally just said fuck it, took one of the cars and this one woman who had kind of imprinted on us and left. After that...fuck, I don’t know, a lot of the same. We wandered. We found a place to stay. Something went wrong and we wandered again. Four months ago we found this motel and the people staying there were pretty solid. It was okay for the first two months, but then we started getting attacked by this group of assholes, and it just kept happening. Finally Lara and I decided went wanted to go. We wandered until we found this place, and now we live here,” Susan explained.

“Huh,” I murmured. It was about what I expected, given what I’d heard from a lot of other people. It wasn’t too dissimilar from my own story.

“What about you?” Lara asked.

I shrugged. “I was in Florida for awhile, eventually I left, started traveling north and west. A lot of wandering and survival and trying to find places to stay.” I yawned suddenly, unexpectedly, and realized how tired I was. It had been a long day.

“I think I’m going to head to bed soon. I want to get an early start. I want to keep looking around for good places to hunt, and maybe check out that lake,” I said.

“I’ll join you,” Lara said, standing up immediately. Susan sighed.

…

I set a pot of snow to melt and then cool, and we put away dinner while it did. When the snow had been melted, boiled, and cooled, I brought it to the bedroom that I now shared with Lara, and she followed close behind. Probably the thing I missed the most from the old world now was showers. Hot showers. They were hard to come by now. Fuck, I’d even settle for baths now. But for now I just had to settle with some water, a rag, and, if I was lucky, some soap. And I happened to have a bar, actually. Lara shut the door behind her.

“So...you ready to fuck?” she asked.

“Very,” I replied.

“I’m clean...” she hesitated. “I mean, as far as I know.”

“Me too. I’m also fixed,” I said. “Had the surgery before all this happened.”

“Oh good. I’m fixed too, although I don’t think Susan is...”

“Still think there’s a chance? She doesn’t seem to like me,” I said.

“I think there’s a chance,” Lara said quietly as she came over to join me.

“I hope so.”

“Me too. If you do, you know, get lucky...try to talk her into eating. I’ve wanted her to eat me for like ten fucking years.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I replied.

We started taking off our clothes. Her top came off first, and her breasts were again a welcome sight. Goddamn she had some nice tits. But as nice as they were, here thighs were just perfect. Nice and thick and smooth and so pale. Her pussy was smooth and bald and if I had to guess, I’d say she must’ve gotten a laser hair removal before the ice apocalypse. Which was nice. Another thing I missed: shaved pussies.

“Turn around,” I said, and she did, showing me her ass. Damn, nice fat ass too. “So nice,” I said.

She turned back around and grinned, blushing. “Thanks. You’re, um, really hot too. Like, you’re in great shape.”

“I try,” I replied as I finished getting naked.

Admittedly, it was a lot easier to stay in shape now. Combine having a lot of time to kill sometimes when I wasn’t traveling, and traveling everywhere, and food being harder to come by, and well it might be harder to build and keep muscle, but it was easier to burn off excess fat and make it look like you had more of a physique.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said as we started washing up from the pot on the floor, “but you seem pretty well-fed.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m lucky, I guess. Although it used to be the opposite. I don’t lose weight well. Terrible in our old society, very lucky in a society where food is more scarce and you’re kind of forced to do more physical labor if you want to live. I was skinnier actually before we got to that hotel. They had like a shitload of food, so I gained like fifteen pounds there, or maybe ten, I don’t know, it was hard to keep track because no one’s weighing themselves anymore.” She sighed suddenly. “It feels so fucking superficial now, worrying about weight and looks when hundreds of millions of people are dead and it’s probably the end of the world.”

“Not necessarily,” I replied. She looked up at me. I couldn’t stop looking at her amazing body. Her hips were to die for. I kept washing up. “A lot of things have been really cut down to their absolute basics now. All the extra BS has fallen away in a lot of places and for a lot of people. If you have something people want, then you have something of value. That’s a good thing in this new world...well, provided you can properly protect yourself.”

She sighed. “I can’t really. I mean, I’m an okay shot I guess. Susan’s amazing, though. She’s a pretty good shot.”

“Now you’ve got me,” I said.

She regained her smile. “Now I’ve got you. And...” She was crouching before the pot of water and she spread her legs open, exposing her beautiful pussy. “...you’ve got me.”

“Yes. And I’m going to have you several times tonight,” I replied, already getting hard. “That is one beautiful pussy.”

“Thanks,” she said, blushing more fiercely now as she began washing her inner thighs. “I got that laser thing when I was nineteen cause I fucking hated pubic hair. I got it under my arms, too,” she said, raising them up.

“Nice,” I replied. “Well, I don’t know if it helps, but I can say that your attention to detail and investments in your body are very appreciated. You are very attractive.”

“It helps,” she said quietly.

“I’m glad. Now,” I wrung out the washrag and set it and the bar of soap out of the way to dry, then stood up, “time to make good on that offer.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

We dried off quickly and climbed into the bed beneath the blankets.

I started kissing her, and touching her, running my hands over her voluptuous body. She moaned, pressing herself against him, and I felt her warm hand wrap around my cock. She began to massage it slowly in her grasp. I had forgotten how good it felt to be nude and intimate in a bed with a woman. You tended to spend a lot of time by yourself in a world like this. Or I did, anyway. I ran my hands over her big tits and her broad hips and her thick thighs, then down in between them, finding her pussy, and rubbing her clit.

She gasped, then moaned loudly.

“Fuck, not too much, I’ll be loud...” she moaned as I fingered.

“I want you to be loud,” I replied, and began rubbing harder.

“Ah! Fuck!” she cried.

We kept kissing as I fingered her and she started jacking me off. Before too long, I couldn’t take it any longer.

“Suck,” I said, putting my hand on the back of her head and shifting. She obediently disappeared under the blankets and soon she was sucking my dick, putting it all in her hot, wet mouth, bobbing her head rapidly, covering it in her spit.

“Fuck yes,” I whispered. Her mouth felt amazing. She moaned as her head went up and down, her luscious red lips slipping up and down my hard shaft, over my head, again and again. “Okay,” I said, “get on your back.”

She complied and came back up, laying on her back and spreading her legs.

I climbed on top of her, ready to pound her into the mattress. As soon as I was on top of her, I slid my cock into her and she moaned loudly. Oh fucking hell, that feeling. That feeling of sliding into pussy with no protection.

Anymore, it was as close as I could get to perfect.

“Oh my fucking God, Lara,” I groaned as I started fucking her, pushing into that sweet pussy, and she moaned loudly.

“Yes, please fuck me,” she moaned.

I started going harder quickly, as soon as I’d managed to shove all my cock in, burying my whole length inside of her. And as I began fucking her hard, I learned that Lara was right: she was a loud slut. She cried out, grabbing my back, begging for more.

“Yes! Fuck me, Chris! Fuck me!” she screamed.

I fucked her gladly, kissing her and feeling all her hot, smooth skin against mine. I loved having completely naked sex. There was certainly something really hot about fucking with some or even most of your clothes on, but there was also something fantastic about screwing without any clothes on at all. Lara moaned and twisted and pushed up with those big fucking hips of hers against me, pushing my dick even deeper into her, and I fucking pounded her. The bed was rocking now, and knocking against the wall, and I actually felt a little bad. Susan was having to put up with this. But maybe it’d make her want to fuck.

Damn, I hoped it did.

“Fuck, you’re so big!” Lara moaned.

“Your pussy is so fucking great,” I replied, panting. I was getting ready to blow off but I didn’t want to stop fucking, not yet. “I’m gonna come in your mouth, Lara.”

“Okay,” she gasped, “I’m ready.”

I pounded her pussy harder and faster, then quickly pulled out and shifted. She moved with me, making it easier, and I barely managed to get it into her mouth before I started letting off. “Oh God! Fuck!” I groaned as I came in her mouth and sucked and sucked and fucking sucked. That brunette sucked me fucking dry and it was one of the best orgasms I’d had in a long time. I grabbed her head, forcing my cock deep in her mouth, and she moaned as she swallowed repeatedly, taking my load, until I’d finished coming.

Then I pulled it out. “Get on your hands and knees.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, her face flushed as she stared up at me.

I got off of her and she did as she was told. I got behind her, looking at her fat ass. I was really glad I’d found some lube not too long ago, because I was so going to fuck her in the ass later. She had the hottest ass I’d seen all year.

For now, I slid back into her bald, pink, glistening pussy, and we both moaned at the same time. I grabbed her big hips and started fucking her again.

“Oh fucking fuck yes!” she screamed, burying her face in the pillow. “Yes! Yes! Yes! OH MY GOD YES I LOVE GETTING FUCKED LIKE A SLUT!” she shrieked.

I smacked her fat ass, leaving a handprint, and she cried out and started coming. I groaned, feeling her pussy convulse around my cock, and fucked harder, enjoying all that hot wetness as she came. She screamed even louder into the pillow as I fucked her orgasming vagina, slamming hard into her, really just destroying her.

I drilled Lara’s pussy through another pair of orgasms until finally I had my own and began emptying my cock into her. She moaned loudly as I came inside of her, filling her pussy up with it. I groaned loudly, hunching over her, reaching under her and grabbing her big tits. Coming into her a pussy bareback was the absolute best of the best when it came to pleasure. It might as well be a fucking drug.

I came so hard inside of her, and when I was finally done, I pulled out and laid down.

“Wash up,” I said, slapping her ass, “I’m going to want more in the night. I wake up horny.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

“You’re a good girl, Lara, you know that?”

She laughed softly as she got up. “Yeah. I like being your girl.”

“I think we’re going to get along really well.”

“Same.”

She washed up and then climbed back into bed. I held her close and drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

I woke up at some point in the night with a hard-on that was almost painful.

The desire to fuck was so bad it was driving me crazy. I’d been dreaming of having sex with Lara and Susan in a wonderful threesome. When I woke up, it was still dark, and chilly in the room, but very warm under the blankets with Lara. She was lying on her side, facing away from me. I reached down beneath the blanket, running my hand over her hot body, down to her thick ass, squeezing it, then up and around to her breast, groping it. My heart hammered powerfully in my chest and my stomach boiled with dark desire.

I pushed Lara over onto her stomach and mounted her.

She apparently was a heavy sleeper, because this didn’t wake her up. She just muttered softly and shifted very slightly. I pushed myself up and looked down, seeing that fat ass of hers, and her thick thighs, pressed together. I grabbed my cock and lined it up with her pussy, then began working my way into her.

Holy fuck, she was so wet.

In a few quick thrusts, I was inside of her, and fucking her.

Goddamn, she felt good. Within a few seconds, she started moaning. I looked down at my dick disappearing into her, feeling that perfect pleasure burning outwards from my cock, filling me up, pushing me towards a hard and fast orgasm. I was exhausted, but too horny to go back to sleep. Lara moaned and shifted.

“Oh my God...” she moaned. “Are you...fuck...you’re fucking me...”

“That’s right,” I said, going harder.

She cried out. “Oh my fucking...you’re really big,” she gasped.

“You like that fat dick don’t you, you fucking whore?” I asked.

“Yes!” she moaned. “God, I fucking love it!”

“Good girl...good girl...oh fuck!” I groaned and started coming into that tight pussy again.

She moaned and I held there, rigid, my muscles jerking and tensing as I spurted inside of her. I pumped her pussy full of my seed, busting hard inside of her, and a little bit later I was done, and I pulled out of her.

I was asleep again within another thirty seconds.

…

The next morning, I woke up and began my morning ritual.

Which now, I decided, would start with sex. My days began with sex as often as I could manage, because it was one hell of a way to wake up. I woke up to Lara mounting me, and by the time my eyes were open, she was taking my cock into her pussy. We both moaned and panted as she started riding me, her big tits bouncing as I grabbed her ass and thrust up into her, grunting as I fucked her hard, and we went and went and went until we both came.

After that, we got up, washed quickly, dressed, and had breakfast, which consisted of a few cans of fruits.

Susan...was not happy.

She glared at us as we came into the kitchen, where she sat with a book and an empty can. “You two were too fucking loud last night,” she growled.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Yeah, sorry,” Lara murmured, blushing intensely.

“No you aren’t, you whore,” Susan snapped.

“Oh like you never had noisy sex!” Lara snapped back.

Susan sighed and went back to reading her book.

I quickly ate my breakfast, then decided to get to work. I grabbed the bow and quiver of arrows after pulling on my coat.

“Where are you going today?” Lara asked.

“Hunting, first. And I want to check out those ice fishing huts. Can I borrow your map, Susan?” I asked.

She had a sour expression. “Yeah, just...be careful,” she replied.

“I will.”

I snagged the map, made sure I had what I needed on me, (I’d stored the bulk of my things under mine and Lara’s bed), and then left the house that was now my home.

…

In some ways, the day was productive. In other ways, not.

By the time I actually hit the road, so to speak, it was maybe ten in the morning. It was a semi-decent day out. There was wind, but it wasn’t particularly powerful or miserable. Cold, but not painfully so. All in all, tolerable.

I found the hunting grounds and began exploring them, looking for signs or tracks or anything to indicate there were more than some bunnies hopping around. I didn’t find a single thing until after noon, and at some point I heard a gunshot, but it didn’t come from the direction of my new home, so I largely ignored it.

A deer finally turned up, and I went after it, but I fucked it up and missed, burying the arrow in a nearby tree instead. The deer took off and I cursed. I’d always been a better shot with a rifle than an arrow, but I only had eight goddamned rounds left, and it wasn’t like they made bullets like they used to, churning them out by the tens of thousands every day of the year. After another two hours, I managed to kill two pheasants and a rabbit, dropped them back off at the house, (got a quick suck off from Lara, goddamn did it feel good to have her suck my dry), then took hike over to the lake. I really wanted to see those fishing huts.

In a world like this, finding a ready source of food was probably your biggest problem. Water was never a problem, so long as you had access to fire and one metal container. There was always snow now. Firewood wasn’t particularly difficult to find either. Starting a fire was a pain. Matches were definitely harder to come by, and a lot of people had gone back to flint and steel kits, of which I had, as well as a little box of matches, and a magnifying glass, and if I had to I could do the two sticks rubbing together thing, (but that was a big pain in the ass). Of course, there was medicine, but that was if you got sick.

You for sure would starve if you didn’t eat, but you might go months or even years without getting sick. So I always focused on finding a ready source of food first. Some places had access to hydroponic gardens, and they were the big deal now, but those were rare and hard to maintain. Sometimes you’d get lucky and find some massive stash of well-packed food. Either from some survival nut (who I’m sure were still laughing to this day at everyone referring to them as such, and hey, they had a point, I guess, the seemingly impossible had indeed happened), or an old military or government stash that had long since been forgotten or abandoned, or something like that. Those were, obviously, unreliable.

I more hoped I found one, rather than planned on it.

Making a plan like that was a good way to get yourself killed.

The lake looked decently sized, although I didn’t know how much fish might be left there under the ice, if any. I’d come across several that had been fished empty. There were three huts on the ice that I could see, none of which had smoke coming from their little chimneys. I could also see four lone structures scattered across the far shores.

They’d be worth searching, but that was a risk. I might get myself shot doing that. Sometimes people took a ‘shoot first, ask never’ approach to anyone they didn’t recognize. I spent an hour crossing the ice, finding it solid thankfully, and poked through the huts. None of them had anything of value in them except for a simple stove and a stool. I’d need to find something to fish with, and something to break the ice.

After that, I debated with myself for a little while, standing in the doorway of one of the huts and looking around, wondering if maybe I should check out the cabins. They’d been marked on the map, but there had been no notations or anything. Finally, I decided to check the first one and see if there was anything worthwhile.

I walked across the ice, trying to keep my pace brisk, wondering how the fuck I’d get out of it if someone started shooting at me. I guess I’d run and trip and fall and run and pray that they’d be laughing hard enough that they’d miss. But nothing happened. I reached the shore and got to the cabin without a problem. No warning shots, no warning shouts. I walked up to the door and knocked on it, waited, listened.

There were no sounds at all. I tried the knob. It wasn’t locked. I opened the door and looked around. There wasn’t much in my field of view, so I took a step inside, and relaxed, even if only a little bit. There was just one door, no doubt the bathroom, and not much furniture. A bed, a table, two chairs, a dresser. I checked out the bathroom, finding it empty, and then spent twenty minutes combing over the room. It was obvious that someone had come by here though, and got the job done ahead of me. That was how it was for a lot of places now, but I made a point to search everywhere I went, if I could help it.

Because you never knew what people had missed, and you wouldn’t known until you’d searched. That was how I’d found my rifle. There was this lake house several months ago that looked painfully obvious, I’d almost ignored it. But I’d made myself search it, because I had the time, and although the living room was obviously ransacked, it seems that everyone else who had come here had done the same thing I’d almost done: either ignored it completely, or taken one look at the living room and figured it was a lost cause and left.

But there had been some good stuff stored in the rest of that house.

That wasn’t the case here. I decide to press my luck and walked over to the second cabin. I went in and poked around, and finally found something up under one of the beds. A little backpack, stashed up under there. I used to hesitate to take finds like these, but now I didn’t. Besides it being a survival thing, it didn’t seem obvious that anyone had been through here recently. This looked like it had been stashed awhile ago, and there was a fine layer of dust on everything. I fished out the pack and opened it up. And hey! There was some stuff inside.

A little red and white medical box that had some bandages and generic painkillers and even a thermometer. Now that was a damned find. None of us had one of those. There was also a little flick knife, a small, half-empty box of matches, a plastic bottle of water, and a few unlabeled cans of food. Sweet! Great find as far as I was concerned. I put the backpack on and left the cabin. Briefly, I considered pressing on, feeling enlivened by my discovery, but ultimately decided against it. I was starving, and needed a break.

Not knowing your limits got you killed out here.

I’d seen it happen before.

So I started walking home.

…

“I’m home!” I called as I came in through the front door.

Lara hurried into the room and came up to me, hugging me tightly and kissing me on the mouth. I had to admit, having a woman to come home to was really brightening my life up. Especially one as horny and sexy as Lara.

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

“I did, actually,” I replied.

“Anything good?” Susan asked, coming in.

“Yes.”

I showed them the pack and the stuff inside. Lara was thrilled, Susan looked...a little happy. Man, she was kind of difficult.

After that, we made dinner, frying up some of the rabbit I’d killed and skinned yesterday and today, and we split a can of corn and some more wild onions.

As I ate and listened to Lara start telling a story about a crazy situation she and Susan had run into, I realized that I was pretty happy here. Sometimes it took me awhile to ‘settle in’, as it were, on the occasions where I decided to do so. And sometimes it just never happened. But here, with these two women, it had already happened.

This was a good place, and these were good women.

I liked it here.

CHAPTER FIVE

The next two days passed pretty similarly.

I hunted, or tried to, still finding little more than rabbits, plucking whatever wild onion and other edible plant life I found out of the ground, and I searched the other two cabins on the lake. One of them looked like it had been disturbed recently, but none of them held anything of use. I did other things, like chop firewood, and helped Susan start to clean the basement, something they’d neglected to do so far I had learned after asking about it.

There could be anything down there, among the two dresser, tables, and pile of boxes stacked in one corner. At the very least those dressers would make for good burning material. I noticed a change in Susan over those two days. She became less cold towards me, started being nicer, friendlier. It was a welcome change. I did whatever I could to facilitate it. Although she was still frustrated each morning, after listening to Lara and I fuck like rabbits. She was probably sexually frustrated, which helped stack the odds in my favor for her putting out.

I was still thinking a lot about her.

While Lara was more traditionally sexy: curvy, demure, with great hair, Susan was something else. She was sexy in the way that tough, confident women were. Something about her grim certainty and slim build and take-no-bullshit attitude, made me want to...heh, well, conquer her. I wanted to make her want my cock, want to suck it and ride it and take it hard. And the more time I spent around her, the more powerful it got.

Well, I got my wish near the middle of the fourth day.

Lara left to go on a walk, which I found pretty strange, but Susan was surprisingly calm about, hand-waving it away as something she just did.

“What if she runs into trouble?” I asked, and suddenly remembered the first time we’d met. Had that been one of her walks? What the hell had she been doing out there, anyway?

“She has my pistol,” Susan replied without looking up from the book she was reading. She was sitting on the couch in the living room, and looked pretty good in the sunshine.

“Why didn’t she have it last time?” I asked.

“When you first met? Well, she had a knife, and we’ve got you and your rifle now. I was a lot more worried about her then, but she’s got the pistol now, and she’s less dumb that she seems, and a decent shot now.”

“...all right,” I replied, and walked over to the window. Something seemed odd about it. Lara had been a little evasive when she’d wanted to go out there, and it made me wonder if she was hooking up with someone else. I wouldn’t put it past her. Well, we’d have to talk about that. I realized that I hadn’t actually laid down an exclusivity clause in our ‘arrangement’, such as it was, but I thought it was a decently fair thing to ask for.

Or, at the very least, we needed all our cards on the table.

“God-fucking-dammit,” Susan suddenly snapped, tossing her paperback down onto the couch and looked over at me.

“What’s wrong now?” I asked, turning to face her, crossing my arm.

She bounded up off the couch and jabbed a finger at me. “You!” she said, suddenly venomous. “We were here, together, and fine, and everything was quiet, and you show up and start fucking her and I’m...jealous! Okay! I’m fucking jealous you fucking asshole! Do you know how long it’s fucking been since I’ve gotten fucking laid! And you’re there, fucking her all night every now, and I’m not getting fucking shit!” she screamed.

I stared back at her with wide eyes, surprised by her outburst. She seemed pretty in control of herself normally. Even with only a few days around her, I’d been able to pick that up. Reading people was a very important skill to develop if you wanted to stay alive. So this must be really bugging her for her to act like this.

“Well fucking say something!” she snapped, breathing heavily, looking pissed.

“I mean...we could fuck, if you wanted,” I replied finally.

She heaved a huge sigh. “I couldn’t do that to Lara. I’ve never fucking tried to steal anyone from her. Much fucking good it’d do me, like I could fucking steal anyone from her.”

“Lara said she’s okay with you and me fucking,” I said, already feeling an erection stirring.

“Wait, seriously?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why did it even come up?”

“Well, I mean, I wanted to fuck you, too, Susan. Obviously.”

“Oh, obviously? Like you aren’t obviously into her way more.”

“Listen, I’m offering to have sex with you, Susan. Do you want to or not?” I asked.

She stared at me, seemingly like she was caught between angry and horny, and finally sighed again. “Yes! Fuck! But I swear to fucking God if you’re lying to me-”

“Oh come on, like there’s any way that could possibly work, like the two of you aren’t going to talk to each other.”

“It’d work if you were planning on leaving really soon and just wanted to get pussy from me,” she said.

“I guess so, but I don’t want to leave. I actually do like it here,” I replied.

“Well, lucky for you, I actually fucking believe you.”

“Why are you so angry?” I asked.

“Because the last time few times I’ve actually hooked up with a guy it’s gone to shit really fast and I don’t want to face that again and I’m angry that I’m admitting all this stupid shit to you and that it’s so fucking easy for Lara to get boyfriends, even during the goddamned fucking apocalypse apparently!”

“Okay, okay, relax. Or, I guess, don’t. Angry sex is better,” I said.

“Ugh! Just fuck me!” she shouted, then walked rapidly out of the room.

Well, I was at full salute and ready to fuck, so I marched out after her. I followed her to her bedroom, and as soon as we were inside, she turned around and jumped on me. Literally. I caught her and held her easily enough, given she couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds maybe, and she angrily, almost furiously, pressed her lips to mine. I started making out with her, wrapping her tongues together as she tried to stuff hers down my throat, and I grabbed her ass. She had a nice, toned ass, damn.

And she was a fierce kisser. I could imagine she was going to be fucking crazy in the sack.

Speaking of which…

After another minute of impassioned making out, I walked her over to the bed and then bodily threw her onto it. I loved that about petite chicks, you could throw them around. And most of them seemed to like it.

She landed on her back and, gritting her teeth, she stared up at me.

“I expect as hard a fuck as you gave Lara,” she said.

“Get your clothes off,” I replied, pulling my shirt up and off.

She responded by doing the same, quickly stripping off her clothes. Soon, the two of us were naked. She looked really fucking good. She had that awesome kind of kickass, tight body, nice and slim and fit, like a dancer or a swimmer, lean and beautiful. Nice firm tits, b-cups and sweet, sexy little pink nipples.

“Goddamn, she wasn’t just stroking your ego,” Susan muttered as she looked at me. “You do have a big fucking dick.”

“It’s going to make you scream,” I replied as I climbed onto the bed.

She smirked at me suddenly. “Yeah, we’ll see.”

“Oh, challenge fucking accept,” I said, and got partially on top of her, holding myself. I resumed kissing her, and then pushed a finger into her pussy. She moaned and arched her back, bucking her hips involuntarily as I started finger-fucking her, pressing hard up into her g-spot. She moaned loudly into the kiss.

“Fucker!” she snapped, moaning and twisting.

“You like it, you little slut, don’t pretend.”

“Uhn! Fuck! Shut up!” she replied.

I grinned and fingered her harder.

“Ah! Fuck! Dammit!”

She seemed to be having a hard time controlling herself. I kept going as we resumed twisting tongues, fingering her good and hard, getting the engine running, so to speak. She was going to be fucking tight and I wanted her properly lubricated. Skinny, petite chicks were always insanely tight. Then I pulled out and went to town on her clit. That did it. Maybe twenty seconds later of her bucking and crying out, she popped and came, and she looked so fucking hot when she orgasmed. Her nice firm tits jiggled beautifully as she twitched and came on her firm inner thighs, making a mess of herself. When she was done, she flopped onto her back, gasping.

“And now, I fuck you,” I said.

“Wait,” she gasped as I got in between her thighs.

“What?”

“I don’t want to get pregnant.”

“I’m fixed. You didn’t overhear that?” I replied.

“No, I didn’t. You really are? You aren’t just bullshitting. Cause I know Lara’s fixed...”

“No really, I am. I had the surgery and everything. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

She stared up at me for a few seconds, then opened her legs. “Fuck away.”

I put my cock right at her pussy and began working my way inside of her.

“Oh my fucking God-oh fuck! That’s big!” she moaned as I penetrated her.

“Fuck, Susan, you are so fucking tight!” I groaned, working my slowly into her.

“Oh shit, don’t fucking hold back. Don’t do you dare.”

“I won’t.”

Once I was comfortably in, I gave her the fuck of her life. I rested my hands on her shoulders, holding her down, pressing her into the mattress, and pounded the fuck out of her pussy. She began shrieking right away, screaming at the top of her lungs, and it felt like my cock had been completely lit up with complete and total saturated goddamned pleasure. This was the tightest fucking pussy I think I’ve ever fucked in my life.

Susan was an amazing screw.

And her fucking voice. She had this kind of smoky voice that helped her seem more adult, more serious, it had this kind of unique texture to it. And I’d had a hunch that it would sound really fucking hot screaming in sexual bliss, and I was right. Oh was I ever right. I was fucking her into incoherence, into goddamned oblivion.

“Fuckmefuckmefuckmefuckme!” she cried, stumbling over her words. “OH MY GOD FUCK ME, CHRIS! FUCK ME SO HARD!”

I made her come three more times, driving into her and drilling her and screwing her and just fucking destroying her pussy.

When it was my turn, it felt like I came for half an hour.

I drained my fucking cock into her, just fucking filled her up with my come. I came so much inside of her, it felt amazing. I was on my knees, grabbing her slim hips and pulling her hard against me, shoving my dick as deep into her as I could as I filled her up.

“Oh my God, I can feel it!” she moaned. “There’s so much! Fuck you better not be lying or I’m going to get so pregnant...”

I couldn’t say anything because I was in the grips of my orgasm.

I liked hearing that though.

Eventually, I finished up, and I carefully pulled out of her.

“Fuck, go get me a washrag from the bathroom,” she said.

I got up, figuring she had a point, and did so, even taking the tip to dip in the lukewarm water from this morning’s cleanup water. Not the cleanest water, but hey, I imagined it was easier to clean with a wet rag than a dry one.

I gave it to her and she began cleaning herself up.

“Goddamn,” she muttered as I got back in bed with her and laid down. “No fucking wonder she’s screaming her head off all the time.”

“I don’t think I’ve fucked her that hard yet,” I replied.

“Seriously? Fuck, man, that hurt. My throat’s gonna be raw. Fuck.” She finished up and tossed the rag aside, then re-situated herself, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. We laid there for awhile longer, just relaxing after that epic fuck session.

I was feeling pretty great.

“That was brave,” I said finally.

“What?” she asked.

“What you said to me, before we had sex. Admitting you were jealous. That you wanted to have sex with me. That was brave.”

“Thanks,” she muttered. “But it was less brave, more...frustrated and pent up anger.” She paused. “Is Lara hotter than me?”

I hesitated. “Do you want the truth?”

“Well that’s a yes,” she growled.

I sighed. “Susan...it’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it? It sure seemed to be before. Everyone wanted to fuck the party girl with the big tits and the fat ass and the photogenic face, and no one wants to fuck the skinny little bitch with bad hair and acne.”

“Your hair isn’t bad, it’s pretty. And your face seems pretty clear, not that acne would affect it that much,” I replied.

“Oh whatever, don’t bullshit me.”

“I’m not,” I said, rolling over. “I mean, okay, yeah, traditionally speaking, Lara’s more attractive. But that’s just one fucking metric. I think you’re smarter than her, probably braver, you seem like you have your shit together more.”

“I did. What did it count for? I’d work my ass off to make something happen, and shit just fell into Lara’s lap. She never had to fucking try, everything was handed to her. I mean yeah, she was nice, she helped me, did nice things for me. She wasn’t mean to me, I wouldn’t be friends with her if she was, but...it’s not fucking fair.”

“It rarely is,” I murmured. “Susan...you’re really attractive in your own ways. And I know that sounds like some fucking BS line people feed each other when they think they’re ugly but don’t want to say that, but it’s true. I mean, obviously I’m really attracted to you. Even just from a pure physical standpoint, you have a fantastic body.”

“I’d like to think so, but fuck, man, Lara’s got such amazing tits...”

“So do you! Guys like different things. Some guys go for heavier women, some guys go for tight, petite, little skinny chicks like you, some guys obsess over redheads, some only go after girls with heavy tans.”

“Sucks to be them now,” she muttered.

I laughed. “Yeah. But, Susan, you’re attractive, on more than one level. Like seriously, you’re wicked hot. I really want to keep fucking you.”

“Oh do you now?” she asked.

“Obviously.”

She sighed again. “Goddamnit. I was telling myself this was going to be one time thing, but...”

“But you can’t get enough of this dick?” I asked, shifting so she could see it better.

“Goddamnit, yes!” she snapped. “Ugh, you smug fuck.”

“I spent a long time feeling like shit before all this went down,” I replied, “I’m tired of not feeling confident. So I’ve decided to.”

“Annoyingly, it suits you,” she muttered. “So yes, Chris, I’m already thinking about riding your big fucking dick all night long, because I love sex so much, and it’s been so long since I’ve gotten fucked, and you actually seem like a decent guy, maybe a little full of yourself, and I’m tired of denying myself things. What’s the fucking point of survival if you aren’t enjoying yourself at least a little.”

“Good,” I said. “I want to have sex with you and Lara in this bed tonight.”

“Oh, do you?” she asked.

“Yeah. I think it’s a fair thing to ask. I’m pulling my own weight.”

“Yeah, you fucking are,” she muttered. “Fine, whatever, you can fuck both of us in here tonight. Like a back and forth kinda thing?”

“Yeah. Although I want to see you two making out.”

“Fine, whatever. I’ve done it before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’d get drunk sometimes on birthdays or holidays and make out with girls. They’ve got really nice lips and it was fun being the center of attention. I’ve done it with Lara a few times. Plus, like, goddamn she has amazing tits. It’s easy to grope her tits when we’re making out. It’s been a long time though...”

“Well, tonight’s your night for that then,” I said, already thinking about watching the two beautiful women locking lips. I stretched, then got up.

“Where’re you going?” she asked.

“Gonna go hunting again. I saw a deer out there a few days ago. If I can bag it, that’d be like half a week of food for all three of us.”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Okay. Good luck.” She sat up as I started getting dressed. “Damn, you have a hot ass.”

“So do you,” I replied.

As soon as I was dressed, I walked out, feeling pretty great.

CHAPTER SIX

I didn’t catch the door, but I killed a wolf and a pheasant, so that was nice.

Lara showed back up while I was in the middle of cleaning my kills. I heard her talking with Susan upstairs and wondered how that conversation was going to go. But there was no shouting, no slamming of doors, so presumably all was going well. I was pretty positive nothing bad would happen, but hey, I’d seen people blow up at stuff they knew damn well was going to happen. People were weird sometimes.

But Lara and Susan seemed pretty reasonable.

After I finished my bloody work in the basement, I went upstairs and found both ladies sitting on the couch, talking animatedly.

“What are you two talking about?” I asked, coming in.

“Your dick,” Lara replied.

“Hopefully good things.”

“Duh,” Susan said, rolling her eyes. I noticed she was a lot more relaxed now. Well, getting laid tended to do that to people. I know I was feeling better than I had all month long since hooking up with Lara, and now Susan.

Seriously, Susan was a great fuck.

“Okay,” she said, getting up, “I’m going to go get some firewood, seeing as it’s my turn. Why don’t you two get to work on dinner?”

“All right,” I replied, looking at Lara. She looked anxious suddenly. Maybe she knew I was going to ask where she’d been.

Susan walked out of the room, and I walked into the kitchen. Lara followed me. As we got to work preparing the meat and getting the fire in the stove started, I glanced at her.

“So, I was curious Lara, where’d you go?” I asked.

“I, uh, went on a walk,” she replied, and she was blushing fiercely. Man, she was awful at lying. I just waited. She sighed. “Fuck,” she muttered. “So...I’ve been seeing someone. On the side. I don’t know if Susan might’ve told you, but there’s other people living at a campground a little ways from here, and the guy in charge, well...”

“You’re seeing him?” I asked. “Susan called him a douche-bag.”

“Oh God no,” she replied immediately, disgust obvious in her voice. “No, I’m not seeing him. I wouldn’t fuck him if my life depended on it. No, I’m seeing his wife.”

“Oh. Wow,” I murmured.

“Susan...would not approve,” Lara said quietly.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. She’s not a fan of cheating. I’ve thought about telling her though, because she really fucking hates the guy. Like a lot. God, I think she’d almost get off on the fact that I was doing this guy’s wife behind his back...”

“So you’ve been hooking up with her in secret?”

“Yeah. It started with her coming to visit. She said she had some supplies she wanted to show me, and since we weren’t comfortable with leaving the house unguarded, Susan agreed to let me go alone, though she gave me the pistol. I was nervous, but honestly, Jessica’s a good person. I trusted her, and I’m glad I did. She took me to a cabin, and there was supplies there, some food, but she...came onto me. And admitted she’d never, you know, been with a girl, even though she wanted to. So we became illicit lovers. We meet every three days or so.”

“That’s where you were coming from when I saved your ass.”

“Yeah...are you mad? Do you want me to stop?” she asked. Before I could even answer, she pressed on. “I bet I could get her to fuck you!”

“I don’t...seriously? What’s she like?”

“She’s so fucking hot. Like, way hotter than me or Susan.”

“I don’t know, you and Susan are really hot.”

“No, you don’t get it. She was like a model for awhile. She’s redheaded and she’s in just amazing shape. She’s tall and got these perfect tits and like sculpted thighs. Well, not as much now. She’s lost weight recently, but she’s still so fucking hot. And the things she can do with her mouth. Trust me, she would be the most amazing fuck. And, well, I don’t know how you feel about cheating, but...I mean, I feel bad, but, um...on the other hand, the guy is a douche. So I kind of get off on it.”

“Why’s she still with him then?”

“It’s complicated. I don’t really ask because clearly she’s got issues with the whole thing.” She sighed. “So do you want to? God, to have a fucking threesome with the two of you, you’re both so fucking hot...”

“I think I’d like that,” I said, thinking about it.

I’m not totally proud to admit it, but I’d helped women cheat before. I did always try to make it a point to only do it to assholes who deserved it, but it was hard to be sure all the time.

“Okay, sweet. Next time we meet up, I’ll convince her to come here and we’ll see what we can do.” She paused, then smirked. “So...Susan tells me you fucking annihilated her vagina.”

“Is that how she put it?”

“Yeah, her exact words. She said she’s shocked I didn’t hear her screaming her brains out. Did she really come five times?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Something like that.”

“Tell me you talked her into fucking me...please?” she begged, grabbing my shirt.

“I talked her into making out with you, and having sex with both of you in the same bed tonight,” I replied.

“Well...that’s a great start,” she replied, seeming surprised.

“Oh yes it is, I’m really looking forward to it.”

I kissed her on the lips, she seemed pleasantly startled and pleased by the move, and kissed me back happily. We were still making out, twisting tongues together with her up against the nearest wall, when Susan returned.

“Oh my fuck, you two. You’ve barely even started dinner,” she said.

“Sorry. We got distracted,” I replied, and Lara giggled.

“Get undistracted. I’m starving.”

“Okay, okay,” Lara murmured, and we got back to work.

…

We made and ate dinner, talking more animated than we had since I’d showed up and met these two beautiful women. Despite that, there was definitely an undercurrent of tension. From the way Lara kept looking at Susan, and how Susan kept sneaking occasional glances at Lara, (Susan was a lot more subtle about it), I figured they were thinking about the same thing I was. Sex, tonight, all three of us nude and kissing and fucking in one bed.

It had actually been a long time since I’d had a threesome.

Too long in my book. It was time to fix that.

Dinner wound down, then conversation wound down not long after cleanup. Night came prematurely, as a storm that had been brewing all day long finally blew in. And it was a bad one, a blizzard. The winds shrieked like crazy all around the house, which groaned and creaked. I took it as a good omen, in a way. Bad weather made people more prone and even eager to cuddle up to you in the night. It definitely helped facilitate closeness, and passionate lovemaking.

It was full dark before long, and I took the opportunity to double check the house, make sure everything was secure. You could never be too careful, although it was pretty unlikely that anyone would be trying to break in tonight. You’d think that would mean that it’d be more likely for someone to break in if I was thinking that, because it was a ‘letting your guard down’ mentality, except for two things.

I never really let my guard down entirely anymore.

And blizzards were dangerous, no matter who you were. Sure, you might get lucky and catch someone off guard...if you could find your way to their place. But you were far more likely to get lost and freeze to death.

It had happened a lot.

So, in the end, all three of us ended up in Susan’s bedroom after I got a fire going in the fireplace that should last all night.

And then, finally, I joined the ladies in the master bedroom.

“We are secure,” I said.

They were already in the process of cleaning up. Well, Lara was. She was butt naked and washing herself off. Susan had stripped down to her bra and panties, and was eyeing Lara a little angrily.

“I hate how comfortable you are naked,” she muttered, fidgeting with her bra.

“What? Why?” Lara replied.

“It’s...not natural. It’s irritating. I hate getting naked.”

“Why!?” Lara cried. “You’ve got an amazing body. You look so good naked.”

“You’ve only seen me naked like two times. That one time I got really drunk and agreed to get naked along with everyone else at that party, and the time we got talked into skinny dipping.”

“Exactly! You look basically the same! As in: amazing! Seriously, you’ve got such a great body, Susan. I don’t know what you’re worried about.”

“She has a point,” I agreed as I started taking my clothes off. “You sure didn’t hesitate when we were fucking.”

“That was different! I was...angry! Caught up in the moment,” Susan replied.

“Why were you angry?” Lara asked.

I looked at Susan. She was blushing now. She sighed. “I had to listen to you two fuck for like three days,” she replied.

“If you wanted cock, why didn’t you just ask? Hell, you could’ve asked the first night and gotten laid,” Lara said.

“Goddamnit, Lara, I didn’t know that! I thought you’d...gotten dibs on him.”

“Have I ever refused to share?” she asked suddenly.

“Have you ever shared?” Susan shot back.

Lara opened her mouth, then closed it, thinking back.

“Ugh, whatever,” Susan muttered, and took her bra off. Then her panties. She grabbed a washcloth, dunked it in the pot of melted snow, and started washing herself off.

“I guess...not,” she murmured. “We never shared guys before?”

“No, we haven’t. Why would we?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“Because why would they want to fuck me when they’re already fucking you?” Susan replied.

“I mean...because you’re hot?” Lara asked.

Susan sighed heavily and scrubbed at herself vigorously. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. We’re both having sex with a hot guy.”

Lara grinned. “Yeah, and I get to see you naked again.”

“Do you want to?” Susan asked, glancing up.

“Duh. Why wouldn’t I? I just said like three times that you’re hot. I’m not just bullshitting you or anything.”

“Oh,” she murmured.

“You are hot,” I said, wondering how far Lara would try to take this. I had to admit, I wanted to see them go all the way. The thought of one of them going down on the other was already getting me hard as fucking steel.

“Fuck, that wind,” Susan muttered after a bit longer.

“It’s a bad storm, and perfect night to be doing this,” I replied.

“Yes! We’ll be all together, and warm, and comfy,” Lara said.

“And fucked,” Susan muttered. Lara giggled.

“We all will be fucked,” I agreed. “Now hurry up, get in bed.”

“Yes, sir,” Lara murmured. I thought Susan would have something to say, but she didn’t. I was getting the impression there was some part of her that liked being bossed around. Maybe I was wrong, but I didn’t think I was. If she was into it, she’d hide it hard. It really cut against her ‘take-no-BS, I’m-in-charge’ persona.

I finished drying off and climbed into bed with them.

This was going to be one fantastic fuck.

“Kiss, you two,” I said, partially because I wanted to see it, but also because I didn’t want to make Lara wait any longer. She was fidgeting and clearly excited to get started. Susan turned to face her, looking a little awkward and uncertain. Would this be the first time she’d ever kissed a girl without alcohol in her system? Could be.

Lara, however, didn’t hesitate at all. She leaned in and planted a big, wet kiss right on Susan’s lips the moment they were available. Susan looked briefly startled, then slowly closed her eyes and moaned softly as she started to make out with her best friend. They looked so fucking sexy together, the image of both women coming together, kissing, the way Lara ran her hand up Susan’s stomach and torso, resting on her breast, so absurdly erotic. Susan gasped as Lara drew a circle around her nipple with her fingertip.

I decided it was time to get in on it and began to crawl along Susan, kissing up her smooth, pale body, starting on her thighs, then up across her lower belly, and she shuddered each time my lips made contact with her soft skin. Finally I got to one of her breasts and began licking her pink nipple. She moaned loudly.

“Oh fuck,” she whispered. “God, it’s been too long since I’ve done anything like this.”

“We fucked not that long ago,” I replied, then switched over to her other nipple, kissed it, and began to suck on it.

She cried out. “No, I mean-ah!-that was fast and crazy. This is, oh...fuuuuck yes...this is slow, and sensual, and just...oh God, Lara, what are you doing?” she whispered.

Lara was reaching down between us. Her fingers brushed against my cock, then settled in between Susan’s trim thighs.

“I think you know,” Lara replied with a grin, and resumed kissing her as she started to finger her. Susan cried out loudly.

“Oh, Lara!” she cried.

Before long, I started making out with Susan. I laid down on her other side, then reached over and began to grope Lara’s big, firm tits. Susan writhed and wriggled between us, moaning and panting as Lara continued fingering her.

“Susan?” Lara asked.

“Yeah?” she asked breathlessly.

“Will you suck on my tits?”

“I...yeah. Yes. I will,” she murmured.

We stopped kissing and rearranged ourselves. It was nice that Susan’s bed was bigger, a queen size. Not precisely ideal for a threesome, but adequate. Lara took the center spot and we began to kiss passionately as Susan half laid on her, staring at her big tits for a few seconds.

“God, Lara, you still have the most amazing boobs,” she whispered.

“Thank you,” Lara replied between kisses.

“I guess, if I’m being honest, I have always wanted to do this...”

She stuck her tongue out and began to lick across one of Lara’s nipples. She make a high-pitched sound and shuddered, and we kept kissing as Susan went to work. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Susan first licked Lara’s nipple several times, then put her lips around it and began sucking on her huge breast.

“Oh yes Susan,” she whispered, putting her hand on the back of Susan’s head.

We kept kissing for awhile longer, and then I decided it was time to get to the next part. One I was particularly looking forward to.

“Okay ladies,” I said, and they both looked at me, Susan with Lara’s other nipple in her mouth now, “I want both you licking my cock.”

“Oh yes sir,” Lara murmured demurely.

“Okay,” Susan replied.

We moved around again, me laying in the middle now on my back, and both of them got down lower in the bed. Lara looked pretty comfortable, but Susan looked surprisingly awkward. “You doing okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” she replied. “It’s just been awhile since I’ve done a threesome.” She grinned suddenly. “Don’t worry, I’m having fun.”

“Good.”

Both of them stuck their tongues out. Lara gripped my cock around the base of the shaft, holding it upright, and they both leaned in and began licking. I let out a groan. That felt fucking great. They both were breathing heavily as they started to drag their tongues across the head. Pure bliss. Fuck, it really helped me forget all the shit that had been happening before meeting them, the winds shrieking around the house, the looming extinction of our race. Right now, there was just me and these two beautiful, naked women licking my cock.

And that was fine.

After a bit, Lara took it into her mouth and started bobbing her head. That girl could really suck dick. That pure good feeling radiated into me as her lips slipped up and down my shaft over and over again, her head going up and down, lips slowing to give that extra burst of stimulation to the head. After a bit, she took it out of her mouth and passed it to Susan, who got to work. She wasn’t as good at sucking cock, I discovered, but whatever, I was more than happy to watch her do it. There was a different kind of gratification from having Susan give me head. With Lara, there came the kind of satisfaction that went hand-in-hand with having a really hot, submissive chick drop to her knees and suck you off.

Granted, that was a kind of satisfaction I hadn’t become really familiar with until after the apocalypse, but better late than never. With women like Susan, it was different. Like I remembered thinking earlier, it almost felt like conquering her a little bit. I’m not sure how to feel like that, but hey, I was thinking it, not saying it, so did it matter? There was definitely something satisfying about having a tough, no-bullshit chick suck you off.

Maybe that was messed up, but what the fuck wasn’t nowadays?

Susan sucked my dick for a bit longer, and then passed it back to Lara. They went back and forth like that until the time for sex came.

“All right, ladies, on your backs.”

I got up and they laid down beside each other. I looked at both of them, laying there, nude and blushing with messy hair and wide, excited eyes. They looked absolutely incredible. I looked at Susan. “Spread your legs.”

“Okay,” she replied, doing exactly that, showing her sexy pussy.

“Can we have the blanket?” she asked. “I’m actually freezing.”

“Yeah,” I replied, because it was pretty cold in the room.

I pulled the blanket up over me as I laid down on top of her. As I settled between her legs, it suddenly felt very intimate, and I realized at least part of the reason why: one of the candles we’d lit had gone out.

“Oh, I can relight it,” Lara said, noticing it too.

“No, leave it,” I replied. “Better mood lighting like this.”

Lara giggled. I began kissing Susan as I worked my way into tight pussy. Fuck, that girl had a tight pussy! She moaned loudly as I slid into her, and it felt so goddamned good to get in there. Soon, we were making love beneath the heavy blankets, my forehead resting against hers, her panting, staring into my eyes as we had sex. She reached up and grabbed my back, holding me closer against her slim, petite body.

She kissed me on the mouth, slipping her tongue in, and I kissed back, loving the feel of her. There was something about sex with her and Lara. It was easy to sync our movements, and that wasn’t always the case. There was a connection there, and it made the sex better. A lot of women wouldn’t look me in the eye when we fucked, often asking for doggystyle, and I guess I could understand why. It was too easy to die out here, and no one felt like getting too attached. I’d gone through that phase hardcore after losing the first girl I’d ever really, seriously hooked up with after the snow started to fall. But now…

Fuck, I don’t know.

I wasn’t realizing it until just now, but I missed that connection. I missed it bad. And apparently Susan and Lara were both willing to have it with me, both wanted it, whether consciously or subconsciously.

After another minute or so, I pulled out of her, and she gasped softly. I moved over to Lara, who eagerly accepted me into her pussy, and we began passionately making out as we fucked. She moaned loudly as I screwed her pussy, feeling all that hot, wet perfection. I groped her big breasts and she wrapped her legs around my midsection beneath the blankets, crying out as she pulled me against her and pushed up with her hips, forcing my cock deeper into her.

I had to admit, the act of fucking two different women in the same bed was probably the best thing I’d ever felt or experience in my life. It was an almost overwhelmingly amazing experience. And I was going to come inside of both of them.

I switched back to Susan after a bit, and she cried out as I reentered here. We made love once more, kissing, touching, embracing in the near-darkness beneath the heavy blankets of a house in the midst of a shrieking blizzard. The winds roared madly around us, the house groaning and creaking, and it felt so good to be here, in bed, warm, kissing and touching and fucking these women. I kept going, screwing her harder and faster, and then she popped. She let out a loud cry as her hips bucked and she began to squirt.

“Oh yes, Chris! Fuck! YES!”

“Oh my God, this is so hot,” Lara whispered.

“Yes...it...is!” I groaned, fucking pounding that orgasming pussy of hers, and then I popped off and started blasting off into her vagina. She moaned louder as we came together. I came so hard inside of her, feeling her pussy convulsing, massaging my cock, blasting me with pleasure. It was like a drug. When I had finished coming in her, I pulled out and then moved back over to Lara. As we resumed making love, Susan groaned.

“How do you fucking come so much?” she complained as she got up.

“Dunno,” I panted, preparing for a second orgasm. I wanted really bad to come in both of them, it was be the perfect end to the night.

“Yes...yes...yes...” Lara panted, moaning. “Oh fuck, your dick feels so good. I...love it!” Lara screamed, and then it was her turn to start coming.

I pounded her pussy as she orgasmed, and made her scream her head off. It was so hot and felt so fucking good that it surprisingly didn’t take me much time to start busting a second load into her pussy. I grunted, hips jerking automatically as my dick started to twitch and spit my seed into her, it getting forced deeper each time.

“Yes, Chris! Yes! FUCKING YES!” she screamed incoherently.

I moaned loudly, gripping her tightly against him, feeling her huge bare tits pressing against my chest as we embraced and came together.

When I was finished this time, I was on the verge of passing out.

Susan climbed back into bed, and I curled up against her back, holding her to her, and she made a content sound and settled against me. There was something great about spooning a chick noticeably smaller than you, and she seemed to enjoy the coupling a lot too.

“Don’t let go,” she whispered, touching my arm.

“Okay, Susan,” I said, and kissed the back of her head.

Lara climbed back into bed after washing up and got against my back. She snuggled up closer to me, and I heard her whisper, “We’re yours now.”

“Oh are we?” Susan asked, then yawned.

“Yeah...I think we are. That means you have to take care of us.” Susan sighed. “Oh come off it, Susan. Aren’t you fucking tired of being so goddamned strong all the time? Worrying about all this annoying shit all the time?”

“I am actually, I’m just scared to rely on someone that much...and I’m definitely too tired to argue about this shit.”

“I’ll take care of you,” I said, realizing it was true as I said it.

I wasn’t sure if I had made the decision, or if something inside me had made it for me, but it was true. I would. I’d stay here, and be with them, and help them.

“Will you?” Susan asked in a small voice after several seconds.

“I will,” I said. “I promise. I’ll take care of you two.”

Another pause, then she pressed herself tighter to me. “Okay,” she whispered.

I squeezed her a little closer, and Lara put her arm around both of us, and I touched the back of her hand.

“You’ll take care of us,” she said in a tired voice, “and we’ll take care of you.”

My last thought before falling asleep was: That sounds like a good arrangement.

A WARM PLACE 2

CHAPTER ONE

Something was bugging Susan.

I didn’t know what, only that it was becoming more obvious as the day went on. Right now, I was studying the map, but I tried to think back and figure out if I’d done anything to piss her off. Our first (and so far only) threesome had taken place about two days ago. After that night together, she’d been a little off, a little awkward, but with how relaxed Lara and I were, it seemed to signal to her that she didn’t need to feel weird about it.

Susan struck me as the kind of person who might kind of preemptively feel weird, like she was anticipating that we might be feeling uncomfortable or even regretful about what had happened, and she was gearing up for it, preparing herself for the bad things to come. But they didn’t come. Maybe it was because Lara was more touchy-feely with her. She was giving her more hugs, and I’d seen her give Susan a should rub three times so far, and little kisses on the cheek. I’d seen them holding hands at one point.

Susan seemed unsure of how to handle it, but she didn’t seem to dislike it. I think she liked it, and she didn’t know how to handle the fact that she liked it. I couldn’t help but smile a little at the thought of it. She was getting girl curious. But that wasn’t it, I didn’t think. I mean, with how she was acting towards me.

So what was it?

That first day had gone pretty smoothly, I thought. I got up and spent the whole day checking out the house. Mainly I just wanted to make sure it was secure, and also check for holes or breaks anywhere around the windows or doors. Anything to help keep heating in. It seemed pretty sturdy, but it’d be nice if we could get more use out of that fireplace. After doing that for several solid hours, I took the two ladies into the basement and we began sorting through it all. For the most part, we didn’t find much that was super useful, like I’d expected.

Mostly we found clothes, and Susan was thrilled to find a box of paperbacks, and the dresser down there would make good emergency firewood. But it felt nice to be productive, and we cleaned and organized the place, and I spent a little while cleaning up the skinning station, given that I was going to be using it a lot more.

The next day had been spent hunting. Just hunting. It was almost a waste. In the end, I finally managed to track that goddamned deer down, killed it, and dragged its carcass back to the house. I skinned, cleaned, and prepared it, and we ate good venison that night. That was yesterday. Today I’d done some more work around the house, poking through every little nook and cranny, looking for anything that might have gone unnoticed so far. I hadn’t managed to find anything, and finally resigned myself to studying the map.

There were places I wanted to go and search for supplies.

I got restless if I didn’t feel productive.

There were still those other two cabins up by the lake, a lake house on the eastern shore opposite them, three abandoned houses, and four cabins. And, of course, the resort or campground or whatever the hell it was where the group of people were staying. I needed more information about them, because all I knew so far was that the guy in charge was a douche-bag, the chick he was married to was a smoking hot redhead who was cheating on him with Lara, and she had a teen daughter. And that there were other people there.

In fact, I decided to ask Susan about that right now. Lara was out on another one of her walks to go hook up with that woman, I was pretty sure Jessica was her name. (That was a hot name, I don’t know why, it just was.) I’d been wanting to fuck Susan all day, but I’d been too busy doing other things. Maybe now was a good time.

As I turned around, however, I saw her standing in the doorway leading to the kitchen. She was staring at me, giving me that weird, anxious little look she’d been giving me all day, like she wanted to ask me something but was too scared to.

I crossed my arms, determined to get to the bottom of this. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I...” she hesitated.

“Come on, out with it,” I said.

She sighed. “I want you to do something for me, but I’m really embarrassed to ask.”

“We’ve already had sex more than once. I mean, I’ve seen you naked and been inside you. You agreed to let me take care of you. I think this is pretty close to real trust.”

She sighed. Now it was her turn to cross her arms. “You are a blunt fuck, you know that?”

“And you aren’t?”

She growled. “Yeah, I am, I just don’t like it in other people. I mean, okay, I guess I do, just not in you, Chris.”

“Why?”

“Because...I don’t know,” she replied, throwing up her arms. For some reason, I thought she was lying, that she did know, she just couldn’t or wouldn’t vocalize it. But I decided not wasn’t the time to push that.

“Just ask me, Susan. If I’m not interested, I’ll say no and we’ll drop it. I’m not going to be difficult,” I replied.

She frowned, staring at me, scrutinizing me really, probably trying to judge whether or not I was lying. “You can’t tell Lara about this, okay? You fucking can’t. Promise me.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“No, promise me.”

“What if it pertains to her? What if it’s something she should know? You expect me to just blindly-’

“It has nothing to do with her, okay? It’s just about me and my wants and me...it’s humiliating, okay?”

I began to get a picture of where this was going. The way she was blushing fiercely, and fidgeting in that way I’d begun to recognize as her trying to control arousal, and I nodded. “Okay, I promise I will not tell Lara,” I said seriously.

“The next time we have sex, will you...” she sighed and looked away. “Will you choke me?”

“I...seriously? That’s what you’re so worked up about?”

“Don’t be a dick about this! Fuck, I knew this was a mistake,” she snapped, and turned around.

“Whoa! Susan, wait!” I said, going after her. She stopped in the middle of the kitchen, but wouldn’t turn around. “Susan, I’m not...I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be an asshole or anything, I was just honestly surprised. Yes, I will, if you want me to. I won’t tell Lara. And I don’t think it’s weird or funny or pathetic or anything. I’m just trying to understand why it’s embarrassing. Like, I’ve been with several women who like that?”

“It’s not-it just really cuts against my personality, okay?” she asked.

“Oh,” I said, suddenly getting it. “Okay, I get it.”

“What?” she asked, turning around suddenly and staring at me. Man, for such a little chick, she could actually be kind of intimidating when she wanted to be. “What do you get, Chris?”

“You’re tough. It’s, like, your persona. You’re a bad bitch. And you think it’s a massive hypocrisy that you get off on having guys choke you during sex.”

She looked like she wanted to hold onto her anger, but couldn’t. Finally she shook her head and turned back around. “Yeah,” she muttered.

I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her. She tensed briefly, but then relaxed and put her arms over mine, leaning back against me. It felt good. “Susan,” I said.

“What?” she asked.

“You can trust me.”

She sighed. She did that a lot. “I guess I do, considering what I just told you.”

“I appreciate it. I’m not going to break your trust.”

“Well, I guess I am kind of inclined to believe you, at this point. People are so basic now. I mean, you already got pussy from both of us, and nothing changed. So if that’s all you wanted, you’d be gone by now. But you’re still here, working hard to keep us safe and fed. People are too impatient or stupid to hide what they want, or if they do try, it’s pretty obvious, or even if it’s not, no one seems to play the long game anymore.” She turned around suddenly and looked up at me. “So...can we do it right now? Before Lara gets back from her date?”

“Her date?” I asked.

“I know about her and Jessica. I overheard you two talking about it.”

“I thought you were outside.”

“I was by the window, I could hear you. She’s...basically right. I don’t like cheating, but that dick deserves it. Anyway, can we fuck? Please?”

“Obviously,” I replied.

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I guess I should remember who I’m talking to. You’re so fucking horny all the time. You fucking dick Lara like nonstop, I swear.”

“Why haven’t you fucked me since that threesome?” I asked.

“I...don’t know. I guess I’ve just been processing. Plus, I mean, you keep fucking Lara. Like, I want to emphasize that. In the two and a half days since we had that session, how many times have you fucking comed inside of her?”

“Um...” I thought about it. “Seven times. Two of those were in her mouth though...”

“Exactly. When is there time for me?” she asked.

“I’m sorry. I’ll make time. Like right now,” I said, and suddenly I ducked down and swept her off her feet, into my arms.

“Oh my God!” she gasped, staring up at me. “You are fucking strong!” she whispered harshly.

“Yep,” I said, and kissed her.

Then I carried her out of the kitchen, down the hallway, into her bedroom, and threw her onto the bed. “Get your fucking clothes off,” I said, taking off my shirt.

“I, um...yes, sir,” she murmured, then grinned. “That sounded less stupid than I thought it would.”

“What?” I replied, getting naked.

“That ‘yes sir’. Lara always says it so fucking smoothly. She sounds like a fucking whore in a porn video, you know? I thought it would sound fucking dumb coming from me.”

“You should say it more often,” I replied.

“Oh should I? You just want me to be submissive to you.”

“Duh. I thought I was kind of clear that I was into that?”

She snorted. “Fair enough. You’re super lucky I’m into being submissive...kind of. I guess you’re more lucky with Lara. She seems to really get off on being submissive.”

“Oh yes she does,” I murmured and climbed onto the bed.

Susan looked really good naked. I tried to get that across to her. I mean yeah, generally I preferred girls like Lara: bigger tits, fatter ass, those thick thighs. But that wasn’t like everything to me, Susan was super hot too. I loved her trim, tight, petite body, her slim muscles and how she often wore that serious expression and the scar I’d found on her shoulder that I still hadn’t asked her about. I leaned in and started to kiss her, and felt her whole body respond to it. I’d gotten good at reading women physically during intimate encounters. I could tell when they weren’t super into it, or when they were really anxious, or when they were lazy lovers, or when they were a little desperate to please. Obviously, I loved it most when they were super into it.

And Susan was super into it.

Even if she might try to play off that she wasn’t, her body betrayed her. I reached down, holding myself up with my other arm, and began fingering her. She moaned loudly as I slid a finger into her, then started fucking her slowly with it, pushing hard into her g-spot.

“Oh my fucking-oh Chris!” she cried. “Fuck!”

“You like that, don’t you, you little slut?” I asked.

“You’re so lucky I let you-AH! FUCK!” she screamed as I started finger fucking her a lot harder and faster. “Yes! I love it! I fucking love it!”

“Good girl,” I replied, and switched to rubbing her clit. She began crying out incoherently and loudly, breaking the kiss several times as she twitched and writhed and twisted, seemingly unable to figure out what to do with herself.

I made her come in another thirty seconds.

She almost looked like she was having a goddamned seizure. As soon as she was done she gripped me tight. “Fuck me! Choke me!” she demanded.

“You got it,” I replied, and pushed her legs open. Or tried to. She squeezed them shut. I looked up at her. She grinned fiercely at me, panting, her eyes wide.

“I thought you were supposed to be strong,” she said.

I shoved my hands in between her pressed-together thighs and forced her legs open. She moaned loudly as I got between them, preventing her from closing them again, then shoved my cock into her. Holy fucking goddamn, her pussy was wet! So, so wet! And so hot! And tight! Lara was great, but Susan was tight! I fucking loved pounding petite pussy because it was so goddamned tight, especially bareback! Fuck!

I went to town on her, grabbing her shoulders and once more forcing her down into the mattress as I began screwing her brains out.

“OH MY GOD YES, CHRIS! FUCK! FUCK YES!”

“You like it!? You love my cock you little slut!?” I yelled at her.

“Yes! YES!”

“Are you a slut, Susan?!”

“I...fuck...fuck!” she cried.

“Say it!” I screamed at her, and wrapped my hands around her slim throat. “Say it!”

“I’M A FUCKING SLUT!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, and I squeezed.

She gasped and her hands went to my wrists. Being that I had a foot and probably a hundred pounds on her, a lot of it in muscle, and she was little to begin with, she couldn’t even begin to get my hands off of her. And from the look in her eyes, she fucking loved that. She gagged and twitched, and then gasped, “...harder.”

I squeezed harder, cutting off probably all of her air, and she bucked violently. I kept screwing her pussy into oblivion, really pounding the fuck out of her, and kept choking her hard. I’d choked chicks before, even before the snow started to fall I’d briefly dated a girl who was into that. And, well, I liked it. I used to be a little weirded out by the fact that I liked choking chicks, and hitting them too, some of them had had me really fuck them up during sex, but I didn’t care now. It got me off, it got them off, that was enough.

Something inside Susan twitched, then spasmed really hard, and then she was coming. Like crazy coming. She was turning red, so I let go of her, and she sucked in this big gasp of air and began shrieking her head off. If there was anyone around, they’d think someone was being murdered. She couldn’t get a single world out, and she was thrashing around like a woman possessed as she came all over my dick and my balls and thighs.

It felt incredible.

It got me coming too. I came so fucking hard into her pussy, busting the biggest nut, my balls tightening up as I started squirting into her, spraying her pussy full of my stuff. It felt so goddamned good I almost passed out. By the time I’d finished emptying my nuts into her, I was close to passing out, my vision going a little swimmy. I exhaled slow and long, and pulled out of her, and flopped over onto my side.

For awhile there, we just laid in bed and got our breaths back.

“That was almost too much,” she whispered finally. “I mean, goddamn. I just...” She swallowed and fell silent.

“Sorry if that slut thing was too much,” I said. “I just...I really wanted to hear you say it.”

“I was going to be angry at you,” she replied after a few seconds, “but I guess I’m not. I wanted to say it. I guess I’m more annoyed that I wanted to say than that you got me to say it. Like I said, it really cuts against my personality, you know?”

“I know,” I replied. “Thanks for saying it. You gonna keep saying it for me?” I asked, running a fingertip up her thigh.

She shivered. “Yes,” she said quietly.

“What are you, Susan?”

“...I’m a whore,” she said.

“Yes, you are. Who’s whore are you?”

“...yours, Chris.”

“That’s right.” I suddenly decided to push it a little farther, because this was actually turning me right the fuck back on. I rolled over. “Clean my cock with your mouth,” I said to her.

She sat up and looked at me, like she was trying to decide whether or not she was angry, and then a look of intense sexual need passed over her face. “Yes, master,” she said, and that was roughly a hundred times better than ‘sir’.

I watched her get down and take my cock, which was still a little hard and covered in our sex juices, in her pussy juices, into her mouth. I groaned loudly, instantly becoming hard again. She started sucking my cock. I don’t know why I fucking loved it so much when chicks went pussy to mouth, I really don’t, but I did.

I loved it.

She moaned as she started sucking me off and she began playing with balls, massaging them carefully in her hot hand.

“Oh fuck Susan,” I whispered. “That’s...oh wow, that’s good.”

She moaned again, louder, and kept bobbing her head, sucking me off, cleaning my whole cock with her mouth and her wonderful lips.

“I’ll make me your favorite,” she said briefly, then resumed sucking.

“You’ll have to work very hard,” I replied, putting my hand on the back of her head. I shoved my cock down her throat and she let me, taking it into her throat and swallowing several times. “Ah yes!” I groaned. “Fuck, that’s good.”

I released her. “I can work hard,” she said, and licked across the head.

I grunted and twitched. “Lara’s gonna let me pound her up the ass soon.”

“I’ll let you do that, my ass is tighter,” she murmured, and kept sucking.

“It would be...” I whispered.

She had me coming a second time within another sixty seconds. I groaned as I emptied a second load inside of her, and she took it all into her mouth, sucking my cock like a slut, draining it as it jerked and kicked in her mouth. She looked me right in the eyes the whole time. That was another thing I loved about women like Susan, the intense, more serious-minded women: when they really got in tune with their sexuality, they could crank that same intensity up to eleven in the bedroom, and it translated so fucking well.

“Swallow every last drop,” I growled at her, grabbing her head with both hands and cramming my cock down her throat.

She swallowed every last drop, sucking the whole time, and drained me totally.

I released her and fell back, panting and moaning again. “Holy fucking shit, Susan, that was incredible.”

“It’d had better of been,” she replied, working her jaw while rubbing her neck. “I’m gonna have bruises you choked me so hard, my jaw is sore, and now my throat is too, with you fucking jamming your whole goddamned huge dick down it.”

“Are you complaining?” I asked.

She bit her lower lip and looked down. “No.”

“Good. I need to wash and get out there.”

She grew serious again. “Yes, you do. We need more food.”

“You make it sound like I haven’t been busting ass hunting recently,” I replied as I got up and began washing up again. She’d made a mess on me. To be fair, I’d made a mess inside of her.

“Don’t get me wrong, you have, it’s just...food goes fast, you know? I mean, we aren’t going nuts with feasts or anything, but we aren’t exactly rationing here, Chris. And all it takes is one bad incident, one robbery, one bit of bad luck, you know?”

I sighed. I knew that all too well. “I hear you.”

She got up suddenly and walked over, put a hand on my forearm, looked up at me. “I mean it, Chris, I’m not try to say I think you’re doing a shit job. I really do appreciate what you’re doing for us. You’re really stepping up and taking care of us.”

I paused, staring at her. I didn’t try to be weird, but I’d never been particularly good at handling raw emotions like this. The apocalypse hadn’t made it any easier. “Thanks,” I said finally, putting my hand on the side of her face and rubbing her cheek gently. “You’re worth it.”

“Are we?” she asked quietly.

“I think so, and before you say it, not just because of the sex.”

“I wasn’t going to say that?”

I pursed my lips at her. “You weren’t?”

She sighed. “Okay, maybe I was. But I believe you.”

“Good. Now wash up.”

“Oh yes sir,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

I reached up and laid my hand around her throat, squeezing gently. “What was that?”

She swallowed and her gaze turned demure in an instant. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” she whispered.

“Good.” I let go.

After I’d washed up, dried off, and dressed, she said, “Don’t think I’m going to just fucking submit to you in every aspect from now on.”

“I wouldn’t dream of thinking that,” I replied.

“Uh-huh. Go hunt.”

“Oh yes ma’am,” I replied.

She grit her teeth and took a step closer to me, hesitated, then sighed, her shoulders slumping. “It doesn’t work in reverse, I guess,” she murmured.

“Not unless you had a gun or a knife, I guess.”

She laughed. “I guess so...good luck.”

“Thanks.”

I headed out.

CHAPTER TWO

It was an okay day for hunting, but Susan’s words haunted me all six hours I was out there. She was right. Although I’d been actually ‘surviving’ in this world for about eighteen months now, I’d seen so much shit. I’d seen what felt like a decade’s worth of bad situations play out. I’d seen people die because of bad luck. Because of one unexpected storm, one breakin, one accidental fire. Rats getting into the food, misplacing the food or some other crucial thing, accidentally breaking something. You had to be careful, really careful now.

Life afforded us all way fewer fuck-ups.

I guess it was why I’d gotten so used to just working my ass off, why it was easier to just go and go and go all day long. But I thought about what she had said and wondered if maybe I was letting myself get too relaxed, what with all the pussy I was now steadily receiving. Having amazing sex regularly tended to take the edge off your game. But at the same time, I had to wonder, and I’d kind of been wondering this for awhile now: was there a point in not enjoying myself. I mean, in this world, denying yourself pleasure or satisfaction or rest was often an exercise in survival. But I was beginning to wonder what was worth surviving for.

Could humans survive indefinitely in this frozen new world?

Was the whole world like this? I mean, as far as I knew it was, but fuck, it could be back to normal in like France or Australia or Japan by now, and I’d have literally no way of knowing. I mean, I’d heard rumors, but there were always rumors, weren’t there? People just wanting to believe. But even if it wasn’t stuck like this forever, how long was this ice age? Was this a true second ice age? Would it last another year? Two?

Fifty?

A thousand?

I didn’t want to just like give or go nuts or anything. The survival instinct was strong in me, even if I wasn’t always sure why I wanted to survive, but these thoughts did take up roost in my mind like unpleasant crows with bloody beaks.

But I had the same thought I always did, maybe even now more than ever: get my shit together and stay focused. Because now I had someone. Two someones. I tried not to get attached, but already I could tell that Susan and Lara were precious to me. There was a connection there, and although it wasn’t the whole reason...I mean, yeah, of course I loved having two crazy hot chicks relying on me and having sex with me all the time.

Who the hell wouldn’t?

Maybe it was kind of a primal way of thinking, dropping back into more cliched ideas of hunter-gather stuff, but hey, it was a more primal kind of time now. I wouldn’t tell either what to do, (outside of the bedroom anyway), but if they were willing to listen, I didn’t mind leading. Lara seemed okay with me leading, but Susan seemed reluctant to pass the reigns. I could appreciate it. I think part of her wanted to, because although she was clearly smart and motivated, she didn’t seem as well-suited to this world as some people were.

There.

A wolf. It was moving slowly through the woods. It hadn’t noticed me yet. It was hunting something. I tracked it for awhile, and eventually it went after a small, dark blur. Rabbit, I realized. It killed the rabbit, and then I killed it.

Time to get to it.

…

By the time I got home, Lara was back, and she was beaming.

“You are gonna love me,” she said as I brought my kills down to the basement.

“Oh yeah?” I replied. She followed me.

“I talked with Jessica again today.”

“I bet you did more than talk.”

She giggled deviously. “Yes, I did much more than talk. But anyway, she wants to meet you. In two days, she’s going to head back, and she wants you to be there. She wants to have sex with you.”

“Wow.” I set the kills down on the table and began getting the necessary tools out.

“How do you feel about it?” Lara asked, suddenly more serious. “I mean, you like want to, right?”

I considered it. I wanted to say I was on the fence about it, because of the whole cheating thing, I mean I just had their word about it, and ultimately I’d have to decide after a conversation with Jessica herself, but...well, maybe Lara, and Susan actually, were bringing out my more sexually deviant side. I kinda liked the idea of fucking some dude’s wife without him knowing. That made me a bad person, I’m pretty sure, but…

Well, I guess there were worse ways to be a bad person. And if he never found out, then technically nobody got hurt.

Shitty justification, I know.

“I want to do this,” I said.

Lara looked relieved. “Okay, good.”

“Do you...want to like watch me do this?” I asked suddenly. She seemed oddly invested in this happening.

“Well, yeah, obviously. I mean, watching two hot people fuck is awesome. And you’re both really hot. It’s like live porn. And she deserves it. To be happy, you know? I mean, I’m doing my best, and she really likes it with me, but she also really misses dick.”

“What do you mean ‘misses’ it? How is she not getting it?”

“Well...” Lara chewed on her lower lip for a second. “Confidentially, her husband hasn’t had sex with her in over a month.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. “You said she was like a fucking model, right?”

“Yeah! She still looks so good. She thinks he’s cheating on her with one of the other women there, but doesn’t want to say anything because, well...”

“She’d be a massive hypocrite.”

“Yeah, that. So, I mean, I described you to her, and your...abilities, and she figured well, she’s already cheating with me, she might as well do it with a guy, too.”

I thought about telling her that Susan knew about her cheating, and figured maybe I should just have them hash it out. Maybe I was overstepping my bounds, but based on what I’d seen so far, it kind of seemed like there was a lot they were keeping from each other. Not so much that the relationship was unsalvagable and heading for doom, but enough that it could head there eventually. They needed to be more honest with each other. When people were forced to live in close proximity to each other under stressful conditions for months at a time, secrets bred resentment, and resentment was dangerous. Neither seemed willing to be the first to open a dialogue.

If it was just the cheating thing, I probably wouldn’t have tried. But what with the other things that kept coming up...I guess I just saw no reason for this to continue, and if I could help, I should. Although I wasn’t going to just out either of them, more try to open the door. And I wouldn’t break my promise to Susan, I wouldn’t say anything about her sexual preferences. I could totally understand that. In a way, I felt bad for even thinking about doing this. Before the shit had gone down with the snow, I probably wouldn’t have.

But now? It just didn’t seem prudent to leave well enough alone sometimes.

First, however…

“I’m going to skin and clean these,” I said, indicating the rabbit and the wolf. “By the time I’m done, I want you in our bedroom, naked, ready for me to fuck you in the ass, Lara.”

“Oh, wow,” she said, grinning and beginning to blush. “Yes, sir. I’ll get right on it.”

“Good.” I gave her a kiss and a hard smack on the ass. She left me to it and I got to work.

…

I finished up as fast as I could, because I was fucking horny.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Lara’s thick ass and shoving my cock up it. Plus, it was just a great feeling, knowing she wanted it so much, was so willing to submit to me. As soon as I was done, I washed up and made for our bedroom. Susan was lying on the couch in the living room, reading by the bright white sunlight streaming in through the windows. She looked up at me as I walked by and I paused, looking back at her.

“Don’t take too long,” she said.

“Don’t worry, I won’t. I still have hunting to do today,” I replied.

“You gonna fuck me tonight?”

“Duh,” I replied.

“Will you...do the thing again? We never talked about it. Was it weird?”

“No, it was fine. I’ve done it before.”

“You’re really good at it. Like, really good.”

“Well, you’re kind of perfectly suited for it,” I said, slowly walking over to her. She put down the book slowly and looked up at me with big eyes, breathing a little more heavily. “Such a slender, petite little body,” I said, then reached down and slowly ran a fingertip across her throat. I felt her shudder and swallow. “Such a slim neck, so easy to grip and squeeze.”

“Fuck,” she whispered, her breath catching. “Don’t fuck her, fuck me now,” she said suddenly.

“Sorry, I already promised Lara I’d fuck her in the ass right now,” I replied. “And as you pointed out, I don’t have time for two sessions...”

“Goddamnit,” she snapped, huffing in anger. “You are fucking me tonight. After dinner.”

“Yep,” I agreed, withdrawing my hand.

She glared at me, almost panting, as I turned away.

Tonight was going to be a great night with her.

I walked back to my and Lara’s room and opened the door. She was lying on the bed, flat on her stomach, completely naked. Her ass looked fantastic. I closed the door and started pulling my cock out. “You found my lube?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, and raised her hand. “Where’d you even find this?”

“I traded for it. I heard they’re still making lube in some of the bigger cities. I mean, in a way, I guess it kind of makes sense? Or maybe it’s bugfuck crazy. Either way, I have some, and I’m going to fuck you in the ass.”

“I’m ready.”

“Good girl.”

I lubed up my cock and tossed the tube onto the bed, then climbed on top of her. There was definitely a lot to love about full fuck sessions and all that went with that, but there was also something really thrilling about just fucking really fast and not even taking your clothes off. Well, my clothes off, anyway. I settled in against Lara and took a moment to start working my way into her ass. She moaned and shuddered as I did.

“You like that?” I asked, my mouth right next to her ear.

She gasped and shivered violently. “Yes,” she managed. “I used to masturbate up my ass all the time. I fucking love it.”

“Good,” I said, and pushed my way deeper into her ass. She cried out. I reached under her gripped her shoulders tightly, then began pushing in and out of her ass. It felt fucking amazing. Her ass was really tight and the lube was like a dream. “You’re going to take it like a good girl, aren’t you, Lara?” I asked, speaking directly into her ear.

She moaned. “Yes, master,” she moaned.

I started going faster and harder. She cried out, burying her face into the pillow and screaming into it. Her ass was something else. I hadn’t found a woman into anal for awhile and I really had forgotten how good it felt to fuck a chick in the ass. I was going to bust really soon. Normally I’d feel a bit bad about that, but Susan had a point: I had to get back to work.

“Fuck, Lara,” I groaned, really hammering her ass, pounding her into the mattress.

“Oh yes, Chris! Yes! Fucking fuck my ass!” she screamed wildly.

There it was, fuck! I groaned and started grunting as I popped and began coming in her tight ass. The burst of pleasure was incredible welcome and satisfying, shooting through my body, making every last nerve ending scream in rapturous release. Listening to her cry out and moan only made it better. When I was done, I pulled my cock out of her and stood up.

“Thanks,” I said as I grabbed a washrag, dunked it in the pot of water that we’d taken to renewing every night before bed, and washing up, “I really needed that.”

“Mmm, me too,” she murmured. “What are you going to do now?”

“I have to go back out and hunt some more,” I replied.

“Oh, that makes sense. I think I’m going to go out and see if I can find any berries or wild onions. We’re running low,” she said.

“That would be helpful.” After I washed up and put my dick away, I came over and kissed her on the mouth.

She smiled up at me. “I like having you around so much. Besides Susan, I just haven’t had anyone I can rely on for a long time.”

“I like being around,” I replied, running a hand up and down her bare thigh. “The two of you are really fun to live with.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

I gave her another kiss, then stood up and left. As I passed the living room, I glanced in. Susan was staring at me from over her paperback. “Don’t forget.”

“Like that’s going to happen,” I replied.

I hesitated for a second, then crossed the room, leaned down and kissed her. She seemed slightly surprised by it, but not unpleasantly so, and kissed me back.

“Be careful out there,” she said.

“I will.”

I grabbed the bow and quiver of arrows, and left the house.

CHAPTER THREE

The rest of the day went frustratingly, at least at first.

I managed to snag a single rabbit and nothing else. Although I did find some wild onion, which I ended up gathering. I had to admit, though, the knowledge that I had a hot woman desperate for my cock waiting at home for me kind of insulated me from the disappointment. I started heading home when the sun began to lower, grateful to be getting in out of the cold. There were all sorts of tricks for helping insulate yourself against the cold, and I employed as many of them as I could, but it was something you were constantly fighting against, even with all the tolerance I’d built up to it over the past two years.

I went home, gutted and cleaned the rabbit, put the meat away, and then joined the ladies in the kitchen to help finish up with dinner.

“You find anymore wild onion?” I asked.

“Some. I found more nuts and berries than anything else,” Lara replied.

“I managed to find some, though I only got a single rabbit.” Susan was staring out the window grimly. “You doing okay?” I asked.

“I’m worried,” she said.

“What about?”

“You’re obviously better at hunting than either of us, and you aren’t having a great deal of luck...should we be thinking about moving?”

“I don’t think so, at least not for awhile,” I replied. “We still need to consider that frozen lake. Once we find some kind of fishing equipment, we can put it to use. There might be a giant source of food available there.”

“There is that,” she murmured, then sighed and rubbed her arms.

We finished making dinner, which was wolf meat and wild onions, and sat down at the table. I decided now was the time to try and deal with the whole Lara-Susan-Jessica thing.

“So, I have something I think we need to talk about,” I said, and Susan looked at me intensely. Oh, she was probably worried I was going to reveal she liked to be choked during sex. Well, she didn’t have to worry about that, at least.

“Susan, tell Lara that you know. I think it’ll make things less complicated,” I said.

For a second, Susan looked confused, but she was sharp, and quickly realized. She looked over at Lara. “I know about you and Jessica, Lara.”

“Oh...fuck,” she murmured.

“Yeah. I know she’s cheating on her husband with you. And, well, you know how I normally feel about cheating, and although I don’t really think this is ideal, I guess I’m not really going to give you shit about it. The guy’s a total ass. I’d rather they weren’t together, but whatever.”

“How’d you find out?” Lara asked, looking relieved.

“I mean, I overheard you and Chris talking about it earlier today, but I mean, I figured you were doing something related to sex that you didn’t want me to know about. So yeah, I’m not going to give either of you shit about it.”

“Okay, cool,” Lara said. “Are you two gonna fuck tonight?” she asked after another few seconds.

“Yes,” Susan replied firmly, “we are.”

“Okay, good. I feel bad, I’ve been kind of monopolizing his dick lately...can I watch? Please?” she asked, looking intently at Susan.

Susan sighed, staring at her, then looking at me. “Yeah, okay,” she replied.

“Thank you! I’ve always wanted to watch you have sex and I never have been able to.”

“You saw me getting fucked a few nights ago,” Susan replied.

“That wasn’t the same. I mean, like, first off, in real lighting, but also with me not being involved. I want to see you taking his dick hard from a good vantage point. You’ve got such a hot body, and I’ve always thought you’d look so amazing fucking.”

“Well...um, thanks,” she murmured.

“Are you embarrassed?” Lara asked, breaking into a big grin.

“No! Go fuck yourself, Lara!” Susan snapped.

“You’re really cute when you’re embarrassed,” Lara murmured.

Susan sighed disgustedly and resumed eating her dinner with a fierce intensity. I couldn’t help but laugh at them. “You two are just great together.”

Susan rolled her eyes, but Lara just smiled. “I agree.”

“Just...finish eating! I’m still fucking horny, having to listen to you two fuck for like three goddamned days straight. I need a proper fucking.”

“Oh, I promise, you will get one,” I replied.

We kept eating, and once we were done, quickly cleaned up. I was properly motivated. I already missed Susan’s pussy, and I intended to try and get her to make good on her promise about anal, because she had a no doubt extremely tight ass. As soon as we were all cleaned up, all three of us headed quickly to Susan’s bedroom and began getting naked.

“Why are you taking your clothes off?” Susan asked.

“I like being naked, and I’ll want sex too,” Lara replied.

“Well, I guess I would like to watch that,” Susan murmured.

As soon as both of us were stripped naked, Susan and I got into bed and began kissing. I ran my hands over her slim, pale body, groping her high, firm breasts, then down to her trim hips and thighs as we twisted tongues together. I slipped a finger inside of her and began fingering her, and she moaned and cried out, then grabbed my dick and started massaging it. I kept fingering her, and she was already really wet.

Well, that made sense. She’d been horny all day.

I kept it up until she let out a squealing cry of pleasure and her whole body convulsed and her pussy clenched and shuddered around my finger. Man, she was easy to make come. That sure made sex better. When she was done yelling, I grabbed her and hauled her up on top of myself as I slid down to take her place in the middle of the bed.

“Holy shit,” she gasped after letting out a short startled shout. “I keep forgetting how fucking strong you are. I guess I know what position you want.”

“Ride it,” I replied.

Her eyes got a little wider and she bit her lower lip. “Yes, sir,” she murmured, and got settled, straddling me. She slipped my cock into her extremely wet pussy and moaned as she began lowering herself and raising herself up, working my dick into her incredibly tight vagina. I let out my breath in a long exhalation as the pleasure began ebb outward into me. That pussy was amazing. And so far, I hadn’t been ridden by Susan.

I was deeply glad to be fixing that mistake, because she was a fucking sex demon when it came to riding dick, I was quickly discovering. She moaned and cried out, going pretty much berserk as she furiously bounced on my cock, taking it all the way inside of her very quickly. And I just couldn’t get over how goddamned tight she was. It was a genuine struggle not to just pop off, but there was no fucking way I was doing that, not yet.

“Oh my fucking fuck, Chris!” she shrieked wildly as she fucked herself with my dick. Her beautiful b-cups were bouncing in rhythm with her movements, looking hypnotic, and I loved the way her muscles were moving beneath her skin around her hips and thighs as she put that tight little body of hers to good work.

Before long, the urge overtook me and I grabbed those slim hips of hers and started driving my own hips upwards, shoving my dick hard and deep up into her, while pulling her down against me. She let out an even louder shriek of pleasure as I began fucking the hell out of her.

“OH MY FUCKING GOD!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “OH FUCK IT’S SO GOOD!” I fucking loved to hear that.

I had her pussy squirting after another thirty seconds of this treatment. She screamed wildly as, shaking and trembling and falling forward, hands resting on my shoulders as she came hard, and I groaned loudly at the pleasure and kept sliding her up and down my dick. She screamed incoherently all the way through the orgasm, then basically collapsed against me, gasping for breath. I wrapped my arms around her and held her to me.

“I think that almost killed me,” she gasped.

I laughed. “You would’ve died happy.”

“Oh my fucking God yes,” she whispered, panting. “Oh my...how the fuck are you this good at this? Fuck.”

“I want doggystyle anal now,” I replied.

“Oh...okay...yes sir,” she replied.

I rolled her off of me. “Lara?”

“I’ll get the lube,” she replied, hurrying out of the room.

“You’ve got lube?” Susan asked, laying on her side now, blinking slowly, probably trying to keep from passing out.

“Yeah. That’s how I was fucking Lara up the ass so well earlier,” I replied.

“Mmm...just do me one favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t be gentle, not after you’re in.”

“I won’t.”

Lara came back. “Can I put it on?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied, leaning back and showing her my pussy-juice-soaked cock. She came and squirted some into her hands, then began massaging it.

“I love this,” she whispered, staring at it as she squeezed and massaged and rubbed it. “This is just an amazing cock.”

“I’m glad you think so,” I replied.

“I love getting fucked by it so much,” she murmured.

“Okay, okay, it’s still my turn,” Susan said.

“Fair enough. By the way, Susan, you look amazing when you fuck. Like, seriously, you’re one of the hottest chicks I’ve ever seen when you’re fucking.”

“Really?” Susan asked.

“Yeah, no bullshit. You could’ve made a killing in porn.”

She laughed. “Yeah, that would’ve gone over well,” she said, then got up onto her hands and knees.

It was time to fuck that ass. I got behind her, settling on my knees, looking at her tight ass. It was small, but there was a pleasant thickness to it, given her size. She had a hot ass. I got up against her and began working my lubed-up cock into her tight opening. She gasped, then moaned as I pushed my way inside of her.

“Holy fuck...so big...” she moaned.

“Yep,” Lara agreed.

“Like you know...with your fat ass...ah!”

Lara giggled. “Fair point. There’s something really hot about watching a big dick destroy a tight little pussy or ass like yours, you know. I used to watch porn like that all the time.”

“Fuck, this is so tight,” I groaned as I finished pushing my way in.

“Ah! Fuck! Ah-oh!” she moaned as I did this.

Once I was comfortably inside of her, I grabbed her slim hips and held on tight. “Get ready for the ass fuck of your life,” I said.

She began to say something, and then I got to it, and she just screamed. I began burying my dick inside of her over and over again, and oh dear lord did it feel just amazing. Her ass was definitely tighter than Lara’s. There was barely room at all for my cock inside of it. This was probably the best ass I’d ever fucked. I listened to Susan scream and moan as I started pounding her, adhering to her desire that I not be gentle.

This was definitely my kind of girl.

“Oh my fucking God, Chris! It’s so fucking FUCK!” she shrieked, sounding surprised, and suddenly she was coming again.

Oh fuck yes.

I groaned, hunching forward, feeling my own orgasm coming on. I fucking loved coming up hot chicks’ asses. I pounded her ass hard and fast, burying my whole cock into it over and over again, making Susan scream wildly.

And there it was, fuck!

I started coming, my whole body lighting up like I’d been hit by a jolt of electricity, my muscles twitching and spasming as I drained my nuts into her ass. I dug my fingertips in, listening to her cry out, and held her tight against my crotch, my whole cock shoved up her ass. She moaned and screamed and I groaned and grunted, gritting my teeth as my whole body was overcome with rapturous, ecstatic bliss. I came for what felt like a long time into her. After finishing up, I pulled out of her and sat down beside her, and she flopped forward onto her stomach.

“Holy. Fuck.”

“That was really hot,” Lara said. “Like, goddamn that was hot.”

“I’m glad you think so,” I replied, then slowly got to my feet and stretched, feeling a few of my joints pop. “Ah, goddamn, I needed that. It’s been a long week.”

“You have been working hard,” Susan murmured, reaching out and running a hand up and down my thigh. “I really appreciate it.”

“Yep,” Lara said. “If you’d like...I can show you how much I appreciate it...”

“I’ll need a minute, but yes,” I replied.

“Where do you find the energy?” Susan groaned. She hesitated. “Would you two be into, like, sleeping in here, with me? I kind of don’t want to sleep alone anymore, not after that night where we all slept in her during the blizzard.”

“I don’t mind,” Lara said.

“No, not if you don’t mind getting woken up by me fucking Lara...or wanting to fuck you.”

“I don’t mind,” Susan said.

“Okay then, lemme wash up, then we can fuck,” I said.

This was definitely a good way to end the night.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Shit,” I whispered.

Something was wrong. I remained crouched among the snow and dead trees surrounding me. What was it? I’d seen something. I looked around. It was the following day after pounding both women in the ass and I’d decided to go out hunting some more. I’d headed south and east, the way I’d originally come from, looking for more fertile hunting grounds. So far I’d found a pair of rabbits that were wrapped in tarp and stored in my pack.

I saw it again, what I’d initially seen, and it was like TNT detonating in my mind.

It was a flash of light maybe a quarter mile off. I jerked to the right, behind a big tree, right as a rifle round seared by. It smashed into another tree, barely missing me. My heart kicked right up to painful, thumping violently in my chest, and I tasted the rusty, rancid taste of pure terror. Pressing myself tight up against the tree, I stood as still as a statue. What the fuck was this? I wasn’t caught completely off-guard, because I always knew this was a possibility. There were different kinds of people in the world now, and some of them were the kind to straight up just murder you, from a distance if at all possible.

They were hunters of humans.

The only real question was, was it a random stranger, or possibly someone from that lodge or campground or whatever? Maybe the husband had pieced together that his hot wife was screwing around on him, and figured he’d happened upon the guy doing her. Well, technically I was going to tomorrow, so it’d really just be preemptive retaliation. Or maybe it was a mistake? I carefully, slowly began to lean out, trying to get a good view. I caught sight of a dark figure moving through the trees, and suddenly they aimed and fired again.

Bark blew off the tree I was hiding behind as I pulled back.

Okay, fuck. So, there was definitely no mistake. They knew what they were doing. So how in the fuck was I going to handle this? If I’d had my rifle or maybe the pistol, I’d have a better shot. But all I had was the bow and a knife. I was a decent shot with the bow and arrow, but I was a much better shot with a gun. After a few seconds I realized I wasn’t hearing footsteps. They’d stopped advancing, meaning we were now going to play the waiting game, with me at a severe fucking disadvantage. They knew precisely where I was, I only had a vague notion where they were. I sat there, my breath foaming on the air, waiting.

I really might die here.

I don’t know how long I stood there, my whole body rigid, growing slowly colder, terror pounding through my veins, but it felt like a long time. Thoughts drifted through my head, a strange mishmash of plans of actions, memories, regrets, and things I wished I could do. Mainly, I just wished I could have sex with more women, also eat a hamburger again. It’d been fucking ages since I’d had a damned proper hamburger.

Five minutes passed, I think.

And then another five minutes passed.

And I was just beginning to make a run for it, figuring I would die if I stayed where I was, when I suddenly heard a snarl, a growl, and a scream of pure surprise, followed shortly by a rifle discharge. My chance! My body took a second to respond, as I’d been still so long, and I stumbled out from behind the tree. In the direction of my asshole attacker, I saw a flurry of activity. He was being mauled by a wolf.

I pulled out my bow and notched an arrow as I started jogging towards him. Had to take this opportunity. I saw a flash a steel and the wolf yelped. My window was closing. He was stabbing the wolf, and it was working, he’d gotten it in the neck. I skidded to a halt as I got within range and took aim. My would-be killer stared at me. He was a big guy wrapped in dark gray clothing, including his face. All I saw were his eyes, which were bloodshot and brown. I aimed for his head and let fly. It was a perfect shot, punching through his forehead and nailing his head to the ground. He died in a second. I turned my attention to the wolf, but it was clearly dead.

Well…

Shit, that had turned out pretty well, all things considered. Of course, he might have friends. Although my instincts told me no. He looked kind of crazed. But not like feral, more like a cold, calculated crazy that drove men to isolation and killing whoever they came across. Maybe he was just desperate, starving or sick somehow. He had on a big pack, though. And there was this rifle. It was the same model as my own, which was a massive fucking boon. I took the rifle and checked it. There were still four shots left.

Nice. I slung it over my shoulder.

Next I pulled the pack off the guy’s corpse and unzipped it. There was a tent inside, some clothes, a combat knife, a canteen, a small medical kit that was half-empty, one of this kinetic flashlights that you could twist a little turn-style attached to it to give it power, (actually extremely useful), a can-opener, and exactly one can of tuna. It was all meticulously packed in. After that, I patted down his pockets. He had eight of them. One had a quality lighter with a flip-top, another had two magazines for the rifle, another held a little snub-nose six shooter that took forty-fives. It was loaded and there were a dozen spare loose rounds. Of course there was the knife he’d used, and there was a two-dozen box of matches that was still mostly full.

“Thank you, asshole,” I said, transferring the contents to the backpack. “Your contributions will go to a good cause.”

I somehow couldn’t bring myself to be very angry at the guy. I guess part of was that I didn’t know his story, but I could at least confirm that he was desperate for food. I wonder how long it had been since he’d eaten. Hunger was a shockingly powerful motivator. Strip away the police and society and the social contract, starve a man and give him a gun, and you’d be surprised by how easily he turned violent.

I tried to salvage the arrow, but it was stuck good. It was also one of the more fucked up ones, so I just left it there. Then, after a moment’s consideration, I took a moment to strip him. I wasn’t particularly interested in what he looked like without clothes on, but he was wearing some very nice clothing. Especially those boots, they were of higher quality than my own. If I ever had any qualms about wearing the clothes of a man I’d killed, I’d forgotten them a long time ago. Once I’d stripped off his boots, socks, pants, and shirt, (I left his boxers, figuring he deserved at least some dignity, and, well, honestly they were full of holes and not much use), I packed it all into his pack, then slowly got to my feet.

Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I was getting tired.

And I still had a ways to walk back home.

“Fuck,” I muttered, my breath foaming on the air.

Yeah...I was gonna call it a day. Getting shot at kind of put a damper on the day.

With the new backpack in one hand and the wolf corpse in the other, I began walking.

…

“Girls, I’m home!” I called as I came in, and tossed the backpack onto the floor. Maybe it was something in my voice, but they both came up to me right away instead of calling back to me from wherever they were in the house.

“You found another backpack?” Susan asked uncertainly, looking at it.

“You could say that,” I replied. “Someone tried to kill me.”

Both of their eyes went wide. “Oh my God, what happened?” Lara whispered.

“I was out hunting and this asshole shows up out of nowhere and starts taking shots at me. I’m only here because of this bastard,” I said, lifting the wolf. “He attacked the guy and I took the opportunity to kill him, and the guy killed the wolf before I put him down. The good news is that now we have another rifle, another pistol, some decent supplies, and dinner for a few days. The bad news is, uh...I guess there isn’t much. I’m fine.”

“Thank fucking God,” Susan whispered and suddenly stepped forward and wrapped me in a hug. Lara did so a second later, almost making me stumble. I hugged them both back, holding them close to me, and realized after a few seconds that Lara was crying.

“Hey, it’s all right,” I said, laying a hand across the back of her head. “I’m really okay, Lara.”

“I know, I just-I just...fuck,” she muttered, and squeezed me tighter and continued crying. Although she wasn’t joining in on the crying, Susan refused to let me go. I couldn’t say I didn’t get it, to be completely honest. People had a way of trying to calculate strengths. It was a real survival skill nowadays. You’d figure you could walk for so far, lift so much, stay awake for so long. Endurance, basically. But a lot of people seemed to fail to take into account your emotions, probably because no one wanted to admit they didn’t have one hundred percent rigid, lockstep control over their own emotional capacity.

But there was no such thing, unless you were a genuine sociopath.

Stress and fear and anxiety and frustration, it all kind of crept up on you. Hell, you might be having a good few days, and then one thing surprises you, and you’re a mess. I think I’ve always had a more shallow emotional range than most people, nothing conclusive, just my own theory. I wasn’t ready to cry, but I was finding myself very, very grateful to be back home and with the ladies in my life, and, okay, yeah, to see how much they cared.

When Lara finished, she slowly let go of me and spent a moment sniffing and wiping at her eyes with the sleeves of the sweater she was wearing.

“Sorry,” she said, calmer now. That was another thing about crying: it was like hitting the emotional dump valves. I had cried before, and I did remember that tremendous relief you felt afterwards.

“It’s fine,” I replied. “I’m glad you care.”

She laughed. “Of course I care. It’s just...we lost a lot, since the snow began. And, to be honest, you’re the greatest thing that’s come into my life after Susan. So...you know, I like having you around,” she said, then laughed again.

“I like being around,” I replied, and kissed her. Then I kissed Susan, who kissed back very firmly, gripping me tightly.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. She looked a little overwhelmed, and then she looked down, and saw the backpack, and some of the cloudiness seemed to leave her eyes. “Um...I don’t suppose you recognized him at all?”

“No. He was alone, as far as I know. I don’t think he was around here. He looked like a traveler, and I think he was just desperate. All he had for food was a tin of tuna.” I glanced down to where I’d dropped the wolf when they’d hugged me. “I should get this thing skinned and cleaned. After that, uh, I think I’m taking the day off.”

“I totally understand,” Susan said. “Maybe we can relax together or something.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“No,” she said firmly. “My ass fucking hurts.”

“Hey, you asked for it.”

“I know, and it hurts, and I’m waiting on anal for awhile.”

“Doesn’t have to be anal.”

“My pussy is sore, too.”

“I’m okay with just relaxing,” I replied.

“We should just lay in bed together and talk,” Lara suggested.

“Sounds good. I’ll be up in a bit,” I replied.

I gave them each another kiss, then took the wolf and my own pack containing the two rabbits downstairs.

CHAPTER FIVE

“What’d you do before the snow?” Lara asked quietly.

A few hours had passed. After my work in the basement, we’d opted to eat an early dinner, and soon after had retreated to Susan’s room. Now we were in our underwear and laying beneath the blanket, relaxing.

It was a good feeling.

“I stocked overnight at a big store called Shop...something. I can’t remember now, actually. I’d been doing it for five years and was making okay money,” I replied. “I know you were an actress, Lara. What about you, Susan? You never told me what you did.”

She sighed. “You know,” I said, before she responded, “you do that a lot.”

“I have a lot to sigh about,” she replied. “I was a screenwriter, novelist, and I wrote articles. I was also a ghostwriter.”

“Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.”

“It was a fucking lot of work,” she growled.

“Why are you so angry about it?”

“Because I never fucking got anywhere with it. I managed to sell a grand total of two scripts, neither of which ended up actually getting turned into anything. I tried getting published after that, but the market was so crowded that they couldn’t even be bothered to look at my fucking novels. I burned through three agents trying to break into publishing over five years and finally just gave the fuck up and self-published. At some point, I also picked up ghostwriting and article writing for websites online. But none of it ever actually took off, is my point. Like, I was just stitching together an income, trying to survive. The thing that earned me the most money was my ghostwriting and that just fucking killed me, because apparently people are okay with my writing as long as my fucking name wasn’t on it. Ugh!” she snarled.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

“Yeah, me too. I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

“I feel bad,” Lara said quietly.

“About what?” Susan asked.

“I guess, me getting to do what I wanted and you not. You always worked so hard and it always depressed me. I tried to help, but honestly there was only so much I could do...”

Susan sighed again, but it was softer. “Lara...you helped more than you think. You were there for me pretty much all the time. You’d listen to me. You put up with my neurotic bullshit and my depression and pissy attitude. I’m still not sure why you wanted to be my friend.”

“Because you were nice to me, and because I respected you, and I trusted you. And I still do. Because you’re a good person, and you deserve to be happy, that’s why. Because...the world is scary, I mean even back then it was scary, and...I know I’m not very smart. I figured that out in high school. But even I know that actual, real, no bullshit friends are hard to find.”

“Lara, you aren’t stupid,” Susan said.

“I barely passed high school, and I dropped out of college, that I only got into cause my parent’s made a huge fucking donation.”

“So fucking what? School isn’t the only measure of intelligence. What fucking difference did it make if you could rattle off complex math problems or know the capital of all the states or how to spell difficult words? Did it matter?”

“I guess not,” she murmured.

“Exactly. You knew what you wanted. You wanted to act. Instead of wasting anymore time in college, you bailed on that shit and got to work. You can read people, Lara. I know you think that I think you can’t, but you can, I’m just paranoid. I mean, you could really read people back then, you knew what they wanted, what they were looking for. You knew how to manipulate people. And you’re sexy. You know how to own that, you know to be sexy. The shit you say to Chris in bed is just...it sounds so natural from you, it doesn’t sound fake or cheesy or forced. Like, you’re so good at being sexy and erotic. You’re smart, just in different ways than most people acknowledge. And shit, it’s not like that even matters anymore.”

“Yeah...thanks, Susan. That was really nice.”

“I meant it.”

“That’s why it was nice.”

Susan laughed, then looked over at me. “We went off on a tangent there, I guess.”

“That’s fine. You two need to connect more,” I replied.

“You’re just trying to get more threesomes,” Susan said.

“I’m not. I mean, I am, like in general, but not right now. Also, duh. But no, for real, you two need to open up more. You’re obviously best friends, and all either really has left in the world.”

“No, now we have you,” Lara said, reaching out and taking my hand beneath the blankets.

“Yes, for better or for worse, we have you now,” Susan said.

“That’s true,” I murmured. “I don’t want to leave.”

“Lucky for you, neither do we. So come on, spill it, what were you like before all this?”

Now it was my turn to sigh. “Fuck, I don’t know. More indecisive, I guess. Not all that different. Kind of a loner? To be honest, I don’t really think I had much of an identity. The only thing that I thought seemed kind of cool about myself was that I was just as at home playing video games and eating pizza all weekend as I was camping way out in the middle of nowhere, hunting and fishing. I’d go back to my previous life if I could, but...well, the snow has a way of showing you who you really are, I think.”

“That’s true,” Susan said softly. “I guess that’s why so many people are dead, huh?”

“A lot of people are shit,” Lara agreed. “Although some shit people are shit in ways that make them kind of thrive in this environment where they can do whatever they want.” She shivered suddenly and squeezed my hand.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” I replied.

“Good,” she whispered, moving closer to me. “I like that. I feel safe around you.”

“I actually do, too. That’s weird. I honestly haven’t felt super safe around most of the men in my life, and that goes quadruple for after the ice age fell on us. I can easily say that you’re the best guy I’ve met since then.”

“That’s good to know,” I replied, not sure what else to say. I’d always had a kind of weird approach to praise, in that I guess I didn’t know how to really react to it. I guess approach isn’t the right word, more like reaction. It was nice, at least. I knew that much. We were silent after that for a bit longer, then Susan broke the silence.

“So you two are going to go fuck Jessica tomorrow?” she asked.

“Uh yeah, I guess so,” I replied.

“Why doesn’t she just come here?”

“Well...I didn’t want you knowing,” Lara replied.

“I know now. I kind of want to see her naked. She looked like she had a fucking phenomenal body.”

“Oh she does. Like, she’s still in great shape, even now. I’ll, uh, see what I can do. It would be nice to be able to meet here, although I worry about someone finding out.”

“If worse comes to worse, I can protect you,” I reminded her.

“Yeah, I’d just feel really bad if it got that far. But these are bad times, so I guess I wouldn’t be super surprised. I kind of also think maybe I should stop, if I don’t want it to get that far, but then again, it’s like, everything is shit and it’s probably the end of the world. Why shouldn’t I have sex with her if we both want to?”

Neither of us seemed to know how to respond to that.

“Chris,” Susan said, sitting up suddenly.

“Yeah?”

“Show me the guy you killed. I want to see if I recognize him.”

“Uh, okay. You think you will?”

“No, but I want to be sure. Plus, I just want to get out, and this seems like as decent excuse as any,” she replied.

“All right. Let’s go.”

…

It was interesting, the walk out to the body. Largely because I hadn’t gone walking with Susan anywhere yet. It was kind of nice, actually. There was something about Susan that was much more serious, and it appealed to me.

“I noticed what you’re trying to do,” Susan said after about five minutes.

“What?” I replied, a little startled.

“Over dinner, you were trying to get me to open up to Lara.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. You promised that-”

“And I’m not going to break that promise.”

Susan frowned, and then fell silent. We kept walking for another minute or so. Finally, I decided to push on.

“You want my opinion?”

“I guess so,” she said after a few seconds.

“You should just...talk with Lara.”

“About what?”

“About everything. You obviously feel that you...draw up short to her in some areas.”

“It’s not my fault I was born with this fucking body,” she snapped.

“Susan,” I said, stopping, and she marched on a few more paces before coming to a halt. After a second, she turned to stare at me. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I’m trying to, as vaguely and carefully as possible broach this topic, and your immediate reaction was to flip out about your body.” She crossed her arms and stared at me. “I’m not saying that your concerns are bullshit, I’m not trying to, in any way, dismiss you. I’m more saying that you would feel better if you actually talked about them with Lara.”

She slowly uncrossed her arms and seemed to deflate a little. “We have a good thing going,” she murmured. “I don’t want to upset the boat.”

“I don’t think you will. Lara is obviously enamored with you. She thinks you’re amazing. And I think you feel about the same way, you’re just...bad at showing it.” She looked like she was gearing up for another angry response, but she just sighed and nodded. “We should just talk. Have like a free-form conversation about it.”

“Why do you care?” she asked suddenly.

“What? What do you mean?”

“I guess that came out harsh. Why is this important to you? Why do you feel like this is a thing worth pursuing?”

“Because...I see suffering happening, and I feel like it doesn’t need to happen, and it could minimized, possibly a great deal, with a bit of effort.”

“That’s...logical,” she murmured. I shrugged. After a moment, she sighed. “Let’s keep walking.”

“All right,” I said, and picked back up the journey. We were heading into the woods I’d originally come out of with Lara last week.

“You think...” Susan began, then hesitated. I assumed she was trying to find a way to word the question ‘you think Lara wouldn’t be a total bitch to me?’ or ‘you think Lara wouldn’t use this information against me?’.

I decided to try and help out after another moment of silence. “Susan, I think you can trust Lara. I think that Lara thinks the world of you, and would do a lot to try and make you happy.”

She sighed. “Sometimes I think I’ve been a shitty friend.”

“I can’t say for all the time I wasn’t there for, but based off what I’ve seen so far, I think you’re a good friend. I just think that you two have very different personalities. You don’t treat Lara like she’s an idiot, you don’t talk down to her, you’re obviously aware of her feelings and desires, you want her to be happy, you try to make her happy. That’s a good friend.”

“I guess so,” Susan said after a bit. Then she laughed. “You turned out to be a surprisingly good friend.”

“Oh it’s so surprising, huh?” I teased.

She huffed in annoyance. “Consider it from my perspective. Here’s this random guy who kind of looks like a douche-bro-”

“Gee, thanks.”

“-and he just waltzs up with my best friend, and they start fucking immediately, and we’re all in this post-apocalyptic frozen wasteland, and he’s cocky with a dominating personality...”

“I’m not cocky.”

“Oh, aren’t you?”

“Am I?” I asked seriously.

She sighed. “I don’t know, I guess not that much, if I’m looking at it objectively. You just...seem cocky. You seem cocky in the same way some dudes just have faces you wanna just haul off and fucking sock for looking so goddamned smug, you know?”

“Wow.”

She laughed. “Sorry, that came out harsh too.”

“You know what you’re problem is?”

“What, Chris?”

“You, Susan, don’t like how much you like me.”

She looked back at me, a little startled, then knit her eyebrows. “Oh fuck you.”

I laughed. “What?! Is it because I’m right?”

“Yes! You smug fuck.”

We kept walking for another few seconds. “So, I mean...what should we do about it?” I asked finally.

“Do we have to do anything?” she replied.

“I mean, I guess we don’t have to, it’s just...”

“Well, honestly...it’s kind of making the sex awesome. It’s kind of like...okay, I’m not hate fucking you, you know? I guess, kind of angry fucking you? Whatever, the dynamic we have going on, this kind of subtle antagonism going on, it makes for fantastic sex. I mean...right?”

I thought about it. “I guess so,” I replied finally. “There is something about you that makes me just want to fucking throw you on the bed and fuck the shit out of you and-” I stopped.

“And what?” she asked, looking at me with a big grin. I hesitated. “Oh come on, Mister ‘You need to open up!’. Don’t you fucking dare pull back now.”

I sighed. “Slap you.”

“Oh,” she said softly. “You want to slap me?”

“I mean, during sex, in the same way you want me to-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, looking around, as if paranoid that someone might be hiding nearby and listening in. “Okay, I get it.”

A pause. “Would you be, I mean...open that?”

“...maybe,” she admitted.

“Okay, cool. Just let me know.”

“I will,” she murmured softly.

We kept walking, falling silent. I looked around the trees, a sense of unease settling over me. After that attack, I was really getting reminded of how truly vulnerable I was. And it was worse with Susan around. Although she was here to watch out for, I was also here to watch out for her. I didn’t dislike the role, it just made me a little anxious.

“Will you tell me, if you start to like actually dislike me?” I asked after a moment.

“Yes,” she replied. “But, if things keep going this way, I think we’ll be okay.”

“Good. I, uh, like where we’re at now.”

“Me too.”

I paused, looked around. “There,” I said, pointing, and moved over to the body. Susan joined me, and soon we were standing over it. The guy was basically as I’d left him, maybe paler and stiffer. He still had the arrow in his head and the skimask on. Susan crouched and pulled it up, revealing his face. He had a nasty scar across his right cheek, and a few more on his neck.

“I don’t recognize him,” she said. “There was definitely no one this big hanging around the lodge, and as far as I know, no one else is living in this region. But I don’t know a lot in this situation. We’ve been mostly keeping to yourselves.”

“Should probably fix that,” I said. Another few seconds passed as the wind whispered through the dead trees. “Well, anything else?” I asked.

“No,” she replied, though she looked down at him again. “Really nice shot.”

“Thanks.”

We started walking back.

CHAPTER SIX

“So where actually is this place?” I asked.

Lara was leading me through the frozen woods. After heading back from checking on that corpse, the rest of the day had gone by pleasantly enough, all things considered. We all went to sleep in Susan’s bed, which was becoming our bed. I made love to Lara, a calmer, nice and slow sex session, while Susan watched. She was still too sore for any sex of her own, although her clit wasn’t, so Lara and I took turns fingering her until she had a sweet, sexy orgasm, and then we’d gone to sleep. In the morning, I’d decided to spend some time hunting for wild plants that we could eat with Lara, and collect a bit more firewood.

That had gone on until lunch, and after that, we’d set out.

Susan told us to have fun on our date.

Lara had blushed at that.

“It’s like a half mile past where we met,” she replied. “It’s just this little abandoned cabin with a bed and a few chairs.” She grinned. “A lot of illicit sex has been had in there.”

“Hot girl-on-girl sex,” I murmured.

“Yep,” she agreed, preening a little. Lara was definitely the kind of lady who prided herself on being sexy, which I could appreciate. I don’t know if I exactly prided myself on being attractive now, but I felt a lot better about myself ever since getting a physique and becoming a bit more rugged thanks to all the hard living and bad weather.

I had to admit, I was excited. I had a real fucking things for redheads, although...I glanced at Lara. Brunettes were a close second. I loved that sexy chestnut brown hair. But redheads were just something special. I still don’t know why red hair seemed to incredibly, intoxicatingly sexy, so exotic and wild.

And I was interested to see this ex-model who still looked like a model.

“How old is Jessica?” I asked. I couldn’t remember if I’d asked that before. It didn’t really matter too much to me, but it was one of those things I was curious about.

“Thirty nine,” she replied, then paused. “How old are you? I never asked.”

“Twenty six.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I...thought you were older. Like at least in your thirties.”

“Well, it’s been a hard few years. What about you?”

“Me and Susan are twenty eight. That’s so weird, I thought you were older than me,” she murmured, then shrugged. “Age is weird.”

“Yeah, it really is.”

We walked for another five minutes or so through the cold before coming into a clearing where a single cabin rested. It was a small thing, likely having a single room, and looked pretty weathered. We walked up and Lara knocked on the door. There was a pause, then I caught movement at one of the windows, then the door opened up.

Wow. Holy fucking God.

Lara was not exaggerating.

Jessica was a goddamned supermodel.

“Hi,” she said with a shy smile, “you must be Chris.”

“I am. And you must be Jessica,” I replied, unable to keep from staring at her.

“Hi, Lara,” she said, and as we came into the cabin, Lara embraced and kissed Jessica on the mouth.

“Hi. I missed you,” Lara replied, hugging her tightly.

There was already a fire going in the fireplace, and it was comfortably warm in the cabin. Jessica was wearing some thermal underwear and a tanktop and nothing else, so her figure was clearly defined, and it was just exquisite. She looked like a fitness model. She had amazing thighs, very firm and bulging against the thin, tight fabric. She had a very trim stomach, a perfect hourglass figure, and big breasts. Her hair was down, framing her extremely beautiful, pale face. It was the kind of face you’d see in commercials and on billboards, the face guys would throw hundreds of thousands of dollars to sell their products.

Fuck, she was the hottest woman I’d seen since this whole mess began.

“So, um...this is awkward,” Jessica said with a nervous laugh after we’d all said our hellos and stood around the small cabin in silence.

“A little,” Lara murmured.

“Lara’s told me a lot about you. She’s really into you,” Jessica said after another few seconds while I was trying to say something to say. I wasn’t terrible at hitting on women or breaking the ice, especially not now, but Jessica was throwing me back to my tongue-tied, awkward, young adult days where I fell in love with every pretty girl that even glanced in my direction and stumbled over even the most basic sentences.

She was that hot.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Lara replied, giggling. “He’s amazing.”

I saw something glint on her left hand, third finger. She followed my gaze, then frowned and reached down, playing with her ring.

“Yeah, um, guess we should talk about that. Lara said she’d tell you, but I guess I want to too. I’m cheating on my husband. I never had before Lara, and seeing as she’s the only one I’ve ever cheated with, obviously I’ve never been with a guy while cheating.”

“So the last time you had sex with another man...” I replied.

“God, like...twenty years ago? Twenty one years ago. I was eighteen. Wow...” She gave her head a little shake. “If you want me to take it off-”

“No,” I said. “I, uh, kind of want you to leave it on, actually,” I admitted.

“Oh.” A small smile lit her face. “Lara’s the same way. You two like cheating.”

“I can’t help it,” Lara muttered. “I mean, I don’t like doing cheating,” she said, looking at me, “but I like having sex with people who are cheating. And really only with-” she hesitated.

“With people who deserve to get cheated on?” Jessica asked, losing her smile.

“I mean, I wasn’t going to say it, but...” She shrugged.

Jessica sighed softly. “Yeah. Well...um, you wanna get started. I don’t have a lot of time. I told my husband I’m looking for edible plants. So, you wanna do it?”

“Yes. I really, really want to do it with you,” I replied.

“Oh...” She smiled and blushed. “Lara tells me I’m really hot-”

“You’re one of the hottest women I’ve ever seen in my life. You’re definitely the single hottest woman I’ve even seen since the snow started falling. And I’m not bullshitting you.”

“Oh, wow,” she murmured. “Well...thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now take your clothes off,” I replied, feeling my lust overriding my awkwardness. There was something timid and submissive about Jessica, and something in me was responding to that, and as I said this to her, I was glad to see her responding positively to it. Her eyes got a little wider, and her breath came a little faster.

“Okay,” she said, sounding excited.

She took off the tanktop she was wearing, freeing her big tits, and goddamn they were big. Bigger than Lara’s. Big and thick and firm and perfect. Then she peeled her leggings down, revealing her firm, well-muscled thighs and big, smooth hips.

“Good fucking God, Jessica. You are in phenomenal shape,” I murmured.

“Thanks,” she said, blushing. I looked at her glistening, bald pink pussy. She must’ve had the same treatment Lara’d had. “I got into the habit in my early twenties and, well, given the nature of my marriage, kept it up and got better at it. So now I just still do it, even still.”

“What was the nature of your relationship?” I asked as I stripped.

“Uh...I was a trophy wife. I guess I still am.”

“Oh.”

She shrugged. “Well, I guess I’m living that cliché now about bored trophy housewives fucking hot younger guys.” I took off my boxers. “Holy shit, Lara, you weren’t exaggerating.”

“Told you,” Lara replied.

“You like?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Although I’m a little anxious. I hope it won’t hurt.”

“It’s not that big,” I replied.

“You’ll do fine,” Lara said. “Now...fuck. I want to see you two fuck.”

I walked over to Jessica, looked her up and down once more, then stepped up to her. She seemed excited and nervous. I leaned in and kissed her. Her body responded immediately to the physical contact and she leaned against me. I started running my hands over her fantastically fit body, groping her big, firm tits for awhile as we started making out passionately, then down to her hips. God, she had amazing hips. She looked like she did a lot of squats.

And her ass.

She had just such an amazing ass. I loved Lara’s fat, thick ass, and I loved Susan’s tight, firm little ass, but Jessica’s ass, good lord, so toned, with just the right amount of padding to it. I really wanted to fuck her in the ass, or at least doggystyle.

We fooled around for a bit, and then I put hands on Jessica shoulders and gently pushed her down. She got the message and dropped to her knees.

“Wow,” she whispered, gripping my cock and inspecting it.

“I’m assuming it’s bigger than you’re used to,” I replied.

“Definitely,” she said, and licked the head. “You’re definitely bigger than my husband.”

She continued licking, sending shivers of pleasure into him, and I laid my hand atop her head. She slowly slipped my cock into her mouth and started bobbing her head, sucking me off like a professional escort.

“That’s a good girl, Jessica,” I said, and she shuddered. She reached up, resting her hands on my hips, and I put my other hand over one of hers. I felt her ring beneath my fingers, the hardness of the diamond mounted on the end of the simple band of metal. Some cognitive dissonance hit me. That was basically when you had two conflicting thought processes at the same time. On the one hand, I felt kind of guilty. Asshole or no, they were still married to each other. Although I figured there was a decent chance he’d cheated.

Maybe that was just rationalizing, as I had no idea if he had. I’d never even met the guy. I’d have to ask Jessica about it at some point.

But, on the other hand…

This felt really fucking good, and it wasn’t just because she was an insanely hot redhead, but because she was, well, cheating.

If I felt guilty over that, well...I’d had to kill a guy a few days ago, and it wasn’t the first time, so I guess I had bigger things to feel bad over.

After a bit, I pushed her back a little. “Get on the bed.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied quietly, getting up and moving over to the single-wide bed.

“Lara,” I said as Jessica laid down on her back and opened her legs.

“Yes?”

“Show me how good you are at eating pussy.”

“Oh, okay,” she replied, getting up.

Jessica grinned as Lara came over and got onto the bed with her. I walked over and stood at the bedside, putting my hand back on Jessica’s head. She got the message, scooted over, and started sucking me off again. I reached down and began massaging her breast, groping that big wonder tit as Lara got to work.

Jessica let out a loud moan as Lara began eating her pussy. She put her tongue to very good use, licking rapidly at Jessica’s clit with a very practiced ease. I wondered how many women Lara had loved during her life besides Jessica, and now Susan. With how comfortable and at ease she was with this, I imagined a lot. Jessica spread her legs wider and kept moaning, occasionally stopping her blowjob as let out a loud cry of pleasure. I let Lara go until Jessica had an orgasm, then it was my turn with her pussy.

“Okay, Lara, move,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, getting up and moving out of the way.

I laid down on top of Jessica. “You ready?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied, breathing heavily, her pale face flushed, “I’m ready. Just...go easy.”

“Don’t worry,” I replied, and laid my cock at her pussy.

She gasped as I began to penetrate her, and I spent a little bit carefully working my way inside. As I did, I reached down between us and began to massage her clit with my thumb. She cried out, trembling in pleasure, as I did this.

“Oh yes...oh that’s-oh my fucking...oh wow,” she panted, babbling. “That’s so big.”

“You are very wet, and so tight,” I groaned.

I stared down at her wonderful body as I finished getting my whole length inside of her and began screwing this hot, redheaded, thirty-nine year old married MILF. She moaned so loudly as I really got to it, sliding my dick in and out of her.

“Oh fuck!” she cried, spreading her legs wider. “Oh my fucking God that is so good!” she cried.

She was right, it was fucking incredible. Her pussy felt fantastic, and there was that extra dark thrill of fucking married vagina.

“You like that big dick?” I asked.

“Yes! Oh yes!” she cried.

“You like my fat cock in your married, cheating pussy?” I asked.

“Ohhh fuuuuck...” she moaned and immediately started to orgasm. Okay, wow, that was a trigger for her. “Yeeesssss...” she groaned, trembling, almost vibrating as her pussy went crazy, clenching and spasming, squirting like hell.

“Are you cheating slut, Jessica?” I asked, rubbing her clit harder.

She bucked wildly. “YES!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs.

“Say it!”

“I’M A CHEATING SLUT! OH FUCK! I’M A WHORE!” she screamed.

Goddamn, if anyone was around, we were probably fucked, but goddamn if this wasn’t one of the best sexual encounters I’d had in years. I kept drilling her pussy all through the orgasm and beyond, and her voice was going to he hoarse from all the screaming she was doing. I went until she had a third orgasm, just fucking the absolute shit out of her and making the bed slam against the wall, and when she was finished, I pulled out of her.

“What are doin-oh my God!” she cried as I flipped her over.

“Hands and knees,” I replied.

She immediately got up onto her hands and knees, and I got behind her and resumed screwing the fuck out of her perfect married pussy. I smacked her ass hard enough to leave a mark, then did it again when she cried out.

“Pull my hair!” she moaned.

I reached forward, got a good handful my the roots, and yanked. She screamed again. “You like that, you fucking whore?!”

“Yes! Fuck! Oh shit, I love your dick so much!” she shrieked.

I yanked on her hair once more and got her come on my dick again. Holy shit, she was a fuck machine. That was too much for me: I started busting my nut inside of her. I groaned, leaning forward and grabbing her big tits.

“Fuck! Oh yes! Come in my pussy!” she screamed, grinding her thick ass against my crotch, forcing my coming cock deeper into her.

I came so fucking hard in her, just draining my cock into her, pumping that perfect pussy of hers with my seed, and it was just such a good goddamned orgasm. It was like getting thrown into a pit of pure pleasure.

It felt like we came for a long time, and when I was done, I slowly pulled out of her, my cock extremely sensitive. Goddamn, that had been one hell of an orgasm, and overall session. I looked at Lara. “Thank you for hooking us up.” Then I looked at Jessica, who’d fallen forward and then rolled slowly over onto her side. “And thanks for that amazing fuck.”

“Same to you,” she murmured, “that was just...wow...you are great in bed. Lara was not over-exaggerating at all. You are a fucking awesome fuck.”

We all stayed like that for a little bit, then I reached out and ran a hand up and down one smooth, toned thigh. “So...you want this to be a regular thing?”

“Part of me thinks I shouldn’t but...at this point, why shouldn’t I indulge? So, yes. I want this to be a thing. Is it okay if he comes with you Lara? Or should we set up something else? I have admit, it’d be easier to just do what we’ve been doing, but he comes with you.”

“I’m okay with that. I love having sex with both of you, and I love threesomes, which we should totally do next time,” Lara replied.

“That sounds awesome, although it’ll be tough in this bed,” Jessica said.

“We’ll figure something out,” I replied.

We both got cleaned up, then dressed, and ten Jessica said she should get back. She gave both of us kisses and hugs. We left the cabin, and after I checked the area and watched her head back to her home, we began walking back towards ours.

A WARM PLACE 3

CHAPTER ONE

“Okay,” I murmured as I made my final approach to the cabin on the lake, “let’s see what exactly we’re dealing with here.”

It was morning and today was a day I intended to get things done.

It had been five days since my first rendezvous with Jessica, the married redheaded MILF with the body of a goddess and the sex skills of a goddamned succubus. I still couldn’t believe that her husband hadn’t had sex with her in over a month. I mean, okay, even I could understand that you just went through down phases, where you were just really into your work, or depressed, or for whatever reason, your sex synapses just weren’t firing that week. But even if that wasn’t the case, who fucking sex demon was living over there to make it worth cheating on a woman like Jessica, if that’s what was happening?

Because seriously, she was like a triple-threat, perfect ten.

She was insanely hot.

She was phenomenally good at sex.

She was extremely submissive.

I mean, what more could you ask for!?

Then again, I hadn’t ever been with anyone for two solid decades. I don’t know how I’d react, although to be hones, I feel like I’d at least be trying to get a fucking in like once a week just to keep her happy if she was asking for dick, which she must be. Or...maybe she was tired him? And he could sense it? There were a lot of turn offs, but one of the biggest ones was a chick thinking you were a loser. Even if she agreed to fuck you for whatever reason, knowing that she thought you were pathetic or sad or whatever...that could make it hard to get it up, because then it probably made you feel like you were a failure.

I’d been there.

It fucking sucked.

But the little bits I’d gotten out of her about her husband made me think that the guy’s biggest problem was that he’d been a big-shot with a shitload of money before all this went down, and now he was in an environment where that counted for exactly shit, and he was probably reacting by both refusing to adapt and by taking it out on everyone around him. He must be pretty charismatic, to be the leader of a group, because it was hard to imagine people putting up with that long-term. Then again, fuck, I dunno.

People were weird, man.

I’d seen people put up with insane shit. I thought about all the friends I’d had who were working under managers so far up their own ass it was crazy, being total dicks, seeming to get off on public humiliating their employees, treating them like slaves, and still they stuck around. I guess it was kind of the same thing: back then a steady paycheck was a certainty, but if now he was making it work somehow, or had been for long enough, then you had to figure it would continue working, even if it wouldn’t, or even shouldn’t.

Going off on your was a million times more dangerous now if you weren’t very prepared for it, because you could easily die.

These were the thoughts that drifted through my mind, (well, these and what Jessica looked like riding my fucking dick like a slut, with her huge perfect tits bouncing while she shoved my cock up her cheating pussy while screaming her head off), as I approached the third of four cabins I’d initially seen while coming up to the frozen lake with the fishing huts. I’d always intended to come back and finish searching the other two after that initial investigation. It carried risks, but everything did nowadays. So I’d had breakfast, kissed the ladies in my life, and headed out this morning.

That was nice: having ladies in my life.

Not just women who were agreeing to fuck me for one reason or another, but women I was actually invested in, and who were actually invested in me. I’d forgotten what it was like. So many people were too scared to invest now, not that I particularly blamed them. With every day a potential life or death situation, it became extremely easy to take a ‘me first’ view on things. Honestly, it was often imperative.

But then came the questions of: was it really worth it?

I knew people who murder and eat their own family cold blood if it meant staying alive. I steered clear of them, naturally. Some people felt that survival was, in and of itself, a worthy enough goal to justify literally anything. But I guess there are some things I’d rather die than do. Or so I told myself. I hadn’t really been faced with some of them, and I wasn’t dead yet, so really it was all academic so far. I paused as I reached the front door of the cabin I was going to search. So far, no one had appeared at the window to shoot at me.

Which was nice.

I tried the doorknob. It wasn’t locked. Slowly, I pushed the door open and prepared myself for the worst, but nothing happened. The single room beyond looked empty and undisturbed. It was a tidy little affair, the kind of place good old boys turned businessmen or managers came to recapture their youth: drinking beer and fishing all weekend. Roughing it. Now we all roughed it. Well, not all of us, I guess. I kept hearing that there were people who still lived some of the cities. Dallas, Wichita, Portland, Chicago.

It could be bullshit, since the fall, I’d never seen anything more than a little town with a few hundred people, maybe a thousand, living and working together.

There was a single-wide bed tucked up in one corner, a little kitchen area that had little more than small potbellied stove, a sink, and some counter and cabinet space in another, a TV with a smash screen and a simple recliner in front of it, and finally a simple table and two chairs. I was surprised this place hadn’t been raided for firewood, most of this furniture could be broken down into it. When every night could get cold enough to kill you, the ability to make and maintain a fire became stupidly important. I was deeply glad I already knew how.

If anything, I had a knack for it.

I poked through everywhere I could see: under the bed and the table, behind the TV and under the chair, in the cabinets. The only other door led to a tiny bathroom with a sink, toilet, and squalid shower cubicle. Oh God, showers. I missed showers. I missed them so badly. Hell, at this point, I missed bathing. I’d never been one for bathing, probably because all the baths I had access to ended up being too small for me to comfortably lay in after I turned fifteen or so. Plus, baths were just an investment of time, whereas you could just shower, dry, and dress in like five minutes if you were quick about it. But fuck I missed those.

I still had dreams about finding a place with power. There had been this massive push for solar energy about two years before the snow started, and it just caught fire in America. Before the shit went down, something like a third of homes had converted to solar energy. Unfortunately, most of the panels were broken now, but I still fantasized about finding a house which was rigged with working panels, with its own access to water, so that I could take a goddamned shower. Also, have sex in the shower. Shower sex was just awesome.

I finished my search, finding nothing and feeling a little frustrated at that. As I left and began marching for the final cabin, I found myself thinking of Jessica again, only this time not really about the sex. (Though that was never far from my mind.) More, I was wondering if maybe we could convince her to live with us. I was thinking about the ramifications of that, and the challenges. It would mean two more mouths to feed, because naturally she would want to bring her daughter, and that was completely understandable.

I was positive Lara would go for it. In fact, she’d brought it up to me more than once over the past few days. I was pretty sure it was a little fantasy of hers, and to be honest, it was a little fantasy of mine, too. Living in a house with three (maybe four? I think she said her daughter was nineteen, so hey, maybe), women who were willing to fuck me?

Hell fucking yes, sign me up.

But Susan, on the other hand, I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about it. Susan was a lot more practical and pragmatic than Lara was. Lara thought more with her pussy, whereas Susan definitely thought mainly with her brain. I was...somewhere in the middle. I’d thought with my dick more times than I cared to admit. I’d never done anything I truly regretted...but I’d let several attractive women talk me into really dangerous shit in exchange for pussy. And I’d nearly gotten my head blown off a few times when they conveniently ‘forgot’ to mention they actually had a jealous husband. That was why I still had a bit of reluctance about this whole thing.

But...okay, honestly? Jessica was worth it.

This was probably the best sex I’d ever had in my life.

And that was thinking with my dick.

So, could I convince Susan to let them stay with us? She would rightly point out that it would be a further strain on resources, and it would probably get kind of crowded. Maybe there was a better house to live somewhere in the region. There was another house on the other side of the lake that looked to be two stories, though I’d only seen it from a distance. It was on my list of things to check out. Probably later, though, the skies were looking bad. I thought we had another blizzard on the horizon. Great. I loved putting up with those.

Although honestly there was a good thing about them now that I had Lara and Susan. I kept remembering that night we all made love together with the wind shrieking like an army of banshees all around us, the house creaking violently. I remembered it as one of the best nights in recent memory, and not just because I was fucking both Lara and Susan at once, but because of the sense of closeness, of togetherness that went with it. Laying there between the two women, it felt like all we had in the whole world was each other.

I guess it was true.

I got the final of the four cabins and opened the door. Well, this one had been raided by someone looking for firewood, evidently. Or maybe by someone looking to furnish their home. All that was left was a broken TV and the stuff that was actually attached. I picked over it, and was surprised to find something in one of the cabinets. A knife, a good hunting knife, actually, I saw as I pulled it out of its sheath. I wondered who had left it here. How many stories were there now? Stuff I’d never learn, like who left this here, or who left that backpack full of supplies I’d found last week in one of the other cabins?

Were they still alive?

Probably not. I attached the knife to my belt, then stepped back outside. And caught dark movement against the snow to the left, away from the lake. I grabbed for the pistol as I tried to figure out what the fuck I was looking at. From the way it moved, coming fast towards me, I figure it was a wolf. There were a lot of them around, it seemed. But no, it was worse. A mountain lion. I pulled the six shooter I’d scavenged from my would-be killer last week, dropped to one knee, aimed, and fired. The shot connected, but not in its head.

The mountain lion came at my, snarling and roaring, the bullet buried in one shoulder. I felt a hard surge of adrenaline and fired again, and missed. Then again, and missed again. And then the fucking thing was on me.

I threw up my left arm in pure, mindless reflex, and screamed as an explosion of pain hit me with the fucker’s teeth sinking in. Well, I couldn’t miss now. I’d gotten a lot better at dealing with pain and suffering over the past three years, so it wasn’t as hard as you’d think to get a grip, put the gun to its head, and pull the trigger twice.

That killed it.

It took me down with it, though, as it fell to the ground, its teeth still lodged in my skin. I felt my skin tear and screamed again.

That. Fucking. HURT!

I spent a minute cussing and getting it off me, then went back in the cabin, slammed the door with my foot, and took out my emergency medical kit. I was losing blood and needed to stop that immediately. First things first: antiseptic. I snagged a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, grit my teeth, then dumped it.

I didn’t want to give myself time to hesitate.

I almost passed out, I think. All I know is that there was an atomic bomb blast of pain shrieking out from my forearm, and then the next thing I knew I was flat on my ass. Cursing more, yelling at an uncaring world, I snagged the gauze and went about wrapping it up. One of the girls (Susan) would have to take a better look at it later, but this would do in a pinch. I wrapped it tight and secured it, then sat there getting my wind back for a few minutes.

Goddamn.

Talk about a mixed blessing.

Despite the pain, I’d come out of this one alive, and hey, that was probably a good five or maybe even six days of dinners for all three of us. Eventually, I hauled my ass back up after putting my supplies away, then opened the door. I was more careful this time, checking to make sure nothing else was lurking, then looked down at the mountain lion. Seeing it laying there, I realized it was actually scrawnier than I’d thought.

Well, I guess with the thing bearing down on me like a goddamned beast, I’d imagine it as bigger than it really was.

But whatever, meat was meat.

I picked it up and started hauling it back.

CHAPTER TWO

“What happened?!” Lara cried before she’d even finished opening the door.

“Were you waiting there for me?” I replied.

“Yes! What’s that? What happened?” she asked, sounding on the verge of panic.

“It’s a mountain lion. It attacked me. I killed it. I’m fine,” I replied. From the way I was holding the lion slung over my left shoulder, my bloody gauze was pretty visible. It hurt like a bitch, (I’d given in and downed a few painkillers halfway back), but I needed my right hand free for quick access to my pistol in case anything came up.

It hadn’t, thank fuck.

Susan appeared beside Lara and she looked anxious, but more composed. “It bit you?” she asked.

“Yeah. I cleaned and wrapped it, but I’d like you to look at it, see if stitches are needed,” I replied as I walked up on the front porch. They made way for me.

“I’ll get the kit, come right back up,” she said.

“Okay.” I paused before Lara. She was looking at me with big eyes. “It’s okay, Lara. I’m okay.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she said, and reached up, wiping at her eyes with the heels of her palms. “I just...get worried, you know?”

“I know, and it’s appreciated, but don’t fret,” I replied, and kissed her.

She kissed me back with some force, hugging me as best she could with a damned seventy pound mountain lion on my shoulder. Eventually, I shifted. “I gotta drop this thing off downstairs.”

“I’ll come with you,” she replied.

“Okay.”

We went downstairs while Susan got ready in the kitchen. Lara and I went down into the basement, and I slammed the goddamned mountain lion down on the table, making Lara jump. “Sorry,” I muttered.

“Are you pissed?” she asked quietly.

I laughed. “A little. Fucking thing bit the shit out of me.” That wasn’t all of it though. Mainly I was just angry because I’d been forced to kill it. I’d shed a lot of sentimentality over the past few years, but goddamnit, I still found it hard to murder something that was basically just a giant cat. I loved cats. And I hadn’t seen one for almost a year now.

I turned to Lara, wanting to get my mind off of it. “I’ve got a question.”

“Okay, what?” she replied, staring at me intently, though her eyes did occasionally flick down to my bloodied arm.

“So...theoretical situation here: we talk Jessica into abandoning her husband and the group, and her and her daughter comes to live with us. Yes or no?”

“I mean, yeah, obviously I’d love that,” she replied. “But...”

“But…?” I asked, wanting to really get confirmation, and hear her take on things. Maybe she’d say something I’d missed.

“Susan wouldn’t like it, I think.”

“She didn’t like it when I joined you.”

“That’s true. We could use that against her...”

“Against her?” I asked.

She bit her lip, looking guilty. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just...Susan hates change, but she’s really smart, and if you argue with her well enough, she’ll change her mind. Like, if you have a good point, she’ll admit it. Mostly. It usually doesn’t work for me, but that’s because most of the things I want to do are dumb.”

“Like what?”

She laughed. “Like party, and get drunk, and get laid, and have fun. I guess, we have to make see that it’s the right thing to do.”

“Hmm,” I murmured.

“So you want it too? Like really?”

“Obviously,” I replied. “Her husband sounds like a dick. She seems like she’d be a lot happier with us, you know? Safer, too. Hopefully. Her and her daughter.”

“Yeah...”

“You’re thinking about fucking her, aren’t you?”

“You aren’t?” she replied defensively.

“I mean, yeah, I’m often thinking about fucking her,” I said, making Lara laugh.

“Well, don’t say anything yet. We’ll talk about it with Susan later. Also, tonight, I want another threesome,” I said.

“Finally! I want to go further with her.”

“I’d really like to see that.”

She just grinned and kissed me, then took my hand. We walked upstairs and I went to go sit with Susan at the table, where she had a lot of medical supplies laid out. I sat down and she went about unrolling the gauze. She winced and Lara made an unhappy sound as the wounds were revealed. They were an ugly row of holes in my forearm, some kind of deep. It turned my stomach just a little to see that. I hated having holes in me. I’d been shot once, stabbed three times, bitten more times than I wanted to count.

It got more bearable, but not what I’d call easier.

“Let’s do this,” Susan muttered.

The whole thing took about twenty minutes and was a real pain in the ass, but when she re-wrapped it, I did feel better.

“Thank you,” I said, looking at the gauze.

“You’re welcome,” Susan said. She got up suddenly and sat carefully in my lap, then hugged me. “I’m glad you came back safe.”

I hugged her back. “Me too,” I replied, and she laughed. “You two are really, really worth coming back to.”

“You really like us, huh?” she asked.

“Obviously.” I slid my hand down to her ass. “Speaking of which...”

“Oh here it comes. What do you want now?” Susan asked, rolling her eyes.

“Threesome tonight.”

“Fair enough. I guess you could use one after that.”

“I sure could,” I agreed. She began to say something sardonic but I kissed her and at first she seemed startled, then annoyed, then really into it, moaning softly. I slipped my hand up under her shirt and groped her breast, then ran my fingertips across her nipple, making her cry out and shudder. She didn’t bother with bras most days.

“S-stop,” she whispered, “you’re making me really horny.”

“And you want that to stop?” Lara asked.

“I...” She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, blushing fiercely. “No.”

“Then let’s go fuck,” I said, and stood up, picking her up at the same time.

She gave a little shout. “God, it’s such a rush when you pick me up,” she whispered.

I laughed, adjusted her to sit more comfortably in my arms, and then kissed her. Then we set off, making for what was now our bedroom, since we hardly ever used what had been Lara’s, then Lara’s and mine. If things went well, it would become Jessica’s. Well, her and her daughter’s maybe. Hmm, we’d have to figure that out.

We got into the bedroom, and I tossed Susan on the bed. She let out a wild shriek of glee as I did that. I think she loved being thrown around as much as I loved throwing her around. We stripped and washed up. It was nice being able to even just grab a washcloth, dunk it in room temp water, and scrub yourself down. We even had a healthy supply of soap, as apparently they’d found a good store of it when they’d first found this place.

Soon enough, we were all naked and together in bed.

Lara and I took turns kissing Susan, touching her and pleasuring her. Lara started fingering her right away and she moaned so loudly.

“Oh fuck, Lara,” she whispered, panting between kisses.

“Mmm...you like it when I touch you there, huh?” Lara murmured, her voice husky.

“Yes...so much...”

“Good.”

Susan let out another loud, erotic moan as Lara dialed up the pleasure. I leaned down and started sucking on one of her tits, and at the same time got to work slipping a finger into her pussy while Lara worked her clit. Susan began screaming as he both fingered, and her whole tight little body shook and shuddered and jerked until she had a screaming orgasm. When she was done, she lay there panting. Lara and I kissed for a bit, and I groped one of her big tits, (Lara had fantastic tits), and then she pulled back slightly and stared at me.

She had a mischievous look in her eyes.

I watched as she slipped lower and positioned herself between Susan’s legs. Susan, who was still a little dazed from her orgasm, slowly took notice.

She looked down. “Lara, what are you-oh my!” she gasped as Lara leaned in, spread the lips of her tight pussy, and began to eat her out.

“Oh! Oh Lara! Oh...oh my God! Lara...you don’t have to...oh fuck...” she panted, moaning intensely and writhing in desperate pleasure.

“I want to, Susan,” she said, and just went to town on her pussy, licking it like crazy.

“Oh fuck! Lara!” she shrieked.

Either she was deeply turned on by the encounter, or Lara was really good at eating pussy, (probably both), but Lara had her coming again in barely a minute. She let out a wild shriek and her hips backed and she grabbed Lara’s head and forced it into her crotch. “Don’t stop!” she begged. “Lara, don’t stop eating!”

Lara didn’t stop. With the practiced ease of a girl who has eaten a lot of pussy, with her face being mashed into Susan’s crotch and Susan’s hips bucking, she kept eating all through the orgasm. It was an exceptionally fucking sexy thing to watch. A wildly erotic and arousing sight. Finally, Susan let go of Lara’s head.

“Oh my God...sorry...” she gasped, laying there panting.

“It’s okay,” Lara replied, smiling up at her, “I don’t mind. If you want I could do it again.”

“Seriously?”

“That’d actually be perfect, because I really want to fuck Lara doggystyle while she eats your pussy. I was getting to do that, but you came really fast,” I said.

“It felt so good...” she moaned. “I’ve never fucking been eaten by a girl before. Oh my God, it really does make a difference.”

“I told you,” Lara said smugly.

“Yes, please, more. I want you to eat my pussy more,” Susan panted.

“Then I will.”

She got onto her hands and knees, then lowered her front half so she could continue eating, and left her fat ass in the air. I got behind her, extremely eager to start fucking that bald, glistening vagina of hers. It looked especially inviting right now and I was insanely horny. I slipped right in, (she was so fucking wet), and listened to her scream as I got into her. She loved that first penetration. So did I. I grabbed her big hips, ran my hands over her fat, pale ass, then moved them back to her hips. Gripping them tightly, I started fucking Lara.

Both women were moaning loudly now, the sounds filling the room.

Once I was comfortably inside of her, I really start fucking Lara’s pussy. She felt incredible, like just amazing on my cock. Unprotected sex was by far the best thing I had left in my life. Honestly, as long as I had access to women who would let me bareback and creampie them...I could put up with a fucking lot.

Because there was really nothing better than just filling up a chick with my seed, just pumping her pussy full of it with no protection at all.

I gave Lara’s ass a hard smack and she moaned louder. I did it again, and then a third time. She really had an ass made for smacking.

“Oh my God-oh Lara!” Susan panted.

She was finally learning the true pleasure of girl-on-girl action, and it was so fucking amazing to witness firsthand. Susan was on her back, look glorious, naked and sweaty and flushed, her dark hair a messy. She had her legs spread out wide and both hands on Lara’s head. She looked so utterly and thoroughly exposed, and there was something amazing about that, especially considering Susan’s personality and how hard it was for her to let her armor down. Right now, she was naked in more ways than one.

And fuck, Lara.

From my position behind her, hammering away at her pussy, I had such a great view of her. Lara looked so perfectly erotic, so pornographic. Her thick ass and broad hips going up to a more narrow waistline and stomach gave her that perfect almost teardrop shape that really hot, curvaceous chicks tended to have. She looked so natural doing this, being a fuck toy for me and Susan, providing both of us with intense sexual pleasure.

Some women were intensely sexual and erotic, at their most comfortable when they were having sex, and Lara was absolutely one of those women. And I fucking loved it. I kept sliding my cock in and out of her, satisfying both of us, until her voice began rising in pitch and I felt her pussy clenching up, both telltale signs of an impending orgasm, and yep, sure enough, fifteen seconds of hardcore pussy pounding later, she was coming all over my dick.

I groaned, going harder and faster, because I fucking loved that feeling. I loved how her vagina felt clenching and spasming around my dick, massaging it, and that huge burst of wetness and heat. Lara was a fucking squirter. And then I was coming along with her, just busting a huge nut inside of her, thrusting deep into her, burying my cock all the way as I emptied myself into her. She screamed into Susan’s pussy as we came together.

Not long after we were finished and I pulled out, Susan had another orgasm and she screamed hoarsely through it. As soon as she was done, I patted Lara’s ass. “Move aside,” I said.

“You got it,” she replied, pretty much falling on her side. “Fuck.”

“Your turn,” I said as I stared down at Susan, who was panting and slicked with sweat, her tight, pale body looking even more alluring than usual. Her pussy was crazy wet.

“Yes...please...fuck me...” she begged. “I need your cock.”

“Oh do you now?” I asked as I got on top of her. I rubbed my head between the lips of her pussy, but didn’t put it in.

“No! Don’t make me beg!” she cried.

“Tell me you need it, Susan.”

“Ugh, fuck you!” she moaned. I slapped her. She gasped and stared at me in surprise. I probably should’ve warned her, but I actually surprised myself by doing it.

“I-I’m sorry, master,” she said demurely, then bit her lower lip. “I need your cock,” she moaned.

I continued rubbing the head against her pussy, feeling relief. I was really glad I’d talked to her about it beforehand. “Do you love it, Susan?”

“Yes...” she moaned. I waited. “I love your cock, master! I need it! Please please give it to me!” she begged.

“Okay,” I replied, and slipped it into her.

She began screaming incoherently as I drilled into, just pounding her pussy. She was tighter than Lara and it just felt amazing. Even though I’d already busted, I knew I wasn’t lasting much longer. Part of it was that I wanted to be done, because my arm was actually really bugging me. It hurt from all the activity. But part of it was just how fucking good her vagina felt on my bare cock. I pounded her into the fucking mattress, just screwing her fucking brains out, and she screamed like I was murdering her. Well, I was beating the fuck out of her pussy, I guess.

“I’m going to come!” she screamed. “Oh my fucking-oh FUCK CHRIS!” she shrieked as she began to enjoy her fourth orgasm. Goddamn that girl could come. Her whole body twisted and writhed as she gave voice to the pleasure that she couldn’t contain within herself. She looked like she was being electrocuted, her hips bucking and back heaving, mouth working as she screamed in pleasure. I kept banging her sweet pussy until she was done, and not much after that I started letting off a second time. I groaned loudly, pushing deeper into her, just draining my cock into her. It jerked and kicked and my balls tightened as they were emptied out.

I came so fucking much inside of her.

When I was done, I pulled out, wincing both from the sensitivity of my dick and from my arm, as I was holding myself up, and then laid down between the two ladies.

“Are you doing okay?” Lara asked.

“Oh yeah, your arm...” Susan murmured, panting. “That was probably a bad idea.”

“Totally worth it,” I replied, relaxing my arm. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “More than worth it. You two are so fucking good to come inside of.”

Lara laughed. “Well, I’m glad.” She hugged me from behind suddenly, pressing her huge boobs up against my back. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

I put my hand over the back of hers and just laid there, held by her.

And we all laid together like that for awhile, letting the sweat cool on our bodies, coming down from the tremendous high of our orgasms.

CHAPTER THREE

“So, Susan...Lara...I think it’s time we had a talk,” I said.

It had been about half an hour since we’d fucked. We’d since washed up and...done nothing else. Just kept laying there together.

“Oh no, I don’t like where this is going,” Lara murmured.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad, just uncomfortable,” I replied.

“Ugh, goddamnit, Chris,” Susan muttered. “You want me to bare my fucking soul and you think now is the time to strike after I’ve been freshly fucked.”

“You did have four orgasms,” I replied.

She let out a very long, annoyed sigh. “Okay, fine. Because I guess you have a point. Lara, he wants me to tell you things I’ve never told you before that are still bugging me.”

“Wait...what?” she asked, sitting up. “Are you mad at me about something?”

“No, it’s more complicated than that,” Susan murmured. She fell silent. We waited. Susan was probably trying to figure out the best way to say it. Finally, she said: “Lara, I’m jealous of you.”

“...why?” Lara asked finally, sounding genuinely confused.

“Because everything is so easy for you,” Susan replied. She was lying on her side, facing away from them.

“What are you talking about?” Lara asked. She turned and put her back to the wall, then sat up abruptly, grabbed one of the blankets, wrapped it around herself, and then leaned back against the wall. She stared at Susan, looking worried.

“Lara...” Susan said, then muttered something under breath, sat up abruptly and turned around. “Lara, everything you do is just so fucking easy. Like, looking hot. You just...do it! You just look so fucking hot! You’d wake up in the morning and before you took a shower or even brushed your fucking teeth you still looked amazing! Even now you still look so good! And I never fucking could do that! It was so fucking frustrating! It would take me like two hours of effort to look as good as you do rolling out of bed! And you could always get a fucking date, and you always were so effortlessly sexy! Listening to you fuck was always like listening to an amazing porn being shot! And I could never do that! Every time I tried to say something sexy it always came out sounding so fucking stupid. And then you just fucking stumble into being a goddamned actress while I’m struggling to scrape together a living writing, something I’d been doing for almost my whole life at that point!”

She was panting at this point, and close to crying, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake. She looked angry and guilty and vulnerable. Lara didn’t look much better.

“I’m sorry,” Lara whispered finally. “I...didn’t know.”

Susan seemed to deflate a little, losing her anger, instead just looking tired. “I know. It’s because you’re so...sweet, and nice. At the end of the day, you’re neurologically hardwired to be happy, and I’m neurologically hardwired to be sad. And we ended up being best friends, and I’d rather have put up with the jealousy than lose you.”

“Susan...” Lara said finally. “I just...that’s not the only reason I didn’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I thought...you were happy. I mean, like, in your own way. Like, I knew you were kind of depressed some of the time, and you were easy to piss off, but...it’s not like you’re ugly. You’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever been around.”

“Oh come on,” Susan replied, “you hung out with fucking actress and models and escorts all the time, who are not only born with beauty thanks to their genes, but have spent decades perfecting looking beautiful with all the top technology.”

“And I still think you were more beautiful than them,” Lara insisted. “They were all...fake. I was fake. I mean, I know I’m really hot, and I can talk people into stuff, I know that, but you’re smart Susan. Like really smart. And creative. Why do you think I kept pushing you to keep writing books, I wasn’t just being supportive or a good friend, I wanted to know what happened next! Or I just wanted to read more of what you wrote!”

“What good is that now?” Susan replied glumly.

“You know,” I said, “there have always been storytellers and artists in human history. In one way or another, they’ve always been revered. Some of the most famous names in history were painters or writers or philosophers.”

She frowned at me, but didn’t seem to have anything to say to that.

Lara did, though. “And you always knew what you were doing! Susan, I’d be dead for a long time by now if it wasn’t for you. You saved my life more than once, more than twenty times!” She paused. “I don’t even know why you care so much about how good you look.”

“Look how happy it made you!” Susan snapped. “Look how many fucking doors it opened for you! Let me tell you the difference between you and me, Lara. Guys would do things for you in the hope of fucking you. I, on the other hand, would have to fuck someone just to get a chance for those same doors to open. Which, in and of itself, is fucked up. God fucking forbid I be judged on my abilities instead of my tits or facial features! You want to know why it mattered so much to me?! Because it made so fucking much to everyone else! Think of all the ways beauty was baked into our goddamned society! It was everywhere. This message of, ‘If you aren’t attractive, then go fucking kill yourself and make way for the attractive people’. I mean fuck, someone could get five million followers online just for being hot! Nothing else! How the fuck was I supposed to compete with that!?” she yelled.

Lara was silent for a long moment. Finally, she said, “Does it matter now?”

Susan looked glumly at her, then at me, then down at the bed. “I guess not,” she murmured. “It still helps, though.”

“Well isn’t that fair, Susan?” Lara asked suddenly.

She looked back up. “What?”

“Why should you be the only one who can do anything of value in this new world? Why should it be you always taking care of me?”

Susan looked back at her, seemingly startled. She looked a little guilty. “I guess because...before, it felt that way, but in reverse. It felt like I was able to live the life I wanted because of your success. I mean, for awhile there, you covered like all the bills. That’s how much you were making.”

“Because I wanted you to have more money!”

“I know, and, fuck! I appreciate it, it’s just, it’s like, I’m this fucking failure who can’t do anything right, so my best friend, who just fucking looked hot and fell into this amazing acting gig has to fucking take care of me because no one fucking gives a shit about my writing!”

“Oh,” Lara murmured. “I guess...I didn’t see it that way. I’m really sorry.”

“I know, Lara. I know you weren’t-I wasn’t angry at you, I was angry at the circumstances. I was angry at a world that reward naturally hot women who didn’t have to try at all with insane amounts of money and fame and everything they ever wanted, but it refused to acknowledge someone like me, who was genuinely putting serious fucking effort into my work for years and years just because I didn’t have a fucking hourglass figure or I wasn’t photogenic enough.”

“You’re right,” I said after a moment of silence. “It was bullshit. A lot of people are fucking stupid, and a lot of smart people take advantage of stupid people, and turn it to their own advantage. The stupid masses wanted to worship some talentless beauty queen? So be it, we’ll pump her full of money, slap her face on everything, and let the money roll in. But that’s gone now. I mean, not completely, it never will be, but a whole civilization built on shit like that? It’s gone. All that matters now is staying alive and trying to be happy.”

Susan laughed, then blinked, shedding a few tears. “Yeah, well, I’ve never been good at that.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Do you?” she asked.

“Yeah. I felt like shit for most of my life. I felt like I didn’t have any real worth, and that I didn’t know what the fuck to do with myself. I don’t feel that way anymore. And I think...you should try to let go of this. And I know what I’m asking. It’s so hard, and we’ll never truly let go of it, because we all have scars, but you can largely make peace with it, I think. That’s why I asked you to do this, Susan...do you feel any better?”

“I...” She paused, wiped at her eyes, “I do, actually.”

“Lara?”

“I think so,” she murmured. “I guess...in my heart, I always knew there was something there, some kind of resentment or something, but I just...ignored it. Because it hurt. Thinking that you were mad at me or resented me hurt too much. And it was easier just to pretend it wasn’t there. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I get that at least,” Susan said. “I fucking hated it when we had our rare fights and you’d walk out. You being mad at me was one of the worst feelings.”

“Yeah,” Lara agreed. “It really was.” She paused. “You know...I was scared you’d leave me behind a lot.”

“What? Why?”

“You were so fucking smart! I mean, you are. And so ambitious. And I was just this stupid party girl who couldn’t be bothered to figure more hard shit out. I didn’t want to, I still don’t, which I know is stupid, given our situation. I just kept expecting to come home one day and you’d be like, ‘Well Lara, it’s been fun, but I’m ready to get on with the rest of my life and be a real adult now.’, you know what I mean?”

“Why would I do that? You’re my best friend. You have been for a long time now. I pretty much tied myself to you. We might as well have been a married couple,” Susan replied.

“Well, in all the ways but the funnest one,” Lara murmured.

Susan opened her mouth, then closed it. “Lara...have you been...attracted to me? This whole time?” she asked slowly.

“Of course I have,” she replied.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I mean, I figured you just weren’t into girls, or not enough to do more than just fool around sometimes when you were drunk. I didn’t want to pressure you or anything, or scare you off.”

“So I mean, you like...like me like me?” Susan asked.

“Of course I do. I love you,” Lara replied simply. “You’re my best friend in the whole world. My parents were well off and they thought you could solve every problem with money. They were also obsessed with preserving their ‘legacy’, which was why they shipped me off to college and forcing academics down my fucking throat since I hit middle school. I wasn’t super smart to begin with, but that just made me hate it on top of not being good at it. I probably would’ve done better in school if they hadn’t fucking forced so hard. And my friends, and guys and girls I dated, almost all of them just wanted something from me. You didn’t. You just...wanted to be my friend, and spend time with me, and you listened to me, so of course I love you and was attracted to you.”

“Wow,” Susan murmured. “I just...how the fuck did I not know this?”

“Because I decided early on not to let it interfere with the relationship and I’m good at acting. I mean, I don’t want you to get the impression that I was crying every time you weren’t looking at me, pretty much all the fun we had together was real.” She paused, then looked at me suddenly. “I just realized what I said might make it sound like I was taking a shot at you, with people trying to get stuff out of me, it wasn’t. I really like you. I really care about you, and I feel like you care about me,” she said, looking at me.

“I care about you a lot, Lara. And you, Susan,” I replied.

“Okay, good. I mean, I know the foundation of our relationship was ‘I’ll total fuck and suck your cock if you take of me, you big, strong man’, which obviously worked out really well, but, well, yeah,” she said, and Susan laughed.

“It worked out pretty well,” I agreed. “So...” I said after several seconds of silence. “Do you think that all was a good talk?”

“Yes,” Susan said. “I have to admit I feel better.”

“I definitely to,” Lara said. She looked at Susan. “Should we talk about...us?”

“I...” Susan looked uncertain, “...need more time.”

“Okay. I can wait.”

“Good. Thank you.” She looked at me, then sighed and rolled her eyes. “And fucking thank you for making us have this talk. Asshole.”

“What?! You just said it worked out well!” I replied.

She growled and hit me with a pillow. “Yeah but it fucking sucked! And now you’re going to be all smug like you helped us deepen our relationship.”

“Well...didn’t I?” She yelled and hit me again. “What?! You were never gonna fucking talk about any of this on your own! You were content to just let it sit forever.”

“He’s right,” Lara murmured.

“That’s why I’m so mad! Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you get to be fucking smug about it! That just makes it worse!”

“I’m not being smug!” I cried.

She sighed disgustedly. “Whatever,” she replied, then hit me again with the pillow. This time, for whatever reason, I raised my arm in automatic self defense, and she hit me right on my lion bite. I let out a surprised bark of pain. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” she cried, dropping the pillow and scooting closer to me. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I replied, relaxing myself. “It was more surprise than pain.”

“God, now I feel like a bitch.”

“It’s fine, Susan. Although...”

“Although?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You could make it up to me, later.”

“Okay, let me know what and when.”

“I’ll let you know,” I said. I already knew exactly what I wanted.

“So now what?” Lara asked finally.

“I’m going to take a nap after washing up,” I replied. “I’m fucking tired. I’ve been meaning to take an actual day off, which I haven’t really since coming here.”

“You’ve earned it,” Susan said. She stood up and began washing herself. “I’m going to go read then.”

“I feel like going out,” Lara said as she joined Susan. “Maybe forage some more berries and wild onion. You know, I used to hate that shit, but I’ve kind of developed a taste for it.”

“Same. Lucky for us,” Susan murmured.

I joined them, and then as soon as I was clean, I gave them both a hug and a kiss, pulled back on my boxers out of habit more than anything, and climbed into bed.

It was time for a goddamned nap.

CHAPTER FOUR

I woke from my nap to the sound of shrieking winds.

I was in almost total darkness and for a moment I panicked, not remembering where I was or what was going on. I heard someone talking and tensed up another notch, then I recognized the voice, and heard a laugh, and everything settled back into place. Letting out a long sigh, I laid back down and relaxed. There was some dizziness, and that was the double-edged sword of naps. I took them to escape those particularly brutal days where I was just dragging ass, just dead on my fucking feet even though the day was only half over, but when I woke up it left me feeling dislocated and hazy. Well, whatever. Obviously a storm had blown in while I’d slept.

After laying there for a few minutes longer, I finally hauled my lazy ass up out of bed, then winced at the unexpected shot of pain from my arm. I looked at it. There wasn’t any blood welling up into the gauze, so that was good at least. Ugh, I fucking hated getting injured nowadays. It took way too long for shit to heal up. And it made some situations a lot more dangerous. I was going to have to take it easy if I could manage it.

Not something I did well.

Although, I was unhappy to admit, it was easier with Lara and Susan in my life.

I got up and groped on the bedside table for a bit, found a lighter, and lit the candle that was there. That helped, throwing a flickering light on the walls and letting me see what was where. I took a few moments to wash myself up, then dried and dressed. From there, I grabbed a bottle of water from my pack and drank half of it.

There was something I wanted, kind of badly.

I had a steel hard-on and I really wanted to get it satisfied and empty it into Susan’s mouth. Lara had sucked my dick a lot, but Susan hadn’t done it that much. Lara was better, but Susan just looked hotter doing it.

Thoughts of her filling my head, I put out the candle, then headed out of our shared room. I found the ladies sitting in the living room, talking in front of the glow of the fireplace and a few candles around the room. Beyond them, through the windows, all I could see was darkness and a confusion of madly blowing snow.

“Hey, you’re up,” Lara said, smiling at me.

“Yep. And I really want to cash in on that you making it up to me, Susan,” I replied.

She rolled her eyes but grinned. “Okay, what do you want?”

“A blowjob. Full on blowjob, with you swallowing every last drop as I shove my cock down your throat,” I replied.

“Well all right then. One slutty, submissive blowjob coming up,” she replied, getting up.

I grinned, kissed her, then took her place next to Lara. She grabbed a pillow, tossed it on the floor at my feet, then settled in to do the job. Leaning in, she unzipped and unbuttoned my jeans, opened them up, then dug my dick out of my thermal underwear. It was hard as a rock. She grinned as she looked at it.

“You are excited, you got some stuff leaking out already,” she said, sounding mildly amused.

“Well, I really love watching you suck my dick,” I replied.

“Oh, I see.”

She leaned in and took it slowly into her mouth. I exhaled slowly as she started giving me head. Goddamn it felt good. Lara snuggled up next to me, resting her head on my shoulder, apparently agreeing that it was a great show.

Susan closed her eyes and began bobbing her head slowly, sucking me off, taking my whole length into her mouth, up to and then into her throat. And occasionally she’d go as hard as she could, taking it deep into her throat, and she’d hold it there and swallow a few times, and fuuuuuuck that felt gooood. All those hot, slick muscles clenching around the head of my dick, just...oh, just the absolute best. Susan sucked me off so good, going faster, bobbing her head quicker, looking just hot. Her short black hair was in a ponytail and it looked on her.

I lasted for about five minutes and then I started letting off.

As soon as I did, I grabbed her head and forced my cock down her throat. She gagged and coughed, but didn’t struggle, and I groaned loudly as my dick jerked and kicked, spitting my stuff out into her throat.

She swallowed.

“Ah fuck, Susan!” I moaned, shuddering. “Fucking...yes!”

She swallowed several more times, taking everything I had, and the pleasure was a physical force, blasting through me as I drained my cock down her throat. When I was done, I let go and she pulled it out, coughing.

“Asshole,” she muttered between coughs.

“Hey, I warned you,” I replied.

She laughed. “Yeah, yeah. It had better’ve been good.”

“Oh yeah. Very good,” I replied.

“You look so hot sucking dick, Susan,” Lara said.

“That’s good to know at least,” Susan replied. “I’m going to make dinner.”

“You haven’t yet? How long was I down?”

“Like two hours,” Lara replied.

“We didn’t want to do it without you,” Susan said, and headed into the kitchen.

Well, that was nice of them. Lara and I got up and followed her.

…

Two days passed after that.

I spent the rest of that night just talking with the ladies until I was tired enough to pass out again, and we all snuggled up beneath the blankets together, nude and warm and comfortable. The next day I slept in, and after getting up and basically negotiating with Susan, who kept stopping me from doing things after she’d re-wrapped my wound, I finally gave up, picked up a paperback from the shelf, and spent most of the rest of the day reading through it.

I’d read a fair amount before the snow began, you could call it a hobby. Reading had largely gotten me through high school and I saw no reason to discard it after. There were so many good books out there. I broke for lunch and helped them fry up some rabbit meat, and then finally I could stand it no more and joined Lara in hunting for more plants. Susan argued, but I put my foot down, and Lara promised to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid, and Susan finally relented. Honestly, it was touching that she gave this much of a shit about me.

The apocalypse tended to bring out extremes in people, I’d noticed. So it was really easy for some people to just give a shit about no one, but inversely some people got super attached to people. I thought maybe that’s what was happening a little with Lara, but Susan seemed a bit more genuine in her attachment. Not to diminish Lara’s feelings at all, I did believe she cared about me, she just seemed...I guess, like she had a harder time closing herself off, was the best way to put it. Some people needed other people more than some people, if that made sense.

I wouldn’t really call myself a loner, but I was more well-suited to being alone than most, I guess.

So Lara and I went out looking for plants in the wake of the latest snowfall. I didn’t like our chances of finding anything useful, but I just wanted to be out of the house. We spent two hours out there, and managed to find some nuts and berries. After we got back, I read for a bit longer, and then gave into frustration again and began taking apart our guns, cleaning them to best of my ability, and reassembling them.

My kingdom for a proper gun cleaning kit.

Eventually, that day came to a close, and the next one came.

I slept in again, but today was the day we were scheduled to go see Jessica, and there was no way I was going to miss that. No way in hell. That pussy was just too good. And so Lara and I bundled up, grabbed the guns, and set out.

…

“Do you think I did the wrong thing?” Lara asked as we walked to our rendezvous point.

“With regards to what?” I replied.

“Telling Susan I liked her, you know, romantically.”

I’d been wondering the same thing myself. “I don’t think so,” I replied.

“Why?”

“Here’s what I see, and I could be wrong, but I’ve gotten decent at reading people. I think that Susan has had an idea in her head for, well, probably her whole life, that she’s a certain way. I’m guess that she’s straight, but she kind of likes girls. Like she’s said before, enough to make out with at parties and touch boobs. I think it’s something she’s never really put much thought into. And I think these sessions with you, you kissing her, having sex in the same room as her, touching, eating her out, it’s all making her realize that, well...maybe there’s more to girls than she thought. Or, at the very least, maybe there’s more to you than she thought. I don’t know if she’s ready to believe she’s full-on bisexual, but I think she might be preparing herself to believe that she could see herself in a relationship with you,” I explained.

“Huh...you really think so?”

“I do. Again, I could be wrong, but that’s what I think.”

A long pause. “So, I mean, what do you think about it?”

“I just told you-”

“No! I mean like...are you like...worried, if we hook up?”

“That you’ll abandon me?”

“Yeah.”

“Should I be?”

“No! I wouldn’t. I think if we got together, like real girlfriends, I’d be okay to pretty much just keep things the way they are between you and me, and you and her. And I think she would, too.”

“I sure hope so. I like what we’ve got going on.”

“I really do too,” she said, and took my hand.

I smiled and squeezed it. “How’s your arm?” she asked after a bit.

“It’s doing okay. It’ll do better after a nice long screw with Jessica.”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Lara said, and giggled.

A few minutes later, we arrived at the cabin and Jessica opened the door for us. She looked just as good as ever. Almost before the door was closed she had her arms around me and was locking lips with me. We didn’t waste any time. In between making out and twisting tongues together like horny teenagers, we stripped naked. When we were nude, I shoved her onto the bed and she let out a happy shriek. I climbed on top of her.

“Just get inside me, I’m so fucking wet,” she moaned, spreading her legs.

Fine by me. I slid smoothly into her mature pussy. There was something fucking great about fucking a chick thirteen years older than me. She moaned as her pussy accepted my rock-hard length, and soon I slipped inside of her all the way in. Oh fuck, that vagina was amazing. She cried out, putting her legs in the air as I started screwing her.

“Oh yes! Oh Chris, fuck me!” she screamed, panting as she stared up at me.

I kept kissing her, making out with her passionately as I drove into her over and over again. Lara was sitting in her usual spot, watching is with the intent gaze of lust and voyeuristic desire. Having watched her and Jessica go at it twice now, I really got what she meant about it being like porn. And I had say, being able to make that porn was fucking awesome. I kissed Jessica for several long minutes as we made impassioned love together. Feeling her warm, smooth body move against my own, all the little motions as she worked with me, unified in our sex, was a gratification all its own. I felt connected with her in the same way I did with Lara and Susan, and I felt kind of bad about that. But I was getting over that, slowly.

Jessica was choosing this, I had to remember that.

She moaned loudly and wrapped her legs around my midsection. I kept driving furiously into her, burying my cock again and again.

“Put me on top,” she moaned.

“You got it,” I replied, kissed her, then grabbed her and flipped us. She ended up on top, and as soon as we were both settled comfortable into position, she started riding my dick like crazy. Her big, pale tits bounced amazingly and I gripped her hips, thrusting up into her, and made her scream. It took about thirty seconds of doing that before she lost control and began coming all over my dick. I groaned as she leaned forward, grabbing my shoulders, convulsing as she orgasmed. I kept screwing her, pounding up into her stunning MILF pussy, staring at this redheaded orgasming goddess. Oh how fucking great it felt.

When she regained control of herself, she kept riding, and then she turned around. I got a great look at her stunning, she really did have probably the best ass I’d ever seen. Like, it was this perfect mixture of thick and toned and kind of broad, oh fuck! It was just amazing! I grabbed her ass and fucked her, pulling her down against me, shoving my cock up into her perfect pink pussy. She moaned and screamed as we screwed.

I lasted another few minutes before I started coming in her.

She moaned as I pulled her down hard against me, grinding her butt into my lap, and I shoved up with my hips, burying my big dick into her as far as I could. She moaned as I filled her up, and so did I. It blinded me with pleasure, seemed to fill my world as I just came and came and came into her. My dick was jolting like crazy and I could feel a lot of seed coming out of me. Fuck, it was the best feeling left in the whole of existence.

When I was done, I let go of her, and she got off of me after catching her breath. She cleaned herself up, then she laid down with me, coming down from the high.

“I got a question, Jessica,” I said, because I’d been meaning to ask this.

“What’s that?” she replied, her voice mellow.

“This is gonna be harsh, but...I just gotta know.”

“Oh boy,” she murmured. “Well, I guess I’m ready. Ask me the harsh question.”

“Why are you still with your husband?” She didn’t say anything for several seconds. Eventually, I pressed on. “You’ve told me that he can’t hunt. He can’t skin or clean a kill. He can barely fish. He’s not great at starting a fire. He doesn’t have much in the way of medical knowledge, he’s not a great shot...how does he provide for you and your daughter? You admitted to me last time we talked that he hasn’t done anything for you sexually in over a month and a half now. And you think he’s probably screwing around on you. And you also told me you and your daughter have both been getting in fights with him more recently. So why?”

Again, Jessica didn’t say anything, but I let the silence play out this time. Lara looked grave, but didn’t say anything either.

Finally, Jessica sighed softly. “He’s not completely inept,” she said finally. “I knows how to be in control...or he did, at one point. You should have seen him when the shit really started to hit the fan. He negotiated a lot, and he was good at it. Charismatic. I felt safe with him then. But to be honest...you’re right. He’s almost useless in this new world. I’m sure that’s cold, but...you know, in a way, I think he kind of treatment the same way. He assessed my value, my use. I would be a great trophy wife. I’d look good, I’d fuck good, I’d raise his child, and keep his house. I mean, before the snow...he was in banking, and he was good at it. Whatever it was he did, he was good at it. He started making real money not long after college, and we moved into like a legit mansion by the time I was twenty seven. Private school for Hannah, maids and a private chef and a personal trainer to help me keep in shape. I mean, in the old world, he was a king.”

“And take all that way, and he’s useless,” I said.

She sighed. “He is now,” she admitted finally. She sounded tired, and I felt bad. But like the conversation between Lara and Susan, I felt like this had to happen. “I keep telling myself it’s just a bad streak of luck, that he’s just in a funk, and he’ll go back to how he was before. Decisive, confident, smart. He just gets angry a lot now. It’s like walking on eggshells back at home...”

I tensed at that, and she felt me do it. She looked at me. “What? What’s wrong?”

“I just...growing up, I had an uncle I’d go stay with sometimes during the summers when I’d visit my cousins. It was fun, but he had a bad temper. And if he got real pissed, which was guaranteed to happen a minimum of two times per visit, God, that’s how it was all day and most of the next day. Walking on goddamned eggshells. I hated that, how scared I was to piss him off, how it just seeped into everything I did, that fear. It was toxic and poisonous. I know exactly what you’re saying, and I just hate it so much.”

Jessica sighed. “I guess at this point I’m staying because we’ve been together for twenty years. Even through all this. I spent a long time thinking that meant something, that loyalty. And I still believe in loyalty, in sticking through thick and thin with someone, but...I also have to acknowledge that at some point, you’re just hurting yourself. It isn’t going to get better, and even if it is, is it worth it any longer? I think people put so much emphasis on loyalty and sticking it out because they’re scared to be alone. I knew so many people who’d rather be in an abusive relationship than be alone. I swore I’d never become like that...”

The silence played out again.

“Why are you asking?” she said finally. “Are you...making an offer?”

“I mean...” I looked at Lara, who’s eyes clearly told me ‘you are on your own, man’. I had to suppress a laugh. That was fair. “I don’t know, kind of?”

She grinned suddenly. “You just want me all to yourself.”

“I mean, yeah, I’d like that. I’d like it if you were around me all the time, and I know Lara would, too. She thinks the world of you.”

“Do you?” Jessica asked, looking over at her.

“Of course I do, Jessica. You’re fucking amazing,” Lara replied.

Jessica laughed, and it was a pleasant sound, releasing tension that had been building on the air. “You want me to come live with you and Lara and your other friend?”

“I want that, and Lara does. I’m not sure how Susan feels about it. I think she’d have difficulties.”

“In this imaginary scenario, I obviously come as a package deal with my daughter, Hannah.”

“Of course,” I replied. “I wouldn’t dream of trying to separate you two.”

Jessica sighed. “It sounds really tempting,” she admitted finally. “But I’d be a drain on you. I mean, I can do some things, but I think the best service I could offer is sex...”

“I mean...I’d be okay with that,” I replied, and both women laughed.

“Me too,” Lara said.

“You can learn to do new things,” I said.

She sighed softly. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s still true.”

“Jessica,” I said, putting my fingers on her chin and gently guiding her eyes towards mine, “you’re not an idiot. You’re smart. You can learn things.”

She stared at me, then blinked a few times and looked away. “I...I’d need time to even consider this,” she murmured.

“Of course,” I replied. “And we’d need time to talk with Susan. And I mean, this might be a really stupid idea. Maybe the way things are going now are best...”

I didn’t really believe that, but I’d been wrong before, and I wasn’t scared of admitting it. I’d seen too many dumb alpha assholes get killed because they couldn’t admit they were wrong.

“I don’t know, I don’t think so,” Jessica said after a bit. “I’ll have to think about it.” She looked at me again, smiling, then her eyes went down to my arm and they widened. “Oh my God, what happened?” she asked.

“You just noticed that?” I replied, laughing a little.

“I’m really sorry, it’s just, I was so horny-”

“It’s fine. I got attacked by a mountain lion two days ago.”

“Are you, I mean...okay? Is it going to be okay?”

“It should be,” I replied. “We’ve been keeping it clean.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not after that fuck session,” I replied, and that made her smile.

“If we’ve got all the serious discussion stuff out of the way, I want a turn. I want to rub pussies together,” Lara said, getting up and taking off her shirt.

“I’m ready,” Jessica replied.

I made room, getting up and taking Lara’s place.

CHAPTER FIVE

“You’re kind of crazy, you know that?” Lara asked.

We were walking back, kicking through the latest snowfall, both of us keeping an eye out for plants or anything alive. It was basically automatic now, scanning like that. It was amazing how your brain and body could adapt to things, how you eventually internalized things into your own personal mental library.

“Why?” I replied.

“You just...I have no idea how you just outright confronted her like that.”

“Was I wrong?”

“I mean...no, you weren’t. I’m not saying it was bad, I just don’t know how you did it. That was really uncomfortable and, well...brave, I guess.”

“It needed to be said. I spent a lot of time keeping my mouth shut, not saying things when I really should have. I’m done doing that,” I replied.

“Well, I hope it works out for all of us,” Lara murmured.

“Me too.”

We paused as Lara spied some berries on a low, withered shrub. I watched her back while she picked them and slipped them into a little glass jar. That was the problem nowadays, you pretty much always had to be on the lookout for more food. It’d be great to find one of this miracle, hidden surpluses you always hear about. Someone finding a warehouse packed with a decade worth of freeze-dried food or cans or military rations. You could become a king like that, if you were smart about it and had the right people.

Power was whatever people wanted, and if you had it, you had power.

The trouble with power was you had to keep it, and other people wanted it. Most people, I think, have some reason they don’t challenge power. Fear, mostly. Fear of failure, or even fear of success, for the smarter ones. Fear of pain, fear of death. Or maybe they just liked you. Or they saw the situation and figured this was better than the alternatives. The more reasons not to do it you could throw up around yourself, the better your hold of power was.

I thought about what I might do.

I didn’t really want to be in charge of something like a city, but I did like the idea of being in charge of maybe a camp of a few dozen people.

I looked at Lara and couldn’t help but grin a little. Especially if most of them were women willing to get naked with me.

That would be the life.

That made me think of something. “Lara,” I said as he she finished picking the berries and we got back to walking.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s say I meet some hot chick passing through who wants to fuck, would it bother you if I indulged?” I asked.

“No,” she replied. “I don’t care.”

“Okay, good.”

“Have you?”

“No. You and Susan and Jessica are the only people I met. Well, besides that asshole who tried to kill me. Just working out theoreticals. I have to admit, since I’ve gotten a taste of post-apocalyptic life, my sexual appetite is bigger. Or probably it’s as big as it’s always been, I guess.”

“That’s fair,” Lara replied. “Honestly, I think it’s kind of hot. I respond really good to guys like you, but guys like you are really rare.”

“How?”

“You’re...tough, and badass, and really confident, but you aren’t a dick. Like, it’s really hard to find guys who are confident like you and who can actually back it up and aren’t fucking alpha assholes about it. You...you’re just fantastic. You should fuck other chicks. Clearly you enjoy it, and you’re working hard.” She shrugged.

“Hopefully Susan feels the same way.”

“I think she will. She’s...I noticed she’s calmer after that talk. God, I still feel bad. I didn’t know she was so mad like that. I knew it was harder for her, because she had really high standards for herself, that’s why I tried to help her so much. I wanted to just take the pressure off, you know?”

“I understand,” I replied.

“I did want to thank you for that. It helped.”

“You’re welcome. That was my hope.”

We kept walking through the snow and the dead trees, towards home.

…

We got home and put away the berries. Lara went to read and I went looking for Susan. It didn’t take me long to find her. She was laying in bed with the curtains drawing. I opened the door, but when I saw her in bed, I went to leave.

“I’m not sleeping,” she said.

“You doing okay?” I replied.

“Yeah. I just felt like laying down for a bit. I had nightmares last night.”

“Oh.” I came back in and sat on the edge of the bed. “You didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t want to bother either of you with it.”

“Believe it or not, I care about more than just your pussy,” I said.

She sighed and rolled over, looking at me. “I know,” she murmured softly. “I’m just used to not saying anything. I don’t think you could’ve helped anyway.”

“I think you’d feel better if you’d woken one of us up and talked.”

“That’s your answer for everything,” she growled.

“No it’s not,” I replied, reaching out and running a hand up and down her slim thigh beneath the blanket.

She laughed. “Okay, yeah, you’re other answer is: Let me stick my cock in you.”

“One of those two things usually works, Susan.” She sighed heavily. “Am I wrong?”

“No, you fuck. Speaking of which...I want to sleep but I can’t. Can you fuck me?”

“Yes, but I have questions for you afterward.”

“Oh, so you want to wait until I’m sleeping and I’ve come to ask them, huh?”

“It worked last time.”

“Ugh, fine! Just fuck me.”

I got up and stripped, then got beneath the blankets with her. She was already naked and very warm. I started kissing her and she kissed back, responding immediately. As we started making out, moving around beneath the blankets, I immediately felt that this was a different kind of sex. She wasn’t angry, she wasn’t frustrated, she wasn’t looking to get choked or slapped. There was more passion and intimacy in her body language, in her eyes.

Before long, she pulled me on top of her and opened her legs.

“Make love to me,” she whispered. “I want to make love with you, not fuck or screw or rut. I want you to make love to me, Chris.”

“Okay, Susan,” I replied softly, and began working my way into her.

She moaned and kissed me some more. I felt an intense burst of pleasure, a different kind of pleasure, as I got comfortably inside of her and began making love to her. She gasped and moaned and pressed against me with her hips, hugging me against her as we kissed passionately.

“Do you like me?” she asked, staring up at me, our faces inches apart. “I mean, do you really, actually like me, Chris?”

I stared back at her, startled to see that her expression was much more naked than her body. She looked extremely vulnerable right then, more so than I’d ever seen her before.

“Yes,” I replied. “I like you. I really do, Susan.”

She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. “Keep going,” she whispered.

I kept going. She felt incredible inside, and the intensely intimate feelings coming from her were enhancing the sex in a way I hadn’t experienced in a long time. It was easy to hook up, to fuck and screw with someone now, but real connections were hard. I’d been getting some with Lara, but I think she might have difficulty connecting emotions and sex, because, in a way, she was too familiar with sex. It wasn’t that she was incapable of experiencing both at the same time, but I think she’d had enough practice divorcing those two things that it didn’t come quite as naturally to her, and maybe even she preferred it that way.

Susan had been guarded so far, and she used the rough, almost violent sex as a means of keeping some distance between us.

But that distance had collapsed now.

We orgasmed at almost the same time, both of us kissing passionately as we came together, our bodies in sync, twisting and writhing and jerking. It was a truly amazing experience, a bliss that I loved to feel.

When we were done, we laid together beneath the blankets in the dimly lit room.

“What was that about?” I asked finally.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I think...I needed to settle something, in my head, with you. I...like you. A lot. And I’m not entirely comfortable with that, for a few reasons. But my biggest concern was, could I handle sharing you with other women? Because you’re having sex with Lara and Jessica, and I imagine they won’t remain the only ones, given how much you appeal women.”

Man, talk about a coincidence.

“So how do you feel about it?” I asked.

“I...I’m okay with it. I guess, if I feel like you actually respect me, and you like me, I’m okay with you having sex with other women. I don’t know why that works in my head, but it does.”

“Oh. Good,” I said.

“Why good? Did you meet another woman?”

“No, not yet, but that was actually one of the things I was going to talk to you about,” I replied. “I just talked about it with Lara on the way back, and she said she doesn’t care if I hook up with anyone else. But it occurred to me that it’s kind of common for me to run into other survivors at random, and everyone’s a lot more free with their sex now, so...I mean yeah, I still the chance to fuck random women who are into me, I guess.”

“Of course you do,” she said, and grinned. “What a surprise. What’s the other thing you wanted to talk about?”

I paused long enough for her to say, “Oh great.”

“Jessica,” I said, then paused again.

Susan sat up and looked at me. “You want her to move in with us,” she said suddenly.

“You are perceptive,” I replied.

She sighed. “Yeah, super perceptive. The smoking hot married MILF you’ve been shoving your cock into on a regular basis...why wouldn’t you want her to live with you?”

“Her and her daughter,” I said.

“Of course, that make sense. So...there’s obvious problems, like space in this house, and the extra drain on resources. Those are all practical problems. I think the biggest concern is: How do I know you aren’t just thinking with your dick?” she asked.

I’d been thinking about this myself.

“Okay, let’s consider this, Susan,” I replied. “Let’s say that I am completely thinking with my dick. Let’s say that my main motivation for convincing Jessica and her daughter to move in here is because I want regular sexual access to both of them. I want to just fuck them both freely. Do you truly think, in this scenario, that that motivation would stop me from working hard enough to provide for all of us, would prevent me from being every bit as resourceful and tenacious and hardworking as I have been the entire time I’ve been here with you and Lara? I want an honest answer.”

She stared at me for a long time, at least a solid minute, no doubt weighing things in her mind. Finally, she shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t think so,” she admitted. “I think you’d work harder, if anything. Fuck,” she muttered. “I guess they could have Lara’s old room, since both of you are always sleeping in here now.”

“You asked,” I said.

“I didn’t say it was a problem!” I stared at her. “Okay, I’m sorry. I guess it could’ve been interpreted that way.”

“Susan, you say most everything like it pisses you off, even when it doesn’t. You don’t think that might be a problem?”

“I’m living in a goddamned frozen apocalypse,” she replied.

“That’s a fair point, but I think, all things considered, we three have it pretty good here.”

She growled. “Yes, we do. Fine. If you think you can convince Jessica and her daughter to abandon ship and come live here, then fine. You won’t get any argument from me, so long as it doesn’t fuck with what we’ve got going on.”

“Okay, cool.” She yawned suddenly. “Should I let you sleep?”

“Stay with me for a bit,” she replied, laying back down. “You’re very...comforting.”

“You say that so begrudgingly.”

“Oh fuck off,” she said sleepily. I laughed and curled up around back, putting an arm over her, holding her against me.

CHAPTER SIX

There it was, the lake house.

I’d been intending to check it out ever since I’d seen it, but had been too busy. Now I wasn’t. It had been three days since my last conversation with Jessica, then Lara, then Susan. And I was getting really worried.

Jessica was supposed to have another meetup with Lara and I yesterday, and it hadn’t happened. She’d never shown up. We’d waited there for two hours before finally heading home. Lara was extremely anxious about the whole thing, and I was right there with her. What if something had happened? What if our talk had prompted her to confront her husband, and he’d done something stupid and reckless?

It was a lot easier for fights to turn violent, and even deadly, nowadays. People were a lot freer with their hands, or their guns, since there were no cops anymore. I’d almost taken a walk over there to their home site, but Lara had talked me out of it. We were going to go back again today, after I got my back from my search at the lake house, to see if anything had come up. It was almost noon now. After my morning rituals and breakfast, I’d argued with Susan a bit about heading out. She was still worried about my arm, but it seemed to be healing up nicely, and she’d finally relented. So out I was going, hoping for some kind of find.

With the very real possibility of another two people living with us, my mind was starting to turn faster than it had been in a little while.

I walked along the shoreline of the frozen lake, keeping an eye out for more of those mountain lions, or wolves, or bears. God, bears. I hadn’t seen a bear for awhile, and I was perfectly happy to not see one again for the rest of my life. Sure, it was a lot of meat, but bears were fucking fast. Like, I didn’t know how goddamned fast they were until I’d seen in one in the wild, in action. We’d been very lucky to survive that encounter.

Plus, hey, bearskin, that was nice too.

We had a nice little collection of wolf, deer, and rabbit skins now. I’d let them dry and got them as a ready as I could to be used, because those were pretty valuable commodities now. They were good for trading.

As I got within about fifty feet of the lake house, the front door opened up.

Shit. Fuck. Goddamnit.

I dropped to one knee and shouldered the rifle in a flash, because there was no cover out here. A figure stood in the doorway, holding a pistol.

For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.

“I’m not looking for trouble,” I said, finally deciding to break the silence.

“Neither am I,” the voice said. A woman.

Another silence. Standoff.

“I’ll lower my gun,” the woman said finally, and she did, slowly. I did the same, and then slowly got to my feet.

“You interested in talking?” I asked.

“Depends,” she replied, “on what we’d talk about.”

“I’m open to trading,” I said. I still needed to solve that fishing problem. If it came down to it, I could finagle some kind of rudimentary hook and line, but I wouldn’t mind a real fishing rod, if at all possible.

“I guess I am too, come on.”

She holstered the pistol and I slung my rifle. I walked up to the house, studying her as I got closer. She was a trimly built blonde woman who was maybe a few years older than I was. Her hair was so blonde it was almost white, and cut short. Her blue eyes burned in her skull, giving her a very intense, but also sexy, look.

“Are you alone?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied.

I considered it. This could be a trap, she could be lying, but as good as I’d gotten at reading body language, either she was a fantastic liar, or she was just telling the truth.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

“Might as well, it’s goddamned cold out here,” she replied.

We went inside. She had a nice body.

We walked down a hallway to the living room where she crouched by a fireplace and began trying to light it with one of those flint and steel jobs, but it looked pretty worn down.

“Here,” I said, and pulled out my lighter.

“Holy shit, you’ve got a lighter? I haven’t seen one of those in ages,” she muttered as I lit the fireplace for her. “I managed to get it going last night, but haven’t had much luck this morning.”

“You live here?” I asked.

“No, just passing through. I’ve been heading south for awhile.”

“Any particular reason?”

“I’ve heard some people have a nice little colony going in Missouri and I figured, shit, why not? It’s where I’m from originally.”

“What’s your name?”

“Alicia.”

“I’m Chris.”

We sat there for a moment studying each other as I tended to the fire, getting it going. I didn’t sense anyone else in the house, not that that was completely accurate, and she seemed genuine. I began wondering if I could fuck her.

She was pretty hot.

“So, you live around here?” she asked.

“Yeah. Me and a few others.”

“Huh. Okay. You wanna trade?”

“Yeah. Let’s see what we’ve got here,” I replied.

We went over to a coffee table and sat down on either side of it, then spent a few minutes taking out the items we were willing to trade. I set out two rabbit skins, two tins of sardines, (none of us liked them at the house), a flick-knife, and a small bottle of painkillers. I tried to carry some half-decent stuff on me exactly for occasions like this.

She set out a can of beets, (ugh), an old can opener, a wrench, and a gun cleaning kit. Shit! That I could use. It looked to be in good condition, too.

“I want that kit,” I said, pointing to it. Honestly, none of the other stuff appealed.

“I’ll trade you for the lighter,” she said.

I thought about it. Lighters were rare. We had a few more back at the house, and Susan had even managed to snag a thing of lighter fluid before we’d met and squirrel it away, but still...I just didn’t know. I wanted that kit, but…

She must’ve read my face. “And I’ll have sex with you,” she said.

I looked up at her, my eyebrows raised. “You will?”

“Yeah. We don’t have fuck with condoms either. And I’ll give you this other stuff.”

I thought about it. Was it thinking with my dick? Maybe. Well, the lighter was about halfway dead anyway, and we did have others. And she seemed like she could really use it, and I could really use that gun cleaning kit…

“Okay,” I said. “Deal.”

She grinned. “Okay then.”

We traded stuff and put everything else away, then stood up. She took my hand and led me deeper into the house until we came to a bedroom. I took a moment to check the room out of paranoid, and once I was sure it was secure, closed the door and looked at her.

“Strip and get on your knees,” I said.

“You got it,” she replied, and began taking her clothes off.

I came to stand next to her, watching her, feeling a dark kind of excitement boiling around in my lower belly. There was a tremendous thrill to fucking a brand new woman, and a dark, filthy kind of thrill to trading something for sex.

She had a good, tight body, kind of like Susan’s but with a bit more meat, her boobs a bit bigger, hips a bit shapelier. Her vagina looked really good. She got down on her knees and pulled my cock out. From the expression on her face, she looked eager. Maybe she was just as horny as I was. She got it out and looked at it.

“That’s big,” she murmured.

“Think it’ll fit?” I replied.

She grinned. “Let’s find out.”

She started giving me head. I groaned and placed my hand on the back of her head. She was pretty good at sucking dick.

“That’s a good girl, Alicia,” I murmured, and she moaned in response.

I felt my cock being enveloped in that hot, wet perfection, feeling her tongue going to work, sliding over the head of my cock. She played with my balls, massaging them carefully with one hand while working the shaft with the other.

Damn, she was good.

She kept it up for a solid two minutes, bobbing her head and letting her lips linger on the tip, sending ripples of pleasure into me. When she stood up.

“Fuck me,” she said.

I grabbed her and pushed her onto the bed, then gripped her ankles and yanked her to the edge. She let out a little shout of surprise and lust. She spread her legs for me, sticking them in the air, showing her sweet pussy. I stepped up to her and slipped my cock inside of her.

“Oh yes!” she cried as I penetrated her.

I placed my hands on the backs of her thighs and held her legs up as I started fucking her, burying my cock into her pussy again and again. She was a tight little fuck, I was glad to find, in great shape with that trim build. She began panting and moaning as I screwed her, burying my whole length inside of her, and I was right there with her.

This was an excellent fuck session.

After a bit, I slid my hands up her legs to her ankles, gripped them and pushed them down and apart, making her do the splits. She was flexible enough that it worked without complaint, and damn she looked good with her legs spread apart like that all the way. I gripped her around her midsection and kept driving my cock into her, making her scream like crazy. Her tits, really nice c-cups with perfect pink nipples, bounced so sexily as I fucked her.

“Yes! Yes give it to me!” she screamed.

I screwed that fantastically tight pussy until it made it explode, and she had a shrieking orgasm. Right in the middle of that, I started coming inside of her. I groaned loudly, emptying my cock into her, just pumping her full of it.

Something that always bugged me: why did so many guys pull out in porn? If you were gonna go bareback, you might as well come inside the chick. It felt fucking amazing and there was something just so satisfying about orgasming inside of a woman without any protection, something kind of savage and primal and deeply gratifying.

I came a lot inside of her, and when I was done, I pulled put and zipped up, then got a bottle of water out of my pack.

“Oh wow, you came a lot,” she murmured as she laid there, getting her breath back.

“You were a good, tight fuck,” I replied.

“Thanks...whew, that was a good one. It’s been over a week since I’ve seen anyone, and over two since I’ve had sex,” she said. After a bit, she got up and cleaned herself up, then began pulling her clothes back on. I offered her the water and she thanked me and drank some, then passed it back. After I secured it, I pulled my pack on.

“So, is that it?” I asked.

“Yeah...I think that’s it,” she said.

“Okay. Well, thanks for everything. If you’re still in the area later on and want to trade again, or just have sex again, let me know. I’m not too hard to track down.”

“I’ll do that,” she said, offering my a surprisingly shy smile.

I hesitated, then I gave her a kiss, because it seemed like the right thing to do. She responded well to it, kissing back, and then that was it.

I walked out of the house and then hesitated, looking at the skies.

There was a storm on the horizon. Great. I guess going to see if Jessica was there at the cabin was out of the question.

I started walking back home.

…

I was right about the storm.

By the time I got back home, it was getting really windy. I got in and told the girls about the trade I’d made. Lara seemed ambivalent, or really she only seemed to care about the sex and pressed me for every detail, Susan seemed a little annoyed, but didn’t say anything. After that, I set right in on doing exactly what I’d been aching to do for a little while now: cleaning the guns. Given we had four now, it seemed prudent.

I thought about the best place to do this and finally determined the basement. I took an hour to rearrange it a little bit, moving all the extra crap along the back wall where we mostly didn’t go, and Lara came down to help at once point, as doing this was giving my lion bite some trouble. Once that was done, I set up a desk, a few candles, and a chair. Then I brought down my rifle and my pistol and I set to work.

It was calming work, pleasant work.

There was something soothing about it. I guess probably because I knew how to do it and there was no worries that I was going to fuck it up. It was nice, having something where you could basically just check things off a list, and if you followed the instructions, what was supposed to happen would happen. That just wasn’t true of the real world. You could make a plan for days to do something but if, like, the weather took a bad turn or other people showed up or even just you taking a bad, unexpected fall, it could fuck it all up.

I’d watched plans go up in smoke just like that.

It was a painful feeling, even when it wasn’t you making the plan. But it could be just brutal when it was your plan that you were enacting. It was why I’d learned to become so adaptable, to just go with the flow as much as possible and trust my gut instinct, why I had developed those talents and abilities as much as I could.

That was probably why I was still alive right now.

Well, that and a heap of luck.

I cleaned my rifle and my pistol, then went back upstairs and got the other two guns and worked through them. The second rifle needed it, honestly. As I worked, I listened to the wind rise and fall. By the time I was done, the ladies were setting up dinner and I looked out the window to see that it wasn’t a whiteout, but there was definitely snow coming down.

It’d be bad out there, and I was so glad to be inside.

I went to help them finish with dinner. We cooked up some rabbit and wild onions and heated up two cans of vegetable soup. We sat down around the table and Susan began to poke and prod me, almost tease me, about my encounter.

“So she was a good fuck, huh?” she asked.

“I mean yeah,” I replied. “Why?”

“Just curious,” Susan replied, smirking. “You get off on that, don’t you?”

“What? Good fucks? Duh.”

“No,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Trading stuff for pussy. How many women have you given something in exchange for a blowjob or some hot pussy?”

“...an amount,” I replied after a moment.

“Guess,” Lara said, now apparently invested in this too.

“I don’t know...a few dozen?”

“I bet that’s a low estimate,” Susan murmured. “But I mean, it’s a power trip, isn’t it?”

“Is that so wrong?” I asked.

“No, I guess just...a little cliché,” Susan said. She shrugged. “But I guess that’s how it works. You both have something the other wants.”

“How do you feel about hookers?” I asked.

“I think it was stupid to keep it illegal. I think it should’ve been treated like any other job,” Susan replied.

“I would’ve been an escort, if the actress thing had fallen through, and it wasn’t so dangerous. I mean, I hear stories about girls who can make it work, but I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now, I guess,” Lara said.

“You would’ve made a great escort,” Susan murmured.

“You know Susan, I think you could’ve made a great porn star,” Lara replied. Susan rolled her eyes. “No, really! You’re so pretty in a raw kind of way, and you’ve got an awesome body, and now that I’ve seen you full-on like fuck, I know it. You couldn’t totally been a porn star. Even just doing it independently.”

“I guess we’ll never know,” she said.

I opened my mouth and then froze as there was a sudden hammering on the front door. We all stared at each other wide eyes, and I stood up and pulled my six shooter from its holster, where I now kept it pretty much all the time.

“Wait here,” I said, “and watch the back door.”

“Okay,” Susan replied tersely, going for her own pistol, which she’d set in the bedroom.

I moved into the hallway and stared at the front door. Slowly, I moved down it, wary of anything. This could be an attack, or it could be a total stranger.

Again, the knocking came, sounding urgent, desperate even. I finally got up to the door and tried to figure out how to deal with it. Obviously they could see people were inside, as the lights from the candles and fireplace would throw a glow into the window, even through the storm that was visible. Finally, I said, “Who is it!?”

“It’s me! Chris! It’s Jessica! Please open the door!”

A WARM PLACE 4

CHAPTER ONE

I opened the door and saw two shivering, bundled-up figures standing on the porch.

“Get in here,” I said, seeing a pair of pale, miserable faces with red hair looking at me. I stepped aside, pistol still in hand, and looked behind them, just in case someone was following them. I stood in the door once they were out of the way and looked long into the snowfall. I didn’t see anything, so I shut the door and locked it tightly.

“It’s okay!” I called. “It’s Jessica and her daughter! Susan, anyone back there?!”

“No, clear!” Susan called back.

Lara appeared in the hallway and began moving towards her.

“Jessica, what’s going on?” she asked, sounding worried.

“I-I-I...f-fuck,” she whispered, shivering violently.

“Get in here by the fire right now,” I said, tucking my pistol down the back of my pants and hustling them into the living room where the fire was going. I drew the curtains and then grabbed a heavy blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over both of them as they all but collapsed in front of the fire.

Susan appeared, holding her rifle, looking worried and frustrated.

“I’ll be right back,” I said. “Stay here.”

I was feeling jumpy, so I took the time to go and look out every single window carefully, to see if I could spot anyone moving out there. But every time I looked, there was just madly blowing snow and nothing else. Visibility was shit, though, given it was a snowstorm and nighttime now, so that didn’t do a lot to build my confidence. But ultimately I was pulled back to the living room by the need to figure out what the hell was going on.

“Do you see anyone?” Jessica asked, sounding calmer, more in control.

“No,” I replied. “Were you followed?”

“I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure,” she replied.

“What happened, Jessica?” I asked, coming to stand next to the fireplace and studying the two women. This was definitely her daughter, she looked a lot like Jessica. Same pale skin, same red hair, same elegant beauty. A bit grimmer though, and...there seemed to be more intelligence in her gaze, not that I was calling Jessica stupid, but I’d be willing to bet her daughter was sharper.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I, uh, got into a big fight with my husband. After we had that conversation a few days ago...I’m sorry I didn’t make it yesterday. He was getting really suspicious. So I decided not to push it any further and just didn’t go. I was planning on just coming out here today or maybe tomorrow, but then the storm hit, and...well, I kept thinking about what you said. About my husband, and I couldn’t get it out of my head-”

Her daughter, Hannah, suddenly looked up at me. She looked into my eyes and didn’t blink. “Thank you,” she said firmly.

“For what?” I replied.

“You’re Chris, right?”

“Yeah.”

“For talking some sense into my mom and finally making her see what a fucking pathetic piece of shit my dad is.”

“Hannah...”

“No, mom!” Hannah snapped, looking at her, (I wondered if the exchange was extra awkward because they were sitting right next to each other with a blanket wrapped around them, but to Hannah’s credit, she didn’t hesitate at all). “I mean, I could get it before the snow, and I could get it during the first year, and maybe during the second, maybe. But this past year...no. He’s useless, mom. And he’s an asshole. It would be completely different if he was a good person, and I loved him, but he isn’t, and I don’t. He’s an egotistical, narcissistic asshole who flies off the handle at the slightest provocation and I don’t blame you at all for cheating on him, but I do blame you for keeping us there when the deck of reasons to leave him was so overwhelmingly stacked.”

Silence for several seconds.

“Well, Susan,” I said finally, “I think we found your long-lost relative.”

Lara laughed unexpectedly, and the tension broke up a little.

“She’s right,” Jessica said finally, blushing fiercely and looking down. “But we had a fight when he accused me of cheating.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I...lied,” she murmured. “But it kind of was like lancing a wound. A bunch of shit came out, like how I didn’t respect him, and he didn’t respect me, and...just...a lot of shit. We screamed for thirty minutes and he grabbed me, which was a bad idea. He’s not exactly a big guy and I’m still in really good shape so I, uh...”

“She socked him in the face,” Hannah said, and laughed.

“Wow, really?” Lara asked.

“Yeah,” Jessica muttered, looking guilty. “It was more reflexive than anything else. That was when I knew it was time. I’d been talking about this possibility with Hannah last night, and she was obviously for it immediately.”

“Yeah. Based on what I’d been hearing, you’re a lot more of a man than my father,” she said, looking up at me.

I shrugged and couldn’t help but adopt at least a small smile.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Jessica muttered. She sighed and looked up at me, then Lara and Susan. “So, um...here we are. I’m glad you showed me where this cabin is, Lara, or we’d have been fucked. I didn’t realize it was going to storm so bad. We could have died...”

“We’re here, we’re safe, that’s what matters,” Hannah murmured firmly.

“I suppose so. Um...” She looked up. “We never actually confirmed whether or not all three of you were in unison about us, uh...moving in.”

“We’re okay with it,” I said.

Lara nodded. Susan said, “Yes, you’re welcome here. Both of you.”

“Oh thank you so much,” Jessica replied, sounding and looking deeply relieved. She looked exhausted, too. They both did, as much as Hannah was trying to hide it.

“Listen, uh, we were just getting ready for dinner. How about we fry up some more and you join us?” I suggested.

“That sounds really good,” Jessica replied. “We’ll be in in a moment. I’m still freezing.”

“Okay,” I said.

Lara stayed behind with them and Susan followed me into the kitchen. We got to work frying up more food on the stove.

“I think we should set up a watch tonight,” I said.

“You think they’ll come? Even with the storm?” Susan replied uncertainly.

“I don’t know, but I want to be sure. Will you help me? You’re admittedly the only one I really trust with something like this,” I asked.

“Yeah, I can do that. How do you wanna split it?” she replied.

“I’ll do the first shift and stay up for four hours, then I’ll come get you and you can take the next four hours. Then when everyone’s up in the morning, you can get back to sleep. Okay?”

“Okay,” she replied. She looked worried.

I gave her a kiss and looped an arm around her waist. “It’ll be okay, Susan.”

“I...yeah, all right.” She smiled and kissed me again.

We finished frying up more food and soon Jessica, Hannah, and Lara rejoined us in the kitchen. The table we all sat around was big enough for five of us, and one more, if anyone else ever joined us. We all dug into the meal, especially Jessica and Hannah, who were probably really hungry after that trying walk. Jessica kept shooting me looks that I couldn’t entirely read. I mean, I could tell what some of them meant, at least.

She had that I’m horny and want you to fucking destroy me look on her face.

I’d become familiar with that recently.

Mainly she looked worried. I didn’t blame her. This was a worrying situation, and she was pretty fucking brave to have done what she’d done. Of course, doing the thing was half the battle. Dealing with the fallout was the rest of it.

There was some light attempt at conversation, but it didn’t really go anywhere. Not long after we finished, Hannah yawned loudly. “I need to sleep,” she said.

“I’ll show you where you can sleep. You’ll have to share a bed with your mom for now,” she said.

“That’s fine, I sleep like the dead,” she replied. “Goodnight, mom.” She stood up, then hesitated. “And thank you.”

“You’re welcome, honey. Goodnight.”

Lara led Hannah out of the kitchen, and Susan began the process of putting away the remains of dinner. I got up, caught Jessica’s eyes with my own, and nodded towards the living room. She nodded and silently got up, then followed me.

As soon as we were there, she wrapped me in a tight hug. I was a little surprised, but I returned it. She felt good to hold, good against me.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much, Chris.”

“For what?” I replied.

“For talking me into this, and helping me see how fucked everything had become, and taking us in,” she murmured.

“I’m glad I could help, but you did the hard work,” I replied, rubbing her back. “Doing what you did was fucking brave as hell.”

“It was scary as hell.”

“I bet.”

“I just...will you protect me? I know it’s so much to just heap on you, but-”

“Jessica,” I said, “I’ll protect you, and your daughter. I’ll keep you safe.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, sounding deeply relieved. Another minute or so went by where we were simply holding each other, then she spoke again. She sounded anxious. “So, um, Susan, I mean, she knows about us, right? Is it...going to be a problem? I know you’re really close with her and Lara...”

“It’s fine. She knows we’re fucking, she knows we’re going to keep fucking. I mean...I assume...”

She giggled. “You assume correctly. It would take a lot for me to give this dick of yours up.”

“That’s good to hear. Because your pussy is just out of this world.” I paused. “Is it going to be, I mean, weird...with Hannah around...”

“Eh, yeah, a little. We’ll need to kind of figure some shit out, I guess.”

“Well listen, why don’t you get some sleep, and we can get everything sorted out in the morning. I’m going to be staying awake for part of the night to keep watching, just in case, and Susan will be up the rest of the night.”

“Oh...” She pulled back and looked guilty. “I guess that makes sense...I’m sorry.”

“Jessica, it’s okay,” I replied. “I’m glad you’re here. It’s that simple. I’m happy you’re here.”

“...okay,” she said, and she pulled back slightly, then kissed me. I kissed her back, hugging her to me. It was hard to stop the kissing, especially when she slipped her tongue into my mouth. It had been too long since we’d seen each other, as far as I was concerned. We only stopped when I heard a floorboard creak behind me.

I turned as she looked over my shoulder. Lara stood in the doorway, grinning at us. “Don’t mind me,” she murmured.

Jessica sighed. “I suppose I should get to sleep,” she said, then yawned suddenly. “Fuck, I am exhausted. That was a bitch of a walk.”

“Come on,” I replied, taking her hand and leading her through the house.

She paused to give Lara a long kiss and hug.

“I missed you,” Lara whispered as they hugged.

“I missed you too, Lara. I’m so glad we can be together now without all the bullshit.” Jessica looked back at me. “All of us.”

“Hopefully,” I murmured, not wanting to take away from the good cheer, but also worried about the near future implications this action might have.

We went back to what had once been Lara and I’s room, where I saw Hannah was already under the blankets and apparently fast asleep. I could understand that. Walking through a blizzard was serious shit.

“Let me know if you need anything, okay?” I asked.

“I will,” she replied, lingering in the doorway with me, smiling at me. “I can’t believe I’m really here,” she said softly. “I feel...safe here.”

“You should,” I replied.

We kissed once more, then I left her to it, closing the door behind me.

Then I walked back to the kitchen, where Lara was helping Susan finish with the cleanup. I leaned in the doorway and looked at them as they both looked back at me.

“This is going to change things,” Susan said after a few beats of silence.

“I know,” I replied. “I’m going to need to step it up.”

“We all are,” Lara murmured.

“No, that isn’t fair. I’m the one who set this in motion, so it’s my responsibility. I’m not going to have you two busting extra ass if you don’t need to.”

“It’s not fair to dump all the extra load on you, either, Chris,” Susan said, crossing her arms. “Despite my reservations, I can at least tell that they’re good people. I absolutely refuse to become the kind of person who dumps someone in the cold just because they aren’t immediately beneficial to me, just because I can’t ‘use’ them. I’m not becoming a fucking sociopath. I’d rather die. I’m for community, and taking care of each other. We’re in this together, and you don’t need to start thinking you’re the only one who can do work around here.”

I looked at her for a moment, feeling a little attacked, and feeling my own defenses going up. Something in my face must have given that away, because Susan’s expression softened. “I’m sorry,” I said finally, “I didn’t want to give that impression, that I think you’re all useless or something. I just...” I hesitated.

“What?” Lara asked.

“Sounds like it’s your turn to unload some deeply personal stuff,” Susan said.

I stared at her, then sighed. “Fine, I guess that’s a good point.” I walked over to the table and sat down. They sat with me. “I’ll keep it short. Basically, I was useless growing up. I was an entitled, irresponsible little shit who shirked my chores and put everything off as much as possible. It wasn’t until later that I realized what a fucking burden I was being to my parents and at some point that whole massive crashing revelation hit me, and I promised myself I wasn’t going to be some useless, lazy piece of shit ever again.”

It was quiet for a moment.

Finally, Susan reached out and put her hand over the back of mine. “Agreeing to shoulder the burden as a group doesn’t make you useless.”

“I know, I’m just...overcompensating,” I muttered. “Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a problem. But,” I looked at Susan, “you should get to sleep. I’ll be waking you in four hours.”

“What? Why? What are you doing to be doing?” Lara asked.

“I’m a little paranoid, so I’m going stand guard for half the night, and Susan’s going to take the other half,” I explained.

Lara frowned, then slowly nodded. “I guess that makes sense. I am a little anxious about the whole thing. I don’t really know what her husband’s capable of...”

“It’s extremely unlikely they’ll come here, even if the storm breaks. Traveling at night is a really stupid move,” Susan murmured.

I nodded. “Yeah. Now go to sleep,” I said.

They both looked tired. I’m sure I did.

“Okay,” Susan replied finally.

We all got up, and I got hugs and kisses from both of them, and then they went off to bed. Once they were safely in our room with the door closed, I got my six-shooter and checked out the windows once more, finding myself staring yet again into the swirling madness of a blizzard. I shuddered when I thought of how lucky Jessica and Hannah were to make it here, and how close they could’ve come to being frozen corpses by morning.

CHAPTER TWO

We did have a way of keeping time, at least.

One of the things that the girls had found among the possessions of the house was a wind-up clock, and so long as they still basically functioned, those things never died. You just kept winding them up. I set it to midnight and cranked it up as soon as everyone was safely in their rooms and I’d secured the house.

Night watch was a lonely duty I’d definitely become familiar with over the past two years.

It was especially miserable during a blizzard because you just wanted to be in bed, preferably with someone else, safe and together away from the storm. I guess, in a way, really bad snowstorms had become a pure physical manifestation of everything that had happened to the world. They were cold and violent and loud and all-encompassing. They could kill you with the blind indifference that only nature could manage.

Nature wasn’t even cruel, you had to care to be cruel.

And nature just didn’t care.

I’d pulled a lot of graveyard shifts, because it was necessary. People were must vulnerable in their sleep, and at night. Nighttime was like a different world, a worse one. Sometimes, it felt like a different dimension, where all the rules had changed against you.

So I sat in the living room, in the sullen glow of the fireplace that had been consuming wood at a fairly steady pace since I’d come here, and sat watch. Eventually, I started thinking. First about the girls in my life. Then about Hannah.

She was hot.

She was like, captain of the cheer squad hot, only…

Only her face didn’t match. She had an attractive face, it was more...no, it was her expression. She was very sharp, very grim. I guess that was bullshit, it wasn’t like looks and brains were mutually exclusive. You could have both. It was just that a lot of people didn’t seem to. I knew a lot of attractive people who were fucking dumbasses. And a lot of...I wouldn’t really go so far as to call anyone ugly, not just because it’s fucking rude, but also because it didn’t feel correct. It was less that they were unattractive, and more that I didn’t find them attractive.

Those weren’t the same thing.

I guess the closest I’d gotten to figuring something out was ‘not conventionally attractive’. So they weren’t the kind of people who’d end up as fashion vloggers and models and shit like that. Lara was conventionally attractive, Susan wasn’t. Although I had to admit, that whole notion was really fading. In fact, now that I was thinking about it, I was realizing just how much it had lost its meaning. In some ways, I was more attracted to Susan. Lara definitely pushed some of my buttons in just the right way, but she was…

Not as competent as Susan.

And Susan’s grim demeanor and firm confidence and even her suspicion were all very appealing in their own ways.

I was really glad I didn’t have to choose.

As I sat there contemplating this in the near dark, I felt a bitter laugh wanting to come out. How long I had hated the fact that society was so fucking appearance obsessed? Hot people got everything handed to them. Susan had really said it best: she’d have to fuck someone just to get the chance to do something, whereas Lara would get to do something just so that someone would have the chance to fuck her.

It was really fucked up.

I’d never been attractive, and I’d spent a lot of time avoiding the mirror because I wasn’t interested in seeing my face.

And now, here I was, finally in great shape, (I actually had fucking real muscle definition now and a goddamned physique), and I felt more confident in myself than ever before...and appearances and physical attractiveness didn’t really matter that much anymore.

Of fucking course.

I guess it didn’t matter. I was here with three attractive women. Well, four, though three of them were fucking me, so that was pretty great. Could I really ask for more? I thought again of Hannah. Would it be inappropriate to sleep with her, given her mom was around and I was fucking her mom? I didn’t think so. She was...how old was she? I could’ve sworn I remembered Lara or Jessica saying she was nineteen.

I wasn’t that much older than she was, even though I felt a lot older now.

Then again, I’m sure she did, too.

Well...that was a situation that would work itself out at some point, I’m sure. I didn’t even know if Hannah was into me, or, even if she was, how much it would turn her off that I was fucking her mom. Obviously she knew.

So, while I waited in the dark, listening for telltale signs of someone trying to break in, (that could be hard to discern the difference between that and, say, the house creaking in the wind, or one of the women moving around for one reason or another), I instead entertained myself with memories of other women I’d encountered over the past few years.

The first girl I hooked up with after society had really crumbled had been a very attractive forty four year old woman who had already been separated and even estranged from her family by then. She was alone and I ran into her as I started heading north, out of Florida. I didn’t really know where I was going then.

Away, was the only thought I had.

I wanted away from the madness the big cities had become.

I ran into her with a storm coming on. She was out scavenging for food at a gas station that I went into, thinking to stay there for the night. We just kind of looked at each other, maybe both of us seeing how the other was going to react, if either one of us was going to turn violent. I tried to break the ice, and then it became apparent that she was desperate for help or even just contact. So we’d started working together, and she took me to this cabin she was staying in at the time not far from the gas station.

That night, I fucked the shit out of her when she offered.

That had been something else.

She was kind of like Jessica, older, still pretty fit. She’d worked in a bank before the shit had gone down.

We stayed together for about a month, and the sex was incredible.

She loved it in the ass, so that was a huge bonus.

Her name had been Linda, and she was a redhead, and she could suck dick like a demon whore. We found a small town a week in and decided to make a go of staying there. I’d been reluctant, because I had just left ‘civilization’, such as it fucking was, and I’d seen how it could go. But Linda really wanted my company, and I really wanted hers, so we stuck together for another three weeks. She had been, by far, the most mature woman I’d ever fucked. Before her, the next chick I’d fucked who was older than me had been so by two years.

What a huge difference in the quality of sex two decades could make.

If I had advice for dudes in their twenties or maybe even thirties, it would be: fuck a chick old enough to be your mom.

You will more than likely not be sorry.

But I ended up wanting to leave, and she didn’t, so we parted ways. I have no idea what happened to her. She might still be there, or she could be dead.

I suddenly wondered how many humans had died so far…

...how many were still left alive.

An hour ticked by, and nothing happened. If I was lucky, that would happen three more times, then I could go to sleep, and then it would happen four more times. On the one hand, nothing happening could get boring. On the other hand...you’d be surprised how much you consider boredom a sorely missed luxury, hell, almost a state of paradise, when you were staring down the long cold barrel of death.

Not long after that one hour mark, I heard floorboards creaking gently from what sounded like Jessica’s and Hannah’s room. Then a door gently opened and closed. Very soft footfalls, coming closer. I tensed, waiting, and then relaxed as a familiar figure appeared in the doorway from the hall.

“Hello, Jessica,” I said.

“Hi, Chris,” she murmured softly, and came to join me on the couch.

“Can’t sleep?”

“No. I was, but I had a nightmare.”

I put my arm around her and she leaned against me. She was wearing a t-shirt and panties, and she looked really good. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She sighed. “It was about the obvious thing: that Travis came here and tried to take me and Hannah back.”

I realized that I’d never learned his name before now.

“I’m sorry, Jessica,” he said.

She made a content sound and leaned closer against me. “I feel really safe with you.” She fell silent for a few moments. “Am I...coming on too strong?” she asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?”

“I just...I really like you. A lot. I know where I stand with Lara. We’ve been having our...um, affair, although I guess it’s not that anymore, for several weeks now. Which, God, that’s still such a short amount of time. Anyway, I guess I want to make sure you really reciprocate my feelings. I just feel so close to you, and I like you so much...”

“It’s okay. I like you a lot too, Jessica. I like where this is going. Although...”

“Yeah?” she asked uncertainly.

“I guess the only thing is, you’re really going to be okay with me regularly fucking Susan and Lara? Because that’s going to keep happening.”

“You know, I wasn’t sure how I’d react to something like this for a long time, but honestly, I’m pretty okay with it. Actually being here, I mean, I’ll need time to settle in, but honestly, so long as you keep dicking me regularly and being nice to me and taking care of me and my daughter, I’m okay with this. I...like this.”

“Good.”

Another pause. “So I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you think Susan would ever...you know...”

“Oh. You’re into her?”

“Yeah. She’s really hot. Like, I’ve always kinda-sorta known that I was into girls, I just never had any real opportunity to, you know, explore that.”

“That’s so weird. You’d think that’d be the one kind of open relationship a guy like your husband would actually be into.”

“I know, right? But he’s so weirdly conservative. Same-sex stuff freaks him out, for some reason. I honestly never figured it out.” She shrugged. “But yeah, Susan is so sexy. In that rough, raw kinda way, you know?”

“I know exactly what you mean. We have, uh...really rough fuck sessions.”

“God, I bet you fucking destroy her.”

I laughed, feeling an erection coming on. “Oh yes. I do. I fucked her in the ass not too long ago so fucking hard...so was complaining for a few days how sore she was.”

“That sounds so hot. I want to watch that. I want to watch you fuck her. I want to have a threesome with you and her. God, I want to have a fucking orgy with you and Lara and Susan. That would be so amazing...” She sat up suddenly and looked around, then looked at me. “Can we have sex?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever say no to that,” I replied.

She grinned broadly and then slipped nimbly into my lap, straddling me. “I’ll be a good girl and get you off hard. You deserve the reward for everything you’ve done for us.”

She started kissing me. I was pretty happy to receive the reward.

As we kissed, I slipped my hands around to her ass and started gripping it. Every time I grabbed her ass, I was reminded by just how toned and firm it was. She was in such amazing shape. I had a full erection within seconds and she began grinding against it as she pushed her tongue into my mouth. I pulled at her shirt and she took it off hastily, freeing her big boobs. I pushed her back gently and spent a moment sucking on her tits, on her perfect pink nipples. She gasped and moaned, running her fingers through my hair.

“I’m all yours now,” she whispered.

“You’re mine,” I replied, and licked her nipple, making her moan. “Get my cock out and ride it, you redheaded slut.”

“Yes, master,” she moaned in response.

Her fingers were dexterous and nimble, and she had my dick out in just a few seconds. I pulled at her panties, then suddenly grabbed them and ripped them, tearing them off completely. She gasped.

“You ripped-” she began.

“Shut the fuck up,” I replied, grabbed her hips, and pulled her down. She’d already lined me up with her bare, smooth, mature pussy and she moaned as I penetrated her. She clapped her hand over her moan, moaning into it, clearly trying to control herself.

Then she began passionately making out with me again as he was fucked, totally naked now, riding my dick like lust-addled whore who fucking needed it. She moaned into the kiss and I grabbed her bare ass again and really started giving it to her, forcing her rapidly up and down my cock, shoving the whole thing into her.

Goddamn, Jessica was such a great fuck!

“Oh my God, not too rough, I’ll be loud...” she moaned and begged.

“Maybe I want that,” I replied.

“No, please! I...oh fuck! Oh God, your dick is so fucking good...”

She kissed me firmly on the mouth and I groped her big, firm tits, bouncing her on my cock. I wanted to wear her out, help her get to sleep. And to blow my load, too.

“I want to go in your mouth, Jessica,” I said after a few minutes.

“Okay...that’s a good idea,” she whispered, panting, flushed now, her hair a total mess. “Oh fuck, you are really just...oh my God your cock is amazing...” she moaned.

I kept screwing her until I was ready to pop, then gave her the signal.

She hopped off really quick, dropped to her knees like a good little submissive slut, and took my cock into her mouth. She began sucking and working it immediately, and I groaned as I started letting off, coming hard in her mouth. And fuck did it feel so good. Coming in a pussy with no protection was definitely number one, but this was a close second, I had to admit. I groaned, grabbing her head and shoving my dick into her throat. She accepted it without complaint, swallowing several times, sending tidal waves of pleasure through.

She sucked me dry and swallowed it all.

Then she slowly pulled my cock from between those luscious red lips of hers and looked up at me demurely with her amazingly vibrant and beautiful blue eyes.

“That’s the beginning of your reward,” she said.

“Good girl,” I replied, running my hand down the side of her face gently. Her skin was smooth and soft and warm. “Go back to sleep, Jessica.”

“Okay.” She grabbed her shirt and pulled it back on, then grabbed her panties, frowned at them, then sighed. “You ripped my panties.”

“I know,” I replied. “Got put on a new pair.”

She sighed, shook her head, and stood up. “Goodnight, Chris.”

“Goodnight, Jessica.”

I stared at her perfect ass as she walked out of the room, tugging at her shirt. Her door opened and closed a few seconds later, and I heard her rummaging around. I put my dick away and looked at the clock again. Fuck, another two and a half hours to go.

Well, at least I’d gotten some great sex.

CHAPTER THREE

My shift came and went without a problem.

The storm blasted through it all. I didn’t catch even a hint of someone around. Honestly, I didn’t think there was much of a chance of anyone from Jessica’s old camp coming out here and doing something stupid. Not in the dead of night. Largely I done this to set the others at ease. But there was also the tiny chance that something could happen, so there was always that. When my time was up, I went and woke Susan, who looked very cute sleeping curled up with Lara.

“What?” she whispered, opening her eyes immediately.

“It’s okay, everything’s fine,” I said, gently rubbing up and down her bare arm. “It’s just time for your shift.”

“Oh...fuck...okay,” she whispered. “Nothing happened?”

“No, nothing at all. Not even a little.”

“Okay...give me a minute.”

I undressed while she woke up, and pretty soon we traded places. She unhappily pulled on her clothes, then stretched and took a bottle of water off the top of the dresser, as well as her pistol. “I’ll be back in four hours.”

“Okay. Wake me up if no one else is up when your shift is over,” I said.

“All right.”

She left and I settled in next to Lara, who was finally starting to come around. She was a heavy sleeper. Beneath the blankets, I ran a hand along one thick, bare thigh.

“What’s going on?” she murmured sleepily.

“Spread your legs,” I replied.

“Oh...okay,” she said, smiling, her eyes half open.

She looked absurdly sexy.

I got on top of her, hit by a sudden bolt of lust, and slipped my cock into her. She cried out as I began having sex with her. She was very wet.

“Oh my fucking God, Chris,” she moaned, grabbing my back as I started fucking her pussy. “Oh my fuck...you’re so big...” she whispered.

“You are really goddamned wet right now, Lara,” I muttered in reply, thrusting deep and hard into her.

“Yes! Fuck! Oh yes! Fuck me! Fuck me, Chris!” she screamed.

“Shh!” I put my hand over her mouth. She was going to wake up the others. Lara kept yelling into my hand, moaning and writhing and jerking, and I fucked that pussy until it orgasmed. Then I started coming inside of her, groaning with each jolt of rapturous ecstasy. And then we were finished, and I curled up against her.

“Are we okay? Is everything okay?” she murmured sleepily.

“Everything’s okay, you’re safe, Lara,” I replied.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I kissed the back of her head, and fell asleep quickly.

…

When Susan woke me up, my body reacted almost like it had been expecting it.

I thought four hours of sleep wouldn’t be enough, and normally it wouldn’t, but not today. Today, I was restless. It was a good feeling. I wished I could start every day feeling like this with only four hours of sleep.

“Did anything happen?” I asked.

Lara was still asleep behind me.

“No,” Susan replied. “Nothing.”

“Okay,” I began to get up. She was getting naked, but she suddenly pushed me onto my back. “Uh-uh,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m putting that morning wood to use. An orgasm always helps me sleep,” she said.

“Oh.” I did have morning wood. Bad wood, actually.

She finished stripping and pulled the blankets back in a sharp gesture, then mounted me and hurriedly slipped my cock into her pussy.

“Holy fuck, you are really fucking tight, Susan,” I groaned.

“You always say that-ah!”

“It’s always true...” I moaned as her perfect pussy slipped down around my cock.

Getting bareback pussy first thing in the morning made life worth living.

I watched her tight, fit body as she rode me furiously, grunting and almost growling. I wondered if she’d ever been like this with anyone else in bed, or if she was just like this with me. In any case, it was fucking awesome.

I loved rough sex and really crazy chicks.

I grabbed her hips and thrust up into her, pulling her down hard and shoving my dick deep in her, making her shout.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! FUCK YES!” she screamed, and I had her coming in record time.

I kept bouncing her on my cock throughout her whole climax, and somehow managed not to blow my load, which was good apparently. As soon as she was done shuddering and twitching, she gasped and fell forward, staring at me. “Chris...is it possible that I could convince you not to come in my pussy? I want to sleep right after this and I don’t want to bother cleaning up, but I won’t sleep as well if I’ve got your fucking jizz all over my thighs.”

“Where will I come then, Susan?” I replied, and bounced her more on my cock.

“Ah! Fuck! I don’t know...can’t you just-oh!-fuck me on my back and bust your nut all over my stomach? That’s way easier to clean up...”

“It doesn’t feel anywhere near as good,” I replied.

“Oh...fuck...come on...” she moaned as I kept slipping her up and down my cock.

“Better figure something out, I’m gonna blow off soon...”

“I’ll take it in the mouth,” Lara said.

We both looked over, surprised. I didn’t know she was up. Then again, how the fuck could she through Susan screaming her head off?

“Works for me,” I said.

“Sweet. You owe me, Susan.”

“Ugh, fine,” she muttered. “Let’s just finish this up, I’m so tired.”

I kept bouncing as Lara got into position and when I was ready, shouted, “Going!”

I pulled Susan up off my dick, and as soon as I popped free of that sweet, sweet vagina of hers, Lara was there, taking it in her mouth. I groaned loudly, pulling Susan down against me and hugging her, grabbing her ass as I started coming in Lara’s mouth. I thrust up into her mouth and felt my cock hit the back of her throat.

She sucked it all out and then kept suck for a little while afterward.

When she was done, she sat up. “Good?” she asked.

“Great,” I replied, feeling pretty awake now. “Goddamned fantastic.”

“Good...now lemme sleep,” Susan complained.

I let her off of me and got up, then began washing off and preparing for the day ahead. Already, my mind was racing.

There was a lot to do today.

“So nothing happened last night?” Lara asked.

“No, but you need to be on guard. It was pretty unlikely that anything was going to happen, it’s a lot more likely something will happen today or in the coming days,” I replied.

Lara sighed glumly. “Great.”

“Don’t worry, we can handle it. Susan and I are good shots.”

“Do they even know where we are?” Susan asked with a yawn.

“Something I intend to find out. Obviously Jessica knew where we were. I have a lot of things I need to know.”

“Wake me if you need anything,” Susan murmured, then rolled over and pulled the blankets tightly around her.

Lara joined me in getting up.

…

My mind buzzed through the morning.

I finished washing, dried, dressed, and then headed out to the kitchen. I started making breakfast, frying up whatever rabbit we had left, and some of the wild onions, while Lara got everything else ready. Jessica appeared while I was in the middle of that, and Hannah not much later. She shot me a look.

“Uh...everything okay?” I asked.

“I thought I could sleep through anything, but your fucking friend is really loud,” was all she said.

“Oh...sorry.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’d get used to that,” Lara murmured.

“Good lord,” Hannah growled, and sat down at the table.

Jessica didn’t say anything, but when I glanced behind me, I saw she was blushing and staring down at the table.

Last night had been pretty good when she’d come to visit.

I made myself focus. There was so much to do. Now that they were here, I was really going to have to step up my game. I didn’t want to admit it, but I’d gotten lazy over the last two weeks here with the girls. With the exception of the lion attack and that lone psycho who’d tried to kill me, it had been pretty quiet. Calm. Being around people, especially two hot women who were sexually submissive to you, really helped calm you down.

And it also helped take the edge off.

Not a great thing.

So I was going to have to sharpen back up, and really be thinking. I’d sort of reshaped my mind over the past two years. I had to, to survive. And stuff that should have occurred to me, or, really, did occur to me, I’d just put it on the back burner so to speak, were crowding in around me. I needed to search more hastily for supplies, I needed to be figuring out who knew how to do what, and maybe training one or even all of them on stuff they didn’t know that I did. I needed to be solving that damned fishing problem.

I needed to find a better hunting ground, and get to know the region better.

But first…

“Jessica,” I said, and my tone of voice made her turn immediately serious.

“Yes?”

“I have a few questions.”

“I’m ready.”

“How many people are left at where you used to live?”

“Six,” she replied.

“Who are they? Are any of them dangerous?”

“Dangerous? I mean...I don’t think so.”

“Oh come on, mom,” Hannah said.

Jessica sighed. “I guess, if I’m being honest...Hannah’s always been more perceptive than I have. You should ask her.”

“Hannah?” I asked.

“There’s three men, three women over there. There’s my dad, who...I would like to say you don’t have to worry about him, but he’s become unstable over the past several months. I honestly don’t know what he’s capable of. I mean, I don’t think he’s super dangerous or anything. It’s not like he’s really strong or an amazing shot. But if you put a gun in hand...I don’t know. He might kill you, Chris. For ‘taking us away from him’,” she said, hooking her fingers in the air.

“Hannah...” Jessica murmured.

“Am I wrong, mom?”

Silence for a few seconds. “I guess not...”

“Exactly. Now, there’s another guy, Thomas, you have to worry about him. He’s bigger than you are, and built. He’s kind of my dad’s muscle. I don’t know why but he follows my dad around like a religious freak. My dad will sic him on you, I’m sure. He knows how to fight, and shoot. He hunts for us. That’s where we get most our food.”

“Great,” I muttered.

“The third guy is pretty much a pushover. Ben. He’s middle-aged and quiet. He was a mechanic, which was useful for awhile, but it’s hard to find cars that can travel in this much snow now. There’s two college girls, well, they were, Fay and Lily. They’re blonde ditzes and they pretty much worship the ground Tom walks on. I wouldn’t call them dangerous. Finally there’s Sofia. She’s quiet, introverted, and kind. She was a nurse. I guess she still is. She...might want to come with us, I think. And we could certainly use her.”

“You think she’d leave too?” I asked.

“Yeah, I do. She doesn’t like change, but she’s not stupid. She mostly keeps to herself.”

“All right,” I murmured, considering it. “Have you encountered any other survivors recently?”

“No,” Jessica said.

“No,” Hannah murmured, then stopped. “No wait. I thought I saw someone last week or maybe the week before. Looked like a big dude in camo or something. I couldn’t be sure. I was looking out the window and could’ve sworn I saw someone like that walking through the woods...”

“Oh,” I said.

“Oh what?” Hannah replied. “You said that with significance.”

“I killed that guy,” I said.

“Holy shit, really?” she asked.

“Yeah, after he tried to kill me. I was out hunting that day, he nearly took my head off. Blind luck I survived. He had me pinned down and a wolf got him. I finished him off.”

“That’s...badass,” she murmured.

“It was luck, mostly,” I replied.

Breakfast was finished and I served it up, then joined the three ladies at the table. “Do you have any fishing supplies?”

“No,” Hannah said, and Jessica shook her head. “What good would it be now, anyway?”

“There’s a frozen lake with some ice fishing huts on it. You can break a hole in the ice and fish that way. There might be fish there.”

“Oh shit, I didn’t even think of that,” Hannah muttered.

“What kind of weapons do they have?” I asked.

Hannah refocused. “A shotgun, two pistols, and a rifle. The rifle’s almost out of ammo, the shotgun isn’t much better, but we have a little surplus for the pistols. They’ re both nine millimeter.”

“How do you remember all that?” Jessica murmured.

“I pay attention,” Hannah replied succinctly.

“I guess you do.”

“Do they know where we are?” I asked.

“Yes,” Jessica said. “Tom scouted this place out. He knows the area pretty well.”

“Why didn’t anyone ever come around?” Lara asked.

Jessica shrugged. “We kind of had our own problems, and when we didn’t, there wasn’t really any reason to, honestly. I think Travis just...wrote you off.”

“Not surprising, I guess. And, well, probably for the best,” Lara said, grinning a little.

Yeah, she had a point there.

We finished eating breakfast while I ruminated on the information they’d given me. As soon as we were finished, I got up and tracked down the map that Susan had drawn and I’d added to, (and she’d refined since then, because she had a way better eye for art and cartography than I did), and brought it back, then set it on the table.

“This is all we know of the region,” I said, and was glad to see everyone lean in. It was good they were taking this seriously, because we were all going to have to take this seriously. It was pretty much always a matter of life or death now, but I think a lot of people forgot that. We’d all spent pretty much our entire lives living with the notion that we had a safety net. Society was a thing. You could call the police, you could call the fire department, you could go to a hospital. You could at least count on the government and military to protect the country from big obvious threats inasmuch as they could be expected to do so.

Now…

Now we only had each other.

I was admittedly frustrated with how little I’d managed to find since coming in here. I pointed everything out.

“Here’s us. There’s four small cabins along this side of the lake, I’ve already cleared them out, and a house here. I need to do a more thorough search of it. I ran into someone there, a traveler, but she said she was heading further south.”

“She?” Hannah asked, raising an eyebrow. “You fuck her?”

“Hannah!” Jessica hissed.

“We...negotiated,” I replied. “Now, as far as I know, the only other two structures are your campgrounds here, and this cabin here.”

“That seems kinda...random,” Hannah murmured. “You just stumble across it?”

I looked at Jessica and Lara, and Hannah followed my gaze. “Oh,” she said. “That’s where you two seduced my mom.”

“Oh my God, Hannah,” Jessica muttered.

“Am I wrong?” she asked.

“That’s where we had our meetings,” I said, trying to focus again. “There’s a cabin to the northeast, in a broad clearing between the forests and the lake, and a bit further north than that is apparently another house. I haven’t gotten to either of those yet. Does anyone here know of any other places?”

Lara and Jessica shook their heads, but Hannah leaned forward. “Can I get a pencil?” she asked. “I know of a few places.”

“Yeah.” I passed her the pencil I’d brought alone and she leaned over the map and started making a few notations.

“How do you know about these places?” Jessica asked.

“Remember those walks I’ve been taking over the past few weeks? I found a few things. This here is a watchtower, and this here is some kind of building. I’m not sure what it is. Not a house or a cabin, something else. And that’s all I’ve got for now, unfortunately.”

I frowned. How’d I miss a watchtower? It should’ve been visible, as it was west of the main clearing north of our house. I should have seen it from the lake. Although maybe it just wasn’t very well placed. The other place she’d pointed out was south and west, closer to their encampment. I pursed my lips, considering it. So, the two-story house, the house and the cabin I had yet to search, our love affair shack (I hadn’t actually ever searched it, I’d been too distracted), a watchtower, and some unknown building.

“I’d avoid the watchtower for now,” Jessica murmured.

“Why?” I asked.

“That’s around where Tom always goes hunting. Even if he hasn’t been given...instructions, to deal with you, he might shoot you anyway. He’s not the nicest person.”

“No, he isn’t. He’s kind of a sociopath. He’s a little sadistic,” Hannah murmured, looking, for the first time since I’d met her, a little worried.

Great.

“All right. I’m going to go out and start searching a few of these structures. I want everyone else to stay here for right now.”

“Hold on,” Hannah said, sitting up straighter and staring at me, “you’re not just going to keep us here all the fucking time, are you?”

“Hannah,” Jessica said.

“No! Dad tried to do the same fucking thing!”

I looked at her and she looked back at me, and I had a bit of a dilemma on my hands. In a roundabout sort of way, Lara and Susan had kind of elected me head of household, as it was. It seemed kind obvious that Jessica was ready to fall in line like Lara had been, but Hannah was obviously a lot closer to Susan, far more reluctant to do something like that.

I thought about it.

“Hannah,” I said, and from the way I said it, she looked like she was kind of steeling herself for something bad, “I don’t want this to be complicated. Yes, I’m pretty much in charge, unless you think I’m not?” I asked, looking at the others.

“No, you’re definitely in charge,” Lara said.

“Yeah,” Jessica agreed, and Hannah sighed.

“But,” I said, looking back at her, “it doesn’t mean I’m going to be a mindless hardass. I’m sure you’ve been told a thousand fucking times the line ‘everything I’m doing is for our benefit’. In my case, it is, but I believe in actions over words, and you can only decide if I’m full of shit by seeing my actions over a period of time. Right now, I’m asking for some trust. Ultimately, I’m not going to try and make you do anything. But we’re a group, a small community, and everyone needs to work together. That doesn’t mean losing our individual agency, but it does mean putting up with annoying shit on a semi-regular basis.”

We kept staring at each other, and finally she looked away. “Okay,” she said. “I’m not going to be some goddamned pissy teenager who cries every time I don’t get my way. I’m not even a teenager anymore.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Twenty since last month.”

“Well listen, everyone’s voice matters. If you have an issue, tell me. Tell us. That goes for everyone. We’ll deal with it as best we can. Right now, safety and survival are my primary concerns. Now, I’m asking if you would be willing to stay here for today, and maybe tomorrow too. I need to gauge the situation and see if anything comes of this. Is that fair?”

“Yes,” she said after a moment. “That’s fair.”

“Okay, so what do you want?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Real relationships are give and take. You just gave. Now I’m asking what you want to take in exchange. What’s something you want to do?”

She looked at me squarely. “Teach me to hunt.”

Jessica frowned more deeply, but didn’t say anything.

“All right, I’ll do it,” I said. It was something I wanted to do anyway. “I think that’s smart. I’ll take you hunting either tomorrow or day after.”

“I’ve got your word?” she asked, staring me in the face.

“Barring some kind of disaster, like a blizzard or an attack, you have my word that I will take you hunting within the next seventy two hours,” I replied.

She stared at me a bit longer. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you,” she added after a minute.

“You’re welcome. Now, are there any questions?” I looked at Lara and Jessica. They both shook their heads. “Okay. Stay here, keep a watch out for anything, stay armed. I’ll be back around lunchtime,” I said.

They all responded in their own way, and I gave Lara and Jessica kisses. Hannah rolled her eyes. And then I began to get my stuff together.

CHAPTER FOUR

I was a lot more focused than I’d been in the past two weeks as I left the house.

Our house.

Having Jessica and Hannah there really stuck a pin in me, really knocked it into perspective. I’d never really been about community before, to be totally honest. I was more of an isolationist. I didn’t really like being around people, and that hadn’t overly changed since the apocalypse. It had at first, but it didn’t really stick.

It was kind of like when you got a really big scare or some huge change happened, and you thought maybe it changed you, but a few months or half a year goes by and you slowly slide back into your old habits and you realize that it didn’t change you, not really. Because for the most part, people didn’t change.

But now I was beginning to wonder.

Maybe I didn’t like being around people because I’d never been around the right people. Sure, I’d had friends, and girlfriends, but, I don’t know, I’d never really clicked with any of them, if that makes sense. Or at least that’s what it felt like. I’d felt connections before, but there was something just there with Lara and Susan and Jessica, and maybe even Hannah. She was blunt and brash and kind of rude, but she wasn’t so much a bad person as maybe a little tactless. She was certainly mature for her age...but she was still just barely out of her teens.

Then again, what the fuck did I have to say? I was still in my mid-twenties.

I don’t know if I’d call myself mature for my age when I was growing up, but I did at least notice that I was a lot less prone to doing dumb shit. I never really got in trouble at school, I never picked fights, I never got to that point that like everyone else seems to go through where I hated my parents. I’d always felt a sense of responsibility for other people, to a certain degree. I’d help if I could. And I could help a lot nowadays.

That tended to lead to burnout where I’d just go off on my own and just help myself for awhile, if I could help it.

Would that happen here?

For some reason, I didn’t think so. I didn’t want to leave.

For a very long time, ever since I’d struck off on my own, I’d had this vague sense. This uncertain, nebulous notion of wanting to go somewhere. But where? Sometimes it was a town, sometimes it was just a direction, but I felt this feeling just urging me onward. It was what kept me from settling down anywhere.

And I realized, all at once, that I no longer felt that.

I didn’t want to move on, or go anywhere.

And that was a good feeling.

I struck out north after performing a sweep of the perimeter of our place, intending to search that two-story house I’d fucked that pale blonde chick Alicia in yesterday. Holy shit, had that really been yesterday? Your sense of time got fucked up when a lot of stuff was happening. That already felt like a few days ago. I was more nervous than usual, especially when I got out of the woods and into a large open space that dominated the middle of this region.

Our woods, the woods that I had initially come up in and the one that held our house, made up the southern portion. The lake was to the north and the ease, with another thick stand of trees near it. Farther on north I could see a rise in the landscape and more clusters of dead trees. Then off to the west was what I’d come to think of as Travis’s woods. All of this forming a rough kind of perimeter around a large area of land that was home to little more than some structures and a few clusters of mini-forests here and there.

It was very exposed.

Well, I couldn’t stand here all day at the treeline, hesitating. I had to move forward. I had a job to do. So I set off towards the lake house. The walk was cold and miserable, kicking my way through a fresh layer of snow. I kept waiting for a gunshot to ring out, or someone to shout, or something, but I managed to make it all the way there without encountering a single problem. This time, when I approached the front door, it didn’t open up.

I got up to it, waited, then opened it.

No one inside. The house felt dead and empty.

How many places like this had I found and gone into over the past few years? How many places that only held ghosts and dead memories?

Too many.

I looked around the living room I’d come into, briefly remembering my encounter with Alicia and wondering where she was now. Had she made it somewhere safe? God, it was possible she’d died out there in that snowstorm. There was a nasty thought. But it was a nasty world. Hopefully she was okay, on her way to Missouri, and hopefully happiness.

I got to work.

Searching a house is done in two basic steps. The first is pretty simple and straightforward, the second is...well, I guess the same, it just takes more time. The first is to make sure you’re really alone. That there’s no one hiding in any closet or under the bed or behind any furniture or in the shower behind the curtain.

Every time I did this, moving through every room with my pistol out, diligently checking everywhere I could think of, I kept getting reminded of every horror movie I’d ever seen. It was funny, how Hollywood had written a whole new cinematic language for our culture. I could almost see myself from the perspective of the audience, like this was a horror movie. It would be me, moving slowly down a hallway, on the lookout. And then it would cut to some deranged psychopath with a knife, eyes wide, mouth trembling in anticipation of the sweet kill to come, hiding in a closet or something. And cut back to me, getting closer, unknowing.

That made you really tense, but I couldn’t help it.

I wondered how many other people had that problem.

But, like about ninety nine percent of the places I searched, this house was dead and empty. No people, not even any animals hiding out. Once that was done and I’d locked all the doors and windows as well as I could, I began the second portion. The kind of annoying one. Although really that depended largely on my mood.

If I wasn’t in an outright terrible mood, it was actually easy to get lost in the search. I had to search everywhere and everything. Because people are, in some ways, squirrels by nature. We squirrel things away in the weirdest places, places you’d never think of. People liked to hide things. I didn’t blame them, but how many people had hidden something with the intent to come back, and died? Or just left the region? The state?

No sense in it going to waste.

I searched every room, behind and under every piece of furniture, in every closet, every little nook and cranny. I was a little rushed, because I did intend to get home by lunch and not only had I had a bit of late start today what with all the things I’d had to go over during breakfast, but close to an hour and a half had already passed by the time I’d started my search.

The lake house was a good size.

There was a basement, (God above save me from having to search basements in the dark by myself, seriously, I’d learned to brave a lot of shit, but that still freaked me the fuck out), and then there was the first floor, which held a pair of guest bedrooms, a full bathroom, a dining room, a kitchen, and a living room. Then there was the second floor, which had a master bedroom, another bedroom, another full bathroom, and an office.

It definitely seemed like the kind of place a rich person would buy and furnish. Maybe some native Nebraskan who’d done really well for themselves in an office job or banking or maybe even some entrepreneur who’d started their own business. Or it could just as easily have been someone from out of state, some rich douche like Travis who wanted that ‘quiet but fancy lake house’ to escape to every now and then.

I was glad I’d emptied my backpack.

Although I didn’t find some kind of massive haul or secret cache of food or lighter fluid or bullets, I did find a lot clothes still in good shape that looked like they’d fit most of us. I also found a duffel-bag and packed it and then my backpack with the best of the clothes. It wasn’t smart to leave behind supplies if you could help it. Anyone might swing by while you were gone and snatch up what was left. It had certainly happened to me before.

But besides the clothes, I did manage to add a few things to my collection.

Two rolls of toiletpaper. (Oh my fucking God, what a find.)

Three cans of food. (Unlabeled, so it’d be a surprise.)

A few matches. (In the back of a drawer in the kitchen.)

Some office supplies. (A spiral-bound notebook, some pens and pencils, a ruler. I thought Susan would really appreciate that.)

Some lube! (I was going to appreciate that. Okay, and the girls, given it was their asses getting fucked hard.)

And finally two paperback novels. A science fiction story and a noir detective book. (Also for Susan.)

Ultimately, I counted it a success.

Once I’d carefully packed everything away into my backpack, I left the house and stepped back outside. According to the position of the sun, it around noon. I looked around, scanning the area. There was something dark and low to the ground moving around off to the west, a wolf no doubt, but it was too far away to be of any trouble.

I set off.

…

And I made it back home without trouble.

I had to admit, I was worried. I kept wondering if something had gone wrong while I was away, and gradually picked up the pace. This was the unhappy part of caring: the worry. The idea of something happening to someone you cared about when you weren’t there, when you were completely powerless to protect them in any way.

But when I came into the house and looked around, nothing was out of order.

I did hear faint moaning, though.

The good kind, at least. I recognized Lara’s voice. I walked into the living room, saw no one, but heard movement in the kitchen. Following it, I came across Susan, who was in the process of making lunch.

“Hey,” she said, “Lara told me what’s up, then went to have sex with Jessica.”

“Where’s Hannah?”

“The basement. I don’t blame her. Who wants to listen to their mom banging another chick?” she replied.

I laughed. “Yeah, that’s fair. Man, that’s gonna be awkward.”

“Probably less so than you’d think. I think they’re both pretty adult. Jessica seems embarrassed but too hungry for your cock to let that stop her. You know, she was gushing about you for like a fucking half hour after I woke up. That girl is going to fall in love with you.”

“Oh, like you aren’t?” I replied.

“Psh, no,” she replied, and I could almost hear her eye-roll.

I walked up behind her, brought a hand up and around, and gripped her neck. “Oh, is that so, Susan?” I whispered in her ear.

She gasped and shuddered. “I...goddamnit,” she whispered. “You don’t...s-stop.”

“Do you really want me to stop?” I asked.

“...no. Fuck!” she snapped. “I don’t, I hate how much you turn me on.”

“Why?” I asked, and let go of her throat, then began to run my finger across it.

She trembled against me, her small frame against my large one.

“It’s t-too much power,” she whispered.

“You hate that you love it,” I said in her ear.

“Fuck, when you talk in my ear like that...ugh...” she moaned, breathing more heavily.

“Don’t let the meat burn,” I said, and stepped away from her.

She growled angrily and tended to the wolf meat she was cocking in a frying pan, then whirled around and faced me as I got out of my pack and unzipped it.

“You fucking pussy-tease,” she growled. “I hate when you do that.”

“Do you really?” I asked.

She pursed her lips and glared daggers at me.

“You just hate that I know how to play your body like an instrument, Susan. You should just...enjoy it. I think I get you. Has anyone else ever got you like that?”

She kept glaring at me, then slowly lowered her arms. “No.”

“And haven’t you wanted that?”

“...yes,” she admitted.

“So what’s the problem?”

She let out an aggrieved growl. “I just...trust, Chris! Trust! It’s hard for me to trust!”

“I know. I know it’s hard to trust, especially now. I’m doing what I can to try and show you that you can genuinely trust me. Here, I got something for you, just to prove my only gifts aren’t all sexual in nature,” I said, pulling the two books out of my pack.

“You...asshole,” she muttered, coming over and taking them. “That’s...really sweet.”

“Why am I an asshole for being sweet?!” I cried.

“Because...fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know how to react to this shit! Do you know what happened the last time I got a gift was?”

“No.”

“It was like a year before the snow. I was dating this guy, we’d been going out on dates for a few weeks at that point, and he shows up with a gift, like a nice pair of earrings. I felt bad, because I hate jewelry, but I thought it was sweet. So, you know, we go on the date, and then we come back, and we start fooling around, and he starts getting really handsy. I didn’t mind it at first, we’d done hand stuff before then, but he was a lot more aggressive and I had to make him relax and back off, and he got so pissed off after I told him I still wasn’t ready to fuck. He was mad and wanted the earrings back! Because they were, and I quote, ‘a put out gift’. Like, he bought me a gift, so I was supposed to give him pussy in return. Like...what the fuck!?”

“Holy shit, you did really bad for boyfriends, huh?”

“Ya think!?” She sighed and went back to the meat. “Anyway, thank you. For the books. I actually really appreciate them. That was genuinely sweet, and you know what, I don’t mind putting out as reward with you! Because we’ve already had sex, and because I actually like you, and because you didn’t expect anything in return.” She hesitated, then turned around and stared at me. “Did you?”

“No! I just...want to make you happy, Susan.”

She stared at me for a bit longer, then sighed and looked genuinely guilty. “I’m sorry,” she said, then put down the spatula, came over and gave me a long, firm hug. “I am sorry. I know I can be difficult. Thank you for putting up with me.”

I laughed. “Well, you’re worth it.”

She looked up at me. I expected her to be angry or irritated or even cavalier. Instead, she just looked...vulnerable. “Am I?”

“Of course,” I replied, and began rubbing her back. “You’re an amazing woman, Susan. I wished we could have met sooner.”

“I never thought I’d end up liking a guy like you as much as I do, but yeah, I agree.”

“What do you mean, a guy like me?” I replied.

She sighed and went back to the wolf meat. “You ping my ‘douche-bag jock’ radar, okay? You’ve just got...I don’t know, several of the warning signs. Except you aren’t like that. It’s really weird for me, and I’m still adjusting to it. I hate arrogant douche-bros who think they’re the shit and owed all the pussy in the world. You just...look like that, okay? But you aren’t like that. You’re actually a really nice guy, and sweet. You’re a little cocky, but...well, I guess you earned it.”

“I’m glad you think so,” I replied.

She chuckled. “So what’d else you find out there?”

I showed her, then I spent a bit sorting out the supplies, putting away the clothes I’d gotten for myself in the dresser in mine, Susan’s, and Lara’s room, and then figuring the girls could figure out who got what from the rest.

And I could still hear Lara and Jessica panting and moaning occasionally.

I stepped up to the door. “I’m coming in girls,” I said.

“Do it, you have to see this,” Lara moaned.

I opened the door and stepped in.

“Holy shit,” I muttered.

They were both completely naked, sweat, and rubbing vaginas together on the bed, looks of intense concentration and pleasure on their faces. Well, I had certainly come in at the right time. I closed the door behind me and walked over to them, watching them closely. They both had such fantastic bodies. Jessica with all her trim, fit statuesque physique, and Lara with all her curvy, buxom goodness.

Man, they had big, awesome tits!

And they way they jiggled as they fucked each other…

“This is one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen,” I muttered.

“Pull your dick out and I’ll give you head,” Jessica said.

She’d hardly finished the sentence before I was next to her, standing beside the bed, digging my cock out of my pants. As soon as it was out, she took it in her mouth and began sucking me off like a pro slut, putting those wonderful lips and that amazing tongue to use.

“Oh fuck yes,” I groaned, watching as the two women had amazingly hot sex.

“I can’t believe we can do this whenever we want now...” Lara moaned.

“By the way, I am so fucking both of you in a threesome tonight. A proper threesome now that we have a bed big enough,” I replied.

“Oh my God yesssss...” Jessica groaned, then kept sucking me off.

That sweet, hot, familiar bliss burned into my through my cock as her mouth went to work. Both women continued moaning, breathing heavily as they had sex with each other, trying to get each other off, and I was right there with them. Technically this was a threesome. But I wanted a full-on threesome. We’d never been able to really make it work so far.

It wasn’t long before I popped off. I guess all that walking had made me tense, and I tended to go early if I was really tense. Jessica could tell. And she did something awesome. Right before I was about to pop, she pulled me out of her mouth and began jacking me off, aiming my cock towards her big, firm tits.

I started coming all over them.

“Oh fuck!” I moaned.

“Holy shit, that’s so hot,” Lara whispered.

Apparently it was really hot because she started to orgasm right while I was winding down. I watched my cock jerk and twitch, spitting thick, stringy loads of my seed all over Jessica’s perfect tits, and her perfect hand kept working my dick, pumping it dry with a smooth precision, moaning as she got me off and had me blow my load on her chest.

When I was done, we locked eyes.

“Clean it with your mouth,” I said.

“Yes, master,” she replied, and put it back in her mouth, then slowly pulled it out, sucking all the way, and I groaned loudly at the shot of pleasure that gave me.

“Fuck, that’s good,” I groaned.

“I live to please, master,” she murmured, grinning up at me.

“You are definitely my kind of girl, Jessica,” I said, reaching out and putting a hand on her head.

She grinned. “You’re definitely my kind of guy.”

“Good. Now finish up, lunch is almost ready.”

“Okay. Lara, make me come,” she said.

“Bossy bitch,” Lara muttered as I put my cock away.

I left them to it, headed out and rejoined Susan. She was finishing up with lunch, and I helped her out. By the time we had the table set, Hannah had returned, looking annoyed, and Jessica and Lara emerged from their room, looking flushed.

“What’d you find out there?” Jessica asked after we’d all gotten our food and were digging in.

“Clothes, mainly. And a few useful items. Some food. Not as much as I’d hoped,” I replied. “What we could really use is some tarp or plastic.”

“What for?” Hannah asked.

“The windows. We’re losing heat. Trick I learned awhile back was to get some plastic wrap or something similar and tape it up. I’d recommend using blankets, but that makes the house really fucking dark, and it’s not nearly as effective,” I explained.

“That’s a good idea,” Hannah murmured.

“So, judging by everyone’s relaxed manner, I’m assuming no one has come around.”

“As far as we know, no,” Susan replied.

“Well, that’s good at least. I haven’t seen anyone so far. After I take a short break, I’m going to head back out and try to hit that cabin and that other house, see what else I can find. Then I’ll be in for the night.”

Lara looked anxious, and Jessica did a little too, but unfortunately nothing could be done about it. I couldn’t sit here doing nothing. I felt bad about having them sit here. Right now, those were the circumstances.

I kept eating.

CHAPTER FIVE

After lunch, I headed back out into the cold once more.

I took the duffel-bag with me, because it had proven pretty useful, and made the hike back out into the vast clearing. The cabin was the next nearest one. I planned to hit it, then make my way up to the house, which was almost dead north of that cabin, and then come back home. And maybe, if I got lucky, I’d run into something to shoot and provide some more food. I kept an eye out along the far west treeline for signs of people or the flash of a rifle’s scope.

As I walked, I began thinking further ahead.

There was a lot to do, but the biggest thing on my mind was...where the fuck was this going to go with Jessica’s husband and this Thomas guy. Who I was imagining as a hulking mountain, a monster of a man with brass knuckles and a shaved head and an assault rifle across back and pistols on his hips. Probably not the best idea to build this theoretical guy I might never have to face up in my mind. But that was how the brain worked.

So where was this going to go?

I guess I was mentally preparing myself for a final confrontation, because that was how I saw this playing out. It was theoretically possible that Travis and his crew would just give up. Maybe he’d just be satisfied with some other girl and toss his problems onto Jessica and Hannah, telling himself that they were ‘dead weight’ and it was better this way. Then again, maybe he was the obsessive controlling asshole kind of guy who’d come after them beyond reason or sanity. Either was possible. If I had to...I could kill him. Both him and Thomas.

If I had to.

I didn’t like killing people, and it was something I didn’t think I could do before the snow. I’d though about it more than I wanted to, because I’d had to kill now more than once. That psycho who’d shown up last week made number five. Which was five more than I’d like. I think living in a life or death world where you had to genuinely focus on, worried about, and think of your survival pretty much every day made the notion of living with yourself after murdering another human a lot easier, a lot more bearable.

Don’t get me wrong, I still felt kind of sick whenever I thought of it, I still had nightmares, I still fucking hated the thought of doing it, of having done it and of having to do it again. Sometimes I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day.

But learning to kill was like learning to hunt, and skin, and start a fire.

You needed to do it if you were going to survive.

I used to think I could get through this without killing anyone, that if I was careful, it wouldn’t be necessary. And for awhile, that was true. But the apocalypse made people fucking crazy, man. People were just a lot more willing to turn violent and pull out guns. And, sooner or later, you found yourself facing a situation where it was literally either you or them. Kill or be killed. And I learned that I’d rather kill than be killed.

I wondered how many people had made it through this without having to murder someone yet. Well, probably most if not all of the women I was staying with. I don’t know, I was thinking about this too much, like usual.

The point was, if I had to, I could kill them to save myself and save the others.

That wasn’t the issue.

The issue was how Jessica and Hannah would react. Given how they’d reacted to my informing them of the most recent time I’d ended a life, Susan and Lara would understand. And I thought Hannah might. I know there are people who have this idea of ‘I don’t care how much she hates her dad, that’s her dad! Blood is thicker than water! She’d never forgive you!’ But that was bullshit, I’d learned. People romanticized the notion of being tied to your family no matter what for some reason. I think it’s just a side effect of people terrified of being alone.

A lot of suffering has happened because people are terrified of being alone.

I don’t know if Hannah could ever kill her own dad, and I would never wish that situation on her, but I did have an inkling that she would understand if it came to that. She wouldn’t want him dead, but she would get it if he forced me to kill him.

Ugh. I hated thinking about this.

This was the kind of thought process you have where, if you were saying this to someone, they’d probably think you were a fucking psych or something.

Unfortunately, I had to live with the reality that I might need to fight for my life.

I finally reached the cabin, glad to be able to shift my focus elsewhere. It wasn’t a very big building, a bit of a more complicated model than the string of them along the eastern side of the lake I’d already hunted through, but still just a cabin. There was the main room, that was a combo kitchen, dining room, and living area. Then a door that led to a bedroom, and two other doors there that led to a closet and a small bathroom.

After clearing it, I searched it for supplies.

But it became obvious that someone had already been through. Maybe a month ago, maybe a year ago. I hunted for about forty minutes or so and managed to come up with a grand total of a few more loose matches, a candle, and a spatula. (Hey, the one we have might break at some point, it’d be nice to have another.)

I paused to take out the map and make a little notation on the back, then packed it up and headed back outside.

What fun a day this was turning out to be.

Well...I’d come all over Jessica’s tits and in Lara’s mouth, after fucking Susan today, so I guess I couldn’t complain too much.

I could see the house in the distance as I came around the cabin.

I got walking.

…

It wasn’t a very impressive house.

Whatever paint it’d had was gone, scoured off by permanent winter winds, with a few broken windows and a kicked-in front door. Not great signs. I secured it, then searched it, moving through a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room, and one empty room that could’ve been a number of things when it had had furniture.

It was weird how lonely a completely empty room felt.

It took me an hour to search, and I was feeling pretty glum by the end of that hour after having gone through most of the house and finding just a single can of peas (yuck), and a few articles of clothing, and nothing else. I was ready to write today off as a bad day, productively speaking, when I was in the process of searching the last closet in the last room, the empty room, (it probably had been a second bedroom at some point).

It was dark in the closet, which was mostly empty, so I pulled out my lighter. I almost didn’t, because this felt like a waste of time.

But I’m really fucking glad I did.

There was nothing in the closet, but looking up, I did see a square panel in the ceiling. So, an attic space. I considered it for a moment, then went back to the kitchen, dragged one of the chairs in there into the close space, and stood up on it. I pushed up the square and, seeing no other choice, stood up on the back of the chair.

Not exactly safe, but what was nowadays?

I found myself in an empty attic space that was dark and dusty.

I looked around, feeling my hopes start to fall again, and then something entered my field of vision as I looked behind me. Almost jerking in surprise and falling on my ass and maybe even breaking something, I managed to calm down and study it.

Another duffel-bag!

Oh shit, this might be exactly the kind of hidden cache I was looking for.

I grabbed it, took a moment to check there was nothing else around, then got down carefully off the chair and crouched down. Setting the back on the empty wooden floor, I unzipped it and looked inside, hoping something was worthwhile inside.

“Yes!” I whispered triumphantly.

Supplies!

Like, actual supplies that could be useful. I sorted through it, carefully extracting, inspecting, and laying out each object on the floor. There was some more ammo, a magazine that would fit Susan’s pistol, several loose rifle rounds that would fit my rifle, (eight in total!), a mostly full box of matches, three flat tins of tuna, two cans of vegetable soup, two cans of tomato soup, two cans of mixed fruits, and two more cans of shredded chicken. Holy shit, that was a pretty decent haul food-wise. There were also some medical supplies: more bandages, a bottle of antiseptic, some painkillers. Batteries! A little tin that was packed with double-A batteries.

Those were rare nowadays.

They might be dead, but they might not.

And...a key?

With something attached to it, a piece of paper folded up tightly in a plastic sack. I pulled it out and unfolded it. A map! A quick glance let me know I was looking at the region in question. I checked for other structures I hadn’t found yet and had two hits: apparently there was a farm due east of the lake, past the row of little cabins, and there was a dotted line drawn from the house to a spot southeast, a little further east than the way I’d initially come in. So what was there? It didn’t say, but obviously this key went to something.

I packed it all back up and slipped the bag into my backpack, then headed out of the house, feeling pretty good.

…

It was getting dark by the time I made it back home, and again luck had looked after us.

Nothing had happened, no one had shown up.

I found myself eating dinner not much later and showing the girls what I had found.

“This is great,” Susan murmured as she looked through the bag I’d brought. She was standing at the counter while the rest of us sat around the table eating. “Batteries! We have two flashlights that could use them. I’ll see if they work tonight...so this key, no idea what it goes to?”

“I’m guessing a vehicle of some kind,” I replied.

“Huh. Well, it’s worth checking out, at any rate,” she murmured. “This is a great find.”

She rejoined us and dug into her meal.

“Can you do me a favor?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Will you inventory our food? You already have a pretty good grasp of portions, I think. I’d like to know what we’re working with. And, actually, I think we need to work out a schedule and some responsibilities. Determine who’s good at what.”

“That’d be a good idea,” Hannah said.

“I’m hoping. We’ll do that tomorrow. Be thinking about what you’re good at, and what you’d be willing to learn how to do more. Also, if you have any ideas at all, tell me. I’d like to hear them,” I said, looking around at them.

Jessica smiled at me, one those super happy, you can hardly contain yourself smiles.

“What?” I asked, looking at her.

“I just...this is so nice,” she replied. “The atmosphere here, compared to where we came from...it’s night and day. It’s so...happy and relaxed here. I love it so much.”

“It is a lot nicer,” Hannah murmured. “I don’t feel like a prisoner.”

“Well, I want everyone to be happy,” I replied.

“So far, you’re doing a good job,” Jessica said.

Well, that made me happy, at least.

We continued eating.

…

“Hey, Susan...” I said.

She looked up from her book. She was laying on the couch in the living room. As soon as her eyes met mine, a look of annoyance settled on her face. “What do you want?” she asked.

“I need the bedroom for like, an hour maybe,” I replied.

“Ugh...” she groaned. “You’re going to fuck Jessica in our bed, aren’t you?”

“Yes. And Lara.”

“Fine. But when I come to bed tonight, you need to make me come at least twice,” she said.

“Deal,” I said.

“Try to keep it down, for Hannah’s sake.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. And I think I have an idea for that,” I replied.

I gave Susan a kiss, then headed back through the house, to our bedroom where Lara and Jessica were already waiting for me.

“Are we good to go?” Lara asked.

“Yes, but you two have to try and keep quiet.”

“I don’t know if I can do that...” Jessica murmured.

“Luckily for you sluts, I have a solution,” I said, walking over to the bedside table and pulling open the drawer. They both watched me intently as I pulled out a roll of duct tape. I had been saving this for a special occasion. Probably not the most practical use for it, but it wasn’t like I was going to use much.

And hey, sometimes you had to just enjoy this stuff.

“Oh,” Lara murmured.

“Oh indeed.” I set it down on the table and looked at them. “Strip.”

“Yes, sir,” they both said quietly, and began taking the rest of their clothes off. I was definitely going to enjoy this. I took off my own clothes and as soon as they were naked, I got into bed with the pair of absurdly beautiful women. I started kissing Lara, running my hands across her body, her big, firm breasts and fantastic thighs and amazing ass. She slipped her tongue into my mouth, kissing me with a wonderful passion, touching, putting her hands across my body. And I could feel Jessica’s as well, running her smooth, warm hands across my skin. After a bit, I rolled over and switched to kissing her, touching her fantastically firm breasts and just truly amazing thighs and hips. I was interested to see her workout routine.

I switched back and forth between them for a bit, then had them make out with each other. It was clear they were both extremely into each other. I thought Lara liked Jessica a lot, a lot, but not the same way she liked Susan.

She’d said it herself: she loved Susan.

I wondered if they had talked about that yet.

Both women kissed and groped each other, putting on an erotic display, for several minutes.

“I want to see you two sixty-nine,” I said.

“Ooh, okay,” Lara said excitedly.

We all shifted around and Jessica straddled her face, then laid across her body, resting her face down in her crotch. Both women started to moan as their fingers and tongues were put to use. Lara reached out and began to massage my cock. She was good at multitasking. I watched the display, the two insanely hot women licking each other’s pussies, pleasuring each other, shivering and shuddering in wonderful bliss.

They started getting noisy after a few minutes, so I decided it was time for the next part.

“All right,” I said, reaching over, “on your backs.”

Jessica got off of Lara and laid down beside her. Both of them stared at me intently as I got the tape ready. I tore off a piece and slapped it over Jessica’s mouth. She let out a small sound halfway between being startled and being pleasured. I did the same to Lara, then set the tape back down. I stared at them.

This was going to be fun.

I got on top of Lara first, (I didn’t really know how to pick who to start with if there were two, I guess my brain just had its own internal logic and spat out the answer, I just wanted to start with Lara for some reason), and I got between her thighs. I laid my cock at the entrance of her pussy and could already tell she was really fucking wet.

I pushed inside.

Lara let out a loud, muffled groan and shivered all over. I got inside in a few short thrusts, and once all my inches were inside of her, I cut loose. I don’t know what the fuck it was, but seeing a woman with duct tape over her mouth just fucking got me going. That’s probably fucked up, but if I recall, a shitload of people got turned on my fucked up things. And I’d run into more than a few women who enjoy having tape put over their mouths.

Honestly, her wrists were calling out for some cuffs, but I didn’t have any.

Maybe we could rig something up next time.

As it was, I was too goddamned horny to think start. I started banging the fuck out of her, partially because it felt so goddamned good to fuck that amazing pussy of hers, but also because I fucking loved hearing her screaming from behind the duct tape. Lara was shouting as much as she could, her voice muffled, and that sounded so hot. I pounded her into the mattress, making the frame shake, making her shake. I was resting on my hands, staring down at her curvy, pale body, her huge tits bouncing, her legs spread out and me in between her thighs, my cock disappearing into her vagina over and over again. Lara was so amazingly sexy.

I glanced over at Jessica.

She stared at me with wide eyes that said a lot. They said she was getting lonely, and horny. Well, I guess it was her turn. I pulled out of Lara, who let out a muffled cry of protest. She looked at me beseechingly and mumbled something.

“Shut up,” I replied, and she immediately fell silent. “It’s Jessica’s turn. I’ll get back to you soon enough, you whore.”

She mumbled something that I’m pretty sure was Yes, sir and became still.

I got on top of Jessica, in between those amazingly toned, firm thighs of her, and slipped smoothly into her pussy. She was really goddamned wet, too. My mature, redheaded, MILF lover moaned loudly and I set right in on her, pounding her pussy good and hard. She was mine now, I thought. She’d given herself to me. No more cheating, no more sneaking around. She’d told me I could fuck her whenever I wanted.

On the one hand, I kind of missed the cheating. Yeah, I’m a fuckhead for liking specifically fucking another dude’s wife behind his back, (I still think he deserved it), but I couldn’t deny that it was a turn-on.

On the other hand, this was better. I felt more connected with Jessica already, and obviously she felt that way with me, and it was really good having her here with me, safe, and, most importantly, happy. I wanted her to feel secure, safe, and happy.

Within about thirty seconds of fucking, she let out a loud, long moan and began to orgasm. Oh fuck yes. I kept pounding her orgasming pussy, losing myself in the hot pleasure generated by, feeling my bare cock inside of her perfect pussy. Bareback sex was just the absolute best. I fucked her through her orgasm, staring at her perfect, fit body and she twisted and writhed, screaming her head off, or trying to through the duct tape, and when she was done, I pulled out and went back over to Lara. This still wasn’t exactly my idea of a perfect threesome, because in that, there’d be more involvement between the two girls, but it was close enough for now.

Plus, for a real threesome, I wanted one of them to have a strap-on.

Watching one girl with a strap-on fuck another was just insanely hot.

I pounded Lara’s brains out again. “Jessica, rub her clit,” I said.

Our redheaded lover reached over and between us, then started rubbing Lara’s clit, making her moan and scream her muffled screams even louder, and between me pounding her pussy and Jessica vigorously rubbing her clit, my brunette fuck friend was coming within another thirty seconds. This time I didn’t hold back and I came inside of her at the same time, struggling to hold myself up as that tidal wave of pleasure washed through him. I came so much in her pussy, filling her up one, hard shot of my stuff at a time, and I knew there was going to be a mess.

As soon as I was done coming in her, I pulled out, took a moment, then grabbed Jessica and rolled her over.

“Up!” I snapped.

She quickly got up onto her hands and knees, and she began screaming as I started fucking the hell out of her from behind. I started her incredibly tone, fit ass as I slammed my cock into her wet pussy from behind, her hips in my grasp.

I screwed her until I busted a second nut, coming whatever I had left into her, listening to her moan loudly as she pushed against me, shoving my cock deeper into her. As soon as I was done, I pulled out and sat on the edge of the bed.

“That was a good one,” I murmured. “Damn.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Lara mumbled. She reached up and pulled off the tape. “Ow,” she muttered, “yes, that felt amazing.”

“Mmm...mmm...” Jessica said, or tried to, pointing at the tape. I reached over and yanked it off her. “Ow! Fuck!...worth it, though. That was really hot. Would you tie me down sometime?”

“Yeah, sure,” I replied. “That’d be fucking awesome.”

“Oh yeah, me too,” Lara said. “We need handcuffs.”

“I was just thinking that,” I replied. “But I think we can rig something up, maybe some rope or even just some clothing.”

“Yes please,” Jessica murmured. “Travis would never do any of that shit with me.”

“What, seriously?” I asked, looking over at her.

“Yeah. Anymore more than like just sex, he wouldn’t do. Speaking of which, I like really rough anal sex. Like...you holding me down and making me screaming and kind of painful and you hitting my ass with something anal sex. Are you into that?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I would definitely do that for you.”

“Good,” she said, smiling fondly at me. “This is going to be a fucking awesome relationship.”

“Yes it is,” I agreed.

“I can’t believe you’re as young as you are,” she murmured, still staring at me. “You seem like you could be in your early or even mid thirties. You’re really twenty six?”

“Yeah.”

“Do I look thirty nine?” she asked.

“Well...” I considered it. “That’s hard to say,” I said finally.

“What do you mean?”

“So, obviously you’re in just phenomenal shape. And you’re still pretty youthful. You look amazing all around. But...I can’t mistake you for a twenty-something. You just look...mature. I don’t even know what it is. You just look like a grown up, like an adult.”

“Oh, I know what that is,” Jessica replied.

“What is it?” Lara asked.

“I’m a mom. Pretty much all parents have that after like ten years or so. And I really know what you mean. I’ve seen people who are the same age, like thirty five, but one of them had a kid when they were in their early twenties. They looked like an adult, while the other person could’ve passed for their mid twenties.”

“Huh,” I said. “That actually makes a lot of sense. So yeah, that’s it. I believe you’re thirty nine.”

“Does that turn you on?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Which part?” Lara asked. “The mom part or the mature part?”

“Both. A lot. First chick I fucked after all the bad shit started happening was in her mid forties, definitely mature. And it was amazing.”

“We know what we’re doing,” Jessica said, smirking a little smugly.

“Hey, I know what I’m doing too,” Lara said.

“That’s definitely true,” I replied. “Now, get cleaned up, I’m tired and I’ve got another long day ahead of me tomorrow. I’m probably going to take your daughter out hunting. Are you okay with that?” I asked.

Jessica frowned as Lara got up and started washing herself off. “I...am,” she said.

“You hesitated.”

“It’s just...you know, it’s just typical motherly worries, you know? Of course I’m afraid of my daughter being in a dangerous situation. But she wants to do this, she should be doing this, and she’ll be with you. And I trust you. I trust both of you. She’s a lot smarter and braver than I ever was. Than I am. I know that much.”

“You aren’t stupid,” I said.

“I know,” she murmured. “But I’d never be mistaken for very smart, you know? I can figure things out, for the most part, but Hannah...she is smart. God, to think of all that she could have been if this shit hadn’t happened. She would’ve blasted through college, got a goddamned masters in biology or medicine or engineering or business, something amazing. She’s a very fierce girl.”

“That will suit her well now, too,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess it will.” She regained her smile. “And you’ll take good care of her.”

“I’ll watch out for her,” I agreed.

“You’re a really good guy.” Jessica got up and stood before me. “I’m really glad I met you, and that I’m with you now.” She hugged me.

I hugged her back. “I feel exactly the same way.”

After that, we washed up, Jessica pulled her clothes back on and wished us goodnight, then headed into her and Hannah’s room. I got back into bed with Lara, and Susan came in not long after that. She began stripping.

“You owe me,” she said, staring at me.

“Uh-huh,” I replied.

“Don’t fucking ‘uh-huh’ me,” she growled.

She finished taking off her clothes and came over to me. “You promised-”

I grabbed her wrist and yanked her into bed.

A WARM PLACE 5

CHAPTER ONE

I awoke to a knock at my door.

“What?!” I called, sitting up immediately. I felt both women in my bed shift and Susan gasped in surprise.

“You said you’d take me hunting today!” Hannah replied from behind the door.

I groaned and fell back down into bed. Judging by the light coming in through the window, it was maybe an hour past dawn or so.

“I said I might take you hunting today,” I said.

“Come on, Chris, don’t hold out on me.”

“Just take her. We can hold down the fort. We need more food anyway,” Susan murmured.

I heaved a sigh. “Fuck. You say that now, but I think the reality of the situation will make you question it.”

“I have killed someone before,” Susan said.

“Really?”

“Yes. I can do it if it needs doing.”

I thought about it, rubbing my eyes. Fuck. “Fine! Just...give me a bit!” I called back.

“Okay! Hurry up!” she complained, and we listen to her retreating footsteps.

“She’s really persistent,” Lara murmured.

“Reminds me of someone I know,” I said, running a hand up and down Susan’s arm. She was very warm beneath the blankets.

“I’m not that persistent,” she muttered.

“Yes, you are. Now spread your legs. I need to wake up.”

“Fine, but can you not finish in me? I want to go back to sleep...”

“You can finish in me,” Lara said.

“All right,” I said, and got on top of Susan.

I began working my way into her pussy, and like she always was in the morning, she was fucking wet. I mean wet. That’s what I loved about fucking them in the mornings, their pussies were just so goddamned wet and slick. She moaned loudly as I pushed my way into her pussy.

“There’s my girl,” I groaned as I started fucking her.

“Yes! Yes! Fuck!” she cried.

“Are you a good girl, Susan?”

“Yes! Oh my fucking-yes!”

I grabbed her shoulders and shoved her down into the mattress, holding her down firmly, staring intently down at her. She gasped and stared up at me, her eyes wide.

“Are you a good whore, Susan?” I asked, and I began really fucking the shit out of her.

“OH MY GOD YES! I’M A GOOD FUCKING WHORE!” she screamed, and within another ten seconds I made her come. She trembled and shook like she was possessed, crying out in rapture as she came all over my dick, and it felt phenomenal. I wanted to come, honestly, but I kept my problem, and I fucked her orgasming pussy until it was done, then I pulled out of her and moved over to Lara, who was already on her back with her legs spread like a good fuck friend. I left Susan gasping and twitching occasionally, looking deeply satisfied.

Then I slipped into Lara’s wonderful pussy between her thick thighs that were always so goddamned alluring and welcoming

“Oh fuck...” she moaned as she took me into her. “You feel bigger in the morning,” she whispered, then cried out as I started slipping in and out of her.

“Good,” I replied, and settled in for the fucking.

We screwed like rabbits and her pussy lit my cock up with pure pleasure.

Lara moaned loudly as I pounded the fuck out of her, but my mind was kind of wandering. It was harder to stay focused on sex, I was noticing, ever since I’d realized that I had to step up my game and take on more responsibility. My mind kept wanting to slip over to my jobs for the day, the things I’d have to do.

I had to take Hannah hunting.

And that made me think of Hannah, on her knees, sucking me off…

Or Hannah, on her back, naked and panting and moaning as she took my dick-

“Oh fuck...” I groaned as I immediately started coming.

Lara moaned as she took my load into her pussy, and I felt guilty but also really fucking good. Goddamn did I apparently really like the thought of fucking Hannah. I kept thinking about her naked and her taking my dick and screaming in pleasure as I orgasmed into Lara. When I was finished, I pulled out and got up.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Mmm, you’re welcome. I’m going back to sleep.”

“You’re not gonna clean up?” Susan asked.

“I’ll do it later.”

“Gross.”

I began wondering about if I even should feel guilty as I began my morning rituals. I mean, I guess the only hang-up I had was that she was Jessica’s daughter...and I was fucking Jessica. I mean, she was definitely of age, and it’s not like I was goddamned old or anything. We’re like six years apart. And she certainly doesn’t act young. I’d known girls older than Jessica who were immature as hell. She wasn’t with anyone. I wasn’t harassing her. I wasn’t trying to fuck her, I wasn’t staring at her or hitting on her or hanging around her constantly trying to get at her pussy. And I didn’t plan to start doing either of those things.

Well, I guess I didn’t have anything to worry about then.

So I’d fantasized about a hot chick.

When the fuck has that ever been a crime? I’d fantasized practically my entire life about a ton of women. Everyone fantasized about a ton of people. That was human nature. As long as you didn’t make it weird and fucking tell them about it (unless you had that kind of relationship, in which case, I guess you didn’t need to fantasize about them anymore?), then what was the problem? I almost laughed.

Feeling guilt like this was almost...normal.

After all the insane shit I’d gone through over the past two years, the crazy ass stuff that was bound to happen in the days, weeks, even months to follow, this felt so regular. Maybe that’s part of the reason I liked it here so goddamned much: it felt like the time before the snowfall. Hell, if anything, it was in some ways better. On days where we weren’t stressed about food, this was kind of better than my previous life.

I mean, I didn’t have to pay bills.

No one was going to come and take anything from me if I didn’t pay my bills, and if anyone was coming to take something from me, I could shoot them. I didn’t want to, but the option was there. I guess the option was there before, but then it became a whole thing with police and courts and jails. I’d still go back to the old life if I somehow could, because on a median average, it was better. I mean, God, the loss of the internet and hospitals and just general access to electricity was a massive disadvantage.

And no one was making video games anymore.

I’d discarded a lot, and there was a lot I actually didn’t miss, but I did miss video games.

Someday, it was a dream of mine to get my hands on a console, and hook it up at a place that had power, and just play some games with my new friends.

I finished washing, feeling less guilty about thinking about Hannah naked and taking my cock and...a lot of other things, and then dried and dressed. I stepped out and made my way down to the hallway, passing the kitchen and glancing in. Jessica was at the table with a mug of steaming tea. She’d brought some with her and she smiled when she saw me. I smiled back and headed into the living room, where Hannah was sitting on the edge of the couch, all dressed up and ready to go, impatiently tapping her foot.

“You are really eager,” I said.

“Yes! I have been wanting to learn this shit for like a year,” she replied, shooting to her feet.

“Really? And no one would help you?”

“Thomas offered at one point or another but my dad squashed that hard. He didn’t want me doing anything dangerous.” She rolled her eyes. “Like anything’s fucking safe anymore.”

Jessica appeared in the open doorway between the kitchen and the living room, looking anxious, holding her mug of tea. “Please be careful,” she murmured. “Whatever his motivations might have been, I just...want you to come back safe.”

Hannah sighed. “I’ll be fine mom. Shockingly, I do know what I’m doing most of the time.”

Jessica just smiled. “I know honey. I love you.”

“I love you too, mom,” she replied in that really annoyed way teenagers do when they just want their parent to shut up and stop embarrassing them.

“I’ll keep her safe, Jessica,” I said.

“I believe you,” she murmured, staring at me. I suddenly felt guilty for a different reason: I’d given Susan and Lara a morning fuck, and surely she’d heard that, but I hadn’t done anything for her. Well, I couldn’t realistically fuck all of them every day. I’d sure like to, but there just wasn’t time some days. It was tempting to just hang around for another like ten, fifteen minutes maybe to-

“Hey, no,” Hannah said, stepping between me. “I know that look, you’re thinking about banging my mom. We have shit to do.”

“Oh my God, Hannah,” Jessica muttered, blushing badly.

“You’re right, let’s go,” I replied.

“God, finally,” she growled.

“Good luck, honey.”

“Yeah, thanks, mom.”

“And be careful!”

“You said that already mom!” she snapped as she headed quickly for the front door. She was holding her rifle.

“I’ll be in a minute,” I said. I still needed to get my gear.

“Don’t shoot yourself in the foot!”

“Holy fuck, mom, I’m not dad!” Hannah snapped, then slammed the front door behind her.

I laughed as I began pulling on my winter gear. “You like messing with her, don’t you?”

Jessica smiled into her tea. “I...sometimes do enjoy filling the role of the doting, annoying mom. It dovetails nicely with my actual motivations of wanting her to be safe and loving her.”

“I will take care of her,” I said. “I can’t guarantee her safety but-”

“But nothing is guaranteed in this world,” Jessica finished. “Well, at this point Chris, I trust you to protect her more than anyone else on this planet. And she’s right. She needs to learn this. She might be alone one day, and she needs to know how to take care of herself. How to be independent...which isn’t a skill I ever developed.” She lost her smile and stared out the window.

I hesitated. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just...I’ve been thinking about my life a lot. I’m okay, Chris. Go hunt and kill us something. If at all possible, I’d love some pheasant. We’re out, Susan says.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I replied.

I walked over and gave her a hug, then a kiss. I wanted to say something to her, to make her feel better, but I didn’t know what.

Sometimes there was nothing to say.

Sometimes all you could offer was simple support.

“I’m here if you want to talk,” I said finally.

“I appreciate that,” she replied, staring at me intently. “Although the next time we interact, I don’t think much talking will be involved.”

I laughed. “Fair enough.”

I kissed her again and then tracked down my bow and quiver of arrows. Well, Susan’s really, I guess, but it had basically become mine. I think it pissed her off because she’d never quite been able to get the hang of hunting with a bow and arrow. I didn’t blame her. It had been a goddamned pain and I still wasn’t amazing at it.

I checked through my pack, making her I had the basics: food, water, some material to make a fire, a change of clothes, and a handful of stuff I’d be willing to trade on short notice, then double checked my weapons and my clothes.

When it all checked out, I left the house, joining Hannah in the cold.

CHAPTER TWO

Despite my hatred for snow, I thought it was a decent day outside.

It was warm enough that my breath didn’t fog on the air all that much, and the skies were blue. The sun shined down on everything. We were making our way through the woods, towards what was (relatively speaking) the best hunting grounds I knew about. Unfortunately, that seemed to shift. Some days they’d be rife with life, other days, I wouldn’t see a single goddamned creature. As we walked, I mulled over something.

“Hannah...” I said.

“Yes?” she replied defensively, like she expected me to immediately jump down her throat.

“Maybe you should be nicer to your mom,” I said. She began to speak but I pushed on. “And before you ask, no she didn’t ask me to say anything. She hasn’t said anything. This is one hundred percent coming from me.”

She fell silent and we walked on for a few seconds, the only sound the occasional breeze and our feet crunching in the snow.

“I know,” she admitted finally. Then she sighed heavily. “I’m sorry. My mom...pisses me off.”

“Why?”

“Because...a few reasons. Two, really. The first is that...my mom is a lot smarter than she seems. Or, at one point, she was. I’ve always been pretty sharp, and that’s not arrogance, it’s just perspective. I got top grades in everything, I took on chess tournaments and play piano and clarinet and did gymnastics and other impressive shit. I can figure shit out, I’ve always been able to. At some point, it occurred to me that my mother essentially gave up being like me to get leashed by some rich douche-bag with money. She could have been making at least as much money as my dad, if not more, if he hadn’t fucking knocked her up with me in college and talked her in marrying him and letting him take care of her.

“I hate that for a number of reasons. I hate it because it’s cliché. I hate it because my dad is a stupid asshole. I hate it because my mom could have been so much more. I hate it because I could tell she wasn’t satisfied with her life, she wasn’t happy with the choice, she felt obligated to it because of me, but also because, I think, after a certain point, it was just easier to be a trophy wife. I mean, you’ve seen her, she’s in absolutely phenomenal shape-don’t think about her naked-and she poured a lot of effort into that, obviously. But...it wouldn’t hurt so much if I thought she was actually happy with that life and if my dad was actually a good guy. But she isn’t, and he’s not. And she wasted all this amazing talent for nothing.”

“Do you think it’s gone?” I asked.

She sighed. “I don’t know. I really don’t. Sometimes I still see it shine through. She’s not stupid, I don’t want to make you think I think that. But she’s just...my mom shines like a spotlight, but she could have been a fucking sun, you know? She could have been a scientist or a doctor or an engineer. Fuck, man, I don’t know. A brilliant novelist.”

“So what’s the other reason it bugs you?” I asked.

“Because I could already tell that that’s what they had planned for me,” she growled.

“Seriously?”

“I mean...okay, I don’t think my mom was trying to. She was always so encouraging. But my dad, I don’t know if my mom mentioned it, but he’s like weirdly conservative. He isn’t religious really, but he has a lot of beliefs you’d expect typical religious people to have. I mean, conservative people, you know? Mainly towards women, and our ‘place’ in society. He wasn’t really trying to outright force me down a path of just marrying some rich d-bag like him, but he did want to marry me off. I think he always resented me because I wasn’t a guy.”

“I’m sorry,” I muttered.

“I’m not. Fuck him. He’s an asshole. We got into fights like you’d expect before the snow, nothing crazy, for the most part, but afterward, after the apocalypse, he got a lot more controlling. I mean, obviously he’s a lot more stressed out, I get that, but the last year or so he’s just gotten so controlling. Flipping out if we do like one thing that he doesn’t know about. It’s such horseshit. So yeah, that’s why I hate my dad, and why my mom pisses me off. But you’re right, I should be nicer to her. I just...get pissed off, because I see what she could have been, what she willingly gave up.”

“I don’t know about willingly. I mean, raising a kid seems like a lot of hard work...”

“I know that, but I think she could have done better. She was capable. I guess I’m just defending myself again and again. I got used to doing that.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because everyone treats me like I’m some entitled dumbass who doesn’t know what I’m doing,” she muttered.

I glanced at her, suddenly a little paranoid. Had I treated her like that?

“Have I done that?” I asked, thinking back over our interactions so far. I didn’t think I had…

“You? No,” she replied, glancing at me. “Not at all. Honestly, I can see why my mom is so fucking in love with you.”

“In love?” I asked.

She sighed. “Not like that, just, you know...she’s obsessed with you. She thinks you’re amazing. And so far, I’m at least glad that you seem at least closer to being worthy of that praise.”

“Gee thanks.”

“I’ve got high standards.”

“Well, you should. You can certainly afford to.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You’re smart, motivated, extremely attractive on several levels, brave, take charge...you have a lot to offer,” I replied.

“Oh,” she said. She didn’t talk for several seconds. “How old are you, anyway? I can’t figure it out. Sometimes you seem like not much older than me, sometimes you seem almost old enough to be kind of approaching like middle age...” I glanced at her. She flushed. “Not that that’s like, bad or anything.”

“I’m twenty six,” I replied.

“Oh. Wow.”

“Lara said the same thing.”

“How long have you been, like...not living a normal life?”

“About two years.”

She fell silent again, and didn’t pick back up the conversation. Which was probably for the best, because we were closing in on the hunting grounds and I saw something up ahead. A deer. I pointed, but she was already looking in that direction.

“I see it,” she whispered. She shrugged the rifle off her shoulder and into her grasp. The motion was pretty smooth. “You want me to take it down?”

“Yes. I need a gauge of your skills,” I replied.

She shouldered the rifle, aiming through the scope. Maybe five seconds went by. Here’s hoping she was a good shot, because we genuinely did not have the ammo to waste on missed-

She fired.

I saw the deer go down where it kicked a few times, then was still.

“Fuck, I hope I killed it fast,” she muttered.

“It’s not moving,” I replied, and started towards it. “Come on.”

We walked forward, covering the distance, and it didn’t move the whole time. When we got there, I examined the wound.

“Wow, good shot,” I said, then glanced up at her. “It’s dead.”

“What do you think, beginner’s luck?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” I replied. “You looked like you knew what you were doing. How many times have you fired a rifle?”

“Less than ten,” she said.

“Hmm.” So, better odds now that she was some kind of prodigy. I already was inclined to believe her, but this pushed me more in that direction. She just had that sharpness about her, that competence that you really don’t see in twenty year olds. “Well, what we have to do right now is haul this thing back. And then, unfortunately, switch up your training.”

“Why?” she asked.

“I just wanted to get a test for how you were with the rifle. You’re obviously a good shot. But we don’t have a lot of rifle rounds.”

“Fuck,” she muttered. “That’s a good point. And arrows are way easier to make than bullets.”

“Yep. Help me get this back home and we’ll figure out how good you are at skinning.”

…

I was beginning to like Hannah more, the more time I spent with her.

I was hoping that this wasn’t going to complicate anything. I told myself to take the stance I’d already decided to take on awkward socially situations: don’t say anything until you’re sure something’s up, and keep a sharp eye out so nothing festers. There were too many times when someone caused problems by being overly paranoid and deciding to ‘get ahead of the problem’, and revealed that they thought there was a problem, when there actually wasn’t, thereby creating the problem they were hoping to pacify.

Like, if I had a sit-down with Jessica, asking if her she was jealous of her daughter maybe, and she wasn’t, but now all of a sudden she asks herself should I be? Or something like that. I guess it was a little hypocritical given how I’d handled Susan and Lara’s situation, but I had been both pretty sure and also right.

Of course, hindsight was twenty twenty.

We hauled the dead deer back home and down into the basement, where we got to work gutting and skinning it, preparing it for a meal. Hannah was pretty okay with the gross stuff, so that was the first hurtle. She had some basic knowledge, and I was glad to see that she’d probably be pretty easy to teach. I showed her how to do it the first time, and told her she could do it the next time. Once the job was done, we washed up and headed back outside, then started to make our way back to the hunting grounds.

“Were you good at this stuff before the snow?” she asked.

“Yeah, sorta,” I replied. “I liked to go fishing and hunting and camping. Sometimes with friends, sometimes by myself.”

“Really? Totally by yourself?”

“Yeah. Sometimes no one would want to go, but sometimes...you know, I’d just want to be totally alone for a day or two. I’d just pack up and go. There was something deeply appealing about it. I didn’t have to plan or coordinate with anyone, I didn’t have to accommodate for anyone else. I stopped when I wanted to stop, I started when I wanted to start. I only had myself to rely and to think about when I made plans.”

She was silent for a few moments. “Is being alone better?”

I thought about it. “Generally, I’d say no. Humans need other humans. But sometimes, I think being alone is better than being someone who will drag you down. Ideally you’ll find yourself good people you can rely on, and who can rely on you.”

“Like you and Lara and Susan and my mom.”

“You’re part of that group.”

“You think you can rely on me?” she asked.

“Yeah...why, should I not?”

She laughed. “Yes, you should. I was just...I’m not used to someone like you. The men in my life...for the past like six months, it’s really just been the three guys I lived and traveled with. My dad saw me as basically this piece of property that was part responsibility, part irritation, part...legacy, I guess. And Thomas saw me as a fuck toy he really wanted to obtain. And Ben saw me as intimidatingly smart and hot and almost never talked to me. And you...just talk to me. You aren’t intimidated, you aren’t trying to fuck me, you aren’t talking down to me. You’re just...talking to me. And helping me. And I appreciate it.”

“I’m glad,” I replied.

“Hey, I was curious...”

“Yeah?”

“What happened to your arm?”

“My arm? Oh,” I glanced down at my right forearm. You couldn’t see the bandaging, because it was all covered it, but the instant I recalled it, I could suddenly feel it again. It wasn’t wrapped any longer, there was just some bandages over it now. It’d taken to cleaning and re-bandaging it every morning now.

An infection could kill way more easily nowadays.

“Mountain lion got me,” I replied.

“Does it hurt? How long ago?”

“A few days ago, actually. It still hurts, but not that much. I’ve always had a high pain tolerance for some reason, or I just feel less pain, I think. I don’t know, either way, it helps.”

“Huh.”

We kept walking until we were back to where we’d found the deer initially, and then began hunting through the frozen forest for more wildlife. I felt myself slipping into that streamlined mindset I’d developed as we got to it, the one where I largely focused on what I was doing and nothing else. Some days it was pretty effective, some days it was hard not to let thoughts of all kinds slip in past my defenses, which made it harder to focus. Right now I was having to adjust on the fly, because I’d hardly ever tried to teach someone this.

We kept moving until we found a rabbit. Not the ideal target, but it would do.

“Okay, shoot it,” I said softly.

She had the bow and arrow now. I’d taken the rifle, just in case. She drew an arrow and notched it smoothly enough, held it, waited, then let fly. The arrow sailed through the air and...missed the rabbit. It hit fairly close though, burying itself in the ground. The rabbit disappeared in a flash of fur and snow. She lowered the bow.

“Fucking goddamnit,” she snarled.

“That was actually pretty good,” I said. “It’s harder than most people think to aim well with a bow. How many times have you used one of these?”

“Like twice,” she said.

“Let’s practice a little bit with some inanimate objects.” We started walking over to where the arrow was buried in the ground. She retrieved it and I studied her. She looked frustrated, and I guess I could understand. Failing to do a thing hurt in a weird kind of way, and smarter people tended to be a lot harder on themselves. They developed this kind of mentality of ‘do it perfect the first time or your a fucking failure’, which was ridiculous and totally against how humans learned things. I imagined it was also frustrating to fail at this after nailing it with the rifle. Plus, I was here. Failing in front of another person sucked.

But failing was part of learning, and evidently she knew that, because she just nodded and said, “I’m ready.”

She was smart.

“Perfect. Come on.”

CHAPTER THREE

All in all, it was a good experience.

We practiced for an hour, then built a little fire to warm up and break for lunch. When that was done, we went hunting again. She missed about as often as she hit, but she did hit several times. She took down a pair of rabbits and a pheasant, then I took over and took down another pheasant and a wolf that was getting too close for my liking.

We hauled it all back to the house and spent awhile in the basement, skinning and cleaning. When we were finished, it was almost dark.

“This was a great haul,” I said as we headed upstairs.

“I just wish I could’ve hit more of them,” she replied.

“You did really well. We need to find another bow for you. Having two of us out hunting would be fucking fantastic. If you practiced this, really put in some work, you could be a pretty solidly independent hunter within a few weeks, I think. Maybe even sooner.”

We’d already cleaned up using some water that I made sure was kept fresh down in the basement, so we headed into the kitchen. Jessica was preparing dinner and Lara was sitting at the table, the two women carrying on a conversation.

“Before you call me lazy,” Lara said when she saw me coming in, “Jessica insisted she do this herself tonight.”

“I just want to thank you all for taking us,” Jessica said. “And believe it or not, I am actually a great cook.”

“You are,” Hannah agreed. “You make amazing food.”

“Thank you, dear. I saw you coming in with a good haul. I take it the trip went well?”

“Yeah. I’m half-decent at this, apparently.”

“She’s a really good head-start,” I said as I sat down next to Lara. “She’s talented. I think-”

We all froze as a heavy hammering knock came from the front door. I rose smoothly to my feet and laid my hand on my pistol, which was still in its holster. I moved into the living room and glanced out the window set into the front wall, but the angle wasn’t really any good. Susan wasn’t there. I moved into the hallway and saw her advancing to the front door, holding her pistol. I raised a hand and she stopped moving.

“Stay there, back me up,” I said.

She nodded tightly.

“Open up!” someone called.

Jessica’s head appeared behind Susan from the kitchen doorway. “That’s Thomas,” she whispered, the terror obvious in her voice.

“Stay there, all three of you, in the kitchen,” I replied.

She nodded and disappeared back around the corner.

I walked up to the door, made sure my gun was ready for a quick-draw, then said, “Who is it?”

There was a pause. “My name’s Tom, I’m looking for someone. Two people, actually. Open the door,” he said.

Well, I was going to have to face this sooner or later, might as well do it now.

I opened the door.

Fuck man, they weren’t lying. He was a big dude, had a good two or three inches on me, and he was pretty built. He had tan skin and a tangle of dark hair and angry blue eyes. He had a shotgun peeking over one shoulder and a pistol on his hip, and a big knife on the other.

“Who are you?” he asked, his eyes flicking over my shoulder, no doubt staring at Susan.

“My name’s Chris. I live here. You said you were looking for someone,” I replied. I tossed around the idea of lying to him, telling him they weren’t here, but that didn’t seem like a great idea. Either he already knew, or he’d find out eventually. We ventured out from this place often enough, he was bound to find out soon.

“Yeah, two girls, redheads, mother and daughter. Jessica and Hannah. My friend is Jessica’s husband, and he’s looking for them. Have you seen them? Are they here?” he asked, his voice growing harder at the end of that sentence.

He certainly believed they were here.

I thought about it, and ultimately figured that they should be the ones to make this decision. “Wait here,” I said, and began to close the door.

His hand shot out and laid flat against it. “Are they here?”

“Do you want this to turn difficult?” I asked, staring at him.

He looked at me dead in the eyes and for just a second I was worried that he was going to turn violent. He was tensing, but then he relaxed.

“Two minutes,” he said.

“Fine,” I replied, and closed the door.

If he wanted to, he could break this door down without too much trouble. I moved back into the kitchen, telling Susan to keep watch.

“What do you want to do?” I asked, looking at Jessica and Hannah.

“I...don’t know. I don’t want to deal with this, but...” Jessica murmured.

“But we have to. This isn’t going to just go away,” Hannah said. “Let’s let him know we’re here, and we’re not coming back, and to leave us alone.”

“But what if that provokes him?” Jessica whispered.

“I’d rather deal with this problem right now than at some random point in the future if it’s going to turn violent. We have the advantage, there’s five of us and one of him,” Hannah growled.

“She has a point,” I said.

“Fuck,” Jessica moaned sickly. “I hate this...goddamnit, fine. We’ll do it your way.”

“Thank you, mom,” Hannah said quietly. “I’m sorry, I just...we have to face this.”

“I know, I know. Come on,” Jessica said, and got to her feet.

I joined them, leading them back to the front door. Well, time for the moment of truth. I made sure that I was between the two parties, then I reopened the door. As soon as he saw them, Thomas’s eyes widened.

“You are here,” he said. “What the fuck-come on, we’re leaving.”

“Tom, we’re not leaving,” Jessica replied, sounding surprisingly firm, given her previous hesitation.

“Bullshit you aren’t. Travis sent me and-”

“Tom,” Jessica said, cutting him off, and he stared at her more intently now, detecting the firm note in her voice, “I’m not going back. I told him that when we had the fight. I thought that would have been pretty clear.”

Thomas sighed, looking vaguely annoyed, and shot me a look. “Look, just give them back,” he said.

Hannah stepped forward in a gesture so sharp and abrupt that it made his hand fall to the pistol on his hip, though he didn’t actually touch it. “Ex-fucking-cuse me?” she asked. “Did you actually just say that?” she asked. He began to speak but she cut him off. “Fuck you! We don’t fucking belong to him! He can’t fucking give us back because he doesn’t fucking own us!”

“Hannah,” Jessica said, putting an arm on her shoulder.

“No! I’m fucking sick of this shit! Go fuck yourself, Tom!” she snarled.

“You should leave,” I said.

“I’m not leaving without them, Travis was explicit. In case you didn’t notice, that is his wife and his daughter,” Thomas said, looking between me and Hannah now.

“I’m not asking,” I replied.

I didn’t necessarily mean for it to sound intimidating, but I did notice that his stance changed. He became more rigid, more tense, and I prepared myself again for a fight. I really didn’t want to fight this guy, but I sure as hell would if I had to, and I was half-certain that Susan would shoot him the head if she could get a bead on him, which I wasn’t above. I wasn’t going out of my way to take advantage of people, but you know what? Right now, fuck ‘honor’ and fighting fair. Something I noticed was that basically everyone I’d come across so far fought mean, fought nasty, fought unfairly, and to the death. This was about survival.

“He’s not going to leave this alone,” Thomas said finally. He relaxed ever so slightly, and maybe he’d actually examined the situation and calculated his odds of winning, which were pretty goddamned slim.

“He needs to,” Jessica said, stepping forward. “Thomas, just...tell him we’re gone, okay? Tell him we aren’t coming back. Tell him to consider this a divorce. I’m not interested in going back, and honestly...this has been a long time coming. Whatever it is he does, he needs to do without thinking that we’re ever going to come back.”

Thomas stared at her, then at Hannah, then at me again. Finally, he silently turned and began stalking away. For a moment, the only sound was his boos crunching in the snow. I stood at the door for awhile, watching for as long as I could. The light was almost gone now, and eventually he disappeared from sight, heading west. I closed the door, then leaned against it, letting my breath out in a long, slow exhalation.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

“Thank you,” Jessica said, stepping up to me. I opened my arms and she slipped into them, hugging me tightly. I hugged her back. I could use a hug after that. I wasn’t a confrontational person. I hated fighting, to be honest. That shit always fucked me up, made me anxious and jittery and twisted my stomach up. I would if I had to, but it was such a pain in the ass.

“You’re welcome,” I said finally.

“This is exactly why we fucking left,” Hannah muttered. She had crossed her arms tightly and was staring at the floor, a look of deep anger on her face. She looked up at me suddenly. “This is how they are, my dad and that jackoff. I mean, fuck.”

“He seems like an asshole,” I agreed.

She made a disgusted noise, turned around, and walked off.

“You doing okay?” I asked to Jessica, who was still holding onto me.

“Yeah, I...fuck, I don’t think this is over,” she murmured.

“No, neither do I. I think we’ll need to post a guard again,” I said, looking at Susan.

“That makes sense,” she replied, then sighed and shook her head. “What a mess.” She turned and walked back into the kitchen.

“This is my fault, I’m sorry,” Jessica said. “I just...I couldn’t stand it anymore...”

“It’s fine,” I said. “It’ll be okay. Let’s go eat.”

“Okay,” she murmured.

She let go of me, then turned and looked at Lara, who was lingering in the hallway. She walked over and hugged her. I moved into the kitchen and took a seat at the table with Susan. Jessica and Lara came in a moment later. Lara sat with us and Jessica silently resumed making dinner. I kept occupied with thoughts about what we were going to do in the immediate future while I waited. I wanted an inventory of our supplies, namely our offensive capabilities. I knew we didn’t have a lot to work with, but tonight I was going to figure out exactly what we were looking at. And it was time to figure out a few other details.

Pretty soon, Jessica had finished making dinner, and we were all eating. She’d cooked up some of the pheasant and rabbit we’d hunted, and utilized the seasonings that Susan and Lara had, and I had to admit, it tasted fucking amazing. The conversation was light, partially because of how uncomfortable everyone was, but also because we were all pretty focused on our meals. I organized my thoughts while I ate, and when we were done, decided to get this over with.

“Okay,” I said, and everyone looked at me, “time for a house meeting.”

“All right, uh...what about?” Susan asked.

“Well, primarily I think we should determine who’s qualified for what, and draw up a schedule, so that things get done. Susan, can you get us some paper, maybe we can have something to reference and hang on a wall?”

“Yeah,” Susan said, getting up.

When she came back, we spent a moment defining all the things that needed doing on a regular or daily basis. This is what we got.

Hunting

Gathering (Firewood)

Gathering (Plants)

Cooking

Water

Guard Duty

“So, at present, I think Hannah and I are best suited to take on all hunting and skinning duties, unless...” I looked at Susan.

“God no, I’ll gladly pass those off. I mean, I’ll do it if I have to, but if I can opt out, yeah, I’ll opt out,” she said.

“Okay then. Now, given how taxing hunting, skinning, and all related activity is, I think it’s only fair that those be our primary duties. I’m not saying we’ll be doing nothing, but we will need regular opportunities to regain our strength. It’s kind of brutal out there. Is that fair?” I asked, looking around. They all nodded in agreement. “Okay, good. Cooking is obviously something that needs doing every day, as is boiling snow for water. And we need to replenish our stocks of firewood every few days at least, and of course be on the lookout for more edible plants. We’ll need to largely split this up between the three of you...”

We spent the next half an hour or so hashing it out.

I was glad to see that everyone was pretty calm and amiable, that was a good sign. I’d seen stuff like this go sour way too often, with some people paranoid that others were trying to get away with being lazy...and with some people actually attempting that. But everyone here largely seemed to trust each other, and seemed pretty cool with me being in charge. I was about ambivalent towards being in charge. It had its ups and downs. Sometimes I liked it, sometimes I hated it. I didn’t have a lot of experience being in charge, but I had enough that I felt comfortable. And more so now that all these beautiful women were willingly following.

Jessica agreed to take on the bulk of the cooking, since she was happiest with that, and split the water boiling with Lara. Lara and Susan agreed to split the gathering of both the firewood and herbal plants, although I pointed out that for the foreseeable future, no one should go out alone, (but me, which I know is hypocritical, but honestly I hunted best alone), so we had to take that into consideration.

All in all, we ended up with a pretty well-organized schedule of chores, and we all agreed to help pick up any slack that might come up.

“Okay,” I said after we nailed that paper to the wall in the hallway for all to see, “I need a full inventory of our armory. Bring me all the weapons. Guns, bullets, knifes, everything.”

We spent a bit getting that sorted out, and ended up with everything on the kitchen table. I spent a moment counting bullets and didn’t exactly like what I was coming up. We had the two rifles, which took the same type of bullets, and between them, we had a grand total of a dozen rounds. Susan’s pistol, which took nine millimeters, still had two full magazines, one in the pistol itself, which gave us a grand total of thirty bullets for that.

Then there was my own pistol, the six shooter I’d snagged from the guy who’d tried to kill me last week. It took thirty-eights and I still had ten of them, six in the revolver, the other four in my pocket. And then finally there was the bow, which had a grand total of seven functional arrows. There were about half a dozen arrows that had been gathered over who knew how long that we could, if we managed to get our hands on some more shafts, (by whittling them down from sturdy sticks mainly), we could reassemble, but right now there were just seven. And that could change, given each time we used one, it might break or even get lost.

We also had three hunting knifes, good, sturdy ones, and a pair flick-knives that were okay and would do in a pinch.

“Well, this sucks,” I muttered.

“It seems like a half-decent amount,” Jessica said.

“Yeah, but that can change fast.” I looked up at Susan and Lara. “When you’re out gathering firewood from now on, see if you can find sticks for shafts. I don’t suppose anyone here knows how to make arrowheads?” I asked.

“I can, sort of,” Susan said. “I’ve got a survival book here that has a chapter on it. A few of those are mine, so I know I can do it. It’s just a bitch.”

“Okay, that’ll be your project. And I want you to teach Hannah how to make them, too. We can’t make more bullets and I don’t want to count on finding a bunch, but we can make arrows. I’ll start looking for good rocks and sticks, too,” I said. I looked at the table, and everything we had to defend ourselves with.

It seemed suddenly very meager, and small, and a little sad.

I put those thoughts away. They wouldn’t help.

“For the next several days, I want someone in the house, awake, and armed at all times. Hannah, do you feel up to that duty?” I asked, looking at her.

“Yeah, I can handle it,” she replied.

“Have you ever shot anyone before?”

“Yes,” she murmured. “I’ve killed someone before. If it comes down to it, I can do it again.”

I didn’t like that, honestly, but it wasn’t like I had a choice.

“Last resort,” I said. “The fewer people we can kill, the better.”

She looked at me and frowned, looking a little surprised, maybe as if she’d just realized how easily she had accepted the idea of having to kill someone. I knew that feeling, as I’d been there before. It was something you had to keep in check, surprisingly. It was disgustingly easy to adopt an it was them or me! mentality and next thing you knew, you were blowing away someone for looking at you wrong. I’d never gone that far, but I could see it happening if I didn’t keep a lid on my darker side. I’d have to say as much to Hannah at some point.

We talked about a few more things, hammering out some details. Hannah agreed to take second watch, Susan third watch, each of us covering three hours. Once that was finished, we put away the guns and ammo, then Lara and Jessica ended up going into Jessica’s room and closing the door. Susan got my attention and nodded towards our own room. I glanced at Hannah, who seemed content to distract herself by reading in the kitchen.

So I followed Susan into our room.

CHAPTER FOUR

“What’s up?” I asked, closing the door to our bedroom behind me.

“A lot, evidently. But there’s something I wanted to talk to...someone about, and you’re it. I’m not comfortable enough with Jessica or Hannah, and it’s about Lara, so...” she trailed off, frowning as she sat down on the bed.

“What is it?” I asked, hoping yet more bad things weren’t on the horizon.

She looked up at me suddenly. “This is your fault.”

“What is?” Great, now I was more worried.

“Everything you’ve set in motion between me and Lara with the sex and the conversation and prying all this crap out of both of us.” She heaved an annoyed sigh. “I’m...dealing with the fact that, apparently, I’m bisexual. I didn’t...know that.”

“Oh. Uh...I’m sorry?” I replied.

“Don’t be,” she muttered. “It’s something worth knowing. I mean, I guess I kinda knew? I don’t fucking know. I mean...fuck, this is confusing. I know I really like guys...and getting dicked hard. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” I agreed.

“Although I certainly like men less now than I used to. I hate to admit it, but before, I’d feel at least a twinge of lust towards someone like Thomas. But I just felt utter hatred and disgust when I saw him. Nothing on Earth could make me feel lustful towards that sack of shit. But I mean I’ve always appreciated women, and I really like kissing them, but I never thought I’d be like...full-on sexual attracted to them.”

“And you are now?” I asked.

“Yeah. I mean...at least to Lara. Now that we actually talked about it, and I began thinking about it, and we’ve, uh...done the stuff we’ve done together, yeah...she makes me wet. I’ve always known she was really beautiful, and I’ve loved kissing her and touching her boobs during, like, parties and stuff when we were drunk, but now I want to like...have sex with her. Like, full on girl-on-girl sex. I honestly want to eat her out. And I really want to have her eat me out again. That was just...oh my fucking God, that was the most intense oral action I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. Like, there’s always those jokes about how girls are just automatically better at eating pussy, cause like, they know, right? Because they have vaginas? I didn’t think it was actually true. I’m sure Lara’s just good at it cause she’s had practice, but fuck man, that was just...is she that good at sucking dick?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “She’s amazing at it. So is Jessica.” I paused. “How do you feel about her?”

She snorted. “You’re fucking trying to spin this into me fucking around with her, too, huh?”

“I’m positive I’m not the only one who has a vested interested in seeing you naked, sweat, and doing sex things with Jessica,” I replied.

“Yeah...Lara’d be pretty goddamned into it, too, I’m sure. And Jessica’s been giving me a few looks. I think she wants to fuck me. I mean...she is amazingly attractive. Like...fuck man, she’s crazy beautiful...”

“Are you jealous?” I asked, and sat down on the bed beside her.

She shot me a withering look, but realized I was actually asking, not just teasing her. “Yes, obviously,” she muttered. “Lara’s been fucking this insanely hot chick for like weeks now and I’m only just now realizing I like her as more than a friend...”

“It’s not a competition,” I said.

“Oh when is it ever not a competition?” Susan shot back.

“It isn’t always a competition, unless you’re planning on making it one?”

“No, I’m not. Obviously we have this whole little fuck commune thing going on here and I don’t want to mess with that. Jessica obviously makes the two of you happy.”

“She could make you really happy, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, I bet she could...” She looked at me suddenly. “So, yeah, I want to talk with Lara tonight. Like, really talk about this relationship. And you need to be there.”

“I do?”

“Yes, you asshole, because you have really embedded yourself in our lives, and obviously Lara just fucking loves you, and I...like you more than I am comfortable admitting, and you’re clearly going to stick around for awhile. I mean...right?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to leave.”

“For how long?”

I shrugged. “Is ‘forever’ too strong of an answer?”

She looked at me, studying me, maybe trying to determine if I was lying or just being flippant, but I wasn’t. “No, it wouldn’t,” she said, and reached out, laying a hand on my cheek. “I think...we’ve gone beyond the simple deal we set up, where we take care of each other.”

“I think we have too,” I replied, reaching up and laying my hand over the back of hers.

“Is that okay?” she asked softly.

“Yes, it is. I feel the same way,” I replied.

She smiled and suddenly hugged me tightly to herself. I hugged her back.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, “for not making this difficult. And for putting up with me. I know I can be difficult.”

“Yes, you can,” I replied.

She pulled back suddenly, staring intently at me. “You fucker,” she said, then laughed.

I gave her a kiss. “You like it, you know that, right?”

“Ugh, yes,” she growled. “It’s annoying. You’re annoying. But whatever...we’re having a threesome tonight, after-” she paused as we heard a moan from somewhere nearby. Jessica, definitely. “-after they get done and we have our talk.”

“I’m really looking forward to it,” I replied.

“Yeah, I’ll just bet. You want all that sweet pussy...God, you must be in fucking heaven now. You get to stick your cock bareback into three different chicks. I bet you’ll be fucking Hannah this time next week.”

“You think so?” I asked. “Would it be weird?”

“You know, at this point, I don’t fucking know. If it’s not weird for them, and it’s not weird for you, then who cares? You want to fuck her,” she said with a smirk.

“Duh. She’s insanely hot.”

“Yeah, she is...” Susan murmured. She sighed. “Fuck, how long are they going to take? I actually really want to have this conversation with Lara, and I really want to have sex with both of you. I also didn’t think I’d be this into threesomes with a girl and a guy, but goddamn if it isn’t some of the best sex I’ve ever had.”

I nodded in agreement and stood up. “I’ll see what’s up.”

“Chris...”

I looked back, halfway across the room. “Yeah?”

“You’re doing a good job so far, with the leadership thing...I just wanted to tell you that.”

“Oh. Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Just don’t fuck it up,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

I left the room and went and listened at Jessica’s door. I could hear panting. Either they were still going at it, or were coming down from it. Either way, I figured they needed a little more time, so I headed out to the living room.

Hannah was laying on the couch.

“Hey,” she murmured as I came in.

“Hey. How are you doing?”

“Fine, for the most part.” She paused, considering. “You know, last year something like this really would’ve fucked with me and kind of ruined my whole day. I’d probably have been upset for like a few days after a confrontation like that. But after all the shit I’ve been through, just...I guess it takes a lot more to freak me out.”

“That’ll happen,” I said.

“How much have you been through?” she asked.

I thought about, wondering what to say, or how much to say. She looked like she wanted, maybe needed a straight answer. I sat down on the couch with her.

“A lot,” I said. “I’ve killed people. Six total. I’ve been attacked by wolves and mountain lions and a bear twice. I’ve gone through more blizzards than I even want to think about counting. I’ve had a lot of fights. I got stabbed once, right in the gut. Pure goddamned luck my liver or something didn’t get penetrated. I got grazed by a bullet another time. I caught some kind of sickness that knocked me on my ass for about a week solid. If I hadn’t been with a group of people, I’d have been dead. It was near thing. Had a really bad fever. Almost got crushed when a building I was checking out collapsed. Crashed a car down the side of a road.”

“You were driving?”

“Yeah. Found a truck with four-wheel drive and decided to use it. Managed to keep it going for two weeks and covered a lot of ground, but I damn near died in that thing. After putting up with all that...yeah, I really know what you mean.”

“You know...you’re kind of like-” she stopped.

“What?” I asked.

“I was going to say ‘like Thomas’, except that would be a huge insult. You’re like...if Thomas wasn’t an asshole and really full of himself and was actually as badass as he wanted to be. You’re the real deal.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe. I try not to get hung up on ego. It’s...honestly, it’s a luxury I don’t have anymore. Ego gets people killed.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Hannah muttered.

I looked at her for a long moment.

“...what?” she asked uneasily.

“I have a serious question for you.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“If it came down to it, would you lose your shit if I killed Thomas?”

“No,” she replied immediately.

“If it came down to it...could you kill Thomas?”

“Yes,” she replied, hesitating just a little. “I don’t want him dead, but I could do it.”

“Okay. Now, an even more serious question,” I said.

“You know what to know the same thing, but for my dad,” she replied. I nodded. She sighed. “It’s something that’s been on my mind for a little while now. I’ve been asking myself the same question. If he can’t let us, if he tries to force us to come back, if it truly came down to it...the answer is, I don’t know. If you had to do it, I wouldn’t blame you or anything. I wouldn’t hate you. But I don’t know if I could do it.”

“If at all possible, I want to avoid it, but if at all possible, I’ll do whatever’s in my power to make sure you don’t have to hold that decision in your hands. You shouldn’t have to, it isn’t right.”

She frowned, then looked down. “Thank you. I’ve been trying to toughen up a lot, and telling myself emotions aren’t a luxury I can afford, but...I don’t want to become a sociopath.”

“I understand,” I said. “Listen...if you ever need to talk, I really do have an open door policy. I think truth is the way to go, given our circumstances.”

“That’s...a comforting thing, probably more so than you’d think. I haven’t felt like I’ve been able to talk to basically anyone for a long time now. The only person I trust is my mother, and I got tired of stressing her out with my problems. So thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, I’ve got to go find Lara and uh...”

“Fuck her?” Hannah asked.

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll try not to be too loud...”

“I’d appreciate it.”

I left her, feeling awkward all over again, and moved back to Jessica’s door. Now I just heard quiet conversation. I knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” Jessica asked.

“Me,” I replied.

“Oh. Come in.”

I opened the door and stepped inside, then closed it behind me. Both women were lying on the bed, looking very beautiful and naked. They smiled when they saw me.

“What’s up?” Lara asked.

“Need you,” I said.

“Oh?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Susan and you and I need to have a talk. Don’t worry, it’s a good one. Also, you know, sex. I’m really horny,” I replied.

“Lucky for you, I still am too,” Lara said as she began to get up. She and Jessica had been scissoring again, rubbing their beautiful pussies together.

“Oh, I’m not enough for you?” Jessica asked.

“No one’s enough for me,” Lara replied. She gave Jessica a kiss.

“How is Hannah?” Jessica asked as Lara gathered up her clothes.

“She’s doing fine, all things considered.”

Jessica frowned, staring at me intently. “Are we going to be okay? I mean, really?”

“I think we are,” I replied.

She stared a me for a bit longer, then nodded. “I guess I should clean up,” she murmured as she laid back and stared at the ceiling. “That was really good sex, though.”

“Yes it was,” Lara murmured. She faced me, all her clothes bundled up in her arms. “Can you make sure Hannah’s not out there? I don’t want to like flash her and freak her out or anything.”

“Yeah,” I replied, and stepped back out into the hallway. It was clear. I opened the door to our bedroom, which was directly across the hall, and motioned for Lara. She hurried across the hallway and slipped into our shared room. I went back to Jessica’s door.

“Goodnight, Jessica.”

“Goodnight, Chris,” she said.

I closed her door, then went into our room and closed ours. Lara had dumped her clothes on the floor and was now crawling into bed with Susan.

“So...what’s up?” she asked.

“Susan?” I replied, looking at her.

Susan began chewing on her lower lip, looking anxiously at Lara. “So, um, Lara...I...like you,” she said slowly.

“I mean, I like you too,” Lara replied uncertainly.

“No, like...I like you. Like...I want to, um, have sex with you, and be in a relationship with you, like a girlfriend relationship.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my God, seriously?!” she cried.

“Yes.”

She let out a small cry of happiness and wrapped Susan in a big hug, holding her tightly to herself. “Well...that is the kind of reaction I was hoping for,” Susan said, hugging her back.

“Oh this is so great! I’m so happy!” Lara replied, smiling fiercely.

“There’s other things to talk about,” Susan said.

Lara released her. “Like what?”

“Well, I mean...it’s obvious that we’re all, um, I mean, the three of us are really close. And I...feel the same way about Chris. Like, I guess, I want all three of us to be in a relationship together. Are you okay with that, Lara?”

“Of course. Both of you are so amazing, and I love you so much, Susan,” she replied. She looked at me suddenly. “I...”

“When and if you feel comfortable with saying it,” I said.

“Oh...that was easy. Okay. I mean, I certainly could see myself loving you, Chris, but...”

“Everyone works on their own timeline.”

“Thank you for being so understanding,” Lara said.

“One other thing,” Susan said, regaining Lara’s attention. “I’m having some...I guess you could say difficulties really coming to terms with this. I’ve never really fully comprehended the fact that I’m, apparently, bisexual. This is...surprising, I guess?”

“It’s okay, I understand,” Lara said. “Let me know if anything is freaking you out, okay?”

“I will,” Susan replied. “And thank you. And now I’m ready for sex. And I want to eat you out. I’ve never eaten a girl out before.”

“I am so fucking looking forward to that,” Lara said immediately.

“Should we start?” I asked. I already had kind of a bad hard-on.

“I can start,” Susan said.

“And I’m already naked,” Lara said, putting her arms out and showing off her big, pale breasts.

“Fuck, Lara, your tits are so amazing,” Susan whispered, reaching forward and grasping them.

“Thank you. I love yours too,” Lara replied.

I stood up and began stripping. “Susan, take your clothes off, now.”

She looked over at me quickly, that looked I’d become familiar with falling onto her face, that look brief moment of tension where she didn’t like just how much it turned her on when I told her to do something, and then her slipping fully into submission.

“Okay,” she said quietly.

I tossed my shirt aside and stepped up to her, then laid my hand around her throat. “What?”

She let out a harsh breath and shuddered. “Yes, sir,” she managed.

“Wow, that is so hot,” Lara whispered.

“Lara shut up and lay down,” I said.

“Yes, master,” she replied immediately and laid on her back.

I finished getting naked and then got into bed as Susan hastily stripped. Soon, I was in bed with two naked, very attractive women. Who were now both, officially, my girlfriends. I’d never actually been in a full-on three-way relationship before. I imagined it was going to be really fucking awesome. I started making out with Lara, groping one of her big tits, and then, after a bit, slipping a hand down in between her thick thighs and beginning to rub her clit. She moaned and twitched hard against me, making the bed shake.

I kept fingering her for awhile, then switched over to Susan, pressing my lips to hers and slipping my tongue into her mouth. I ran my hand down her body, stopping at her breasts and then her hip and her tight ass, then I fingered her for a bit, rubbing her clit at first, then beginning to fuck her with my finger, slipping it in and out of her very tight, very wet pussy. She moaned loudly, shuddering against me as we kissed.

We went back and forth like this for awhile, then I had them both get down and start to pleasure me. Both women immediately did as they were told, shifting down and starting to lick my cock. They both dragged their tongues across it at the same time, their tongues meeting occasionally. Every once in awhile, they’d pause and kiss each other, then resume their tasks. Then Lara took it into her mouth and started sucking me off, bobbing her head smoothly and beautifully. She looked fucking amazing with my cock in her mouth.

She passed it to Susan, who took up the job, and I groaned at all that hot, wet pleasure as she submissively sucked my dick. I loved seeing her doing that so much, loved seeing my cock in her mouth, her lips wrapped around it, the way she looked up at me. For some reason, Susan was actually really good at looking highly submissive.

“Okay,” I said after a bit, “up. We’re fucking.”

“Yes, sir,” they both replied, and moved.

I had Lara get on her back and spread her legs, which she did with extreme eagerness. I imagined she had been looking forward to and fantasizing about Susan licking her pussy for a very, very long time now. I bet she’d come almost right away. Susan got on her hands and knees between Lara’s thick, wonderful thighs, and I got behind her.

I settled my hands on her hips. Her skin felt smooth and soft and hot.

“Are you ready to be used like a fuck toy, you little fucking whore?” I asked, and gave her ass a very hard smack.

“Ah!” she cried, then, “yes, master.”

“Good. Eat that pussy you dumb fucking slut,” I said, and she lowered her head. I let her get comfortable before I started fucking her, given it was her first time. Lara let out a loud moan as Susan began to lick her clit.

“Oh my-oh holy shit, Susan, that’s...oh wow...” she moaned. “You’re doing it just right, holy fuck, this is...uhgn!” she cried, letting out an inarticulate scream of pleasure, her big hips bucking. Wow, I was spot on.

She was already coming.

“Oh, Susan! I love you!” she screamed as she orgasmed.

I could see Susan’s arm moving beneath her rapidly and I realized she was fingering Lara as she orgasmed. She knew what was she was doing.

I slipped inside of her.

Susan let out a surprised cry of pleasure as I penetrated her.

“Oh fuck, Chris,” she gasped.

“Keep eating that pussy,” I said, and gave her ass another smack.

“Yes, please, more,” Lara begged. “Susan, more...”

Susan continued licking her clit and fingering her and Lara began moaning loudly. Yeah...there was no way we were going to keep quiet. Well, it was a celebratory fuck. Our first threesome was an actual...well, not couple, because that was two. Trio? I don’t know, our first fuck after we all agreed to call each other girlfriend or boyfriend.

And oh goddamn did Susan’s vagina feel great tonight. She was insanely wet and tight. I started hammering away at her, sliding my dick in and out of that crazy tight, pink hole of hers, grabbing her hips firmly and squeezing them. I fucked her brains out, making her shriek wildly as she kept eating Lara out, who was writhing around and twisting and moaning and jerking. Susan made her come a second time barely a minute later.

Either Susan was a natural at eating pussy, or Lara was working through a lot of pent-up lust. Or hey, maybe both.

And apparently this was just paradise for Susan too, because I had her coming all over my dick within barely a minute. I groaned, hunching over her, her hips in my hands as I pounded her orgasming pussy.

Fuck, it was so good!

We kept screwing like this for awhile longer, the pleasure building and burning through me, filling me, all this hot, amazing ecstasy that came from completely unprotected sex, and finally I started coming. I grunted, thrusting hard into her, as I pumped her full of my stuff, feeling it spray out of me and fill her sweet pussy up.

When I was done, I pulled out and gave her ass a smack. “Move.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she managed, and pretty much fell over onto her side. Lara looked at me, in perfect fucking position, her legs spread out, her pussy incredibly wet from the orgasms and the enthusiastic oral, and I was still hard, still ready for pussy.

Lara smiled at me. “Fuck me, master,” she said.

I laid down on top of her and I fucked her.

It was good, no great sex, amazing sex, as I immediately started in with the pounding. I fucking drove my cock deep into her and she was a really, really noisy slut that night. I pounded her into the mattress and made the bed rock pretty violently, and she was squirting after maybe about a minute of this, and then I was coming a second time, spurting out whatever I had left in me, filling her up as she came all over my dick.

It was, I say again, amazing sex.

When I was done, we were both gasping for breath and sweaty and shaky-legged. I took a moment to recover, then eventually got up and began washing up.

“Get up, Lara, we need to change the sheets, you slut. You made a mess,” Susan said.

“Couldn’t help it...” Lara groaned. “I don’t wanna move...”

“Susan, you going to be ready for your watch tonight?” I asked.

“I’ll be ready,” she replied.

“Okay. I’m on first watch. I’m going to go secure the house,” I said. I wanted to double-check those basement windows again. It was really unlikely that Thomas could fit through them, or even try, but still, you never knew. He might bring someone smaller along to help him out. I finished washing up and pulled my clothes back on, then gave both ladies a kiss goodnight. As I headed for the door, I hesitated, looked back at them.

Susan was waiting for Lara to move, and so she’d sat down on the bed next to her. They both looked over at me as they realized I hadn’t left yet.

“Um...I’m really you’re in my life, and we’re together. You’re both really amazing,” I said, feeling like I should say something. I wish I was better with words.

“You’re amazing, too,” Lara said.

“I feel the same way, Chris,” Susan replied, smiling her small, slightly awkward smile at me.

I left it at that and headed out into the hallway, closing the door behind me. I checked the back door, then moved into the kitchen to check the window there. Still locked firmly in place. I moved into the living room, where I found Hannah laying on the crouch. She stared at me with her arms across her chest.

“You didn’t even try, did you?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” I replied.

“No you’re not,” she said. “You enjoyed that, clearly.”

I laughed sheepishly. “Yeah...I mean, obviously. I did try. It’s just...”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just glad it’s over. Lara is so fucking loud,” she muttered. “I’m going to sleep now, I’m really tired.”

“Okay. Goodnight. Don’t forget-”

“My night watch shift. Don’t worry, I’ll be ready,” she replied.

“Okay. Thanks again.”

“Yep. And, uh, thank you. For going to bat for us.”

“You’re welcome. Goodnight, Hannah.”

“Goodnight.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Thankfully, nothing happened that night.

Nor the next one, or the next one after that.

The days were largely uneventful, too. I resented the fact that I felt too uncomfortable leaving them alone to go out for the next three days, resented Thomas and Jessica’s asshole husband, (ex-husband, I guess now), for forcing this situation on us. I figured, if something was going to happen, it’d be at some point over the next few days.

On the one hand, I was glad to be wrong.

On the other hand, now I was kind of more worried than ever, because that feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop only gets worse when the shoe doesn’t drop. When were they going to do something? Were they going to do anything at all? Being in the dark fucking sucked. But as the fourth day dawned, I knew I couldn’t linger any longer. We worked out how much food we had and after some basic rationing determination, by the time the fourth day came, we were down to three days of food left between the five of us.

Kind of a scary prospect.

So we needed more food, and so I went hunting with Hannah.

We stalked through the forest, following footprints in the snow of a deer. I had the rifle, she had the bow and quiver of arrows. I had at least taken the opportunity to have her practice with them out in the back over the past few days. Susan had drawn up several targets for us to use. Hannah was a natural. She had good aim and great hand/eye coordination. Honestly, all she needed was real-world experience and more practice to help it feel smooth and natural.

“There,” I whispered, but I think she saw it before I did.

She drew an arrow and notched it smoothly, aimed, waited, waited...fired. The arrow snapped through the air and pierced the deer’s skull, killing it instantly. It flopped to the ground. Hannah smiled as we set off.

“Excellent shot,” I said.

“Thanks,” she replied. “Hey Chris, you ever get paranoid that we won’t need you anymore?” she asked with a smirk on her face. “And we’d kick your ass out?”

“Would you do that?” I asked with perfect seriousness. It was one of my favorite responses in the face of someone kind of being an ass, even in jest. Probably because it very often caught people off guard and tripped them up.

It happened with Hannah. She looked at me, losing her smile. “I...no,” she said.

Now I smirked. “Good.”

She sighed and hit me in the shoulder. “You dick. You made me feel bad.”

“Oh gee, I made you feel bad after joking about kicking me out of my own house? God, I’m such an asshole,” I replied.

She growled as we reached the door. “Yeah, yeah, fine. But no, I wouldn’t. Not that I could, but even if it was in my power for some reason, no. You’re actually a pretty good guy. You don’t try to control us...even if it seems like some of the others would really prefer that.”

“Like your mother?”

She sighed. “Yes.” She pulled the arrow out and examined it, then cleaned it off best she could and slipped it back into the quiver. We started hauling the deer back home.

“Sorry,” I said. “I know that’s a sore spot.”

“Whatever, it’s fine.”

“If it helps...I think it’s more in your mother’s personality than you think. Sometimes people are really like their parents, sometimes they’re just really not. I think...your mom is just happier being a follower. Which is fine, not everyone can be a leader. Not everyone should be a leader. Leaders need followers.”

“And you’re a leader,” Hannah said.

“I mean...I can be, if the situation necessitates it. Which, I think, it does in this case. Or, at least, it’s the way it worked out. Obviously I like it, it’s got its benefits-”

“Like three chicks sucking your cock whenever you want,” Hannah said.

I sighed. “I mean, yeah, that’s awesome. Someone has to make decisions. That’s ultimately the only thing that makes a leader. Someone willing to make decisions, because too many people just don’t want to do that.”

“I’ve seen plenty of people ‘make decisions’ who weren’t fit to be leaders at all,” Hannah said.

“I didn’t say that’s what makes a good leader, just a leader. Good leaders lead from the front, make hard choices, pitch in and help do the dirty work, and take responsibility.” I paused. “Why did this turn into me defending myself?”

Hannah took a second to respond. “Oh, it did sound like I was attacking you...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. I think you’re doing a good job, actually. I’m just, uh, it’s a little weird, you know?”

“With me fucking your mom?” I asked.

She let out a small growl. “Yes.”

“Sorry, it’s just-”

“No, it’s fine. Obviously it’s making her happy, and I’m not going to be immature about it. People like sex, in some ways, most people need sex. I’m a grown up, so I get it. You make her happy, she deserves to be happy, it’s that simple. Also, thanks for not being weird about the whole thing.”

“Yeah,” I replied, glad that she didn’t feel weird about it. Or, well, more weird than you could about the whole situation.

We got the deer home after that and she skinned it and prepped the meat because she wanted to do one solo, so I let her do it. When she was done, I came down and looked over the work. It was pretty good. Not perfect, but good. The more time I spent around her, the more she impressed me. Hannah really was one of those ‘good at everything they do’ kind of people. She was better suited to surviving this nightmare than I was.

“Now what?” she asked after we’d washed and gone back upstairs.

“Now I’m going to head out and do something else, something I’ve been meaning to do,” I replied.

“What?” Hannah asked suspiciously.

“Remember that map I found? With the keys? I want to finally go see what it is, see if it’s anything worthwhile,” I replied.

“Why can’t I come?”

“I...would feel more comfortable with two capable, armed people here, instead of one,” I said quietly.

“Oh. Did you, I mean...notice anything?”

“No, I didn’t, I’ve just been feeling paranoid ever since that confrontation. Honestly, if we could afford it, I’d stick around myself, but I just can’t. I’ve already hung around for three days.”

“I get it. I’ll be here,” Hannah said, though she looked a little glum.

“If nothing goes wrong...you want to do a solo hunt tomorrow?” I asked.

“Yes. I would like that,” she replied immediately.

“All right.” As we finished the conversation, I headed into the kitchen, where Lara and Jessica were talking. “I’m heading out, ladies. We caught and killed a deer,” I said.

“Can I go?” Jessica asked.

I blinked in surprise. “You...want to go out with me?”

“Yes. I mean, well, I should, you know? I should get out there. I kind of feel like I’m going a little crazy in here, just sitting around...would it be a pain in the ass?”

I thought about it. It didn’t really cut against my wanting to have two of the more warrior-minded types around the house, since Jessica wasn’t that type, and she’d be with me. Plus, I hadn’t really had a chance to be alone with her for awhile. Like really alone.

“No, it wouldn’t. You can come with me,” I replied.

“Okay, thank you. I’ll get ready.”

She gave me a kiss in passing, and I went and tracked down Susan and let her know what was up, and to keep an eye out.

She wished me luck, and before long, Jessica and I were on our way out.

…

“So, what is it exactly that we’re looking for?” Jessica asked.

We’d been walking for about ten minutes so far. I was keeping an eye out for any wildlife, because I fully intended to continue hunting. I needed to make up for that three-day gap we’d endured for basically no reason. I still was pissed about that.

“I’m not sure. I’m guessing a vehicle,” I replied. “I found these keys and a map tied to them stashed in one of the buildings I searched earlier.”

“Okay. Mysteries are fun...generally.”

“Yeah.” I had to give her that, I was pretty interested to see what it was. I had that age-old need to know the answer to the question. We walked on through the forest, and I followed the map as best I could, hoping that whatever it was was still there, and also worth something, and also not hidden really well somehow.

“So what do you make of Hannah?” Jessica asked after several minutes.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been out with her several times now. Is she good at this stuff? Is she...good at survival?” she asked.

“Oh. Yeah. She’s actually fantastic at it. She’s kind of a natural at a lot of this stuff, and she’s surprisingly patient when it comes to actually learning things, she’s focused and hardworking, she picks things up pretty quickly. I’ve been thinking that she’s actually really well-suited to this new world,” I replied.

“Good,” Jessica murmured.

I looked over at her. She was asking for some reason, I could tell. Some reason beyond the obvious. “What’s wrong? What do you want to know?”

Jessica looked over at me, startled, then sighed. She looked...guilty. “Chris, it’s been very obvious to me for a long time now that I’m really shit at this new world. I’m bad at outdoors type stuff, I’m bad a hunting, I’m a lousy shot, I just...I’m bad at this. I’ve made a lot of sacrifices, but that’s about it. I’ve gotten less bad at things, not more good, if that makes any sense, as stupid as it sounds. It’s obvious that if I’m going to survive, I’ll need to rely on at least one other person. And, you know, right now, that’s obviously working. You and Hannah and Susan are really smart, capable people, and you’re all really nice to me.”

“You don’t think Lara’s smart or capable?” I asked.

Jessica laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to insult her, but...she’s like me, not like you three. I mean, she’s certainly better at stuff, but you get what I mean. I think I’m more hopeless than she is.”

“You aren’t hopeless, Jessica. You know, I could teach you to be better at some of this stuff.”

“I’m not sure if I can still learn,” she murmured.

“Jessica,” I said, stopping, and she stopped too, then slowly turned to face me. “Why don’t you have any confidence?”

“Because...I spent twenty years being a fucking trophy wife, Chris,” she replied. “I pretty much just abandoned my life so that I could live an easy life where I didn’t have to work or put in much effort to anything but sex and looking good. At some point, I just picked the easy route, and then stayed the course for half my life.”

Man, Hannah had been pretty spot on with her assessment of her mom.

“That doesn’t mean you have to keep giving up. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I get it. It would be really hard to learn this shit. But it isn’t impossible. I’ve told you before, you aren’t stupid. You obviously have a lot of endurance, given how much you worked out. Staying in shape like that is not easy at all. You have dedication and devotion, Jessica, you just need to redirect it a little. Focus it on other things.”

She stared at me anxiously, chewing on her lower lip, and didn’t say anything.

“Look, I’m not going to try and make you do anything. I don’t do that. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. I’ll take care of you, because I said I would, and I really like. And, admittedly, because you...you know, take care of me.”

That made her break into a grin. “Yeah I do,” she said.

I laughed. “And that is very much appreciated. But I think it’d be smart to at least get some basic skill and knowledge built up in some of these survival tactics. You aren’t a trophy wife anymore, you aren’t a stay-at-home mom anymore, your daughter is fully capable of taking care of herself. You should do this for yourself, and for other people you care about in your life.”

She stared at me a bit longer, then sighed. “Yeah...you’re right. I know that, at least.” She looked past me suddenly. “Is that...an RV?”

I turned around, sidestepped, and then saw it, through the trees. A pale blue RV was sitting maybe ten meters away in a clearing.

“I think that’s what we’re looking for,” I said, and started walking towards it. “And even if it’s not, it’s definitely worth checking out.”

“Definitely,” Jessica agreed.

We cut through the forest and came into the clearing. It was immediately obvious that it had been here for a long time. At least none of the windows were busted out, but the tires were gone, and there was a lot of weather damage. I pulled out my pistol and tried the door. It was open. “Wait here,” I said, and slipped inside.

Taking a quick look around, I assured myself that it was empty, and then returned outside and tried the key, just because I needed to know. It worked. This was the one, all right. “Okay, come on,” I said, heading back inside.

Jessica followed me in. It wasn’t a particularly large RV, but it was the kind you could live in, I guess, if there was just one or two people, and they were a couple who didn’t mind tight quarters. It became sadly obvious that someone had been through already. I started at the front after closing the door and locking it. I didn’t bother trying to see if the engine worked. Even if it did, where the fuck was I going to drive this thing?

I checked the glove compartment and under and behind the seats, and found nothing but trash. After that, I began a systematic check of everything else. I was glad to see that it actually wasn’t insanely cold in here. The sun was out today and had warmed the interior to something approaching tolerable. And then that brought a thought to me. If I could turn it on, I could make it more comfortable in here.

I went back and sat in the driver’s seat, then slotted the key and turned it.

It took a few tries, but the engine actually turned over!

“Holy shit, this still works?” Jessica asked.

“Apparently,” I replied, and looked at the fuel gauge. “Wow, still half a tank of gas, apparently. Well, in this case...” I put the heater on full blast and opened up all the vents. “Maybe we can have a nice little rest here.”

“I’d like that,” Jessica said.

I resumed my search, poking through the little sitting area, what was obviously meant to be a ‘living room’, with a flatscreen hung from one wall. I checked a little dining area, the kitchen, the bathroom with its miserable little shower area, and finally the bedroom. And it turned out to be basically a whole lot of nothing. Everything had been tossed and cleared out. I sighed heavily and sat down on the bed.

“Well, this is a bummer,” I murmured.

“Sorry,” Jessica replied. It was warm, at least. My gaze happened to pass over her left hand, and it caught there as I realized something.

“You aren’t wearing your wedding ring,” I said.

“Nope. I took it off yesterday.”

“What happened to it?”

“I don’t know. I opened the back door and threw it as hard as I could into the forest. So I have no clue where it is beyond that vague direction.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I’m really done with him.”

“Was it difficult?” I asked. “Just...saying goodbye?”

“You know, once I actually chose to do so...not as hard as you’d think. I feel a little sad saying that, but then remind myself that he earned this. He deserved this. I may have been in love for the first few years, but that kind of just turned into acceptance, and, I think during the past five or so years, resentment.”

“Sorry,” I murmured.

“It’s okay.” She looked at me suddenly with a spark in her eye. “Hey, you know what would make both of us really happy? Fucking. Fucking like rabbits in this thing. I want to make this trailer fucking rock, Chris.”

I felt an erection immediately begin to form in my pants. “I...okay. Take your clothes off.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, and started getting naked. Well, I was really glad I got the engine going. I began taking my clothes off, but stopped. For whatever reason, I wanted this to be with her naked, but me clothed. So instead I just pulled my dick out.

“That is really big,” she said as she finished stripping.

“Is it now?” I asked.

She walked over to me and then straddled me on the bed. I remained sitting up, holding her amazingly toned, thick ass in my hands.

“Yes,” she said.

“Bigger than your ex-husband’s?”

“Much,” she said, and kissed me.

Kissing her was like an electric shock of lust and we started making out, tongues wresting, lips locking together as we grasped each other, alone together in this abandoned RV in the middle of nowhere in a frozen wasteland.

Before long, she raised up and reached down between us, then gripped my cock and laid it her pussy. She started lowering herself and began to work it inside of her. She was really wet. “Fuuuuuck...” I groaned as she did her thing. “You are just...such a good fuck, Jessica.”

“I know,” she murmured, her forehead resting against mine. “Whatever our relationship is beyond the bedroom, I know exactly what I want in the bedroom.”

“And what’s that?” I asked.

“I want you to be my master. I want to be your fuck toy. I want you to fucking use me for sex. I want you to hold me down and just fucking pound me like a worthless piece of ass,” she said, breathing very heavily.

“Then that’s what I’ll do,” I said, and grabbed her hips and pulled her down the rest of the way, shoving my cock all the way inside of her.

“Oh fuck, Chris!” she screamed.

As I started bouncing her on my cock, the pleasure hitting me hard like a drug, I felt the bed shift beneath us slightly in a weird way. But I couldn’t focus on that now, this pussy was too good. I groaned, kissing her passionately as we fucked, sliding her up and down my dick. After a bit, I stood up, and she let out a cry as I did. Then moaned even louder as I kept bouncing her on my dick. “Fuck, you are so strong!” she cried.

“You like that, you little fuck toy?” I asked.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she shrieked.

I whirled her around suddenly and got her down on the bed, then held down here wrists and, still standing, began to just fucking hammer her pussy.

“You like that, you worthless slut!? You like getting pounded like the fucking worthless piece of ass you are?!”

“OH MY FUCKING GOD YES CHRIS! YES! FUCKING POUND ME! FUCK ME LIKE A STUPID DUMB BITCH!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

I held her down and really fucking gave it to her. And I could feel the trailer actually rocking around us. I’d never actually fucked in a trailer before. It was kind of awesome. She screamed like crazy as I screwed her pussy into oblivion, just pounding her fucking brains out, and I made her come. Oh did I make her come.

I knew I was gonna have to change my pants and boxers, but it was so fucking worth it to get her to squirt like that and see her writhe and twist around. And fuck, the sounds she was making. The screaming. If anyone could hear her, they’d think she was being murdered. And then I was coming. I fucking emptied my nuts into her pussy, and it felt like a lot was coming out, just spraying out. And it felt so good I almost fucking collapsed. As it was, I had to grab the top of the bed frame, or whatever it was called where the bed was built into a little nook in the wall. I came like crazy inside of her and it was like being lit up with lightning of absolute, burning pleasure. It filled my whole body with nothing but ecstasy.

At some point, we finished up, and then I sat down, fell down almost, next to her, and we were both trying to get our breaths back.

“Fuck,” she said after several minutes. “You fucking destroyed my vagina.”

“You asked for it,” I replied.

“Mmm...yes I did,” she murmured happily. “Oh wow, that orgasm...I can still feel it. Oh, it felt wonderful. You are so good at sex.”

“So are you,” I replied.

As I got up, I felt the bed shift again, very slightly. Okay, first change, then checking that out. It took a few minutes to get out of everything, wash up a bit, then dress in new boxers and pants, and then transfer all the stuff from my pockets, and the pistol and the combat knife and my belt. But eventually I did it. And it was totally worth it. By that point, Jessica was in the process of getting herself put back together.

Now that she was up off the bed, I began checking it out, and within half a minute, discovered that it actually opened up, and there was a compartment beneath it, and-

“Holy. Fucking. Shit.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Jessica asked, whirling around, worried.

I stood there, looking into the compartment beneath, and at all the stuff that was concealed within.

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said.

She moved up next to me and looked in. “Wow...jackpot.”

A WARM PLACE 6

CHAPTER ONE

It was, indeed, a treasure trove.

I saw two black duffel bags there, and a backpack, and two fishing poles and a tackle box. Even if the bags were filled with rocks, those fishing poles were going to (potentially) solve some problems. At the very least, I could get started on figuring out if there was anything still alive in that lake. I grabbed one of the bags and pulled it out, then knelt on the floor, set it down and unzipped it. There were cans. Just cans of food, a good twenty of them.

“Holy fuck,” I whispered.

“Oh my God, this is amazing,” Jessica murmured softly, leaning over me.

“Give me the other one,” I said eagerly as I sorted through the first bag.

She got it for me and set it down. I unzipped it and felt my heart jerk in happiness. There was a medical kit, more food, this one in the form of tins of tuna and sardines and sockeye salmon, and bullets! I saw a pair of magazines of nine millimeter that should fit Susan’s pistols, and two boxes of bullets. I opened one and at first thought they were thirty-eights, but they were forty-fives. Damn! Would’ve been nice to have more bullets for my pistol, but maybe we’d find something that took forty-fives at some point.

The other box, however, held rifle rounds!

Two goddamn dozen of them!

“This is a fucking miracle,” I muttered, and then opened up the backpack. There were some clothes, a can opener, a box of matches, some lighter fluid, a few bottles of water, some more cans of food, and a pair of lighters.

“I can’t believe we found this,” Jessica whispered. “What if...whoever it belongs to shows up looking for it?”

I shrugged and began zipping everything back up. “I’m pretty sure this has been here awhile, and there’s a good chance whoever it belongs to is dead or a long ways away. But even if they do, they had to realistically understand that leaving stuff like this...well, there was a very real possibility that someone else would take it. But if they do show up, then...we’ll deal with them. I will. Whatever that entails. Now, let’s get this home,” I said, and began transferring as much as I could. I managed to empty out the backpack’s contents into Jessica’s pack, and about a quarter of the cans of food, and then managed to cram all the rest into my own pack. It was heavy, but I could manage it. I double-checked to make sure nothing else was in there, then grabbed the pair of fishing poles and handed them and the tackle box to Jessica.

“These are extremely important, make sure nothing happens to them. I’d carry them, but I need my hands free in case I need to shoot,” I said.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to them.”

“Thanks. You’re the best.” I gave her a kiss and then laughed.

This was a massive stroke of luck! I finished packing, then made double-sure everything was secure and nothing had been left behind, then started heading out of the RV. Jessica followed after me. I stopped, suddenly certain that I was forgetting something.

“What is it?” Jessica asked apprehensively.

“I feel like I’m forgetting something...”

I looked around and my eyes passed over the driver’s compartment. Oh! I moved forward, slipped in, and turned off the RV, then pocketed the keys.

“Might need this again at some point,” I said, returned to her and the door. I headed outside, taking the time to check the area, make sure no people or dangerous wildlife had snuck up on us while we’d been searching...or fucking. Man, we probably really made that thing rock. The exterior seemed clear. I motioned to Jessica.

“Let’s go home.”

…

My mind was racing for the walk back.

The fishing poles were going to potentially change things. I had to admit, there was a certain satisfaction to hunting, but dear God was it a chore. The stalking and the shooting and the dragging the body back and the skinning and cleaning...fishing probably took more time (although that was really all about the odds more than anything else), but it was a lot less taxing. I wasn’t planning on giving up hunting, but...well, I’d be happy to do it far less often. Maybe pass the responsibility off to Hannah sometimes.

It would be new and exciting to her, whereas to me it was old hat. It would be a luxury I was looking forward to. And then there was all the other supplies we’d found. This would be really helpful, a big booster.

We were most of the way back before Jessica broke the silence.

“Chris?”

I glanced back. “Yeah?”

“I wanted to thank you...for nothing makings things difficult, for me and Hannah.”

“What do you mean?”

“When we...well, when I made the decision to try and make this happen, I mean, I trusted you, but I also knew that you could have asked a lot of us, and we would have done it. You could have made us do more, put more restrictions on us...but you didn’t. You really didn’t have any reason to beyond the fact that you’re a good person. So, you know, thank you for that.”

I was silent for a few seconds, considering it. “That wasn’t the only reason I didn’t do it,” I said finally.

“What was the other reason?”

“Well, I like you. And I respect you. And Hannah.”

“Oh...well, um, I like you, too. A lot.”

I laughed. “I kind of got that impression.”

“Good. I thought I might be being too subtle.”

We both laughed that time. It was good to laugh with her. There had been far too few opportunities to do so ever since the snow started to fall. And I’m certain there were dark things on the horizon. Even with my current mood boosted by the conversation and this huge cache of supplies I’d found and the fishing problem potentially solved...I still felt the weight of our unresolved conflict with Travis and Thomas. That could turn problematic at any moment, in any number of ways. It could result in us dying, one of us, or all of us even.

It was something I needed to figure out how to resolve.

Preferably soon.

We made it home a few minutes later and walked in through the front door after kicking snow from our boots. I found Susan and Lara in the living, talking quietly. They both looked over as Jessica and I came in.

“You two look really happy. You have a particularly good fuck?” Susan asked with a smirk.

“We did, actually,” I replied, “but that’s not why we’re happy. We found something. Several somethings, actually.”

“What?” she asked, sitting up.

“Come on and I’ll show you.”

They both got up and followed me into the kitchen and, as I began unloading our backpacks, Hannah joined us from wherever she’d been in the house.

“This is the best thing we found,” I said as I pulled the pair of fishing rods, which were broken down into neat little packs, from Jessica’s pack and set them on the table, as well as the tackle box.

“Holy shit,” Susan whispered. “This could help a lot.”

“Yep,” I agreed. “Susan, you and I are going ice fishing tomorrow.”

“I’ll be ready,” she replied.

“We also found some bullets, and food,” I said, unpacking the rest of the stuff.

I could already tell this was boosting morale a lot. They all positively glowed with excitement upon seeing the food, and the rifle rounds, and the lighters and matches, the medical supplies.

“Where the fuck was all this?” Lara whispered.

“Well, that key I found, with the map? It led to an abandoned RV. It was almost totally cleared out, but we did manage to find this stashed in a compartment under the bed,” I explained.

“Oh gee, how’d you manage that?” Hannah asked, rolling her eyes.

Jessica cleared her throat. I glanced over at her. She was looking at the table intently, blushing now. I couldn’t help but smile at least a little.

“Luck,” I said finally. “Anyway, let’s get this sorted.”

We got to it, and I found myself occupied with thoughts of tomorrow.

Whatever happened, it was at least going to be interesting.

…

“Okay, what are we doing tonight?” Lara asked, sounding eager. She was panting a little, her face flushed.

“You two are going to take turns riding my cock until I come in both you,” I replied.

“Can’t you just come in Lara?” Susan complained.

“No,” I said, and I reached out and ran my fingertips over her throat, making her gasp and shiver violently. “I’ve let you get away with too much recently. You’re going to do as your told.”

“I...yes, master,” she whispered, trembling more as I settled my hand briefly around her throat.

“Wow, that is hot,” Lara murmured.

“Mount me, slut,” I said, still staring at her.

“Yes, master,” she repeated, and climbed on top of me as my hand fell away.

The three of us were nude now, embracing together before sleep. On the one hand, it was probably pretty self-indulgent to demand to come in two women. On the other hand...I could, so why not do it? It was fucking awesome, and I had a pretty good-sized sexual appetite. I’d gone without sex for really long periods of time before meeting these two, and I had no idea what the future might hold, so I was going to enjoy as much pussy as possible.

Susan moaned loudly as she penetrated herself with my cock. I grabbed her hips and pulled her down all the way, making her cry out.

“That’s right, you little fuck toy,” I said, and started bouncing her on my cock, pushing up with my hips. She was easy to bounce, given how petite she was. I’d be surprised if she broke a hundred pounds.

“Oh, fuck!” she moaned as I slid her up and down my cock, feeling that absolutely amazing drag of her tight, wet pussy. Susan got wet really fast. “Fuck, it’s so big!” she cried.

“That’s right, you little fuck doll,” I said, and began thrusting harder and faster up into her.

“CHRIS! FUCK!” she screamed.

God, I fucking loved hearing her scream like that. I screwed her brains out, pounding the fuck out of her pussy and relishing the raw pleasure it sent burning into me, then lifted her up off my cock and pushed her to the side.

“No! Not yet!” she moaned. “I’m not done!”

“Shut up!” I snapped at her as I grabbed Lara and pulled her onto me.

“I’m sorry, master,” she whispered.

“You’d better be,” I said as Lara slipped my cock inside of her and began to ride me. She moaned loudly and I reached up, grabbing her huge tits, squeezing and groping and massaging them. I couldn’t exactly do the same thing with her, given Lara probably had like fifty pounds on Susan and I couldn’t throw her around nearly as easily. But I was pretty satisfied with groping her big tits. Or reaching back around and grabbing her fat ass.

I really needed to fuck Lara in the ass again soon.

Or Jessica. Had I fucked her in the ass yet? I didn’t think.

That needed to happen. She had such a fucking awesome ass.

“Fuck my dick, Lara. Fuck it you whore,” I growled up at her.

“Yes, master,” she moaned, bouncing harder as my hands settled on her big hips. There was a lot to love about Lara...a lot, but her hips were just fucking amazing. They were so good to look at, the way she was filled out a pair of jeans was enough to get me hard in an instant, and grabbing them was even better.

And oh could she ride a dick. How fucking good it felt to have that tight, hot, wet as hell vagina clenched tight around my cock and sliding so fast up and down it. She was definitely really fucking good at sex. I wasn’t sure who was better at it: her or Jessica. Susan was awesome in her own way, but it was kind of obvious that the other two were on the next level.

“Come on, fuck it, fuck it...” I groaned.

She reached down between us and started rubbing her clit.

“Uhgn-fuck!” she cried, her voice strained, and suddenly she was coming.

Lara was pretty good at that. I groaned loudly, my fingertips sinking into her big hips as she orgasmed all over my dick, and then that was it. I was coming, too. Fuck, it felt amazing. I groaned and grunted as I started letting off in her pussy, filling her up, emptying my nuts into her, feeling my body twitch and jerk in response to the orgasm.

As soon as I was done, I smacked her ass. “Off.”

“Yes, master,” she gasped, getting off of me. I snapped my fingers. “On.”

“Yes, master,” Susan said, and mounted me again.

She slipped my slick cock back inside of her. I groaned, then, as she began to ride me, I reached up and pulled her down, then slipped my fingers around her throat. She gasped, her eyes wide and wild with lust, and then I began to squeeze. She moaned loudly, which was cut off as I squeezed harder and tighter. She began moaning loudly as I kept choking her, slowly strangling her as she rode my dick again. She got wetter inside as this went on, and I had to admit, it was really hot to watch. And to do. Lara agreed apparently, watching us closely with big eyes, panting.

“Holy shit, this is amazing,” she whispered. “You look so fucking hot getting choked, Susan.”

She moaned louder and choked something out, but I couldn’t understand what, only that it sounded like she was either agreeing with or thanking Lara...or maybe begging for more. I began thrusting up into her and squeezed harder.

Whatever she was saying, that pushed her over into orgasm, because she immediately let out a choked shriek and began to practically vibrate, jerking violently. I began to let go of her but the second she had air to she said “DON’T!”

So I squeezed again and she jerked even harder, coming all over my dick, and it wasn’t long until I was there with her, coming a second time, because honestly, I was ready for sleep. I pumped Susan’s sweet, tight, orgasming pussy full of my come and as soon as I was done, I let go of her. She began gasping in a lot of air, falling forward and propping herself up with her arms against my chest, just panting, “Oh my God...Oh my God...” over and over again. She was red in the face, her hair a wild mess, her eyes wide.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Uh-huh,” she managed, and then, trembling with effort, climbed off of me and fell into bed next to me. “Fuck...that was really good. Holy fuck.”

“That was insanely hot,” Lara murmured as she finished cleaning herself up and climbed back into bed with us.

“I’m glad you think so,” Susan replied.

I laughed and kissed the side of her head. “Get cleaned up, then we can sleep.”

“Uh-huh...okay...” She rested there a few moments more, then got up, washed herself up, and climbed back into bed.

I curled up between the two beautiful, naked women, and slept a good sleep.

CHAPTER TWO

“You ever been ice fishing before?” I asked.

“No,” Susan replied. She seemed distracted. I had to admit, I was a little distracted too, although I’m not sure for the same reasons. I was now very paranoid about walking across this huge open field when someone who had access to a rifle might want me dead. Susan had looked distracted ever since breakfast.

I found out why a few minutes later, as we continued our approach to the frozen lake.

“Chris...do you think I’m pathetic?”

“What!?” I replied, honestly shocked. “No, of course not. Have I...I mean, have I given you reason to believe that?”

“No,” she said, and looked a little guilty. “You haven’t. That’s not-” she sighed. “I’m asking because, I mean, when I was younger, I thought...” She fell silent again, clearly having some difficulty working through it. I scanned the horizons while I waited for her to talk, our breaths foaming on the air as we walked through the snow.

“When I was younger, I thought people who were into getting dominated and choked and humiliated were pathetic. Especially women. I thought it was a discredit to the gender, anytime I saw a woman being sexually submissive to a man. As I got older, I decided I was being a bitch and tried not to think about it too much, especially when I saw that Lara was into it...and realized that I was actually kind of like that.”

“Kind of?” I asked.

She shot me a withering glare. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“The problem was, I just...I clearly didn’t understand it. I wasn’t really connecting the dots. All I saw was one more way women were being subjugated by men. It took me awhile...honestly, it’s still taking me time, to figure out that you can like something while having sex and be against it in real life. It’s like...playing a video game or watching a movie. Just because you play violent video games, doesn’t mean you condone violence. And I’ve been really accepting the fact that just because I like...what I like when you and I have sex doesn’t mean, you know, I want that all the time. I was just thinking...am I wrong? Am I pathetic for liking being choked or treated like shit during sex? Or am I pathetic for being so judgmental before now?”

“Susan, you aren’t pathetic. I know that much,” I replied. “You were judgmental, and I mean, yeah, I think it was kind of bitchy of you to judge people like that, but we all fuck up. And of course you aren’t pathetic for liking that stuff. We like what we like. I don’t really think anyone ever figured out why we have fetishes. Your brain just...likes what you like. You don’t really get to choose. I mean, do you think I’m a piece of a shit because I get off on choking you and telling you what a worthless little fuck toy you are?”

“No,” she replied. “I think...you’re right, I guess.”

“I know you’re not going to just accept it right away. It takes time. But you’re doing good so far...how do you feel about you and Lara?”

She laughed. “You know, I think the only reason I feel like I need more time with that is because...I feel like I should need more time to make the adjustment. But I’m really thinking that I don’t. I love Lara. I’m sexually attracted to Lara. Eating her pussy...felt good. It felt right, actually. Like I should have been doing it for a long time. God, I think about all this wasted fucking time. We could have been lovers for years and it would have been amazing.”

She hesitated as we reached the lake, and stopped. At first I thought it was because she was anxious about the ice, which wasn’t an unreasonable reaction at all, and I was preparing to reassure her, but that wasn’t it at all.

“Chris...we’re together because of you. I’m not sure if this awkward stalemate of me being blind to the fact that we liked each other and Lara being too polite to even broach the topic would have gone on forever...but it certainly would have gone on for awhile longer if you hadn’t stepped in. So, I just wanted to thank you. This...is one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten in my life. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

“Hmm...” I replied, scratching my beard. (I’d taken to shaving about once a week now). “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

“Oh I’m sure you will,” she said with a grin, and then kissed me. “Now, is it safe?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” I said as we looked out over the ice.

“Okay, let’s go then.”

We headed out on the ice, which was largely covered in a fresh layer of snow, making it easier to navigate and not slip and fall on your ass. I already had an idea of what I wanted. We reached the nearest ice hut and I took one last look around. I didn’t see anyone, but honestly, there were about a million places to hide very easily that could see where us right now. I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing because someone might be stalking me. So I led her into the hut, which thankfully had a pair of wooden chairs, (I’d checked them all, but I couldn’t remember which one had the chairs), and closed the door.

“Okay, let’s do it,” I said.

I’d brought a hammer to help clear a hole in the ice. Not ideal, but it would get the job done. I spent a bit doing it, explaining the basics of what I knew to Susan. I was not expert, but it wasn’t so different from regular fishing. We went through the process of getting it all set up and before long, I had a fishing rod ready and I was ice fishing.

“So,” I said, “I thought about what you can do for me.”

“Oh yeah?” she replied, cocking an eyebrow at me.

“Yeah. I’ve always wanted to get my dick sucked while I was fishing.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

“You really like to push it with that attitude of yours, huh?” I asked.

She paused, staring at me. “I guess I do, huh? Maybe I’m just subconsciously asking for you to...discipline me? Although I doubt that’s most of it. Most of it is just...who I am.”

“Who you are is going to get you choked hard, if we keep going on like this,” I said. “Maybe a few other things too.”

“Oh, like what?” she asked as she set her coat down on the ice at my feet and knelt on it.

“You wanna be slapped around some more?” I asked.

“I...do,” she admitted, blushing.

“Well, there you go. Now shut the fuck up, and suck my dick, Susan.”

“Yes, master,” she replied quietly.

She pulled my cock out, and that was how I got my dick sucked while ice fishing. It was a fantastic experience. She got my dick out, which was cold, and then she leaned in and started licking the head. She kept licking and licking, the hot, wet pleasure almost like electricity sparking into me. And then she took my cock into her mouth and started really giving me head.

“Damn,” I whispered, slipping one hand over the back of her head, “you are really good at sucking dick, Susan.”

She murmured something, the words muffled and lost because of my dick, and kept sucking me off, slowly bobbing her head. Her mouth was such a great place for my dick. She sucked me off until I hit climax and started blowing off in her mouth.

“Oh yeah...” I groaned, my hand over the back of her head, holding her tightly in place as I came in her mouth. She kept sucking, and she swallowed everything I had to offer. It felt so fucking good, nothing but hot pleasure floating through me, like gentle waves on a lake during a warm summer day beneath an endless, calm blue sky.

When she was done, she took my dick out of her mouth and wiped it on the back of her hand. “You’re lucky,” she said as she began digging in her pack.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I haven’t let hardly any dudes come in my mouth in my life. Let alone fucking swallowed it. It tastes gross.”

“Well, I appreciate it, if that helps.”

“Yeah, it does.”

She got a drink of water and the pulled out some wild onion and started chewing on it. I put my dick away and kept fishing.

An hour passed.

We passed the rod back and forth a few times. Finally, there was a bite, just around the time I was beginning to wonder if we should be leaving. I reeled in it, and found myself looking at a fish. A decent sized one.

“Holy shit, that really worked,” Susan whispered, staring at it.

I got it off the hook and killed it, then laid it out on the ice. “You doubted me?”

“I doubted reality,” she replied.

“Well, now it’s your turn to catch one.”

“All right.”

We settled in for the long haul.

…

In the end, we caught three fish.

Not a bad haul, actually. I mean, three fish over two hours wasn’t great, honestly, but it did help set aside a lot of fears I’d had about the feasibility of ice fishing. This was great. After getting the third fish, I decided enough was enough and we both headed back. As we walked across the ice, I thought I saw some movement over to the west, near the direction of Travis’s group, in the trees. I watched it closely as we walked on, but didn’t see anything else. That didn’t mean nothing was there, and it left me feeling a little paranoid.

But we got home without a problem.

“Good news, girls!” I called as we headed inside.

“We caught fish!” Susan said.

“Holy shit, that’s awesome,” Hannah replied from somewhere else. A moment later she emerged from the basement, rubbing her hands on a rag.

I frowned. “What were you doing?”

“Skinning...” she replied.

“Hannah...”

“I saw a rabbit! It was out in front of the house!” she said defensively. I sighed. “I didn’t even leave sight of the house!”

“Okay, fine,” I replied. I’d emphasized that I wanted either myself, Susan, or Hannah here and armed at all times, and I supposed she hadn’t really broken that rule. Nonetheless, I found myself really wanting to smack her ass...although that probably had nothing to do with discipline. Or not a whole lot, anyway.

After we checked in with the others, I took Susan down into the basement to show her how to properly gut and prepare fish. It was at least a lot easier than skinning a whole damned animal. We went through the process, and she gutted the third and final one, and did a pretty decent job. From there, we decided to make fish for dinner. Jessica came in and helped us, making good use of the spices and also throwing together some soup.

All in all, it was a pretty damned good day.

I almost forgot about the fact that I had probably two guys out there who likely wanted me dead. Almost. But it kept worming its way back in. I mean, how else was Travis going to react? In his mind, I’d stolen his wife and his daughter out from under him, and he was going to automatically assume that was I fucking his wife, no ex-wife now, not that he’d see it that way...which I was. I was fucking the ever-loving shit out of Jessica and she loved my cock obviously a hell of a lot more than she’d loved his, and...well, if that wasn’t one of the baddest burns you could deliver to a guy, I didn’t know what was.

And he probably assumed I was fucking his daughter, too. I mean, I wasn’t, but it wasn’t like he knew, right? And it had to be especially insulting to a high-powered, high-profile banker type who’d had it all before the snowfall and had been having to deal with the fact that he was actually pretty useless in this new world. I mean, shit, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t planning on murdering me in cold blood.

Or having Thomas do it for him.

He seemed the type for that.

And Thomas...could very easily see me as a threat. It sounded really dumb, but it was actually disturbingly easy for guys to slip back to caveman tactics in a situation like. I was another dude who was in good shape, didn’t back down, I was in his territory, as he saw it. So...yeah, the idea of having a fight or a shootout with either one of those two idiots was never too far from my mind. Honestly, my biggest worry, beyond dying or getting fucked up beyond repair, was Jessica or Hannah hating my guts for murdering them.

Okay, well, for murdering the one related to them. I doubted either of them gave a shit about Thomas, honestly. I was pretty sure Hannah was being real about how she’d react to it, but that was really a throw of the dice. You could think that you knew exactly how you were going to react to something like that, but be totally wrong when the actual event came to pass. Jessica on the other hand...I don’t know.

That was the big problem: I just didn’t know.

I had a good thing going here, and I didn’t want to fuck it up.

I mean, obviously I wanted to keep fucking Jessica, but more than that, I didn’t want to hurt her in any way. I didn’t want her to be unhappy. Hadn’t she had enough of that? Hadn’t we all? Then again, it wasn’t like life gave a shit.

These were the things I was thinking before, during, and after dinner, as the night wound down and the winds started to shriek. As that happened, I thought about what I wanted to do tonight, and I knew it before too long.

I knew exactly what I wanted.

I was going to stop wanting to fuck Jessica in the ass, and actually do it.

“Hey, Hannah...” I said as I stepped awkwardly into the living room.

She looked up at me, then sighed. “You’re going fuck my mom, fine. I’m going into the basement,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“No you aren’t.”

“Well...I’m sorry it makes you uncomfortable, and that the circumstances aren’t better,” I said, and I was sorry about that.

“Yeah, that’s fair. Just...try not to take too long. It smells worse down there now that you’ve started catching fish.”

“Oh...yeah, okay.”

I went looking for the others. Susan was already in bed, reading by candlelight. I found Lara and Jessica talking in Jessica’s room.

They both looked over as I came in. “You,” I said, pointing directly at Jessica.

“Yes?” she replied.

“I want your ass. Get in my room now,” I replied.

“Oh...um, okay.”

“I need to watch this,” Lara said.

“You should,” I replied, and we all went into my shared bedroom.

“I guess I’m watching this too,” Susan said, putting her book aside.

“I guess you are. Move it,” I replied.

Susan got out of the way as I started taking my clothes off. Jessica began stripping quickly as well. I was already most of the way hard, just thinking about pounding her ridiculously toned ass getting me there. Jessica’s ass really was a lot like the kind you saw on those fitness model ads, like the chicks on the exercise bikes, bent over in skintight shorts, or the yoga pads. Whenever I saw those at the store I thought what most other guys thought: what does she look like naked? And, immediately after that, What would it be like to fuck her doggystyle?

And now I knew, because Jessica was a real life version of that.

I found myself marveling at her body again as she took off her clothes. She really did work for it. So far I’d seen or at least heard her working out every single day since she’d moved in.

“Get on the bed,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” she whispered, and climbed onto the bed.

“Lay on your stomach, Jessica.”

“Yes, sir.”

She laid down flat on her stomach. Man, she really was the kind of person who, no matter which way you were looking at them, she looked fucking hot. I tracked down the lube and squeezed some into my hand, then rubbed my cock down good. Then I climbed onto the bed, not going too fast or too slow, just taking my time.

She started to turn around.

“Don’t look at me, Jessica,” I said.

She shivered and looked forward quickly. “Y-yes, sir.”

“You’ve been bad,” I said as I moved on top of her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I settled against her, resting on my knees so that I was at her thick, toned, amazing ass. “You’re going to be sorry, Jessica. You need to be punished.”

I rested my cock at the entrance of her ass, then started working my way in.

“Master, please-” she whispered.

“Shut the fuck up, Jessica.” I pushed my cock deeper into her ass, which was already insanely fucking tight.

She cried out.

Holy fuck, this was going to be an amazing sex session.

And I remembered what she told me earlier, that she really liked rough anal sex. Well, I was thoroughly prepared to give that to her. I kept going, pushing my way into her ass, and she cried out several times as I did that. She gripped the pillow tightly and buried her face in it. As soon as I was comfortably inside of her, I got to it.

I started fucking her ass.

“Oh fuck!” she cried.

I reached forward and grabbed a handful of her vividly red hair, then yanked on it. “You’ve been bad!” I snapped.

“Oh, God! Oh, Chris, fuck!” she cried.

I started pounding her ass harder, making her scream. I gave her hair another yank. “I am your master, Jessica.”

“I’m sorry-ah!-master. Please...fuck...” she moaned. “Oh! Fuck!”

I was going harder and faster now, really fucking pounding into her ass. The pleasure was immediately powerful, insanely intense. My cock felt so goddamned good in her ass.

“Oh fuck! It hurts!” she moaned.

“That’s what you get,” I snapped, then reached down and gave her ass a really hard smack.

“Ah! Ow!” she yelled.

“You’ve been bad.”

She let out a long, loud moan. “I’ve been so bad...”

“You need to be taught a lesson, Jessica,” I said.

“Yes, please, master...” she begged.

She was into this even more than I was, I think, and that was kind of impressive. I kept going, putting my hips and my back into it, making the bed shake and bounce as I fucked the hell out of her ass, listened to her scream and moan. She really did love painful anal. I sure loved delivering it. She had a fucking tight ass. How could someone be married to this woman and not fuck her in the ass like all the time?

It seemed impossible.

After a bit, I finally laid down against her, grabbed her shoulders, and gave it all to her. I mean I fucking pounded the absolute fuck out of her ass.

“OH FUCK, MASTER YES! OH FUCK MY ASS!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

I had just enough time to feel a bit of regret because Hannah was almost certainly going to have heard that, and then I was coming. I groaned loudly, grunting as I kept driving into her crazy tight ass, coming hard up it. I unloaded a huge amount of my stuff into her ass, spraying it out and filling her up for what felt like a long time.

When I was done, I pulled out and rolled off of her.

“Oh fuck...” she moaned loudly, panting. “That...I needed that...”

“That was actually really hot,” Susan said.

I glanced over. I’d almost forgotten they were there.

“Glad you enjoyed the show,” I replied.

“Chris, that was amazing,” Jessica said, rolling over slowly and looking at me. “Can we do that more often?”

I couldn’t help but grin at her. “I think I can manage that.”

CHAPTER THREE

The next day, I set out bright and early.

It had snowed the previous night, but now the skies were clear and I wanted to take advantage of that. The kind of snow it had dumped on us was sometimes followed by a much bigger blizzard, the kind like the one that had been shrieking by the night Jessica and Hannah showed up. I still felt a little ill when I thought about that. They really could have easily died. Blizzards were no goddamned joke. So I wanted to get this little search of mine out of the way as fast as I could manage. That was where I was going right now.

To search the abandoned cabin that had been the site of Lara’s and Jessica’s, (and later my) illicit lovers meetings. I was feeling less weird about that now, given how things had turned out. I mean, Travis was a dick. (Although I still hadn’t actually met the guy in the flesh, to be fair.) But it was kind of like, if you weren’t going to treat your wife right and respect her, then...what did you think was going to happen?

Personally, I was of the opinion that people should leave before they cheat, but people are cowards. People are afraid of actual confrontation, so they’d rather just fuck around behind their partner’s back instead of having a fucking conversation and owning up to the fact that something was wrong with the relationship. How I felt about it now was, well...Travis couldn’t take care of Jessica, couldn’t treat her well, so now she was with me, and I could treat her well. And if that meant she sucked and fucked my cock every night now, then hooray for me.

It was kind of harsh but, you know what?

It’s a harsh fucking world now.

I don’t believe in being a hardass unnecessarily, but I’m no longer afraid of doing it when it needs doing. I let people take advantage of me for too long because that was society. I mean, what was I supposed to do to a shit manager who fucked me over and took a perverse delight in it? Sock him in the mouth? I mean, I’d like to, sure, but obviously that wasn’t the solution back when we had courts and police and rules. But what could I do then? Quit? Sure, and go find another job where another manager fucked me over because that was the goddamned system we had set up. Credit card debt and minimum wage were basically legal slavery.

Now all the money, all the good credit, all the stocks and bonds and investments in the whole fucking world meant exactly jack and shit.

As I’ve said before, I’m not happy with how this whole thing turned out but...it does have it’s benefits. The most use we get outta cash now is for fire fuel. And you know what? Good. Fuck cash. I’d rather do it this way.

There was the cabin, up ahead. It looked shittier than I remember. Holes in the wall, a broken window, the roof looking like it was preparing to collapse. Well, good thing I was going to do a real search of it, because I never wanted to come back here again if I could help it. Honestly, it was getting a little harder to come out here. Certainly I was more motivated than ever, between the four beautiful women I now had to help protect and provide for, and the potential threat in Thomas and Travis. But...damn if I didn’t want to just stay in that warm house, and fuck Susan, Lara, and Jessica. Well, and Hannah, too.

Damn did I want to stick my dick in Hannah’s pussy.

And she’d kind of been giving me that look recently. That I’m trying to check you out without you noticing me look. I’d make a move on her in a second if I thought Jessica would be okay with it. And I didn’t want to weird things up. I mean, it wasn’t completely unreasonable to not want to screw someone who had hooked up with one of your parents. I admit I’d be kind of hesitant to fuck a chick who had fucked my dad, you know?

But hey, if she didn’t care, then I was more than thrilled to hop in bed with her.

I checked out the cabin, outside and then inside. There was nothing around. There didn’t seem to be much wildlife in this particular area, which had probably saved me a lot of trouble. Less chance of getting attacked by wolves, less chance of other people coming around hunting. It was weird, being back here again. I looked around it, at the dead fireplace, the bed where I’d first fucked Jessica. Same for Lara. There wasn’t a whole lot else, so it didn’t take a particularly long time to hunt through and beneath and behind everything.

And, as I’d suspected, there wasn’t anything here that I could use.

I felt better for having marked it off the list, though. Which I actually did, making a little notation on my map before heading back outside.

I had another stop to make before heading back home.

I wanted to see what was up with that building Hannah had told me about before.

…

I had to admit I was getting a little nervous, the closer I got.

I had a half-decent idea of the region, and according to everything I knew, I was drawing closer and closer to the place where Travis and Thomas were staying. It was pretty easy to just shoot someone with a rifle from a good distance if you were a good enough shot with a good enough rifle. And I was decently confident that Thomas was a good enough shot. But this place might be worth investigating. Well, I guess if it was a building it was worth investigating.

There was quite a thrill of poking through an abandoned building. I guess it was the mystery of not knowing what cool thing could be hidden somewhere inside. In a way, it had become one the biggest joys of this new life. Finding something like that stash with the RV key I’d found earlier was a huge emotional boost.

I stopped as I thought I saw something through the trees ahead of me, then shifted around to get a better view. Yep, there was a building all right. I picked up the pace, moving through the dead trees, and began to get an idea of what I was looking at. It was a two-story structure, definitely not a house, built more like an official building. Was it a ranger’s station, maybe? It looked like some kind off office, or something.

I finally entered the clearing the building was built in and checked the perimeter. No one, and no wildlife, around. Well, beyond some rabbits hightailing it out of there because they’d heard me coming. No chance of hunting them, although at this point I was too interested in this building. Finally, I saw a faded sign.

ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER

That was all I could get out of it. Everything else was worn away by weather and time. Huh. So, some kind of nature research place. I’d come across a few of these before. I always thought they had the potential to have really cool stuff, but usually they didn’t. Maybe this one would. I walked in through the front door after checking the windows, seeing if I could see anything inside. Nothing alive, but there was furniture still there.

I came into a front lobby with a built-in counter dividing the room, probably to keep any civilians who were around from getting into the important stuff. On my half of the room was a whole lot of nothing. Probably at one point there were some chairs and a table, maybe a couch, possibly a vending machine or water cooler, maybe a magazine rack to keep whoever the hell would come to this place but didn’t already work here busy. But people had obviously been through. There were splints around, and other debris indicating people had smashed up furniture for firewood. I’d certainly done it often enough in my travels.

I moved past the desk. There were a pair of doors in the wall behind it. I checked them out. One led to a bathroom, another to a stairwell. I then began to search under the front counter, which had a lot of open space where, potentially, goodies might hide. As I started my search, my mind wandered again. I wondered, as I often had, if anyone had known this was coming. Of all the people I’d talked to, there had been theories, and rumors, and conspiracies, and some people seemed sure, and some had, I’m convinced, outright lied.

There were some people convinced it was aliens fucking with out atmosphere, making it more to their liking. I mean, it was possibly, technically, I suppose. But it seemed pretty unlikely. And then there was a theory that the government, it varied depending on who was telling it, ours, the Russians, the Chinese, had come up with some kind of weather-based super-weapon and it had gotten wildly out of hand.

That was more feasible than the alien thing, but still kind of unlikely. In my experience, I think the government wanted us to believe it was more capable than it really was. That was my problem with conspiracy theories, especially the bigger ones: they relied on hundreds of people never telling the truth. And, I mean, just knowing humanity in general...give me a fucking break. Humans are fucking awful at keeping secrets.

The idea that I tended towards the most was that this was climate change. I mean, we’d been trying to burn down the planet and piss on the ashes for decades now, is it any surprise it had gone: Fine! Fuck you! And tried to kill us back? And itself in the process? Not that I really believed the Earth was like a living, thinking thing and had intentionally done it. More that it was a freak, but natural, result of all our fucking around with the environment and the oceans and the atmosphere. But even if that was the most likely, what I wanted to know was: did anyone know? I’m sure there were people who suspected, but did anyone know?

Fuck, man. What would that be like?

I’m not sure I’d ever have it in me to kill myself, but holy crap, if I was sitting on that knowledge...I might be tempted.

And would it even matter?

If they’d told us, if we’d had some warning, like the whole world...could we have done anything about it? I didn’t think so. Fuck, even if we could, I’m sure the dumb fucking pieces of shit in power who kept screaming that climate change was fake just because it would eat into their goddamned profits would have just kept on screaming even louder. How many of those jackoffs were still alive, I wondered suddenly.

How many rich assholes and CEOs and politicians and military commanders were alive in some bunker somewhere? Or some city? I’d heard a rumor that it had stopped snowing in like...Mexico, or something. And another rumor that supposedly some of the major cities were still basically functional, like Chicago and Wichita, which was certainly possible. If it was like Anchorage, I could totally buy that.

Wouldn’t it be just fucking hilarious if the snow had stopped like a year ago most other places, and it was just here that was still a godforsaken frozen wasteland? I mean, I sure wouldn’t find it funny, but I could at least appreciate the insanity of that. Plus, it’d be a huge relief, to be honest. What I wouldn’t give for a day above sixty degrees and somewhere where there was no fucking snow. I kept on searching, finding nothing in the main lobby and nothing in the bathroom, then headed up on the stairwell to the second story.

There was a big shared office which had a few desks with dead computer monitors and towers on them. I found what looked to be a little break room that actually had a nice view of the place. I imagined whoever worked here sitting at this table before a large, clean window, staring out into the forest, during spring or summer, when it was in full bloom. Fuck, it would be nice to see some damned greenery again. I wouldn’t have ever thought I’d miss that, but I did. That and running water. It was crazy what you realized you missed in a situation like this.

I managed to find a single can of mixed fruit in the back of one of the cabinets in the break room and slipped it into my pack, then went on to the final room, which looked to be a bunk area. A pair of bunk-beds occupied most of the space. I got out my lighter and went to work, hunting around beneath the beds, and the mattresses. People tended to hide stuff under mattresses. All I managed to find was a slip of paper underneath one of the beds.

I pulled it out and almost tossed it away immediately, but there was something written on it.

Don’t forget, if you lose the key, there’s a copy up in the Ranger’s Station. For those of you on new rotation, that’s north about two miles and a half miles, past the lake. It’s a pain in the ass, so DON’T LOSE THE KEY.

Huh. So there was a ranger’s station around. Well, I was definitely going to have to investigate that. I wondered if the key unlocked anything useful. Then, as I got up, feeling the frustration of having found almost nothing in this cool building I’d found, my brain caught on something. I’d seen something, but whatever it was, it wasn’t immediately obvious. What was it then? Not dangerous, I would’ve picked up on that immediately. But...something relevant. Dammit, I hate this feeling! You know, where you can almost remember something, but it’s just hovering barely out of range, like an engine that will almost turn over…

I remembered it had to do with snow, so that meant that it was outside, at least.

I hurried back downstairs and went outside. Keeping an eye out for wolves or bears or mountain lions, I made another check of the perimeter again, looking for this mysterious thing my brain was trying to tell me about.

“There!” I whispered, my breath puffing onto the air. There it fucking was!

Something was buried at the back of the structure, something that made a bit of an outline right up against the building, and I had a suspicion of what that something was. I hurried over and crouched down, then started to brush snow aside. Sure enough, thirty seconds later, I had confirmed my findings: I was looking at the entrance to a basement. There was a whole untapped area of this building. Unfortunately it looked like I wasn’t getting in without that key. It was made of metal, and it was pretty damned sturdy.

I’d need like explosives or a cutting torch to get in, neither of which I had even a hope in hell of getting access to anytime soon. Which meant I needed that key. Because it obviously hadn’t been anywhere in the building. My checks were thorough. Feeling a lot more motivated, I shot to my feet, turned back in the direction of home, and began marching.

…

I could totally make this happen.

If I swung back by the house and grabbed Hannah and the fishing poles, we could go fishing for like an hour, I could show her the basics, and we should, in theory, have enough time to swing up to the ranger’s station and give it a search. If the light and weather were still with us, then we could even go back to the survey station and get into that basement. There might be something awesome down there. It was probably untouched, maybe for the whole duration since the snowfall had begun! Man, that was pretty exciting-

I felt my guts freeze up and reached for my pistol as I heard something: a voice. A male voice. It sounded angry and was coming from the direction of my home. Oh fuck. I began hurrying, pulling the pistol out, fearing the worst. I didn’t think Thomas or Travis would do anything serious against Jessica or Hannah, I mean...probably, not yet at least. But they probably had no compunctions about doing harm to Susan or Lara.

Either way, I wasn’t going to let this stand.

Or fuck, it could be someone totally new, some random stranger who’d wandered into the area and was looking for trouble. I finally made it to the clearing after what felt like way too long and saw a figure standing on our front porch with his back to me. I thought I could see Susan standing nearby, beyond the doorway, and I definitely saw Hannah standing closest to him. I kept getting closer. Then I saw the guy, it had to be Travis because Thomas wasn’t that small, reach out and grab Hannah’s wrist. “Get the fuck off me!” she snapped and the guy stumbled back a step.

“Hey!” I yelled.

The man turned around, a look of surprised angry fear on his face. I held my ground, maybe thirty feet from the house, pistol out but pointed at the snow at my feet, for now.

“You!” he snapped. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, stealing my fucking family from me, you worthless piece of shit, but-”

“He didn’t fucking steal us! We’re not you’re fucking property!” Hannah screamed so loud and so angrily that it actually frightened me for a second.

And him too, apparently, because he turned back around, his hand on his holstered pistol. “Hannah-”

“No, dad! I don’t want to fucking hear it! I told you! Mom and I are through with your bullshit! We. Are. Not. Coming. Back. Get that through your head!” she snapped.

“You should leave,” I said.

“You should,” I heard Susan agree.

Travis kept staring at Hannah for a bit longer, then he turned around suddenly, staring at me. His face was red and he looked pretty goddamned pissed. He put his hand back on his pistol and started pulling it out.

I raised my gun and pointed it directly at him.

He froze. That seemed to get his attention and kind of snap him out of the red haze he was in. “I really wouldn’t,” I said slowly and clearly. “I’m not interested in murdering you, but I will if I have to. Now, I’m not asking you to leave, I’m telling you. Leave. Now. And don’t come back.”

He stared at me, his mouth working, like he was thinking of something to say and coming up short each time. He was staring at my gun. Finally, he walked off the porch and marched off furiously into the woods around our house. I watched him go, standing there until he had disappeared from sight. Finally, I holstered my gun and walked over.

Susan looked angry and a little afraid, and Hannah looked livid. Jessica and Lara were hanging back in the hallway, Lara holding a pistol, both of them looking pale with fear.

“Is he gone?” Jessica asked, her voice breaking slightly.

“He’s gone,” I said as I came in and shut the door. I holstered my pistol. “Are you okay?” I asked, looking around at them.

“Fine,” Hannah growled, but she was more pissed than anything else. “So sick and fucking tired of guys thinking they goddamned fucking own me...” she muttered, stalking off.

“I’m okay,” Susan said, though she was shaking a little.

I looked at the others. Lara still looked afraid. She suddenly walked back into the kitchen, and I heard a hard sound of her setting down the pistol on the table, (I wondered why she had ended up with the pistol and not either of the other two who were more qualified to handle it), and then she came back out, walked right up to me, and hugged me. I hugged her back.

“It’s okay,” I said. She sniffed. “Are you crying?”

“A little,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, it’s so fucking juvenile-”

“It’s fine, Lara,” I said, rubbing her back. “It’s fine.”

“Thank you,” she said softly.

I looked at Jessica. She hadn’t moved, and had a kind of deer caught in headlights look. “Jessica...you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. I was just...just thinking...”

“Thinking what?” Susan asked.

“Maybe...I should go talk to him...”

“Oh fuck that,” I heard Hannah say suddenly, and she stormed back into the hallway. “Mom, you are not going to him. I don’t fucking care what you are thinking, you are not doing that.”

“If this turns violent, and I could have talked him down-” she began.

“Jessica,” I said, and she fell silent, looking at me with wet eyes. “It’s a terrible idea. You aren’t going to be able to talk him out of anything. I’ve seen his type before. He’ll just grab you, and keep you hostage there, and use you to get Hannah to come back, and then he’ll grab her, and him or Thomas would probably shoot me if I showed up looking for you.”

She opened her mouth, then slowly closed it.

“I’m sorry, but...this is the way it is, okay? You doing that would only make it worse. It’s already probably going to be bad, but that would be worse.”

“What are we going to do?” Jessica asked softly.

“I’ll figure something out,” I said.

We stood there together in the hallway for awhile longer, me holding Lara.

CHAPTER FOUR

The rest of the day was basically shot after that.

No way I was leaving after he’d actually showed back up. That surprised me, and worried me. I would’ve laid money that he would have sent Thomas back around. Which made me wonder...why had he come by himself? After calming down the girls, I took a look outside, trying to see if I’d missed something. Could he have brought Thomas with him? Maybe he was supposed to be covering him from afar, and something had gone wrong. Or maybe Travis really just was either that pissed or that stupid that he thought he could come over here and successfully intimidate all five of us. It probably would’ve worked if it had just been Jessica or Lara, no offense to them, they were tough in their own ways, but not Hannah or Susan or myself.

God, obviously not Hannah.

She obviously had a lot of grit and wasn’t the type to back down. If anything, she was too aggressive. Although there was a lot of stock in having guts and standing up for yourself, there was an art to it. If you took it too far you might piss someone off or freak them out, and get yourself shot. Intimidation was more subtle than it seemed.

After securing the area, I told the ladies what I’d found out there. Hannah had wanted to go on with my plan, but relented when she saw how afraid and anxious Lara and Jessica were at the thought of the two of us leaving for several hours. So she cooled it. I stayed in for the rest of the day, taking some time to work out, (Jessica made me realize that I should really pick the habit back up, I’d been slacking recently), reading a sci-fi novel from Susan’s collection, and eventually making dinner. By the time we were all sitting around the table to eat, the mood was a lot more jovial, which was good to see. Honestly, that was a big indicator.

I wouldn’t say that I came from a broken home, but my parents were prone to prolonged bouts of anger. It was the kind of anger that could last all day, or even all week if they were pissed enough. And that was when you found yourself walking on eggshells. Anything would set them off, and then it was getting yelled at, or lectured about something that hadn’t been a problem until right now, or they’d suddenly remember something I’d done that had pissed them off last month, but they’d let slide at the time because they were in a good mood, and bring it back up for no good reason. Or they’d scream at each other.

I hated those days.

I hated that oppressive atmosphere, how tense we all were, how unhappy we all were. And I had a few friends who had parents like that. Man, nothing was more embarrassing than having to watch your friend’s parents fight, or yell at them. It got so you could read that really well in people’s expressions, their body language, how easily they talked, how quickly they recovered from something. And I thought it said a hell of a lot about how our household was going that even though Travis had shown up, screamed, and threatened us all, by dinnertime everyone was laughing and talking pretty freely. The bad feelings weren’t lingering.

That was a tremendously powerful luxury, and helping to provide that kind of atmosphere was worth working my ass off for.

When it started to be about that time for people to head to bed, and I wanted to come inside of one of these amazing women before I took on first watch. As I was thinking about it, I realized it had been too long since I’d had a proper threesome with Lara and Jessica. With that in mind, I collected the two of them from around the house and then we headed into my shared bedroom.

“Strip,” I said as I took off my shirt, “I’m going to give both of you a hard fucking.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Lara replied immediately.

Jessica nodded in enthusiastic agreement and began unbuttoning her shirt.

I really loved the sight of them taking their clothes off. As soon as we were all naked and had enjoyed a quick wash, we were in bed with Lara in the middle. I started rubbing her clit as we began to make out, and she immediately moaned and arched her back, shuddering at the contact and pleasure. As I fingered her, first making fast, hard circles against her clit, then slipping a finger inside of her and fucking her smoothly with it, I still found myself marveling at Lara’s vagina. She had just a fantastic one. It was hot to look at, felt so slick and smooth to touch, and obviously it was just amazing to fuck. She was pretty much always wet and ready to go.

Jessica was largely the same way.

I watched as Jessica began to suck on one of Lara’s huge breasts and joined me in pleasure her. She rubbed Lara’s clit while I finger-fucked her. And Lara moaned and shuddered and twitched in pleasure. We kept going until we got her off, making her orgasm, and then I had Jessica switch places with her. She got her turn in the middle, and we gave her similar treatment. We both sucked on her big, beautiful tits while fingering her, then taking turns making out with her. Jessica was an excellent kisser, and that tongue of hers was just fantastic.

As soon as we got her off, I got up off the bed.

“Lick it,” I said to them as I stood at the edge of the bed, fully erect and ready to be pleasured.

Both women instantly complied, getting onto their hands and knees in front of me and leaning forward. Both began to lick the head of my cock, sending shocks of pleasure into me. I reached out and put a hand on each of them, feeling their soft hair as the pleasured me. They both looked so incredibly erotic. The way they looked, on their hand and knees, nude, was just amazing. The curve their hips and ass made, thickening out from their midsections, looked almost elegant, almost like something that was designed, something to be deeply appreciated.

Which I certainly did.

Lara took my dick into her mouth and started a slow suck, her lips dragging up and down the length of my shaft, her tongue still working against the head. Jessica was a good girl and lowered her head, then angled it up, and started licking my balls.

“You two are so fucking awesome,” I murmured as they worked.

They both made appreciative sounds in response.

After a bit, they traded places, Jessica sucking me off, bobbing her head, Lara licking my nuts. They exactly what they were doing, and exactly what they should be doing. And it felt so goddamned good. It was amazing what a pair of skilled women could do with just their mouths. Before long, I couldn’t take it anymore: I needed to be inside their pussies.

“Lay on your backs,” I said, and they both quickly did as they were told, laying on their backs right next to each other, with their legs spread, smooth, bald, glistening pink vaginas exposed and ready to get fucking pounded.

Which I got right to. I stepped up to Lara and slipped smoothly into her, feeling her pussy clench around my dick as I settled in. I grabbed her hips and started fucking. She cried out and then began to pant, her breasts bouncing. She looked like a fuck goddess, like an angel of sex as she laid there, taking my dick. I grabbed her ankles and brought her legs up, folded them against her and then laid my hands against this backs of her thick thighs, then really fucking pounded the fuck out of her.

“Oh fuck, Chris! Fuck, it’s so fucking good!” she screamed, and surprised me a little by coming suddenly. Damn, she must’ve been really wound up. I groaned as she orgasmed all over my dick. Lara was a squirter. I kept pounding her brains out, making the bed frame bang against the wall, and she screamed her head off.

“YES! FUCK! YES! OHFUCKYESYESYESYES!” she shrieked wildly, nearly incoherent with pleasure.

When she was finished coming, I pulled out of her and moved over to Jessica. Once I was inside, I grabbed her hips and started fucking. She yelled in almost surprised ecstasy as I screwed her sweet, wet pussy, my fingertips digging into her hips. Her amazing, pale tits bounced in the rhythm of our sex and her face twisted in intense pleasure. She brought her legs up, then spread them out as I kept drilling her sweet MILF pussy. I reached out and grabbed her big tits, groping them, squeezing them, listening to her scream in pleasure.

Sometimes it was hard to believe she was over a decade older than me, but sometimes it wasn’t. Right now it was. She sure fucked like a younger woman. Or maybe we’d just been fed a lot of BS about how old chicks in their twenties could screw like there was no tomorrow. Out of the handful of women I’d fucked who were over thirty five, they had all fucked fantastically. Jessica was no exception at all.

“Yes! Fuck! Give to me! Don’t stop! Don’t stop, Chris!” she begged.

I fucked her brains out until I’d given her an orgasm, and this time I enjoyed the climax along with her, grunting and grabbed her hips tightly, squeezing them as I came into her pussy, filling her up with my stuff. It felt so goddamned good to drain my cock into her, feeling it kick and jerk inside of her as her pussy clenched and spasmed around me. That feeling, that incomparable feeling of coming into unprotected vagina, was overwhelming me. It was especially good because Jessica was just so goddamned attractive.

I finished coming inside of her, then pulled out, sidestepped, and slipped right back into Lara.

“Oh my God, you’re still going,” she gasped as I began fucking her again.

“I’m not done with you,” I replied.

I was pretty horny, and I thought it might go on for awhile yet.

…

“You ever been ice fishing before?” I asked.

“No,” Hannah replied. “But I did fish a lot, growing up. I loved it. So I know my way around a fishing pole.”

“Okay, good. That’s most of it.”

It was the next day. Night watch had gone off without a hitch. I’d done my three hours and then woken Hannah for second shift. Then Susan woke me up in the morning and let me know nothing bad had happened, as far as she could tell. I fucked her, washed up, had breakfasted, and collected Hannah. I wanted to get this ice fishing thing done so that we could track down that ranger’s station. So far, it had been a good morning, all things considered, but Hannah had seemed a little distant. I guess I could appreciate that, given the circumstances.

“You doing okay?” I asked after a bit.

“Huh? Um, yeah,” she replied.

“You sure? You seem distracted.” She hesitated. “Is it your dad?”

“Him? No. He’s an idiot. I’ve known my dad was an idiot for like ten years. I mean, I guess more of an asshole than an idiot. He obviously had some smarts, given his job and how good he was at it. You know, sometimes I still wonder: was he so shit at raising me and treating my mom right because he was bad at that, he didn’t know how...or because he didn’t care? Maybe it’s really cold or even fucked up, but...as far as I’m concerned, my dad is dead to me. When he grabbed my wrist...last nail in the coffin, man.”

“I saw that,” I murmured.

“That is just...goddamnit. That became like, almost this like...iconic thing in our culture, you know? All the fucking guys trying to control all the fucking girls. Grabbing their wrists. Pulling them into a car, pulling them into the bedroom, pulling them into a house, pulling them into a fucking marriage. People who bang on about ‘family’ and ‘blood is thicker than water’ are fucking stupid. But you already know how I feel about this. I never want to see the dumbshit again. He can fuck off into the wilderness as far as I’m concerned.”

“So what is it then, if it’s not that?”

She frowned. Was she blushing? “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh...okay then.”

We kept walking.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“What?” I replied.

“You’re just going to...drop it?”

“Yeah. Why? Should I not?”

“No, no you should, I’m just not used to people doing that. To actually respecting my wishes and not trying to just make me do the thing they want me to do. Um...thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Hannah.”

We made it to the frozen lake and the first hut. The hole I’d made yesterday had frozen over again, so I showed her how big to make another one, and then we settled in for the long fish. I thought she’d want to strike up a conversation, but we didn’t really say anything for about an hour. She seemed a little uncomfortable, and I wondered if I’d done anything to make her so. I hoped not. I couldn’t think of anything that would have changed between us since yesterday or even a few days ago. Well, I knew something was there at least, and she didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe it had nothing to do with me. Probably it had nothing to do with me.

Near the end of the hour, we finally caught a fish.

Hannah reeled in it, got it off the line, killed it, and then tossed it into the little cooler I’d managed to find in the basement last night after sex, because I thought I’d seen one down there, and sure enough there it was. I’d packed it with snow and hey, instant fish corpse transporter. It was pretty small, small enough to fit into one of our packs.

“I think that’ll do it for today,” I said.

“Why?” Hannah asked.

“To be totally honest, I really want to find that damned ranger’s station and see if the key to that basement is anywhere to be found. God alone knows what could be down there. Could be nothing, but...could be something big. One of those gigantic finds, you know? Plus, same deal for the ranger’s station,” I replied as I broke down my rod.

“That makes sense,” she said. “Okay, I’ll help you look for it.”

“Thanks.”

I finished first and decided to take a look outside and see if any wildlife had snuck up while we were fishing. I opened the door and stepped out-

“Fuck!” I screamed, jerking back and falling on my ass as a rifle round roared past me. It barely missed me. Like, I could fucking feel the wind by my face!

“Chris!” Hannah yelled, grabbing me and yanking me back. A second round fired off and struck the side of the building, going through it. A beam of sunlight filtered into the interior. Hannah shrieked as I grabbed her and yanked her down. We waited, but nothing else happened.

“Fucking goddamnit, fucking fuck!” I hissed, my heart practically breaking out of my chest, my whole body thrumming madly with adrenaline and raw energy.

Goddamn that was a near-death experience if I’d ever had one!

“Who is it?” she whispered.

“I have no idea,” I whispered. “I didn’t even see anything! Fuck!”

“What are we going to do?” she asked. She was surprisingly calm, but one look at her face told me she was petrified. She was paler and her eyes were huge and she was trembling. I thought about it for a few seconds, then looked around. I’d brought the rifle. Thank fucking God, that might be the only way we were getting out of this alive.

“Hannah, I need you help,” I said as I formulated the plan.

“What do you need me to do?” she asked, focusing.

“I’m going to run out there as a distraction. I’ll need you to stay here, lean out the door, find whoever it is, and shoot them.”

She kept staring at me with those huge eyes, probably wanting to tell me that that was a lot of responsibility, or not to risk my ass like that, or that she didn’t want to shoot anyone, or maybe just breaking down and begging for this to all go away. Honestly, I’d seen it all at this point. People handled life-or-death situations in a huge variety of ways. But Hannah was a no-bullshit girl if I’ve ever met one in my entire life.

She just nodded tightly and grabbed the rifle. “I can do it,” she said, getting into a crouch and staring hard at me.

That wasn’t bravado, that was certainty.

I did believe she could do it, but still, this was a huge risk.

“I’m counting on you,” I said.

“I know. I can do it.”

“Okay.”

I thought about it as I got up, still shaky with adrenaline. The second I ran out there, there was a great chance I was going to get shot. There had to be some way to beat that. Had to be...I smiled suddenly. Well, maybe I didn’t have to go first. I reached into my backpack and pulled out the cooler. It wouldn’t be mistaken for a person, but when you were that keyed up, prepared to shoot the instant you saw something, well…

It might work.

And I had an inkling of who was holding the rifle. I could be wrong, but I didn’t think I was. “Are you ready?” I asked after I got into position.

Hannah was right behind me, holding the rifle. “Yes.”

“Did you check it?”

“Yes. It’s loaded, safety’s off, it’s ready to go.”

“Okay, they fired from the right, okay? Good chance they’re going to be in that treeline. It’s a few hundred meters away.”

“I’ll do it,” she said.

I nodded, then I decided it was now or never. I sure as hell didn’t want to do this, so I was going to have to make myself.

I threw the little cooler.

Sure enough, the second it cleared the door, there was a gunshot and it was popped out of the air. I was already running, around the back of the cabin and off sprinting as much as I could manage on a snow-capped frozen lake, towards the next nearest ice hut. Another shot rang out a second later, and then another, and I actually felt that as it snapped my coat in passing. Suddenly, I heard another gunshot, this one much closer.

I kept running until I reached the hut and got inside.

“Hannah?!” I called after a few seconds of gasping for breath.

“I got him, Chris!” Hannah called back. “I fucking nailed him!”

“Oh thank God,” I whispered. “You sure?!” I called.

“Yes!”

“Okay. Coming back now!”

I left the cabin, scanning the trees to the west. I didn’t see anything, and no more shots came out as I made my way quickly back to the other hut. I found Hannah standing there, scanning through the scope.

“Where is he? Was it a headshot? Heartshot?” I asked.

“No, definitely not a headshot, I don’t think a heartshot, either. I thought I saw movement, but I’ve lost track of him. I think he’s still alive.”

“Don’t suppose you recognized him?”

“No, he was wearing a skimask.”

“Shit. All right, come on. We need to deal with this.”

“We’re gonna go after him?” she asked, lowering the rifle.

“Yep. Come on.”

We set off.

CHAPTER FIVE

I grew more confident the closer we got.

We hit the treeline eventually and sure enough, she led us right to a big splatter of blood. “You nailed the fuck all right,” I muttered as I looked at the blood on the snow. And the trail of it, leading away.

“Hell yes,” Hannah replied.

“That was an excellent shot, Hannah.”

“Thanks.”

She seemed less distracted now, a little more alive. I pulled my six shooter out and we started following the blood trail. It wound its way south, through the trees, thinning out as it went. Eventually, the trail ended in a big splash of blood.

“He stopped here and patched himself up,” I muttered.

“Chris?”

“Uh-huh?”

“This is going like right towards where we were staying...”

“Yeah.”

“I think...that was Thomas.”

“Yep.”

“Fuck.”

“...yeah.”

We were silent for a few seconds, both of us considering it. “What do we do?” she asked finally. I looked around. I could see the bootprints in the snow, but there was really no point anymore, since we knew where they were going. I didn’t see any movement in the area.

Finally, I sighed and holstered my pistol. “Let’s find the ranger’s station.”

“Seriously? You don’t want to gun the fucker down?” she replied immediately.

“I need to think, and I’m pretty sure you gave him a lot to think about, Hannah. He ain’t coming out again, not with a bullet through him. Or in him. I’m going to put an end to this, but I don’t want to go off half-cocked. I need to think. Might as well kill two birds with one stone and go do something useful while I’m thinking.”

She sighed, her shoulders slumping a bit. “Fine.”

“Come on.”

We turned around and started walking back the way we’d come.

…

I was a lot calmer by the time we got back to the frozen lake and then headed on north.

I could see a raise in the land that blocked my view of the rest of the area. That was a good place to hide a ranger’s station, I guess. As we walked up the hill, I kept picking up on the fact that Hannah was looking at me. Like, a lot.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“What?” she replied, startled.

“You just...do I have something on me?” I replied.

“Oh...uh...um...no, you just...you know...your coat!” she said, like she was latching onto that.

“My coat?”

“There’s a hole in the back! It’s just...distracting,” she replied.

“Oh. Guess I’ll have to patch that up.”

“...yeah.”

What the fuck was with her?

We got to the top of the hill, and there it was. Plain as day. The ranger’s station was a two-story, snow-capped structure in the middle of a field. It looked a little lonely.

“Come on, let’s do this,” I said.

“Let’s,” she agreed.

We walked down the hill and across the clearing. Part of me kept expecting something to go wrong, but I had serious doubts that my most recent would-be killer was tracking us any longer. Shit, if it was Thomas, he’d be certainly acting under Travis’s orders, and unless the guy had really snapped...man, would Thomas be in a shitload of trouble if Travis ever found out that he’d damn near killed Hannah.

Finally, we got to the ranger’s station. I did my usual thing, checking the perimeter and peering in through all the windows. I thought I could see some kind of wildlife, possibly a wolf, moving out among the trees, but it was too far to be certain, which probably meant too far to be a threat. Probably. Hopefully. I made a mental note of that and led Hannah inside. We got right to it, because I didn’t feel like dallying, and Hannah seemed pretty anxious. She was having a hard time sitting still, it looked like.

Well, shooting someone, and getting shot at, tended to do that to you, I guess.

The first floor was pretty much just one big room, the only exceptions being a small bathroom and a little office practically tucked up under the stairs that led to the second story. It had been cleared out by who knew how many people coming and over the past few years, scavenging for supplies. Not a lot of furniture was left even, and it looked like someone had taken an ax to a built-in desk at some point. A sturdy wastebasket sat in the corner, charred to hell and back, no doubt serving anyone who holed up here for the night as a fireplace.

The second story was slightly less untouched, although several of the windows were broken out. Another bathroom, a bunk area, a pair of offices. Damn, there was even a gun locker, but it was long since cleared out, the lock shot or bashed off who knew how long ago. Luckily, there was some survival gear stowed among the desk drawers and under some of the furniture. Found a pretty decent combat knife, sheath and all. A compass. Some more office supplies and another pair of paperbacks that I thought Susan would like. A few batteries. A pair of pliers and some nails. Duct tape. A half-empty box of matches.

And…

“Found it!” I said, after checking the little note attached to the keyring I found stuffed at the back of one of the drawers.

Eco. Station

I looked up, expecting to see Hannah, but she wasn’t around.

“Hannah?” I asked, leaving the little office and coming to stand in the main hall. It was time to go. If this place had a basement, I couldn’t find it, and I was inclined to believe that we were finished. I saw her standing in the door that led to the bunks, staring in.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She turned around. “Chris,” she said, then stopped, like she wanted to keep going, but didn’t quite know how.

This was starting to worry me and I walked over to her. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she replied. “I’m just...um...”

She was breathing more heavily now. Had she seen something?

“Hannah, you’re freaking me out, what’s wrong?” I pressed.

“Fuck it,” she said and suddenly grabbed me, leaned in, and pressed her lips to mine.

Oh. That’s what was wrong.

Or, as far as I was concerned, right.

When you faced down death, it became extremely easy to get lost in a surge of emotions. Even after the fact, you kind of had a lot sort of on tap, more than usual, so they could rush back at any moment. And mine rushed back. In this case, all of my emotional energy was transformed into lust and I was suddenly hornier than I’d been in for days. Which was saying a fucking lot, because I had been really goddamned horny over the last few days.

Within seconds we were kissing passionately, hugging each other, and she was stumbling, pushing me into the bunk room. I steered her towards one of the beds. She began unzipping her coat, then shrugged out of her pack and dumped it on the floor. I did the same with mine, took off the rifle and set it against the nearest wall.

She got her coat off, then the sweater she was wearing.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked. It was as much as I could muster in the face of so much unbridled lust.

I had been wanting to fuck Hannah since the moment I’d seen her.

“Yes!” she snapped.

Well, that was all I needed to hear.

I grabbed her t-shirt and literally ripped it open, the desire to see her tits too powerful. She wasn’t wearing a bra, apparently, and they came into full view. Holy. Fucking. Shit. She had amazing tits. Beautiful, perfect, firm, pale double-ds with the sexiest pink nipples I’d ever seen, and even a light dusting of freckles across the top that a lot of redheads seemed to get and I always thought looked insanely fucking hot on women.

I shoved her onto her back.

“Fuck me!” she screamed at me.

I at least managed to get her pants undone and yanked them down around her ankles. I was too impatient to get her boots off, so I said fuck it and put both her legs up on my left shoulders. I could still fuck her like this. I realized that she’d somehow managed to get my pants undone without me fully noticing, so I finished the job and pulled my dick out, then stepped up to the edge of the bed and quickly worked to get inside of her.

I could feel the heat coming off of her pussy.

“Come on-fuck!” she screamed as I slipped into her.

“Oh my fucking God, Hannah,” I moaned. She was wet. Wet. She was so wet! And that goddamned heat!

And oh wow, how tightly she was.

Susan was tighter...but not by much.

I grunted, holding her legs, and started pounding that sweet twenty year old vagina of hers.

“Yes! Fucking yes! Goddamnit, fuck me hard, Chris!” she shrieked wildly as we screwed.

However many hours and days of buildup, of me wanting desperately to do exactly this, and apparently she’d been wanting my cock just as much as I’d been wanting her pussy. And oh my fuck how fucking good her tits looked! She wasn’t in as good a shape as her mom, (few were, in my experience), but she was definitely in great shape. And what a body she had for fucking. And that voice!

Listening to her scream and grunt and moan.

I felt a lot of emotions as I stood there banging the fuck out of her. Mainly I was just goddamned ecstatic, but I also felt a little guilty, wondering if this was the best idea. Also a little worried. Sometimes fucking just changed a relationship, and sometimes for the worse. Would that happen? I hoped not, I actually really liked having Hannah around, being around her, working with her. She was smart, competent, capable, funny when the mood struck her, caring...she was a great person, and a great friend.

I knew you shouldn’t always fuck your friends, but…

This was just too good to pass up right, and she’d basically jumped me. And this pussy. This. Fucking. Pussy. It felt too fucking good, stuffing my cock in there over and over again, pounding her so hard the bed was banging against the wall, listening to her scream.

“Yes! Yes! YES! FUCK! DON’T! FUCKING! STOP!” she screamed at me.

I fucked her for as long as I could manage. I don’t know how long it lasted, but it wasn’t long enough in my eyes. I made her come once, and then I made her come again, and then it was too much for me.

I busted what felt like the biggest nut of my life inside of her.

“Ohhhhhh fuuuuuck, Hannah!” I yelled as I started coming into her. “Oh FUCK! Oh my fucking God, Hannah!” I moaned, incoherent with lust as I was given an overdose of pleasure. It felt too fucking good as I pumped her pussy full of my seed. It was like an earthquake, my cock was jerking and jolting as it spat out my stuff into her, sending insane shockwaves of pleasure into me, overwhelmingly powerful shockwaves.

“Yes, Chris! Yes! Fucking come in me!” she screamed.

I grunted, still hugging her legs to me, my hips working automatically as I fucking comed so goddamned hard in her pussy.

It lasted for what felt like a really long time, and when I was done, I pulled it and damn near fell on my ass as my legs actually almost gave out. I groaned loudly, this time from pain, and pretty much fell onto the bed next her.

We both laid there panting for a moment.

“You ripped my shirt off,” she said.

I snorted, then laughed. I couldn’t help it. She immediately began giggling, which quickly turned into full-blown laughter.

We laid there laughing and panting beside each other for awhile, and then fell silent again.

“That was the best sex of my entire fucking life,” she said finally.

“Seriously? Awesome.”

She laughed. “Yeah...although, fuck, my pussy is going to be so sore. I can already feel it. And my legs.”

“Agh...me too. That fucking killed my hips and my thighs.” Another pause. “So, um...should we talk about that?”

She sighed. “No, I don’t want to.”

“Should we though?”

“Fuck, I don’t know. I just...”

“Do you regret it?”

“You know, I don’t...but I’m still riding high off those two orgasms and again: best. Sex. of. my. Life. So...probably need some time to reflect.” She sighed and sat up. “If you could just...not mention this to anyone, and not be weird about it, I’d really appreciate it. Also, I don’t know if I’ll want to do it again.” She paused. “Okay, I mean, yeah, I’ll want to do it again. I don’t know if I will.”

“Okay,” I said, sitting up.

She stared at me for a long moment. “Why are you so...reasonable?”

I laughed. “Seriously? You’re complaining about that? You’re a lot like Susan, you know.”

“I’ve been getting that impression. I don’t know, I just...I need to work out how I feel about this. About you, you know, banging my mom. It’s a little weird. And then there’s you banging Lara and Susan. And that’s a whole thing, and I’m not sure how I feel about...all of that.”

“However long you need to figure it out. Let me know if you need any help.”

“Oh I’m sure you’d love to give me some help.”

“Not like that. I mean, yes, I would. I will fuck you at the drop of a hat if you let me. Because you are...just amazing at sex. That was fantastic sex.”

She grinned. “Yeah, it was.” Then she winced. “Goddamnit, my pussy...man, you fucking pounded the shit out of me...and you tore my fucking shirt off. I liked that shirt.”

“Sorry, I was...I really wanted to see your tits, Hannah.”

“Were they everything you ever dreamed of?” she asked.

“Yeah, actually. You have a fucking amazing rack.”

“Well, thank you. I’ve always thought so.” She sighed, then looked down at my pants. “Goddamn, I squirted all over your pants. You’ve got a change of clothes, right?”

“Yeah. Don’t go anywhere without them.”

“Okay, sweet. Let’s, uh...go back home, for right now.”

“Good idea.”

CHAPTER SIX

I was feeling less weird than I thought I would as we came within sight of home.

The good news was that there had been no further attacks, and we’d made it back safely. Plus, the weather was still looking clear. Always a plus. And Hannah seemed pretty upbeat. I was worried she’d get all weird or uncomfortable or something like that, but no, she was happy as hell. Well, she had just had the best sex of her entire life, so...that made sense. I was feeling pretty good about that. I didn’t know for sure, I couldn’t, but I had an inkling that she’d be back for more. And I’d be more than ready to supply the dick to her.

Despite all the distractions, however, I had been thinking about our mutual problem. Thomas and Travis. Something had to be done.

We walked in through the front door. “Ladies!” I yelled. “House meeting! Kitchen!”

Hannah lost some of her jovial attitude and it was quickly replaced by a kind of righteous anger. I could understand: he’d shot at both of us. As we all gathered in the kitchen, I got the whole thing started off by setting down the little cooler I’d used as a distraction.

“Whoa, what happened?” Lara asked.

“Is that a bullet hole?” Susan murmured.

“Yes. I was almost killed,” I replied.

“Holy shit, what happened?” Jessica asked, looking worriedly from me to Hannah.

“We’re pretty sure it was Thomas,” Hannah said. We quickly relayed the events that had transpired. The more we talked, the angrier Susan and Jessica looked. Lara looked fearful, and I was a little surprised to see that Jessica was heading down the anger route, given how she had reacted the last time we’d had a direct confrontation with someone.

“Fuck son of a bitch,” she growled when we were done with the story.

“We didn’t actually confirm if it was him, but we’re pretty sure.”

“What are we going to do about this, Chris?” Susan asked in a flat, angry voice, staring me directly in the eyes.

“First, we need confirmation that it was really them trying to kill me. Then, we need to deal with them appropriately,” I said.

“How do we do that?” Susan asked uncertainly.

“Maybe see if we can get them to fuck off, just get out of the region. But, if it comes down to it...I might have to kill one or both of them.”

I didn’t get any reaction from Hannah, but Jessica looked worried. Then...she looked slowly more resolute. “It might be necessary,” she said, sounding regretful.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“So am I. But...maybe we can find a way.” She looked at me, suddenly resolute. “Whatever the decision, I’m coming with you.”

“I am too,” Susan said.

I frowned. I didn’t want to put them in harm’s way, but I would need some backup.

“Obviously, I’m coming,” Hannah said. I opened my mouth but she cut me off. “Chris, don’t bother telling me not to go. This is my fight as much as it’s anyone else’s. I’m going. My mom is going. You’re going to have to deal with that.”

I sighed. “Okay, fine.”

“When do we go?” Susan asked.

“Now. No sense in putting it off and letting something else happen.” I looked at Lara. “Can you hold down the fort? If we leave you a rifle and a knife?”

She looked anxious, but nodded. “I can handle it.”

“Okay then. Let’s get this over with.”

…

We were all armed. Susan had her pistol, I had my six shooter, Hannah had the bow and arrows, Jessica had the other rifle. We looked like a war party, but unless I had severely misjudged one or both of them, they weren’t going to open fire on us with Jessica and Hannah there. I was almost positive the only reason Thomas had shot at me on the frozen lake was because he didn’t know Hannah was in the hut with me.

There was no BSing among us.

We marched right through the woods, Jessica showing us the way, and made pretty decent time to their old camp. I was ready to just deal with this, just get it over with. I didn’t really thrive on confrontation, at best I dealt with it. And I was going to deal with this. This place had become my home, and the girls had become, to varying degrees, my friends and my lovers. This was something worth fighting for. This was something worth protecting. If it came to it, well, I supposed I believe it was something worth hurting and even dying for.

Susan, Lara, Jessica and Hannah, they were all actually really good people.

They were kind, they were thoughtful, they were honest.

They cared about other people.

That was way too rare now. People had no real reason to be anything but their true selves now, and...it sucked to say, but a lot of people’s true selves were totally fucked. It always kind of disturbed me how many people had apocalypse fantasies, and the biggest part of their fantasy often was: and then I could do whatever I wanted, I wouldn’t have to be nice to anyone anymore, I could just kill whoever I wanted.

That was just fucked.

That’s why I cared about them, why I wanted them to be safe, and happy.

At long last, I finally got to see this place where Jessica and Hannah had lived. It was its own little area, with a fence and everything. Not a great fence, but three-foot wooden fence that ran around the perimeter. There was one big building with two stories and what might have been an attic. There was another building, maybe half the size of the house we now called home, across from it. And tucked away in the back was a smaller structure about the size of hut.

“What are those buildings?” I asked.

“Just other housing, for people who want some privacy. We all lived in the main structure, there isn’t much in those buildings,” Hannah replied.

“All right,” I said, hoping that was still true.

We marched up to the main house, and the front door opened when we got within about ten feet or so. Travis stood there, holding a pistol. I thought I could see someone else in the place behind him, but it was hard to tell, since he was blocking the view.

“What the fuck is this?” he asked.

“Where’s Thomas?” I replied.

“What? Why do you care?” he asked, but his face gave up a little bit of fear, just a little. Definitely a nod in the right direction.

“Because I think he tried to kill me, and if that’s true, then we obviously can’t coexist in this same region, and I’m here to figure out exactly how this is going to play out.”

“How this is going to play out, you piece of shit, is that my wife and daughter are going to stop being dumb fucking bitches, and they’re going come back to me, where they belong-”

I heard the distinct sound of an arrow being drawn, then notched. I glanced briefly over my shoulder as a look of pure, naked shock and fear slapped onto Travis’s face. Hannah was aiming the bow at him.

“Call me a bitch again,”

“Hannah, what are you doing?” he whispered.

“You heard me. Call me a bitch again. Give me a reason to let this arrow go.”

“What...Hannah, I am your father,” he said. It was like he’d been playing a game, maybe like he’d thought he was play boxing...only to realize that he was actually in the ring with someone who was holding brass knuckles and had no compunction about using them, and that there was no one who was going to save his ass. As if the full weight of his situation was finally, finally getting through that thick fucking skull of his.

“We, uh, we can talk about this,” he said.

“Oh can we now? Where. Is. Thomas?”

“Right here,” said a voice from behind him, and a hand appeared on Travis’s shoulder, moved him aside, and out stepped Thomas.

“You almost killed me,” I said.

“I can finish the job right now,” he growled.

“You almost killed Hannah too, you know.”

“You what!?” Travis snapped.

“I didn’t know she was there. And she’s fine. She damn near blew my head off.”

“That’s what I was aiming for, you asshole,” Hannah growled.

“Okay, so, we have a problem. You tried to kill me, which means you’re going to try again. Obviously I can’t let that stand.”

“Then let’s fucking finish it right here, right now,” he said, coming down off the porch.

“Fine,” I said. “Stay out of this,” I added, looking around at the others. They all nodded.

Well, it was time to do it.

I sized Thomas up again as he came towards me and I took off my backpack. This wasn’t going to be fun. He was a big dude and looked like he could fight. I was fast though, and I’d gotten good at fighting over the past two years, or half-decent at it, anyway. I’d hung out with a boxer, well, that’s what he’d called himself, about ten months ago, and he’d taught me to box. He’d said I was a natural. Hopefully he wasn’t bullshitting me.

Before I knew it, I had my fists up and we were circling each other.

He faked me a few times, and he was grinning, like he was enjoying it, but then he threw a punch that caught me on the cheek and had me stumbling back a step. He was fast, damn. But he was grimacing. That shot had probably gone through his shoulder, if he was up and moving, and that would hurt. And check his mobility. Bonus for me, I guess. Still though. Fast. We danced around a bit and I managed to sock him in the mouth, then get him twice in the gut. He retaliated, slamming a fist into my kidneys.

Fuck! That hurt!

Dude could hit.

We traded blows for another few minutes, circling each other, stamping back and forth in the snow, trying not to fall over. No one said a word. I bloodied his nose. He split my lip. He gave him a black eye, and he gave me a knock on the head that left my vision shaky. And then I got him good in the face. Once, twice, three times! Socked him in the fucking face and knocked his ass flat. He grunted in frustration as much as pain probably. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, because despite everything, I still didn’t want to kill this asshole, I just wanted him gone. And, well, he made my decision for me as he got back to his feet in a flash.

His hand went behind his back and I just had time to register that something bad was happening when it came back around and metal flash.

And then he knocked me over and was on me and had a knife bearing down on me, trying to jab it into my throat. I had his wrists in my hands, staring up at him, both of us baring our teeth, staring at each other with wide, crazy eyes.

I had to end this, and now, and permanently.

He’d just proven to me that there was no living with this guy. As long as he was alive, my life, and the lives of those around me, would be at risk.

And I couldn’t, wouldn’t, live with that fact.

While the others were probably trying to figure out how to safely get him off of me, I felt my strength starting to give out. He was strong. But I saw blood on his coat, coming from within. His wound had reopened, and slowly, he began to lose his strength. He grunted with effort. Finally, at long last, I managed to twist the knife to the side, which gave me just enough leeway to headbash him. He screamed and I got hold of the knife, gripped it, turned it around, and then drove it right into his fucking temple.

It lodged in his brain, halfway buried in there.

He had a chance to scream, once, very briefly, and then he went slack.

“Fucking bastard,” I growled, and shoved him off of me.

No one spoke as I got to my feet. I looked at Travis. “Now you-” I began.

He raised his pistol and shot me in the shoulder.

“Fuck!” I screamed as I went down again, and explosion of pain bursting into existence. As I was fumbling for my pistol, I heard another gunshot ring out. I expected another explosion of pain, but none was forthcoming.

Travis’s head snapped back and blood sprayed out.

He hit the front porch with a loud thud.

I sat there, grimacing, hand over my shoulder, staring at the two corpses. I glanced back briefly and saw Susan holding her pistol, which was smoking.

So she’d been the one to shoot him, in the end.

I returned my gaze to the two bodies.

A cold wind blew.

“Now what?” Susan asked.

A WARM PLACE 7

CHAPTER ONE

“I think the first order of business is my fucking shoulder,” I groaned.

“Fuck, yes, uh...good idea,” Susan said.

She and Hannah approached me, and carefully helped me to my feet. Ugh, goddamn, I felt like shit. My head hurt, my body hurt, everything hurt. Hannah started to say something, but then someone appeared in the doorway. I grabbed my gun and pulled it out, aiming at whoever it was, ready for the fight to continue.

Someone screamed, a girl, and saw a thin blonde standing in the doorway, frozen, pale, a look of absolute terror on her face. I sighed, lowering the gun.

“You killed them,” she whispered.

“Well, I killed one of them. Susan killed the other. What do you want?” I asked. It had to be one of those two college girls they’d told me about. I couldn’t remember their names. Couldn’t even remember what letter it might start with.

She said nothing, just staring in fear at me, then down at the two bodies. Another person appeared beside her, looking afraid but slightly more there. She looked really similar to the first girl in that way that sorority college girls kind of looked a little bit like clones of each other as they all strove towards what was once considered perfect beauty.

“Can-can we leave?” she asked. “Please?”

I looked at them, then looked at the others around me. Jessica and Susan seemed ambivalent. Hannah looked angry, staring daggers at them. She took a step towards them. “Should we let you go, you fucking bitches? How many times could you have fucking helped us out? How many times did you fucking side with these two assholes?!” she snapped.

“Hannah,” Jessica said.

“What?!” she growled, turning around.

“Let them go, Hannah. It’s over. Just...let them go. Let it go.”

Hannah stared at her for a few more seconds, then looked at me suddenly, then slowly lost her anger. Instead, she just looked tired.

She returned her gaze to the other two. “Just get the fuck out of here.”

“Can we get out stuff?” one of them asked tentatively.

“Jessica, Susan, will you go with them, see that they get a reasonable amount of supplies, then get them out of here?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Susan said.

I holstered my gun again. Susan and Jessica walked into the house, following the two blondes. Hannah stuck around with me. I winced and looked at my shoulder.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

“Shit, that’s right,” she said, coming closer to me. “You’re shot.”

“I think it might be a grazing shot,” I muttered.

“Either way, we need to get you inside,” she said. “We have to get that cleaned and patched up.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. That much was true. Infection was a goddamned killer. I followed Hannah up to the front porch, stepping over first Thomas’s, then Travis’s corpses. Fuck. I felt pretty conflicted about that. On the one hand, I had meant what I’d said: I didn’t want to kill either of them. On the other hand, there was a part of me that was very relieved things turned out this way. If I had let them go, made them go, then I’d always live in doubt. What if they showed back up? What if Thomas stuck around to hunt me, and not fuck it up this time? Or what if they broke in and killed one or more of the girls while I was out?

Now, they were dead.

They weren’t doing anything anymore, that was for goddamned sure.

I felt bad for feeling like that, but not that bad. Because you know what? Fuck them. They’d made this bed. They’d earned it. I’d given them every chance to just fuck off and mind their own business. We came in through the front door, which led to a large, open room. The right side was a living room area with a huge L-shaped couch set up, facing a pair of coffee tables and a giant flatscreen TV that I doubted had been turned on for a long time. It was covered in a thick layer of dust. Through an open doorway at the back of the living room I could see what had to be a kitchen. To the left was clearly meant to be the dining area.

There was a huge wooden table surrounded by a dozen chairs. There were huge windows in the walls, but they were mostly covered up with blankets. There was a little hallway at the back of the room, in the center, and up along the back left wall was a stairwell that led to the second story. I saw the two women moving up those stairs, being followed by Susan, who had a look of grim determination on her face.

As I began making for the living room, because I just wanted to sit the fuck down for a minute, I caught more movement, this time coming down. I looked over, as did Hannah, and I saw a very attractive dark-haired, olive-skinned woman in a sweater and jeans coming down the stairs.

“Sofia,” Hannah said.

“Hannah...are you okay? Wh-what happened?” she asked in a soft, anxious voice as she descended the stairs. “Who’s in our house?” She stopped halfway across the room, now in full view of the front door, which we’d apparently left open. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Are they...”

“They’re dead, Sofia. My dad and Thomas are dead,” Hannah replied flatly.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but he needs help. Can you help him? Please? He saved our lives, Sofia,” Hannah replied.

“Okay.” She walked over to me. I’d made it most of the way to the couches. She stood next to me, looking up at me, (I was probably a good half foot taller than she was), then she looked at my shoulder. “Here, this needs to come off,” she said, indicating my coat.

“Yeah,” I replied, and then barked in pain as I shifted and began to get it off. “God-fucking-dammit!” I snapped, gritting my teeth and taking the damned coat off. My shoulder hurt like fuck.

“And I’ll need the-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, the shirt,” I muttered. I took a few breaths, glancing at my shoulder, (definitely got winged, but it hadn’t been a real bullet wound), then prepared myself for the pain and got my shirt off as fast as I could manage.

Now shirtless, she had me sit down on the edge of the couch.

“Hannah, will you please get that blanket up or off? I need more light,” Sofia said. To me, she said “I’ll be right back.”

I watched her go.

“That’s the other person you mentioned, the nurse?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Hannah said, shifting the blankets of the windows behind the TV, next to the front door. “You aren’t going to make her leave, are you? She’s a really good person. If she wants to stay, I want her to stay. I like her a lot, and she deserves to be happy.”

“If you and Jessica vouch for her and she seems on the level, yeah, sure. She seems pretty decent so far,” I replied.

A moment later, Sofia returned with a medical kit and some water. She set it down on the coffee table, then began to carefully clean the wound. I winced, but otherwise kept quiet. A minute passed, then another. I listened closely, trying to determine if anything bad was happening upstairs. I heard footsteps, quiet voices, what sounded like a few people quietly bickering. Probably one or both of the college girls were desperately begging to stick around, but I wasn’t interesting, and I’m sure Susan wasn’t either.

I wasn’t really a hardass by nature, and I certainly wasn’t born one, but...I’d certainly hardened up over the past few years. I wasn’t going to let them stay. Sofia seemed on the level and I wasn’t getting any bad vibes from her. She seemed sincere, kind of freaked out, which was pretty reasonable. (And, okay, yeah, I’ll be honest: I wanted to bang her. She was very beautiful.) And she seemed to be pretty competent when it came to medical stuff, she hadn’t hesitated once and nothing she was doing was hurting too badly.

She was almost done by the time the other three came downstairs with Susan and Jessica behind them. Susan looked angry. The three survivors from the other camp came to stand in the middle of the area between the dining room and the living room. They were bundled up with backpacks now. I stared at them. Jessica and Susan hung back, standing at the foot of the stairs, watching probably to see where this would go.

“Okay,” Sofia said quietly after a moment, “I’m finished.”

“Thank you,” I replied, glancing briefly at the bright white patch of gauze now taped over my wounded shoulder.

Slowly, I stood up, staring at the three of them. I intended to be, well, at least a little intimidating. I thought I had a decent head start, with being as tall and built as I was nowadays, shirtless and freshly patched up from a bullet wound, but also they seemed kind of like pushovers. Two scared college kids and a meek middle-aged guy.

“I expect all three of you to leave. And by leave, I mean the region. I don’t ever want to see any of you again, so don’t hang around here,” I said flatly.

“Where will we go?” one of the girls whispered.

I sighed. I wasn’t interested in condemning them to death, I had a good enough sense of fair play to give them a fighting chance. “The best I can do is this: head southeast, through the forest, until you reach a road. Follow it south. After about three days, it’ll take you to a little settlement. There’s a few dozen people living there.” I paused. “You have a reasonable amount of supplies on you?” I asked.

“We don’t have much food,” the man murmured quietly.

I sighed and rubbed at my eye. I was tired after all this shit, and looking forward to a good, long sleep tonight. “Fine,” I said, “come here.”

I walked into the kitchen and started hunting around, wincing every time I moved my bad arm too much. I was going to want painkillers soon. I found their stash of food in a big pantry next to the fridge. It was...not as well stocked as I’d hoped.

“Get over here,” I said. They hesitantly joined me. “Open your packs.”

They did, holding them out before themselves, and I glanced in. I saw some food in there, but not much, so I did some basic calculations and gave them what I thought was a reasonable amount of food for three people traveling. Although from the looks on their faces, it didn’t seem like they agreed. “Hey,” I said, as if they’d complained aloud, “you’re lucky to be walking away with anything. This could’ve gone a lot meaner.”

They just zipped up their packs and began pulling them back on. Weirdly, I felt like a parent or a teacher or something, dealing with unruly students who’d been caught doing something pretty bad, and were now quiet and afraid. I marched them to the door and saw them out. They each looked at the two corpses on the way out. Definitely was going to have to do something about that. As hardcore as I thought Hannah was, and as much as she hated her dad...that had to be fucked up. “Remember what I said, I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“Fine,” the man said quietly.

I watched them begin walking away, heading in the general direction I’d told them. I watched them for a moment, and sensed someone behind me.

“What a fucking mess this turned out to be,” I muttered.

I felt warm hands on my back. “It turned out okay,” Susan said.

“I guess so...” I murmured, and glanced at the bodies. I heard her sigh. She hugged me from behind.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she whispered.

“Fuck, me too. That was scary. And that fucking hurt...” I groused.

“Put a shirt on, Chris,” I heard Jessica said.

I nodded and Susan disengaged from me, then I closed the door and walked back over to where Sofia was. She hadn’t moved from when I’d gotten up.

“What about me? What happens now?” Sofia asked quietly, staring up at me.

“Well, let’s hear what the others have to say,” I replied, looking at the other three women in the room.

“I want her to stay,” Hannah replied immediately.

Jessica was nodding. “I do too. You’re a good person, Sofia. I like you.” She looked beseechingly at me. I think she was terrified of losing someone else after this tragedy.

I glanced at Susan. She shrugged. “I’m okay if she sticks around.”

I looked back at Sofia. “Do you want to stay?” I asked.

“Yes. I would like that very much. It will be...” she hesitated, glanced at the closed front door, no doubt seeing the corpses beyond in her mind, “...easier now. Much easier.”

I nodded. “Okay, then.” I offered her my hand. She took it hesitantly, and we shook. “Welcome to the group.”

She smiled. She had a very pretty smile. I let go of her hand, then winced as my shoulder hurt again. Her smile faded as she grew more serious. “You need painkillers.”

“I’d certainly like some,” I replied.

“What do we do now?” Hannah asked.

“Um...” I considered it. Man, I was feeling drained! But a few things had to be done. “First things first, we can’t have a pair of corpses hanging around. I think burying them is out of the question, honestly, with the ground as frozen solid as it is and has been for so long...”

“Travis wanted to be cremated,” Jessica said in a surprisingly calm voice. “I remember that, at least. We should do it now. Both of them.”

“Susan and I can handle it,” I replied uncomfortably.

“No...I want-I need to help with this. I need closure and I think this will help with that,” Jessica replied resolutely. Hannah was nodding.

I sighed, I wasn’t going to fight them on this, and I wasn’t exactly in lifting shape right now. I didn’t want to rip my wound open. From the look Sofia was giving me, I thought she felt the same way. But I wasn’t going to just sit this one out.

“Okay, all four of us will deal with this. Sofia, stay here, guard the place. Can you handle that?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ve pulled guard duty before,” she replied. “I’ll need a weapon though.”

I nodded. “Hold on.”

I pulled my shirt and coat back on, (carefully), went outside and retrieved Travis’s gun, the one he’d tried to kill me with. I checked it out, saw it was still mostly loaded, then came back inside and passed her the gun. From there, all four of us went outside. Susan and I took up the ugly but necessary task of patting them down. They didn’t have much on them, but I did find a lighter in Thomas’s pocket, and there was his knife that was stood in pretty good shape, (although it’d need a good wash), and a few other random items.

Once that was done, we paired off and grabbed a body. Jessica and Hannah insisted on taking Travis’s body, and neither I nor Susan felt like arguing. We grabbed the big fuck Thomas and half-dragged him, since Susan was so little and I was lacking in the lifting department just now. We got them a safe distance away, in a clearing, then spent a little bit gathering up dry firewood and kindling from the surrounding area.

It wasn’t windy out, at least, which made getting the fire started easier.

And we burned them, gave them what the Vikings would call a funeral pyre, (I think). We stood there at the edge of the clearing as the fire slowly consumed them and finally, Jessica turned and began walking away. Hannah joined her a few seconds later. I lingered after Susan left. Death...I didn’t know how to feel about it any longer.

There were some days when I welcomed it. Not any time recently, but there were times when it seemed easier to just die. I’d never tried to kill myself, and I’d never been able to just give up and let myself freeze to death. The survival instinct was very strong in me, for whatever reason. I’d spent a long time with survivor’s guilt, thinking about all the good people who had died. Why the fuck was I still alive?

That had passed, eventually, for the most part.

Sometimes I still did wonder if those who had died were the lucky ones. I didn’t want to die, and right now I wanted to keep on living, more than I had in a long time, but...I guess I was a lot less worried about dying now. Although maybe that was going to change, now that I had more to live for. I sighed and turned away, my breath foaming on the air. It was done. They were dead. Let that be the end of it.

There was a lot to do in the days ahead.

I rejoined the others back at the main house and again we stood around.

“Okay...so now what?” Hannah murmured.

“Susan, Jessica, Hannah, I want the three of you to walk back home and tell Lara about what happened. Tomorrow, one of you come back here. I’m going to stay here for the night, watch the place,” I said, then I glanced at Sofia. I was going to have to start factoring her into our plans too.

“I’ll stay here with you,” she said.

“Um, all right, sure. Unless anyone has any objections, I vote we claim this place, move in here and get settled,” I replied.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Susan said, and Hannah nodded.

“It sounds like a good idea,” Jessica said.

“We’ll tell Lara, and I’ll come back in the morning. Stay safe and...” she glanced at me meaningfully, “try not to strain that shoulder, huh?”

I hesitated, wondering what she meant. It was...oddly suggestive. She just smirked at me and began to head out. Jessica and Hannah followed after her. I glanced at Sofia. Did she mean Sofia? Did she mean, try not to strain my shoulder doing something sexy with her? Did she think that was going to happen?

That’d certainly be awesome, but only time would tell.

Again, I walked over to the door and watched three departing figures. Only this time I was concerned about their safety. I watched them until they disappeared from sight, then I stepped back inside and slowly closed the door.

CHAPTER TWO

“Fuck, how is it already so late?” I muttered as I walked back over to the sofa and sat down on it, looking out the window that Hannah had exposed earlier.

“Time flies when you’re busy,” Sofia murmured. She sat down beside me.

“So, um...my name’s Chris Weston. I think we haven’t been properly introduced.”

“These were very...trying, circumstances,” she agreed. “Sofia Costa.”

“That last name, is it, uh...”

“Italian,” she said. I thought she had a slight accent. “I was born in Italy but we moved to America when I was seven.”

“Do you have any questions for me?” I asked.

“I guess...” she thought about it. “I’m not sure. I suppose all my questions are, um, rude.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, I don’t wish to be rude necessarily. It’s more about how you, um...conduct the group, I suppose...”

“I appreciate honesty and bluntness over anything else, so you can just ask me,” I replied.

“Okay. Well, do you find hitting women permissible?” she asked.

“What?! No, of course not. I’ve never-” I hesitated.

“Yes…?” she prompted cautiously.

“I was going to say I’ve never hit a woman, but that’s not exactly true...I’ve never hit a woman in anger. I’ve never laid a hand on a woman. That is, outside of the bedroom, if I’m being completely honest.”

“Oh! You mean, like, BDSM...”

“Yes. And only when they asked me to. But in the context you were asking no, it is not permissible. Ever,” I replied flatly.

“Good,” she murmured.

“Why? Did they-”

“No, no,” she said. “But...they threatened. Well, Travis did. A few times. I think that was the path we were headed down. He was so mad after Jessica and Hannah left...”

“And he was the kind of jackass to take it out on other people.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s over now,” she said, and focused on me again. “Are you going to try and make me do anything?”

“Well...” I sighed, considering that. “Short answer: no. I don’t make people do things. Longer answer: I expect everyone to pull their own weight, to contribute meaningfully to the group, to help out. So...there will be problems if someone isn’t doing a reasonable job.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” she said. “I can handle that. I don’t have a problem with responsibility. I was a nurse for five years.”

“Oh wow, yeah, I get that. The nurses I knew worked their fucking asses off.”

“Yep,” she agreed.

“Okay. Anything else?”

“What is the nature of your relationship with the others? From what I gathered, besides Jessica and Hannah, there’s Susan, and one other person, I think Lara was her name? Is there anyone else?” I shook my head. “Are you the only man?”

“Yes,” I replied. “As for the nature of the relationship, uh...it’s sexual. I’m in an intimate relationship with both Susan and Lara, and with Jessica too, I suppose. We haven’t really narrowed that down...”

“What about Hannah? Have you slept with her?”

“No,” I lied.

Either I was a good liar, or she didn’t care to dig deeper, because she seemed to buy it. “Unless you have found some abundance of condoms, I’m guessing you’re having unprotected sex,” she said, then paused. “If this is too personal, let me know.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Yeah, it’s all unprotected. I’m fixed.”

“Vasectomy?” I nodded. “I see. STDs?”

“As far as I know we’re all clean,” I replied.

“Hmm.”

“Why do you want to know this?” I asked, then suppressed a yawn. I was tired, but also talking about this was getting me horny. Talking about sex with an attractive woman, especially one as hot as Sofia, got to me.

She stared at me with a very serious expression for several seconds, as if weighing pros and cons in her head. Then she sighed suddenly. “I’ve spent a very long time denying myself things, and passed by several opportunities for good times. With all the insane shit that just happened, I...don’t want to deny myself this. I want to take advantage of this opportunity. So...I’m very attracted to you, and I’m very aroused right now. If you don’t think it will cause problems with any of your other girlfriends, and if you’re interested in me, then I very much want to have sex with you.”

“Right now?” I asked.

“Yes. Right now.”

“I would love to fuck you,” I replied. Now I was fully hard and ready to rock. Honestly, this would be a great way to forget all the bullshit that had just happened, even if only for a little bit, and to kill my pain. There was no painkiller like busting a nut inside of a hot, tight, unprotected pussy. My heart was picking back up the pace. I’d just finally started relaxing after having to fight for my life, then getting shot in the goddamned shoulder, then exiling those three. Although this was something I actually wanted to do.

Sofia smiled at me, it was a somewhat anxious smile, though I didn’t sense reluctance in her. More uncertainty. I knew how she felt. Sofia was extremely beautiful. All the women I lived with now were, in their own way, and Sofia was a unique kind of pretty. Her long, black hair, her soft brown eyes, her smooth, olive skin.

She laughed suddenly, a nervous laugh. “It’s been so long since I’ve done this, and I’ve thought so much about it, and now here I am, a perfect opportunity to get laid, and I don’t even remember where to begin,” she murmured.

“Would you mind if I took the lead?” I asked.

“No. You should. I’ll pick it up as we go, I’m sure.”

“Okay.”

I scooted closer to her on the couch, then leaned in and pressed my lips to her. She shuddered at the contact, and closed her eyes. That was a good reaction, and one I understood, and appreciated. When you hadn’t been physically intimate with someone in a long time, not even a little...that first contact was just overwhelmingly good.

At least, I sure hoped it was good.

Sofia wrapped her arms around me, pressing herself against me, and deepened the kiss, moaning as she did.

Okay, it was good.

It was sure as hell good for me.

We continued making out and I felt her slip her tongue into my mouth. It was slow at first, almost tentative gently probing, but as I moved my own forward to meet hers, she grew much more bold. She shoved her tongue in deeper, almost desperately twisting it with my own. I tasted her, Sofia’s natural taste, and it was good. All women seemed to have their own natural taste, and getting to experience that for the first time was often very rewarding. Sometimes it wasn’t, you know, if they smoked like a chimney or didn’t have any kind of access to anything even resembling oral hygiene products, admittedly something that was rarer these days, but generally it was a good experience. Sofia was dark, a little smoky, kind of exotic.

I slipped my hand under her shirt and found that she wasn’t wearing a bra. My hand made contact with her bare breast and she shivered as I grasped it. She had really nice tits, somewhere between Susan’s and Jessica’s, maybe a c-cup, very soft, very wonderful to touch. She put her hand on my thigh and moved it up until it was resting on my crotch.

“You feel...big,” she murmured, her lips brushing mine. She stared into my eyes.

“I am,” I replied.

She felt a little more, grasped my cock through the fabric of my pants. “That doesn’t feel like ego...”

“It’s not.”

“I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

“We should move this to the bedroom,” I said. “Which one’s yours?”

“It’s on the second story,” she replied, standing, “come on, I’ll show-ah!”

I picked her up, holding her in my arms, and began carrying towards the stairs.

“Your shoulder-” she said.

“I’ll be fine,” I replied.

It hurt, a lot actually, but this was worth it. I really love carrying women like this. Especially when I was carrying them off to bed to screw their brains out. She resumed kissing me as I navigated the stairs, getting her up to the second story, and then she guided me. There was a big sort of common area there, more of a strip of open space than a room with windows at either end, each sporting a bookshelf, small table, and comfy armchair. There were two doors against the back wall, and, in between them, another stairway.

“The one on the left,” she murmured.

I led her in, letting her push the door open, and saw Sofia’s bedroom in the fading twilight. It looked...cozy. A queen-size bed in the back left corner, a dresser next to it against the back wall, a desk and chair to my left that looked like it saw a lot of use, and then a few armchairs in the nearest right corner. There was just one other door, at the back right.

“Where does that go?” I asked, nodding to it as I crossed the room.

“A bathroom, beneath the stairwell out there. It connects the two rooms,” she replied. I set her down on the bed, then took off my shirt, kicked off my shoes, and started getting out of my pants. She began doing the same, shedding her shirt and freeing her breasts. Goddamn they looked nice. Beautiful, dark nipples topping hot, supple breasts. She hesitated as she began taking off her pants, which made me hesitate too.

“What?” I asked.

“Sorry, I’m just...it’s been awhile since I’ve been naked in front of anyone else, let alone a guy I’m about to fuck. Also, um, you’re about to get your dick out, and I wanted to see it.”

“Oh,” I said, and took off my boxers.

“Oh shit. Wow. Okay, yeah. That’s...a good size,” she murmured.

“You know, I’ve never really thought so,” I said as I climbed into bed and tugged her shoes off for her.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not as big as most you see in porn. And I don’t mean like staged porn, but even like amateur porn.”

“I’ve noticed that, for the most part, the only guys who feel comfortable enough shooting porn and then putting it online are the ones with big dicks,” she replied. “But you’re also probably not the best judge. You would’ve done fine in porn, staged or amateur.” She raised her legs. “Help me get these off?”

“Sure,” I said. I reached forward, got my fingers into the waistline of her pants and panties, then pulled it all down and off. I tossed it away. She put her legs back down, again looking a little anxious. “Still nervous?” I asked.

“Kinda. I’ve always been worried about my thighs and hips.”

“What? Why!?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s stupid, but, you know, everyone’s always obsessing over skinny girls and even at my skinniest I have some, uh, heft, I guess.”

“Your thighs, and your hips, are fucking amazing,” I said, running my hands up her smooth, thick thighs. They were amazing. Like, goddamn, I loved thighs. And she had some great thighs. And her hips…

“Your hips are to fucking die for, Sofia.”

She let out a little laugh. “You mean that, don’t you?”

“Yes. I do. Good lord,” I whispered, running my hands up further, up and down her big hips. “Seriously, these are beautiful and amazing. I think you are a ten.”

“Oh come on,” she said, “a ten? Really?”

“Yes,” I replied, looking at her vagina. She had some dark pubic hair gathered there. It looked like she might have trimmed it semi-recently. Although I preferred shaved pussies, it was hot, nice to look at. “Spread your legs,” I said.

“Okay,” she murmured, growing more serious again.

She exposed herself to me.

“Don’t worry,” I said as I got into position and rested my fingertip against her clit, “I’m going to take good care of you.”

She gasped softly as I touched her there. “Thank you...”

I began to massage her clit. She let out a low, long moan of pleasure and shuddered. Her breasts jiggled beautifully as she did that. I continued massaging her clit, pleasuring her, slowly going harder, slowly going faster, and she moaned even louder, then started crying out.

“Oh fuck, Chris! Oh my-you’re so good at that!” she gasped, then let out a little shriek of pleasure, then started panting. She went faster and faster, her hips rising and falling. I got to work with my other hand and slipped a finger inside of her tight opening.

“AH! YES! OH GOD!” she screamed as I began fucking her smoothly and rapidly with my finger while continuing to massage her clit.

She started coming.

Oh how I loved that, seeing and feeling a woman orgasm, making her orgasm. She tried to say something but it was lost, choked off in a grunt that became a loud, long cry of pure bliss. Then she was off and screaming, her body jerking like she was hooked up to a generator, her thigh muscles clenching and releasing as she made a mess on my hands and wrists and forearms. Goddamn, this girl could come.

“OH FUCK YES! YESYESYESYESYES!” she shrieked incoherently, totally lost to her intense sexual gratification.

I kept fingering her until she was done, going slack, falling back against her bed, gasping for breath, trembling, then I stopped and let her rest.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yes...oh fuck...oh man...yes...” she panted, eyes closed, opening and closing her hands slowly. “That was too much. I think I almost fainted. I haven’t had an orgasm like that in over a year. Just...oh wow.” She opened her eyes abruptly and locked her gaze onto my own. “Fuck me. Now. I need you to fuck me.”

“Well okay then,” I replied.

“I’m sorry, I’ll suck your dick later, if you want, but I just need your cock inside me, fucking me, pounding me right now.”

“That’s fine by me,” I replied as I got in between her thighs and laid my head against the entrance of her extremely wet vagina.

I slipped inside.

“Oh! Careful...” she whispered, a shiver going through her. “Careful, please.”

I kissed her on the mouth. “I won’t hurt you, Sofia. You can trust me.”

“I feel like I can,” she murmured, smiling at me. “I can see why Jessica went to you, and stayed with you.”

“Is that going to be weird?” I asked. “Or is this a one time thing?” I inched my way into her.

She gasped, twitching as I penetrated. “No. No, definitely not. I’m sick of abstinence. If you’re going to be in my life, I want you screwing me. I want to ride your dick every night if I can manage it,” she replied immediately.

“So it won’t be weird?”

“Ah! No. I don’t think so.”

“Good.”

I finished working my way carefully into her pussy, because I really didn’t want to hurt her. I never wanted sex to be painful. Well...unless that was what she wanted. Sofia didn’t seem the type. Now that I was comfortably inside, I laid down on top of her, (propping myself up was getting painful with my shoulder), and she wrapped her arms around me and spread her legs wider.

“Oh yes...” she moaned loudly as I pulled back and then pushed into her. I started having sex with her and she kept moaning. “Oh my fucking God I forgot how just good a dick feels,” she gasped, gripping my back. “And it’s been a long time since I’ve had unprotected sex.”

“Feels better, doesn’t it?” I asked, grinning down at her.

“A lot better. Oh! Yes!” she moaned, a look of intense pleasure moving across her face as I pushed deeper into her. “Fuck you are really big,” she whispered.

“Your really fucking tight,” I replied.

“Is it good for you?” she asked. “Does my pussy feel good?”

I kissed her. “Yes,” I said after our lips broke contact. “You feel incredible, Sofia.”

I started fucking her a bit harder and faster. All her previous anxiety and apprehension seemed to have melted away, because she was really, really getting into that. And her pussy was so goddamned wet, and so tight! She was almost as tight as Susan was. Shoving my cock down deep into her was a study in absolute, total, mind-blowing pleasure. For the next few minutes, there were no more words, just sounds.

Grunting, moaning, panting, gasping.

We made love, getting more frantic as the minutes wore on, the pleasure building. And then I made her come again. I liked getting women to come during sex, and I didn’t mind rubbing their clits while fucking their pussies, but when I could get a woman to come just from my cock alone...I loved that. And the way it felt, her vaginal muscles shivering and clenching and shuddering around my dick, and that hot flow of female sex juices as I kept pounding her. And then, to add a whole new layer to the whole experience, the way she screamed.

Women seemed to just totally lose control when they were coming, and Sofia was no exception.

“Chris! OH MY FUCKING GOD YES! IT’S SO GOOD! IT’S SO GOOD! DON’T STOP!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

I had my arms wrapped around her and I was fucking the hell out of her, really pounding that squirting pussy, making her scream louder.

No way, it was too much, I couldn’t hold on any longer, not with a pussy that felt this good. I groaned explosively as I started coming inside of her. Right about the time her climax began to taper off, mine blasted into existence.

“Oh fuck...oh fuck...you’re coming in me...” she gasped.

I groaned incoherently, a tidal wave of pure, unbridled, awe-inspiring sexual gratification flooding through my whole body as I came into her bare pussy. I came so much inside of her. That’s how it almost always was with a brand new woman, having sex for the first time. I blew the biggest loads then, and fuck if that wasn’t happening right now. And just how good it felt. Drugs had nothing on sex like this.

I came what felt like a ton inside of her.

“Oh my God, Chris, there’s so much,” she moaned. “Fuck, I can feel it inside me, it’s a lot...”

I was moaning her name, I realized, over and over again, as I came into her.

Slowly, I calmed down, my orgasm leveled off, and I was left sweaty, shaking, and gasping for breath on top of her. When I felt capable, I pulled out of her and rolled over onto my back, then let out a bark of pain as my shoulder flared up.

“Fuck, your shoulder,” she said, sitting up.

“I’m fine,” I replied.

“Shut up, you aren’t fine,” she murmured, looking at my shoulder with a critical eye. She sighed. “You’re bleeding again. Don’t move.”

“Fine,” I said. I didn’t feel like moving anyway. She got up and for the first time I got a good look at her ass as she walked away. Damn, that woman had a nice ass. A great ass. Nice and thick, big like her hips and thighs.

Doggystyle was going to be amazing with her.

She crossed the room, slipped into the bathroom, and I heard her rummaging around a bit, then her muttering to herself a bit, then more rummaging. Finally, she returned with a bottle of water and some medical supplies. “You reopened your wound. I shouldn’t have let you go so hard,” she muttered.

“You really regret it?” I asked as she climbed back onto the bed.

She sighed and smirked. “No. I don’t. That was amazing. Although it took me a good minute to clean up in there.”

“I wondered what was taking so long,” I replied, grinning at her. I winced as she pulled the bloodied bandage off.

“Well you blew the biggest fucking load and made such a mess of my vagina,” she replied. “You’d better be telling the truth about that goddamned vasectomy. I do not feel like getting pregnant.”

“I am, don’t worry. If I wasn’t, Susan would definitely be pregnant by now,” I replied.

“How do you know she isn’t? Has she had enough time to miss any periods?”

“No, I guess not. I know for a fact I had the surgery, and I did have unprotected sex before the whole snow apocalypse started, and the girl I was with was around long enough to ensure it worked,” I replied.

She started cleaning the wound. “I do believe you, I guess I’m just paranoid, and...I haven’t had the best experiences with men for awhile. Almost every guy I’ve run into has been a jackass or a misogynist or an idiot. You’re the first guy who’s got me wet for a long time, and the first guy who seems like he knows what the fuck he’s doing, too.”

“I’ve found those two things are often connected,” I replied.

She laughed softly. “Yeah. You’ve fucked a lot of women?”

“Since the snowfall, yeah.”

“Quite a stud, huh?”

I wanted to shrug, but caught myself at the last second. “I guess so, I don’t know.”

“Humble, at least. For the most part. You look a little smug though.”

“Come on, that was amazing sex,” I said.

“Yes, it was...how old are you?” she asked.

“Twenty six,” I replied.

“Hmm. I thought you’d be a little older. Before you waffle about asking, I’m thirty four.”

“Nice,” I said.

“You like older women, huh? Not that I’m that much older than you.”

“When you’re in you’re in your mid-twenties, eight years is an appreciable difference.”

“I suppose so. Plus, you’re banging Jessica, although her being older isn’t the only thing that’s amazing about her.”

“God no. She’s in the best shape I’ve ever seen,” I muttered.

Sofia finished replacing my gauze and then popped open a pill bottle and rattled out three painkillers. “Here,” she said, “take these. They’ll help you sleep.”

“I think you’ll help me sleep,” I replied.

She laughed and got up, taking her medical supplies with her. I grabbed the bottle of water she’d left on the bed and down the pills.

“Yes. I’m going to enjoy having someone else to share a bed with...especially in the morning. I get crazy horny in the mornings. I start off every morning by masturbating,” she replied. She went into the bathroom, replaced the items, then came in and shut the doors, then locked them. It was almost full dark by now. She walked over and lit a candle on the desk, then set it over on top of the dresser.

“I’m looking forward to waking up,” I said as she climbed back in bed.

“Me too,” she murmured, then yawned. I did as well.

She laid against me after we got beneath the blankets and I curled up against her back.

I was out almost immediately.

CHAPTER THREE

When I woke up, it was to someone shifting, lifting the blankets from my body.

For a few seconds, I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. I’d been deep asleep. Then I felt something warm touch my dick, envelope it, then start to move around. It wasn’t a mouth, or a pussy, and I finally opened my eyes and realized what was happening. Sofia was washing my cock with a warm, wet washcloth.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello,” she replied, smiling at me.

Sunshine streamed in around us. At a guess, I’d say it might be nine or ten in the morning. Goddamn, how long had I been asleep?

“Uh...what’s going on?” I asked.

“Well, I told you I was going to suck your cock later. I plan to suck you for a bit, then ride you, then finish you off with my mouth,” she said.

“Oh...okay, awesome.”

She giggled. “Nice way to wake up, huh?”

“The best,” I agreed.

She finished washing my cock, then laid down and slipped it into her warm, wet mouth. I groaned as she started giving me head, the pleasure beginning its wonderful, slow burn into me. “Fuck yes, Sofia,” I whispered, reaching out and laying a hand on the back of her head. “That is just goddamned fantastic.”

She moaned in response and began bobbing her head faster. This was definitely a great way to wake up in the morning. And then it got better as she stopped sucking me off and climbed atop me. She was still completely nude, and looked as gloriously beautiful as ever. There was something almost divine about a naked woman. Especially when she was on top of you. Sofia slipped my cock into her vagina and began lowering herself on it repeatedly. She gasped, then closed her eyes and began chewing on her lower lip in concentration as she worked my dick into her. She was extremely wet. I groaned as she got it into her.

As soon as she had it comfortably inside of her, she settled in and started riding.

“Oh yes, that’s so good, Sofia...” I groaned, grabbing her hips.

“It really is,” she whispered, her mouth hanging open as she satisfied herself on my cock. She started bouncing faster, her tits bouncing with her. She began panting and moaning loudly, then she started gritting her teeth as she went even rougher with the sex. I started thrusting up into her, her pussy feeling insanely good sliding around my bare cock.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! YES!” she screamed and then she was coming.

We kept fucking through the orgasm, and I somehow managed to hold onto mine. When she was finished, she relaxed for a few seconds, then got off of me and got back into position. I groaned loudly as she began giving me head again.

She made me pop in about ten seconds.

The orgasm burst into being and my seed flooded her mouth as she sucked and sucked. She was moaning, lowering her head, then slowly pulling her lips up the length of my twitching cock, sucking all the way, then doing it again and again until there was nothing left and I was dry-kicking. She sucked for a bit longer even after my orgasm had stopped, then slowly pulled it out of her mouth. Swallowing, she looked up at me.

“You look pretty smug yourself right now,” I said.

“I’m remembering that I’m actually pretty good at sex,” she replied.

“I’m very glad to hear that.”

“Yeah, I bet you are.” She laid on her back for a bit with me, both of us basking in the post-orgasm glow, and then I felt the need to get moving again. I realized my shoulder was bugging me and glanced over at it. I could just see enough of the gauze pad to realize some of it was red.

“Damn,” I muttered. “Looks like I leaked last night.”

“What?” she asked, sitting up, then she looked at my shoulder. “Oh yeah,” she murmured, looking guilty. “I promised myself I’d take care of that after, uh, getting off. And getting you off. Sorry.”

“Hey, no problem. You were just administering another dose of pain medication,” I replied.

She laughed and got up. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

She returned with more medical supplies and went through the annoying but necessary process of re-bandaging my wound. Once that was done, I did my usual morning stuff and she joined me. It was nice, having someone around to do that with. Companionable, relaxing. Before long, both of us were dressed and clean. I took a few moments to stretch, feeling several of my joints pop. I figured I must’ve been asleep for eleven or twelve hours. I felt refreshed, at least. Once that was done, we unlocked the door and headed downstairs.

I took a moment to check the perimeter. I was feeling paranoid after yesterday’s confrontation, not that I seriously thought I had anything to worry about from the three I’d exiled. If they were smart, they’d be miles from here by now. Sofia seemed content to let me do that and get breakfast ready. Ten minutes later, I joined her in the kitchen, content that everything was as it should be. The windows were intact and locked, as were the doors, and nothing looked out of place. Although I was hardly familiar enough with this place to really make that assessment. I wondered where Susan was. Hopefully she was okay and on the way.

Sofia opened up cans of fruit mix and tuna, and we ate it with bottles of water to drink.

“I’m so glad you showed up,” she said, smiling. She hadn’t really stopped smiling all morning. It was good to see her so happy. “Like, you have no idea. The past...fuck, nine months actually, haven’t been great. I mean, pretty much none of it since the snowfall has been great or anything, but things sucked more after I hooked up with this group.”

“How did you get involved with them?” I asked.

She sighed. “I had been traveling with a few people for a month, and our luck took a bad turn. We got stranded in a blizzard, made camp in a cave but it was small, and cold, and we didn’t have much firewood. One of them froze to death in the night. The other got really, really sick. We had no meds. I went looking the next day for supplies but it was a bad place, not a lot of civilization around. We stayed another night in the cave, and then I moved her to a little ramshackle building. I think it was a cabin at one point, tried to keep her warm and hydrated but...she died two days later.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

“So was I. I was scared, terrified really. I hadn’t been actually alone for awhile. I eventually found a road and started following it. After two days, I ran into Travis’s group. There were more then, but all the people you met here were there, at least I think so. I was in quite a state when they found me. They were all too eager to have me when they learned I was a nurse. It wasn’t so bad at first, but before long I started to see the signs. Travis was controlling, misogynist, egotistical, prone to throwing temper tantrums if he didn’t get his way. So, to make a long story short, he made a lot of dumb choices, but finally we wound up here, and it seemed stable, so I stuck around. Mainly I stuck around for Jessica and Hannah. They were the first real friends I’d had in a long time.” She paused and looked at me. “Thank you for your help. I wish it hadn’t required such...severity, but, well, honestly maybe it’s better this way.”

“I suppose so,” I murmured. I was thinking about something. Were Jessica or Hannah going to hold a grudge against me? Or...Susan? She was the one who’d actually pulled the trigger. I doubted either of them honestly cared that I’d killed Thomas. Shit, I hoped this wouldn’t fuck things up. Well, only time would tell.

Not long after we finished breakfast, I heard someone kicking snow from their boots outside. I got up and moved over to the door.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Me!” Susan called.

I let out a small sigh of relief and opened the door. She stood there in the bright sunshine, smiling at me, looking radiant and beautiful.

“You made it,” I said.

She stepped in, closed the door behind her, and hugged me tightly. I hugged her back, liking how her slim, petite body felt between my arms as I wrapped them around her.

“I made it,” she replied. “Did you have fun last night?” she asked.

I laughed. “Uh, yeah. And this morning.”

“Is she good in bed?”

“Oh yes. Very.”

“Better than me?”

“I don’t answer those questions,” I replied. “Not when I’m living with fi-four women who I’m having sex with.” Fuck, almost slipped up there. As far as I knew, Hannah still wanted to keep our fuck session on the down low. If Susan noticed, she didn’t say anything.

“Good idea,” she said as she let go of me. “How’s your shoulder?”

“It’s doing okay,” I replied.

“Would you actually say anything if it wasn’t, or are you too ‘manly’?” she asked. I didn’t say anything. She sighed. “Whatever.”

“If I recall correctly, you enjoy my ‘manlier’ side,” I said.

She sighed again, more exaggeratedly, and rolled her eyes. “I suppose so.”

I stepped forward suddenly and grasped her hips. I would’ve grabbed her throat, but someone else was around and she still seemed like she might want to keep that private. She gasped, though, clearly startled. “Are you talking back to me?” I asked in a low voice.

She swallowed. “N-no,” she murmured.

“Good. I’d have to...deal with you, if you were,” I said, and ran a finger down the side of her face.

“Maybe I was talking back,” she replied.

“Well then, I guess I’ll have to teach you a lesson...later. I have responsibilities right now.”

“Like what?” she asked, sounding curious and disappointed.

“Well first, how’s Lara? How are the others?” I asked.

She frowned. “Lara’s fine, though she really wants to see you. Naturally, she was worried, even though I told her you were fine. Jessica and Hannah are...dealing with the whole thing. I’m pretty sure I heard one of them crying last night.”

I felt a stab of empathy, and of guilt. Susan looked pretty unhappy about it, too.

I nodded, cleared my throat. “What about moving in here? We all onboard?” I asked.

“Yes. They’re still very thrilled with the idea, and so is Lara. And me. How’s Sofia?” she replied.

“Fine,” I replied. “She seems on the level. Come on.”

We went into the kitchen and joined Sofia at the table.

“Hi,” she said. “You’re, uh, Susan, right?”

“Right,” Susan replied. “It’s good to meet you. Thank you, for helping Chris. He’s...rather important to me.”

“It wasn’t a problem,” Sofia replied.

“So, we’re all going to move in here. I think the first order of business is to move all of our most pertinent stuff, and all of us, over here. If we’re just moving the meds, the food, the weapons, our own personal effects, we should theoretically be able to move it all in one go. After that, we can go back and get all the extra stuff we might want, like clothes and other supplies. I want to try and get that first journey done and out of the way today.”

Sofia looked uncomfortable. “You really need to rest for a few days at least, Chris.”

“I know, I know...I just...”

“He doesn’t do well with resting,” Susan said. “He was the same way when the mountain lion bit him.”

“Is that what that was, on your arm?” Sofia asked.

“He didn’t tell you?” she replied.

“I had enough on my mind. Look,” I said firmly, “Susan, you’ll stay here and guard the place with Sofia, and I’ll walk over, gather up the stuff and come back with everyone.”

“I’m reluctant to let you go alone...” Sofia murmured.

“And I’m reluctant to let you leave here without fucking you,” Susan replied.

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose for a moment. “Okay, Susan, I will fuck you, then, Sofia, you can join me walking over there. Then we’ll load up and come back.”

“Fine,” Susan said, and Sofia nodded.

I stood up. “Let’s go, Susan.”

She shot to her feet with a big grin. Sofia cleared her throat hesitantly. “Can I, um...would it be rude...if I asked to watch?”

I looked at Susan. She shrugged. “No,” I said, looking back at her. “Not at all.”

“Okay, good. I haven’t seen people having sex for awhile and I didn’t think I’d miss it, but now that I have the opportunity, I must admit, I really want to see it.”

“Then let’s stop talking about it and do it,” Susan replied impatiently.

I agreed with her, grabbed her wrist, and began leading her through the house. I felt a little like a hypocrite, grabbing her wrist and all, but, well, she liked it when I did it. Sofia followed us eagerly and we ended up going back to her bed, since it was the most familiar and nearest I knew about. We both started getting naked, and Sofia settled in at her desk, turning the chair around, to watch his. She looked genuinely interested.

I had to admit, it was hotter with someone watching.

“You want it rough?” I asked.

She glanced briefly at Sofia, a small smile on her lips. “Yeah.”

“Really rough?”

“Really rough.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I don’t mind if she sees.”

“Okay, you asked for it.”

I took my clothes back off and watched Susan strip as I did. She revealed that wonderfully tight, trim little body of hers as she shed her clothing. As soon as we were both naked, I walked up to her, grabbed her and started making out with her and running my hands over her body. I groped her roughly as we twined tongues together, me having to duck down a bit, her having to stand up on her tiptoes. We kept that up for a bit, and then I got impatient and shoved her down onto her knees. She dropped to them with a grunt.

“Open,” I snapped.

She opened her mouth, staring up at me submissively, and I shoved my cock into her mouth and made her start choking on it. I grabbed her head with both hands and really started fucking her mouth. She moaned loudly as I stuck my cock down her throat repeatedly.

“That’s right you little fuck toy,” I growled at her, “you’ve been very bad, and you need to be taught a lesson.”

She moaned something in response that was lost in all the rough oral sex. I kept it up until she’d coated my dick in saliva, then shoved her back. She fell back, coughing harshly.

“Are you going to talk back to me again?” I asked.

She looked up at me. “No, sir,” she murmured.

“Don’t lie to me, Susan. I know how you are.” I reached down and got a handful of her hair, then yanked up. “Get up!”

“Ow! Master! Please!” she begged as she got up.

“Shut up!” I screamed at her, then threw her onto the bed. I flipped her over onto her stomach. “Hands and knees, now!”

She quickly got up onto her hands and knees, and I got behind her on my knees. As soon as I was in position, I slipped my cock inside of her. She moaned and cried out as I shoved the whole thing inside of her.

“Please, oh fuck, it’s so big!” she moaned.

“You know what you did,” I replied, then grabbed her hips and started pounding her. She yelled and moaned and yelled some more as I fucked the hell out of her pussy. I kept that up for a good minute or so, then I slowed down and ran my hands over her ass.

“Were you a bad girl, Susan?” I asked.

“Yes...” she moaned.

I slapped her ass. She cried out. “How bad, Susan?”

“Really bad...” she groaned.

I slapped her ass again, harder, and left a red handprint. “Ah!” she shrieked.

“Say it. Say you were bad girl.”

“I was a bad girl,” she said, her head hanging.

I kept fucking her. “What else?”

“I’m a worthless whore,” she moaned, pushing against me.

“That’s right,” I growled, and slapped her ass again, even harder. She screamed again, and then she started coming. I groaned as I felt her extremely tight pussy clench around my dick repeatedly, and all her sex juices coming out as she shrieked and jerked and pressed against me. I had her hips firmly in hand again and kept screwing her orgasming vagina throughout the whole ordeal. I was getting closer myself, so as soon as she was done, I shoved her forward, so that she fell flat on her stomach and I came out of her, I got up against her side, flipped her over, and positioned myself so that I was across her face from the side.

“Open!” I yelled.

The second she opened her mouth, I shoved my cock in and started humping her mouth. She moaned, sucking me off, her head getting pressed into the mattress again and again, and I started letting off almost right away.

“Ah fuck yeah...” I groaned. “Suck it dry, you stupid bitch,” I growled, shoving my cock hard and deep down her throat. “Suck it, you slut!”

She moaned and sucked me dry. She took my whole load into her mouth and swallowed every last drop. When I was finished, I pulled out of her and sat down beside her, letting my breath out slowly. “Damn,” I whispered. “That was so satisfying.”

“Hell yeah, it was,” Susan murmured, laying there, getting her breath back. “Fuck.”

I looked over at Sofia. “So, everything you were hoping?”

She was staring intently at me, her eyes wide. “Do we...have time for another session?” she asked.

Susan laughed. I thought about it. “I don’t think so,” I said. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t think I could get it up again for another hour or so. Well...maybe I could…

No, we had shit to do.

“Later,” I promised.

“Okay, fair enough.”

I started washing and then dressing once again.

CHAPTER FOUR

Despite getting winged by a bullet, and all the bruises I had on me from the fight, I was in pretty high spirits. The getting laid helped, especially by a new girl, especially by one as hot as Sofia, but it was more that I had resolved a situation that had been bugging me for what felt like awhile now. Travis and Thomas were dealt with. On top of that, something I’d been worrying about for awhile, living space, was dealt with, too.

Now we had more than enough living space.

Of course it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Jessica or Hannah again, as guilty as that made me feel, because of the murder thing. But I was going to be there for them, if they wanted that.

But I was intent on enjoying my good mood for at least the duration of the walk over there. And it was even a decent temperature out, and the skies were clear. All in all, it was a nice day out. And as I thought that, I suddenly remembered something that I have no fucking clue how I’d forgotten: the ecological center!

I had the key that damned basement now. Or I sure hope I did and some idiot hadn’t mislabeled it. But...damn, that’d have to wait. Well, it had kept this long, it’d keep a bit longer. I didn’t like us split up like this. Although the two biggest known human threats were now dead and burned, and I honestly didn’t anticipate ever seeing the other three again, that didn’t mean there weren’t other problems that might crop up, other psychos who might show up out of nowhere. I wanted us together, united. So I picked up the pace.

“What’s on your mind?” Sofia asked after a few moments.

“Lots of things,” I murmured.

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that I have a key to an ecological center basement that seems like it hasn’t been opened for years, and I’m really curious to know what’s down there. Like the fact that I’m worried Jessica or Hannah will be angry with me or Susan for the death of Travis. I’m also thinking about how to best fortify the house, make it better. How I need to search it, top to bottom, and get a thorough inventory of our supplies.”

“Oh,” she replied after a moment. “There is a lot to consider, I suppose.”

I just grunted. There really was a lot to consider.

“You know, it just occurred to me, but I guess you’re...in charge, huh?”

I glanced over at her. “I mean, I guess so.” I thought about it. “When we first met, Susan and Lara and I kind of came to an agreement. They both felt...well, Lara definitely felt that I was better at survival than they were. Susan...concedes a little of that. So they let me be in charge. When Jessica and Hannah showed up, Jessica basically felt the same way, and Hannah...well, she’s making me teach her, and she’s a little hardheaded, but she’s reasonable. So basically, I’m in charge inasmuch as anyone is, but it’s not a dictatorship, it’s a democracy. Everyone’s voice matters. How do you feel about that arrangement?”

“If you keep being this way, then no, I have no problem with it at all. I can survive on my own, I will survive on my own, but if I can avoid it, avoid having to make decisions...well, I will, if I’m being totally honest. I’m happy to do my part, but more importantly, I’ll be happy to be part of a real community of people who actually give a shit about each other, and are nice to each other. That alone is worth a lot,” she replied.

I nodded. “Yes. It is.”

I was rediscovering that. Although, come to think of it, I had never been in as good a situation as this. There had always been some kind of drawback, some annoyance or problem, some asshole I had to put up with, something like that.

This was the happiest I’d been since the snow began.

And that was worth fighting for. Worth killing for.

We kept through the dead forest, crunching through the snow. At one point, I saw a deer, off in the distance, and almost went after it. But not right now. Other things needed to be dealt with and tended to first. Before long, we finally made our way over to the house that had been my home for the past few weeks.

In a way, I was a little sad to be moving out of it. A lot of nice stuff had happened there. Well, all the more reason to make more and better memories in the new house. As we approached, the front door opened, and I saw Lara waiting for us.

She looked...emotional.

Well, I couldn’t blame her. I’d be worried shitless if I’d heard she’d been shot and had to spend an entire night waiting. As soon as I got up to her, she simply hugged me, squeezing me really. I hugged her back. Behind her, I could see Jessica and Hannah in the hallway. Jessica was smiling at least. Hannah looked...kind of like she always did: a bit grim. Well, there was certainly reason enough for that.

“You made me so fucking worried,” Lara whispered.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I’m okay. Everything’s okay.”

She didn’t say anything else, just kissed me hard on the mouth for a good, long time. Then she pulled back and stared at me, almost as if committing me to memory, or maybe making sure I was real. Then she blinked a few times, sniffed, and wiped at her eyes as she took a step back. “So, Susan tells me you want us to move to that resort place.”

“Yeah,” I replied, glad that she was able enough to focus on the more pressing details. I glanced back at the other two. “We’re here to pack up all the most important stuff: food, medicine, ammo, and whatever personal items you can shove into your pack or something else you can carry. I want to make the move today, and soon. We can always come back for this stuff tomorrow or any time in the near future. Questions?” I asked.

“Nope,” Hannah replied, then turned and walked back to her bedroom. She disappeared into it and I heard her begin gathering things.

“I guess I’ll get started with mine and Susan’s things. I know what she’ll want,” Lara murmured. She kissed me again, then headed off to our shared bedroom. I glanced at Jessica. She was lingering, and I wanted to talk to her. I looked at Sofia as we came fully into the house and I closed the door behind me.

“Would you do me a favor?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Go into the bedroom on the right there, and ask Lara for my duffel bag, then take it and go into the kitchen and pack whatever food you can into it.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you.”

She walked off, and I nodded my head to Jessica, who joined me in the living room. “Are you okay?” I asked when we were alone.

“I’m...dealing,” Jessica replied after a moment. “It’ll take awhile to really process this whole thing. I cried last night. Hannah’s too stubborn to cry, at least with anyone around. I...mourned. Mainly I mourned who he was, awhile ago. He wasn’t always a narcissistic asshole. He was a better person when we married, though if I hadn’t been-” she hesitated, glanced back, then stepped closer and lowered her voice, “-been pregnant, I wouldn’t have stayed with him. Or I like to tell myself that. Ultimately...I still think having Hannah was worth it. I love her so much...” she paused, sighed, shook her head, as if collecting her thoughts.

“I’m sorry, I’m rambling. I did intend to tell you: you don’t have to worry about any kind of rift growing between us, or us and Susan. I don’t blame either of you for what happened. The man she killed...was no longer my husband. He just looked like him. He hadn’t been that man for a long time, as far as I’m concerned. Travis shed any decency he had years ago. But, I just wanted that to be clear. I talked about this with Hannah, and she feels the same. Although I think it will take a little while for the dust to settle for both of us.”

“I understand,” I replied. “I appreciate it. If you need or want anything at all, please tell me. I’m here for you, both of you.”

“Thank you,” she said, and stepped closer to me, hugged me. A lot of hugs today. They were nice. I hugged her back. “You’ve been...amazing, Chris. Seriously. You’re the kind of man I should’ve-” she came up short.

“What?” I asked.

She laughed softly and pulled back, looking at the floor, blushing. “I talk too much, sometimes.”

“So talk too much. Tell me.”

She sighed. “The kind of man I should have married. I was worried that might be too...forward. You know?”

“I can understand that. It’s fine.”

“So, women getting closer with you and relying more on you don’t freak you out? Because by my count, you have three of us now.”

“Four,” I said.

She raised her eyebrows. “Sofia?”

“Yeah.”

She laughed. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. She’s been rather lonely, and she’s so beautiful. I take it she enjoyed the encounter?”

“Tremendously.”

“Good. She deserves that.” She sighed. “I should get to work packing. I’m not looking forward to another long, cold walk, and I’d like to get it out of the way.”

I hesitated. “Is it going to be weird...living there again?”

“I think it’ll take a little getting used to, but honestly, it probably won’t take more than a few...” she took my hand and brought it to her crotch, “...distractions, to help me get properly settled in.”

I grinned and ran my hand across her crotch a few times, making her exhale sharply. “We’ll do some ‘settling in’ soon,” I replied.

“Good. I could really use it.”

She gave me another kiss, then moved to join Hannah in packing their things up. I walked after her to join Lara in clearing out our stuff.

It was time to move.

…

We spent about two hours at the house.

It took some time for me to figure out how to pack all the stuff I wanted to bring in my backpack, especially since Lara and I were also taking Susan’s stuff. In the end, I finally had to grab a suitcase that had been lingering in the bedroom close and use it to pack the rest of the stuff. Hannah and Jessica got their stuff packed and ready, and Sofia packed the overflow into her own pack, taking the medicine, spare ammo, whatever food couldn’t be shoved into the duffel bag, and a few odds and ends that we couldn’t fit into our own pack.

When that was done, we walked back to the house.

My shoulder kept giving me trouble, because I had to carry the damned pack, and I’d opted to carry the duffel bag full of cans and jars.

We made it back home, and Susan was waiting for us, happy to report that nothing had happened. And after I dumped my stuff up in the third story, (I had asked for that master bedroom, for myself and Susan and Lara, and the other three had been fine with that), I got to work. Because honestly, I was eager. I wanted to explore, I wanted to know what resources and assets we had to work with. I spent an hour and a half pretty much pulling apart the top floor, what was to be my shared floor with Susan and Lara. I wanted to know what Travis had had access to, and where he might’ve hidden it. I think somewhere, I was hoping that he wasn’t as stupid or incapable as evidence had bared out so far, that he had some hidden stash.

Near the end of my search, I found a hidden stash all right, but it just was not at all what I was hoping to find.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I muttered, finding a metal box at the back of a closet, beneath a pile of clothes and pulling it open.

Inside was a half-dead bottle of whiskey, a little bag of weed, and a porno magazine. Again, I just could not fathom what the fuck was up with that guy. Why would you want a porn mag when you were married to a woman like Jessica? Who was not only insanely hot, not only pretty submissive, but was kind of a freak. In a good way. Most girls were, in my experience. Or, most of them who had been willing to hook up with me, anyway.

Besides that, I at least managed to find some stuff. He had a little store of food that was obviously his own, some canned beef, some mixed vegetables, a two-liter jug of water, a lot of clothes, a knife, a lighter, and a little bit of medical supplies. I gathered it all up and brought it downstairs. Susan offered to begin sorting things out, and Hannah offered to help her, show her where stuff already was. That was good, at least, I didn’t see any real animosity between the two. After that, I went and tracked down Sofia, who was in her room.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hi. Is your shoulder bugging you?”

“Some, but that’s not what I’m here about. I was curious if you had anything here in your room that might be better suited to join the community.”

She frowned, thinking about it, then nodded slowly. “I have a stash of food that I’ve been holding onto for awhile, out of paranoia, I guess. And pretty much all the medical supplies are in that bathroom there.”

“I think it makes sense to store the medical supplies there, so we’ll bring it all there...if you don’t want to add to the mix, I won’t make you.”

“No, it’s the smart thing to do, and the right thing to do. I need...to trust again. I’ve felt so isolated for so long, even with Jessica and Hannah around, as nice as they are...I need to believe in a community again. I’ll do it.”

“Thank you,” I said. I paused. “Where was Thomas’s room?”

“Across from mine,” she replied disdainfully. “The girls stayed in there with him, too. Ben’s room was on the ground floor. There’s a little bedroom tucked away.”

“Does this place have a basement?” I asked.

“Yes, it does. There’s mostly just storage down there. We never went through it.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Why not? That seems like a huge oversight.” I paused. “Sorry, that wasn’t direct at you, just a general frustration. Travis was an idiot.”

“He really was.” I began to go but she stopped me. “Do you want some painkillers?”

I frowned, thinking about it, then shook my head. “Save them.”

“Don’t you be an idiot, Chris. We actually have several bottles.”

“All right, fine. Give me a few.”

“Okay.”

She went into the bathroom, then returned a moment later with a bottle of water and three painkillers. I thanked her, took them, and then headed over to Thomas’s room. I remember what Hannah told me about this place’s armament, about the pair of pistols, the rifle, and the shotgun. So far, I’d accounted for one of the pistols: the one Travis had shot me with. I expected, and hoped, to find the rest of the arsenal in this room.

The place was a mess, but I saw the pistol, a black semi-auto, resting on the nightstand. I picked it up and checked it over. It looked to be in good use. I’d have to give it a cleaning soon. It was fully loaded, and I found three magazines in the little drawer built into the stand. There were also a lot of hand-rolled cigarettes there. I wondered where he’d picked those up. Well, they’d certainly be useful items for trading if anyone every came through. I looked around the messy room, with clothes everywhere, and empty water bottles and cans of food, and other random trash, then sighed and got to work performing my search.

An hour passed, and then Jessica joined me.

“Hi,” she said, “any luck?”

“Yes, actually. I’ve found the other pistol, the shotgun, and the rifle, and ammo for all three,” I replied, pointing to the desk, where I’d laid them out. (After sweeping all the bullshit off of it and onto the carpet for now.) “What’s up?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking for a bit about what room I want to be my own. I don’t want to live outside this building, in one of the others, and you have the master, which is fine, and Sofia’s got her room, which just left here and the one downstairs, which is rather small. As much as I disliked Thomas, and his two girlfriends, I think this room would be best. So I’ve decided to take it.”

“That makes sense. I’m in the process of searching it for any supplies or useful stuff that might’ve been hidden away. Wanna help?” I asked.

“Yes. Also, I guess I can get started cleaning after that,” she replied.

“I’ll help you with that.”

She smiled. “I’d appreciate it.”

She came over, kissed me, and then we got back to the search.

CHAPTER FIVE

By the time we were done hunting through what was now Jessica’s room, and then cleaning up all the garbage, (though really a lot of it wasn’t garbage, the empty cans and bottles could be washed and reused, or traded, same with the clothes), it was time for dinner. As we prepared to leave, Jessica and I paused to stand near the doorway and look over the room.

“Thank you for doing this. It looks totally different,” she murmured.

“I’m glad to help. You deserve this,” I replied.

“So do you. You’ve really done a lot to help us. All of us. You didn’t have to do any of this. You could have left. I know a lot of guys who would have left, when it got difficult. But you didn’t. You stayed, and you did what needed doing.”

“You, and Hannah, and Susan and Lara and Sofia, you’re all worth fighting for. What I have now is worth suffering for,” I replied.

She turned and looked at me with an intense gaze. “I still need to reward you, for all the help you’ve given us.”

“I wouldn’t say no to that,” I replied, feeling a twinge of lust hit me. I’d been thinking about sex for the past hour or so, being in such close contact with Jessica, and seeing her bend over a lot. She had the most amazing ass.

“I hear sexy things being planned.”

We both glanced over as Lara came into the room. “Yeah...why? You want in on this?” Jessica replied.

“Hell yes, I do. I could use a threesome with you two after all the bullshit recently. I want to just...fuck and forget.”

“Me too,” I said.

“We should do it in our bed then,” Lara said.

“That’d be nice,” I replied.

“Is Susan going to be okay with that? I feel kind of bad, fucking in her bed. We’ve done that more than once now...”

“She’s fine with it,” Lara replied. “I asked. Also, dinner’s ready. I came to tell you.”

“Okay, I’m fucking starving.”

“Same,” Jessica agreed.

We left the bedroom and headed downstairs, where I found Sofia, Hannah, and Susan at the dinner table, having just finished frying up a pretty hearty meal of rabbit and deer, as well as some vegetable soup, and wild onions. We all served ourselves and sat down around the big table in the dining area of the house.

“How’s everything been going?” I asked.

“I’ve got the food squared away,” Susan replied, “and based on what I see and my best guesses for consumption, I’d say we’ve got maybe six days of food stored up.”

“Well...could be worse,” I murmured.

“Where are we with the gun situation?” Hannah asked.

“Well, we’ve got four pistols now. None of them are forty-fives, so those rounds are still useless. Probably be able to trade them, if we run into anyone. I managed to find half a dozen magazines of nine millimeter ammo in Thomas’s room, and two more upstairs, so we’re pretty good there. I’m taking one of the nine millimeters for personal use and putting that six shooter I’ve got somewhere else. Actually, okay, this is important: that table over there, by the door,” I pointed near the front door, “I’m going to put it there, as well as the spare ammo for it, which isn’t much. It’s for emergencies, in case anyone here is, for whatever reason, unarmed, and needs a gun. Got it?”

They all nodded.

“Good. The shotgun is dead. I couldn’t find a single shell and it’s in bad shape anyway, so I’ve set it aside for now. The rifle is in pretty good condition, and luckily uses the same ammo as our two rifles. There was about a load and a half left from what I found. Now, Hannah...I want to give you the third nine millimeter pistol, all right? You’re the best shot after myself and Susan,” I said.

“She’s a better shot than me,” Susan said.

“Unless...” I looked at Sofia, who just shook her head.

“No,” she said, “I’m not great.”

“Okay. Are you okay with that, Hannah?”

“Yeah. Thanks. I want one of the rifles, also. And half the ammo stash for it.”

I thought about it, then nodded. “Okay. But I want to go over gun safety with you again.”

“Fair enough,” she replied.

“Also, that reminds me, where are you staying? There’s only one bedroom left, but I know you were looking for some privacy and we could probably convert the basement if it isn’t in too bad of shape...” She was shaking her head. “Where then?”

She looked like she was steeling herself for a bad reaction. “I’m going to move into the cabin across the way, the small one.”

“Hannah-” Jessica began.

“Mom, I can handle this. I want to do this. I deserve to do this. It’s barely fifty feet away. You’ll be able to look out the window at see it,” she said quickly, defending herself.

Jessica looked exasperated, then looked at me for help.

Great. I wasn’t going to play dad with Hannah...especially not after fucking her. We still hadn’t really talked about that. But I was still basically the elected leader, so I guess it fell on me. I thought about it, studying Hannah. She was an adult. In some ways more adult than the older people in the room. And I thought she had a point: she deserved this. What right did we have to tell her no? I could appreciated Jessica’s concern though. A lot of things could go wrong, even in a building that was a scant fifty feet away.

“I’m not going to fight you on this,” I replied. Hannah looked relieved, Jessica looked anxious. “She’s growing up, Jessica. I know you’re worried, but Hannah’s pretty damned capable.”

“I know,” Jessica murmured with a sigh. “I just...this is stressful.”

Hannah looked a little guilty. “I’m sorry, mom. I’m not trying to stress you out. I just...I really want to have my own space for once. And I finally have a chance. I have an opportunity to have my own space but still be basically living with you and everyone else. I know how to do this by now, mom. I know to keep food and water on hand, I know how to treat most basic wounds, I know how to build a fire to keep it going all night, I know to stock up on firewood.”

“Okay, but if you go anywhere, even just for a walk, please tell someone here where you’re going and how long you plan to be gone, okay?”

“Don’t worry, mom. I won’t disappear like I used to for long walks. I don’t have reason to anymore,” she replied.

“Good. Now that that’s settled, we can begin figuring everything out again. First things first, though, in the morning, I’m going to that ecological center and getting into the basement-”

“Chris,” Sofia said, and the way she said it, combined with the look she was giving me, made me suddenly reconsider the idea in my head I had of her. In an instant, she had become...very authoritative. Intimidating, even.

“What?” I asked, but I knew what she was going to say.

“You need to take it easy for at least two days, at least. Your shoulder is never going to heal if you don’t relax. There’s only so much I can do. You need to let your body rest, and heal.”

I looked at her, then at the others. Jessica and Lara looked surprised, but Susan and Hannah, especially Susan, just looked amused. I thought about it, and finally decided she was right. “Fine,” I said, and she relaxed, and smiled.

“Sorry,” she murmured. “I just...remember needing to be firm with people about injuries. Especially with guys like you.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” Susan said, laughing.

I sighed. “I’ll stay here for the next two days and help you all search this house top to bottom, see what we’re working with. Hannah, though, you’ll need to go out hunting. That six days is gonna fly by.”

“I set out tomorrow morning,” she replied. “Also, if you want, I can swing by that eco place and see what’s in the basement.”

“Not a chance. I’m doing that myself.”

She smirked. “Figured. But I wanna be there too.”

“Fair deal.”

“Anything else?” Jessica asked. She looked antsy. I could guess why. I looked around the table, and no one seemed to have anything else to talk about right now. And, well since we’d all finished eating by then, I figured maybe it was high time to fuck.

“I guess not,” I said.

She stood up. Man, she was horny. “In that case, maybe, uh, we could go...talk. Upstairs.”

“Ugh,” Hannah groaned, rolling her eyes. She got up. “I’m going to my cabin. I know what ‘talk’ means.”

“Goodnight,” Jessica said awkwardly.

“Night, mom.”

She walked out of the house into the cold. I could see the lowering sun painting the area beyond the front windows in shades of muted gold. Nightfall wasn’t too far off.

“If you’re fucking, I want to watch,” Susan said.

“I have to admit, I do too,” Sofia threw in.

Jessica looked surprised. “Really?”

“Yes...why does that surprise you?”

“I guess I just always thought of you as so...reserved. I never heard you talk about sex ever, I don’t think.”

“Given our circumstances, that’s not surprising. Do you mind if I watch?”

“Oh no, not at all.”

“All right them. I promise Lara and Jessica a threesome, so let’s do it,” I said, getting up.

“So I’m curious,” Sofia said as we all headed upstairs. “Out of the four of you, is there anyone who hasn’t fucked the other three?”

“Susan and I haven’t had sex,” Jessica said.

“Wanna fix that?” Lara asked suggestively.

“I...I mean, if Jessica’s open to it…?” Susan replied uncertainly.

“Oh, I would love to make love with you, Susan,” Jessica said immediately.

“Oh. Wow. Okay.”

“Can I be involved in this?” I asked.

“Can I?” Lara asked.

“Let’s figure it out later,” Susan said finally.

“Fine by me,” Jessica said as we came into the master bedroom. My bedroom. Well, ours. It was a nice place, and I was looking forward to personalize it, make it a shared space with the two ladies in my life. Okay, two of the ladies in my life.

It was time to get naked and sweaty with Lara and Jessica.

I took off my shirt, then winced. My fucking shoulder. Goddamn that was starting to piss me off. Yeah, Sofia was right. I needed to take a break. As much as it pissed me off, I needed my shoulder to heal up. Two days wasn’t going to be enough, obviously, but I thought it might be a decent start. As I watched Lara and Jessica take all their clothes off, I realized how amazingly unreal this was. I was about to fuck two insanely hot women, while two other insanely hot women watched me do it. Both of whom I’d already fucked.

Today, actually.

That was just unreal. That was like a porn. Yet it was really happening. A lot about the way my life had changed made me feel warm, happy, secure.

But this just made me feel fucking awesome.

Within half a minute, I was climbed onto the bed with both women.

“Now, I don’t want Sofia yelling at us about making you strain yourself, Chris, so lay on your back, and let us take care of you,” Lara said.

“Yeah, you need to be rewarded for all the help you’ve given us recently,” Jessica murmured.

“Ooh yes, that’s very true,” Lara said. She smirked. “You got us a new house. The warrants a lot of reward.”

“That is true,” I agreed.

Lara giggled and then laid against me, careful of my shoulder, and began to kiss me. I took one of her huge breasts into my hand, groping it gently. Jessica laid against my other side and gripped my cock, then began to massage it. Getting the attention of two beautiful, nude, horny girls like this was going to go a long way towards helping me heal up. Maybe. Well, certainly it’d boost my mood. Which was supposed to help with healing.

After a bit, I switched over to Jessica, kissing her, running my hands over her body, loving every second of touching her. Our tongues danced the dance of lust as she started jacking me off slowly. Then I felt Lara’s hand grasp my balls and start to gently massage them. Their hands were so soft and smooth and warm.

I switched back and forth between them, making out with them, until they decided it was time to start putting their mouths to use elsewhere. As they got into place, I glanced at Susan and Sofia. They had each taken a seat in one of the chairs in the room, next to each other. They were both watching intently, their eyes wide, their breathing fast and heavy. They were two very horny women. I groaned loudly as they got into place and began licking the head of my dick at the same time.

“Holy fuck,” I whispered, watching them work, “that is so fucking good...”

Lara laughed softly and kept licking. She really seemed to get off on pleasuring me. Which was good for her, because she was really damned good at it and I didn’t mind letting her know. They both licked and licked and licked, and then Lara took it into her mouth and began bobbing her head. The pleasure was hot and wet and perfect, amplified by the visual of seeing my dick in her mouth. She sucked me off smoothly, occasionally rubbing the head against her inner cheek, and then eventually she passed me off to Jessica.

They went back and forth like this until they decided it was time to move onto the next level of my reward. Jessica mounted me, slipping me into her fantastically fit, tight vagina. I groaned as I slid inside, feeling all that hot, wet pleasure as she started riding me.

“Oh yes!” she cried.

I watched her wonderfully fit body twist and move, her muscles shifting beneath her smooth, pale skin, as she rode my dick, taking it into herself again and again. The pleasure was phenomenal. And it only got better when they switched and Lara started riding me. She rode my dick like a whore, putting those fantastically thick thighs of hers to use. I reached up and fondled her huge tits as she fucked herself with my dick, satisfying that wonderful pussy of hers with it. She kept going until Jessica started clamoring for her turn.

As she climbed back on top of me and began riding me again, she looked down at me, studying me. “Is it weird that I think your bruises are hot?”

I glanced down at myself. There was a big, ugly bruise on my stomach where I’d got punched more than once by that douche-bag Thomas, maybe he rot in peace. There was another on my arm, another on my chest, and I remember seeing a bad one on my cheek, just under my eye. They were kind of ugly, I thought, and they hurt.

I shrugged. “I guess not.”

“I think they are too,” Lara murmured. “I don’t really know why.”

“If you think something about me is hot, more power to you. Works out great for me,” I replied, then groaned as she pushed me deeper into her, then started to go faster.

“There’s a lot that’s hot about you,” Jessica whispered, then started going even faster. “Come on, come for me, Chris. Fill my pussy,” she panted.

I groaned. That always got me going when chicks said that to me.

She kept going, then reached down and began rubbing her clit.

We both triggered at about the same time. As she started coming, I began letting off inside of her. I groaned as I shot my load into her orgasming pussy. I’d grabbed her hips and held her tight against me, coming hard into her, pumping that sweet vagina of hers full of my seed. We came together, our bodies shaking in absolute ecstasy, and it blasted away all my lingering pain, all my worries and doubts that took up residence in my head no matter how hard I tried to get rid of them. It was a temporary relief, but a powerful one.

When I was done coming, I went slack against the bed, panting.

“You done?” Lara asked.

“Yeah...sorry. Normally I wouldn’t be but...that fight really took it out of me, apparently.”

“That, and all the walking around and lifting heavy shit and you’ve already had sex, rough sex, twice today, and again last night. Take a goddamn break, Chris,” Sofia said.

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered.

“That’s fair,” Lara said. She looked at Susan, “looks like you’re up.”

“Oh, gee thanks. Good to know I’m your backup for Chris,” she said, getting up.

“Quit bitching,” Lara replied.

“Oh yes, mistress,” Susan said as she began getting naked.

I settled in to watch. This was going to be nice, and over all, it was a pretty nice end to the day, all things considered.

A WARM PLACE 8

CHAPTER ONE

Sofia talked me into staying down for the count for three days.

She was very...persuasive.

Also, I largely contented myself by all but tearing apart these three buildings that were now my home in this cold, miserable world. It was, well, satisfying at least. Though not terribly productive. Much like most of the other places dotting the frozen landscape, this place had been strip-mined for supplies. I was hoping that the medium-sized house would hold some hidden treasure, but it was almost completely cleaned out. Hannah had been right when she’d been issuing her report on the place way back when they’d first come over to me and Susan and Lara.

There wasn’t even much furniture left.

Nonetheless, I spent most of the following day checking over the whole thing. I searched every room, I poked through every closet, investigated every cabinet, and pretty much tried to pry open anything that even looked like it might be a hidden nook or secret compartment. All I managed to find was an old blanket, a few clothes, and some scrap wood. The next day, I divided between Hannah’s cabin and the exterior, though I spent the entire day with her. She first let me, then helped me, search her cabin in the same manner I’d gone through the first building. As we hunted, I kept expecting our sex to come up, but she kept the mood light, which was fine by me. If she wasn’t ready to talk about then I wasn’t going to push it.

Although I was really hoping it wasn’t a onetime thing. Hannah was fucking hot. And a seriously stellar fuck.

I was glad I’d insisted on searching her cabin, because we did manage to find something that she’d overlooked in her initial sweep. There was a box shoved way into the back of a closet, hidden in deep shadows. We opened it up and found a little treasure trove of canned food, along with some flares, and a bottle of antibiotics.

She’d been embarrassed by the oversight, but she’d at least been reasonable when I’d pointed out the need to be excessively, almost obsessively, thorough in your search patterns. That’s what I liked about Hannah: she could be objective, analytical, even when she was pissed or embarrassed. Susan was a lot like that too. Once we’d delivered the stash of supplies to the main house, mixing it in with the others, and had taken a break for lunch, we spent the rest of the day outside. Well, we breaks to warm up. It was fucking cold.

Like always.

Mostly I just wanted to see if there were vulnerable spots along our structures. I was prepared to basically abandon the medium building, since we didn’t need it for anything. Maybe if we picked anyone else up they could eventually live in there, though I wasn’t so sure about that. My current setup was unlikely enough: five women who were all interested in fucking me? (I thought Hannah was still interested, or maybe that was just hope.) It seemed improbable that I’d find another hot chick I was into and who was into me, and at this point, I actually wasn’t sure if I was willing to have another dude around.

Guys just seemed to cause problems. Travis and Thomas were just the latest two in a long line of chest-pounding fuckwits that had forced violence and wound up with their face punched in or their arm broken or dead, because as often as I got into fights, I almost never went looking for fights. I just wasn’t going to take anything lying down, not anymore. I was happy enough to just live with women from now on, and not even just because I was fucking them, but also because they were just easier to get along with.

For whatever reason, in several ways, women seemed better suited to survival.

I didn’t really see any weaknesses in the main building or Hannah’s cabin besides the obvious points of entry.

By the time the third day rolled around, I was getting really antsy, but lucky I was busy sunrise to sunset. With just breaks for meals and twice for sex, I sorted through the main house from top to bottom. About half the day was spent in the basement with Susan and Lara, all three of us going through everything down there. Mainly I found a store of clothes and blankets, and we found a whole box of books that made Susan really happy, and almost everything else was useless junk or furniture, but I did make one find that was useful.

Plastic wrap. Specifically it was plastic wrap that was custom-made to be sealed over windows in the winter, to help keep the cold out and the heat in. There looked like there was more than enough for the whole house. That was the cool news. The annoying news was that I had no way to actually implement it. I needed tape. Although if I had to, I’d resort to nails or thumbtacks or something, but tape would be a lot more preferable.

Other than that, I’d pretty much already checked over the rest of the house, and a more in-depth examination didn’t reveal a whole hell of a lot. But at the end of the third day, I felt pretty decent about our situation. We had bullets. We had food. We had medical supplies. And other things happened during those three days. The two days she didn’t spend with me, Hannah was out hunting, and she was definitely picking it up. The first day she came back with a deer. The second she came back with a pair of rabbits, then a wolf.

The rear exterior of the main building featured a semi-sheltered porch, which we set up to the new skinning area. Not exactly ideal, but I didn’t want to set it up in the basement again because it made the house smell like blood and guts for awhile after each job.

I also noticed that Jessica and Hannah weren’t pulling away from me or Susan. They sometimes seemed distracted, or withdrawn, and once I’d heard Jessica crying in her room, which hurt my heart to hear, but otherwise they seemed pretty okay.

I got to know Sofia better. The more I did, the more I liked her. She seemed to be coming alive and Jessica and Hannah seemed pleasantly surprised. Apparently she had been quiet, withdrawn, and often kept to herself, but it made sense to me. Now she was in an environment where she was around people she liked, people who encouraged her, engaged her in conversation. People who didn’t make it feel like you had to walk on fucking eggshells around them or they’d flip their shit. The atmosphere of our house was still warm and easygoing and pleasant.

There was sex, too, though it was more relaxed sex. Every one of them but Hannah made me lay back and relax, then blew me and rode me until I’d come at least once.

So that was nice.

And at the end of the third day, I found myself hanging out in Hannah’s cabin again…

…

“Okay,” I said, “so this dude grabbed your ass underwater. What’d you do?”

She was telling me the story of her fifteenth birthday party, which was a pool party.

She just smirked. “I broke his fucking nose.”

“Holy shit, really?”

“Hell yeah, I wasn’t going to put up with that. I mean, okay, I probably would’ve just yelled at him if I hadn’t turned around in, and hadn’t found him right there, staring me dead in the face with this fucking arrogant, smug smile slapped all over his face. I busted him right in the goddamned, fucking nose. God, dad was pissed. There was a lot of blood in the pool after that, and it was kinda expensive to clean, but I didn’t care.”

“What’d the guy do? How’d he react?”

“He started crying.”

“Did you feel bad?”

“No. He’d fucking earned it. I mean...I would have felt bad, eventually, if it was like a onetime thing, like he’d just been hyped up and done something stupid in the moment, but this guy had a goddamned history of this stupid shit. And he was a senior, too. He was fucking nineteen.”

“God, what a creep.”

“Yeah, fucking tell me about it. Never fucked with me again. He seemed to stop creepily, obsessively, aggressively hitting on girls after that for awhile, at least whenever I saw him around school. Ugh.”

We were sitting on her bed, and at some point she’d put her feet up in my lap. She’d taken her shoes off and only wore socks. And at some point after that, I’d started rubbing them almost without thinking about it.

The contact was admittedly exciting, and she looked like of flushed.

She’d been flirting with me all night, unless I was just imagining things. But I didn’t think I was. She kept touching me, laughing at things I said, just looking at me a lot with that kind of smile you got when you were just in a great mood. Or around someone you really liked.

The conversation lapsed and we fell into silence. I glanced over at her. She was looking at me intently. I looked back at her and felt another stab of lust hit me. Was she ready for another go? I sure was, but I wasn’t really positive one way or the other. You could be horny and really want to fuck, but know that it wasn’t the right thing to do. A few seconds went by as we stared at each other. I finally made up my mind to suggest we head inside, that dinner was probably being made, and take the opportunity to slip off and fuck whoever wasn’t busy to get rid of this hard-on and this rising sense of desperate lustful need.

I sucked in the air, preparing to make my statement, when Hannah suddenly sat up and, in an abruptly resolute gesture, pulled her feet out of my lap, crawled across the bed, sat in my lap, straddling me, and began to kiss me.

Well. Fuck.

Apparently she was ready.

Kissing her was like grabbing a live wire. It sent a jolt of energy straight through my whole body and suddenly my desire to fuck was cranked right up to eleven. Her cabin had wood-burning stove, which she was using for heat, so she’d stripped down to some really tight shorts and a tanktop. I grabbed her ass as she started making out with me, shoving her tongue into my mouth. Listening to her pant and moan as we kissed was music to my ears. She was clearly just as turned on as I was. She was rubbing her body against mine.

Hannah felt hot and almost vibrating with sexual energy. She was running her hands over me as we kept passionately making out, tongues twisting together almost violently.

She grabbed my shoulder.

“Fuck!” I hissed, breaking the kiss.

“Oh God! I’m sorry, Chris,” she said, panting, eyes wide, her expression changing immediately to guilt.

“It’s fine,” I said, and started getting her shirt off.

She giggled. “Well apparently it is. Pussy overrides pain, huh?”

“Yes. Especially yours,” I replied, getting the shirt off, then her sports bra off, freeing her tits. Goddamn she had amazingly perfect tits. Absolutely firm, but so soft and smooth and pale, those perfect pink nipples, perfect shape and size…

“You’ve only had me once,” she said.

“Which is why I’m so desperate to get more,” I replied.

She laughed and resumed kissing me. Already the pain was fading. She was right, pussy did override pain, honestly.

Especially bareback, amazingly fit and tight pussy, amazingly wet pussy.

I remembered Hannah being really wet.

After a bit longer, I ended up picking her up and kind of flipping her onto her back. She let out a surprise and happy cry. I grabbed her shorts and pulled them and her panties off, then tossed them aside. She smiled at me, naked save for her socks now, her face flushed and eyes wide. She spread her legs, exposing her smooth vagina.

“You shaved,” I murmured.

“Yep. You like?”

“I really like.”

I took off my shirt and pulled my dick out, but was too turned on to finish getting naked. I climbed on top of her and kissed up her torso, across her smooth, flat stomach, to her beautiful breasts, pausing there to lick her nipples.

“Oh, God, fuck, yes,” she panted. “Oh fuck, they’re sensitive. Don’t stop...” she begged.

I kept licking her nipples, and then reached down and slipped a finger inside of her. She let out a little shriek of pleasure.

“Someone likes that,” I murmured, and started fingering her, fucking her with it. I felt her body twitch in response.

“Yes! Yes! I do!” she cried.

“You like it or you love it when I do this?” I asked, then I pushed up smoothly into her g-spot and she shrieked.

“I LOVE IT, CHRIS!” she screamed.

I sucked on her tits and fingered her for a bit longer, until she gasped, “Fuck me! Fuck me now!”

Well, that was all I needed. I got in between her legs, then hesitated. “Are you sure about this?” I asked, wanting to make sure one more time.

“Goddamnit yes, stop asking!” she snapped.

“Okay.”

I slipped my dick into her.

She let out a loud, long, low moan of absolute pleasure as I got inside of her. And then we were fucking. We were fucking like animals. And that pussy was just as fantastically goddamned amazing as I remembered. I’d dreamed about sex with her twice since our first encounter, and this was better than that. Holy fucking shit this vagina of hers felt so good to hit raw. She had her legs up in the air now and she was grabbing at my back.

Even during feral fucking, after that first time, she remembered not to grab my shoulder.

Although I’m not sure I’d have felt it with how good this was feeling.

She stared up at me, grunting and almost growling as we fucked, as I drilled her, and I could feel her pressing her hips against mine, forcing me deeper. Her eyes were wide and filled with crazy lust and I suddenly wondered if she ever would have fucked like this before the snow. Probably. Hannah was something else. I could feel the bed shaking beneath us, and bumping into the wall. If anyone was outside, they were going to hear us, I was almost positive. Not that I really cared, especially right now, but Hannah might.

Although she either didn’t realize it or didn’t care.

“Come on, Chris, fuck me! Fuck me!” she screamed.

I fucked her. I fucked her brains out, going even harder and faster, making her scream. Then she wrapped her legs around my midsection, grinning fiercely at me.

“I’m gonna make you come,” she growled. “I’m gonna make you come so fucking hard.”

“You definitely are,” I agreed, panting, halfway to orgasm already. Although the distance between where you were presently and orgasm could collapse in an instant very unexpectedly during sex, I’d noticed. No matter how much practice I got at holding back the orgasm, there were definitely times where it snuck up on me.

“But first,” I said, shifting, “I’m going to make you come so fucking hard.”

She began to say something, the look on her face kind of smug, kind of cavalier, but that all fell apart in a second when I reached between us, settled my thumb against her clit, and started rubbing. “Oh FUCK!” she screamed, bucking in response to the stimulation.

I kept going, both screwing her pussy and rubbing her clit simultaneously, until she popped. She let out a loud cry of sexual release and began coming, her hips bucking wildly.

“Told you,” I said and really started pounding her pussy.

“Oh fuck-ah! FUCKING SHIT IT FEELS SO GOOD!” she shrieked.

I screwed her orgasming pussy, feeling that hot, wet perfection that was the female orgasm during sex, and started coming into her. I groaned and began grunting, thrusting deeper inside of her as I began to let loose my seed. I pumped that sweet pussy of hers full of it, my dick jerking, each fresh twitch and released spurt sending an insanely powerful pulse of pleasure screaming through me. Both of us came together and it felt amazing.

I don’t know if it was because it was with Hannah, or just my mood, or the fact that we were kind of doing this in secret, but it felt especially powerful. I felt my whole body pulsing in time with the orgasm, and we were staring into each other’s eyes, gasping for breath, and near the end we kissed passionately.

I stayed inside of her for several moments after we finished, resting my forehead against hers, staring at her, her staring back at me.

Eventually, she shifted in a way that indicated she wanted me off, so I pulled out and got off of her. I sat on the edge of the bed, really just basking in the feel of that after-sex glow.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

“For what?” I asked, glancing at her. She looked a little embarrassed.

“For asking if I was sure. I know I yelled at you, but I actually really appreciated it. I don’t think I’ve ever had a guy ask me ‘are you sure?’ when we were doing something. It means a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. Another moment of silence passed. “So, um...how do you feel about what happened just now?”

She let out a long breath, but it sounded more like a sigh of relaxation or relief than an uncomfortable sigh. “I’ve had time to think about it, about us I mean, and I’m okay with this. That’s why I jumped you. Going out into the frozen yonder and hunting for hours at a time really helps you think about stuff.”

“It does,” I agreed.

“I think the only thing that made me hesitate after the first time we had sex was how into you I was, how much I fucking wanted you to screw me.”

I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. “What?” she asked.

“It’s just...Susan said almost the exact same thing. Why does that make you hesitate?”

“I mean...” she looked a little uncomfortable.

“Yes…?” I prompted.

“It’s just that...you’ve kind of got that douche-bag vibe, you know?”

I sighed heavily. “What the fuck do I do to deserve that!?” I asked, honestly frustrated, especially after hearing the same thing from Susan. And it wasn’t the only time it had come up.

“I’m sorry! You aren’t. You really aren’t. Let me try to explain this...okay, I think the problem is that for awhile now, the line between arrogant douche-bag frat boy beating his chest and going on about what a ‘hard alpha male’ he is, and actual confident, competent, brave man, has been eroding. And in a way, I think it only got worse, because with society basically collapsed, it’s pretty much given everyone a license to be a shithead. Because you can do that so much more easily. Humanity regresses in the face of disaster and danger, especially an apocalypse. To be clear, Chris, I know that you’re the real deal. I’ve spent enough time around you to determine that. But so many ‘tough’ guys who want to be in control, who seem like they know what they’re doing, they’re also fucking assholes. Basically just tantrum throwing grown men who happened to have a gun. So in short: your good qualities have been co-opted by too many douche-bags and now look like red flags.”

“Wonderful,” I muttered.

“Oh come on, it’s not a big deal. I got over it. Susan got over. If it happens again, just give it time. You know that your actions speak for you, and it doesn’t take all that long to see that you’re the real deal. You actually are a brave, selfless, competent, very hot dude who not only knows what he’s doing, but is willing to help others, and even teach others, and, more importantly, respect others, and that’s just...so hot.”

“That’s good to know,” I said, and she laughed. “So...do you still not want me telling anyone?”

“Not yet,” she replied.

“Any reason?”

Hannah sighed, now it sounded more uncertain. “I don’t know. I guess the biggest reason is because my mom will know and that’s just...weird. I mean, whatever, we’re both adults, but it’s still at least kind of weird that my mom and I are fucking the same dude, you know? But I have to admit, part of it is that I like the whole ‘secret affair’ thing. I don’t think what we’re doing is wrong, but I do like the fact that it’s not out in the open, although I don’t know why. I guess I can see why mom hooked up with you and Lara.”

“Well, it won’t be secret long, if you keep flirting with me so openly, and I keep visiting you, alone, in your cabin.”

“Have I been?” she asked.

“Yeah. And I mean around other people.”

“Fuck, seriously? Goddamnit, I thought I would’ve noticed. You aren’t just fucking with me, are you?”

“No. Susan was already teasing me today about how you and I had a crush on each others, and Lara outright asked me if we were fucking. I lied and told her no. Which I feel bad about.”

“Sorry...”

“It’s okay. It’s still a thing that can be private if the people involved want it to be. You want it to be, I respect that.”

“I appreciate it. I’ll think about it a bit longer.”

“Okay.” I stood up and kicked my pants and boxers off. They’d fallen down enough that she hadn’t gushed all over them while coming, but I did need a wash. “We should get to dinner.”

“Yes,” she agreed, and joined me to wash up.

CHAPTER TWO

Dinner was the last of the meat we’d brought with us from the last house.

Susan had a pretty good system in place to keep the meat divided up. During the search, we’d managed to bring our grand total of coolers up to four. And, as luck would have it, there was a hatch that led to the first story roof in the kitchen. We found a ladder, stuck it there with as much permanence as we could manage, then she stuck the coolers in a little niche created by the roof, out of the sun as much as possible, packed them with ice, and then put the meat away. One for each day old. In the mornings, one of us would climb up there and transfer the meat over, and we’d eat from the oldest to keep the flow going and waste as little as possible.

Both Susan and Lara were now giving me looks. Those looks that said I know you’ve got a secret. And the smirks. It was kind of annoying, but, well...there was something nice about people even assuming you’re fucking a really hot chick on the down low. Especially if they were women you were already fucking. Jessica glanced at me a few times, which made me wonder. Maybe she was horny, or maybe Susan or Lara had mentioned their theory to her and she was wondering herself. Would she mind? Would she be angry? Weirded out?

Whatever was going through their heads, conversation was at least normal, and I made it through dinner without a problem. Susan and Lara excused themselves, then scurried off upstairs. They had definitely been getting deeper into their newfound lust for each other. Well...newfound on Susan’s part. I imagine Lara was catching up on ten years’ worth of fantasies. Hannah went back to her cabin since tomorrow we were getting up bright and early to finally go to the goddamned ecological center. Jessica came over to me as Sofia and I were cleaning up.

“Would you come see me after you finish cleaning up?” she asked.

I felt my anxiety punch up a bit but kept a poker face. “Sure.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

Then she gave me a kiss and headed off.

“What’s she want?” Sofia asked as we worked.

“No idea,” I replied.

“Hmm...how’s your shoulder?”

“Doing okay.”

“I want to look at it before you go to bed for the night.”

“All right.”

We finished cleaning up and then I headed up to Jessica’s room. I wanted to get this over with quick, if it was what I thought it was. Partially because of the awkwardness of talking with a woman I was fucking about the fact that I was fucking her daughter, (I planned to lie to her if it came up, I didn’t want to but Hannah had asked me to and privacy on the matter was still her right), and also because I could hear Susan and Lara moaning up on the third floor, and I really wanted in on that. Then again, maybe Jessica would want to fuck.

I found her reading by candlelight, laying in her bed.

We’d had candles back at the other place, but this new house had a huge store of them, so we all had a good supply in our rooms and were using them a little more liberally now. Especially because we’d also found a pair of flashlights and an electric lantern, and I’d spent an hour with Susan yesterday checking our entire supply of batteries. There were a lot of duds that we’d tossed out, but there was still a decent supply of about two dozen.

“What’s up?” I asked.

She looked a little uncomfortable. “I’ve been thinking,” she said, hesitant. “If it comes up, I’m okay with you having sex with Hannah. She’s an adult now, and has been for two years. God, longer than that, honestly. I’ve been a little uncomfortable with the idea, but she obviously likes you, and you have no reason not to have sex with her. She deserves to enjoy herself, as much as I’d rather not think about it. Then again, I did fuck you so many times when she could hear it...something I still feel kind of bad about...”

“Do you regret it?” I asked.

“No. It was great sex. I just wish it could have been a better setup. So, you won’t get any argument from me about it.” She paused. “Has it come up?”

“Sex...with her?” I asked. She nodded. “No,” I lied, “it hasn’t.”

“Really?” She studied me.

“Really,” I replied.

“Okay,” she said after a moment. A loud moan from upstairs broke the silence. Jessica glanced up and smirked. “You’d better get up there or they’re going to wear each other out.”

“Not Susan. She doesn’t get worn out,” I replied. “Goodnight, Jessica.”

“Goodnight, Chris.”

I went upstairs, the guilt about lying fading as I got hornier and hornier, listening to my two girlfriends making love. I slipped in and closed the door, and found a something that was truly a sight to behold: Susan and Lara were completely naked, glistening gently with sweat, rubbing their pussies together in our huge bed. They were both moaning loudly.

“Hi, honey,” Susan said, panting.

She’d taken to call both Lara and I that since we’d moved in here. I liked it.

“Hey, babe,” I replied, kicking off my shoes and taking off my shirt. “Having fun?”

“So much fun,” Lara replied.

I thought it was interesting, the expressions on their faces, their dynamic in sex. For the longest time, I imagine that, in most cases, Susan was the one in control. Especially since the snow. She made the decisions, she was the more experience, or at least the one more willing to tackle difficult or new things first. The things Lara excelled at were largely lost in the face of apocalypse. But here and now, when it came to girl-on-girl sex, Lara was an expert, and Susan was the novice. She looked slightly nervous, very passionate, and like she was losing her grip a little. Lara looked cool, calm, confident, and almost smug.

It was pretty hot.

Her huge tits were swaying in rhythm with the rest of her, almost hypnotic, and Susan’s smaller ones were bouncing more furiously. She was chewing on her lower lip, a look of concentration on her face, almost like she was competing in a sporting event. Well, I imagine she’d have to work harder. Lara was like nine or ten inches taller than her and maybe as much as a hundred pounds heavier. Her thighs were almost as thick as Susan’s waistline.

“Chris,” Lara said, glancing over at me, “put your dick in my mouth. I’ll suck you until you come, and you can go all over my tits.”

“Okay,” I replied, finishing stripping.

“That will be so hot,” Susan said, then moaned. “I never really thought this was like a thing, you know? I thought it was just something girls did to look hot in porn.”

“It’s totally a thing,” Lara replied.

“How many times have you done this?”

“Dozens,” Lara replied.

“How many fucking girls did you hook up with?” Susan asked.

“Dozens,” Lara replied.

“Holy shit.”

“Now that is hot,” I said, and got up against Lara. She turned her head so that Susan could see the blowjob, and took my cock into her mouth. It was a little bit of an awkward angle, but she made it work, and I groaned as she began sucking my dick. That wonderful flood of hot pleasure hit me again. Even lying on her side, focusing on fucking another woman, Lara could still suck dick really well. She massaged my cock in her mouth, licking occasionally across the head, then rubbing it against the inside of her cheek.

I loved how sexual both these women were, and how differently they were. Susan was more raw, more feral, more frenzied in her sex. She was like a buckled-down tight-ass who was finally cutting lose and just fucking like she’d been wearing a chastity belt for the past ten years and had finally gotten it off, right after taking a healthy dose of aphrodisiacs. Lara, on the other hand, (when she wasn’t being super submissive), was calm and cool, like a porn star who knew exactly what she was doing, and knew how to get people off, men and women, without a problem. And it was true, she got me off really fucking hard.

Like right now, I was ready to pop in just about a minute and a half.

Admittedly, part of it was watching these two women having hot sex.

I was about to warn her, but she didn’t even need that. About a second before I began letting off, she pulled it out of her mouth, aimed it towards her big natural tits, and began jacking me off. I let out a loud groan as I started coming, shooting my load onto those huge breasts of hers. I came all over them, thick spurts of my stuff shooting out of me and getting all over her.

“Holy fuck that is really hot,” Susan panted.

Lara milked me until I was done, then put it back in her mouth and sucked whatever was left, cleaning me off with it, then grinned up at me after pulling it out. “You wanna get me a rag?”

“Yeah,” I replied, getting up.

I grabbed the washrag, (one of several we kept on hand), dunked it in the lukewarm water we replaced twice a day, and passed it to her.

“Thanks,” she murmured, cleaning herself up, “when I get Susan off, you gonna fuck us?”

“Hell yes I am,” I replied, watching them intent as I waited for Susan to get off.

What a fucking awesome way to end the night.

…

“So...what do you think’s in this place?” Hannah asked.

“Hopefully supplies,” I replied.

We were walking through the forest, due southeast, the following morning.

I was actually feeling great. I’d woken up and fucked the shit out of Lara at the crack of dawn. I’d tried to with Susan, but apparently I’d gone too hard on her last night and she was sore, so I let her sleep and instead washed up and dressed. After breakfast with Hannah, we’d grabbed our gear and got to it. Apparently she was as desperate to see what was down there as I was. Honestly, I felt kind of bad. She really could’ve gone without me, I was the one holding this back, but dammit, I just had to be there during the opening.

“No ideas, though?”

I shrugged. “Well, it’s an ecological center. Could be good stuff. Big stash of medicine, canned food, water, survival gear. Or maybe they were poorly budgeted and it’s just a bunch of old furniture they stuffed down there and boxes of random crap. Or maybe there’s another way in we don’t know about and it’s long since been cleaned out.”

“Hmm. I guess we’ll find out soon.”

“Yep.” A few moments passed. “So, uh, you’re mom officially gave me permission to stick my cock in you last night. Then she asked me if I already had.”

“What’d you tell her?”

“I lied.”

She paused. “Thank you. I’m sorry, that couldn’t have been nice.”

“I’d rather not lie to your mother. Or at all, if I can help it, but you deserve to control the knowledge of our relationship. Such as it is.”

“Yeah.”

Another moment passed. “How do you feel about...everything going on? Between me and the others, and now me and you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think about it much. I’m not jealous, at least. I don’t know why. I’d lose my shit if I had a boyfriend and he cheated on me. But we don’t have that relationship. You aren’t my boyfriend. You’re...my fuck friend. I guess that just frames the relationship differently. I knew you were fucking Susan and Lara and...my mom, before I jumped you. I guess I’m not scared of losing what I don’t already have. Plus, I seriously doubt you’ll stop fucking me because you’d rather be fucking them, because I know how you operate: if pussy’s on offer, you won’t say no.”

“That isn’t always true. I don’t jump anything with a vagina and pulse,” I replied.

“Oh yeah? Have you ever said no to a girl before?” Hannah challenged.

“Yes,” I replied, almost defiantly.

“Oh? Why?”

“She was in a relationship with a guy who didn’t deserve it. They were, I guess. It’s happened three times now. Mainly just in a fit of spontaneity. I didn’t want them making a stupid decision they’d regret later.”

She sighed. “Goddamnit, Chris. Why are you so...good?” she asked, demanded really.

“What the fuck? Why is that a problem?”

“It’s not, it’s just...annoying. I don’t know if I would do that. Unless you’re lying, but...I don’t think you are.”

“I don’t lie if I can help it,” I replied.

“Which is what a great liar would say. Either your a phenomenal liar or you’re telling the truth. I think you’re telling the truth. But anyway, if they’d been single, would you have fucked them?”

“Well obviously. I guess, why is that a problem? Why should I turn down sex?”

“I guess I was just teasing you, it doesn’t really matter...hey, there it is.”

Up ahead, I caught sight of the structure. The conversation died as we approached it. Every structure, even ones we’d already searched, was a potential threat. We did our usual thing with a brisk efficiency, checking the outside, then the inside, and finding that either no one had come here in the days since our last visit, or they’d come and gone. I tried not to skimp on the search, but I was eager. Normally I wouldn’t be this hot to get into a locked room, but I’d been sitting on this for long, torturous days, and finally we were.

We came to the cellar doors and I reached into my pocket.

I paused. “Oh shit.”

“What?” Hannah asked, sounding worried.

“I forgot the key.”

“You are fucking shitting me,” she growled.

I laughed and pulled it out. “Yeah, I am.” I crouched and began getting the padlock undone.

She sighed, then laughed. “You’re lucky I don’t kick you in the ass for that.”

“Nothing wrong with a little fun,” I replied.

“I suppose not.”

It took some work, and after about a minute I was seriously beginning to feel concern that I was going to have to track down some damned bolt cutters, and then I got it. I pulled it off and pocketed it, then hauled the doors open. We stood at the top of a concrete stairwell, staring down into the room beyond. The sunlight lit up the immediate area, but the view wasn’t great.

“Flashlights,” I said as I pulled mine out.

We had a pair of small but very powerful flashlights that I’d tested. We also pulled out our pistols. Then we began a slow walk into the basement, with me taking the lead. I didn’t think anything was down here, but I hadn’t gotten this far taking risks.

Well, okay, that was a lie.

Taking unnecessary risks. Paranoia was a way of life after the apocalypse.

We got to the dusty concrete floor and played our lights across the interior. It looked...about like I’d expected it to look. There was a big open space in the middle, and a bunch of shit was crammed up against the walls. I sighed softly. Nothing immediately jumped out at me as particularly useful. I definitely saw a lot of furniture: chairs, tables, bed frames. Good firewood, at least. There was a stack of mattresses, and here was a bunch of filing cabinets that probably held boring ecological reports dating all the way back to God-knew-when.

“Well,” I murmured, “let’s get started. You take right, I’ll take left. We’ll work our way to the middle at the back, okay?”

“Okay,” Hannah replied, holstering her pistol and walking over.

I took my side and got to work.

It was slow work, but it at least wasn’t unpleasant. Despite the anticlimax, I did still hold out some hope, and there was a simple pleasure in poking through a new area. I checked the filing cabinets and looked through some of the reports, which were all in dryly labeled hanging folders, and looked like boring reports to me. There were charts and graphs and pages of text and none of it meant anything to me. I investigate a pile of chairs, hoping maybe something was hidden behind them, but they were exactly as they appeared.

Five minutes went by in the gloomy basement, then ten, then fifteen. The only sounds were us breathing, the wind, and our searching. I poked through some boxes that seemed to have a bunch of random crap in them. There might be something worthwhile in there. I’d have to come back to it after the initial sweep and search through the individual boxes. My hope was dwindling the longer the search went on.

And then I reached the back corner, and I found three metal containers.

I read the label, and felt my heart jerk in my chest.

“No fucking way!”

CHAPTER THREE

“Okay, so I know what those two are,” Hannah said, pointing to the two identical slim, rectangular metal cases, “but what’s the other one?”

I was crouched in front of them, looking them over, making double sure they were the real fucking deal. I couldn’t believe it. This was one of those fucking miracle finds. A treasure trove. A jackpot. Scrawled across the two slender cases were the words SOLAR PANEL. I gently moved them out of the way.

The final crate, which was bulky and a lot broader than the other two, read RECLAMATION UNIT.

“This is for water,” I said. “There’s a lot we can do with this, but the most immediately fucking awesome thing we can do with these two things put together are hot showers.”

“Are you fucking with me?” Hannah asked.

“No, I’m serious. It’ll take a bit of jury-rigging, and we won’t have hot showers on demand, but having a shower night once a week wouldn’t be out of the question.”

“Oh my God, that’s the best thing I’ve heard in two years,” she whispered. “I haven’t had a shower in so, so long. Also...this means we can fuck in the shower.”

“I really like that that’s where your mind went,” I said as I got up and began hauling the reclamation unit out.

“So how are we going to do this?”

“You and I are going to carry this back, then we’re coming back with help to get the solar panels back home,” I replied.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

We lifted the thing up, (it came with two well-designed carrying handles), and managed to haul it up and out of the basement without too much trouble, although it was definitely heavy and going to be a bitch to haul back all this way.

…

I was right.

It was a bitch to haul back. But Hannah was stronger than she looked, and she already looked decently strong for her build. We managed to get it back through the woods with only having to take a few breaks.

“What the hell is this?” Jessica asked as we got it in through the front door.

“Hot showers,” I replied as we set it down.

Her eyes went wide. “Are you serious?”

“Did I hear someone say hot showers?!” Susan called from elsewhere in the house.

“Dead serious, if we can make it work. House meeting everyone!” I yelled.

Within a minute, all of us were gathered in the dining area. Everyone looked eager and excited. “We finally got into the ecological center’s basement. We have to go back right now, because there are two solar panels, brand new, locked up in there, and I want to get them back here as fast as possible,” I explained.

“We’ll have power?” Lara asked.

“Yes, provided we can make it work.”

“I can make it work,” Hannah said, sounding pretty confident.

“And with that thing,” I said, pointing, “we can make hot showers a possibility again. Susan, you okay for guard duty here?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m shit for carrying heavy things,” she replied.

“Okay. Everyone else, with me, I want those panels back here as fast as we can manage it,” I said. And they all agreed with me.

Everyone started pulling on their cold weather gear.

…

I was getting antsy as we headed back to the ecological center.

It was just my anxiety and paranoia getting the best of me. You know how it went: life sometimes felt like a movie, and there were times when your brain recognized that right now would be the absolute worst time for something fucked up to happen. Right now was one of those times. If we were going to get attacked by someone, it would be a pretty perfectly shit moment for it. We were all armed now. I with my pistol, Lara and Jessica with rifles, Hannah with the bow and arrows, and Sofia had gratefully accepted Hannah’s pistol for now, since myself and Hannah were really the only ones qualified to use the bow.

I would have taken the third semi-auto, but that would leave Susan with just a rifle or that revolver with its limited ammo supplies, neither of which were super great for home security. It made me frustrated that the shotgun wasn’t of any use. I needed to clean it up at some point, because if I did find some ten gauge shells for it, I wanted it to be ready to go. Guns gave most people pause, but I’d actually noticed that people were more willing to listen to you and do what you said if you had a shotgun in your hands.

We made it back to the basement without a problem. I unlocked it after doing another sweep of the area, then we headed down and grabbed the solar panels. They were far lighter than the damned reclamation unit, and encased in steel, but I was still paranoid. Lara and Jessica got one, Sofia and I got the other, and I put Hannah on guard duty for the moment. We headed back upstairs, and I took a moment to lock it back up again. No fucking way I was just going to leave this open for anyone to plunder.

There still might be cool shit in there.

Once it was locked, we got to work, walking back through the snow. I found my thoughts starting to race again as we walked. This was a big boost. Having electricity wouldn’t solve as many problems as it might have once upon a time: there was no internet anymore, as far as I could tell, and most of the things we all used to use power for weren’t particular useful because we’d all had to learn how to do those things without power. And it wasn’t like we’d have a huge abundance of it or anything. The solar panels would help, but it wasn’t like we could just run lights twenty four seven. But God, psychologically speaking, it would help a lot.

Even to just have that shower would go a million miles towards feeling great. Or watching a movie. We still had that TV in the living room. And of course there was still my dream of playing some video games again. I didn’t even care what games, it could be a fucking ‘80s platformer or racing game or whatever the fuck, I’d be thrilled. Although there was a blu-ray player in the house, no gaming console had been discovered yet.

I was holding out hope, especially now that we had power.

There were other things we could do-

I froze and hissed for the others to stop as I caught a flash of dark movement off to the right. Slowly, I set down the solar panel and pulled out my pistol.

“Hannah, get over here,” I said softly.

She hesitated, then joined me. “What?”

“Pick up the solar panel,” I murmured.

“What’s going on?” Jessica whispered fearfully.

“I think-” Then I saw it. A wolf. No, two. “Fuck! Wolves! Go!” I snapped, raising my pistol.

“Chris, I can help-” Hannah said.

“Go!”

“Chris-”

I snapped my head towards her, suddenly furiously. “Don’t fucking argue with me, Hannah! Go! Now!” I yelled.

She looked surprised, startled even, then she just turned and grabbed the solar panel.

“Get back to the house! I’ll catch up!” I said, aiming the pistol.

There were three wolves now, coming in low and fast through the trees towards me. No fucking way I was letting the fuck with this. I could take them. Probably. I glanced back over my shoulder. The four of them were hurrying off towards the house. Good. Okay. I focused wholly on the wolves. One was closer than the others, and I zeroed my sights on it. I waited, aiming carefully, then squeezed the trigger. The semi-auto jerked in my hand and the bullet hit its mark dead on. The round took it in its head and dropped it in the flash. Snow and dirt skidded up as it slid along the ground. The other two began running towards me.

They must be desperate. I’d say half the time a gunshot scared them off.

Not today.

Fuck, they were fast.

I selected one of them, trying to draw a bead. I could feel sweat on my body, my heart hammering in my chest, my muscles trying to clench up in response to the fear I was feeling. Staring at wolves running towards you, growling, teeth bared, was like staring at death. I fired. Missed. Fuck. I fired twice more. The first shot missed, but the second winged one of its legs. It stumbled to a halt, blood flying onto the snow around it. Perfect. I took the opportunity and fired another shot into its head, killing it.

The third one was almost here.

With perhaps a second to spare, I turned and fired almost without aiming, desperation taking over, my body betraying me. The wolf was leaping at me. It crashed into me the split second after I fired the shot and I prepared myself for the fight of my life. They liked to rip throats out when they were this close. I grunted and yelled as it hit me with its full weigh and we both went to the ground. I thrashed, trying to get it off me, but soon realized that it wasn’t fighting back. I pushed the limp thing off of me and it flopped to the ground.

“Holy fuck,” I whispered, shaking badly from the adrenaline. I felt sick to my stuck, but also pretty fucking happy. I examined the corpse. I’d shot it in the heart, apparently, while it was coming right at me. I took a deep breath, then it out slowly. I’d have some more bruises, but whatever, they’d fade. I looked back, towards the direction of the house. I couldn’t see or hear the women anymore. Well, I suppose that was good, they’d listened to me. Although I felt bad about yelling at Hannah. I’d have to speak with her.

I grabbed the nearest wolf corpse and started walking.

…

Relief hit me as I came back to the house and saw that they were in the process of getting the solar panels in.

“Hurry the fuck up, we need to get back there!” I heard Hannah snap.

“I’m here!” I called. “I’m okay!”

Hannah and Lara, who were still on the porch, looked over at me. Lara looked relieved, Hannah looked equal measures relieved and pissed. Out of all the women I was sleeping with, I think she was the one I wanted to have pissed at me the least. Susan was a very close second though. Lara, Jessica, Sofia, and Susan came out onto the porch, staring at me as I approached.

“What the fuck happened?” Susan asked.

“Three wolves attacked us. I attacked back. They’re dead, I’m fine,” I replied.

“Goddamnit, you scared the shit out of me,” Lara said.

“Sorry.” I dropped the wolf on the porch. “Everyone’s okay, right?” I asked.

“We’re fine,” Jessica replied.

I looked at Hannah. “Will you come with me? Help me get the other two wolf corpses back?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice low.

“We’ll be right back,” I said, “crack these open, see if you can find instructions.”

“Got it,” Susan said.

“Good luck,” I heard Jessica murmured.

Yeah, I was going to need it.

Hannah had since traded her bow and quiver of arrows for her pistol again. She still looked angry as we started walking back the way we’d come. We walked for about two minutes in silence. I didn’t say anything at first partially because I was thinking of how to begin this, and partially because I was waiting to see if she wanted to start off the conversation. But apparently she didn’t. So finally I spoke up.

“Hannah,” I said.

“What?” she replied. Yeah, she was still pissed.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you. You kind of forced my hand.”

“I could have helped you,” she said.

“I know. That was never the question. I didn’t send you off because I thought you couldn’t help me, I sent you off because I knew you could help them if something else happened. In that moment, the priority was you four and those solar panels.”

“You’re a priority too, you fucking asshole,” she said, though she said it with less venom than I expected. I glanced at her. She had the expression of someone who was fucking pissed, but who knew they didn’t have much ground to stand on, and were trying to get over it.

“At this point, all of you are more important to me than I am,” I replied.

She looked at me, much more of her anger leaving her as she visibly relaxed and her expression changed. “Why?” she asked finally.

“I care about you. All of you,” I replied with a shrug.

“I mean, it’s that simple?”

“Of course it is. Your safety is more important to me than my own.”

She sighed. Now she looked guilty. “Well, the longer you stay alive and healthy, the more you can help keep us that way.”

“Good point,” I replied. We reached the wolf corpses. “I am sorry, Hannah, but I need you to understand that there are times where I need you to just do what I say. I’m all for debate, but when it’s a life-or-death situation, unless you’re warning me about something I don’t realize, like if there had been another wolf behind me or something, then I actually do need you to do what I tell you. And I’m not saying that for a power trip, I’m saying it because I want to protect you.”

“I know,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. I still get...” she sighed and shook her head angrily. Then she walked over to one of the dead wolves and picked it up. I grabbed the other one and we started walking back. I waited for her to continue.

After another moment, she did. “You know that cliché of dads telling their daughters not to do this, not to do that. It’s too dangerous. Girls don’t do that. Let me do it. That was my dad to the fucking letter. Wouldn’t let me work with tools, mow the lawn, learn how to shoot. Fuck, I had to argue for a long time before he finally let me start learning how to drive at goddamned seventeen. Part of it was protectiveness, I’m willing to grant, but most of it was because at his core, he honestly believed that women are less capable than men. Like, he for real believed women couldn’t be strong, or brave, or tough. He actually bought into the idea that chores were gendered. Girls washed dishes, guys mowed the lawn. Girls washed laundry, guys washed their cars. It was fucking ridiculous. So, you know, that did some damage.”

“I understand,” I replied.

“So I’m sorry if I’m difficult sometimes. I spent so long having to defend myself, to proclaim that no, I’m not a fucking weak, soft, inept princess, I know what the fuck I’m doing, and if I don’t, I can fucking goddamn well figure it out on my own. I’m not a fucking idiot. I’m not just a fucking pretty face and a pair tits and a nice ass. I can fucking do shit on my own.” She paused, took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “So it’s hard for me to ask for help, and it’s hard for me to listen sometimes. But I’m working on it, and I hear you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re actually really good with stuff like this. You’ve never talked down to me, and really the only times you’ve told me what to do were during those life-and-death situations.”

“Well, you’re right about yourself, Hannah. You are smart. You are capable. You are tough. I recognize that. It’s great to see. But more than that, I feel like people deserve respect until they lose it. And respect includes listening, and asking, instead of dismissing and ordering.”

“If more people were like you, we’d have way fewer problems in the world,” Hannah said.

“Well, I’d sure like to believe that,” I replied, and she laughed.

We got back to the house without a problem, and brought the three wolf corpses into the back porch area, where we stored them to be dealt with later. Then we went inside and washed off the blood. The ladies were gathered in the living room. They’d pried open the cases and were looking over some instruction manuals.

“What’s the word?” I asked.

“Complex,” Susan muttered, frowning at one of the manuals. “But from what I’m gathering, these cases come with tools and parts. Technically speaking, we should be able to make this work. I think.” She sighed suddenly and looked up. “I know I’d like to stroke me ego and pretend I know what the fuck I’m doing with shit like this, but I don’t. Who here is the smartest?”

“Not me,” Lara said.

“Same,” I replied. “Definitely not me.”

“This might as well be Greek,” Jessica said, putting down one of the manuals.

“I can figure it out,” Hannah said. “I messed around with technical stuff off and on for awhile.”

“I can make sense of some of this,” Sofia said. “I’m pretty sure I can help.”

“Okay,” I said, “you two figure out what needs doing, the rest of us will do it. Although...” I hesitated, glancing outside. We still had a lot of daylight left, and the skies were clear. After three goddamned days inside, I was eager to keep this whole ‘going outside’ thing rolling. And there was more that needed doing out there. “There’s something I want to do. A place I want to go check out. Someone wanna go with me?”

“I could use with some fresh air,” Susan said.

“All right, let’s go.”

CHAPTER FOUR

It felt like it had been awhile since I’d been alone with Susan.

The feeling was good as we walked away from the house, heading north. The air was crisp, not exactly bitterly cold, the sun was shining, and the winds were down to almost nothing. It was a calm, clear day out.

For the first five or so minutes, we walked together in silence. I was keeping my eyes open. Hannah had mentioned that besides holding a watchtower, to the section of forest to the north was supposed to be a good hunting ground. And sure enough, as we walked through the woods, I saw several rabbits, some quail scurrying around, even a group of deer moving in the distance. This was going to make things easier.

Thoughts drifted through my head as we walked.

I still needed to find tape of some kind for the plastic to put over the windows. And I’d need to figure out some kind of schedule for fishing. And there was still stuff at the other house that I wanted to grab and move back over. And I still needed to search the basement of the eco center. There was at least a half-decent chance that there was some tape down there, in one of those boxes. And there was something that had been nagging me in the back of my head for several days now, something I kept meaning to do, but I’d forgotten what the fuck it was.

Now that I had some time to think about it, I knew it was a place I wanted to search. I sorted through what I knew in my mind. There was our old house, the handful of cabins scattered across the area, the eco center, that abandoned RV, the house where I’d fucked the traveling woman in, the rangers station, this watchtower we were going to...was I missing something? Fuck, I couldn’t actually remember.

Finally, I just pulled out the map as we walked and glanced over it.

Fuck! I knew I’d forgotten something! I quickly folded the map back up and put it away. Goddamnit, with everything going on, I’d completely forgotten that I’d found that other map way back when, the one that had initially led me to the abandoned RV. And there had been another structure marked on it, a farm to the east, beyond the lake. I’d made a mental note, but I’d never actually gotten around to it.

Well, definitely had to do that soon.

Something else occurred to me after a little bit. I glanced at Susan. I wondered if it was a good idea to bring it up. Then decided I was curious.

“You’ve been less...antagonist towards me recently,” I said.

She glanced over at me. “Have I?”

“Yeah. I mean, I think so. Was it cause I got shot?”

“You got grazed.” I stared at her. “No, I don’t think that’s why. I guess I’ve been...distracted.”

“Good distracted or bad?”

“Both.” I waited. “On the one hand, I’m so happy with my new relationships. With you, but also really with Lara. Ever since we got romantic, and sexual, it just feels...better. Everything feels better. Being with Lara feels so right, and honestly I’m kind of pissed because it took me this long to figure it out. And, thank you, again. For being the catalyst there. But on the other hand...I killed a man a few days ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

“I’m not. I mean, I’m sorry it came to that, but it was the right choice.”

“It was,” I agreed. I hesitated. “You told me once that you’d killed before.”

“Yeah, one time. It was the right choice then too.”

“What happened?”

“It was when Lara and I were traveling a few months before we ended up here. We came to a little township, one of those ones that, even back in the day, could number their popular in the high dozens. It seemed like a decent place to stop for awhile, so we did. Rented a room at a hotel. The second night, we were down at the bar built into the ground floor of the hotel, there were several people around. Some guy came up and started hitting on us, especially Lara. Neither of us got a good vibe from him. He wouldn’t leave us alone. It...escalated. We decided to leave and go back to our room. He showed up at our room maybe half an hour later. Don’t know how he found out which one was ours, but I wouldn’t put it above the sleazy owner to sell us out. That was scary, when he showed up. He clearly wasn’t leaving without fucking one or both of us. I pulled out my gun, he kept pushing, then he came at me. I shot him in the head and killed him.”

“I’m sorry that you had to put up with that.”

“So am I. Especially for Lara. She felt so awful about the whole thing. She was traumatized for a few weeks. We stole the guy’s stuff and left the next morning. I regret that it came to that, that the asshole didn’t just go sleep it off and get over himself, but I don’t regret doing it. It had to be done. Same thing with Travis. He was threatening my friends...threatening you.” She reached out and took my hand as we walked. “I won’t tolerate anyone threatening you.”

“I know how you feel,” I murmured.

“I’m curious...what are your relationships like? As I said, I’ve been distracted. Well, besides the fact that you’re obviously fucking Hannah.”

I sighed. “If I was having sex with Hannah, that would be a private matter between her and myself, one that shouldn’t be talked about until both parties are ready to talk about it.”

Her smile faded. “Oh...that’s a fair point. Okay. But what about the others?”

I thought about it. “Well, things are the same between me and Lara. Although she’s been clingier lately.”

“She has,” Susan agreed. “She got like that after I killed the first guy, super clingy. I don’t blame her, it was a terrifying situation, even if she wasn’t there, just knowing that people you care about could have died...it’s extremely trying, emotionally and psychologically speaking.”

“Yes. So I’ve been spending time with her as much as I can. Mainly I’ve seen her with Jessica. As for me and Jessica...I think we’ve become closer. Which I was admittedly concerned about, given that I was heavily involved in her husband’s death. But she’s still very open and warm with me. She wants to be around me all the time.”

“That woman is falling in love with you. And I’m not exaggerating, like, she’s actually falling in love with you. You need to be ready to deal with that.”

“I’m not sure if I am, but, well, honestly, what would be different?”

Susan thought about it. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I guess...functionally speaking, not a whole lot, if anything at all. I can’t see her trying to make you back into a one-woman man. I can’t see her being a...well, she is a one-man woman, but you know what I mean. She still fucks Lara like crazy, and I can’t see that stopping. I mean, all the conventions either don’t apply, or already in place. You have sex with her, that wouldn’t change. You respect her, are kind to her, listen to her, help her. That wouldn’t change. You live with her, that wouldn’t change.” She shrugged. “I guess nothing. But there is a difference between a sexual relationship and an ‘in love’ relationship.”

“That’s true,” I agreed.

I was keeping my eye out for the watchtower. Hannah had given decent instructions, but I was beginning to be unsure, wondering how long we’d be out here wandering. Well, at least the company was good.

“Now, what can you tell me about you and Hannah?” Susan pressed a moment later.

I shrugged. “We’re friends. Becoming better friends. She trusts me, she likes me. I like her.”

“She must like you if you screamed at her like what Jessica said, then took that walk, then came back all cool.”

“We...had a discussion.”

“Did you say ‘sorry’?” Susan asked. I thought she was teasing me, but a glance at her told me she was dead serious.

“Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t completely in the wrong, she really should have listened to me, but yeah, I did feel bad about it. Why?”

“It takes a brave man to apologize. Especially to a woman.”

“Does it?”

“Of course it does. Guys have a hard enough time admitting they’re wrong as it is, without having to actually say sorry for it, let alone to a woman. Maybe I was just in a toxic area, but I knew a lot of guys who would rather die than apologize to a woman...okay then, so you and Hannah are being friendly. What about you and Sofia? I mean, I know you’re fucking, and she seems to have an odd sway over you.”

I laughed uncomfortably. “I don’t know what it is, she’s just...she’s got that, well, I want to say ‘mom voice’, you know, but that’d be kinda weird, given our relationship. She’s authoritative.”

“Well put.”

“And it’s not like she’s being unreasonable. It’s funny, Jessica seems younger than she is, but Sofia seems older than she is. Not that I’d ever say that to her, and not that I mean it in a bad way. She’s obviously very beautiful.”

“She is gorgeous,” Susan said. “Those eyes of hers, and her lips...God, she must suck dick like a succubus. And her ass. It’s just so hot.”

“Yep,” I agreed. “But I don’t know, ever since the bad things have died down, she’s been friendly to me, and kind, but there’s also some distance there. And I don’t really think it’s anything to do with me, I think it’s just how she is.”

“Yeah, I could see that,” Susan murmured.

“What about you? How are your relationships?”

Susan shrugged. “Same with Sofia, though I know even less about her. I haven’t fucked her.”

“Would you?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager.

She laughed. “I mean...yeah, I could see it.”

“Sweet.”

“Glad you approve. And Jessica and Hannah are nice to me. I was also pretty scared that one or both of them would hate me, or be cold towards me, or something would change. But nothing really has. I’ve since spoken with them both, separately, about what I did. Hannah really doesn’t care. I mean...inasmuch as someone can not care that you killed their dad. Jessica had some conflicted feelings, but ultimately she said she chose to accept what I did as the right choice. When I asked if she’d forgive me, she said there was nothing to forgive, because I didn’t do anything wrong. So...that’s where we stand there. Actually, come to think of it, I think Jessica’s been hitting on me.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. She’s been complimenting me a lot...she massaged my shoulders yesterday. And before you ask, yeah, I could see fucking her, too.”

“Hmm...would you be down for that like, tonight? Like a threesome?”

She was silent for a bit. “You know what? Yeah. The only reason I’ve been hesitating is because I still have that kind of gut reaction that I’m not supposed to like girls. But that’s bullshit. I can like and fuck girls if I want. So yeah. I’ve fantasized about her, and Lara’s told me a lot about the stuff you guys have done, and it gets me really hot. So yeah, let’s fucking do this tonight. Lara has been going on about how good Jessica is with her mouth, and I’ve honestly been dying to find out.”

“She’s fucking great with that mouth,” I replied, thinking about it.

“Hey...there it is.”

I checked the area again, and sure enough, there it was, right near the edge of the forest. I could just see the tall structure through the trees. We made our way over to it. It looked intact enough. I was always reluctant to climb tall things like this. It was a lot easier for shit to break nowadays. But I started up the ramp regardless, making my way around the tower, going upwards. Susan followed behind me silently.

The tower creaked a few times, but otherwise held together just fine as we got to the top. A room with wraparound windows waited for us, though most of the windows had been broken out. I could already see that people had been through, but I didn’t feel annoyed or upset or cheated this time around. I guess I felt like I didn’t have right to bitch, not after that fucking jackpot we’d found...provided it worked. I had to admit, I was worried about that. Not about Hannah or Sofia figuring it out, but about the gear itself.

I’d never had a great relationship with technology, and anything more complicated than a TV or a game console or even a fucking lamp always seemed to fuck up. Maybe that’s why I’d made the transition to a largely tech-free life. Once you figured out how to make a fire, or skin a deer, or properly cook food, you pretty much just knew it. It wasn’t going to spontaneously not work for some obscure, fucking ridiculous reason.

“Man, imagine living here,” Susan murmured as we began poking through the room.

“Yeah,” I said, thinking the same thing. There was a bed, and a mini-fridge and what looked like a little kitchen nook in one corner. There had probably been a little gas grill or something there at one point. As we began searching the place, looking under what furniture was left, I kept shooting glances at Susan. Talking about sex had really got me going, and I had a hard-on that really wouldn’t go away, and her ass looked really good in the pants she was wearing. I kept imaging fucking her, thinking about what her pussy looked like with her legs spread open. Or how my cock looked shoved in her mouth. Or how fucking tight her ass was.

“Hey, found something,” she said after about fifteen minutes.

I joined her. She was on her knees, checking out an area beneath a table. It was getting hard to focus. She pulled out a small metal case. She got up and set it on the table, then opened it. There was some supplies inside, though not as much as you’d think. Five loose rifle rounds that would fit our rifles, some medical supplies, some cash (so fucking useful now, huh?), some batteries.

“Well, could be worse,” she said, shutting the case. I reached out, picked it up, and set it on the floor. She turned to look at me. Well, up at me. “...what?” she asked, seeing the look on my face. Before I could respond, she smirked. “Oh. I know that look.”

She jumped onto me suddenly, and I caught her easily. She wrapped her legs around me as we began kissing. Using one arm to hold her, I used the other two sweep everything off the table and onto the floor of the watchtower. I sat her down on it and began trying to get her pants down. This was going to have to be a quickie. It was cold in the watchtower, even in the still air and with the sun beaming down on us.

She was shoving her tongue into my mouth, and I was enjoying that, but I had to spare her the no-doubt instant sex-killing reality of pulling her pants down and exposing her bare ass to this cold table. So I stopped kissing her and shoved her onto her back, then I grabbed her and yanked her so that her ass was over the edge of the table. She stared up at me, her eyes wide, panting. I yanked her pants down, exposing her tight pale ass, her pussy, and beginnings of her upper thighs, then I let her legs lean against my chest and quickly pulled my cock out. Then I slipped it inside of her. Susan let out a loud, intensely pleasured moan.

I grabbed her legs and held them in place, then started screwing her. She lay on her back on the table, I stood at its edge, and we just fucked. The table started banging against the wall as I pounded her insanely tight pussy.

“Yes! Fuck! Give it to me!” she cried.

“Oh fuck, Susan,” I groaned, holding her pressed-together legs close to me as I furiously humped her pussy, sliding rapidly in and out of her. She was fucking wet and really slick. There was something hot about fucking with almost all your clothes on. I had no idea what or why that was, but goddamn if this didn’t feel fucking awesome, and not just because it was fucking, more than that. It was really fucking exciting.

Susan was panting and moaning and yelling occasionally, and I wondered suddenly if anyone was around. If they were, they could surely hear us fucking. I noticed that a lot more people just fucked, like, wherever, after the apocalypse. It made sense, but it still took some getting used to seeing two people just fucking in like the back corner of a bar or in a living room with the curtains drawn back. People just didn’t fucking care anymore.

I lasted for as long as I could, but ultimately it was a quickie, because I was feeling the cold, and I was sure she was too. I knew I couldn’t bust in her pussy, or she’d get really mad. And yeah, I couldn’t blame her, that’d be fucking annoying. Instead, I pulled out right as I was about to come, then whirled her around so that her head was right at the edge of the table.

“Open!” I snapped.

She opened her mouth, looking surprised but still extremely turned on, and I shoved my cock into her mouth. She immediately began sucking and I groaned. I started letting off on her mouth.

“Oh fucking shit, Susan...oh my fucking...oh fuck...that’s so good...” I panted as I came in her mouth, hot pleasure blasting through me as she sucked my seed out, taking my whole load into her mouth.

Susan sucked me completely dry and swallowed when I was finished. After that, we spent a moment getting our clothes fixed. When she had her pants back on, Susan went into her backpack and drank from a bottle of water.

“You always come so much,” she muttered, then she gargled and spat onto the floor. “Like, seriously, I can understand the occasionally big nut, but where the fuck do you keep it all.”

“You’ve seen my nuts,” I replied.

“Eh, yeah, good point. Okay, we done here?” she asked, putting the water away, standing, and pulling her pack back on.

“Yep, let’s head home,” I replied.

CHAPTER FIVE

We were a few minutes away from the watchtower when Susan hit me with another one of her questions. Her annoying questions.

“Which one of us do you like the best?” she asked suddenly.

I sighed. “Come on, that’s not a fair question and you know it,” I replied.

“You could just tell me you like me the best,” she said.

“It would be a lie.” She shot me a dirty look. “What!? There is no best, Susan. This is the same thing as when you asked me who was hotter: you or Lara.”

“Okay, fine, but surely you have degrees of which you like us. Don’t try to weasel your way out of that one.”

“I’m not trying to weasel my way out of anything, Susan,” I said, and the tone of my voice made her look at me a bit more seriously again. She lost her grin.

“Okay, okay, fine. I’m sorry. I know this is an uncomfortable question. I just...want to know.”

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Fine. I like all of you in different ways, but...I guess, cards on the table, I probably like you and Hannah the most.”

She looked surprised. “Why?”

“Because the two of you have the most attractive qualities. You’re both decisive, tough, stubborn, competent.”

“Qualities that normally send guys in the other direction, towards girls like Lara and Jessica,” Susan replied.

“Maybe. But there it is. You happy?”

“Sorta. Now I’ve got to compete with Hannah though...”

“Oh come on, no you don’t. No one has to compete for anything. It’s not like I’ll just start fucking one of you.”

She laughed. “Okay, yeah, that’s not going to happen. You couldn’t say no to any one of us. I guess...I don’t know what I’m worried about. I don’t know why I care. Just leftover societal pressure mixed with my natural competitiveness, I suppose. You don’t have to worry about this. We all have the same favorite dude.”

“Yeah, but do you like me more or Lara?” I replied.

“I mean...Lara...” she murmured, looking away.

“Yeah, awkward, isn’t it?” She sighed. “I know. Don’t worry, I didn’t expect to even come close to edging out your best friend in the whole world.”

“Well, you aren’t that far off, you know.”

I glanced at her. “Why are you so into me?”

“I told you already,” she replied. “You are...how best to put this? You are kind of like...you’re a good guy in the way people meant when they were talking about like old school men. You’re polite, your word is your bond, you treat women with respect, you’re a hardass but only when you need to be. Have you ever stolen? After the snow began?”

I thought about it. “Not to my knowledge. Not intentionally. It’s possible some of the places I’ve scavenged weren’t abandoned, but I’ve always tried to make sure they were.”

“See? You care. It’s the fucking apocalypse and you avoid stealing, you avoid hurting or killing people if you can. You take care of us, you care whether or not we’re safe, you whether or not we’re fucking happy.”

“That can’t be that rare,” I said, but even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. She just looked at me. “Okay, fine. Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of pieces of shit. I’ve seen people who were scared, people who were sadistic, people who were jealous, people who were proud, people who were just on a fucking power trip. There were tons of reasons why people did awful, miserable, shitty things to each other. Some people did it just because they thought they could without any real repercussions. I couldn’t live with myself if I had done something fucked up like that. So far, I guess I’d been lucky. I hadn’t been forced to do anything truly desperate to survive. Okay, well, besides killing people. But they brought that on themselves.

“You’re a good guy, Chris. Like, a genuinely good guy. You should own that.”

“I think part of being good is not being sure whether or not you’re good, so that you keep striving to be good,” I replied after a moment.

“That’s...a great point, I suppose.” We fell silent again, and didn’t say much until we were almost back home again.

Home. It felt good to have a home.

“We doing anything else today?” Susan asked.

“I need to get those wolves skinned and prepped for eating.”

“We ever going to do anything with all these skins?” she asked.

“We can trade them...if we ever find anyone to trade with. We still need to get the ones we’ve dried out and prepped back from the old house. I think I remember hearing Jessica say she knew how to sew pretty well. Maybe she can start making blankets or wolfskin coats or something.”

“It’s an idea,” Susan replied. She smiled suddenly. “Lara is going to be so happy. She’s been, in a way that she thinks is subtle but isn’t subtle at all, trying to get me to come around to the idea of having sex with Jessica. She’s trying to walk the line between trying not to pressure me, but also wanting it so bad. She’s going to be just ecstatic.”

“Me too,” I murmured.

She laughed. “Yeah, I bet. You’ve got like a checklist, don’t you? You want us in all sorts of combinations.”

“I mean...” I shrugged.

Susan laughed again. “Fair enough. Well, good news for you: there’s no one in the group I wouldn’t fuck, I think.”

“That is awesome,” I said.

We walked back to the house. As we came into the main area, I saw that the dinner table had been taken up entirely by all manner of gear. The solar panels were out, as were several parts and pieces and tools and nuts and bolts and everything else. Hannah and Sofia were standing together at the table, talking quickly and quietly about something.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“I think fine, so far,” Hannah murmured, distracted. “We need more time.”

“Okay, we’ll leave you to it,” I said. “Perfect opportunity to do that thing, you think?”

Susan looked at me. “Are you already horny again?”

“Yeah.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. Fine, let’s track down the others, because you’re right. Now would be a great time,” Susan said, and I followed her deeper into the house.

It didn’t take long to track down the other two ladies in my life. They were in my and Susan’s and Lara’s bed, fooling around, mostly naked, wearing just panties. They both jumped a little when we came in.

“Oh, Susan, Chris...hi,” Lara said, breathing heavily, her face flushed. “What’s up?”

“I’m going to make a particular fantasy of yours come true,” Susan said. She glanced at me. “And Chris’s.”

“What’s that?” Jessica asked.

“Lara really, really wants to watch you and me have sex,” Susan replied.

Lara gasped. “Holy shit! Really?”

“Yeah. Are you into that?” Susan asked, looking at Jessica.

Holy shit her tits looked amazing right now.

“Yes!” she said emphatically, sitting up, making those perfect tits bounce. “I would love to have sex with you, Susan.”

“How do you feel about a threesome with you, me, and Chris?” she asked.

“Even better!” she said, then looked at Lara. “Would you be okay with-”

“Oh fuck yes,” Lara said, making room. “I want a front row seat to this. Please proceed.” She sat down in one of the chairs after setting it next to the bed.

I started taking my clothes off while Jessica got out of bed and brought the washing water over for us. Once Susan and I were naked, we quickly washed up and Jessica peeled her panties off. As she did this, Susan admired her. “Good God,” she whispered. “How are you thirty nine and also a mother?”

Jessica laughed nervously and shifted. “I just...work out a lot. And have good genes.”

“Obviously. Good fuck your tits are just amazing,” Susan whispered.

“Thank you...I really like yours too. They’re so hot,” Jessica murmured in response, both women openly ogling each other.

I walked over and got behind Susan, then reached around and cupped her breasts in my hands. “What’s say we get started?” I whispered in her ear, leaning down.

She gasped and shuddered. “Y-yes, that sounds good.”

“Then get on the fucking bed, Susan.”

She shuddered again, more violently, and moved towards the bed as I let go of her. I looked at Jessica. “You too. Now.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, and hurried over to the bed. Their asses looked so good as they climbed onto the bed. Especially Jessica’s. I climbed into bed with them. “Get in the middle,” I said. “We’re going to make you feel good, Susan.”

She immediately got into the middle of the bed, and Jessica and I settled in on either side of her. I watched the two women begin kissing. Jessica looked fairly confident, but Susan looked excited and nervous and thrilled all at once. I ran my fingertip in a circle around one of her nipples, making her shiver and moan softly. She began groping one of Jessica’s big tits, then started to run hands all over her beautiful, smooth, pale body. I slid my own hand slowly down her body, past her stomach, down to her pussy.

I began to massage her clit. She shook and groaned.

“Ooh, let me help,” Jessica murmured, and her hand joined mine. She slipped a finger into Susan’s pussy and began pleasuring her.

“Ah! Ah! Ah! OH GOD FUCK!” Susan shrieked and then she was coming. We kept going as she came, continuing to stimulate her throughout it. When she was finished, we both lowered our heads and each began sucking on her tits.

“Oh yes...” she moaned. “Oh my...you two are really good at this.”

“Yep,” Jessica agreed.

We kept going until I decided it was time to fuck. “All right, Jessica, suck me,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, and she slipped down, scooted over, then took my cock into her mouth and started bobbing her head, getting her spit all over it. I began making out with Susan as she pleasured me. Susan was being pretty passionate, pressing herself against me, shoving her tongue down my throat. We made out for another half minute, then I couldn’t take waiting any longer: I fucking needed to be inside pussy.

“Okay, Jessica, eat Susan out,” I said.

She immediately moved from me to Susan, who spread her legs out. I watched intently as Jessica began to lovingly lick Susan’s clit. She looked like a true pro of eating pussy as she did it. My eyes slid down her body, to her sweet ass, and I quickly got up. She was laying down on her stomach, and I got on top of her, laying down against her thick, toned ass. I worked my cock into her vagina, which was so wet it was slippery, and seriously hot, and I groaned as I pushed my way inside of her. I felt her whole body tremble as I started fucking her and she moaned.

“That’s right you little fuck toy,” I whispered in her ear, as I was now laying fully against her, and she moaned. “You lay there fucking take it and eat that pussy. We’re going to use you like a fuck slave, Jessica.”

She moaned louder and I started really pounding her pussy.

Susan was panting in desperate, intense pleasure. “Oh my God, Lara, you were so right! She is so good at this!” she screamed. “Oh, Jessica!”

I pounded the fuck out of Jessica’s pussy as she kept eating Susan out. I watched my petite lover twist and writhe around, looking like she was totally losing control of herself. And then there was Jessica, the fit, redheaded goddess of lust. She was like a succubus. I pounded her into the mattress, enjoying every last second of sex with her.

Then I wanted Susan.

Honestly, I just wanted to watch Susan eat pussy. She looked really hot doing it.

“Let’s switch, girls,” I said.

“O-okay,” Susan managed, panting. “Whew, I...wow that felt good. I think I had two orgasms.”

“Definitely two,” Jessica agreed.

I pulled out and got off her, then Jessica and Susan swapped places. Susan was on her hands and knees this time. I pushed my way into her sweet, tight little pussy, grabbed her slim hips, and got to fucking her. She cried out as she buried her face in Jessica’s crotch and began eating her out, pleasuring that wonderful pussy of hers. Jessica moaned so loudly. I briefly felt bad, because certainly Hannah was hearing this, if she was still here. But I just couldn’t care enough to stop right now, because this was just too fucking good.

My dick felt like it was alight with pleasure.

I knew how I wanted to finish this out.

I kept pounding Susan until she had an orgasm, and then Jessica had an orgasm shortly after that. It was so hot to watch her on her back, her legs spread open, her face twisting in pleasure as she ran her fingers through Susan’s dark hair. I could watch one chick eating another out from this position for a long time. There was something almost iconic about it, like it was one of those images that was somehow universal, one of those super evocative things that almost everyone everywhere recognized. I think there was a name for that, but that image of one woman on her hands and knees, pleasuring another woman on her back, it was almost divine.

As soon as the women were done coming, I pointed at Lara. “Lube,” I said.

“Oh! Yes,” she replied, and got up after a few seconds. She’d been staring in near slack-jawed amazement at the whole sexual display. As I pulled out of Susan, who finished up her oral and then rolled over onto her side, panting, I looked at Jessica. “Ride my cock with your ass,” I said.

“You got it,” she whispered, panting. Her pale face was flushed and she looked like she was in heaven right now.

We traded places and Lara came over. She squeezed some lube out and began to massage my cock with it, covering it in the stuff. “I get a turn, right?”

“Yes, you will definitely get a turn,” I replied.

“Good.”

“Enjoying the show?”

“Tremendously.”

I smiled and she kissed me on the mouth, then returned to her seat once my dick was properly coated. Jessica was watching me closely, and as soon as I was ready, she got into position, which was the reverse-cowgirl position. I saw her thick, toned ass over my dick. She reached back behind her, gripped it, and put it in her ass.

I groaned loudly as she began working my cock up her ass.

“Do you like it, master?” she moaned as she took it up the ass, pushing me deeper and deeper with each raise and then lower. She was on her hands and knees, carefully working me in there. The pleasure was out of this world.

“Yes,” I groaned. “Don’t stop until I come.”

“Yes, master,” she whispered.

Once I was comfortably inside of her, she began going at a steady pace, sliding smoothly up and down my steel hard cock with her insanely tight, crazily fit, mature ass that looked so fucking good. I was not lasting long with this, the anal felt too great. And she looked so good doing it, so competent, so thoroughly into it.

She rode me until I started coming, exactly like I told her.

She kept riding me even as I came up her ass and I cried out, panting and groaning and grunting, the rapturous ecstatic bliss ensnaring me like an electrical current. It shot through my whole body, filling me, turning my universe into a place of blind pleasure and nothing else for a brief moment that, while it lasted, felt almost timeless.

When I had finished pumping her sweet ass with my seed, she got off of me and went to clean up. I laid back, panting, feeling wholly and deeply satisfied. I looked over at Susan, who was still lying on her side.

“Good threesome?” I asked.

“Great threesome,” she replied.

“We should make it a foursome next time,” I said, looking over at Lara.

“Oh fuck yes, I would love that,” she replied.

I laid there, waiting for a little bit before I fucked Lara. There was still a lot to do today, several things to be tended to, but…

Right now, I was happy.

A WARM PLACE 9

CHAPTER ONE

Two days passed.

They were quite pleasant days. Productive days. My shoulder was bugging me but it was healing. My mountain lion bite wounds were much farther along the healing process and hardly bothered me at all anymore. During those two days, I split my time between fucking the women, hunting for more food, and clearing out the ecological center’s basement. The hunting was pretty fruitful. We were filling up the coolers and our meals were getting a little bigger. We’d also added a cooler to the mix, one I’d found in the basement.

That endeavor, after finding the solar panels and water treatment device, wasn’t nearly as useful as I’d hoped it would be, but honestly that initial find would make me happy for quite awhile. Hannah and Sofia were as smart and as diligent as I thought they’d be, although man did Hannah have an anger problem that her mother clearly didn’t have. The more I got to know her, the more she reminded me of Susan, because the five times we’d had sex over the past forty eight hours had been furious, passionate quickies as she took out whatever frustration she was feeling due to solar panels or water treatment device.

Those were fun fucks.

At present, I was looking to have another fuck. But that wasn’t the only thing on my mind as I walked to Hannah’s cabin beneath the stars and a bright white moon. Nights like these always weirded me out. I was used to moonlight, but when there was snow everywhere, it caught the light and seemed to reflected back two or three times as brighter. They were good nights, to be sure, because if you needed to be out then you could at least see, but still...weird. No, I was going to Hannah’s cabin because something had occurred to me.

I hadn’t eaten her out yet.

Usually, whenever me and one of the other girls would have sex, I’d say seven times out of ten it was a really impassioned, spur-of-the-moment fuck, and that often meant in a location that didn’t make foreplay exactly ideal. I’d gone down on every last one of them, usually at night before bed, and I knew I was good at it, because I’d gotten all of them to come from just using my tongue. I’d done Sofia last night for the second time, and it had occurred to me, suddenly, that I hadn’t done this particular favor for Hannah yet.

And I guess it made enough sense, given how she liked to fuck: furiously and quickly.

Our ‘illicit’ relationship, which was pretty much such an open secret now that I didn’t know why Hannah still thought of it as hidden, apparently only spawned insanely impassioned screw sessions with both of us trying to make the other come as fast as possible. Although I had a clear advantage, because Hannah was easy and sensitive, whereas it wasn’t that I was insensitive, but I had a bit more control over it.

...most of the time.

I reached Hannah’s cabin and knocked on the door.

“Chris?” she called.

“Yeah,” I replied.

I heard her sigh. “I told you you can just walk in.”

I opened the door and stepped in. “I know, I just still feel weird about that.”

She was laying on her bed, reading a book, wearing some shorts and a t-shirt with very thin fabric. Her fireplace was crackling and she was looking really fucking good.

“You’re too nice sometimes,” she said, sitting up and putting her book aside. After I closed the door and took off my boots, she shed her top and tossed it on the floor, revealing those amazingly perky and firm breasts of hers. “I’m clean and washed and ready to fuck.”

“Good, but we’re starting out with something a little different tonight,” I replied.

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow.

“I haven’t eaten pussy for you yet, and I have for everyone else. So take off your shorts, lay back, and spread your legs.”

“Oh. Wow...I guess you haven’t. I guess I haven’t done much dick sucking for you, so that makes us even...why haven’t we done that?”

I took off my coat, then my shirt. “Because you refuse to do anything but jam my dick in your pussy the second its out.”

“...yeah. That’s a good point.” She shrugged. “What can I say? I like quickies.”

“You like angry fucks.”

She giggled and took off her shorts. “Yes, I do.” She sighed. “Especially lately.”

“How’s it going, by the way?”

“Let’s talk about that after the oral. And the sex.”

“Okay.”

I finished stripping down. I’d already washed just before coming over here, so I could get right to the sexy stuff. Once I was naked, I crossed the room and got onto the bed with her. There was just enough room to do this. Not necessarily comfortably, but functionally speaking, I could get it done. I looked at her pussy, set in between this great hips of hers, and her thighs. They were amazing. Her vagina was smooth and exceptionally pale.

“I guess it’s a good thing I shaved today,” she said.

“It’s appreciated,” I replied.

I settled into place and placed my thumbs on either side of her pussy, then gently parted the lips. I heard her exhale sharply as I did that. I took a breath, leaned in, then exhale slowly, letting all the hot air come out and wash over her exposed parts. She let out a small moan and shivered. I really loved getting reactions like that out of women. I knew almost all of the time they couldn’t control themselves, that it was an involuntary reaction rather than a choice, and there was something really good, really satisfying about that.

I stuck out my tongue and touched the tip of it to the nub of her clit. She gasped and twitched. I began to massage it with just the tip of my tongue.

“Holy fuck...” she whispered, and her thighs clenched and released around me. “Oh my fucking...wow, Chris, that’s...oh wow. I haven’t-ah!-gotten much oral in my life, but already this is like really fucking good...”

Well that was encouraging. Also depressing.

I was definitely going to start off more of our encounters with oral, because women really fucking loved oral. I kept it up, with just the light, teasing tonguing, for about a minute, and I could tell she was getting frustrated.

She wanted more.

“Chris,” she panted, “do more. Lick more, for fuck’s sake, you’re killing me.”

I ignored her and kept going at the same pace, gently tonguing her clit with just the tip. She groaned and wriggled.

“Come on...” she whispered, getting frustrated.

I kept going.

Finally, she let out a sound that was a huff of irritation and a growl. She looked down at me. “Chris, if you don’t fucking start licking me I’m going to fuck-OH FUCK!” she shrieked as I suddenly began licking rapidly at her clit with more of my tongue, increasing the pressure. Her entire body shuddered violently and she slammed her head back down into the pillows. Her hips bucked, but I kept her in place. “Fuck! Fuck!”

I laughed, feeling a bit self-satisfied, and kept going.

I ate her out, licking and licking at her clit, going faster and harder, ramping it up, listening to her scream. Her throat was going to be sore tomorrow. I grinned a little. That wasn’t the only thing of hers that was going to be sore tomorrow when I was done with her. When I slipped a finger inside of her tight, wet opening and began fucking her with it, that pushed her over the edge. She let out an incoherent scream of pleasure that I’m positive everyone in the other house heard, and began to orgasm.

Her entire body jerked violently as the hot spray of feminine sex juices escaped from around my finger. She began screaming my name as she orgasmed, twitching and shaking powerfully. I kept going, pleasuring her throughout the whole experience, until finally her climax had run its course and she went slack, panting, a tremor occasionally running through her body. I got up, found a clean rag, and washed myself off.

“There,” I said, “you’ve been eaten out.”

“That was just...I didn’t know it could feel that good,” she panted, staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes. Her big, pale tits looked just excellent, glistening with sweat and swaying as she caught her breath.

“So, worth the wait then?” I replied.

She laughed weakly. “Yeah. Fuck. No wonder my mom fucking loves you, if you do that to her. Goddamn.”

I didn’t say anything. I thought maybe she’d say something more about that, but then she looked at me suddenly. “So, I promise to suck you fucking dry sometime soon, like later tonight or tomorrow if you want, cause I will definitely swallow for you, but can we just like fuck right now? That got me so fucking primed for a hard pounding and I want it so fucking bad right now.”

“Yeah,” I said, coming back over to the bed. “Sure.”

“Thank you.”

I laughed as I got on top of her. “Yeah, I’m doing you a real big favor here.”

She began to say something, but cried out as I began sliding inside of her.

“Fuck,” she gasped as she spread her legs out a bit more, accepting my length. “I keep forgetting how big that is.” She moaned as I pushed all the way inside of her. I settled on top of her and began making love to her. “God, I used to think I didn’t like sex all that much, but, well, some of it was that I was doing it with the wrong people, but like, it’s the condoms. I hate condoms. Bareback feels like way better. I always used to think guys were over-blowing that whole thing, or even if they weren’t, it was just a guy thing, but fuck, this feels so good.”

“It does,” I agreed, and she wrapped her legs around me as I started going harder and faster.

Her pussy still surprised by how fucking good she felt. She was so fucking tight. And she was wetter than I’d ever felt her be before. Staring up at me, she was crying out and yelling in blissful gratification. I grunted as he thrust deep into her, burying my whole cock inside of her. I could hear the sound of our skin meeting again and again as I pounded the fuck out of her.

She grabbed at my back, staring up at me with wide eyes. “Yes! Come on! Fuck it! Fuck that pussy!” she screamed, pushing up with her hips.

I kept screwing her until I decided it was time to switch positions a bit. Not too much, but there was something I really wanted to do with her because she’d look so hot like that. I got her to disengage her legs, sat up, then grabbed her legs and pushed them towards her. She got the message and held her ankles. Fuck, she could pretty much bend in half. She was almost as flexible as her mom was. And I was right, she looked fucking hot like this.

“Keep going!” she moaned as I fucked her. I was watching my cock disappear into her pink, wet opening. “I’m about to come...don’t stop, Chris...” she begged.

I did one better than simply not stopping. I pressed my thumb against her clit and began to rub it. She let out an incoherent shriek of ecstasy and started coming almost immediately. I groaned, feeling that hot hit of insane pleasure slam into me as her vagina started going crazy. And then I stopped holding back, because it was a losing battle anyway, and let out a loud, long groan of absolute sexual bliss as I began coming inside of her.

Pumping Hannah’s pussy full of my seed was one of the best feelings in the world.

I groaned, being thrown over the edge into the abyss of overwhelmingly powerful rapture, and became lost in the orgasm as we came together. I felt my climax pulse through my entire body, filling me with pure pleasure, better than any drug, or really anything I’d experience in life. I felt myself emptying out, shooting my load into her, ineffectively trying to impregnate her, and thinking of getting her pregnant just made me come harder.

I came a huge fucking load into her, and when I was finished, coming down from the intense high, I slowly pulled out of her. Stumbling to my feet, I went and found one of the clean rags, dunked it in water, then brought it back to her.

“Thanks,” she whispered, panting heavily now, and held it over her pussy.

“Uh-huh,” I managed, sitting down and just recovering. That was one hell of an orgasm, and fuck session. Goddamn.

After she’d finished cleaning herself up, I laid down beside her and held her, and she pressed her nude body against my own. Our breathing slowed, then calmed, and we were at peace together, floating in that pink sea of post-orgasm joy and relaxation, magnified because we were laying together, touching, naked.

“Hannah,” I murmured.

“Yeah?”

“Would you be okay with it if I slept in here tonight, with you?”

She paused for a few seconds. “Yeah, I would,” she said. Then added, “I’d like a lot, actually.”

“Me too,” I replied.

“How do the others feel about it?”

“I already told Susan and Lara that I was going to ask you if I could stay. So they know that if I don’t come back, it’s because I’m here.”

“Okay. Good.” She laughed softly. “Sometimes I still get surprised that no one gets angry or jealous or hurt by all this.”

“I think it helps that it’s not just me fucking all of the ladies, but the fact that some of the ladies are fucking each other.”

“Yeah...do you think, uh...” she hesitated.

“What?” She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Are you shy about something? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you shy before.”

“Shut up,” she replied, then sighed. “I’ve just been noticing that, you know...Lara is really hot. Like, super fucking hot. I want to fool around with her, and see her tits...kiss her...touch her...and I want her to eat my pussy. Do you think she’d be down for that?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m pretty sure she’d be down for that. Do I get to be involved?”

She laughed. “Yeah. I’d like that. I’m sure Lara would, given how into you she is. So you can set that up?”

“Definitely. I think we could manage it tomorrow night.”

“Good. And then maybe it can turn into a threesome. I’ve never really had a full-on threesome before.”

“They’re a lot of fun.”

“I imagine they would be. Also, what are you doing tomorrow?”

“I was thinking of finally going and checking out that farm now that the basement’s finally cleared out.”

“You gonna take anyone with you?”

“Yeah, I think it’d be a good idea.”

“Can I come? I’m fucking sick of working on that goddamn technology.”

“Yeah, sure. How’s that coming, by the way?”

“The solar panels are installed, and wired into the house. They need a little bit of time to gather energy, but they work. We tested them while you were out hunting today. So that’s done. We put them up on the roof with the coolers. It was a compromise between functionality, safety, and keeping them hidden. Solar panels, I imagine, make a house a target.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, “that’s true.”

“But that’s done. We began working on hooking up the water treatment thing, but Sofia finally made me take an, uh, extended break after I almost threw a wrench through a window because I was getting frustrated with the fucking thing.”

“You have anger problems.”

She sighed. “Yeah. I just get so pissed...especially when I feel stupid. I’m looking at the schematics and the instructions, and I should fucking get what they mean, and I do most of the time...but she’s right. I need a break. And I’m just being immature and stressing her out unnecessarily. And Sofia’s really smart. She can handle this. All the others will offer whatever manual labor needs to be done. She seems to think she can have it up and running in a day or two.”

“Perfect. I am really looking forward to a shower,” I said. It had been like a year since I’d had a shower.

“We all are...” Hannah yawned suddenly. “Fuck, I’m sleepy. I’m actually exhausted. I hate how that creeps up on you.”

“Hey, at least you can get to sleep pretty easily. It’s better than the alternative.”

“Yeah...”

We got up after that and made sure the cabin was secure, then stoked the fire and tossed another few logs on. Finally, we both ended up in her bed, naked and warm and comfortable beneath the blankets.

I wrapped an arm around her, and she pressed her back against me.

And we fell asleep like that.

CHAPTER TWO

“You aren’t bringing a rifle?”

Hannah glanced at me from where she crouched, fiddling with her bow. We were gearing up for the walk to the farm. We’d fucked about an hour ago, washed up, then come over for breakfast. Everyone else was up by now. It was good to see everyone had adapted to using the sun as a clock. I’d used to be a night owl, but that was back when you could do more shit at night, and you didn’t view sunlight as a precious resource to be used with maximum efficiency because it was harder to see and survive at night.

“No,” she said. “We’ve already gone through a quarter of our reserve since coming here. We still have a decent amount but that won’t last forever. And you can’t recover bullets. I want to get good at shooting arrows.”

“You have,” I replied. I’d seen her use that thing semi-recently. Now that I thought about it, I realized she’d had it on her every time I’d seen her over the past few days. I’d seen her practicing with it several times, and now I remembered noting how good she was with it. She was already pretty good to begin with.

“I figured it was the logical choice.”

“You were right,” I said. “I should probably get more practice in myself. Although nothing can beat a rifle in a pinch. And after the last few scares I’ve had out in the wild, I don’t think I’d like to go anywhere without it.”

She frowned. “I guess you’re right. I probably should start carrying one around. Even if I don’t end up using it once.”

“Better to have it and not need it, than the other way around,” I agreed. “But right now you’ve got me and the rifle. We should get going.”

Hannah nodded and stood back up, then settled her bow into position and we started walking. Our feet crunched into snow. It was cloudy out, that kind of cloudy that could go either way in terms of snow. Or a storm.

We walked for several minutes before Hannah spoke up. “I dreamed about you eating me out last night. I meant what I said about how I didn’t know it could feel that good. Like...fuck. I still get shivers just thinking about it. Goddamn you’re good.”

I laughed. “Just wait until you try it with Lara. She’s really good with her mouth, and her tongue, and from the way Susan and...well, other girls react, she must be out of this world.” Hannah didn’t seem super bothered by it anymore, but I was still trying to minimize how much I talked about her mom and sex in the same sentence directly to her. It had to be kind of weird.

“I’ve always heard that girls do it pussy eating better. I guess it makes sense, given they have pussies and a better idea of what feels good. I have to admit, I’m a little nervous, but mostly I’m just excited. Have you talked about it with her?”

“Not yet. I figured we could talk about it after we get back.”

“You don’t think she’ll need...convincing, or time?”

I laughed. “No. God no. I’m sure Lara will hop at the chance to do sexy things with you.”

Hannah just smiled slightly at that.

We kept walking.

…

It was an uneventful walk.

I saw some wolves off in the far distance when we were approaching the frozen lake, but otherwise nothing worth noting. Hannah and I talked off and on as we went, mostly about stuff from the old world. It was weird, thinking about the time before the snow. It had hardly been three years since it all began, and yet it seemed like a lifetime ago. Sometimes, I caught myself thinking that it had been over a decade.

That was crazy, but in a way, when you were in a survival situation for weeks, months, years on end, time really did seem to stretch out.

“Hey Hannah...what do you miss the most, from before the snow?” I asked after we had fallen silent for about two minutes. It was a question I’d liked to ask new people, because I liked hearing answers, and reminiscing about the old world. That had faded over time. Now mostly it was a little miserable to think about.

But occasionally the nostalgia felt good.

Hannah was silent for almost a minute. The wind blew. Our boots made contact with the ice. I scanned the edges of the lake, looking for threats.

“I miss the generalized sense of security I had. The notion that, even if things went really shit for me, society as a whole would keep going, would persist, and that no matter what it was, I could find my way back to happy again, given enough time,” she said finally. “What about you?”

“Fuck,” I muttered, “I feel like whatever answer I’m going to give is going to sound shallow after that. That’s a good answer.”

She laughed softly. “Just tell me. You don’t have to impress me. You’ve already done that.”

“Fair enough. It changes. Two things I think I miss the most: air conditioning, which, I know, sounds stupid. But it wasn’t just being cold that I miss, it was that specific feeling of chilled air settling over me when it was brutally hot outside. Coming in from that into cool, perfect A/C. But more than that, I miss the rain.”

“Oh God, I miss the rain too. So much. That’s one of the more depressing aspects of this. It’s probably never going to rain again. Watching the rain on a gray day out the window, watching the water run on the glass, just...that felt so good. I don’t know why, but it always felt so good. I loved it so much.”

“Me too,” I murmured. “It was so relaxing.”

She nodded, and suddenly she reached out and took my hand. “I’m very glad I met you.”

I smiled and gently squeezed. She squeezed back. “I am too, but what brought that on?”

“I just...as I got to know you, I became really attracted to you. Physically. You made me wet. And after that first time we had sex, I thought of you as...a person I could respect, and have sex with, but I didn’t think we’d really ever fully, you know, click. I’m not trying to sound mean, or say anything bad about you, I just didn’t think I’d ever really like you, like on a personal level. And that happens sometimes. You can respect someone and not like them. I figured we’d get along, and I’d keep fucking you, and working with you, and we’d carve out this kind of mutual respect and attraction. But...I like you. I’m finding that I like you a lot. I guess I didn’t think I could have that. I didn’t think I could have a guy I could fuck, and respect, and like, all at once. And it’s really hitting me that I can have that, and I do have that.”

I wasn’t entirely sure what to say. I was bad with stuff like this. So finally all I said was, “Thanks. I like you too.”

She laughed softly. “Good.”

She let go of my hand a little bit later as we finished crossing the lake and began approaching the natural rise in the land that hid a lot of the area from view. I felt apprehensive as we walked up the hill. I knew what we would look like from a distance: pretty obvious. When you had to fight for survival as often as I did, you began thinking in an anticipatory fashion. Basically: how will I appear from the perspective of someone trying to kill me? Or, how likely is it that this would be a location for someone wanting to kill me be to hide in?

I think a lot of people would call that paranoid, (though less now than ever before), and point out that almost no one is out to kill me. But that was a moot fucking point. I didn’t think there were people looking to kill me specifically around every corner, over ever hill, behind every tree, inside every building, I thought that there could be a crazy person looking to kill whoever entered their field of vision potentially anywhere.

Was it a healthy way of thinking? Probably, I was still alive and basically intact.

We hit the top of the hill and I did a quick check of the way beyond. And I saw the farm. Mostly, it was a huge swath of land encased in a broken-down fence. It was mostly empty. And it didn’t look too impressive. I could only see three actual buildings. One was a house, set far back on the property, another was what might be a garage, and next to it a shed. Not a whole lot to work with. But worth checking out at least.

We set off. The hill was a little bit of a bitch to navigate, because of the snow and the kind of steep angle in some places. I looked for threats and other buildings as we approached, but there were just more trees in every direction. We crossed the distance and broke the perimeter, ducking to get through a gap in the fencing.

“We’ll hit the shed first,” I said, “then the next building. And then we’ll head for the house.” I hesitated briefly as I felt something. Or maybe sensed is a better word. I stopped and looked around, frowning deeply, hands on my rifle.

“What is it?” Hannah whispered.

“I don’t know, just...a feeling,” I murmured. I couldn’t see anything, and Hannah didn’t say anything. After another half minute or so I just sighed and turned back. “Must be nothing. Come on.” We kept walking.

The feeling didn’t abate as we hit the shed, which was old, poorly-maintained, and looked like it was just one or two storms away from giving out completely. We stepped inside and I could tell right away that people had been through at one point or another. Probably several groups of people. There were empty boxes, the two tables in there were totally bare, and random items and bits of trash littered the floor.

We spent five minutes picking through it all, searching under the tables and the boxes and investigating all the items we found. There was nothing, unfortunately. Maybe the boxes could be burned at some point, but we weren’t desperate for fire fuel, and I didn’t see us becoming desperate anytime soon. Not with two axes and a forest of dead, dry trees surrounding us. With the shed out of the way, I stepped back out first, standing in the doorway and waiting. If someone or something was coming, I’d rather just one of us be at risk, and it be me. But still I couldn’t see a damned thing. Of course, that didn’t mean anything.

There were a lot of places to hide.

Not exactly satisfied but at least mollified that we were still safe, I left the shed and the two of us headed over to the other building. Which was a barn and a garage. The main floor was dominated by the skeletal remains of a big tractor with one shredded wheel and a picked-clean engine.

“I’ll take the second story,” Hannah said, glancing up, “it looks rickety and I weigh less.”

“Good idea,” I agreed. “I’ll see what I can find down here.”

We split up. Time passed. I poked around the stripped-down tractor, but it was a bust. And there wasn’t a whole lot else on the first floor, either. I checked out a table, a rusty shelf, a few boxes that were left in the far corner of the barn. I heard Hannah poking around upstairs. I thought about what she’d told me. It felt...a little weird to be liked. Like, really liked. I mean good, but honestly I think it had been a long time since I’d made any kind of real connection with someone, before I met Susan and Lara, and now the others.

It seemed like an extravagant luxury, a hedonistic decadence that I could barely even dream of having anymore. People were selfish, people were cruel, people were afraid. And that wasn’t even considering the more normal problems of finding people you were actually compatible with. I guess I was more compatible than I thought, if I had this many women I felt a real connection with. Honestly, the only one I didn’t feel really connected with was Sofia, and that was more a matter of time than anything else.

I definitely felt the sparks of a connection with her, although I could be projecting.

Finally, I finished searching everywhere I could think of, and managed to find a whole lot of nothing. Judging from the rustling and the small sounds I heard Hannah making, it sounded like she might be having a little bit more luck.

After another few minutes, she began coming back downstairs. “I have two things for you that you are really gonna love,” she said.

“I’m ready,” I replied.

“First thing,” she said, and came to the bottom of the stairs. She was holding something behind her back, and she brought it around.

“Oh shit,” I said, accepting it. “Thank you. I’ve been looking fucking everywhere for some of this.” It was duct tape. It looked to be in good condition, too.

“Yep,” she replied, grinning, looking pleased with herself.

“What’s the second thing?” I asked.

“I’m going to blow you now.”

I raised my eyebrows a little. “Right now? Right here?”

“Yep. Unless you don’t want a blowjob...”

“I, uh...well, I haven’t said no yet,” I replied.

“Good. Then you just relax, and I’ll return that favor,” she said, and pushed me gently backwards, so I was leaning against the tractor. She then dropped to her knees, and began working my pants, digging my cock out.

As she got out it and began licking, it occurred to me that I had really been looking forward to this. I believe I had a similar dichotomy with Susan. There was something tremendously gratifying about having a really strong-willed (and wicked hot) woman get down on her knees and put your dick in her mouth and suck you off until you came, and having her swallow all that. It was that act of submission that I really loved.

And it wasn’t like it said anything bad about them, or I thought less of them for doing so.

A tough, hardass woman could suck dick and still be a hardass. I guess, digging a little deeper into it, women like Hannah and Susan only sucked your dick if they respected you, and it was hard to earn their respect.

Plus, it felt really good.

Hannah licked across the head of my cock almost aggressively, holding the shaft firmly in her grasp, staring up at me. She looked amazingly sexy doing so. There was something raw about her, something fantastically, fiercely erotic about her like this. She licked the whole thing over, and then she put it into her mouth and began bobbing her head rapidly.

“Oh fuck, Hannah,” I groaned as she went to work, the pleasure shooting into me. Her mouth was so fucking hot and wet, and she was sucking really powerfully. “Goddamn, that is just...you are pretty good at that.”

She wrapped her first two fingers and thumb around my dick and began using it in conjunction with her lips. This girl was going in for the kill immediately, she wanted to make me come right now. Well, I wasn’t going to fight her. Plus, I was still feeling kind of paranoid. By now, I thought that that feeling of mine was probably nothing, but even if that was true, time was precious when you were outside your home.

Especially in a new environment.

“Ah-ah-fuck!” I yelled as I started coming.

The orgasm burst into existence, powerful and intensely pleasurable, and I heard her moan as my dick started letting off in her mouth. She kept on sucking, and it felt amazing. It was too good. I felt my legs trembling and was very glad I was leaning against something solid. I had my hand on the back of her head and now I shoved my cock forward, into her throat, as I pulled her against me. She didn’t fight it, which was good. It wasn’t really a voluntary thing, I just kind of did that. I let out another shout of outright ecstasy as she swallowed, all those hot, wet, slippery throat muscles clenching tightly around the head of my orgasming dick.

She swallowed every last drop, then pulled my cock from her mouth after I was finished.

“Debt repaid,” she said.

“Definitely,” I agreed, getting my breath back. “We’ve gotta swap oral more often. That was goddamned fantastic.”

She laughed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then shrugged out of her pack and opened it up. “I agree.” She unzipped, pulled out a bottle of water, drank, replaced it, then zipped the pack back up and stood as she pulled it back on.

“Ready to go?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied.

Once I felt like I had myself back under control, I got upright and we started heading for the exit, and the last building in the area.

CHAPTER THREE

We made it almost all the way to the farmhouse before I heard the crack of a rifle shot and at almost the same instant, it felt like someone struck a goddamned match across my cheek. Hannah shouted and I did, too.

“Run!” I snapped, already off and sprinting towards the farm.

Another rifle shot smashed into the ground just next to me, sending up a flurry of snow and frozen dirt. We hit the porch and a window shattered as another round punched through it. I threw my shoulder at the front door and it burst open. I tripped going in and hit the floor, then rolled to the right, out of direct line of sight. Hannah came in after me and slammed the door shut, then dropped to the floor. Two more bullets were fired, then nothing.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit,” Hannah gasped. “You were right.”

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“Now what?”

I started to respond but another round seared through the air, punching through the front door. “I need to take a look and see what we’re dealing with.”

“You’ll get your fucking head blown off!”

“I might, but if we just stay here fucking around, we’re dead regardless. Stay down.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but then maybe she remembered that time with the wolves and just closed it and looked pissed. I took a few breaths and then began moving. The place we were in was about halfway back across the room. Hannah began moving as I tried to figure out the best way to get a look quickly without getting my head blown off. She shifted over to a big, bulky couch deeper in the room. Not the best thing to hide behind, but it was better than nothing. There were two windows in the front wall one of which was blown out. The other was intact but kind of a big target. I looked to my left and saw an open doorway that led to the kitchen.

Better than nothing. Another round slammed into the house.

What the fuck was it with these assholes?

I felt confident there was more than one. There was no reason to keep on shooting unless it was a covering tactic for advancing enemies. I crawled into the kitchen. Just one window in here. There was probably enough time to scope the situation out. I crawled up the counter and the sink where it was positioned over and got into a crouch, preparing myself to stand up, look out the window, and drop down as fast as I could.

I took a few breaths, then did just that.

I had a decent view of the area, and saw to figures coming in low and fast across the front expanse. As I looked, I saw a muzzle flare from the treeline to the northwest, a bit north of the ways we’d initially come from. Shit, they were providing cover for the two assholes. But I had an opportunity, and I took it. Shouldering the rifle, I zeroed in on one of the advancing figures and the second the crosshairs were lined up I fired.

They both dropped and I saw one of them stumbled before going down, and then I dropped exactly one quarter of a second before the window in front of me shattered as the sniper returned fire.

“Did you get him?!” Hannah called.

“There’s three! Two advancing, one sniper! Think I winged one of the advancing guys!” I called back, then quickly began crawling towards her again.

“What the fuck do we do?” she asked as I rejoined her.

“I’m not sure. Wait for them to come to us, I guess. I don’t think I did serious damage, but even a grazing shot is enough to distract. They have to come in here, so we’ve got the advantage. They come in, we shoot and kill them, then we deal with the sniper the same way we dealt with Thomas.”

“Okay,” she replied, sounding more confident.

That’s when someone opened fire with a goddamned assault rifle and began peppering the front of the farmhouse with bullets.

“Fuck!” Hannah snapped.

“Kitchen! Now!”

Bullets were kicking in through the front wall, the door, and the now two broken windows. We went as fast as we could and I was pelted by debris from where the bullets were hitting nearby. Right before I made it into the kitchen, I felt one whiz right by the back of my goddamned head. And then we were into the room and out of the worst of the fire.

There was a pause as he ran dry. Another rifle round punched into the kitchen, making us both duck, then another. I began to consider retaliation when the machine gun opened up again. How many fucking magazines did they have?!

“What the fuck are we gonna do?!” Hannah yelled.

I thought hard, desperately seeking a solution. It was possible to try and luck into another quick shot, but that was really risky. On the other hand, if I could be somewhere they didn’t expect me, I could probably kill at least one of them, which would help a lot. I guess I’d have to go out the back-

“Fuck,” I said.

“What?”

“It’s a distraction. They’re keeping us busy while the third one sneaks into the house through the back. Shit.”

“What do we do?” Hannah asked.

I took off my rifle and passed it to her, then pulled out my pistol. “Stay here. I’ll handle this. Then we can deal with the others.”

“I’ll be ready,” she said.

The machine gun fire let up again and I took my chance, heading back into the living room and then scurrying through the door and down the short hallway at the back. There were four doors. I checked each of them in passing, figuring they could just as easily come in through a window as a door. Plus, I didn’t know where the back door was, or if there even was one. First room was a bathroom, the window high up. Too difficult to get in easily. Next one was a study, the window was closed and intact. I left it and moved on.

Third was a master bedroom, same deal.

The fourth and final room was a laundry room, and there was the back door. I began to make for it, and that’s when the doorknob twisted and it began to open. I froze, pistol raised, and waited as the door opened up.

A man with a skimask and a pistol stepped in.

He froze as he saw me, eyes wide, and I pulled the trigger.

The gun misfired.

He began to move and I threw the pistol as hard as I could into his face. He screamed and I heard his nose crack. It was a really ugly sound. Then I jumped at him. We went to cold ground, falling back outside, and he began fighting me viciously. I began bringing my fist down on his head as hard and as fast as I could as he wrapped his hands around my throat. I managed to suck in some air before my throat closed off.

Had to do this fast. I kept hitting him but he had a hard fucking head apparently. I saw something to the right: a rock about the size of an apple. I reached out, snagged it, brought it up and then down as hard as I possibly could on his skull.

There was an awful crack and suddenly he went completely limp.

“Ugh, God, fuck,” I whispered, coughing harshly as I got the bastard’s hands off of me. They fell away and he didn’t move at all.

I’d caved his fucking skull in and there was a lot of blood.

I fell back inside, in case I was in view of the sniper, but I didn’t think I was. As I caught my breath, I realized I wasn’t hearing anymore gunfire except for the occasional crack of a sniper rifle. I went back through the house as fast as I could and found Hannah crouched in the kitchen.

“I got one!” she said, sounding triumphant.

“What? What happened?” I asked.

“I just, I had an opportunity and I took it. The gunfire stopped, and I heard the guy cursing, so I figured his machine gun must’ve gotten jammed or something. I grabbed a glass cup and threw it out the living room window for a distraction, then shot him in the head from the kitchen. He’s dead. Where’s the other guy? I heard you struggling.”

“My fucking pistol misfired or jammed or something. He’s dead, though.”

I wanted to chastise her for risking her life like that, but I didn’t because it’d make me a hypocrite, she was an adult, and honestly, I was kind of proud. That was fast thinking.

“Now what?” she asked.

“We need to kill the next guy. Too dangerous to try to shot through either of these windows again. But he won’t expect you from around the back of the house. Come on.”

The rifle shots had stopped. He probably thought the third man was inside and dealing with us. Let him think that. We hurried back.

“Ugh, jeez,” Hannah muttered as she saw the corpse.

“Yeah. Come on.”

We went outside and slipped around the back. I was almost positive this area was out of view of the sniper, but he could have or be changing positions right now. We got around back. I pointed to the opposite side of the house. “Wait right there with the rifle. When you hear him fire, lean out, try to get his position, take him out as fast as you can.”

“I’m ready,” she replied.

“Good luck.”

She leaned in and gave me a hard kiss on the mouth. “You too.”

I moved back to the opposite side of the house, the one we’d first come out of, and then began slinking along the side, looking to the front, to the hill we’d initially crested to get here, to see if I could see anything. We were going to lose the element of surprise quickly once I started running. I didn’t see anything, and the rifle fire had stopped. I got up to the corner, took a few deep breaths, and looked around for a good place to run.

There really wasn’t any.

I guess I was going to have to book it back for the barn, as it was the nearest piece of cover around. And that was a good hundred feet away.

Fuck.

Well, here’s hoping Hannah could get the job done fast enough.

I sucked in a breath, then started running.

I ran for all I was worth, trying to run both ahead and drifting to and fro, because it was a lot easier to lead a target on a simple, consistent trajectory.

The sniper’s rifle cracked and a round seared past me. I didn’t feel it or see it, but I knew it had been fucking close.

A second shot boomed into existence after the first.

I was almost positive it was Hannah, but it kept running regardless. There were no more shots as I ran, and I made it to the barn without a problem. There I stopped, leaning against the wall, huffing and puffing for air, my breath foaming heavily on the air.

Goddamn, I hated dealing with this shit.

“I got him!” Hannah called as she came out.

“Do you see anyone else?” I asked, still worried, peering out from behind the barn.

“No!”

I scanned the area for a bit, but she was right, there was no one else. I began jogging over to her, and we met in the middle, by the corpse of the guy she’d killed first. He was facedown in the snow. I kicked him over onto his back. She’d nailed him through the eye.

“Fuck, that’s a good shot,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” she said, a little more subdued now.

I glanced up. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just...I hate having to do this.”

“I know. So do I.” I crouched and began patting him down. He didn’t have a backpack, but that made enough sense, I guessed. He’d leave it behind with the sniper. The other guy hadn’t had one either. He were dressed well, with some high quality gear. I snagged his assault rifle. It was an M16. And he still had two magazines of ammo for it in his pocket. I checked him out and found a combat knife, a little survival pack with some medical supplies, matches, magnifying glass, and a little combination tool that might come in useful. There were also a resealable plastic container packed with wolf meat.

“Interesting,” I muttered.

“What?” Hannah asked.

“Not sure yet. Come on.”

We went back around the house and I performed another search of the second dead man. He didn’t have as much, just a pistol, a spare magazine, a knife, and a lighter. I took his pistol and checked it out, since mine was jammed and I didn’t have time to unfuck it, and I might need one in a pinch. I finished my search, stood, and began heading towards the third and final asshole.

“What’s wrong?” Hannah asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” I replied. “I need to search this last body.”

This was painting a picture for me and I didn’t like it at all. As we walked across the fields against, heading back towards the rise in land, I glanced at the skies. They were darkening, getting grayer, and it was getting colder. Good signs that a storm was on the way. Which was bad, really bad for what I probably needed to do next.

We climbed the hill and found the third and final body. It was ugly. Hannah had nailed the guy in the throat and apparently hit his jugular because there was blood fucking everywhere. It looked like he’d thrashed around a bit, but he would’ve died pretty fast from blood loss. Shit, I wish she didn’t have to see this.

She was quiet as I searched the guy over. I frowned as I glanced around and didn’t see any packs. “See if you can find another other backpacks,” I said.

“Okay,” she replied, and began hunting.

I snagged the guy’s rifle. Finally found a different model, different ammo type. Well, the luck couldn’t last there, I suppose. I slung it over my shoulder and pulled three magazines of ammo for it from the dude’s pocket, as well as another combat knife, and a backpack with some decent gear in it. Survival stuff, medical stuff, some food and water.

But this was definitely painting more of that picture I didn’t like.

“I can’t find anything,” Hannah said, returning.

“Great,” I muttered.

“So what’s going on? What do you know?”

“Nothing for sure, but I’ve got suspicions. I think these guys were part of a bigger group.”

“Why?”

“Look,” I said, indicating the pack I’d found, “no long-term survival stuff. No bedrolls, not tent, not store of supplies. Means there’s a camp somewhere. These were pretty hardcore survival types, which means there’s a way bigger chance they wouldn’t leave it unguarded. I guess there’s a chance they could have left their stuff somewhere they felt secure enough, but...well, put it this way: If I’m wrong, no big deal. I’m in right, then we’ve got more assholes like this to deal with.”

“Fuck,” Hannah whispered.

“Yeah.” I sighed and quickly finished transferring the supplies to my pack, then handed her the new rifle and ammo for it. I pointed. “Tracks. We need to follow these as fast as we can. I think there’s a storm coming in. If there is, we’ll lose the trail. This is also fairly risky. We could hit by a blizzard and freeze out here. What do you want to do?” I asked.

She looked at me, maybe a little surprised that I was asking her. Then she seemed to think about it, slowly shifting her gaze to the dead guy.

Finally, she said, “Let’s follow the trail.”

I got up.

CHAPTER FOUR

We started walking, keeping a fast pace, jogging where we could.

It got colder as the minutes wore on. Darker, too.

Fuck, why did something like this have to come up? Everything was going pretty goddamned perfect. Why did fucking assholes like this have to do shit like this? They didn’t even try to negotiate with us. Just went straight to the attempted murder. Well, once again, served them fucking right. As we walked on, following the footprints in the snow, I wondered why they’d done it. Were they really just that desperate?

Or could it be that they were just that aggressive? That sociopathic?

Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity? I guess it could be they thought we were someone else who’d fucked them over or something. That was as close to an accident as I’d get, because they were obviously trying to kill us. There was no real way around that. They’d almost succeeded. Nothing more than blind luck and some quick thinking on our part had saved our asses. I wondered how long that kind of luck would hold up.

After about five minutes, it began to snow.

I stopped and growled in frustration.

“We can keep going,” Hannah said, stopping after a few more steps.

I shook my head. “No, there’s no point. It’s likely a ways off, wherever it is, and the snow is going to obscure the trail in a matter of minutes. We should start heading to shelter right now, or we’re going to be fucked,” I said.

She sighed heavily, staring at the footprints for a few seconds more. Finally, she snapped, “Fuck!” And moved back to join me.

I knew exactly how she felt. This fucking sucked.

We started walking back.

…

I initially had the plan to get to that house where I’d met that woman and, uh, traded with her, as it was the nearest shelter that I felt safe about. I wanted to go to the ranger’s station, but it felt too close for comfort. I thought there might be a chance more people might be there. On the one hand, I was eager to confront them. On the other, I knew this was a bad time for an assault, especially with just the two of us.

No, if there was going to be a battle, we needed to pick it ourselves, not stumble into it.

We hurried through the snowfall, making our way south, but the snow didn’t worsen as I thought it might. I still felt that there was a storm on the way, but we weren’t in emergency mode yet. So we got to the house and then passed it.

“Where are we going?” Hannah asked.

“Our original house. There’s still some supplies there. We can wait out the storm there,” I replied.

“Oh, good idea.”

We kept walking, and the storm began to worsen.

I was just starting to worry that we might really be fucked when finally the dark shape of our old house appeared out of the blowing snow.

“Fuck, finally,” I muttered, and began going faster with a renewed energy.

As we approached it, I found my mind kept going back to the assholes, and the potential other assholes. Every fucking time we ended up with things settling down, it felt like some new shit popped up. And that had been going on for long before I’d met these women.

“Is that smoke?” Hannah asked.

My eyes shot skyward and I squinted into the storm, staring hard. After a few seconds, I nodded. “Yes. That’s smoke coming out of the chimney.”

I pulled out my pistol.

“We’ll go in through the back,” I said, and set off again.

Great. Who the fuck was in our old place? Could be some of the assholes’ friends, or it could be some random traveler, or some totally different person who happened to be a psychopath. Whatever the case, someone lit that fire.

Finally, I reached the backdoor. I still had the key. Susan had found a spare one at one point and eventually had passed it to me when she’d basically handed me the reigns. It was hardly useful, because there was always someone in the house. We hadn’t bothered locking the front door the last time we’d left, because there was pretty much nothing extremely useful here, but we’d had no reason to unlock the backdoor.

I keyed the lock and carefully twisted the knob. Pistol raised, I motioned Hannah to the side. She nodded and slipped over, her back to the wall, her own pistol out. I opened the door and looked into the corridor that used to be so welcoming and familiar, and now was dark and threatening and oppressive. I could hear the fire crackling just barely over the shrieking of the winds behind me. I slipped in and wondered where the fuck to start.

Then I heard a sound from the left: mine and Susan’s and Lara’s old bedroom.

I approached it slowly, took a deep breath and slowly released it, then put my back to the wall next to the door and, reaching around, shoved it open. They’d obviously have heard the fact that the back door was open, so there wasn’t much surprise there. But this might work. Sure enough, a gunshot blasted out of the open door and right as I was preparing to figure out what the fuck to do next, a familiar voice shouted: “Don’t fucking move!”

“Susan?” I asked, relief hitting me like a hammer.

“Oh my fucking-Chris!? What the fuck are you doing here!? You scared the fucking shit out of me, you fucking asshole!” she snapped.

“I’m sorry. Hannah, it’s Susan! Come in!”

She appeared in the doorway, looking relieved, and came in. Closing the door behind her, she locked it. Susan came out of the bedroom into the hallway and stared at me angrily. She shoved me suddenly. “You about gave me a fucking heart attack!”

Before I could respond, she stepped closer and wrapped me in a hug.

“I’m sorry,” I said, holstering the pistol and hugging her back. “I didn’t know who was in the house. We just had a shootout.”

“Fuck, I knew I heard shots,” she muttered, stepping back. “What happened?”

“Three guys tried to kill us up at that farm I said we were going to check out. They’re all dead, but I’m paranoid that there might be more around, like a camp of them somewhere or something,” I explained.

“Goddamnit,” Susan snapped. She looked from me to Hannah. “You’re both okay? You didn’t get hurt?”

“We’re fine,” Hannah said.

“Good. Um...what are you doing here though?” Susan asked.

“We were tracking them, but then it began to snow so we decided to head back. Home was too far so we decided to get here and wait out the storm.”

“That makes sense.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“I came over here to do another sweep of the house, pick up a few things I’d intended to grab last time. Another blanket, clothes mostly, a book I forgot. Everyone was fine when I left, so there shouldn’t be anything to worry about back home...ideally,” she murmured, now looking worried.

I sighed. “Yeah. There’s really nothing we can do now but wait out the storm.”

“I guess so,” Susan replied. She sighed. “Well, I’d pretty much finished what I was going to do. What do we do?”

“Let’s talk about this situation we find ourselves in, see if we can come up with anything. A plan of action, likely areas they might be hiding,” I replied.

Both of them agreed and we headed into the kitchen.

…

An hour passed, and the storm didn’t abate.

We talked, but not a whole lot came of it. The most likely notion was the ranger’s station, but it was even more likely that there was some place we hadn’t seen yet. It was also possible that I was wrong, and I’d be just thrilled to be wrong. Hell, even if I wasn’t, maybe they were just passing through, or maybe they wouldn’t come farther south. It was nice to dream and hope, but stupid as hell to actually believe that.

Ultimately, we made a tentative plan to, as soon as we could, (and after meeting with and updating the others), we’d revisit the watchtower and the ranger’s station. Then we’d figure out what to do from there. By the time we wrapped that up, I could still hear the shrieking winds. I hoped this wouldn’t go on all day and night. I wanted to be home. But I was at least glad that I had some good company with me now.

Speaking of which…

None of us had spoken for a few minutes at this point, all three of us sitting around the kitchen table. I glanced at both women. They looked bored and a little anxious.

“I’ve got a question,” I said, and they both looked at me. “You up for a threesome?”

They both looked at each other, then looked away, blushing.

“Is that a yes?” I asked.

“I, um...I mean, I’d be down for it,” Hannah said, not looking at either of us.

I looked at Susan. “How about you, beautiful?”

She sighed. “Goddamnit, Chris.”

“What?”

“I hate a lot of things, but I really hate being embarrassed.”

“If the answer’s no, that’s fine-”

“No, the answer isn’t no, Chris.” She paused, pursed her lips, stared at me, then looked at Hannah. “Yes. I want to do this.”

“Okay then. Let’s do it. Can’t think of a better way to pass the time,” I said, getting up.

“That’s because you fucking worship sex,” Susan muttered as they both got up and began to follow me to the master bedroom.

“There’s worse things to worship,” Hannah murmured.

“So you’re finally ready to admit you’re fucking him?” Susan asked.

I hesitated. Oops. I’d forgotten about that. I looked at Hannah as we all came into the bedroom. Well, she didn’t look angry, more flustered.

“Yes. No point in hiding it, I guess.”

“Of course there isn’t. You fucking scream so loud when he goes to ‘hang out’ with you that we can all hear it, you know,” Susan said.

Now Hannah began to blush really fiercely. She looked at me. “You really didn’t tell them?”

“No,” I said.

“He refused to, even when we bugged him about it, even when it was obvious to everyone involved that yes, the two of you were fucking.”

I shrugged and began getting undressed. “You said you didn’t want me to acknowledge it, so I didn’t.”

“That’s...really sweet. I appreciate that,” Hannah said.

“It is. He’s good like that,” Susan said.

“Which is, I assume, one of the reasons you’re so willing and eager to take your clothes off,” I replied.

Susan sighed and rolled her eyes.

“I’m assuming he was like this before me and my mom showed up?” Hannah asked.

“He’s been like this for as long as I’ve known him, not that it’s been a really long time. It feels like a long time, though. Feels like we’ve been together for months,” she murmured, taking off her bra and dropping it.

I stepped up to her and wrapped my arms around her, smiling down at her. “Yes it does,” I agreed, and kissed her.

It was satisfying to hear her moan as our lips met. I grinned as I pulled back. “However much your mouth bitches, your body seems to frequently betray you,” I said, running my fingernails up and down her bare back.

She growled and shivered and made a funny face of pleasure at the same time. “You are...s-such a fuck, and that feels amazing,” she whispered.

“Susan in a nutshell,” I said.

“She has a point,” Hannah replied, taking off her bra and getting her pants down.

I angled Susan towards her. “Aren’t her tits fucking awesome?”

“Yes, they are,” Susan said, staring at her. “You know, I thought I’d feel like more of a pervert or deviant or something ogling you and wanting to fuck you, but you don’t seem like a teenager like at all.”

“I’m not a teenager,” Hannah replied.

“Most people are teens until they hit at least their mid-twenties. You’re pretty hardcore. I can see why Chris likes you so much.”

“That’s why I like both you so much,” I said. I stepped back from Susan and finished getting naked. Once we were all nude, we took a moment to clean up with some of the water we’d brought with us, then climbed into the bed together. I felt a wave of particularly powerful excitement roll through me. Given that I had almost half a dozen very attractive women who I was sexually involved with, and all of them seemed to be, to varying degrees, bisexual, obviously I was very interested in having several different threesomes.

But this was probably the one I was most interested in, because these two got a rise in me that very few others did.

And to have them together…

This was going to be fun.

They both looked really good today. Really beautiful. I took turns kissing them, first Hannah, then Susan, then back to Hannah, running my hands over their wonderful, smooth, hot bodies. They were wonderful to touch, to caress, to be against, our naked skin rubbing together. And then I stopped kissing them, and instead encouraged them to kiss each other. They looked at each other, their eyes locked, then they slowly began to come closer, come together, each tilted their head slightly and then their luscious red lips met.

They were kissing right over me, and I laid back and watched.

Susan looked more comfortable more quickly, but that made sense since she’d been getting intimately regularly with Lara for almost two weeks now. I wasn’t sure if this was Hannah’s first time kissing a girl or not, but I’d be willing to bet either it was her first, or maybe her first time getting serious. They were doing a little more than kissing. I could see Susan putting her tongue to use. And she reached up and cupped one of Hannah’s large, firm breasts, began to gently squeeze and grope it. As I watched and they began to tongue-kiss, I saw Hannah at first relax, then begin to really get into it. She reached out and ran a hand down Susan’s smooth, pale back, resting it on the curve of small but pleasantly padded ass.

After a moment, they pulled back slightly.

“Wow,” Hannah said softly.

Susan grinned. “First time?”

“I, uh...yeah. That was...I thought it would be weird, but it wasn’t. It was just...good. It was so good,” she whispered.

“I know how you feel. I was the same way. Just wait until you have a girl do other things to you. It’s even better,” Susan murmured.

“How about you take my spot, and we can both do things to you, Hannah?” I suggested.

“Oh, um, wow. Yeah, that sounds good,” she said, a little breathless. She was blushing. It was interesting and amusing to see her not in control of herself for once, or even pretending like she was. This was just naked, overwhelmed lust and excitement we were witnessing right now. It was good to see, and it made me glad that she was experiencing it with the two of us. She could trust us. She could be vulnerable around us and not suffer for it, now or later.

Susan began making out with her again, and I watched one hand slowly down Hannah’s beautiful body, and she shivered at the touch. Then she moaned as Susan slipped her fingers in between her thick, firm thighs, and she opened her legs.

“Oh, Susan,” she gasped, breaking the kiss. “That’s...oh! Oh yes!”

Susan had begun to touch her clit.

I joined her, kissing the side of Hannah’s neck and briefly groping her breast, then running a finger around her nipple, making her moan louder and twitch.

“Oh wow, this is also, ah! Oh fuck! My first, um...my first threesome,” she whispered.

“How are you feeling about it?” Susan asked.

“Um...uh...good,” Hannah murmured.

“If it’s too much, just let us know, we can stop,” I said.

“Thank you. It’s fine. It’s a little overwhelming, but definite-oh fuck!-in a good way. I’m having fun. This is-” she shivered violently and moaned as I moved my hand down and slipped my finger inside of her pussy. “-this is good! This is a good experience. Don’t stop.”

“Okay then,” I said, and began fingering her more fiercely.

“Ah! Yes!” she cried, arching her back, her hips bucking.

Susan dipped lower and began licking across her nipple, rubbing her clit harder. Hannah immediately started kissing me fiercely, passionately. It was beautiful, it was real passion, from both of us. And from Susan, too.

All three of us were fully switched on, engaged, and invested in this encounter.

It didn’t take much longer to make Hannah have a full-body, screaming orgasm. She twisted and writhed and shook between us, moaning and screaming and growling almost as she climaxed beautifully. It was a fantastically erotic sight to behold.

When she was done, she fell back, gasping, panting. “Oh my fucking...oh fuck me...oh that was...oh wow,” she whispered.

“Good, huh?” Susan asked.

“Uh-huh,” she murmured, nodding weakly.

“And that’s just the beginning,” I said.

“Yep. Now I’m going to eat your pussy.”

Hannah raised her head. “Oh wow. I-okay.”

Susan got down in between Hannah’s thighs and went to work. I watched her do it, watched as she parted Hannah’s lips, began to lick at her clit gently. Hannah started to moan loudly, then reached out and placed a hand on me. “You want to put it in my mouth?” she asked.

“Very much so,” I replied.

She opened her mouth. I got on top of her, straddling her face, and slipped my cock into her open, willing mouth. She closed her lips around it and began to suck. I placed my hand gently atop her head, feeling her red hair against my skin, and began to slide my cock slowly into her mouth, deeper each time. It was times like this that I was truly reminded of the fact that I fucking love redheads. I don’t know why, no one’s ever been able to give a good answer, but redheads are just the fucking best. Hair color isn’t everything, but…

It can sure do a lot if it’s red.

“That’s a good girl,” I whispered as I began to fuck her mouth a bit harder. She took my cock into the back of her throat, closing her eyes and moaning. I looked back over my shoulder and saw Susan just going to town on her, licking rapidly at her pussy and making her squirm and twist. We kept going like this, enjoying each other, until Hannah had an orgasm. I took my dick out of her mouth as she cried out and began jerking.

“Oh FUCK! OH SUSAN! OH MY GOD!” she shrieked. I stared down at her, watching her face twist and change rapidly in pure, unfiltered bliss.

I got off of her after a bit and she wound down from her climax.

“Okay,” she whispered after a bit, “I’m ready for whatever comes next.”

“You feel like returning the favor?” I asked.

“Um, yeah. I could do that,” she replied.

“Good. Susan, on your back, spread your legs. Hannah, hands and knees. I’m going to fuck you while you eat Susan out, and we are going to use you like a sex toy.”

“Oh man, I’ve never...done something like that before,” she murmured as she got up. “This is going to be a new experience.”

“It’s a lot of fun,” Susan assured her as we all switched places.

“I’ve never done this before,” Hannah murmured as she got onto her hands and knees, settling between Susan’s trim thighs.

“It’s okay. It’s easy,” Susan replied. “Fuck, you are really hot Hannah. Like...crazy hot. You have the most beautiful eyes and face.”

“Thanks,” Hannah said quietly, sounding embarrassed. “You’re so pretty, too.”

I got behind Hannah, looking at her thick, firm ass. I reached out, running my hands across her smooth, pale skin. Her pussy was extremely wet. I slipped inside of her and moved my hands down to her hips, gripping them as I began pushing my way into her.

“Oh my fucking God, Chris,” she moaned, shuddering as I penetrated her.

“Get to work,” I replied.

“I...y-yeah, okay,” she gasped, and lowered her head into Susan’s crotch. I watched closely, switching between the back of Hannah’s head and Susan’s face as Hannah slowly began her first session of eating pussy. Susan began to moan as Hannah got to work. She did have a point: eating pussy was easy. Sure, you could get better at it, there were definitely things you could do to improve your technique, and stamina counted, timing...but even at your first time, it was super easy. You just licked the clit.

That took you a long fucking way.

As evidenced by what was happening right now.

“Oh my fucking...Hannah, that’s great,” Susan whispered, and I saw her thigh muscles clenching and releasing as her whole petite little pale body shivered occasionally. She reached down and began running her fingers through Hannah’s red hair, her mouth open, panting, gasping in desperate pleasure. “Hannah, you are so good at this. Oh fuck...keep going. I’m going to come.”

I started fucking Hannah harder, sliding my cock in and out of her pussy. She was seriously wet, and really hot. It felt amazing. Fantastic. Mind-blowing. I loved fucking Hannah. Especially doggystyle. She really did have an amazing ass. I gripped her hips a bit harder as I pounded her and listened to her moan loudly, her voice muffled by Susan’s crotch. We kept going and going and going until Susan let out a strangled shriek of pleasure and began to orgasm.

“OH SHIT! OH FUCK! OH MY GOD HANNAH!” she screamed as her hips bucked and she placed both hands against Hannah’s head and forced her face deeper into her crotch. “Don’t fucking stop licking!”

I groaned, already well on the way to climax myself, as I watched this tremendously erotic display, two women in intense ecstasy, both being pleasured. What shot me over the edge was when I felt Hannah lose it and start to come all over my dick as well. I started busting inside of her, what felt like my entire body getting hit with a shock of pleasure as I started emptying my nuts into her. I groaned her name loudly as I thrust deep and hard inside of her amazingly tight vagina, and I heard her half-shout, half-moan in response.

I came hard as hell, spurts of my seed leaving me and pumping her pussy full up, each contraction sending a fresh shockwave of rapture screaming through me. All three of us came together in one of those perfect, rare moments where three people sync up orgasms during a threesome. I came until I was done, and it felt like there wasn’t anything left inside of me, and then I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking back down at the women.

Susan was flushed and panting, slack against the bed, recovering. Hannah wasn’t eating her out anymore, her head hanging. I pulled out of her and gave her ass a little pat on its left side. She took the message and scooted over, out of the way, then fell onto her side. I moved forward, getting on top of Susan.

“Oh God, you aren’t done yet?” she whispered as I began sliding my cock into her. It had begun to soften a little, but it instantly hardened back up once I slipped it into Susan’s insanely wet and seriously tight pussy.

“Not yet,” I replied, and started fucking her.

She let out a loud, long moan of pleasure, and Hannah watched us as we screwed. I was still really amped up apparently, because I almost immediately went into pounding the fuck out of her, pushing her hard into the mattress and making the bed shake.

“Holy shit, it really is hot as hell watching two people fuck live,” she murmured.

“Yep,” I agreed.

I didn’t try to last all that long, because Susan was worn out, I could tell that much. So I fucked her good and hard until she had another orgasm, and then I came inside of her, emptying the rest of my stuff into her and getting hit with a second blast of absolute pleasure.

And then I pulled out of her and laid between the two of them, all of us recovering.

“So, first threesome, how was it?” I asked.

“It was as good as I’d hoped it would be, and it went better than I was worried it would,” Hannah replied after thinking about it for a moment.

“Good,” Susan said.

They cleaned themselves up, and then got back in bed and laid against me on either side, and I held them, wrapping my arms around them.

We laid like that for awhile, listening to the storm.

CHAPTER FIVE

We laid together for close to two hours.

I dozed for awhile, drifting in and out of sleep in the way you do when you aren’t sure whether or not you’ve slept, and when actually think to check, you find it’s been like an hour. Eventually, I came to and realized something was different. It took me a few seconds to realize that the winds were no longer shrieking. I looked to my left and right, seeing that the ladies were still there, still naked, and asleep (we’d since pulled a heavy blanket over ourselves), and it was extremely tempting to rouse one or both of them for sex.

I almost did, but then I remembered getting shot at by a rifle and a goddamned assault rifle, (which I needed to check out as soon as I got home), and that kind of lit a fire under my ass. So I roused both women and then pulled the blanket back.

“No, it’s cold, come on,” Hannah complained.

“I know. But you two need to get up. We have to go,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” Susan asked, sitting up.

“Nothing. I mean, nothing right now. But the storm is done, we need to get home and talk with the others about this,” I replied as I got up and began pulling my clothes back on.

“Fuck, I guess so,” Susan muttered, rubbing her eyes. She stretched and yawned, then joined me. Hannah laid around for another minute or so, then heaved a sigh and did so as well. I finished dressing first. Once I was, I grabbed my pistol and left the room, then did a quick sweep of the house. I wasn’t sure how long the storm had been gone or even at tolerable levels, levels someone might theoretically navigate safely through, but I didn’t think for very long. Usually differences in environment, especially sound, woke me up before too long. But I wanted to be sure. I checked all the rooms, all the windows and doors, and found the house to still be secure.

After putting out what remained of the fire Susan had started earlier in the fireplace, I rejoined them and packed up.

In another few minutes, we were out of the house, walking back to our new home.

…

I kept wanting to rush, the whole way back.

Thoughts kept assaulting me. I thought of all the bad things that could have happened while I’ve been away. From the way the women kept up with me, and at times pulled ahead of me, I could tell they were all thinking the same thing. We all had loved ones there. That thought made me pause, mentally.

Did I love any of them?

I’ve always had a hard time with the concept of love. Not because I’m against it, or have difficulty making connections with people. More because it was the oddly arbitrary line in a relationship. It permeated culture fucking everywhere. It was such a big deal. Saying those three words could be like dropping a bombshell into the relationship. And it meant such different things to different people. To most it was a commitment, to others it was something to be afraid of, others still were indifferent towards it.

Hell, I knew at least one woman who used it as an aphrodisiac.

Seriously, she asked me to tell her I loved her when we had sex, and explained to me that she didn’t actually care whether or not I did, only that I said it, convincingly, during sex. I did it, because I had to admit, she had a point, it was kind of like this instant dose of intense intimacy. And it gave her great fucking orgasms.

And made her really horny.

But what was it? What was love?

Lots of different ideas there, too.

In some ways, yeah, I loved almost all of them. Given time, I’d probably love Sofia in the same way. But was that love as in like, romantic love? I knew a lot of people believed you could only romantically love a single person. I didn’t think that was true. If felt the same way about four different women, and if that was love then...well, I loved all four of them. How did they see it? I thought Jessica and Lara might end up saying they loved me. Just something about their personalities, and the way the relationship was going, it was a feeling. I thought Susan and Hannah might get there, too. It would just take them longer.

Of course, I could be totally wrong, and some of them were just using me as a fuck toy to get themselves off.

Which was fair. As long as there was respect and honesty, I didn’t mind being used like a sex toy.

But Susan and Lara had both told me that they thought of me as their boyfriend, as in the three of us were in a real relationship with each other.

I guess, at the end of the day, it was a word, a label.

If they said it to me, I realized that I wouldn’t be scared to say it back to them. Because if love was caring about someone, worrying about their well-being, their happiness, their health, being willing to suffering and sacrifice for them, then…

Yeah. I loved them all.

We made it back soon enough, and nothing was wrong. Lara, Jessica, and Sofia were all home, and fine, and had nothing to report.

“House meeting, right now,” I called once Lara told me all this.

Sofia appeared from upstairs and, a moment later, so did Jessica.

“Holy shit, where’d you get a fucking machine gun?” Jessica asked as she came downstairs.

“That’s what we’re going to talk about,” I replied as I walked over to the dining room table. Once everyone was there and settled, I filled them in on the details. Sofia looked a bit grim, and Jessica and Lara both looked paler than usual and frightened.

“What are we going to do?” Sofia asked after I had finished talking and no one else started talking.

“Hannah and I are going to the watchtower and the ranger’s station to see if we can see any signs of people passing through, or clues as to where this camp of theirs might be, if it does exist. And then we can...figure out where to go from there. Regardless, we’ll be back before dark,” I said.

“Maybe I should go,” Susan replied.

I shook my head. “No. Hannah and I are the best shots. Hannah’s probably the best among us all at this point. I need you here, guarding the house with the others. Okay?”

She frowned, but nodded. “Okay.”

“Good. Hannah, take a minute unpack and then decide on what you want to take. Make it a light load, we might need to move fast. Actually, get some cargo pants, see if you fit your supplies in your pockets and ditch the pack. I’m going to do the same thing.”

“Got it,” she said, and hurried off.

“I need to look this thing over,” I muttered, looking at the assault rifle. “Everybody be on high alert until further notice,” I said, looking around the table.

Then I got to work.

…

I decided to take the assault rifle after checking it over and making sure it worked. I also cleared my fucking pistol. Hannah took her pistol and a rifle, and we both took combat knives. We had a bare minimum loadout of food, water, fire-starting implements, and medicine. We said our goodbyes and then we headed back out into the cold.

Everything was coated in a fresh layer of snow.

It was eerily silent outside. The sun was obscured behind a pale cloud cover. Neither of us spoke as we headed north, through the woods, towards the watchtower. I didn’t think it was going to give us anything useful, but maybe I could see something from up there that I had missed the first time around. I kept thinking about how I was going to handle this. About murder. About Hannah. She seemed to be doing okay, but I was still worried.

Apparently so was she.

After a few minutes, she asked me, “Chris, do you think I might be a sociopath?”

“What?” I replied, honestly shocked. “No, not at all. Why?”

“Because I just killed two people, and...it isn’t really bothering me that much. I mean, I’ve killed before, I told you that, and I kept expecting it to like, you know, hit me after awhile. Like I thought ‘Okay, I’m in shock, I’m not feeling it all’, and my mom kept talking to me about it. But that never happened. I was upset, I was shaken, I cried once. But after that...” she shrugged. “It never, you know, hit. That hammer never came down. Like, am I fucking psychopath or something? Because, like, logically speaking, I didn’t want to kill those two guys. I regret that it came to that, that I had to do, but I don’t regret having done it, if that makes sense?”

“It does,” I replied.

“I mean, I was kind of freaking out in the moment, and for a little while afterward, but now we’re going off to maybe kill more people. And I’m not scared. I guess I’m worried something will go wrong, one of us might get hurt or killed. But I’m not scared or worried about what we’re doing.”

“You aren’t a psychopath or a sociopath, Hannah. I can tell you that much right now. They don’t have emotions. You obviously have emotions. You get angry, and scared, and happy, and anxious, and sad. I’ve seen that. I’ve seen you have emotions, unless you’re faking them super successfully.”

“I’m not,” she murmured.

“I didn’t think so, and besides, even if you were, why would you then bring this conversation up? It doesn’t track. You aren’t a psychopath or a sociopath, Hannah. I’m kind of the same way. I think...some people are just better at handling stuff. I traveled with a woman maybe eight months ago. She was a Marine, she said she felt guilty because she didn’t have like PTSD or anything like it, even after seeing a lot of fucked up shit. She said it gave her nightmares sometimes, and she hated that she had to see it, but she was basically okay after, you know, processing it. And she’d seen a lot of friends end up with PTSD, so she was scared that something was wrong with her. But it wasn’t. I mean, the thing is, we don’t get to choose how well we handle something, you know? It simply is the way it is. You are as good at handling stress, or death, or making horrible choices, or killing people, as you are. Some people, it’ll eat them alive. Some people will grieve or process it, and then move on. It’s just...the way your brain chemistry and neural pathways are,” I said.

I’d thought of this stuff myself more than once.

Hannah was quiet for a long while, at least five minutes, and I let her think.

“That makes sense,” she said finally. “Is there anything I’m missing? Anything I should consider?”

“Don’t let yourself get kill-happy,” I said. “I doubt you will, but just because you’re good at murder, and good at handling it, doesn’t mean you should treat it casually. I think you understand the value of life, and I think you understand what a serious situation it is to kill someone. Even if they’re some shithead trying to kill you. And I know there’s a lot of times where we don’t have the luxury of considering the ramifications of murder. Like back at the farm. But if you think you can end a situation without killing, strive to do that.”

“Okay. I will.” She paused, then looked at me. “Thank you, Chris. I don’t really think there’s anyone else I could have talked to about this.”

“You’re welcome. And I know it sounds cliché, but you really can talk to me about anything. Anything that’s bothering you and you feel like you need to just tell it to someone.”

“Even if it’s embarrassing?” she asked.

“Yeah. I mean, I’ll never use anything against you.”

“I believe that,” she murmured, then a small smile touched her face. “What about if it’s embarrassing for you?”

“Well, I’d rather be kind of embarrassed and confront and correct a situation, than have it fester unknowingly. Although I’d rather have embarrassing things told to me in private. Why, is there something embarrassing I’m doing I should know about?”

“I mean...you should trim your pubes.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not a big deal, or anything. I just...think it would be better. You don’t even have to like shave or anything, I know guys are weird about that sometimes. But just a trim, like, seventy five percent shorter, or even half, I think it would be nice.”

“I’ll do it tonight, if I can find the time,” I said.

She smiled bigger. “Well...thanks for being cool about it.”

“Hey, it’s only fair. I’ll shave it if you want me to. I haven’t really asked, but I do prefer my women with shaved pussies, or at least very short. It’d be hypocritical of me not to do the same thing in return,” I said.

“That’s a really good point of view. Too many guys I’ve met have fucking double-standards like that. Hey, there’s the tower.”

I nodded, seeing it through the trees.

We walked up to it and climbed it. First we looked around for signs that someone had been here, but that turned up nothing. And, unfortunately, the look out the windows turned out about what I’d expected, but been hoping against.

Nothing.

Couldn’t see any buildings that I’d missed the first time around, no new places that might be serving as a camp. After our sweep, we headed back down to ground level and began the long trek northeast, towards the ranger’s station.

…

The walk felt like it took ages, but it couldn’t have been that long.

It probably just felt that way because we had to cover a lot of exposed ground, and I kept expecting a rifle shot to come out of nowhere and end my life. Not a great feeling. But we made it there. The door, I saw, was open.

“Carefully now,” I murmured, switching to my pistol.

Hannah nodded. We swept the exterior, then moved inside.

Immediately, I saw signs of other people. “Someone’s been here,” I whispered, and pointed to the metal barrel in the main room that had been used as a fireplace more than once over the past however long.

It had been knocked over, throwing soot everywhere.

“That could’ve been the wind or an animal or-” She stopped as she spotted what I’d seen.

Footprints in the ash. Big boots. Relatively recent.

“Fuck,” she whispered.

“Yep. Let’ s make sure we’re alone.”

We moved through the ranger’s station again, clearing the area room by room, moving nice and easy through the structure, checking the corners, exposing ourselves as little as possible to potential hiding places. The tension first began to rise with each room we cleared, because I kept expecting someone to be hiding around each new corner. I was tense as hell by the time we got up to the second story. We moved through the rooms, slowly, methodically, but as we cleared the last room, the tension collapsed, and I relaxed a lot.

“Shit,” I whispered, my breath coming out in a long sigh. “I guess we’re clear.”

“Yeah, so where do you think-”

With both jerked as a gunshot cracked through the area. It was farther away, but close enough that we could hear it. We both hurried over to the windows of the room we were standing in on the second story, staring into the woods, waiting, trying to determine which way it was coming from. Another gunshot came, then another fifteen seconds later.

They were definitely getting closer.

Within another half minute, we saw a round strike a tree not far away.

“Fuck,” Hannah whispered. “So now what?”

“Get ready. Obviously something bad is happening. Or maybe they’re hunting and they suck at it, but I don’t thinks,” I replied. I opened the window. “You want me to do it?”

“No, I can do it,” Hannah said, shouldering the rifle and peering through the scope. I gave her space, waiting, listening. Before long, I heard someone. Someone running. More gunshots. Suddenly, someone appeared from out of the trees. Someone tall, and decently built, wearing all white, a skullcap, and blue-tinted goggles.

They were running for all they were worth.

“Who the fuck’s that?” Hannah muttered.

“No idea. Maybe a new friend,” I replied. “Let’s see who’s chasing them.”

A few seconds later, two people emerged. Both carried pistols and wore roughly the same getup as the other assholes who had attacked us. They paused and took a potshot at the person running. Almost shot them, too.

“Now what?” Hannah asked.

I thought about it, my thoughts feverish and quicksilver as I considered it. I’d just got done going on about choosing carefully, always choosing to let people live if at all possible, taking your time. But there was no time right now.

There were a lot of things to consider, but I had already made my decision.

“Kill the two in pursuit,” I said.

Hannah took aim with the rifle.

A WARM PLACE 10

CHAPTER ONE

I held my breath, waiting and watching.

My muscles tensed in anticipation of the gunshot that was to come at any second. More of them already were as the two men in pursuit fired on the fleeing person with pistols. I waited, hoping this would go smoothly.

Hannah squeezed the trigger.

The bullet connected. Did it fucking ever connect. It punched a hole right through the lead attacker’s head. It sent his top half flying backwards, and his feet kicking up into the air from the impact, so that he basically did a backflip, landing haphazardly on his head and then just falling into a tumble of slack limbs.

The person running ducked and began to skid to a halt, probably having no fucking clue what to do with this suddenly development. Hannah didn’t wait. The other assailant skidded to a halt, kicking up snow and dirt, and tried to get away. He turned and began sprinting back the way he’d come. Hannah didn’t give the fucker a chance to do so. She fired again, and the rifle round entered the back of his neck and exploded out of the front in a spray of blood. He hit the ground hard and struggled weakly for a few seconds, then became still.

I saw the person on the run finally run behind a big tree that was near the edge of the clearing the ranger’s station was built into.

I opened my window after a few seconds. “Hello down there!” I called.

A few more seconds went by, then I heard a female voice call back, “Who just saved my ass?”

“My name’s Chris. My friend’s name is Hannah. She’s the one who saved your ass. We’re not looking to hurt you. If you’d be willing to talk, we’d like that!”

More silence. “And if I want to leave?” she asked.

“Then you can leave. No problem,” I replied.

Another pause. “All right, I’m willing to talk. Where should we meet?”

“Come in through the front doors of this building. We’ll be there.”

“Fine.”

“Let’s go,” I said, closing the window and heading out of the room. Hannah slung the rifle over her shoulder and followed me.

“You trust her?” she asked.

“Well, she was running from the assholes that straight up tried to murder us, and they were doing the same to her. I’ll get a better read on her once we’re talking,” I replied. “I just want to know how she was involved with them, if she can give us more information. Maybe help us.”

“Hmm,” Hannah murmured.

We went downstairs and saw the woman in question on approach. I studied her as we waited. I didn’t realize how tall she was. I think she might’ve been an inch or two taller than me, and I was just over six foot. She looked kind of built, too, under her coat and heavy pants. Slowly, she reached up and pulled off the skullcap, then the goggles. I was kind of surprised to see a fall of pure white hair come down. She had bright green eyes.

She was very beautiful in a striking kind of way, definitely a fierce kind of way.

“Thank you,” she said as she walked in. The woman stopped about a foot into the room past the door. I looked her over for weapons, but unless she had one stashed somewhere, like down the back of her pants or an ankle holster under her pants, I thought she might be unarmed. “My name’s Lexi. I appreciate that.”

“Not a problem. We’ve had a run-in with those assholes before,” I replied.

“Oh yeah? What happened?”

“They machine-gunned a building trying to kill us. We killed three of them when they forced us too,” I said.

“I see.” She paused. “So...now what? What do you have to say?”

“Well, I guess an offer of cooperation? We’re looking for information on these people, because before right now, we only had suspicions about whether or not there might be more of them,” I said, thinking it over.

“Oh, there’s more. To be sure. At least a dozen or so,” she said.

I felt my stomach drop a bit. “Where are they stationed?”

“There’s a tiny town maybe three quarters of a mile west of here.”

My stomach dropped again. A town? That close? Fuck, how in the hell had we missed that?

While I was thinking this over, Lexi spoke up again. “Since you two seem pretty decent, if you have a secure place, I’d really appreciate it if you’d let me crash there and maybe have some way to earn some supplies. They took practically fucking everything I had on me,” she said. Her expression, which was largely flat, suggested she was laying her cards on the table, reluctantly. I appreciated that. She’d pretty much just told us she was at our mercy. Although I didn’t doubt this woman could make an excellent go of surviving on her own, even with very little resources. She just had that look about her, the one of calm professionalism.

Lexi knew what she was doing.

Whatever else there was to learn about her, I could tell that.

“Hannah?” I asked.

Hannah didn’t look particularly happy, but she just shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“Fine then. We’ve got a house a little ways away, and some other people. They’re all good people, and you should be safe there. We can offer you some supplies, more if you’re willing to work, I guess,” I said.

“Definitely willing to work,” she replied.

“Okay then. Let’s go search those bodies, then get out of here, in case more of them show up,” I said. She nodded and turned around, then began walking back the way she’d come. Hannah and I joined her.

The three of us walked across the snow, towards the trees and the corpses. I couldn’t help but check out Lexi’s ass. She had a thick ass and broad hips. I wondered how fit she was under there. Something about her made me think she was in great shape. And she clearly had a bigger build than any of the other women I now knew. I wondered what it’d be like to take off her clothes and…

I shook my head slightly and focused.

Still could be in danger.

We hit the trees and shifted through them. As we came to the first body, Lexi crouched by it and stared at the hole in the head for a few seconds. “Wow,” she said finally, looking back at Hannah, “you are a good shot.”

“Thanks,” Hannah murmured.

“She’s a natural,” I agreed.

Lexi patted the body down. “Do you mind if I salvage this shit?”

“Not at all. They stole from you, only seems fair,” I said.

“I agree.”

She pocketed whatever she found in their pockets, mostly survival trinkets, and then she stood and looked around for a moment. Finally, her eyes locked onto something nearby. She walked over, crouched, and pulled a pistol out of the snow. The dead man’s gun. She brushed the snow from it, then pulled out the magazine, studied it, grunted and pocketed it, then took out the other one she’d taken from the corpse and slapped it in. Finally, she holstered the pistol and moved over to the second guy. “Hot damn,” she whispered as she crouched by him. “What a mess.”

Hannah and I kept watch as she worked.

“How did you get involved with them?” I asked.

“I wasn’t what you’d call involved, exactly,” Lexi replied. “More like I stumbled onto them. I’ve been heading southeast for awhile now. Just happened to find their little setup. I was running low on some supplies that aren’t exactly easy to get in the wilderness, and I thought I might be able to trade. I got some bad vibes from them when I started talking to some of them. I was getting ready to just get the fuck out when they jumped me. Got my backpack, and my rifle, and my pistol. I managed to get away at least, fucking assholes,” she growled.

She finished searching the second corpse, then stood up and waved the things she’d found in his pocket: a fancy lighter, a little medical kit, and a combat knife, at his corpse. “Hear that, shithead?! This is asshole tax!” She kicked the dead man’s head hard.

“You think they’re a lost cause?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. What, you don’t?” she replied, pocketing the stuff and then going hunting for the man’s dropped pistol.

“I feel fairly confident about my assessment, but I just wanted to know if I was missing anything.”

“That’s a good quality to have. Too many shitbags are too self assured. They’d rather shoot you than even entertain the notion that they’re wrong,” Lexi said. “And yeah, I’m confident they need to be erased. I’ve seen their type way too often since the snow fell. Asshole fucking ‘alpha’ types who think might makes right and it’s okay to take whatever you want so long as you are physically capable of taking it. They’re really lucky there were as many of them as there were. I’d’ve killed all of them if there’d been a few less,” she muttered. Lexi looked around suddenly. “So where’s this place you say you have?”

“This way,” I replied, and set off southwards.

Hannah walked alongside me and Lexi followed in our footsteps.

…

Lexi asked us about ourselves a bit, which was pretty common. Your story, where you were when it happened, what you’ve done since, in broad strokes, was still interesting. At least it was to me. Eventually, I asked, “What about you?”

“I was in Canada,” she replied.

“What were you doing up there?” I asked after a few seconds.

“Living,” she said. I waited. She sighed softly. “I know it’s hypocritical, but I don’t like talking about myself much.”

“Why?” Hannah asked, a little too quickly.

“I have a right to privacy, don’t I?” Lexi asked, reasonably enough.

“Yes,” I said.

Hannah frowned but didn’t say anything.

Lexi sighed. “I did things I now regret. I...hit a turning point, shortly before the shit went down, and I was figuring my life out when the apocalypse hit. I’ve since figured it out. I want to help people and keep myself alive and that’s about it.”

“Me too,” I said, when Hannah didn’t say anything. What was her problem? I could understand an initial distrust...then again, we hadn’t had anyone new around yet. Maybe this was just how Hannah was around new people? It would make sense that she was a naturally distrustful person. It would fit in smoothly with the rest of her personality. Not that that was even necessarily a bad thing. Trust had to be earned, and, in my experience, rationed carefully in this horrible new world. I’d gotten decent about reading people.

I thought that Lexi was guarded, and not just because she’d admitted to not wanting to talk about her past, but ultimately I believed her. I thought that she wanted to help people, or, at the very least, didn’t want to hurt good people.

I also thought that she could be really useful in a fight against these assholes, especially if there were a goddamned dozen others.

And, I mean, yeah, I wanted to have sex with her.

She was reminding me of something that I realized once a year or two before all this crap went down: women with white hair could be hot. And not just like, in general, but specifically because of the hair. And I don’t mean like pale blonde or something, I mean actually white. I never really thought about it until I was playing a game and one of the female characters really stuck out at me, and she had white hair, almost like Lexi’s hairstyle. I just thought she was a hot, uniquely designed character, but a few months later I was watching a cartoon and saw another character with pure white hair, and finally I made the connection. She would’ve been hot with any color hair, but the white...I don’t know. It was just one of those things.

I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone in real life with just white hair like that.

Well, I had now, and the effect was still the same.

It also probably helped that she was as big as she was. She looked kind of built, and reminded me of like an MMA fighter or weightlifter or something. I tended to prefer women who were smaller than me, in some cases a lot smaller, like Susan, but bigger could really well too. And it was working in Lexi’s case.

Of course, all of this was a moot point right now, because I didn’t even know if she was sticking around for all that long, let alone at all interested in me. It’d be worth finding out, though. After dealing with the stupid, trigger-happy fucks who were trying to kill us. We didn’t say much as we walked back, first through some woods, then out into the open area between the forests, which made me tense up in anticipation like it always did, much more than normal actually given all the shooting that had been happening recently.

But then we made it to our own woods and that was better, at least.

Finally, we made it home. I walked in through the front door. “We’re back! House meeting!” I called out as I made way for the others to come in behind me. Once they were in, I shut and locked the door.

Lexi looked around as she took off her coat. “This is a really nice place.”

“Thanks. We got lucky,” I agreed.

The others trickled into the room from around the house, each of them looking with mild surprise at Lexi as they entered the room. We gathered around the dining room table, where we had these meetings of ours, and sat down.

“This is Lexi,” I said. “We saved her from more of those assholes. They were trying to kill her, as well. We’ve confirmed there’s more.”

“How many more?” Susan asked unhappily.

“At least a dozen,” Lexi said.

Sofia sighed heavily upon hearing that, looking anxious.

“Apparently we missed the fact that there’s a small town to the north of us. That’s where they’re stationed. Given the fact that we’ve now had two very unreasonably violent run-ins with these guys, and from Lexi’s account of them, I think that we can safely assume that they are hostile, and cannot be reasoned with. And that, logically, there’s a very good chance that sooner or later they are going to find us here. At which point they’ll probably try to rob and kill us,” I said.

“Or worse,” Lara murmured softly, looking pale.

I got her on that sentiment. I didn’t want to think about what sick fucks like that would do if they captured any of the women here.

It wasn’t going to happen.

I would see to that personally.

“So what do we do?” Jessica asked.

“We’re going to have to kill them,” I said, “unless anyone else has a better idea.”

No one spoke for a few seconds, then Susan did. “We could move, but I’m sure we aren’t willing to do that. Nor should we have to. We could hope they don’t find us, but hoping something happens is pretty much always stupider than doing something...”

“I don’t suppose there’s even the smallest chance of peace?” Sofia suggested.

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “They machine-gunned the house Hannah and I were in, while sniping at us, to serve as a distraction tactic for a guy to sneak in the back to shoot us in the fucking back. And that was literally unprovoked. That was how we met.”

“I’ve been to their camp. These aren’t good people. They would’ve raped and probably eventually killed me if I hadn’t escaped. They need to go,” Lexi said.

“It sounds like it,” Sofia agreed reluctantly. “But do you really think you can taken on a dozen of them?”

“If we’re smart about it,” I replied. “The first thing we need is information. So I want to actually see this place, and possibly them, for myself. Lexi, will you take me there and is there a good vantage point we can see from without being seen?”

She considered it, then slowly nodded. “I’ll definitely take you there, and I’m pretty sure I saw like a hill that’s north of here, south of the town. If we’re dressed appropriately, we can probably manage some recon without getting seen.”

“Good. Then let’s head up there right now. I want to get the wheels turning on this as fast as possible. Hannah, can I have your rifle and ammo?”

“Why? I want to go, too,” she replied.

“No, I need you here. The fewer of us there are moving around to be seen, the better. And I want you here, guarding this place, if something does go wrong, you and Susan.” I waited, and she stared at me unhappily, almost angrily. “Please?” I asked.

She sighed and set her rifle and the box of bullets she carried around with her on the table. “Just...bring it back,” she muttered.

“I will. And thank you.”

Because it for some reason seemed appropriate, I gave my rifle and ammo to Lexi, and took Hannah’s. I guess I figured it’d make her feel better, even a tiny bit, that I was the one using her rifle, instead of Lexi. For whatever reason, she just didn’t like the woman. I had a suspicion, but there was no time to deal with that right now.

“So that we’re clear, Lexi and I are walking north about...how far would you say?”

“About two miles,” Lexi replied, “I think, from here.”

“Two miles. We’ll do some recon, then we’ll come back. Simple. If we aren’t back in two hours, then I want Hannah or Susan to walk to the watchtower. If we get into trouble or hurt, we’ll try to make it there. If you don’t see us there, and can’t find us, go back home. Ideally we won’t need to put up with any of that.” I looked at Lexi. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” she replied.

“Then let’s do this.”

CHAPTER TWO

We walked for about five minutes before Lexi spoke.

I noticed that she was wearing a smirk, though I wasn’t sure what to make of it. She looked amused by something.

Finally, she said, “I’m impressed.”

“With what?” I replied uncertainly.

“You’re fucking every single woman in that room, and they all know it.”

I was silent for a few seconds. Finally, I said, “You’re perceptive. How did you know?”

“Body language. When people are physically intimate, nine times out of ten you can tell in the way they look at each other. It’s just this certain expression they get in their eyes. A look of...trust, and happiness, contentment, I think. Or sometimes they look horny.”

“Maybe they’re just horny?” I suggested. “I haven’t fucked every woman I’ve looked at with lust. I haven’t fucked like ninety nine percent of women I’ve looked at with lust.”

“No, there’s a difference. It’s subtle, but it’s there. The difference between the lust of a person yet conquered, and a person already conquered. Most people can’t pick this stuff out, or if they do, it has to be obvious. And none of those women have a reason to hide the fact that they’ve let you stick your cock inside of them. They don’t have to hide it from each other, apparently, and they don’t care to hide it from me. None of them look pregnant, so either they’re all fixed or infertile or have some kind of access to birth control, or some combination, or some of them do and some don’t and not enough time has passed for them to start showing...or, more than likely, since you’re the common link, it makes the most sense that you’re fixed.”

“You’re perceptive,” I repeated.

She laughed. “Yeah, I am. And like I said, you’re impressive. That says a lot about you.”

“That I’m fucking five women?” I asked.

“That you’re fucking five women and none of them hate each other, or you, or are jealous. Or if they are it’s mild. That’s impressive. Especially considering Hannah is one of those women. She seems...fierce.”

“She really is,” I muttered.

“And you like that about her.”

I chuckled. “I mean, yeah.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Why?”

“You seem more like the type who’s drawn to women like that brunette with the huge tits. And not just because she has fucking huge tits and is insanely hot.”

“Lara? What about her?”

“She strikes me as being...indecisive, and co-dependent. Someone more prone to asking for orders instead of giving them.”

“Oh come on, you were in the room with her for five minutes. How could you possibly pick that up about her? You’re guessing.”

“I am,” she admitted. “But it’s an educated guess. When you were doling out orders, you did so largely to Hannah and the petite one, you called her Susan. They seem competent. They seem like they know what they’re doing. Just in the way they reacted to news. They didn’t looked worried so much as a little anxious. Lara and the other redhead looked scared, frightened. The dark-haired woman looked somewhere in between, but I’d be willing to bet she’s pretty levelheaded too.”

“Okay, fine. But why would you think that about me?” I asked, honestly interested to hear what she had to say. If a little annoyed.

Perceptive people were at first impressive, then annoying.

They were way more entertaining to watch on TV or read about in books, less fun to deal with in real life, because they made you feel stupid.

Here, she frowned. “Unfortunately, I have less perceptive and insightful things to say about that.”

I snorted. “Seriously?”

“It’s more...gut instinct, I guess. Which can be wrong. Normally women like Hannah, women like Susan, make a lot guys...unhappy. To say the least. I’m guessing neither of them have a problem challenging you, huh?”

I laughed. “Oh no, no problem.”

“Exactly. A lot guys have a difficult enough time when other men challenge them. They don’t really know how to handle it when a woman does. Women like Lara and the older redhead-by the way, is she Hannah’s mother?” I nodded. “Holy shit, I’m impressed that that actually worked out. It’s pretty rare to be fucking a chick and her mom, or daughter, and they know about it, and they’re okay with it. Anyway, Lara and the mom, they strike me as the type who won’t speak up for themselves. Which is fine, sort of, if they’re with the right partner. They seem like the passive-aggressive types. Susan and Hannah, on the other hand, are just aggressive. In my experience, most men, and men like you, can’t handle aggression in women.”

“I can handle it. I’m reasonable.” I paused. “Why do you care?”

She shrugged. “I’m just interested. Conversation makes time go by faster, and this is quite a walk, and people interest me. Relationships interest me. Especially weird ones. I guess not weird, more...unique ones. Abnormal ones. And what you’ve got here is interesting. You also must be basically in paradise.”

“I mean, yeah. Of course.”

“Is that why you’re so eager to stand and fight? Take the fight to them?”

“Probably the main reason,” I replied. “Though not necessarily because I’m only worried about these douche-bags ‘encroaching on my territory’ or ‘stealing my women’. I care about them. I want to keep them safe, and happy.”

“I can tell,” Lexi murmured.

I looked at her. She looked almost...wistful. “Do you care about anyone?”

She looked over at me, almost startled. Then returned her gaze straight ahead. “I suppose so. There’s people I’ve met along the way that I care about. That I would help, if, somehow, they got to me and asked me. People I liked. I almost stayed with some of them, but it didn’t feel right. I wanted to keep moving.”

I grunted. I could appreciate that sentiment, although not anymore. I hadn’t felt the urge to move on since meeting Lara and Susan. I hoped I would never feel it again, to be honest. Something occurred to me after another minute or so of silence.

“So, Lexi, riddle me this: if you’re so fucking perceptive, how the hell did you end up in the situation you ended up in?” I asked.

She didn’t answer right away, and when I looked at her, I saw she was blushing a little, looking mildly annoyed and embarrassed.

“Well?”

“I’m a little reckless,” she admitted, still not looking at me. “I wanted a challenge.” I continued staring at her. She glanced over finally. “Don’t worry, I won’t be reckless with your life, or the lives of your girlfriends. I’m not an idiot. I only risk my own life, and only for fun when I’m by myself and other people’s safety and health and lives aren’t on the line. You can trust me.”

I thought about that for a moment. “What did you used to be, before the snow?” I asked. She gave me a hard look. “Trust is a two-way street, Lexi.”

She stared at me a bit longer, then heaved an annoyed sigh. “I suppose it is...you fucker. If you must know, I was a bounty hunter. Officially speaking.”

“And unofficially speaking?” I asked.

“I...found people. For money. But not for the police. And not always people who deserved to be found. Before that, I was a...a fixer.”

“Fixer?”

She sighed. “I got money out of people who owed it.”

I looked at her harder. “You were at extortionist-”

“Yes, Chris! You can see why I didn’t want to fucking talk about it. But I didn’t-I picked and chose who to get money out of. I got money out of abusive assholes and shitty fathers and just general scum, okay? I never threatened anyone who didn’t deserve it, okay?”

“But the ‘organization’ you worked for? Did they threaten people who didn’t deserve it?” She didn’t say anything. I sighed.

“I know. I was complicit. Okay? Are you happy? This is why I’ve stopped being a piece of shit. This is why I help people.”

I thought about it for a long time, silent for several minutes as we walked. Lexi seemed content to let me think it through. I’d met a lot of people since the snowfall. I’d met some really bad people. Some of them were trying to not be bad anymore. I’d met an ex-con who’d done a number of years in prison for a lot of robberies, arson, and a carjacking that resulted in him murdering someone. He regretted that. Largely, he regretted hurting people. Not so much the stealing. I’d met a dude who was a doctor who admitted to padding his patient’s bills and threatening to leak private information if they complained. I’d also met people who society said were bad people. Prostitutes. Drug addicts. Porn stars.

The actual bad people I’d met, some of them were trying to be better, and I respected that.

“I believe you,” I said finally, because I did. I believed her.

“You gonna tell the others?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. “If you want that knowledge to get to them, you can deliver it yourself. You’ve got a right to privacy, and I believe in redemption.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly. Then, “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”

“Seriously?”

“You don’t have to answer. I’m just curious. I thought a little reciprocity would be nice, given what I’ve just told you.”

I didn’t have to think too hard about that, although I’d actually gotten pretty good at, at least temporarily, forgetting what I thought was the worst thing I ever did. I remember thinking that I’d never cheated before. That was true. I’ve never cheated on my partner before. But…

“I fucked my friend’s girlfriend when it wasn’t exactly...clear, whether or not they were still together,” I said.

“What happened?”

I sighed. “It was like a year before the weather started getting really weird. Had a friend I’d made at work out of high school. He was kind of an ass, but I don’t know, we got along pretty well for some reason. He wasn’t...great, with the girls he dated. In that he didn’t always treat them super well. That always bugged me, considering he was an asshole an appreciable amount of the time, and he could get girlfriends, and I was a nice guy, and I couldn’t. And no, not a ‘nice guy’ in that way everyone has toxified the goddamned fucking phrase. I didn’t think anyone owed me sex just because I wasn’t an asshole. I was actually fucking nice. I was actually fucking good to the women I did date. And I still fucking am.

“But anyway, they’d been together for like eight months at that point. Over the past two or so months, they must’ve broken up like a dozen times. They’d fight, one of them would storm off, they’d ‘break up’, and then they were back together in like three days. She was really hot, and she could do better than him, and I was often frustrated that they were together. We had become friends and during one of those fights, she came over to my place to rant about him. We talked, we ate dinner, we watched some cartoons, we...got close on the couch, and the next thing I know, we...fucked. Like three times. She spent the night, and it was amazing.”

“So then what happened?” she asked after I stopped talking.

I sighed again. “We both felt really guilty in the morning, although I admittedly was hoping that she would, you know, break it off with him, come to me. But of course he called her and apologized and all the same sorry shit. She made me promise never to tell him, and said it was a mistake, and it wasn’t going to happen again. To her credit, it didn’t. I still feel bad about it.”

Lexi didn’t say anything for several seconds. I looked over at her finally, and saw she was looking at me with kind of wide eyes. “What?” I asked.

“That is the worst thing you’ve ever done? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I mean...okay, I’ve had to kill people. And I feel bad about that, but they brought it on themselves. I never went looking for trouble...although I guess I can’t necessarily say that anymore...”

“We aren’t looking for trouble, Chris. Trouble found us, and we’re responding to it appropriately. We need to head this problem off because it gets one or multiple of us killed,” Lexi said firmly. “But that’s nuts. I wish the worst thing I’d ever done was fucking my friend’s partner. Fuck.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, feeling oddly guilty, wondering what the worst thing she had ever done was, and we kept walking.

Neither of us said anything else until we reached the place we were looking for. I guess I could understand why I’d missed this. The town was pretty perfectly hidden from view by the landscape itself, and it was an appreciable distance north of the watchtower. We were careful as we ascended the hill, moving among the sparse plant life and occasional tree. Finally, we got to the top, getting down low and crawling through the snow as we did, to minimize our presence as much as possible. And then I saw the town.

It was pretty small. I quickly counted off ten buildings in two rows that served as the main ‘township’, I guess it could be called, and I saw a few other structures off in the distance, houses it looked like. It wasn’t even really a town. More like a rest stop that saw enough tourism to warrant a bit of expansion, and then a few regulars liked it enough to build their houses there. We settled in with our rifles, peering through the scopes.

For a few minutes, neither of us said anything. We just checked out the situation. I saw smoke rising from two chimneys. One was a house at the end of the row of buildings farthest from us, and the other, next to it, looked like it might have been a little convenience store. I tried to determine what the rest of the buildings were. One was definitely a motel. One was a gas station. One a garage. I saw what was probably a bait and tackle shop. There were probably a pair of restaurants in there, and I think the rest were houses.

It was harder to tell because half of them were facing away and not all of those were obviously-shaped like some were. A gas station looked like a gas station no matter what angle you were looking at it from, in my experience. As we hunted, I could see a few figures moving around inside the convenience store, behind the plate glass windows. I saw two people walking back to the town from the north side, hauling what looked like a big deer carcass. Another figure walked out of one of the houses. Slowly, I counted them off.

“I count seven,” I murmured softly.

“Same,” Lexi replied. “What do you think? Start picking them off? We could get that guy at the garage and the two coming in for sure, and probably at least one or two in the buildings before they got to cover. That’s damn near half of what I saw...”

“No, it’s too risky,” I replied. “It’s tempting, but we need a better plan. There’s too many of them, and honestly I’d rather not let them know we’ve found them.”

“Yeah,” she muttered, sounding disappointed.

“So you’re sure there’s a dozen?” I asked after another moment.

“Just about. I counted heads when I came in. There could be more, but you said you’ve killed three, and then there was the two Hannah killed saving my ass.”

I thought about it for a bit as I kept watch. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a much better way to scope them out. This position was realistically about as good as it was going to get, considering the two buildings most likely and heavily occupied we presently had the best view we were going to get on. Moving to a different position wouldn’t give us a better view. I didn’t want to risk getting any closer, because I was confident about mine, and especially Lexi’s, combat skills, but a dozen on two were pretty bad odds.

We sat around for about another twenty minutes, waiting to see if anything happened, if we got a better count. The guy at the garage walked back to the house. The two guys dragging the deer disappeared behind the store and, presumably, either skinned it outside and then went in through the back, or just went in through the back. We got colder. The longer we hung around, the better the chance we had of being discovered. Even if it was still a pretty low chance, given our distance and positioning, I still didn’t like it.

Finally, I decided we’d done as much as we could do here.

“Okay, let’s get back to the house and make a plan,” I said.

“You’ve got an idea?” Lexi asked.

“I might. I need to think on it.”

“Okay.”

We scooted our way carefully back down the hill until it was safe to stand up, then we began heading back home.

And I ruminated on how best to kill a dozen armed, dangerous men.

CHAPTER THREE

“I’m curious...what are you relationships like, with the women?” Lexi asked.

We had been walking for almost fifteen minutes in silence at this point. We’d talked briefly about things we’d seen in the town, then had fallen silent.

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“Exactly what I asked.”

“I guess, I mean...why do you ask?”

She laughed. “I told you, I’m curious. People interest me.”

I considered her question. It seemed odd. I thought she would take more satisfaction from studying me and my lovers interacting over the next day or two, and then deconstruct our relationship, and tell me, through a series of observational and educated guesses, what they were like. So why was she asking? She probably knew how annoying it was when she did that. Was she being polite? I suddenly wondered if she was testing the waters.

After dropping that knowledge on me about her past, about the shitty things she’d done, she was probably worried that although I’d said what I said, in practice I would close off against her. But I didn’t want to do that. For a few reasons. One, because I thought I was going to need her. Hannah and Susan and I were good, and might be able to handle the situation on our own, but Lexi was great. I could just tell. And anything that reduced danger to the women I loved was something I intended to put to use.

The second reasons was that, okay, I’ll admit it: I wanted to fuck her.

I mean, why wouldn’t? She was really fucking hot, on a number of levels.

But the final, and largest, reason, was because I did believe what I had told her. In redemption. And giving people another chance. In trust.

“Fair enough,” I replied. “I’m probably the closest with Susan and Lara. I met them first. Our relationship started out very, uh, businesslike, I guess you could say. I saved Lara, and she offered to suck and fuck my dick in exchange for protection and help. Susan...was reluctant to accept my help, but ultimately I, guess you could say, I won her over. And now all three of us are pretty close. I’m in a ‘real’ relationship with them, in that we call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. Jessica and I...she really, really likes me, and we have sex. I think...” I hesitated. How much was too much? “I think the depths of her feelings for me are a lot more than she lets on.”

“How do you feel about that?” Lexi asked.

“I feel fine about it. I like her a lot. I’m okay with emotional intimacy.”

“What about Hannah?”

I laughed. “It’s...I think it’s a little complicated with Hannah. Complicated by the fact that she’s younger than me by six years, and although she is mature for her age, she’s still prone to...an overabundance of emotions, sometimes. And it’s probably a little further complicated by the fact that I also fuck her mother on the side. And, well...the first time I met her mother was to fuck her and basically enable her to cheat on her husband.”

“Wow, really?” Lexi asked.

“Yeah. When I showed up, Jessica and Hannah were living where we live now with Jessica’s shitty husband and a few other people. Lara and Jessica were meeting in the middle of nowhere for some sex and comfort. Jessica was being neglected in pretty much every way you can be, and Lara really liked her, so...one thing led to another. When I showed up, Lara pretty much insisted I get involved. And once I met Jessica...I mean, you saw her.”

“Yeah, I can see that. I’m not super into girls, but...I’d fuck her. She’s wicked hot.”

“Yeah she is.”

“God, you didn’t use protection, did you?”

“Not once, with any of them.”

“Fuck. That must have been a huge thrill to fuck married, cheating pussy raw.”

I chuckled and rubbed the back of my neck, feeling heat rush to my cheeks again. “Yeah. It was. It felt...amazing. But, uh, anyway. Jessica and Hannah eventually found their living situation intolerable and came to live with us. Finally, the situation came to a head. Her husband, well, ex, ended up dead, the others exiled. Except for Sofia. She stayed with us.”

“What’s your relationship like with her? I can’t get much read on her, honestly.”

“Neither can I. She’s a good person, but she’s pretty reserved. Initially I thought it was because she had been living in such a shitty, tense situation for so long, but she’s definitely more relaxed and happier now. I can tell that. She’s just quiet, and keeps mostly to herself. We have sex every few days. She’s stern. She’s a nurse, and she helped me. I got grazed during the confrontation with the jealous ex, by a bullet. She helped heal me. Helped a lot, honestly. And basically strong-armed me into staying in and letting my wound heal, instead of going back out like an idiot.”

Lexi laughed. “I have that problem, too...okay, so, interesting. None of them have trouble with the fact that you’re fucking all of them?”

“Susan and Hannah had...a little bit of trouble adjusting to some of it. Lara’s basically thrilled about it. And I think Jessica’s adjusting to the fact that she actually really likes it this way. I think Lara’s the only one who was honestly prepared for this situation. Everyone else probably had no idea how they’d react because they’d never tried living this way. And, luckily, they’re discovering that it can work for them.”

“Massively lucky for you,” Lexi said.

I laughed. “Yeah, I mean, obviously.”

She didn’t respond for a bit after that. I started thinking about maybe approaching her for sex. I was never really good at it with some women. Some, like Lara, you could just ask. I mean, generally, I thought that was a decent way to do it. Just ask. No pressure, no expectations, just polite asking. Hope for yes, be ready to accept no. But Lexi was...different. Probably the best answer was to wait for her to ask me.

But what if she didn’t?

“Oh fuck,” Lexi snapped suddenly.

I began to ask ‘what?’ and then I heard both a deep growling and the pounding of feet. Wolves. Wolves were coming for us. I grabbed my pistol as I turned towards them, and saw a pair of dark-furred figures shooting towards us through the trees. My heart jumped painfully in my chest and I took aim while backing up a bit.

Lexi did the same thing. We tracked them as they shot through the trees, kicking up snow in their zeal to get to us. Fuck, they were fast. I fired a shot. Missed. Fired another shot. Missed again. Fuck! Lexi fired a shot and clipped one of them across the back. It yelped and skidded to a halt. She didn’t waste the opportunity it gave and fired again, putting another round through its skull. I was having a lot more trouble. Which, I had to admit, was kind of embarrassing in front of Lexi. But finally, I caught the thing in the neck.

Blood sprayed on the snow, and the wolf went down.

It tried to get back up, and I quickly shot it in the head. I had no desire to see it suffer. Like all my murders, I wished it didn’t have to come to it. But I especially felt that way about animals. The wolf was just...being itself. And unfortunately that meant kill or be killed.

“Fuck,” I whispered, lowering the pistol.

“Hate those things,” Lexi said.

I just grunted and started walking towards it. “Help me get them back. That’s several meals right there.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, and joined me.

We each grabbed one and resumed making our way back home.

…

We got back home without any further trouble.

I checked in with the others, letting them know we were fine, we’d talk about it soon, and Lexi and I had to skin and clean some wolves. Then, after we warmed up a bit, we got to work. For a few minutes, we just worked, getting the skins off. I checked her handiwork as she worked and saw that she was not only good, but extremely familiar. Like me, she’d done this probably hundreds of times before. She looked...thoughtful.

“So, Chris,” she said after about five minutes of bloody work.

“Yeah?”

“Are you interested in sex with me?”

I glanced at her. “Yes. Definitely,” I replied.

She smirked. “I thought so, but as good as I am about making assumptions, I have learned that it’s best to find out for sure if at all possible.”

A moment of silence passed.

“...and?” I asked.

“And what?” she replied, but she was still smirking.

“Do you want to fuck me?” I asked.

“I’m considering it. Before I get any further, I thought it’d be prudent to figure out whether or not you were even interested. Be stupid to work up to propositioning you only to get a no,” she replied.

I laughed and we got back to it.

A few more minutes went by.

“So, I really don’t intimidate you?” she asked.

“What?”

“Men are typically a lot of talk, but when women like me confront them with actual sex, they suddenly find excuses to be elsewhere. I’ve got muscles under these clothes,” she said.

“I kinda figured,” I replied. “Yeah, you intimidate me. But you said it yourself, about me and Hannah and Susan.”

“Yeah, but those are personalities. Susan’s tiny and Hannah’s...I mean, she’s in good shape, yeah, and definitely on the tall side, but I’m built, and I’m taller than you are, and I’ve got the personality to go with it.”

“Oh so you think I’m just talking the talk, not walking the walk? You think that I’ll tolerate a loud mouth and a defiant personality so long as it’s in a hot body?” I asked.

She hesitated, then she pursed her lips. “Huh. I guess I am saying that. Sorry, I didn’t actually mean it like that, but...yeah.”

I laughed. “It’s fine. No, I’ve been with women like you before. About ten months ago I traveled for two weeks with a Marine chick who was like six three and built, bigger than you. I fucked the hell out of her.”

“Nice. All right, fair enough. I’ve just, you know, run into a lot of tough guys who were all talk, no fuck. Not all of them were, but enough that I noticed a trend.” She shrugged. “It gets old, you know? And frustrating.”

“I will definitely fuck you, if you want,” I said.

“I believe you, actually. So I’ll let you know. It’s probably yes. I just need to think about it some more.”

“Take all the time you need,” I replied.

She just smiled and kept working.

CHAPTER FOUR

We skinned, cleaned, and prepped the wolves.

After dealing with the skins and the meats, we headed inside. I was grateful to be finally in out of the cold. I was also fully intending to not leave the house again for the rest of the day. I’d trekked all over this goddamned region, been pretty much on the move since morning. My legs ached and my lungs and my skin hurt from all the exposure to the cold. I’d built up a lot of endurance, but goddamned today had taken it out of me.

Dinner was being made and I left Lexi in the kitchen, talking with Jessica and Lara, who were the ones making it. They seemed happy enough to talk with her. I went looking for Susan or Hannah, and I found both of them together in the basement.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

We’d straightened up the basement quite a bit since moving in. At one point, Susan had reasonably pointed out that we might end up either adding someone else to our roster, or at least needing to entertain a guest or two at some point, so I’d helped move a bed from the middle building that we didn’t use for anything over and down into the basement, then get it set up. And we’d discovered that apparently we weren’t the only ones to have such an idea, as there was a little wood-burning stove built in down there, and it came with proper ventilation. I found Hannah making the bed and Susan sweeping up.

I also saw a neat little stack of fresh-cut firewood by the stove.

“Since Lexi’s presumably going to be sticking around for a little bit, I figured it’d be nice to have a room set up for her,” Susan replied.

“Good idea. Thank you. Is all well?”

“Fine,” Hannah said. I glanced at her. Well, she was still in a mood.

“All right, uh...I’m gonna go relax for a bit. I’m fucking dead on my feet,” I replied. I didn’t feel like dealing with that right now. Hannah did look at me when I said that, though, and her expression softened a bit. She probably was realizing just how much I’d done today. She’d been there for over half of it.

“We’ll be up for dinner,” she said finally, then went back to finishing making the bed.

I lingered for just a bit, then turned around and walked back up the stairs. I tracked down Sofia, to see how she was doing, and found her in her room. She was reading.

“Hello,” she said, smiling kindly as she saw me.

“Hi, Sofia. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine. I’m doing wrestling with that fucking thing for the day. I’m sorry it isn’t ready yet, but it’s a bit more complicated than I thought. I’m almost sure we’ll have it done by tomorrow, though,” she said, referring to the water purification device.

“That’s fine. I really appreciate it.” I paused. “Do you have any shaving supplies? An electric razor would be best, I think.” I’d been using a razor to shave my face about once a week so far, and I wasn’t particularly comfortable with the idea of using it near my dick. I would if I had to, I’d done it before, but I preferred buzzed to clean shaven, honestly.

Mainly because when hair’s growing back in there it itches like fucking crazy. Plus, I dunno, it does kinda look weird, to me at least. Then again, I guess it really mattered how my cock looked to the ladies in my life more than it did to me.

“I do have an electric razor with fresh batteries. Any particular reason you need it?”

“I, uh...am going to buzz my pubes,” I replied. Why was it weird to talk about this? I’d fucked her like ten times now.

Sofia smirked and set aside her book. “Oh, are you?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Would you like some help?”

“I...seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Well...okay. Lemme wash up first.”

“Appreciated.”

I stripped down while she got up and went into the bathroom. I heard something that sent an incredibly bizarre sensation rippling through me: the flipping of a light switch. And then a light actually coming on. I stared at the bathroom as Sofia walked into it. Holy shit. How long had it been since I’d actually seen a fucking light fixture turn on? It was one of the most common things fucking ever back before this shit happen, but when I’d gone out into the wilderness, it became incredibly rare to find a place that had electricity.

“How are the solar panels working out?” I asked as I finished getting naked and moved over to the bucket of warm water in her room. I grabbed some soap and a rag and set to work.

“Pretty good. They’re topped off as of today, so we’ve been actually goddamned using lights here or there. You know, if we get some kind of recharger and some batteries, or battery units, we could store power. We could trade power,” Sofia replied.

“Yeah, we could,” I murmured.

I finished washing my dick and the surrounding area, then moved into the bathroom. Sofia was standing by the toilet, holding an electric razor, still smirking at me.

“You’re really amused by this, huh?” I asked as I walked over and sat down.

“Kinda,” she admitted. “Who brought it up?”

“What makes you think I’m not just doing this on my own?”

“Your pubes obviously haven’t been tended to in quite awhile, Chris.”

I sighed. She waited. “Hannah,” I said.

“Figured. Sit.” I sat down. “Don’t worry,” she said as she got down on the floor, “it says good things about you. And you can trust me not to hurt your junk.”

“Good to know,” I replied.

She turned it on, the buzzing sound filling the bathroom, and then leaned in. I couldn’t help but tense at least a little, but I did trust her. She asked me about what had happened out there, and I filled her in while she buzzed my dark pubic hair away. The whole thing took about five or six minutes as she buzzed away, and by the end of it I was rock hard, because she kept touching my dick, and she looked really good today. She was wearing a tanktop and no bra, and her big, beautiful tits were pretty nicely on display.

“There,” she said when she’d finished up. “That looks a whole lot better.” She carefully dusted my crotch off with a small towel. She set it aside, then suddenly pursed her lips, staring at my dick, as if considering something. Sofia looked up at me suddenly. Her gaze was almost...playful. “You know...you’re hard and horny, obviously. And your dick is already out. And I’m already right here on the floor in front of you...”

“Yeah?” I prompted.

“Might as well give you a blowjob,” she said, then she leaned in and took my cock into her mouth. I groaned loudly, settling a little more into position.

“Fuck,” I whispered, and I put my hand on top of her head. “Make me come.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured, closing her eyes and sliding her lips slowly up and down my rock hard cock.

“Thank you very much for this,” I said quietly as she went to work. “I really needed this after today.”

She moaned and wrapped her finger and thumb around my shaft, then began moving it in tandem with her lips. The way she lingered on the head, slowly dragging her lips across it made me twitch in pleasure. Her mouth was a hot, wet paradise. With her other hand, she reached up and cupped my nuts gently, then began to massage them. Her skin was hot and soft and smooth, and that just felt fucking good.

“Goddamn, Sofia,” I panted as she picked up the pace a little. “That is fucking...oh man. I’m gonna...shit!” I cried, and started coming.

It was a goddamned explosion of an orgasm. Every other thought was blasted clean out of my head as my entire body lit up with pleasure and bliss and every fucking good feeling. My seed blasted out of me and into her mouth and down her throat. Waves upon waves of ecstasy rolled through me as I started letting off in her mouth. And fuck, she just kept sucking. Holy fucking shit, she was still sucking, still running her finger and thumb up and down my dick, still massaging my balls, extracting every last goddamned drop out of me.

I felt almost paralyzed with pleasure.

She sucked me totally dry, and then took my cock slowly out of her mouth, looking very pleased with herself. “I think you earned that, after all you did and put up with today.”

“Thank you,” I panted.

She grinned and gave my balls a very gentle squeeze. “You’re welcome. You want to come share my bed tonight? It’s been a little while.”

“Yes, definitely,” I replied.

It was good to be wanted.

“Come on. Dinner’s almost ready, I bet.”

I nodded. She got up and headed out of the room. I got up and looked at my dick in the mirror. Well, it looked better than shaved. But whatever, Sofia had done a good job. Hannah would probably be pretty happy with this. I looked at the mess of hair on the floor. I’d definitely have to clean that up. With that in mind, I left the bathroom and dressed. Sofia was already gone. After I had all my clothes back on, I went downstairs and peeked into the kitchen. Everyone was there now, although it looked like they were still waiting for dinner.

Perfect. I went into the basement and snagged the broom and dustpan, then went upstairs and swept it all up. I walked to the window and opened it up once I’d collected all my shaved off pubes, then tossed them out the window. Normally I’d flushed them, but we didn’t have a working toilet. Plus, the wind was already blowing away most of them. They’d scatter. Once I closed the window, I headed back downstairs and set the broom in the corner, then joined the rest of them at the table. Jessica and Lara were in the process of finishing up.

“What were you two doing up there?” Lara asked with a grin. “I heard noises.”

“Just helping Chris with a little personal grooming and...unwinding after a long, hard day,” Sofia replied, still with that smirk. She wore it well.

“Oh,” Hannah said, suddenly getting it. She looked at me and now she was smirking. They all seemed to do that a lot. Not that I minded. Usually it was related to something sexy. And honestly, I was just glad to see a boost in Hannah’s mood.

Then dinner came. It was stew, a combination of wild onion, deer, and wolf meat. And it smelled great, and tasted better. Jessica was putting seasonings to use regularly, to amazing effect. Lexi almost inhaled her food. I imagined this was quite the luxury after traveling alone for however long she had been. We chatted about this and that, keeping it light. I didn’t want to get to the heavy stuff until we’d enjoyed dinner.

We got through dinner, finishing it all off, and I wanted to keep the peaceful atmosphere for a little bit longer. But it wasn’t to be, apparently.

Susan fixed me with a firm stare a few minutes after we were done. “So what are we going to do about them?” she asked.

I sighed. “Unfortunately, it’s not exactly a good situation. They’re dug in good up there, and I saw at least eight for sure. Lexi says there’s around a dozen up there. All of them like the assholes we encountered at the farm. I’ve been thinking about it, and right now, besides some kind of all-out assault, which I really don’t like the odds of, I have just one plan: we go hunting. Twice now we’ve caught two groups away from the others and have managed to pick off five of them. And I saw two returning from a hunting trip while we were watching. Obviously, they go off on their own. They’re going to be more suspicious with the problems recently, but if we can even kill out just another three or four of them out in the wilderness, that may tip the scales in our favor,” I explained.

“So your plan is to wait for some of them to go off on their own, hunt and kill them, then mount an assault after?” Hannah asked.

“Basically.”

I looked around the table. Jessica and Lara were afraid again, and I didn’t blame them. This was fucking scary. Hannah and Susan looked like they were considering it. Lexi was nodding, so she was cool with the plan.

“I think it’s our best shot,” Hannah said finally.

“I guess I can’t really think of a better plan, given the situation,” Susan murmured unhappily. Finally, she looked at me again. “So when do we do this?”

“Lexi and I will head out tomorrow to hunt. I want everyone else to stay here and keep a sharp eye out for anyone else,” I said. Everyone but Hannah looked like they were okay with that, but she at least managed to keep her peace. “Now, obviously, we need to keep watch. And Hannah...will you sleep here tonight, in the main house?” I asked.

I thought she’d argue, but she nodded. “Yeah, I can sleep on the couch in the living room.”

“Thank you. Who wants first watch?”

“I can do it,” Jessica said.

“I’ll do it, too,” Lexi said.

“Okay, perfect. Stay up til midnight, then come wake me up. I’ll be in Sofia’s room. Hannah, you and I will take midnight to four in the morning. Then I’ll come wake up you two,” I said, looking at Susan and Lara. They both nodded. “You take four to eight, then you can go back to sleep if you want to.”

“You can wake me up at eight,” Lexi said. “That’ll be fine for me.”

“Same,” Sofia said.

“Okay, we all have our roles. Let’s clean up and prepare for tomorrow,” I said, and got up.

We all did, and started cleaning up the kitchen.

…

After cleaning up dinner, I spent about an hour prepping for tomorrow. Mainly I disassembled and clean my rifle and pistol. I thought about doing the same to the assault rifle, I’d dropped it off after coming back with Lexi for the first time, but honestly I didn’t think I’d need it. If we were going to hunt, it was going to be from a distance. I thought it would make for a great home security weapon at least. Or, if and when that final assault came, a great assault weapon. I also laid out a fresh set of clothes and put the minimal loadout of supplies in all the pockets of the cargo pants I would wear tomorrow, since this was a hunting trip.

Although I’d never actually specifically hunted humans before.

I wasn’t looking forward to it.

When that was done, I did one more walk around the house, double-checking all the windows and the doors, making sure they were secure and locked, then I checked in with everyone. I found Lexi downstairs. She was standing over her bed, looking at a collection of items.

“Thank you,” she said, sensing me coming into the room, “for giving me this space. I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome. Though I’m sorry it’s a basement,” I replied.

“It’s a finished basement, for the most part. And it’s fine.” She began sorting through what I realized was probably all the stuff she had left to her name.

“If you need anything for tomorrow, tell me. I want you as ready as possible for the hunt.”

“Oh I’ll let you know,” she replied. She finished sorting her stuff, which wasn’t much, sadly, and then turned to look at me. “I like it here, you know. A lot. There’s a lot of things to consider when making a home or setting up a temporary shelter for yourself. We’re all so practical nowadays, so bare-minimum, because we have to be. How easy is it to break into? How hard is it to keep heat in? How close is it to other resources? But we don’t think about atmosphere often enough. Atmosphere is important. A sense of community. A sense of love. Not just sexual love, but human love. I don’t almost ever see that, or, well, get to enjoy it, I guess. And you all have a lot of love for each other. I can tell. And it’s a wonderful place you’ve made here. And I wanted to thank you for letting me stay here, for opening your home to me.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied, unsure of what else to say. She had a point. This was a loving place. A safe place. A comfortable place.

“That’s just what I wanted to say. You should sleep now. You look like shit,” she said.

I laughed. “Thanks.”

“I’m sure I look like shit, too. I’m going to hit the hay as soon as midnight rolls around and you’re up,” she replied.

“Okay. See you then.”

I left and headed upstairs, towards Sofia’s room.

CHAPTER FIVE

I found Sofia already in bed, beneath the blankets, reading by candlelight.

“Coming to bed?” she asked without looking away from her book.

“Yes,” I replied, closing the door. I crossed the room to the wash bucket and started stripping down. “I’m fucking exhausted.”

“I’ll bet,” she murmured.

I didn’t think about much more than how good it would feel to fuck Sofia and then fall asleep as I took my clothes off, then I washed up and dried off. Once was I naked, I moved across the room and climbed into bed beneath the blankets next to her. She red for another minute or so and I waited, figuring she was trying to finish a chapter. I knew what that was like, especially if it was a particularly interesting book.

I was actually close to drifting off when she slipped the bookmark in, closed the book, then rolled over and faced me. “Okay,” she said, reaching to me beneath the blankets and running a warm, soft hand across my chest, “it’s my official recommendation that you get as much sleep in as you can. I know you have a watch tonight, so I’m going to help you get to sleep quickly and also administer a nice, big, healthy dose of painkillers.”

“Painkillers, huh?” I asked as her hand slipped lower and then wrapped around my cock.

She grinned slyly. “Yes. All natural. Very healthy. Very effective,” she murmured, and then she leaned closer and pressed her luscious lips against my own.

She started jacking me off as we made out, and I cupped one of her big, beautiful breasts in my hand, gently groping it. She was hot to the touch, and she felt so good moving against me beneath the blankets, in the pocket of warmth our bodies created together. Her tongue was deft and skillful as it slipped into my mouth, seeking out my own, finding it, dancing with it. Her taste was deeply pleasing and only added a new layer to my arousal. I found myself unusually horny, which was saying something, and I remembered it was something that happened sometimes when I was especially tired. I don’t really know why.

It was nice, though.

It made the sex extra good.

After a few minutes of kissing and touching and caressing, she disengaged, smiled serenely at me, and then slipped down under the blankets. My heart began to beat harder as I felt her breath against my rock hard cock, and then I groaned as her tongue made contact with my head. She began licking it, slowly, firmly, and the pleasure slammed into me, burned into my tied, aching body. “Fuck, Sofia...” I groaned, twitching occasionally as the pleasure hit harder. Before long, she slipped it into her mouth and I saw the blanket rising and falling as her head bobbed, her beautiful lips sliding up and down the length of my dick.

She could really suck dick.

Sofia coated my dick in her saliva, and after another bout of time, she stopped and lifted the blankets. Shifting around, she mounted me.

“Now, you just lay there and...let me administer the painkillers,” she said, her voice low and sultry, as she got my cock into position. I just nodded, too tired and horny to say anything. She let out a little laugh, then she slipped me inside of her.

“Fuuuuuuck...” I moaned loudly as she took me into her. She was really wet tonight. As she settled herself down, my hands found her big hips.

“That pussy’s good, huh?” she murmured as she started sliding up and down my dick, going slowly at first, as though savoring the experience.

“Yes, yes, fuck,” I panted.

After a bit, she settled herself a bit more, shifting, and then she began to go faster. I groaned again, the pleasure hitting me in waves, and stared up at her big tits. They were bouncing and swaying with the motion of our sex. Getting fucked like this felt so incredibly amazing, the sensation of our bare parts rubbing against each other, of unprotected sex…

She screwed me, bouncing on me, for about another five minutes, before giving a little laugh and saying, “You gonna come or what?”

“Sorry,” I murmured. “I’m really enjoying this.”

“I’m glad, but you really do need your sleep. Now...” she began to go faster and harder, “fucking come in my pussy, Chris.”

I groaned and reached around behind her, grabbing her big ass, and let the pleasure hit me.

It didn’t take long after that before I let out a cry and thrust deep up into her and started blowing my load into her pussy. She moaned loudly as I began pumping her pussy full of my seed. She stared down at me, looking very pleased with herself, as I moaned and panted and grunted, coming hard inside of her, filling her up.

She took it all, and when I was finished, got up and went to clean up.

I was asleep before she got back.

…

I woke up in almost perfect darkness to a knock on the door.

“Yeah?” I called, pushing through the fog of intense tiredness and sitting up. The candle had gone out at some point in the night and all I had to see by was moonlight.

“Hey Chris, it’s just me,” Jessica said through the door. “It’s midnight.”

“Oh...all right. Be out in a second.”

Sofia shifted and murmured something. “It’s okay,” I said, kissing her and rubbing her arm, “I just have to go stand guard. Go back to sleep, beautiful.”

She smiled tiredly. “Okay,” she murmured, and pretty much fell immediately back to sleep.

I got up and dressed, then grabbed my pistol and headed out. Jessica was waiting for me in the hall, holding a candle to see by. “Hannah’s already up,” she said.

I yawned and rubbed at my eye. “Okay. Get some sleep,” I replied.

She gave me a kiss, and then headed off to her bedroom. I went downstairs, taking my time, as I was both tired and moving in near darkness. There were a few candles lit downstairs, and I could hear Hannah moving around down there. I found her a moment later in the kitchen, getting herself some water.

“Hey,” she murmured as I came in.

“Hey. I’m going to go take a little look around the outside, be right back,” I replied.

She nodded and drank. I pulled my shoes and coat on, then headed outside. It was cold, and the wind was blowing. Not horribly, but enough to make me shiver. It certainly helped wake me up, at least. I focused on checking the surrounding area for signs of life, making a brisk walk around the outside of the house. I didn’t see anyone, but then I looked at the other two buildings and frowned, suddenly paranoid.

What if someone was hiding out or nosing around in one of them?

With a sigh, knowing it would bug me until I dealt with it, I headed out. It was decently quick work, and it helped wake me up and clear my head. I was still fucking exhausted, and a four hour night watch shift wasn’t really something I was looking forward to. But it would give me time alone with Hannah, and maybe I could figure out what was bugging her so much. I searched both buildings and found nothing, no sign of anyone having gone in at any point, certainly no one there now, and then headed back.

“What took you so long? I was getting worried,” Hannah murmured as I came.

“Sorry,” I said, taking off my coat. “I wanted to check the other buildings, make sure no one was in there. We’re fine.”

“Oh.”

We spent the next fifteen minutes checking the rest of the house, or as much of it as we could, which wasn’t all that much, honestly. Mostly the ground floor. I didn’t feel like going and poking through everyone’s bedroom, waking everyone up. Especially not Lexi. I got the feeling that she might react...violently, to a surprise wake up. Not necessarily on purpose, more on instinct. I’d done it more than once.

The house was secure, all was quiet, all was well.

We sat together in the living room for awhile, not saying anything. I could sense that Hannah was tense and unhappy still.

Finally, I decided it was time to tackle the issue head on.

“Hannah,” I said.

“What?” she replied immediately. I looked over at her. The response itself answered the question she’d just posed, in a way, and she knew it. She stared at me intensely for a few seconds, then sighed heavily and looked away. “Fuck,” she whispered. “All right, you don’t even have to say it, Chris. I know what. Yes, I have a problem with Lexi.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t trust her.”

“Why?”

“She won’t tell us anything about herself. She’s shady, and shifty.”

“She told me some things about herself, about her past,” I replied.

Hannah looked sternly at me. “And?”

“And she asked me not share what I heard with anyone else.”

“Seriously? You’re not going to tell me? You don’t think it’s important?”

“I think that you should trust my judgment. That if I didn’t think we could trust her, she wouldn’t be sleeping in the basement right now,” I replied.

“Come on, Chris-”

“Hannah,” I interrupted, a little annoyed now, “I seem to remember you quite firmly telling me not to tell anyone that we were fucking, even though it was basically obvious to everyone. And you know what? I didn’t. I didn’t tell anyone. I respected your wishes. So basically, it’s okay if you want me to keep my mouth shut about something, but if someone else does, then fuck them?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, then turned away with a growl. “Goddamnit,” she muttered angrily.

“Hannah,” I said after a few seconds.

“What?!” she snapped, turning back around.

“You’re pissed. I get that. You have a problem with Lexi, but I don’t think it’s that you don’t trust her,” I said. She opened her mouth and began to respond but I pressed on. “But, Hannah, why don’t you take a minute, and calm down, and then we can keep talking?” I asked, and then I got up and walked away.

She didn’t say anything, but I could practically feel her anger, which worried me.

I was reasonable. I could listen, I could compromise, I could cut slack. I had, many times. I didn’t have a problem with it. But unfortunately, there were times when we really couldn’t afford to have interpersonal problems going on, we couldn’t afford distraction. And Hannah was distracted. And after myself and Lexi, hell, maybe just Lexi by now, she was the most effective killer in the group. I needed her focused for the days ahead.

I gave her two or three minutes to cool off, and then I walked back over. She looked calmer, more rational, at least, and I sat back down next to her.

“Ready to talk?” I asked.

She sighed. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be an asshole. It’s just-”

“It’s just that you need me not to be so focused on these shitty feelings. I get it. And you’re right. I mean, I am having trouble trusting Lexi, it’s just...” she hesitated and looked away. I understood. Knowing what you’re problem was, that you were being immature or irrational or petty, was one thing. Actually saying it, admitting to it, to another person, even someone you trusted and liked, was a very different thing.

It was much, much harder.

“What do you think it is?” she asked finally.

Hopefully she wouldn’t hit me for guessing correctly. “You’re threatened by her. You’re jealous of her,” I said.

She looked at me angrily, a kind of automatic response, and I did wonder, briefly, if I had guessed wrong. But what else could it be?

“Yes,” she said, her voice low and angry. “That. Asshole.”

“Well, I’m sorry, you said-”

“I know!” she snapped, then looked embarrassed, looking around, worried that she might have woken someone up. “I know,” she growled, then her shoulders slumped suddenly, like the fight had gone out of her. “You’re right. She’s so...capable. I can just see it, in the way she moves, the way she talks, the way she looks around a room as soon as she comes into it. Like, fuck. How the fuck am I supposed to compete with that?”

“Why do you think you need to compete?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “What’s happened that makes you think that?”

“I just...” She looked away. “I’m being so stupid, but...you’re taking like every opportunity to spend time with her. And you obviously like her, and are really attracted to her. And she’s so much more fucking competent than me and-” I began to say something but she held up a hand. “-just let me talk. Okay? And I know I’m being fucking ridiculous right now, that we have way bigger things to worry about, and the only reason you’re going with her as much is because it makes the most logical sense, and it’s completely unreasonable to be this way. But that doesn’t change the fact that...I was the best in the group. The best at hunting and killing and surviving. We both know it. At the very least, I was the best out of all the other women. And you obviously respect that more than you respect anything else. And I’m just...having a really hard time dealing with the fact that I’m obviously not the best anymore. I’m a distant second now compared to fucking her.”

She sighed and gave her head an angry shake. “This is so fucking stupid...okay, your turn.”

“Hannah,” I said, considering my words. “First of all, you don’t have to compete for anything. Second of all, I don’t even know if she’s sticking around for that long. She doesn’t even know. Third, on the one hand, yes, you’re being kind of ridiculous, but on the other hand, your emotions are your emotions. They come regardless. That’s what makes them emotions. But obviously you’re aware of this, and you’re handling it really well.”

“You could tell I was fucking pissed,” she muttered.

“Yeah, but given what I know about you, you’re handling your negative emotions very well. You could’ve been way more unreasonable,” I replied. “But Hannah, please trust me when I saw whatever happens between me and Lexi, if anything even does, that’s not going to interfere with what’s going on between you and me. Also, you know, there’s always going to be someone out there better than you, Hannah.”

“I know that,” she muttered. “I just wanted to enjoy being the fucking best at something and-” She stopped and looked up suddenly, blinked a few times. “God fucking dammit!” she snapped and wiped angrily at one eye.

“Hannah-”

“No, goddamnit! I’m not going to be the pathetic fucking girl who cries over everything, I’m fucking not!” She sniffed.

“Hannah, for fuck’s sake, you can cry, okay? People cry. It’s fucking human. Just...cry,” I said.

She stared at me for several seconds, then she leaned against me, and I hugged her, and she hugged me back tightly. Then she was crying on my shoulder. Sobbing really. I held her, and rubbed her back, and tried my best to comfort her. I was never good with stuff like this, but I at least knew what to do. I split my attention between her and the house, listening. At one point, I heard a soft sound coming from the stairs and saw Jessica appear at the top of them. She looked down at us, sitting on the couch, looking worried.

I slowly raised one hand, palm flat towards her, and shook my head. She lingered, then nodded and turned around, going back to bed.

About five more minutes passed. Hannah cried herself out, then just sat there against me, holding me, getting herself back together. Finally, she straightened up and wiped at her face. She looked...a lot calmer.

“Well, I guess you were right,” she said. “I feel a lot better now. I’d forgotten that.”

“I think most people do,” I replied. “Crying is healthy. And it feels really good, in a weird kind of way.”

She sighed and wiped at her eyes a bit more, then stood up. “I’ll be right back. I need to wash my face.”

“Okay.”

I waited while she went into the kitchen and did that. A moment later she returned. “Okay, there, better. So, um...thank you. I really appreciate that. Like...a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied.

She leaned in and gave me a kiss, then pulled back, then hesitated, looking like she wanted to do more. Then she looked frustrated, because we couldn’t, not right now, not with night watch. So she sighed and sat back.

“Fuck, how much longer?” she complained.

“I’d need to check the time, but probably another three and a quarter hours, maybe just three,” I replied.

“Fuck...” she muttered.

“Yep, it sucks. But at least we have each other.”

She smiled at that. “Yes, we have that.”

…

Three more hours came and went, and nothing happened.

I figured nothing would, but that’s how night watch went: ninety nine percent of the time, nothing happened. But you couldn’t afford to slack, because that one percent chance could happen literally at any moment.

Hannah and I went upstairs and woke up Susan and Lara when it was four in the morning. They largely managed to get up without too much complaining, and once I was sure they were up and prepared to do the job, I closed the door and Hannah and I got naked and crawled gratefully into the bed. She got up against me.

“Will you make love to me?” she whispered.

“Yes. You want foreplay?” I replied.

“No. Just get on and get in. I’m really wet,” she murmured.

“Okay.”

I got on top of her as she spread her legs, and she gripped my cock, which was mostly hard already, and helped me inside. We both gasped as I entered her, and I began making love to her. She moaned softly and grabbed me, holding me close to her, kissing me almost desperately as we had sex. I could tell right away that this was a lot more intimate than what I was used to with her. The sex we normally had was furious and a little crazy. This was calmer, more sensual, and I really liked it. She was moving with me, moaning quietly, kissing me desperately.

“Oh Chris...” she moaned softly, gripping my back. “Oh Chris, yes...”

“Hannah...” I groaned, slipping smoothly in and out of her.

“Oh fuck, it feels so good.” She was staring up at me, her eyes bright in the moonlight, her face almost ghostly. She looked incredibly beautiful, even more so than she usually did. There was something in her eyes, an intensity, a need I hadn’t quite seen before.

We were both panting and gasping, going faster, building towards an orgasm.

“Oh Chris, yes...yes...oh Chris, I love you!” she cried.

As soon as she said it, she gasped and put a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide now with total shock. I stared down at her, stopping.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said, taking her hand away. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t say that. Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen-”

“Hannah,” I said. “It’s okay. I love you, too.”

“You do?” she whispered.

“Of course. I’ve thought about this. I love all of you. Each of you, individually. I love you, Hannah,” I said. I wasn’t sure how she would react to that, but I didn’t want her thinking I only, exclusively, loved her, because it wasn’t true. But she looked relieved and happy at the same time, and I resumed making love to her. “I love you, Hannah,” I said again, because I found that I loved saying it to her. I had yet to say it to any of them.

“I love you too, Chris,” she gasped. “Oh God, I love you so much.”

We kissed passionately and began fucking more furiously, going and going and going until we both had amazing orgasms, both of us crying out, writhing against each other in pure, perfect bliss. We were locked together in mutual pleasure and tremendous sexual gratification. The orgasms seemed to last a long time.

And then they were finished, and we were left gasping against each other, holding each other.

After awhile, I pulled out of her and we curled up together in the darkness.

I told her again that I loved her, and she said it back to me, and then we fell asleep.

A WARM PLACE 11

CHAPTER ONE

“So...um, should we talk about it?” Hannah asked very quietly.

Susan and Lara had returned to bed just fifteen minutes ago, basically waking us up and kicking us out. Although Lara wanted me to stay, but I unfortunately had shit to do. So Hannah and I had washed, dressed, and headed downstairs. I could tell she was anxious. We were downstairs now. Jessica was in the kitchen, making breakfast, and Lexi sat at the table, drinking from a mug of something steaming. Coffee maybe, we’d found a little stash of the instant stuff while cleaning out the house, and that shit lasted practically forever.

I looked at her. I wanted food, and to prepare for the day ahead, but the look on her face said this was important. It was weird, seeing her look anxious and bashful. “Let’s check the outside of the house,” I replied.

She nodded and we walked over to the front door. After pulling on our cold weather stuff, we headed outside and began a slow walk around the house.

“What do you want to say?” I asked.

“I guess...did I freak you out? With that?” she replied uncertainly.

“No.”

She paused, waiting, then looked at me. “I mean, just...no? Just, that’s it?”

“Yeah. No, you didn’t freak me out. I’m not scared that you love me, Hannah. And I’m not scared that I love you.”

“Oh...”

“So, I mean, obviously it’s kind of freaking you out. What’s wrong?”

“I...don’t know. I guess, I mean, nothing specific. It’s more that like, I feel like I should be freaked out. I’ve never been in love before. This...isn’t how I imagined it, you know? I mean, not like...I’m not upset that I feel in love with you. I know why. You’re amazing, on a lot of levels. I just, um, I didn’t think there’d be four other women involved and that one of them would be my goddamned mother. How the hell do you plan for that?”

I laughed. “You don’t. You don’t plan for love, Hannah.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

I shook my head. “No, not before this situation.”

“So you...love me? Like, romantically?”

“Yes.”

“And you love my mother romantically? And Susan and Lara? And Sofia?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Although, I think it’s a little different with Sofia. I think we’re still getting to know each other. But to be clear, I haven’t told them any of this. I haven’t told any of them that I love them.”

“Why not?”

“It hasn’t come up. And...well, I get it. I understand. I don’t want to freak them out. Love is one of those...bombs, you know? It’s one of those things you say and it might be the best thing ever or it might completely explode in your face.”

We kept walking and she was silent for awhile longer, thinking. “How do you know?” she asked finally.

“That I’m in love? I kind of got hit with the realization recently. It was when we were walking back here, with Susan, after the blizzard? I was so worried about everyone, and it just got me thinking. I asked myself what love was...and if it’s romantic feelings, and being willing to suffer and sacrifice for someone, caring deeply about someone’s personal safety and happiness...then I love all of you. And that’s what I believe. That’s how I know.”

“Fuck,” she whispered. “I can’t really see a fault in that argument.”

We completed our circuit of the outside of the house and stood on the porch. “How are you feeling now?” I asked.

“Better,” she replied. “A lot better. You have some good points. And...you should tell them.”

“Tell them?”

“Susan and Lara, my mom. Sofia. Tell them you love them. Because you might not get the chance to later. What you’re going to be doing is so dangerous...”

I froze, thinking about that. I’d put off thinking about it for a little while now. “You’re right,” I said softly, realizing it as she said it.

“Go do it. Before you leave.”

I nodded. I began to head inside, reaching for the front door, but Hannah grabbed my hand. “Hey,” she said. I looked back at her. She was smiling a very beautiful smile. She stepped up to me, kissed me firmly on the mouth, then put her lips to my ear. “I love you, Chris.”

I shuddered. “I love you too, Hannah.”

She kept smiling as we walked into the house, and seemed reluctant to let go of me. I knew how she felt. But I had something important to do. I hurried up the stairs, back into the bedroom that I’d left not ten minutes ago. Susan and Lara both shifted and looked at me as I came in.

“What’s going on?” Lara murmured.

“I need to talk, with both you,” I replied. That made them both sit up.

“What’s wrong?” Susan asked.

“Nothing. I just...I have something I need to say. To both of you. It’s important.” I walked over and sat down on the bed. They both stared at me intently. “What I’m doing is dangerous. And I’ve realized something recently, something important, and it kind of hit me that I should really share it with you while I have the chance. In case...in case things go wrong.” I hesitated, but only for a few seconds, pushing onward.

“I love you,” I said. “Both of you. I love you, Susan. And I love you, Lara.”

I waited for their reactions. Lara smiled, and reached out and took my hand. Her skin was soft and smooth. Susan looked...a little anxious, immediately beginning to chew on her lower lip. “It’s okay if you don’t want to say it back, I’m not trying extort or guilt it out of you or anything.” I chuckled, a little grimly. “I wouldn’t love you if that was true.”

“I believe you, and I love you, too,” Lara said. Susan looked at her, maybe a little surprised, then back at me.

She sighed. “You’ve really put me on the spot here.”

“Susan, it’s okay-” I began.

“No. You were right to do this. I think...I wanted more time, to figure it out, my feelings about you. Or really, no, that’s not true. I know my feelings about you, more their depth. But that isn’t true. I didn’t want more time to figure the out, I just wanted to stall, because love scares me. A lot. But I don’t want it to. And there’s no reason to deny it. I love you too, Chris. I really do. I...love you in a way that I’ve only ever loved one other person,” she said, and then she smiled and reached out, touching Lara’s arm. “You two are the most important people in my life, and the best things that have ever happened to me,” she murmured.

“I love you too, Susan,” Lara said.

“This comes easily to you, doesn’t it?” I asked.

Lara nodded. “I’m a very loving person. Once I know...I know.”

“How long have you known?” Susan asked.

“For you?...like eight years. For Chris? Recently. Within the past few days.”

I hesitated. “Now, there’s something else I need to say, to kind of...give context. I’m hoping it won’t, uh, cause problems.”

“What’s that?” Susan asked reluctantly.

“You aren’t the only ones I love.”

“Oh,” Lara said, looking relieved. “I kind of figured.”

“You love...Jessica, too?” Susan asked.

“And Hannah. And Sofia.”

“You love all of us?” I nodded. She thought about it. “Well...okay, I get it. I love you and I love Lara. I can see it. Okay.”

“What brought this on?” Lara asked suddenly. “Was it really you just realizing it because of what’s going to happen today? Of what might happen?”

“No,” I replied. “Hannah...might have blurted it out to me last night.”

“Oh my God, that’s so fucking cute,” Lara replied, smiling big. “Was she embarrassed?” I sighed, looking away. “I know, I know, you don’t want to talk about her behind her back. I love that about you. I just think it’s really cute. And you told her it back, didn’t you?”

“I did. Because I knew it was true.”

“And because it’s hot to say during sex...” Susan murmured.

“It is. We have to start saying it. Do you have time to-” Lara began.

“I wish I did, but I don’t. When it get back. Definitely when I get back.” I gave each of them a hug and a kiss, then stood. “I love you, both of you.”

“I love you, too,” they both told me, and got back beneath the blankets, curling up with each other. I left the room, closing the door behind me, and headed back downstairs. Hannah was sitting at the table with Lexi. She was smiling at me. Jessica was finishing up making breakfast.

“Jessica...can I talk to you upstairs for a minute?” I asked.

She looked a me, a little concerned, and Lexi glanced my way.

“It’s okay, mom, I’ll watch the food,” Hannah said, getting up. Jessica looked at her, and her smile must have put her at ease.

“Okay, thank you honey,” she replied, and walked over to join me. I took her hand, and we walked upstairs. “Looking for a quickie?” she asked as we walked into her room.

“I’d appreciate one, but no. Not right now. No time,” I replied.

“So what’s up?” she asked. “It sounds serious.”

“I recently realized that I love you. And I thought I should tell you. And, just so we’re totally clear, I love all of you. Romantically,” I said.

She stared at me for a few seconds, and then suddenly wrapped me in a hug and squeezed me very hard. I hugged her back. “You don’t know how fucking much it means to hear that,” she whispered, still hugging me hard.

“Well, I’m glad that was your reaction...are you really that surprised? You seem surprised,” I replied uncertainly.

“I thought...I’ve known that I was falling in love with you almost since the beginning. After we first met, and made love, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. God, even before we met, from just Lara talking about you, I found myself fantasizing about you. I started falling in love right away. I’ve been hopelessly in love with you since you took me and Hannah in when we came to you. And...I knew you liked me, and I felt fairly confident that you would take care of me, that you wouldn’t take advantage of me, but...I was worried that all we would ever be was just, friends with benefits, that it would never go beyond that...because I love you so much, Chris. You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met. I want you to be in my life, and in Hannah’s life, for as long as possible.”

Wow. I wasn’t exactly expecting that. I’d never had someone, let alone a woman like fifteen years older than me, and insanely hot, fall that hard for me.

It was a really good feeling.

“Well...I’m glad you feel that way. I want that too,” I replied.

She laughed softly and stepped back, letting go of me. She sniffed and I realized she was tearing up. “That doesn’t scare you?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Wow, you’re so...confident.”

“Yes, I am,” I replied.

She smiled, then began to chew on her lower lip. “Are you sure you can’t spare time for a quickie?” she asked.

“I already had to say no to Lara and Susan,” I replied. “So you’re okay with the ‘I also love everyone else’ thing?”

“Of course,” she replied. “I know you do. It’s obvious.”

“Even Hannah?”

“Yes. I’m okay with that. I know it’s...different. But it doesn’t bother me. And she should be loved. Of course I want my daughter to be in a loving relationship with a good man who will take care of her and treat her well. What mother doesn’t want that? And if I can also be in such a relationship, then obviously that’s good for me. The fact that it’s the same man...again, it’s unusual. But it’s working for me. And it seems to be for her.”

“Okay. Good. Um...I’m going to go talk with Sofia then.”

“All right. And...good luck today. Please, please come back safe.”

“I’ll try as hard as I can,” I replied.

She kissed me. “I love you, Chris,” she whispered.

“I love you too, Jessica,” I replied, and then I was off and tracking down Sofia. Jessica returned to the kitchen, where breakfast was probably ready. I found Sofia in her room. She was in the process of getting dressed. She hadn’t even closed her door. I thought that was interesting. All of us were so comfortable with each other at this point that we could all walk around naked and probably be weird about it. Well, for the most part.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello, Chris. What’s happening?”

“Yeah,” I replied. It was weird to have this conversation like four times in a row. But Hannah was right, I needed to say this now. “I need to say something to you, Sofia.”

“What’s that?” she asked, pulling on her boots.

“I love you.”

She looked up at me, looking mildly surprised. “You do?”

“Yes. I’ve had a bit of a revelation recently that I love all of you here, and given how dangerous today could be, I thought it would be a good idea to tell you all.”

“I see. That makes sense...” she hesitated, a look of discomfort passing over her beautiful face.

“If you don’t love me back, it’s okay, Sofia,” I said. “I know we haven’t known each other that long. I admit that...well, I don’t want to say that I love you less than anyone else, but...”

“But it’s not exactly the same as your love for, say, Lara. It’s okay, Chris. I understand. I respect you, I like you, I’m attracted to you. Love...is deeper. I’m actually kind of sure that, given time, I will love you, but I’m not there yet.”

“Okay. I respect that. I just...wanted to tell you.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it. It’s good to hear,” she smiled at me, then stood. “You coming to breakfast?”

“Yeah. I need to eat before get on with this shit show,” I grumbled, immediately reminded of the awful task that was ahead.

“Good luck out there today,” she said, taking my hand. We began walking downstairs, towards breakfast and the others.

…

“So, what’d you pull all your girlfriends off to the side to say?” Lexi asked. We were gearing up. Hannah had gone back to her place to get some stuff and bring it over to the main house, since she’d agreed to stay here for the duration, and Jessica and Sofia were working on finally finishing up the water purification device.

Fuck, I hoped that I could have a hot shower when I came home.

“It’s personal,” I replied after considering it for a bit. I wasn’t sure how well I could explain the whole thing to an outside, even if Lexi seemed pretty reasonable.

“Interesting,” she murmured, slipping a combat knife into a sheath and then attaching it to her belt.

“What’s interesting?” I asked, raising my rifle and checking the sights. I’d already disassembled and cleaned it. It was as read as it was going to be.

“I overheard you talking with Hannah, on the front porch.” I sighed. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, actually looking a little sheepish. “I wanted to run back downstairs and grab something, and I passed by the front door...heard you talking...stuck around...” I looked at her. “I’m sorry!”

“Then why’d you ask?”

“I just wanted to hear what you’d say.”

“Huh.”

“I respect you, if it helps.”

“Oh yeah? You don’t look at me and see some dude banging five women and saying whatever he has to say to keep the pussy flowing?”

“What? God no,” she replied. “Why? Did I...did I give you that impression?” She looked genuinely surprised.

“No. Sorry. It’s just that you seem really cynical, and I’m used to people judging me for...just about anything. And being vulnerable has me feeling defensive, and I’m pretty fucking vulnerable today,” I replied.

“Okay, fair enough. No, I...respect you for that. It takes guts to say that. Especially to five different women. You’re a good guy. I believe you really care about them,” she said.

“Thanks,” I murmured.

We finished up our work, checking over our gear and then loading up. We were going with minimal loadout, just guns, ammo, food, water, and some medical supplies. Really just things to deal with the bare basics and emergencies. I’d already said my goodbyes. I was ready to get to work. Lexi and I grabbed our rifles.

It was time to go hunting.

CHAPTER TWO

We made our trek north.

It was a cloudy day, which worried me. The weather could turn to shit and this whole thing might be scrapped. Not to mention, anytime the weather turns to shit like that, there’s always a chance that you could die.

Yeah, like today wasn’t fucking stressful enough as it was.

I was trying to clear my head, which was no easy task given I’d just told five women that I loved them. Now I had more than ever to live for. Honestly? This was the most I had ever had to live for in my entire life. If nothing else, it was at least a great motivator. Lexi didn’t say anything as we walked through the forest. She was all business, her face grim and set, and I tried to take strength from that, and do the same thing.

This was serious, all business, and we couldn’t fuck this up.

Though we didn’t even have to go all the way to the town. We were maybe fifty meters shy of the watchtower near the northern edge of the forest when a rifle shot cracked out, echoing through the cold air. It wasn’t precisely nearby and it didn’t land anywhere close, but we both ducked instinctively anyway. Another shot sounded, and another, then silence.

“It’s towards the lake,” I said, already setting off in that direction. Lexi followed silently. We picked up the pace, hurrying through the trees, until we got close to the edge of the forest. We slowed then, listening, and I thought I heard someone talking, a man’s voice. We crept forward, rifles at ready, and got to the edge.

There. Two figures, two men in that same gray clothing, walking southbound. Back a little ways, I saw something dark and a blotch of red around it. A wolf. They’d shot a wolf. They were leaving it? Probably were going to come back for it, unless they didn’t want to bother. Some people didn’t eat wolves, which made me wonder about their stores. Could they afford to be that choosy with a dozen men? Hell, maybe they’d just grab it on the way back, hoping that no one or nothing else would come along and snag it.

“Now?” Lexi asked softly, raising the rifle.

“No,” I murmured, putting my hand on the cold barrel. “Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“I want to see where they’re going.”

“Hmm. Okay.”

She lowered her weapon. We got to it. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call an easy job, because I was overly paranoid about getting spotted. Even if we were, for the next, I don’t know, fifteen minutes or so, we’d have a huge advantage, because they were way out in the open. Watching them walk through that open space made me think about all the times I’d done that, and it made me kind of sick to my stomach.

How long had they been there?

I didn’t think they’d seen us before the farm, given how they’d reacted the first time they’d laid eyes on us.

Still though, I felt pretty confident about the situation I found myself in. I felt less confident about where they were currently going. At first I thought they might be going to that house where I’d met fucked that chick that one time, but they passed it out without stopping. They passed by the small cabin farther south as well. It was like they knew where they were going, which worried me, because while there were a few things that way, there was one big, obvious, important thing: our old house. Why would they be heading there?

Lexi and I ghosted them for awhile. We had a simple pattern: travel roughly parallel to them, maybe a little ways back, while staying about fifteen feet back from the edge of the forest, moving quickly and quietly. Then we’d draw up close to the treeline to get visual reconfirmation every sixty seconds or so, to see if anything had changed.

We kept this up for about twenty minutes. They didn’t stop. They crossed the big, open field and went into the frozen forest that housed our old home without hesitating.

“Crap,” I muttered.

“What is it?” Lexi asked as we hurried up.

“Well, besides it being harder to make a good shot through all these trees, I think they’re heading towards our old house.”

“Old house?” she asked softly.

“When I first got here, I met Lara and Susan before anyone else. They were living in a small house together and I moved in. Jessica and Hannah showed up later, fleeing her asshole husband,” I replied. “Come on, we need to hurry and get good lines of sight.”

“Could they be going anywhere else?” she asked as we picked up the pace.

“Possibly, but there’s not a great deal down that way. And they seem to be moving with purpose. If I had to guess, I’d say that maybe a scouting party discovered this place and either didn’t have time to actually get inside, or didn’t have time to search the whole thing. There’s still decent evidence that people used to live there, plus Susan and Hannah and I were there recently, so there’s evidence that people were there recently...”

“Sucks to be them, because they’re about to die poking around an abandoned house,” Lexi muttered.

She had a point.

We kept going until we hit the corner where our side of the forest met with the lower portion of the forest. My heart was going at a pretty good beat. I was anxious about pulling this off. Things got more complicated when the enemy wasn’t at a huge disadvantage. But I could do this. I’d practiced a lot, shooting moving targets between trees. Plus, Lexi was here.

It took about five minutes to finally get to my house. I was wondering if I had it wrong, if they were headed elsewhere, if they knew about something I didn’t, but the back door was open. Not necessarily definitive proof, but proof enough.

“Lexi, get around to the front of the house. Cover the front door. We kill them as soon as they come out. Preferably we wait until they’re both out and far enough from the house that they can’t easily run back inside,” I whispered.

“Understood.” She paused. “Give me a kiss for luck.”

I looked at her, surprised. She stared back at me, dead serious. So I leaned in and kissed her on the mouth, hoping she meant the lips. She grabbed me suddenly and shoved her tongue into my mouth, and I moved my own forward to dance with hers, and I tasted her. That made my heart skip a beat hard in surprised, excited lust. And then she broke away, a big grin on her face, and she was off. I glanced at her ass as she moved to get a good position.

Fuck, she had a big ass. Like a broad ass that really filled out her pants a lot.

Goddamn, I hoped she let me fuck her. Especially doggystyle.

Especially anal doggystyle, because I bet her ass was fucking tight.

Then I forced myself to focus and moved forward a bit. I cleared my head, pushing all thoughts of sex, and love, and anything else but what was happening here in this frozen forest, because that’s what you needed when you were going to kill someone, I imagined. I hadn’t ever really gone hunting like this before. I wasn’t happy about it, or necessarily proud of it, especially considering I was more or less shooting two guys in the back, but…

I needed to protect the women I loved.

I would protect them. I would act.

I got down on one knee, leaning against a nearby tree to steady and support myself, and covered the back door.

And I waited, staring through the scope, keeping my breathing nice and even. A minute went by. Then another one did. Five minutes strung together, playing out in the cold. My breath foamed on the air, and I didn’t want to think about what would happen when I started shivering. That tended to fuck your aim up bad.

At some point, I heard something break from inside the house, sounded like glass. What the fuck were they doing in there? The windows were pretty much useless, all the curtains drawn. More time passed. I felt the heat leaving my body. This fucking sucked. What if they weren’t in there? No, they were in there, I’d heard something break. What if it was like an animal or something? Well then how’d the fucking door get open? We didn’t leave it open...did we? I’m almost positive I’d shut and locked the back and front doors, or at least shut them. That was my habit. My habits weren’t perfect. Goddamnit, I hated shit like this.

Suddenly there was movement. One of the men emerged from the back. He was smoking a cigarette, his pack full of stuff. Probably blankets or clothes, it wasn’t like we’d had a huge stash of stuff there or anything. I waited, and a few seconds later, the second guy emerged. I took a few deep breaths, pushing for focus, making my body comply. I had to do this right. Couldn’t fuck this up. I had the first guy’s head in my sights.

I waited for that perfect second.

Then I squeezed the trigger.

The bullet exploded out of my rifle and slammed into the man’s head almost in the same second. It exited out the other side in a spray of blood that physically forced his body to fly a few feet in that direction. I immediately shifted aim and began to draw a bead on the second guy, who had begun to run away from me the second the shot was fire. I fired again, clipped his jacket. Fired another time, just barely missed him…

He disappeared behind a tree.

“Fuck,” I snapped, breathing heavily, waiting.

Suddenly, another gunshot sounded and I saw his body appear, jerking violently to the left. It hit the snow and everything stopped, going quiet. Lexi. She must have been in a good enough position to deal with the guy. Thank fuck. I got up and slung the rifle, then started jogging over to the first corpse. I heard crunching boots.

“Coming around the side of the house, Chris,” Lexi said.

“Got it,” I replied. “Go check the other guy.”

“Okay.”

She came into view and began heading for her kill. I dropped into a crouch as soon as I reached my kill. I checked his pockets and found that he was pretty much decked out like me and Lexi: minimum load. And I recognized this guy from when I’d scouted the town yesterday. I snagged the supplies I could and checked his pack. Yep, just like I thought, nothing in here but a few blankets and one of my old shirts I’d left behind. So what were they doing here? Was it really just a supply run?

Or were they looking for us? Clues as to where we’d gone?

How much did they know?

“What do we do with the bodies?” Lexi asked. “Anything?”

“Hide them,” I said. “Grab yours.”

She nodded and leaned down, then picked the guy up and threw him over her shoulders. My guy was bigger, and I wasn’t as strong as Lexi, I think, so I just dragged my guy through the snow. We got them back inside, and Lexi followed me as I dragged the body down into the basement, where I shoved it up under the table I used to skin my kills at.

Fuck, I felt like a goddamned serial killer or something.

Lexi dumped hers over in the other corner, out of view of the stairs, and then we headed back upstairs. I stashed the rifle they had under my old bed, since I didn’t want to haul it around with us, and the other guy had had a pistol, which Lexi accepted. Then we left, I shut the door, and this time I locked it, (I guess I had forgotten? Because it wasn’t forced), and then we stood back in the cold.

“So. That went well,” Lexi said.

“We should try that again. It went pretty well,” I replied.

“It did,” she agreed. “Back up to our vantage point? Wait for one of them to head out?”

“Yeah.”

We started walking north again, getting back on our original path.

…

This time, we made it to where we intended to go.

I was back to shivering on the ground, staring at a group of assholes moving around a small town. I tried my best to count them off, but it was difficult to get an actual headcount, because they were all men, as far as I could tell, and they all had those same gray get-ups. Where had they gotten those? Maybe they’d hit some kind of knock-off Army surplus story or something, they looked vaguely military.

Maybe half an hour went by before I grew too fucking bored watching these stupid assholes meander around and tried to think of something to talk about.

So of course the first thing out of my mouth was, “Have you decided if you want to fuck me or not?”

Apparently being cold and miserable and anxious made me at least kind of stupid. Lexi laughed, at least. “Still thinking about it. I’m a lot closer to an answer, though,” she replied.

“A good answer or a bad answer?”

“You’ll have to find out.” She paused. “So you really wanna fuck me, huh?”

“God yes,” I replied immediately.

“How old are you?” she asked after a bit.

“Twenty six.”

“Seriously? Huh. I thought you were older.”

“That’s what pretty much everyone says nowadays.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, I think. For dudes at least. I mean I guess context matters.”

“And you?” I asked, because I was genuinely curious. Lexi was that kind of person who could be like forty two or twenty eight. Although given her demeanor and abilities, I’d guess more towards older than younger. Though not too much older.

“I’m thirty seven,” she replied.

“Huh,” I murmured. “That’s roughly where I thought you might be. Although I was leaning closer to early thirties. You look good.”

“Thanks,” she murmured. “No bad habits, despite some of my shittier choices. Never bothered with drugs, I almost never drink, definitely never smoked. Didn’t bother much with soda or fast food. And I work out a lot.”

“It shows.”

She laughed softly. “That’s still weird.”

“What?”

“In my experiences...guys will actually put up with a lot. They’ll fuck heavy women, a women with no tits, chicks with shaved heads, a lot of stuff they say turns them off. But one thing that I think a lot of guys do get hung up on is women with some muscle on them. I mean, I’m not like fucking roided out or anything, I’ll never be a bodybuilder, but I’ve got biceps, a triceps, I’ve got muscle definition in a fair amount of places. Because I wanted strength. I mean, I’m six foot three, I’ve got a bigger build, why not capitalize on that? I’ve definitely run into guys who get hot for muscular women, but they’re rare. It always...perplexes me. Obviously, I’m not complaining.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just...like women like you. I mean, I like a ton of different kinds of women. But I definitely like women with more of a physique as well, and confidence. Which you clearly have both of. And-” I hesitated, suddenly wondering if she was sensitive about her hair. I guess I might be.

“And what?” she asked.

“I just...there’s other aspects of you I like.”

“Such as…?”

“Your hair.”

She looked over at me. “Seriously? You like it? You don’t...tolerate it?”

“No. I like it. A lot. I really like white hair. I don’t know why, but I do.”

“Huh. You’re weird.”

“I guess so.”

We kept watching. It started to get boring. Then it started to get seriously cold. After another hour, I realized it was slowly getting darker. Another storm might be brewing. Fuck. Still none of them had shown signs of leaving, and they might not at all if a storm was brewing. Goddamnit. After a bit longer, we finally started taking turns heading back down the hill and doing a bit of exercise to get our blood pumping. I really wanted to make a fucking fire, but that would for sure give away our position, which was the last thing we wanted.

It was basically the equivalent of intentionally shooting at and missing a deer when you were trying to take it down. I went back and forth up and down the hill four times before finally, at long last, something happened. I was beginning to actually think that we might have to give it up, try again later, when I saw a dark figure begin to walk away from the settlement. Lexi had gone to exercise. I looked back. She was still down there, though as I looked at her, she turned towards me and began to walk back up the hill.

I returned my attention to the lone figure. He had a rifle, and...I thought that was a fishing pole sticking out of his pack. Could be going ice fishing. He was at least headed in the right direction for it, but there was a lot to the southeast of the township. I watched until Lexi returned, then pointed out the situation to her.

“So let’s go hunting,” she said.

“Yep.”

We got up and began heading after him.

CHAPTER THREE

We followed him, sticking to the woods as we did.

He made his way south and east, towards the frozen lake. I was fucking freezing now. It was one thing to go out into this weather for hours at a time and hunt or search for something. It was another to have to just sit there. I’d built up a lot of tolerance against the cold, learned a lot of little tricks to help blocked it out, stave it off, with my clothes and gear. But ultimately there was a limit, and it came faster when you were just sitting there on your ass.

This time, we didn’t want all that long to fire off a shot.

We waited until we were at the edge of the treeline, in a place that had a good view of the open field and the frozen lake. The guy was clearly heading for the lake. As I lined up the shot, it suddenly occurred to me that this might be the exact location Thomas had stood as he’d attempted to murder me. I hadn’t seen any blood stains, but how many times had it snowed between now and then? There wouldn’t be any trace left.

The thought made me uncomfortable, but I held onto my focus.

I aimed carefully, looking through the scope, and held my breath. The gun steadied, my sights over the back of the man’s head.

I squeezed the trigger.

The rifle jumped and the gunshot echoed for what sounded like a long time. I really hoped the assholes back at the town hadn’t heard it, or if they had, they’d figure it was one of their guys hunting. It was another perfect shot. I’d gotten really good at that. The man flew forward a few feet and slammed facedown into the snow. He was maybe ten feet shy of the iced over lake.

“Stay here and watch my ass. Make sure no one comes looking,” I said.

“Got it,” Lexi replied.

I started out. It was a long, unhappy walk. I felt incredibly exposed, especially after what I’d just done. I was still feeling kind of sick to my stomach over having to kill these three guys. The wind gusted, kicking up sprays of snow. Somewhere, a wolf howled. My boots crunched in the snow. It took fucking forever, but I finally made it to the corpse. I looked around, saw no one by Lexi, vaguely, back in the forest, and then quickly crouched and got to work. Not much in his pockets, and not a whole lot in his pack, either.

I transferred over what I found, which was mostly fishing supplies and some basic ‘keep you going’ supplies. I shoved it all in to my pack, then considered what to do with the body. I wanted to offset them actually knowing that we were murdering them for as long as possible. My eyes fell on the nearest ice fishing hut.

Inspiration struck.

I grabbed the body and started dragging.

…

I put the body under the water, after taking a hammer I’d stored in the hut earlier to help bash open the ice and, well, bashing open the ice. Once the hole was big enough, I shoved them down into it. (I’d stopped to fill his backpack with several heavy ass rocks I found along the way), and then I’d walked back to Lexi.

They sure as shit weren’t gonna find that guy.

Once we’d reconnected, I’d examined the sky and made the call: we were done hunting for now. Maybe for the day. It was past noon and the sky had only grown grayer and darker. I felt like snow was on the way. Not only did it make hunting harder, it made it way less likely that anymore of them would leave the town.

So there wasn’t much reason to keep going.

We walked back through the woods, and sure enough, about three quarters of the way there, the winds picked up, now bitterly cold, and snow started to fall. Big, fat flakes that made it hard to see as they drifted down. Neither of us said anything as we walked back. I wondered what Lexi was thinking about, if she felt the same way I did about what we’d just done: guilty, but ultimately justified. I used to think that I didn’t have it in me to murder anyone. Finally I’d eventually conceded that, under the proper conditions, I would if I absolutely had to.

When the apocalypse had come and it had finally, really hit me, the full breadth and seriousness of an apocalyptic situation, I’d...readjusted what ‘proper conditions’ meant. And then, eventually, I’d had to kill a man.

I at least hadn’t had to kill any women yet.

Maybe it was a stupid hang-up, but yeah, I’ll admit to it: the idea of killing a woman was much, much harder than the idea of killing a man. I still wasn’t entirely sure if I could do it, but then again it probably wouldn’t be up to me if I ever did run into the situation. By that I mean...you all those action heroes and shit like that in books and movies about how easy killing becomes if it’s kill or be killed and, fuck, it was for me. It probably isn’t for everyone, maybe not even for most, but for me? Yeah. It became just...easy.

I mean, not in all aspects. Afterwards I still felt guilt and remorse and sick. I hated doing it. But actually doing it, in the moment? Yeah, I could do it. It bothered me sometimes, but I already knew the answer to that particular conundrum: the exact stuff I’d told Hannah earlier when she was worried she was a sociopath.

By the time we caught sight of home, it was snowing harder, and clearly it was going to get worse. Which was just fucking fine with me, because my mood had soured at this point. I was kind of depressed, kind of pissed, kind of anxious. Mostly I was pissed, I guess. I didn’t want to be in this fucking situation. I didn’t want to put up with this shit. I just wanted to live with Susan and Lara and all the beautiful women who had come into my life, and have sex, and hunt, and keep surviving in peace. Was that so fucking much to ask?

Honestly, part of me just wanted to put my fucking head in the sand and pretend this wasn’t happening. But I couldn’t. Not only because that was stupid and reckless and would probably get some people on my side killed, but also because I just...couldn’t not doing anything. Not anymore. I’d spent a lot of my life being passive, and what had it gotten me? Not much in the way of trouble, but it was boring and largely pointless.

I was going to fucking deal with this.

But later. As I came into the house after kicking snow off my boots, I was looking for to just pounding the fuck out of a lot of pussy, and orgasming inside of several different women with no protection, and just forgetting my problems for the rest of the day, if at all possible. As we came in, I found pretty much everyone waiting for us. Jessica and Lara were sitting on the couch. It looked like Jessica had dozed off with her head in Lara’s lap. Susan and Hannah and Sofia were all sitting around the table, looking anxious.

“What happened?” Susan asked as soon as we were in.

I started taking my stuff off. “We killed three of them, got a few new guns, some more supplies,” I replied. “It was pretty easy, honestly.”

“Do you have any further idea of how many there are?” Hannah asked.

“At a guess? I’d say there’s eight or nine left,” I replied, and Lexi nodded.

“So now what?” Sofia murmured.

“Now, Lexi and I take a break. There’s a bad storm happening and it might last the rest of the day, ideally,” I replied.

“Ideally?” Lara asked.

“Killing is hard work, especially in this environment. I need a break,” I replied.

“Oh...yeah, I, uh, guess so,” she murmured. “Let me know if you need any help...unwinding,” she added.

“I will definitely need help with that,” I replied, then I looked Sofia. “How’s the shower coming? Because that would go a really long way towards helping out.”

“It’s done!” she replied, smiling. “We finished it. Now we’ve packed it with snow, which is melting, and we’ll use for a shower.”

“How long until it’s ready and how long will it last?” I replied, feeling my spirits boosting. Just the thought of a hot shower, and sex in a hot shower…

“That’s the good thing: quite awhile, if we do it right. So long as it has power, and we keep pouring water into it at a decent pace, we can have quite a long shower. We’ve been melting snow and storing it pretty much the whole time you’ve been gone in whatever we can find. There some three gallon jugs in the basement of the eco center that we salvaged. So it’ll require one of us to go out and dump some water every now and then, but we could theoretically keep the shower running for as long as it takes for all of us to feel satisfied.”

“That is so fucking awesome. So how long until it’s actually ready?”

“Last I checked, there’s a little meter it came with, it was about twenty minutes away from being ready,” Sofia replied.

“All right. I guess, um...”

“Can I talk to you in the basement?” Lexi asked suddenly.

I looked at her. “Sure...what for?” I replied.

“I’ve reached a decision with regards to your...request,” she answered.

I hesitated for a few seconds, totally blanking on what the fuck she was talking about, and she raised her eyebrows meaningfully at me.

“Oh!” I said, suddenly remembering. The sex. Fuck. “Okay, yeah, sure.” I looked at the others. “Uh...I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Can I watch?” Lara asked.

I looked over at her, then looked at Lexi. I raised my own eyebrows, asking: Well? You down for that? She seemed to consider it, then slowly nodded.

“Yeah,” she said, “that’d be fine.”

“Can I?” Jessica asked, sitting up.

Lexi sighed. “Whoever wants to come can come watch me come,” she said, then turned and began walking towards the basement.

“You’re that confident in my abilities?” I asked, following.

“You wouldn’t have five different women so eagerly taking your dick if you weren’t good at getting girls off,” Lexi replied.

Well, that was a good point, I guess.

I followed Lexi into the basement, and when I realized I was hearing a lot of shuffling I turned around and saw that everyone but Hannah had come downstairs. For a moment I wondered why, since she was a fan of watching, then I realized Jessica was down here and yeah...it’d be weird. I’d have to make it up to her later.

Looking around, I saw that in the little bit of time she’d spent down here, Lexi had made it her own at least somewhat. The place just felt more lived in. I wondered, if she did move in with us, if she’d want to stay here or somewhere else. Where would she stay? I guess that middle building, unless someone was willing to share. Which depended on if she was willing to share. Whatever. I saw a bucket of water with some rags and a bar of soap and moved over to it. I started pulling off my clothes, and kept a close eye on Lexi as she did the same, coming over to stand next to me. I was, admittedly, very eager to see her naked.

She took off her top layer, then her bottom layer, revealing her body as she got down to her bra and panties.

“Whoa,” I murmured.

She was fucking tatted.

I can’t say I was surprised, but I was happy. I fucking loved tattoos on women. No idea why, they just looked hot. She had black flames going all down her right arm, (her bicep was almost as big as mine), she had a black-pedaled rose going down her left bicep, with a few pedals mid-fall trailing down it. She had a knife through a bleeding heart over her...heart. She had a wolf head on her inner left thigh, and a raven on her inner right.

“Goddamn,” Lara muttered.

“That’s so amazing,” Jessica said.

“You like them, then?” she asked, preening a little.

“Yeah,” I replied, and the others nodded. “That is hot.”

“You haven’t even seen the best one.”

She pulled off her sports bra and tossed it aside, then turned around. Our reaction sounded like an audience reacting to a really neat trick. I was fucking impressive.

“How fucking long did that take?” I marveled.

“Three trips, three hours each,” she replied.

She had a bright blue spiral galaxy across most of her back in incredible detail. It was probably the coolest tattoo I had ever seen.

“Fucking you doggystyle is going to be distracting,” I muttered.

She laughed and then took her panties off. Damn, she did have a big fucking ass. Maybe bigger than Lara’s. And it had an excellent shape to it, too. And her thighs were something else. She was in great shape, definitely built. I could see muscle definition in her arms and legs, and her stomach was pretty flat. She turned around and I saw her pussy: smooth and bald.

“Laser hair removal?” I asked as I took my boxers off and began washing up. “Because I can’t see you regularly shaving it.”

“Yep,” she replied. “Got that done when I was like nineteen. I knew I wanted it bald, and I knew I’d get sick of shaving it.”

“So...” I said, still staring at her pussy, then my eyes flicked up to her hair.

She smirked and started washing. “Did the carpet match the drapes? Yeah, actually. Since you’re all so curious, because everyone is, I can’t quite remember the specifics of why I have white hair, but I was born with it. Like a genetic quirk or something. I used to dye it red, all the up into my late twenties. Then I just stopped giving a shit.”

“I think it’s beautiful,” Lara murmured, and the others all gave their own agreements.

“Well...thanks,” she replied, and I realize at once she was embarrassed. I almost laughed, but caught myself. It was just really interesting, and amusing, seeing a completely badass like Lexi blushing and a little shy. But I didn’t want to punish that behavior with ridicule. I’d rather encourage it. I finished washing. “So,” I said, drying quickly and then standing before her completely naked, “what you were hoping for?”

“Yeah,” she replied, studying me. “At least on the visual side of things. You look pretty good. Now, let’s get into bed and see how you perform.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “All right. I really want to hear what you sound like screaming. You’ve got a good voice for it.”

“You sure you can make me scream?” she replied, walking over to the bed with me.

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

We got into her bed. It wasn’t what I’d call big, but it would do the job. We got into bed and then she pushed me onto my back. Fuck, she was strong. Then we were kissing and touching, hands running over each other’s bodies. I felt the bumps of scars occasionally. Her tits were big, and wonderful, and firm. They were almost as big as Lara’s, though they looked somewhat less pronounced on her, given she was a good five inches taller, and broader as well. She was different than the other women, I realized as we made out, her tongue forcefully but skillfully dancing with my own. She was aggressive, but there was also tact there, and a strangely powerful urgency to her, like she was afraid we were going to get interrupted.

Was she that desperate for sex?

Well, if she was, hopefully I would satisfy her. I groped her big, fantastic tits, then ran my hand over her body some more, across her broad hip and her thick thigh, then back around to her ass. Her huge fucking ass. I felt her own hands touching me everywhere, like she was hungry for human contact. Her lips were wet and hot, her tongue vibrant and dexterous. She kept her eyes open, staring directly at me.

Finally, my hand made its way down, slipping in between her thighs, and she parted them for me. I began to massage her clit and she immediately let out a loud, long moan.

“I think she likes that,” I heard Lara murmured.

“Oh my f-fuck, oh...oh wow,” she moaned, and she trembled.

I grinned. “Am I that good?” I asked.

“I just...I haven’t done anything-ah! Oh fuck!-with anyone...for a long time,” she panted. “I’d actually forgotten how fucking good it feels to be touched down there.”

“I’m very happy I could remind you,” I replied, and she began to furiously kiss me again as I started rubbing harder and faster.

She orgasmed ten seconds later, and what an orgasm it was. She broke the kiss and let out a long, almost howling scream of pleasure, of pure, sexual gratification and release. I kept going throughout the whole thing, wanting to bring her as much rapturous ecstasy as possible, and man did she ever fucking squirt.

She screamed and squirted and squirmed for a good thirty seconds, and when she was done, she fell onto her back, eyes wide, panting furiously.

“Wow, I felt that,” Jessica muttered.

“Thank you,” Lexi whispered. “I haven’t had an orgasm like that in...I don’t even wanna say. Fuck. Goddamn. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied, kissing her on the mouth.

“Now what? You want me to, uh, suck you? Or sex? I’m up for whatever.”

“Will you suck me later?” I asked.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Perfect. Spread your legs.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, grinning. “You’re the dominant one in every relationship in this house, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Lara, Susan, and Jessica said at once.

“Maybe,” Sofia said.

I got on top of Lexi. It was time to see how she liked to fuck. I had an idea, but it was nice to know for sure. I got in between those powerful thighs of her, rock hard and ready to go. She brought her hand to her face, spat into her palm, then brought it back down and began rubbing it all over my cock. We locked eyes.

“You good for a creampie?” I asked.

“Yeah. Even if you’re lying about being fixed, which I don’t think you are, I’m fixed,” she replied.

“Fair enough. I’m going to bust the biggest fucking nut inside of,” I said.

She just smirked. “Prove it.”

Wow. I was realizing that I didn’t just like Lexi, I liked her a lot.

I looked down at her hand massaging my dick, at her glistening, bald vagina. She stopped massaging and instead lined me up with her pussy.

“Get in,” she said.

Well, how much more of an invitation did I need?

I began to slide into her.

“Whoa, fuck,” she whispered. “So, you are as big as you looked.”

“You doing okay?” I asked, hesitating.

“I’m fine. Just...nice and easy,” she replied.

“I had the same problem,” Susan said.

Lexi glanced at her. “I don’t know how you even fucking survived.”

Susan laughed. “Me neither.”

“You should’ve heard her scream...aw fuck, you are so tight, Lexi,” I groaned.

“Told you, it’s been awhile, and I work out a lot,” she replied.

It took a bit to work into her pussy, but before long, we had a nice rhythm going. I maintained eye contact with her, kissing her several times on the mouth. I loved kissing. It had its own special place and honestly, I thought that a sex session was lessened appreciably if there was no kissing involved. I was worried Lexi might not want to kiss, or maybe not be that great at it, (not everyone was good at it), but this wasn’t the case.

She was a good kisser.

Once I had worked my way inside of her, I pushed myself up onto my hands, started down at her fit, tattooed body, and really started fucking her. She moaned loudly, spreading her long legs out. Goddamn, she was tall! I was remembering this as I studied her, saw the way her body twisted and reacted to the pleasure of our sex. She was maybe three inches taller than me, but apparently that made a fair amount of difference.

“God, fuck, yes...oh Chris,” she moaned, taking the whole length of my dick. “Fuck, this is so fucking good...don’t stop,” she begged.

I laughed softly and kept going, looking down and seeing my cock disappearing into her again and again. Her smooth, bald pussy looked so fucking good. Especially with my fucking it. Her thighs and hips were awe-inspiring.

After another few minutes or so, she wrapped her legs around me, reached up, and pulled me down closer to her. Hugging me, she kissed me passionately, and I kissed her back.

“Flip me,” she whispered, “I want to ride you.”

“Oh fuck, hell yes,” I replied.

We maneuvered around, and got flipped over. I ended up on my back and she ended up on top. Once she was in position, she got right to the riding, and damn was she good at it. Her powerful hips and thighs lent her a lot of strength. She rested her hands on her thighs and just rode me, sliding herself, her perfect wet, hot, and so tight vagina up and down my rock hard dick. The pleasure of the bareback sex was lighting me up with fantastic bliss, filling me, priming me for one hell of an orgasm. Judging by the looking on her face and the sounds she was making, she was headed there herself. And oh was I ever right.

She sounded just sexy as hell when she moaned and shouted in pleasure.

I decided to go in for the kill again after another few minutes of her riding me furiously, her huge tits bouncing and bouncing, and I laid my thumb against her clit. She gasped and went rigid for a second, then let out a loud, moaning yelling as I began to stimulate her again.

“Fuck! Fucking fuck, Chris!” she screamed.

“Goddamn, you’re sensitive,” I replied.

“Yes! Yes I am...ohhhhh FUCK!” she shrieked, and then she was coming again. She was coming all over my dick and balls and thighs and hips and lower stomach. She practically fell onto me, and barely caught herself, slamming her hands on either side of my head on the pillow, and her face twisted and twitched as she screamed in pleasure.

I fucked her pussy and thumbed her clit through the whole orgasm, intending to last through it and push out through the other side.

I damn near made it.

Right at the end though, I was there, riding that careful razor’s edge between holding onto my climax and losing control of it.

And I lost control.

Right as she finished up, I let out a loud groan of pleasure and my seed started exploding out of me, and into her.

“Oh fuck! Oh Lexi!” I yelled, totally losing control of myself and blowing one hell of a goddamned load into her pussy.

“Oh my God, Chris...” she moaned as I grabbed her ass and held her down against me, shoving my cock up into her almost violently. My seed was spurting out of me fast and hard, just filling her up. “I can feel that, there’s so much...holy shit...” she whispered.

I moaned her name several times as the pleasure took me, hitting me like an earthquake, shockwaves crashing through me.

It was one hell of a fucking orgasm.

I’m not sure how long I was like that, but when I was finished, I felt drained. I let go of her and flopped back against the mattress.

“Holy shit,” I heard Lara say.

“Yeah, goddamn,” Jessica murmured.

“That was definitely worth watching,” Sofia said quietly.

“Can one of you get me a cloth or something, because he really did blow like the biggest fucking load. Like I’m going to leak everywhere,” Lexi said.

“Yeah, sure,” Susan said. I heard her moving and then she came into my field of vision. She passed Lexi a wet cloth. She took it, thanked Susan, and carefully got up off me. As my softening cock left her vagina, she immediately slipped the cloth over it, then carefully got to her feet and moved back over the wash bucket to clean herself up.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well you sure as hell proved it,” Lexi said. “Hot fuck, this is a big mess.”

“Can we shower now? I need it,” I asked.

“Yes, it’s probably ready,” Sofia replied.

I laid there for a few seconds more, then got up.

CHAPTER FOUR

They had hooked the device up to the shower in the master bathroom, so my, and Susan’s, and Lara’s bathroom, essentially. It was fair enough, and also lucky for me. The bathroom was uniquely suited for it. Not only was there kind of a perfect space for it to be stowed away in the big-ass closet right next to the shower, but the shower was big. Big enough to handle at least three of us comfortably. The rig was pretty simple. The tube that ran from the showerhead into the fixture mounted on the wall it normally did now instead snaked into the closet, where it was hooked to the machine, which was plugged in and making surprisingly little racket.

The bulky of it was taken up by two chambers. One for the unfiltered water, one for the filtered water. Both were currently full. All of us were now gathered in the bathroom, (this time except for Jessica, who had, when I pointed out the deal with Hannah, had suddenly felt kind of bad, and opted to sit this one out so that Hannah could have an opportunity for a ‘show’), and Lara was already stripping down.

“So I guess that answers who’s getting in the shower with us,” I said as I turned on the water.

“Yep.” She looked at Lexi. “Are you into girls?”

“Not as much as dudes, but yeah. I’m for sure into you, you have the most amazingly curvy body and the-” she hesitated as Lara took her bra off and her eyes widened, “-biggest goddamned tits I’ve ever seen. Holy fuck.”

Lara just grinned.

“She attracts everything with a pulse,” Susan said. I glanced at her. If this had been maybe two weeks ago, I think she would have said that with a note of bitterness and jealousy. But now she said it lovingly. She was staring at Lara with a mix of love and lust in her eyes. I knew how she felt. Lara just seemed happy with the praise.

“She does,” Hannah murmured quietly.

I tested the water, found it comfortably hot, and then got in.

And lost myself. I groaned, I couldn’t help it, and almost felt like passing out as the water fell down over me. I leaned against the wall and for a little while, was just lost in the simple yet overwhelming pleasure of a hot shower.

It had been like...almost a year, I think, since I’d had one.

I had genuinely forgotten how good they felt.

At some point I felt a hand on my bicep and came back a little bit. “You okay?” It was Lexi.

“Uh...yeah,” I murmured blinking a few times, and several of the women laughed.

“I think he liked that more than the sex,” Susan murmured.

“Just wait until you get try it,” I replied, then, with great reluctance, gave up the spot. Lexi took it over, and pretty much immediately had the same reaction. Her eyes went wide and she leaned against the tiled wall, moaning in intense pleasure.

“Wow, I guess it is that good,” Susan murmured. “I’ve never really been a shower person, per say, but now I’m curious.”

“It’s amazing,” Lexi groaned. “Fuck. Goddamn. Holy shit.”

Eventually, she gave it up, and Lara took her spot. Listening to her moan was pretty nice. And seeing her naked, pale body get all wet was also extremely pleasant. Lara’s tits still amazed me. I mean, just her body in general. She was hot in a way that only like the absolute top tier porn stars were. She had huge, but very shapely tits and those enormous hips that supported her extremely big, thick ass. I didn’t quite understand still how someone could be both so goddamned thick and curvy, and also still in pretty good shape.

But holy shit was she amazing to look at naked, and better to fuck.

After that, we spent about five minutes rotating through the water, each taking turns and slowly getting used to it, then actually washing up. Our skin, our hair, everywhere. There was soap and rags, and we put them to use. We also washed each other. I loved helping women wash their bodies in the shower. I mean, for the obvious reason of the nudity and the fact that sex was probably going to happen sometime soon, or had just happened before, but also because...there was a sweetness to it. A closeness. A trust that felt good.

To wash, and be washed, by someone, meant you were in a pretty vulnerable spot.

Near the end of the washing, Lara started getting handsy. With both of us. And right as I was about to suggest it, Lexi suddenly grabbed her and kissed her on the mouth. Lara let out a startled sound, then reached behind her and grabbed Lexi’s big ass. She tilted her head and moaned softly as Lexi deepened the kiss, and I watched them. So did everyone else. Damn did they look good. Lexi immediately went for Lara’s big, beautiful tits, and I didn’t blame her. They were amazing to touch. It reminded me of that whole ass versus tits thing, like which was better, which I always thought was a stupid question. Then there were women like Lara.

I’d see her ass, and I’d think, Yep, definitely all about the ass.

Then I’d sit her breasts and think...yep, definitely all about the tits.

Every part of her was amazing.

They made out for awhile longer, Lexi putting her hands all over Lara’s voluptuous body, and then finally she pushed her gently towards me.

“You two have sex. I want to watch that. I haven’t seen two people have sex for a long time, especially two people who are so fucking hot.”

“Oh...okay,” Lara said, sounding pleased as she stepped up to me.

I grinned and started kissing her, and now my hands were roaming all over her voluptuous body. She was warm and soft and wet and wonderful to touch. Her lips were like magic, her mouth so welcoming and skillful. We kissed for awhile, tongues dancing, enjoying each other, and then she dropped to her knees. I watched as she got to work, gripping my cock and beginning by licking the head from every angle. Pleasure, hot and intense, sparked into existence, shooting into me. I began to breathe more heavily as she worked, then she took it into her mouth and began to bob her head, sucking me off like a high class hooker.

Her mouth was so fantastically wet, her lips and tongue so wonderfully skilled.

After about a minute, I motioned for her to get up. She did, then I turned her around and bent her over. She reached out and gripped Lexi’s hips to support herself. Lexi seemed very okay with this. I looked down at her huge ass, then worked my cock into the glistening, pink slit of her vagina, and heard her moan as I did. I slid into her, feeling her twitch and shudder as I did.

“That’s it,” I groaned as I grabbed her broad hips, “that’s fucking it right there, Lara.”

She felt so fucking good inside. She moaned, then started grunting and panting as I settled into fucking her, slapping my hips against her fat ass.

“Oh fuck!” she moaned. Lexi was running her hands across her back. After a bit, I reached out and took her hand. She smiled at me, lacing her fingers with mine. We held hands and stared at each other as I screwed Lara hard.

Suddenly, her eyes widened and she gasped.

“Oh my God, Lara,” she whispered, leaning forward a little. I leaned over a little, and saw that Lara had slipped a finger into Lexi’s taut pussy.

“Nice,” I said, and reached up under her as Lexi let go of my hand to steady herself, then started groping Lara’s huge, wet tits.

Her vagina was nothing but pure ecstasy, sleeved tight around my cock as I pounded the fuck out of her. Her ass looked heavenly as I looked down, watching my dick disappear into her repeatedly. I was going to bust soon, I knew. I could hold it back more successfully this time, but I was okay with a quickie, and Lara pretty much was happy if she got sex. Though I did want to make her come, too. She had such hot orgasms, and she deserved to feel good. I let go of one of her tits and went lower until I’d found her clit.

I rubbed it, listening to her scream and moan, until I got her coming. I groaned, feeling her vagina spasming like crazy around me, and then I straightened up, grabbed her hips, and started coming inside of her. I emptied my nuts into her, pumping out a second load that more than likely wasn’t as big as the last one. I could feel the water cascading over my body as I orgasmed into her, and it heightened the feeling of absolute ecstasy into the next level.

It was otherworldly.

As I was coming out of my orgasm, I realized that Lexi was very close to one herself. I pulled out of Lara and started washing up, watching intently as Lexi gasped and moaned and twitched. Lara had straightened up, and was still fingering her, and suddenly she grabbed Lexi and began kissing her as she kept rubbing her clit. Lexi kissed her back passionately for about thirty seconds, and then let out a shriek of pleasure as she came.

She did look damn good when orgasmed, her muscles rippling beneath her tattooed skin. Her big breasts jiggling and bouncing. And Lara looked great pleasuring her. Lara always looked good, but she really shined when she was doing something related to sex.

Eventually, the three of us were (temporarily at least) orgasmed out, and we took the opportunity to wash up again. I didn’t really feel like leaving the shower, honestly I could stay in here for another hour, maybe longer, but that wouldn’t be fair to the others, who were clearly interested in getting to it. They’d already taken all their clothes off. So I finished rinsing off all the soap, then got out and started drying off.

As I did so, I looked around, and marveled.

“Wow,” I said.

“What?” Sofia asked.

“I’ve never been in one room with so many attractive, naked women before,” I replied.

“I haven’t either,” Susan murmured.

“I have,” Lara said with a smirk.

“I think you’re the only one here who has,” Lexi said.

She and Lara finished up and left the shower, beginning to dry off. I glanced at the machine and saw that it was over halfway empty now.

“Yeah,” Sofia said, following my gaze, “we should put more in.”

“I’ll do it,” I said, spying the jugs of water beside it.

“Thank you,” she said, then kissed me and got into the shower. Susan and Hannah joined her, and the three of them began engaging in the rapturous experience that was a hot shower after months and months and months of not having one. I dumped the water into the tank and topped it off, then looked back into the bathroom. Lexi and Lara were watching the others. Lexi was leaning against the door and Lara had put her big ass up on the counter.

I went and sat on the toilet, then watched the women. Susan and Hannah had begun kissing. I was pretty happy to watch this show. I relaxed and watched as both women continued to make out passionately. And then Sofia got up against Hannah’s backside, reached between them, began groping her breasts and playing with her nipples, and kissing the side of her neck.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Sofia, you...oh wow...”

“You want this, Hannah?” Sofia murmured.

“Yes. I do...oh wow.”

“So do I.”

She began playing with Hannah’s nipples as she kissed the of her neck, and Susan ended up dropping to her knees, kissing her way down Hannah’s front, until she was perfectly positioned for oral.

“Leg up, Hannah,” Susan said, gently patting her thigh.

“Uh, oh wow, okay,” she panted, bringing one leg up and resting it on the side of the tub.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” Sofia said quietly.

Hannah let out a loud, pleasured groan as Susan began to eat her out.

“Lexi...” I murmured, staring, enraptured.

“Yeah?” she sounded distracted too.

“You know, now would be like...a perfect time for that blowjob...”

She laughed softly. “Yeah, it would. Okay, fair enough.”

She walked over to me and settled down. She didn’t hesitate, either. She settled right into it, putting my dick in her mouth and beginning a surprisingly slow suck off. I thought she’d start out strong and fast, but she closed her eyes and began sliding her lips up and down my rock hard cock. I was glad I could get it back up. Those two orgasms had been fucking hardcore and I wasn’t entirely sure if I had a third nut to bust in me right now. Apparently, I did. Which was great, because I really wanted to come in her mouth.

“Do you swallow?” I asked, running my hand over the top of her head.

“Mmm-hmm,” she replied.

Yes. I loved chicks that swallowed. I’m not sure why, since it made no practical difference. Whether or not they did didn’t change the fact that my stuff was shooting in their mouth. And I never tried to make anyone swallow, that was fucked up, but it just was better. Maybe it was a power play or something, maybe it satisfied some subconscious urge. But whatever the reason, I loved it, and Lexi, big, badass Lexi, was going to let me blow a huge load in her mouth, suck it all out, and swallow every last drop.

I settled in and watched the three naked women in the shower.

It was quite the show. It was basically watching live porn. Susan was really going to town on Hannah, just eating the fuck out of her pussy, and Sofia had now come around to her front and, careful of Susan, had begun to make out with Hannah. Both women kissed passionately, their lips coming together, tongues working, both feeling up each other’s wet, nude bodies, both clearly enjoying the encounter. Hannah kept breaking the kiss because of how good Susan was eating her pussy. Waves of pleasure rolled through me as Lexi sucked my dick. She had begun to massage my balls in one big, warm hand, which only made it better.

“Oh, God! Oh, Susan, yes!” Hannah cried suddenly, and began to come.

Sofia held her up, hugging her lovingly as she orgasmed onto Susan’s beautiful face as she kept eating her out.

It was a hell of a beautiful sight.

Lexi was building it up now, using her other hand and her mouth at the same time. I felt a little bad for her, because I definitely had more endurance this time around. Even though I wouldn’t mind coming pretty fast, I wasn’t going to. But she looked like she had a lot of endurance herself. She kept going as the Hannah’s orgasm finished, and the women switched it up. Apparently Sofia was now to be the center of attention.

Susan practically grabbed her and pulled her into a deep kiss. Sofia seemed pleasantly surprised, and quite happy with this turn of events. They touched each other, groped each other, kissed each other. Hannah was content to watch at first, apparently recovering, but that didn’t last. She finally came forward and whispered something in Susan’s ear, then did the same thing into Sofia’s ear. Both women began to smile, and then they shifted around.

Sofia laid down on her back and spread her legs. Susan settled down onto Sofia’s face, straddling her. And Hannah got down onto her hands and knees and buried her face in Sofia’s crotch. There was just enough room in the large tub to make this happen. And what a fucking sight it was. Sofia and Susan began moaning loudly, their voices carrying quite well. They looked like goddesses, their wet, naked, perfect bodies writhing and twitching in pleasure together. I heard a soft moan from elsewhere in the room and turned.

Lara had her legs open now and had two fingers inside of herself, masturbating. Goddamn, she made masturbation look really fucking hot. For a bit, I was torn between who to watch. I switched back and forth several times as Lexi kept sucking me off. She seemed to be trying harder to get me off now. I finally settled on the three naked women having a threesome in the shower and tried to let the orgasm come. Thankfully, it didn’t that all that much longer. I imagined her jaw was getting sore by now. And right about the time Sofia began to let out muffled shouts of pure bliss, I finally started letting off. I let out a loud groan and, without really meaning to, grabbed Lexi’s head and shoved my cock deeper against the back of her throat.

She didn’t try to stop me, and she sure as hell could’ve if she wanted to, so I didn’t stop. I grunted and moaned as pure fucking pleasure hit me like lightning and I came down her throat. The pleasure spiked with she swallowed, and I shouted in surprised rapturous ecstasy as her hot, wet muscles clenched tightly around my cock, hitting it from all sides. She did it a few more times, eliciting more sounds of pure pleasure from me, and then I was done, and I let go of her. She pulled my cock from her mouth, looking up at me intensely.

“You,” she said, pausing to wipe her mouth on the back of her hand, “are so lucky. I’ve hardly let a man do that to me ever. You are so fucking lucky, Chris.”

“I know. Thank you. Sorry,” I muttered, panting. “I kinda just...did it. I would’ve stopped if you had made me.”

She smirked. “I know. That’s why you’re lucky.”

She got up and watched the show for a bit longer before leaving the room, probably going to track down something to drink. As the threesome in the shower wound down, I found myself wanting to be in a bed, laying back, relaxing. After a meal. It was about lunchtime anyway. So I got up and headed out into my bedroom, then started tracking down clothes.

CHAPTER FIVE

The storm kept up for pretty much the rest of the day, which was fine by me.

I was drained, like really drained, after leaving the bathroom. Actually, I was kind of concerned by how damned tired I was. I was starving, so I went downstairs with Lexi and we started moving around the kitchen, putting together a meal. We talked about foods that missed the most. Honestly, I missed burgers, and mashed potatoes and gravy. Like...fuck man. My kingdom for just one goddamned burger with all the trimmings. Lexi missed Chinese takeout the most. She admitted she’d pretty much lived on it and pizza for most of her life, and I got it. I mean, I’d pretty much done the same thing with burgers and Mexican food.

We put together a nice big stew of venison, rabbit meat, wild onion, and whatever seasonings we could throw in there that would make it taste better. We must’ve done a good job, because everyone was drawn down by the smell of food. They were probably all starving, too, after all the exercise. But man, I was fucking just dying of hunger, which again took me by surprise. I’d had breakfast. And that was less than eight hours ago. I mean, the treks all over the place had been strenuous, sure, but nothing insane.

This was closer to how I felt during the stretches I’d done where I hadn’t had more than a few bites food across three goddamned days. Now that was hunger. The longest I’d gone without food was four days. I mean, I know it takes like a month to actually starve to death, or something like that, more than a few weeks, and obviously more than four days, but man...I felt like I was fucking dying. This hunger was closer to that.

I was ravenous.

I knew the soup wasn’t going to be enough, so I ended up frying up a thick cut of venison on the side. I was also kind of shaky, like coming down from adrenaline shaky. Which I guess made enough sense, given what I’d been doing. After dinner was made, we sat and ate and talked and laughed. I noticed that Lexi was integrating really well with us. She seemed very relaxed now. Having fucked a few of us probably helped with that. I pretty much inhaled my food in less than ten minutes, then sat around for awhile, waiting for it to digest. I kind of wanted more sex, but more and more I found myself wanting just…

Sleep.

As I sat there worrying that something was actually wrong with me, I started thinking about it, and finally it kind of hit me.

I’d killed, and helped kill, three people today.

I had murdered before. Hell, I’d done basically the same thing barely a few days ago with Hannah up at that farm. Murder wasn’t beneath me or anything, but I’d gotten over the worst of that. I used to puke, then I just wanted to puke, and finally I just had nightmares for a little bit, instead of puking and decompressing and nightmares for weeks. I wouldn’t call myself a stone-cold killer, but...well, I’d gotten good at defending myself.

But this was the first time I’d ever actually gone hunting for someone, and I realized that was fucking with me. It had apparently taken a lot out of me. Not just physically, although it had been arduous and taxing, but emotionally, psychological.

“Chris, you look exhausted. Are you okay?” Sofia asked, and the others looked at me, and they looked worried.

“I’m dead on my feet,” I murmured, then yawned for the tenth time in as many minutes. “I think I need a nap.”

“You need sleep,” Sofia agreed.

“Come on, I’ll help you sleep,” Lara said.

“I will, too,” Jessica said. I noticed she’d been looking at me a lot ever since I got back. I had the idea that it had to do with the fact that I’d told her I loved her. It was a good feeling, to be looked at like that.

“We’ll take care of the cleanup,” Susan said. She gave me a kiss. “Get some sleep.”

“Okay...wake me up if anything happens, okay? Anything at all,” I replied.

“We will, go sleep,” Hannah replied firmly.

I laughed softly and nodded. Jessica and Lara practically helped me up the stairs, each of them taking an arm over their shoulders. I almost told them I didn’t need it, but...well, damn I was tired. I’m not saying I would’ve fallen down if they hadn’t been there, but I was glad they were there. We made it up to the top floor and they got me onto the bed. Both began stripping. I got my shirt off and then laid there for a bit, just watching them get naked.

I would never get tired of that, seeing them undress, seeing them naked.

Once they were nude, their pale bodies as beautiful as ever, they finished pulling my clothes off, and then we all got into bed beneath the blankets. Jessica curled up to my right, and Lara snuggled up against me to my life.

“Now...we’re going to help you sleep,” Lara said.

“A good, strong orgasm really helps with that,” Jessica murmured.

I laughed tiredly. “Yeah, it does.”

“Especially if you’re spraying your seed into a pussy,” she added.

Lara got underneath the blankets and Jessica began to kiss me. I groaned as I felt her breath against my cock, then her tongue against my head. She licked so well. Jessica slipped her tongue artfully into my mouth, twisting and twining with my own, and we made out like that for another minute before she then slipped beneath the blankets to join Lara. And the both of them were licking my cock. Holy fucking shit, there was nothing quite like two women pleasuring your dick at once. Two just smoking hot women who were completely submissive to you.

And then Lara (I’m not sure how I could tell, with them under the blankets, but I could tell), took my dick in her mouth and slowly started sucking me off.

“Aw, fuck...yes...” I groaned. This was seriously a great way to prepare for a nap.

Lara took it out of her mouth for a bit and then passed it to Jessica, who did the same thing, bobbing her head more quickly. I could see the blanket rising and falling there. They kept this up, going back and forth, and I had to admit I was having a hard time staying awake. I wanted to, but I was fucking fading fast. Apparently they could tell, because before too long, the blanket rose up and Jessica got on top of me.

“And now, I’m going to finish you off,” she said, taking my saliva-slicked cock and slipping it into her vagina.

“Holy shit yes,” I groaned as she penetrated herself with me.

She quickly began to ride it, panting and moaning. She looked amazing, her big, perfect tits bouncing as she fucked herself with my steel-hard cock. My hands found her firm, smooth thighs. “Jessica, oh my God,” I whispered.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

“Yes...” I moaned. “I love you, Jessica.”

“How about me, Chris?” Lara asked, settling in at my side, smirking at me.

“I love you so much, Lara,” I replied, reaching out and cupping one of her massive breasts in my hand. She leaned in and kissed me.

“I love you, too,” she murmured. “You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met.”

“Me too,” Jessica said. “God, I fucking love you,” she growled, then began to ride me faster and harder.

I groaned, my back arching, thrusting my cock deeper into her, making her cry out.

Within another thirty seconds, I was busting a nut inside of her pussy, popping off hard, spitting out my seed as fast as I could. I moaned Jessica’s name over and over again, coming into her perfect, amazing pussy, just unloading my nuts into her. She moaned and took it all, took the whole load, as I grasped her hips and shoved my dick up into her repeatedly.

She took it all, and then she got off of me.

Lara snuggled up against me and, after cleaning herself up, Jessica got up against me as well. Both women told me they loved me, and I said it back to them, and then passed out.

…

I had nightmares, but I didn’t remember them.

I woke up three hours later, and the storm was still raging. I felt better, not exactly revitalized, but definitely better, more awake. And horny. I fucked the shit out of both women, pounding them both on their backs until busting inside of Lara, and then I felt more awake. We got up and took a shower together, then headed downstairs.

Not much else happened that day.

I took it easy. After the shower, I pretty much just hung out with the rest of the ladies in my life. I had a long conversation with Lara and Susan about what love meant, and about how amazing it was to find a relationship like this when you thought you no longer had anything left to look forward to in your life. I half a sort of medical examination, sort of casual chat with Sofia. She was still a little worried about me, and went over me thoroughly. As far as she could tell, I wasn’t sick, I didn’t have any kind of infection, I was just tired.

And the answer to that one was obvious.

I chatted with Jessica for awhile, and then we took a little break to just read together. Each of us with a book, laying in her bed, reading. It wasn’t something I would’ve done before the apocalypse, but honestly, I really enjoyed it. Rough sex and getting your dick sucked was great, but there was a different kind of pleasure, a peacefulness, to just being in the same room as someone you loved, doing something simple. Not necessarily together, but nearby.

I found Lexi in the basement, and she practically challenged me to more sex. I did the best I could, given my tiredness, and mostly she was satisfied with riding me, but hey, I made her come twice, so that was awesome.

I pretty much just laid around with Hannah on the couch. We snuggled, we made out, and then we dozed for awhile.

Other than that, all I did was eat dinner.

It was a nice day...well, a nice rest of the day, not really a nice day overall. And honestly, with the fact that I had gotten mostly a full night’s sleep last night, and the nap, and the dozing, I thought I’d be wired late into the night. But like eleven o’clock rolled around and I was sleepy again. So, I made love with Susan and Lara, and then I fell asleep.

…

“CHRIS!!!”

I snapped awake, my whole body alive with terror and adrenaline as I was thrown violently out of a deep sleep. I wasn’t sure who had screamed my name, but I knew it wasn’t a fucking dream. That had been too loud and too real, and Susan and Lara were awake beside me.

“What the fuck-” Susan began.

And then a thunder of machine gun fire exploded into existence.

“Down!” I screamed, pushing Susan off the side of the bed, then Lara off the other side. I realized, as I got down onto the floor, that it didn’t really make sense given we were on the third story, but my brain was all sorts of misfiring right now.

I could hear more gunfire. Jesus fuck.

They had found us, I realized. That must be what was happening. Those shits in the gray camo had fucking found us and they were getting the jump on us.

Fuck that.

“Go downstairs, now!” I screamed. In my panic, I’d apparently actually done the thing I planned to do if I was ever attacked in the middle of the night: grab my gun. I slept with my pistol in the headboard, right above my head, and I’d grabbed it. Fuck, didn’t even realize. I forced my hands to be steady as I flicked off the safety. Judging from the sounds and flashing muzzles, I realized they were at the back of the house.

Susan and Lara were heading to the exit, going downstairs to help the others. I thought I heard return fire from inside the house, but I had no fucking idea. Everything was too goddamned hectic. My head was swimming and screaming and I needed to kill these fucks. My blood was beginning to boil with pure, crazy hatred and rage. Clenching my teeth, I got over to the window that looked over the back of the house and peered down. They seemed to be focusing on the ground floor. Fuck. The moon was out and the clouds had cleared, so I could see pretty well. And I saw over half a dozen dark figures down there, all of them firing guns.

“Fuckers,” I growled, and quickly took aim.

One of them was out in the open, holding a machine gun, the biggest threat. I popped off a few shots the second I had a good lock on him, and got a lucky shot. One of those shots must’ve punched into his skull because suddenly he was firing every which way and then he slammed to the ground. Immediately three of them opened fire on me and I was forced back as the window shattered and gunfire peppered the area.

I hastily retreated, hitting the stairs and making my way down them. Then I made for Jessica’s room. I wanted to see if I could pull the same stunt twice. As I came in, I looked around, and froze as I saw Jessica lying on her side next to her bed. I felt icy fear hit me. God, please no, don’t let her be hit. I hurried over to her and crouched, putting a hand on her shoulder. She shrieked and cringed away.

“Jessica! It’s me! It’s okay!” I said, shouting to be heard over the gunfire. Those fuckers were still firing. And I definitely heard return fire from inside.

“Chris!” she cried, rolling over and grabbing at me.

“Are you hurt?!”

“I-I-”

“Are you shot?!” I said, holding her eyes with my own. I couldn’t spare much time for her, much as I was desperate to.

“No!”

“Okay. Crawl to Sofia’s room right now and stay there!”

“I-I can’t!” she moaned. She was crying hard.

“Jessica, you can! You have to!” I said.

She stared at me, and something changed in her expression. She was still terrified, but no longer panicking. She nodded jerkily. “I-okay. Is Hannah okay!?”

“I don’t know! Just go! Now! I have to kill them!”

“Okay!” She got onto her hands and knees and quickly began to crawl out of the room.

Obviously they hadn’t gotten to waking me up, I thought as I slid over to the window. I heard someone scream, not a woman. Good. I was supposed to take the four AM shift for night watch. Hannah and Sofia should be on watch now. Fuck. What a goddamned nightmare this was turning into. I peered out the window and as I was taking aim, I saw a bullet take one of the other fuckers in the head. Immediately they shifted aim and began firing down.

Lexi! In the basement! There were little windows at the tops of the walls looking out. Damn, that was a good shot! She only had one opportunity, and she had made it count. Now it was my turn again. None of them were really exposed any longer. I opened fire, peppering the nearest one, who was behind a decent-sized tree. At the same time, I heard an assault rifle open up from inside the house. Fuck yes! Someone had put that to use. I’d been tinkering with it earlier and I’d left it on the dining room table because Hannah said she wanted to look it over.

She was probably wielding it right now.

As I looked out the window again, having to duck as some return fire came my way, I saw that we were pushing them back. I only had so many shots left in my pistol, and as far as I knew the next nearest ammo was back upstairs. Suddenly, someone shouted something from out there, and when they all took off and started running, I realized they were retreating.

“Not getting off that easy,” I growled, taking aim again.

Another gunshot snapped out, a rifle round this time, and hit one of the fuckers in the shoulder. He screamed and pitched forward, hitting the ground. I didn’t waste the chance it gave me and emptied my pistol at him. I shot him twice in the back. He thrashed around a bit, and then was still. A few more rifle rounds shrieked out into the night, and then all was still.

I stood there watching for several seconds, still totally naked, holding an empty pistol and trembling violently.

Then I went to go see what the damage was.

A WARM PLACE 12

CHAPTER ONE

Someone was crying, I wasn’t sure who.

As I made my way for Sofia’s room first, remembering I had sent Jessica there. As I passed the stairs leading down, I realized the crying was coming from downstairs. I felt real terror for the first time in quite awhile. Not just the blind, reflexive fear of getting shot at or the in-the-moment worry for someone else that produced, but the genuine, gut-churning fucking awful terror that someone was serious hurt, dying, or dead.

What a fucking nightmare.

I walked into the room and saw Jessica tucked away into the nearest corner to the left of the door, pretty much as far away from the side that had been shot up as possible.

“Is it over?” she whispered. “What happened?” Her face was streaked with tears, but she looked calmer now. Probably shell-shocked.

“It’s over,” I replied. “Come on, we need to go downstairs. I have to see if anyone’s hurt.”

“Is anyone hurt?” she asked. Definitely shell-shocked.

“I need to go find out,” I replied.

“Okay.” She paused, looking dazed. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Okay, Jessica.” I hesitated, then walked over, crouched, and kissed her forehead. “You’re okay, right?” I asked, running my hands gently up and down her arms.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“All right.”

“Is Hannah okay?”

“I need to check.”

“Okay.”

Reluctantly, I left her where she was. I would’ve stayed and helped more, but I needed to see who was hurt and how bad it was. I turned and hurried out of the room, hitting the stairs and jogging down them. I saw a bunch of the women gathered in the living room area. There was glass and debris everywhere. I counted heads and came up short by two: Jessica and...Lexi. She wasn’t there. Fuck, I hoped she wasn’t dead.

One of them was laid out on the floor and for a second I felt the terror ratchet up like someone stabbing me in the gut and then twisting the knife. Then I realized that’s where the crying was coming from, and that it was Lara, and she at least wasn’t dead.

I hurried over.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

Sofia was injecting Lara’s thigh with something, and I saw that she’d been shot through the front of her leg. Fuck.

“She was shot,” Sofia murmured. I saw Hannah on the couch, grimacing. Susan was behind her, tending to a wound on her right shoulder. A graze, just like me. It was a little weird: Hannah and Sofia were fully clothed, Lara and Susan were completely naked, just like me. I’d actually forgotten.

“Where’s Lexi?” I asked as I moved quickly over to Lara and crouched by her.

“Outside, checking the perimeter,” Hannah replied through gritted teeth.

“Hey, honey,” I said, running a hand through Lara’s hair. She looked like she was trying hard to control herself.

“H-hey, babe,” she whispered. She was very pale and sweating badly. “How bad is it?”

“Her femoral artery wasn’t hit,” Sofia murmured.

I sighed in relief, and that act alone seemed to make Lara relax ever so slightly. “You’re going to be fine, Lara. It’s going to be okay. It’s just going to hurt like hell, but you’ll be fine.”

“You promise?” she whispered.

“I promise, Lara. You know you can trust me.”

She smiled. “I do.” She paused. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I said, laying my hand against the side of her cheek.

“I’m injecting you with lidocaine right now, Lara. Part of your leg will go numb. I’ll get you some morphine after I’ve patched you up.”

“Thank you...oh, I can feel it going numb already. Oh thank God. It hurts so fucking much,” she groaned. “Goddamnit, I’ve never been shot before.”

“It’s pretty awful, huh?” I asked.

She grimaced, then laughed curtly. “Yeah. Susan? Hannah? Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Susan replied.

“Fine,” Hannah grunted. “Fuck!”

“Sorry,” Susan murmured. “I’m not as good at this as Sofia is.”

“I’ll be over as soon as I can,” Sofia replied.

“Take your fucking time,” Hannah said. “I just got grazed, I’ll be fine. Lara needs help.”

“I’m sorry,” Lara whispered. “I tried-”

“Lara, it’s fine,” I said. “It was pure blind random chance whether or not anyone of us would get shot. I’m so sorry it was you. I’d have taken it if I could have.”

“That-” she winced, “-would’ve been stupid. We need you. To kill them.”

“I am going to kill them,” I replied. Now that the terror was passing because I knew that everyone else was safe, anger was rapidly replacing it. No, not anger, fury. Rage. I was going to fucking murder every last one of them. In an instant, any hesitation, any residual guilt, any trepidation I felt about what I’d done yesterday or what I was going to do was swept away. Seeing Lara laying there on the floor with blood leaking out of her wounded leg, tears on her pained face, and Hannah on the couch, wincing, clearly trying not to cry, and the debris all around us, the daze and frightened looks of the others…

Yes, I was going to fucking kill every last one of them.

“Where’s my mom?” Hannah asked suddenly.

“She’s in Sofia’s room. She’s okay, I’ll go-” We heard a creak of the stairs and I looked over. Jessica was slowly making her way down it. I looked back down at Lara. “I’ll be right back, okay honey? I need to check on Jessica.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine, just dazed,” I said.

She winced again. “Okay, go on. I’ll be fine.”

I kissed her again, then got up and hurried over to Jessica. I was worried she might stumble. She was moving slowly. As I got over to her, she was halfway down the stairs.

“Hi, Jessica,” I said, taking her hand and putting an arm around her.

“Hi, Chris,” she murmured. “I-” She froze briefly and I realized she was looking at Hannah. That snapped her out of it. “Oh my God, Hannah!” She let go of me and began hurrying down the stairs.

“I’m okay, mom,” Hannah replied.

She then saw Lara lying on the floor. “Lara! Oh God, are you okay?” she whispered harshly.

“I’ll be fine,” Lara replied, her voice tight.

“What the hell happened?” Jessica said, moving over to Hannah and then carefully sitting down next to her.

“Those fuckheads attacked us,” I replied. “We killed some of them, I know that much, but when we managed to get the advantage, they fell back.”

“We had no warning,” Hannah said. She sounded really pissed. “So fucking stupid, I should’ve been more alert. I should’ve been patrolling outside...”

“They would’ve shot you, Hannah,” I replied. “We can’t be vigilant all the time, no one can. Hell, even if you look out the windows literally every five minutes, five minutes is a long time for shit to happen. This wasn’t your fault, okay? I know you’re pissed, but don’t blame yourself.”

“We heard a noise outside,” Sofia said. “I went to check, looked out the window and saw two of them in the moonlight. I screamed your name, then tore ass to cover when I saw they were going to open fire. Damn near didn’t make it,” she muttered.

“It’s getting colder,” Lara murmured.

“Yeah, we’re going to need to patch up these windows, goddamnit,” I muttered.

The back door opened and Lexi walked in. “They’re gone,” she said. “What’s the damage?”

“Lara’s shot, Hannah’s grazed, everyone else is okay,” I replied, and got up. “I’m going to go get clothes for Susan and Lara, and get dressed. Lexi, will you do me a favor?”

“Yes,” she replied. She was holding two pistols and a rifle. Guns from the fallen, I realized. She walked over and set them down on the dining room table. “There’s plastic wrap and duct tape in the basement, did you see it down there?”

“Yes.”

“Get it and start covering the broken windows. Susan, when Sofia’s finished with Lara and takes over for Hannah, I need you to get shoes for everyone and then start sweeping up this glass, okay?” I asked, looking at her.

“Understood,” she replied curtly.

I sighed. “I don’t think they’re coming back for the night, but everyone be vigilant.”

They all responded quietly, and I began making my way carefully back upstairs to the bedroom.

…

I got dressed quickly, then I gathered up some clothes for Susan and Lara. Then, on my way back down, I ducked into Jessica’s room and grabbed her a sweater and jeans as well. She wasn’t naked, but she was stripped down to her underclothes and socks. I went back downstairs and gave the women their clothes. By the time I was back, Sofia had finished up with Lara. Her thick thigh was wrapped in gauze, and Jessica had her head in her lap and was stroking her hair, whispering to her. Having someone else to worry about seemed to have brought her back fully, which was good. I knew what a bitch shock could be.

Lexi, as efficient as ever, had already gotten the first of the broken windows taped up. It wasn’t a pretty job, but it was a secure one. No wind was getting in. I took a moment to stoke the fire more, tossing another log on it and getting it up to a higher level, to help replace the lost heat, then I joined Lexi in her task.

Susan walked up from the basement with a broom and began sweeping. “One of the little windows down there is broken too,” she said.

“That was me,” Lexi replied. “I had a clear shot on one of the fuckers and took it.”

“I saw that, actually. That was an excellent shot,” I said.

“Thanks.”

We didn’t talk much as we worked. An hour passed, then an hour and a half. We got the broken windows covered up again, and then I helped Susan finish sweeping up all the glass. I told everyone to keep their shoes on for the next few days and to be vigilant. Broken glass was a fucking bitch to clean up. I swear you could be sure you swept it all up, then like two days later you’d find some more. We were going to have to work hard to get it all up.

My anger evened out a little, but it didn’t go away. I was fucking pissed. I was more pissed than I’d been...ever, maybe. I couldn’t remember being this angry before. It wasn’t just fury, or rage, or seething animosity…

I was fucking livid.

This was the kind of cold, calculating rage where you’d kind of blown out your emotions. They were largely gone, and all that was left was that calm anger where you were totally in control and totally ready to knock someone’s fucking teeth out, or cave their fucking skull in, or just say fuck it and blow their goddamned head off.

If I was the sadistic type, I’d be preparing to torture these motherfuckers.

But I wasn’t. I just wanted them dead.

Eventually, after about two solid hours of work, we were about as good as we were going to get. Lexi and I, being the biggest and strongest, helped get Lara upstairs. She was going to be bedridden for a few days at least, and we were going to have to help her, bring her things, help her get to the bathroom and all that. Sofia was going to have to check her wounds pretty regularly, and we were going to have to keep a really close eye out for infection. We had antibiotics, at least, and painkillers. Lara was out like a light after we got her up there and Sofia gave her a little morphine. Jessica, after making sure Hannah was okay and practically being sent off by her daughter, finally opted to go up and be with Lara, since someone should be.

Sofia patched Hannah up good, cleaning the wound and bandaging it well, then giving her some heavy painkillers too. I felt for her. I’d been there before. It was almost the exact same wound her shitty dad had given me awhile back.

At the end of it, when all the immediately pressing shit was taken care of, I, Lexi, Susan, Sofia, and Hannah sat around the dinner table.

“So...now what?” Susan asked unhappily. She’d just gotten back from going to check on Lara.

“We kill them,” I replied simply. “What time is it?”

Sofia had a watch she kept wound. She checked it. “A little past three.”

I grunted. “Hmm.” I thought about it, finalizing my thoughts. I’d been considering this for two hours now, exactly how I wanted to do it. We could do it. It would require planning, coordination, and definitely lucky.

Because they would be ready for us.

I’d pretty much made a map of that place in my head, although I’d only ever seen it from one angle. I thought that if we struck hard and fast enough, and quickly enough, we could probably end this today. Before noon.

I said as much to them.

“So what do you want to do?” Lexi asked. She was the only one not sitting, instead opting to stand by the front door with her arms crossed, looking dangerous. I had to imagine something like this really set her on edge. I knew how she felt.

“We’re going to hit them back. Two of us hits them in the village itself. From what I saw, they largely spent time around two buildings. It’ll be a bitch to search it all, but I think we can hit them there. One of us we put on overwatch with a rifle, the one with the most powerful scope.”

“The rifle I snagged from the corpses out there, it’s top of the line, great condition, powerful scope,” Lexi said.

“Good. Fine. I think you and I should be the ones to hit them up close and personal. As for who sits on the hill with the rifle...” I looked at Hannah, frowning, then began to look away and open my mouth, but she cut me off.

“Chris, no,” she said, her voice flat.

“Hannah-”

“No, Chris. I need to do this. Obviously Lara can’t. You sure as hell aren’t sending my mom or Sofia out there with a rifle to cover you. You want Susan to do it.” She looked over at her. “Susan, I respect you, but I’m a much better shot.”

“She’s right,” Susan admitted.

“She’s shot,” I said.

“Grazed. I can handle this. I just need some painkillers and Sofia can give me some local anesthetic to numb my shoulder, so I can keep my aim steady. I can do this, Chris. More than that, you need me to do this,” she replied, holding her eyes with mine. She was adamant.

I sighed. She was right. She was the best shot, certainly better than Susan, and I did need her on this. Fuck. “Fine,” I said.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Susan, that means home security will fall on you.”

“I can handle it,” she said.

“Okay.” I sighed, considering the rest of it. “All right. Lexi, Susan, Hannah, and I are going to go back to sleep. Try to catch whatever sleep you can, or, if you likely can’t, at least lay there and rest up. We’ll get back up by five...what time is sunrise?” I muttered, thinking about it.

“About seven in the morning now,” Sofia said.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. We start seeing sunlight about half an hour before actual sunrise, so that means we need to be hitting them around six thirty in the morning. So yeah, we get back up at five. Sofia, I’ll need you to stay awake and watch the house during that period. Wake us up once five hits. Then Hannah, Lexi, take a shower, splash some cold water on your face, do whatever you need to to wake up fast. I need you focused and aware. We gear up and head out by five thirty at the latest. That’ll give us an hour to get there and get into position, which should be more than enough time, but it’ll give us a window if anything happens. I’ll discuss more specifics of the plan once we’re actually gearing up to go. Any questions?”

No one could think of anything, so I got up and decided to head for bed. Then, as Susan and I headed up the stairs, I hesitated. Lara was sleeping up there, so was Jessica. I didn’t want to disturb her, especially with that leg. I looked at Jessica’s room. It was empty.

“Let’s sleep in here,” I said.

“Okay,” Susan said. She seemed...calmer now. More tired than anything else.

We headed for bed.

CHAPTER TWO

We were silent as we took our clothes off and crawled into bed together.

It was cold in the room, because although we’d patched up the windows, there was still the problem of the fucking bullet holes in the walls. We were going to have to patch up all those, too. But that came later.

Provided I survived the next twelve hours.

I didn’t want to think of that.

As soon as we were under the blankets, Susan immediately clung to me, holding me, pressing her slim, nude body against my own. I felt the thrill of lust ride through me, but I knew that wasn’t what she wanted right now. Or, if it was, it wasn’t the most immediate need. I wrapped my arms around her and held her. I’ve had women tell me, especially women a lot smaller than me, like Susan, that there was something to the cliché of being held by a big, strong man that you trusted, that there was a tremendous comfort in that, or there could be.

I hoped Susan felt comforted right now.

She didn’t say anything for a bit, just laid there, head against my chest.

“I love you,” I whispered to her.

“I love you too,” she replied immediately. “So much.” She sniffed suddenly and shuddered. “Goddamnit,” she whispered harshly.

“Susan,” I said.

“I don’t want to cry. I’m not going to cry. Not in front of you,” she almost growled.

I flashed back to Hannah. “Why?” She didn’t say anything. I thought this was one of those situations where I just had to be the one to speak, because it was too hard to admit to it, and I got that. Verbally owning up to your own insecurities, when you were feeling extremely vulnerable, insecure, and/or emotional, could be almost impossible. “Susan, cry. I’m not going to think less of you. I’m not going to lose respect for you. Crying isn’t weakness. But even if you truly believe it is, then be weak in front of me. You know you can trust me. You put your life in my hands almost every day now. You know I love you, and you know you can cry in front of me.”

She began to say something, but then she lost whatever it was as a harsh, powerful sob came out. She shuddered violently against me, and suddenly she squeezed me, I thought as hard as she could. “Oh Chris...goddamnit!” she snapped, and then she began crying intensely.

I held her. I let her cry.

Hell, I cried a little myself. I was fucking stressed, and pissed, and scared, and being around someone who was crying was kind of infectious. It could make you want to cry. I wasn’t really the crying type, but I wasn’t just shoveling shit when I told them it was okay to cry. I didn’t mind crying, and I didn’t mind doing it in front of people I trusted.

Okay, maybe I minded a little, but that wasn’t because I was a hypocrite, it was because of stupid fucking shit society had pounded into my skull for decades. Man up. Boys don’t cry. Grow a pair. All that horseshit.

We laid there in the dark and, at least for a little bit, cried together.

Maybe five minutes went by, and eventually she was finished. She let go of me, releasing me slowly, and then came up out of the little nest she’d made for herself under the blankets. “Fuck, I made a goddamned mess...so fucking gross...” she muttered, then got up.

“It’s fine,” I said.

“I know, but I’m not sleeping like this and neither are you,” she replied.

I watched her cross the room to get a rag. Her body was ghostly and pale in the moonlight, slim and beautiful. She washed her face, blew her nose, then came back with another rag and washed off the tears and snot she’d gotten on my chest. Once we were all cleaned up, she got back under the blankets and laid against me again.

“Thank you,” she said. “I feel better.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

She paused. “Are we going to be okay, Chris?”

“Yes. I’ll see to it personally.”

“I’m worried about Lara...”

“Don’t worry about her,” I murmured, rubbing her back. “Sofia knows what she’s doing, and she’s right. Obviously she isn’t going to bleed out, and all we have to look out for is infection. We have antibiotics, and we have people who know what they’re doing. We’ll keep the wound clean. Sofia’s like a hawk about that shit. And you and I will be there to help Lara while she recovers.” I laughed softly. “I’m sure we’ll be eating a lot of pussy, given that’ll be the extend of her sexual activity for the next week at least.”

Susan laughed. “Yeah, I bet you’re going to miss pounding that pussy.”

“Oh yeah, definitely.”

“You’ll just have to make up for it by wrecking mine. Speaking of which...”

“Yeah?”

“Will you make love to me?” she asked. “It’d made me feel a lot better.”

“Of course,” I replied, and kissed her on the mouth.

She let out a soft moan and kissed me back immediately. I loved kissing so much. I especially loved kissing with girls who were both good at it and enthusiastic about it. Susan was both. (I’d never tell any of them, but Lara was the best kisser). The kissing quickly grew more impassioned, more intense, and I was already halfway to hard with her pressed up against me, both of us naked, so I was rock solid and at full salute right away.

I reached down and slipped a finger into her.

“Ah!” she gasped in surprise.

“Wow, you are wet,” I murmured.

“Uh-huh,” she whispered. “Fuck me. Please. Now.”

“Okay. Spread your legs,” I said, pushing her over onto her back.

She did as she was told, spreading her legs for me, and I got on top of her. Before I could reach down and adjust myself, her little hands were there, wrapping my around my cock, guiding me into her, and I pushed my way inside.

“Oh fuck, Chris...” she moaned quietly. “Yes...yes...this is what I need so bad...”

“Me too,” I replied, and resumed kissing her as I began to make love to her.

She was insanely wet, and crazy tight inside, like always. I pushed my way deeper and deeper inside of her amazing vagina until I was comfortably within her, all of my rigid inches buried inside of her, and I began a slow, steady thrusting in and out of her. She felt amazing. The sex was beyond incredible. It was so intimate, it was intimate in a way that made my her dance in excitement. This was the kind of sex you had with someone you loved deeply during intensely emotional moments. And I loved Susan so much.

The pleasure started out intense, and only got more powerful as we continued having sex. She was moaning loudly and kissing me deeply, pushing her tongue into my mouth, grabbing my back. I held her against me as I made love to her. I could feel a desperate need in all of her movements, and I’m sure she could feel them in mine. We were reacting to each other. Brushes with death, especially ones that were that bad, really shook loose a lot of things. Fears, mostly. Stuff we did a decent job locking up most of the time.

We’d all kind of been hit by the triple whammy.

Our lives had been threatened.

The lives of those we deeply cared about had been threatened.

And Lara had been seriously injured.

That was fucking with all of us. Probably even Lexi, though not as much. She was tougher than all of us, I thought, and she knew us the least of all. But she obviously cared, and she was at least invested in this situation enough to help me kill those fucks.

Susan was moaning my name again and again, and I kissed her, and touched her, and made love to her. The pleasure was a hot pink light filling us both, connecting us, physically and emotionally. I made her come after a few minutes of sex and it felt incredible. The sounds she made, the look on her face. The way she squeezed me.

“I love you,” she moaned as she finished her orgasm. “Oh fucking God, I love you, Chris.”

“I love you too, Susan. You’re so important to me,” I replied, and kissed her deeply.

She made me orgasm, and orgasm intensely, a few minutes later. I spilled my seed inside of her, filling her pussy with it, the pleasure blasting through me in intensifying waves. I told her that I loved her several times, blind with bliss, and she held me as I came inside of her.

After I finished, I pulled out of her and we curled up together.

“Are we going to be okay, Chris?” she asked softly, tiredly.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Do you promise?”

“I promise, Susan. I will protect you.”

“Thank you,” she whispered after a few seconds. “For everything. You’ve been so good to me and Lara. You love us so much. I can tell. You’re so good to us. I’m so glad you’re here for us, and for Lara. She’s such a good person, she deserves you.”

“She deserves you, you know,” I said, gently rubbing a hand up and down her slim arm.

“I don’t know,” she murmured.

“I do. You’re a good friend, Susan. You’re an amazing friend. You make her happy, and she loves you. You treat her well.”

“If I could, I would marry her,” Susan whispered.

“What’s stopping you?”

“Don’t have a priest.”

“So what? Get some rings, ask her to marry you. Get down on one knee and ask her. She’ll say yes. You change exchange vows in front of us, and we’ll have a party. Everything else is just paperwork and religious stuff. Not much use anymore.”

“You really think she’d go for that?” Susan murmured. She was teetering at the brink of passing out now.

“Yes, I do.”

“...would you marry me?” she asked.

“Yes, Susan. Of course I would. I love you.”

“We should find some rings. The three of us can get married.”

“I’d love that,” I replied, and I would.

“What if the others get jealous?”

“Do you think they would?”

“...I would. If some other girls were married to you, but I wasn’t.”

“Do you think there’s a way around that?”

She yawned and shifted. “Maybe we can all marry each other.”

“We’ll have to find a lot of rings.”

“That will be hard to f...”

“Susan?” I waited. “Susan?”

I laughed softly. She was out. “Goodnight, love,” I whispered, and kissed the back of her head, and then I tried to sleep.

…

I was almost sure I wouldn’t sleep, not after all that had happened, and all that was to come.

I did enter that kind of half-sleep for awhile, where you’re not sure if you’re asleep or not, and then the next thing I knew, I heard a knock at the door.

“Yeah?” I murmured, opening my eyes, seeing it was still dark. No, darker, actually. Not as much moonlight. “Did something happen?”

“It’s five, Chris,” Sofia replied.

I blinked a few times. Fuck. “Really?”

She laughed softly. “Yes, Chris. It’s five. Get up.”

“Okay...thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome.”

I laid there for maybe thirty seconds more, trying to get up. Susan was out like a light. I finally got up, crawling carefully over her, because I knew that if I kept laying there, I’d pass back out. Fuck, I hated getting up when I really didn’t want to. Susan didn’t wake up though, even though I had to move her around a bit to get out of bed. Damn, she fucking was out like a light. I quickly dressed and then prepared to leave the room, but then I hesitated, looking back at Susan. I didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone there.

It was sad, to wake up to the person you sharing a bed with being gone, especially if they were as close as we were. I wanted to give her another half hour or so of sleep. Then I figured I could make it happier, at least.

I scooped her up in my arms and carried her, totally naked and still passed out, upstairs.

“What’s happening? Chris?” she whispered, coming awake as I came into our bedroom. Lara was sleeping on her back, and Jessica sleeping near her.

“I’m putting you in bed with Lara, love. I’m going to wake you up in half an hour, okay?”

“Oh...okay. Thank you,” she murmured.

I tucked her in, and Lara shifted slightly, coming awake.

“Chris? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Lara. Go back to sleep.”

“Okay.”

I leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she murmured. “My leg hurts...”

“I know, honey. I’m sorry. If it gets to be too much, wake up Susan or Jessica and have them get Sofia, she can help. Okay?”

“Okay...thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I kissed her again, then left her to it. She was back asleep almost immediately, so was Susan. I studied the three women for a bit longer.

It was time to do this.

I knew exactly what and who I was fighting for.

I gathered up some fresh clothes, moving quietly about the room, using the candlelight to see by, then I went into the bathroom. I suddenly found myself even more grateful now that the water filtration machine was surprisingly quiet. Firing it up, I got a shower going, stripped, and got in. The water helped wake my ass up the rest of the way. I tried not to linger. This was going to be the most important thing I’d done…

Fuck, ever, maybe.

I’d never been in love before. I’d never had to murder (like this, at least) to protect those I loved. This was going to be crucial. I had to do this, and do it right. Not just because I didn’t want to die, but because I didn’t want them to. I didn’t want a single one of them to hurt. So I washed up thoroughly. As I did, I heard the door open and Hannah came in. She silently stripped down and then got into the shower with me.

“How are you?” I asked.

“My shoulder hurts like fuck, but otherwise I’m fine. I’m ready,” she replied.

“Good. We’ll get them.”

“Yes. We will.”

She washed up, and I helped her wash her shoulder, careful of the ugly wound that I had to peel the bandage away from. It had bled a fair amount since the incident, but obviously had clotted and was already beginning to heal. There was a good chance she’d rip it open again at some point during the next few hours. After this, I was going to help make sure she stayed the fuck down for a few days at least.

I’d had to go through it, and suddenly I really understood why everyone had been so fucking adamant to keep me down.

I didn’t want Hannah to hurt and suffer anymore than she already had.

And I knew it’d be a bitch and a half for her to actually stay in, given her temperament.

Lexi showed up after I got out and brisked dried off. She nodded to me and got in, joining Hannah. Once dry, I dressed and then headed downstairs, again briefly checking on the women. They were all still out like lights. Good. Being able to sleep after a situation like that was a good thing. I was hoping Susan was more together by the time I had to get her up.

Downstairs, I found Sofia sitting at the dining table.

“How’s Hannah?” she asked.

“Fine. She’ll need you to redress her wound, though. Actually, maybe you should head up and do that before she has to put a shirt on,” I replied.

“That’s a good point.” She got up, grabbed her medical supplies, and headed upstairs.

I drank down some water and then I began assembling my arsenal. I didn’t bother eating anything. I wasn’t that hungry and even if I was, I was less distracted by hunger than I was by a full stomach or having to take a shit. I grabbed two pistols, since we had, not exactly what I’d call an abundance by now, but definitely a good supply.

I quickly disassembled them and gave them a quick cleaning, then put them back together, loaded them, and set the safety on. After securing them in a hip holster and another down my right boot, I briefly considered what to bring next, and finally decided on the assault rifle. In the middle of checking it over, Lexi came down and joined me. By the time I was finished tinkering with it, Hannah came down and began going over her own arsenal.

We spent the next stretch of time at the table, silently preparing ourselves for the assault. I also grabbed a knife that I attached to a sheath on my other hip, a good amount of ammo, and some emergency medical supplies. Hannah grabbed a pistol and the most powerful rifle we had with us. Lexi loaded herself up just like I had. When I finished first and it became clear that the others were still going to be a little bit, I ended up heading outside, deciding to do some recon, and also clear my head. I could use it.

I told Lexi and Hannah this, then slipped out through the front door.

It was definitely darker outside. I could still see the moon, but now it was obscured behind a cover of clouds. I took the opportunity to more thoroughly search the corpses, which were already freezing over and stiff. I just found a few things of mild interest in their pockets, which I snagged and then continued my walk.

It was cold but not brutally cold. As far as it being night time in the winter was, it was actually kind of tolerable.

Had I ever done anything this dangerous before?

I’m sure I had, but I couldn’t really think of an example. Maybe the few times I’d had to go out into a blizzard. And a few other times I’d picked a fight with someone being a complete fucking asshole and his friends also happened to be around.

It didn’t matter. I was going to do this.

I was at least grateful for that simple fact: in my mind, I didn’t have a choice, because I couldn’t not do this.

I headed back inside and saw that Hannah and Lexi had finished gearing up. They looked ready to fight. Ready to kill.

“Are we ready?” I asked.

Both women nodded.

“All right, I’ll be right back...actually, come with me, Hannah.”

“Why?”

“You should speak with at least your mother before you go.”

“Why?” She paused, then must have put together the reason: because you might die. “Oh. Okay.”

We both headed lightly upstairs. Sofia was in the bathroom, looking over medical supplies. The three women were still asleep. Hannah moved over to Jessica’s side and gently began to wake her. I did the same with Susan.

“What?” she whispered as soon as I put my hand on her arm.

“It’s okay,” I replied. “We’re leaving now. You need to get up. I need you watching the house, just in case.”

“Oh...okay,” she said, sounding relieved. She blinked several times, then made herself sit up, pulling the blankets away from herself, revealing her slim, nude body. “Please, for God’s sake, be careful.”

“I’ll be as careful as I can,” I replied, then gave her a kiss.

“What’s happening?” Lara murmured sleepily.

“I’m leaving now, Lara. We’ll be back as soon as we can,” I replied.

“Oh...I’m scared,” she whispered, rubbing her eye.

“I know. We all are. But we’ll be back. And then we’ll have a little party or something.”

She smiled. “Okay.”

Hannah said her goodbyes, and I said mine, and after checking in with Sofia and making sure Susan was awake and up, we went back downstairs and joined Lexi. Then the three of us did one more check of our gear.

And then we headed back out into the cold.

CHAPTER THREE

“So what are we actually doing?” Lexi asked quietly.

“This is what I was thinking, chime in with anything you think I fucked up or could do better,” I replied.

“Can do.”

“Hannah. There’s a ridge that overlooks the town. The buildings are arranged basically in two rows, facing each other, one either side of a single street. You’ll have a perfect view of the fronts of both buildings I saw them hanging around in, which are the last to buildings on the right side of the back row. I’ll point them out specifically when I show you the spot. Now, once you’re in place, Lexi and I will work our way down the hill and to the town. If it’s dark enough, we’ll go along the right side and get to the first building, then work our way inside. Ideally, we’ll get through a back or side door, and if at all possible, we’ll kill as many of them as we can without alerting the others. However, if the shooting starts, then you have free reign to shoot and kill as many as you can see. But I also want you to make sure none of them get away, okay?”

“Okay. I can do that,” she said.

“Perfect. Lexi?”

She was silent for a few moments as we walked through the woods. Finally, she shook her head. “No, I think that’s pretty solid. You and I will sweep the area, building by building, and kill everyone we find. Silent for as long as possible.”

I nodded. It sounded like we had a plan. “If either of you have any ideas, or concerns, or anything, doesn’t hesitate to speak up.”

They both told me they wouldn’t, and we kept walking.

…

I honestly thought the walk there would take forever, but it seemed to be over fairly quickly.

I guess it was the tension, and knowing what I was walking towards. I wasn’t a coward, but stalking through a frozen night, knowing that I was actually doing this...well, it didn’t put out my fires of rage, but it did dampen them a bit. I wasn’t tempted to turn around though, at least. If anything, this was a good thing. I needed not to be too pissed off to do this right. You get really pissed and you’d make a mistake, which could be fatal in a situation like this.

Thankfully, we didn’t run into any trouble, no wildlife, on the way there.

We got to the hill and climbed up it, going to the spot me and Lexi had camped out at...fuck, within the last twenty four hours. Somehow, that seemed like days ago.

“Okay, yeah, this is a good view,” Hannah murmured quietly as she settled on her stomach in the snow and flipped down the bi-pod legs of the rifle to stabilize it. I could tell right away that they were all awake, or most of them at least. Both buildings had electric lights of some kind on, probably industrial work lights or something.

“How many do you see?” I asked.

She counted quietly. “Six for sure. All of them in the first building.”

“Great,” Lexi muttered.

“We can handle it,” I replied.

“I hope so,” Hannah said. “I’ll do my best.”

“I know. Just remember: no firing until we start firing. Or anyone starts firing. Then you snipe the fuckers as fast as you can.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“Okay...” I paused, then said her name. She looked up at me. I kissed her. “I love you,” I said, because it was good to say if you meant it, and I meant it.

“I love you too, Chris. Please come back to me.”

“I will,” I said with as much conviction as I could manage.

I sure as fuck hoped I did.

“Let’s go,” I said to Lexi. She nodded tightly and we began making our way in.

It was time to actually do this.

…

“You really mean it, don’t you?” Lexi said quietly about two minutes later, when we got to the bottom of the hill on the opposite side.

“Of course I do,” I replied.

“I think it’s sweet, and interesting, and brave. I think a lot of guys like you would just use them all like fuck toys and have one, maybe two favorites, and just keep the peace,” she said.

“There aren’t a lot of guys like me,” I muttered.

“Fair point.” A few seconds of silence passed. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to insult you. I’m trying to say...I respect you.”

“You have a weird way of doing it,” I replied. She just grunted. A few more seconds passed as we walked quickly through the snow, putting a decent amount of distance between ourselves and the town. I wanted to actually get behind the whole thing before making the approach, so we were swinging out wide to avoid being seeing. It was still dark. I had good night vision by now, and I had to marvel over these guys.

They were kind of stupid.

They were reckless and kind of crazed, not taking a whole lot of precautions. Did they really think they could just shoot their way out of every problem? Maybe that had worked for them so far. They struck me as people who weren’t military, but wanted to be. Or, really, their version of the military: i.e., ‘tough’ pricks with guns and a lot of attitude. And no discipline. You couldn’t be military without discipline, at least not successfully.

It would make this easier...but still certainly dangerous.

“Have you ever been in love?” I asked finally.

“Yes. Twice,” she murmured. “Once when I was sixteen. Once when I was twenty five.”

“What happened?”

“The teenage love...I mean, you know how that goes. We all think we’re in love when we’re in high school. It fizzled out...okay, that’s a lie. It exploded. He cheated on me, I broke his fucking arm. Luckily he didn’t press charges because he actually felt really bad. The other guy...he died on me, two years after we met and started dating.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I...he actually was a lot like you.” I didn’t know what to say in response to that, so I didn’t say anything. “I’ve been loved, too. I mean, outside of those two. I feel bad, whenever I’m loved by someone who I just don’t feel the same thing for. Guys act like it’s the end of their fucking world when they fall in love with a girl who doesn’t want them, and I mean, it does suck, I imagine, a lot, but it’s not exactly fucking easy to just toss away a gift like love, you know?”

“I think it’s easier to be cavalier about it when you haven’t loved someone and been rejected,” I replied.

“Well...I guess I can’t refute that. That happen to you?”

“To be honest, before now, I’ve never really been in love. Not like I am with these women. But I’ve been...extremely enamored before. And pretty much all the women I have been extremely enamored with weren’t interested.”

“Really? You seem like you’d have a high body count.” I glanced at her. “Maybe not the best phrase right now. I thought you’d be able to talk your way into chicks’ pants a lot.”

“Maybe after the apocalypse. Definitely not before.”

“Weird.”

By now, we were getting closer, so we shut up. I pulled my pistol out and took the safety off, then made sure I could get my knife quickly. If we were going to do this stealthily, I couldn’t very well use my gun. No silencer. The knife was good though, but risky. And also my own real choice in the matter. We drew closer and closer, and before long I could hear people talking. Someone was shouting. They were probably fucking pissed. Shit, maybe they were planning on burning the house down or something.

It’s what I’d do, if I was in their position, and I was a total asshole. Maybe we should burn this place down. No, too late now, and on top of that, too risky. I wanted to make sure, personally, that they were all dead. At least, inasmuch as I could. I didn’t exactly know precise numbers. Finally, we got up against the side of the first building. The house. Lexi, I noticed, was very quiet when she wanted to be. Very stealthy.

That was going to be an asset.

I’d gotten decent at it, with all the hunting, but I was no professional. There were voices and I tried to make out what they were saying as we headed for the back, slinking along the side wall in the cold darkness, but they were too indistinct. They were pissed, that’s all I knew. Someone was laughing, and it sounded drunken.

As we got to the corner, the laughter grew closer. I peered around the corner and saw the backdoor, pretty close. As I watched, I heard heavy footsteps and a drunken shout. I pulled back with Lexi and we waited, listening.

The door opened up, then closed. I heard boots crunching in the snow, saw the man in question walk about ten feet from the house, up to a tree.

“Goddamn motherfucking assholes...” he muttered to himself, slurring slightly. I heard him unzip and then start to piss. Then I saw a few flashes as he tried to light himself a cigarette. “Gonna kill every last one of those shitheads...can’t believe they killed Mac. Fucking shit, man...” he growled.

Lexi put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me gently back. I moved slowly, carefully, and she pulled out her knife, then pressed herself up against the side of the house, right at the corner. That was the problem with snow: you couldn’t really sneak. No matter how careful you were, you made that crunching sound, and it was pretty obvious, especially with how dead silent it was out here. But she clearly had a plan.

The guy finished pissing. I heard the zip, more muttering, then the sound of boots crunching in the snow again, getting closer. I watched Lexi. She was rigid, like a statue. Then she began slowly, gradually, shifting.

When she moved, that was when I got an idea for how fucking fast and skilled Lexi was.

She zipped around the corner. I heard a grunt, then an awful, disgustingly meaty sound, then a gurgling, struggling...then she reappeared around the corner, dragging a body that was still weakly jerking. She had one hand firmly over the drunk man’s mouth, and the other was attached to her knife, which was plunged into his throat.

She held him until he went slack, then she gradually lowered him to the ground. Hiding him in the shadow of the house a few feet out of the way, she straightened up.

“That’s one,” she said, looking at me.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“You good?” she asked. I probably looked ill.

“Yes,” I replied, reminding myself of why I was here. I pulled out my own knife. “Let’s go.”

She nodded and we made our way into the house. The door led into a little room. I checked it quickly. The door ahead was slightly ajar and dark, and when Lexi opened it, it led to a closet. She closed it. The right door led to a kitchen that was only partially lit. That was where the voices were coming from. The left door, when opened, led down.

“Wait here,” Lexi whispered, and disappeared down into the dark stairwell. I swallowed and waited, turning my attention to the kitchen and getting into a better position. If someone showed up, I needed to be ready to take them down too. I waited. And waited some more. I didn’t hear Lexi at all, and I didn’t think there was anyone down there, but there could be. She’d been sleeping in a dark basement not all that long ago.

Suddenly, I heard footsteps getting closer, and a voice.

“...dunno, I’ll check. Yo, Jake, what the fuck’s taking so long?! You pass out out there?!”

I swallowed and gripped the knife more tightly, waiting. A shadow fell across the floor in front of the kitchen doorway. I waited, knife raised, prepared to do the same thing that Lexi had just done. He’d come in, walk to the back door, and that’s when I’d grab him and-

A tall, built man with a shaved head walked in and happened to be looking right the fuck at me.

“What the fuck!?” he screamed, and began grabbing for his pistol. I leaped forward and drove the blade into his chest. He screamed, and I heard a lot of other shouts. I kept screaming as I grabbed him and tried to finish the job, but he jerked and we were both dragged to the floor. I grunted as I hit it hard, then I ripped out the knife and brought it down again, as hard as I could, into his face. It punched through his eye, into his brain, and that shut him the fuck up right away. There were running footsteps now.

“Fuck me, fuck me,” I gasped as I snagged my assault rifle and brought it to bear. I was so fucking glad that it had a strap so that I could hang it off my shoulder. Without getting up, since I didn’t have fucking time, I aimed at the door.

“What the fuck’s happening?!” a new voice shouted as someone ran into the kitchen.

I squeezed the trigger. The assault rifle opened up, and godDAMN!

I’d never actually shot someone with anything but a pistol or a rifle before. Not even a shotgun, let alone a fucking machine gun.

It ripped him up.

Blood went goddamned everywhere, like a fucking video game. I felt some of it spray onto me. More people shouted, and then I heard a rifle crack. Someone else screamed. Behind me, I could hear Lexi pounding up the stairs. I waited, but they weren’t running into the kitchen like the first guy had. Well, three were dead now for sure.

More rifle shots, more shouting.

I suddenly made a decision and emptied the assault rifle into the wall, figuring I had to keep the pressure up. I heard even more shouting, and at least one of them was a shout of pain. I abandoned the rifle and pulled out one of the pistols.

“Up,” I heard Lexi hiss.

I glanced back and saw her standing in the doorway, pistol out. I quickly got up, and as soon as I did, she walked past me. “Cover me.”

“On it,” I replied, heart pounding, sweating already. Fuck, this was nuts.

I kept my pistol at ready, checking the back way to make sure no one was circling around behind us, which seemed unlikely, given Hannah’s position, but it wasn’t impossible. I glanced back. Lexi was approaching the doorway. She got close to it and then scoped out as much as she could from that position. Finally, she took a few steps forward and disappeared through the door. I waited. And waited. There were no more shots.

Suddenly, someone let out a startled shout, (a man), and then there were several shots. Then silence again. Finally, after several painful seconds, Lexi spoke. “Come on, Chris. It’s clear here. I think we might have gotten them all.”

“Coming,” I said, and moved out of the kitchen. I stepped into a hallway that led to several other rooms and joined Lexi in the living room. There were three corpses there. The front windows were broken out. I looked out them. I couldn’t see Hannah, but I knew she was there. “Fuck,” I muttered, looking around at the mess.

“Yeah,” Lexi replied. She sighed heavily. “This is probably all of them, but...we should be sure.”

“That’s going to take a long time, to search this whole place.”

“I know. We should get started.”

I grunted. She was right. Sooner we got started, sooner we’d be done.

And so we got to it.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Jesus fucking shit, is that it? Are we done?” Lexi asked.

She’d been getting impatient for the past half hour, and I really felt for her. I felt for Hannah even more. She was out there in the cold, still providing overwatch. For almost an hour and a half. My head was spinning, at this point.

There was so much to do.

“Yeah,” I said finally. “Listen, I need you to stay here with the stuff, keep watch over it, maybe start organizing it. I’m going to go get Hannah, send her to you. She needs to get warm. I’ll go back and check in with the others, bring one or two of them to help. We need to start hauling this stuff back home. There’s...there’s a lot here.”

“Yeah, there is. All right, I’ll get to work,” Lexi replied.

I nodded, already beginning to feel tired again, and knowing that I had a lot more to do today. Fuck, I was going to sleep long and well tonight. If I even made it that far. I might fucking pass out at around five or six o’clock. Which was still like ten hours off. I left the house that was a total wreck, heading back out into the brisk cold, which woke me up a little. Looking up, I could just barely make out Hannah on the hill, and only because I knew where to look and what to look for. I raised one hand and waved.

She stood up and waved back. Good, she hadn’t passed out or something.

I started trudging towards her.

It had been a pretty uneventful hour and a half, since we’d killed the last guy. There’d been no other survivors, and in the end, we’d counted out seven of them in total. Six in the house, and one next door in the store that Hannah had shot right after I’d opened up with the machine gun. There were no other survivors.

At least as far as I could tell. Hannah would’ve shot anyone else, and we’d just spent the past ninety minutes sweeping the whole area. We went as quickly as we could, searching every building, every room, every closet. Basically everywhere we could. We hadn’t found a hint of anyone else. And although several of the buildings were pretty much empty, not all of them were. And fucking hell, had there been a good store of supplies.

Bullets. There were a lot of bullets. Hundreds. Maybe a few thousand. Mostly shotgun shells and nine millimeters, but a really good supply of tons of other calibers. And food. There were hundreds of cans of food. They had medicine, like military grade stuff that would last for years to come. I had no idea where they had found all this shit. There were other things, like gas-masks and thermal blankets and high quality boots and building materials. Most of it was stored in the convenience store next to the house, but some of it was in the garage we’d seen earlier. There was enough there to keep us well-fed for like two years minimum.

And that was if we weren’t supplementing our diet with fresh kills and wild vegetables.

It was blowing my fucking mind. It was also making me kind of nervous, because finding and having that much stuff also meant you were paranoid about losing it. The more you had, the more you had to lose.

But I was getting ahead of myself. Right now, I needed to make sure Hannah was okay, and send her to Lexi. And then I needed to report to the others, let them know that we were safe, it had gone well, and we were potentially set for the next few years. Longer, if we were smart and played out cards right.

The sun was rising and the skies had since cleared. I thought it was going to be a cloudless day, and ideally a storm was nowhere near our position. What a pain in the ass that would be. I walked away from the town, feeling my spirits lifting more and more as I drew closer to Hannah, and then hurried up the hill.

“So what now?” she asked, shivering.

“Now, you go down to the house with Lexi and get warm. As far as we can tell, it’s safe. I’m guessing you didn’t see anyone.”

“No, no movement but you two. I thought I saw someone at the other end of town about half an hour ago, but it was just a deer.”

“Okay. We hit the fucking jackpot. There’s like two years of food in there,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “Holy fucking shit, seriously?”

“Yes. And guns and bullets and medicine and other stuff. We really won the fucking lottery here, Hannah. I need to go talk to the others, bring them up to speed, then we need to start making our way there. See if you can brainstorm with Lexi, maybe rig up some kind of sled or something to help us drag more of this stuff back home. The faster we can get it there, the better.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll do that.” She smiled and kissed me. “I told you we could do it.”

I laughed and kissed her back. “I knew. Now go.” I smacked her ass.

“Right. I’m fucking freezing.”

She started making her way down the hill. I watched her go until she reached the bottom, worried she’d stumble or trip, and once I saw she seemed to be in good enough condition to get to where she was going safely, I began heading back home.

Now begin the next chapter in what was to be a very long fucking day.

…

I had to admit, as I got closer to the house, I was getting worried.

What if something had gone wrong? What if one or two of them had slipped by and retaliated? What if some unrelated group of people had attacked? What if there had been a fire or something? I tried to turn it off, first telling myself that it was unlikely or I was being ridiculous. But I knew it was possible. This wasn’t a fucking movie, life didn’t follow a narrative. Just because I had my victory back there didn’t mind it all couldn’t go to hell when I wasn’t looking. Finally, I told myself that I wouldn’t know one way or the other until I actually got there, so stop fucking worrying. That kind of worked, but only for so long.

I tried to distract myself by thinking about some of the logistics of getting it all back home, and also all the stuff we were going to have to do to fix the house back up. Like replace the windows, fill in all the bullet holes, clean up the mess, all that shit. We were going to have to watch Lara and Hannah, especially Lara, closely. Thinking about her worried me again. I thought Hannah would be okay. She’d looked like she was in a bit of pain, but otherwise she was handling it well. She struck me was the kind of person who had a high pain tolerance, and I remembered reading somewhere that women tended to have higher pain tolerances than men, so hopefully both of them would be okay. I was still worried about Lara, though.

Goddamn, it would fucking hurt to get fucking shot like that.

That still made me pissed enough to fucking spit, and it made me glad they were dead. They were monsters, sociopaths who deserved to die. I wasn’t even going to bury them, I was going to drag their corpses out to the woods and let the goddamned wolves have them. It was better than they deserved. That, at least, distracted me enough with pointless anger that I didn’t even fully realize I was almost home by the time I could see the house.

And then I hurried up and jogged the rest of the way there.

I went inside.

“I’m home!” I called.

Susan and Jessica were sitting together at the dining table, and both looked deeply relieved. Though Jessica suddenly paled when she realized I was alone.

“Where’s Hannah?” she asked.

“She’s fine, Jessica. Don’t worry. She’s back at the town with Lexi, getting warm. She had to wait out there for damn near two hours and I didn’t want to make her walk through another half hour of the cold before warming up. How’s Lara?” I replied.

“She’s sleeping. She woke up maybe an hour after you left, in a lot of pain. Sofia gave her a bit of morphine and she went back to sleep. Sofia’s up there now. She opted to take a nap with Lara in our bed. So what happened?” Susan replied.

“Short answer: It went way better than expected. Come on, I need to talk with all four of you at the same time. I’ve got amazing news,” I said.

Both women looked excited and got to their feet.

We all headed upstairs, and I felt bad waking Sofia, and especially Lara, up, but it was important. She looked a little out of it as I put my hand on her arm and gently brought her around.

“Chris?” she whispered, slowly opening her eyes.

“Yep. I’m back, Lara,” I replied, smiling down at her. Fuck, it was so good to see her again.

“Are you okay? Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone’s okay. We’re all fine,” I replied.

“You did it?” she asked, then yawned.

“We did it. Now, we need to talk about a few things,” I said. I brought them up to speed on exactly what we had discovered in the town, the fact that the immediate threat was resolved, and the things we were going to have to do over the next few days. They all, even Lara, in her dazed state, were very excited.

“I can’t believe it worked out so well,” Susan murmured. “Honestly, I thought we’d be lucky just to get off with killing this shitbags. But all that stuff...fuck, man.”

“Yep. Now, we need to move and move fast. I want to capitalize on this,” I said, standing back up.

“Is there...a reason?” Jessica replied uncertainly. “Is there something we should be worried about?”

“We should always be worried,” I said. “There could be a totally new, totally unknown group of assholes on their way here now. There could be a massive storm on the way. The place might be primed to burn down, as far as we know. I’ve learned to expect the worst.”

“That makes sense,” she replied.

“Right. So...” I thought about it. Obviously Lara couldn’t come. And obviously I wanted someone here, with her. Who would make the most sense? I guess Sofia, given she knew the most about medicine and care. “Susan, Jessica, go gear up, bring as little as possible. Grab big backpacks and those duffel-bags we found. Arm yourselves, too, with pistols. We’re going to go join the others and start hauling the stuff back here. Sofia, keep watch, and make sure Lara is okay.”

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me,” Lara replied.

I laughed and reached down, running my hand down her cheek. “I’m afraid I’m incapable of not worrying about you, love.”

She smiled back and blushed. “Well...thanks,” she murmured. “You did good. You and Hannah and Lexi...is Lexi staying?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” I replied.

“I hope so. I want to have sex with her.”

I laughed. “I think we all do.”

“You already got that pussy from her,” Lara replied. “I want her to lick my clit. And if we can find a strap-on, oh God, I want her to hold me down and fucking wreck me.”

“That’d be hot,” Susan murmured, and we all agreed.

“Okay, enough fantasizing, we need to get to work,” I said, getting us back on track.

They all reluctantly agreed, and we got to work.

…

The rest of the day was indeed long, cold, and...well, not as miserable as I’d thought it would be.

Sure, I didn’t like the long treks between the town and home. I didn’t like sweating in the cold, or how much more powerful that made the chilled breezes. I didn’t like grunt and panting from anything other than sex. I didn’t like hauling heavy loads of crap for miles. I didn’t like the fact that we got stopped by wolves at one point.

But I liked the company.

I loved the company. I loved talking with the women in my life. I loved just being with them. And I really liked the fact that this was a massive win for us. Not just to keep us safe, but also to keep us secure from starvation and a lot of other problems, medical complications and further attacks. Even as far as giant caches of supplies went, this was good. This was fucking golden, man. I was still kind of in a state of shock.

I even opened a few cans for a lunch break, because I was secret afraid that something was wrong with them, or this was somehow a lie. Maybe there was something else in them, or maybe they were all bad or something.

But no, it looked like the real deal. I ate the food in the cans, and it was good.

Susan, Jessica, and I loaded up on carrying supplies and made the walk back. The sun rose and the landscape warmed. You know, as much as it could nowadays. We found Lexi and Hannah there, hard at work hauling all the supplies we’d found into the main area at the front of the convenience store, prepping it for transports.

“Hannah told me about your sled idea,” Lexi said when we got there. She grinned and pointed off to one side. “I think that should work.”

I looked, then laughed. She’d found an actual fucking sled. It wasn’t massive, but it was of a good build and if we secured it properly, it’d cut down a bit on how many times we’d need to come back here. “Thanks. Good work,” I said.

“Yep. How’s things at the homestead?”

“Good,” I replied.

And so we got to work.

I packed my backpack down as much as I could with food, then did the same with the duffle-bags. Then I spent half an hour jamming in as much supplies onto the sled as I safely could, secured it all, and then had us all load up. Hannah, who was the least suited to carry stuff, got guard duty. I’d initially wanted to leave Lexi, but the reality of the situation was that it was pretty unlikely that anyone else would show up, and even if they did, Hannah knew how to defend herself. And Lexi was very likely the strongest of all of us.

She loaded herself down with gear, grabbing two backpacks, wearing one on her front and one on her back, and even opted to pull the sled.

She. Was. Strong.

Once we’d gotten the first load put together, we all started making our way back home.

We managed to do that about ten times, and I was only absent for one of them, given we rotated to give people breaks in the form of guarding the stash. I wasn’t going to make anyone stay here overnight, so I wanted to get as much out as possible. I knew it wasn’t going to be a job we could get done in a day, even if we had all day and everything went right, which it basically did, but we got through a decent portion of it.

We took the stuff home and dropped it off in the living room, where Sofia agreed to spend her time moving it elsewhere in the house. Mostly she moved it to the basement, but she also put a decent stash in the kitchen, and also replenished the medical supplies in her bathroom. I was thinking about spreading the wealth around a bit, mainly for practical purposes. We’d put some in Hannah’s cabin, obviously, and I also would be amenable to storing some in the middle house. But I wanted to have some stashes ready elsewhere, in case of emergency.

I was thinking of the eco center, which would be a great place to hide, since I had the only key and we could lock it up pretty securely. I also thought about storing some in that old RV, since it was pretty isolated, our old house, (I made a note to go back there and get those two corpses out of the basement, since I didn’t want them stinking up the fucking place), and maybe I could stash some supplies, like a small box or something, in the watchtower, one of the ice huts, the ranger’s station...call me paranoid, but I didn’t want to keep all of it in just one place.

But that would come later.

By the end of the day, as I hauled the final load in, with the sun now down and the air getting even colder, I was fucking beat. We all were. I was dead on my goddamned feet and ready to pass out. Honestly, I was surprised I’d made it this far.

“Maybe we should go for another load,” I said uncertainly. We’d brought back everyone with us this time, opting to hide the remaining supplies and lock up the store as much as we could.

“Fuck no, Chris,” Susan said. “You’re getting ready to fall over. We all are. Go to bed. That’s where I’m going.”

I looked at her, blinking tiredly, then looked at the others. Lexi was the only one who really looked like she might be ready to carry on, but even she was fucking exhausted. Slowly, I nodded.

“Okay...who’s gonna do night watch?” I muttered.

“I’ll stay up, and I’ll sleep down here on the sofa,” Sofia said. “I’ve taken several naps today. I think we’ll be okay. And Hannah, you can have my bed, since you need to rest.” She said that with a frustrated glance shot my way, and I felt bad. I’d tried to keep Hannah from helping haul this stuff, but she’d been insistent and I hadn’t really fought that hard. Partially because I knew Hannah would see it as an insult, but partially because I was worried about getting as much of it in as possible. But she was on bed rest from now on, for a few days at least.

So I locked figured this was about as good as it was going to get, locked up, checked in with everyone, and then went upstairs. Lara was laying in bed reading. Susan came in behind me and closed the door.

“Hey! So how’d it go?” she asked, setting the book aside.

“Pretty good,” I replied, pulling my clothes off.

“Wow, you two look fucking exhausted...I’m sorry I couldn’t help,” she murmured.

“Babe, you were shot, it’s fine,” Susan replied, and I nodded in agreement.

“We’re coming to bed,” I said.

She looked a little sad. “Sofia says I can’t have sex for at least a week, and even then, I can’t do anything more than missionary for like a month.”

“For once, I’m actually too tired to fuck,” I said. “But don’t worry, Susan and I, and I’m sure Jessica, will give you lots of love.”

She smiled. “Jessica ate me out earlier.”

“I’ll give you an orgasm, if you’d like,” I said, as I finished stripping.

“I would like that. I could suck you off, if you’d like, after,” she replied.

“I’ll put that on hold for now. Because seriously, I’m fucking dead. Like, I’m out of it.”

“Okay.”

I curled carefully up against her beneath the blankets, and then she spread her legs, and I slipped my hand in between her thick thighs. She gasped as I found her clit and began to rub it with the tip of my finger. I started to kiss her, and meeting her lips with mine, tasting her, feeling her...it was like coming home.

And it was a pretty good way to end the day.

Susan slipped into bed on Lara’s other side, and began to play with her nipples and kiss the side of her neck.

She gasped. “I missed you both so much today,” she whispered.

“We missed you too,” Susan murmured.

We kept going, and I had to ride the line between getting her off more quickly, because I actually was close to genuinely passing out now that I was in a bed, and not going too fast or hard because of her injury.

It was a near thing, at the end.

I managed to get her off, and fingered her throughout her orgasm. And when she was finished, I kissed them both, told them that I loved them, and goodnight…

And then I vaguely remembered resettling slightly, and then sleep.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Whoa...no fucking way,” I whispered, staring into the little lockbox I had finally managed to get open after like an hour of effort.

And by effort, I meant hunting around for a key.

I could hear Susan moving around elsewhere in the house.

As I stared at the contents inside, I thought about everything that had happened since the shootout.

It had been a little over two weeks since that day, and we had been very busy. A storm had blown in the next day. It was what I had awoken to. On the one hand, it had pissed me off, because I knew I couldn’t work. On the other hand, it had made me pretty happy…

Because I knew I couldn’t work.

I couldn’t haul my tired ass and sore muscles up out of bed for another day of walking back and forth, dragging heavy fucking shit for miles through the cold. There was a storm on. No point in going out during a storm.

Mostly, I just felt relief.

I’d also pounded the fuck out of Susan’s sweet, tight pussy doggystyle while she’d eaten Lara out with a lot of zeal. We’d all come, and then I’d actually gone back to sleep, because I was so fucking tired. After that, we’d all had a shower, and had helped Lara get into the shower and get clean. Sofia had come and cleaned the wound, then re-bandaged it properly, and then we’d gone downstairs to get some breakfast.

The day had gone pretty smoothly. It was all really chill and sedate.

The next day was the same, as the storm started and stopped for a solid forty eight hours. Finally, on the third day, the skies were clear again, and Lexi, Susan, Jessica, and myself set out again. Hannah tried to go, and argued with me and Sofia, but then Jessica put her fucking foot down in a way I hadn’t really seen her do, and Hannah had actually backed off. It was impressive to see. And that continued our long journey of clearing the fucking town out.

Technically, we still weren’t done.

We managed to get the bulk of it, the food, the medicine, the weapons, the special gear, out within about a week, and after that I’d begun creating my ‘care packages’ as I’d taken to calling them for some reason. Don’t know why, the name just stuck. Once I told them about my idea to hide these packages all over the place, they all thought it was a good idea. So that’s what I’d been doing for the past six days or so.

Occasionally me and one of the other girls would go up north to the town and search again, because there was actually a lot to look through.

Yesterday, I’d planted my second to last care package, and today I had planted my final one: back in the town. There were a lot of great hiding places actually, and I’d finally put together a backpack with some food, a few bottles of water, some matches, some medical stuff, a knife, and a pistol with three magazines of ammo, and walked up here with Susan to hide it in what I thought was the best place to hide something.

That turned out to be, in my mind, (and they agreed with me, since we all knew where everything was, we’d made a list in case we forgot), a ventilation grate in the basement of one of the houses that was tucked away behind an old washing machine. I didn’t think fucking anyone would think to look there. Probably.

But once that was done, Susan and I had decided to take another look around.

I’d also been fucking the women. A lot. We were all kind of hyper-sexual after the close call, and it was taking awhile to wear off. Especially Lexi. Oh my God, that woman. I’d been fucking pounding the fuck out of her pussy and pumping her full of come like every day, three times a day, for two fucking weeks now.

She wanted it all the time.

Not that I was complaining.

I’d also caught her fucking around with, so far, actually everyone. She’d talked every last woman there into eating her pussy, and that was fun to watch. Three times I’d joined in, drawn in by the sound of her moaning. I’d come in, watch, and then I’d pull my cock out and start pounding whoever it was from the back.

Lara was getting fucked by me again semi-regularly, too.

I had to be careful, but we were fucking at least once a day at this point. And Susan and Jessica were pretty good about satisfying her with their skilled fingers and tongues.

I’d found this lockbox in a house, one of the ones farther up the road from the main cluster of buildings, and I could hear jewelry rattling around inside. Normally I wouldn’t give much of a shit, because almost no one gave a shit about rings and necklaces and shit like that anymore, but I recently had a really good reason to care about rings.

If I tried hard enough, I could probably force it open, but I wanted to see if I could track down a key first, and finally, I had.

And what was inside…

“Hey Chris, anything good?!” Susan called. She was back downstairs.

“Yeah! Get up here!” I replied.

I heard her running fleetly up the steps. She joined me in the bedroom. I took the time to pull out the rings I found inside. There were actually just enough. Half a dozen in all. Well...unless Lexi wanted in on this...which I doubted.

“What’s...rings?” she asked, when she saw them in my hand. They were pretty similar, all of them simple gold bands.

“Yes. If you’ll recall, I believe we had a conversation about marriage, the night of the attack,” I replied, looking at her.

She frowned, clearly trying to recall, and I suddenly wondered if she actually had forgotten. We hadn’t talked about it once since then.

Suddenly, her eyes went wide. “Oh my God! Yeah! I thought I’d fucking dreamed that...” She grinned suddenly, looking almost smug. “You totally agreed to marry me.”

“I did,” I agreed. “I would. I will.”

“Seriously? You want me as your fucking wife?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I love you. You’re amazing. You’re smart, and motivated, and beautiful, and fucking bomb in bed. You fuck other women, and don’t care that I fuck other women. But more importantly, do you remember the final part of the conversation?”

“I do...you think we should all be married?”

“Yeah...well, sorta. I mean, more like, we enter into, I don’t know what we’d call it, a covenant or something? The only thing that’s making me hesitate is Jessica and Hannah.”

“Oh. Yeah. That’d be weird. But yeah, I think they could go for it. Only...what about Lexi? I mean, do we even know if she’s staying?”

“Not yet. I’ve brought it up once, but she said she was thinking about it. Even if she does decide to stick around, I don’t think she’d be interested in this. So how about we bring this up at dinner tonight?” I suggested.

“I think that sounds like a great idea. Also...come with me. You’ll never guess what I found.” She grinned and then turned and hurried out of the room.

Curious, I secured the rings in of a zippered pocket on the inside of my coat, then followed after her. We went downstairs, and she took me into a bedroom. As we came in, I saw something dark and plastic and boxy sitting on the bed.

“Is that...”

“Yep.”

It was a fucking game console. It looked intact, and it had AV and power cords wrapped around it. Had I told Susan about that? About how I wanted to do that again?

“It also had four controllers and a stack of games. And we’ve got a TV and power. I figured we could haul it back and hook it up. What do you think?”

“I think I’m even more in love than before,” I replied.

She laughed loudly. “Good to know. Come on, let’s go. I miss Lara.”

“Me too,” I agreed, and started packing it up.

…

“Chris.” I stopped in my tracks as I walked in through the back door. We’d made it back with our haul without a problem. Lexi was standing in the doorway that led to the basement. I looked at her, raising my eyebrows. “Need to talk to you.”

I glanced at Susan. She smiled and kissed me. “Go on, I’ll get started.”

Jessica and Hannah were in the kitchen, preparing dinner, it sounded like. It smelled good. Really good. There wasn’t just canned vegetables and processed meat in that finding. There was a lot of other stuff, too. Nothing like eggs or bacon or other stuff, obviously, but stuff we all hadn’t eaten in a really long time.

“Okay,” I said, and walked over to her.

She led me down into the basement. I wondered if she wanted to get fucked again. Because I wouldn’t fucking her again.

I hadn’t had sex since this morning.

I know, such a long fucking time. But when you got used to fucking women five times a day...yeah, it was kind of a long time.

I tried not to take it for granted.

She took me into the basement. It had changed over the past two weeks. There was more stuff down there, but mainly she had made it more hers, bringing some furniture down there and just generally making it feel cozier.

“What’s up?” I asked.

She began to take her clothes off and pointed at the bucket of warm water. I joined her in stripping and prepared to wash up.

“You’ve asked me two questions that I told you I needed time to think on,” she replied as she stripped. Her tits came out. Fucking goddamn were those amazing, big, firm, perfect tits. I was already most of the way hard. “I have an answer for both of them. I’ll answer the first one now, the second one after the sex.”

“Okay...”

She pulled her panties down, showing off those fantastic hips and that wonderfully smooth vagina. “A few days ago, you asked to bust a nut on my face. I said I’d have to think about it. Well, I’ve decided that you’ve earned it. I’ve never let a guy do that before, so fucking appreciate this opportunity, okay?”

“Oh I do, and I will. I’m curious though...why not?” We started washing up.

She sighed. “Practically speaking, I think it’s kind of gross. But deeper than that...it feels like a submission, you know? It feels like...I’m letting a guy degrade and humiliate me.”

“I’m not-”

“I know,” she interrupted. “You wouldn’t try that. I was thinking about it, and I realized that...I was okay with you doing it because, even if you never said anything, even if you never let it slip, I honestly believe that you wouldn’t see it as...a submission. You wouldn’t see me letting you do this as something you could hold over me, some admission of weakness on my part. There’s a lot of women out there who are afraid to let guys know they want certain things, like being spit on, or tied down and fucked, or screamed at, or degraded. Because a lot of guys misinterpret. They think, ‘Yeah, you act all tough, but for real, you just want to be treated like a worthless slut’, you know? As if those two things can’t coexist.”

“I do know what you mean,” I replied. “I’ve had a lot of women open up to me about this stuff. I’ve tied a lot of ladies down and fucked their brains out. Slapped a lot of women around, screamed at them, humiliated them, degraded them...and it didn’t change the nature of our relationship. Because you can have both. You can like being tied down and having someone scream at you and treat you like a piece of meat, and that doesn’t say anything about your strength or willpower or respectability. So I get it.”

“I know. That’s why I’m letting you do this. That’s why I let you jam your fucking cock down my throat and bust a huge nut that I swallowed. But, just remember this Chris Weston, you are so fucking lucky. You’re going to be the first, and maybe the only, guy who I have ever let blow his fucking load all over my face. And I better come hard, first.”

“Deal,” I said.

We pretty much dove onto that bed. I thought it was going to give up the ghost soon. It creaked a lot and we might break it after another few sessions. I’d been fucking wrecking her pussy regularly over the past few weeks on this bed. I’d pounded her and she’d ridden me, and it was so fucking satisfying.

We got right into it. Lexi was kind of an impatient lover, I had learned. She’d been into foreplay a decent amount in the beginning, but that had died off. Now she just wanted to fuck. I mean, we made out for a bit, but she was always pretty ready to go. It sucked a little. I liked foreplay. Giving it and getting it.

Consequently, I was rock solid and inside of her pretty fast.

“Oh fuck yes,” she moaned as I started fucking her. “That’s it...fuck, I missed getting fucked so much...holy shit, this is so good...”

“Uh-huh,” I managed.

She laughed. “You get so non-verbal when you fuck.”

“I...it feels really good,” I murmured, which just made her laugh harder.

And then she was just moaning, and grunting, and yelling as we fucked and screwed and banged. The bed creaked and groaned beneath us. Her pussy felt so good. So good. I really wanted to bust on her face, so I tried to make her come kind of fast. After a few minutes, I reached down between us and began rubbing her clit. She let out a shout and then got a look of concentration on her face, moving her hips in a certain way.

She really wanted to come, too.

Lexi was pretty easy to get off, so I had her orgasming inside of about thirty seconds.

“Oh, Chris!” she screamed, and then she was off. Her hips bucked and jerked furiously as she got a lot hotter and wetter inside, and that hot spray of sex juices came out of her. I groaned as I kept pounding her pussy, fucking her through the orgasm and making her scream louder. We screwed until she was finished, and then it was my turn.

I slid in and out of that pussy for a bit longer, the pleasure hitting me in waves, and then that was it: I was primed and ready to go.

Shouting a warning, I pulled out of her and quickly got on top of her, straddling her face. I started jacking off and within seconds I began coming. I let out loud moans of pure bliss as I stared at her face. She had closed her eyes and actually opened her mouth. It was fucking heaven. My stuff started shooting out of my dick, getting all over her face. I stared intently, knowing I might never see this again, and I wanted to commit it all to memory, and enjoy every second of it.

It was probably one of the bigger nuts I’d busted recently, and it got everywhere. All over her face, in her hair, in her mouth, on the pillow.

Finally, I was left panting and shaky and sweat.

“Oh my God, Chris, are you done?” she asked.

“Yeah...yeah...” I panted.

She laughed, then, eyes still closed, reached up, grabbed my cock, and put it in her mouth. She closed her lips around it and sucked as she slowly pulled it back out.

“Oh fuck, Lexi...” I moaned.

She finished up, then swallowed. “Get me a rag.”

“Okay.”

I got off of her. “Man, after that display, with all those fucking sounds you were making...do you love me now?” she asked, grinning, her eyes still closed. I didn’t blame her, I imagined getting that stuff in your eye would hurt.

I also didn’t know what to say. “Um...”

“I’m just fucking with you,” she said. I figured, but it still kind of put me on the spot. I came back with her rag and she washed her face off, then opened her eyes and tossed it aside. “That’s better. Well, you are welcome.”

“Thank you so much, Lexi,” I replied, sitting down on the bed.

“I have to admit, it was hot. Hotter than I thought it would be, although I think some of that was how fucking noisy you were being. Guys rarely make noise during sex, but I like it. Especially when you come. You were making more sounds than usual, that must’ve felt really good.”

I nodded. “It did.”

We sat there for a minute. “How’d it go?” she asked finally. “I saw you guys seemed to have some stuff. Also, I heard like some clinking or something in your pocket. It sounded like...I want to say rings, but why would you bother with rings?”

I looked at her. Well, maybe I should give her a heads up. It would be pretty shitty to spring this to the whole group at dinner, and say, ‘...except for you Lexi’.

“I have a question to ask you, in private.”

“We’re in the basement and the door’s closed.”

“I mean like, you won’t tell anyone else.”

“Oh. For how long?”

“Like a few hours at most.”

“Oh, that’s fine. Are you proposing to someone?”

“...sort of?”

“Holy shit, who? Like...you think that might upset your dynamic a bit?”

“That’s the thing, I found six largely identical rings. Susan and I talked about it...basically we’re going to propose the idea of a kind of like...covenant, a group, I don’t fucking know. We all wear rings and are dedicated to each other,” I replied.

“Oh! Okay. And you don’t know if I want in on this or anything. That’s fine. No, I don’t. I’m a loner, even when I’m part of a community that I like. I’ll be fine, Chris. I think it’s really sweet, actually,” she said.

“Okay...cool then. So, what was the other thing you wanted to tell me?”

“I want to stay. I don’t know for how long, but I like it here enough that I’m cool with living her for as long as I feel like living here. If you still want me.”

“Oh yeah, we would love to have you,” I replied.

She smirked. “Yeah, I know you would. You can’t get enough of my vagina.”

“It is pretty fucking great,” I replied.

“So I’m cool to stay. I’ll keep helping out with whatever you need. I’m great at hunting and protection, obviously. The only thing is...I want that other place. That medium-sized cabin. I want to live there, by myself.”

“That should be fine,” I replied.

“Great!” She sniffed suddenly. “I smell amazing food. We should get up there.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “we should.” I was starving.

We got up and began washing off.

…

Dinner was excellent, although I admitted I was nervous.

Susan kept shooting me knowing glances, so she was nervous, too. I’d pulled her aside before dinner, taking a little walk outside, and had asked her if she was really ready for this, and how we should handle it. She was, and wanted to go ahead with it, and thought we should keep it simple: present the idea to everyone and show them the rings.

After we finished eating, and the conversation slowly died down, Lara was actually the first one to say something.

“So, Chris, Susan...you two have been shooting each other nervous glances all night. What is going on?” she asked, looking between the two of us.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Hannah asked.

I laughed nervously. “Okay, so, Susan and I had an idea. And we wanted to run it by everyone,” I replied, and reached into my pocket. I’d found a little case, at one point meant to hold glasses, and that’s what I’d put the rings in after coming up from the basement. Now, I pulled it out, put it on the table for everyone to see, and opened it up. Then I pulled one of the rings out and held it up. “Susan and I were talking about the idea of marriage, and we were debating what it really means. I found these rings today, and it all just kind of clicked in my head. I thought we could all sort of like...wear these rings, and they would symbolize that we all love each other. And,” I glanced at Hannah, and Jessica, “it doesn’t necessarily just mean romantic love. I think we all love each other, in different ways.” I paused, waiting. For a bit, no one spoke.

“Also, I already talked with Lexi about this. She’s, um...” I looked at her.

“I’m not involved with this, and I’m cool with that,” she said.

“Yeah. And if any of you think I’m wrong or I’m missing something, you know, now would be a great time to tell me,” I said, and I realized I was looking at Sofia, because all at once I remembered that she hadn’t loved me back, when I told her I loved her. Shit. Hopefully this wouldn’t make her uncomfortable.

But she didn’t look uncomfortable. She just smiled. “It’s okay, Chris,” she said. “I remember our conversation. And in the time that has passed since then, with all that I have seen you do...the way you protected us, the way you leaped into action and took the fight to them, all the things you’ve done for Lara, taking care of her, helping her with everything, being so diligent, the way you take care of all of us...you’re an amazing man. And I do love you. And I would be okay with this.”

“I’m so in,” Lara said immediately.

“So am I,” Jessica said. “This is the...the best group of people I’ve ever been around in my entire life. I want this.”

“Obviously I’m in,” Susan said.

I looked at Hannah. She looked back at me, then around the table, then began to nod. “I like this idea a lot. I’ve never...I’ve never really felt like I belonged anywhere. I’ve never felt like I fit. And, with few exceptions, I haven’t met many people that I felt respected or cared about me, and I feel all of that here. I feel loved. I feel respected. I feel like you all actually give a shit about me, and I love all of you, and I care about all of you. So yes, I’ll put on that ring.”

“Okay then,” I said, “we’re all in agreement.”

I passed out the rings, and we all put them on. Not all of us wore them on our wedding finger. I did, Lara did, Susan did, but the others wore them on their middle fingers on their left or right hand, and I thought that strangely fitting.

Lara and Jessica had tears in their eyes, and they looked pretty thrilled.

“So...now what?” Susan asked.

“I say we celebrate,” I replied. “One quick thing though. Is everyone cool with Lexi staying with us for the foreseeable future, and taking over the middle cabin?”

Everyone said yes, and Lexi seemed to relax ever so slightly. I wondered if she’d been genuinely worried.

“How do we start the celebration?” Hannah asked.

“Well...” Susan said, and we all looked at her, “I think we should start this out by celebrating Chris. He’s the one who really unified us. We’ve all suffered, we’ve all sacrificed, but I think that you suffered and sacrificed the most for us, Chris. You fought so hard for us, all of us. You worked your ass off for us from the beginning. You’ve be legitimately nothing but good to all of us. You’ve never tried to take advantage of us, or been mean to us, or disrespected us, or neglected us. You’ve always cared about us, and been mindful of what we want and what we need, and tried your best to give it to us. You...are an amazing man. And I want to reward that. I remember you told me once that one of the things you wanted to do the most was to hook up a gaming system and play some games. And we can do that now. It works, I tested it. We have power, we have a TV, we have the system and the games. So let’s do that.”

“I, uh...wow.” I was definitely blushing. Everyone was looking at me. “Thank you, Susan. Uh...yeah, I’d be down for that.”

Several of the women laughed.

“You really don’t know how to handle compliments, huh?” Hannah asked.

“That wasn’t just a compliment,” I replied, rubbing the back of my neck uncomfortably.

“Fair enough. Come on,” she said, getting up.

We all got up and moved into the living room. I took a moment to sort through the games, and finally settled on a first person shooter with a good multiplayer option. Obviously I’d likely never play online again, but this would be fine for some couch co-op. It was a big TV and a big couch. I got it all set up, and Susan, Hannah, and Lara picked up the other controls. I settled in with them and started playing.

As I did, I thought about my dream of doing this.

In it, before now, I’d often saw myself as doing this alone, or maybe with a girl. Never in my wildest dreams had I ever assumed something like this was actually possible. And yet, here I was, living this dream.

Living with six other women, five of whom I loved, and loved me.

Life was a hell of a lot better like this.

And honestly, if I had to live out the rest of my days in a post-apocalyptic, frozen hellhole, living it with these women would be worth it.

THE END

A WARM PLACE. A WARM PLACE 2. A WARM PLACE 3. A WARM PLACE 4. A WARM PLACE 5. A WARM PLACE 6. A WARM PLACE 7. A WARM PLACE 8. A WARM PLACE 9. A WARM PLACE 10. A WARM PLACE 11. A WARM PLACE 12. A WARM PLACE – THE ORIGINAL SERIES. Copyright © by Misty Vixen.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entire coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.