Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7173827.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      Multi
  Fandom:
      The_Last_of_Us
  Relationship:
      Ellie_&_Joel_(The_Last_of_Us), Ellie/Joel_(The_Last_of_Us), David/Ellie_
      (The_Last_of_Us), Joel/Tommy_(The_Last_of_Us), David/Joel_(The_Last_of
      Us)
  Character:
      Ellie_(The_Last_of_Us), Joel_(The_Last_of_Us), Tommy_(The_Last_of_Us),
      Riley_(The_Last_of_Us), Tess_(The_Last_of_Us), David_(The_Last_of_Us)
  Additional Tags:
      Drama, Emotional_Hurt/Comfort, Bathing/Washing, Apocalypse, Lemon, Age
      Difference, Explicit_Language, Explicit_Sexual_Content, relationships,
      Romance, Sad, Violence, Non-Consensual, One_Shot
  Series:
      Part 5 of Flying_To_Wyoming
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-06-12 Words: 42203
****** A Blanket of Snow ******
by R_W_Daniels
Summary
     The long nights of winter aren’t the only darkness Ellie and Joel
     have to contend with as they hibernate in a remote location, hiding
     away from the eyes of the world, waiting for Spring to come so they
     can finally reach the Fireflies and the end of their journey.
Notes
     Guess who just got home from his honeymoon! :-D
     Glad to be back, but I’m not gonna lie: this one gets very weird.
See the end of the work for more notes
                              “A BLANKET OF SNOW”
      Prologue To Flying To Wyoming III: The Home at the End of the Road
 
The snow was coming down so thickly that she couldn’t see. If Joel got much
further away, she’d lose sight of him; his shape would be swallowed up by the
white and he would disappear and she’d be alone, forever.
“slow down,” she wheezed. Her ribs hurt. The air was painfully cold. She was
unpleasantly aware of every breath she was taking. She resented her body’s
incessant need for oxygen.
“almost there,” he grunted, turning, waiting for her in the knee-deep snow at
the edge of the road. It wound through the hills and trees, a clear, smooth
river of white carving a path across the heart of the ancient evergreen forest.
The blacktop slept beneath the snow. It wouldn’t come out of hibernation until
spring. “See?” he said, not really asking, pointing numbly at a sign rising up
from the snow on spindly metal legs. Icicles formed a long, toothy line along
the bottom of the green rectangle.
                   CO 119
         ← ROLLINSVILLE    2
         ← BLACKHAWK   16
         → NEDERLAND      3
 “jus’ two more miles,” he gasped. Like her, he was nearing exhaustion. When he
had woken up and found her missing, adrenaline got him moving, carried him into
David’s town. Fury allowed him to carve his way through every man that blocked
his path to her. Willpower alone had kept him moving as they fled the town of
cannibals. But even someone as inhumanly gruff and grumpy as Joel had his
limits. He couldn’t stand in one spot for long; he’d lose his momentum. He was
slumping as she staggered up to him. “c’mon,” he groaned. “almost there.”
“joel,” she panted, hating the words she was about to say. “i can’t do it… i
jus’ can’t fuckin’ do it…”
“ellie… we hafta… keep movin’…”
“can’t” she groaned, not whining, not angry, too tired for either. She sank
down to one knee. If she could just rest for a while, lay down in the snow for
an hour, then she’d have the energy to keep up. Why wouldn’t he let her rest?
Big, clumsy hands pulled her up to stand on feet she couldn’t feel. She
wobbled, teetered, knew that she was going to fall over like a felled tree
brought down by a bearded, handsome lumberjack wearing a flannel shirt that she
sometimes slept in, a rugged man with a hole in his side stitched up weeks ago
by scared, shaking hands. She would have been angry with him if she could have
felt anything at that moment.
“up,” he insisted.
“‘kay… but jus’… f’r a minute… then i’m layin’ down… f’r a while… ass.”
The snow was coming down hard. He’d told her earlier that it would erase their
tracks. If anyone from the town had tried to follow them, they wouldn’t have
been able to. This was their chance to disappear and get away clean. They’d
made it back to the little house that Ellie had turned into their winter
shelter while Joel convalesced. The few possessions they had were piled up in
the little fortress she’d made of the basement: The multi-fuel camp stove,
almost out of gas; the solar powered LED light; her army blanket; another
quilted blanket she scrounged up; three cans of food that she had been saving
for an emergency, for when things got really, really bad; and the precious,
lifesaving penicillin she’d traded the deer and her soul for. Everything else
was gone, used up, empty and discarded. The sleeping bag, the tent, the rope,
all his best stuff, cut up and sliced up and used to wrap him up and keep him
warm on the sled behind the horse, as she made the trek out of Boulder and into
the nearby suburbs. The horse was gone too, a loyal friend entrusted with all
her secrets, carved up and served up as dinner to all the sick fuckers living
on the shore of that big, pretty, scary, frozen lake.
Ellie had tried to explain to Joel why the horse was gone and why she’d had to
cut up the sleeping bag and the rope, but he didn’t listen. There wasn’t time,
she knew that, but she still needed to tell him. He’d stuffed the few things
still of use to them into his pack, rolled up the blue tarp that she had laced
him up so snug inside on the sled she’d made from a port-a-pottie door and some
skis she’d found at the sporting goods store in the mall, and shoved the big
blue wad into her pack. There was plenty of room in there now. Most of her food
and bullets were gone. Joel hadn’t even asked about the skis and the big blue
pottie door piled in the corner of the garage where she’d kept the horse. She
had hoped he would. She wanted to tell him the story behind that stuff. She had
been so proud of the clever sled she’d made. But it was gone now, discarded
like everything else in her life, left to drift in her wake until it sank, out
of sight, swallowed up by time, drifting down, to the hated safety of the dark
depths where you did all you could to keep it from ever bubbling up again.
That’s how he did it. She knew she’d have to do that too. If she expected a pat
on the head for being inventive and resourceful and dedicated and the best
sidekick a lumberjack like him could ever have, she let it go now. No kind
words were coming. He said them all in the burning steak house, when he’d found
her butchering meat, leaving a meal for the customers who would be along for
dinner shortly, courtesy of gourmet chef Ellie Williams. He’d said the words
and so he didn’t need to say them again. Lumberjacks don’t repeat themselves.
“lumb’rjack,” she mumbled, and slowly fell over like the small tree she was. A
tamarack. A red one. Cut her up. Put her in the fireplace. It would be nice and
cozy and warm when she burned. Bad girls went to hell. That’s where all
murderers went, especially the ones who’d enjoyed the terrible things they’d
done.
Joel caught her, picked her up with great effort. Slowly, grunting inch by
inch, he worked her over his shoulder in what the instructors back in Boston
called a ‘fireman carry’. She protested, or thought she did, maybe the words
didn’t manage to wiggle free of her numb lips. She wanted to walk. She wasn’t a
baby. She wasn’t helpless. She’d spent this whole stupid trip trying to prove
that to him. But draped over his shoulder, her limbs dangling loosely, she
swayed back and forth as he trudged through the snow; all she could do was try
to stay awake. Go to sleep out in the snow and you die. That’s what he told her
once, back when they spent a day in an orchard, all the trees grown wild but
still standing in neat rows, their leaves still mostly green, delicious red
apples just lying there in the warm grass, waiting for someone to eat them.
She’d eaten as many as she could squeeze into her stomach. He had told her
about how he had made it into the Boston QZ in the dead of winter ten years
ago, when she was just a little girl; him, Tommy, the guy named Big Matt, who
seemed funny and tough, and another guy named Anthony, who Joel didn’t talk
about much about except to say that Anthony had been quiet and good at what he
did and not the kind of man who would ever want to live under FEDRA’s roof, no
matter how bad things were outside the walls, so he had stayed outside and
fought the army while the other three snuck inside. The trip to Boston had been
really bad and snow had been piled up high, like it was now, so Joel had been
through shit like this before. But Ellie hadn’t. This was her first winter
outdoors, away from warm beds and hot food and radiators that were always a
little too warm or a little too cold and never exactly where you wanted them to
be and –
“hey, kid,” Joel wheezed, breathing hard, trudging through the murderous snow
that was trying so hard to drag him down, especially now that he was walking
for two, “didya know i start’d a support group f’r men with erectile
dysfunction? for guys who can’t get it up?”
Ellie mumbled something incoherent. Her ears worked, even if her mouth didn’t.
“it was a flop,” he grunted.
She tried to laugh. Only a wheezing, dry sound came out. She shivered again,
this time from happiness.
“… nobody… came,” he added between gasps.
She gave a thin, weak grin, shivered, patted his hip. She couldn’t feel her
hand. It was a numb thing connected to the end of her arm, wrapped in a kitchen
towel.
“nice,” she croaked.
He patted her butt where it rested on his shoulder, next to his head as he
carried her. She smiled faintly, remembering how good it felt to be spanked by
him in the little shack by the pond and in the bed and breakfast and she was
vaguely sad that she’d never be on the receiving end of that amazing hand
again. She’d been a bad girl, just like Joel sometimes told her when he was
putting her across his lap, naked and in need of punishment. She loved when he
called her that. It gave her a naughty thrill. And he was right. She was bad.
She’d done very bad things. Terrible things. Godawaful things she didn’t want
to think about, not ever, no matter how insanely good it felt to do them at the
time. Fire and smoke and blood. She wouldn’t find absolution, not ever, not
even from a million spankings, not even if he actually used the belt, like he
teased her about sometimes, in the middle of the spanking, when she was wailing
and crying and naked and needing it so, so bad. No forgiveness. Not even with
the belt. He couldn’t help her. Neither could the nuns. There weren’t enough
Hail Mary’s in the world.
The world was white, only white, no sound reached her ears, wrapped up tight
inside her hood, not even the crunch of his boots in the snow. She was sitting
on her ass, shivering, arms pulling her legs close to her. Her face was buried
against her knees. Something hard and cold was pressed against her side,
keeping the wind off her.
“j’l?” she muttered miserably. She tried to look around. Her eyes wouldn’t open
all the way. Snow was caked on her eyelashes. Ice was forming at the thin,
fraying edges of her hood, where the moisture of her breath turned into a
hoary, thin frost.
He was several feet away, digging into the tall snow bank on the side of the
road with an army helmet. The only snow falling now was what he was sending
into the air, heedlessly flung by muscles that didn’t want to cooperate. Joel
made them do as they were told. He was working as fast as he could. Ellie vowed
to make her muscles work too. Endure and survive. She was not a quitter. Riley
hated quitters. Joel hated quitters. She refused to be one. She tried to stand
up, fell forward onto her hands and knees. She realized that she was wrapped in
their only blanket. She crawled a few feet than made herself get up. She
wouldn’t crawl like a fucking baby. If he could stand up, she could too.
Fucking endure. Fucking survive.
“what’re’ya doin’” she mumbled, standing close to him without getting in his
way, each wheezing syllable she made given a tremulous vibrato by her shaking
body.
“snow shel’tr,” he rasped. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t have the energy to
spare.
She watched him work, her body stooped, wobbling, clutching the blanket to her
shivering frame. She wanted to lie down so bad. She wanted to cry but the tears
would freeze on her cheeks and she wouldn’t be able to hide them. No point in
tears anyway. No forgiveness. No absolution. Fire, smoke, and blood. Hell
awaited. Father Crocetti was right. At least she’d be warm down there.
Joel had dug a big square out of the deep snow, more or less three feet wide
and about six feet long. As he finished carving it out, Ellie could see it was
almost four feet deep.
“grave?” she muttered.
“shel’tr,” he grunted, scooping out the last of the snow.
Where did he get the helmet? She looked behind her, saw an old, rusted army
truck on the side of the road. The big bed of the truck had once been covered
by an arch of black canvas, reduced now to only a few, fluttering strips
clinging to the corroded ribs. Old bullet holes dotted the length of the thing.
Somebody had shot the hell out of that truck, and then set fire to it, years
and years ago. Decaying black bones inside the truck’s cab, the door hanging
crazily from one hinge, told of a pair of soldiers that had probably burned to
death in agony, warm and toasty, a long time in the past.
He dug a deeper trench along the edges of the rectangle. She knelt down,
knowing she’d never be able to get up again, and began to scoop out snow with
rag-wrapped hands, fingers hurting, doing her part to make the pit around a
pit.
“ellie,” he groaned.
“h’lpin’” she muttered. “lemme… h’lp…”
“g’over t’ them trees…” he panted, “n’ gather up ‘s m’ny… long br’nch’s… as
y’can… b’shy ones… b’shier th’ b’tt’r…”
“bushier… the… better…” she mumbled, forcing herself to her feet. Mountains
moved faster that she did, but she was doing the best she could, which wasn’t
very good, but nothing was good anymore. There was no goodness left in the
world. There hadn’t been for twenty years. Trudging slowly, silently, she went
to gather fallen evergreen boughs.
She wanted to ask why. She loved learning. She would have liked to learn just
one more thing before she died. But there wasn’t time and she couldn’t spare
the breath, not if she was going to walk the twenty motherfucking steps
required to reach those stupid trees and then another twenty more goddamnitall
steps back. It was a nearly insurmountable distance and she was surprised when,
after decades spent away from him, she finally came stumbling back to the snowy
grave, a bundle of bushy tree branches in her arms.
“good… jus’ git a few m’r,” he nodded, taking the branches from her.
She wanted to kick him right in his ungrateful ass, but there was no way she’d
survive the fall all the way down to a ground that was so incredibly far away.
She was in low orbit over the earth. Her legs were like stilts, her feet miles
beneath her, as she staggered back to the trees, wearily furious at him for
making her work so damn hard before he’d let her climb in the grave and die.
Nothing came easy with this man, not even death.
The last of the branches were settled into place. He had made a mattress of
them at the bottom of the grave and a crisscrossed weave from the rest of them
over the pit. She did her part, handing him the branches, one at a time, each
branch weighing several tons, each one more impossibly difficult to lift than
the last. Then she helped him unfold the infinitely large blue tarp and stretch
it out over the pit, which spanned several parsecs now. Why had he built it so
big? Half the universe fit down inside that damn thing it was so stupidly big.
Dr. Daniela Star couldn’t have crossed such a distance, not even with her Zero
Point Drive. Joel weighed the corners of the tarp down with the helmets and
boots he had taken from the truck, each filled with snow, packed tightly so it
wouldn’t blow away. The tarp and the branches were a roof now. He’d made a
little home for the two of them underneath. Hobbits lived in places like that,
she recalled. They never wore shoes and no one in Elrond’s court fully
understood how brave the little hobbits could be, no matter how terrible things
got for them.
“cool,” she grinned. She leaned on him as he took her to the little door he had
carved out at the bottom of the rectangle. “home sweet home.”
He took off his pack and removed hers too. He tossed them inside, down into the
pit that ran along the edge of the inside walls.
“be careful,” he groaned as she crawled down into the pit. Their blanket was
already down there, spread out, waiting for them on the raised platform at the
center. “don’ br’ng th’ roof down.”
“‘kay.”
He followed her inside, turning tightly in a circle, packing most of the door
shut with snow he left just inside the entrance. Only a little daylight shone
through, right at the top.
She lay down on her right side, the one that didn’t have aching ribs. Joel lay
down next to her, on his left side, the one without the stitches. They snuggled
close, face to face, wrapped up in their shared blanket. They shivered. It
sucked in here, but not as much as it sucked outside. The really cold air
settled down into the trench around the mattress of snow, safely away from
them. This wouldn’t be a bad way to go. She knew from personal experience that
there were much worse ways to die, screaming, jerking, flailing in the rain,
losing your mind alone, all alone, without a friend in the world. Ellie would
get to die as herself and not some pathetic, horrific perversion of who she had
been before.
“c’mere,” he wheezed, wrapping his arms around her for the last time.
They pressed close, sharing body heat. She knew it wouldn’t be enough.
“Thanks for trying, Joel,” she said, her voice surprisingly normal considering
how cold and close to death she was. “I really appreciate it.”
“w’re g’nna makeit,” he hissed, miserable and cold, not warm at all.
“No, we’re not,” she said soothingly. “But I’m okay with that. We tried as hard
as we could. We really did, Joel. And we almost made it there.” She smiled, her
hand on his cheek, his blue, waxy skin so cold beneath her fingers. “And you
were nice enough to dig us a grave before you died. We get to share it.”
He was still. His eyes were open, unseeing. Joel was dead. She pressed her
forehead against his, growing cold like him. The bottle of penicillin was still
in her bra, where she had put it to keep it warm. All the awful things she had
gone through for the life-saving medicine, and it hadn’t been enough. But it
was okay. It didn’t matter anymore.
“And I didn’t die alone, like Sam did,” she whispered. “Thank you, Joel.”
In the dim, bluish light beneath the tarp, Ellie relaxed, let one last breath
out of her aching lungs, and joined her only remaining friend in the peaceful
sleep of death.
But Joel had turned over, facing away from her. She was alone on her side of
the mattress. In her entire life, this was by far the most uncomfortable bed
she had ever slept in but she was grateful for it. Hard and lumpy as it was, it
was warm. She didn’t even know that you could fold a bed inside a sofa until
she and Joel had found this old office. He had been thrilled by the discovery.
The old mattress was clean, wrapped in plastic, not rotted at all. All the
blankets they’d carried back to this room from the nearby houses were piled up
on top of them as they lay there, or else being used to form a skirt around the
perimeter of the sofa bed and its weird unfolding metal legs, the edges of the
quilts tucked under the mattress, draped down to the floor, trapping a pocket
of warm air inside, underneath them, while they slept. Joel knew all the
tricks. She smiled in the darkness. She sniffled too. She had woken up crying,
but she didn’t know why. She couldn’t remember the dream. That was probably for
the best. All of her dreams were terrible now. Fire and smoke and blood.
“Dumont,” she whispered very softly to the empty room. “I’m in Colorado now.”
I need to find this place on the map. Dumont. We spent a night in Rollinsville.
Then Black Hawk. Then Idaho Springs. Then the snow started falling again, so we
made our winter camp here in Dumont. That’s where he says we are.
Dumont. It’s up in the mountains, right off the interstate. Fuck, we’re on I 70
again, just like we were when we spent the night in Zanesville, right before we
found the Motel 6. We got on I 70 way back at Wheeling, where we found the
Honda, and we stayed on it for miles, until we had to go around the place where
the Columbus QZ was supposed to be, but Joel said they never finished it for
some reason.
Fuck, we probably should’ve stayed on I 70 all the way here. If we were gonna
end up in Dumont, Colorado no matter what, we could’ve just ridden the Honda
here and saved ourselves a lot of time.
We wouldn’t have spent the night in that fucking awful snow shelter.
She blinked, the dream suddenly coming back to her.
God, that stupid hole in the snow. What a miserable night that was. Neither one
of us could fall asleep. I still don’t know how we didn’t freeze to death. But
he was right. It’s been days and days, and nobody from that stupid town has
found us. We disappeared like a fart in the wind.
She smiled, remembering the first time she had heard him use those words, back
in better times.
So glad you know about snow shelters and crazy shit like that, Joel.
She reached over and lightly rested her hand on his shoulder. He didn’t stir.
He continued to sleep peacefully.
Wish I could do that too, dude. Just sleep and sleep and wake up feeling good
in the morning, like I used to do.
She sighed, a lonely, sad sound in the dark room.
I need to look this place up on the map tomorrow. I really should. Couldn’t
hurt to know where I am.
She sniffled again.
Why the fuck am I still crying?
She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her shirt. That was okay. It was her shirt,
not one of his, the white and purple one with the long sleeves and cute red dog
paw print on the front. She rolled over onto her side. That was okay too. Her
ribs weren’t hurting they way they had been, in those awful days right after
that sick bastard kicked her so many times with his boots as the whole world
burned down around her.
She grimaced, rolled onto her other side, scootched close to Joel.
He usually falls asleep flat on his back. Wish he was like that now.
She inched slowly towards him, careful not to wake him, until she was spooning
right up against him. She tucked her legs behind his, slipped an arm around his
waist. It felt weird to be the one holding him, instead of being held by him.
She smiled. It was not unpleasant, just different. He was like a big, warm
teddy bear when he was asleep, even better than her old Snoopy doll that she’d
once had to have in her arms at night in the orphanage or else she couldn’t
fall asleep, no matter how many times the nuns threatened to take it away from
her if she didn’t behave herself.
Sister Minette was such a pushover. How many times did she sneak into the room
after dark with my Snoopy so I’d stop sniffling and go to sleep?
Ellie grinned and nuzzled the back of Joel’s neck with her forehead.
You need a haircut, Snoopy.
Soon, she was asleep.
“C’mon,” Joel was saying, shaking her shoulder gently. “Too much for us to do
to sleep the day away, lazybones.”
“Rrrrrrr,” Ellie growled into her pillow. “Can’t a girl have a dirty dream in
peace?”
“You were havin’ one of those, huh?” he chuckled. “Shoulda known. I know how
you are, wild child.”
“No,” she lamented, putting a smile in place on her face, hoping it seemed
genuine, sitting up, trying to stretch while keeping the warm blankets snugged
around herself at the same time. She yawned. Blinked. Looked at him with sleepy
eyes. “But how can I if you won’t give me the chance, butt face?”
Ellie didn’t have dirty dreams anymore. Not ones she enjoyed, anyway. She
didn’t tell Joel that. It would make him worry to know how often she was
brutally raped after she’d fallen asleep and gone to those places where he
couldn’t protect her. The good sex dreams, the ones about him and her, or her
and Riley, or her and Riley and him, didn’t come to Ellie anymore. She was glad
for that. Sex wasn’t something she wanted to think much about much. Not for
awhile. Maybe not ever again. She wasn’t sure. She wanted to talk about it,
about all the things that happened during the weeks that he was in and out of
consciousness and she’d had to be the one to take care of everything, even if
she’d kind of fucked it up in the end, but she knew that she had to bury those
weeks, as deep as she could, and get on with her life.
That’s what I need to do. I have to. Just stop thinking about it, stupid. It
won’t do you any good to keep going back to that place.
Fire and smoke and blood.
“We need to make breakfast,” he said, buttoning up his shirt, not seeing the
flicker of darkness that slipped across her face. “After that, maybe we’ll take
a look around, see what this town has to offer.”
“Sure thing, boss,” she yawned, sliding her legs out of bed, yelping in shock
when her feet made contact with the icy floor. Her socks were not enough to
shield her from the frigid torment. She reached for a shoe.
It looked like something an astronaut would wear, a hard blue shell with silver
stripes and black straps. It didn’t seem to bend at the ankle. The sole was
rigid, with no flexibility to it at all.
“How would you even walk in these?” she asked Joel, holding up the ski boot for
him to see.
“Very carefully,” he snorted, amused. He held up a ski jacket, teal and purple,
with while polka dots and a cute cat on the pocket. “I think this might
fit’cha. Whaddya think, kiddo?”
“Looks nice,” she said, feigning enthusiasm. Normally, a ski shop like this
would have held her rapt with fascination. It was filled with all sorts of
interesting, strange things from the past. But she took little notice, for the
most part.
“C’mere,” he motioned her over. “Try it on. It’ll be warmer than what you’ve
got on.”
“Sure.”
“You okay, Ellie?” he asked, holding the coat as she pulled off her battered
autumn jacket, turned her back to him and slid her arms into the sleeves of the
new garment.
“Yeah,” she said, another weak smile on her face. “I’m cool.”
He was wearing a simple white and gray ski coat. She was glad to see him in it.
There was no hole in this one. No blood stains on it. His blood, mostly, but
blood from other people too. All gone now. Clean.
“So was it like snow skiing?” she asked, trying to make conversation. She was
trying. She really was. Talking about nothing at all was so much harder for her
than it used to be. “Is it fun? More fun than water skiing?”
“No idea. Never been on skis of any kind in my whole life.”
“Oh. Well, me neither,” she shrugged.
“I found some matchin’ gloves to go with it,” he said, handing her a pair of
turquoise gloves that didn’t really match the teal parts of her new coat.
She nodded in thanks and took the wrong-colored gloves. Guys never noticed
things like that. Testosterone made you at least partially color blind, she was
sure of it.
He’s trying. That’s what counts.
“This stuff oughta keep us good and warm for the rest of winter,” he said,
pulling his own black gloves on. Several sets of thermal underwear, the high
tech microfiber stuff that FEDRA never issued to civilians, was neatly folded
on the store’s countertop, next to the cash register. It would be coming with
them when they left.
“Good,” she nodded glumly. She was trying to be good company today, but she
just couldn’t manage it. Her mind kept going to dark places, like it did all
the time now. Fire and smoke and blood. “Kind of sick of being cold all the
time, you know?”
“I know.” He returned the nod. He could see that she was hurting. She didn’t
seem to want to talk about it. He knew what that was like. He didn’t press the
issue. If Ellie wanted to talk, he knew for certain, she would talk. No force
in the world could stop this girl from talking when she set her mind to it.
“Wanna head back? Or do you think we ought to check out the Taco Bell? Or maybe
the Starbucks? There’s a Conoco gas station over that way too. Maybe siphon
some gas for the camp stove. What do you think, kiddo?”
Ellie smiled at him, just a little, but genuinely.
He’s letting me make the call. He’s trying to connect with me.
“Gas first. Then Starbucks,” she said. “I need coffee. Then we hit Taco Bell.
I’m hungry. You can buy me a quesodallita.”
“Quesadilla,” he smiled, handed her the smaller sets of thermal underwear,
watched her stuff them in her large, plastic shopping bag. It bore the colorful
logo and slogan of ‘Scotty’s Ski Shoppe – Own the Slopes!’ Joel carried an
identical bag. “Or maybe you meant quesarito, if you’re one of those weirdos.”
She chuckled, barely, wanting desperately to be happy, like she used to be. She
seized the opportunity. She didn’t know the difference between one Spanish word
and another. Neither did Taco Bell, though she would never know that. But she’d
seen the restaurant’s menu from time to time, in the various towns they’d
looted on their way across the country. The pictures displayed over the counter
might as well have been the food of the gods. It was not like she would ever
eat anything from someplace as wondrous and magical as Taco Bell. Tostadas were
only served up on Mount Olympus these days, and Zeus wasn’t sharing them with
mere mortals.
“Obviously, I’m a quesadito girl,” she grinned proudly, mangling the word, head
held high, haughty and fancy, as any discriminating connoisseur of fine Mexican
food should be, before turning with exaggerated military precision and marching
her way out of the ski shop, into the deep snow and the blinding light of day.
She had to turn her eyes away from it. It was too bright. Too harsh. The little
slit in the metal door was the only source of light and no one had ever thought
to install curtains in here. She’d been in the box too long. She couldn’t even
remember what she did wrong that got her locked up in here. The heat was
sweltering. She’d worked off her blue school uniform, one awkward inch at a
time, inside the claustrophobic confines of the cramped space. She was in her
underwear and she was still boiling. The heat of the concrete walls are almost
enough to blister the skin. She had to sit hunched over, her legs pulled up.
She would have given anything to stretch out, extend her limbs, and lie flat.
How much longer were they going to keep her locked up in here? She wasn’t even
sure how long she’d been in here. It seemed like forever. Had someone ratted
her out? Sometimes she stole cigarettes and stuff from Sergeant Fletcher’s
office, but that was only because the older girls would trade good stuff for
them, and it wasn’t her fault Fletcher couldn’t remember to lock the door half
the time. Or maybe Superintendent Nemeth was doing this for no reason at all
except to teach her some bullshit lesson about discipline or perseverance or
something stupid like that. Who knew? She gasped, panting inside the broiling
box.
A shadow passed across the little slit in the door.
“Riley?” she croaked, hoping. Sometimes her friend snuck out to visit her. She
did the same whenever Riley was locked up in one of the boxes. They had a
secret pact about stuff like this. She licked her lips in anticipation of a
straw being slipped in through the slit. Water. Fruit juice. A cold glass of
spit. Anything.
“Hey, pretty thing,” a familiar voice whispered. A man’s voice, a little high,
kind of raspy, cracking at the edges. She’d heard it before but she couldn’t
remember where. “Naked in there, I see. I like it. Thank you for the show.”
She tried to scoot away from the slit and the leering eyes on the other side.
She couldn’t hide herself. She fumbled for her uniform, but couldn’t find it
anywhere.
“Why don’t you go ahead and take off that bra too? Let me see those pretty
little rosebuds.”
“Go away!” she bleated. “Go! Or I’ll call the guards!”
“Pull off those panties too. Show me your honey jar.”
“Go away! Go away, you sick fuck!”
“I’m not joking. Show me that drippy slit of yours, you cheap bitch.”
“Guards!”
“You want out of there, don’t you? Well, you ain’t getting out, you little
tease! Not until you spread those legs and show me some pink! Get your fingers
down there! Hold that dirty little spunk pot open so I can get a good look at
it! You hear me? Now! Right now! You’re gonna hold those lips wide open, you
cunt. You’re gonna open it up and show it to me or so help me, I’m gonna come
in there and staple those flaps open permanently!”
“Riley! Help!”
“She can’t help you! She’s out here sucking my dick! She begged me for it! And
you’re next in line!”
“SOMEBODY! HELP ME!”
Keys rattled in the lock. The door began to open. A hideous miasma of light
gushed in.
“I’m going to fill this black bitch’s mouth up with cum, all the way to the
top, and then I’m going to make you lap up every drop of it like it’s a goddamn
bowl of milk!”
Hands reached for her. She screamed, slapped, kicked.
“Jesus, Ellie!”
“NO! NOOO!!”
“ELLIE!”
She went stiff, eyes wide, blinking fast. She was soaked with sweat though the
room was cold. It was the middle of the night. The buckets full of rocks from
the evening campfire had grown cool. The warmth that had been trapped under the
blankets she shared with Joel was evaporating all around them as she sat
upright, panting, her new charcoal gray thermal underwear was twisted around
her body, the top pushed up around her breasts, the bottoms down around her
ankles, the microfiber legs had been pulled inside out when she had tried to
kick off the uniform pants in her dream. Joel’s hands held her small arms
firmly, just above the elbows. Her hands were balled into fists. There were red
marks on his chest, his shoulders, his cheek.
“Ellie,” he repeated, as calm and measured as he could. If this girl had scared
the hell out of him, waking him from a sound sleep, thrashing like an animal in
a trap, he gave only the scantest sign of it.
“wha?” she moaned pitifully, scared, looking around slowly, bewildered, trying
to remember where she was.
“Bad dream,” he said, understanding, caring. “That’s all. Just a bad dream,
Ellie.”
“yeah,” she whispered, looking down, feeling very, very stupid. She pulled her
shirt down with shaking hands. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She didn’t want him to
see her naked breasts. She didn’t want any man to see her naked, not ever
again. She didn’t want to think about the reasons. “sorry.”
“It’s okay. Let’s just go back to sleep, yeah?”
“yeah”
“You sure?” he asked.
“I said I would,” she answered, not sure why she was being so grouchy with him.
“Not like I haven’t done it before, dude.”
“Alright, then. Fence is pretty high. Might be ice under that snow. Be careful
when you land.”
“Always am.”
He laced his fingers together. She placed her foot in his hands, and he hoisted
her up. With a grunt, she levered herself over the top of the fence and dropped
down into the outdoor patio section of ‘The Earth Mother’s Garden’. The gate
was locked in place with a miniature pitchfork, just the right size to hold in
one hand. She worked it loose from the rusted gate latch with a violent, back
and forth jerking motion.
“Fuck! That was really wedged in there!” she grumped, tossing the weird little
tool away. With a shriek of corroded metal, she dragged open the gate and let
Joel in. The high-pitched noise echoed off the nearby buildings.
Shit. That’s not good.
“Well, if anyone else is in this town, they know they’ve got new neighbors,”
Joel grunted, looking around, almost as though he could see the sound waves
bouncing around from street to street, on their invisible trip down the valley.
“Not my fault,” she grumbled. “Blame the fucking hinges.”
“Nobody’s fault,” Joel said, but Ellie had already turned her back on him.
Why am I mad at him today?
She looked around, hoping to distract herself with the perplexing assortment of
gardening supplies. There were large, ornate flowerpots, many still showing
faint tracings of their formerly hand-painted surfaces. Long, low, wooden
tables, not yet rotted into sagging, soft shapes, were piled with jumbled
plastic box trays filled with the brittle toothpick stalks of a million dead
flowers patiently waiting for the arrival of spring to reclaim their dominion.
There were coiled hoses, watering cans, weird tools both big and small, exotic
chemicals, bags of fertilizer, ceramic birdbaths, wheelbarrows, patio
furniture, and even a small collection of gnomes, all standing together in a
cluster, probably in the middle of discussing important gnome business when the
girl suddenly dropped in uninvited.
“Cute,” she said, and trotted over to take a look at them.
Joel watched her go, relieved to see her smiling.
At the rear of the patio area, a large glass door connected this space to the
greenhouse section of the store beyond it. Through the dirty glass, he could
see the inside of the brick building. There were more supplies in there, ones
not rotted by decades of exposure to the elements. There were no spores that he
could see, and no sign that anyone had been in here for years. The glass door
was locked but the big windows on either side of it didn’t look shatterproof.
He took a garden hoe from a wooden barrel full of shovels, rakes, and other
implements.
Ellie was down on one knee, studying a rather dignified gnome with a
particularly stylish beard when she heard the glass shatter. She craned her
neck, saw Joel tossing a weird garden tool away. Broken glass was everywhere.
“Time to go inside?” she asked.
He motioned her to follow as he stepped through the shattered window, his boots
crunching on the sparkling bits of glass.
“Don’t go anywhere,” she said to the gnome and gave him a friendly rub on his
big red hat before letting him get back his important meeting.
Inside the greenhouse, it was a world of soft daylight. Three of the walls were
glass, as was the ceiling, which was covered over in snow, muting the light.
More rows of squat wooden tables served as home to an enormous tangle of
flowers. The plants were dead, of course; not even a greenhouse could keep them
alive in the winter without electric heaters. But over the decades, the flowers
had grown beyond the confines of their original little square holders. Reaching
out, year after year, they had entwined with each other, becoming a collection
of colonies, covering first the table each colony began life on, then down to
the floor, slowly spreading out across the concrete, until one colony made
contact with another, then another, until the entire expanse of the greenhouse
was a giant carpet of flowers. Overhead, suspended by wires, long rows of
flowerpots hung in straight lines. Delicate feelers extended down towards the
tiny jungle beneath, connecting the worlds, above and below, like the vines
Ellie had seen in her old National Geographic.
“Holy moley.” A hushed, awed tone.
“Some of the glass up there is cracked or broken. See?” Joel said. “Just enough
water drips in, I reckon. And every winter these plants become fertilizer for
the ones sproutin’ up when spring comes.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this. Have you?”
“Not exactly like this, no.” He confessed. “Kinda pretty, huh?”
“Yeah,” she grinned. Another good moment. Another honest smile. She tried her
best to hang on to it.
They stepped across the tangled carpet of dead stems and curled leaves. It
wasn’t crunchy or crisp, like she expected it to be. It was damp, moist, almost
like the stuff she’d had to shovel out of the composting boxes sometimes back
in Boston, back when she’d been caught misbehaving.
“This place makes it’s own fertilizer, alright,” she said, following behind
Joel. She waved at the air in front of her face with her hand. “Whew! I didn’t
know flowers could stink so damn much.”
“Smells pretty good, don’t it?” he said, stirring the bits of roast beef hash
around the cooking pan of his mess kit.
“Yeah.” She was glum again, like she so often was now.
The sun was setting. Several brick-sized blocks of soapstone were heating up in
the big, smoky fire. Two of the blocks were shaped like zoo animals, an
elephant and a zebra – Ellie had insisted on bringing those two with her. The
gardening shop had a shelf full of the stone blocks, ready to be carved to
order into any shape you wanted, right there in the store. ‘Artisan Quality’
the sign had assured them. Soapstone held heat a long, long time. Now they
would be warm all night, every night, for the rest of winter.
“Start puttin’ those blocks in the stew pots, alright?” he said, watching with
worry as sad green eyes stared into the fire and her mind went someplace dark
again. Fire, smoke, and blood.
“Yeah,” she muttered, blinking away whatever it was that she had seen in the
fire. “Sure.”
She took the heavy tongs they’d swiped from a fireplace on their way back from
the gardening store, and carefully removed the hot soapstone blocks, one by
one, and placed them gently inside the pair of big, ten-quart cooking pots. The
little animal carvings went in last, right on top, and she covered each pot
with a lid.
The containers were heavy. Joel took one. She took the other, though she
struggled with it much more than he did; she insisted on pulling her weight.
They threaded rags through the handles and carried them quickly up to their
room, before the metal became too hot. Even with their gloves and thick ski
coats, the temperature of the stew pots against their bellies was unpleasantly
warm by the time they got to the top of the stairs. He sent her dashing back
down to the yard to get their meals while he arranged the big containers onto
square platforms made from single layers of bricks, one on either side of the
bed. The bricks would absorb some of the heat and release it later, keeping the
room warm a good, long while.
Ellie came running in with their food. It was still hot. Ellie blew on it,
trying to make it cool enough to shove into her mouth. Joel took his time, like
he usually did, and then fell asleep in the big chair. He was still healing,
though he wouldn’t admit it. He couldn’t hide the signs from her. She could see
how tired and weak he became at the end of the day. She watched him.
“I wish he would wake up soon,” she confessed.
“He will. When he’s ready.”
“But what if he doesn’t? What if he never wakes up?”
“He will,” the horse reassured her in his dopey, sweet voice. “You’re taking
good care of him. And you’re taking good care of me too. Good work is what good
people do.”
“You sound like Sister Anne,” she said, giving him a nice, long scratch behind
his ear.
“Oh gosh, that sure feels good,” he sighed happily.
“He woke up yesterday,” she grunted, lugging the heavy saddle across the
garage, leaving it to rest across the seat of a yellow Yamaha quadbike that,
sadly, did not run. The saddle would stay there until tomorrow, when she would
take the horse out on another hunting trip. “I don’t think he knew where he
was. But he recognized me. I got a little soup in him. Then he fell asleep
again.”
“That’s good. He won’t get better if he doesn’t eat. Oh, and thanks for taking
that saddle off me,” Callus said cheerfully. “I sure do get tired of wearing it
sometimes.”
“I bet. It’s heavy as hell,” she puffed, stretching her back.
“Not to me. I’m really strong. But horses prefer to go naked when we can. You
ought to try it sometime. It feels really good.”
Ellie snickered. “It’s a little cold for that, buddy.”
“If you say so. Maybe we can try it when spring gets here. You can take off
your clothes and leave the saddle off and we can go riding naked together.
It’ll be fun. I promise.”
Ellie giggled; the horse was adorably innocent about some things.
“Tell you what,” she grinned, pulling the blanket off his back and draping it
over the washing machine over by the back wall, “if you promise to keep an eye
on him, I’ll let you have tomorrow off. I’ll go hunting by myself and give you
a rest.”
“Better not,” he said, lowering his head and shaking it from side to side for
emphasis. He spoke a little slowly, like he always did, searching for the right
words as he put the sentences together. “That’s a bad idea, Ellie. Nobody is
safe if they’re alone. You gotta have at least one buddy with you at all times.
Every horse knows that.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she sighed, working the bridle free of his head.
“We’re buddies,” he said, working his tongue into the places where the bit had
been a moment before. “We should always stick together.”
She hugged him. He pressed his head against her, comforting her in the way that
horses did.
“You and me, we’re good buddies, Ellie,” he said. He was repeating himself, but
horses weren’t prone to particularly deep thoughts. Simple thoughts could say
everything that needed to be said.
“I wish I could find more food for us,” Ellie muttered, crying suddenly, her
tears hot against his neck.
“Me too,” he agreed. “But there’s grass under the snow. And mustangs like me,
we ain’t dumb like regular horses. We know it’s down there and we know to look
for it and dig it out with our hooves. Heck, I wish you could eat grass. I’d
dig a bunch up and share it with you. I promise I would.”
She choked back a sob. He was such a good friend. He didn’t deserve the death
that was coming for him.
“I know you would.”
“Don’t cry, Ellie. It’s gonna be okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Joel’s gonna be fine. You know he is. He comes to find you when everything
gets really bad, remember? When there’s smoke and fire and blood and everything
gets really scary? He finds you and you’re together again and it’s all okay
after that. Remember?”
“But you don’t make it,” she whimpered. “You die and you don’t deserve to.”
“I know,” he sighed, dopey and sweet in spite of what they both knew was going
to happen to him.
“You die hungry and scared and running for your life and it’s not fucking
fair!”
“Yeah, I do,” he said, flicking his tail in acceptance. “But horses are
optimists, Ellie. Did you know that? It’s true. I don’t know too many big
words, but I know that one. I know it by heart.”
Ellie smiled wanly, looking into his dark, soulful eyes. She stroked his neck,
scratched under his long jaw.
“I’ll tell you the truth,” he said solemnly, “I’m a long, long way from home.
So far away, I don’t know if I could ever find my way back. I sure miss all the
other horses back in Jackson and I know I won’t ever see them again. And some
nights, when I’m out here in this garage all by myself and you’re down in the
basement with Joel, helping him to get better… well, sometimes I wonder if I’m
the last horse in the world, cause that’s sure what it feels like to me.”
Hot tears flowed down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Callus.”
“It’s okay, Ellie. I’m an optimist, like I said. When I get to feeling all
lonely and sad, I remember those songs you sing to me, and it makes me happy.
Nobody ever sang to me in my whole life until you came along. So I think about
those songs and the jokes you tell that I don’t really understand but I laugh
anyway because it’s fun to laugh with you, and I remember that we’re friends
and then I’m not so lonely anymore.”
Ellie sniffled, smiled, pressed her face into his neck again.
“And before I know it,” he continued, pushing gently against her in a horse’s
version of a hug, “it’s daytime again and you come running up the stairs and we
go off on an new adventure together. Heck, who knows, one of these days we
might find some more sugar cubes. That’d be real nice, don’cha think?”
She chiffled, chuckling and sniffling at the same time.
“I’m so, so sorry you have to die, Callus,” she whispered.
“Me too, Ellie.” He nuzzled her with his nose, not blaming her a bit for any of
the terrible things that were going to happen to him. “Me too.”
She cried hard, her body shuddering from the effort of it. Joel’s arm slipped
around her in the darkness. Her pillow was wet with tears. She rolled over to
rest her head on him and he made room for her. She wept silently into his
thermal top and he hugged her close. Neither of them said a word.
Ask me, Joel. Fucking ask me what’s wrong already, okay? Please.
I need to know that it’s okay to talk about it.
“Something worryin’ you, Ellie?” he asked. Every breath formed a small white
cloud as it left his mouth. This morning was cold and damp. More snow was on
the way soon.
“No,” she lied, coming through the office door, stepping out into the world to
join him. Things happen and you move on. She had to endure and survive. She was
too close to the finish line to go soft and fall apart now. Winter would be
over soon. She had to make it to the Fireflies, or else what was the fucking
point? “I’m fine.”
“Well… alright then,” he said, not pushing the issue. He knew her. She’d talk
when she was ready. “You ready for another day of scroungin’?”
“Lead the way, boss,” she said glumly.
“Alright,” he said, setting out on today’s expedition. “And keep your eyes open
for any game. We might get lucky and spot a rabbit or a deer.”
“Found a deer,” Ellie said flatly. “Not much meat on it though.”
“What?” asked Joel, stepping into the large family room. Oddly, he had a big
yellow and green box of crayons in his hand for some unknown reason. The old
Ellie would have teased him about it, or at the minimum, asked him why he was
carrying around crayons. This new Ellie said nothing. She barely glanced in his
direction before turning her attention back to the note she’d found on the
coffee table. He glanced out the big window with the rotting green curtains,
scanning the white world beyond. “Where? In the yard?”
“Up on the stupid wall,” she muttered, hooking a thumb over her shoulder,
aiming it in the general direction of the corner with the L-shaped sectional
couch.
Joel looked. A trophy buck was mounted there on a shield-shaped piece of
walnut. From the shoulder up, the beast surveyed the den with glass eyes, its
preserved skin beginning to peel at the edges. The antlers were magnificent.
Joel gave a soft, appreciative whistle.
“Twelve point buck,” he said admiringly. “That’s a hell of a trophy right
there.”
Ellie snorted derisively and fixed him with a wounded, accusing glare. “Why
would anybody do that to the poor thing. Bad enough we gotta eat ‘em, but why
do that to them? Put their heads on a fucking wall? Seems… I don’t know… cruel…
you know?” She shook her head, looked away. “I guess you don’t.”
“Ellie,” Joel began gently, trying his best to be patient with the moody girl.
He didn’t know about the deer she had hunted while he was laid up. He didn’t
know how long she had chased it, running through the deep snow, following the
bloody trail to the awful, awful place it led her.
She ignored his effort and instead she finished reading the letter she’d found.
She wadded it up and shoved it in her pocket with a heavy sigh. “Found some
kindling.”
He exhaled slowly, not wanting to fight about anything, still amazed that he
was drawing breath in this world. For the first time in years, he was genuinely
happy to be alive. He wanted Ellie to be happy too.
“Any information in that note?” Joel asked. He knew how much she tried to
uncover the story of every place she visited, filling in as many clues as she
could manage. One day, he was certain of it, this girl would write the history
of this world, filling page after page of some great big book with everything
she had learned during her lifetime. A new history, one he wouldn’t live to
see. It was her destiny.
Lord knows, he thought, nobody else seemed to be taking an interest in it.
“No,” she grumped petulantly. “Just the usual bullshit.” She switched to a
high, mocking tone. “‘Dear so-and-so, we’ve left for such-and-such place. Hope
to see you there. God’s looking after us so everything will turn out hunky
dory, I just know it. Hugs and kisses and shit.’” She sighed and looked out the
window. Her voice was low and sad now. “Everybody died the next day and nobody
found this fucking letter for twenty years. The end.”
The silence hung in the air. Ellie shoved her gloved hands into her pockets and
looked at the many pictures on the wall: a happy family, all dead for years, no
doubt. She waited, hoping to hear the right words. Joel didn’t know what to
say. He frowned. So did she.
“I wonder if they even ate the meat,” she muttered, her thoughts going to the
deer.
“You say something?” Joel called from the other side of the bathroom door.
“No,” she said more loudly, wanting to make sure he heard her. “Just talking to
myself. And don’t come in, okay? I’m not done yet.”
“Wasn’t plannin’ on it,” he said, a bit wearily.
He’s getting pissed off at me. I know it.
She exhaled unhappily and wrung out the washcloth in the sink. The water in the
bucket was lukewarm and the soap, if it could still be called that, was a hard,
aquamarine rock lying at the bottom of an old Cool Whip bowl. Joel had cut it
out of the soap dispenser in the women’s bathroom of the Taco Bell a few days
ago. It had congealed and solidified at the bottom of a plastic bag inside the
dispenser, waiting for twenty years, and it still bore the creases and folds of
the bag, even after she had run the softening warm dampness of the washcloth
over it several times.
Frowning, she dunked the cloth in the warm-ish water and wrapped up the blue-
green block again, working it around and around in her fists, making it lather
no matter how stubbornly reluctant it seemed to be about going back to its old
job as soap.
The bathroom was cold, especially to her naked feet, and it was large. The
lawyer who had owned this two story building had two bathrooms: a small, simple
one downstairs, available to clients, attached to the waiting room out front,
where the secretary’s desk was; and a large, fancy one up here, at the back of
his private office. Ellie wondered why one lawyer needed such a big bathroom.
Three people could have slept on the countertop in here. The long sheet of
glass that comprised the mirror could have been cut into a dozen mirrors the
size of the little one she’d had on the wall of her dorm room.
“Opulent,” she murmured, using a word she knew but wasn’t entirely certain if
she was pronouncing correctly or not. That was the problem with being an avid
reader. You knew more words than you could say.
She hadn’t had a bath in days and days. She forced herself to take her time
with it, to be thorough, but it was chilly in here and she wanted to rush. Joel
was on the other side of the door. She had a vague, uneasy dread that he would
come barging in, that he’d see her naked, that he’d want to touch her. She
grimaced. There was a time when she wanted that more than anything in the
world. Now it filled her with a queasy sensation and she did her best not to
give it any thought at all. She rinsed herself off in the big tub, pouring the
last of the clean water over her head. For a moment, she couldn’t see anything
and she was sure there was someone in the room with her, watching, waiting.
He always watched her for a little while before he got around to fucking her.
It was just a thing he did. She was almost used to it by now.
She was on the bed, naked, of course, on all fours. Her belly was big and
swollen with the babies squirming around inside, the heavy curve of it almost
brushed the mattress, and her tits were tender and aching, full of milk,
hanging there like big jugs. She was going to have her latest baby any day now.
She’d lost count of how many this one will make. Ten? Twelve? They never let
her keep them. Somebody more deserving will get to raise them. It was never
easy letting go of them. She didn’t even get to name them. But this was the
price she had to pay for killing so many of the men in this town. She had do
her part to help repopulate this place if the Lakeside Resort Community was
ever going to be as strong as it was. She had to undo the damage she had done.
He told her so, like he always did, even though she knew the words by heart. He
kept her in the back room of the pet store. This little room was her whole
world now. She never left it. He kept Joel in the closet. She could hear him
thumping around in there on his short, stubby stumps. He couldn’t reach the
doorknob, of course. Even if he could, he didn’t have fingers anymore. Food
didn’t need fingers. Or eyes. Or a tongue. Or balls. Or arms or legs or
anything, really. The torso holds the organ meats, the barbecue ribs, the prime
cuts, the good stuff you saved for last. Once food was all used up, the head
goes on the wall. That was what he told her whenever she asked about Joel. He
said the same thing was going to happen to her when she couldn’t squirt out
babies any more. Joel would be gone by then, served up as dessert, little by
little, on special occasions, one holiday after the other, until he was just a
head on wall. Then it would be her turn to go in the closet and wiggle around
on her belly, all stumpy and mutilated and pathetic. But that was still in the
future. Tonight, she was going to be fucked, even though she was already so
pregnant that she was about to pop. She had to be fucked on a regular basis, to
keep her in practice, that was what he told her and she knew it was true. She
couldn’t get rusty, not about something so important. He unzipped his pants. On
cue, like the trained animal she was, she pushed her ass up in the air. She
would lie down on the pillow, but her aching tits were sloshing around, leaking
milk, and they were too damn sore to squish against the bed, and she didn’t
want to sleep in a pair of big, milky wet spots when he was done. He climbed
onto the mattress. It was going in her ass tonight, he told her. She already
knew that. She was too full of babies. He couldn’t get it in her overworked,
overstuffed pussy any more. That would have to wait until she’d had this fresh
litter. Then he could go back to getting her knocked up again. That was when
he’d get really enthusiastic about fucking her. Tonight was just boring old
practice, but he was hard and that was what counted. She smiled, happy to still
be useful to him and this town for another few years. He pushed it into her
ass, her cheeks big and plump and round, like all the parts of her soft,
motherly body. She grunted, clenched her teeth. It hurt. He didn’t care. She’d
brought this on herself, as she well knew. He began to pound her hard; the
babies in her belly began to kick, upset at this disturbance. In the closet,
what was left of Joel trashed on the floor and wailed with an awful, mutilated,
wordless voice. Joel could hear her cries of pleasure and pain just fine, thank
you. They’d made sure to leave his ears on. Empty eye sockets would be filled
with glass when the time came, and the mouth would be sewn closed when he went
on the wall. But the ears were out there where everybody could see them. No
point in ruining a trophy head.
Joel’s ears heard Ellie. The sound brought him out of his sleep. She was
panting, gasping, locked in the throes of a dirty dream. He laid there, his
cock hard and throbbing, needing her. She groaned, arched her back, her nipples
hard against her tight thermal shirt. In the dream he knew nothing about, they
were huge, misshapen, as long as her pinky fingers, spraying milk with wild
abandon like little rosy hoses. His eyes were locked on them, small tender nubs
straining against her shirt. He remembered those nipples and her beautiful
little breasts, and how she would squeal and squirm when he pinched and tugged
at those perfect pink points. He made fists of his fingers and stared at the
ceiling. With a slow, ragged exhalation, she finally lay still, fucked to
completion in her dream. She moaned every so softly and rolled over onto her
side, facing him. She was still asleep. Her face was like that of an angel to
him, so pretty and peaceful in the pale moonlight of the office window. He lay
there, cock throbbing, and tried to go back to sleep. He ordered his hands to
mind their own business. They had no business touching the girl without
invitation. And whatever happened to the girl before he’d found her in the
burning steakhouse, shrieking and swinging that machete at the grotesque pile
of fruit salad that had once been a man’s head, it had changed her. She didn’t
invite his touch anymore. She barely spoke to him most days. His cock and his
hands were just going to have to mind their own damn business now. Things
between him and the girl weren’t romantic anymore. It was back to how it had
been in the beginning, before he’d kissed her in the UPS truck and set this
whole thing flying off the tracks by filling her head with all the wrong ideas.
He covered his face with his hands, pressed his head back into his pillow,
breathed deeply, steadily, trying to relax. After weeks on the mend, this was
the first, fully hard erection he’d had since his recovery. His cock pulsed,
radiating heat through his whole body.
Ellie carefully wrapped her fingers around it. “Ooh! This thing is pretty hot.”
“Use a rag,” Joel yawned. “I do believe I suggested that very thing to you.”
She snerkled, clearly in somewhat better spirits today. She couldn’t say why.
She’d just woke up feeling very rested for some reason. Her hood was up, the
drawstrings pulled snug, and he could barely see her face inside. It was
snowing today, not very hard, but steadily, and with no end in sight. “You
can’t expect me to listen to all your rules, buddy.”
As she talked, she pulled the freshly cut chain through the handles of the big
metal shed’s door. The padlock, still clamped down to the links, still trying
to do its job, dangled from the length of chain, holding together the original
ends, but now bypassed by the applied science of gas and flame. Joel twisted
the flow valve knob on the propane torch he’d found in the hardware store,
hidden under a fallen display case where it had remained miraculously unlooted
for two decades until today. The flame at the end of the tip flickered and
died. There was still plenty of fuel left in the blue cylinder. With any luck,
he would be able to cut through three or four more chains before it ran out.
“Better than a shiv,” she said, throwing the chain away. It landed in the snow
and the hot ends of the severed links steamed against the ice, quickly turning
it to slush.
Joel stuffed the compact torch into the big side pocket of his military surplus
backpack, where a large water bottle or thermos might normally go.
“What do you think’s in there?” she asked, nodding her chin in the direction of
the big shed. It was too big for anything as simple as a lawnmower. This had
been somebody’s workshop, maybe. Or a doomsday bunker, if she and Joel were
really lucky.
“Open ‘er up. Find out,” he said to Ellie. She didn’t need to be told twice.
It had taken more than an hour to trudge through the snow from their home in
the lawyer’s office all the way up to the old house higher up the valley, atop
the steep hill, following the twisting, winding road that ran alongside a
frozen creek. It took less than ten minutes to get back home on the snowmobile.
“Oh man! Tomorrow, we are gonna haul ass all over town in that thing!”
Ellie was excited. Genuinely excited. Joel relaxed. It felt like old times
again.
She tugged the blanket around herself. Night was falling and it was cold inside
the office. They huddled close together in the warm light of the little camp
stove.
“I can’t believe it even started! How the hell is the battery still alive?”
“Don’t need a battery,” Joel yawned. He hadn’t sleep well. His cock wouldn’t
leave him alone. Things had only gotten worse when a sleeping, cooing Ellie had
snuggled up to him just before dawn. He hoped tonight would be better, more
restful, and much less lustful.
“But it’s got one, dude. I saw it.”
“A little one. And it’s probably dead. I’ll bet it’s just for the electric
starter. It’s sort of like a dirt bike, I think. It’s got a carburetor, not
fuel injectors. All it really needs is a good yank on the pull cord and some
gas in the tank.”
“Arctic Cat,” she said, savoring the words she’d read off the mud flaps. “Such
a cool name. So where are we going tomorrow? Salt Lake City? Los Angeles? Ooh!
I hear it’s nice in Honolulu this time of year. I could be a hula girl!”
“That snowmobile was made in the 90s, Ellie. It’s almost as old as I am.”
“But you’re still running. I just had to slap some electrical tape on you, just
like the old Goldwing, that’s all.”
He chuckled. It was good to hear her joke again, even if it was at his expense.
“We barely made it to this town before we got snowed in. What do you think will
happen to us if we hit I 70 on a forty-something-year-old snowmobile and it
breaks down twenty or thirty miles from the next town. Long damn walk in the
dead of winter, if you ask me.”
Ellie sighed, knowing he was probably right. “Yeah. I’d have a Joelscicle on my
hands.”
“Yeah,” he answered. “Maybe we can use it to get around town. But the thing’s
pretty damn noisy and there’s barely enough room for both of us on the seat.
Hopefully there’s no infected or hunters down in the valley,” he said,
referring to the parts of town they hadn’t visited yet. He sighed, seeing the
disappointment beginning to creep across her face. “But… maybe… We’ll see,
okay? No promises.”
She sat, poked at her slice of garlic Spam, grinned widely, as full of life as
he’d seen in a month. “You have to admit, Joel, it was pretty cool shootin’
down that mountain on that thing.”
Joel chuckled, forked another slice of meat into his bowl. “Sure as hell was.”
“I can’t wait to drive it tomorrow,” she said, almost giddy.
“And who said you’re gonna be the one to drive my new snowmobile?”
“I called it first,” she snickered. “I’m Blacktop Ellie, queen of the highway,
dude!”
She smiled as she gave it a little gas and felt the engine accelerate smoothly.
For the first ten miles or so, Ellie just leaned back into the soft leather
seat of the El Camino and enjoyed the warm sensation of the sun on her face.
The driver’s side window was down and a nice summer breeze blew in; just enough
to make the edges of her long, loose auburn locks dance and frolic, but not
blow them around so much that they got tangled. The old houses of the abandoned
town rolled past, one by one. The lawns were overgrown with sweet smelling
grass, basking in the light midday sun.
Bill was ahead, kneeling in the intersection, setting up a trap that was way
more elaborate than it needed to be. Somehow, he has scrounged up a giant
mousetrap, big enough to park a car on, and he’s placed a nail bomb in the
middle and was busy covering it over with several big, open cans of liquid
nacho cheese to hide the bomb because a trap could never be too complicated and
too super stupidly deadly, right?
She honked the horn as she sped past Bill, just to fuck with him. It startled
him, but the trap wasn’t sprung.
“Stupid punk kid!” he hollered, shaking his fist in her rearview mirror.
“So long, you crazy old fat fucker,” Ellie laughed with a casual, ‘fuck you’
wave of her slender hand.
“That could’ve been you if Joel hadn’t come looking for you after you ran
away,” Riley admonished. “You oughta be nicer to Bill. Can’t be easy for him,
being alone all the time.”
“Shush,” Ellie grumped, feeling guilty and not wanting to.
Riley continued. “I feel bad for him. Living all by himself… until he can’t
remember how to live around other people anymore. Could’ve been you, Boo.
That’s all I’m saying.”
“Shush, I said.”
“If Joel had died down in that basement, what were you going to do?” Riley
asked.
“I don’t know,” Ellie shrugged, shifting gears, feeling the rubber pad of the
clutch beneath her toes. “I try not to think about it, to be honest.”
“Since when did you stop thinking about the future?”
“A lot’s changed, Riley. I’ve changed too.”
“Is that why you’re wearing my clothes?” Riley teased.
“No… I just… They fit me now, I guess. That’s all.” Ellie hooked a fingertip
along the collar of the light blue denim shirt and tugged it gently away from
her neck. “Your stuff was always too big for me before. But they’re not
anymore. So I’m wearing them.”
The light metal chain around her neck caught the sunlight as Ellie pulled the
dogtag out from the inside of her white tank top. It clinked faintly as she
held it up for Riley to see.
          Eleanor
         Williams
         000000
“Eleanor?” Riley deadpanned. “Really?”
Ellie sighed. “Marlene insisted. No nicknames on Firefly tags. They’re serious
business and all that crap.”
Ellie pushed the gas pedal with a bare foot, coaxing a little more speed out of
the old Chevy. Riley’s durable black combat boots sat unlaced, stuffed with
discarded socks, on the cracked brown vinyl of the empty passenger’s seat.
Ellie had the cab of the truck all to herself.
“So what happened to your clothes?” Riley asked. “Why you gotta rub your dirty
butt all over the insides of my nicest jeans?”
“I didn’t want my clothes anymore. I threw them all away. I got rid of all my
old stuff. Everything. It’s all gone now.”
“Eew. You’re not wearing my underwear too, are you?”
Ellie laughed. “Mmmmmaybe.”
“Boo,” Riley teased, “you might be wearing my drawers, but I know for damn sure
that my bras won’t fit you.”
“Shut up,” Ellie chuckled.
“Poor little white girl boobs, all tiny and pale and flopping around inside my
big old woman-sized cups. Bet that hurts your girls when you hit a pothole.
Stuff some socks in there, why don’cha?”
“Hush or I’m turning the station to something else,” Ellie replied as sassily
as she could. “Maybe I’ll put Tess on. Or Sam and Henry. They’d be nicer to me
than you are.”
“You touch that dial and I’m putting nothing on but country music,” Riley
snarked, a disembodied voice emerging from the El Camino’s speakers.
“Don’t even joke!” Ellie laughed.
“All my exes live in Texas,” Riley began to sing in a warbling, off key drawl.
They had both heard that song coming from the guard shack at the school on more
than one occasion. WBQZ, the best and only radio station in Boston, played a
block of country music every day. “And Texas is the place I’d dearly love to
be.”
“Oh God!” Ellie wailed, giggling. “My ears! Make it stop!”
“But all my exes live in Texas,” Riley sang from inside the dashboard radio.
“And that’s why I hang my hat in Tennesseeeeeeeee!!”
“Ahhh! Blood’s gonna start shooting outta my ears! Knock it off!”
Riley laughed. A rippling spray of static mixed in with the sound. Ellie hoped
she wasn’t driving out of range of wherever it was that Riley was broadcasting
from.
“Coming up next,” Riley said in her best radio announcer voice, “Tammy
Wynette’s ‘Stand by Your Man’.”
“Oh God, please make it stop,” Ellie moaned pitifully. “When did you start
enjoying country music, Riley?”
“Maybe you’re not the only one who’s changed, Boo.”
“Yeah, well, unlike you, I’ve clearly changed for the better. I’m tougher now.
And I’m not afraid of stuff like I used to be. And I still like good music.”
“Is that why you’ve started kissing boys too? ‘Cause you’re not afraid of them
anymore?” Riley snickered as Ellie rolled her eyes.
“I was never afraid of boys,” Ellie said. “I just didn’t like them. Still kinda
don’t, to be honest. I’ve just made an exception for one particular boy, that’s
all.”
“Two of them,” Riley mocked. “Don’t forget about his brother.”
“Who? Tommy? I don’t think of Tommy like that!”
“You think he’s cute!”
“That’s only because he kind of looks like Joel.”
“He’s blonde,” Riley said dryly.
Ellie shrugged, and smiled mysteriously. “A younger, blonder Joel,” she said,
as though that explained everything. “It’s not my fault they’re practically
twins or whatever. I’m not into him, you nosey douche canoe.”
“You were checking out his butt when he was talking to Joel back at that dam.”
“That’s because he’s got the same butt as Joel! They’re brothers! It was like
double the butt, Riley! I was overwhelmed! Don’t judge me! I was surrounded by
cute butts. You woulda done the same thing!”
“Shit, girl. I would’ve flashed my boobs at them and then taken them both to
bed!”
“Tommy’s married!”
“Maria could watch! I wouldn’t mind.”
“Riley!” Ellie gasped, her mouth open, her face delighted. “You are such a
perv!”
“You’d do the same thing, Miss All-Grown-Up and wearing the big bra now.”
“I would not!”
“You thought about it! That night after you and Joel rode away from Jackson
instead of spending the night in town like sensible people! You wondered about
what it would be like to kiss Tommy. You wondered if he kisses the same way
Joel does.”
Ellie squirmed in her seat. Now that she no longer had a body, the stereophonic
ghost of Riley could see inside her head. It wasn’t fair.
“It’s not like that,” Ellie grumbled. “That was just… you know… a fantasy.
That’s all. Don’t make such a big deal about it.”
“Uh huh.” Riley did not sound convinced.
“And it was just that one time,” Ellie insisted, which was the truth. Mostly.
“It’s not like I’m a dirty freak like you. I don’t want both of them. Just
Joel.”
“Tell the truth,” Riley needled in a sing-song voice.
“That is the truth!” Ellie said.
“Tell me,” Riley teased.
“Look… It’s… I mean… It’s complicated, all right?” Ellie whined.
“Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman,” Riley sang, her voice a close
approximation to the sound of a hillbilly cat being strangled by a banjo.
“Givin’ all your love to just one maaaaannnnnn!”
Ellie laughed. “Okay! No more! I can’t take it! I’ll talk!”
“Admit it, Boo! Tell me the truth or else it’s nothing but pickin’ and grinnin’
and wall-to-wall songs about rebel flags and gravel roads and hound dogs with
cheatin’ hearts for the rest of this trip.”
“Fine!” Ellie grumped, slouching in defeat. “I thought about it… about them…
but only a couple of times. I swear. And it’s only because Tommy looks so much
like Joel. And I swiped this picture of Joel that was taken when he was really
young… and he just looks so damn hot, Riley.”
“You want the be in the middle of a Miller Men sandwich, don’cha?”
“What?!” Ellie spluttered. “No way! I admit that I was thinking about Tommy,
sure. But, you know, separately! Not… both of them… not both guys… at the same
time…” Her voice trailed off, her head suddenly filled with new possibilities.
“Ooh! There it is,” Riley said smugly. “Two big Millers and one little Ellie,
all tangled up together!”
“Shush! You’re making it sound all… y’know… weird and stuff!”
“It is weird! You are such a little freak, Boo!” Riley cackled with delight.
“I wasn’t thinking about it! Not that way! Not until you just put this idea in
my head, you big pervert! I swear! You’re worse than Cherry Jackson! She
probably did two guys at the same time!”
“If she didn’t, I bet she wanted to! Hell, I want to too, now that you’ve got
me thinking about it, girl.” Riley laughed heartily, her master plan coming to
fruition. “Pretty hot, being one woman with two men paying attention to you at
once. Sexy, huh? Don’t deny it!”
“Yeahhhh,” Ellie said quietly, still lost in thought and a little embarrassed
about the places her mind was taking her. “It kind of is.”
“So… Now that we’re being all truthful and shit… Do you love him?”
“Riley…”
“Do you love him? It’s okay. You can tell me, Ellie.”
“I…”
“You love him, Boo. And that’s okay.”
“Really? I mean… I do. But are you… y’know… cool with that?”
“Sure,” Riley said, with an almost audible shrug of her unseen shoulders. “Why
wouldn’t I be cool with it? I’m dead. I’m pretty much cool with everything
now.”
“Don’t say that,” Ellie muttered, clearly uncomfortable.
“I am,” Riley admitted. “I’m dead. I’m a voice on the radio, for fuck’s sake,
girl.”
“Stop saying that!” Ellie begged.
“Nothing’s gonna change what happened, Boo.”
“No! Don’t say that!”
“I don’t blame you,” Riley said gently. “For what happened up on that roof. I
don’t blame you one bit. I want you to know that, Ellie.”
“No! Don’t! It will all be alright when we get where we’re going. They’ll know
what to do. They’ll know how to fix everything. We can be together again. I
just have to get us there!”
“And where is that, Boo? Where are we going?”
“I… I don’t know,” Ellie shouted. “I don’t have a fucking map, okay? Is that
what you wanted to hear? Well there it is, Riley. I don’t have a map and I all
I can do is the best I can do, okay?”
“Not a good plan, Ellie.”
“Yeah? Well what else can I do? I’m fucking out here all alone and I’m lost,
okay? I’m lost, Riley! Is that what you want to hear? I’m lost and I’m scared
and nobody ever taught me how to do a goddamn thing and now everybody is
expecting me to just figure out all the stupid little details on my own! And so
here I am! I’m trying to do the right thing even though I know that nothing I
ever did was good enough! Not for you! Not for Joel! Not for anybody! But I’m
trying, okay? I’m trying as hard as I fucking can! Why the fuck isn’t that good
enough for anybody? Why am I never fucking good enough?!”
“You’re right. That’s not good enough, Boo.”
“Shut up!” Ellie barked and smashed her open hand against the radio controls.
Dials spun. Preset knobs clicked in and out of place. “SHUT UP!”
The road rolled by in silence for a while.
“I’m doing the best I can,” Ellie whispered to the whistling wind. “I don’t
know what else to do so I’m just going in this direction and maybe I’ll get
lucky and it’ll turn out to be the right one, okay? All right?”
The wind didn’t answer.
She reached over, flipped the radio on. Static filled the cab of the El Camino.
“Riley?”
She turned the dial, slowly and carefully at first, then frantically as no
station emerged from the white noise.
“Riley! I’m sorry! Okay? Please don’t be mad! I’m sorry!”
She pushed buttons, each one several times, desperate, trying to find her
friend again. But Riley was gone, swallowed up by the dull, hissing roar.
“Guess this tape is blank,” Ellie mumbled.
“What?” Joel said from somewhere down the hallway of the old, two-story house.
“I’m trying out this cassette tape I just found,” Ellie replied loudly, pulling
the earbuds out and coiling them around her Walkman tightly. “But I think it’s
blank. There’s no music. Just the hissy sound of blank tape.”
Joel’s boots echoed in the empty hallway as he made his way towards her and the
old bedroom she was searching.
“Thought you said the batteries were dead?” he said from the other side of the
doorway, still out of sight.
“They were. But I found some new ones in the last house. In a kitchen drawer,”
she said, smiling when he rounded the corner, happy to see him again. “And now
that I’ve finally got a new blank tape, maybe I can find some music to put on
here.”
Joel nodded. “Make sure it’s good music this time.”
She smirked and gave him the finger.
“All my exes live in Texas,” she warbled, deliberately off tune, and grinned
when she saw his face light up.
“Holy shit, girl,” he beamed, pleased and surprised. “Maybe there’s hope for
you yet.”
She walked over to him, almost strutting, appearing sexier to him than she
realized. She reached out and gently placed the cassette in his shirt pocket.
She tapped it with her finger.
“If we ever find a tape recorder, dude, you’re gonna fill this tape up with
your singing.”
He laughed.
They all laughed.
Everyone on the street turned to look and jeer at the naked girl. She was just
fourteen and not as filled out as she’d like to be. She was scrawny and short
and deeply ashamed in a way that made every inch of her skin burn. The Boston
sky was clear and the sun was going to make the redness of her shame permanent
if she didn’t get indoors soon. But the man leading her down the street was in
no hurry. He didn’t have to be. He was big and strong and obviously respected
by the people they were passing. And he was wearing clothes, unlike the poor
girl following along behind him, her wrists held out in front of her belly,
bound by coarse rope. He held the end of the rope like a leash. She was his
pet, for all practical purposes.
“Look!” whispered someone in the long line of faceless men, “you can see her
pussy! Not one hair on it!”
Marlene had made her shave it just before he’d arrived to buy her. She had said
it would drive up the price, sweeten the deal. Men liked to look at pussys,
that’s what Marlene had said, and so the hair had to go. Marlene had wanted
this man to be able to see everything. All these men could see it now.
Ellie lowered her hands, trying to cover it as she walked. She wanted to hide
her breasts as well, but her wrists were bound together. She could only hide
one place. She made her choice. The man tugged on the rope, pulling her hands
away, forcing her show it to everyone they passed. She tried to look away, head
down, cheeks burning. She tried not to hear the men whistling and laughing. She
tried not to cry, but her cheeks became wet. She was wet in another place as
well. She didn’t want to be. She couldn’t help it. Her naked, hairless snatch
was on display for all of Boston to see, and it throbbed and glistened, basking
in the attention it was receiving.
The cracked concrete was rough and unpleasant underneath her bare feet. She
grimaced, keeping her eyes carefully fixed on the ground. She could hear the
people laughing and making jokes at her expense, but so long as she stared at
the sidewalk, she wouldn’t have to see them mocking her.
“Almost there, girl” he said to her, nodding in greeting to another man they
passed on the sidewalk.
“Good,” she whispered.
“Didn’t give you permission to talk,” he warned.
Obediently, she kept silent. He led her down the street, around the corner,
across a small parking lot, and into an old apartment building. The harsh
sunlight could not get to her exposed skin in here, but the leering eyes of
strange men easily found her from the shadows of the hallways and from open
doors. A few of the men called out to her new owner, hoping he might share her
with them later. They said they would be happy to pay him. She shivered, sick
to her stomach at the thought. She belonged to him now. She would have to do
whatever he wanted, even stuff like that.
He produced a set of keys from his pocket and opened a door at the farthest end
of the hallway. He led her inside and closed the door. She was away from the
lecherous stares of the other men, but she was alone with him now. Fear of a
different sort gripped her.
“This is where I’m gonna be keepin’ you for a while, Nellie,” he said.
“Ellie.” Her voice was very quiet. Meek.
When his open palm struck her face, it was not gentle.
“Your name is whatever I say it is. Got it?”
“Yessir,” she peeped.
He struck her again, harder that time. She gasped and staggered from it.
“Don’t talk. Understand? I didn’t bring you up here to listen to you yap. You
shut your mouth and you keep it shut, yeah?”
She nodded. Tears ran in streams down her cheeks. Her body trembled. She was
very scared. Her throbbing pussy, which had been tingling since Marlene had
made her take off all her clothes so this man could inspect her before agreeing
to buy her, began to pound, hammering in time with her aching cheek.
“Good girl.”
She couldn’t hide how excited she was. The hard pink points of her swollen tits
gave it away. Soon he’d see the trail of wetness dribbling down her thigh. She
could feel it leaking out. She was already wet before, when he took her through
the crowd. But once he’d slapped her, she had begun to burn with lust. Her
boiling cunt was overflowing. She hated how much she enjoyed this. She hated
this man. She hated Marlene for selling her. She hated the officer who threw
her out of school. She hated Riley and her stupid boyfriend for not taking her
in, forcing her to seek out Marlene’s help. But Marlene had never wanted her.
No one had ever wanted her. It was only a matter of time before she ended up
for sale like this. This was her last chance. She had to please this man, no
matter what. She had nowhere else to go now.
“You’re gonna keep this place clean for me, yeah?” he said. He didn’t ask. This
wasn’t a choice she got to make.
She nodded, still afraid to look at him. If she looked, he would see her eyes.
He would see how desperately needy she was. He would see how much she enjoyed
being abused. Being abused meant somebody was paying attention to her, and that
was what she wanted, however she could get it. And once he figured that out
about her, she’d be lost. Lost to her need and her lust and her betraying body
that craved discipline. She wanted to surrender to his cruelty. She wanted to
be owned. Forever.
He cut the rope from her wrists with a switchblade. The knife had been hers,
but Marlene had given it to this man, made it part of the deal, almost as an
afterthought. She wanted the knife back, but it wasn’t hers anymore. It didn’t
belong to her. She didn’t belong to herself. Not any more.
“I’m gonna show you what to do, Shelly.”
She nodded and accepted the new name. This was a test. She was sure of it. She
would be whoever he wanted her to be.
He smiled. She had passed the test.
“I expect a clean house, Freckle Tits, so you’d better do a good job or else
I’m gonna dump your little ass over the wall with the garbage and the
clickers.”
She nodded. She could feel the slickness on the inside of her thighs, where the
delicate skin touched. The wetness leaking from her cunt caught the light of
the sun streaming in from the window. She tried to press her legs together
discretely, hiding it from him. It didn’t work.
“You drip any of that on floor and I’m gonna make you lick it up,” he sneered.
She nodded. It was all she could do. Her pussy continued to betray her, drop by
hateful drop.
“Better get you off the carpet and onto some tile,” he growled. “You got chores
to do.”
She frowned, disappointed. She didn’t want to be a maid. She wanted to be a
fucktoy. Why wouldn’t he fuck her? Wasn’t she pretty enough? He took her by the
hand and led her into the kitchen. Brooms and dustpans and mops and buckets
were there, scattered around the room and across the countertop. Tools of every
sort.
He held up one of the hand tools that they had taken from their second trip to
the gardening shop a few days before. It looked like a miniature shovel. He’d
called it a hand trowel when he’d first found it. “I think this is a good
mornin’ to teach you how to make an Indian fire pit.”
“Fire?” she asked. “Thought you said that from now on we should only make a
fire at sundown, so nobody would have time to follow the smoke and find us
before it got dark.”
“Smart girl,” he nodded, tucking an old copy of USA Today under his arm as he
left the office and trotted down the stairs. “I did say that. But the kind of
fire I’m gonna teach you how to make doesn’t smoke.”
Smiling, he stepped outside and crunched off into the snow, with her following
close. It was a clear, bright day, the first they’d had since they arrived at
this town. Winter was nowhere close to being over, but on a day like this, it
was easy to pretend. On a playful whim, she tried to place her feet exactly in
his footsteps. It wasn’t easy. His stride was longer than hers. Unexpectedly,
he led her past the remains of yesterday’s campfire and kept going, across the
road, all the way to the fancy, neighboring house, the one with the big boat
parked in the backyard, rotting away on a rusting trailer.
Why would someone who lives in the mountains own a boat?
“Grab those sticks, will ya?” he asked, indicating a few dry, broken branches
lying in the road. He nodded approvingly as she dutifully scooped them up
without breaking stride.
Behind the big house, there was a long patio. A thin steel awning stretched
over it, rusting and pockmarked with several tiny, corroded holes. The last few
feet of the awning, near the end of the house, provided shade to dirt rather
than the concrete of the patio. There had been a flowerbed here once, walled in
with small, decorative rocks
“We’re gonna dig right here,” he said, pointing to a spot of ground close to
the corner of the brick wall, while still being under the protective edge of
the awning. “Breeze comes blowin’ in this way. Exactly what we’re lookin’ for.”
“Why here?” she asked. “Why not over there by the place we’re staying in?”
“This awning will keep a lot of the snow out, and it’ll catch any little bits
of smoke and disperse it some. And a fire pit like this one needs a steady
stream of wind if it’s gonna work right.”
He dropped to his knees and began to clear the weeds and snow away. She joined
him in the effort.
“We’re gonna clear out a spot over there too,” he said, pointing to a spot just
outside the flowerbed, a few inches behind her, beyond the edge of the house.
He worked the trowel into the stubborn, frozen soil, chiseling out the dirt and
plant roots. With no small amount of effort, he dug a hole about a foot across
and more or less as deep. “You gotta get all the roots and stuff out. Green
wood burns smoky. And don’t ever dig one in muddy ground or else water’ll seep
in and put the fire out.”
“All right,” she nodded, taking mental notes, filing it all away into the
voluminous pages of ‘The Ellie Williams Official Survival Guide and Pun Book’ –
it was a work in progress and sure to be a best seller one day. “So you put the
fire down there? And it doesn’t smoke? How does that work?”
“You’ll see. We ain’t done yet. Next we gotta make the chimney hole.” He moved
around behind her and tapped the point of the hand trowel against the other
spot they’d cleared earlier. “This hole’s gonna be half the size of that one,
and it’s gotta be about a foot away from it. You dig it out at an angle, so
that it connects to the bottom of the first hole. Watch.”
He began to chisel at the frozen earth. Soon a hole roughly the size of his
fist began to take shape, worming down diagonally, until the tip of the trowel
appeared inside the bottom of the bigger hole.
“Neat,” she said.
He showed her with his hands how the thing worked. “See? The wind blows this
way, over the holes, so it’ll get pulled down into the chimney here. That’ll
make the firewood at the bottom of the big hole burn really hot, so our food
and water heat up faster. It burns hotter than a normal campfire so it uses all
the wood up and barely smokes at all. And no one passing by on that road down
there would be able to see the light from the fire because it’s down inside the
hole, yeah?”
“Pretty cool, Joel.” She grinned, feeling like a spy operating behind enemy
lines.
“It’s not much good to warm up by, since all the heat stays right there at the
opening, but you can take a rack off a backyard griller, set it over the hole,
and cook really fast without havin’ to scrounge up a lot of firewood. The
little hole sorta focuses the heat. Lot less work involved.”
“I like the sound of that.” She shivered and blew warm air onto her fingers. It
was cold this morning and she had pulled off her poofy ski gloves so she that
could work with her hands, just like he had. Doing what he does was usually the
smart thing to do.
“We just have to get some kindlin’ lit, then we toss it in the hole and add
some wood. That’s all there is too it.”
“Wish we could find some more dryer lint,” she sighed. “I used all ours up back
when you were hurt. I looked around in the other houses, but I never could find
any more of it.”
“That’s all right. We had it when we needed it. That’s what matters. Besides,
if we can find the right kind of tin can, I’ll teach you how to make char
cloth. That stuff’s even better than dryer lint on a damp day.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And the next rabbit we get, I’m gonna show you how to make bone broth.
Real healthy stuff. That’ll help us get through this winter in pretty good
shape.”
“Bone broth?” she asked, disbelieving, uncertain if this was either a joke he
was telling or maybe a creepy ghost story in the making.
“Bone broth. It’s the kind of stuff that’ll keep you going for a long time.
Grandma taught me how to make it. She told me that it’s what you make when
there’s nothing else in the pantry to make.”
“Your grandmother taught you to cook? Neat.”
“She taught me to cook a few things,” Joel said. “This one summer when dad
wasn’t around anymore and mom was… off doing other things… I was just starting
out. Bills were stackin’ up and…” He sighed, and for a moment, he stopped
shredding the old newspaper into strips of tinder.
“And then what?” she asked gently, trying to prod without being too obvious
about it.
“It’s best if you cook the bones first,” Joel said, leaving the past in the
past. “Roast ‘em a little. That really brings out the flavor. Then you simmer
‘em in water for at least a full day and night. That’ll get all the good,
healthy stuff out of ‘em and make for a better broth. Hearty stuff. You’ll be
surprised by how much it’ll fill you up.”
“Sounds good,” she said, wishing he had finished his story.
“Sarah…” he began, slightly choking on the softly spoken word. He took a deep
breath before continuing, “… Sarah loved it. Even when she got older, she
always got a big grin on her face whenever I made it. Sometimes plain,
sometimes as part of a beef or vegetable stew. She always loved it. I guess she
got a taste for it because I made it so much when she was little and we were so
damn poor all the time.”
Ellie’s eyes grew wet and hot at the corners. She smiled and nodded sincerely.
“I’m sure I’ll love it, Joel. It sounds delicious.”
“It is,” he nodded, not making eye contact, and took out his lighter to ignite
the wad of tinder before stuffing it down into the fire hole. “Get started on
the firewood, alright?”
Ellie began to break apart the dry, brittle sticks she had gathered.
The old wood split and cracked easily. The wooden gate fell onto the snow,
ripped free from its hinges by a single blow from Joel’s boot. The large
fairground behind the Dumont Outdoorsman’s Lodge was open to them now. There
were rifle ranges, obstacle courses, artificial rock climbing walls, and a tall
wooden tower that had once boasted a zip line.
“What the heck?” Ellie said, looking around as she followed him through the
gate. “What is all this stuff?”
“Place where people used to come to have fun.”
“Do you think they have go-karts here?” she asked. She and Joel had found some
of the funny little kid-sized cars before, at a park of some kind, in Illinois
maybe, or Indiana, one of those states they had passed through on their way to
Wyoming, but none of the go-karts had worked, of course. Almost nothing worked
anymore.
“Maybe. Seems like they’ve got everything else.”
“Hope they’ve got some gas for the snowmobile. That tank’s almost empty. We
need ammo too, dude.”
“Yeah. We’re scrapin’ bottom on lots of stuff. Maybe we’ll get lucky and have a
good haul today,” he said.
“That’d be cool,” Ellie said, trying to sound like the old Ellie, the one who
had always hoped for the best. “Is it okay if I look around a little? I’ve
never seen anything like this place.”
“Sure,” he said, and waited for the question she always asked whenever they
went anywhere interesting and new. After a moment spent discretely watching her
walk around, examining the archery targets and rappelling walls, he realized
that she wasn’t going to ask him. It wasn’t like her. It made him sad to see
her so out of sorts.
“Y’know, I never spent any time at places like this,” he volunteered.
“Really?” she asked, swiveling her head around to look at him. “I would’ve
figured you to be the outdoorsy type, dude.”
“I am,” he winked. “But I was always into the real outdoors stuff. Not this
fenced in, fake stuff.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” She nodded, understanding, or pretending to. “This
stuff is kind of weird when you think about it, huh? Why climb a fake rock wall
when there are mountains just right over there.”
He started to nod, but slipped on the patch of ice hiding beneath the snow.
“Shit!” He steadied himself and managed to stay on his feet.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. Watch your step,” Joel called from up ahead, splashing through the
creek, his boots sliding around on the mossy green stones beneath the water.
“These rocks are pretty slippery.”
“We will,” Tess answered, shooting a glance back at Ellie, making sure the
wide-eyed girl hadn’t wandered off.
The dark, flooded subway tunnels of Boston were behind them. A warm summer sky
was slowly coming to an end overhead. The sky was reddening along the edge of
the horizon. The moon hung against a backdrop of indigo. Birds sang in the
tree. Butterflies flittered about, from leaf to leaf. There were flickering
lights suspended in the air.
“Cool. Fireflies,” she cooed, sweetly astonished. “Look.”
“I can’t see them from in here,” Riley said. “Duh!”
“Shh!” Ellie whispered. “They’ll hear you.”
“What’d you say?” Tess asked, halting her stride for a few moments to let the
straggling teenage girl catch up.
“Nothing,” Ellie said. With the older woman looking right at her, she couldn’t
even give Riley a good, satisfying ‘I told you so’ glare. “Talking to myself, I
guess. I’ve never been in the woods before. It’s kind of amazing.”
“Yeah. I love it outside. Clean air, fresh water. Maybe later we can send Joel
off on an errand and you and me can wash up in one of these creeks. No water
rationing out here,” Tess added with a confidential grin, pretending to share a
big secret with the girl. “You can take as long as you like and nobody will
shut off the water.”
“Sweet,” Ellie said. “Do they have hot water creeks?”
“‘Fraid not,” Tess shrugged with a ‘what can you do’ grin. “Nothing’s perfect,
right?”
Ellie nodded. The idea of having more than a few minutes to rush her way
through a lukewarm shower with water pressure so low that it struggled to do
more than dribble from the showerhead was appealing to her. Hot water would
have been nice, but she had never bathed in hot water in her life. You can’t
miss what you’ve never had. And besides, Tess was pretty and nice. The idea of
taking a bath with the older woman in one of these creeks kindled a pleasant
feeling of warmth inside her that would make up for a lack of hot water. Tess
was very pretty. Ellie wouldn’t mind seeing her naked, that was for sure. She
told herself she wouldn’t stare. Boys stared. They stared and tried to imagine
what you looked like with your clothes off. They drilled holes in the walls of
the shower so they didn’t have to imagine. Ellie wouldn’t stare. She just liked
the idea of being naked with Tess. Naked and clean and in the woods. Maybe they
could just run around naked for a while, under the warm rays of the sun.
“Why is it getting hot in here?” Riley whispered. Only Ellie could hear her
voice. “What are you doing out there?”
“C’mon,” Tess said, motioning Ellie forward with her hand. “He’s not going to
wait for us.”
“Ugh. He’s kind of a jerk,” Ellie said, hoping she wasn’t overstepping her
bounds.
Tess chuckled. “Yeah, he is. But he’s my jerk, you know?”
“I guess,” Ellie said, carefully noncommittal. “I don’t really ‘get’ guys, you
know? They’re so… weird.”
“Nah,” Tess replied in a jaded, breezy way. “Guys are actually pretty simple,
Ellie.”
Ellie smiled suspiciously, playing along. “Yeah? If you say so.”
Tess slipped an arm around Ellie as they walked, her strong, small hand at the
base of the girl’s neck. With each step they took, the teenager’s auburn
ponytail swung back and forth, brushing the woman’s knuckles.
“Let me show you what I’m talking about. That guy up there,” Tess said,
pointing towards Joel, who was scouting ahead while skillfully remaining in
sight of his partner. “What do you think of him? Besides him being a jerk, what
else do you think of him?”
“Umm… he’s grumpy… kind of old… doesn’t say much. Walks too fast. He doesn’t
like me, I know that.”
“He likes you. He just doesn’t show it.”
“If you say so. I wouldn’t want to work with him all the time the way you do.”
“It’s got it perks. He knows how to fight. He carries all the heavy stuff. And
the sex is good. That smoothes over a lot of the bumps, that’s for sure.”
Ellie giggled at how refreshingly matter of fact Tess was about stuff like
that.
“Sex scares me,” the girl admitted, sharing a secret with a woman she hoped
would become her mentor. “Guys scare me.”
“You ever had sex?” Tess asked quietly, though there was no chance their voices
would carry all the way to the man’s ears. Her tone was friendly. She wasn’t
laying a trap for Ellie. No teasing or jokes were hidden behind the woman’s
question.
“No,” the girl divulged in hushed, shy tones. “Not with a guy, anyway.”
“Sure. Give away all our secrets,” Riley muttered. “Tell her where I hid the
beer, why doncha?” Tess didn’t seem to hear the complaint.
“Oh yeah? You have a girlfriend?” Tess asked, happy to swap secrets. This was
girl talk, after all.
“Yeah. We… you know… fooled around and stuff,” Ellie answered.
Riley spluttered, feigning offense. “Fooled around? Girl, you ate my pussy like
it was chocolate mousse! I had to pry your mouth off it!” Neither of them had
ever had a fancy dessert like that, but they’d seen pictures and it looked
amazing.
“Hey, alright,” Tess replied in a warm, genial voice. She hugged the girl to
her side quickly, affectionately. “Good for you.”
“Thanks,” Ellie answered, feeling giddy and goofy at the same time. More
importantly, she felt accepted. This was a woman’s club now, and she was in it.
“Fooling around is really fun.”
“It sure is. Want to fool around later?” Tess teased, grinning.
Ellie burst into embarrassed laughter, peeling away from Tess, blushing,
guffawing.
Riley admonished her to get control of herself. “Put a cork in that shit, Boo!”
she hissed. “You’re making a fool of yourself! Didn’t I teach you anything?”
Tess cackled. The girl, already very likeable, was positively charming now.
“You ladies doin’ alright back there?” Joel asked from the other side of the
creek, up the small hill, amid the thickening line of trees that mark the edge
of the forest. His voice was deep, firm, and resolved. Loud, as the distance
between them requires, but not quite a bellow. It made Ellie uncomfortable. It
was too forceful. He needed to be nicer.
“Just talking about you, Tex,” Tess responded, one hand cupped alongside her
mouth to help her higher, better voice carry to him. “Telling her all sorts of
stories about you.”
“Figured that’s what that was,” he muttered and Ellie wondered how it was
possible she had heard him from all the way over there.
“Keep scouting ahead,” Tess told him. “We’ll catch up.”
Joel sighed and made his way into the forest as ordered.
“Wow. He does what you say.”
“Damn right, he does. He works for me,” Tess answered with a smug little grin.
They were almost to the creek. They weren’t walking fast now. The pace was
slower, more conducive to intimacy.
Helmsman, set engines to ‘conversation speed’, Ellie thought to herself.
“God, you are such a dork,” Riley lamented. She wanted Ellie to be cool so this
woman would fool around with the redhead later and Riley could listen to it.
But Ellie didn’t know how to be cool and Riley couldn’t show her anymore.
“Do you beat him up if he doesn’t follow orders?” Ellie teased, ignoring Riley.
She knew she was a dork, but she had to muddle through life on her own now.
“I do worse than that,” Tess quipped. “I cut him off for a while.”
“Cut him off?” Ellie asked, trying to puzzle it out. “You mean… like, his
wiener?”
“Oh, God no!” Tess laughed. “Though I swear he gets me mad enough sometimes to
think about it… No, I mean I cut him off from me. From sex. Get it?”
“Oh!” Ellie exclaimed, suddenly figuring it out. Riley was right. She was
tragically dorky. “Okay. I see. Sorry. I’m sorta slow on the uptake when it
comes to stuff like that.”
“That’s alright, sweetie,” Tess said, and took Ellie’s hand as they picked
their way carefully across the babbling creek. “Careful. Don’t slip.”
Ellie shook as much of the water from her shoes as she could. It was going to
be a long, squishy walk to camp. Tess didn’t let go of her hand. They weaved
their fingers together. Ellie smiled at her. Tess smiled back.
“And does that usually work?” the girl asked. “Not letting him hump you and
stuff?”
“Sure does,” Tess grinned slyly. “But I don’t do it unless I absolutely have
to.”
“He gets too grumpy if you do?”
“I get too grumpy,” Tess snickered, giving Ellie’s hand a quick squeeze. “I
miss the sex almost as much as he does. But I can stand going without it just a
little longer than he can, so I usually win.”
Ellie tittered. This was grown up stuff Tess was sharing with her nad it made
her cheeks flush red to talk about it.
“It’s that good, huh?”
“Oh yeah,” Tess sighed happily, their arms swinging together as they strolled
along, carefree. “It can be very good. Sometimes, ehh, it’s just okay. But
other times? … Oh, Ellie. My goodness. It will put you in a mood so good that
even the asshole you wake up next to in the morning can’t ruin your day.”
Ellie giggled. There were so many grown up truths being revealed to her today.
“When we get to camp,” Tess said, pushing a low-hanging branch aside for them
to duck under as they entered the woods, hand in hand, “Joel and I are probably
going to do the kind of stuff you and me are talking about. Just to let you
know in advance.”
“Oh, okay,” Ellie nodded, acting as cool and casual as she could. “I’ll go find
someplace else to be for a while. Don’t worry.”
“No, I meant you can watch,” Tess answered, her voice carefully low. Joel was
in these woods, somewhere up ahead. He didn’t need to know about this stuff.
Girl talk was not for boy ears. “If you want to, you know?”
Ellie sputtered. She was not prepared to be this casual. “S-seriously? Really?”
“Do you want to? You might learn something,” The older woman’s face was
devious, energetic. Her voice was enticing to the young girl.
“Getting strangely warm in here again,” Riley giggled.
“Um… sure…” Ellie answered in halting, unsure tones. Is this a trap? Is this a
prank or something? “I… uhh… I’ve never seen… you know… it. Being done, I
mean.”
“I’ll make sure he keeps it simple for you. Nothing too kinky, I promise,” Tess
giggled in Ellie’s ear. The words were warm against the girl’s skin, yet the
sensation made her shiver. Tess could feel it. She smiled. She remembered being
a girl. She felt Ellie grip her hand tightly, like she was a life preserver for
the kid.
“Is he going to be okay with this?” Ellie asked.
“I guarantee it. Hell, knowing a pretty girl like you is watching will probably
turn him on a lot.”
“Really?”
“Yep. I betcha he’ll show off for you. Break out his best moves. The really
good kind that give him a sore back the next day.”
Ellie snickered. She didn’t even care that her shoes and socks were all wet and
gross. Her mind was suddenly on other things. Boys were scary, no matter what
Riley said. And they wanted to do things to girls that seemed gross and weird
and slimy and it was all they seemed to think about and the only thing they
talked about. Ellie preferred girls. Girls were easier to understand. But a few
boys seemed almost interesting at times, one boy in particular. She couldn’t
remember who he was, but she could feel him in her mind somewhere, but the
place where he resided was fuzzy around the edges, and he wasn’t there anymore
but she wanted him to come back. She wanted his kisses and his hands but she
was scared of them and she didn’t know why. It wasn’t anything he had done, she
was sure, or she wanted to be, but if she couldn’t remember why she was scared
or why he had gone, then how could she be sure of anything?
“I’m… I mean, I can just watch, right? I don’t have to… you know… do stuff,
right?”
She hadn’t meant to ask that question. It was supposed to stay bottled up
inside her head, tossed into the enormous pile of bottles filled with notes
that she never worked up the nerve to cast out into the ocean outside herself.
Maybe Riley was using her voice when she wasn’t looking. Riley did that
sometimes. She swore to Ellie there were no gears and levers in there, where
Ellie kept her now, but Ellie was starting to suspect otherwise.
“Of course not,” Tess said, her hand slipping free of Ellie’s fingers, coming
to rest firm and reassuring on Ellie’s shoulder. “You just watch, and me and
him’ll put on a good show for you… and maybe, after he’s asleep… the two of us
can spend some time together.”
“‘Talk time’? Or ‘fool around time’?” Ellie asked shyly, green eyes peering up
from behind long auburn lashes; her face said that she was clearly hoping for
one answer over the other.
“Whichever one you want,” the woman responded in just the right tone.
Ellie smiled. Girls were better. They understood each other. Boys didn’t get
it. They peeped in through little holes in the shower walls and their eyes left
little footprints all over your body. But tonight it was going to be the other
way around. Ellie’s eyes were going to be all over that man. She would get to
judge him. She was going to see if there was anything he had that could hold
her interest. She was skeptical.
“No you’re not,” Riley chided, hiding where Tess couldn’t see her. “You can’t
stop thinking about his junk. I know. I’m in here with all these pictures
floating around. There’s dicks everywhere, Boo! The place is filling up with
them all of a sudden!
Ellie giggled. Tess was looking at her, curious. The woman couldn’t know about
Riley. No one could. No one would understand what Ellie had done for her
friend. No one. She had to say something and she grasped onto the first thought
that passed her way.
“So… when you said ‘kinky’… what kind of stuff are we talking about?”
Tess giggled again. “Straight on into the advanced stuff, I see.”
Ellie shrugged her shoulders a little defensively. “Well, I’m curious. That’s
all.”
“Lemme see… where to start… there’s spankings, of course,” Tess offered. “I’m
always up for a good spanking. I tend to misbehave, you know.”
Ellie snickered and blushed. “Me too.”
“Sometimes I let him tie me up,” Tess admitted.
“Oh wow. Isn’t that scary?”
“A little. But that’s what makes it fun. And I trust him,” Tess told her. “And
I like it. Hell, it’s my idea most of the time.”
“Really? I’d be scared. What if he did something bad? What if he got carried
away?”
“He wouldn’t. He knows not to go too far with it.”
“And… um… how far is far enough?”
“Depends on where I’m at in my head,” Tess shrugged. “It’s complicated.
Sometimes, just being tied up is enough. Other times, I need more. Rougher,
y’know. Sometimes, I… well, I need it really rough. I ask him to choke me. Or
smack my face. I don’t think he likes that part very much. But he’ll do it for
me, if I ask.”
“Holy cow. That sounds intense,” Ellie whispered, shocked. She would have been
speechless except sometimes she wanted the same thing. She had wanted that kind
of stuff ever since she’d found that book in the bookmobile, the one about the
lady lawyer and her two boyfriends. There were several really good sex scenes
in that book, each one more smutty and kinky than the last. She read it all the
time around the campfire.
“You haven’t found that book yet,” Riley said in her best, spooky ghost voice.
Shh, Ellie thought, I’m ignoring you.
“Do you… um… ever let him cum on your face?” Ellie’s voice was quiet. This was
conspiratorial stuff, for girl’s only, and absolutely not for boy’s ears. Boys
didn’t need to know that girls secretly talked about this kind of stuff. It
would only encourage them.
“Sure,” Tess snickered. “When he’s titfucking me, it’s not like I can stop him.
I’m tied up, kid. All I can do is try to get him to shoot it in my mouth and
not my eye.”
Just like the book, Ellie thought to herself. The one I’m going to find in a
few weeks!
“Behold! It is a vision!” Riley proclaimed, doing her best to sound like a
gypsy fortuneteller peering into the mists of her crystal ball. Ellie could
almost see the turban on her friend’s head. “A Vision Of… THE FUTURE!”
“And you… you like that sort of stuff?”
“At the time, yeah. Sometimes more than other times. Other times you just do
stuff because it’ll make the other person happy, and then you kind of get into
it anyway.”
“You want him to do that to you, Boo,” Riley purred knowingly. “And not because
it would make him happy. You used to think about it all the time. You used to
dream about it. Before he got hurt and everything went all shitty.”
I’m dreaming right now, Ellie realized glumly. I’m dreaming. You’re not really
in there, Riley. And Tess is dead too. You both died in Boston.
“You don’t know for sure I’m not in here,” Riley snarked. “You can’t prove it.
I know all your thoughts. I’ll prove it! Quick, think of a number between one
and ten…”
Shh, Riley, Ellie thought. This is serious.
“Twelve!” Riley whooped, triumphant. “And that’s cheating by the way!”
Tess saw the melancholy expression creep across the face of the girl walking
beside her. She took Ellie’s hand and tried to cheer her up again. Tess didn’t
know she was dead. She didn’t know this was a dream. She wanted to make the
girl smile. The girl reminded her of herself when she was younger, or so Joel
would tell the girl one day soon, weeks from now, halfway across the country,
in a little town called Arlington, just off Interstate 80. Tess didn’t know
about that. She couldn’t. It hadn’t happened yet, not at this point in the
trip. It happened after Tess had died.
“It’s like that between men and woman, Ellie. You’ll see what I mean later.”
Tess gave a devilish smile. “It’ll make sense when I’m on all fours the way he
likes and then I ask him to slap my ass. We’ll each get what we want. You’ll
see.”
Ellie grinned back. This was a great dream. She decided to make the most of it.
Too many of her dreams lately were awful and she usually woke up sad or scared
or worse, feeling like she’d been raped or eaten, or really worse, raped while
being eaten. This was a safe, smutty dream. It would be a nice change of pace.
She squeezed the woman’s hand and Tess squeezed back. Ellie smiled. Tess was
strong and full of life again, and she was fearless and friendly, and she had
those great boobs that Ellie would give anything to have. Ellie couldn’t wait
to see more of those boobs in a little bit. When they got to the campsite, Joel
would already have everything set up. He might even be naked, just to save more
time. Dreams were great in that way. All the boring stuff got cut out. Clothes
just fell away or disappeared all together. Nobody ever hopped around on one
foot trying to get their socks off, and underwear just slid off without leaving
stripes and dents on the skin.
Ellie placed her other hand against her side, along the ribs, just under the
small swell of her breast. This was where she kept her friend, awake or asleep,
safe inside her heart.
“I love you, Riley,” she said, knowing that Tess wouldn’t hear the words if
Ellie didn’t want her to. This was her dream. She was safe here. She was the
boss.
Riley’s voice was muffled.
“Quaid! Start the reactor! Free Mars!”
Ellie giggled in her sleep. Joel, stirring the latest batch of simmering bone
broth, heard her and smiled. It was good to know she was happy again, even if
just for a few moments, even if only in her dreams. He went back to stirring,
being careful not to let the spoon rattle too often against the side of the
pot. He didn’t want to wake her up.
“Gonna let you sleep awhile,” he whispered to the smiling girl.
“You let me sleep all night, you butt.”
“Ah, I couldn’t sleep, girl.” Joel lied to her easily, stooping to gather a
thick branch. With just a little elbow grease, this would make some good fuel
for their new fire pit. “Figured there wasn’t much point in both of us not
gettin’ any rest.”
She sighed, shaking her head with feigned, overdramatic concern. “Fine. Be that
way. Ignore Doctor Ellie. But if you get sick or exhausted and fall over or
whatever, don’t expect me to drag your heavy butt indoors again. Once was
enough. Doctor Ellie only helps those who help themselves.”
Joel chuckled, watching as she pranced through the snow and bent down to gather
a few sticks of her own. They had managed to snag a couple of rabbits that
morning. They’d go to sleep with full bellies that night. The tin of gourmet
tea they’d found in the abandoned old house attached to this yard would be a
nice treat too. Tea never really went bad. You just had to steep it longer. It
was not as good as coffee, but it would do just fine.
The snow began to fall. He looked up at the graying sky.
“We oughta head back soon. Looks like another big one’s blowin’ in.”
Ellie looked up. He’d been teaching her how to read the weather. She was not
very good at it yet, but she nodded sagely, remembering what he had said about
the things the sky would tell you if you’d just pay attention to it.
Clouds going in different directions means bad weather coming. Probably hail or
something just as shitty.
“Looks like you called it exactly right this morning. Another snowstorm. It’s
going to be nasty, huh?”
“Won’t be so bad if we can get inside before it starts comin’ down too hard.”
“I hope you’re right.” It was cold out here and she couldn’t wait to get inside
again.
“I’m right,” Joel said, legs stretched out on the carpet. He was wearing
nothing his thermal underwear, relaxing, stirring the little saucepot. “Tea
doesn’t go bad.”
“Not even…” she began, picking up the discarded, little paper envelope that had
held the tea. She scanned it quickly, reading aloud what she found. “Not even
Perfect Autumn Peach blend? Because that sounds like it could go all kinds of
wrong at the drop of a hat.”
He chuckled and gave the pot another swirl with the plastic mixing spoon. “If
it is, it’ll be a painless way to go, I’m sure.”
“You promise?” she asked, sitting close to him. The floor of the office wasn’t
particularly warm, but it was nowhere as cold as the frozen ground outside by
the fire pit. The little multi-fuel camp stove was lit and sitting on top of a
pair of cinder blocks. The compact, folding wire frame was arranged over the
low flame made by the stove. Joel was simmering some of the tea she had found a
few days ago, before this storm had blown in and left them snowed inside their
little fortress. “‘Cause if this fancy schmancy stuff isn’t some sort of
elaborate scheme to poison me, I’m going to be very disappointed.”
Joel exhaled slowly, his back aching from sitting on the unforgiving floor for
too long. “Why on earth would I poison you, girl?”
“Because you’ve got cabin fever!” she explained. “You’re crazy and dangerous
now, cooking up all sorts of mad schemes. And I don’t blame you, buddy. We’ve
been snowed in for ten days!”
“Three days.”
“Long enough for one of us to go crazy!” she snickered. “And if you want to get
to Crazy Town before I do, you’d better hurry because I can feel it. I’m about
to snap, Joel. Snap like a little redheaded twig!”
Joel chuckled. “You’ll see. It’s gotta break sooner or later.”
“The storm?” she asked, “Or my sanity?”
“Take your pick,” he groaned, stretching.
She hopped to her feet. Her back was thirty years younger than his. At her age,
she didn’t know what soreness truly was yet, the bone deep and abiding
stiffness that comes as years stack on top of years and old injuries multiply
and settle in. She nudged him with her foot, wrapped snugly inside two layers
of socks. If Ellie were going to go stark raving mad, she planned to do it with
warm feet.
“Okay, Joel. But promise me when you finally go nuts, you’ll smother me in my
sleep. I don’t want to suffer.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal.”
“I fucking knew it! You’ve gone nuts!” She squealed and darted away from him,
dancing across the carpeted floor to the window on the other side of their sofa
bed. “Who will save me from this crazy Texan and the brutal pillowing he’s got
planned for me? Who? Who, I say!”
“Pretty sure you’re shit outta luck, girl.” Joel sipped the tea from a spoon,
sampling it. “Soon as I finish drinkin’ this tea, I’m gonna pick up the first
pillow I can find and see if I can’t smother a little peace and quiet into this
room.”
Ellie laughed from her place at the window and watched the world outside.
The horses were out there, frolicking inside the safe confines of the fenced-in
backyard. All three of them had their saddles and bridles off. They could trot
around unfettered. This was as naked as a horse could get. The stallions were
feeling frisky. The mare, Ellie’s horse, could sense it.
Ellie peeked out from behind the curtain and watched the mare playfully dancing
about in tightening circles, drawing the males in towards her. The stallions
were excited about what was to come – there was no mistaking that!
“Holy cow,” Ellie whispered, her hand against the glass, watching the action
beginning to unfold. “Those are some huge dongs.”
“That’s why they say ‘hung like a horse’,” Tommy chuckled from his seat at the
kitchen table. The big dining room of the bed and breakfast was too fancy for
him. He didn’t like to eat in there.
Joel was behind her. Was he there a second ago? His hand slid up her arm,
coming to rest on her small shoulder. That hand was huge, even moreso than she
remembered it being. When did he get so tall?
“Y’know,” he began in a slow drawl, “normally stallions won’t share a mare like
that.”
“They won’t?” Her voice was nervous, higher than normal. She kept her eyes on
the events outside the window.
“Nope,” Tommy said, standing up, stretching. She could see him reflected in the
glass. He ambled over towards her. “Most of the time, one male will put
together his own harem of three or four females.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling Tommy’s hand on her other shoulder. It was just as big
as Joel’s. They were so damn tall today. She wanted to be tall too. She hoped
they’d teach her this trick.
“But sometimes,” Joel said, “well, I reckon maybe things might go a little bit
different… if the female don’t mind.”
Ellie giggled deeply, all the way at the back of her throat. “Looks to me like
she’s fine with what’s gonna happen out there.”
“But is she fine with what might happen in here?” Tommy’s voice, always a
little raspy, was deeper now; his tone was gentle.
Their hands were on her shoulders, rubbing softly. She looked up at the men. So
tall. She grinned sheepishly, cast her eyes down to her feet where it was
safer. She wouldn’t get lost in her shoes the way she would in those eyes.
“Yeah,” she squeaked. Her voice was too high. Why wouldn’t it go back to
normal, a little more grown up, like she remembered it being? She didn’t want
to be so nervous. She wanted to be cool. “I think she is.”
It felt weird to talk about herself in the third person. Riley did that
sometimes, when she was at her most regal, usually when she was issuing
commands from the rolling office chair that was her dorm room throne.
Joel reached down for the hem of her shirt. He lifted it up a little, so he
could get his hands on her thermal shirt, all tucked inside her jeans like she
always wore it. He pulled both shirts up at once. She realized she wasn’t
wearing a bra. Sometimes, when she was in camp, she went without one. Joel had
never complained. Maybe he liked it? She didn’t know. It was not like she had
any boobs anyway. She lifted her arms high, and the shirts came off. Her
ponytail holder came off with them, apparently. Her hair fell loose, tumbling
down all the way to her waist. When had she let it grow out like this? She
hadn’t worn her hair this long since she was a little kid.
Joel’s turned her in place, so he could pick her up from behind, his big hands
under her armpits, lifting her up. She tried not to swing her legs too much as
she ascended. Why were guys so tall? It wasn’t fair. She’d always been too
short as it was, and now this? She was shorter than ever! It wasn’t fair.
Tommy’s hands worked loose the button of her jeans. His fingers eased the
zipper down. He tugged the denim down her legs. Her panties rode along on the
trip. When he pulled the jeans free of her feet, she saw that somehow her shoes
and socks were gone. Maybe she was never wearing them? She couldn’t remember
for certain. She was completely naked now. She was certain of that much.
“Ain’t that just the sweetest little peach you ever did see?” Joel said to
Tommy.
“Sure is,” Tommy answered.
Ellie began to wiggle and squirm, giggling and squealing.
“Put me down, butt head! This isn’t a peepshow!”
Joel laughed, deeply, sexily. He set her down on her feet. She glanced around
the floor quickly. Her clothes were nowhere to be seen. Neither were theirs.
Had they been naked all along? Had they been sporting hardons this whole time?
She grinned. They were so tall today that she didn’t need to kneel down to get
to them. In fact, if she did get on her knees, she might be looking up at those
amazing things. This way was better. She reached out, tentatively wrapping her
fingers around them, one in each of her small hands. They were so warm. So
hard. So awesome.
Joel stroked the back of her head. Tommy pushed her long bangs out of her face.
She stroked them, grinning goofily. Why couldn’t she be cooler?
“Get closer,” she murmured. “You’re too far apart. Help me out here, Miller
dudes.”
Each brother took a half-step towards the other.
“Closer,” she purred.
Another half-step.
“Perfect.”
She could feel the heat rising up from between their naked bodies. Tommy rested
his hand on his older brother’s shoulder. Joel’s hand found Tommy’s waist. They
each put a hand on the girl’s narrow shoulders. Ellie kissed each of their hard
members. She brushed the tip of Joel’s against the end of Tommy’s, rubbing the
velvety soft heads together. She braced herself for a rebuke, fearing she might
be going too far.
One of the men groaned. The other inhaled sharply. She held the hard things by
their bases and slid them together sensuously. They were so big in her little
hands. She grinned mischievously, thrilled. She was too young for this stuff
and she knew it. She felt like she was getting away with something, like being
allowed to stay up late on a holiday or getting a second helping of dessert on
your birthday. She hoped she wouldn’t get in trouble for this later. She slid
her hands up and down the length of the warm, hard shafts, slowly, taking her
time, trying vainly to wrap her short fingers all the way round these big
things.
“Good girl,” Tommy sighed.
“She sure is,” Joel agreed, his large hand caressing Tommy’s smooth, trim flank
affectionately.
She made the head of Tommy’s shaft travel round and round the swollen, purplish
crest of his older brother’s member. She gracefully guided Joel’s head as it
traveled the underside of Tommy’s length, slowly working it from the edge of
the younger man’s ballsack all the way to the end of his tingling shaft,
stopping only when the little holes in the bulbous tips were almost touching.
She pressed the engorged heads together. The little openings became mouths,
each seeking the other out.
“It’s like they’re kissing,” she murmured. “See? You guys should do that.”
She glanced up, still working their hot, hard shafts together, hoping the
brothers would kiss. She smiled. They already were. She could have watched
these men kiss all day. They didn’t kiss like girls do. They didn’t kiss each
other like they would have kissed a girl. It was different. Rough. Hungry. She
began to stroke the big things in her hands again. The men pushed towards her,
thrusting slowly at each other with their hips, the little girl trapped between
them, smiling wildly, not daring to let go of the pulsing things in her hands.
Suddenly, she was in Joel’s arms. She always felt so safe there. When had he
picked her up? Tommy was just ahead, leading the way. Naked, the men and the
girl, they left the kitchen through the door, but it didn’t open to the dining
room. Instead, they entered the bedroom up on the third floor, the one with the
cool bed built into the window-filled nook. No stairs were involved. Stairs
weren’t all that important, so who cared?
She could see the big Motel 6 sign outside the window, mounted atop the big
pole in the front yard. There was something off about that, but she couldn’t
put her finger on it.
Joel placed her on the bed. She scooted away as Tommy reached for her. She
giggled.
“No way! I’m too young for this stuff!” She squeezed herself into the far
corner of the bed, near the pair of big windows that should look out on the
backyard and the trees, but instead showed a view of the alley outside the dorm
room. It didn’t make much sense, but she had good memories of that familiar,
comforting view so she let it slide. Anyone coming down that alley would have a
great view of a naked little girl’s butt, which made her smile. She giggled,
sitting on the edge of the windowsill, secretly hoping someone down there in
the alley was enjoying the show going on up here, someone in particular: a
pretty, dark-skinned girl who would be so proud of her little friend right now
“Ellie,” Joel said, in that tone she liked and disliked, though never both at
the same time.
His hard thing was pointed right at her. So was Tommy’s. This was what they had
come up here for: release. She couldn’t leave them hanging. Hanging like their
balls, large and round and full and needing relief. She licked her lips. She
wanted to do all kinds of stuff, but she wasn’t ready. She wasn’t old enough,
not by a long shot.
“I know what we can do,” she grinned devilishly. Riley had seen a porno once,
and she had told Ellie all about it. There had been one scene with two girls,
Riley had explained, and they had pressed their twats together and rubbed them
on each other till they came. Riley had used the first two fingers on each hand
to simulate the girls’ legs and how they placed them so that the girls could
fit together to make that happen. Ellie had never forgotten.
“Sit down on the bed, facing each other,” she said enthusiastically, holding
her left and right hands, two fingers out and spread open on each hand, pushing
her pair of scissored fingers together, just as Riley had done, “like this.
See?”
They sat on the mattress. Joel’s leg slid over Tommy’s. Tommy’s other leg
draped over Joel’s. Ellie had to climb down from the bed to see everything. She
told the men that she had to get out of the way to make room for them, but it
was really because she wanted to see the show up close. The parts she wanted to
see, the throbbing boy parts, were almost touching. She reached out with small
hands, touched the firm curves of their naked butts, and nudged them closer
with her open, insistent palms.
“Scootch,” she encouraged, patting their bottoms, almost a gentle, playful
spanking. She made whip sounds with her mouth. “Wuh-psssh! C’mon, little
doggies! Get in that coral. Wuh-psssh! Yeah! There we go! Good boys! Just like
that.”
Their swollen balls were pushed together tightly; one pair snug against the
other, each man’s drawn tightly against his own body, swollen and taut inside
his puckered scrotum, pressed close to the other man’s, almost too close. The
pressure of their balls, squeezed and packed like this, was a little painful,
but in that way that hurt so good. Their hard lengths twitched and throbbed,
yearning, needing, but daylight shone between the shafts. Of course, Ellie
realized too late, dongs were curved, like bananas, the yellow fruit she’d seen
pictures of in some of her books. Boys can’t really smoosh their parts together
quite like girls can.
She nodded, knowing what to do. “Hold on, guys… I got this.”
She reached out, took one in each hand, bringing them together. The brothers
moaned. Tommy shuddered a little, tucking his chin to his chest. Joel sucked in
air through his teeth in a strained hiss. Legs entwined, they were both leaning
back on their arms. Broad, powerful chests rose and fell. Sweat formed,
gleaming in the curling mat of hair across their torsos. Thick fingers held
tight to the bed sheets. Their hands were busy keeping themselves upright. They
tried to strain against each other, probing for contact, needing touch. The
hard lengths yearned to connect, but they couldn’t quite manage it. They needed
her help. That was fine with Ellie. She has always been a helper.
“Here,” she whispered, trying to snug her tiny fingers together around them,
making a sleeve of her hands, a space for them to be together. A warm, tight
space.
“Tighter,” Tommy wheezed.
Joel tried to say something. His voice caught in his throat as she squeezed
them more firmly. They throbbed and pulsed in her hands.
“Don’t get mad, okay?” she asked, knowing she was about to do something she
probably shouldn’t.
Ellie dipped her head low, her ridiculously long hair getting in her way, just
a little. She made sure her tongue was wet. She opened her mouth, began to
trace a figure eight around the pair of swollen red-violet heads jutting up
from her hands. Around and around went her tongue, around and in between,
around and around one, between them again, and then around and around the
other, and then circled outside both of them, over and over, until the flesh
was shiny with her spit and the big, strong men were trembling, bulging muscles
quivering, long limbs quaking, held fast by the attentive, loving mouth of the
devoted little girl between them.
Joel gave a shuddering, juddering groan. He needed more. His hips pushed up,
moving him deeper into the tunnel of her hands, sliding along Tommy’s shaft,
the turgid head pushing out above her fist before retreating again and then
pushing towards the daylight again. Tommy exhaled in a long, delicious release
of air. He pushed himself into the sanctuary of her hands too, just a little.
They were pistons now, cycling slowly, but out of synch.
“No, no. You have to do it together,” the small girl instructed in her ‘Miss
Ellie, New Teacher In Town’ voice. She hadn’t used that voice since she and
Joel had explored The Big Darby together at some distant point in the past, or
maybe it would be at sometime in the future. She wasn’t sure when it was or
will be, but she knew she had to teach them how to do this. They needed her.
“Teamwork, okay? Here we go… in… and out… and in… and out… just like that, good
boys… in…”
They let the girl guide them, telling them just what to do and how to do it.
Soon they were working in tandem, thrusting into the tight grip of the
welcoming hands, rubbing against her palms, against each other, pulling back,
pushing in again, over and over, moving slowly, in harmony. She breathed hot
air on them from her open lips, warming flesh already blazing hot from lust and
friction. She puckered her lips and lowered a long string of spit from her
mouth. At the orphanage, whenever the nuns weren’t around, Kevin Chiang, the
boy who stole her favorite Snoopy doll and set fire to it, used to pin her down
and do the same thing to her, letting a long, gooey thread of spit dangle from
his mouth, directly over her face as she screamed and cussed and tried to kick
at him before it landed on her cheek with a plop. It was so gross and she hated
it. It was different now. She wasn’t the one under the swinging pendulum of
saliva. She grinned and let the blob of wetness fall, covering the thrusting
shapes, drizzling them with a squiggly, thick rope, lubricating them. The men
grunted appreciatively and pistoned themselves in and out of her hands with
even more ardor. She grinned. Apparently, it was only gross when Kevin had done
it to her. Joel and Tommy actually seemed to like the spit. Boys were so weird
sometimes. Relieved by the added wetness, they moved faster and faster.
Lubricated machinery. Pistons. Running smoothly inside her hands. She worked up
another mouthful of spit and did it again. They moaned in gratitude. She
smiled, pretended a little. The swollen caps of their shafts were her
breakfast. Her spit was the syrup. Her mouth was the spout. Ellie had never
been one to let her waffles go unsmothered. She licked them, tasting, smiling
as they groaned, both straining for the forbidden pleasure of a little girl’s
mouth, tantalizingly close but always out of reach – she made sure of that.
Joel kissed Tommy, sliding his tongue into his younger brother’s mouth. Tommy
was happy to receive it.
Ellie’s fists were full of sheets now. She was at the foot of the bed,
watching. Joel and Tommy were so close together now that one was practically
sitting in the lap of the other. They ground their long, hard members against
each other’s belly. Their bodies were sweaty. Muscles rippled beneath
glistening skin. They clung to each other, embracing with thick, strong arms.
The brothers held on to one another as tightly as they could. Their balls were
practically inflated, their paired sacks had become big red apples smooshed
between their entangled legs, pressed down by corded, sweaty thighs, held in a
vise between their bodies and the bed. It had to hurt but they didn’t seem to
care. The brothers made the most amazing sounds, like animals. Deep grunts.
Harsh growls. They were kissing so fiercely that Ellie was glad she wasn’t on
the receiving end. It would bruise more than just her lips. Her entire face
would be blue and purple the next day, just like the intimidating, rock hard
forms jutting up from between their slick, glossy thighs, hammering away at the
would-be womb they’d made of their pressed together stomachs, assaulting each
other with the unrestrained lust pent up inside their hairy, sinewy bodies.
They needed to cum. She could sense it. But they wouldn’t. Not yet. This moment
was too perfect. This moment would only be ruined by letting them cum. So she
didn’t let them. They’d just have to keep going like this forever, and she’d
keep watching because it was safer to watch. Guys were big and she was little,
so very little, and this was kind of scary to her but it was fun to watch
because that was all she had to do. Just watch. Watch forever. Watch and not
take part anymore. That was the safest thing a girl could do. The guys wanted
to use their things on somebody so badly? Let them use those things on each
other. She’d just watch.
She remembered that her Walkman was in one of the drawers under the bed. She
hadn’t put it there. Riley was the one who left it. Had her friend been trying
to hide it? Or did Riley leave it for her? She didn’t know, but she made sure
to choose the right drawer. The other one was full of screaming and fire and
blood and she didn’t want that stuff getting out.
Small fingers fumbled with pushbuttons a little bigger than they should have
been. Walkman music filled the room. This was one of Riley’s tapes. Ellie’s
tapes wouldn’t have worked. They rocked too hard, which was not what was called
for here. There weren’t many rocking guitars on Riley’s tapes, but the music
coming out was perfect for stuff like this.
A woman sang to the brothers and the girl. “Don't want this thing but can't let
go. Even though, I need it so. Your arms they soothe me but I ain't no game. I
ain't no toy, I ain't just brain. This ain't no movie, man.”
Yes it is, Ellie thought to herself. It’s the best movie I’ve ever seen. Even
better than Invasion: USA.
“Emotions deep down inside of me, I'm trying to hide but they keep finding me,”
the woman lamented soulfully. “I want to lay low but continuously you do all
the right things.”
She reached out to touch them, to feel the heat they were creating, to sap some
of it away safely, so they didn’t catch fire. She wanted to touch Joel first.
She loved him the most. Her fingers reached for his glistening back, beneath
the scratches Tommy had made with his fingernails.
But Joel wasn’t there.
She was all alone in the bed. She sat up, frightened. She hated being alone.
She swung her legs to the edge of the mattress, felt the cold, cold floor
beneath her feet. Her toes recoiled from it. Thighs clenched. Her body was
burning up. When was the last time she had been horny like this?
Fuck. I’m on fire. What a great dream.
She stood up. Her arms and legs felt twice as long as they had been a minute
ago. She pushed her hair out of the way and found it to be about shoulder
length, like it was supposed to be. She was still short, but not nearly as
short as she had been in the dream. Her loins were aching. When was the last
time she had even been aware that she had loins?
“ffffuck,” she hissed. The floor was an iceberg. Her pussy was a volcano.
She scooped up her pistol and padded to the door. It was closed. No cold draft
was coming in from the bottom, her toes told her, and they never lied about
such things. She dropped to one knee. Old shopping bags had been stuffed into
the gap from the other side of the door. He had taken steps to make sure she
didn’t get cold while he was gone.
“Joel.” She was smiling but she was mad too. “You sweet butt munch.”
Trying to touch the frozen floor as little as possible, she scurried across the
room and peered out from behind the concealment of the old curtain, looking
down on the world outside. Water dripped from the roof. Small trickles of water
worked their way down the glass, like the beads of sweat down the backs of the
men in her dream. One of them was out there. She smiled at the sight of him. He
was across the road, under the corrugated metal awning of the neighboring
house, tending to foil-wrapped food cooking over the neat little fire pit.
She grinned. “Breakfast in bed today, I guess.”
He could be generous sometimes. It made her heart feel light. He could be sexy
too. It made her pussy continue to smolder.
You know… if I'm really quick about it…
She hesitated. She had to make a decision. There wasn’t much time. There never
was for this kind of thing.
I shouldn’t… but I haven’t in… God only knows how long… Since before the
University, that’s for sure.
Her aching, throbbing clit pleaded wordlessly with her. Erotic hunger filled
the girl’s body; her libido was starved, desperate for release. Desires that
had been buried all winter were suddenly exhumed.
Fuck it! I’ll be super quick!
She dashed back to the warm covers and buried herself in them. She rubbed her
hands together as quickly as she could, heating them up. Fast, warm, nimble
fingers shoved her underwear out of the way. She briefly thought about undoing
a few buttons on her borrowed flannel shirt and playing with her breasts a
little, but she couldn’t wait.
Hurry! HurryHurryHurry!!
She took a deep breath. Her ribs didn’t hurt anymore. She closed her eyes shut,
kept one ear focused on the door and the hallway beyond, listening for boots,
Just in case.
Fuck… lemme see… where was i?
Joel and Tommy were grinding their dicks on each other… And they were… um…
kissing… and making lots of noise… and then… um… what should they do? … Umm…
They start biting at each other’s necks and shoulders…
Her fingers went to work. It was like riding a bicycle. You never forgot how.
And… Oh! And they’re groaning and cussing and grunting… and they keep going at
it, humping their dicks together… but they don’t get to cum until I let them…
because it’s my dream and they have to wait until I’m ready for them… And they
know I’m watching and they’re trying to show me who’s the better man… who can
last the longest and flex their muscles the biggest and grunt the loudest and
all that stuff’s that important to guys… And I’m playing that song Riley loved
and I’m watching from the edge of the bed, looking up at them, and… Jeez
Louise, how old was I in this dream? Because everything was so big… bigger than
I remember it being when I really was in that room… and it’s not just their
dicks, and those things were fucking huge in my hand… Stop it, Ellie. Don’t get
distracted… Okay, so they’re all tangled up and sliding their dicks on each
other as hard and as fast as they can… and I finally let them cum because I
can’t take it anymore… But I tell them they have to cum at the same time… and
they scream and bury their heads against each other… and their poor balls were
totally about to burst… so it…
“unhh”
… it all comes squirting out… in big…
“mmnnnn”
… big gushes… and it shoots straight up… and gets all over their… their chests…
it gets in the hair on… on their… their chests…
“nnnhhh”
… and then they… I tell them… they have to lick… lick each other clean…
“nnnnffff”
… and then it gets in their mouths… and in their beards… so…
“uhnnnn”
… so when they… when they kiss… it…
“hhhnnnnN”
… it gets all… all mixed… together… in… in… tongues… mouths… kissi-
“NNNNNNGG!”
A cry choked off sharply. Gasping. Shuddering. More sounds filled the room. She
writhed against the mattress, twisting the sheets up as her heels dug into the
bed. Her hands were clamped tightly over her spasming pussy, fat and wet,
searing hot, small fingers trying to keep the inferno safely inside. Her cunt
was boiling over, scalding her hands.
“oh fuck!”
She had arched her back across the bed, bridging the gulf between the waking
world and the world of her dream, but now she felt herself coming back down to
earth, slowly, drifting, in no big hurry.
“ffff- hhhh- oh! ahh! ah! oh fffuck! oh man! mmm… mmm…”
Gradually, she caught her breath in thick gulps, relaxed, returned to herself.
Boosh.
She snickered guiltily, as quietly as she could.
I am a ninja.
She left very un-ninja-like footprints in the slushy snow when she crossed the
road where Joel was waiting by the fire.
He nodded as she approached and made a space for her when she plopped down next
to him in the snow.
She stared talking, the words tumbling out all at once, unconnected to anything
in particular, it seemed to him. Apparently, she just wanted to talk today. He
was in the mood to hear her voice. He didn’t hear it enough these days.
“Back when I was a little girl at St. Philomena’s, I used to have really long
hair. … All the way down to my waist. … The nuns said every girl should have
long hair because it looked pretty on them and it’s a woman’s crowning glory
and all that. Personally, I think it was because they didn’t want to cut our
hair all the time… It was always getting in the way when I wrestled with the
other kids. … Did you and Tommy ever wrestle?”
She was pleased with how completely innocent the question sounded.
“Oh sure,” Joel answered, stuffing a handful of broken sticks down into the
fire pit. “All the damn time.”
“Who usually won?”
“I did. … But every now and then, Tommy would surprise me. … He could be a
slippery little shit.”
She nodded, knowing all about that. Naked guys could get very slippery, from
all the sweat and the cum and the slippery muscles and stuff. As he cooked the
meat, she tried not to squirm. It wasn’t easy. Her pussy, dormant for so long,
was suddenly roaring back to life.
My twat’s like a bear coming out of hibernation. It’s fucking starving.
She grinned.
Starved for some fucking.
She wanted to giggle. She hid her face behind her hands instead.
Joel noticed. He cocked an eyebrow.
“You okay, Ellie?”
“Sun’s too bright today.”
Joel nodded. It was the first cloudless, clear blue day they’d had in a week.
She reached into her purse and pulled out her pink, heart-shaped sunglasses.
Her red high heels click-clacked on the sidewalk as she strutted through
downtown Los Angeles. She was the prettiest angel in a city filled with them,
and she knew it. She turned the head of a pair of construction workers, one
dark haired, the other blonde, both bearded and sexy. She drew the stare of a
pretty, well-dressed lady with skin the color of the sweetest chocolate. She
was used to being the center of attention. But she was as aloof as she was
appealing. She didn’t stop for any of them. None of them caught her eye.
The dog caught her eye as she was halfway across the street.
Bony and thin, miserable looking. It didn’t bark at her. It didn’t wag its tail
either.
It’s so skinny.
Half coyote, Joel would tell her later.
She talked to it, cautiously, her voice sweet and unthreatening.
“Hey, boy. Are you tame? Need a friend?”
Joel’s bootsteps crunched behind her, approaching quickly. Out of the corner of
her eye, she expected to see him pass her. She saw the gun in his hand instead.
The metallic, ratcheting click of the hammer being thumbed back was loud. The
dog didn’t move, it only flinched a little.
“Don’t shoot it. It’s just hungry,” she said wearily but gently, not wanting to
spook either the dog or Joel, fearing a violent outburst from one of the pair
more than the other. She sighed forlornly.
It doesn’t have to die, Joel.
“Come on out of there,” Joel bellowed, making the starving dog wince. “Come out
NOW!”
A few days later, while making dinner, Joel would tell her that while he was
still inside the store they had been searching, just as Ellie was walking out
into the street, he had looked out the big window and noticed the fresh
footprints leading into the far side of the building across the street –
footprints not made by either Ellie or himself.
Across the street, a man came out of the dark building very slowly, his hands
up. Ellie’s gun was suddenly in her hand, pointed right at his heart. He was as
thin and miserable as the dog. He smiled wanly, trying to look harmless and
hopeful.
“Wasn’t planning on doing anything. Just watching, that’s all,” he said
carefully. “Wanted to make sure you guys were friendly. That’s all.”
“We ain’t,” Joel replied grimly. “Use your other hand, take that gun out, throw
it over here.”
The gun was a sawed-off shotgun, dangling from his belt in a makeshift holster
fashioned out of some kind of leather tool pouch.
“It’s empty,” the stranger said. The dog twitched reflexively when the man
tossed it towards them. It landed with a soft thud in the snow. “I ran out of
shells for it back in Kittredge, back thataway.” He motioned slowly with his
hand, indicating somewhere to the south and east. “Bunch of bad guys there. I
barely got away. Nobody else in my group did.”
Joel told Ellie to pick up the gun. She did. It reminded her of her old
shotgun, but this one had only a single barrel, chopped short, like hers had
been, but the sawing had been done crudely, at a slight angle, not filed smooth
afterward, and the wooden stock on this one had been cut away, leaving only an
unevenly shaped pistol grip wrapped in duct tape. The lever to break it open
was familiar, similar to the weapon she’d lost months ago, but this gun had a
hammer, sort of like the one on Joel’s revolver. The hammers of her shotgun had
been hidden inside the gun. She tucked her Beretta under her arm and thumbed
the lever, opening the breech. There wasn’t a shell inside, not even a spent
one. The weapon was empty. He had been telling the truth about not having any
ammo, most likely, unless this was some elaborate deception gone wrong. No one
carried an empty gun in a world like this.
“28 gauge?” she asked. She still had a few of her old 28 gauge shells floating
around at the bottom of her backpack. This could come in handy.
“No, sorry. 16,” he answered. “My uncle’s. It’s pretty old, and real hard to
find ammo for.”
“I had the same problem,” she said, making conversation out of habit. She
hadn’t had anyone to talk to but Joel for months. Wearily, bitterly, she knew
that Joel would probably kill this man in another minute or two, so she had
decided to make the most of it while she could.
The gaunt man told them that he was just looking for someplace warm to stay for
a few days, not very long, just until he could get his strength back. This town
looked pretty big, right?
“No, it’s small. Real small,” Joel warned. “Barely enough room for the two of
us. Ain’t no place for you here.”
“Please, mister. Please,” the man begged. “I’ll stay in one of the buildings at
the other end of town. I won’t cross to this side. I won’t bother anyone. I
promise.”
“Keep walkin’, I said,” Joel snarled, impending violence in his voice.
Ellie said nothing. Once, she would have wanted to help a stranger in need. She
would have argued with Joel about the scene unfolding in front of her. Now
things are different. She didn’t know this man; that made him a danger.
“You came from Kittredge?” she asked. It had been a longer winter. She had
memorized the maps in Joel’s pack, as much from boredom as curiosity.
“That’s right,” he nodded, smiling a little, hoping he could connect with this
girl before the man killed him. Maybe they’d let him stay if he could make a
friend of her. “Before that, I was staying in Foxton, with some good people.
Been there the last few years. But we got hit by these guys in trucks. Ex-army,
I think. Markings on their trucks said thay came from Denver. No QZ there, not
anymore. Not for years. Buncha bandits, now. We held ‘em off until they finally
gave up and left. But our barricades were all smashed up and the fences were
down. Infected got in. I barely made it out. I’ve been on the road ever sinc-“
”No one asked you for your life story,” Joel barked. “We asked you to leave.
Now are you gonna walk out of here peaceably? Of do you want this to go a
different way?”
“I’ll go. I’ll go,” he sighed forlornly, slumping further into his ragged, ill-
fitting clothes.
Joel and Ellie followed closely behind as they escorted him and his dog back
the way they had came, retracing his footsteps to the edge of town.
“Start walkin’.” Joel would kill this man for the slightest reason; his voice
made that clear.
The man risked a look back over his shoulder at the girl. “Can I have my gun
back? It’s empty. But I might be able to bluff my way out of trouble if I had
it.”
Ellie glanced sidelong at Joel, the old shotgun in one hand, her pistol in the
other, still leveled at the stranger. Joel gave a quick shake of his head. It
was their gun now. But Ellie had her limits as to how much suffering she was
prepared to inflict on someone who’s only proven crime was the unforgivable sin
of being a stranger.
With all her strength, grunting with the effort of it, she spun in a circle and
hurled the gun out into the ocean of snow beyond edge of town. The weapon flew
a fair distance before landing. It made a large, obvious hole in the sea of
white; a smooth surface marred only by the tracks leading into Dumont,
Colorado, those of the man and the dog.
“Pick it up on your way out,” she said. She ignored Joel’s hard look of
disapproval.
“Thanks,” the man mumbled, weary but grateful.
He turned to trudge away.
“Don’t go north,” Ellie said suddenly. “There’s a place up there, around
Nederland and the Eldora Mountain Resort. It’s full of cannibals.”
“Jesus,” the ragged man muttered, utterly without hope.
The can of Spaghetti-O’s she’d found in the store was still bulging heavily in
her pocket. Seemingly on a whim, she pulled it out of her jacket.
“Here,” she said. “For you and your dog.”
She tossed it to him. He caught it. Holding it with both hands, as though it
might fly away like manna returning to heaven, he looked at the can, and then
at her, but not at Joel.
For a moment, it seemed as though the shambling, pathetic stick figure might
cry. He nodded gravely. His voice cracked when he spoke. This girl had returned
his gun. She had given him food. This was the only kindness anyone had shown
him in ages. It wasn’t a kind world anymore.
“God bless you.”
“Yeah,” she answered flatly. “Sure.” Her pistol remained pointed at him.
She stood there with Joel, watching the shuffling figures of the man and the
dog get smaller and smaller against the expanse of white.
“Can we go back inside now?” she asked. She hated what she had done, even if
she understood the brutal necessity of it.
“Not until we can’t see him no more. Not so much as a damn speck. Then we wait
a little while longer, just to make sure.”
She didn’t say anything. She waited and watched, cold.
The man never came back. Two days later, another heavy snow fell over Dumont.
The tracks disappeared and it was as though the man had never existed at all.
It was snowing so heavily that a late-evening light crept in through the window
even though it was noontime. The sun was up there somewhere, but she couldn’t
locate it precisely. There was nothing but a fuzzy, diffuse glow, a large
smudge of slightly whiter white in the middle of the enormous, low canopy of
white that blanketed the world outside. The rechargeable LED camp light sat
near the window, vainly trying to capture enough solar rays to be useful when
night fell. It wouldn’t be, and Joel knew it. He had a ‘Plan B’ though. He
usually did.
He had a box of crayons and some paper clips. Joel used Ellie’s knife to cut a
string from the old cotton mop in the janitor’s closet downstairs. He took
three crayons, peeled off the wrappers, pushed them against each other and
threaded the cotton string through the gap in the center. He had the girl bind
the cluster together with a few paper clips and lit the string. And just like
that: A candle.
Glum as she was, Ellie was nevertheless impressed. She’d used crayons since she
was a little girl, but this usage had never occurred to her before. “That… is
pretty fucking cool, Joel.”
“Yeah, I’m a regular MacGyver.”
“A regular McWho?”
“Guy who used to be on TV. He would fight robots and terrorists with bombs he
made out of candy bars and bug spray and tin foil… I don’t remember all the
ingredients. Maple syrup, maybe? Bathroom tile cleaner? I don’t know.”
“Are… are you making that up?”
“Yeah,” he said. It was easier than trying to convince her that such a show had
actually existed. His mom had watched reruns of it all the time. He wished he’d
paid more attention to the episode where MacGyver had made a big batch of
plastic explosive in a washing machine from shit he’d found laying around a
kitchen pantry.
He told her to sit the crayon-candle upright carefully in an old aluminum pie
pan. He said that each candle would burn about an hour or so. They would need
to make several to get through the long, dim days ahead.
While they worked on the batch of candles, there was pain in his eyes and his
eyes were for her, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. He watched her while
her deft fingers worked the paper clips around the crayons.
“Don’t look at me like that, Joel,” she grumped, not making eye contact, but
feeling his eyes on her all the same. “I’m fine, okay?”
He said nothing but looked away with a sort of weary sort of resignation.
Don’t give up on me.
She became frustrated with the thing she was doing. The paperclip didn’t want
to cooperate. She grimaced, forced it into place, cutting a deep gouge into the
side of the red crayon. She didn’t care.
It’s all going to melt away pretty soon anyway. Nothing lasts.
She sighed, disappointed in everything and everyone.
He always knows what to say… and what to do… Why can’t he say the thing I need
to hear… whatever that is?
I don’t want him to say anything… unless it’s the right thing… but I don’t know
what that is…
She grunted, irritated, as she worked.
I’m not a monster for what I did… I’m not like those… people.
I’m still me.
Right?
I have to be more like him. He kills when he has to… and that’s what I did. I
killed those people… I killed him… because I had to… because of what he was
going to do to me… I had to do it… and he deserved to die… and I didn’t deserve
to be raped and shit… so I did what I did… and he had it coming… Right, Joel?
And I let that poor guy and his dog have some food because that was the right
thing to do too. Right?
Right?
“Right,” Joel said through the closed door of the bathroom. “But you gotta make
sure you put that little pinhole in the lid first. It won’t work without it,
but if the hole’s too big, then it’s just gonna burn up like normal, and you
won’t get any charcloth out of it.”
In the light of the clear day streaming in the through the frosted-over window,
Ellie studied the little round tin of shoe polish and the small squares of
blackened cloth that Joel had baked inside it earlier that morning. She held it
close to her eyes, taking in every detail.
“And just one little spark will light this stuff?” she asked, a little
incredulously. The little squares had been an old t-shirt before Joel had taken
the scissors to it. He’d placed the pieces inside the small tin, stacked flat,
not curled up, which was important for some reason. Then he’d used a nail to
poke a teeny hole in the lid of the can. After that, he’d placed the sealed can
down in the firepit and let it sit down there until smoke had stopped trickling
out of the little hole. Then he’d flipped it over and left it down there until
it had stopped smoking a second time. He’d fished it out with a pair of metal
salad tongs, and when it had cooled off, he’d opened it up and taken the rigid
black squares out of the can. He said that this stuff was even better than
dryer lint for starting fires, but she was still skeptical. The cloth wasn’t
brittle or flaking or anything, but it looked like it was already burned up.
How could it burn a second time when it’s all black and sooty like this?
“Sure will,” Joel answered. She could hear him pouring the bucket of bathwater
into the toilet. He’d finished with his sponge bath. It would be her turn in a
minute. “It’s not a big flame, but it burns steady.”
The door opened. She sat the tin on the windowsill and discretely watched as
Joel emerged from his bath. A towel was wrapped around his waist. His hair was
wet and tangled. He needed a haircut. They both did. Warm, moist air wafted out
to her.
“You hit it with a spark, wrap it up in a tinder plug,” he continued to
explain, standing in the doorway, rubbing a smaller hand towel through his
hair. “Then all you have to –“
“Hush,” she snarked, pulling at his wet arm, trying to get him out of the
doorway. “Tell me all about your lumberjack magic later. You’re letting all the
warm air escape.”
“This is important stuff,” he chuckled, grabbing onto both sides of the
doorframe with his hands, spreading his legs, blocking her from getting inside
the warm room. “You need to hear this.”
She cackled, tried to squeeze around him, glad that he was being playful with
her, and doing her best not to notice how near to being naked he was. The towel
began to slip, she might have been helping it come loose, working her shoulder
against his waist, just a little, and very discreetly.
“Gonna kick you in the balls in a second,” she laughed.
“Be nice now.”
“You oughta be nice to me,” she teased. “Or I won’t let you take the first bath
anymore.”
“You aint’ foolin’ me, girl. You only want me to go first so I get the bathroom
all warmed up for you.”
“Shit! You’re onto me!” she laughed, genuinely happy today, without rhyme or
reason, She struggled, trying to squeeze through the door, but he wouldn’t step
aside. She laughed, squirmed against him, turned him on. She didn’t see the
masculine peak forming at the front of his towel. Her eyes were on the bathroom
countertop, where her fresh clothes and towels were piled neatly, a warm bucket
of water next to them. A pair of hot rocks, recently plucked from the fire pit,
simmered at the bottom of a metal pail on the floor. She slapped futilely at
his flank and his ass as he pressed against her, making a vice of his hip and
the doorframe. Squeezed and trapped, she squeaked and struggled adorably.
“Thought I had you fooled, dude.”
“I’m not stupid,” he said.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” she answered. He gave her ponytail a playful tug
as he eased over and let her pass. She squealed and giggled, slapping at his
wet hand.
He yanked her hair until she hissed through her teeth.
“You’ve got a name,” he said. “Nobody goes around without a name. Now tell me
your name, girl.”
“Kiss my ass,” she grunted, up on her toes, shoes squeaking on the hardwood
floor, squirming, trying to keep her hair from being torn out at the roots.
“I’ll do more than that,” he threatened. “You have no idea what I’m capable
of.”
“Fuck you,” she groaned as he released her hair, letting her ease down onto her
feet.
“Almost what I had in mind,” he leered. “But not quite. C’mere. I’m gonna show
you something.”
He grabbed her by the wrist and dragged the girl down the hall of the old
house, towards the closed door of the master bedroom. He threw the door open
and Ellie’s heart plunged.
A naked man was tied to the bed on all fours, his wrists held in place by ropes
looped around the bedposts, a black bag over his head, cinched around his neck,
his ass up in the air, rope around his knees, bound to the bed frame beneath,
keeping him in place, keeping him ready for this moment.
“Oh no,” she moaned.
“Ain’t you I’m gonna fuck, little girl,” he crowed, slapping the naked man’s
ass, making the prisoner flinch. “It’s your friend here that’s getting my cock
in his ass. All you have to do is watch.”
“No,” she whimpered.
David unzipped his pants. It flopped out; already well on its way to being
hard.
“Don’t have to be this way, of course,” he said, climbing up onto the bed,
slapping his long, hard cock against the helpless man’s exposed ass cheeks.
“All you have to do is tell me your name and I’ll fuck you instead.”
The naked man strained, bucked. He didn’t want this but he couldn’t stop what
was about to happen.
“Who knows? I might even pull a few of those stitches out and fuck that hole
too,” David said, running a finger, crusted with dried blood, around the edge
of the unhealed wound. Ellie had put those stitches in herself. She blanched at
the vile thing David was suggesting. “Bet that hole right there’ll be even
tighter than the juicy little one you got between your legs, little girl.”
He lined up his erection with the man’s anus, pressing lightly, ready to enter.
The man stopped squirming, frozen with terror.
“What’s it going to be, little angel? You gonna tell me your name? Or do you
want to watch me fuck your friend here?”
Ellie tried to speak. No sound would come out. Her throat was paralyzed.
“I was kinda hoping that’s what you’d do,” David leered. With a grunt, he began
to push his way into the tight confines of the naked man’s unwilling ass.
“Figured you as just the kind of girl who’d like to watch. Glad to see I was
right about you.”
Ellie’s fingers were fumbling with the front of her jeans. The naked man was
moaning and grunting inside his hood. David was smiling, staring into her soul,
violating her by raping someone else.
Her hands were inside her panties. The naked man was crying. David was
thrusting hard, making sure she could feel every stroke of the assault. She
rubbed her clit, matching the tempo David set, trying to share the degradation
of the rape with the prisoner.
“I love a dirty girl like you,” David winked. “You’re my kind, Ellie.”
She began to cry. He knew. He had known all along. In a minute she was going to
come, and so was David, and so was Joel. They would all come together and then
the world would end. Her clothes were soaked. She tried to strip them off. It
wasn’t easy. Her hand refused to stay away from her pussy for very long. She
stepped out of them, kicked them aside. She never stopped looking at the men on
the bed. David was giving it to Joel like a merciless machine, pounding and
pounding and pounding. Joel’s naked body was slammed back and forth with the
intensity of it. His hard dick bobbed up and down. His balls swung back and
forth. He was making wild, ecstatic sounds inside his hood, muffled sounds of
debased, mortifying, wailing lust. His cock was purple and red and hard,
swinging back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, ready to
burst, to spray a gusher of cum all over the bed. David was still clothed, even
wearing his boots and jacket. Only Ellie and Joel were naked. Clothes were for
people. Livestock didn’t get clothes. Ellie and Joel were for breeding now. She
knew she would be next. After David finished with Joel, after he made the
naked, bound man shoot his load everywhere, it would be Ellie’s turn.
“It’s going in your ass too, same as his,” David said, reading her mind, a vile
grin on his sweaty face. “Figure I’ll just stack you up on top of him and fuck
you that way. I want him to feel it when I make you come, Ellie.”
Ellie was almost there. Her legs were shaking. She couldn’t stand up much
longer. She was working her pussy frantically with both hands, watching Joel,
watching him take that big cock in his ass, thrust after thrust, until finally
he bellowed like a broken, tamed animal and thick, white jets erupted from him,
spraying all over the bed. Ellie came too, climaxing harder than she ever had
before. She cried out. Joel heard her. It was too much. He shuddered, panted,
went limp. But he couldn’t lay down. His sweaty, exhausted body was held in
place by the ropes.
“C’mon, Ellie,” David said, patting Joel’s slick, shiny rump. “Get on up here.
It’s your turn.”
“All right,” she nodded, and stepped towards the men, ready to mount Joel,
ready to be mounted by David.
“Up and over, yeah?” Joel said, his fingers interlaced, his back to the tall
chain link fence.
She placed her foot in his hands, trusting him to get her to the top in one
smooth attempt. Joel was strong again. His wound had healed nicely. With Doctor
Ellie’s permission, he did sit ups and pushups every day now. She exercised
right alongside him, of course, though she couldn’t manage as many reps as he
could, and she did her pushups girly-style, on her knees, which she insisted
was the most badass way to do them.
“I’m ready,” she said and he sent her skyward with powerful muscles. She loved
how strong he was. She scrambled over the top of the fence and dropped down
into the enclosure of the fenced-in parking lot of the farm supply store.
The neatly mowed green grass was warm and soft beneath her naked feet when she
landed.
She was nude. All the girls here were nude. Girls didn’t get clothes. They
didn’t need them. Girls were meant to be looked at. Clothes just got in the way
of that.
“What are you doing?” Melody asked. Her hair was blonde, and she had always
denied bleaching it, but the chestnut hair between her legs told a different
story. “Why didn’t you get away? Why did you come back?”
“Didn’t know where else to go,” Ellie shrugged. Unlike Melody, her hair color
was natural. Everyone here could see it. Cherry Jackson was here, on the other
side of the corral. She was a natural redhead too. She nodded to Ellie. The
girl nodded back. True redheads were rare. They had to stick together.
“Found our missing heifer,” one of the guards said from the catwalk overhead.
He spoke into a radio. He was wearing the black uniform and body armor of a
soldier. All the men on the catwalk were soldiers. Women couldn’t be soldiers.
Women didn’t deserve to be anything more than what they are: beautiful
livestock.
“She didn’t get away?” the voice on the other end of the radio asked.
“Nah,” the solider said. “She’s too dumb to do anything that smart.”
“Well, that’s cause she’s don’t got a dick,” the radio replied.
The soldier laughed. Ellie sighed. She knew he was right. She was just a girl.
She was stupid. All livestock was stupid.
Ellie milled about in the sun, naked, easily getting lost among all the other
nude women and girls. She recognized many of them. Riley was there. They tried
to talk to each other but were told to shut up by one of the handlers on the
walkway overhead. They didn’t dare talk after that. They just stood in the sun,
milling around with the other girls. Meat wasn’t allowed to talk. Only people
got to talk. Girls weren’t people.
Every so often, a girl or woman was separated from the herd and taken away to
be processed. Ellie watched them go, one at a time. None of the other livestock
seemed to take notice of this except her. She sighed. She had always been too
smart for her own good. Life would have been a lot easier for her if she’d been
born dumb, like all the other ones.
Eventually Ellie felt the poke of a handler’s pole. She was herded inside the
door, guided along by a man on the catwalk until she was safely inside the
structure and the door closed behind her. A man in a long rubber apron and face
shield motioned her over. She plodded to him. He held a garden hose in his
hands. She was sprayed clean with cold water and hung from a Y-shaped metal
apparatus that descended from an overhead track, one prong of the Y passing
under each armpit. She was lifted off the ground and the height of the harness
was adjusted until her toes were a good six inches above the floor. The metal
device moved along its track in the ceiling, taking her through a hole in the
wall and on to the next station. The man there had a giant electric knife. He
sliced her legs off at the upper thigh, first the left, then the right. It
didn’t hurt. She didn’t bleed. She watched the legs fall away with a mild
interest. They lay there below her and she thought that she’d had nice legs.
Strong and toned, and not a bad length. Shapely. She was going to miss those
legs. A young boy gathered the limbs up, one at a time, and tossed them into a
large metal roll-around bin, filled with other legs. She read the label on the
bin. She wasn’t supposed to know how to read. Girls weren’t supposed to be
taught such things. But Ellie knew how. Her mom had shown her how in secret,
back before her mom had been taken inside this same building, years and years
ago.
         DRUMSTICKS & THIGHS
“Prime cut,” the boy said to the older man with the knife.
“Yep,” said the man. He patted Ellie’s firm ass admiringly, two ripe curves
rippled over the empty air where legs had been hanging just a minute ago. “This
one’s had a lot of exercise. Not a lot of fat in this meat. Good and lean.
Always a market for lean meat.”
The device she was suspended from rattled back into life, carrying her on to
the next station down the line. She swung more noticeably, being much lighter
now. When the machine clanked to a stop again, she felt like a yo-yo, swinging
back and forth in one of those cool tricks that she’d always meant to learn how
to do but never got around to for some reason or other. It was her own fault,
really. Livestock had lots of time to play.
The man at this station had to reach out and steady her.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Shh,” he replied, not unkindly. “Meat doesn’t talk.”
He had an electric knife too. He used it to remove her arms, closer to the
shoulder than the elbow, one at a time. She watched as he cut them away, saw
how they tumbled to the floor. No blood. No pain. Another boy was there. He
looked like the older man. She wondered if the man with the knife was the
father of the boy. He watched with obvious pride as the boy quickly and
efficiently gathered up her discarded arms. The one with the bite mark he
tossed into the bin marked ‘grind for animal feed’. The other, unmarred arm he
tossed into the bin with all the other arms. It didn’t hurt, but it felt
strange to have no limbs at all. She thought that she was going to miss her
arms more than her legs, but it might have been to early to say with certainty.
Things were to be different now, she was sure of that much. The overhead
mechanism jerked back into life and she was carried on down the line. She
passed a long line of machines and butchers in leather aprons, processing the
haul that had been collected today. Each cut of meat was efficiently removed
from the bone. Some of the meat was processed into strips, other cuts were
ground into giant mounds of soft meat, still other cuts were dumped into giant
vats to be boiled. Some of the processed meat was placed into little white
styrofoam trays and wrapped neatly with plastic film. Some was packed into cans
and cooked under pressure, where it would remain edible for years to come. Some
of it was placed on giant racks to be seasoned and grilled and served up hot
and fresh to the men working in the factory. They worked hard here. They
deserved a good meal. She thought she recognized one of the thighs rolling
along on a conveyor belt towards a deboner/shredder. She was almost certain
that it was one of hers. Her left thigh. The machine carried her along, around
the last corner of the track. She bounced and sways in the straps and arms of
the metal cradle holding her secure under her armpits. She was very light now
and swung back and forth in a way that was almost comforting, like she was
being rocked gently by the mother that had been taken from her too young. She
wondered how much she weighed now. No more than half of what she did before;
probably even less than that. A man waited at the end of the line. There was no
boy here. He worked alone. Such a solitary post. He probably never had any
children, she realized. She felt a little sad for him. This must be lonely
work. He reached out to her with big strong hands. They felt good on her body;
she felt safe as he held her firm and lifted her from the hooks that had
carried her all this way. His thumbs were tantalizingly close to her breasts
and she tried not to blush. She hadn’t really felt naked until this moment,
even though all of her increasingly diminishing body had been on display since
the start. He could see all of her – all that was left of her, anyway. He laid
her on the cutting table and took up his electric knife. With a quick slice,
her head came away from her body and rolled away, dangerously close to the
edge. She had a good view of the rest of the procedure now. He carved her torso
in half, separating the tasty haunches and loins from the breasts and chops.
The organ meats he scooped out would be turned into sausage. It went into a bin
for now. Nothing would go to waste except the head. It was a girl’s head. There
was nothing in there of use to anyone. He picked up all that was left of her in
his gloved hands. She felt like a bowling ball.
“See ya,” she said, getting a wan smile from him. His was a lonely job. She
wanted to brighten his day a little.
“See ya,” he said.
He turned at the waist and dropped her head down the chute marked ‘Scrap –
Disposal’. She disappeared into the darkness, rolling and tumbling easily along
the cold metal of the slide, giggling all the way into the blackness. It was
like an amusement park. Or the closest meat like her would ever get to such a
place. Meat didn’t get to have fun. Meat was just for food.
Her little red head tumbled and tumbled down the chute. The stomach she no
longer had began to do flip-flops.
“Fuck!” she hissed. “Gonna spew!”
She vomited into the snow, a thick yellow-orange spray that stained the
pristine surface.
She coughed, hacked, and spit the last traces of it out of her mouth.
“Guh!” she wheezed.
“You don’t have to watch this, Ellie,” Joel said. “Maybe it’s too much. It’s
okay if you want to go back to camp. You can get the fire started for me while
I finish this up.”
“No,” Ellie grumbled, on one knee, fumbling around in her pack for her water
bottle. “No, I need to know how to do this.”
She stood, turned, faced Joel where he knelt in the snow, big kitchen knife in
hand. The dead deer lay on it’s back, all four limbs spread wide and held in
place by heavy twine tied around scrounged tent pegs hammered into the frozen
ground. The deer’s belly was open, slit from ribcage to anus. The newly exposed
organs inside were still warm enough to steam in the cold air. Joel was ready
to start pulling the entrails out. He’d said it would have been better if
they’d had a good rope to hand the animal from a tree branch.
If we had a rope, we could just place a big trashcan under it and just let the
organs fall out. That’s what he said.
That made me puke for some reason.
“Bigger job than a rabbit,” she said. “I’m pretty good with those. But I’ve
never… gutted a deer before. ‘Bout time I learn how, right?”
“You don’t have to, Ellie,” he said, putting the knife aside. A large pair of
leather gloves was tucked into his belt.
“Yes, I do,” she said flatly. She’d scrounged up a pair of seagreen dishwashing
gloves just for work like this. She tugged them out of her jacket pocket and
worked them onto her hands. She held her gloved hands up for him to see,
waggled her fingers. “Ready to work, boss.”
Joel smirked at the sight of her rubber gloves. “You plannin’ on washin’ dishes
tonight?”
The water was hot and soapy. The suds were a thick layer floating on top.
“Ooh! Hot!” she squeaked.
“Get in there, girl,” Dad said. “You need a bath.”
She grinned, trying not to wince as she sank her other foot into the steaming
water hiding under the foam. She stood in the tub. She was naked. She was
adopted too. Just nine years old, but her years spent at the orphanage had
seemed like a lifetime. Her new dad leaned against the edge of the long
countertop. The mirror behind him was steamed up. He crossed his arms. He wore
a sweater and khaki slacks.
Isn't he hot wearing that stuff in here? But that's just how grownups dress, I
guess.
“You don’t have to stand there and watch,” she said with a roll of her eyes. A
week she’d lived with her new dad, and he always watched her bathe.
Is that weird? I don’t know.
I’m glad he does it though. But I don’t know why. I just like him being in here
with me for some reason.
She blushed and stirred the foamy water with her foot. She looked at the soap
and washcloth waiting for her in the little tray built into the side of the
tiled wall.
“Gotta make sure you actually take a bath,” he said in his slow, deep, drawling
voice.
I love how he talks.
“The nuns told me how you are. They said they practically had to carry you into
the bathroom and hold you down in the tub to get you cleaned up.”
“I’m a cat,” she grinned.
“You’re a dirty cat,” he chuckled. “Sit down. Get your butt in the tub, girl.”
“Okay, Daddy,” she giggled and eased herself down into the waiting water. She
gasped as her butt was swallowed up in the hot foam. She hissed. “Shit!”
“Cussin’ will get you a paddlin’,” he warned.
“Everything gets me a paddling here,” she groused cutely, stretching out her
legs, leaning back, letting the hot water have everything below the waist.
Not that I’m complaining.
Is that weird? I like that he sets rules. It’s his house. And Sister Anne
always said I deserved every spanking she ever gave me.
But it’s different when he does it.
Really, really different.
“Shit,” she groaned again, trying not to smile too wickedly.
“That’s it,” he said firmly. “You’re gettin’ a spankin’ before bedtime tonight,
girl.”
“Awww,” she whined, feigning regret perfectly. “Daddy! C’mon! Please don’t
spank me! Not again!”
“Five licks,” he said, lovingly but without sympathy. “I swear, I’m gonna tuck
you in with a butt that’s on fire if you keep this up.”
“Damn it,” she whispered, leaning back ever more, resting her back against the
tub, submerged to the shoulders. She lifted one leg, bent the knee, rested her
foot against the edge.
“Ten licks,” he said.
“I’ll be good, Daddy,” she exhaled dreamily, enjoying the hot water now. “I
promise.”
“I know you will,” her dad said. “That’s why I keep spankin’ you. Gotta keep
you on the straight and narrow.”
She giggled. Minutes passed. Eventually she sat up and worked the soap into the
washcloth. He watched approvingly as she bathed.
“Doin’ good so far,” he nodded.
“Will you wash my hair in a minute, Daddy?” she asked, already knowing the
answer.
That’s my favorite part of bathtime, when you kneel by the tub and wash my hair
and my back and stuff. I like how your hands feel. Did you know that, Daddy? Am
I weird?
“Sure,” he said. “Happy to.”
“Thanks,” she grinned, washing her face, hiding her blushing cheeks behind the
soapy cloth. “I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you too, darlin’.”
Her heart raced. She bit her lower lip to keep her smile from getting too
large.
“Wash behind your ears,” he advised.
“I will,” she said, and quickly did so.
Outside, thunder rumbled. A storm was coming. Fire and smoke and blood were
going to rain down from the sky tonight.
Doesn’t matter. I’m safe in this house with my Dad. He won’t let anything
happen to me.
She ran the soapy washcloth around her chest, under her arms, over her ribs,
trying to get the places on her back that she could reach.
But not too much. I need to leave something for him to wash.
Thunder rumbled again.
“Storm’s comin’,” he remarked.
“Yep.”
She grinned and dared herself to ask another favor of him.
“I get r-really scared of storms and stuff,” she said, her voice wavering with
excitement. “Umm… C-can I sleep with you tonight, Daddy?”
“Sure,” he said, sounding just a little excited by the prospect. Or was she
just imaging that?
“Awesome,” she grinned, looking at him, lifting her leg higher out of the tub,
washing her thigh and calf and the back of her knee. “You’re the best, Dad.”
“Yes, I am,” he grinned and winked, making her giggle again. “But thank you for
noticin’.”
“Thank you for bringing me home from the orphanage,” she said sincerely,
smiling sweetly. She loved him. She loved him so very much. She lifted her
other leg out and his eyes flashed quickly to the wet, glistening skin of her
inner thigh before coming back to meet her eyes. Her stomach fluttered. She
blushed again. She looked down at the foam around her, shyly.
Why do I like him looking at me so much?
“You needed a home, girl,” he said warmly. “I needed you in my life. It all
just sorta worked out, I reckon.”
“I’m going to be the best daughter ever,” she nodded earnestly.
“I know you will,” he said. She could hear the love in his voice.
She washed her arms, hands, fingers, grinning happily, loved and cherished.
Home.
Family.
She exhaled contentedly, stretching, arching her back, unashamed. Water ran
down her flesh in little streams, making waterfalls along the length of her
outstretched arms. He watched her with dark, protective eyes.
She eased onto her side, reached back to wash her behind. She was turned away
from him. It was better this way. She suddenly felt too shy to see his face.
“Am I r-really getting ten swats tonight?” she asked over her shoulder, eyes
lowered, her voice trembling and nervous, just like her submerged belly.
“Damn right,” he said. “Got to stop you from cussin’.”
“But you cuss,” she answered impishly, sitting on her butt again, looking at
him from the corner of her demurred eyes. She wanted to gather the foam up
around her, hide her naked torso behind it, but she wasn’t sure why. Didn’t all
dads share bathtime with their daughters, adopted or otherwise? She didn’t
know, but she liked that he spent this time with her.
I don’t want it to stop. Not ever.
“I’m the dad,” he answered. “I can cuss as much as I want. And that’s five more
licks for sassin’ me.”
“Five more? That’s fifteen now!” she whined.
“Ten more on top of that, if you don’t stop the sass,” he smirked.
“I don’t even know what sass is!” she laughed, hiding her face in her hands,
embarrassed and excited and still not sure why. “You use all these words nobody
outside of Texas has ever heard before! It’s not fair! You’re so mean, Daddy!”
“Wellllll…. I reckon I can be… sometimes,” he chuckled. “But you’ll thank me
for it one of these days.”
She soaped up her toes. “Maybe I’ll just stay in this tub all night where you
can’t get to me.”
“Oh, I’ll get in there with you if I have to, girl.”
Her breath caught in her throat with a happy snorting-peeping sound.
“Daaaaaddyyy!” she protested, thrilled and confused, heart pounding.
“Up to you,” he shrugged with a smile. “But if you make me come in there after
you, your butt’s gonna regret it.”
She cackled, covered herself with both arms and scooted down, her butt sliding
along the bottom of the tub with a long, sustained, vibrating squeak. She did
her best to hide under the water. All of her body fit under the foam except her
knees, which stuck up like little islands as she hid. After a half-minute that
felt somehow like both an eternity and a heartbeat, she sat back up, inhaling
deeply. More peals of laughter poured out of her. Foam and water ran down her
face, half-hidden behind glossy ribbons of auburn hair.
“After you’re done havin’ a swim, Little Mermaid, we’ll eat some dinner,” Dad
said.
“‘Kay,” she grinned.
“Not hungry?” Joel asked, shoving a forkful of venison into his mouth. The day
was getting late. The shadows were long now. It would be time for bed very
soon.
“Not really,” she said, disinterested, poking at her lunch with a plastic
spork. She wouldn’t say why. He wouldn’t understand. Joel had never been meat
for anyone.
“Water’s hot,” he said idly, glancing at the large pot of water simmering and
steaming over the firepit. “Be good to be clean again.”
“Yeah.”
It was no longer evening. It was early morning. She didn’t remember when the
sun had come up. The days were blurring together. Everything was getting mixed
up in her head. Every plate and pot they had was dirty. They were downstairs,
in the janitor’s closet, washing their cookware in a big mop sink filled with
hot, sudsy water that they had boiled outside in the snow. There was not a lot
of room in there. They stood close together. She splashed him with foam,
flicking it from her fingers like a magic spell, making dark spots on his green
thermal underwear. Lately, whenever they decided to stay inside the whole day,
all they wore was their long underwear. She liked how he looked in them. They
hugged his body nicely, showing all his muscles. Boys had never been of much
interest to Ellie Williams. But Joel was different. Different in every way that
counted. He was patient, usually. Kind, most of the time. Gentle, when it
mattered. He had been gentle with her since he’d found her in the burning
steakhouse, rarely pressuring her, supporting her instead. She loved him for
it. She wanted to be better, back to who she had been before, so he could go
back to being a butthead sometimes, being a dick sometimes, just like she
liked, when she was in the mood for it, of course. She was trying as hard as
she could today to be normal again.
“Prismatic spray!” she said, casting a spell she kinda sorta remembered from
the old Dungeons & Dragons books she’d found back at the military school, the
super dorky ones that Riley had teased her about.
“You little brat,” Joel laughed, bringing up a foamy hand towards her face. One
finger was extended. Thick white dollops of bubbly suds dripped from it as he
reached for her nose.
“Ah! No!” she shrieked in delight, backed into the corner, trapped, unable to
squeeze around him and run for the door. Trapped. Helpless. At his mercy.
Mostly because she didn’t even try. “Don’t touch me with that! I don’t know
where that finger’s been!”
Joel laughed and waggled his wet finger closer to her cheek. She squealed and
recoiled from it, pushing at his hard, sexy chest with her wet, flailing hands.
Suds ran down her cheek. She loved how he felt under her fingers, broad muscles
flexing and working as he held her in place. She giggled and shrieked and
didn’t see that this was turning him on, just a little. Tight green underwear
couldn’t hide that sort of thing.
“No touching,” she said. “That wasn’t the deal.”
“I just want to feel how soft it is.”
“No way,” she said, feeling her hands shape themselves into fists. She made
sure to keep them down by her hips. Much as she wanted to, she couldn’t punch
the creepy asshole in the face. “We had a deal. I’d let you look. That’s all.
So go ahead. Look. There it is.”
“At least open your legs a little more.”
She sighed and forced herself to keep her hands in place by her naked hips. Her
pants and underwear were wadded up around her ankles as she leaned against the
hard edge of the bathroom counter.
“Hop up there, alright?” he asked, patting the countertop with the flat of his
palm.
“What the fuck for?” she asked.
“Have a seat. That way I can see it better.”
“Oh, fine. If that’s what it’ll take to get this over with.”
She was short. She had to jump up to get her butt onto the cold countertop. She
scooted back; her bottom was perched over the basin of the sink.
“That’s a good girl,” he said in his high, raspy voice, inching closer on his
knees to see better.
Her feet dangled well above the floor. She wanted to kick him. Instead she
opened her legs just a little wider.
“There it is,” she grumped. “That’s all the cooch I’ve brought with me today.
Satisfied?”
“C’mon,” he whined. “Lemme touch it. Just a little.”
“Nope.”
“Damn it,” he muttered. “It’s just so damn pretty. You know?”
“If you say so,” she said.
“It is. Prettiest one I ever seen, and that’s no lie.”
“Gross. What does that even mean? I… What? Do you look at a lot of these
things?”
“Every chance I get,” he whispered, entranced by what she was showing him. It
was weird how hypnotized he seemed to be. She didn’t quite see what was so
special about it – either hers or anyone else’s. Girl parts were all the same.
Every girl had them, right? Boys were so fucking weird.
The ceramic ring of the sink’s edge was cold underneath her bare bottom. She
wiggled in place, her legs wide open, her butt hanging in the empty air of the
sink’s bowl, a faucet poking into the small of her back. She couldn’t get
comfortable.
“Don’t move,” he said. “I’m still looking. Keep still.”
“Easy for you to say,” she grumbled. “You’re not the one trying to sit like
this. And how much longer do you plan to stare? You’ve seen pretty much all
there is to see, don’t you think?”
“Hold it open for me,” he said, the idea occurring to him suddenly.
“What?” she squawked. “No way!”
“Do it,” he urged. “Hold it open. I can’t see anything with it like this. I
want to see all of it. Lemme see inside.”
“You can see plenty, buddy! I’m not doing that!”
“Open it up for me and I’ll give you two bottles.”
She said nothing. Her silence told him she was considering his offer.
“Three,” he said, looking up at her from where he was kneeling on the bathroom
floor. This was the first time he had actually looked her in the face since she
had pulled her pants down and spread her legs. “Three bottles of medicine if
you show me everything.”
Everything about this creepy old man skeeved her out. His hair was unkempt. His
beard was tangled. His breath smelled like rotten meat. But he had the
antibiotics she needed. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t behaved himself so far.
All he wanted to do was look. No harm in looking, right? It was just the two of
them in this old house. No one would ever know. She would get the medicine and
then she could go back to Joel and pretend this stuff had never happened.
With a deep sigh, she relented. She leaned back against the mirror and tugged
her favorite red t-shirt up her belly, away from her naked crotch, and wadded
it in place beneath her bra. She reached down her stomach, feeling her way past
auburn curls, until her fingers found their place. She remembered the Bed and
Breakfast, sitting on the edge of the sink, her pubic hair shaved off after a
day spent pestering Joel to help her with the experiment. Joel had been on his
knees, between her open legs. He had washed her doubly bare flesh clean. Then
he had held a mirror for her to see. She had never seen her own twat before.
Not from that angle, anyway. And certainly not all hairless and smooth like
that. Then Joel had put the mirror away and placed his mouth on her baby smooth
sex. It was the first time he’d gone down on her and it had been heavenly. This
was not. This was uncomfortable and embarrassing. But it was necessary too. She
sighed silently and parted her outer labia like curtains revealing a stage. The
show must go on.
“Ohhh… There you go,” the creep whispered. “That’s real nice. Mmm-mm.
Beautiful, that’s what it is.”
“If you say so,” she mumbled, mortified. She’d do anything for Joel. Anything
in the world. Anything except ever tell him that she had done this, of course.
“Don’t by shy about it. C’mon now. Spread those sweet lips of yours wide. Real
wide,” he said, transfixed, excited. “And lean back more. I want to see all of
what you got there. I want to see everything.”
“Fine,” she grumbled. She didn’t want to do it, but she had to, so she did,
pulling the skin tightly, spreading it, holding her twat as open as far it
would comfortably go, which she was surprised to learn was quite a bit as it
turned out. She showed all the boys what they had paid Riley so much to see.
“Take a good look, jerks.”
“Oh wow,” said one. “You can see everything.”
“It’s so… pink,” said another.
“Of course it is. You paid to see some pink, kids,” The other girl in this room
said coolly. “And Riley Abel always delivers.”
Ellie shot her friend a dirty look. The older girl stood beside the closed door
of the bathroom, guarding it, making sure nobody came in. Nobody who didn’t pay
to see the show, naturally. This was the second floor, where all the freshmen
boys lived. They were just getting interested in girls and Riley knew a
lucrative market when she saw one.
“Is… is that where…” began one boy, tentatively, never taking his eyes of it.
“Is that where you stick it in?”
“Tell him, Ellie.” Riley’s tone was both mean and playful.
Ellie sighed, trying hard to be a good sport about this. She always got her
share of the loot, so long as she put on a good show. If she didn’t do a good
job, she wouldn’t get anything, which hardly seemed fair, but Riley made the
rules. Riley was the boss. Ellie just showed the goods.
“It’s not where you get to stick it in, kid,” she said in a pleasantly brittle
voice, talking mostly through her teeth. “But, yeah, that’s where it goes in.”
“And what’s that one up there? That little hole?” Yet another boy asked,
peering, studying. How many boys were in the bathroom-turned-peepshow this
time? A dozen? Twenty? More? It was the biggest audience she and Riley had ever
had. Word had spread since they’d started putting on this secret show. All the
dorms were talking about it. Ellie was something of a celebrity now, especially
among the younger boys in the school.
“Good question, kid. What is that little hole for, Ellie?” Riley asked,
teasing.
“That’s…” Ellie began icily, keeping her smile in place. “That’s where I pee
from. Okay?”
“Really? Cool!”
“I wanna see her pee!” one of the boys said.
“Me too!” said another. “She can pee in the sink. She’s sitting right there!”
“Hey, yeah! It won’t make a mess!”
“Tell her to pee, Riley!”
“Yeah! Do it!”
“I don’t know, boys… That kind of stuff costs extra,” Riley said, rubbing her
knuckles on her blue uniform, polishing them for inspection. She blew on them
for good measure, cool as hell, just like always.
“Riley!” Ellie hissed. This was going too far. They’d put on this show in at
least one bathroom in each of the three dormitories and a few of the classrooms
too. It was a peepshow, sure, but it wasn’t supposed to be anything more than
that. What these boys wanted was simply too much.
“How much extra?” someone asked.
“Another packet of M&Ms. Or a wine cooler,” Riley answered.
One of the boys ran out of the bathroom at a full sprint.
“Rileeeeey!” Ellie lamented plaintively. She didn’t want to do this. Or maybe
she just wanted to put up a fight first. She reached out to Riley with open
hands, imploring.
“Hey! Make her hold it open again, Riley!” a boy shouted.
“Yeah!” said another. “We can’t see!”
“I wasn’t done looking!”
Exhaling heavily, Ellie did it without being told. The withering look she
received from Riley was more than enough motivation. She opened herself,
parting the curtains of her little stage once more. “There. Happy?”
“Wow.”
“It’s so… complicated in there.”
“I thought it would just be… y’know… a hole. Not like this.”
“It’s cool though, huh?”
“Sure is.”
“The show must go on,” Ellie muttered.
“What’s that thing? Up there.” the youngest boy asked, his finger pointing but
not touching. Touching would bring on the mother of all beatings. Riley had
made that rule very clear before the show had started.
“That’s her clit, dummy,” one of them said. “It’s what girls have instead of a
boner.”
“Why’s it sticking out like that? It wasn’t doing that a minute ago.”
“Good question, Ellie,” Riley said. “Why is it sticking out like that? Gosh!
What’s going on in there? Are you okay?”
Ellie said nothing. She looked away, red faced, embarrassed.
“Oh! Look, boys!” Riley teased, “I think it’s getting wet in there too! See how
shiny it’s getting. Like dewdrops.”
“Hey! She’s right!”
“It’s so puffy now!”
“Look! It’s sorta changing color!”
“Why is it getting all wet like that? Is she sweating or something?”
Riley laughed. “Oh, yeah. My girl’s getting hot. That’s for sure.”
Ellie wanted to fix Riley with a stare that would make her cruel friend explode
into chunky bits of greedy smugness but she didn’t dare. At least twenty boys
were all clustered around the sink where she was sitting, all of them staring
intently at her pussy, held open for all to see by her two shaking hands. The
only person in the room staring at Ellie’s face was Riley, and the younger girl
didn’t have the courage to meet those dark, smoldering eyes. Her own green
irises were open wide, another uncontrollable sign of her rising arousal. She
didn’t want Riley to see how much she was enjoying this degradation. Riley
knew, of course, but Ellie had to hang on to whatever scraps of dignity she
still had, even if they were only imaginary at this point.
A single drop of moisture dangled from her taut pink folds, wobbled there for a
long, humiliating moment, before falling into the sink with an audible plop.
Ellie swallowed loudly. Her dignity was gone now. Officially. Everyone knew she
was a dirty, shameless girl now.
All the boys gasped. Riley chuckled.
“Did you see that?”
“Is that pee? Or sweat? Or what?”
The boy who had left earlier returned. He handed Riley a yellow packet of
peanut M&Ms.
“Here,” Ellie heard the kid say. “Now make her do it, Riley. We wanna see what
it looks like when a girl pees.”
“Riley,” Ellie whispered, begging, scared, her slick fingers trembling, trying
to hold her swollen, dripping pussy open for the eager young audience that had
paid to see it.
“What can I tell you? Little man met my price, Boo,” Riley shrugged. “Gotta
give the audience what they paid for. Try to keep it all in the sink okay? You
let that thing get out of control and spray the audience and I’ll have to
charge ‘em extra.”
The boys laughed, excited, nervous, anticipating. They leaned in close,
crowding around her, pushing over one another. She could feel the heat from
their bodies on her belly and inner thighs.
“riley” she whispered, defeated, insecure.
Riley said nothing. She just pointed to the sink basin waiting beneath Ellie’s
pussy.
Ellie trembled. Her breaths came in short, quick gulps. She had to do it. She
didn’t want them to see. They were just a bunch of stupid boys. They shouldn’t
see this. She shouldn’t do it. But she couldn’t stop it. She didn’t want to let
them see. She didn’t want them to look away. She didn’t want to stop. She
couldn’t stop.
“Holy cow!”
“Look!”
“She’s really doing it!”
“Mmmmffff!” she grunted, humiliated, obeying, performing, showing, spraying,
climaxing.
Ellie shivered. She was wet from head to toe. The bathroom was cold. She’d been
in here too long. In a few minutes, Joel was going to tap on the door and ask
her if she had fallen in or something. She tried to breathe normally. She tried
not to make a sound. She dabbed at her dribbling twat with a wad of toilet
paper. She’d woken up to a dirty dream that morning and it had been tugging at
the corners of her mind ever since.
“I’m fucking lucky I didn’t piss the bed before I woke up,” she grumbled
quietly, standing up, pulling her panties back into place.
She poured the last bucket of her sponge bath into the toilet, the dirty water
flushing her piss away. She wished her shame would disappear with it. She
toweled off and tried not to think about the places her mind had been going to
lately. It was no use.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” she mumbled, stepping into her thermal
bottoms one leg at a time, tugging them up around her hips. She pulled the
matching top down over her head and wiggled her arms through the sleeves. She
dragged her wet hair through the collar, and let it plaster itself to her back
and face. She didn’t care. She wanted out of this bathroom. She could comb it
later. Or not. Didn’t matter. “I’m horny all the time now and all my dreams are
gross and weird.”
A vivid flash of a green forest. Squatting down in the tall grass, in the shade
of a tall tree. The red helmet was on her head. Pistol in one hand. Giant roll
of toiler paper in the other. A full bladder. Joel was on the Honda, somewhere
faraway, down the hill, at the edge of the road. A truck was coming. A truck
full of soldiers. He was going to leave her alone. He’d drive away and she’d be
left on the side of the road. No one would ever find her. No one would ever
care. She blinked, and the memory was gone. She stepped out of the bathroom,
back into the big room she shared with Joel. Her pussy was still throbbing. It
wanted more of her fingers. It needed to come again. Once was not enough. She
was starting to hate her pussy. It didn’t feel like it was even attached to her
some days. It was a thing she was carrying around for some other girl, a happy
girl who used to be here but she was gone now and only this sad girl remained.
“Hey,” Joel said, looking up from the game of Chinese checkers they were about
to start. “There you are. Startin’ to wonder if you had snuck out the window or
something.”
“Thought you got rid of me, didn’t you?” she smiled, trying to be friendly and
happy like the vanished girl, the one who had left her the burden of the horny,
annoying twat stuffed between her legs, like an unruly pet to look after.
“I was hopin’, yeah,” he said, making room for her to sit down by him at the
long coffee table. “For your sake. Because this gonna one terrible butt
whuppin’ you’re about to get.”
“Pfft. I am the queen of Chinese checkers,” she snorted. “You’ll see. Finding
that game is the worst mistake you ever made, you cocky butt head.”
“You can’t even see the board, squirt.”
He stretched out his hand and pushed her wet hair away from her face, combing
it with his fingers. She smiled. It was such a sweet, gentle thing to do. She
remembered when she was afraid of his hands, afraid of him.
“I used to be kind of scared of you,” she said softly.
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? When was this?”
“When we first met. A little bit. And then I got really scared when we found
the Honda. Remember? You were yelling at me because I almost blasted you in the
face with that really cool shotgun.”
“I was just upset. That’s all. I wouldn’t hurt you,” Joel said in a voice low
and deep, his tone reassuring. “You know that, Ellie.”
“I know.”
He rubbed the back of his hand against her cheek. She could feel the ridges of
his knuckles. The thought of him striking her with that hand flashed through
her mind.
Slap me.
Smack my face.
Hit me. Right in my fucking face. Punch me, Joel.
He smiled at her, warmly, lovingly. She smiled back, innocently, fraudulently.
Beat me up. I want you to. Throw me to the floor. I don’t deserve a bed. Make
me eat my meals down there from now on. Make me sleep under the bed like a dog.
Tear my clothes off. Call me a whore. Smack me in the mouth and make me suck
your dick with my lips all swollen up and stuff. Make me go naked like you did
at that shack by the pond. Hurt me. Fucking hurt me, Joel. Please. I don’t know
why I need it so bad, but I do. I really do. I don’t know where this is coming
from but I want you to be mean to me. Hurt me. Fuck me so hard it hurts me.
Fuck me! Right in my ass! Or take your belt to my ass. Hit me with it as hard
as you can. Or fuck me. Or both at the same time. I don’t care. Just make me
cry. Make me cry and make me beg and make me promise to never do it again…
whatever the fuck it was that I did. Just make me promise to be good. Punish me
for something. Anything. Please. Please.
“We’ll get in a game or two. Then we need to make some more candles before it
gets dark. Sound good?” he asked, giving her shoulder a soft, friendly squeeze.
“Sounds good,” she replied with a smile, keeping so much inside that she was
sure he could see the seams of her soul beginning to split apart.
It couldn’t hold up under the abuse. It cracked and buckled, giving way at
last. The door hung from a single hinge now, battered and broken by tremendous
effort.
“Solid oak,” he huffed, his voice filtered by his gas mask. He rubbed his
aching, bruised shoulder. “Jesus. I was about to give up on it, and that’s a
fact.”
“I got tired just watching you do that,” she said. She wasn’t wearing a mask.
She didn’t own one. She didn’t need one. “I hope there’s something really good
in here.”
“Me too. But there’s spores.” He handed her his Colt automatic, which she took
in both hands. She had only three bullets left for her compact Beretta. If
there was trouble, he wanted her to be prepared. “There’s not too many floatin’
around. Figure the cold killed most of whatever’s in here, but keep your eyes
open all the same, kiddo.”
But she couldn’t. It was impossible to keep your eyes open when you were
kissing. She didn’t even know why she had started this. They had been eating
dessert. Smoked venison and herbal tea as the main course, then dessert: the
good stuff they’d found on that day’s scavenging hunt. They had been sharing a
can of Lucky Leaf Vanilla Pudding when she’d practically thrown herself at him.
No warning. No reason she that could remember. She’d just had to have him and
she couldn’t wait another second. She was in his arms. She could taste the
sweet, creamy vanilla, in his mouth and hers. The floor of the office had never
felt so soft and inviting. Joel lay back, pulling her down with him. She was
half on the floor and half on the man. One leg was draped across him. She could
feel him getting hard. It was amazing and perfect and awesome feeling him like
this, knowing for certain now that he was all better and that this was the
proof because boners didn’t lie about this kind of stuff, and when he tugged
her leg, pulling her hips along, making her lie on top of him, it got even
better. It’d been months since they’d kissed. Literally months. The last time
was the night before they’d finally made it to the university, the night before
Joel almost died, the last night before everything went to hell and she’d had
to be in charge of everything instead of being the sidekick. She didn’t want to
be the boss. She never had. Let Riley be the boss. Let Joel be the boss. She
needed a boss. How could she be bossed around the way she secretly liked to be
if she didn’t have a boss?
It came back to her in a moment of clarity.
We were talking about when this winter might end and what month it might be. We
worked it out. We decided it was probably February. And that means it’s my
birthday. I’m fifteen now. I’m old enough. That’s why I jumped him. I didn’t
want him to say another word. I’m tired of waiting. I didn’t want another
excuse from him.
I want to fuck.
I’m ready to fuck.
“Joel,” she whispered when their lips parted briefly. She adjusted her position
on top of him, trying to get in just the right spot. His hands slid across her
ass, cupping her round cheeks, snug and shapely inside her tight thermals.
“Goddamn, you are sexy as hell in this long underwear,” Joel husked.
She snorted, laughing. He was adorable.
“Don’t be an asshole, dude,” she giggled. “I’m trying to seduce you. God, I’d
put on my sexy purple lacey undies right now but I don’t want to freeze to
death, you dick.”
“These blue ones are my favorite,” he insisted, his voice throaty and thick. He
began kissing her neck. His beard felt even better than she remembered.
She had to work to remember how to make words. “You serious?”
“As a damn heart attack,” he rumbled, his teeth scraping her neck, drawing out
primal feelings of submission from deep inside her. “These things are so damn
tight on you. Shows off every sexy bit of your body… Till a fella can’t think
about nothin’ ‘cept a girl and her curves.”
“Oh yeah?” Delighted. A little surprised. She had never expected to feel sexy
in the silly things.
“Been driving me crazy all winter watchin’ you run around in this stuff.”
“Wow,” she moaned, her earlobe in his mouth, surrendering herself to him as
fast as she could. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“‘Fraid you might stop wearin’ them if I did.”
She laughed and shivered. One of his hands was sliding along her back, tugging
her blue top up, revealing her torso. The other hand was sliding down her ass,
between her open legs, towards her pussy. She spread her thighs just a little
more, tilted her hips, felt the carpet against her knees, pushed herself
towards that questing hand. He found her. She groaned, her pussy covered,
protected, owned by his hand.
Fuck me, Joel. Hurry. Before something else goes wrong.
“Shouldn’t I keep wearing them then?” she giggle-moaned. “If you like them so
much?”
He levered her up, his hands on her waist, lifting, maneuvering her
effortlessly, until she was sitting astride him. She could feel his cock, hard
and waiting, as he pulled her shirt off over her head, baring her breasts. Her
lovely, loose red hair tumbled free as he tossed the top away. She leaned
forward, just a little, splaying fingers across his firm stomach, luxuriating
in the sensation of her small breasts safe inside his big hands. Her unbound
hair was a curtain. Her white teeth flashed behind it, ringed by the plump,
rosy fullness of her open mouth. She whispered his name again, so softly he had
to read her lips.
He smiled and bounced her little breasts in his cupped palms, making her groan
and smile. Her eyes were closed. She was far away.
Fuck me, Joel.
“fuck me” he heard her say. Whispered. Groaned. Not meant to be said out loud.
He smiled. She didn’t realize that she’d let the words slip out.
“You’re such a tease, girl,” he drawled, sexy and self-assured, perfectly in
command of himself, the girl, and the moment. “You ain’t worn a bra all winter,
have you?”
She looked down, her eyes open, a little nervous, a little surprised.
Am I a tease? I guess I am. That’s not a bad thing though, right?
“Nope,” she exhaled slowly, eager to play this game with him, keeping her eyes
locked on his, grinning, impish, cute, sexier than she knows, her stomach full
of hot, dancing lights. “Hoping you’d eventually play with my boobs like this
if I kept extending the invitation every day, you know? I figured, ‘sooner or
later even a dumb cowboy like Joel has to get the message’, right?”
She winked, smiled, giving him her best bedroom eyes.
I even made sure to get a wedgie going so I could flash you some butt canyon
and a little camel toe this morning. I wonder if that’s what finally did the
trick?
God, I am a tease!
“It worked,” he growled, eliciting a flirty giggle from her. “Ain’t been able
to take my eyes off these sweet little titties since we got to this town. Not
for a damn minute.”
I’ve missed your silly sweet sex talk. You don’t even know how much, dude.
“All part of my master plan,” she cooed, lifting her hands, slipping them over
his, feeling the bones of his large knuckles against her palms, feeling his
fingers move and flex as he explored the soft, tender shapes of her breasts.
They were getting larger as he played with them, she could feel it. She
wondered if he could feel it too.
My boobs aren’t the only part of me that’s swelling up.
His thermals were black, top and bottom. She was naked above the waist, her
skin pale from the long winter, peach and apricot and pink and freckled,
glowing, luminous in her desire. Her legs were wrapped in electric blue and she
squeezed her thighs against his hips. He pinched and tugged her little, tender
nipples, tormenting her exquisitely.
“Harder,” she hissed.
Hurt me. Please.
Her teeth clenched as he really began to work the pink pebbles between his
fingers. “Ahhhh-nnnnn-mmmm.”
“Little tease. You like it rough, don’t you?”
I want it. I deserve it.
“yesssss”
I let you down. I let everybody down. I’m such a fuck up.
“Goddamn, I want you, girl.”
She shuddered as she felt his hands exploring her thighs, willing herself to be
his prisoner. Her breasts missed him. Her thighs welcomed him.
“Want you so much,” he growled, slurred with lust, almost incoherent.
This is it. I’m losing my virginity tonight!
Oh man, I’m scared.
His thick fingers traced the mouth of her pussy, hiding and smoldering beneath
her bottoms, she hugged herself then began to play with her tits, tugging them
like he had, abusing herself. He swatted the side of her ass and she gasped.
Small hands pulled their owner’s breasts into aching cones. She squeaked,
loving it. She felt larger, rougher hands slip in, taking her tits away from
her. He tugged one taut and she wheezed words she couldn’t be sure that she had
ever meant to say aloud.
“fuhhhk… smack my boobs, Joel.”
He did, lightly, swatting one of them with his fingertips.
This is perfect. It’s all so fucking perfect.
Just one thing more. I need it. I have to ask him for it.
“Sl-uh,” she began, but the word died incomplete.
I have to. I need it. God help me, I need it so bad I’m gonna die without it.
She tried again.
“S-slap my face,” she moaned. Her voice was weak. Feeble. She was almost too
afraid to say the words. “Slap me. Please.”
She winced, her eyes screwed shut as tightly as she could make them. She was
humiliated by what she’d just said. She should have kept it to herself. He
wouldn’t understand. She pulled her lips into her mouth, ashamed and feeling
dumb. She was stupid and she wanted to cry.
Why did I do that? Now he thinks I’m a frea-
slap!
“Oh fuck!” she blurted, loud, almost climaxing from the blow. Her cheek stung.
Her pussy surged with enough electricity to power every house in Jackson.
Joel growled, animal lust rising in him as he saw how well she reacted to the
blow.
“A-again,” she whimpered, savoring the way her face burned.
slap!
“Oh God, Joel. Oh God” She couldn’t look at him. She was too embarrassed. She
wanted to apologize. She opened her mouth to try and explain why she was so
stupid and messed up in the head.
“again,” she gasped. Not what she had meant to say, but what she had wanted to.
He did.
Slap!
Hot tears welled up behind her closed eyes.
She groaned, arched her back, grunted something unintelligible.
Slap!
Her left breast unexpectedly exploded with a sudden discharge of energy as his
hand struck, glancing it from the side, making it jiggle and ripple and throb
as it danced about on her glistening chest.
“Fuck!” She heard her voice. High. Strained. She was excited by how she sounded
to her own ears.
slap!
She hissed, gritted her teeth, a small amount spittle sprayed into the air. The
other small breast now leapt about in a wild, undulating rhythm, set into
motion by his cruel hand.
slap! slap!
“fuck! ow! my tits! jesus! ow! my tits!” She grunted, quivered, shook, mewled.
She slumped, surrendered, waited for more abuse.
His hands were on her body, holding her as she trembled, trying to read her,
decode her signals, understand her needs. She had to make it clear to him. She
didn’t want to be comforted.
“again” she squeaked “hurry”
slap!
“fuck” She sat up. How could she expect him to really hurt her if she wouldn’t
sit up straight? She couldn’t hide herself from him.
He held her tit by the pink knob at the front of it, lifting it just a bit,
keeping it steady for what was to come.
slap! slap!
“joel”
The other one now, his fingers pinched, tugged, pulled it up and out by the
nipple, made the soft, engorged flesh a target. She squeaked in fear and lust.
slap! slap! slap!
“dontstop”
Both of the small, swollen shapes burned with molten heat. They felt enormous,
huge, heavy, as big as her head, with nipples the size of thimbles. She panted
and trembled.
Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! Directly against them, not from the side this time, and
not gently. His open palms came down hard and fast on her tits, slapping,
paddling, making her sob and squirm. It was almost too much. She couldn’t
believe it wasn’t already too much. They were twin volcanoes, erupting. She
couldn’t get enough. She opened her mouth to speak.
Slap! Her face. Right on her mouth. Not too hard, but hard enough. She inhaled
sharply. Stunned.
Slap! Her mouth and her cheek that time, and just a little of the tip of her
nose. Her lips pulsed and throbbed and tingled. Her eyes flew open for a
moment. She saw him down there, his features a mask of fierce, dangerous lust.
Her lips were swollen. Her mouth made the words come out all funny.
“ohgodjoeliloveyouiloveyouloveyousomuch”
It was a rush of words. She couldn’t stop them. She didn’t want to let them
out. There was too much that she’d been keeping inside, keeping to herself,
keeping secret. She closed her eyes. She tried to look away. She made herself
be quiet.
SLAP! Hard. Right on the side of her face. Hard enough to leave her fat mouth
hanging open in shock. Her eyes were watering. She blinked, gaped in disbelief
at what he had just done and how fucking hard he had done it. Her soft,
swollen, babyfat cheek was blazing hot. Without looking at him, she nodded
wordlessly.
Fuck yes! Just like that.
She tried to say the words. Maybe he could make them out, maybe he couldn’t.
She didn’t know, didn’t care.
“h’rdr” she squeaked.
He smiled up at her, darkly, dangerously.
“Love you, girl.” He turned her face to the other side, she peeped softly in
gratitude. No one understood her like he did. No one ever had. No one ever
would. Even Riley never suspected how deep this side of her went.
Slap!
She blinked her wet eyes and looked down at him. She grinned through puffy
lips, nodding, closed her eyes again, gave him the signal to continue. Ignore
the tears. They were the good kind of tears. Keep going. She’d kiss him with
these lips if only he’d keep going, suck his cock with this swelling mouth if
only he’d keep hurting her.
Smack me when I suck it. Hit me while it’s in my mouth.
Slap! The same cheek as before, wetter now from all the tears.
Slap! Her tit ached, swelling, expanding.
Slap! Her face burned. Her cheeks were puffy and red and slick with flowing
tears.
Slap! The other tit. They were so large now that she was sure she could smother
him with them.
Slap! The other cheek. The nuns used to say something about the other cheek.
She couldn’t remember what.
Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! He was holding her chin in place with his hand,
smacking her hard, sculpting and shaping the lust on her face: cheek, mouth,
cheek, cheek, mouth, cheek, mouth – forming her features into something better,
purer, revealing her true face, molding his woman with fire. She began to come.
She convulsed loudly.
“ohmanohmanohman” Slurred. Climaxing. Her lungs wouldn’t fill with enough air.
Her new mouth would take some getting used to.
She groaned. She couldn’t make any more words dribble from her full, pouting
lips, the kind of lips the women usually had in Riley’s dumb girly magazines in
those glossy pictures trying to sell the reader lipstick or eyeliner or
whatever other useless crap from twenty years ago that didn’t exist anymore.
Ellie writhed, her whole body wreathed in flames, her cheeks blushing better
than any cosmetics ever sold, her eyes perfectly shadowed and sexy. Her skin
glowed with rivulets of passion. Her small hands were on his chest, holding
herself upright on wobbly arms. Her head drooped. She couldn’t close her mouth.
She needed more air than she could get through her nose. Her eyes were little
waterfalls, showering him with salty rain. Scalding hot steam jetted from her
mouth, washing down over him as she tried to say his name, tried to tell him
how much she loved him. He knew. He could tell from the way her pussy broiled
his skin.
“loveyouloveyou” she wept, sobbing, panting, riding the tail of the first
orgasm all the way to the shore.
She was virginal. Wanton. Perverted. Ready. He couldn’t hold back any longer.
Rip!
She gasped, her head jerked up, she looked over her shoulder, tried to see
through watery, unfocused eyes.
Ri-i-i-i-p!
He was tearing her clothes, ripping them from her body. Bright blue bottoms and
white cotton panties, coming apart easily in his determined hands. She could
feel the cool air of the room on her bare ass. She squeezed her eyes shut,
forcing the world out so she could focus on what came next. A second, tiny
orgasm, or maybe an aftershock of the first, fluttered through her. This was
dangerous. She’d unleashed something in him she couldn’t control. She was at
his mercy. It was exactly what she had wanted and it was even scarier than she
had hoped it would be. The realization got all tangled up in the ripples of
pleasure. She tucked her head against her shoulder, hiding her face, and
whimpered.
“Reckon you deserve this, you little tease.” A deep, scary rumble of a voice.
No mercy for her.
She squeaked, her arms give out. She dropped to her elbows, barely propped on
top of him. The ragged clothing fell apart around her spread thighs. She
pressed her face against his chest. Her naked ass and sopping wet pussy jutted
up into the open air shamelessly.
“fuckjoeldoitdoitspankm-”
Smack! Smack! Smack!
“FUCK!”
Smack!Smack!Smack!Smacksmacksmack!
Her round little ass was on fire, the bare cheeks seared red from his hand. She
could feel the air slipping in below, sneaking in through the tatters of cloth,
tickling the back of her dripping cunt where he had violently exposed her. She
wanted him inside her. When the spanking finally ended, she sat up, or tried
to. His big hands helped her make the journey. What’s left of her clothes was
kinked tightly around her thighs. Her dripping pussy was exposed, burning out
of control. She could feel him between her legs again, hard and hot beneath her
naked cunt. She ground it against him, smearing him with her boiling wetness.
He grunted and sought the curves of her body with his rough hands. She cried,
wailed, the tears wouldn’t stop. Her tits felt like two comically enormous
balloons, swollen and ready to pop, with long, thick, pink magic markers where
her nipples had been, reaching and straining towards him, ready to shoot off
and fly around the room like bottle rockets. Her red, puffy face baked the
tears she made. They sizzled as she shed them. His hands were on her tits, he
squeezed her nipples; she imagined them as long and distended, each one filling
a fist. In her mind, he could have almost jerked her off with these distended
things of hers. None of it made sense but she wanted it all to be true. She
licked her puffy lips with her tongue. She wanted to be a freak and she hated
herself. He pushed his hips up, pressing his hard shaft against the the fat
lips of her engorged cunt and the boiling magma simmering inside. She couldn’t
contain it. It was going to spill out of her and set the entire room on fire.
“wantitsomuch” Squeaky. Whimpering.
“You’re gonna get it tonight, girl,” she heard the dangerous earthquake of his
voice from somewhere far below her. “All of it. No more waitin’.”
“yesss”
“Gonna fuck the hell out of you, little girl.”
“y’sssss”
Her heart was racing, overjoyed, terrified. It was all happening so fast. So
many weeks together, day and night, turning to months, not touching, not
really, not like that, even though they’d been sleeping side by side, eating,
talking, sharing, really getting to know one another in the way she’d always
wanted, with Joel finally opening up to her, a little bit here and a little bit
there, with more and more scraps slithering out every day, as he had told her
about who he used to be, way back when, sharing parts of himself, just a little
bit, here and there, never all at once, and never much, but enough for her to
start putting the bits and pieces together, loving him, being loved by him,
even if he had never said the words before tonight, even if she just had and in
so doing, had found out that she was still afraid to say them, but knowing all
the same, seeing it in his eyes, hearing the words between all the other words
he speaks, sharing himself with her, finally, letting her into his heart, and
letting her eat that entire can of banana cream pie filling last week because
he said he hated the stuff even though it was so fucking delicious and he
wouldn’t even stay in the room while she had shoveled it into her mouth because
just the smell made him sick or so he had said and she had eaten it quickly
while he waited outside with the snow falling choosing to be in the cold rather
than around the smell of banana cream and now the rafters overhead were
catching fire and the sounds of her torment filled the air and smoke filled her
lungs, meat, burning, and not animal meat, but something else, and she ground
her hips, pushing her agonized, needy, greedy sex against the hard meat of the
bearded, dangerous man beneath her, needing him, wanting him, knowing she was
food for him after he raped her, or something even worse after he’d fucked a
baby into her, because once that happened he’d keep her around instead and
they’d do this every day, fucking and fucking, making as many babies as they
could, and they’d never finish that poker game and he’d never get his ass
smoked again by the queen of Chinese checkers, and he was her king and he felt
so good pressed against her pussy and she wanted to take the ruined bottoms off
too since they were just hanging loosely around her hips so she wanted him to
hurry and rip the rest of them off like she ripped his face apart and there was
blood flying everywhere and she was grinding and grinding and he was so hard
and she wanted to come and she had to hurry because his head was already in a
million pieces and it was getting worse each time she brought the machete down
and her arms were getting tired and one of his eyes was laying off to the side
looking at the fire spreading so fast and the jaw was only hanging on to one
side of his face because there wasn’t much left of the other side and he was
cupping her tits, massaging them, taking some of the wonderful pain out and she
was shuddering and she wanted to come but she needed to take off the rest of
her clothes and her face was still on fire and most of his face was gone now,
it was all just triangles and squares of bone, and there was teeth too, all
mixed in with the fresh stew meat she’d made and the tangled criss-cross strips
of scalp or maybe it was what left of his beard, and the other eye was still
there, just staring up at her, with no face around it anymore, just staring up
from the red mush, and she was crying and sobbing and her hands were on her
face trying to hide from that eye and Joel was saying something but it didn’t
make any sense and she couldn’t stop crying and he was holding her and the room
was dark and the blankets of the hide-a-bed were all tangled around them and
nothing he was saying was the right thing to say and so she cried because she
couldn’t do anything else and the whole world was just fire smoke and blood.
 
End Notes
     I’ve always loved surrealism. Melting clocks, pictures of pipes that
     aren’t actually pipes (they’re only pictures of pipes), Fantastic
     Planet, Heavy Traffic, Little Ego, El Topo, Eraserhead, pretty much
     everything Satoshi Kon did, you name it. I love a good trippy story.
     I think this stems from the fact that I have very vivid dreams. Often
     they seem to flow together and I wake up unsure of where I am for a
     few seconds – I love that moment! Damn, I look forward to bedtime. On
     a really good night, the inside of my noggin is like one of those
     funny Old spice commercials, the ones with Isaiah Mustafa or Terry
     Crews, take your pick. One night I dreamed I was hiding from my boss
     in a hot dog cart across the street from work – I had to make sure
     those giant tongs didn’t get me. I wanted to get out of work, not be
     served up as lunch! (Actual dream, not joking) That’s why I wrote
     this long story, paragraph after paragraph, with no clear breaks of
     any kind. I wanted Ellie’s waking and dreaming worlds to flow
     together strangely, compellingly, and (hopefully) more than a bit
     unsettlingly, as you, the reader, went on the journey with her
     through her damaged psyche.
     A big help in putting this one-shot together was Brett Kahr's book,
     Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head? The Secret World of Sexual
     Fantasies. He takes the Freudian approach that most of what we carry
     around in our heads as adults stem from what happened to us as
     children, so keep that in mind if you plan on buying it. Reading the
     various anecdotes he relates was eye opening, to say the least. It
     gave me permission, so to speak, to really delve deep into what the
     damaged psyche of a traumatized teenage girl might be like, and the
     dark and deeply uncomfortable places that her subconscious might turn
     to in search of safety and comfort.
     As long as this one-shot is, it was originally much longer. I
     assembled it in scraps to help maintain the stream of consciousness I
     wanted the story to have. Sigh. So much got cut out. One of my
     favorite bits was a scene in which Joel talked, just a little bit, to
     Ellie about his marriage. Another was Ellie finding a bundle of
     emergency road flares. I had to give up these scenes. Too much
     surrealism, and the effect would be lost, I think. The scenes of the
     real world also got fewer and sparser while the dream world came to
     dominate the story until, finally, it all gets mixed together in the
     steamy, violent finale.
     Is this the first story to need a Joel/Tommy or Joel/David tag?
     Probably not, but I kind of hope it is. Either way, I apologize for
     nothing! (And I’m afraid to look, to be honest. Some stones are best
     left unturned) ;-)
     You can’t actually cut a galvanized chain with a propane torch, but
     The Last of Us trends towards video game logic. If Naughty Dog thinks
     filling a coffee can with scissors and fertilizer will create a
     motion-sensing smart bomb, then I can have Joel cut through steel
     with a plumber’s torch. Hell, in the game we cobble together a scope
     for Joel’s rifle using only a handful of washers, wingnuts, and wood
     screws. How does that work?! More realistically, snowmobiles are like
     dirt bikes: very simple machines. I have no problem believing they
     could find a working Arctic Cat twenty years on. Also, people drink
     twenty-year-old tea, apparently. It’s a gourmet item, or so Michelle
     informs me. Speaking of…
     Michelle picked out Jill Scott’s song “So Gone (What My Mind Says)”
     as the soundtrack for the hot Joel-on-Tommy action. I was going to
     use something else, but she convinced me that my “old fart taste in
     music” was not in keeping with Riley’s character (it’s her mix tape
     that Ellie is remembering, after all). Thanks, pumpkin. I’ll be
     listening to my Lawrence Welk collection if anybody needs me. Oh,
     “Bubbles in the Wine”, you understand me like nobody else does. ;-)
     Also, the reason Joel hates banana cream pie filling was given in
     volume one, in the chapter “Tommy.”
     And that’s it for the one-shots bridging the gap between volume two
     and three. I’ll be back soon with the last set of stories to wrap up
     my extended take on The Last of Us. Thanks for reading!
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