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Catch up on A Warm Place!

A WARM PLACE – PRELUDE

A WARM PLACE

A WARM PLACE 2

A WARM PLACE 3

Table of Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

OTHER TITLES

ABOUT ME

ONE

I was alone.

Alone was nothing new to me. I had been alone a lot of times in my life. But this time, it felt different.

I was alone and I was thinking of chemotherapy.

Carefully stalking a deer through a snowbound, heavily-wooded hinterland somewhere in northern Kansas, or maybe even southern Nebraska now, I wasn’t sure, I tried to make as little noise as possible, and keep my mind from drifting too far.

But that got difficult, I was learning, when you spent too long in hard isolation.

Icy trees surrounded me in all directions and I was careful to keep the deer in my sights, my rifle at the ready. I wasn’t too keen on my odds of bagging this deer, but I was kind of desperate right now because my food was really low.

As in, I had like a meal left low.

But chemotherapy kept creeping into my brains the same way I was creeping up on this deer, trying to ignore it all: the cold, the hunger, the encroaching darkness and storm. I knew a storm was on the way and I’d have to get in soon.

I was thinking about how, in some cases of extra bad cancer, they sometimes tried something desperate: double chemo. But they weren’t supposed to because it carried all sorts of crazy risks, but it had a better chance of wiping out the cancer.

That was what I was doing right now, though to be completely honest, I wasn’t sure exactly what the risks of what I was doing entailed.

I mean, some were obvious.

That I could starve to death, or freeze to death, or get mauled by an animal, or killed by another human looking to rob me, or worse.

But that was just a fact of life nowadays. Those risks were risks I had faced, endured, and ultimately triumphed over time and time again over the past year and a half, ever since I’d decided to set out into this new, frozen, post-apocalyptic wasteland on my own. I was used to being by myself, I was used to wandering for long stretches of time alone.

This, however, was different.

Abruptly, the opportunity to make the shot appeared and I knew it was now or never. I froze, took aim, and fired.

And missed.

Just barely, I saw some of the deer’s fur fly off in a puff, but I had missed. The deer took off in an instant, vanishing from sight into the trees, galloping away to safety. I let out a long, heavy sigh of disappointment as I lowered the rifle, my breath appearing on the air in a haze.

Well, shit.

There went food for the next few days.

I looked around, knowing that I was either going to have to find manmade shelter of some kind, or a cave, or make some sort of really miserable lean-to, because I’d lost my tent to a scrap with a pair of wolves three days ago. It had been shredded all to hell.

My bow had also gone during that battle, snapped into pieces after my big ass fell on it. Not that it mattered quite as much, as I was out of arrows at that point anyway. I’d been doing some hard living over the past month, and my supply level reflected that.

Finally, I saw what appeared to be a lone structure up ahead, barely visible through the trees and the dim gray fading light.

I set off, and as I began walking, it started to snow.

I glanced up, a little startled. That always freaked me out a little bit, the way it could just begin to snow in perfect silence. Sometimes it was obvious, mostly through the winds, and I knew that some kind of storm was coming, but sometimes I’d wait three hours for it to actually manifest, and then just abruptly, big fat snowflakes were falling out of the sky in all directions, not a sound to be heard. It was oddly creepy.

In some vague way, it reminded me of spiders, and how they were perfectly silent.

You only noticed them when you saw them or, God forbid, felt them.

Spiders largely dying out as a result of this apocalypse, or at least dying out on the surface and in a lot of buildings, was one of the things I put under ‘benefits of Armageddon’. Yeah, I know, I know, they’re crucial to the ecosystem and they aren’t inherently evil or anything, but I fucking hated them and the world was fucked anyway, right?

As I headed through the falling snow, picking up the pace, my body already most of the way to numb thanks to all the time I’d spent outdoors today, I kept thinking.

It had been three months since I’d helped bring Pine Lake back from the brink of death, since I’d gotten shot and damn near gotten myself killed.

I had healed up and settled nicely into my new home. Honestly, the motel room at Pine Lake was the closest I’d ever come to a home since I began wandering, and it had felt nice. The first month was good.

Lindsay moved in with us, and they got a second bed, really more of a mattress they put in the corner, where she and Delilah tended to sleep. They had definitely become a couple, though it hadn’t stopped either of them from having sex with me regularly. Delilah more than Lindsay, I think she was intimidated by me, though she at least didn’t seem threatened by me. So that was nice. Elizabeth really liked me, and we’d spent a lot of time together.

The same was true of Megan.

Lisa wasn’t sure how to feel about us. She’d been awkward in the days following my recovery, but finally, after some hot sex and then some more hot sex, she’d eventually settled into a casual relationship where she tended to jump me once or maybe twice a week if she was feeling really up to it. The same thing had happened with Melanie.

God, I loved fucking that woman.

And that was my life for the next month, and it was really fucking good.

I helped out. I built things. I hunted. I protected people. I harvested and gathered and salvaged from the countryside and the dead part of the city.

I had great sex with the women in my life.

All the while, living in fear of the wanderlust bug.

It left me alone for a solid month, but near the end of that month, I felt the first tickles of that urge. That intense desire. That lust to wander, to just get out and be free and explore uncharted lands. Meet new people, see new places, do new things.

Test myself against the untamed wild.

For two weeks, I ignored it, but it got worse. During the third week, I began trying things, going out camping or staying up at the hunting lodge with the hunters. It helped, but only a little. The fourth and final week was the worst.

I felt anxious and irritable and sometimes like I couldn’t breathe.

I felt somehow caught.

It didn’t occur to me until Elizabeth gave birth that I was waiting for some event to transpire, something to somehow give me the go ahead to make a decision.

That event was it.

I ended up talking with the women about the problem, listening to suggestions, bouncing ideas off each other, and ultimately, this was what I had come up with.

I would leave, I would head north, into deep isolation, and then I would come back after, at most, two months.

That was about one month ago.

I didn’t want to just do what I normally did, although that was what I had done during the first week. I was exuberant and blissful as I hit the highway and headed north. I ran into a caravan of people, traders and travelers who seemed on the level, heading south. I spent the night with them and had amazing sex with the forty-two-year old platinum blonde who used to be a schoolteacher after being a model and now ran this group.

She could suck dick like few others I’d run into.

I pointed them towards Pine Lake and told them they’d find kind people and good trading there, then I’d gone on my merry way.

Shortly after leaving the caravan I began to feel guilty for feeling so good. I was practically high I felt so damned good.

I ran into a few more traders, and finally I stopped at a small simple encampment that seemed kind of like a way-station for travelers along the highway. It was built into the remains of a partially collapsed warehouse of some kind, and half a dozen people maintained it. Now it served as an inn. I’d spent the night and after flirting, took one of them to bed. She had been pretty hardcore, had a scar down one side of her face, and more on her body when I’d gotten her clothes off. She had muscles, and short brown hair, and she fucked rough.

It was a good night, and she was the last chick I’d hooked up with.

The next morning, I’d gathered my things, ate breakfast, made a few trades, and then I’d struck off in an almost totally random direction, into the nearest woods.

I was out here to burn out this need to wander, and after thinking on it for awhile, I had decided that the best way to do it was to go into total isolation.

And it had worked.

I had yet to see a single human being, let alone speak with one, since leaving that way-station.

Three solid weeks.

It was the longest I’d gone without human contact.

“Here we are,” I muttered as I reached the structure. It was some old, very old cabin, something that looked like it had been built a century ago. It had a chimney, it was dark, and it looked intact. Those were the only three things I actually cared about at the moment.

“Let’s make sure we’re safe,” I murmured.

I had learned that for whatever reason, talking out loud helped offset the...negative aspects of the isolation.

I walked around the exterior of the building, checking for threats and to see if it was as intact as it looked. The windows, I saw, were boarded over, but this looked to have been done a long time ago. Perhaps even before Armageddon. I didn’t see any people around, nor any wolves or bears or cougars. I thought I was far enough north that they might be a problem. Or mountain lions. Or were those the same thing?

Shit, I didn’t know.

I walked up to the front door and knocked on it firmly a few times.

“Is anyone in there?” I asked. Waited. Nothing. I knocked again, harder. “Is anyone in there?” I asked louder.

Still nothing. The place felt like a mausoleum.

I tried the handle. It turned, and the door opened when I pushed. It was dark inside, the thin twilight not nearly enough to help me see. With a sigh, I reached onto my belt and detached the miniature lantern there. It was solar-powered and really useful. I’d found it on a dead man a week ago, probably just someone like me, way out in the middle of nowhere. He’d been mauled to death by wolves, I assumed, and left to freeze in a lot of blood.

The kill had looked old, months at least.

It occurred to me that this would be an extremely lonely and miserable place to die.

The light came on and seemed to fill the interior of the single-room structure. I quickly played it across the inside, finding myself looking at hardly anything. There was a mattress on the floor, no bedding or pillows. A single chair. A fireplace. A toilet and sink off in one corner. I saw the remains of some cabinets that had no doubt been chopped up for firewood, and the scattered remnants of other random stuff on the wooden floor.

It was empty of life, at least.

I got inside, closed and locked the door to the best of my ability, then set my shit down on the floor beside the mattress with a loud groan. I was tired. It had been a long damn day, even though it really hadn’t, it just felt like it.

It was December now. Actually, by my count, and I could be wrong, we were nearing the beginning of 2039.

As if that meant anything anymore.

The only thing it meant to me was that at this point I was another year older, (my birthday was in November, oh what a birthday Megan and Delilah and the others had made it), and that the days were shorter than ever.

I think we were past the equinox, which meant that technically the days were beginning to get longer now, but that wouldn’t matter practically to me for at least another few months. It got dark at five fucking PM and that sucked shit.

Plus, it was winter.

Although it was winter all the time now, it still did actually get generally colder and more miserable during this time of year. Blizzards and snowstorms and absolutely bleak frozen days seemed more common during winter. Like today. It had to be below zero.

I saw that there was still a bit of burning fuel left by the fireplace, so I arranged it all as best I could and got a fire going. I sat there for a few minutes, not thinking of much at all. In fact, I considered that a luxury. As that warm washed over me and took me momentarily to heaven, it was like my brain and all my worries and anxieties and bad feelings were put on hold. It was really nice, and I now looked forward to it immensely.

But soon enough, the bad thoughts began leaking back in, so I got back to work.

First thing was first: I went back outside while there was still daylight left, though not much of it, and quickly began gathering up enough firewood to last me the night. It took me fifteen minutes and by the time I headed back inside, the last of the light was totally gone, and darkness swallowed the world with a gloomy absolution.

Stacking the wood a safe distance from the fireplace, I then set my thermos beside the fire so that it could heat my last meal that I had on me.

Tomorrow was going to be an…

Interesting day. If not a desperate one.

In the past, I’d gone for about two days at a stretch without any food, just water, and it fucking sucked. I knew I could go a lot longer, the problem was, hunger fucked with you. It fucked with your ability to focus and concentrate, it made you weak as it sapped your strength, made decision-making difficult. So it tipped the odds out of my favor, the longer I went without food. Once the thermos was in place, I began the process of methodically searching the cabin over.

I wondered who it had belonged to and why it was out here. Maybe some old miner or factory worker had it built, or built it himself, way back in the day so he could just fuck off and be by himself when he wanted to. Maybe there was a nice pond or river nearby, good hunting, (though that wasn’t my experience right now, that deer was the first I’d seen in days). Maybe he’d retired out here. I’d heard enough of those ‘disappear into the mountains when I get old’ stories and fantasies. I wondered how long it had been since this place had seen a human.

There wasn’t anything worthwhile in the cabin. Nothing tucked away or hidden or shoved up under something.

Nothing in the roof or ceiling, as far as I could tell.

The place didn’t even have a closet.

With a heavy sigh, I made my bed, wanting to get the physical labor out of the way as quickly as possible. I was exhausted, but I knew I’d stay up for a few hours more, then wake with dawn’s first light. Hopefully earlier, so I could get a jump on the day’s chores. I put my pack down for a pillow and got out my thermal blanket.

With that done, I took off my boots and sat down in front of the fire after dragging the chair over. And there I just sat for awhile.

It felt good to sit, and to know I didn’t have to get up if I didn’t want to for at least an hour or so. Unless there was some kind of emergency.

But I felt fear creeping over me.

This was the worst part of the day. The absolute worst. This was the part of the day where night came on and I was winding down and the loneliness set in.

I wasn’t normally a lonely person. I mean, yeah, sometimes I missed people. Sometimes I missed my family. Sometimes I missed some of the women I’d slept with who made an impression. I missed Mary. I hoped she was okay, wherever she was now.

But after the first week in absolute isolation, the loneliness had really started to settle in.

It had caught me off-guard, and after a few days it was so bad that it made me want to go home. I’d actually almost seriously considered heading back to Pine Lake. I knew enough to figure out how to get back, between the basic cardinal directions and a map I had of the larger area and my knowledge of a few highways, I knew I could do it.

But I’d held out.

I’d been a little skeptical at first, wondering if maybe this intense loneliness was a thing that would fade, if it was some anomaly. But it wasn’t. After another few days, I realized that it came on at night, usually around bedtime. I’d lie in bed, whatever bed was that night, and miss Megan and Delilah and Elizabeth terribly.

Sometimes I’d missed them so horribly it hurt and I damn near wanted to cry.

Crying wasn’t exactly easy for me.

But as bitter and miserable and wretchedly lonely those feelings were, in a way, I actually relished them intensely.

Because it meant something.

It meant this was working.

TWO

Dinner was okay.

All that remained of my food was what was left of the rabbit and vegetable stew I’d made about four days ago now.

I ate it slowly, but it still seemed gone too quickly, and I was still starving when I finished up. I washed out the thermos and left it to dry, and then I sat on the floor and closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind.

Things were a little more serious now that I was actually tapped out for food.

This place obviously hadn’t done well for those super-seeds, or I’d just been unlucky. There was some wildlife around, but not a whole lot. If I was willing to hang out in one location for a little while, I could probably cobble together some rabbit or squirrel snares, but I wasn’t and even if I was, this place wasn’t a good place for it.

No, I couldn’t afford to indulge in my wallowing any longer. I had to get sharp. Honestly, it concerned me that I’d let it get this bad. It was a sign that perhaps I was letting this go on for too long. On the other hand, it could also just be a sign of bad luck. I still had about a month to go out here, maximum. I know I’d been walking for almost a month now but this wasn’t like before, when we were heading towards Pine Lake.

Then, we’d been making fairly consistent, straightforward, and intentional progress. I hadn’t been progressing towards anything. I’d been wandering aimlessly, slowly, indulging in whatever caught my fancy. If I found a cool house in the middle of nowhere, I might spend two days there just fucking about.

If pressed, with some luck, I could probably be back in a week.

So I had another three weeks out here to figure my shit out before I started heading back home. Although to be honest, that two month window was the desired minimum. We worked it out that if I found a particularly desirable situation, I could extend it another month, but after three months, I had better come home. But for right now, I really needed to get my shit together and actually wake up tomorrow focused. I needed to get more food. Tomorrow. I’d been kind of letting myself go recently, mainly in terms of discipline, but also physically. I hadn’t been washing as much and I hadn’t shaved all month. I was beginning to get one of those big beards I hated so much. I think that was part of what was making me lose my focus, oddly enough.

For whatever reason, I just felt better after a shave, or even a buzz.

And, as it so happened, I did have an electric razor. It was battery powered, but I knew it still had a charge left in it.

After sitting there for another few minutes, I finally got up and then made myself pull my boots and coat back on, grab my pot, go back outside, pack it with snow, and set it to boil. I’d decided to forgo washing tonight but all at once I decided fuck that.

It was time to get serious again.

I stripped naked and spent ten minutes buzzing my beard off and then, after considering it for just a moment, buzzing all my hair off as well. What I was left with was a few centimeters a dark stubble across my jaw and cheeks and head. I always thought I looked better this way, but I think it was just some part of me reacting to the fact that I almost certainly looked more intimidating this way. Some part of me liked that.

I also ended up trimming down my armpits and my pubes. I figured if I was gonna want women to do it, I should too if it was something they liked.

And most of the women I’d come across told me that they at least liked the pubes trimmed.

By the time I was done, the bottle of water I’d pulled out and set by the fire was warm. I used it to wash myself head to toe, using up most of the sliver of bar soap I had left. After that I dried off and then washed my clothes as best I could with the water leftover and set them to dry by the fire. Those acts alone made me feel better than I had felt in days, maybe even the past week or two. So that was a good start.

I waited for the snow to melt and boil and purify, then set it to cool. Once it had, I refilled my bottles and ended up filling the thermos as well, to keep any water from going to waste. By then, I was starting to feel truly tired. But I wasn’t done, not yet. I pulled out my gun cleaning kit and set about disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling my rifle and my pistol. I’d brought both of them with me for the journey, and even out of it and depressed, (I could admit it when I was depressed nowadays), I knew enough to keep them in decent shape.

Once that was done, I made sure they were loaded and ready for action.

I made one final sweep of the perimeter, ensuring I was as safe as I was going to get, and then set the pistol near my backpack.

Finally, with wind now shrieking high and loud outside, cold air leaking into the cabin from a dozen different areas, I tended to the fire, making sure it would burn for as long as possible, and then I climbed into bed beneath the thermal blanket.

I began getting situated, trying to get comfortable, but before I knew it, I was out.

~

I awoke from a nightmare the following morning.

It was intense, vivid, and left me panting, sitting bolt upright on the mattress.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the first hints of dawn peeking through the boards over the windows. It was only after I’d looked around and ensured that everything was the same that I realized I’d grabbed the pistol.

Sighing softly, I set it back down and willed myself to relax. I felt for those good feelings I’d been experiencing last night, and surprisingly, found them.

Standing up, I rekindled the fire, which was just embers, tossing the last of the wood in there, and then quickly washed up with the bottle I’d left out, using only the rag this time around. After drying, I pulled my clothes back on, then grabbed my pistol and unlocked the front door. Opening it up, I cautiously peered out, ready for anything.

But there was nothing out there, or at least that’s how it appeared at first glance.

I took my time, checking the outside, the immediate area, and arrived back at the front door fairly sure there were no wolves, no bears, no human predators lurking somewhere nearby. My stomach growled but I ignored it.

No breakfast. Not today.

I set some snow to boil and did some exercise to help wake myself up, and because I really should keep in the habit. I’d been better about it over the past few months, but pretty bad about it over the past few weeks. I ran through a number of sit-ups and push-ups, basic stuff, and then once I had replaced the water, I gathered up my stuff.

Today, the goal was food.

Somehow, someway, food.

Most likely shoot and kill a rabbit or a deer, but I’d settle for something that came from those super-seeds.

Once all my stuff was packed up, and I’d double-checked to make sure I hadn’t left anything behind, I killed what was left of the fire and stepped outside.

The sun was up over the horizon now, though it was still early morning, and the air was crisp and chill, but not terribly so.

It felt like a good day.

I set off.

~

I found myself thinking of the women in my life as I headed northwest, stalking game through the woods.

My relationship with Delilah had hardly changed at all. She still liked me, she still liked fucking me, and she found my company pleasant. I was glad that hooking up with Lindsay hadn’t changed that, but I also had the idea that they were still navigating that particular relationship. Delilah seemed pretty sure, but I think Lindsay was cautious.

Hooking up with your best friend had to be a bit nerve-wracking, I imagined.

My relationship with Elizabeth had changed somewhat. I think she was preparing herself for the notion that I was not going to be her new husband. I felt bad about that, but I always tried to be honest with her, and she took it well, I think. I told her that so long as we were around each other, she could count on me, I would comfort her, protect her, take care of her as much as I could, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t ready to be a father, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to ever do that. She said she understood, and I think she did, and Delilah and Lindsay had only leaned into their role as caretakers, so I felt like I’d left her and her child in good hands.

Megan was…

Complicated.

We’d fought more, during the last month. She seemed at times irritable and aggressive, and sometimes her jealousy would resurface, but not for long. Maybe it was shallow, but all it would take was for Delilah to take her to bed for the night to get her to calm back down. But I think she saw Delilah the same way I saw Delilah: a very good, very attractive casual fuck friend. It was different with us.

In pretty much every way that mattered, Megan and I had begun dating.

I was honestly cool with that. I liked her. A lot. I liked her intensity, her cavalier attitude, her skill, her bravery, her effectiveness and willingness to work, and work hard. And I liked how she fucked.

That girl could fuck.

Obviously I didn’t like the aggression, the standoffish attitude, the jealousy, the mood swings, but I mean, everyone has their shit days.

I know I did.

I was willing to put up with her BS if she was willing to put up with my BS, and so far, it was working.

But I think the fact that I was going to leave for two months, after the great few months we’d had together, freaked her out.

Because as far as I knew, she hadn’t gotten serious with anyone since the apocalypse. Or at least not as effectively as she had with me.

She was scared of losing me, and that turned into occasionally ugly fights.

Our last meeting had been bittersweet, but mostly sweet. We’d had sex, spent the night together, had sex in the morning, eaten breakfast, took a walk around town, and she had cried when we’d said goodbye. Only it wasn’t goodbye, not really. Just ‘see you later’, more accurately. Because I was coming back.

I’d promised that.

I had promised that even if I didn’t think it was going to work out, I would come back and tell them personally, and we’d all have a proper goodbye.

Because I didn’t just cheap out like that. Ghosting people is fucked, and no one should do it. More people should have the guts to just say goodbye.

As I continued making my way through the woods, nice and easy, hunting, looking for tracks or trails or any other signs that wildlife had been through here recently, I found my mind turning, inevitably, to sex.

I hadn’t been laid in three weeks.

That was basically a lifetime after getting used to having sex with three women every day, and three others on a semi-regular basis.

I never truly thought I would be so lucky, but that was the situation I left behind.

And it still wasn’t enough to derail the fucking wanderlust bug!

But the thing was, I had stopped jacking off a week ago. I’m not sure why, but I just did. I think at some point I decided I’d just rather have a woman. Consequently, I was horny. So horny. It felt like I walked around with a hard-on half of every day. I couldn’t even remember being this aroused during puberty or the worst parts of high school.

And I felt like I was an unusually horny person.

I found myself fantasizing about women off and on for hours out of every day. First about the women I’d left back at Pine Lake, and then about the more memorable women I’d met along the way. Mary, obviously. The woman I’d left her with. When I had left the small settlement we’d made a home in after I’d found my car and upheld my end of the deal, I was uncomfortable leaving her alone. She was…

Vulnerable.

And I was fond of her.

Ultimately, I managed to find a hot, older, badass woman who was bisexual, trustworthy, and super into the notion of trading protection for sex with Mary. I got them set up nice before heading out. But there were other women before her. A thirty-nine-year-old dark-haired businesswoman who really had a thing for anal. A college girl who had done gymnastics most of her life and was so flexible. A goddamned racecar driver.

She’d been a really fun fuck.

Then I found myself thinking of the women I’d always wanted but could never have. Girls I’d gone to school with, celebrities, hot coworkers.

Teachers.

Fuck sake, I bet there wasn’t a dude alive who didn’t have a crush on a teacher.

I had some hot teachers, and they left impressions. I always had a thing for teachers. That caravan leader had really pushed some buttons for me.

But mostly what I found myself thinking of was what the others had told me before leaving. In their own way, they’d all told me that I should indulge while I was out here. Delilah wanted me to just fuck any hot, willing chick I found, because fucking felt good and was fun, and she really liked me, and she wanted me to feel good and have fun. Also, she was of the opinion that I was amazing at sex, and so she wanted other women to feel good and have fun too.

Honestly, Delilah’s simple views on sex really appealed to me.

Elizabeth had said something similar, just a bit more shy and subdued.

Megan had told me to have fun, but made me promise to come back to her. Because while Delilah was happy where she was, and Elizabeth had no interest in wandering if she didn’t have to, Megan told me, in no uncertain terms, that if I really couldn’t get past this wanderlust problem, she wanted to come with me.

She wanted to wander with me.

That was as close to a marriage proposal as I’d ever gotten.

Okay, that wasn’t quite true. Elizabeth had straight up told me she’d marry me if I’d let her, but that required sticking around.

But this was the closest I’d ever been to having someone telling me they wanted to be in my life, and stay in my life, even through hardships and difficulties.

And that…

I was a little concerned about that.

Because on some level, there was comfort in the notion that my relationships were temporary. That I knew, and the women knew, I was going to leave, and they always ended up parting ways from me. Megan was different. I could just tell that.

I think it scared me because it was something different, but also because I could see it actually working out between us. I mean, nothing was set in stone, our relationship might blow up like a nuke, but it might not.

I could actually see her as my wife.

Inasmuch as I believed in marriage anymore.

That was another part of what this hard isolation and long journey was: ruminating on my new relationships.

Though another part, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was something that was extremely self-indulgent, and selfish, and perhaps a little absurd.

I wanted at least one other regular fuck friend living with me, one really submissive one. Two would be ideal. Because Elizabeth and Delilah were fairly submissive, especially Delilah, and I’d found that I liked that.

A lot.

And I wanted more, not just from them, but from someone else.

Yeah, I know, selfish.

But I’d rescued two women from capture, saved a pregnant woman’s life, and then had a major helping in saving the survivors of a burned-down town. More people definitely would’ve died without me, maybe a lot more.

If I could find a few hot women totally down with being my subservient sluts on a daily basis, then would that be so bad?

Delilah sure thought not. She’d encouraged me to bring back at least one new ‘playmate’, as she had put it, if I could.

I intended to.

And these were the thoughts that were going through my head when I noticed someone walking through the trees maybe fifty yards out.

I stopped, raised the scope, and took a good look at the person.

She was walking with her right side to me, and I suddenly found myself staring at the most attractive woman I had ever seen in my entire life.

THREE

For just a few seconds, I felt my brain just...overload.

With lust.

Seriously. In those scant few seconds I was aware that, even though I was basically blinded by lust because I hadn’t seen another human, let alone another woman, for three weeks, nor gotten laid for that long, nor had jacked it for the past week, she still was the most attractive woman I had ever seen in the flesh.

Or, at the very least, the most attractive woman I had ever seen in the flesh since the snowfall began.

For a few seconds, I just stared at her.

She was tall, I got that much right away. Probably six foot, just a few inches shorter than me. She was brunette. I saw her holding a cap bunched in one gloved fist. She had just shy of shoulder-length chestnut brown hair that was down and messy. She was extremely pale, and when I caught a glimpse of her eyes, I could tell, even from here, that they were very blue. And even though she had layers on, I immediately got the impression that she was curvy as fuck.

Some semblance of sanity returned to me and I started to feel like a psycho pervert or something, spying on her in the woods, when she suddenly looked back. A look of fear came over her achingly beautiful face and then she was sprinting away.

I at first thought she’d seen me and panicked, which would be a totally reasonable reaction. I was pointing a fucking gun at her, though only to investigate her. I didn’t have binoculars. But when I saw dark movement, low to the ground, coming after her, I realized she had a wholly different reason to flee in terror.

Time to kill two birds with one stone.

With a fluidity and grace that I had almost thought had left me in the past three weeks, I aimed and fired, popping out a shot and perfectly catching the wolf in the skull as it dashed between two trees. Now that was a good shot.

A fucking great shot, with all the trees between us and it moving so fast.

Though I gotta be honest, part of that was luck.

She stopped running as she heard my gunshot, looked back over her shoulder at the now dead wolf, then began hunting for me. I slung my rifle and started walking slowly and calmly towards her. She saw me and I saw her tense up, but she didn’t run.

“Are you okay!?” I called.

She was staring at me intently, shading her eyes from the sun. “Yeah!”

Oh God even her voice was sexy as fuck.

“Mind if I walk over!?”

She paused. “No, I don’t mind!”

I picked up the pace. I didn’t want to scare her off. If I could talk this woman into having sex with me even once, I think I could die happy. I knew that was a stupid thought, honestly probably a downright disrespectful one to the other women in my life, but right now I was almost delirious, practically high by how goddamned turned on I was by this woman.

And again, I have to emphasize, it wasn’t just because of the isolation.

Sure, that was magnifying it, but I would be reacting this way even if I’d had my dick sucked and fucked half an hour ago.

I was positive that I’d just stumbled across a former actress or supermodel or porn star. Something. She had Hollywood written all over her, even now with no makeup and messy hair, she was an absolute stunner.

God I hoped she didn’t have a boyfriend.

Or at the very least she was in an open relationship.

The closer I got, the more obvious her beauty was. I realized I was right as I came nearer: she was tall. And curvy. Damn.

Her coat bulged at the chest.

I cleared my head, forcing myself to just calm the fuck down. I didn’t want to scare her off. But shit, this was my first human contact in three weeks. I hoped that I hadn’t forgotten how to have a damned conversation.

I stopped a respectable distance from her.

“That was a really good shot,” she said, and she was staring at me intensely. Was she afraid? I didn’t think so. She didn’t look scared. She looked…

Excited?

Aroused?

Please, please aroused.

“Thanks,” I replied.

“You a hunter?” she asked after a few seconds of silence passed between us with us just staring at each other. Maybe she was as starved for physical attention as I was right now, although I had a very, very hard time believing that.

“Technically,” I replied. “I was, uh, just passing through when I saw you and the wolf.”

“You going somewhere specific?” she asked. Was that hope in her voice? Hope for what? That I wasn’t going any specific?

That I’d go home with her?

“Not really,” I replied.

“You looking for a place to stay?” she asked, and from the way she shifted her stance, the way she cocked her hips and put her chest out a little, the smile that grew on her face, I knew. I just knew. I almost, and I’m not exaggerating, it was a near thing, fell to my knees and screamed my thanks to a God I didn’t believe in.

Because she was trying to seduce me.

That wasn’t arrogance, I had seen it often enough, and I could just tell.

Now, I thought as I got myself under control, for the next difficult part: roll the dice and hope that this was not a trap.

Because it would be a perfect trap.

She lures me in by the dick, whoever she has waiting for her back home kills me and robs my corpse.

It had happened before, and I’d been lucky to escape.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind a place to stay,” I replied.

Now she put her hands on her hips. Oh those big hips. I tried not to let it show how absolutely in lust with this woman I was, but I doubted I was doing a good job. The only thing was, she seemed to be pretty lusty towards me too.

Damn that felt good.

She could be faking it, hell, I thought she was an actress, but I didn’t know. Maybe that was just hope.

I wanted to find out.

“Well, I live nearby with a friend of mine. My name’s Lara. Are you alone?” she asked.

“I’m alone. My name’s Chris,” I replied, hoping, praying really that her friend was another woman, but I’d settle for a guy she wasn’t involved with.

She pursed her lips. “You can obviously shoot.” She began walking towards me. “But how are you with skinning, cleaning, that kinda stuff?”

“Great,” I replied.

“Hmm.” She smiled, coming to stand before me. Yeah, she was damn near as tall as I was. “You seem confident.”

“I am,” I replied. “I’ve spent most of this apocalypse out here in the wilderness at this point.”

“That’s impressive,” she said. She crossed her arms suddenly, under her breasts, pressing them up. I got the feeling it was something she did when she was trying to get what she wanted, though the effect was somewhat lost with a heavy coat on.

I could imagine what it’d be like if she had on a low-cut t-shirt or a tanktop.

“So I’ll level with you,” she said. “My friend and I are kind of in a bind. Neither of us are very good at hunting. She’s better at it than I am-”

Oh thank God. She.

“-but you’re clearly better at this stuff. We’re running low on food. Maybe we could work out some kind of deal? You hang around for a little while, hunt us up a nice stockpile until you bored,” here she smirked, as if saying like that’s gonna happen, “and you can move on.”

“What do I get in return?” I asked.

“Besides a roof over your head?” she replied.

“Yeah.”

She looked into my eyes for a long, long moment, still smirking that seductive smirk of hers. This woman clearly knew exactly how attractive she was.

“Well, why don’t you come back to the house, meet Susan, and...I’m absolutely positive that we’ll be able to work something out,” she suggested.

“All right, show me the way,” I said. “But let me grab that wolf first.”

“Don’t be too long,” she said, and turned around.

As she walked away, I got a pretty decent look at her big ass in the snow pants she was wearing and oh my God…

I think I was in love.

Okay, that was bullshit.

I was in lust. Head over heels in lust and I was so fucking in lust that I didn’t even feel bad about the other women in my life. I could easily imagine all of them, even Megan, were they here, whispering frantically to me: You need to fuck her as soon as possible!

I hurried off to grab the dead wolf.

~

“So, um, where you from?” I asked.

We’d been walking north, through the woods, in silence for a few minutes now, and I decided it was time to at least try and make some conversation.

I needed the practice.

“California,” she said. Knew it. “You?”

“Florida.”

“Oh wow. That must’ve been wild. How’d you end up here?...wherever here is. I think we’re in Nebraska?”

“I think so, too. They evaced us out of Miami when it got really bad. Stayed at a refugee camp for a bit, but I ended up in a small town in northern Florida. Stayed there for like a year before deciding I wanted to get out and just...travel.”

“Holy shit for real?” she asked, looking at me with something like awe. “In all this?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I mean, the world was ending. Had ended. Or changed irrevocably at least. As far as I could tell, there was no changing that. So I might as well. I’ve been wandering ever since. Worked my way up here.”

“That’s so...crazy. And brave,” she murmured, looking down and fiddling with her coat.

“Maybe closer to stupid,” I replied.

She laughed. “I don’t know. Me and Susan have been wandering for awhile...she’s my best friend. We’ve been friends forever. We ended up out here...after a lot of bullshit.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ll get into sometime later.”

“All right.” Something occurred to me. “What were you doing out here by yourself?”

She looked up suddenly and from the way she blushed and the guilty look on her face, I could tell the question had caught her off-guard.

“I was just...uh...foraging. Some plants still grow around here,” she replied, not quite meeting my eyes.

Huh. So she was lying about something.

“Okay,” I said, letting it drop.

Up ahead, I could see a structure through the trees. A house built into a clearing. As we came into the clearing, the door opened up and a woman stepped out.

She was holding a pistol.

“Lara!” she snapped, and I could immediately tell who was in charge of this relationship.

And, despite the pistol and the steely gaze this woman had, I felt a lot of comfort settle over me, because all at once Lara’s story seemed much more concrete. It was still possible she was acting, or lying, or whatever, but seeing this woman, who had to be Susan, made everything sort of snap into place. If this was a trap, they would’ve just shot me at this point, while I was still on approach to the house. Easiest way to do it.

“It’s okay, Susan,” Lara said. She sounded at once both embarrassed and dismissive.

“Who the fuck is this? That’s close enough,” she growled.

“Okay. I’m cool,” I replied, stopping a more than respectful distance from the house. I got the impression that I was looking at the back door.

“Susan relax, he saved my life. That wolf he’s carrying? It was going to kill me. He shot it. I asked him if he’d...help us, maybe stay awhile,” Lara said.

Susan’s eyes bulged. “You what?!” she snapped. “Oh my God, Lara get over here right now. And you just-stay there.”

“Okay,” I said, setting the dead wolf down and waiting.

I got it. I’d seen this situation before. Nothing new there, she had to talk to Lara alone. Although Lara, who apologized and walked over, wouldn’t go inside. She just crossed her arms and stood with Susan by the back door, and they had a hushed conversation.

They were apparently not as good at being quiet as they thought they were, because I caught at least half of their intense, hushed muttering.

“Who the fuck is this guy?!”

“I told you, he’s…”

“...believe you! You seriously brought some random scary-looking guy because you’re horny?”

“Do not pussy-block me!”

I listened to them bicker back and forth, but it became difficult to focus again.

Besides the fact that my horniness was back like an electric shock roaring through my veins, I was hungry. Fucking starving, actually.

But I was actually feeling pretty good. I’d found people! And they were two really hot chicks! And one of them definitely wanted to fuck me, so that was awesome. Plus, I’d have a place to stay, and I’d found food.

I checked out Susan as indiscreetly as I could while she argued with Lara.

Susan was definitely hot, but in a much different way.

If I had to put it in terms of high school cliches...Lara was the super popular cheerleader, and Susan would be the weird little goth chick who hated everyone.

And to be totally honest, goth chicks really did it for me.

I was honestly frustrated I hadn’t run into any yet.

I don’t know what it was about her, but she just struck me as a goth chick. She was wearing all black, but that could just be a coincidence. She was petite, probably like five foot, maybe five one, and slim. She was very pale, and her raven black hair was pulled into a long ponytail. She looked like she had a lot of energy, one of those high-metabolism girls that couldn’t sit still. Her face was a bit angular and lean, but definitely not unattractive.

“Fine!” she snapped, ending the conversation all at once. Then Susan turned to stare at me with her arms crossed. There was no implied sexuality there, just hostility. She didn’t trust me, and I didn’t blame her.

I already looked the part of a fucking criminal as it was. But when I buzzed my hair off, I think I went from slick bank robber to hardened homicidal maniac.

And...for whatever reason, Lara responded to that quite well.

Susan, however, responded like a sane woman.

“Come over here. Slowly,” she said. She’d put her pistol in a holster on her hip, but hadn’t latched it.

“I’m coming,” I said, and walked over. “So, where do we stand?”

“What’s your name?” Susan asked.

“Chris Weston.”

“All right, Chris, I’m Susan. You’re alone then? No one else hanging out in the woods?”

“I’m alone,” I said.

She frowned at me, staring hard. I could tell she was trying her hand at playing social poker, basically. Trying to see if I was bluffing. I decided to put my cards on the table because on the one hand, words were just words. Someone could say they had good intentions all the live long fucking day, but if they intended to kill you, all they had to do was wait for the right chance, telling you how cool they thought you were right up until they blew your brains out. But I’d also learned that often times, putting people at ease worked, especially if you were honest.

And my only real intention here that might be ‘devious’ was fucking Lara.

Okay, fucking both of them.

Susan seemed like a long shot but hey, so had Megan.

“Okay Susan, I get it. You don’t trust me, and you don’t have any reason to. I totally understand that. I imagine you’ve had a lot of reasons not to trust people since the snow started falling. I’m not looking to bullshit you. I want to work out a deal. I want a place to stay for a few weeks and I’m willing to pull my own weight and unless I have really missed my mark, I want to fuck Lara and she seems pretty willing to fuck me.”

“Got that right,” Lara murmured, favoring me with a smile that immediately started bringing back my erection.

“You fucking whore,” Susan growled. She heaved a frustrated sigh. “Fine, Chris. You can stay here and fuck Lara for a couple of weeks, but you had better pull your own weight around here. And I mean that. We’ve worked hard to stay alive. So if you really are some badass survival type, prove it. Get us more food.”

“I can do that,” I said. “First, however, I’d like to get settled and cash in on that first, uh, promised payment.” I eyed Lara, who eyed me right back.

God it was so good to be wanted by a woman that attractive.

She wasn’t even a ten, she was a twelve.

“Uh-uh,” Susan said, stepping between us and glaring at me. “First, go get a kill.”

“I got a kill,” I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder at the dead wolf. “Consider that the first rent payment.”

“I’ll consider it a security deposit,” Susan replied. “Go get first rent and then you can get settled.”

I frowned, considering it. I wasn’t in the mood to be jerked around, I was in the mood to be jerked off. Lara looked like she wanted to argue, but after a few seconds I could tell that she wasn’t going to go against Susan.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go get your rent.”

I started walking away, readjusting my pack and my rifle.

“Make sure it’s something big!” Susan called after me.

Oh good lord.

If she ever let me fuck her, I was going to absolutely demolish that little bitch.

I set off back into the woods.

FOUR

I was as motivated as I’d been for awhile.

I set out into the woods, my focus like a laser, and began hunting game. Something. Anything. A deer, a wolf, a rabbit.

Honestly, I was going back there with the first thing I killed.

And then I was taking Lara back to the nearest bed, stripping naked, and just wrecking her pussy for the rest of the day.

As I looked around for an animal trail to follow, rifle in hand, I found myself grateful that we’d had such a frank discussion about the whole thing, because now we all knew where we stood. Susan didn’t trust me, but was willing to at least try, and Lara and I wanted to fuck, and we were all willing to extend a little bit of trust to try and make a living situation work. In a way, I felt like I’d won the fucking lottery.

And in another way, and yeah, this was gonna sound really arrogant, but I felt like they had won the lottery.

It would take a little while, but they’d figure out that they had hit it big with someone like me. I was strong, I was vigilant, I was an excellent shot, a great hunter, and skinner, and cook. Well, okay, a decent cook. But I could fight, I could shoot, and more significantly I would fight to keep them safe. I’d provide for them effectively and immediately. Susan wanted to put me to the test? I was cool with that. I could ace that test.

Right now, I was irritated and hungry and horny, but even now I could still see that I had stumbled into one hell of a good situation.

Provided nothing went seriously wrong, then I was going to enjoy a three-to-six-week sex vacation with, at minimum, one stunning beauty, before going home.

I wondered, suddenly, if I could convince them to come with me.

But that was all secondary. Right now, I was hunting.

And it seemed that my luck was snowballing.

Sixty seconds later, I picked up on some deer tracks. Following them for three minutes led me to a deer, making its way slowly through the trees.

I slowly took aim.

The deer froze, seeing or maybe even sensing the movement.

The second I had the shot lined up I took it.

And nailed it.

Unable to keep from grinning, I set off towards my kill.

~

The back door to my new home opened up as I approached and Susan walked out with her gun. The look on her face told me she had something either chastising or sarcastic lined up to go. But I had to admit, it was actually pretty satisfying to see that look dissolve into one of honest, open shock when she saw me carrying the dead deer.

And it wasn’t little, either.

This sucker had to weigh a hundred pounds.

That might have been on the lower end of the scale a decade ago, but nowadays? Deer were a bit scrawnier, seeing as it was harder to find food, so a hundred pound deer was a good find, and would probably net about thirty to forty pounds of food. That was probably a solid week of meals for all three of us. Two weeks if we were careful and mixed it into stews.

“Are you shitting me?” were the words that came out of her mouth.

“Nope,” I replied. “Where do I put this?”

She blinked a few times, then just stepped into the house and waved for me to follow her. I stepped inside, finding myself in a hall that stretched the length of the house and led to the front door. I saw three doors to the right, four to the left. The first to either side of me were open and quick glances to my left and right as I followed Susan to the other end of the hall revealed a dining room and a living room. I caught sight of at least one bedroom and a kitchen before coming to a door to the right of the front door.

It led into a stairwell that descended into the basement area.

Susan hesitated. “Why don’t you go first?”

“Fine,” I said.

Honestly, even with all my frustrations, I could understand her fears. I was over a foot taller than her and probably had like a hundred, maybe even a hundred and fifty pounds on her. I could break her neck like a twig if I wanted to, and there’d be nothing she could do to stop me. That had to be frightening if you thought that was a real possibility.

I walked down the stairs, still carrying the deer draped over my shoulders. I’d have to clean my leather jacket, but whatever.

Hurrying down the stairs, I tried not to trip. Sunlight came in through some high windows across the room, illuminating it enough to give me an idea of what was down there. There was a lot of crap shoved to the right side of the room. Boxes, mostly. Also furniture. It had to belong to whoever lived here before.

The left side of the room held a bloody table scattered with scraps of meat and some carving and skinning instruments.

I saw the wolf laid out on the table.

It was cold down there, but that was to be expected, it was a basement in winter.

I grunted as I put the deer down, then straightened up and popped my back. “Okay,” I said, turning around and walking back towards the stairs, “rent’s paid. I’m heading to my room.”

“Not yet,” Susan said, stepping between me and the stairs. Okay, I had to give it to her: she had guts. “First I want you to gut those two-”

“No,” I said flatly, and her words died in her throat. “That’s gonna take a few hours. I held up my end of the bargain, so now I’m asking you to do the same, and obviously Lara wants to sleep with me, so I’m doing that.”

“Chris-” Susan began, clearly prepared to argue, but Lara spoke up then.

“Susan, stop.” We both looked up. I hadn’t heard her. She was halfway down the steps, looking at the two of us, now wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants and oh my God I was right, she was fucking curvaceous as hell!

“Lara,” Susan said, but this time Lara didn’t back down.

“Susan! Stop being a bitch! Just-let me do this, okay?”

Susan stared at her for a long few moments, then looked back at me. I had the notion that there might be some tension between the two of them, but maybe it was just stress. Either way, I was beginning to pass beyond the point of caring or being able to care, because my horniness had rushed back like a fucking bullet train.

“Fine,” she said. “But after you’re done-”

“After I’m done I’ll come down and carve them up and cook us all a nice big dinner,” I replied, walking past her and to the stairs.

“Fine,” she repeated, and we left her in the basement.

Lara walked ahead of me, up the stairs, and I got another look at her ass. I started to feel genuinely drunk or stoned, like a low-level current was buzzing through my blood and my head. I could feel my heartbeat as a pulse that was rapidly picking up as Lara led me back out into the hallway, and then directly across from the door that led to the basement to one door that had been closed. Opening it up, I saw that it led to another bedroom, a smaller one. What must be hers. The details of it were lost to me as I got in there and closed the door behind me.

Lara turned to look at me and I stared at her, feeling almost paralyzed beneath the weight of my immense desire and raw sexual energy.

My cock was a bar of lead in my boxers.

“So I’m just going to warn you beforehand,” I said, struggling to contain myself, “I haven’t had sex in about three weeks, and I haven’t even jerked off in the last week, and I have what you might call a sex-overdrive. So unless you tell me otherwise, I’m going to go hard, and for awhile. I’ve got an implant that means I can’t get you pregnant, and as far as I know I’m clean.”

The smile that came onto her face reminded me of Delilah. “I’ll tell you this then: I’m in a really similar situation, although it’s been three months for me. I’m clean, too, so I don’t have a problem with going raw. And I’m going to stop with: my safeword is ‘calendar’ and you have my permission to do whatever the fuck you want to me. As of right now, consider me yours.”

That was basically like pulling the leash off a hunting dog that had been straining to get into the hunt for an hour.

The starting pistol fired at the beginning of the race.

I was off and gone when she told me that.

I was so hungry for touch and sex that I just stepped across the room in two quick strides, and she let out a slightly startled gasp as I grabbed her and kissed her on the mouth. Lara responded immediately, wrapping her arms around me and kissing me back. Kissing her was like...narcotics. It was like an injection of straight heroine. My whole body lit up with sexual energy as our lips met and my hands started going over her body.

Her tongue probed my mouth after a few seconds of intense making out and mine met hers immediately, twisting them together as I grabbed her ass. Feeling it through the fabric of her sweatpants, I was only reminded of the intensity of her buxom nature. I slipped my hands down the back of loose-fitting pants and found bare skin there. No panties. God, I think I was rapidly falling in love with this stunning vixen.

I groped her ass as we made out for a solid minute, then I released her, stepped back, and, in a fit of spontaneity, grabbed her shirt and literally ripped it down the middle. Her huge tits fell out as the shirt fell away. If she had a problem with it, she didn’t show it, just shrugged out of the remains of the shirt.

Her breasts.

My God.

My dear sweet God they were amazing.

They were the biggest tits I’d ever seen on a woman in the flesh. Bigger than Delilah’s.

“What fucking cup size are you?” I whispered, sounding almost reverent.

She giggled. “E.”

“Holy shit.” I immediately grabbed them and started groping them, and I swear this was like a new experience. I mean, it was, objectively. I’d never played with tits this big before. But it felt different. That feeling of intoxication only soared and my erection intensified so much that it was beginning to hurt.

Abruptly, I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed down.

Lara got the message and dropped to her knees. She undid my pants quickly, her hands nimble and skilled, and as she got them undone and my boxers pulled down, my cock fell out in front of her face.

“Oh wow, you’re really b-” she began, and then I shoved my cock in her mouth.

She groaned and then gagged as I grabbed her head and started fucking her mouth. She didn’t try to stop me, instead just grabbing my hips so that she didn’t lose her balance, which was good. Much as I was enjoying this, losing myself in it, I still had enough frame of mind to know that she would have a hard time saying her safeword with my dick halfway down her throat. She let out a moan that told me she was enjoying every second of this hard dick I was delivering to her, so I didn’t let up. I fully intended to make as much use of her body as she let me, which was, according to her, as much as I could possibly want.

And today I wanted so much.

I held onto her head firmly and just fucked her throat for probably a good minute and a half, giving her probably barely enough time to catch her breath every fifteen or so seconds. Finally, I let go and as soon as I did, she pulled back, taking my dick out of her mouth and coughing raggedly, panting, gasping really.

I was just about to tell her to hurry up and get back to work when she flung her brown hair back, gripped my cock, and put it back in her mouth.

“Ahhhhh yes!” I growled as she started sucking me off.

And she was good at it.

Right away I could tell she was good at it, and as she slipped her lips over my head rapidly, immediately stimulating me hard and fast, putting them to work in conjunction with her fingers, I wondered how old she was. At first glance she seemed my age, maybe a year younger, but it occurred to me that she could be older than me, and not just by a few years. I’d known women who were (and looked) twenty, but acted forty, and forty year olds who also looked twenty, and acted twenty. It could be hard to tell.

But that thought quickly derailed as an orgasm abruptly exploded out of me.

I let out a startled grunting growl as the pleasure burst into existence and all at once I was coming a huge load into her mouth. Lara seemed startled by it, but not unprepared. She kept my dick in her mouth and worked the shaft with her hands, jacking and sucking me off simultaneously and oh holy fucking shit was it just ever the best feeling in the whole entire universe. I mean goddamn was this one of the best orgasms of my life.

I moaned and groaned and growled and panted as I held her head in my grasp, draining my nuts down her throat, jamming my dick so far into her mouth that she had to give up using her hand and instead just knelt there and let me force my dick down her throat again. I cried out as I pushed as hard and far as it would go, and my cock ended up halfway down her throat, and I cried out again, louder, still coming, as I felt her swallow once, twice, three times.

She swallowed everything I had to give, and then I was done coming, and I let go of her. Immediately she fell back, then to her hands and knees, coughing harshly.

“Holy...oh my...fuck, man!” she cried, panting and coughing. “I didn’t think you’d go that hard.”

“I’m just getting started,” I replied as I took off my shirt and kicked off my shoes. “Get your fucking pants off now.”

“Oh yes sir,” she replied immediately, her tone indicating that she was quite submissive.

And my lust only spiked harder.

My actions were quick and fumbling as I finished stripping off my clothes and my underclothes. I was so fucking desperate to be naked that I almost ripped my longjohns off. Her sweatpants came off and I saw she was wearing nothing underneath them. I saw her vagina and just about lost it. It looked so smooth and perfect in between incredibly thick thighs and wonderfully large, broad hips, coming up to a perfect waistline.

She had an hourglass figure like I’d never seen before.

I shoved her hard onto her bed and she let out a cry of shock and joy as she landed on her back, bouncing once. I didn’t even get onto the bed with her, instead grabbing her hips and yanking her into position.

It was just the right height for fucking.

Both of us naked now and practically vibrating with sexual energy and raw, naked lust, I gripped my cock, rested the head against her vagina, and then pushed myself inside. She let out a loud, long cry of pleasure as I penetrated her and oh my fucking God!

For a few seconds, I lost myself.

I mean I really lost myself.

She was so wet. Her vagina almost felt artificial, synthetic, like it had been designed in a lab for maximum pleasure. Her slickness was complimented so perfectly by her tightness, the way it gripped me. And the heat.

I grabbed her hips, digging in my fingertips, and started fucking the absolute shit out of her.

“OH FUCK! OH YES! YES! YES! JESU-FUCK-SHIT-HGHRN!” Lara screamed, quickly becoming incoherent. “FUCK ME! FUCK ME, CHRIS! FUCK ME!” she shrieked.

I pounded her harder, stroking into her as fast as I could, driving my whole cock inside of her, and she soon lost the ability to talk.

So did I.

I was just grunting, and this was as close to a mindless animal rutting during mating season as I had ever felt. I was positive that I’d gone longer without jacking off or having sex or coming in any capacity since I’d started doing it, but I could never remember being this turned on in my entire life. As I stared at her naked pale body, I found myself suddenly understanding of how some women became cult-like religious figures.

I could seriously see worshiping this woman, she was that hot, and that good to fuck.

Her enormous tits were bouncing all around and they were the best pair I’d ever seen in my life. I gripped them, feeling perfect, light pink nipples pressing into my palms as I groped and squeezed and massaged them, still stroking hard and fast into her, delivering all my inches deep into that pussy without stopping or slowing. I ran my hands all over her body as I listened to her make all kinds of noises, things that tried and failed to be words.

She came first, climaxing within thirty seconds of me giving her a hard fucking.

I don’t know if it was how long it had been or if she was sensitive and easy to pleasure, but I hoped it was that second one. I let out a loud, long groan of my own as she squirted all over my cock and balls and thighs and lower stomach and goddamn she was making a mess! It probably wasn’t helping that I kept shoving my cock in there, making her shriek louder each time. Her vaginal muscles fluttered and clenched wildly as she somehow became even hotter and wetter inside, and then my own orgasm was right there.

I wasn’t done with this pussy, not yet.

So I pulled out and started coming all over her stomach. Even in her manic state, she apparently still had the awareness to reach out, grip me, and start jacking me off smoothly.

“Oh, Lara! Ah! Lara! Oh God fuck yes!” I cried, my whole body feeling like it was ground zero for a sexual seismological event of epic proportions as I came a second time. I busted another huge nut, getting my stuff all over her stomach and her pubic area and even up to her tits. And as soon as I was done coming, she put it back inside of her and shrieked as I resumed fucking her. This time, I got her legs up in the air, adjusted myself a little, and started hitting it hard and fast once more. And apparently I was hitting it just.

Because Lara lost it.

She legit started screaming and grunting, sounding like a fucking maniac in the throes of ax murdering someone, or getting murdered, and abruptly there was a heavy pounding at the door. Neither of us stopped fucking.

“Lara?!” Susan called, sounding worried. “Are you okay?! Is he hurting you!”

“NO!” Lara screamed. “FUCK OFF! LET ME HAVE SEX GODDAMNIT!”

I couldn’t help but laugh, at least a little, and feel bad. I could honestly understand why Susan would be worried, we just met, but I also so understood how Lara felt right now, because I think I might go fucking caveman if someone tried to stop me right now. I was definitely not done. I had weeks of sex to catch up on.

I drilled that sweet pussy of hers, listening to her let out her own growls and grunts and groans of pure sexual rapture. She stared up at me with eyes so bright and blue they seemed like they were lit from within. And the more I fucked her and drove my cock deep inside of her, the more she looked like some kind of fucking sex demon or goddess.

If someone told me right now this chick was a real-life succubus, I might believe it.

She hooked her hands around the bottoms of her thighs and held her legs in place, sticking her feet in the air and spreading her legs wide, letting me dick her deep, hard, and fast. I think one of the things that was adding to this sexual experience was the fact that she was just so immediately in tune with me, like she knew what I wanted to do almost before I did, and she made little adjustments so perfectly. We were just in sync, like we’d been dating and fucking for years. I hated to think it as much as I loved realizing it but…

This was the best pussy I had ever gotten in my life.

Some part of me could just tell that, this woman I was fucking, Lara, she was just the absolute best fuck I had ever had.

Fucking ever.

Realizing that made me start gearing up to trigger a third time but goddamnit I wasn’t done drilling this pussy yet!

Right as I pulled out, she again seemed to know what I was going to do and she shifted for me. I climbed half onto the bed and let out a loud, long groan as I jacked off all over her shockingly beautiful, pale face. She moaned and closed her eyes, letting me bust another nut onto that perfect face of hers.

It was seriously like shooting your load all over a legit porn star or mega actress or something. It was overloading my brain.

I finished draining my cock yet again and then went back to work, getting into position, holding myself up with my hands on either side of her, and resumed humping her.

“Oh my God! How are you still going!? That’s three times!” she cried in genuine shock.

“Told you,” I panted as I screwed her, “three weeks, no sex. One week since I last comed. And you are...ah God...you are the hottest chick I’ve ever fucked.”

“Seriously?” she asked, then moaned loudly.

“Yes! Fuck!”

She stared at me with one eye closed, still looking happy and pleasured and really in her element despite the fact that she now looked like a goddamned porn caricature.

I mean seriously, I’d fucking half-covered in her my seed.

This last round, I didn’t last as long as I thought I would. To be honest, I was surprised that I was still going, but I just had to get this out of me. All this energy that must’ve been built up during my time in isolation.

This last time, I drilled that sweet, perfect pink pussy until the last orgasm I had in me (for now), shot to the surface. I grabbed her hips again and thrust as deep and hard as I could into her vagina, and she gasped and cried out as she took all my inches, and my body locked up as I started to come for the fourth and final time.

As my seed spurted out of me and pumped into her, filling her up, my hips jerked forward in automatic reaction as yet another quake of pleasure blasted through me with shockwaves of blinding, mind-numbing bliss.

I came what felt like a lot inside of her.

And then I was done, and I almost fainted. I pulled out of her and sat down on the bed beside her, falling onto my back, gasping for breath, my whole body shaky, covered in sweat, my head spinning pretty badly.

Lara slowly put her feet back down on the floor, laying beside me, panting furiously as well.

After a long moment, there was a knock at the door. “Can I come in? Are you okay?” Susan asked.

“I mean, if you want to,” Lara replied.

The door opened. “I just wanted to check-oh my God!” she cried in honest shock. “How in the fuck-ugh, whatever. I just wanted to see if you’re okay.”

“I told you I’m fine,” Lara said. She sounded dazed and happy.

“I’m not being unreasonable, goddamnit! He’s a literal fucking stranger and all the times we’ve been almost raped and killed-”

“Susan,” Lara said, raising one hand, “I know. Thank you, I appreciate it. But I’m okay. Seriously. He’s fine.”

“Whatever,” Susan said. I slowly sat up and looked over. I realized she was looking at my cock, which still wasn’t entirely soft yet. Her eyes snapped back up. “Just-don’t forget you agreed to carve those animals up. We’re almost out of food.”

“Like I said,” I replied, “I’ll carve them up and make dinner. Or lunch. Or both. Whatever. Food, I’ll provide it. That was the deal.”

“Fine.” She left and slammed the door behind her.

“Does she have anger problems or something?” I asked after a minute.

“No.” Lara paused. “I mean, kinda. She’s stressed, try not to take it personally. The last guy we ran into…” She sighed. “We had to kill him. He did try to rape us. And it wasn’t the only time that’s happened.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Well it’s not your fault.” She paused and looked over at me. “How poorly would you have reacted if I’d changed my mind?”

“I would’ve been pretty fucking pissed, but I wouldn’t have attacked you or anything. I’ll respect it if you change your mind, but...obviously the terms of the deal are gonna change.”

“Don’t worry,” she said with a deliriously happy smile, “I’m not changing shit. That was the best sex I’ve ever had, too. Like, oh my God, Chris, you can fuck. You can fuck so good. And that dick of yours, it’s perfect. It’s big, and long, and thick, but not too big. It’s like, perfectly proportioned for me. Trust me, I want as much of that dick as you’re willing to give me.” She paused and looked down at herself. “And now we find out how sweet of a guy you are: will you help me out? Get me a rag or something?”

“Don’t worry,” I said, getting up and grabbing the shredded remnants of her t-shirt, then digging around in my pack and pulling out a bottle of water, “I’m plenty sweet.”

“Oh God, if that’s true I might have to marry you.”

I laughed. “I know how you feel, actually.” I wet down the t-shirt remnants with lukewarm water and passed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said as she started wiping her face off. “God, you comed so much! Like so much! How!? I mean, your balls are pretty decently sized but shit, I’ve never seen this much outside of like fucking porn! And I used to watch a lot!”

“Just how I am,” I replied. “Plus, it’s a weeks’ worth. Sorry about the t-shirt.”

“I kinda figured you’d do something like that,” she replied. “Actually, I kinda hoped. So, no harm there.”

“Cool.”

I found my own rag, wet it, and washed myself down. She’d made a hell of a mess all over my midsection, not that I was complaining. When I was finished and dried off, I began pulling my clothes back on.

“Well, I’ve got work to do. I am a hard worker, and I have every intention of pulling my weight around here.”

“Shit, seriously? What the fuck are you, the perfect man or something?”

I laughed. “Fuck no. Just...lucky.”

“Susan and I are the lucky ones,” Lara murmured as she got the last of my stuff off of her. “Tell me you’re dicking me again tonight.”

“I am for sure dicking you again tonight,” I replied.

“Good. I want more. So much more.”

“Same.”

I finished pulling my clothes on, grabbed my stuff, and left the room, closing the door behind me to give Lara some privacy.

FIVE

I hadn’t gotten all of my crazy sexual energy out, I still had a lot of catching up to do as far as I was concerned, but I’d gotten the worst of it out.

For now.

I was a lot more clear-headed as I headed back down into the basement. Susan wasn’t down there, waiting for me, like I half-expected her to be. I thought she might want to watch me work, but she was elsewhere in the house. Maybe in her own bedroom, sulking. Honestly, I felt bad. I thought about it from her perspective as I checked out their tools, found mine to be better, and then set to work carving up the wolf.

Lara had said they’d been friends forever, and the fact that they were still together, living alone in this house in the middle of nowhere, meant that they were serious friends. If you were friends with someone after enduring the apocalypse, you knew that shit was for real. And Susan had said they’d been through some brutal times.

So they move here, sticking together for most of their lives, through thick and thin, and some dude shows up, seduces your best friend, and fucks the ever-loving shit out of her. And she screams at you to stop worrying about and just let her get laid, when all you were doing was looking out for her. That had to hurt.

And I was already picking up on some subtext here.

People liked to play like they were all hard to read and ‘don’t judge what you don’t know’, but to be real: everyone was basically an open book.

You really could judge a book by its cover more often than not if you had enough practice at it and some intuition.

And a willingness to admit when you were wrong and adapt from that.

It was obvious to me that Lara was highly sexual, highly skilled, and highly sought after. Given how conventionally attractive and physically-oriented our society was, I had to imagine that Susan might’ve felt like she was living in Lara’s shadow.

Could be wrong, but if I was Susan, that’s how I’d feel.

Of course, I could just be projecting.

But I had a strong feeling I wasn’t.

And so that would complicate things.

Plus…

Having to hear someone else get laid while you specifically weren’t getting laid, while in fact maybe you’d been having a tough time getting laid…

Shit, that was brutal. That was eviscerating.

I’d been there a few times.

I promised myself to try and make peace with Susan after this. Although I’d been less rude to her than she’d been to me, she seemed like she was under a lot of stress, and kind of a high-strung person. Plus, well…

I wanted to have sex with her.

That was a shallow motivation, but I took comfort in the knowledge that it wasn’t my only one. I’d really be okay with it and wouldn’t treat her shitty if she turned me down. Of course, I only felt that way because Lara was already fucking me.

I sighed softly. It was never easy. There was always something, some angle to consider, some problem to try and work out, some situation or force to work against. But I made myself cheer up, although honestly I didn’t really have to, I was in a great mood and would be for the rest of the day, because I knew I’d stumbled into something really fucking good.

Like really good.

Regular sex with Lara was honestly like winning the lottery.

I carved up the wolf without much trouble, but the deer took longer. I did the whole thing though, going through the process of getting as much meat as I could, and then getting the skins off so that they could dry out and we could use them either to trade or make coats or clothes or blankets. It took awhile, several hours, but I was diligent, patient, and practiced at this point. I heard the two of them talking at several points, then arguing loudly at one point, then probably ignoring each other for awhile after that. And again I felt bad.

I was going to have to learn more about them, see if I could get things to run more smoothly. Technically speaking, they had hired me to help provide for them. Maybe one of the things I could provide was, if not happiness, then contentment.

Surely I was providing happiness to Lara.

There had been no mistaking the bliss on her face.

I finished my job after several hours and by then, my stomach was rumbling pretty regularly. I was fucking starving, especially after everything I’d been doing today. I gathered up all the containers which Susan had provided to store the meat, bringing them upstairs in several trips and setting them out on the counter.

When I came up with the last of them, I found Susan waiting for me in the kitchen.

“Are you finished?” she asked.

“Yeah. That’s the last of it.” I looked around the kitchen, saw a wood-burning stove. Perfect. “Be right back.”

I went back to Lara’s bedroom, found the door cracked, knocked.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me, I need to wash up,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, come in.”

I found her lying in bed, reading something. I got one of my water bottles and another rag then changed out of my clothes, knowing I’d have to wash them soon. I’d gotten a fair amount of blood on them. At some point, I needed to track down a butcher’s smock or something. I hadn’t seen anything like that down there.

“How’d it go?” she asked as I washed up.

“Good. We’ve got a lot of meat now. Probably around forty pounds. That should last us somewhere between one to two weeks,” I replied.

“Awesome! Shit, you are good at this. You just got here.”

“Luck played a part,” I replied. I finished washing up and pulled on my second set of clothes. “I’m going to go make some lunch now.”

“Awesome!” She sat up. “You want me to wash these for you? I totally will.”

“Yeah, sure. I’d appreciate it,” I replied.

She grinned, got up, came over, and gave me a kiss. “I know we just met but...I really like you. I’ve got a good feeling about you.”

“I have similar feelings about you,” I replied, and, just because I wanted to, I gave her a long kiss on the lips.

She had such fantastically kissable lips, and the way she leaned into it, the way she asked for more with her body…

She was an intoxicating woman.

I finished the kiss and then headed back out into the kitchen. Susan was in the process of dealing with the meat. She put one in the freezer, which I saw was packed with snow.

“I was intending to make lunch,” I said as I came into the room. Right away I could feel a lot of tension coming off of her.

“Fine, fry this up,” she said, shoving one of the containers with wolf meat down the counter.

“All right.”

I took it and then began the process of getting the wood-burning stove fired up. As I worked, I decided to try and defuse at least some of the tension.

“So, um, sorry about that,” I said.

“What?” she replied sullenly.

“The whole...all the noise. It’s just been awhile for me.” She just snorted and said nothing else. I wondered, suddenly, if it had been awhile for her, too. Only she didn’t have an outlet. I wanted to ask her if that was the case, but I had the feeling she’d blow up at me if I did. “Susan.”

“What?” she snapped, now turning to look at me.

“I get it. Like, I honestly understand how you feel. And I’m not here to cause problems. I’m not going to hurt either of you, I’m not going to be a dick. I really am just looking for a place to stay for a little while, and to have fun with someone, and I’m genuinely willing to hold up my end of the deal. And I understand that words are just words, and it’ll take time for you to trust me. Which is fair. I just...if me and Lara hooking up causes problems or tension or whatever, then I’m sorry. It’ll just be for a few weeks.”

Susan stared at me long and hard, her gaze mostly steely, but I saw something lurking under the surface. Something almost like desire.

Did she want me?

Maybe that was wishful thinking, because I wanted her.

In the end, she just picked up a nearby knife and pointed it at me. “I don’t trust you. But if you hurt Lara, I swear to fucking God I’ll gut you like a fish. Are we clear?”

“We’re clear,” I replied. Then, after a few seconds, I added, “You are fucking brave for a tiny chick, you know that?”

“Yes, I do,” she said simply, then put the knife down on the counter and went back to organizing the meat I’d carved up.

There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so I didn’t.

I just got back to work on my own.

~

They had some seasonings in their possessions, so I put those to use as I fried up some wolf meat. Enough for the three of us. They also had gotten some potatoes at some point, so I cubed those and fried them up as well, because potatoes were good. Obviously some of the super-seeds had taken around these parts and these ladies knew where to find some of the resulting plants. Already, my mind was making notes and putting together a checklist of things to do. Questions that needed answered, locations that needed visiting, resources found, inventories managed, game hunted, threats assessed. But that could wait.

I ate lunch with them and tried to get to know them better.

I told them about myself, pretty much leaving out the final part, from meeting Delilah onward. It felt like I was lying, and in a way I was, but I didn’t want them, or rather Susan, getting the impression that I was only here to try and get them to come back and join my harem of women. (No doubt how they would see it, it wasn’t exactly how I saw the situation). To be fair, I did want that, but it wasn’t like I was unwilling to take no for an answer.

No, I’d bring it up soon enough.

Until then, I’d keep it simple.

I liked simple.

“What about you two?” I asked after I’d told them about myself.

“We’re from California, as I mentioned,” Lara said. She was doing almost all the talking. Susan seemed sullen and withdrawn, and I was beginning to suspect that it wasn’t just the fact that she had difficulty with me. “We grew up there. We’ve been best friends forever. Went to the same middle school together. We went to LA after high school to try and, you know, make it. I wanted to act, Susan wanted to write.”

I fucking knew it, she was an actress.

“Did it work out?” I asked.

Susan scoffed. “Hardly.”

“We were on our way,” Lara said.

“You were on your way,” Susan replied.

“Oh come on, you had that deal-whatever,” Lara said, moving on to what she must perceive as a less controversial topic. I had the idea they fought a lot. I also had the idea that I was looking at a classic introvert-extrovert relationship. “Anyway,” she continued, “when the snowfall started happening, I was friends with a woman, another more popular actress who’d recently started getting big. She got hold of me and told me it was worse than they were letting on, that her husband worked for the government and he’d overheard that it was only going to get worse.”

I leaned forward suddenly. “Did you ever get anything definitive? Like if the government had something to do with all this?”

She sighed. “No. I thought maybe her husband knew what he was talking about but after awhile it became obvious he was just talking out his ass. I think, and I don’t know for sure, but I think they just knew that it was going to get worse, maybe not necessarily why or how. Or maybe they did. But I don’t know. Anyway, she said that they had a place in Colorado, on the eastern side of the Rockies, and she offered to take me and Susan with her. So we went.”

“Great idea,” Susan muttered.

“Did we really have a better idea?” Lara fired back at her. I also got the impression that they bickered like an old married couple. Susan just rolled her eyes and kept eating. “We got on a private plane and made it to Nevada. Had to set down there due to weather. We hung around for awhile, waiting for the weather to clear up, but ultimately it became too dangerous to stick around. People were getting desperate. After a month, they attacked the mansion we were staying in.”

“You were staying in a damned mansion?” I asked.

“Yeah. Made us a target. They had bodyguards but eventually it just became too much. People were getting really desperate and they attacked. We fled. About a dozen of us got into some vehicles and just started driving. After that it was this long, weird, exhausting journey to and then through the Rockies that lasted like three months. We stopped at several places. At one point the government guy’s wife got sick, like really badly sick, and we had to stop and just hole up at this little city in Utah for a month while she got better. But finally, like four months after the snowfall began, we got to their middle of nowhere fancy mansion in the mountains. And...it was good, at first. We stayed there for a full two months. There were eight of us in total. But it got...weird.”

Susan snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“What happened?”

Lara sighed. “The government dude who owned it was...into me. A lot. And I just was not. I mean, I was thankful that he’d brought us along, clearly, though mostly that was his wife. He started pressuring me and this one other girl into sex after a couple of weeks, and he and his wife were fighting all the time. Then it was like everyone was fighting all the time. Eventually, one night, he showed up during dinner drunk with a pistol and although his wife managed to talk him down from doing anything stupid, that was when most of us decided ‘yeah, we’re done’. So Susan and I and three others just left that night. We grabbed our shit and left. There was a town a few miles away that we’d gone to a few times and it still seemed relatively sane.

“And it was. We lived there for a year. Eventually, though, the place started getting crazy. It was getting more violent. There were shootings. They decided to start executing prisoners, people who broke the laws that they had arbitrarily decided. Susan and I realized we had to get out of there, too. So we left. Headed to the next town. Ran into another problem. Went to the next town. Another problem. Another town. Eventually, we ended up here.”

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Two weeks.”

“You like it here?”

“It’s quiet,” Lara replied.

“It was,” Susan muttered.

“Stop sulking,” Lara said.

Susan just sighed and gave her head an angry shake, but otherwise held her peace. I was beginning to think I might’ve walked into a minefield, but…

Well, to be honest, if I could navigate it successfully, I thought that there might be something really awesome on the other end of that minefield. Personally, I thought it would be ideal if the two of them came back with me to Pine Lake. It’s not like we had a utopia there, but I trusted most of the people there.

And if both of them ended up having regular sex with me, well…

I thought that’d make us all happy. Certainly Lara seemed to think so. Now if we could just get Susan onboard…

But that was for later. I’d done enough for one day.

We kept eating, mostly sticking to silence after that. When I was done, I cleaned up and then went outside to gather some firewood. I worked for an hour, coming and going from the house, just letting my mind settle. There was a lot to do, but I wanted to take today to rest. I also wanted to go back in there and bang the fuck out of Lara, but my dick needed a rest, too. I think I’d overdone it. It was a little like not eating all day long and suddenly gorging yourself all at once. I’d have sex with her once before sleep tonight for sure, though.

After gathering wood, I felt the urge to just laze about, so that’s what I did. I saw that they had a bookshelf full of books, most of which I didn’t recognize. I selected one that was part of a series that I confirmed was all here, making eight books in total, and started reading. Before I knew it, it was dinnertime and I helped Lara put together some wolf meat and vegetable stew. I’d have to take a serious inventory of it tomorrow, but from what I saw, Susan wasn’t joking about their food supply. It looked low.

Dinner came and went. Mostly I told stories of a few of the more interesting or dangerous times I’d had since heading out into the wilderness. After cleaning up, I read some more, then ended up talking with Lara on the couch in the living room for awhile, with her resting her head in my lap. It felt...right. And good.

I couldn’t believe I was having such an immediate and great connection with such an attractive woman.

A few hours after dark, Lara finally reached up and took one of my hands. “So, not that I haven’t been enjoying this conversation, because I have, a lot, but...can we fuck again? Like seriously, I’m just so horny right now.”

“Yes,” I replied immediately.

“Awesome!”

She hopped up off the couch, pulling me up with her, and I let her lead me back through the house. We went to her room and closed the door behind us. Susan was already in her room across the hall, the door shut. I hesitated, realizing that I was probably going to want to sleep not too long after this. It had been a long day.

“What?” Lara asked.

“I’m going to make sure the doors and windows are locked, make sure the fire is going, all that business, because once I finish in that sweet pussy of yours, I’m not going to want to get back up,” I replied.

She laughed. “Fair enough.”

“Be waiting in that bed naked for me.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

I went to go quickly wind down the house for the night.

SIX

There didn’t appear to be anyone lurking in the forest surrounding the house.

I made sure the front and back doors were locked, and checked all the windows that I had access to, (all of them but the ones in Susan’s bedroom), and then tended to the fire to make sure it would last for awhile.

Then I hurried back to Lara’s bedroom.

As I came in and shut the door behind me, I found her laying in bed, beneath the blankets, which were pulled down just enough to show most of, but not all, her breasts.

She was smiling alluringly at me. A pair of candles burned in the room, one on the bedside table, one on a dresser across the room. I quickly began undressing and as soon as I was naked, I got to work washing up.

“So, I take it this is my bedroom too now?” I asked as she watched me clean up.

“Yep,” she replied. “We’re...roommates.”

“I think we’re a little more than that,” I replied.

Her grin took on a different quality and I could tell she wanted to ask or tell me something. I waited, but no question or statement was forthcoming by the time I’d dried off.

“What?” I asked as I walked over.

“I just want to say...in case I didn’t emphasize it enough, I’m really submissive. Like, it’s my whole entire thing. I like being told what to do.”

“I suddenly understand your relationship with Susan,” I replied.

She laughed. “That’s...different. It’s not the same with her. I mean, it kinda is, but it also isn’t...whatever. But our relationship, if you’re looking to make me happy, I just wanna say now: tell me what to do. I don’t really care how it looks, Susan’s always given me shit for it but I don’t care. It turns me on. Inside the bedroom and outside of it...provided it’s the right person giving the orders. And you are oh so right. After this moment, I’m turning the reigns over to you. All you have to remember is my safeword.”

I considered it for a long moment, looking down at her. I could tell she was being completely serious, and it wasn’t that surprising. I’ve known some women who were really submissive in bed, who got off on being ordered around, or tied down and slapped and spit on. There were different varieties of this, but I also knew that for some women, it was a lifestyle. They wanted their partner to dictate not just the position they took or when to suck dick, but other things. What to eat, when to eat, what to wear. I didn’t plan on taking it that far but…

Obviously it held a certain appeal to me.

“All right,” I said. “I understand.”

I lifted the blanket and kind of just froze up, staring down at her completely naked body. It was like unwrapping a gift. She was just…

Painfully attractive.

The most perfectly buxom, thick, and curvaceous woman I had ever come across in my life. I wanted to ask her how she maintained it in a post-apocalyptic environment, but instead I just got into bed with her and pulled the blankets in around us.

All I wanted to do was fuck her.

I wanted to reward her, too.

Our first encounter had been all about me, and now I wanted this one to be all about us. So I went slower, running my hand slowly down her arm, her side, to her hip and then her wonderfully well-padded thigh. She shuddered at my touch, and then moaned softly as we kissed. We started making out, testing each other, tasting each other, enjoying each other. She kissed me slowly, pausing occasionally and making soft, happy sounds, before returning to the kiss. I ran my hand over her thighs, over her vagina, and she shuddered more intensely and parted her legs for me. I traced my finger around down there, then ran it slowly between the lips of her pussy.

She let out a moan as I found her clit and began to massage it.

“Oh fuck, you can-oh...oh!”

“I can what?” I asked, grinning into the kiss.

“You can do foreplay, too. Oh my God that’s-FUCK!” she cried as I rubbed harder.

We resumed making out with renewed intensity. I slipped my tongue into Lara’s mouth and she met it with her own. They danced together, twisting and twining, and I enjoyed her taste and her touch. She reached down and began to massage my cock slowly as I fingered her. Then she twitched hard as I got a finger into her and began pressing up into her g-spot.

“Shit! Ah God, Chris, that’s just...oh! That’s perfect!” she panted.

“Call me master,” I said to her.

“Yes-ah!-yes, master!” she moaned as I fingered her harder.

This was going to be a very good relationship.

I kept fingering her until she came, and then I went to the next phase. “I’m going to reward you for being a good girl,” I said as I got down in between her thighs.

“Oh shit,” she whispered, panting, “you’re gonna-OH MY GOD!” she cried as I started tonguing her clit.

I ate her out for a good five minutes, licking and licking at her clit, massaging it with the tip of my tongue before slowly applying more speed and pressure.

I made her orgasm twice more, and then I was ready to get what I’d come for.

“Oh yes please put it in me, master,” she moaned as I settled in between her thick-ass thighs and rubbed the head of my cock between the lips of her pussy.

“You want it?” I asked.

“Yes, please…” she groaned.

“Beg for it.”

She exhaled sharply and gripped my wrists, arching her back, pressing her hips to me. “Please, please give it to me, master. I need it so bad. I love it so much when you fuck me. You have the best dick ever,” she moaned.

Good enough for me. I gave it to her.

“Oh yes!” she cried as I slipped into her.

It wasn’t as violent or furious as the last time we’d had sex, but it was still nice and passionate. I worked my way into her, giving her all my inches, and we pretty quickly settled into a steady sex session. I stroked into her, relishing every ounce of pleasure she gave me as her vaginal muscles clenched and fluttered around my cock. Her perfect, wet heat sheathed me in mind-numbing bliss. I thrust into her again and again, loving the reactions I was getting out of her, the moaning and cries of pleasure.

I laid down against her, glad that she was so thick and almost as tall as I was for practical reasons. Missionary was good, but it was harder to do with chicks that were so much smaller than you. I could embrace Lara as we made love and kiss her passionately without a problem. And passion felt like the word of the night right now.

Lara was passionate and I was passionate with her.

I actually felt bad as we made love. The women in my life had given me full clearance to fuck whoever I wanted, but this admittedly kind of felt like cheating. It wasn’t, I was just enjoying it so much and Lara was so hot that part of me felt like there had to be some kind of downside. For several long, wonderful moments we made love beneath those blankets, holding each other, kissing and moaning, lost in shared bliss.

I fucked her until my orgasm welled up inside of me, and then came out of me, and I was pumping that sweet, sweet pussy full of my seed.

I groaned loudly, the pleasure hitting me like a hammer.

“Yes, master!” she moaned, holding me tightly against her, “oh fuck I love it so much when you come in me!”

“Oh, Lara!” I cried, the rapturous ecstasy overwhelming me.

I spurted into her for what felt like a long time.

And then I was finished, left panting on the shores of ecstasy, the warm waves of bliss still lapping gently at me.

Shit, that felt good.

I carefully pulled out of her and rolled off of her, onto my back. She got up and started cleaning herself up. When she came back and got back in bed, I embraced her, held her soft, curvy body against my own.

“Chris,” she said after a few moments of silence.

“Yeah?”

“I do have two other questions. Well, I guess one, then maybe another pending the first.”

“Shoot.”

“Are there other women in your life right now?” I hesitated. “You don’t have to answer, I won’t be mad. I’m just curious.”

“There are,” I said after a moment. “How’d you know?”

“I don’t know, just this feeling...why aren’t you with them?”

“That’s the second question?” I asked.

“No, actually. I kind of just asked that. My second question was: do they know about this?”

“This specifically? No. But they know it’s going to happen, and they’re okay with it. We’re open. And I’d be perfectly content to let you meet them. But as for why I’m not with them...it’s complicated. I want to tell you about it, but...later. For now, I just want to enjoy this.”

She seemed satisfied by that answer.

“Okay, I can respect that.”

“Thanks...what about you?”

“What about me what?”

“Are there other men in your life?”

She paused for just a second. “No, no other men.”

“You hesitated there…” I didn’t think she was lying, though. Which meant… “Other women?”

“I plead the fifth,” she replied.

I laughed. “Okay. Well, if you’re willing to let me clam up, I’m willing to let you.”

“Thanks.”

I gave her a kiss and then we settled into a more comfortable position and just laid there together in the dim glow of the candles, enjoying each other, listening to the winds outside.

~

“Oh God! Oh fuck! Oh MASTER YES!” Lara shrieked at the top of her lungs as she began coming all over my dick.

I groaned loudly, almost screaming myself, as I started letting off inside of her, filling up her pussy with my stuff, pumping her full of it.

We came together, grunting and groaning and crying out in impassioned ecstasy.

And then the orgasms were over, and we were just panting.

I took a deep breath after a long moment, then let it out as I pulled out of her and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Goddamn that is a good way to wake up,” I muttered. I reached over and smacked her ass. “You are one excellent slut, Lara.”

“Thank you, master,” she panted, lying on her stomach.

When I’d woken up, I’d been horny as fucking hell and knew right away that I needed pussy before I started the day, and thankfully I had Lara right there.

I looked at her ass.

Goddamn did that girl have a fat ass.

I was definitely pounding her doggystyle up the ass as soon as I found some lube.

After a moment, I got up and stretched, then washed myself off and pulled a fresh set of clothing on. It was time to get serious, time to truly begin holding up my end of the bargain. And that was going to require some...wrangling, when it came to Susan, I imagined. I needed information, and she didn’t trust me, so it was going to be a pain to get it out of her.

Here was hoping I could manage it without too much trouble.

As soon as I was dressed, I grabbed all my shit and left Lara laying in bed. Walking out into the house, I moved down the hall until I came to the dining room. Everything looked as I’d left it the previous night and it didn’t seem like Susan was up yet. Before I did anything, I tended the fire, bringing it back up to snuff, as it was a bit chilly in the house, then I returned to the dining room and set about going over all my materials.

I didn’t have as much left as I’d like.

I was out of food, but my food was their food now. Well for now.

I had one extra change of clothes, which was currently hanging up to dry in Lara’s bedroom.

I had some medical supplies, some fire-starting stuff, and a handful of useful cooking and exploration items and trading material. Not much, though.

Besides that, I had my rifle and my pistol and my combat knife.

At present, I had twenty nine millimeter rounds for the sidearm, and grand total of six shells for the rifle. Not great. I knew that they had a pistol and I thought I’d seen a rifle at one point while passing Susan’s room with the door open but I couldn’t be sure. I could hunt with a pistol if I had to, not that I wanted to, but the rifle was honestly the way to go. By the time I was finished repacking everything, Susan was up and moving around the house.

“Susan,” I said after I returned my gear to my and Lara’s room and then joined her in the kitchen, where she seemed to be in the progress of looking for breakfast.

“What?” she asked. Still grumpy, though she might not be a morning person.

“If I’m going to help the two of you, seriously help the two of you, I need to know exactly what we’re working with here. I need to know exactly where we’re at with food, medicine, and weapons. Will you help me with that?” I asked, trying to stay as neutral as I could.

Susan stared at me for a long time. I thought she might be thinking of the best way to tell me to fuck off, or maybe warring with herself over this, over whether or not to help. In the end, though, she just nodded.

“Yeah, okay,” she said.

“Thank you,” I replied. “What’s the food situation outside of what I provided?”

She sighed. “Bad.” She walked over to a nearby cabinet and opened it up, then stepped back, welcoming me to take a look. I did. I saw exactly two cans of food in there, one of corn, one of shredded beef, as well as a handful of spices, and a few potatoes. The meat would help and go a long way, but it’d do us good to find some more vegetables.

“I think I heard Lara mention there’s vegetables growing around here somewhere?” I asked.

“Yeah. We’ve seen them south of here. It seems pretty random. We pick what we can,” Susan replied.

“All right. What about meds?”

She walked away, nodding for me to follow after her.

It was hard not to check out her ass. She was petite but she had a cute butt on her and some nice hips that were pretty visible in the tight jeans she was wearing. She led me to the bathroom and opened up the medicine cabinet.

“This is where we keep everything,” she said. “We’ve been lucky so far.”

I nodded. I saw a bottle of painkillers, some bandages, some antibacterial cream, burn cream, a few other odds and ends. Not a whole lot, but better than nothing.

“Okay. How about guns? Weapons?”

She sighed, clearly reluctant, but led me into her bedroom. Ah-ha, I had seen a rifle. It was leaned against the wall. She picked it up and showed it to me. Lucky for me, it took the same rounds that my own rifle took.

“I’ve also got this,” she said, patting the pistol resting on her slim hip in its holster.

“What type of round does it take?”

“Thirty-eights,” she replied. “Twelve round magazine.”

“Hmm. Any others?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. Just these two guns.”

“How much ammo?”

She sighed. “Nine rounds for the pistol, five shells for the rifle.”

“Wonderful,” I muttered.

“How about you?” she asked. I told her. She sighed. “Wonderful,” she agreed.

“Let me have the shells for the rifle. All of them. I’ll need them for hunting.”

She stared at me for a long moment, as if deciding again whether or not to give in, and I thought it was interesting that she finally just nodded and went to get them. I’d had trouble with Megan when we first met, but we’d gotten past that. Although admittedly I wondered how much of that came from the fact that I think Megan took a sort of shortcut across certain boundaries when she’d spied on Delilah and I having sex.

On the other hand…

Susan had seen me naked. And like ‘naked just after fucking, mostly still hard’ naked. And she had clearly looked at my dick.

Whatever, thoughts for later.

“Thanks,” I said, accepting the rounds when she gave them to me. I pocketed them. “Do you have a map of the area at all?”

“Yeah, actually. I’ve been doing some exploring and I’ve been drawing a map, but I haven’t gotten very far. I can show you,” she said, walking back out of the bedroom. I followed her into the living room to a desk tucked up into one corner. There, I found a piece of paper with some very artfully done cartography drawn onto it.

“Oh wow,” I murmured, picking it up gently and studying it. I could see us there in the center, surrounded by trees, though apparently we were right at the edge of the forest. Off to the left was another cluster of structures and more trees. Above us, to the north, was a large open area and a lake with a little island in it. It had an orbit of four buildings. “This is really good, Susan.”

“Uh, thanks,” she murmured, blushing.

“Now, tell me about other people in the region. Have you run into anyone else?”

“Yes,” Susan said. She pointed to the west of us, to a collection of three buildings, near the edge of the paper. “There’s a little vacation lodge there that I think they used to rent out to families. One little cabin, one bigger one, and a three-story lodge. They’re living in the lodge.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know for sure. I saw a couple and one big guy.” She paused when she said couple and glanced over at mine and Lara’s bedroom door, then continued. “We came through in that direction initially and wanted to stay, but they told us to piss off, basically. The woman seemed nice, but her husband was a prick, so was the bigger guy. I think he’s muscle. I’ve seen him wandering around every now and then. I got a sense that there were some other people in the place, but I could be wrong,” she explained.

“Anyone else?”

“I think there might be another couple of people around to the east,” she said. “I thought I saw someone around the lake, and from a distance it didn’t look like any of them, but again I didn’t see everyone there at the lodge. Could be from their group, or could be from another group entirely. We haven’t done a lot of exploring.”

“All right,” I said. I found some paper and hastily copied what Susan had already done. I didn’t want to fuck up her nice drawing, honestly. As soon as I was done, I folded it up and slipped it into my pocket. “I’m going to go out for a walk, get a feel for the place. When I get back I want Lara to take me to where the food grows. Also...you cool to make breakfast while I’m gone?”

“Yeah, I can do it,” she replied, a little defiantly, but I thought something had changed since yesterday between us.

What, exactly, I had no fucking clue, but it seemed to be a positive change.

“Thank you. I’ll be back.”

I grabbed my shit and headed out.

SEVEN

Outside, and alone again.

Except this time I wasn’t really alone, not in the same way.

I had a woman waiting for me somewhere that I could walk back to quickly, and as I headed outside, into the snow and a clear day with even half-decent temperatures, I found that at first my head was as clear as the sky.

I thought of nothing as I walked north, out of the forest, which I could just about see the edge of from the front of the house. For those first few minutes, I walked through the trees, looking around, and thought of not much at all.

But as I broke through the treeline and found myself at the southern end of a vast field, thoughts and emotions began seeping into my brain. I ignored them for a little bit as I scouted out the land, seeing what I could see from where I stood. There, to the north and a little to the east, was the frozen lake that Susan had mentioned. I saw five buildings surrounding it, and a watchtower on an island in the center.

Off to the far west, a lot more trees, and a lonely cabin just barely in sight at the edge of the treeline in that direction. No hint of the lodge or other buildings she’d mentioned, but the trees were no doubt hiding them. Farther to the north, a few miles off, I could just barely make out another structure. Off to the east, beyond the lake, the land rose, obscuring anything else in that direction from view. I decided to take a walk up to the lake and just see what I could see. Then I’d walk back and have breakfast.

I missed Megan. And Delilah. And Elizabeth.

I missed the township of Pine Lake, and Lisa and Melanie and Lindsay.

There was a part of me that wanted to declare ‘that’s it! I’m cured of my wanderlust!’. It was honestly tempting to believe that. But that was the problem with life: so much bullshit happened just because people wanted to believe certain things. That didn’t make them true. Maybe I felt good right now about the situation, but what about next week? Next month? Next year? I was beginning to wonder if there existed such a thing as a cure for how you felt, or if it was something that you just had to deal with as it came to you while continually trying to make small, consistent changes, hoping that eventually it got easier.

One thing I knew for sure was that I was high right now.

Almost literally, Lara was making me high, flooding my body and my brain with chemicals that were making me happy as shit.

Fucking any problem didn’t seem so bad when I felt like this.

No, I needed to let that pass before I got a real good idea of where I was at emotionally and mentally. But I had to admit, even attempting to correct for those overly good feelings, I thought that maybe I’d gotten onto something with regards to that problem. Maybe I could just take a long walk and a camping trip once a month or once every few months, and that’d keep the beast at bay. Although shit, if I kept finding women to hook up with who wanted to come back to the town with me each time, then my life was going to get really complicated.

I thought it was already enough of a...not a problem, exactly, but it was difficult enough to try and keep Megan, Delilah, and Elizabeth happy. I’d been lucky that Delilah seemed content to mainly share her time with Lindsay and let us just be friends of casual convenience, and that Elizabeth was busy with her impending childbirth, so the two months I’d spent in Pine Lake after that initial conflict had been relatively smooth but…

What if I brought back Lara and Susan?

I was tempted. God knew I was tempted.

And would it be so bad? Bringing them to a new home? I didn’t want to sound like a judging dick, but I thought they’d be better off in a settlement than out here on their own. Then again, they’d made it this far, so clearly they had something going for them.

I reached the edge of the lake and thankfully managed to derail my thoughts when I saw something I initially hadn’t quite understood.

There were little structures on the ice and all at once I realized they were fishing hits. Ice fishing was a thing I’d learned a bit more about since the frozen apocalypse. I stood there and stared at them, my mouth suddenly flooded with the taste of a well-done fish. It had been quite awhile since I’d eaten fish. Maybe I could rig something up? Or shit, maybe there was some fishing gear secreted away somewhere around here?

It was something to think about, at least.

I studied the buildings for another long moment, seeing no activity of any kind among them, and then turned and started walking back.

Well, at least there’d be a lot to do around here.

~

Breakfast was a quick and easy affair.

Susan had fried up some potatoes and venison, and from the way that they were acting around each other, I had the impression that they’d had some kind of conversation while I was out that neither was quite comfortable with the outcome of. Could be about me, but maybe it was about something else. Obviously Lara was doing something she was ashamed of or guilty about, something I was rather curious about, but I still didn’t really know enough about these two women and their relationship to put it all together.

Plus, it wasn’t like I was some expert sociologist as it was.

I ate, and Lara was happy enough to be told to grab her coat and show me where the food was. I saw Susan stiffen when I flat out told her to do it, but when she saw Lara bound up out of her chair with a ‘yes, master’, Susan just rolled her eyes and sighed. She stared daggers at me and I was ready to defend myself, but in the end, she just turned away and started cleaning up. What could she say? I was doing something that Lara really wanted me to do.

And so the two of us headed out of the house and began making our way roughly back the way we’d initially come.

“So what’s Susan’s deal?” I asked as we walked through the woods.

Lara laughed softly, then was silent for several long moments. Finally, she sighed. “I’ve been trying to think of a way to put it, because it’s a lot of little things and a few big things, but in short, I think it’s this: Susan has a lot to prove. She’s...had it rough. Her entire life. That sours you on a lot of things. It makes you constantly wary of how the world is going to fuck you over next. She’s studying you, trying to figure out how you’re taking advantage of us, or how you’re going to betray us. And the thing is, it’s not an unreasonable reaction. We’ve run into a lot of people who tried to fuck us over. Some even tried to kill us.”

“I understand,” I replied. “There’s a lot of shitty people out there. I just hope to convince you that I’m not one of them.” I laughed. “Which sounds suspect, I admit.”

“No, I get it,” she said. “Honestly, I trust you. I’m not good with a lot of things. I’m a lousy shot, I’m a shitty cook, I’m not very good at sewing, I’m not strong, I suck at math, but...I get social stuff. I can read people like books. I’ve wanted to be an actress for as long as I can remember. I was into modeling for awhile.”

“I fucking believe that,” I muttered.

She grinned. “But I think studying acting, and I studied hard, I practiced so much, I think it helped me read people, but I also think I just have a natural talent for it. I could always tell when someone was lying, even as a kid.”

“What kind of reading do you get about me?” I asked, genuinely curious.

She looked at me, pursuing her lips. I couldn’t help it, I leaned in and kissed her. She laughed after we finished the kiss. “That you’re fucking horny,” she said.

“Duh,” I replied.

“I mean real horny. And not just because you went without sex for a few weeks or ‘cause I’m as hot as I am. I think you get led around by your dick. But I also think you’re honest, maybe to a fault. There’s something really...I don’t know, earnest about you, but in a blunt kind of way, but also not in an asshole kind of way. And I think you might have once had anger problems in the past.”

“How the fuck could you know that?” I asked after a few seconds.

She laughed again. “It’s just in the way you react to Susan. I’ve seen guys react poorly to her, and the ones with anger problems, the ones that yell and hit walls and stuff, you know, the scary shit, they react...not well. And the thing is, I could see you begin to react that way, just in the way you shift your body, your expression, sometimes your fingers twitch a little. All things I’ve seen from those types of guys. But it’s only just the beginning of the actions. I could be wrong, maybe you’ll turn into an asshole a week from now, but I don’t think so. I think you used to have anger problems, and you finally figured out a way to put a clamp on them...this is why I trust you, even though we just met yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m capable of being wrong, but it’s been a long time since I have been, and some people are easier to read than others, and you’re pretty easy.”

“I used to have problems,” I said after a moment of consideration, “and yeah, I had to get them under control. It’s still a problem sometimes, but not a serious one. At least, I don’t think so.”

She bit her lower lip. “Maybe not the best time to bring it up but...I do like being screamed at in bed.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.” After a pause, I asked the other question I’d been meaning to. “So, Lara...what were you doing out here all alone earlier?”

She sighed softly, looking away, blushing. “I guess you’ll find out sooner or later.” She changed directions abruptly, heading more to the west. “Come on, I’ll show you.” We walked for about another minute, and eventually came to a cabin in a small clearing. It looked like it had held up pretty well, despite its isolation. “I’m having an affair,” she said, still not looking at me.

“Having one?” I asked. “You’re single.”

“No, I mean...okay, I’m involved in an affair. I overheard you and Susan talking this morning. Those people she mentioned living at the lodge? That couple? I’m having sex with the wife on a semi-regular basis.” She looked at me suddenly. “Don’t tell Susan, please.”

“I won’t,” I replied. I wasn’t sure what I felt about this. I mean, yeah, part of me thought it was immediately hot. And it was a little amusing to see her so confident in some areas, but here she’s all shy and awkward.

Mostly, though, I guess I felt sympathy.

I’d fucked wives before, and not necessarily with their husband’s consent.

“How’d it happen?” I asked.

She sighed, looking at the cabin. “A few days after we got settled, I was out here poking around by myself. I ran into her. We got to talking. Found the cabin. She was stressed and wanted to get away from her husband, and it just sorta...happened. You know? I got the vibe she was into me, I was super into her. She’s so gorgeous, Chris. She’s a redhead and she’s so fit and hot. And she’d never been with a girl before, so I got to, you know, teach her about that. She’s pretty good at eating pussy now. But…” Lara hesitated.

“But what?” I asked.

A new look of coy lust came onto her face and she looked back at me. “She did say that she felt bad about cheating, but also frustrated that she couldn’t also find a hot guy to, you know, sleep with, since she’s already crossed that line. I fucking promise she’d be into you…” She lost her smile suddenly. “I mean, that is...how do you feel about, uh, cheating?”

I sighed. “Well, on the one hand, I fucking hate being cheated on. And I’ve never cheated myself. On the other hand...I have fucked married women who were cheating. And I did it, a few times, knowing they were cheating. I’m not exactly proud of it. But I’ve gotta be honest...there is a hell of a thrill to it.”

“Right!?” Lara said, grinning broadly. “I feel bad about it but, ugh, it feels good. Especially when they’re married to some fucking douchebag who doesn’t deserve her...so would you?”

“I mean, I’d have to meet her, but probably. The idea of a threesome with you and some hot married redhead is obviously appealing. But even just fucking a hot married redhead...how old is she?” I asked.

“I’m actually not sure. Older than me, I know that much.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, I guess that hasn’t come up yet. I’m thirty...what about you?”

“Twenty six.”

“For real?” she asked uncertainly.

“Yeah. Why?”

“You just...holy shit, you’re younger than me? I just thought...you were at least my age. I thought you were older, for real, though. Shit. That’s...okay, interesting. Honestly, it’s impressive. Um...let’s go to where the plants usually are. I was thinking we could harvest some.”

“Fine by me,” I replied.

She led me a little ways from the cabin and I started to see some of the typical vegetables and fruits and other things growing. It was weird seeing some corn and potatoes and pea-pods and strawberries and blueberries growing up out of the snow, but certainly not unwelcome. We began the process of harvesting what we could. I grabbed mostly corn and potatoes, and Lara got her hands on whatever else we found.

Another question was nagging me that I figured I might as well get out of the way sooner as opposed to later.

“Lara...would you have a problem with it if I fucked Susan?” I asked.

“No!” she replied immediately. She almost sounded excited. “Not at all! You should definitely try to fuck Susan.”

I hesitated. “Are you like...this seems oddly like a prank or something.”

“Oh no, not at all,” Lara said, looking at me, and I thought she was being genuine. “I think it would be awesome if you could fuck Susan. I’m just not sure if she’ll agree to it. She’s my best friend in the entire world and I would love for her to have fun, happy sex with someone who will be good to her. Also, be good to her, or else.”

I laughed. “Susan said the same thing to me yesterday.”

Lara smiled fondly. “We love each other. But I know she’s had...difficulty, with relationships. All her life. It’s come easy to me, but hard to her. And there are certain…” She hesitated, chewing on her lower lip for a few seconds, “aspects to her personality that I think you would like. A lot. Personally, I think the two of you would make a great sex couple. And I think the three of us would make an amazing sex trio. But don’t tell her I said that, either. Okay. Please? I don’t want her to know I’d sleep with her. It might...I don’t know, upset her. We’ve been friends for so long, I’m scared of messing it up. Although…”

She looked at me with sudden excitement. “Although?” I replied.

“You’re a horny guy, you’d naturally want to put the two of us together for a threesome. Maybe you could ask her at some point? Gauge her reaction to a threesome? I mean, obviously if you manage to talk her into sex.”

“You don’t think she’d blow up at me?” I asked.

“She might,” Lara admitted. “But she might not. I could never tell if she was into girls. She’s made out with one or two at parties, and she didn’t seem to regret it. She’s never really said one way or another. Would you do that for me?”

“Obviously,” I replied. Then I laughed. “I seem to keep running into difficult women.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes, one woman I’m with right now, she...pulled a gun on me once. It wasn’t an unreasonable reaction to the situation, she was in a very paranoid state of mind, but we’re dating now, so…” I shrugged.

“I can see why tough women with something to prove would react poorly to you at first,” Lara said. “You look scary. And dangerous. Which, I must say, normally doesn’t do it for me. But for whatever reason you are just...so hot.”

“So are you,” I said, and smacked her ass. “Get back to work.”

“Yes, master,” she replied with a demure smile, and got back to it.

I joined her in gathering up the food.

~

We spent another half an hour out there, foraging.

When we headed back to the house, I considered how best to utilize my time, and after a few minutes, it hit me.

I tracked down Susan, found her sitting in the living room, reading a book. “Can I have permission to go over your bedroom with a fine-toothed comb?” I asked.

She set the book aside, staring at me intently. “Why?”

“I’m good at searching places and finding supplies. It’s a skill I’ve developed since I started traveling. I’ve been able to find a lot of overlooked or hidden supplies. I want to go over this whole house today and see if I come up with anything.”

She thought about it, seemed to conclude that I already had knowledge of or access to the most important things in the house, and shrugged. “All right, but we’ve already looked through most of it. Really it’s just the basement we haven’t gotten to yet.”

“Cool. I’ll see what I can come up with.”

And that was how I spent most of the rest of the day.

I started in the kitchen and began to work my way slowly around the ground floor of the house, deciding to leave the basement for last. I was slow, careful, methodical, thorough. I checked everywhere and everything I could think of. It was slow work, but it was oddly satisfying. I remembered playing some video games back before all this mess, and in some of them, I would get a particular satisfaction out of carefully clearing out each level, or each building if it was an open-world map, or checking things off a list.

I knew it had something to do with human psychology and the way the brain worked, but whatever, it felt good and it was useful.

I didn’t find anything in the kitchen, nor in the living room or the dining room. I made sure to put everything back how I found it. I guess, in a way, I was trying to impress Susan. Either by finding something, or by showing her how diligent I was. It was funny, in a way I was now more desperate to bed Susan than I was Lara. That was probably just another one of those stupid tricks of human psychology: you focused more on what you didn’t have. I tried not to let thoughts of Susan naked and bouncing on my cock, (fuck man would she look so good doing it, and I bet she was so fucking tight), distract me while I worked.

I checked out the hall closet, and then the hallway itself, just in case there were any little hidden chambers in the walls, the floor, or the ceiling.

No luck there, either.

But finally, after I’d had a quick lunch with the women, I found something. I moved to Lara’s and I shared room and basically took it apart, checking over everything. I first made a small discovery: a half-empty box of matches that had fallen behind the dresser. Then, I made a larger discovery in the closet, when I moved an old empty shoebox and saw an irregularity in the flooring. Sure enough, I had a little hidden compartment on my hands.

Before I opened it, I called Lara over.

“Before I open this, you haven’t been using this to, like, stash shit have you?” I asked.

“No, I had no idea it was there,” she replied. “Open it up, I wanna see what’s in it.”

So I opened it up and found some clothes pushed down in there. For a moment, I was disappointed, but after pulling the clothes out, I saw something else beneath them. A metal box. “Now that’s exciting,” Lara murmured.

“Yep,” I replied, pulling it out. I set it aside and checked down in the hidden compartment for anything else, but it was clear so I shut it back up and checked out the clothes. I wanted to see if there was anything sewn into them or hidden in the pockets, but ultimately they just seemed to be clothes, maybe meant to hide the box as a last ditch effort.

I turned my attention to the box and tried to open it.

To no avail.

“Shit, I don’t suppose you can pick locks, can you?” I asked.

“No, but Susan sorta can,” Lara replied.

“I heard my name, what’s up?” Susan asked, getting louder as she approached.

“Found something.” I held out the box as she stepped into the doorway. She accepted it and looked it over.

“Shit, where’d you find this?”

“Hidden compartment in the floor of the closet. Can you open it?” I asked.

“Maybe…”

She turned and walked into her bedroom. She gathered up a few items, then sat down cross-legged on her bed and set to work. While she did that, I began searching her room. She didn’t seem bothered as I moved everything, searched under and behind and inside the furniture, even when I moved the bed she was working on.

That woman could concentrate.

I hadn’t found anything by the time she actually got it open.

“Gather ‘round, I did it!” she called.

We joined her and when we were in place, she opened up the metallic box. What I half-expected to find was indeed inside.

“Oh shit,” Susan said, “a drug dealer lived here.”

“I think maybe just a pot-smoker with conservative parents or something,” Lara said. Susan picked up a roll of twenties. There had to be like fifteen hundred bucks in there. “Okay, maybe they were also dealing on the side. That doesn’t mean they’re a bad person.”

“I didn’t say that,” Susan replied.

All in all, we found the roll of cash, which I held onto since I knew some people still thought it was worth something, though there weren’t very many of those people left. There was a fat sack of weed that looked sealed and still usable. There was a bottle of prescription heavy painkillers that were past their use-by date but might still have some potency left in them. A switchblade. A pipe for smoking the weed. And a sheet of paper with a list of names. I checked it over but it didn’t seem to mean anything.

“Well shit, I know a girl that’s getting high and fucking laid tonight,” Lara said with a wide grin as she checked the weed over.

Susan sighed. “Just don’t smoke all of it. I want some of that shit, too. Hmm.” She looked at the bottle. “Maybe I’ll take one of these. It’s codeine.”

“You sure that’s safe?” I asked.

She looked at me and a curious mix of irritation and maybe surprise passed across her face. “Yeah,” she replied. “I’ve had it before. Don’t worry, I’m not stupid. I know what I’m doing. I know how much to take to get fucked up and sleep like the dead.” She looked at me suddenly. “Just don’t, you know, do shit to me while I’m passed out.”

I could tell she meant it as a joke, and I was honestly surprised she’d made it, but I felt a flash of both irritation and sympathy.

“Susan,” I said flatly, “I would never do anything to you without your knowledge or consent. Do you understand me?”

She stared at me, a look of genuine surprise on her face, and Lara’s, too. She seemed to struggle with what to say, then just shrugged and tried for cavalier. “Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we? I’m going back to reading.”

She walked out of the room, pocketing the bottle of pills.

I sighed.

“You all right?” Lara asked.

“Just irritated. A lot of jokes about shit like that when I’m around, but it’s like you said: I look scary, and guys that look like me tend to do fucked up shit, so I can’t even blame her.” I shook my head, trying to shake it off. “But whatever, we found something cool. I’m going down into the basement to see what’s down there.”

“All right,” Lara said. She hesitated, then she gave me a kiss. It seemed more like a sweet one, maybe even a consoling one.

Lara, I decided, was like Delilah: she was a sex-hungry succubus with a heart of gold.

I was finding that I was really liking that particular personality type.

I kissed her back, then got up to go to the basement.

EIGHT

I spent the rest of the day and most of the night in the basement.

When the natural light went, I set up my little electric lantern and a few candles to continue my work. I worked my way through the boxes of random crap. And it was a lot of random crap, most of it useless to us in any real capacity, even for trading. But I did find a few things while I was down there. Some books that I set aside, some clothing that might be useful, an old emergency first aid kit that had gotten tossed in with everything else.

Most of it ended up making good fuel for the fire.

By the time I was starting to get tired, I had sorted through a decent portion of the basement. After I decided I was done for the night, I grabbed a late dinner from leftovers of what Susan and Lara had made while I was still working, then locked the house down and made sure I did my chores. Namely that we had water, (they seemed happy enough to largely take care of the melting and pouring), and that the fire was properly tended to.

I found Lara waiting for me in bed, reading. Surprisingly, she’d opted to save the weed for later instead of having some tonight.

I stripped naked, fucked the shit out of her, and went to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, Lara seemed really out of it, and I thought that it was still too early in the relationship, as open as she was, to just fuck her in her sleep. Plus, I thought that maybe today was the day I’d make my move on Susan. Or, at the very least, begin testing the waters of a potentially sexual relationship, and I thought that not hearing Lara screaming in sexual ecstasy first thing in the morning might help sway her to that end. Normally I’d think it was really early for such a move, especially with someone like her.

And yet…

Something was telling me go for it.

I didn’t think it was mere lust, nor Lara’s encouraging words. Just instinct. Something about her, about the way she looked at me and the way our interactions had gone, made me think that the hostility and aggression was just a front. Or, if not a front, an automatic reaction at this point. And something was lurking beneath the surface.

Maybe it was vain to think she was into me, but you know what? After all the attention I’d been getting lately, especially when a flat-out fucking goddess like Lara went after me as hard as she had, I was beginning to think that maybe I was, in fact, pretty appealing to a lot of women. Not all of them, obviously, but enough of them.

And that…

Was a really nice feeling.

Maybe it was giving me a big head, but by the time I’d finished pissing, washing, checking the perimeter, and tending to the fire and getting more snow melting, I had decided that yeah, I was gonna go for it.

I made breakfast, frying up some more wolf meat, (we were already running low on that but we still had a lot of deer meat at least), and sorting out a bowl of strawberries and blueberries. By the time I was finished, Lara and Susan were done waking up.

“Holy shit, you made breakfast?” Susan murmured, rubbing one eye sleepily.

“Yeah, figured you’d appreciate it,” I replied.

“Yeah...I do,” she said awkwardly.

“I told you he’s nice,” Lara said as she took a seat.

Susan just sighed and sat down as well. I joined them and we ate in silence. Towards the end of breakfast, I noticed that Lara was starting to get fidgety. At first I thought it was because she wanted to have sex, and it wasn’t until a little later that I learned I was half-right. After breakfast, Susan surprisingly offered to clean up, so I decided to continue with my project of organizing and cleaning out the basement.

I headed down and after about five minutes, Lara came down after me.

“Hey, so, uh...I’m heading out,” she said.

“What for?” I asked.

She bit her lower lip and glanced up. “To, you know, harvest some fruits and stuff.”

“Oh,” I said, seeing how much she was blushing. I laughed a little. “Well, have fun.” She smiled at me and began heading up, but I stopped her. “Wait, you didn’t have a gun that first time. Why not?” I asked.

“I guess because they make me nervous, but I’ve haven’t run into a problem yet. I mean, besides the wolf you saved me from. I guess I should take the pistol…”

“Yes. Take the pistol if you insist on going alone. I could go with you…”

“No, I gotta let her know first. And besides, you can use this time alone to...maybe talk with Susan,” she said, grinning.

“I was just thinking about that,” I replied.

“Good. Do it. And, you know, don’t make her regret it. By that I mean, don’t be lazy. Make her come like five times.”

“Oh don’t worry, I can do that.” I paused. “Are you calling me lazy?”

“No! You’ve been good so far. Sorry, I guess I shouldn’t have said that, I’m just covering all my bases. I’ve met too many lazy guys, I guess. Shit, lazy lovers in general. Girls can be lazy, too. Anyway, good luck.”

“You too,” I replied.

She smirked. “I don’t need luck.”

“Obviously not.” I gave her a kiss and smacked her fat ass, and then she headed upstairs to go sleep with a hot married redhead and in that moment I envied her.

Then again, I was going to be home alone with a hot petite little goth chick (she’d worn all black today too), so maybe I didn’t have to envy her.

I just had to play my cards right.

The next half an hour passed as I continued working through the random assortment of crap shoved down into the basement no doubt over the course of decades by whoever had originally lived here. I had an idea that Susan should come to me, that she wanted to, she just wanted enough time to pass so that she didn’t seem too, I don’t know, desperate? Needy? Turns out, I was right. After that half hour, she came downstairs.

“Hey,” she said, sitting down about midway down the stairs with her legs hanging off the side.

“Hey,” I replied.

“Find anything useful?”

“Another paperback, some stuff that’ll burn, a pair of pants we might be able to fix up and trade or wear,” I replied.

She grunted and fell silent. I worked for another few minutes before she finally broke the silence again.

“What did Lara tell you, when she came down here?” she asked.

I thought maybe she was trying to ferret out whether or not Lara was trying to set the two of us up and kept myself carefully neutral. “That she was going to go harvesting more plants.”

Susan snorted. “Right.”

“You don’t think she’s going to?”

“Come on, I know about what’s going on,” Susan replied. I waited, not wanting to give anything away if she was fishing because she only suspected and didn’t actually know. Finally, she sighed. “I know she’s having sex with Jessica, the married redhead. She doesn’t want me to know that she’s doing it with her in that cabin.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“So you do know!”

“Lara might’ve mentioned something,” I replied. So that’s what she was after, whether or not I knew, not if Lara was trying to hook us up.

Susan sighed. I glanced over. She was blushing slightly, not quite meeting me eyes. “I saw the way they reacted to each other when we first met. And then one day Lara was out for a long time, and I was really worried, but when she got back, she was really evasive when I asked what she was up to. So I...I might’ve followed her one of the times. She goes out there every three days or so.”

“And you saw?”

“Yeah. She went to the cabin. Jessica showed up a little bit later. Heard them fucking. I’m just worried her husband’s going to blow his stack.” She looked at me suddenly. “How’s that make you feel, since you’re fucking her?”

I shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

“And the fact that Jessica’s married?”

“...let’s just say it’s a complicated subject.”

“Oh, so you’ve cheated before?”

“No,” I replied pointedly, looking at her. “I’ve never cheated. Okay?” Then I sighed. “But...I have hooked up with women who were cheating, and a few times I did know. Sometimes I didn’t. But sometimes I did. I usually make it a policy to only hook up with women who have shit husbands. So...yeah, there.”

She snorted. “Then you should definitely hook up with Jessica, her husband’s a fucking asshole if I’ve ever seen one.”

I just grunted and kept sorting.

Susan lingered, and I could feel the tension in the air. How best to go about this? The fact that she was hanging around, trying to talk to me, meant she at least wanted my company. Or wanted something from me.

Fuck it, I thought. Just go for it.

“So, Susan,” I said, stopping my sorting and turning to look at her, deciding she deserved my full attention if I was going to ask something like this.

“What?” she asked, tensing as though she detected a shift in the air.

“My relationship with Lara isn’t exclusive, and she knows that.”

“All right…”

“You interested?”

She was silent for a few seconds. She looked nervous and excited and tense. “In you? Like...in fucking?”

“Yes. Are you interested in fucking me?” I asked.

She stared at me in surprise then, and I knew I’d just rolled the dice.

Time to see where they’d land.

All at once, her face twisted up into anger. Uh-oh.

“What?” she snapped suddenly. “Having a supermodel fucking you isn’t enough? I know how you assholes work. Why fuck one really hot woman when you can fuck a really hot woman and her ugly best friend? Fuck you!” she snapped, and leaped to her feet and began storming upstairs.

“Susan!” I called. Well, I’d sure misjudged that, but God I felt bad, I didn’t want her to think I was looking at her as some fucking piece of ass to fuck and nothing else. “Wait!”

“Fuck off!” she snapped.

I hurried up the stairs after her and found her halfway down the hallway.

“Will you just wait, please!?” I asked.

She stopped, finally, just outside her door, and turned to look at me. Good lord she was intense for being five foot nothing and probably barely a hundred pounds.

“What?!” she snapped. “What stupid bullshit do you want to say now?!”

“Susan...I don’t think you’re ugly,” I replied, because in that moment, I didn’t know what else to say. My brain kind of froze up. It sounded kind of lame to me, but it seemed to be the right thing to say. She didn’t keep screaming at least. “You’re beautiful.”

We stared at each other for what felt like a very long time.

Suddenly, she heaved an angry, frustrated sigh. “Just get in here,” she said, and walked into her bedroom.

Was that a yes? What the fuck?

What was with this chick?!

But I walked in there after her and found her in the process of taking her shirt off.

“Shut the damn door,” she snarled.

I shut the door. “Does this mean we’re-”

“Yes! We’re fucking! Just...shut up, okay? Just don’t say anything and just...do it. Okay? Can you do that for me, please?” she asked, and suddenly she was pleading, staring at me in her bra and pants now, a look of such intense need and desperation coming onto her face that I knew I’d feel like a fucking monster if I did anything but what she asked in that moment.

So I just nodded and took off my shirt.

She swallowed, then began getting out of her pants.

We silently stripped down to our essentials, and damn if she didn’t look good as hell. She was slim, with some great athletic thighs and some nice b-cups. She was very pale, her skin smooth and soft-looking.

Standing there, wearing nothing but a pair of black panties and a black sports bra, I thought that Susan might have been the most vulnerable woman I’d ever seen. Maybe even more so than Megan. She stared at me for another long moment, then sighed and took off her bra, freeing some wonderfully perky, pale breasts. She turned away, like she was deeply uncomfortable, and took off her panties, revealing a tight, fit, equally pale ass.

“Wash up,” she said quietly, pointing to some water and a rag and a slim bar of soap sitting on top of her dresser, “I’m not putting it in my mouth unless you clean up.”

Honestly, I was surprised she was willing to put it in her mouth at all.

I finished taking my clothes off and washed up thoroughly. While I did, she turned around slowly and looked at me. I saw a lot of conflicting emotions on her face as she slowly stopped covering herself with her arms and hands. She looked vulnerable, anxious, frightened, hopeful, and, shooting through all of it like a steady undercurrent beneath the surface of a storm-tormented sea: horny. I had the idea that she hadn’t been laid in a long time.

I also had the idea that maybe she hadn’t been laid in a way she found satisfactory in an even longer time.

I fully intended to correct that problem, because even based off what little I knew of her so far, I thought that Susan was a person who had kept her humanity, her empathy, her kindness in check, despite the apocalypse. I had no doubt she’d had to do things, awful things, to stay alive, but she hadn’t let that change her enough to throw any sense of decency to the wind and justify doing any savage and sick thing she wanted like a lot of people had.

I came very close to asking her to wash up as well, but remembered her request. Well, demand. I found another rag and held it out to her. She looked at me for a moment, then sighed, walked over, took it, and started cleaning herself. I tried not to look at her too much while she washed up, having a decent idea of what she was feeling. On the one hand, it was nice to be looked at in such a way by someone you were about to have sex with.

On the other hand, most of us felt extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable naked, some of us more than others.

It was obvious that Susan was one who felt more uncomfortable than most.

I didn’t know what it meant that she’d decided to have sex with me. Did she trust me or like me more than she was letting on? I mean, clearly, we were going to have sex, but I mean way more than she let on. Or was she just that desperate for a physical connection? Or maybe it was something to do with Lara? The fact that we were having sex?

Maybe I was over-complicating things and she was just horny and tired of being horny and an opportunity had presented itself and she was moving on it.

She finished washing and walked over to the bed. I got a good look at her ass and her sweet pussy as she crawled onto the mattress. She had such a hot, tight body, I was rapidly losing myself in my own desire and lust.

I got onto the bed with her and as I laid down beside her, her eyes flicked down my erection and I saw them widen slightly.

“Shit,” she whispered. She swallowed and reached out, cautiously wrapping her fingers around it. I felt a shudder of anticipation run through me as she touched my dick. “I’d forgotten you were this big. I saw it the first time you fucked Lara, but...” She looked up at me.

I wanted to ask her if she thought she could handle it, but instead I just cocked one eyebrow.

A look of irritation passed across her face. “Don’t get cocky,” she said. I couldn’t help but smile and she heaved a sigh. “What did I just say-mmm…”

I kissed her, figuring it was the best thing to do. It seemed to be, because she immediately grabbed me and pulled me closer to herself, deepening the kiss. For the next several minutes, I let her run her hands across my body. She seemed to enjoying herself, and I enjoyed that as well. I let my own hands roam, groping her firm breasts and pleasant thighs and hips, back around to her tight ass. Dear fucking lord did I hope she liked anal.

She would have a fucking crazy tight ass.

Once I felt that she was comfortable enough with what we were doing, and it became obvious how fucking horny she was as she kept shoving her tongue in my mouth and throwing herself against me, I started in with the pleasure.

And oh yes was Susan a sensitive girl.

I started rubbing her clit and she let out a startled shout, then a long, loud moan as her hips bucked and her back arched and I swear to fucking God I had her coming inside the first fifteen seconds. She let out an incoherent scream of bliss as she orgasmed and I kept it up, fingering her through the climax and beyond.

“Yes! Keep going! Harder!” she demanded.

So I went harder. I rubbed her clit vigorously and was pretty quickly struck by the idea that she was a chick who liked it fucking rough.

Now that would be a fucking miracle. Finding Lara was already like winning the lottery, but Lara and Susan, if she was this tight little petite psycho in bed who liked to be thrown and knocked around and pounded into oblivion…

That would be a god-given miracle.

I slipped a finger inside of her and she outright screamed. I fucked her with my finger, finding her marvelously tight and wet. So wet. So slick. I wanted very badly to stick my cock in there. But first I had to eat her. I kept going until I got a second orgasm out of her and she was red in the face by the time she finished with that one.

Then I kissed down her slim pale body, lingering on her breasts, licking across them and her little pink nipples, and then got down in between her slim thighs.

“Oh my God are you seriously gonna...shit, no wonder Lara likes you so much,” she muttered, staring down at me with a flushed face and strands of her raven black hair hanging across it. She looked even more vulnerable than before when I stared at her, suddenly a mixture of embarrassed and anxious. She then looked defensive. “Don’t think this means I worship you or anything.”

I laughed, just a little. I couldn’t help it. She was so…

Intense. And difficult.

I saw her start to get angry and decided to quickly head that off and started licking. She let out a long moan of pleasured bliss as I tongued her clit.

“You...are a fucker,” she whispered, panting.

She stopped talking as I started licking faster and harder. Or at least she stopped talking coherently. Her fingers ran across my head as her hips twitched and her thigh muscles bunched and clenched around me. As I kept tonguing her, I slipped a finger back inside of her and she screamed again and started to orgasm, and I knew that I was playing her like an instrument at this point. I also knew that I could only do that if she let me, if she gave herself up to me, and she had. What exactly did all this mean?

Right now? Good sex.

Actually, probably amazing sex.

She came once more after another minute, and then she came yet again several minutes after that. The sounds she made as the full-body orgasms ripped through her fit little frame made her sound like she was being possessed by a demon.

After that last orgasm she pushed my head up.

“Okay! Okay! Enough oral! Just fuck me!” she gasped.

I could definitely abide by that. I got up against her and rubbed the head of my cock against her slick, bare pussy. She had a bald one just like Lara.

I hesitated suddenly and glanced up at her.

“What?” she asked. I hesitated further, not wanting to break her demand for silence. Although at this point it had almost become like a game to me. I looked down between us. “Oh! Lara told me about your implant thing, I don’t care if you finish inside.” Now she hesitated and looked at me awkwardly. “Thanks for, uh...asking.”

I started working my way into her. She gasped and readjusted herself slightly and then started taking me all in.

“Oh fuck…” she moaned loudly. I worked my way into her and fuck. Just fuck. She was so goddamned tight!

Awesome benefit of fucking fit little petite chicks.

Once I was halfway into her I grabbed her hips and continued working my way in deeper and deeper, hoping she’d be able to take everything.

“Shitting fuck, Chris, you’re big,” she gasped.

I kept going, gripping her hips more tightly. She spread her legs out wider, moaning and grunting as I stroked into her. I really got a good look at her as I pushed all the way inside of her. Susan was actually in pretty good shape, not just slim but decently athletic, too. She was extremely pale and I was honestly surprised to see that she didn’t have any tattoos. She seemed like a pleasant contrast to Lara. Her slim thighs, her small hips, her perky, high breasts. Even her face. Lara was attractive in a way that few people seemed to be, Susan was attractive in a different way, a rougher way. She had some acne scarring on her right cheek and a small nose and she seemed to have a face made for being angry or sullen.

But seeing it twist into expressions of pleasure, becoming more and more free with each passing minute we made love, was almost like a gift.

I imagined that I was seeing a side of Susan very few people had gotten to see.

“Come on, harder!” she demanded suddenly, reaching down and gripping my wrists.

I was all the way into her now, fucking her oh so slick pussy in a steady rhythm. And I grinned more broadly. I was right.

She wanted to go rough.

So I went rough. I started fucking her more furiously, sliding my cock deep into her, and she almost growled in response. Seeing her firm tits bouncing and jiggling in response to my thrusting only empowered me more, forcing me to drive deeper and harder into her.

“Yes! FUCK YES! MORE!” she screamed.

Her eyes were wide and borderline crazy as she stared up at me, still gripping my wrists. In a burst of inspiration, I broke her hold and grabbed her wrists, then pressed them down into the pillows above her head. She gasped and started moaning louder. Now her expression looked like a mixture of excitement and fear.

Shit, was she scared I was actually going to hurt her?

“Don’t you dare let up,” she growled, probably reading my own expression.

Well okay then. I put more of my weight into it and pounded the fuck out of her sweet little pussy. She screamed and cried out and yelled in manic rapture. Fuck, she was so tight. I felt like I was just barely fitting into her, but that insane slick wetness was helping so much. And the heat of her pussy was like a trip to paradise.

I was going to come soon, I knew it. I wanted to go for longer but this was the problem with insanely tight pussies, especially hitting it raw and for the first time. Honestly, I was surprised I’d lasted this long.

Had to make her come again first, though.

Her hands were little enough that I could hold both down with just one of my own. I did just that and reached down with the other and started thumbing her clit.

“AH! FUCK! SHIT! AGHRGH!” she shrieked as she lost herself completely in the pounding and the pleasure and then she was coming all over my dick.

And then I was lost in the pleasure.

I let out a loud, long groan of rapturous release as I started shooting my load inside of her. The pleasure blasted me like a pressure-washer and I wondered if she’d get mad at all the noise I was making but I was beyond fucking caring at this point.

I filled her right the hell up, pumping my seed deep into her depths.

And then the sex was finished.

NINE

“I just realized, I never sucked you off,” Susan murmured.

I shrugged. We were laying on the bed together after Susan had cleaned up the mess I’d made inside of her.

It felt good to lay there with her, naked and sweaty and relaxed.

“You can talk now,” she said.

“You can always blow me later,” I replied.

She snorted. “And those are the first words out of your mouth.”

“This is the conversation you started,” I said.

She sighed. “Fine, fair enough.”

We were silent for another few moments. I decided to try and fish for a little more. I wanted to get to know Susan better. What little I knew about her, I’d like so far.

“Do you regret this?” I asked.

“Right now? No. That was...um, it went a lot better than I expected. But I guess Lara wasn’t lying or exaggerating. She said you were great in bed. I think she was trying to entice me into sleeping with you.” She paused. “Was she doing the same thing to you?”

“She said she’d be happy if I showed you a good time,” I replied. “She really loves you, you know. She wants you to be happy.”

Susan groaned suddenly and turned away from me, onto her side. She hugged herself. “Yes. I know,” she replied flatly.

I rolled over and laid a hand on her arm, began to run it up and down it slowly, feeling her smooth, soft, hot skin.

“I get the feeling there’s some tension between the two of you,” I said.

She sighed again, more heavily. “Yes. And it’s my fault.” I waited. She growled. “Is it really such a fucking mystery to you, Chris?”

“Maybe not, but I’d like to hear what you have to say about it.” She hedged. I tried again. “You obviously trust me enough to have sex with, to let live in your house. I get that we only met two days ago, but don’t you want to talk about this stuff?”

“Talking about it has never changed it,” she muttered.

“I bet it made you feel better, sometimes.”

Finally, she relented, as though conceding my point. “Fine.” She rolled over suddenly and looked at me with those intense eyes of hers. “I’m a writer, though I was never a successful one. I know narratives. The narrative between Lara and myself is painfully obvious, and has been to me ever since middle school. She’s gorgeous. She’s unusually beautiful. Everyone who looks at her knows that. Even now, two years into fucking Armageddon she’s still a supermodel. And I’m very clearly not. I’m unattractive. I’m the hot chick’s ugly best friend.”

“You’re not unattractive,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “Look, you already got into my pants and whatever Lara told you about how to treat me, don’t lie me, okay? It’s insulting.”

“I’m not lying.”

She stared hard at me. “I guess I believe you,” she muttered. “You’ve got some weird tastes then. I know I’m weird-looking.”

“I’m weird-looking,” I replied. “And scary-looking.”

“You obviously are pretty hot,” she said, giving her head an irritated little shake. “Tough and scary works for guys. Especially now. I’ve met so many women who just want someone to protect them.” She hugged herself suddenly. “I hate that feeling. But...look, regardless of how attractive you might think I am, Lara is hotter. Like, objectively. On a physical scale. Don’t deny it.”

I sighed. “I mean...yeah,” I said, feeling like an asshole. But she was right. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, and not everyone would agree, but most people would. “To most people, yes, I would say that Lara is the more attractive of the two of you. But that’s just surface level-”

“Oh give me a fucking break, Chris. Have you met the human race? We’re all surface level. I mean yeah, not forever, but society tends to treat people who are hot better. Especially women. They’re more likely to believe attractive women, more likely to give them things, be kind to them. It’s called the Halo Effect. Your brain sees someone attractive and wants to believe that they are also smart, kind, they have a better work ethic, whatever. I mean yeah, it’s led to a lot of problems, especially for women, but it still sucks to be me. Maybe I’m a five, or a six on my best days, but Lara’s a natural fucking ten. She could be in the hospital dying and she’d still be a ten. And I love her so much. She’s my best friend, and I’d die for her.

“But...you don’t know what it’s like.” She paused, considered. “Or maybe you do, I guess I don’t know. Growing up in her shadow sucked. There’s a million little ways it sucked. I guess, the best way to put it is: guys would give Lara a job just on the off chance that she’d fuck them, but those same guys would make me suck dick just to be considered for that same job. Does that put it into perspective for you, Chris?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, I figured as much. I’m sorry.”

She looked at me for a very long moment. “God, I can’t believe I just told you all that. Don’t fucking tell Lara, okay?”

“I won’t.” I thought for a moment, feeling a lot of empathy for her. I knew what it was like to feel like a fucking loser and a failure and ugly, despite what some people might think. But what could I say to her that wouldn’t sound hollow? With Susan, ultimately, it seemed like blunt honesty was the best policy, and I felt like I had to say something.

“Susan, I don’t really know what to say in situations like this. I’m bad at this shit. But maybe this will make you feel better. I think you’re really, really attractive, and I’m really happy that I got to have sex with you, and I don’t look at you as some lame bonus fuck in addition to Lara. And based on what I’ve seen so far, I respect you. You’ve stayed alive and kept Lara alive for two and a half years through this shit.” I sighed. “I’m kind of rambling, I guess what I want to say is: I don’t want to cause any problems for you and I really enjoyed the sex and I’m not going to hurt you or Lara in any way,” I said, staring intently at her.

She looked back at me with that same intense scrutiny, and finally she let out a little huff. “Why do I believe you?” she muttered.

I shrugged. “I’d say it’s because I’m telling the truth, but that’s also what a liar would say...I think you believe me because Lara trusts me. And I don’t think she’s wrong about people often.”

Susan slowly nodded. “Yeah. You’re right.”

I noticed something shift in her then, the way her expression kind of locked down into something more guarded, and I thought that maybe that was all I was going to get out of her today. I decided to try for cavalier, since she did it often enough, because I still had one question.

“So that was good, right?”

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “You’re kidding me, right? Of course it was. I orgasmed like six fucking times, Chris. I was screaming my head off.”

“I just wanted to be sure.”

“Yeah, I’m the insecure one.” She hesitated, grew more serious again. “I’m going to need some space. I haven’t had sex for a long time and even before then it’s never been what you’d call a simple subject with me. So...I would appreciate it if you didn’t ask me for anything sexual. Let me ask you, when I’m ready.”

“When, not if?” I asked.

She let out another huff. “Yes, Chris. That fuck was too good to give up and I’ll be goddamned if Lara’s getting laid but I’m not. So yes. When. I just...need a few days, I think, to figure out how I feel about it. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. I began to get up, then hesitated and leaned closer to her, “Can I kiss?”

She laughed. “You are so fucking weird. And yes.”

I kissed her on the lips, not too quick, not too long, and then got up.

“I’ve been told that a lot,” I replied as I began gathering up my clothes.

I made it to the door before she said my name.

“Yeah?” I asked, looking back at her.

She was blushing again, still laying in the bed. “Thanks...for all this,” she said awkwardly.

“You’re welcome, Susan,” I replied, and walked out.

~

I washed up and put my clothes back on, then began to head down to the basement.

But I was feeling restless. I wanted outside, and the fact that the sun was out and there were no clouds around for the time being made that want all the worse. After a few moments of indecision, I decided it was high time to investigate a structure or two.

And I had a few in mind already.

After I packed my gear and made sure I had everything, I knocked on Susan’s door.

“Yeah?” she called.

“I’m going to go for a walk and explore the lakehouses.”

“Is Lara back yet?”

“No.”

“All right. Be careful.”

“I will.”

I headed out through the front door and then started making my way through the trees. As I walked through the snow and the frozen forest, I again found my mind clearing rapidly. Being outside did that for me often. I was just...calmer. The orgasm had probably helped, too. There truly didn’t seem to be anything like unprotected sex and blowing your load straight into an attractive woman. However, as I reached the clearing and started making for the lakehouses and the frozen lake, I found my thoughts darkening again.

Now that I’d actually had sex with Susan, I began to wonder if this might not get complicated. It was obvious that Susan was jealous of Lara, but that wasn’t a big revelation. But the sex was a change in the alchemy of my current living situation, and I didn’t know how it would turn out. Maybe good, but maybe bad. Susan had made herself vulnerable and although I think it had gone well, she might wind up regretting it later.

If I could hook the two of them up…

Maybe it was just my stupid horny brain talking, but I thought they could actually be a good couple. Clearly Lara was leaning in that direction as well, but would Susan? And that wasn’t even considering the whole mess that could be opened up when I asked them to come back to Pine Lake with me.

It wasn’t until I had that thought that I fully realized that I had decided to do that. I was going to extend an invitation, and I was fairly confident they’d accept. Unless something went wrong between now and then. But how would bringing these two back complicate my relationship with the others? I suddenly wondered just how Susan and Megan would get along. In some ways, they were very similar. That could be great or terrible.

They might fight a lot.

Then again, a threesome with the two of them would be...probably dangerous, but more than worth it.

And oh my God, a threesome with Lara and Delilah, those two fucking sexual goddesses. That would be a threesome for the history books.

I managed to make it to the first lakehouse without running into any problems. No people around, no wolves lurking, at least as far as I could tell.

The lakehouse was a beautiful thing, the kind of place rich people would vacation. Well...Midwest rich, not like coastal rich. It was a two-story building, with faded blue siding, its windows mostly intact, with a nice wraparound porch with most of the paint worn off. I checked in the windows that I could see through and saw no signs of life inside. When I tried the front door, I found it unlocked.

Walking in, I looked around.

“Hello? Anyone in here? I’m not looking for a fight.”

I waited. Listened. Nothing.

No breathing, no creaking floorboards, no shifting bodies. Well, as good a reaction as any, I guessed. I set to work.

Getting back to doing my usual stuff after all that isolation was finally making me feel sane again. As I poked through that house, checking each of the rooms, the closets, everything for hidden compartments or tucked away supplies or forgotten items, I realized that I was actually feeling pretty normal.

I was also missing Megan and the others, but...not as much.

At first, that startled me. But after thinking about it for a bit, I finally thought that probably I wasn’t missing them as much because I knew I was going back to them before too long. And I might even be bringing two friends back with me. Of course, I might come back to a scene of chaos and destruction, with women I was extremely close to injured or worse. I shook my head at that thought. It wouldn’t do to dwell on that shit.

Caring had downsides, but I already knew that. Getting attached to someone meant it hurt when you lost them.

And that…

Was a bridge best left crossed only when forced to.

I cared about Megan and Delilah and Elizabeth, and worrying about their safety was a price I paid for that. I paid it, well, I wouldn’t say gladly, but I was willing to pay it. I also knew I couldn’t let it get out of control.

So I thought about happy things, like a potential threesome with Lara and Susan. Or Lara and this mystery redheaded cougar of hers.

Ugh, I honestly hated to admit it but married pussy did feel better.

Cheating married pussy was...really fucking good.

Everyone’s got flaws, and this was definitely one of mine. I mean shit, all I had to go off of was their word about the husband.

Whatever, I didn’t want to think about this right now.

I didn’t find much worthwhile in the lakehouse. Only a single can of corn hidden way back in the shadows of a particularly deep cabinet, a book of matches near a fireplace, and some random clothing items that might be of use. I packed it all away in my backpack and then started legging it through the snow up to the second lakehouse.

As I approached it, something tipped me off that I might not be alone. I honestly don’t know what it was, if I’d seen or heard something subconsciously that pinged my instincts, but as I approached the front door, hand on my holstered pistol, I heard a voice come from overhead.

“Okay, that’s close enough.”

I drew my pistol and dropped into a crouch, aiming up. I could just barely see someone standing back from an open window in the second story. Judging from the voice, a middle-aged woman. Jessica? Why would she be out here?

“I don’t want any trouble,” I said.

“Neither do I. Who are you?” the woman asked.

I tried to get a better look at her but the sun was glaring off the glass and she was standing back from the window. I lowered my pistol. “My name is Chris.”

“Are you alone, Chris?” she asked.

“Right now, yes. How about you?”

“Yes. But I assure you I’m quite capable of defending myself.”

“Fair enough...is this your home?”

“No.”

“Well, I was intent on searching this house for supplies but if it’d be easier, I could walk away, come back later.”

“Hmm.” She paused for several seconds. “I’d be willing to talk. Come inside and stand at the foot of the stairs.” She left the window.

I hesitated. This could definitely be a trap, but I’d gotten decent at sniffing those out. Well, I did want to know if other people were living in the area. Maybe this was one of the other people Susan had thought she’d seen.

I decided to gamble it and trust my instincts and reflexes. I walked up onto the front porch and opened the door, pistol out. After carefully checking the hallway the door led into and the doors leading directly off the hallway to the left and right, I decided it wasn’t a trap. A woman came to stand at the top of the stairs. She didn’t look anything like what Lara had described, so I figured I was not looking at the mysterious Jessica.

Instead, I was looking at a five and a half foot tall middle-aged blonde who was a little thick and a lot nice to look at.

“Hello,” she said, “my name is Abigail. You look...threatening,” she said, though she regarded him with an almost amused gaze.

“It’s a dangerous world,” I replied, and holstered my pistol, though I didn’t snap it shut, in case I had to quick-draw it.

“That it is,” she agreed. “Do you live around here? I haven’t seen you before.”

“Showed up recently. I’m staying nearby for now.”

“With the two young women?” she asked. I shrugged noncommittally. She let out a little laugh. “Fair enough.” She studied me for a bit longer, then walked down the stairs and came to stand at the foot of them. We were about six feet apart now.

Up close, I could tell she was definitely middle-aged, somewhere in her forties. I noticed a ring on her third left finger.

“How would you like a job?” she asked after some consideration.

“Guess it depends on the job and the reward,” I replied. I’d had meetings like this before, although sometimes they went ugly.

God, I hoped she wasn’t going to ask me to kill her husband.

Seriously, women had asked me that before. The only time I’d ever actually done it was to Elizabeth’s husband...although technically speaking I hadn’t done the killing.

So I guess I’d never done it before.

“Fair response,” Abigail replied. She pursed her lips and looked me up and down again, putting her hands on her hips. “You certainly look like the...capable sort,” she murmured.

Was she hitting on me?

That was a wedding ring, right?

“I’m capable,” I replied.

“Confident, too. I like that. As for the job…” She trailed off and seemed to suddenly reconsider. “Well, I suppose it’s something I need to talk over with my husband.”

Okay, so she was married.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Yes. Now that I think about it, he might want a little time to consider it. We’ve been preparing for something...well, I suppose this will have to wait until I’ve had a proper conversation with him. Do you know where the farm is?” she asked.

“No,” I replied.

“East,” she said, “past the lake. That rise in the land. Climb up it, you’ll be able to see the farmhouse and the property. Why don’t you come by tomorrow and maybe we can work out some kind of a deal.”

I thought about it for a few seconds. Well, I guess there was no harm in hearing them out. “I’ll be by either tomorrow, or the day after at the latest.”

“Perfect!” She stepped forward and offered her hand. “It was nice to meet you, Chris,” she said as I shook it.

“You too, Abigail.”

I fucking swear she was flirting with me. Just the look in her eye and the little smile she had on her face. But maybe I was crazy and projecting. She sure was hot enough. She went outside of the front door and I couldn’t help but look at her jeans-clad ass as she walked away. She filled them out quite nicely.

I fantasized about what she might look like naked for a moment, and then looked around the second lakehouse.

Well, time to get back to work.

TEN

The second lakehouse was at least a little more useful than the first.

I managed to find a little stash of medicine, namely some cough syrup, some painkillers, and a suture kit all wrapped up in a sealed plastic bag and stuffed behind a toilet. I tossed it in my pack, mildly frustrated that it was the only thing I’d found after a solid hour and a half of searching. When I walked back outside, I surveyed the area and my gaze landed on the nearest ice fishing hut. There were four of them strung out in a rough line on this side of the lake, and they weren’t all that far away. After a moment of consideration, I finally told myself that since I was up here, I might as well get them searched and out of the way.

I wouldn’t call myself an ice fishing expert, but I’d done it before. I mean, it was as simple as make a hole in the ice and fish through the hole. Or at least that had been my experience. Probably there was a better way to do it, but it worked well enough for me. As I approached the first one, I saw that it had a hasty look to it, and I figured it almost certainly had been constructed after the snow hit. It didn’t even have a front door, but it was a nice windbreak.

I tried not to be too paranoid about the ice and falling through as I searched the first small structure and came up with a whole lot nothing, then moved onto the second. This ice was plenty thick, even I could see that, but I really would probably be fucked seven ways from Sunday if I fell through the ice here and now. I was alone and although the day was mild, it was still below freezing. If I was very lucky, I would find a fishing rod, or at least some sort of fishing gear, in one of these, and we could eat some fish.

If there were any still alive in the lake.

As I searched through the rest of the little shacks, I found myself wondering about what this place had been like before. The construction of four of these shacks, which, while not perfect, were pretty sturdily constructed, suggested that a larger group of people had been living here at some point. Was there a town nearby? I’d have to check on that. But maybe people had been living in the surrounding buildings, forming a scattered little community. If that was the case, what had happened to them?

Maybe they’d all died off, or moved away.

Unfortunately, died off was more likely nowadays. Between the extreme cold, the lack of resources, and sickness, plus your everyday garden variety asshole looking to gun you down for what was in your backpack, it was all too easy to die.

As I suspected, there was nothing left in any of the little wooden shacks.

Well, at least I knew now for sure. I sat down in a chair in the final one and made some notations on my map, crossing off the lakehouses and the huts, added in the farm and also another building I had seen on the north side of the lake. Although it was less of a building and more of a shed. And with that done, I started heading home.

~

Lara was back by the time I returned home.

She looked happy and a bit bubbly, and I found myself stiffening at the thought of her doing it with Jessica.

And I hadn’t even seen Jessica yet.

Susan, however, was nowhere to be found, and I saw her door was closed as I looked around, so I figured she must be in her room.

As I came into the kitchen, I saw Lara organizing a few more plants she’d harvested.

“How’d it go?” I asked. “Was your...harvest successful?”

She giggled and nodded. “Very. You could say it bore a lot of fruit.”

I considered about whether or not to tell her that Susan knew what she was doing. Out of habit, I opened the freezer door and peered in. Whenever I was around my food source and it wasn’t in my backpack, I had a habit of visually scanning it every so often.

This time, when I did, I hesitated and then looked more closely.

When you lived in an apocalypse scenario, you tended to catalog your food very intensely, so I knew that there should be five containers of deer meet in the snow-packed freezer. There wasn’t. There were four.

One of the smallest plastic containers was missing.

I spent a moment looking around for it, but I couldn’t find it. Not the meat, nor the container. What the fuck?

“Lara...would there be any particular reason we’re missing some meat and one of those containers?” I asked.

“Oh,” Lara said, suddenly losing her good cheer. All of it seemed to be replaced by guilt. “Uh...I took it. And gave it to Jessica.”

I turned fully to face her. “Why did you do this, exactly?”

She swallowed and faced me fully. “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I just…” She swallowed and looked around, then lowered her voice. “Jessica’s husband is getting suspicious. That’s how we had to justify the meeting: a trade.”

“What’d you get in return?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“A few books?” she replied with an awkward smile.

I sighed deeply. “Lara…”

“I know, I’m sorry, I fucked up,” she said.

“It’s just...you should’ve mentioned this to me. This kind of shit is important. I’m trying to maintain our food supplies and for that to happen, I need an accurate count. It’s literally what I was hired for.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “Are you mad?”

“I’m annoyed,” I replied, “but it’s not a big deal. Just, you know, tell me next time.”

“I will, I promise.” Her expression switched abruptly. “Susan was acting weird when I got home. She was being all shifty and finally she went to her room to take a nap. Did something happen between the two of you while I was out?” Before I could answer, her face lit up in excitement. “Did you go for it?” she whispered.

“I went for it,” I replied.

“And?”

“And I fucking nailed it.”

“Really?!” she cried, then lowered her voice, looking around again. “Seriously? You fucked her?”

“I fucking destroyed her,” I replied.

“How many times did she come? You did a good job, right?”

“Yes, I did a good job. She came like six times.”

“Did she let you come inside?” I nodded. “Wow, that’s...hmm. She must actually really like you. She hasn’t been laid in a long time, I don’t think. And sex has always been a touchy subject with her...mmm…” she closed her eyes and smiled. “Honestly I’m getting horny just thinking about the two of you screwing. What position did you do?”

“Missionary,” I replied. “I’m getting horny too...why don’t you take care of me?” I suggested, leaning back against the counter.

Her eyes widened a little. “Here? Now?”

“Here. Now.”

She bit her lower lip, looked back over her shoulder, then stepped closer to me. “Okay, I could do that. We haven’t done anything sexual today and you did me a huge favor by treating Susan to a good six orgasms…”

“Get your tits out,” I said.

She gave me a quick kiss on the lips and whispered, “Yes, master.”

She took off her shirt and the undershirt she wore beneath that. No bra this time. Her huge tits fell out as the undershirt came off and she dropped to her knees.

“Fuck, you’ve got huge tits,” I whispered as she started working my pants open.

“Yep, and they’re all yours,” she murmured.

“Well, mine and Jessica’s.”

She smirked up at me. “Speaking of that, she wants to meet you, and almost certainly fuck you. She seemed really excited when I told her...ah, there we are,” she whispered, and a thrill of pleasure ran through me in the form of a shiver as she freed my cock.

Her tongue started exploring, teasing, testing, and each time it came in contact with me I shuddered. Lara stared up at me as she worked my dick, holding it in one hand while licking across the tip. It struck me how natural she looked, like this was what she was made for. I think a lot of guys thought that about a lot of women, but for Lara it seemed to be true. It was so immediately obvious how sexual she was and I was still dumbstruck by how flat out fucking gorgeous she was. The woman was like lust incarnate.

She seemed to enjoy the effect she was having on me and took my dick in her mouth and started bobbing her head while maintaining direct eye contact. Which only made the whole thing that much hotter.

“Fuck, Lara,” I whispered.

“Bet none of your other girlfriends suck you off this good,” she murmured, and before I could respond, she put in back in her mouth and continued pleasuring me.

I groaned and shifted, holding onto the counter with one hand while placing the other on the back of her head, feeling her soft brown hair as she sucked me.

Her tongue was put to wonderful use and having her drool all over my dick was pure heaven. She kept going for a bit longer and then took it out of her mouth and gripped her huge breasts. Bringing them up, she started sliding them up and down my cock.

“Fuck, I just cannot get over your tits,” I muttered.

She laughed and blew some hair out of her face. “I can tell. I kinda feel the same way about your dick. Normally I don’t find cocks visually appealing but something about yours is just fantastic. I love looking at it, and...doing other things with it…”

She slid her huge tits up and down my throbbing member for a bit, and then resumed sucking me off. I could tell she was going in for the kill.

“Ah yeah...that’s right...oh fuck right there…” I groaned, closing my eyes.

When I opened them again, close to coming, I was startled by the sudden appearance of Susan. She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at the two of us. Fuck, she was quiet! I waited for her to say something but she didn’t, she just kept staring at us, and that made it way hotter and before I knew it I was coming in Lara’s mouth.

I let out inarticulate grunts of pleasure as Lara took my stuff into her mouth, moaning as she sucked me dry, working my cock with skilled hands and lips.

When she was done swallowing everything I had to offer, she pulled back and coughed and laughed a little, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “You come so much.”

“Apparently,” Susan said.

Lara whirled around and almost fell over. “Fuck, Susan! Shit! I didn’t hear you at all.” She twisted back around and stared up at me. “You couldn’t have said anything?”

“I was a little distracted,” I replied, putting my dick away.

She laughed. “Fair enough, I guess.” Lara grabbed her shirt and stood up, though she didn’t seem particularly embarrassed about being caught sucking dick topless.

“God I am still so jealous of your tits,” Susan muttered as Lara pulled her undershirt back on.

“Yours are pretty great,” Lara replied. “They’re really perky.”

“When have you seen my tits?” Susan asked.

“Remember that party with the strip poker and the vodka?”

“Oh shit...yeah. I kind of remember it. Anyway, I was coming out to grab some lunch.”

“If you’d like, I could make something,” I offered.

“Uh...sure,” she murmured, blushing suddenly. All at once I wondered if she’d be mad that I’d told Lara we’d had sex.

I guess it would come up sooner or later.

“How’d your harvest go?” she asked, looking at Lara suddenly.

Now it was Lara’s turn to blush. “Okay. I got some more potatoes and some onions.”

“Perfect. I’ll put together a stew,” I said.

“I’ll help, I’m good with chopping,” Lara said.

“I guess I’ll go read,” Susan said. She lingered for a bit, then left the kitchen.

Lara and I went about making a stew of deer meat, potatoes, corn, and onion. As we went about the act of being domestic together, I found that she was one of the women I could enjoy silence with. Not all my relationships were like that, but I’d experienced it enough to value it. It was so nice to be able to just do things and not talk. Not that I had a problem with talking, but sometimes the silence didn’t need to be filled.

Just being there and doing stuff in the same room was enough.

But some people didn’t know that or refused to recognize it.

Lara seemed pretty content and happy, and I sure was.

We made our stew and then gathered in the dining room, eating our lunch.

“I ran into someone else while I was searching the lakehouses,” I said, and they both looked up in interest. “You were right, Susan, there’s more people around.”

“Are they dangerous?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. From what I know, they’re a husband and wife who live on a farm a little ways east of the lake. Her name is Abigail. She wants to hire me for a job.”

“What job?” Susan asked.

“She didn’t say. She said she had to talk it over with her husband first.”

“You think it could be a trap?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. Either way, I’m willing to hear her out. Maybe we could get something cool. Or more ammo. Or a bow and some arrows. Or fishing gear. I checked out the ice shacks as well. Nothing was in them, and there wasn’t hardly anything in the lakehouses either, but we could use them for fishing if I found some gear.”

“I’d love some fish,” Lara murmured. She focused on me suddenly. “Was she hot?”

“Yeah. She was pretty hot. Mature, blonde, a little thick.”

Susan made an unhappy noise but Lara didn’t seem to notice.

“You gonna fuck her?”

“She’s married,” I replied.

Susan looked up suddenly and almost said something, but then instead went back to her meal. They were definitely gonna have to talk to each other at some point.

“Maybe it’s an open marriage?” Lara suggested.

“That’d be nice,” I replied. “Either way, I think I’ll head up there tomorrow and see what exactly they want from me. If I don’t come back, you’ll know it was a trap.”

“Great,” Susan muttered. “Just don’t forget your deal with us.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

We went back to our meals.

~

“Like this?” Lara asked, shifting slightly.

“Yeah, that’s...pretty perfect,” I murmured, studying her.

She was nude on our bed, posing on her hands and knees. I told her she reminded me of a nude model and she’d decided to pose for me and it had reminded me of a particular pose I’d seen a long time ago. One of those naked chicks you see on the internet at just the right time or something, and for whatever reason she sticks with you.

Lara looked like a modern day succubus right now and I was horny as hell.

After lunch we’d pretty much just hung out in the house. I’d collected some firewood and boiled some water, and that was the extent of the work I’d done for the rest of the day. I had to admit, it kind of felt like a vacation.

Especially right now.

“Now,” I said, walking up to her, “you know what to do.”

I put my cock in her face and she grinned. “I know what to do,” she agreed, and started giving me head while maintaining her pose.

It was nighttime now and I wanted a good, hard fuck from Lara before sleeping.

She sucked me off for a bit before taking it briefly out of her mouth. “Will you tell me about what you did to Susan?”

I laughed and she put it back in her mouth and got back to work. “She made me not talk,” I replied, and I felt some air escape her nose as she let out a small laugh of her own, though she didn’t stop bobbing her head. “I fingered her, and I ate her out, and then she begged me to fuck her. And I fucked the hell out of her. I slammed her fucking brains out and pounded her into the mattress. She was so fucking loud.”

Lara moaned in response. I gave her hair a little tug and she stopped.

“I’ve never heard her having sex,” she said, panting a little.

“I bet you want to,” I replied, getting onto the bed behind her and introducing the tip of my saliva-slicked cock to her stunningly hot, wet pussy.

She moaned and shuddered. “I really, really do want to.”

“Hopefully you’ll get to before too long,” I replied, and slid into her.

Fuck, she was so wet.

For a few seconds we both lost ourselves in the sex as I gripped her big-ass hips and started stroking into her. Like goddamn was her pussy just perfection. Susan’s felt fucking awesome, but Lara’s was just…

I don’t know how to describe it.

Perfect.

“Maybe...you could go fuck her tonight,” Lara panted.

“No,” I replied, “she told me to wait a few days. She asked me not to ask her for sex, she wanted to be the one to initiate.”

“Hmm...interesting-ah!”

“Why is that interesting?”

“I think it’s best if maybe you find out on your own.”

“Tell me,” I said, and slapped her ass hard enough to leave a mark.

She gasped and shouted a little, hanging her head. “Please…” she moaned.

I couldn’t tell if she was asking for another or asking that I didn’t push the subject. Either way, in the moment, I felt either required the same response.

“Tell me you little bitch!” I snapped and slapped her even harder.

She let out a louder shriek and started to orgasm. Oh fuck! I kept forgetting how easy she was. I’d met chicks with hair triggers before, but goddamn it was easy to make Lara orgasm. I groaned, feeling wet hot pleasure hit me in waves as her vaginal muscles clenched and released and fluttered around my rigid length and a hot spray of her feminine sex juices leaked out of her and her thighs trembled and shook.

Finally, when she was finished, she answered. “I think she’s like me.”

“Like you?” I asked, running a hand over her huge ass.

“Submissive. I don’t know for sure. But I’ve got a strong feeling.”

“Maybe she’s finding a way to justify handing the reigns over to someone like me,” I replied. I reached up under her and started groping her huge tits as I kept fucking her.

“Maybe…” she whispered, panting. “Ah fuck...that dick is so good…” she moaned.

I let go of her tits and grabbed her hair. She let out a loud cry as I yanked on it.

I kept stroking into her, taking in her whole, curvy, thick body and how fucking hot she looked on her hands and knees, the way my cock looked disappearing into that raw pussy and her perfectly shaped fat ass and goddess-like hips…

“Fuck, Lara!” I cried as I started coming inside of her. She moaned loudly and pushed herself against me, forcing me deeper into her, inviting me further in as I shot my load into her.

“Oh fuck, master,” she moaned. “Yes...please, give it all to me. Drain your nuts into me,” she begged, which only made the orgasm hit that much harder.

I pumped her full as I drained myself, shockwaves of ecstasy hitting me repeatedly as the orgasm screamed through me.

I let out my breath in a long, long sigh as I finished up, then I gave her ass a few affectionate pats as I pulled out of her and stretched out on the bed.

She got up and started to clean up the mess.

“You really don’t think it’s weird that I fucked your best friend?” I asked after a moment.

“No,” she replied. “I’ve already gotten a good sense for you sexually, and I can tell you’re an attentive, if aggressive, lover. I knew you’d treat her not only well, but skillfully. And she deserves to have an attractive man make her orgasm several times and appreciate her without degrading her. It’s nice to just...be desired. Even on the surface. And you clearly desire her.”

“You can tell, huh?” I asked.

“Yes. I could tell the second I saw you looking at her that you had a thing for her. I’m really glad you came along and fucked her. Obviously I’m glad you came along and fucked me, too,” she said, finishing up. She got back into bed with me and we both got beneath the blankets.

“I honestly feel like I’m the one who lucked out.”

Lara grinned. “You are. I know what a sexual catch I am, and I know how sexually starved I am. I’ll be doing absolutely anything you want for as long as we’re together. And if we all play our cards right,” she added, lowering her voice, “you’ll be really lucky and have three women to fuck. Me, Jessica, and Susan, if we’re lucky.”

“I’d like that,” I murmured, then yawned.

She yawned as well and laid against me. One of her big breasts rested on my chest and I felt her thigh against my own. I wrapped an arm around her.

“Me too,” she said.

ELEVEN

“There you are,” I muttered.

It hadn’t been hard to find the farm, it was exactly where Abigail said it was, but it was colder today. A lot colder. The skies were still clear, but the winds were picking up a bit. A mile today was not the same as a mile yesterday.

I paused as I reached the apex of the little hill beside the lake and looked back, having a nice view of the frozen lake, the buildings around it, the forests farther on, everything covered in snow that reflected the sun in a million little gleams. I still had to admit that the views were beautiful. I shivered and returned my attention to the farm that lay maybe a hundred yards away, dead east, as Abigail had promised.

It looked like a relatively simple layout. Maybe an acre or so was fenced off and inside of it was a barn, a garage, and a farmhouse.

Today had started out with a nice session of Lara riding my cock, fucking me until I’d busted inside of her. After the morning routine, we all sat down for breakfast. Susan had been pissy and I still couldn’t quite figure out why. It might be because Lara was loud and she’d triggered some of Susan’s jealousy, or it might be that she’d woken her up early and Susan wasn’t a morning person. Or it could be because she was coming to regret the sex we’d had.

I hoped that wasn’t the case.

I really wanted to fuck her again, especially if she was submissive like Lara had suggested. And I found myself agreeing with that assessment. Despite how commanding she’d been, I was definitely getting those vibes from her.

My thoughts were still that she was deciding whether or not it’d be a good idea to fully let her guard down around me and to, well, submit to me.

I really hoped she would.

Whatever the reason, she’d been withdrawn and sullen at breakfast and wouldn’t say much. In the end, after finishing breakfast, I’d said my goodbyes to the ladies, grabbed my stuff, and headed out into the frigid morning light.

I was curious to see what Abigail had to say.

I gave it only a ten percent chance of being a trap of some kind, probably less. Something about her didn’t scream trap. Of course, that would only make the trap more effective, but if it came down to it, well…

Ultimately, I guess I trusted my instincts and reflexes to get me out of any situation I found myself in at the farm, and it would be nice to ferret out if they were a danger now, instead of finding out about it later. Right now, I was potentially expecting it. It’d be better than her and her husband or whoever else might be living there breaking into our house at three in the morning or setting the place on fire or hunting us while we were out.

I didn’t like how paranoid the apocalypse had made me.

As I came at last up on the farmhouse, the front door opened and an unfamiliar man greeted me. I saw he was carrying a shotgun, though not aggressively.

“I’m Chris. Abigail sent for me,” I said, coming to a stop (hopefully) outside the range of the shotgun, though I didn’t doubt he had another weapon somewhere close by.

“Oh good,” he said, relaxing, “I’m Hank. Please come in.”

“Thanks,” I replied, and resumed walking.

I came up onto the porch and he led me inside. I thought there was something awkward about his demeanor. It wasn’t just the usual ‘this is a stranger and he might try to kill me’ awkwardness that just about everyone had when meeting someone for the first time nowadays, it was something else. It was more like…

Uncomfortable.

Well that could just be my generally threatening appearance. I sized Hank up as he closed the door and led me across the entry hall and into a living room with a fireplace and comfortable-looking couches. He was a few inches shorter than me, brown hair and beard, decently kept for a man living in the apocalypse, soft brown eyes. He looked like he was pushing fifty but was still in decent shape. He offered his hand when we came into the living room and I shook it. Despite my initial impressions, I had to admit that there was something tough about the guy. Something just under the surface. Abigail came in after a moment of awkward silence.

Damn, she still looked good.

Better than before, actually. She was wearing a button-down t-shirt, though the top two buttons were undone and her pleasantly ample cleavage was on fairly clear display. The pants she wore sat nicely on her big hips.

“Chris! I’m glad you made it,” she said, favoring me with a very sweet smile. Something flashed in her eyes, something like...mischief?

Okay, time to find out what the fuck was going on.

“I like to make good on my word,” I replied, looking around. The farmhouse had been nice once, but it was obvious that time and the weather had taken a toll. “What is it exactly I can do for the two of you?” I asked.

“Well, we discussed it and decided to hire you to help us, but last night before I went to bed I realized that I had lost something important while I was out exploring yesterday. I was hoping you’d be able to find it, or at least make an honest go of it.”

“What is it and where is it?” I replied.

“A necklace, silver. I wear it everywhere, it was given to me by my mother. The clasp must have broke...did you see it on me when we met yesterday?” she asked.

I thought about it. Our meeting actually stuck out pretty clearly in my mind because of how much she turned me on.

I didn’t remember any necklace. I shook my head. “No.”

“That helps, actually. Based on my best guess, it must have broken while I was exploring the island in the center of the lake, just before I went to the lakehouse. I investigated the watchtower, and also a little abandoned camp on the south side of the island. If you could retrieve it and bring it back, I’d be extremely grateful and willing to reward you.”

“What kind of reward are we talking here?” I asked.

“Well…” Abigail said with a small smirk, and I saw Hank tense slightly. Obviously there was some kind of dynamic here at play, but I wasn’t sure what yet. “What do you want?”

I considered saying that I wanted her, but that seemed like a pretty quick road to getting, at the very least, socked in the jaw.

And it would be well-earned.

I was already about to fuck one cheating wife, I didn’t want to make my karma any worse by doing it a second time.

“Do you have any bullets?” I asked.

“Some,” she replied. “What kind do you need?”

“Thirty ought six rifle shells.”

“We actually do have some of those to spare. I’ll give you six of them in return for my necklace,” she said.

I considered it, then nodded. It would hopefully be an easy job, and six rounds were six rounds. “Deal.”

“Excellent! Also, be careful on that tower. It didn’t look entirely stable when I was checking it over.”

“Noted. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“We’ll be here.”

I walked out of the farmhouse and began heading back the way I’d come.

~

In a way, this was getting to kill two birds with one stone.

I’d intended to explore the island, and the watchtower that was built onto it was especially tantalizing. Although it would be to anyone who passed through the region and had the time and energy and willpower to do the exact same thing over the past two and a half years, so I doubted there’d be anything worthwhile there.

That was always the gamble, though, right?

If I didn’t check the place I’d one hundred percent not get anything from it. If I did, I maybe ninety five percent wouldn’t get anything from it.

It’d only cost me time, and at the moment I certainly had a lot of that.

I reached the edge of the lake before long and began making my way across the ice once more. It was relatively quick going, given the ice was covered in an appreciable layer of snow and I wouldn’t risk falling on my ass and maybe breaking an arm too much by heading out onto the lake. I’d be really fucked then.

Well, not as fucked given the fact that I was living with Lara and Susan. I figured they were good enough that they’d help me if I broke a bone. Maybe not, you could never truly tell with people until the event actually occurred.

Hitting the island, I transferred from icy snow to snowy ground. The island itself wasn’t too large, maybe fifty yards across at its widest, the terrain mostly sloping upwards at all angles, towards the center, where the tower was built. It rose above me a good eighty feet into the air, and I imagined there was a hell of a view up there. I worked my way slowly up the path of least resistance, again being careful not to fall.

My mind kept wanting to slip back to Abigail and what she might look like naked. I’d say that I liked women who were a little thicker but to be honest, I just fucking liked women. Thick, thin, tall, short, scrawny or built, old or young. Well, to a certain point. Delilah was kind of the edge of how far I was willing to go below my own age, which sounded ridiculous given I was twenty six and she was twenty two, but any younger and they tended to be fairly immature. Immature to the point where it became a pain to deal with.

It would take a pretty mature woman for me to go below twenty two.

“All right,” I muttered to myself as I reached the base of the watchtower, “let’s do this thing.”

I stared up at it and I could see what she meant. Though the support struts looked sturdy, up near the top of the stairs wrapping around the exterior, I saw some serious wear and tear. Well, I’d just have to be careful.

I wanted up there, even if only just for the view.

For the first several moments, I went nice and easy, but the stairs at the base seemed to be fairly sturdy. I moved up them, feeling for sudden shifts, listening for telltale groans. As I reached the weak point, I could see some blackening and wondered if lightning had struck it at some point. A lot of people had learned that winter lightning and winter thunder were actually things, though even now it was still fairly rare.

Weather still sucked in ways that people thought we had escaped. For example: snow tornadoes were real.

I’d actually done research on that and learned that though they were a bit rarer, winter tornadoes existed and tended to be faster than regular tornadoes.

I had, thankfully, never run into one of those yet.

As I reached the damaged portion, I tested it carefully and glanced over the edge. I was probably seventy feet off the ground right now. Fuck’s sake. If I fell I’d probably die. Maybe I’d get lucky and only break a few limbs.

No, almost certainly I’d just straight up fucking die.

Was this really worth it?

I tested the section of stairs a bit more and found that they seemed to hold, and decided to just go for it. Moving quickly, I walked up the stairs. They groaned and shifted and my heart leaped into my throat, but I made it up to the wraparound walkway at the top without anything bad happening. And it seemed as stable as it should be.

I let out a long sigh and for awhile, I just stood there and looked around.

The view was, in fact, amazing.

It was largely the same view I’d had on that hill by the lake, just much higher. Now I could see the tops of the trees and they extended for quite a ways in some areas. I could just barely make out what had to be the lodgings where Jessica and her group were staying. I could unfortunately see the house that was now my own home. I liked that it was obscured by the forest, but viewed from above, it was very obvious.

I could even see the smoke coming out of the chimney.

To the north, I could see train tracks and an abandoned handful of train carts just in front of a tunnel, which was just barely visible in a hill up that way. I saw a few other structures scattered off to the northwest, none of which immediately leaped out at me as familiar in design. No, wait. I raised my rifle and looked closer at one of them through the scope.

Okay, that was definitely a church.

There was that cabin I’d noticed off to the west, right up against the treeline over there. And two structures about a quarter mile apart, closer than the church. One had a panoramic view and it looked vaguely familiar, but I wasn’t sure what it was beyond maybe some kind of visitor center or something for the area. It looked like the land dipped past the church and I thought I could just barely see a roof beyond there, in the dipped area, but it was too hard to tell. Nonetheless, I made notations on everything I saw on my little sketched map, making sure to get it all because I’d want to visit these places later.

Once that was done and I’d had my fill of the beautiful, snow-swept forests and fields glistening in the sunshine, and the bitter cold began to get to me again, I started my hunt. So far, I hadn’t seen a hint of that chain, and I’d been looking. It was windy enough that I might be shit out of luck and it had fallen into snow and then was covered by the blowing wind. I didn’t even come across any footprints from yesterday.

Dammit, I wanted that ammo.

I walked inside the room at the top and found the place a bit barren, as I’d expected. I found a bed with a bare mattress, some cabinets that had been cleared out, a small metal table, a metal chair, and a wood-burning stove, and that was it beyond trash and tinder scattered across the floor. As I set to it, searching the area over carefully, I wondered why this place was here. What was the point of watchtowers again?

Watching, I guess, but for what?

Oh right, forest fires. Also probably people in trouble. Maybe for dangerous animals. Probably for other reasons I wasn’t aware of.

God, what a lonely fucking place to live, even if only for a few days or weeks maybe.

It would be nice to wake up to that view every morning though, especially when this place wasn’t a barren, snowy wasteland.

When I ended up back at the door I’d come in, having completed my search, I began to feel far less hopeful that I’d find what I was looking for. Not only was it not up here, but there was nothing of any real value up here either.

With a sigh, I stepped back out, enjoyed the view one more time, and then began heading back down the stairs.

The second I put my full weight onto the stairs, something groaned and snapped, and then I was falling.

Pure blind panic shot through me as I grabbed frantically for something.

“What the fuck me!” I screamed as I dropped several feet and fell, quite painfully and quite luckily, directly onto the stairs below me. I banged my side against the railing in a way that knocked all the wind out of me and landed on my back. I tried to scream in agony as my head and my back hit the stairs and stars blasted across my vision as pain shot through my head and torso and limbs, all of me really, but there was no air in my lungs.

For several long moments, I lay there wheezing and gasping in the frigid air.

I stared up at the cloudless blue sky and felt the cold wind blowing over me and thanked my lucky stars that I was already somewhat numb from it.

A flock of blackbirds flew by high overhead, cawing occasionally.

Finally, I sat up. It was a slow, tentative motion, and it hurt, but not as much as I was worried it might. Of course, that could just be the numbness working.

“Well, I deserved that,” were the first words out of my mouth.

I’d been fucking careless with those stairs. Should not have put my whole weight on it like that. I should’ve fucking tried jumping it at least. Probably shouldn’t have come up here to begin with and instead began the search with the abandoned camp she mentioned. But no. I was distracted by thinking of Lara and Susan and how good they felt sliding into bare, thinking about a married redhead and what she might look like, thinking about a married blonde I’d probably never get to fuck but God would I love to, and this is where it had gotten me.

Slowly, I felt my ribs.

It was a long, miserable process, but I checked myself over for broken bones and after several minutes I finally decided I probably didn’t have any.

I felt the back of my head and yep, that hurt like fuck. It wasn’t bleeding though, and I didn’t feel nauseous, I didn’t have a ringing in my ears, no blurred or double-vision, so I was probably okay on the concussion front.

After that, I remembered to check my rifle.

“Oh please don’t be broken,” I whispered as I reached for it. It was still there at least, hanging off my shoulder. I winced as I took it in my grasp and checked it over. After a moment, I determined that I probably had gotten lucky, but I needed to do a more thorough inspection just to be sure. Finally, I looked around to see if anything had fallen off of me, but it didn’t seem to have. I checked my pockets, my pistol, my backpack, but everything was still there.

Or I thought it was.

It was hard to think.

I ended up popping four painkillers and downing them with water, then making my way back down the stairs to the ground. There, I wasted a good five minutes hunting around in the snow immediately surrounding the tower, because a lot of bits of debris had fallen off when the stairs broke, and some of it might be something of mine that I’d missed. But in the end, all I found was bits of wood and metal.

“Bullshit,” I muttered in angry pain as I looked up at the broken stairs. “Stupid fucking stairs.” I felt angry and irritable, but it was just because I was cold and suffering. I still had a fucking job to do. Might as well do it.

TWELVE

It almost felt like the fall was a price I had to pay for getting so lucky.

I found the goddamned necklace.

It was within the remains of the abandoned campsite I finally tracked down. There was a little indention in the rocks that was almost a cave not far from the shoreline, and there I found the remains of a campfire, some empty cans, and a tent that had been shredded utterly. No corpse, though. I wondered what had happened.

I caught sight of the necklace. One end of it was resting on a piece of wood that was mostly hidden by snow, the rest of the necklace was actually hidden by snow. Retrieving it, I studied it, confirmed it to almost certainly be what I was looking for, and then I started to head back to the farm. I got two steps before I just flat out stopped.

The notion of walking all the way back there, and then all the way back home, suddenly felt like an impossible task.

I sighed and looked back at the campsite, then finally gave in for once in a long while and instead rekindled the fire and sat down on a relatively flat rock once I had it going. The rock was, thankfully, an appreciable distance from the fire, and while it warmed me, I looked around, then pulled out my journal and started writing.

So far, I still hadn’t told Elizabeth or Delilah or even Megan about the fact that it existed. And so far, I don’t think they suspected I kept a journal of any kind. I’d actually hardly written in it over the past three months, averaging perhaps once a month. And even then the entries weren’t especially long. I wrote in it now. I’d made several tiny entries while I was on my own in the woods, though. Now I wrote about Lara and Susan, added them to the list of women I’d successfully had sex with since the apocalypse had begun in earnest.

After writing my scarce thoughts on the past several days, I put it away and pulled out a can of shredded beef and opened it with a can-opener. I ate half of it as I waited for the painkillers to do their job and the fire to do its job, and downed it with some water from my thermos. After close to twenty minutes, I put everything away, killed the fire, and set off again. I actually felt better. Some of it was the painkillers, some the food, some the warmth, but I knew there was an importance in letting yourself just rest for a bit sometimes.

Even a short rest could help a lot.

Although it did become easy to just keep on resting.

It was why I tended to just push myself to finish a job. My willpower laid more in pressing on until the job was done than in taking tightly regulated breaks. Once I sat down, I rarely wanted to get up again depending on how the day had gone.

And today had gone poorly.

I was still in a fair amount of pain by the time I got back to the farm. I hoped none of it would show on my face. I thought I was walking pretty normally, if a bit stiffly and slowly. When I got up to the farmhouse, they opened the front door and came out.

“You’re back,” Abigail said. “Did you…”

“Yep,” I replied, holding the necklace out.

“Oh my God, you actually found it,” she said, taking it from me and looking it over. Given her genuine reaction, I had to believe that the thing was actually pretty important to her, so that made me feel better about the whole thing. “Thank you so much. Really.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied.

“Here.” She came forward and gave me the bullets, which I pocketed after giving them the barest of looks over, and then just barely managed not to give a little shout of pain when she hugged me. It was unexpected, and I hugged her back, briefly.

“It means a lot,” she said.

“I’m just glad I could find it,” I replied.

She looked at me for a long moment, and I couldn’t tell if she was picking up on the fact that I was in pain and trying to hide it, or maybe something else. I didn’t hit my face, as far as I could feel, so I doubt there’d be any obvious signs of my injuries at the moment. Finally, she cleared her throat, a little uncomfortably, and spoke up again.

“If you’d like, we’d be open to another deal in the near future,” she said.

“I would too,” I replied, though I was eager to be on my way. God, I wanted to be home. I thought I was fucking done for the day. My body was killing me. “What would it entail, exactly?” I asked.

“Honestly I’m not sure yet. We’re still figuring out some details.”

“Details of what, exactly?”

“It’s...part of a bigger plan we’re putting together. It’s...personal,” she said awkwardly. “You understand.”

I nodded, even though I didn’t fully. But I wasn’t surprised that she’d be reluctant to tell a stranger whatever her plans were. Still, she and her husband seemed benign and I had committed to helping people.

“All right. How about I check back in another day or two?” I suggested.

“That sounds perfect,” she replied. “Thank you again.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. I noticed there was still that subtle, awkward tension between her and her husband and me that I didn’t think could be completely explained by the simple fact that I was a stranger.

But I was in no mood to dissect or investigate further, so I just said my goodbyes and went on my way back home.

~

When I got back, Lara was waiting for me in the living room.

Susan’s door was shut again.

“Hi,” she said, looking excited. “Um...so I’ve got a surprise.”

“Yeah?” I replied, trying not to wince. The walk had felt like a very, very long one and my whole body was miserable right now.

At the moment, I just wanted to strip naked, take some more painkillers, and have Lara pleasure me and make me come a few times, then nap the rest of the fucking day and night. But she looked very excited.

“Jessica came by,” she said. “I thought we’d have to wait a little longer but she managed to slip away. She wants to meet you. She’s probably going to have sex with you if you go to the cabin. And I want to watch.”

Okay, that would make me feel better.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“We need to bring some more food to...‘trade’,” Lara said, her smile faltering slightly.

I sighed. We were starting to run low already. “Okay,” I replied. “Go grab it.”

“Thanks!”

She gave me a kiss and I waited by the fire, warming up while she raided our fridge so that I could fuck a hot married redhead.

I was definitely going to have to go hunting again very soon. Both of them seemed like they could put away an appreciable amount of food, and so could I, and I didn’t really feel like enacting rationing if I didn’t have to.

“Have you told Susan?” I asked when Lara came back.

Her expression changed. “...yeah. She wasn’t happy.”

“What, exactly, did you tell her?” I asked.

“That we’re going to go trade with Jessica...I think she knows.”

I considered that for a long moment. “I’d be surprised if she didn’t,” I replied finally.

“Either way, she went to her room and has refused to come out. So...it’ll do for now. Come on, we should hurry,” Lara said.

“Fine by me,” I replied.

We left the house and struck out into the woods. Lara stuck close to me and I tried to ignore the pain wracking my body as I scanned for threats. Warming up by the fire had brought back a lot of it. I was really hoping the sex would help.

Fuck, what I would not give for a goddamned soak in hot water.

Lara sighed when we were a few minutes away from the house. “I was really hoping that getting laid would chill Susan out.”

“I think it’ll take a little more than that,” I replied. “Have you gotten stoned yet?”

“No, I’ve decided to save it.”

“For what?”

“New Year’s Eve! I want to have a day off and a party.”

“Oh shit...it’s New Year’s Eve soon?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m honestly amazed the two of you have managed to accurately keep a calendar this far into the apocalypse,” I said.

“It’s Susan, actually. I’m not sure why but she’s obsessive about it.”

“So when is it?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

I thought about that. I thought we’d already passed into the next year, but apparently I hadn’t been that far off. Provided Susan was actually correct about the date, but I could see it. But honestly, I didn’t care, I would take an excuse to get high and have a little party with two hot chicks. Hopefully Susan would ease up a little by then, if not for me then if only for herself. Being angry all the time sucked.

“Well, it’ll be a nice day,” I replied.

“I hope so...how did your, uh, meeting go?” she asked, looking suddenly excited again. “Did you get laid?”

I laughed. “You’re really sex-obsessed aren’t you?”

“You aren’t?” she fired back.

“Didn’t say that. And no. Although…”

“Yeah?”

“She was kinda flirty, even though her husband was around. I don’t know, maybe I’m just imagining things, but she was kinda giving off those ‘I’d totally fuck you’ vibes.”

“Maybe she was, and she will.”

I sighed. “I’m already going to bang one married chick and that’s bad enough. I’m trusting you that Jessica’s husband is an asshole, but Abigail’s husband seemed nice.”

Lara shrugged. “Okay then.” She laughed softly. “You’re a lot nicer than you…”

“Yeah?” I asked when she trailed off.

“Nevermind.”

“Than I look?”

She nodded hesitantly. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. I...Susan has been telling me our whole lives that I need to be less careless with my words. For years and years, I thought she was just being paranoid or overly sensitive. But over the past few years I finally began to realize that she was right. When I think back to all the shit I’ve said to people just offhandedly, I cringe so hard. I’m super hot. I know that. For awhile, I took it for granted. Then I took advantage of it. I guess I still do. But I’ve really learned that it isn’t everything. But most people wouldn’t let me know I just hurt their feelings or said something fucked up or offensive. Because I was attractive, or sometimes because they’re too polite. So I’ve been trying to be better about that.”

“I respect that,” I said. “Honestly, that’s admirable. Too many people just say ‘fuck it’ if they even do recognize their own flaws.”

Lara opened her mouth, then closed it.

“What?” I pressed.

She sighed softly. “I guess...you treat me differently than most people have. You treat me like...we’re friends.”

“Are we not?” I asked.

She smiled and actually blushed a little. “I guess we are. More like lovers of convenience. But it isn’t just that. I’ve had people I’ve known for years just treat me...weird. Some like they hated me, some like they were walking on eggshells around me, most just fucking yes men or women…” She frowned, thinking for a moment, and her face suddenly lit up. “Oh! You treat me like you aren’t faking anything. Our interactions are so honest. That’s what it is. Almost everyone in my life has acted one way or another because they wanted something from me, and I can really pick up on that shit. You don’t act like that.”

“I definitely want things from you,” I replied.

She laughed. “Yeah, and you got it. I mean there was a little of that going on the first day, but I think you were a little out of your mind with horniness.”

“I was,” I confirmed.

“But after that, I don’t know, you just treated me like...a friend, but also like you weren’t incredibly heavily invested in me doing what you wanted. If I walked out of your life tomorrow, I feel like you’d be okay with that.”

“I don’t know about okay exactly, but yeah, mostly,” I replied. “That doesn’t offend you?”

“It would a few years ago. But I don’t want to be needed anymore. I want to be wanted. Just wanted. But not needed. Too many people acted like they needed me, and it just fed my ego. Now I just hate it...except for Susan. I know she needs me, and I need her, but that’s different. We’re best friends. It’s just...it’s different.”

“I understand,” I replied. I thought of how, at this point, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t need Megan, and maybe Delilah and Elizabeth.

Mostly Megan, though. I’d be crushed if she left me.

I didn’t like that, but I couldn’t ignore it.

Thankfully, the cabin came into view then and I didn’t have to think about that anymore. Instead, I had to contemplate the pros and cons of cheating, although I had the idea that the moment I saw Jessica all that would go out the window and I’d immediately find any possible justification for having sex with her because that was my weakness, and redheads made me particularly weak. We walked up and Lara tapped out a little rhythm on the door.

Smart. It was a trick I’d picked up over the months and years, letting a friend know if it was a friend or stranger knocking.

The door opened and YEP.

Jessica was a fucking supermodel.

I couldn’t help but stare at her as she stared right back at me. She was tall, probably five nine or five ten, and even in the clothing she wore I could tell she was fit. She had a fantastically beautiful face. The kind you saw on magazine covers. Her blood red hair was down, framing her face, just a few inches shy of being shoulder-length, and like Lara, she had smoldering blue eyes that could paralyze a man from across the room.

I saw a few signs of aging, but they were light. Mostly just the barest hints of wrinkles around her eyes and something about the eyes themselves. She just seemed like an older woman, though she still looked strikingly youthful.

“Hi,” she said after a moment, composing herself. “You must be Chris.”

I nodded. “You must be Jessica.”

“Uh...come in.”

She let us into the cabin and I saw that the place had a nice look to it. It was small, maybe half the size of the cabin I’d once called home when I first met Delilah. It held little more than a bed, a chair, and a fireplace. The bed was made and I wondered precisely how many times Jessica and Lara had fucked on it.

We came to stand in the center of the cabin after Jessica poked her head out behind us, looked around nervously, and closed it firmly.

“You didn’t exaggerate,” Jessica murmured as she studied me. “He’s...oh my. Frighteningly handsome.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Lara didn’t exaggerate about you either. You look like a model.”

“I was, actually,” she said.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Signed with an agency once. But that was over a decade ago...I guess we should have a formal introduction. I’m Jessica Thompson.”

“Chris Weston.”

We shook hands, which felt very odd considering what we were about to do. Hopefully. God did I want to fuck her.

“So, Lara...told you…?” she asked uncertainly.

“Yeah. She brought me here so you could consider having sex with me,” I replied.

She pursed her lips and nodded. “I think I’m done considering...do you, uh, have any questions for me?”

I thought about that. Unless I was way off my guess, I’m pretty sure she’d decided to open her legs for me.

Which was great.

But I had at least one question.

“Why are you cheating on your husband?” I asked.

She winced. “I guess that’s a fair question. It’s...there’s a lot there. A long story. But the short of it is that I don’t love him anymore, and he’s...it’s becoming increasingly obvious that he doesn’t love me either, but more importantly, he doesn’t respect me. Honestly, if he didn’t love me any longer, I could accept that. Love was...never exactly a central pillar of our relationship. Or, if it was, it was a very long time ago.” She sighed. “To be blunt, I became a trophy wife years ago. And I was okay with that. But recently, I don’t know. It’s gotten worse. And I’m almost positive he’s fucking one of the girls that’s staying with us. We’ve got a couple of collage age blondes we picked up a few months ago and…” she shook her head angrily, then sighed and sat down on the bed. “Honestly I have no right to be angry, look what I’m about to do. What I’ve been doing.”

We were all silent for a long moment. Lara sat in the chair, waiting.

Finally, Jessica looked back up at me with her incredibly beautiful face. “Why did you ask? Honestly?”

“Honestly?” I sighed. “It might seem counter-intuitive, but I’m not okay with just fucking anyone cheating on their significant other. I will do it. I have done it. But only if I feel…” I groaned suddenly. “I guess if you want brutal honesty, so long as, in my head, there exists a good enough reason for my lust to outweigh my guilt. Usually that reason is: the woman’s husband is a dickhead and doesn’t deserve her. But I’ll admit the flaw in this plan being that I often only had the words of the woman who’s trying to seduce me.” I shrugged.

“This conversation is not going how I expected it to. You are remarkably honest,” Jessica murmured, still staring at me. “I actually respect that. So...does your lust outweigh your guilt?” she asked after a moment.

“Oh yeah, it most certainly does. You are way too hot to walk away from,” I replied.

She looked away briefly as she blushed, a satisfied and mildly surprised smile coming onto her face. “Given that you’re having regular sex with Lara, I’m quite pleased to hear that,” she admitted after a moment.

“You’re both insanely fucking hot,” I replied. “So, we good to go?”

Jessica stood back up. “We are definitely good to go.”

THIRTEEN

Okay, so, this was it.

I was going to fuck a cheating married woman.

I set my rifle and my backpack nearby, then dropped into a crouch and opened it up. As I pulled out my cleaning materials, I was glad to see that this was helping distract me from the pain that was still wracking my body.

And once I busted inside of her, (provided she let me), that would help even more.

Setting the stuff on the floor by the fire, I started stripping. I heard Lara and Jessica both gasp as my shirt came off and glanced back at them.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Chris, what happened?!” Lara whispered.

Oh, right. My back. I stood and raised one arm, looking down at the side that had banged against the railing. I could make out a really ugly bruise, a big one, along my ribs and on the underside of my right arm.

“I lost a fight with gravity,” I replied.

“You fell? Good lord, that must’ve been some fall,” Jessica murmured.

“How bad is it? I can’t see my back.”

“It looks awful...are you sure you’re okay?” Jessica asked.

“I’m fine,” I replied. “By now I’m pretty sure nothing’s broken or fractured. Didn’t find any cuts. I think it just looks a lot worse than it is. I’m in a fair amount of pain, which usually sex seems to help with…”

“Yes, I imagine it would,” Jessica replied, blinking a few times. “Well then, all the more reason to go ahead and show you what I can do. Lara tells me you’ve been so sweet to her and Susan, I think that should be rewarded.”

“Lara’s rewarding me a lot already but I won’t disagree with that,” I replied.

Jessica responded by taking off her shirt and then undoing her pants. I watched her closely as I got out of the rest of my own clothes. She seemed shy and nervous as she took off her shoes, her socks, and her pants. She was quite pale and, I saw, very fit. She had some very nice definition, though it looked like it came more from doing cardio stuff than weightlifting. She chewed on her lip for a moment as I kept staring at her.

I was down to my boxers now. I noticed another ugly bruise on my thigh.

“Don’t be shy,” Lara murmured.

Jessica laughed. “I guess I shouldn’t be.”

She took off the sports bra she was wearing, freeing some fucking awesome double-d cup breasts, then took off her panties, revealing a smooth, beautiful pussy in between those sweetly athletic thighs of hers. I obliged her by finishing as well, taking my boxers off.

“Oh wow,” she murmured, laughing a little nervously as she looked down. I was already fully erect and ready to go because seriously, this woman was hot. Like fitness model hot. She had kept herself in fantastic shape. “Weren’t exaggerating about that either.”

“Told you,” Lara said.

Jessica slowly walked up to me. I let her touch me and she put her hands on my biceps for a moment, running them up and down, then she slid them to my chest. “You’re, um, quite fit. And tall. And large.” She let out another little laugh. “This is...way too good to be true. I honestly kind of feel like I’m living a dirty novel or a porn right now.”

“Same,” I murmured, staring into her amazingly blue eyes.

She chuckled awkwardly and rubbed one arm, making her breasts shift and jiggle pleasantly. “I know I’ve lost my figure a little over the past few years…”

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I replied, honestly surprised. I figured if there was anyone who would take pride in their appearance, it’d be her. I mean shit, she was in great shape. “You look fucking amazing. Like, you have to know that.”

“I know I’m in good shape for my age,” she murmured, looking down at herself, then back up at me. “But I’ve put on some weight, I must have.”

“Jessica, you’re a solid fucking ten, and you look amazing.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, smiling awkwardly. “Let’s, uh, get started.”

“All right.” We took a moment to quickly wash up, and then I took her hand and led her over to the bed, which was surprisingly comfortable for a bed in an abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere. She already had gotten a fire going so we didn’t need to get beneath the blankets, and Lara wanted a show, after all. We laid side by side and as I leaned in and began making out with her, I sensed some tension in her body language.

“You okay?” I asked, pulling back a little.

“Yeah, fine,” she said. “I just, um...I haven’t been with another man in...well, since before I met my husband. It’s been a very long time.”

“How old are you...if you don’t mind my asking.”

“Forty,” she replied.

“Oh wow. When did you get married?”

“When I was nineteen,” she said.

“Holy shit.”

“I thought you were younger,” Lara said.

“How old are the two of you?” We told her. She looked surprised when I gave my age. “Shit, you’re...you seem older.”

“Lara said the same thing,” I replied.

“Huh. Well, don’t worry, I’m into you. Like really into you, Chris. I just need a little time to adjust because, well, like I said, like twenty two years since I’ve hooked up with another man,” she explained.

“Okay. We can take our time,” I replied, settling a hand gently on her hip.

“Thanks.”

She smiled and, after a moment, kissed me again. We went slower, kissing and stopping repeatedly, and within a few minutes she shifted from hesitation to savoring it, and then we were making out again, more smoothly and intensely this time, and I could feel the excitement thrumming through her hot, fit body.

I groped her firm breasts for several moments, enjoying the softness of her skin, how smooth and hot she felt, how her own hands roved over my body. I caressed her and touched her and groped her, running my hands across all of her. She was a wonder to behold. Her ass was nicely padded and I loved the curve of her hips.

It wasn’t long before I was pleasuring her with my finger, slipping into her tight pussy, and oh how wet she was!

“Oh, Chris!” she cried as I began fingering her, pleasuring her and making her hips buck and her body writhe and shiver. “Oh, shit that feels so good! Fuck!” she cried, kissing me hard on the mouth and shoving her tongue in between my lips as I kept fucking her with my finger. She was keyed up and primed to pop because she started coming in less than a minute. I rubbed her clit throughout it, making her scream into the kiss and damn she was jerking and twitching so hard it almost felt like she was trying to throw me off the bed.

When she was finished, she gently pushed me away, panting.

“Whew, oh boy. That was-oh. My. So good,” she whispered, words faltering as she caught her breath. “Shit, I came so hard. I knew it would be different with a guy.” She looked over suddenly. “Don’t take that the wrong way, Lara, you’ve been so good-”

Lara held up one hand. “Don’t worry, you aren’t going to shake my confidence. Just pretend I’m not here,” she replied, her face flushed from arousal already.

“Okay,” Jessica said, seemingly a little desperate to return to me and what we were doing. She stared at me, flushed and naked and excited and still a little nervous. “Can I, um...well why am I asking permission? Lay back.”

“Yes ma’am,” I replied, and she let out a little laugh.

I watched as she got down in between my legs and wrapped her fingers around my cock. “Fuck, Lara said you had a big dick but I thought she might be playing you up a little. It’s thicker than I’m used to. I mean just bigger than I’m used to at all. But I can handle this.”

She started dragging her tongue along my shaft. Within the first twenty seconds of her oral pleasure, I immediately could tell that she was in the upper tier of women I’d been with when it came to blowjobs.

“Oh wow,” I whispered as she started doing things with her tongue and her lips and her cheeks and her fingers that I wasn’t even entirely sure how it was working.

All I knew was that it felt fucking good.

I rested my head on the pillow, closed my eyes, and enjoyed her work. Hot wonderful rapture started eating into me, overwhelming me, damn near paralyzing me. After the fall I’d endured and the bitter cold today, it was a truly welcome development.

That was another thing I’d learned: married women sucked better dick.

“Gonna come,” I groaned after a couple of minutes.

She didn’t say anything, just kept working my cock. Well, I’d given her fair warning. I let it happen, and oh fuck was it good. The pleasure blasted me as I started letting off in her mouth. Jessica let out a moan and continued working my cock with her skilled, practiced hands and mouth. I came hard, shooting a thick load one spurt after another in her mouth as she drained me. She kept on sucking until she had gotten everything there was to get out of me. When I was done, I laid there panting, already a little sweaty from the encounter.

“My,” she whispered as she finished with me. She got up and walked over to her own backpack, pulling out a bottle of water. She drank from it, swished and spit onto the floor, then drank again. “That was a lot, Chris. I take it I was good?”

“You were fucking amazing,” I replied.

She giggled as she rejoined me. “I’m glad to know I’ve still got it.”

“Now it’s your turn,” I said, pushing her onto her back and kissing my way down her smooth, pale skin. She let out small gasps of surprised pleasure, especially when I licked across each of her nipples, and a long moan of ecstasy escaped her mouth as I started eating her out. She jerked in response to the initial contact and soon I had her writhing in bliss. I ate her out, starting out slow but quickly building the speed with which I used my tongue and playing her like an instrument in the meantime. Hearing her scream my name was pretty satisfying.

Getting her to come again was only more satisfying.

And most satisfying of all was when I got in between her hips and sank my throbbing cock into her raw, mature, married pussy.

“Oh shit!” she cried as I slipped in about halfway. “Oh that’s-oh! Fuck you are big.”

“And you are seriously tight,” I groaned in response as I kept easing my way into her, going nice and slow. She was so fucking wet though, like goddamn was she wet. And hot. I felt positively electrified with sexual pleasure and illicit enjoyment.

Fucking Jessica reconfirmed that yes, there was, in fact, a tremendous and filthy thrill to having sex with a cheating married woman.

That I was riding bareback only heightened the effect.

“Oh good God,” she panted, staring at the ceiling of the cabin with wide, unblinking eyes as I stroked smoothly into her. My whole length was fitting in there now. “It’s been months…”

“What?!” I replied. “Since you’ve had sex?”

“Yes, he hasn’t done anything with me in months,” she moaned.

“I have no idea how anyone could be married to you and not be fucking you at least a few times a week,” I said. “Shit, I would be hitting this three times a day every day. Morning, noon, and night, and then again in the middle of the night,” I panted.

“He does that,” Lara said. “I can barely keep up with him.”

“I can see that and just...oh, Chris…” she moaned, losing her train of thought. I looked up and down her wonderful, pale, fit body, the way she was glistening with sweat, the way her big tits bounced and jiggled with the rhythm of our sex.

The way my cock sank all the way into her again and again, and the knowledge that I was going to bust in that pussy.

Oh shit, I hadn’t actually asked.

“Can I come in you?” I asked, panting, still holding myself up as I stared down at her. Jessica responded with a very dirty smile and by wrapping her legs around me. “Oh you fucking asked for it,” I said, and I laid against her and started pounding her harder.

“OH CHRIS! FUCK! FUCK ME! YES! OH MY FUCKING GOD!” she shrieked in incoherent rapturous bliss as I fucked the absolute hell out of her.

I got her squirting about ten seconds before I started unloading everything I had into that married vagina. The pleasure hit like a drug with the intensity of a bullet. Every little and large ache and agony that wracked my body from my fall and everything else I’d endured over the past several weeks fell away as I orgasmed into this beautiful married redhead. The pleasure pounded through my body, like shockwaves radiating out from the epicenter of our shared orgasms. I rode that high for as long as I could, letting myself be carried away by the intense ecstasy of the encounter, hugging Jessica to me as she held me tightly, her legs wrapped around me still.

When we were finished, we stayed like that for several minutes.

“Wow, that was so hot,” Lara murmured, and we both glanced over. I had actually forgotten she was there for just a second.

“I didn’t look stupid did I?” Jessica murmured, her eyes closed, a smile touching her lips. “I was talked into filming sex a few times I always thought I looked so weird or awkward…”

“You looked amazing. You both did,” Lara said.

I gave Jessica a kiss and pulled out of her, then laid on the bed beside her. We lapsed back into silence for another few minutes.

Finally, I decided to speak up. “So, uh, how was that? Worth waiting two decades for?”

“I don’t know if any sex is worth waiting two decades for,” she replied, “but it was way better than I had hoped. That was the best sex I’ve had since I was in my twenties. Although I’m going to be sore tonight,” she muttered. “You’re a big boy.”

“Apparently,” I replied. “You feeling okay about it?”

“Right now? Yeah. I’m feeling great. But in an hour, probably less, I’ll be feeling the same things that I felt when I first had sex with Lara. Shame. Regret. Guilt. Fear.” She looked over. “Not that that has anything to with you.”

“I wish you didn’t have to feel that way,” Lara murmured. “I know what we’re doing isn't...ideal, but it’s not like you have some perfect marriage that you’re stepping out on. Your husband is a fucking jackass.”

She sighed and hugged herself suddenly, curling up on her side. “He’s…” She sounded like she wanted to come to his defense, but the words died in her throat.

“It’s complicated, I get it,” I said as I stroked her arm.

“It is,” she whispered.

I could tell by Lara’s gaze that she wanted it to be simple, and from the outside, I’m sure it was. Her husband was a jackass who didn’t respect her, didn’t love her, and didn’t appreciate her. She should leave him. It was that simple to Lara.

But I knew that it wasn’t that simple. Relationships, especially marriages lasting decades I imagined, were complex things, with lots of uncertain, confusing emotions when things went wrong. I imagined that even the most obvious solution might not seem like such. I’d known people who had stayed in bad relationships before, and it wasn’t because they were stupid or stubborn. I didn’t envy Jessica this situation.

She reached up and took my hand, still curled up on her side.

“I know we just met, but I want to say that you can at least count on me not to cause any problems. I’m okay with some discreet fun. And if you ever really need help with something, come to me, and I’ll try to help you.”

Now she looked at me, twisting slightly in the bed. “Why?”

“It seems like the right thing to do,” I replied after a moment.

“Well...thank you, Chris. I’ll keep it in mind,” she said, and then gave me a kiss. Then she got up and began to clean herself up.

I started to join her, but Lara shot to her feet. “Wait...I want a turn,” she said.

I laughed and laid on my back. “Get over here.”

FOURTEEN

We gave Jessica a show, and then we all parted ways.

Apparently she was eager to get back as her husband and the other people in her group had drank a lot last night and were all sleeping in, which had given her the opportunity to slip away unnoticed. Despite that, just in case, she did take the food Lara brought, so that she had a backup. She gave me a tentative kiss on the mouth, and Lara a less tentative one, saying that she’d come see us whenever she could slip away again, but it might be awhile.

“She likes you,” Lara said as we walked back home.

“I like her,” I replied.

“I can tell. I think you handled that really well. She trusts you.” I shrugged, not sure what to say. Lara grinned and took my hand. “You’re a sweetheart. I can see why you’ve got girlfriends waiting for you somewhere.”

“Did I say girlfriends?” I asked.

“You implied. Will you tell me about them?”

“Yes...but not now. Now, I want to get home and just lay in bed all day. As awesome as it was to bang Jessica, I feel like shit still.”

“Right, your fall. What happened? Because that looked brutal.”

“I was climbing that watchtower in the middle of the lake. There’s a part near the top that got hit by lightning, I think. The stairs gave way beneath me on the way back down. Got real lucky and fell into the stairs just below it. Still a hell of a fall.”

“Shit...I’m surprised you went with me. If I was that bruised, I’d just stay the fuck home.”

“You really that surprised?” I asked.

She laughed. “I guess not. This is Jessica we’re talking about. But don’t worry. Let’s go back home and I’ll take care of you. I’ll massage whatever you want me to.”

“Sounds fine by me,” I replied.

~

We got home and although I was horny, I ended up falling asleep in the middle of a careful massage that Lara was giving me.

I woke up a few times over the next few hours, and each time she was laying in bed with me. I’d look at her and she’d be reading and she’d favor me with a smile like we’d been dating for years and she was in love with me and I didn’t know how to feel about that. It felt good, I knew that much, so I let it feel good, gave her a kiss each time, and went back to sleep.

When I woke up for real, she rode me until I’d come into her sweet pussy, putting those big ass hips of hers to wonderful use, and then I got up and stretched a little. Everything still hurt, and I knew it would for awhile, but I’d gotten good at continuing to work despite pain over the course of my life. Although I was definitely done for today.

By the time I was washed up and dressed again, it was actually almost dinnertime. I must’ve slept for longer than I realized. We found Susan in the kitchen, putting together some food. Judging from her body language and silence, she was still in a bad mood, and after she told us to, we left her to make the meal by herself.

Within half an hour, we were eating.

“I made some progress with the couple at the farm,” I said after a bit, not liking how silent everything was. Susan seemed really pissed and I wasn’t fully sure why. Judging by the looks Lara was giving me, she wasn’t either.

I had my suspicions though.

“What about them?” Susan asked.

“Did a job for them. Got a few more shells for the rifle. Abigail wants me to come back soon and help her with something else.”

“Goddamnit, Chris!” Susan snapped, startling me. “You made a goddamn deal to help us! Our freezer is starting to get fucking empty and you’ve been fucking napping and fucking all day!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lara wince guiltily. She had been the one giving our food away in exchange for a few books and sex.

Although now so had I.

I held up my hands. “Fair enough,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’ll go out and hunt tomorrow. As for why I was napping and fucking all day…” I stood up, turned around, and lifted my shirt.

“Oh shit,” Susan whispered, a lot of her anger seeming to leave her at once. “What the hell happened?”

“I took a bad fall.” I let my shirt down and retook my seat, eating some more deer meat. “So, after I get a long sleep tonight, I’ll take the rifle and go out hunting all day tomorrow, build us up a nice store of food. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Susan said after a long moment.

We went back to eating, and although the conversation never really picked back up, I could at least feel that the tension had been mostly dispelled from the air. And I did feel kind of bad about it, embarrassed actually. I’d agreed to do a job and I was coming up short. Although to be fair, I thought Susan was overreacting a little.

We still had a few issues to work out.

But that was for later.

~

Although I did spend the rest of the day relaxing after dinner, I finally gave in a little at the end of the day and, after taking more painkillers, I shared a small joint with Lara. We laid in bed and passed it back and forth, getting a little high until the thing was gone.

After that, we had a long, slow session of lovemaking and I sank into a grateful sleep.

It wasn’t grateful for long though.

~

It was dark, and snowing, and bitterly cold.

I was freezing.

I stood before a house that looked extremely familiar, but I couldn’t for the life of me place it. I slowly looked around, seeing nothing but dark forest and falling snow in all directions. I didn’t know where I was or why I was there.

Something was wrong, I knew that much.

Shivering, I hugged myself and walked towards the house. I didn’t have anything on me but my clothes and I could see the faint flicker of a fire somewhere inside the house. It was deadly quiet as I walked forward, the feeling of wrongness growing with each step I took. Reaching the front door, I slowly pushed it up, propelled by my need to get in out of the cold. I came into a darkened living room. That was where the fireplace was, and a fire crackled within, casting a shifting, sullen glow over the area.

A man sat in front of the fire, staring into it.

Somehow I knew that I was meant to join him by the fire.

I did, walking forward until I was beside him, my heart thudding in my ears. I was still cold, despite the proximity to the fire.

Freezing.

The man looked up and my heart skipped a beat.

It was Tanner. He stared at me with one eye and one bloody, empty socket. I stared at him. Had I shot him in the eye? I could’ve sworn I’d put a bullet in his forehead, but suddenly I couldn’t remember for sure one way or another.

“Are you listening?” he asked.

“To what?” I replied softly. I felt paralyzed.

“To them.” He looked back at the fire. His voice was rough, his skin corpse pale.

“Who?”

“Them,” he repeated. “The ones who aren’t dead yet.” I waited for him to say more, feeling like this was somehow important, somehow necessary. He didn’t look at me, and I began to reach for his shoulder, to demand more from him.

A heavy, frozen hand fell onto my shoulder and I screamed as I was forcibly turned around. I looked into Tanner’s face again, only this time it was mostly a skull with bits of old flesh clinging to it. Staring into the empty sockets of his eyes was like staring into a bottomless abyss.

“Or are you ready to join me?” he hissed, and then he was wrapping his cold, bony hands around my throat and-

~

I came awake all at once, my eyes snapping open to the dull gray light of a very early morning winter sun.

For a few seconds, I just laid there in the bed I was occupying, getting my bearings.

I realized someone was in bed with me. I looked over. Lara.

She was staring at me, looking worried. “You were having nightmares...I was about to wake you up,” she murmured softly.

I blinked a few times, then nodded slowly. “Sorry,” I whispered.

“It’s okay.” She paused, looking uncertain, uncomfortable even. “Who’s Tanner?” I looked sharply at her and she seemed to shrink back. “You said his name...in your sleep.”

I sighed softly and rubbed my eyes, shifting around to get more comfortable and getting only pain in response.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Lara said.

“No, it’s fine. He’s just...this guy I killed.”

“Oh...I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, so am I, but I had no choice. He gave me no choice. It was several months ago. Short of it is that he forced me into kind of an existential crisis, made me wonder if I’d eventually turn into a monster without remorse. I don’t know, it’s hard to describe. I have nightmares about him and our confrontation sometimes. He was an asshole, he had a gang, they kidnapped two of my girlfriends. Tanner and his men were bad people, but I guess I was scared I was looking at myself in a few years if I didn’t find some deeper meaning to my life.”

“Did you?” she murmured.

“Yeah. I did. I help people now. I mean, I’ve always tried to help people, but now I make it a point to.”

“That’s why you offered to help Jessica, why you’re helping that couple at the farm,” she murmured.

“Yeah...although the sex and the possibility of sex might be another reason.”

She laughed softly. “You’re a good guy. I can tell that. But I understand your fears. Goodness isn’t necessarily inherent. It isn’t a flame that burns eternal. You have to maintain it, work at it. You can let yourself become bad in bits and pieces over years if you don’t pay attention.” I must’ve looked surprised because she offered a small smile. “You pick up a few things up here and there when you’re trying to be an actress. I’m not all tits, there’s some brains in there.”

“I never said there wasn’t,” I replied, reaching out and hugging her.

“I know. It’s easy to believe that people think that about me, though. But you’ve been kind to me.” She hugged and kissed me, then a coy smile spread across her face. “How about you lay on your back and let me be kind to you?”

“Sounds like a great way to start the day to me,” I replied.

Lara got on top of me.

Five minutes later, we were finished and I was doing some painful stretches. The orgasm had helped, but shit, my body was so stiff and sore. It was a real pain but I finally washed and dressed and had a quick breakfast. Lara had gone back to sleep and Susan wasn’t even up yet. I did the chores, tending to the fire and replenishing the water, then told Lara I was going out hunting, grabbed my shit, and left the house.

The next six hours passed in a slow kind of agony.

Susan was right, I needed to do a better job, regardless of her ulterior reasons for being angry.

But I was really off my game this morning.

I slogged through the forest, trying to ignore the pain of the fall, letting the cold numb me up a bit. It took two hours to even find a goddamn animal, and the first chance I had, I fucking blew it and wasted two damned shells. I took a short break after that, then wandered around for another hour before finally locating a scrawny deer. This one I bagged, and dragged back home. When I came inside, I found Susan and Lara talking in the living room.

“Got one,” I said. Susan blushed and looked away. Lara flashed me a smile.

“Good job,” she replied. “You should see if you can bag another.”

“Yep,” I agreed. Obviously they were having some kind of conversation and wanted me out of the house. Given the way Susan had blushed, it was probably about me in some capacity, and given the way Lara had grinned, it was probably about sex. I hadn’t known Lara for long, but I could tell when she was smiling about sex.

So I left. Didn’t have much more luck. Spent the next three hours tracking deer and rabbits and pheasants. I ended up spending not only the rest of the ammo that I’d earned from that job, but two shells from our own dwindling reserves as well, and a pair of nine millimeter rounds, because I was not wasting shells on a fucking rabbit or a pheasant. The good news was that I managed to bag another deer, though it was also scrawny, as well as a rabbit and a pheasant. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible for six hours of work, I guess.

When I came home the second time with my three additional kills, Lara greeted me just outside the back door.

“Nice work,” she said.

“It’s okay,” I replied. “What’s up, you look...expectant.”

Her grin broadened. “I talked with Susan about sex between you and her. I gave her a lot of encouragement. She’s ready to speak with you again about fucking. Given that she’s kind of uncomfortable with me being around during sex, and the fact that I sacrificed a lot of our food for sex...I’m going to go out and forage. Have fun. Also, don’t joke about anything. Don’t tease her. She’s, well, she’s really vulnerable right now.”

“I understand,” I replied. “Thanks for your help.”

“I’m helping both of you.” She paused, blushed. “Well, myself too, hopefully. Good luck!”

She gave me a kiss and hurried off.

I walked inside and made my way down to the basement door. Susan’s door was almost closed, left open just a little. I went downstairs, dropped off my kills, then came back upstairs and walked into mine and Lara’s room. There, I stripped naked and washed up really quickly, in case I did actually get lucky and this did turn sexual, then I pulled back on some longjohns and a t-shirt and socks, and walked over to her door.

“Susan?” I asked, knocking gently. “Can I come in?”

“Yes,” she replied quietly.

I pushed her door open and came in. She was sitting on her bed, wearing a black t-shirt with a white skull etched on the front and a pair of black panties, and nothing else. She did look surprisingly vulnerable.

I walked up to the foot of the bed and tried to be as nonthreatening as I could.

“What’s up? Lara said you wanted to talk,” I asked.

She sighed softly, not quite looking at me. “I wanted to apologize first. I was a bitch to you. I’ve been one, and you really haven’t deserved it. I just...have trouble trusting people.”

“I understand. And I accept your apology and forgive you,” I replied.

Now she looked at me, stared at me really. There was an intensity in her gaze, like she was scrutinizing me, looking for something specific.

Finally, she stood up and walked over to me. I faced her and she looked up into my face. God, she was so much shorter than I was. Over a foot shorter, I think.

“Chris, I’ve been fucked over and mistreated a lot in my life. I have a very hard time trusting people. Lara says...that I can trust you. I trust her, and she’s normally really good about ferreting people out. I want to trust you, but...look me in the eyes and promise that I can trust you. That you won’t hurt me,” she demanded suddenly.

I looked her dead in the eyes. “Susan, I promise that you can trust me. I promise that I would never hurt intentionally. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’m your hero or something, that I’ve come to save you and Lara, but I can promise you that as long as we’re together, I’ll do my best to take care of you and help you and respect you.”

“You’ll respect me?” she asked. I nodded. “You’ll respect my boundaries?” I nodded again. She seemed more desperate now. “Chris,” she said, gripping my shirtfront suddenly, “I need to know...if I tell you no, you won’t argue with me? You won’t try to convince me or guilt me into doing anything? If I tell you no, you’ll stop?”

“If you tell me no, I promise that I will stop.” Jesus Christ, what the fuck had she been through? Obviously something bad had happened to her.

She stared at me for several long minutes, still gripping my shirt, and I waited patiently, giving her whatever time she needed.

Finally, at last, she nodded. “I guess...I believe you. I trust you.” She paused for a long time again, now blushing fiercely. She looked down for a bit, composing herself, and finally looked back up. “I need you...to choke me.”

FIFTEEN

“Are you sure?” I asked. She nodded. “One hundred percent? You need to be sure about that if you’re truly asking for it.”

I’d been with chicks who were into rough stuff before. I’d been with the girls that liked to be slapped, liked to be screamed at, liked to be choked.

As big and strong as I was, I tended to attract women like that.

“I’m sure,” she said, letting go of my shirt. “I’m really sure, Chris. I’m going to…” she sighed. “I’m going to just take this fucking leap of faith, because I’m so fucking tired of being alone and angry and anxious. I just want this one thing to enjoy and go right and...please just help me with this and don’t hold it over me or tease me or be cruel…”

I took her hands in mine. “Susan, I won’t do any of that,” I said.

“You promise?” she mumbled, looking down. I put one finger on her chin and gently guided her head up to face my own. “I promise. You can...surrender to me. You can be vulnerable to me and I won’t take advantage of you. You can trust me.”

She looked at me for another long moment, then slowly nodded. “My safeword is lemon. If I can’t speak, then my safeword is just me going slack.”

“I understand,” I replied. Slowly, I reached out gripped the bottom of her t-shirt. I began to pull it up. She kept her arms down for just a second, then let me pull it up and off. She wasn’t wearing anything beneath it. I looked down at her small perky breasts and her smooth pale skin. I reached out and traced a single finger along her throat.

She shuddered violently as I did that.

“Once I start, I won’t stop unless you use your safeword. Got it?” I asked quietly. She nodded. “I’m gonna go hard, Susan. Not enough to seriously hurt you, just enough to…” I gently gripped her throat, “...hurt you. Do you understand me?” She shuddered again, her eyes closed now, and nodded. “Say it.”

“I understand you,” she whispered.

I squeezed her throat just a little. “You understand me…?”

“Master,” she whispered. “I understand you, master.”

I had her. I could just tell getting her to say that meant that she had placed herself completely in my hands. Literally, given how much stronger I was than her, but emotionally as well. She was going to trust me with this, and I’d be damned if I’d do anything but reward her for that trust. Because I saw some of myself in her, honestly.

She’d been through a lot, and made to feel like shit, and probably humiliated and dismissed. I knew what some of that felt like, and it was certainly a lot worse for her. People were scared of me, I at least had that going for me.

And the fact that she had asked this of me suddenly made a lot of things make sense.

Susan was obviously a woman who fought to be taken seriously. She clearly thought she wasn’t that attractive, (though she was wrong), and given that she was a writer, I imagine she placed a lot of her identity on that fact. She wanted people to take her seriously for, if not her brains, then her creativity. And people…

Traditionally did not like to do that for women.

Especially petite little goth chicks.

So she’d no doubt hardened herself in response to that, developed some tough armor and learned how to step up to people regardless of the situation.

And it must have been extremely humiliating to be sexually attracted to the idea of a guy dominating you.

I could really see how that could be used as leverage over her and I wondered how many times she’d opened up about it in the past and been taken advantage of.

As I had the first time, I was going to show her a really good time.

I scooped her up off the floor suddenly, sweeping her off her feet, and she let out a shriek of surprise as I tossed her lightly onto the bed. Seriously, she barely seemed to weigh anything. I doubted if she broke a hundred pounds. She landed with a bounce and glared at me as she did, though I think it was more from surprise than anything else.

“Keep looking at me like that and you’ll regret it,” I said as I took my shirt off.

“Prove it,” she replied after a few seconds.

I quickly got out of my pants, finishing stripping naked, and I saw her eyes dart down to my erection as it came out.

“You’re playing with fire, you know that, right?” I replied as I crawled onto the bed.

I saw fear flicker across her eyes, but also an intense longing and an even more intense lust. And then I saw a look of almost playful defiance settle onto her face. So, there was going to be some roleplay involved. I could roll with that. Or was this roleplay? Was she just trying to provoke a stronger reaction out of me?

Honestly, I got the impression that Susan was just doing whatever popped into her mind, going by feel alone, and maybe that was for the best.

“Big talk,” she said, adopting a smirk. “I know how you fuckers work. You’re all the same, you think you’re so great when you’re really just pathetic-”

I slapped her. And not gently.

It was, admittedly, a calculated risk.

She lost her smile, staring at me with wide eyes, then she was glaring daggers at me. “You son of a bitch,” she growled.

But she didn’t say her safeword.

I’d gambled and won, I think.

“Shut up, bitch,” I replied.

She threw a punch at me and I caught her wrist easily. She grunted and began trying to pull free and threw her other hand at me. I caught it as well and, getting up on my knees, literally lifted her straight up by the wrists.

“Let me go you fucker!” she snarled.

“You’re a mouthy little slut, aren’t you?” I replied.

She twisted around in my grasp, but it was very obvious now that she was enjoying herself. Her pale cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wide with naked lust. I threw her down onto the bed, then grabbed her legs and began forcing them open.

“Don’t you dare!” she snapped, reaching down and gripping my wrists.

“You don’t seriously think you can stop me, do you?” I replied.

“I’ll scream.”

“I’m sure that’ll help a lot.”

I forced her legs open and got in between them before she could close them, then grabbed her wrists and held her hands easily above her head. She grunted, wriggling and writhing. I shifted to holding both wrists with one hand and started groping her roughly with the other hand. She had some nice tits.

“Fuck you,” she gasped.

“You will in a minute,” I replied, going for smug and arrogant and dismissive and judging by the look on her face I’d nailed it.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” she growled.

“You’re being bad.” I slapped her again and she cried out. “Now,” I said as I gripped my cock and started rubbing it between the lips of her pussy, finding her to be quite wet, “be a good girl and I won’t have to hurt you too much.”

“If you stick that in me I’m going to-”

I stuck it in her. She was so fucking wet. Wetter than our first encounter. Her eyes briefly glazed over as I pushed deeper into her, being rougher than last time, forcing my cock deeper into that sweetly, insanely tight pussy of hers.

Because I thought she’d like it, I clapped a hand over her mouth while I started stroking into her. She let out a muffled scream as I got all the way inside of her. Holding my hand firmly over her mouth, I used the other to maintain my grip on her wrists over her head (the chicks I’d been with really liked it when you held their arms over their heads). And then I just pounded her. For several minutes, I just fucked the ever-loving shit out of her, slamming all my rock-hard inches deep into her sweet, tight pussy.

And I couldn’t really tell if the muffled screams that she was releasing were acting or just her totally losing her shit.

I made her come twice during that pounding session, and it was a genuine struggle not to bust inside of her again.

But I hadn’t done the thing she’d actually asked me to do yet.

After several minutes, I let go of her wrists and her mouth and I wrapped both hands around her throat. Her slender throat. It felt really weird, and uncomfortable, but at the same time darkly arousing. I’d known for a few years now that there was a part of me that really liked this sort of thing, and I largely was okay with it.

It was just sex stuff, and as long as the woman I was doing it with was happy and no one got hurt, then what was the problem?

But it still made me a little uncomfortable.

Especially when I started to choke her.

Susan gasped, her eyes going wide as she stared up at me, and her hands went to my wrists. She was so much weaker than me, and yeah, a fucked up part of my brain did enjoy that. I liked exercising my strength over her own, my size compared to hers, holding her down, squeezing her little neck. She gasped, then gagged, then started pulling on my wrists more insistently. I squeezed a bit harder and pounded her faster in response.

“You asked for this you little bitch,” I whispered, inches from her face. “You fucking asked for this you stupid whore.”

She let out a strangled moan and her hips bucked.

She was close.

I fucked her even harder, choking her until she was red in the face, and then I let go as I felt her start to orgasm yet again. She sucked in a huge breath, and then she absolutely lost her mind.

“OH CHRIS! OH MY FUCKING GOD I LOVE IT SO MUCH CHRIS! OHSHITFUCKSHITFUCKGODDAMNIT! YEEEEESSSS!” she screamed so loud that I was positive Lara would hear her even a mile distant.

Fuck, at this rate, it felt like Abigail and Jessica would hear her miles away.

I’d rarely heard a woman scream so loud.

She was coming harder than she ever had before now, thrashing so violently that it seemed like she was possessed or having a seizure.

Or both.

I still managed to hold her down, and my own orgasm slammed into existence. I started pumping her sweet pussy full of my seed, dumping a huge load into her and groaning, grunting, growling in raw rapture as the pleasure hit me like an open furnace. I was consumed by it, engulfed in it, smothered beneath and within it.

For several long, long moments, it felt like I was that orgasm, and so was she, and were unified together in a way that I didn’t fully have words for.

We came for a long time.

When we were done, I gently pulled out of her and neither of us said a word for several long moments. She just laid there, staring at the ceiling, her arms slack at her sides, gasping for breath, red in the face, hair a mess, my seed leaking out of her. An occasional post-orgasm tremor ran through her. I half-expected her to ask me quietly to leave, or maybe to ask me something, or say something. But that didn’t happen.

Instead, she started crying.

For a few seconds I was horrified I’d really fucked up. I rolled over and looked at her. “Susan-” I said, but she shook her head.

“It’s not you.” That was all she managed to get out before she lost all semblance of control and just start sobbing.

Well obviously something was up, and I could tell that right now, she just needed some support. So I hugged her. That was apparently the right thing to do. She laid against me and cried her fucking eyes out for the next five minutes.

I held her through it all, stroking her hair, muttering quiet calming stuff to her, mainly just telling her it was going to be okay, because I didn’t know what the problem was. Eventually, she stopped sobbing, and then she stopped crying, and then just the occasional sob would tear through her. And finally she pulled back and released a deep, shuddering breath.

“Oh gross,” she whispered. “I fucking got it all over your chest...don’t move.”

She got out of my grasp, suddenly much calmer, and returned a moment later with a pair of warm wet rags. We spent a silent moment cleaning ourselves up. I got her tears and snot off my chest while she washed her face, blew her nose, and then, with a different rag, cleaned the mess I’d made that had leaked out of her all over her thighs.

When she was clean, she got back in bed with me.

“That wasn’t about you,” she said, as calm as I’d ever seen her, I think. She seemed very relaxed, almost stoic. “That was just...an emotional overload. I haven’t trusted anyone outside of Lara for a very long time, and I haven’t trusted a man to...do that with me for...God, since I was twenty two. It became a whole thing. I, um...you can see the conflict, right?”

“You think that liking being choked and humiliated cuts against your personality, or that at least men will perceive it that way?”

She seemed a little surprised. “Succinctly put. Yeah, basically. It’s...humiliating. But I didn’t get to choose what I get off on. To finally have someone that I can let my guard down around like this, and for it to go as well as it did, I guess it was just an overload. And I’m terrified that you’re going to fuck me over somehow.”

“I won’t,” I said, reaching out and running a hand along her dark hair. I sighed. “I wish I had more than words to convey that.”

“You do,” she murmured, reaching up and taking my hand. “You’ve been good to us so far. I mean, we’re on day five of knowing you, but by now most guys would’ve fucked us over somehow or at least given themselves away. Either you’re legit or a world-class actor.”

“I suck at acting,” I said, though I knew that wasn’t completely true.

She smirked. “That’s what a world-class actor, or liar, would say.”

“Fair point.”

She hugged me again suddenly and I hugged her back. “For better or for worse, my guard is down now, Chris. You got inside me, and I’m so tired of keeping people out, of being alone. I know I have Lara, but it’s...not the same. I love her and I would die for her, but this is different. I’m so tired of living without it. And I know you won’t stick around forever, but while you are here...my heart is in your hands, Chris. Please don’t crush it.”

“I won’t,” I said. “I promise.” I held her and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be good to you. I can at least promise that.”

She nodded slightly, then let out a little laugh, her breath puffing against my chest. “Even if being good to me is choking me and screaming at me?”

I laughed as well. “Yes. If that’s what you want.”

She broke out of my embrace and flopped over onto her back. “Oh my God, Chris,” she said, staring at the ceiling again. “Oh. My. God. Chris. You were amazing. That was the best sex I’ve ever fucking had in my life. You were just dead fucking on with that shit. I kind of winged it, and you responded perfectly. You killed it. I can’t emphasize this enough.”

“Yeah, I think I killed it,” I murmured, running a finger along her inner thigh. “You came like five times. And that last orgasm-”

“That was one of the most intense orgasms I can ever remember having. Jesus. No wonder Lara screams like that. I thought she was just playing it up, but holy shit, you’re good. Like really good. Do you...do you stuff like that...for her?” she asked. Before I could respond, she shook her head. “No, don’t answer, that’s rude to ask...did you talk to Lara about what we did?”

I thought about lying to her, but decided against it. “I did. I’m sorry if that was a shitty thing to do. She asked.”

She sighed, falling silent for a second, then sighed again. “I should be angry, but I’m not. She’d want to know. She’s so...concerned about me. We had a long conversation about me and my...sex life. And, well, I’m keeping that I know about her and Jessica from her...but she’s keeping it from me. You fucked Jessica, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Well aren’t you a lucky boy?” she asked, an edge to her voice.

“Are you jealous?” I asked.

“No.” She paused. “...yes.”

“Don’t be. You’re phenomenal in bed, Susan,” I replied.

“Come on, don’t bullshit me. They’ve both got perfect tits and fantastic fat asses and-”

“Susan, it’s not that simple. Despite what the media spent decades burning into our brains, there isn’t some cookie-cutter mold for perfect female beauty. Is Lara beautiful? Yes. Is Jessica beautiful? Absolutely. Are you beautiful? Without question. I’m really into you, to be honest.”

“Why?” she asked after hesitating for a bit.

“I don’t know, why is anyone attracted to anyone?”

“What do you like about me?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

“You’re tough as fucking nails. You’ve got a hot body. I like this goth vibe you have-”

“How the hell did you pick up on that?” she asked.

“Susan, you wear all black half the time.”

She sighed. “I guess that’s a fair point, but how did you-did Lara tell you?”

“No. I just got this vibe like you’re a goth chick. And I fucking love goth chicks. I don’t know why. I also love submissive women.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet…” She hesitated, then chewed on her lower lip for a moment, considering something. Abruptly, she stood up and walked over to her dresser. I looked at her hot little ass as she hunted through one of the drawers.

“What are you doing?”

“Hold on...there it is.” She pulled something out and held it clasped in her hands, hidden from sight, turning around to face me. “I’ve been holding onto this for a long time now, but I haven’t really had a good reason to. I guess...now I do. I have someone who’ll appreciate it.”

“What is it?” I asked.

She smirked and brought her hands to her neck. She fixed something into place, and when she lowered her hands, my eyes widened and I sat up.

“Oh my...I didn’t think I’d get that good of a reaction...you like it that much?” she asked, blushing and clasping her hands in front of her.

She looked oddly shy and demure. She was wearing a black choker collar now. It had a few silver studs in it on either side of a little metal loop. The kind that you could attach a leash to or…

I got up and walked over to her.

She began chewing on her lower lip again, not meeting my eye. I reached up and slipped a finger through the metal loop, then gave her a little tug towards me. She gasped and looked up at me. “I like it that much,” I said. “So, Susan, you submit to me?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured. I gave the collar more of a tug. She gasped. “Yes, master,” she murmured.

“Good girl. Keep this on.”

“Yes, master.”

I grinned. This was going better than I thought it would.

I grabbed my stuff and headed for the door, but as my hand touch the knob, she quietly said, “Master?”

I turned to look at her. “Yes?”

“Will you sleep in here tonight...with me...please?” she asked.

“Yes.”

SIXTEEN

Despite my aching back and the rest of my abused, bruised body parts that hurt, and the work I had to do, I had a good rest of the day.

After washing up and dressing again, and catching a quick lunch, I headed back out and passed Lara on the way to the hunting grounds.

“Did you do her?” she asked, grinning hopefully.

“I did the fuck out of her. She’s...better now,” I replied.

“Oh thank God,” she said. “I’m going to go talk to her. Maybe she’ll want to tell me about it.”

“Have fun. I’m going hunting.”

She gave me a long kiss. “Thank you.”

“I mean, you’re welcome, but for real I enjoyed the hell out of that.”

She giggled. “I know. So did Susan, I imagine. Good luck hunting.”

We parted ways and I got to it.

I hunted until dark, and didn’t have much more luck. I spent another nine millimeter and another rifle shell, but at least this time I got something in return each time. Another deer and another rabbit. I also snagged some ears of corn and a pocketful of potatoes. When I came home for the day and found Lara and Susan in the living room, I could immediately tell that the atmosphere of the house had changed, and for the better.

Although she blushed fiercely when she saw me, Susan offered a demure smile.

She was still wearing the choker collar.

“I’m in for the day,” I said, holding up the rabbit I’d gotten during this final trip out. “I’m going to go gut and clean the kills.”

“We’ll get started on dinner soon,” Susan replied.

I nodded and headed downstairs. It took some time, but I gutted and skinned and cleaned the kills, salvaging as much meat as I could from the kills I’d managed to get today. It wasn’t as much as I’d like, but between all I’d found today and yesterday, and the stuff Lara had harvested, I thought we probably had enough food to last about another week to a week and a half. Not bad for three people, but building food stores was an ongoing type of project. As soon as I was done with all that, I sat down to dinner.

It was quiet, but the atmosphere was completely different. Susan seemed content as opposed to tense and angry.

It was a really nice change.

She kept shooting me looks and small, shy smiles.

Lara clearly noticed it and had smiles of her own.

We finished dinner and then I made myself go back out to gather some more firewood to bring in. It took me another hour or so to wrap up the household chores. When I was finished, I went into the bedroom, stripped naked, and washed myself off.

Lara came in halfway through.

“Susan’s been dropping hints that she’s claimed you for the night,” she murmured softly as she pushed the door closed.

“She did ask me to share her bed tonight,” I replied. “That gonna bother you?”

“I’ll miss you, but no. I only have one request.”

“What’s that?”

“Make her scream,” Lara said with a wicked grin.

I laughed. “I think I can do that.”

A few hours later, I made Susan scream all right.

We ended up in bed together naked. Her bed was bigger, a queen size, and more comfortable. All she was wearing now was the choker collar.

“How do you want me?” she whispered, staring at me with that vulnerable expression again. She’d been waiting a very long time to submit to someone, I could tell that, and now it was all coming out. She was almost like a different person.

“Get on top, I’m gonna bounce you like the little whore you are,” I replied.

Her eyes widened a little. “Yes, master,” she murmured as she got closer to me beneath the blankets and then climbed on top of me.

I laid on my back as she mounted me, straddling my midsection, and then I found out that she was just as eager as I was to get straight to sex as she raised up, slipped me into herself, and then began working my cock into her.

She was so fucking wet.

“Holy shit,” I groaned, grabbing her slim hips. “That is so good, Susan.”

“You are...really big…” she panted.

“And you really like that, don’t you?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she admitted softly.

“You’re a little whore, you know that?” She bit her lower lip and looked away, blushing as fiercely as ever. It was especially noticeable on her pale face. She had taken most of me into her by now. “Susan,” I said.

She still wouldn’t look at me.

I pulled her down as I thrust up into her and she shouted in shocked pleasure.

“Well?”

“Yes...I am,” she whispered.

I gripped her hips more tightly and started rocking her up and down on my cock. “Say it.”

“Please…” she moaned.

“Say it, Susan. I want to hear you say it.”

Her breasts jiggled as she let me bounce her on my dick. With a girl like Susan, I could honestly see why so many guys went for women noticeably smaller than them. There was an intense feeling of power, an intoxicating feeling, when you were having sex with a woman over a foot shorter and hundred pounds lighter than you.

“I don’t want to, please don’t make me,” she whispered.

“Say it, you little slut,” I growled.

“I’m a whore,” she moaned quietly.

“What was that?” I reached down and pressed my thumb to her clit. She let out a scream as I began rubbing it.

“I’m a whore!” she cried.

“Louder!” I snapped, bouncing her more harshly with my own hips and rubbing her clit more vigorously.

“Oh fuck! I’m a whore! I’m a worthless slut!” she screamed. “OH MASTER IT FEELS SO GOOD!”

Lara had to be masturbating like crazy right now.

That thought only fueled me further. Staring at the way her expression shifted into one of pure mindless pleasure, and then at her hot, perky pale breasts bouncing with the rest of her, I put it into overdrive, thrusting hard up into her and putting my hips to use as I gripped her more tightly and helped move her petite frame up and down to emphasize the sex and she really lost it. She started screaming and moaning and crying out, and it wasn’t long before I had her coming. I groaned along with her and quickly lost control of my own orgasm.

“Ungh...Susan!” I cried and then I was coming deep inside of her, shooting a huge load into her pussy, unloading everything inside of her.

I pulled her down tightly against me while thrusting up with my hips, burying every rigid inch inside of her as my cock throbbed and pulsed and jettisoned every last drop of my stuff into her. I fucking filled her up and used her like the little slut she wanted to be. When we were finished, she got off of me and, on shaky legs, walked over to her cleanup area and cleaned up. A few moments later she was back in bed.

She laid against me and I wrapped an arm around her, holding her close.

It felt good. It felt natural.

“Chris,” she murmured quietly, and I could tell she was very tired, “I have a question.”

“I’m listening.”

“You don’t have to answer it right now…” she yawned. “And I’m not promising anything, but I want to know...if Lara and I wanted to come with you when you left...would you let us?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Now I’ve got a question.”

“I’m listening.”

“Would you be interested in fucking in front of Lara?”

“What? Why?” she asked, coming more awake.

I thought about it carefully, then tried to play it off lightly. Things had changed between us, and for the better, and quicker than I thought they would, but I imagined this still might be a sensitive topic. “I like an audience. I think Lara would like it.”

“Would she?” she asked softly, more to herself than to me. “Maybe she’d think it was weird...but I guess not. I’ve seen her naked like twice now thanks to you and she didn’t seem to care either time. Dear lord, Chris, the first time I walked in on the two of you, you fucking busted so much on her. You fucking covered her in that shit.”

“It had been a week without sex or masturbation,” I replied.

“Fucking apparently. But...I mean if she’s into it, yeah. I’ve always kind of wanted to have someone watch, but it’s been too hard to find someone I trust. But I trust her. So...yeah. If she wants to, I’ll do that.”

“Okay, cool.” I kissed her. “You’re really awesome, you know that?”

“You really think so? You don’t think I’m annoying or bitchy or mean?”

“Maybe a little,” I admitted. She sighed and I kissed her again. “Hey, we all have our bad days, and you’re working through some shit. I get it. You’re not perfect, but no one is. I’m kind of an asshole sometimes and Lara seems a little...airheaded.”

“A little,” Susan muttered. “Maybe more than a little. But I love her.”

“I know you do. And she loves you...is it going to be a problem if I keep fucking her?”

“You know, I thought it would be, but now that we’ve done this and we’re cool...it doesn’t bother me anymore. Now that I’m...getting some, I guess I’m glad she is too. She’s had it easy being so beautiful, but she still deserves to feel good.”

“So do you, Susan.” She shifted around suddenly and curled up on her side, facing away from me. I spooned and embraced her, hugging her to me. “You’re very sexy, Susan. I want you to know that,” I whispered in her ear.

She shivered against me. “You mean it?” she asked softly.

“I mean it.”

I waited for her to respond, but after a moment realized she’d fallen asleep. I was mostly there myself, so I let it happen.

Hopefully she’d have good dreams.

~

The next morning, I woke horny and ready to put on a show.

When I came awake, I began groping Susan, running my hands across her body. She groaned as she came awake as well.

“Oh right,” she murmured, “I get to have morning sex. Holy fuck. I haven’t had morning sex in forever.”

“It’s great,” I said, squeezing her tight ass. “Lara!” I called. “Get in here!”

“What? Why?” Susan asked, sounding uncertain.

“Remember what we talked about last night?”

“Last night…? Oh. You wanna do it now?”

“Unless you changed your mind.”

“No, I haven’t, I just...do you think she’ll want to already?”

“Yes,” I replied confidently. “I think you underestimate how much Lara likes watching people have sex.”

“Maybe…”

Lara was in the room barely a few seconds later, a look of excitement on her otherwise tired face. “What’s up?” she asked.

“I mentioned to Susan that you might be into watching us fuck,” I replied.

“I would love to,” Lara replied.

Susan shifted awkwardly, still hiding herself beneath the blankets. “It wouldn’t be...weird?”

“Oh come on, Susan, look who you’re talking to.”

She laughed, some of the tension draining from her body. “I guess you’re right. I mean, if you wouldn’t think it’s weird, I would actually like to see what it feels like. I just...still get really self-conscious.”

“You have no reason to be self-conscious around me, Susan,” Lara said, sitting down on the waist-high dresser across from the bed and smiling. “You know I think you’re a sexy girl.”

Susan sighed and blushed. “Yeah, but you always say that.”

“It’s always true! What, you think I’m just lying to you?”

“I think you’re just being nice,” Susan murmured.

“I’m not. I mean it. You’ve always been sexy to me, and that fucking choker collar is so fucking hot on you.”

“I have to agree,” I said, and pulled the blankets away from us both.

Susan gasped and reflexively covered herself, then slowly pulled her hands away. I flipped her over onto her stomach and gave her ass a hard smack that made her let out a surprised little shriek. “Get on your hands and knees.”

“Yes, master,” she murmured.

“Ooh, so he’s got you doing it, too. I knew you were into that shit. And after all the shit you gave me for saying it!” Lara said, crossing her arms.

“I’m sorry,” Susan replied as she got up onto her hands and knees. I got behind her, getting a look at her from this angle. Her riding me was probably the position I wanted most with Susan, but doggystyle certainly was appealing as well. “It was-ah!” she cried as I slipped my cock into her wet, wet pussy. “I’ll explain later,” she panted.

“Shut up,” I replied, reaching forward and giving her hair a tug.

She cried out again and then clamped her mouth shut.

“That’s what I thought,” I said as pushed deeper into her.

“Oh wow, this is amazing,” Lara whispered.

“You shut up, too,” I replied.

She looked down, though only for a few seconds before looking back up at us. I gave Susan a good pounding for the next few minutes, enjoying the steady rhythm of our sex as I stroked smoothly into her again and again. God, her pussy was so fucking wet, and she was so tight. Susan quickly lost all inhibition and was moaning loudly, hanging her head, pushing her ass against me as I screwed her. Her voice started pitching up rapidly as I worked her towards an orgasm, and before long I got one out of her.

Not long before I was going to start coming, I was struck by sudden inspiration.

“Lara, get over here,” I said. “Now.”

“Yes, master,” she said, hopping up and hurrying over. She crawled onto the bed, and apparently read my mind because the second I pulled out and thrust my cock at her, she took it into her mouth and I started coming.

“Ah fuck!” I cried, gripping her head as I drained my cock into her mouth. She moaned, sucking me off, getting every last drop out. Susan turned to look at us, watching us as Lara took my load into her mouth and swallowed everything.

When she was done and I let go of her, she wiped her mouth on the back of her mouth and grinned at Susan. “I think that technically makes it a threesome.”

“I...guess so,” she murmured, blushing and panting.

“How was it?” I asked, giving her ass a pat and then getting slowly off the bed. I was still sore and stiff from my fall.

“Good, though I don’t feel like that was a real threesome,” she murmured.

“Maybe we could fix that,” I said.

A moment of silence passed between us. Lara did an impressive job of not looking too excited. Susan looked...interested, but nervous.

“I don’t know,” she said finally.

“No pressure,” I replied. I started stretching. “I’ve got to go talk with Abigail.” I looked at Susan. “That going to be a problem?”

“No,” she murmured. “It won’t.” She paused, and her face firmed up a bit. She turned around and sat down, facing me fully. “Just so we’re clear...I’m not like Lara.” She glanced briefly at her. “No offense.”

“None taken, I know who I am,” Lara replied with a shrug.

Susan looked back at me. “Just because I’ve submitted to you in the bedroom doesn’t mean I’m submitting to you anywhere else.” She crossed her arms when I didn’t immediately respond, pursing her lips. Man, she was intense. I didn’t know many women who could successfully look so serious while naked. “Okay?”

“Okay, Susan,” I replied. “Don’t worry, I understand, this doesn’t change our relationship. I’m not going to take you less seriously or anything.”

She scrutinized me for a shorter amount of time than yesterday, so that was probably good. “Fine,” she said. “But for real, yeah, I’m okay with it.”

“Cool.”

“Hey, don’t forget, today’s New Year’s Eve! We need to have a party tonight,” Lara said. I glanced at her. She was almost leering at Susan as she spoke. Susan noticed me looking at Lara and looked at her as well. Both women quickly blushed and looked away.

“I’m down for that,” I said as I started collecting up my clothes. “I wouldn’t mind getting stoned or drunk, relaxing, fucking around.”

“Or stoned and drunk,” Lara said.

“Yeah that sounds nice,” Susan murmured.

“Well, we’ll figure it out. I’ll be back after I go see this woman.”

“Are you gonna fuck her?” Susan asked as I headed for the door.

“I doubt it,” I replied.

“If she offered, would you?” Lara asked.

“...it would depend.”

“On what?” Susan asked. I looked meaningfully at Lara, who looked away.

“I’ll tell you when I get back,” I replied. “Now let’s get some breakfast.”

SEVENTEEN

As I looked at the skies while walking across the frozen fields that divided the farmhouse from my own current home, I saw that I now had two reasons to hurry up and get this job, whatever it was, done.

A blizzard was on the way.

Or at least a snowstorm.

Gray clouds covered the skies from horizon to horizon, and the wind was just beginning to pick up. I thought I had several hours, at least. But damn did I want to get back inside, rest my aching body, and just get stoned, or drunk, or both, and fuck around with Lara and Susan all day. I thought that I could probably convince Susan to have a threesome. Something in the way she was acting around Lara today, almost like she was just now beginning to consider looking at her best friend as something just a bit more.

A best friend with benefits.

I was already halfway to a threesome thanks to Lara. Fuck, I was getting hard just thinking about it.

There was a single figure walking around the edge of the fence as I approached the farm. I quickly recognized Abigail. Was she waiting for me? She ducked down and appeared to check something near the fence, then looked at me as she straightened back up. No, but she was now. She waved as I approached.

“Hello, handsome,” she said.

“Hi,” I replied. She favored me with a sweet smile that seemed to have a little bit of coyness to it. Was she hitting on me? “Uh, I’m back.”

“I can see that. Come on, walk with me, I’m checking rabbit snares,” she said.

“Okay.”

She placed a hand on my arm for a moment, and I saw that she was keeping me from tripping over a rock that was almost perfectly hidden by the snow, but after we got past it her hand lingered for several long seconds.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m okay. Admittedly I’m a little eager to get home. Storm’s coming in today,” I replied.

She glanced skywards, frowning. “I thought so, too. Maybe it might be best to put off the job for another day…”

“Depending on what it is, I think I’ll have time. I think I should be safe until somewhere past noon,” I replied.

“If you’re sure. Although admittedly the job itself requires some luck. You might wrap it up right away, or not at all.”

“What is it, exactly?”

She smiled a little awkwardly. “I want a bell pepper.” I looked at her for a moment. She stopped by a rabbit snare near a hole in the fence. “I’m serious!” She sighed when she saw the snare was empty and turned to face me. “I’ve been foraging across this region for a little while. The forest dead west of the lake, where that cabin is, you know what I’m talking about?” I nodded. “I was over there. I saw some bell peppers around. I grabbed a few several weeks ago but they’re gone now. I love the things. If you could get me even one, I’d offer you a reward.”

“Like what?” I asked.

She took a step closer to me, looking at me intensely. “What do you want?”

Was she fucking asking me to try to sleep with her? “Got anymore shells?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Sorry, that was actually all of them,” she replied.

“Got some nine millimeters?”

She nodded, but didn’t look satisfied. “What do you really want from me, Chris?”

I chuckled awkwardly, starting to get hard. Either I was losing it or she was coming onto me. I thought of how to handle it. “Um...as a married woman, you might take offense if I answered that question honestly,” I managed.

She smirked and took another step closer to me, staring up into my face, almost like she was challenging me. “Try me.”

Fuck it. She wanted the truth, she’d get it.

“Fine, if you want the truth, I’d really like to take you to a bed somewhere, strip your clothes off, and fuck the shit out of you.”

I half expected her to slap me. It had happened before. But instead she just grinned savagely, looking triumphant. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said. “Okay. I agree. You go get me a bell pepper, and I’ll take you to one of those cabins nearby and let you handle this pussy however you see fit, Chris.”

“I’m not interested in helping someone cheat,” I said, just barely stopping myself from saying someone else.

She laughed. “Well color me impressed. I respect that, Chris. Though I’ve seen those two girls, I imagine by now you’ve got both of them riding your cock, so I guess it’s gotta be a bit easier to turn away pussy under those circumstances.”

“It really isn’t,” I replied.

“Even more impressive. You can confirm with my husband when you get back, but we’re in a...semi-open relationship.”

“Semi-open?”

“Yeah. Point is: me and him have already discussed this, I’ve got his blessing to let you fucking tear it up, and I am quite into you.”

“You’re a real cougar, huh?” I asked.

She smirked. “Yes, but you can’t be that much younger, or…” She frowned suddenly and leaned closer, studying me more intently. “Maybe you are. How old are you?” I told her. She looked a little surprised, and then that smirk returned. “Yes, I am quite the cougar. And to save you the trouble, I’m forty five.”

“Awesome,” I muttered.

“Yeah, I’ve seen you eye-fucking me...are your girlfriends gonna be mad?”

“No, not at all,” I replied.

“Hmm. Okay. Now hurry up, I want sex,” she said.

“Uh...yeah. Okay. I’ll be back soon,” I replied.

She was still wearing that confident cougar grin as I walked off her property.

~

Holy shit, I couldn’t believe I’d gotten so lucky.

Two mature married women willing to have sex with me in the same week? On top of a hot goth girl and a fucking movie starlet hot level brunette. Fuck! It almost felt like I’d been saving up all my good luck since leaving Pine Lake.

That thought struck me, though not as hard as it might have otherwise. I could easily imagine Delilah grinning her nearly drunk smile of lust at the thought of what I was about to do. I think she and Lara really lived vicariously through other people fucking just as much as they enjoyed fucking for themselves, and I think Elizabeth was heading down that road as well, thanks to Delilah’s influence. I was going to find that fucking pepper.

Part of me thought that it was pretty immature to be as motivated as I was by pussy.

Another part of me said: Are you kidding? Did you SEE her?

A more mature part asked the very relevant question of: What else is there to get excited about?

A lot hurt nowadays. The cold. The hunger. Walking across the wilderness. Fighting with wolves. Fighting with men. The crippling loneliness of isolation. The bleak despair that was now very much like the background radiation of the universe ever since some part of me had truly, genuinely realized that society as I understood it was going away and almost certainly never coming back. Humans were surprisingly adaptable, but sometimes I thought it was less about adapting to new situations, and more about learning how to go on despite new scars and damage and trauma. It was a terrifying place to be, coming from a fully functioning civilization to this.

There was no guide to surviving a post-apocalyptic winter wasteland.

And although it wasn’t as if there had necessarily been a guide before, in the past the path was much more defined.

So what if one of my primary motivations in life was now getting to fuck new women? Wasn’t it enough that my truly primary motivation in life was to help other people? Then again, who the fuck was I arguing against?

I guess just rules in my head leftover from a society that no longer truly existed.

I made it back down the hill and across the lake without running into anything. My nerves got a little more uppity as I hit the field and began making for the cabin she’d mentioned, because this was going to be new territory for me. On the way over, I wrestled over whether or not I should take the time to search the cabin, given I was going to be over this way so I might as well get it out of the way, but on the other hand I was so distracted by the promise of sex with Abigail that it might not even be worth putting in the effort because I’d just fuck it up and have to come back and do it a second time. Ultimately, that logic won me over.

Or maybe it was just that I was so desperate to fuck her that even the slimmest justification to hurry up was enough.

Either way, I got to the cabin and walked past it, promising myself I’d check it out later. Although I did at least take a cursory glance through the window to see if anyone was living there, but the place looked dead and vacant.

Plunging into the trees, I began my hunt in earnest. The next half an hour passed by in an increasingly frustrated hunt as I searched for the bell pepper. I kept up what I thought was an appropriate level of attention to my environment as I looked around the snowy ground among the trees and naked bushes, pausing to grab the eatable plants that I did see (some pea-pods, a few potatoes, even some dill and thyme).

But apparently it wasn’t appropriate enough.

I became aware of the wolf that had been prowling me for probably the past minute or two the second it bolted into the clearing I was standing in. Pure panic hit me but I snapped out my pistol right as the thing made a leap for me. I brought the gun up and squeezed the trigger three times, twice more than I meant to, but it fucking worked at least. Two of the shots took the wolf in the chest and the third missed, burying itself in a nearby tree.

The lean, furry bastard crashed into me and knocked me on my ass. I grunted, jerking and trying to get the thing off of me, expecting a fight as it tried to kill me while it died, but I realized it wasn’t moving any longer.

I must’ve hit its heart.

It flopped to the snow and I had just begun the process of catching my breath, looking around for other wolves because they often didn’t travel alone, when I heard something else entirely: footsteps. Coming closer.

Human footsteps.

I rose up and held onto my pistol and looked around. When I located the person coming towards me, I raised the pistol instinctively.

Because this was a big fucking guy.

I mean bigger than me.

He skidded to a halt at the edge of the clearing, and I saw he didn’t have a gun in his hands. But he was going for one.

“Don’t,” I snapped when his hand came close to the revolver resting on his hip.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

I studied him. I didn’t recognize him. He was a little taller than me, definitely bulkier, with a shaved head and hard brown eyes and a few scars on his face. I thought maybe he was a few years older than me. He looked like muscle. I thought I remember Susan or Lara mentioning something about muscle living with Jessica’s group, a protector. I saw a rifle peeking over his shoulder. He was probably their hunter, too.

“I don’t want any trouble,” he said finally, though the expression on his face said otherwise. I thought he was just pissed that he’d forgotten to draw his pistol.

Not very bright.

“I don’t either,” I replied, deciding I really didn’t. I just wanted to find my fucking bell pepper and be on my way. Slowly, I lowered the pistol, then holstered it. I waited and a tense moment went by as we stared at each other.

“You live around here or passing through?” he asked.

“Live around here, for the moment,” I replied.

“Where?”

I hedged. “Around.”

He looked irritated, but took my meaning at least. I could see some calculation on his face as he looked between me and the dead wolf at my feet. He was probably measuring whether or not he could successfully intimidate me.

I was pretty confident he couldn’t.

Apparently so was he. More irritated than ever, he spoke up again. “Could I have that wolf? I haven’t had any luck hunting today or for the past few days and my group needs food.”

I considered it, considered saying no, considering asking for something in return. I even, briefly, considered pulling out the pistol and shooting him in the head. Something about this guy was pinging my danger reflex, but given the fact that I pinged several of those same reflexes, I was at least somewhat sympathetic to that.

Although sometimes people pinged that reflex because they were, in fact, dangerous, and we had evolved over millions of years to pick up on all sorts of subtle little indicators that warned us that we were, in fact, in danger.

In the end, I decided on a little diplomacy.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, and stepped well enough back that he could get it without either of us running the overt risk of attacking each other.

Without guns, at least.

He walked into the clearing and crouched to pick up the dead wolf. Once he had it, he lingered for just a few seconds, then, in an obvious sign of ‘I’m not afraid of you’, turned his back and began walking away, back the way he’d come.

I watched home go, still left with lingering doubts whether or not I’d handled the situation appropriately. It felt right, mostly, but…

But what? Was I really questioning whether or not I should’ve just straight-up murdered a dude in cold blood?

I sighed softly and shook my head, crushing the doubt. I’d done the right thing, leave it at that. As I began looking around again, my eyes abruptly fell onto the distinct shape of a bell pepper, perhaps a dozen feet off to my right, in the opposite direction the man had walked. Well, holy shit. Talk about luck. I began heading for it.

~

If anything, my walk back to the farmhouse was even more frustrating than the walk away from it. It was hard not to break into a run. Or as much of a run as I could manage in snow. I made sure to keep the pepper safe, because I didn’t want to spend however long tracking down another one. I also had hesitations about leading the big guy to the farmhouse. It was pretty damn easy to track someone walking across this field while hiding among the trees. But it was, admittedly, at least better than leading him back to my own home.

Abigail and Hank did seem pretty capable in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

And hey, they’d made it this far into the apocalypse.

I got up to their front door without a problem. Abigail opened it up with an expectant and sexy smile on her face.

“Tell me you got it,” she said, and right away I could tell that she was honest about the fact that she was as eager to fuck me as I was to fuck her.

I reached into my pocket and pulled it out.

Her eyes lit up as she accepted it.

“Come in,” she said, stepping back.

I came inside and she led me into the living room, where her husband stood. Again, that awkward tension, which made a lot of sense to me now. She must have begun trying to float the idea of having sex with me before the two of us had actually met. So Hank had opened that door and shook my hand knowing that his wife wanted to fuck me, and probably would. Well, I didn’t envy him the position, and I was glad the girls I was with seemed happy enough with me and me alone.

“You had a question for my husband?” Abigail prodded as she pressed the bell pepper into his hand and then began to pull her coat on.

“Ah. Yes. Hank…” I looked at him and tried to think of a different way to ask ‘so you’re really cool with me fucking your wife?’, and couldn’t.

He seemed to have been in this situation before and stepped up. “I know you two are going to have sex, and I’m fine with it. We’re in an open marriage.” His expression hardened suddenly. “If you hurt her, I will kill you.”

“I understand. I wouldn’t expect anything less,” I replied.

That seemed to be the right thing to say, because he relaxed and nodded.

“Well, I’m off honey. I’ll be back in an hour or so. You know what to do with the pepper,” she said.

He nodded. They told each other that they loved each other, exchanged hugs and kisses, and then Abigail left with me.

It was truly a bizarre situation.

“Come on, handsome,” she said, taking my hand once we were outside and leading me towards the exit, “this cougar is eager to pounce.”

EIGHTEEN

“You don’t have to feel bad for him, just so you know,” Abigail said as we made our way down the incline. The cabins were in sight by now and I was hard as a rock.

“Why’s that?” I replied.

“He’s secure enough that this won’t bother him that much and, more importantly, he was the one who got to have fun last time around,” she replied.

“Oh?”

“Yes. A few months back we ran into this slutty little brunette who was half our age and took quite the liking to him. He got to fuck her a few times and clearly enjoyed it. We met her on the way to that farmhouse.”

“What was her name?” I asked, suddenly wondering if it was possible she was talking about Lara, as unlikely as it seemed.

“Jamie,” she replied. “Why?”

“Just curious.”

Abigail grinned suddenly. “I would’ve gotten in on it, too, but Lily was very straight. Not into me at all. I’m mostly into guys but definitely bisexual. The right girl does for me...you’re thinking about me having sex with you and your girlfriends, aren’t you?”

“Uh...guilty as charged,” I replied. “Can you blame me?”

“God no, I’ve seen them. Well, from a distance. The dark-haired one is cute but the brunette looks like a fucking fashion model. You really fucking both of them?”

“Yeah,” I replied, then suddenly wondered if maybe I should’ve held my tongue. Lara wouldn’t give a shit but Susan might. “Also, for the record, the supermodel would totally be into you.”

“Really?!” she asked, her eyes lighting up. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. Although...I’m just gotta say now, I’m not comfortable sharing with another guy. I mean sharing them, obviously I have no say over you.”

“That’s fair,” she murmured. “But you’d like to have a threesome with me and your supermodel?” she asked, nudging me with an elbow.

“Obviously.”

She laughed. “I’ll make it happen then, but I’ll need you to do another job for us. And this one might end up being...bigger. Harder.”

“I’m sure I can handle it,” I replied.

“I’m sure you can. But for now, you’re handling me.”

We got up to the cabin and let ourselves in. I got a fire going while she locked the front door, drew the curtains, and then started undressing. By the time I had the fire going and turned back around, she was butt naked.

And what a sight she was.

It was clear that she was an older woman, but it was also clear that she’d kept in pretty good shape. Her body was a curious mixture of hard living and probably hearty meals. She had a nice amount of padding to her hips and thighs, and some big breasts. Her pussy had a light dusting of blonde pubic hair.

She grinned, her hands on her hips. “So, this is it. What do you think?”

“I think you look fantastic,” I replied as I stood and started getting out of my clothes.

“Glad to hear it...ooh, nice,” she murmured as I got my shirt off. She watched me the whole way through as I stripped down and her eyes ended up on my erection as it was free. “Oh my, you’re bigger than I’m used to,” she murmured, walking up to me with an obvious confidence that was very arousing to see.

She took my cock in her grasp and started slowly massaging it. “Damn, you look good naked,” she murmured.

“So do you,” I replied.

“What’s this though?” she asked, gently probing my ribs. I lifted my arm and let her see the bruises. “Oh my God, did someone kick your ass?”

I laughed. “No, just gravity. Took a bad fall a few days ago, I’m fine.”

“Well, if you’re sure.” She let it drop and stepped up against me. Staring up at me with that determined and aroused smile, she said, “Kiss me.”

I kissed her, reaching down and getting two handfuls of her fat cougar ass. I could feel her big tits pushing against me as we started to make out. She was definitely one of the more brazen women I’d come in ‘contact’ with. Normally, the women who were sexually confident that I ran into, like Delilah and Lara, were also submissive. The woman who were more aggressive that I encountered, like Megan or Lisa or Susan, interestingly seemed less certain during sex. It was rare that I found someone like Abigail who was as aggressive inside the bedroom as she was outside of it. She hopped up onto me suddenly and I took hold of her.

Walking her over to the bed, I began to lay her down.

“Uh-uh,” she said. “You’re fucking like six three and built, I’m five and a half feet tall. There’s no way you’re crushing me under you. Lemme ride.”

“Yes ma’am,” I replied, and she giggled and kissed me again.

I managed to fall onto my back on the bed and started groping her big, soft tits as she we kept kissing.

“I thought you said you’d let me tear it up however I wanted,” I muttered between kisses.

She sighed, sitting up and staring down at me. “Fair point. Tell you what: I’ll suck your cock for awhile and you let me ride.”

“Okay,” I replied, as though I was actually making any kind of real concession.

She got up off me suddenly and started digging through her pile of clothes.

“What are you looking for?”

“I still have some condoms leftover from the last time I found some,” she murmured. She didn’t sound happy about it.

I hesitated, then decided to see if I could nudge this in the direction I wanted. “Do we gotta use them?” I asked.

She sighed. “I said I would...it’s for safety’s safe,” she replied, but she did sound and look bummed about it.

“If it helps, I’ve got that implant.”

She seemed to perk up. “The golden one? The...what was it? The mesh?”

“Yeah. Pregnancy and STDs aren’t really a problem for me.”

She stared at me for a long time, but I thought she was more arguing internally with herself rather than scrutinizing me. Finally, she stood up. “Lemme see it.”

Abigail climbed onto the bed and gripped my cock, then stared at it intently. “Oh shit, I can see it.” She paused, chewing anxiously on one lip, suddenly looking less confident. Finally, she looked back at me. “If we do it raw, you can’t tell my husband. Okay? Seriously.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I replied.

She pursed her lips, then sighed. “This is really stupid, but okay. I just hate condoms so much,” she muttered, tossing it aside. “It’s a million times better without them.”

“I really agree.”

She smirked. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

Leaning in, Abigail started to pleasure my cock with her fantastic tongue. Now the whole thing had a truly illicit edge to it and I hated how much more of a thrill I was getting out of that. It was this secret thing just the two of us shared, a bad thing we weren’t supposed to do. Obviously I felt bad for talking her into it, but she clearly wanted to do it and I genuinely didn’t think there was any risk to it. I wanted her raw so fucking bad…

“Ah fuck, Abigail…” I groaned loudly as she took my cock into her mouth, all the way up to her throat and then deeper into it. She took all of my inches and swallowed several times. Each time she did it, I cried out as the pleasure slammed into me, all those slick, hot throat muscles tightening around my cock, slipping around the most sensitive part of my body and just hitting me with raw rapture like a shot of adrenaline.

“Mmm...noisy,” she murmured after taking it out of her mouth for a moment. “I like that. It’s rare I get noisy guys. Be as vocal as you want.”

“Got it,” I replied.

She kept sucking me off, putting those luscious lips of hers to use, giving me excellent head as the pleasure ran through me in waves. She looked fantastically sexy as she bobbed her head, her eyes closed as though in concentration. I loved every second of it as this hot, married cougar blew me and licked all over my erection.

Finally, she took it out of her mouth and mounted me.

“Remember,” she whispered as she teased the head between the lips of her pussy, “not a single word about this.” I nodded, watching intently, fighting the urge to thrust up into her. She smirked. “You’re such a bad boy, you know that?” she said, and then she slipped me into her.

We both groaned at the explosion of pleasure as I slid right in. She was crazy wet and slick inside, and pretty tight, too. I grabbed her broad hips as she started riding me, taking me into her again and again. Her hot perfection enveloped my rigid length as she slipped me into her over and over, fucking herself as much as she was fucking me. Her head rolled back and her mouth hung open for several long moments as she seemed to lose herself in the sex. I groped her big tits as she rode me, putting those big hips to use.

“Oh my fucking God it feels so good raw!” she cried. “And you’re bigger, fuck, oh my God, the shape of it is just...oh it’s perfect!” she moaned.

“Abigail, you fuck so good,” I groaned, absolutely in love with the feel of her big, mature tits. “Holy fuck your pussy is good.”

She grinned savagely, looking back down at me. She ran her hands up and down my arms. “You love fucking me, don’t you?” she whispered, her voice heavy and husky.

“Yes…” I groaned.

“Say it.”

“I love fucking you so much, Abigail,” I moaned.

“That’s it...that’s it…” she whispered, going faster and harder. I knew I was going to bust if she came.

“Abigail!” I panted, halfway coming back to my senses. “I’m gonna come soon. If you come I’m gonna fucking come.”

“Shit,” she whispered.

“Can I come inside you?” I asked.

She looked torn. “I shouldn’t let you…” she murmured. I pushed up into her, only half meaning to, my body having something of a mind of its own, and she moaned. “Oh you pervert,” she moaned. “Fuck, I really shouldn’t let you but...do it. Fill me up like a slut,” she said.

She fucked me more furiously and aggressively after that, really putting her hips and thighs to use, and my hands ran all over her wonderful, mature body. Abigail didn’t let up until she started coming and good lord did she ever let out a scream. I groaned loudly as her pussy started going crazy, getting hotter and wetter as it convulsed around my cock, and then I was over the edge of just letting off inside that hot married vagina of hers.

I filled her up.

I pumped her full.

The intensity of the orgasm felt as insane as it did that first fuck I’d had with Lara. The full weight of the knowledge that I was fucking a married woman and I was not supposed to be coming inside of her added such an intense edge to the orgasm. I drained my nuts into her as she yelled her way through her own orgasm. My seed left me in hard spurts and the orgasm felt seismic in its power. Shockwaves of ecstasy roared through my veins, radiating out from my core as I gripped her big hips and shoved my throbbing cock deep into her.

We orgasmed for quite awhile.

When we were done, she sank forward onto me, panting, gasping really. I hugged her to me and she hugged me back, resting her forehead against my own.

“That was stupid,” she whispered, though her expression didn’t reflect that.

“It wasn’t stupid,” I replied, “no one will find out, and it’s basically impossible for me to transmit STDs to you thanks to the implant, even if I had any. Which I’m still very confident that I don’t. Same for pregnancy. You’re safe.”

She sighed. “I know, but that’s not all of it. I shouldn’t have done it but...it won’t be the first time I’ve had to keep a little secret from my husband. I love him, though I do know that he’s done a few dumb things too.”

“Like what?” I asked as she got off of me and started cleaning up.

“Twice he slept with friends of mine. They both admitted to me that he’d talk them into going raw one time apiece.” She shrugged. “I guess I wasn’t too mad. I can understand. And he’s fixed, so it’s not like he could get anyone pregnant, and I trust them not to have anything.”

“Now I feel kinda bad,” I murmured as I laid there, watching her.

“Don’t. I wanted to be talked into it as much as you wanted to talk me into it. We had great sex, and it felt great, and that’s the end of it.” She paused, smirked. “Well, for now.” She sighed and stretched after she was done cleaning up, then began to pull her clothes back on. “When a relationship goes on long enough, you’ll find yourself making the occasional compromise, keeping the odd secret. It’s not ideal, but what is? We love each other, we trust each other, that’s enough. Especially nowadays.” She pursed her lips and studied me. “Are those girls special to you?”

“To be completely honest, we just met within the last week. But...yeah, they are. Which hopefully won’t complicate the other special relationships I have.”

“Good lord, how many ‘relationships’ do you have?”

“Technically? Right now...five?”

“You aren’t even sure?”

“I’m exploring a casual sexual relationship that seems to be becoming something more with those two right now,” I said, considering it all in my head. “I’ve got three girls waiting for me a little ways from here. One I’m full-on dating, and yes, she knows about the other girls, the other two I’m sex friends with pretty exclusively but...what we have is also kind of special. And I guess if you want to get technical I’m casually involved with three other women back there.”

“Jesus,” she muttered. “That sounds...exhausting.”

“It kind of is but it’s definitely worth it,” I replied.

“Yeah, I’ll bet. All that pussy must be nice...well, at least you don’t have to worry about me complicating things. I like you a lot, but there’s no confusion about our relationship. We don’t have one, we’re just fucking.”

“How long do you think that’s gonna happen, by the way?” I asked.

“I think I can justify one more session, then my husband might start getting grumpy. And I would really like that second time to be with your little supermodel,” she replied.

“I can definitely make that happen. Given today is New Year’s Eve and tomorrow is New Year’s Day, though, why don’t I come visit day after tomorrow?” I suggested.

“Oh shit, it’s New Year’s Eve? Yeah, that makes sense. We should have a clearer idea of what, exactly, you can help with. I think we already do, we’re just...finalizing a few things. But yeah, that sounds good.” She smiled and leaned down, then gave me a firm kiss on the mouth. “This was a lot of fun, Chris. You’re a great fuck. Next time you can do whatever you want to me.”

“I am really looking forward to that. And you’re an excellent fuck as well,” I replied.

She smiled. “I know. See you later.”

She had all her clothes on by now, and she pulled her coat on and walked out of the cabin. I stared at her fat ass until the door was closed and then, after laying there for a few minutes longer, started to get up and get my own clothes back on.

I had two hot, horny girls to get home to.

NINETEEN

By the time I actually left the cabin and started heading home, it had begun to snow.

By the time I was halfway there, the snow had picked up and it was really coming down.

I started to actually worry by the time I hit the trees, but I managed to catch sight of home before visibility got too poor. And if I could make it home, I was very confident Abigail could. The farmhouse was closer to the cabin than my own home was.

Either way, I made it through the front door right as the blizzard really hit and gratefully closed and locked it behind me.

“I’m home!” I called.

“How’d it go? You get laid?” Lara called back.

“Yeah, actually.”

There was a pause, then I heard movement and I was joined in the main hallway as I got out of my coat and boots. Both Susan and Lara looked at me with open interest.

“You fucked her? The married chick?” Lara asked.

“She was married?” Susan asked.

“Yes and yes,” I replied, walking into mine and Lara’s room and taking off my outer layers. The house was warm, and I intended to just stay inside all day, lounging around in a t-shirt and longjohns and socks and fucking nothing else.

“Come on, spill,” Susan said as they followed me in.

“Okay, okay, hold on,” I replied as I finished up. I shooed them back out into the hallway, then headed for the living room, where I saw they had already apparently set up on the couches with a lot of comfortable blankets and pillows. The weed and some booze was on the table, as well as a big pot of steaming stew that smelled really good. “Oh yeah, before I forget, I managed to get my hands on some thyme and dill.”

“Oh shit, that’ll be good,” Lara murmured.

I ladeled myself a bowl of the stew and poured myself a glass of wine that they’d been secreting away somewhere. I didn’t like wine all that much, but I wanted to be buzzed. Finally, I got settled on the couch, among the pillows and blankets, and Susan got on one side of me while Lara got on the other. Both of them were wearing nothing but t-shirts and panties and socks. (No one went without socks nowadays, even in a well-heated house the floor tended to be cold). They both stared at me impatiently as I kept them in suspense.

“Oh come on!” Susan snapped as I ate some of the stew. I looked over at her and she immediately lost her exasperated expression and looked down. “Please?” she asked. So maybe her assessment that she wouldn’t be entirely submissively to me outside of the bedroom wasn’t totally accurate. Then again, ‘the bedroom’ was a rather interchangeable place, wasn’t it?

“Abigail is, in fact, a married woman, in an open relationship. She came onto me. She offered to fuck me in exchange for help finding a bell pepper. I found it, we went to a cabin, I fucked the ever-loving shit out of her,” I replied.

“That’s so hot,” Lara whispered.

“It was pretty hot. She’s...quite the cougar.”

“What’s she look like?” Susan asked, voice wavering as though she wasn’t sure if she should be aroused or annoyed.

“Five and a half feet tall, blonde, curvy, busty. Mature. Confident.”

“Definitely hot,” Lara murmured.

“By the way,” I said, looking at Lara, “she wants you very badly.”

Her eyes went wide. “Tell me you aren’t joking.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Oh my God, could we have a threesome?”

“I thought we were gonna have a threesome,” Susan said in a somewhat petulant tone.

I looked over at her. “Were we?”

“You mentioned it...we were talking about…” she said, not quite meeting my eyes.

“Well let’s talk about it,” I said, looking meaningfully at Lara. She took the meaning immediately and dropped the conversation about Abigail, we could definitely talk about that later. “How do you feel about it?” I asked, putting an arm around her.

She leaned into me, which I took as a good sign. “I don’t know,” she murmured. She sighed and suddenly reached forward. Grabbing up the weed pipe, which they’d obviously already set up, she lit it and took a few puffs from it, then passed it to Lara and laid back against me. “I want to do it, I’m just...nervous. You know? I’ve never done anything like it before. I’ve never done anything with another woman. And Lara’s my best friend. It’s…” She sat up and looked at her suddenly. “Do you really want to, like, eat me out?”

“Yeah,” Lara replied with an easy shrug.

“Why?” she asked.

“I’m bisexual. You’re really sexy. You’re my best friend and I know how good getting your pussy eaten feels, and I’m really good at eating pussy, so I know I could make you feel super good, and you deserve that. Plus I like putting on a show and obviously Chris will like it.” She took a long puff on the pipe and then exhaled a cloud of smoke in a long, easy sigh. “Is it really so surprising? I’ve always told you how pretty I think you are.”

“I thought you were just being nice,” Susan said, accepting the pipe back. She took a hit, then passed it to me. “You’re really like...into me? Like into me, like I make you horny?”

Now Lara looked reluctant. Her face flushed. “That won’t freak you out, would it?”

Susan seemed to think about it while I took a few puffs myself. I coughed and that evolved into harsher coughing, forcing me to lean forward. Despite the sudden tension, Susan and Lara both broke into a fit of giggles.

“Gee, thanks,” I managed after getting myself back under control. “Shit, been awhile. That’s strong.” I passed it back to Susan.

“No, I guess it wouldn’t freak me out,” Susan said after calming back down and then considering it for a moment. “I just...I don’t know. This is a lot.”

I glanced at Lara. Obviously she’d decided to push forward in my absence, and now she looked really nervous and worried. I hoped the gentle pushes I’d given Susan so far would be enough for her to go into this without freaking out. They’d been best friends forever, so I imagine it might be a bit of a shock to Susan.

“You don’t have to commit to anything, Susan,” Lara said, reaching across me and taking her hand. “Look at me,” she murmured softly. Susan looked at her. “Whatever happens, I want you to know that I love you and I care about you, and I want things to go however you will feel most comfortable. If you don’t want things to turn sexual between us, I’m okay with that. I won’t be mad. Nothing will change. If you want to experiment and decide to stop after, that’s fine, too.”

“What if we experiment and I really, really like it?” Susan asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “What if I...want more?”

Lara smiled and squeezed her hand. “I’d like that.”

“Really? You...I mean, you think we could actually be like...a couple?” she asked uncertainly.

“Of course,” Lara replied. I suddenly felt like this was really a conversation they should be having without me, but I wondered if I was somehow necessary or maybe just wanted. If I hadn’t shown up, how long would it have gone on for? Would Lara ever have found a way to bring it up? I didn’t think so.

Susan didn’t say anything for several long moments. She looked at Lara, then at me. She was blushing fiercely, still holding Lara’s hand in my lap.

“I…” she trailed off.

“Susan, like I said, you don’t have to commit to anything. Take as much time as you need. You know I love you, right?” Lara asked.

“Of course I know that,” Susan replied, and she smiled, and Lara seemed to relax a little. “I know that. And I love you more than anyone. And I’ve…” She licked her lips and looked away briefly. “Fantasized.”

“Oh really?” Lara asked, leaning closer.

“Yes. Sometimes.” She sighed. “I don’t know. I just need a minute to think about it.”

“It’s okay,” Lara said. “Like I said, take all the time you need. For now, let’s just get stoned and relax. Chris...maybe now you’d like to tell us some of the things you failed to mention beforehand?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

I sighed. “I guess now’s a good a time as any.”

“What haven’t you told us?” Susan asked suspiciously.

“When I told you about myself, my story sort of ran out about the time I got my hands on a vehicle and wrecked it. Well, when I wrecked it, I met someone, a girl named Delilah…”

They both listened as I spent the next two hours or so spelling out everything that had happened to me since meeting Delilah and Megan. Mostly I kept having to expand on it whenever I mentioned sex and Lara just had to hear about it and I had to admit, I didn’t mind talking about it. At times Susan looked a little skeptical, and I had to admit, some parts of the story sounded kind of crazy. But by the end of it, she seemed to believe me.

“So let me get this straight,” Susan said after I’d wrapped up. “You’re here, and you met us, because you’re trying to...make a home and are trying to stop wanting to leave it by going out on an extended adventure and then going back home?”

“Basically yeah,” I replied.

“And you’ve got like five women, all of whom you are fucking, waiting for you in a town somewhere near here?”

“I wouldn’t say near here, exactly, but within a week’s walk or so. And closer to three. The other two are on a more casual basis. Well, technically three are on a casual basis. But I’m pretty close with Megan, Delilah, and Elizabeth.”

She let out a long sigh and looked across at Lara. “How do you feel about this?”

“Super turned on,” Lara replied.

“Of course that’s how you feel about it.”

“Come on, you don’t find it appealing? There’s gotta be a part of you that’s really into this. Having someone like Chris, who’s got a nice little stable of sexy ladies waiting for him, taking charge of you…” She reached out and ran a finger along Susan’s throat, making her shiver, and then giving the choker collar she still wore a gentle tug. “Am I wrong?”

“You’re...not wrong,” Susan admitted, closing her eyes, as if savoring Lara’s touch. She snapped them back open. “But it’s...I mean, it’s kinda weird. Aren’t they going to be mad? Jealous? I can see why you would want half a dozen women to fuck.”

“Delilah certainly won’t be, she’s like Lara,” I replied. “Elizabeth...if she is, she probably won’t say anything about it, but I think she’s leaning into being more like Lara, too. Megan’s more like you. Combative and grumpy.” Susan sneered at me and crossed her arms. “See what I mean?”

“You’re a prick sometimes,” she muttered.

“I’m just answering your question. But I think Megan’s getting used to it.”

Susan suddenly gave me a hard look. “Did you intend to take us back to your stable?”

I winced. “I’m not calling them that,” I replied, suddenly uncomfortable. “Look, it’s not like I own these women or anything. We all have consensual relationships. It’s kind of like what I’ve had with the two of you, just...for longer. And if you’re asking me that question directly: yes. I had hoped to talk the two of you into coming back with me.” I looked closely at Susan. “Do you...remember what you asked me, not all that long ago?”

She opened her mouth, then blushed and looked away. “Yes,” she mumbled. “I remember.”

“What’d you ask him?” Lara asked.

She sighed. “I don’t want to say.”

“It doesn’t have to be humiliating, Susan,” I said.

“Well it feels humiliating!” she snapped, her eyes cutting back to me angrily. “I spent so long having to be fucking independent, getting shit from both sides. The second I rely on someone else suddenly the women in my life tell me I’m bringing fucking shame to feminism, or any men I rely on end up assuming they can just do whatever they want to me because I gave them a little leeway. It’s fucking humiliating getting off on being submissive during sex, calling someone like you ‘master’, but God it’s so much worse, so much more humiliating, the idea of being part of a fucking stable-the only reason Lara manages it is because she’s so fucking hot men will do fucking anything for her,” she growled, finally glaring at the floor.

“I think that’s a fair point,” Lara admitted reluctantly after a moment. “I’ve been lucky enough that guys let me do whatever…” She sighed and crossed her arms. Now it was her turn to be uncomfortable again. “I didn’t think this would be the conversation we’d be having today.”

That seemed to calm some of Susan’s frayed nerves. “Sorry,” she muttered, “I didn’t mean to be difficult.”

“You’re not being difficult, you’re being honest, and I want you to always feel like you can do that with me,” Lara replied.

“Can I take a shot at this?” I asked.

Lara shrugged and Susan looked at me a little pointedly. “What?” she asked.

“We talked about some of this earlier,” I said, carefully considering my words. This would be easier if I wasn’t already a little stoned and a little buzzed. “I guess, what I want to say is, you should live your life how you want to live your life. If, and I say this realizing that I’m probably very biased because this works out in my favor, but I mean this genuinely, if how you want to live your life is being submissive to someone, and being in a relationship like that, then you should just fucking do it, and not give a shit how it looks.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” she said, and when I began to respond she held up one finger, “and not just because of your point, that you would benefit from it, but because you’re clearly a very confident person. It’s easy to say ‘be confident’ when you’re already confident as all hell.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. “Yeah, that’s a fair point.”

I wasn’t sure how to move forward, exactly, but Susan did apparently. “You’re right, though. I know I should just...care less. About what people think. About how it looks. I mean, who’s fucking opinion do I even care about anymore? Lara’s...I guess yours.”

“Gee thanks,” I replied.

She laughed. “Shut up, you should be grateful.”

“I am, actually. I like you a lot. Both of you. But what I’m saying is, if being in a submissive poly relationship with me, Lara, and a few other girls, who I’m positive you’ll, if not love, then at least like or get along with, makes you happy, then fucking do it. And again, for the record, no, I’m not exactly out here looking for more girls to add to me...‘stable’. And it’s not even like I’m asking you to commit to anything now, it’s just...you asked me.”

“What did you ask?” Lara asked.

Susan sighed. “I asked...if he’d take us with him, when he left. If he was open to the idea.”

“I said yes,” I replied.

“It’s not like I’m mad, Susan. I’d have asked the same thing before long,” Lara said.

“I know, I just...I don’t know. This is so much to process. I didn’t know I was bisexual, and I didn’t know that I was actually open to being in a relationship where I’m one of several women being submissive to the same guy.”

“Are you?” I asked.

“Well I’m considering it so I must be!” she snapped.

“Okay, again, just...take your time,” Lara said.

“Why are you so calm about all this? I mean I know you’ve been bisexual since forever but...you’d really be cool to playing second fiddle to other girls?”

“That’s not how it is,” Lara said before I could. “It would take time to sort out, but that’s not how a polyamorous relationship like this would work. Or even, you know, a harem. Let’s call it what it is. Is that better than stable?”

“Marginally,” I muttered.

“Why are you so uncomfortable? I thought you’d be thrilled,” Lara asked, not sounding upset but genuinely curious.

I shrugged, now it was my turn to be awkward. “I don’t want to be seen as some asshole who treats women like shit or takes them for granted or uses them like objects. Obviously I love the idea of fucking a lot of women and having them all really like me, I’ve been making it work, mostly, for the past several months with the girls back home, but...I mean I share some of Susan’s feelings. I can see how a lot of people would look at that arrangement and think very poorly of the women involved. I know some people think Delilah and Megan and Elizabeth are all degrading and demeaning themselves by all being in a relationship with me, and some of them think I must somehow be abusing them, even though I’m not and I never would.”

“Chris,” Lara said, putting a hand on my leg, “at the end of the day, what matters is how you and the people in your relationship feel about it.”

“I mean, I agree with you, but it can be hard to practice what you preach,” I replied.

“Fair point,” she said. She looked at Susan. “I have a suggestion, if you’re open to it.”

“I’m open to hearing you out, I always am,” she replied.

“What if...we had sex on this couch. You and I take turns riding Chris? It’d sort of be like a...test threesome. You can see how you feel about it after, and if you want to stop at any point, you can and we won’t be mad,” Lara suggested.

Judging by the look of horniness that came onto Susan’s face, I thought she wouldn’t change her mind at all during.

“Okay,” she said, “I can do that.”

TWENTY

“Remember, we can stop whenever you want,” Lara murmured as Susan took a pull on the pipe.

“I know,” she said, a cloud of smoke coming out of her mouth. “Trust me, I won’t want to. For some reason getting high makes me horny, and I was already pretty horny. You really fucking started a fire, you know that?” she asked, poking a finger to my chest as she set the pipe down.

I took it from her hand before she could. “I’m not sorry,” I replied, took a pull on it, held it, then kissed her and blew the smoke slowly into her mouth. She moaned, kissing me back, inhaling it. I’d gotten to do this a couple of times with women and it was always fucking awesome. We both came away from the kiss with smoke drifting from our mouths.

“Oh my,” she whispered, smiling, blushing intensely. “You make my heart flutter.”

“Good,” I replied, groping one of her breasts through her shirt. I set the pipe aside and began tugging at her shirt. “Get this off.”

“Shit, I think we got him going,” Susan said, letting me take her shirt off.

“Good,” Lara murmured behind me.

She wasn’t wearing anything under the shirt and I kept making out with her as I started groping her firm, high breasts. She seemed to melt into my grasp as we made out. I held her against me and after a moment picked her up and put her on my lap so that she was straddling me. She immediately started grinding against me.

“Fuck, I’m so horny,” she whispered.

“Me too,” Lara said, tossing her shirt aside and then putting her legs in the air as she got out of her panties and threw them as well. She snatched up the pipe and took several puffs. “Mmm, yes,” she whispered.

Both Susan and I stared at her. I had to admit, there was something exotic and intensely alluring about a naked woman toking up. I don’t know what exactly it was, but I liked it a lot. So did Susan, apparently.

“I wanna see you two kiss,” I said, deciding to give Susan just a little push. I normally didn’t like pushing much of anything, because I’d had people do stuff for me before just because they were scared of me, and when I realized that was the case, I felt awful. But I’d gotten better about determining if they were the kind of person who’d do it because they were scared of me, or if they were the kind of person who wanted to do something, but needed an excuse or just a little push to do it for one reason or another.

Susan struck me as that second type.

“Okay...if Lara wants to,” she murmured, still flushed.

“Obviously I want to,” Lara replied. She set the pipe down and got closer, getting up on her knees, facing the two of us. Susan turned a little to face her, and I sat back and watched as the two of them slowly came together. Lara was almost cautious with Susan, letting her lead, and the moment their lips came together it was like a moment of magic. Both of them closed their eyes and leaned into the kiss, deepened it, enjoyed it.

I knew I was watching something special. Not just two attractive women kissing, or even two attractive women kissing for the first time, but a first experience between two best friends who had probably, even subconsciously, been dancing around this issue for years. Lara enjoyed herself in a way that seemed obvious, but I saw a few emotions play across Susan’s face as she first kissed, then began to make out with Lara.

Intense pleasure. Surprise. Reluctance. Anxiety. Then pleasure again. She reached up and cupped Lara’s huge breasts in her hands, beginning to grope them.

“Oh my God!” she cried, breaking the kiss. “These are amazing!”

“Aren’t they?” I murmured.

“Yes! God, I’ve thought about touching them a lot,” she whispered.

“I’ve thought about similar things,” Lara replied, her voice husky as she reached up and began to grope Susan’s own breasts.

They spent awhile groping each other, and eventually seemed to remember me. Lara leaned in and started making out with me, and I eagerly made out with her, getting a hand back around behind her and settling it onto that wonderfully fat ass of hers. She scooted closer, slipping her tongue into my mouth and making out with me intensely for several long, wonderful moments, until she pulled back and passed me to Susan.

“Come on, we’re sharing him today,” she murmured.

“So am I like your fucktoy right now?” I asked.

“More like we’re yours,” Lara replied. “Don’t forget: Susan and I do, in fact, share submission.”

“As annoying it as it is,” Susan muttered.

“Shut up,” I replied, slipping a finger through the ring hanging off her choker and yanking her forward.

“Yes, master,” she whispered, then moaned as I kissed her.

We made out for awhile, and I felt her hands start working my pants. It wasn’t long before she had me out.

“You are so horny,” Lara whispered as she reached out and touched my dick, gently massaging it. “You just got laid.”

“I am quite horny,” I agreed. “You two make me that way.”

“Do you really think I’m that hot?” Susan asked suddenly. “Like for real?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I’m not lying, I’m not stoking your ego, I’m not pitying you. I think you’re actually really hot, Susan.” I lifted her up and Lara took the cue flawlessly, shifting my cock back and lining it up while also using her other hand to pull Susan’s panties aside. I paused, waiting to see if she didn’t want to go here yet, but she just bit her lower lip and gave me a pleading look. I slowly lowered her onto my cock.

I exhaled sharply as she moaned.

She was incredibly wet. I slid right in.

“Holy fucking-ah!” I groaned as I finished lowering her. “That’s...oh, Susan.”

“Chris…” she moaned loudly, leaning against me and wrapping her arms around me. “Oh my God, it’s so...oh, Chris…” she moaned.

I kissed her as I started sliding her up and down my cock. It felt absurdly good, not just from her hot, wet perfection, but from the sudden intimacy of the situation. There was a connection there that had been hinted at since the first time we’d actually had sex, and intense connection, and it was more intense than ever now.

“Susan,” I whispered as we continued making love, her face so close to mine, her forehead resting against my own as she looked directly into my eyes.

“Yes?” she whispered, panting in little shallow breaths.

“I want you to know that you’re safe with me. Okay?” She nodded. “Do you believe me?”

“Yes, I feel safe with you,” she whispered so softly I almost didn’t hear her, but she had said it. I hugged her tightly and she shifted, tucking her face into my neck and hugging me tightly as she started riding my cock more of her own accord.

Lara let us fuck like that for several minutes. The only sound was our pleasured moans and the winds shrieking outside.

We made love for awhile before Susan seemed to come back to herself. She stopped moving suddenly and I stopped moving her. She sat up and looked around. “I guess, um...I should give Lara a turn,” she murmured.

“I would appreciate it,” Lara replied. Her tone was neutral but I could see the hungry horniness in her gaze.

“Then I’ll do that, just don’t hog him forever,” Susan said as she got off me.

Lara rolled her eyes, mounting me. “Yeah, I’m the one who hogs stuff.”

“Shut up!” Susan complained.

Lara began to say something, then moaned loudly as I speared her sweet, sweet pussy and slid right in and oh my fucking God was it so good.

She quickly lost herself in the pleasure as she started riding me, her big hips and thick thighs working, lifting and lowering herself.

“Oh wow, I can suddenly see why you wanted to watch,” Susan murmured as she got out of her panties. “You two look just...so good having sex. Holy shit this is hotter than any porn I’ve ever watched.”

“Isn’t it?” Lara panted, smiling seductively at me as she ran her fingers across my head.

Susan stared at us intently, at some point reaching out and grasping first the bottle of wine and taking a drink directly from it, then the pipe and taking a few tokes off of it, doing all of that without taking her eyes from us.

After a bit, she started complaining. “Okay, come on, I want him again.”

“You’re turning into a horny little slut, you know that?” Lara said as she got off me.

“You’re a horny slut,” Susan muttered petulantly as she mounted me again and started fucking me, her movements more free and a bit more wild this time around.

“You are so immature,” Lara said, rolling her eyes.

“You’re so fucking-”

“Quiet,” I said, smacking Susan’s ass and bouncing her a bit more roughly on my cock. She cried out, then looked down, her face flushing red.

“Yes, master,” she whispered.

“That’s what I thought.”

I started bouncing her more vigorously. I wanted to come inside of both of them, and I was desperate to come inside of Susan right now. We went at it, her bouncing furiously on my cock, until I was pushed over the edge and I used her like the fucktoy she wanted to be used like. She cried out as I pulled her down hard and started unloading into her.

“Oh shit, he’s coming,” she moaned.

“Is it a lot?” Lara asked.

“Yes! Fuck! So much!” she gasped.

“Agh, Susan!” I cried as I drained my cock into her. She took my load, all of it, every last drop, and the pleasure stretched on for a timeless moment, overwhelming me in its intensity. When I was finally done, I let her go. “Okay,” I said, panting, still horny, “go clean yourself up, you little slut.” I gave her ass a pat.

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

I gripped her throat and pulled her back to me as she began to get off of me. “What was that?” I growled, staring into her eyes.

“Y-yes, master. Sorry, master,” she stammered.

“That’s what I thought.”

She got off of me and Lara climbed back on top, taking me into her before I got any softer and hardening me right back up. I groaned loudly as she resumed fucking me.

“You’re so good at that,” she whispered as I gripped her fat ass.

“I’ve had a little practice,” I replied, basking in the bliss of her pussy as she fucked me, trying to get another orgasm out of me.

“It’s that girl Delilah, isn’t it? Is she a redhead?”

“How’d you guess? Did I mention that?” I asked.

“No, I just figured. I bet she’s so pretty.”

“She’s absolutely fucking gorgeous,” I groaned. “And she would die for the opportunity to have a threesome with you.”

“Oh yes, I need to have this happen. Although I think a threesome with another redhead might be in the cards sooner than that,” Lara murmured.

“What redhead?” Susan asked.

Lara stopped suddenly, her eyes going wide. “Uh...just someone else,” she said.

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. Susan sighed. “Lara, I know.”

“Know what?” she asked hesitantly.

“I know about you and Jessica. I know you’ve been having sex with her.”

“You told her?!” she gasped, staring at me in real anger for the first time since we’d met.

“No!” I replied.

“He didn’t tell me. I...followed you one time, before Chris even showed up,” Susan said.

“Susan!” she cried.

“Did I say you could stop?” I asked, making her begin to bounce on my cock again. She cried out and moaned.

“I’m not-this isn’t-oh shit,” she moaned.

“You lied to me, you don’t get to be angry,” Susan said as she finished wiping up the mess I’d made inside of her.

“You-oh!-spied on me!” Lara cried in response.

“You both fucked up, you’re even,” I said, and gave Lara’s ass a smack. “Got it?”

“I’m fine with that if you are, it’s not like I care, Lara. I get it, she’s hot.”

Lara spent a minute moaning quietly, then finally nodded. “Okay, fine.”

“Good girls. Now, Lara...keep going...ah right there…” I groaned, and then I started unloading a second time into her wonderful blissful vagina.

I held her until I’d finished with my second orgasm, then released her and let her go clean herself up. Once she was off me, I stretched out on the couch, and Susan laid down against me, pretty much completely on top of me, laying on me and against the back of the couch, probably leaving room for Lara, although it would be a tight fit.

Apparently, that wasn’t a problem for her, because as soon as she finished up, she came over and laid down on my other half, just barely managing to fit herself atop me and on what was left of the couch.

I found myself buried between two hot, naked, stoned women.

“So, your first real threesome. How was it?” Lara asked as she ran her fingertips across Susan’s bare back.

She murmured and shuddered in response to the attention. “Really good,” she whispered. “Really, really good. I loved it.”

“Good. I’m glad. I loved it, too.”

“Same,” I said dreamily.

They both giggled. “Well obviously you loved it,” Lara murmured.

“You’re actually really sweet, you know that?” Susan said.

“Apparently,” I replied.

“Sorry, I guess that came off like a backhanded compliment. But I don’t know, maybe it’s my own expectations. I guess I expected you to be more smug about the fact that you’ve made me submit to you or you talked me into a threesome, something no one has ever done before.”

“You offered to submit to me,” I replied. “And Lara talked you into the threesome. Really, if anything, we just offered. You agreed. You didn’t need much convincing.”

“Didn’t I?” she asked.

“I think you just need to work through some things,” I replied.

“Don’t we all?” Lara murmured.

“Fucking amen to that,” I said.

“I do, but...oh fuck it for now. I’m drunk, and stoned, and happily fucked now. And it’s a party. Let’s enjoy it,” she said.

“Let’s,” I agreed.

We laid there for a bit longer before Lara got up and began repacking the pipe, and then we were passing it and the wine around, eating stew and relaxing and sharing stories.

The day progressed like that for a wonderful, blissful length of time. I lost hours with Lara and Susan, laughing and talking and often just lazing about and relaxing. The only real work I did that day after the job for Abigail was to tend to the fire.

The storm raged all day long, and in a way, I was happy for it. Now was one of those times that it just felt good to be inside with people I liked, hidden away from the dangerous frozen wasteland the world had become, from the raging storm. We were together and enjoying life, and that had taken on a new meaning, or perhaps a new depth, since the end of the world. Or maybe it was just that way for me. I don’t know.

But I had a really, really good day.

At some point, we ended up moving into Susan’s bedroom and laying out on the bed. We took the opportunity to wash up, which was a slow, pleasant process that eventually turned into washing each other off. I took my time running the soap and the rag over Lara and Susan, wherever they wanted me to, and enjoyed it as they did the same to me.

In the end, the three of us ended up naked and clean and content on Susan’s bed. The sun had gone down by that point, but the blizzard was still going strong.

“So...Susan,” Lara murmured. All of us had pleasant buzzes on by now. Lara had gotten more drunk, and Susan and I had gotten stoned. I felt pretty good and was also definitely horny. We hadn’t been wearing clothes for most of the day and we hadn’t done anything sexual after that initial threesome we’d had.

“Yeah?” Susan asked.

“How would you feel about another threesome? One that’s a little more, uh...full contact?”

Susan was quiet for a few seconds. “I’d like that.”

“Okay. Come here, pretty girl,” she said, and climbed clumsily over me. I groped her ass in passing, and then watched as she got on top of Susan and began passionately making out with her. There was no hesitation or uncertainty this time around. Susan immediately began kissing her back with a deep and intense desire.

I laid there and watched the two women make out for a long while, groping each other, running their hands lovingly across each other. After a little while, Lara began to kiss her way down Susan’s body. Each time she planted her lips delicately somewhere on Susan’s petite frame, she let out a soft gasp. It was wonderful to watch. She paused at her chest and gave each nipple a single lick, and both of those got groans of pleasure out of her.

And then she settled into place between her slim, pale thighs.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Lara asked, looking up at her.

“Yeah,” Susan replied softly, staring at her, a tremble of anticipation running through her every few seconds. “I want to know what it feels like when a girl does it. When...when you do it.”

“It’ll feel good, I can promise that,” Lara said with a confident smirk, then she parted the taut lips of Susan’s pussy and began massaging her clit with her tongue.

Susan pressed her head back into the nearest pillow and let out a loud, long moan of total bliss. It was wonderful to watch, and to hear. For several minutes I just sat there and stared at the two women, two best friends engaging in their first real sexual act. Lara was good, I knew how good she was with her mouth, and that tongue must have felt amazing. She quickly was playing Susan like an instrument, getting several strangled, pleasured sounds from her as she began to twitch, then thrash, clearly struggling to control herself.

“OH FUCK! LARA! OH LARA!” she shrieked, spreading her legs out wide. I ran a hand over her breasts, began groping one of them, then I leaned in and started sucking on the other.

“Oh my-oh it’s so much-too much-” she panted. “Oh my FUCK!”

She started coming within a few seconds. Lara moaned and kept going, pleasuring her through the orgasm, and I kept sucking on her tits, unable to help myself. Susan completely devolved into a wailing, thrashing mess of mindless ecstasy.

It was probably the most intense orgasm of her life.

When she was finished, she gently pushed Lara’s head away, then mine. We pulled back, giving her space. For several moments, she just lay there with her eyes closed, gasping, then panting, slowly getting her breath back.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to eat pussy yet,” were the first words out of her mouth.

Lara laughed as she sat up. “That’s fine, Susan. I don’t mind.”

“I would really like to suck on your tits, though,” she murmured.

“Let’s get under the blankets and do that,” I said.

“Okay,” Lara agreed.

We all shifted around and ended up huddled together beneath Susan’s blankets with Lara between us. I started making out with and fingering her as Susan took her time licking one of her huge breasts.

“I can’t get over how big and perfect they are,” she whispered. Lara moaned as she licked across one of her perfect pink nipples.

“I won the genetic lottery, but I also work at maintaining my figure. Tits were mostly just luck,” she replied between moans. “Oh shit, Chris that’s-oh!”

She cried out as I slipped a finger into her.

“What is it, exactly, Lara?” I replied.

“Master, it’s so good,” she whispered, shivering as Susan began sucking on one of her breasts.

“You’ve been a very good girl and I’m going to reward you. Both of you,” I replied, and I joined Susan in sucking on Lara’s other breast as I fingered her, pressing fast and hard up into her pussy and making her cry out in bliss.

We spent a good several minutes sucking on her huge tits, and I pleasured her until she orgasmed. And then I fucked her.

I had both of the women lie next to each other, then I slid into Lara and began stroking smoothly into that crazy wet pussy.

I listened to her moan and yell and pant as I made love to her. I did her for a solid minute, then switched over to Susan, who moaned as I penetrated her and wrapped her legs around me.

“Fuck me, master,” she moaned. In that moment, it felt like her panting, along with Lara’s heavy breathing, as I screwed Susan in the darkness of her bedroom, was one of the most erotic things I’d ever heard.

Something changed as I fucked Susan, it changed between all three of us.

I couldn’t be sure, but I think that today was the foundation of these two women, these two best friends deciding to become something more, and I thought it was great because clearly it was going to make them both very happy, and there wasn’t enough shit to make people happy nowadays. But I could tell, I could see it in their faces, in the way they looked at me, that I had become baked into the foundation of this new relationship.

For better or for worse, I was involved with this, and what might’ve been a two-way relationship was probably going to become a three-way.

I didn’t think I could extract myself from this situation without a lot of difficulty.

It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to, it was more that I was realizing this. Some part of me thought that maybe I was reading too much into it, but the rest of me was too sure. They wanted me involved, both of them.

Despite my hesitations, despite the knowledge that I had something serious waiting for me back in Pine Lake at the very least in the form of my relationship with Megan, let alone what I had going with Delilah and Elizabeth, I found myself leaning into it.

And leaning into it hard.

Because it felt so good to be wanted like this, to be connected with. Not by one woman, but by two, both of them wanting me involved in their relationship.

For better or for worse, I was in.

I made love to both of them until I had orgasmed into each of them, filling them up and sending the pleasure careening through me twice over.

When they had cleaned themselves up, both of them curled up against me beneath the blankets in the near total darkness. I put an arm around Lara and Susan.

“Chris?” Susan whispered. I could tell she was very close to sleep.

“Yeah?”

“Do you promise to take care of us?”

“Susan, you can’t him ask that,” Lara murmured.

“Please?” she groaned, and she squeezed me beneath the blankets. “Please? I’m so tired of being in charge. I’m tired of it just being the two of us. I love you Lara, but it’s so hard with just the two of us. I’m so scared something bad’s going to happen that we can’t get out of. And I feel...I feel safe with you, Chris. Please?”

“Is that how you feel, Lara?” I asked.

She was silent for a long time. I could sense Susan clinging to awareness, still tense against me, holding me.

“Yes,” Lara admitted. “I want you in my life. I want you to help me and Susan. I want you to protect us.”

“I can’t do everything,” I murmured.

“I know, and I don’t care if there’s other girls. I don’t mind sharing. I just want to stop feeling so scared all the time, and I don’t feel scared with you,” Susan whispered.

I was on the edge of sleep myself, but even in my lethargic state I could tell this was not only a big deal, but a significant commitment. This wasn’t exactly how I had envisioned it when I’d thought about how to ask them to come back to Pine Lake with me, but wasn’t it what I wanted? Ultimately, I already knew my answer.

“I’ll take care of you,” I replied, hugging both of them closer to me.

“Do you promise?” Susan pressed.

“I promise. I’ll take care of both of you.” I kissed each of them once, and then I felt them both relax against me.

That was how we fell asleep, and in a way that seemed to go beyond words, I knew that I’d made the right decision.

TWENTY-ONE

“So how hot is she, anyway?” Susan asked.

“You’re not jealous again, are you?” I replied.

“No!”

I waited as we walked through the snow. It was January 2nd of the year 2039 now, and we were walking to the farmstead. After sleeping in following our very, very gratifying night of sex and weed and booze and good stew, we’d kind of just relaxed all day. Lara had a mild hangover and none of us wanted to do anything at all. And so we hadn’t, beyond the basic chores and making meals. But I knew it couldn’t last.

We’d used up a lot of food making meals for the past few days. We had some leftovers, and a semi-decent store built up thanks to my all-day hunting session earlier, but we’d used more than I felt comfortable with. I’d waffled this morning about whether or not to get that other job for Abigail out of the way, and finally decided to at least go see her and see if she was ready to tell me what it was. When I’d mentioned that, Susan insisted she be allowed to go along.

I didn’t really see any reason to refuse, so here we were.

Susan had been acting a little weird yesterday and this morning. I was deeply grateful that she hadn’t outright flipped out the next morning on one or both of us. I thought it was unlikely, but not impossible. People could react to huge changes in weird ways. And learning you were bisexual and deciding to enter into a three-way relationship with your best friend was a huge change. But she was taking it well.

Mostly, she’d been happy, blissful even, but I could sense some unease beneath it.

“Are you sure you’re doing okay?” I asked when it became obvious she wasn’t going to keep that particular conversation going.

Susan sighed. “I’m...figuring some things out. It’s weird, this seems so easy for Lara. I guess she’s been waiting for this to happen for years, so it makes sense, but I’m fucking blindsided by this. This is all a surprise to me.”

“You seriously never picked up on the fact that Lara was into you?” I asked as we started making our way up the hill in front of the farmhouse.

“No! I just...didn’t think she thought of me in that way.”

“And how are you handling the transition?”

She pursed her lips. “I mean, well, I guess. Fuck, I don’t know. I’ve always been kinda into girls, but I didn’t think it was serious. Or...I mean, is it? Shit, even now, I’m not sure if I’m into other girls beyond Lara. Maybe I am? Am I bisexual or am I only into Lara? Is that bisexual? Even just being into one woman and also men? And then there’s the fact that apparently I’ve agreed to enter into a three-way relationship with you. I just met you last week.” She reached out and grabbed my hand suddenly, stopping me as we crested the hill. “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. I’m just kind of freaking out a little bit. This is a lot.”

“It’s okay, Susan,” I replied. “You can take your time with this. And, I mean, I get it. Not the bisexual part, but the caught up in a whirlwind romance part. I know what it’s like to meet someone and very quickly start to care for them deeply. It’s honestly how I feel about Megan and it’s...how I feel about the two of you. Honestly, I’m a little scared.”

“Why?”

“Because the women in my life waiting for me back home told me, each in their own way, that they didn’t care if I fucked chicks while I was out here, or even if I brought back a new fuck friend or two, but a serious relationship? With not one but two women? I mean, at least you two know you’ll be sharing me, but...I don’t know. I’m worried Megan will be mad.”

“You said she’s like me,” Susan replied after a moment. “If that’s true, then...she’ll understand. Plus, well, I get the impression you’re a busy man. Lara and I really like you, and I know we’ve asked you to take care of us, but...we are quite capable. It’s not like we need all of your time...just some of it. And we have each other, when you aren’t around.”

“I know you’re capable,” I said, and kissed her forehead, because I felt a burst of affection for her whenever she looked vulnerable. “And you’re right, we’ll figure it out. Later. For now, let’s go see what Abigail wants.”

Susan seemed to relax briefly as we approached the farmhouse, then tensed up again as the front door opened up and Abigail and Hank appeared. But I could at least appreciate that this tension had nothing to do with what was happening back at home and everything to do with meeting new people. I gave her hand a little reassuring squeeze.

“Don’t worry, they’re fine,” I murmured.

“And if they aren’t?” she asked softly.

“Then I’ll protect you.”

That seemed to be enough for her, because she relaxed a little bit.

“Abigail. Hank. This is Susan. My...housemate,” I said as we got close enough.

“I see,” Abigail replied with a small smirk. Hank looked...disappointed. Abigail had probably already relayed my sentiments about sharing to him.

Then again, if Susan really wanted to, I guess I couldn’t stop her.

“Good to meet you,” Susan replied awkwardly.

“You too. Hank and I have been discussing exactly how much to fill you in on our plans. At this point...well, we trust you enough to ask for more help. If you come inside we can explain better,” Abigail said.

“All right,” I replied, and we followed them in.

We came to their kitchen, which had an island in the center that was clear of everything but a piece of paper. I recognized the drawings on it as a map, and some of it overlapped what I had seen and added to my own so far. I studied it for a moment and determined that the only new area was the northeastern section, up near the abandoned train I’d seen.

“You mind if I copy this?” I asked.

“No, you’ll want to,” Abigail replied. “Love?” she asked, looking at her husband.

Hank cleared his throat. “Abigail and I are planning on leaving the area. We have a vehicle we’ve been repairing.” He paused. “I used to be an engineer in the Army.” Huh. So that explained the impressions I’d been getting of him. “We’re very close, and I think the last piece we need is...nearby, but in a difficult position. I could get it, but Abigail is reluctant to have me do something risky if we can avoid it and to be honest, I am getting a little old for this shit.”

“Fair enough. What shit are we talking about, exactly?” I replied.

He pointed to the northeastern most point on the map. “Abigail and I came through this area when we first came into the region. There’s a cliff face there, and I just managed to catch sight of a drone recharging station up there. I don’t know if you know about them.”

“You mean the drones the government used to drop all the seeds?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes, exactly. They set up little solar recharging stations all over the place. Most of them are broken by now, either by weather or time or passing hands. However, I figure there’s a good chance that that station has what I need. It’s basically a metal pole about six feet high with four docking ports attached to the top, they look a little like flower petals. About halfway down the length of the pole should be a black box about ten inches tall by six wide by three deep. I need that box. If you bring me that box, and any drones that might be around, then...well, I suppose Abigail has worked out some kind of deal with you.”

“I have,” she murmured with that confident smirk of hers as she eyed me.

“You’ll need this.” He passed me a small plastic case with a clear top that held a screwdriver and a set of interchangeable heads. “One of those will get the box off.”

“So that’s the job? All of it?” I asked.

“That’s the job,” he confirmed. He pointed to the map. “The route you’ll want to take is relatively simple. You’ll head north. There’s a tunnel just to the east of the train that should be visible from the lake. Go through it. There’s some campgrounds on the other side. The campgrounds are to the south. I didn’t see much of anything there but we weren’t exactly thorough in our investigations, so you might want to check it out. The cliff face is to the north. There’s a climbing rope already attached, or there should be. If it’s not there anymore...I’m not sure what you’ll do. You’ll have to find another way up. But it looked sturdy the last time we were up there. That was awhile ago, admittedly. The drone station is right near the edge of the cliff.”

“All right,” I said as I quickly sketched the new information onto my map. “We’ll get it done. If it’s still there, you’ll have your box and any drones I can find.”

“Thank you. We appreciate this,” Hank said.

“Glad we can help,” I replied.

After making sure we knew the way there, they walked us out of the house and wished us luck. Susan and I struck off from the farmstead, heading north.

“You’ve got an answer to your question now,” I said after several minutes.

“What question?” she replied.

“How hot Abigail is.”

“Oh. Yeah. She’s pretty.” I thought her tone was a little dismissive.

“You just humoring me or you jealous?” I asked.

“I’m...I don’t know, I guess she doesn’t do much for me. I mean she seems nice, smart, I could even see fierce.”

“Oh, she’s fierce,” I replied.

“But not really for me.”

“Her husband was giving you the look,” I said after a moment.

“What look?”

“You know what look.”

“Oh...I guess he was. Hmm.” She gave a little shrug.

“Not interested?”

“No. He’s...I don’t want to be a bitch, he’s too old for me. And to be honest, I’m not sure I really want to be involved with any other men.” She smirked and gave me a little shove, or tried to, anyway. Our size difference made it hard for the gesture to be anything but symbolic. “That works out pretty well for you, huh?”

“I mean yeah, it does,” I replied. “I’m a hypocrite, but I don’t share.”

“Well, I think luckily for you, you’re enough for a lot of women. Clearly you’re enough for Lara and whoever else you have waiting for you back home.”

“I hope so,” I murmured. I was still wondering about how, exactly, I was going to juggle all these women that were now involved in my life and if I actually was enough for them all.

“I think you are,” Susan said more firmly. “I don’t trust easily...and I trust you.”

I wanted to mention that maybe she’d just trusted me out of a sense of desperation, or loneliness, but I didn’t. She wanted to make me feel better, so I let her. Or maybe I just wanted to feel better. Well, I thought as we walked on, why shouldn’t I? Things were going well. Although I had now found myself in the middle of a new three-way relationship between two attractive women, it wasn’t as though the stakes were particularly high. Dozens of people weren’t depending on me, there weren’t the sick and the dying everywhere, starvation right around the corner.

I’d had my fill of that during the early, ugly days of getting Pine Lake back on its feet.

Susan and I made our way north until we came to the abandoned train. It wasn’t very large, just the engine and two boxcars that were long since empty. We took a moment to poke around, but didn’t find anything worth mentioning.

When we finished, we started heading for the tunnel built into the more hilly section of this region. Judging by the views I’d gotten of this area, that tunnel seemed to be the only easy way to get access to the area beyond it. The land around it was steep and looked difficult to navigate. Part of me didn’t want to go into the tunnel, and that only grew as we drew closer to it, but the rest of me surmised that it made the most sense. Going any other direction would either take a lot of time or risk a bad fall, or worse.

I’d already had one bad fall and gotten off easy.

I didn’t want to push my luck any further than that.

We walked along the tracks, keeping an eye out for rogue wildlife, until we reached the edge of the darkened tunnel. It didn’t look particularly long, I could see sunlight at the other end. If I had to judge, I’d guess it was about two hundred feet long. But the sunlight didn’t reach all the way through. There was a noticeable section of immense darkness in there.

“This sucks,” Susan muttered.

“We gotta do it, unless you want to go home,” I replied.

“No I don’t want to fucking go home, I’m not a fucking-”

“Susan,” I said, looking at her. She looked up at me, her expression hard. “You know I’m not calling you a coward. I wasn’t making fun of you.”

She stared at me for a moment longer, then looked away. “Sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m fine. I don’t want to go home, I just don’t like the prospect of going through a dark tunnel. But I will.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We set off. After a moment, I let out a little laugh.

“What?” she asked.

“I just can’t decide if you and Megan are going to be worst enemies or best friends. You’re both so...combative. Aggressive.”

“Tell me about them,” she said suddenly. “More than you have already.”

I thought she could use a distraction and I thought maybe I could too. I didn’t get a sense that there was anything in the tunnel with us, it was just a matter of actually making the journey, so I indulged her.

“Delilah was the first I met. She’s young, twenty two, a bit petite but like Lara she’s rather...gifted, in the chest area. She’s extremely sexual and confident in that department. She’s kind and sweet. She’s in a relationship with a close friend of hers who I helped reunite. Megan’s taller, more...assertive, half-Mexican. She’s an excellent shot and pretty fierce. She’s...had a rough life. Elizabeth was on the run from her husband when we found her, and seven months pregnant. She, uh, took a real shine to me after I helped her out.”

“What happened with the husband?” Susan asked.

“We had to kill him.”

“Sucks,” she muttered.

“Yeah. Sometimes that’s how it is, though. I think-” I paused as I caught a strong whiff of rotting meat.

“Oh yuck,” Susan muttered, stopping. “What the hell is that?”

“Hold on,” I replied, paranoia gripping me suddenly. Something dead was around, obviously, and where there were dead things there was a decent chance there were also alive things that had made them dead. I got out my lantern and turned it on. We were roughly at the halfway point of the tunnel. The light revealed a frozen, ripped-open corpse to our left.

“Shit!” Susan snapped, jumping back. “Goddamnit! That scared the shit out of me!”

“It’s all right,” I murmured, studying the body. I had no idea who he was, but something had really torn into him. His right arm was missing and the rest of him was chewed up pretty bad. Wolves? No, maybe a bear. But wouldn’t a bear bring him back to its den? I didn’t know enough about bears one way or the other to be sure.

“Can we go?!” Susan whispered.

“Yeah,” I said after I determined that he was too frozen solid and also too ripped up to do any kind of proper search. Poor guy. “Yeah, come on. Keep your eyes open.”

I was suddenly a lot less sure about this whole thing.

TWENTY-TWO

We made it to the other side of the tunnel without running into anything dangerous.

As we slowly emerged back out into the sunlight, I surveyed the area. To our right was a slope in the landscape that immediately began dipping a few feet from the tracks. It leveled out twenty feet down and let onto a large, sprawling campground among a scattering of trees. From where we stood, we had a good view of about a square mile of space, all of it at the end of a gravel road that disappeared behind a thicket of trees. I could see about a dozen campsites spread out, over half of them no more than barren plots of land.

But some still had stuff in them.

“We should check this place out,” Susan said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re already up here…”

I glanced back in the other direction, to our left, and saw the cliff wall Hank had mentioned. There was, indeed, a rope. From this distance, it did look fairly secure, but I’d need to get closer to actually be sure. I looked up. Yep, there was the drone station. I could just barely see the top of it peeking over the edge of the cliff.

Well, that could wait.

Susan and I carefully made our way down the hill and to the nearest campground. I figured we could check the two with the most potential. One had the remains of one of those big room-sized square tents, and the other had a car parked in it.

We approached the one with the car first.

“Tell me more about Pine Lake,” she said. “Lara and I are apparently moving there, so I figure I should know more about it.”

“Apparently?” I asked.

“I guess there’s still part of me that feels like this is all up in the air, that you’re going to change your mind about us…”

“Susan,” I said, reaching out and laying a hand on her shoulder. She stopped but didn’t look at me. “Whatever happens, I at the very least will take you there. You want to go, right?” She nodded her head. “Then I’ll get you and Lara there. As long as you’re willing to work, there’ll be a place for you, I know that much. And don’t worry, I like you plenty.”

“I like you too,” she murmured. She abruptly turned around, stood on her toes, and gave me a kiss on the mouth. Then started walking forward again.

I followed. “Well, like I mentioned,” I continued, figuring this was as good as it was going to get in terms of her moving on from her bout of insecurity, “most of it was burned down. Around a dozen buildings remained, with a handful of others scattered around the region. When I left, we’d gotten a fairly sustainable system going again. Hunting, gathering, growing. They had begun repairing some of the nearest buildings and we’d been making decent progress, tearing down the more damaged ones for resources to repair the less damaged ones.”

“I take it you’re important there?” Susan asked.

I sighed. “Yeah.”

“You don’t sound happy about that.”

“It’s something I’ve been trying to downplay. After the whole thing with the gang, people thought I was, uh, pretty great. I kind of liked it for a little while, but during the last few weeks all I felt was the weight of responsibility.”

“So do you like being in charge or not?” she asked.

We reached the car and began searching it over. “Yes and no. Obviously there’s a lot of good, powerful feelings tied up in not only being in charge of people but being effective. Of people asking you to do something and you actually being able to do it. And on the other hand, it gets nerve-wracking. People rely on you for more and more. Eventually I’ll fuck something up and get someone killed if I’m not careful.”

“I can appreciate that. If I’ve learned anything during this whole ordeal, it’s that you can’t save everyone. Not all the time.”

She fell silent after that and so did I. It wasn’t something I was comfortable talking about. I’d become a bit more isolated during the last weeks. Either spending a lot of time in my home with the ladies of my life, or out in the woods, usually hunting with just Megan, sometimes with Lisa. Those were nice nights. We’d hunt all day and often shack up in an abandoned cabin or one of the watchtowers if we were near enough to them and have sex and fall asleep. Those days felt like how I used to feel when I really just had to watch out for myself and whatever woman I was currently taking to bed.

But it wasn’t the same. There was that tension there, underlying everything. Not just the tension of my encroaching overwhelming desire of wanderlust, but of the responsibility of what people expected from me at Pine Lake. I definitely did not envy Lisa her position, but I could tell she took to it better than I did.

Sometimes I thought she resented me. She was the one in charge, but I was the one people came to more often than not.

I wondered if she was glad or mad that I’d been gone so long.

There wasn’t anything worthwhile in the car. Nothing among the floorboards or the trunk, no hidden compartment anywhere, nothing in the wheel-wells. Even the engine had been picked over, which I imagine Hank had done. I wondered what kind of vehicle they had. I also appreciated the trust that they apparently put in me by telling me they even had a vehicle. That kind of thing made you a target.

We moved on towards the campsite with the tent. As we approached it, I hesitated as I caught a whiff of that scent of death again.

“Okay, once is something, twice is worrying,” I muttered.

“Yeah…” Susan agreed quietly, looking around.

I still didn’t see anything, but we became more cautious in our search. As we came around to another side of the tent, I saw that one whole wall had been shredded open and inside was a mess. An ugly mess. Two people had been mauled and chewed on. Their blood was everywhere, even their stomachs had been ripped open, guts spilled out.

“God,” Susan whispered, turning away.

“Yeah, that’s pretty bad,” I muttered. “Stay here.”

“I...okay, just hurry,” she replied.

I did a quick perimeter check of the clearing, looking into the trees and the other campsites that were visible to see if I could catch sight of anything at all. Clearly there was some kind of wild, if not outright rabid animal lurking around this area, and if at all possible, I’d like to shoot and kill it before it had a chance to hunt us. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the best position. I had the rifle and all four shells left, and Susan had my nine millimeter. We’d left their single pistol back with Lara, in case she needed to defend herself.

But I didn’t see a damn thing. No wolves, no bears, nothing else that might’ve been lurking out here among the Nebraskan wilderness.

I rejoined Susan. “Come on, we should hurry.”

“Did you see anything?” she asked, glancing briefly over her shoulder as we started walking back towards the train tracks.

“No. That’s what worries me,” I replied.

I tried to get a sense for whether or not we were being stalked, but I got nothing as we got back to the hill and made our way up it. It was slightly tough going, thanks to the snow, and I kept expecting something furry to burst out of the trees and come at us all teeth and claws. But again, we managed to get up to our destination without hearing or seeing anything. Now that we had the vantage point, I again took the opportunity to carefully check the area. I tried to spy any movement at all, even a little, or something that seemed to stick out among the clearings and trees and snow. You’d think it’d be easy, but then animals were excellent hunters by nature.

Maybe we were being paranoid. Maybe whatever it was had moved on since making those kills and we had nothing to worry about.

But I hadn’t made it this far assuming the best.

After a few minutes of seeing absolutely nothing, I finally relented and led Susan over to the rope that hung down the cliff sheer. It was roughly a thirty foot climb.

“Who goes?” I muttered.

Susan sighed. “I’m not exactly known for my upper body strength.”

“That’s what I figured. I’ve got the strength to do it, but you’re way lighter than me. The rope looks to be in decent shape, but...it might not be.” I considered it for just a moment before deciding that there was no way around it. “Okay, I’m going to do it. Personally, if I had more confidence in the rope, I’d ask you to give it a shot and be down here to catch you just in case, but I think we can only risk one go around and if that’s the case, then it should be me.”

“That makes sense to me,” Susan replied. I was surprised she didn’t argue with me, but by the way she was nervously eyeing the rope and the cliff, I figured that she might have a fear of heights. I didn’t blame her.

“I want you to stay here and keep watch. If any animals show up, shoot it. Don’t focus on me, all right?” I asked.

“All right,” she replied.

“Give me a kiss for luck.”

She smiled and gave me a long kiss with a wonderful amount of tongue. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

I walked over to the rope, gripped it, gave it a tug. It seemed solid. Okay. Time to do this. I stretched for a moment or two, then gripped it and started the climb. I’d climbed before. I doubted I’d be able to really teach anyone anything beyond the obvious basics of ‘take hold of the rope and walk up the side of the cliff while pulling yourself up’. It worked, at least. For the next several moments, there was only the sound of the wind and my own breathing, getting heavier as I hauled my heavy fucking ass up the side of the cliff.

The rope seemed to twitch a few times in my grasp in a way that made my heart start pounding that much harder. I kept expecting to hear an awful snap and then suddenly be plummeting earthwards, but finally the top of the cliff came into view, and then into grasp, and then I brought myself back up onto solid ground.

“Made it!” I called for Susan’s sake after getting my breath back a bit. “Anything?!”

“Nothing!” she called back. “Hurry up! I want to go home!”

“On it!”

I got to my feet and looked around. I had come to a relatively clear patch of land butting up against more trees and a few boulders. There didn’t seem to be anything of any real interest beyond the drone station, and, mindful of the situation at hand, I marched right over to it. Right away, I saw two things that made me happy.

The box and a drone still docked on one of the petal recharging stations. As I pulled out the screwdriver, found the appropriate head and began the process of unscrewing the box from the pole, I found myself thinking of the drones. And the government. I knew I’d missed a lot of what had happened during the actual apocalypse, when civilization was burning and starving and tearing itself apart. The town I’d been in had been relatively isolated, and news became scarce after awhile. It seemed like, for a bit there, there was always another scheme the government or the military or the corporations were cooking up.

Something to reverse the situation.

Obviously, it never worked. The only one that seemed to do any good was the seed-planting initiative. How many initiatives had they tried? Were they still trying? It hadn’t been that long since the snowfall began and society collapsed. Just a few years. Although at this point, it almost felt like a lifetime. It was bizarre to think that I had been living my other life less than three years ago. It felt like three decades by now, and I hadn’t even been alive for three decades. There! The last screw came out and the box fell into my hand as I knocked it loose.

I slipped it into my backpack and then took a moment to pry the drone off its perch. It wasn’t very big. They’d gotten them down to pretty small sizes, this one six inches wide at the most. It fit into my pack with the metal box well enough, though it took up all the space I’d left in there. I made sure everything was secure, then snagged my rifle and walked over to the edge of the cliff. Carefully, I started to scan the area once more, because now I had as good a view as I was going to get. A few cold minutes went past.

“What are you doing!?” Susan called up, startling me.

“Looking for danger!” I called back. “I got it! And a drone! Be down in a minute!”

“Hurry up!”

I sighed but smiled. I got the distinct impression that Susan, as assertive as she had gotten used to being, also enjoyed prodding me. To be honest, it fit with our relationship so far. I think she wanted me a little testy, a little pissed off and irritated when I took her to bed. It meant I’d be that much more likely to be rougher with her.

I wondered how much that little five foot nothing slut could take.

She’d surprised me so far. I’d have to go a little deeper and harder with her next time. I hated to admit it, but choking her had been a massive turn on.

I sighed softly as I concluded that I couldn’t see a damn thing hanging out around there. It looked like we were probably in the clear. And hey, I’d gotten the stuff! I mounted the climbing rope and started making my way back down.

Now, I could go back, collect Abigail and maybe some ammunition, and then have a fucking awesome threesome with a hot married cougar and Lara.

That was gonna be so fucking good-

The rope suddenly jerked in my hand in a manner suggesting it was no longer structurally sound. “Oh fuck,” I said and began hurrying. I was only halfway down.

“Oh fuck what?” Susan asked up at me.

“I might fall!” I snapped, feeling the rope jerking again in my grasp.

“Chris!”

The rope snapped. I didn’t know how far I was from the ground but I aim my feet down and hoped for the best.

Almost no time passed between my fall and my collision with the ground. Pain shot up my legs as I landed with a heavy grunt and fell on my ass. It made my whole body hurt, from the new pains to the old ones, but mostly what I felt was relief.

I’d damn near made it when the rope snapped.

I started laughing as Susan appeared over me, looking worried.

“What the fuck are you laughing about?!” she snapped.

“I made it! Fuck, I made it down and we got the shit!” I replied.

She lost her worried anger then and laughed with me. “Yeah, we did. Come on, let’s go home. I’m fucking freezing.”

“Yeah, we can go home.”

I got up and dusted myself off, and as we started heading back for the tunnel, I resisted the urge to check on the box and the drone. I didn’t think either had been hurt in the fall, I hadn’t landed directly on them and even so they looked like they were made pretty tough, but even if something had happened to them, well, there was nothing I could do about it. Either they were what Hank and Abigail needed or they weren’t.

As we reached the mouth of the tunnel, I stopped and took one last look around the campgrounds. We’d have to come back up here later and do a more thorough-

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“What?” Susan asked, hearing the fear in my voice.

Across the way, maybe seventy or so yards away in one of the clearings, I caught sight of a goddamned mountain lion.

I heard Susan gasp as she saw it.

“Chris-”

“Run, now,” I said.

TWENTY-THREE

It spoke to how afraid she was that Susan didn’t argue with me.

She just took off into the tunnel. I made a split-second decision, the kind you look back on and aren’t sure if you made it for logical reasons or emotional ones. I ran after her. I could have grabbed my rifle and tried for a shot, but I only had four shells, and I didn’t trust my hands to be as steady after that climb and that fall, small though it was.

And the thing hadn’t seen us yet, or at least that had been my impression when I’d taken off.

We ran down the dark tunnel, the only sounds now our heavy breathing and footfalls. Susan sounded on the verge of panicking. She was actually keeping ahead of me even though I had longer legs. I just told myself we’d make it out of the tunnel and then a ways from it and we’d probably be safe. The thing probably hadn’t-

I heard something behind me, or thought I did.

Either way, I looked back over my shoulder.

My heart stopped.

It was at the back of the tunnel, its silhouette obvious against the sun. It was coming in. The damned thing was coming after us.

How had it gotten over to the tunnel entrance so quickly!?

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was clearly coming after us.

“Faster!” I snapped.

“It’s in here?!” she cried.

“Yes! Faster!”

We ran for all we were worth, and we made it about three quarters of the way before Susan let out a cry as she tripped on something and went sprawling.

“Up!” I snapped, deciding to take the opportunity to shoot it. I snagged my rifle, brought it out, and turned back around in one quick motion. It was hard to make out the thing now, but I could tell it was a lot closer, maybe fifty feet behind us. Fuck. I aimed and fired, hoping that at the very least I could scare it off.

I didn’t hit it, I knew that, as I heard the shell ricochet off something hard, but the vague shape of the mountain lion did skid to a halt and hesitate. Susan was back on her feet and running already. I started after her, hoping that the animal would give up.

No such luck.

We hit the other side of the tunnel and I knew we were going to have to fight. I could hear its heavy tread and breathing as it came for us.

“Susan! Get your gun out! We have to shoot it!” I said, praying that she wouldn’t panic.

I heard her panting and moaning in wretched fear, but she was still nearby. I backed up until I was about twenty feet past the tunnel’s entrance.

“Back up!” I snapped, seeing she had the pistol out. “Get ready to shoot the fuck out of it, okay? I’ll draw it in.”

“Chris…” she groaned.

“Just do it!” I snapped.

She shifted to the right so fast she nearly tripped. I took aim with the rifle and fired almost immediately because the damned mountain lion was emerging from the tunnel now, coming into the daylight, and it was coming for me. I hit it, grazed it, but that only seemed to enrage it further. The huge cat snarled and broke into an outright dead sprint. It was like a train bearing down on me. I fired again, leaving me with just one shell, and missed.

Then I was forced to throw myself to my left, barely avoiding the thing as it leaped at me, launching itself. I just barely felt one massive paw and those claws graze against my back as it swiped and only just missed me.

I heard Susan shouting and firing and prayed she didn’t hit me on accident.

I stumbled and spun around. The mountain lion roared in pain.

It was coming for me again. It swiped at me with one huge paw, roaring, and I just narrowly managed to stumble backwards and avoid getting my fucking face ripped off. Behind it, Susan was lining up another shot.

She squeezed the trigger.

The mountain lion leaped at me once more.

Its expression changed and then went slack as it crashed into me and sent me staggering, then falling onto my side. Another explosion of pain hit me and I expected the creature to be on me, ripping my guts out or taking a bite out of me, but nothing was happening.

“Chris? Are you okay?” Susan asked, her voice trembling.

“I’m okay,” I replied shakily, getting a good view of the creature.

It laid on its side, immobile, by my feet. I got up in jerky movements, adrenaline still surging through my system, and kicked it.

Nothing happened.

Leaning closer, I saw a bullet hole in the back of its head.

“Holy shit, Susan, that was a good shot,” I said. She didn’t respond. I looked over at her. She was staring at me and the lion with wide eyes, still holding the pistol with both hands, aimed disconcertingly close to me. “Susan,” I said. “Susan!”

She burst into tears and lowered the gun.

I jogged over to her, gently took the gun from her, holstered it, and then hugged her to me. She cried against me for a long moment.

She was surprisingly quick to get herself back under control, though. She stopped crying and pulled back from me. She pulled a rag out of her pocket, cleaned herself as best she could, and blew her nose, then looked up at me as she put it away. “I saved your life,” she said.

I laughed. Loudly. I couldn’t help it. After what had just happened and with all the shaky tension still screaming through my body, it was the last thing I expected to hear from her.

“You saved my life, Susan,” I agreed. “Thank you.”

She smiled, sniffed once, then looked at the mountain lion. “We gotta carry it back now, don’t we?”

“No. I have to,” I replied. I started walking towards it.

~

“Holy shit!”

Those were the words that greeted us as Abigail and Hank opened the door and stepped out. I groaned as I tossed the mountain lion down off my shoulders and onto the snow in front of their porch, then took a moment to stretch.

“Are you okay?” Hank asked.

“Fine,” I managed. “No worse for the wear. I got the stuff you wanted.”

“Wow, I’m...impressed, honestly. What exactly happened?” he replied.

“Got to the campgrounds, found some mauled corpses, decided to get the job over with. I climbed up, grabbed the box, and a drone by the way, there was one still there, climbed back down and the rope snapped on me. Though it was a minor fall. That’s when we noticed this fucker,” I said, nudging the corpse with my boot. “We ran but he chased. We fought. Got off lucky. Susan managed to put a bullet in his brain. It was a pretty close call.”

“Well...good work,” Hank replied.

They invited us in and I passed off the box and the drone.

Hank accepted them both gratefully, and his screwdriver toolkit. “Is there anything…” His gaze flicked briefly to his wife, “uh, else, you want? I think you earned it, to be honest.”

“Can you spare some nine millimeters?” I replied.

“Yes, some,” he said.

They ended up giving us enough to top back off my twenty-round magazine. We talked a little bit more about the journey I’d made and their vehicle, (it turned out to be a souped-up snowmobile), but Abigail seemed to sense that both Susan and I, for different reasons, were eager to get a move on. So she gathered a few things and gave her husband a quick goodbye. Hank thanked me again, and I again felt awkward, taking his wife away to screw her, and he knew it, but at the moment I was in pain and horny and I just wanted home.

So the three of us struck off after I picked back up the lion.

~

“What the hell is-is that a fucking mountain lion!?” Lara cried as I walked in after Susan, Abigail coming in behind me.

“Yep. And this is a cougar,” I replied, stepping to the side.

Lara stood in the hallway, and a look of pleasant surprise overtook the look of shock that was already there.

“Hello,” she said, sliding quite smoothly into her seductive side as she caught sight of Abigail.

“Hi. You are-wow, you are a fucking stunner,” Abigail replied. “I’ve only seen you from a distance, but...good lord you are beautiful!” she marveled.

“Thank you. So are you,” Lara replied, beaming.

“Why don’t the two of you go start washing up in the bedroom, I need to put this thing downstairs,” I suggested.

“Can I, uh, watch?” Susan asked.

“I’m okay with it,” Abigail said after a few seconds.

I left them for the moment and walked downstairs. Every other thought was already on the way out as I hurried to put the mountain lion away. The sexual tension had been building between Abigail and I ever since we’d started walking back from the farmhouse. And as I put the lion away to be gutted and skinned later and hurried back upstairs, everything remaining fell away. All my pain from my falls and my tangles with the local wildlife. My concerns over the fact that we now had dwindling reserves of ammunition. My anxieties over returning to Pine Lake.

By the time I got into Susan’s bedroom and found Lara and Abigail in the process of stripping down, all I was thinking about was sex.

“Chris, how much can I trust them?” Abigail asked as I shut the door and began taking my own clothing off.

“As much as you can trust me,” I replied, unsure of where she was going with this.

“Hmm.” Abigail scrutinized Lara and Susan for a moment. “Okay. Girls, can I trust you to keep a secret?”

“Yeah,” Lara replied.

“I mean...what is it?” Susan asked uncertainly.

“There’s an almost zero percent chance it’ll come up, but I like to cover my bases. In the event that it does come up...don’t let the fact that I let Chris go raw leave this room. Can I please ask you to do that?” she asked.

“Don’t worry, won’t say a word,” Lara replied easily.

“Yeah, okay. I won’t say anything, though I doubt I’d be in a position to anyway,” Susan replied.

“Like I said, covering my bases. Excellent, let’s get this underway.”

The three of us took our clothes off and quickly washed up with soap and warm water and rags and towels Lara had already set out. It was clear that she’d been not just expecting this, but hoping for it when Susan and I had set out this morning. My eyes roved over their naked bodies as they cleaned themselves off. Fuck, they both looked so good. This was going to be a pretty perfect reward, given what I’d gone through to get them what they wanted. As soon as we were ready, the three of us climbed onto the bed.

Susan took a seat where Lara had not that long ago to watch us fuck. Despite some reservations, a quick glance at her face told me she was aroused and interested. I started kissing across Abigail’s chest as she began making out with Lara. She seemed positively in love with Lara and I didn’t blame her at all. I licked across her breasts while I began to run a finger slowly in between the lips of her mature pussy.

She let out a loud moan as I simultaneously began sucking on one of her tits and rubbing her clit. Lara joined me with her own hand, slipping a finger into her pussy and doubling the pleasure. Abigail outright cried out as we both worked her pussy.

“Oh shit, it’s been forever since I’ve been in a threesome,” she moaned, panting already. “And never with two people who were so hot. You two are like porn stars.”

“Lara definitely is,” I murmured and started kissing Abigail. Lara took up sucking on her tits and looking fantastic doing it as we both kept working her pussy.

We made her orgasm within another minute.

She moaned, crying out, her back arching, hips bucking as she came. When she was finished, she put a hand on my chest. “Okay, your turn.”

I happily let both her and Lara get down around my midsection and start licking my cock. They looked like sex angels, or demons, shit I didn’t care at this point. They dragged their tongues lovingly over my dick and Lara began to slowly massaging my balls in her hot, soft hand. I groaned, laying a hand on each of them.

Abigail got it into her mouth first, bobbing her head with a practiced ease, making excellent use of her tongue and lips. She sucked me off for a good bout of time, then passed me over to Lara, who did the same. Both of them kept at it for several long minutes, almost as if in subtle competition with one another.

Somehow, I managed not to come.

“Will you eat me?” Abigail asked.

“Yeah, if you’ll return the favor,” Lara replied.

Abigail flashed her a lusty grin. “Definitely.”

We got repositioned. Lara got onto her hands and knees, burying her face in Abigail’s crotch, and I got behind her and slipped easily into Lara’s wet pussy. All three of us groaned as the sex began in earnest. I grabbed her big hips and rammed her from the back, the sound of our skin slapping together loud as I hit it raw and hard. Abigail cried out, running her fingers through Lara’s chestnut brown hair, legs spread out and actually stuck up in the air as her eyes became glazed over in pure sexual bliss. She screamed and moaned as Lara’s magical tongue went to work.

I lost myself in that sex for awhile. I know that at some point Lara began to orgasm, and judging from the pitches and quality of Abigail’s screams, she enjoyed a minimum of two climaxes courtesy of Lara’s excellent oral skills.

When I’d had enough of Lara (for the moment, I got the feeling I could fuck her for decades and never get enough of that sweet pussy), I had them switch places.

“How bad do you want this pussy?” Abigail asked as she took Lara’s place on her hands and knees, wiggling her fat ass and glistening pussy at me.

“Let me show you,” I replied as I got up against her, and then I speared her, slipping my whole length into her.

She let out an almost startled cry of pleasure as I started fucking her good and hard.

“Oh fuck! Oh yes! Tear it up! Just like you...like you said…” she panted. “Fuck!”

It took her a moment to actually get her act together enough to start returning the oral favor, but she did. I watched her bury her face in Lara’s crotch and eat her out. Lara let out her own string of loud, pleasured moans, and fuck me was it such an erotic sight.

I pounded the fuck out of Abigail, enjoying every second of that sweet married vagina, but much as I wanted to, I didn’t finish in her. She’d been reluctant last time and I didn’t want to push my luck. So I fucked her until Lara had an orgasm and then I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled out and gave her ass a hard smack.

“I need Lara,” I panted.

She seemed to understand exactly what was going on and got out of the way. I all but dove onto Lara, who still had her legs spread wide, her bald pussy glistening and ready for fucking, and I sank my whole length back into her.

“OH FUCK YES MASTER FUCK ME!” she shrieked as I began humping her, stroking rapidly, forcefully into that sweet pussy.

I didn’t last long.

The orgasm seemed to last ages.

When I was finished, I laid there, still inside of her, both of us gasping for breath, staring at each other. Looking into Lara’s blue eyes, I saw something intense there. Something more than lust and desire...and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

“You two sure you just met last week?” Abigail asked uncertainly, almost as if reading my mind. “Because you both fuck like husband and wife.”

“Chris and I just...connect,” Lara said with a dreamy smile, still staring into my eyes.

“Yeah,” I managed, and kissed her, then pulled out of her. “Thanks for the sex,” I said as I got up and sat beside Abigail.

“Thanks for the help, you earned it,” she replied with a sly smirk. “Enjoy the show?” she asked Susan, who was still staring at the three of us, blushing intensely.

“Yeah,” she replied after a moment. She cleared her throat. “I did.”

“I think she wants a ride now,” Lara murmured. “You up for that, Chris?”

“I’m always up for it,” I replied. I pointed at Susan, then turned my hand over and curled my finger, beckoning her. “Come here, Susan.”

She started breathing a little more heavily. “Yes, master,” she murmured, and hopped up onto her feet.

I grinned as I pulled her onto the bed and the other two made room.

EPILOGUE

“Lion’s done!” I called as I came back upstairs carrying the last of the meat I’d carved up.

“What’s it taste like?” Lara called from elsewhere in the house.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” I replied as I headed down the hall, passed through the living room, where she was lounging on the couch, and headed into the kitchen where Susan was in the process of making lunch.

Abigail and Hank were probably gone by now, though I hoped they’d reached somewhere safe. I glanced out the window. The snowstorm was in full swing.

After watching Susan and I fuck, Abigail had said her goodbyes to us and told us that her and her husband would probably be leaving that day. She also told us that we could have anything they left behind in the farmhouse. After that, I opted to take another day off. The fall had been pretty minor, but it and the scuffle with the lion seemed to have upset all the other injuries I’d accumulated over the course of my stay in this region so far.

I was curious to get up there and check the farmhouse out, but the snowstorm that had kicked up within the past hour had discouraged any exploration for today.

We’d slept in late today and when I’d finally gotten up and tended to the chores, I’d taken the opportunity to carve up the mountain lion.

I was still pondering exactly what I wanted to do next as I put the meat away in the freezer, but I knew it would depend heavily on when the snowstorm broke and if it looked like it was going to kick up again.

Once the meat was secure, I walked up behind Susan and hugged her from the back. She leaned against me and let out a happy sound.

“I’ve always wanted this,” she murmured.

“What?” I asked.

“A boyfriend to come and hug me from the back while I was doing something in the kitchen. I don’t know why, but I always wanted specifically this. It feels...good.”

“Is that what I am? Your boyfriend?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said firmly, “keep teasing me and something bad’s gonna happen.”

“I could say the same thing to you.”

“I haven’t been teasing you!”

“Bullshit,” I replied. I let my hand come up and trace slowly across her throat. She gasped and stiffened. “You’ve been teasing me all day, you little whore.”

“...maybe I’ve been bad,” she whispered.

“I think you have, Susan.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Mock anger turned to genuine anger and fear as a sudden pounding came from the back door. I heard Lara let out a little shout of surprise.

“Who’s that?” Susan hissed as I let go of her.

“I don’t know, stay here,” I replied, hurrying off, making my way back through the living room. “Lara, get in the kitchen!” I snapped.

She got up wordlessly and did as instructed. I rushed back through the house, racing down the hallway and coming into my bedroom where I snatched up the nine millimeter. Who in the fuck would be coming here in the middle of a goddamned blizzard?!

The pounding hadn’t stopped by the time I approached the door, gun in hand. If anything, it had grown more insistent.

“Who is it!?” I snapped.

I was greeted by a familiar voice. “Chris, it’s Jessica! I need your help!”

A WARM PLACE 5 IS COMING IN MAY 2021!

If you’re reading this, then thank

you for finishing my story!

If you would be willing to leave a review,

I would deeply appreciate it!

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Four stories. Four universes. One hundred thousand words of filthy fucking.

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ABOUT ME

I tend to write stories that blend adventure and sex, usually with a harem or polyamorous twist. I separate myself from most other authors in this genre by rejecting typical ‘alpha male’ type protagonists, and creating more realistic protagonists. I tend to emphasize things like trust, respect, vulnerability, and communication.

This is my WEBSITE, (www.mistyvixen.com). Here, you can find free content, a monthly newsletter, alternate versions of my cover art where the ladies are naked, and more!

This is my TWITTER, (www.twitter.com/Misty_Vixen). I’ll post updates and pictures of hot, naked alien, monster, or otherwise inhuman ladies I find on the internet. Also, I respond to pretty much everyone, so feel free to say something!

This is my PATREON, (www.patreon.com/MistyVixen). Here, you can get early access to the first two chapters of my in-progress works, and early access to alternate versions of my cover art where the ladies are naked! They will be released to my website after one month.

Finally, if you want to talk to me directly, you can send me an e-mail at my address:

mistyvixen@outlook.com

Thanks for reading!

A WARM PLACE 4. Copyright © by Misty Vixen.

Kindle Edition. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entire coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.