ExplicitNovels

Israel Jenkins and the Last Real Man on Earth.

Based on ‘One In Ten’ by FinalStand, adapted into 17 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.

Your

mind is your arsenal, fortress, and armory. Your words are potential

weapons you give to your enemies to assault the citadel of your soul.

In

a final act of feminine superiority, Dimples had destroyed Western

Civilization. She had to share credit with the T2 virus for the rest of

the global catastrophe and I was sure she was okay with that. For me, it

was the start of my flight to freedom. I could do no more damage there.

That wasn't really important because at this stage of the disaster,

Capri had been willing to use her stun gun on me and drag my ass to the

elevators if I hadn't cooperated.

"Ladies,

I have to run. Take care and be good to one another. I wish you all the

best of luck," I signed off. "The Final Word for today is

'Resilience.’" The presidential staff cut her connection. Maribel nodded

good-bye and returned to her job. She was telling the audience that GNN

would start running continuous updates on plague outbreaks and work

toward a cure.

What

else could she say? No one chased Capri and me to the elevators. No one

on this floor was jumping ship. In a sad reversal of fate, they were

the ones realizing there was nowhere for them to run while I had finally

found a way out. Special Agents Fraklos and Vabishi met us at the

elevator. They must have made it up seconds ago.

"Time

to go, Israel," Fraklos gave me a weary half-smile. "We are going to

try and bluff our way out the back. For some reason there are over a

thousand young ladies gathered out front."

"What?" I gasped.

"Less impressive sex, Bitch," Capri muttered. Her phone rang. She saw the number and groaned.

"Hi, Mom," Capri plastered on a happy face.

"Honey, did you overnight that shipment?" Mom got straight to the point.

"Oh,

I tried Mom, but he fountained so much into me that I gagged. I ran to

the bathroom, threw up and accidently hit the sensor, it all got flushed

down the drain, all three loads," Capri sniffled.

"You What!" her mother snapped.

"I

know Mom, I've let you down again. I know I'm a failure, but I promise

to try harder. I can go down on Israel right now," she turned the phone

my way for a second. "I'll suck him off before the elevator makes it to

the ground floor and, I don't know, spit it into my purse and send that

to you," Capri pleaded.

"Ah, I'll call you back," Capri's Mom stammered and the connection went dead.

"Whore,"

Capri griped. Her phone rang again. "Damn it," Capri growled. "This is

new," her tone changed when a video of an ambulance appeared. It took

Capri a second to figure out who the driver was.

"We need to get here," Capri showed the screen to Fraklos and Vabishi.

"That's

straight through the mob," Vabishi looked at her dubiously. "We won't

make it." I was paralyzed by the thought of me in a sea of female bodies

tightly packed together. I had done this. Since Monday, I had done all

this to myself.

I

was an emotional masochist. I hurled my fractured psyche at the very

things that I knew would tear me up inside and chisel away at what

little mental reserves I had left.

Angel.

Angel's

eyes, her smell and the way her lips parted slightly before she spoke.

How her eyebrows came close together before she unleashed her anger at

me, often deserved.

The

way my heart felt when I cried while she held me, the absence of my

shame and her lack of condemnation, or pity. She wouldn't always like

me. She did love me. I couldn't give up my faith in that belief. Not

now.

"Angel is with Roni," I spoke up. "We are going to the ambulance."

"Israel, I'm not sure we can get you there," Fraklos observed.

"That's

okay, you are not coming," I grinned at her. "Capri and I have a better

chance on our own and quite frankly, if I don't go for Angel, she'll

come for me. I might as well make it easy on her for once in our

relationship."

"Israel,” Vabishi started to try and talk some sense into me.

"Give

it up," Capri sighed. "He loves her. He's going. I'm following along

because I have jack-all for job opportunities now." Capri really liked

me, or maybe she was remembering her promise to kill me once we survived

all this chaos. I preferred to think she liked me.

"We'll

run interference with the police and reservists while you two make a

break for it," Fraklos shrugged. "It hasn't been a pleasure in the

slightest and thank you for making my life long dreams and ambitions

totally irrelevant, Israel Jensen."

"Stick with Dimples. She'll see you through," was my only advice.

The

elevator doors opened and a half dozen female faces were looking our

way. Barring strict protocol or routine, if someone acts like they know

what they are doing, people tend to accept that they know what they are

doing. That was the scenario Fraklos and Vabishi were playing out. The

Metropolitan Police and the Army Reservists had orders concerning me.

To

the police, "this was a Federation matter.” To the Army, "the President

had just been arrested for treason so they had to go back up their

chain of command to figure out if they had valid orders or not.” They

were FBI, they were elite FBI. Could they be mistaken? Could they be

helping a male fugitive from responsibility make his escape through a

mob of girls?

That

was crazy talk. Besides, I didn't look like a man about to make his bid

for freedom. I looked almost catatonic. That was because I was nearly

catatonic from fear. Less we forget, I was gang-raped by a bunch of

girls close to the age and social make-up of the ladies outside, right

down to them being interested in me because of the sexual favors I had

willingly given to another.

I

had no internal hero to call upon. I never viewed myself as heroic. I

was a victim and an exceptionally unfortunate one at that. There was no

shard of my psyche that could do this.

'You

are free to do whatever you want', bunny hop with a smile, 'you were

that man before you came here', holding hands, 'thank you.’

I

had not given up the will to live for 87 days. I had exited that

sorority to graduate at the top of my class. I walked into a sea of

policewomen to save the life of a boy I had never seen and would, most

likely, never know. I was not a coward. I was a survivor and a good man,

a good human being.

I

was a survivor. Survivors were rarely respected. I wasn't a hero, but I

could pretend to be one for as long as it took to make it into Angel's

arms. They only tore heroes apart after the fact. We walked out into the

light downpour. Capri opened my umbrella. I didn't need it. I needed to

be seen and I was. They called out my name and pushed forward against

the line of patrolwomen.

The

reservists had an answer for that. Those hexagonal devices I had

noticed coming in were sonic crowd suppression devices. They ruined your

equilibrium and made you vomit. From both ends, the women at the

controls began working over the mob of young women. Two ranks beyond the

cops, women began going down in droves.

The

soldier closest to us operating the device was suddenly showered with

shrapnel. She received a few painful lacerations to her upper arms, but

was okay. She was still trying to figure out what had happened to cause

the near-total destruction of her weapon when the device on the other

end of the column shut down.

The

rotator assembly had exploded, fortunately sending slivers of composite

away from the woman operating that weapon. That soldier was going 'what

the fuck,' when the first one figured it out.

"Sniper!"

she shouted over her com-net and ducked down into her vehicle. The

reservist sergeant in charge of this detail didn't panic.

She

starting figuring out what kind of casualties she was looking at, none,

and where the fire was coming from. The first sonic technician was

doing those physics herself. It took her a few seconds to work the

trajectories and she didn't like what she came up with. She should be

dead, as should her comrade controlling the other device.

That sniper hadn't missed. She'd hit exactly what she was aiming at without killing any of the soldiers involved.

"Sergeant,

rounds coming from the south, down Marlowe Avenue. She must have at

least five meters of elevation, if not more," she said. That was only a

few acres of real estate.

Right

about then, the fifteen seconds those sonic devices effected someone

after they had been subjected to the attack wore off. The policewomen

had easily held back the closest two ranks of girls the devices had not

affected. Now those girls behind those two ranks were getting back on

their feet, covered in their own vomit. Those girls were very, very

angry. They surged forward.

The

policewoman in charge gave the order to use tasers while calling all

units to rush to the scene. Patrol cars had been coming this way since

the growing number of girls was detected. They had been moving in

cautiously so as to not incite an incident. It was a slow escalation of

force. Now they turned on their sirens and came running.

More

cops would have come running if not for another calamity a few

kilometers away. Keverich mobsters had attacked and killed the Mayor and

most of her entourage. That was what the reports were saying anyway.

Beyond that, the police were still rounding up and detaining thousands

of men. They were stretched thin.

The

police went to tasers, a few girls went down, and then one girl

countered with wasp spray. In many ways, it is worse than pepper spray.

For starters, it has a longer range. This girl dowsed the cop who just

tasered her friend. This woman closed her eyes and got an arm somewhat

in the way, she was partially incapacitated.

The

girl then turned the stream on the cop to the left with the same

results. The patrolwoman on the right had her eyes wide open when the

spray hit her face and went down screaming. The police cordon collapsed.

This was not the Arena. The ladies wanted their plight to be

recognized, or their support of me to be known.

There

was anger, not bloodlust. The blinded policewoman was picked up by a

group of girls, carried forward to one of the light transport vehicles

and told to stay put. Cops were taken down fighting. A few tasers were

stolen, no firearms. They wanted GNN to come out and record their voices

and witness their defiance.

The

reservists were putting a second, smaller, line together when I

shouldered past them from behind and ran into the press of girls. Even

those who weren't here to support me recognized me. Capri and I were

quickly engulfed. I could feel the last sands of my resolve falling

through the hourglass. I had to hold on just a little more.

I scanned the group of girls closest to me, seeking the lead lioness.

"I

have to get to that ambulance," I shouted my appeal. She seemed worried

and confused. "My girlfriend is there," I explained. There was that

tinge of jealousy. There was also that spark of romance, a modern day

'Tale of Two Cities.’

This

lead lioness began shoving other girls, getting their attention and

forming a protective knot around me. My words came back to haunt me.

"We

have to save one life, just one life, His!" she pointed at me. "Come on

ladies, let's go." This group of total strangers forced a path against

the tide, working toward the rear of the mob.

I

never let go of Capri's hand. I couldn't have made it this far without

her and I wouldn't have been worthy of continuing on if I let her go. An

eternity later, the pressure eased and we emerged on the far side of

the mass of humanity to see Roni and Angel outside the ambulance,

waiting for me.

Angel took two steps toward me, I took a few steps toward her, I was losing the ability to count.

"She seems awful old," the lead lioness remarked boldly. I doubted Angel cared.

"Love is timeless," I turned and told my unknown saviors. "Thank you."

"Come

on, Ladies," that girl laughed. "Let's go get them," and she led that

dozen young ladies back to their chance to be famous.

"Come

on, gang," Roni shouted over the noise. The reservists were using their

middle vehicle's grenade launcher to bounce tear gas grenades off the

surrounding buildings thus disrupting the crowd. "Capri, you and Israel

get in the back," Roni helped me along. I saw Angel get in the driver's

seat.

We

were hustled into the rear of the ambulance, Roni shut the doors and

ran back to the front passenger side. The vehicle rolled away, only

accelerating when we were clear of the chaos. For a second, I thought of

Doyle Crane. I wondered if he was finally living the life he'd always

wanted, upholding the long tradition of investigative journalism and

unrelenting social commentary.

"You

did it, Israel. You made a difference," Capri comforted me. "I think a

vacation is in order." Mouth agaip, I stared at her then I started

laughing. It was my crippling hysteria; it was a deep vibrant echo of a

former life. "What's so funny?" Capri studied me.

"I

haven't had a vacation since I was ten and my Mom and I spent a few

days at a rustic little bed and breakfast in upper Minnesota," I

enlightened her.

"After

that, it was all summer camps, therapy, college and finally here," I

shook my head. "I've never had 'nothing' to do since 'that night',"

referring to the night the Aurora Slasher took me.

"Nothing?" Capri chuckled. "Can you take a sexual joke?"

"I'll do my best," I sighed.

"When

you get tired of sitting around 'doing nothing'," she 'quoted' with her

fingers, "I think there will be a few women around who can help you

with that." I wanted to joke back with Capri. She was fun. Those mental

reserves? Those last grains were slipping past. I couldn't muster the

strength to do anything more than keep my eyes open and my mind

receptive.

Angel

drove the ambulance to an abandoned, pre-Plague warehouse west of the

city. We switched to a passenger van that Angel had liberated from

Police Impound. As the women were transferring the medical equipment

from the ambulance to our new ride, I overheard their quiet discussion.

Someone

had to retrieve Venus and Samantha. Roni had contacted Samantha and

those two were going to the Farmer's Market and wait to be picked up.

They were coming to the conclusion, with Capri's urging, that Capri take

Angel's personal vehicle. Roni was a paramedic with a skill set our

group desperately required. I needed Angel to be there when I mentally

returned to the world.

Capri

joked that she was a lawyer; a profession that was about to be rendered

useless. I wanted to say something except their logic was unassailable.

Capri was right, Roni and Angel were correct in agreeing with her and I

couldn't volunteer myself. I was in no shape to make the drive even if

the other three would let me go. I knew they wouldn't.

I

wasn't going to make a false declaration when I knew the outcome and

the sacrifices being made on my behalf. Venus had rubbed everyone the

wrong way at least once. Samantha, Samantha was the Quiet One. She

didn't stand out, sparkle, or shine. She was steady and unspectacular.

They were also part of us and the tribe had decided to not leave anyone

behind.

Capri

left in the car, going south. Angel, Roni and I headed west for a few

more kilometers. We came across a home off the beaten path, decent

acreage, mostly wood covered with the dwelling not clearly visible from

the road. As we turned down the gravel driveway we saw a sign;

'Trespassers will be', with white tape over the bottom word(s) and the

addendum 'use your imagination' finishing the warning.

The

house was a sprawling one-story affair that didn't look fabricated. It

looked woman-made, except that woman had an incomplete knowledge of

architecture and home construction. Angel pulled around to the side of

the house. It appeared we had been told to park there.

"Where are we?" I murmured.

"Kuiko and Aniqua's co-worker's home," Angel informed me. "I understand he's disreputable, if not downright criminal."

"We figure people won't know to look for you here," Roni added. We piled out of the van, gathered, then approached the door.

There

were two hand-made, woodcarvings on either side of the main, side door.

One was 'Jethro McFarlane' and the other was 'If the cunt ain't fresh, I

ain't interested.’ Kuiko's information came flooding back. Still, who

said shit like that? Angel drew her sidearm, put it behind her back and

knocked on the door. Aniqua answered fifteen seconds later.

"Hey,"

she smiled with some relief, "you made it. Where is Capri?" My mind was

rattling along as best it could. Aniqua didn't know about Capri because

they were keeping their phone chatter to a minimum, that made sense.

"Israel, Israel?" Aniqua repeated.

"Huh?" I managed.

"Why don't you come in and take a nap?" she offered. "Get a bite to eat maybe?"

"Going

down the home stretch," I muttered while trying to sound upbeat. That

was it for me. My mind informed me I was out of gas by shutting down. My

demons would always exact their toll and I was all out of the 'soul'

currency they craved.

(The End of the Day)

I

woke up in a strange bed with no recollection of how I got there. It

stank. I was putting definitions to what smelled as I raised my head and

looked around. Whoever lived in this place liked to kill animals, as

witnessed by the stuffed animals and animal head wall ornaments, and had

an all-consuming aversion to housework in any of its forms. There were

clothes on the floor, every piece of furniture was stacked up with

something.

On

the wall the bed was pushed up against were animal horns of various

kinds of creatures and every prong had a pair of women's panties

dangling from them. I could almost touch them. When I moved I realized

the ceiling above the bed was covered with a huge circular mirror. This

made sense because the bed was circular too. Where the fuck was I?

I

almost missed the eyes at the 'foot' of the bed. They were big brown

eyes, slender eyebrows, a smallish nose bridge and bangs over the top

quarter of the light brown or yellowish forehead with the rest of the

hair pulled back.

"Hey, Kuiko," I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.

The entirety of her head popped up.

"Hello Israel, are you feeling okay?" she asked compassionately.

"So-so, I guess," I shrugged. I had pushed myself up on my elbows. "How long have you been there?"

"About twenty minutes," she grinned. "I had to wait until everyone else was pre-occupied."

"Did everyone get here okay?" I maneuvered up to waist level.

"Yeah.

Capri came in with Venus and Samantha a few hours ago. They brought

most of your clothes," she related. "Jethro's bimbos made it too. They

have some stupid names, Paisley and Lavender." I reached out and

gingerly tapped the walls of my mental collage.

"Is

Mistress Sano displeased?" I teased her. Kuiko rose higher. I imagined

she was on her knees. She was also really happy. I was playing a game

with her which suggested I was recovering from this morning's psychic

marathon. She shook her head. "I'd really like a hug if it isn't too

much trouble, Kuiko Sano."

Her

teeth shined white-bright. Kuiko crawled up the bed. I thought she was

trying to be non-threatening, so she slithered up the bed to be level

with my lap. She placed the side of her head to my stomach and slowly,

tenderly hugged me.

"Can I ask a favor?" she whispered.

"I'll do my best," I offered.

"Please

stop trying to hurt yourself so often. Make an effort to avoid danger

instead of running straight at it," she murmured into my shirt. "Not

only for me, but for all of us who care about you."

"I'll work harder at it, I promise," I stroked her hair. "And Kuiko,”

"Yes," she replied quietly.

"I love you, too," I said loud and clear so there was no doubt. Kuiko jolted. Slowly she looked up at me.

"I wasn't sure you heard that," she whispered. "I hoped,”

"I hope you don't mind that I love two other women besides you," I met her gaze.

"Of

course not, Silly," a tear rolled down her cheek. "I'm totally and

completely fine with it. How you deal with Zara and Angel is another

matter."

"Hey, how did you know I love Zara?" I wondered.

"I'm

not good at many things, but I'm good at welding and at seeing love and

she's got it bad for you and you've got it bad for her. It's obvious,"

she grinned once more.

"You forgot one thing," I regarded her. She seemed confused. "You are good at the sexy."

Kuiko studied me then gained this wicked cast to her lips I hadn't seen before.

"Mistress

Sano is very good at the sexy and she is very displeased," Kuiko

play-scolded me. She sleekly mounted me on all fours. She repositioned

herself so that her pubic area was on my crotch, which was very awake,

and waggled her finger at me.

"Bad,

bad Israel," she chastised me, "not giving your lady-friends enough of

the sexy. I will have to punish you most severely." Punishment came in

the form of her rubbing her vulva over my cock with

ever increasing speed. "You are too happy," she noted. It was the

truth. Kuiko made my spirit rise and my soul sing. She banished all the

evil from my life, if only for a little while.

"I

clearly must apply more punishment," Kuiko looked devilish. She

dismounted me then remounted in reverse cowgirl. She looked over her

shoulder victoriously. "It seems my tight little ass must torment,

tease, and tantalize you as well." Someone had been looking at a

thesaurus.

A

few gyrations into this newfound peril, the door opened and a tall,

over-stacked young lady with long black hair, short-shorts and a white

t-shirt in danger of spilling its load, walked in.

"Oh, sorry," she babbled. "I came in for my,”

"That's

okay," Kuiko squealed. "I'm riding my boyfriend to multiple orgasms!"

At some future date Kuiko is going to understand how far her voice

carries. At that moment, Roni was in a far bedroom, crashed out. Angel

was asleep on the sofa in the living room where Venus and Capri were

glued to the social media, taking the pulse of the city.

Samantha

and Lavender were attempting to teach Aniqua something about cooking in

the kitchen in the back of this ramshackle abode. Jethro was in the

backyard dealing with his still. According to Capri, Angel went from

quietly asleep to racing toward my room in one second flat. It took

everyone else a few more seconds to figure out what Kuiko's proclamation

meant.

Paisley

went stumbling into the room as Angel shouldered past her. Kuiko

vaulted off of me and squeaked when she tumbled off the corner of the

bed, wedging herself between the curve of the bed and the wall, legs

sticking up. Angel had on her 'cop' bra on with a shoulder holster for

her pistol. Thankfully her look was one of concern, not anger.

"Israel, how do you feel?" Angel questioned.

"Hey,” Paisley groused.

"Whatever, Pansy," Angel didn't even look at the girl.

"It's Paisley," she insisted.

"Shut up before I pistol-whip you," Angel muttered. Paisley wisely opted to back away from Angel and deeper into the room.

"I'm

feeling better, Love," I tried to reassure Angel. "Kuiko was teasing me

for putting all of you through the ringer the past two days." Angel

sighed and looked down.

"I,” Angel searched for the words.

"You can punish him if you want to," Kuiko mumbled from her stuck position. "A little help here."

"Can we spend some time together?" Angel clarified her desires.

"I'm looking for my Henna kit," Paisley stated.

"I'd love it if you would spend some time with me, Angel," I felt so desirous of her.

"Help," Kuiko repeated. There were too many conversations going on.

"I'm coming, Kuiko," I told my little lover. I locked wrists with her then pulled her back on the bed. "Here you go."

"What's

a Henna kit look like?" Angel turned to Paisley. Kuiko snuck a quick

kiss on my lips then joined the hunt for the ornate wooden Henna

tattooing kit. With a bit of Angel's detective work, they traced the kit

to the last place it had been used which led, in turn, to boxes and

boxes of condoms. I barely knew what they were. Kuiko was at a total

loss.

Both

Paisley and Angel knew what they were. Angel had a friend or ex-friend

who was in Sex Crimes. I didn't know enough about Paisley to hazard a

guess about what she knew.

"Go,"

Angel pushed the Henna case into Paisley's midriff. Kuiko didn't need

to be told. By this time I was on my knees looking at Angel.

I

sensed that tiny bit of progress I was making. Angel was all wrong in

so many ways yet I wanted her. I wanted her embrace, her comfort and her

scent permeating me.

"I

need to vent," Angel requested as she shed her pants and crawled onto

the bed. I was totally clothed. I didn't think sex was in the offing but

I liked the view, I honestly liked it.

"I

deserve it," I said piteously. I really didn't want to get bitched out

though I earned it. She crawled on all fours to me until her breath was

strong in my face and our noses almost touching.

"I'm very angry with you," she glared.

"I apologize. I was confused and selfish," I confessed.

"Good,

I'm glad we got that out of the way," Angel said then kissed me and

kept on kissing me as she pushed me over and pressed herself down on my

body. Fear clutched my heart. My heart reminded me that I could say

'stop' and Angel would stop. I loved her and she loved me. I had to feed

that emotion.

Feverishly desperate kisses evolved into hungry French kisses with occasional brief hesitations to gather our breath.

"You still wearing clothes," Angel panted. I didn't feel that forcing any levity would be appropriate.

"You are on top of me," I moaned.

"You

get top, I'll get bottom," Angel directed. My belt went 'bye-bye', my

zipper down and my pants were yanked off. The underwear followed suit.

She let me keep my socks. I managed to get my shirt off quick enough so

that I was able to roughly remove her bra.

Angel

gave me a feral look as I tossed her grey sports bra away. She took

care of her panties. Now we both only had socks on. I was contemplating

being playful when Angel pushed me down by my shoulders and got on top.

Foreplay consisted of her maneuvering my cock into her cunt before she slammed down on my pelvis hard.

Angel's

head rolled back as I filled her up. She took several deep breaths

before she gazed down at my prone form. Oh God, she was crying.

"Israel,

you make me so angry," she choked back a sob. "I'm so crazy about you.

Everything in my life has fallen away and I so terrified of losing you

too."

"I swear I'm going to do a better job of listening to you, Angel. I really need to work on our relationship," I said.

"That's sweet," Angel grunted then kissed me, "but I also want you to promise to fuck me every night before we go to sleep and first thing every morning when we wake up."

"I

want you," kiss, kiss, "for more than sex," she panted, kiss. "I want

to make sure that you to know I really, truly want sex too."

"Request noted," I grunted back. "Can I start playing with you now?"

"Go,

right ahead," she grinned. I leveraged myself up with my right arm so I

could snare her breast with my left hand and suckle from her teat.

My

mind whirled with fear and worry. I felt so guilty that I ran away from

the good things. At that moment, that was all washed away by the

burning thought that I deserved to be happy, even if briefly. I didn't

know if the survivor in me believed that when it embraced the idea. The

instinct was to grab at anything that pulled me back from the precipice

of mental disintegration.

I

came to the epiphany as Angel writhed above me, seized in a torturous

climax, that survivors were not nice people. They were not bad either.

They cut away every bit of their mind and body that didn't keep them

going because to keep going was all they had. If they could do that to

themselves, they could do that to anyone, decide friendships were

expendable.

In

the same way I had found my world to be expendable. I knew it wasn't me

and me alone. That was unimaginable hubris. I'd still abandoned ship

instead of trying to save more, somehow. In the same vein, I had agreed

to go with the Vanishers. In the same vein, I had surrounded myself with

these companions.

It

wasn't that I didn't have love and affection for these women. I did,

yet that nice teenage boy those therapists had tried to resurrect and

Bethany had shattered was gone forever. His shade remained, but his

voice in the cacophony of instincts of my head had been nearly silenced.

I could be Kuiko's best friend and Angel's lover yet that chiseled core

I had talked to Flame about was at the center of my being; this Monster

I had to live with.

I

sat up until our bodies were perpendicular to the bed, her breasts

pressing against the base of my shoulders. Angel held the sides of my

jaws as we delved into a lengthy and vigorous kiss. When we finally

broke it off I caught sight of the audience at the door. The gang I

could deal with. The two newcomers were almost too much.

"My gun is on the bed," Angel whispered. "If they are going to be a problem, I could shoot them for you."

"You

are the only one in the room," I answered. She liked that. Her vagina

clamped down as she swiveled her hip, rocked back and forth.

"I'm going to make sure I am the only one you see," Angel smiled.

"Honey, I don't even know where we are," I grinned back.

"Good

boy," she purred then kissed me again. I withheld the fact that I

really didn't know where I was. I'd been telling the truth.

Stress, interrupted sleep and mental turmoil combined in a cauldron of sexual frustration. Angel orgasmed for a second time, my cock ached,

but my sperm continued to not provide any release. I couldn't

ejaculate. I had to roll over on top of Angel so we could keep

copulating.

"This," she panted, "better not be, Venus' fault," Angel pried.

"Besides, I thought Aniqua, would be next," she added.

"It

is not a rotation system," I clarified. "Asking Venus felt right for

the moment. It isn't like earning a prize. It is more like courtship," I

tossed out there. "As long as everyone understands that I have to have

an hour-long sex session with Kuiko whenever I have sex with anyone

else, we should be okay."

"Yippee!" came the shout at the door followed by some pummeling.

Angel wrapped her legs around the top of my thighs, clinching me tight.

"I

think you are forgetting who your Number One Girl is," Angel gave me

the sexiest smile I'd ever witnessed. No verbal comeback came to mind so

I responded with the pulse of my body. Angel let her legs open and fall

to the side, still folded at the knees.

Her

arms unwrapped from my shoulders, coming to rest over her head. I could

barely contain the image of the beauty that presented itself beneath me

at that moment. Angel's eyes were closed in a casual fashion, no effort

to shut them tightly. She was reveling in the touch and sound of our

coupling, removing all extraneous input.

I

started planting random kisses on her biceps, underarm and shoulder

joint. At the same time I started making slower and longer penetrations

into Angel's vagina. My glans rubbing against her labia at the top of

each stroke was tearing Angel up. She would take a deep intake of breath

every time I did it.

"This sex is not my apology," I told her softly.

"I

know," she murmured, eyes shut but with a blissful turn to her lips.

"You are not like that. You show me you love me when you wake up in the

morning and the first thing you do is give me that precious, sleepy

smile. I want you to know that means so much to me."

"It

took me three long years to get that far," I kept relishing her

sensuality. "Truth be told, you did more with me in one week than I did

for myself in those three years."

"I

was right to put my faith in you," Angel rubbed her clit against my

pelvic bone to increase her pleasure even as she spoke. I couldn't help

myself.

"When

my Mother died, I went to live with my Aunt in a Sapphic nunnery where I

was taught the arts of how to pleasure a woman. I became so skilled

they named me Israel, which means the Promised Land," I teased her.

"Ah, 'Temple of Pleasure', I thought the male leads name was 'Canaan'," she purred.

"You mean there really is a book like that?" I groaned. "I thought Capri was making that up."

"No,

no," Angel absorbed the sensitive stimulation from our carnal acts, "it

is real alright. The strict, yet lonely Mother Superior, the anxious

and curious neophyte, the Amazon Princess and even a male-eating tribe

of cannibal women, who apparently will devour Canaan if he can't

pleasure every one of them."

"I can relate to his anxiety," I grunted. Angel inserted a giggle within her panting.

"Oh,

he has boyish good looks, a cock that is 10 inches long and 4 inches

thick, and testicles the size of juicy plums," she informed me

playfully. Oh God, those dimensions scared me and I'm a guy. "Don't

worry," she teased. "I'm very happy with the equipment I have."

Her

equipment? I pumped her a few times quickly as a test. Angel sucked in a

tight breath, arched up against me and moaned heatedly. Yes, it was

still my equipment. Gloating over that point, I almost missed Angel

giving off these little huffing noises. She was close to climax.

"Are you my Amazon Princess?" I quietly taunted her.

"Oh

God! Oh God, she likes to do it like a beast," Angel gasped while

looking terribly excited, shower, fourth time that Saturday. I rapidly

wrestled the stunned Angel's leg up, over and around, pulled up on her

hips until she was on her elbows and knees and plunged into her steamy

cunt once more. As I recalled during the shower I took it slow, but

Angel liked it hard and fast.

All

other imagery faded into vapor as I was engulfed in the presence of

Angel. The glitter of sweat on her back, slowly pooling along her spine.

The slapping of her ass against my hips going off like firecrackers.

Her breath was coming in ragged puffs. Angel wasn't tired; she was

erotically excited, a culmination of fatigue, her worry about me and a

desire to recapture the magic of Saturday morning.

We

did an excellent job doing just that. Angel bucked up against me as her

orgasm grappled with her physique. Somewhere in the process, my body

sought its own release and I inseminated her womb. I couldn't let go. I

seized the moment with selfish hands and kept going. Angel was

wondrously resilient and mirrored her passion with my own.

We

rocked back until Angel was sitting in my lap, her back pressed against

me and my hands cupping her breasts and twisting her nipples while her

hands reached back and ran through my hair. Angel and I didn't roar to

one last, simultaneous climax. We coasted into a tender, romantic,

entwining of a pair of lovers.

It

was a fantastic advancement for me and a huge leap for Angel. I was

cuddling with her wrapped up in my arms as she reclined against me,

vulnerable and trusting. Angel was allowing herself to be vulnerable,

ramping up our trust and stepping outside the dominant role she had

assumed in our relationship.

"I am still angry with you," Angel murmured with contentment.

"I wouldn't be me if you weren't," I kissed her ear. I received a very light elbow in the ribs for that one.

"Israel, are we really going to stay together, you and me?" Angel asked.

I could have said 'I hope so', or 'I'll try' yet that was clearly inadequate and untrue in my mind.

"I've

lost too much love in my life, Angel. I don't want to go on without

you. I doubt I could stand it," I confessed. I felt much the same way

about Kuiko, Capri and Zara, but Angel, Angel would stand against the

nightmares when I could not.

Kuiko

would rebuild me with her cheerful patience. Capri was truly the one

who would keep me on the right path. Zara would allow me to live without

constantly looking over my shoulder. Angel would always be that first

one in my bed since Bethany. I don't think she really understood that.

Talking about my past, failed love affair was pointless.

Angel

didn't need to go through that. In the same way I would never yell at

Kuiko, never flip off Capri and never doubt Zara. I had to meet each

commitment with a commitment of my own. That was going to be the way my

life worked now.

"Thank you, Israel," Angel laid her arms over mine which surrounded her. "I'm pregnant."

I

stopped breathing. I was pretty sure my heart stopped. Angel was using

our proximity to judge my reaction. This was piling on the dread.

"Israel? Israel, are you okay with this?" Angel prodded me.

"Wow, yes. Yes, I'm okay with this. Are we going to have a boy, or a girl? What about names?" I began babbling.

"Israel, calm down," she told me. I tried. "I'm not pregnant."

"What? Huh? Did you have a miscarriage?" I gasped.

"No.

I wanted you to go through some of the emotional hurricane I

experienced last night wondering where you were," Angel growled, "only

to discover you ran off with a hit-woman."

"You're not pregnant?" I mumbled.

"No, but we are even now," she informed me.

"Babe, that was cold. Seriously, I think that was out of bounds," I protested.

"Out

of bounds? Israel, I combed over the bodies of nine hundred dead males

praying I wouldn't see your face," Angel explained harshly.

"Your

bracelet gave off its distress signal then died. Your phone wasn't

working. For nearly an hour I had every reason to believe you had died,

with me only a few hundred meters away in the same building. I was

getting ready to shoot some policewomen myself," Angel grumbled.

"Thoughtless and stupid," I described my actions. "We are even."

"I

know it was a low blow, I didn't want to break down in tears and that

was my only other option," Angel switched up her emotions from anger to

anguish.

"I

am glad we are on the same page on that," I nodded. Yeah, Angel had

come back with overkill. That was her nature and since I loved her, I

was going to have to deal with that.

"Is that the reason we ended up in the position we are in now?" I altered course.

"Oh no," Angel shook her head. "I have a thing for Amazon Princesses, in a purely heterosexual way."

"Good to know," I kissed the nape of her neck. "I think we should rejoin the others before we end up stuck this way."

"True," Angel agreed. "Any more time in your lap and I'm going to start getting possessive once more."

'That's

right Angel. Driving everyone from the room so we could have sex wasn't

possessive in the least', I kept that slice of sarcasm to myself.

Sometime

during the process of our love-making, our audience had departed and

the door to the bedroom had been shut. We dressed, put an arm around one

another's waists and opened the door. We were immediately gifted with

the aroma of a freshly cooked meal. Angel and I must have been at it a

while because dinner had been served.

Thankfully

there was plenty to go around. People were around this good-sized

dining room table. Samantha, Kuiko and Roni were leaning against the

wall with their plates on various pieces of furniture. Closest to me, in

the end chair, was Capri. She was looking at me intently, gauging my

level of sanity.

On

the right side of the table were Venus and an empty chair. On the left

side were Paisley and a girl who had to be Lavender. She was like a

Paisley clone, except white-blonde where Paisley was dark. Otherwise,

they shared the long-leg, over-endowed chest and beautiful, youthful

countenance our host seemed to favor.

This

was my first time seeing our host. Quite frankly, he appeared the

oldest human being I'd ever seen. He was certainly the roughest looking.

White, wiry hair billowed down past his shoulders. His thick, white

moustache drooped five or six centimeters past his chin. His cheeks and

chin were covered with white and grey stubble.

The

man, Jethro McFarlane, I guessed, had hazel eyes flecked with gold

sheltered under thick, white eyebrows. The eyes were a bit bloodshot,

yet burned with a fierce intellect and defiance that belied his advanced

years. This guy was scary at 67. I would have hated to meet him when he

was my age. Hell, I would have hated to meet him when he was 40.

Jethro

put his fork down, stood up and extended a hand my way. I walked around

the table, past the spare chair and clasped his hand. I then screamed

and fell to my knees. Jethro squeezed my hand, grinding the knuckles

together, they popped out of alignment. He let go of my appendage and I

pulled it to my chest. Angel was coming up fast.

"Want to try that with me, Old Man?" she seethed.

"There is no point," Jethro responded laconically. "You are a girl."

"What the fuck does that mean?" Angel sizzled.

"It means you are not a man so you wouldn't understand, Cop," Jethro matched her glare.

"Bastard," Angel growled. She put a hand on my shoulder. "Israel, are you okay?"

I

was searching for the answer to that as well as Jethro's needless

cruelty. I didn't know the guy. Had someone he'd known died because of

something he thought I did? And what was this about being something only

a man would understand?

I

had heard 'you don't get it, you aren't a woman' plenty of times in my

life. That was because men didn't have much time for 'group think.’ No,

men as I had known them didn't have group think but long before I was

born it had been very different. No one said 'it's a man-thing' because

men didn't have time for their own 'thing.’

Before

men counted lionesses, women counted lions. My mind wrapped around that

analogy. When a young lion walked into an established lion pride, the

lionesses didn't rally to drive him out, the Pride's lion did, lions in

rare instances. I didn't have a twin. I certainly wasn't a lion, but my

lionesses couldn't help me and would be at a disadvantage if I did

nothing.

I

couldn't win, it was most likely I couldn't win. I had to continue to

fight even without hope of an obvious victory because I had to be able

to live with the consequences of my actions. For reasons I didn't

understand, men of a dozen nations, fighting under the French flag died

in a hopeless cause two hundred years ago. The last six, out of

ammunition, charged their vastly superior enemy.

This tiny snapshot of history didn't apply to me. It applied to Jethro. He was one of those six.

"I'm

doing fine," I pushed myself back to my feet. "I don't think we've been

properly introduced," I extended my hand to Jethro, "I'm Israel

Jensen." He took my hand in his. This time I wasn't surprised by his

steely grip. It took me five seconds to wince in pain.

Jethro let go of my hand and sat back down

"Nice

to meet you," he said as he resumed his seat. "I'll get you something

to eat. You look like you need it." He followed this with, "Paisley, get

Mr. Jensen a plate full."

Paisley

hopped to obey like it was nothing. She even smiled at the old timer

and sashayed around him on her way to the kitchen. He slapped her ass in

passing, again, like it was nothing.

I

surreptitiously scanned the table. Only Lavender appeared to be taking

this interchange in stride. It wasn't like we didn't know that there

were Alpha males. They existed, but they hid it well because

instinctively Alpha females went after them, the lust for conquest is

genderless. The thing was, in our society, the male couldn't win.

Women

had the power and their culture put a low premium on independent-minded

men. The lady had the law and numbers on her side, thus the lioness

analogy. Stupid Alpha females took a man on alone. It wasn't that they

couldn't win, except why play fair? No, they gathered three or four

friends, cornered a guy, taxis worked wonderfully, and wore him down.

Unless

they physically damaged you, the man had no recourse. This meant Alpha

males were very careful. They chose their dates carefully and exited in

haste with their prize. If confronted with an Alpha female, they

knuckled under like every other man, took their medicine and waited for

the ordeal to be over. Alpha males certainly never advertised the way

Jethro was.

"Here you go," Paisley placed the plate in front of me. She patted me on the shoulder before making her way back to her seat.

"Thank

you," I responded. She smiled then went back to eating. Angel had to go

get her own grub. This was awkward for me because I looked to Angel for

protection and Jethro scared me.

Life

became more difficult to comprehend. Kuiko moved to my side, between

Jethro and me, knelt and started trying to feed me. Where the hell was

that coming from?

"Kuiko, I've got this," I told her. "I've pretty much been able to feed myself for the past seventeen years."

"Please?" Kuiko looked up at me. No one was of any assistance.

"Okay,

a few bites," I conceded. Kuiko lit into my steak, cutting it into

several pieces, rubbed a chunk around some sort of sauce then pushed the

piece of meat to my lips. It was different than any beef product I'd

ever tasted, way different.

"Thanks, Kuiko," I mumbled as I chewed. After I swallowed I addressed Jethro, "Mr. McFarlane, what is this?"

"White-tail deer," he replied. He reached out to pat Kuiko on the head. My response was unexpected, even to me.

I

met Jethro's gaze with an intense stare that very effectively

communicated an answer to his challenge. Jethro eyeballing me and the

hand movement were a possessive expression and for some unknown reason I

was not okay with it. I had never been possessive of any person my

entire twenty-one years, until now. Kuiko was mine, ours. I would not

sit by and allow him to undermine our group.

I

thought no one noticed the exchanged. Jethro certainly didn't back

down. He patted Kuiko's head, she turned and smiled at him then returned

her attention to me. She had to prod my lips with my next slice of deer

because I was still grappling with the concept that I had not wanted

Kuiko to be with that man.

Angel

returned with her dinner, took a station behind me and glowered at

Jethro the entire time. I didn't have to see her to know that was what

was going on. She didn't comment on Kuiko feeding me. I did send her

away after three more bites. I was a grown man after all. Funny tasting

water, it came from a well out back, and something called Wild Cherry,

which tried its best to incinerate my digestive track and succeeded in

making me gasp and cry, were handed around as beverages.

It

was not much of a consolation that most of the women, Paisley and

Lavender included, had my reaction. Jethro drank it like I'd drink a

Coke, effortlessly. As the meal wound down, Jethro stood up, ordered the

women to clear the table and motioned me to come with him.

"We are not your damned servants," Venus groused. Jethro slowly turned and regarded her.

"Did

you like the deer I shot? Did you like the alcohol I brewed? Did you

like the vegetables my hard work paid for?" Jethro calmly responded.

"I,” Venus stuttered.

"Then shut up and pitch in, you stupid bitch, because if you are adverse to work you can leave right now," Jethro glared.

"Don't

call Venus a stupid bitch," Angel and I said at the same time. I was

standing right next to Jethro while Angel was a few steps behind me. If

someone got clobbered for opening their big mouth, it would be me.

Jethro shrugged and kept walking.

"Come on, boy," he called out. Angel and I followed him around to the kitchen and the door leading out to the backyard.

"Stay, Cop. This is man stuff," Jethro stated calmly.

"Listen up, Caveman," Angel growled, "I'm not letting you walk off into the woods with Israel. I don't fucking know you."

"In case you missed it, Bitch," Jethro gave Angel a measured stare, "that wasn't a request."

"You

seem to have a problem with me," Angel shouldered me aside so she could

come face to face with Jethro. "Why don't we step outside and settle it

right now?"

"When

I finish with sissy-boy here, I'll come back and we can settle things,

Officer Kristi," Jethro smiled. "I haven't killed a cop in a long while

so I guess I'm due."

"I'm not letting you take Israel," Angel countered.

"That's not your choice to make. It is his," Jethro reposed.

"Let's

get this over with," I placed a hand on Angel's shoulder. "If he wanted

me dead, he could have killed me in my sleep." Angel very reluctantly

stepped aside.

Jethro

and I walked in silence some way from the house until I was lost in the

woods with the last rays of the Sun fading in the West. Out of nowhere,

Jethro turned and punched me in the gut. I folded up and fell over.

Jethro shook his head then offered me a hand up. I took it so he punched

me in the eye. Down I went again. He offered me his hand again.

"Don't

be like that," Jethro chided me as I pulled myself away from him. "Come

on." My hand touched on a downed branch. I swung with what limited

strength I could from my prone position. Jethro twisted his hips and

took the fragile branch on his boot-covered shin. It snapped into

pieces. I fully expected hate to start raining down and to hear myself

crying out for help.

Jethro looked down at me then gradually smiled. I crawled away then returned to my feet.

"That's

the first lesson," Jethro related. "Never accept help to do anything if

you can do it yourself. If you become used to being helped, you'll wait

around for help to come when you could do the job on your own. That

goes for both sexes."

"Second

lesson; men are warriors. It is our nature. We scrap, we establish

pecking orders, and jockey for resources. Women can do these things, but

it is not their job. Women want to talk shit out when a thirty second

brawl will settle the issue. If you beat a man then treat him right, he

will work with you. Women exist to back-bite and argue. They need men to

keep them in line."

"That's

not to say you don't listen to a woman's advice. Women are just as

smart as men. It doesn't mean we should let them make decisions, though.

Men make decisions because they are the ones who should be putting

their lives on the line first and foremost. Being a warrior is more than

just martial prowess, it is the willingness to make decisions and be

responsible for them."

"There are too few men to behave that way," I responded.

"Bullshit.

Kuiko tells me you've been fighting for your life for the past five

years. You kept it together during some really tough shit," Jethro said.

"Where you went wrong was that you kept trusting other people to save

you when things went wrong."

"My

friends are helping me get my life together," I challenged him. "I

don't think that's wrong. They give a crap about me and that's not

wrong."

"Don't

be stupid, Kid," Jethro sighed. "If you get gut-shot, see a doctor. If

your car doesn't run, see a mechanic. If you have a problem you can't

solve, there is nothing wrong with going to someone who can solve the

problem for you."

"Trying

to do something you are unprepared for is stupid, not macho," Jethro

stared at me. We were walking back for around a minute when, "Why did

you eye-ball me over Kuiko?" I had to think over my reply because I

wasn't sure myself.

"I saw your move and I grew angry," I worked out.

"Nothing

wrong with that, Kid," Jethro chuckled. "Besides, Kuiko's like a

daughter to me. I'm not trying to get her to jump in bed, or anything.

Good to know you are willing to let another man know where the property

line is."

"Kuiko isn't my property," I stated angrily. "I love her."

"How do you figure that, the not property part?" Jethro smirked.

"Ah, she's a human being. People shouldn't own people," I answered.

"Yet it is okay for that cop to own you?" Jethro turned things around.

"Angel doesn't own me. I love her, too. I also love a third woman named Zara, but that's it," I responded.

"Ha,"

he laughed. "Yeah, I heard you were hell in the sack. That's nothing to

be ashamed of. Still, this Angel-girl has a gun and appears comfortable

to tell you what you can and can't do. In my experience, guns and

authority go hand in hand."

"Bullshit,"

I countered. "She let me go to the Arena. She was worried about my

safety, for good reason. Just because I don't live my life like yours

doesn't mean I'm not a man."

"Thus

endeth the third lesson," Jethro chuckled. "In the final accounting,

each man has to live his own life. I'm going to tell you some useful

shit over the next few days. Take it, or leave it as you see fit. I

don't want you to be me. I want you to be the man you should be."

"Who is that supposed to be?" I mumbled. I already had too many people in my mind.

"You'll

figure it out soon enough," Jethro assured me. "Think of this. Wolves

run with wolves, dogs with dogs and lions with lions. Don't worry about

being a cougar, leopard, or tiger. You are not a loner."

"Okay," I finally replied.

"Shit, you have been fucking

buried in their culture," he shook his head. "Boy, look at the women

you chose to surround yourself with, that's who you are." That made no

sense what so ever. I abhorred violence yet I chose women skilled and

comfortable with it. It hit me far harder than Jethro had. Those women

had something else in common; they protected people.

As

we approached the house, lodging, whatever Jethro's domicile was

called, he reached to the small of his back and pulled out a revolver.

"What's that for?" I hesitantly asked.

"I'm going to shoot your cop friend," Jethro said matter-of-factly.

Attacking

him was pointless. Screaming to warn Angel wouldn't as useful as it

might have seemed. We were in the dark; she was in a lit building.

"Don't," I took a deep breath, "I'll take care of it."

"Remember, be firm," he advised.

"Are you telling me how to deal with my woman?" I gulped. Did I just say 'my woman'?

"Yes," he affirmed. "You haven't a clue what you are doing and I don't want to make Kuiko cry when I kill her friend."

"Oh, in that case, thanks," I nodded.

When we entered the space lit by the floodlights, Angel came storming out. Like Jethro, she had her gun out and pointed down.

"Stop," I held up my hand and basically pleaded with my lover. Angel wasn't paying attention to me.

"Angel!" I screamed. That brought her up short. "Get back in the house."

"What?" Angel sounded incredulous.

"You don't know what is going on, so get back in the house," I stated in a steady voice that belied my inner fear and turmoil.

"Israel," she got out.

"Now!" I yelled at her. There was a hush. Even the wildlife had gone quiet.

"That's not how it works," Angel growled. Her baleful gaze flickered from Jethro to me.

"You are acting like a child," I countered aggressive. "Now get in the damn house."

"No," Angel defied me. I struggled for the reaction, or words. I took a few steps toward her.

"I'm disappointed in you," I said softly. I tried to move past her. She grabbed my arm.

"What the hell do you mean by that?" Angel demanded.

"I know what's going on. You don't, yet you won't listen to me," I grumbled.

"You

aren't ignoring me because I'm crazy, or in danger. You are ignoring me

because this is a violent situation and I'm a man," I explained. "That

shames me because I love and trust you."

Angel blinked. Her mouth opened and closed.

"Let

go of me," I commanded. "I'm going inside. You and this old man can

start shooting at each other whenever for a reason, or reasons, I don't

understand."

"He hit you," she pointed out.

"Yes.

I am well aware that he hit me. It is my problem, not yours. Had I

needed your help, I would have called out. You could have assumed that

since I didn't, I had the situation well in hand, but you refused to," I

outlined for her. She had no comeback to my logic.

"Israel, I apologize," Angel whispered.

"Apology accepted," I stroked her cheek. "Now get your ass in the house." She stared at me.

"If you slap my ass, I'm going to arm-bar you," Angel warned me as she headed inside in front of me.

"I'm

more of a massage kind of guy," I sighed, both happy and weary. I was

also true to my word. I caught up with Angel, put my hands on her

tightly clothed posterior and massaged those wonderful pieces of female

workmanship. This time around, the Wild Cherry was a welcome distraction

from the stress permeating the house.

We

retired to something Lavender called a 'Man Cave' though it wasn't

subterranean. I made the brilliant decision to make use of Jethro's home

gym. Only when I got my shorts and shirt, came back and began adjusting

the machines did I realize they weren't on a man's setting. A woman had

been the last one to use these.

I

was garnering attention, which I had learned to ignore long ago. I

trusted enough of the women in the cavernous room so that I wasn't too

intimidated by the looks I was getting.

"Take off your shirt," Jethro called out.

"Huh?" I was almost propelled off the treadmill.

"Give the girls some eye-candy," he snorted.

"We

don't treat Israel that way," Aniqua spoke up. Angel was biting her

tongue. There was a stalemate going on, then Kuiko jumped off her seat

and fell on her knees.

"Show us the sexy," she pleaded to me with her playful expression lighting up her face.

Kuiko

implored me with her hands held up in supplication. She was so freaking

adorable. Suddenly Samantha fell on her knees beside Kuiko, quickly

followed by Aniqua and Venus. Roni added to the mix somewhat

reluctantly.

"Please, please, please," they chorused.

Aren't there something like twenty porn channels out there plus hundreds of websites?

"You don't need to tell women what to do," Jethro laughed. "Just have what they want."

I didn't want to have what women wanted! That was my nightmare three times over. My female companions were, fuck, they were playing with me. Damn it.

I

languidly peeled my shirt off, hopefully maximizing my sex appeal. Had I

understood sex appeal more, I might have done a better job. By the wide

eyes staring at me, I mistakenly did something right. Trauma warred

with the desire to heal, to be cleansed somehow.

"Kuiko, this is all you fault and you must be punished," I glared intense menace her way.

Kuiko

looked enraptured with ecstasy. She began tearing off her clothes much

to the shock or amazement of the other occupants. After she wiggled her

shorts off all she had on was this pink thong with a strategically

placed heart as its centerpiece. Kuiko popped up and started running

around the room, arms out like an airplane.

"I've been bad and I'm going to get punished," she squealed repeatedly as she circuited the room.

Jethro's stare caught my gaze and his look was indecipherable.

"Worse

case of negative reinforcement I've ever seen," he laughed. I lowered

my head in defeat and returned to my exercises. It was better that way.

The machines had safety features where my life had none.

I

was ten minutes from completing my routine when something beeped on

Jethro's TV. The old man flipped open one of the arms on his recliner

and pulled out a sawed-off pump action shotgun.

"We've got company and I ain't expecting anyone else," he rumbled as he stood.

Angel also rose to her feet, taking in the male with a weapon.

"How many ways in?" Angel barked.

"Too many," Jethro calmly replied. "This place is made for egress, not to be a fortress."

"We'll talk about your firearms later," Angel grumbled.

"We

can talk about how little I care later, but right now Cop, go to the

side entrance where you came in," Jethro directed. "I'll take the front

door."

"What should the rest of us do?" half the voices called out. Not me though.

"I'm a paramedic, but most of my gear is still in the van," Roni added. "Do you have a medical kit?"

"Paisley,

show her where we keep the medical supplies," Jethro directed. He was

already heading out, swiftly followed by Angel. I went after those two.

"What are you doing?" Angel snapped at me.

"Being a man?" I shrugged. Jethro chuckled.

"Here ya go," he handed me his revolver. "Ever used one?"

"I

was taught by an expert," I pledged. As far as I knew, Flame was an

expert. Surprisingly, Angel kept her mouth shut though she looked

exasperated with both Jethro and me. She had barely separated from us

when there was banging on the door.

Whomever had driven up must have been driving recklessly fast.

"Israel,

open up!" yelled the voice from outside. Jethro was looking at a screen

I couldn't see. I didn't need to see who it was because I knew the

voice. I ran to the door. It wouldn't open.

"It is a friend," I shouted over my shoulder to Jethro.

"Who is your friend's banged-up buddy?" Jethro inquired laconically.

"Short, or tall?" I requested.

"Tall," he filled me in.

"That would be Silent. The maniac about to blow her way in here if you don't open the door is Flame," I explained.

The door clicked, I turned the knob and opened it and Flame came tumbling in with a semi-conscious Silent.

"Roni!" I yelled. I stepped up and hugged Flame. I almost wept.

"I knew you couldn't die," I murmured.

"Of

course not," Flame snorted in amusement. "I haven't killed you yet."

Someone cleared their throat. "Nice welcome wagon, an old fossil and a

pissed off fuck machine." I had to fix my mind on the second reference. Flame had seen Angel's sex tape.

"This

is Jethro McFarlane, it's his home. The woman with the pistol is

Detective Angel Kristi, my lover and friend," I started introductions.

"Jethro and Angel, this is Flame aka Brigit and Silent aka Davia. They are part of the Keverich organization," I finished.

"I've heard of them," Jethro mulled things over. "I'm kind of curious why I'm not already shooting them."

"Me too," Angel added. No one moved, or spoke, for a few seconds.

"Israel, I think they want you to move so the bullets can start flying," Flame snickered.

"I'm actually aware of that," I kept hugging her. Silent moaned. Roni finally arrived.

"Can I take care of the wounded woman?" she addressed the room.

Flame

muscled free of my embrace, dragged or carried Silent to the living

room sofa and plopped her down. There was a pregnant pause as Roni

maneuvered around the furniture with a first aid kit and knelt down next

to the wounded bodyguard.

"So, what happened?" I finally asked. "Where is Magdalena?"

"Dead

or in custody," Flame shrugged. "When I last saw her, she was wounded

in the left shoulder and down on the ground. About that time I

discovered that while my Baby will fracture the glass armor on an attack

helicopter's canopy, it won't penetrate, so I ran."

"Are you okay?" I worried. Flame patted my cheek.

"That's what I like about you," she smiled flippantly. "You care. I don't know why, but you care."

"What exactly happened to Little M?" Angel advanced.

"Looked

like Army types and SWAT stormed one of our safe-houses," Flame sighed.

"It was in a high-rise and they came at us from all angles."

"That's bad," Angel muttered.

"Amen to that," Jethro confirmed.

"Huh?" I looked back to the two people who seemed to know what was going on.

"Back

at the rail station," Capri came stepping up beside Jethro, "when the

soldiers came for you this morning, Israel. That was illegal because

there was no State of Emergency or Martial Law."

"Now

the Army really is in charge and can round up anyone they wish," she

continued. "The curiosity is why they haven't declared their intentions

and a curfew."

"Isobel Diaz pointed those bitches our way," Flame related. "That's for certain."

"That's nice," Jethro stared. "How did you know to come here?"

"After

Davia and I fought free, we had nowhere to go. All the gang's

operations had cops all over them. I figured the Outfit was done for and

we needed out. The only person I was sure had an exit plan was Israel,

so I went looking for him. I knew his normal haunts would be crawling

with surveillance then I remembered his buddy, Kuiko," Flame informed

us.

"I went to Kuiko's workplace, talked to her boss and she told me about this place. Here I am," she grinned.

"You killed Amy (Kuiko's and Aniqua's boss), didn't you?" Jethro glared.

"She's

in Hell alright," Flame snickered. "Plastered her brains all over the

back wall, destroyed her personal and business computers then set the

building on fire. I like being thorough."

"You appear to take pride in being a remorseless psychopath," Capri noted.

"Flame is my friend and she's a fighter," I argued. "We'll need her with us on the road we will be taking."

"Flame is it?" Jethro asked. Flame snorted. "You can stay as long as you know who is in charge."

"I suck at taking orders," Flame responded.

"That's not my problem anymore," Jethro grinned maliciously. "Israel, it is up to you to keep that cunt in line." What the fuck? How did that come about? Flame punched me in the arm.

"Are you going to tame this kitty?" she laughed.

I looked around for a lifeline. Kuiko had put her shirt on, but was otherwise only in her thong.

"Kuiko,

could you show Flame to the kitchen and help her get some food and

drink," I requested. "She's most likely not eaten all day."

"Sure thing," she beamed. Kuiko wiggled through the group of women by that portal.

"Come

on," she beckoned Flame. Flame smirked at me then walked over to Kuiko.

Kuiko linked arms with Flame. I feared a beating was in the offing.

"Thank you for looking after Israel last night," Kuiko smiled. "We

appreciate it."

"You do realize I put a gun to his head and nearly killed him, right?" Flame mused.

"Of course," Kuiko giggled, "but you didn't. It is because you two are friends."

"He fucks you a whole bunch, I can tell," Flame teased her.

"Yes,"

Kuiko bubbled. "Every time he has sex with another woman, I get a

non-stop hour of sex with him too. He's going to torture my nipples

later on, if you want to watch."

"Tons

of fun," Flame chuckled. "I can't wait. Nipple torture, how does that

work?" was the last thing I heard as they went out of hearing range.

Events took on a life of their own after that. Roni sent Angel to their

van for medical supplies. Paisley was a junior Biology student, so she

volunteered to assist Roni. Aniqua and Samantha hung around so that the

four of them could easily move Silent to the floor when the time came.

To be continued

By FinalStand for Literotica

Israel Jenkins and the Last Real Man on Earth.

Based on ‘One In Ten’ by FinalStand, adapted into 17 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.

Your

mind is your arsenal, fortress, and armory. Your words are potential

weapons you give to your enemies to assault the citadel of your soul.

At

the Sentinel Eloise gave me the plan for the day. Doyle was in the

'bull pen' with the other journalists. The President of the Federation

was going to make a personal appeal for me to join the National

Government in dealing with this crisis. In case I was feeling 'uppity',

there was going to be a special taskforce of the FBI around to make me

behave.

"Do you know who is in charge of this Watch Dog group?" I inquired.

"Some

hot shot out of the Capital named Enola Treyvon," Eloise studied me. "I

think you've met her." How did Eloise know all this shit?

"Yeah, we've met. She opted not to keep me in custody at the time," I replied in the least informative way I could think of.

"There has to be a story in there somewhere," Eloise pressed.

"Which

you are not going to get," Capri intervened. "Did you miss Israel

nearly getting killed in the shootout yesterday with your favorite

mobster and the cops?"

"Since

neither you, nor Mr. Jensen were questioned, I would discern you both

made it out before things got too bad," Ms. Granger smirked.

"So, are you going to GNN this morning, Israel?" Eloise turned to me.

"Sure, why not?" I shrugged.

"What's

your exit strategy this time? I don't think 'running down the stairs'

will work out all that way with the FBI standing around waiting for

you," she prodded.

How

in the hell was I going to get out? Dimples would give me a head start,

but what then? I needed something, a big distraction, that didn't

involve people dying.

'Never be ashamed, of my best, efforts?'

The

chaos that had haunted my life had me leaving multiple things undone,

like laundry, and the Sexbook account Troy Berry had created for me.

Flash

mobs had expired during the Gender Plague. A generation later, women

rediscovered the spontaneity or activism of their parent(s). I had never

participated in one. I had been invited to a few, but anything

associated with women and the word 'mob' was a nonstarter for me. This

morning, I was relying on a piece of social media I'd never used to do

something I had avoided like death itself.

Here was hoping I still had fans.

I had to borrow Capri's tablet and off I went. I had over 32,000 'friends.’ There were 1,754 unanswered requests.

"Israel?" Capri asked gently. Both she and Eloise looked over my shoulder.

"Wow, you are a rock star," Eloise mused.

"I

didn't know Sexbook had a Fan Fiction page," Capri noted. I was back to

wanting to die of embarrassment. I didn't deserve this, as in I wasn't

worthy of this level of attention.

"What's the plan?" Eloise prodded.

I began referencing locations and ages of my 'friends', created a list and launched this appeal.

I

am the real Israel Jensen. I'm not promising anyone any sexual favors

whatsoever. The last 48 hours have been a mess and I've done things you

must all view as questionable. I regret only that I cannot do more for

more people.

I

have always been drawn to passion and I've been lucky to share that

love with several women close to me. I am sick to my soul that I let my

wounds keep me from the thing that turns out to have healed me the most.

I owe Angel and Kuiko, whom you may know, and Freya and Venus whom you

do not. Debra, I apologize I couldn't be more. M.

In

an hour, I am about to do what I've done every other morning this week,

something colossally stupid and definitely something that is going to

piss people off. This is going to be my last hurrah, for some time, if

not forever. Odds are I'm going to end up in either Metropolitan or

Federation custody. I'm going to make a run for it anyway.

That's

where all of you come in. I need your help. I have nothing to offer in

return. If any of you are crazy enough to help, gather in front of the

GNN building at 8:15 this morning. If you don't show up, never be afraid

to say you had a chance to do something asinine and pointless then

wised up in time. May whatever face of the Divine gives you comfort be

with you.

Israel Jensen

I was hoping to hear something in ten minutes, or so. I had barely handed the tablet back when a message popped up.

“What is your favorite color?” GoldenDoe34 sent. Huh?

Kelly Green. My Mother had a recreation battle flag of the Irish Brigade in our living room at home I answered.

“That's not what your page says” she pressed.

That's because Troy Berry set up the page without consulting me I replied.

“Where did you and Venus have sex?” PandorSweets sent.

I'm not sure I should say. That was between us I countered.

“She said in her review of you” PandorSweets stated. What the?

My bracelet is broken. I didn't think women could post reviews I wondered.

“Hold on” GoldenDoe34 posted. Then,

Freya posted;

Thank

you, Israel, for saving my life and the life of my Son. Remember, you

were the man who cares deeply before you ever came to be at my side.

Venus added;

I

should hardly need to say that the sex was wonderful. It was. As any

woman who has ever had intercourse with him has said, Israel gave his

all as if I was the only woman in the world that mattered. What was

special to me was what came after we made love in the shower. As we

dried off, he reached out and held my hand.

He

took me to his bedroom then asked me to close my eyes as he dressed

because at his core, he is a shy, gentle soul. This may not make sense

to many of you, but at that moment I felt I was important to him. He let

me inside his fractured world, told me I could stay by his side as long

as I liked and I'm grateful.

"Less impressive sex, you dummy," Capri whispered. She was smiling. "I would have never guessed Venus could be so eloquent."

Thank

you GoldenDoe34. I don't normally read my reviews. I don't engage in

sex for the words that come after I am gone, but for the sight, sound,

taste, touch and smell of that one woman at that one place and time.

I

don't like being graded, or rated. I would certainly never degrade a

woman by boasting to the world our deeply personal experience. I know it

is common, accepted practice for women, I wish it was not so.

God! It is you! PandorSweets exclaimed.

“I agree. No one could be so enchanting, yet irritating at the same time” Verbena Queen joined in. “I'll contact my clubs”

“I'm texting my senior class” GoldenDoe34 added.

"Oh

hell," Eloise snickered, "what have you done?" I had no clue what I'd

done. Seriously, why would anyone assume I knew jack-all about a dating

site? Why would I think I would know what I was doing? I'd avoided, or

been kept isolated from, sexual encounters for most of my adult life.

I

would not claim ignorance. I knew the basics of social media. I knew

that I had an odd appeal and that Troy had preyed upon for his own sick

desires. Now I was using the affections aimed my way for my own ends.

The best I could say about my plan was that I'd told the truth about

what I wanted and the total lack of reciprocity on my part.

I

was using their sexual fantasies to urge them toward rebellion. I was

walking into a feminine nightmare of my own creation. A horde of women

(I hoped) was going to engulf Capri and I, shield us from our pursuers

and then be abandoned to their fates. I would do my best to warn them

before I ran. I didn't know what else I could do.

Yesterday

had been a splash of water to the face. Today, the oceans were boiling.

In New York City, a construction worker with a steel pipe went berserk.

He killed two policewomen at a food truck, critically injuring two more

and one bystander. Only after two other officers confronted and shot

him fatally in the neck did they realize he'd added body armor and

enough padding to negate the effect of tasers.

Yesterday,

fewer than five thousand men threw themselves at the barricades. Today

it was fifty thousand and counting. We only detected the rumblings at

this early hour about what was coming. In Atlanta, men all over that

city walked off the job at ten a.m. Thirty percent of the men walked. In

Hawaii, the governor ordered that all gatherings of more than two men

were banned.

The

backlash was overwhelming. Eighty percent of all men on the islands

boycotted, everything. Middle School and High School boys walked out of

their classrooms. Local G E D departments 'detained' the organizers.

That also backfired. Protestors swarmed G E D stations, staging sit-ins

and getting arrested. Jails were flooded. Men and women signed a

petition demanding the governor step down.

In

Managua, sixteen male college students gathered in front of the

Ministry of Justice building with two bolt cutters. Publically, they cut

off each other's wrist bands. They made no attempt to flee and were

promptly arrested. In Phoenix, college and high school boys attacked the

metro system with stink bombs.

In

Boston, men of all ages pelted Federation, State and local office

buildings with Red, Green and Blue paint balloons; the colors of the

Federation. In Calgary, they parked trucks in intersections, disabled

the ignitions and abandoned their vehicles. Except for Hawaii, there was

no rhyme, reason, or organization to it, beyond things at the very

local level.

The

gem of it all was that, outside of that one incident in New York, my

brothers were taking my lesson to heart. It wasn't 'get the women.’ It

was 'we will no longer sit silently by and be ignored.’ Things were

about to get much worse. Congress had passed the 2nd Amendment to the

Gender Inequality Act, to take effect in 90 days. Marriage was gone.

The

women in Congress weren't morons, but they weren't men either. Even

those who were wives didn't truly understand because they weren't

husbands. The greatest burden to fall would be, again, on the men. On

Sunday, the ex-husbands would have wept. On this Wednesday, they were

fighting mad.

Whether

you call it a Cyclone, Typhoon, or Hurricane, there was a forgotten

element to this storm. Forgotten by almost everyone, even me. They were

the daughters. Specifically, daughters with fathers who were now seeing

their papas being ripped away and they weren't happy about this at all.

Only

a small number of marriages had children of an 'effective' age, say,

over the age of 12. The average family in this group had, on average,

four daughters. If you also had a son, well, he was already working out

his 'man' issues. These daughters, they understood. They had been

marginalized and neglected. Their society had just pooped on them in a

big way.

Their

parental structure had been severed in twain. The parent they saw the

most of, and in most cases, were closer to, was being forced out the

door. No one had consulted with them in any God-damned way, shape, or

form. With the bang of a gavel, their primary caregiver was told to

vacate in 90 days, or else.

The

law was very clear, men had to permanently abandon their shared

dwelling and maintain their own domicile so they could be 'accessible.’

That's right, little girl. We are throwing Daddy into some sleazy

bachelor pad where any skanky whore can use and abuse him. Oh, and lest

we forget, Dad probably has a few 'nieces' as well, with Aunts Suzy and

Karen coming by so often it should be of no surprise.

These

young women were traumatized by the destruction being levied on their

lives. They weren't sure about what to do, until the boys stood up and

marched off to fight their little, hopeless war. Then the girls knew

exactly what to do. It started with a trickle of support but quickly

became a torrent.

There

were still fewer daughters or nieces with Daddy or Uncles than the

total number of men. The difference? Women felt entitled. They were not

afraid of the cops, or repercussions. Yes, the Hammer of Justice was

about to fall on their heads too. They just didn't see it coming so they

swarmed into the streets in far greater numbers.

Yes,

this meant the police and military reserves were about to use tasers,

rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades on 14 and 15 year old girls

on streaming video. Do you want to make things worse? Remember, the

majority of marriages are in the top tier of society. No, that's not

Josephine the electrician's little girl.

That's

Augustine on the Board of Directors of your Bank who just saw her baby

take a tear gas canister to the gut. Then you had Patty, the friend. She

was watching Carmella heading downtown because they are turning

Carmella's Dad, a nice guy, she's met him several times, into a

man-whore (whom she couldn't possibly afford on her allowance).

She

probably had some teenage fantasies about him too, though she'd never

tell Carmella. The more she thought about it, the more Patty decided

that she was not going to let some wacky old bitches, who didn't

understand today's modern woman (like Patty), tell her how the world

should work. She imagined Carmella's dad would be grateful, maybe really

grateful.

The

more she thought about it, the more Patty was sure he'd scoped her out a

few times. Suddenly, joining Carmella and sticking it to some cops

sounded like tons of fun with a 'real' possible pay-off at the end.

Carmella's dad was going to see her as a grownup woman now. Yep. Patty

gathered up two of her pals who were bored anyway and talked them into

helping Carmella.

She

showed them a picture of Carmella's dad working out in his home gym to

seal the deal. Carmella was happy to have three of her buddies joining

her. 'Do they think her Daddy will be happy with their protest?' 'Yes',

Carmella assures them, 'her Daddy will be very happy she has such good

friends.’ The three girls smiled.

In

twenty minutes, one of those friends was thinking that calling a rubber

bullet 'non-lethal' was patently deceptive. Dialing this all back to

me, I had told all my fans where they could gather to do 'something.’

Somewhere along the line, they informed a pissed off daughter. Suddenly,

all those pissed off girls whose sperm donor had hung around had a

focal point for their frustrations.

They

knew I would be at GNN. It stood to reason the cops would come and get

me, it was my thing. The girls no longer had to storm a police station,

or government building to get their message across. There were going to

be plenty of police sitting out in the middle of the street with no

walls to hide behind. This was about to give a whole new meaning to the

phrase 'Daddy Time.’

With

the coffin so full of nails, there was one more to go in. Even after

forty yours of the Gender Inequality Act, men were still essentially

men, especially teenage 'men.’ A hundred years ago women took to the

streets in parts of the Federation, stood up for their equal rights,

cultural liberty, took birth control pills and burnt their bras.

Men

marched with them. I was sure a few actually believed in the cause,

equal rights. Most believed in something else. Women had for centuries

clung to a mythical virginal status. During the sexual revolution, women

were giving it away. No ring, payment, religious conversion, or promise

required. Hell, sometimes you weren't even required to say anything at

all.

In

high schools and colleges all across the country, hormone-racked boys

were watching girls stand up and walk out of class. In many cases, the

rich girls. These guys didn't care about marriage. If they only had sex

once in a 14 day period, something was seriously wrong with them. They

could get girls all the time, walk alone anywhere for fifteen minutes

and they'll find you.

So

why would they join these privileged young woman? Passion. These young

women were passionate about an issue that didn't involve bondage of some

kind for the boys down the line. Men, men who are not like me, liked

passion. They liked it a lot. Now, my high school and college brethren

weren't stupid. They weren't marching alone.

That's

how you ended up naked, God-knows-where with fifteen different phone

numbers and 'Call Me' scrawled over your body in lipstick. They did the

socially conscious thing; my brothers called all of the brothers in

their group and they traveled as a pack to join the girls. This became a

twofold problem if you were a law enforcement official on the street

outside of GNN.

Last

night you gunned down, or otherwise eased into a terminal state nearly a

thousand 30, 40, and 50 year old males. Now you are staring down bands

of teenage boys interspersed in a sea of hostile girls. Using non-lethal

dispersal means would 'normally' break up these children except, what

would happen when the girls saw young men dropping next to them?

Fear

would become fury. Shock would become rage. Why? If women had been part

of the crowd at the  M A L Rally, something very different would have

happened. Women would have died in droves because women defended men.

They'd been doing it for forty years, in their cultural minds anyway. It

was why they felt entitled.

Male

economic input to the world was negligible. It was a woman's world. The

provided for us, kept us safe (mostly) and if they took advantage of us

a tidbit, well, they were doing all the work, right? These small knots

of teenage boys had joined this female protest. The boys had become

'their' boys.

Sure,

that meant many of them were going to be 'asked' later to perform, but

that's pretty much why most of them were there in the first place. That

also meant when a cop put one of 'their' boys down, the women got

protective. It was what their culture had been beating into their skulls

for forty years.

This did not mean the young women respected the boys, it meant they wanted to get fucked

just as much as the boys did. Twenty girls see one boy go down and they

suddenly realize he's going to the jail, or the hospital (no one dares

think 'morgue'). That means no cock for them. Back to that passion those

guys came sniffing after like the horny dogs they were.

Hormones

don't play favorites. They erase reason and common sense in both

genders equally, especially when you are young. That young lady knows

that the boy those nasty evil bitch cops just knocked down was going to fuck her to the stars in a few hours. Sure, they'd never actually made eye contact, but she knew, she knew.

Now,

you Evil Cop, you are about to experience why this frustrated teenage

girl burned out her last two vibrators with her unrequited lust. If you

are the cop in question, you realize that this teenager had nineteen

friends in the same basic mind frame and they are all coming for you. If

you are a Metropolitan Policewomen, the past 12 hours have been tough

for you and it's getting tougher by the second.

Most

likely you haven't gotten much sleep. Worse, you've seen the respect

for your career start to plummet in the eyes of your fellow (female)

citizens. 178 of your sister officers died, a few quite horribly. Nearly

a thousand males died. There was no way to look at this in a positive

light.

Yesterday's

male demonstration had been an annoyance; so comical that she probably

joked about it with fellow officers. Today there had been too many to

hold back. As she knew it would, chaos had ensued. Allowed to their own

devices, men had inflicted their own brand of discipline on the ride to

work. Foreheads were getting wacked all over the city.

Women

were learning some tough lessons. Using pepper spray in a confined area

was bad. It is even less effective when men have 'tote' umbrellas that

open on a moment's notice. They apparently made nice shields. Stun guns

are nice, but dowels have a longer reach. The world turned full circle.

On

Tuesday, women had swarmed men for their impudence. Today, most sat out

the conflict on the sidelines. In a final irony, the cop was learning

the lesson Israel had learned three and a half years earlier as Campus

Security laughed him out of their office. 'If you let them get away with

it, they'll try for more.’

Women: 'You went to a Sorority Party. What did you expect would happen?'

Men: 'We went to the Arena, as you told us to and then you slaughtered us.'

Without even considering my personal tale, if the first statement wasn't spoken, the second would have never have happened.

When

women accepted the first statement, the second was pre-ordained and

resistance was inevitable. The cop feared the third statement more than

anything.

Men: 'We don't care anymore. We will fight until we break you, or you break us.'

Few women appreciated that pitted 300,000 men versus less than 12,000 cops.

With

that calamity swirling around my periphery in time and space, I walked

with Eloise, Capri and Doyle to the GNN building. We had trouble. In

front of the building were three of those light personal transport

vehicles (jeep or hummer). The closest and farthest had this 80cm wide

hexagonal things on top with some sort of gunner or technician.

The

middle vehicle had the biggest damn shotgun I'd ever imagined (an

auto-grenade launcher I was later told). Ten other soldiers were in

evidence. Across the street where six patrol cars, with officers holding

the outer perimeter. Message, this was a Fed show. I was about to

back-pedal my ass out of there. To be honest, I was going to break and

run for my life. I didn't want to go to prison, or some secret lab.

Special

Agent Sosa stepped out of the small gathering of cops, soldiers and

suits at the door and headed my way. Gut check, acid test, prom night. I

didn't know what the heck to think.

"Come

on, Jensen," she beckoned. The two women and one man around me

hesitated. I shrugged and walked to beside her as she led me into the

building.

"Do you know Keyser Söze didn't actually exist?" I grinned.

"Oh freaking wonderful," she muttered to herself as we entered the elevator.

"Who was Keyser Söze?" Eloise asked.

"Some guy from an old movie. Tons of men die. It's not real popular these days," I informed her.

"But he didn't really exist?" Doyle wondered. "Huh?"

"It is the study of myth and the power it can hold over the human mind, in the movie's case, a fearful hold," I explained.

"So the man was a myth," Eloise mused.

"Yes,

but the belief that he did exist made a band of rational men risk their

lives out of fear that he'd hunt them to the ends of the earth and kill

them," I stated. The doors opened and there stood Dimples with two of

her people, Norris and Tambora.

"Mr.

Jensen, this way," she pointed to her right. "The rest of you, over

there, she pointed to the left and the way into GNN studios. Capri stuck

with me.

We took a few steps, the two agents looking around cautiously while Dimples remained confident.

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist," Dimples quoted. We were temporarily safe.

"Are Fraklos and Vabishi back yet?" I asked.

"They are on the way. They had an issue to resolve. Now, how is this going to play out?" Dimples studied me.

"New strain of the Gender Plague broke out in China last week," I began.

"This

strain attacks men and women with an insanely high mortality rate. It

has been in San Francisco since Thursday, but with a three day

incubation period, it is only now starting to appear. The antivirals in

my blood do counter it, so there is that," I finished unloading.

"Are you absolutely confident in the source of this information?" she frowned. I nodded then Dimples made a phone call.

"This

is Enola. I wish to talk to my Mother," she stated. There was a pause,

"Mother, is the government about to engage in extreme action beyond

Sierra?"

"Are you anywhere close to the target of your current manhunt?" asked the serene voice on the other end.

"Yes, very close," Dimples responded.

"Good.

Keep it that way and Enola, I'm afraid I'll miss Christmas again this

year," Dimples' Mother said. "Good-bye Enola. I have work to do." The

connection died.

"Who is your mother?" I inquired quietly.

"Flora

Treyvon, Deputy Director of Operations for the Ministry of Security,"

Special Agent in Charge Enola ‘Dimples’, Treyvon replied. The Ministry

of Security was the counterpart to the Ministry of Justice. Security

handled external threats; the combination of the pre-Plague foreign

intelligence services.

Rumor

had it that Operations was the section that toppled governments and

assassinated people. No one official admitted to that, of course. It was

perversely comforting that I continued to associate with the most

lethal form of womankind available. Had I joined up with another gentle

soul like Kuiko, the shock might have unhinged me.

All

of that also made the word choices of the two of them made sense. No

mention of plague, China, quarantine, or my name. It took me a moment to

place Sierra, the Sierra Nevada mountain range west of the Rockies. I

also had the feeling that Enola ‘Dimples’, and her mother had never

missed a Christmas, but they knew they'd never share another. That had

been their true and final good-bye.

"So that influenza outbreak in Shanghai isn't the flu," Special Agent Pamela Norris mumbled.

"Three

days to incubate then four days to kill you, if it runs with the

historical models," SA Lena Tambora added. "We are all going to get

infected. It sounds like most of us will die."

"Why isn't there a nationwide quarantine?" Norris asked Dimples.

"Economics,"

S A C Treyvon said. "Examining global travel, trade flow, infection

rates and time since inception, the whole world is going to be infected.

The Federation economy is going to do more than collapse, it is going

to die. The Government Executive is probably positioning key industries

and resources so that they survive."

"Just like the Vanishers," I mumbled.

"Correct in both ways," Dimples smiled.

"How so?" I asked. I was thinking 'both?'

"They are both survival plans and they are both illegal," Dimples smirked. Now Capri giggled.

"Israel,"

Capri addressed my confusion, "the President is letting millions and

millions of Federation citizens become infected when she knows better.

This is murder on a grand scale."

"Enough," Dimples waved her hand. "Time to take Israel to face the press one last time."

"Dimples,

are you going to let me go when this is over?" I timidly requested.

Maybe I should have called her Special Agent in Charge Treyvon.

"Of

course," Dimples smirked. "I can't hold you and I can't keep you

hidden, so my best bet to meet with you later is to let you make a run

for it. Please do not think I like you."

"Oh, you are still sore that a man outsmarted you," Capri mocked Dimples.

"That is incorrect," Dimples arrogantly dismissed Capri's charge.

"Liar," Capri smirked.

"No,

I am sore that anyone outsmarted me. Being a man never entered the

equation," Dimples smiled back in her oh-so-superior way. I leaned into

Dimples, brushed her hair aside until my lips touched the rim of her

ear.

"Mary

Wollstonecraft," I whispered. It was all I could give her; she had

trusted me, and all I could give was a name. On second thought, I could

have only said 'Mary' and she would have found me. I was really worried

about the wrong group of people. I needed to keep focused on me and

Capri.

We

were soon back in the studio. The mood was very different today. We

were all looking down the barrel of a gun, politically speaking. There

were even two members of the President's Public Relations Office on hand

to make sure things went okay.

"Elvira Booker," one of the two officials introduced herself. I deviated past her.

I

went straight at the woman who was eyeing me intently. I slipped one

hand behind her back to pull her close and used the other to tip her

face up for a kiss. We held it there for several seconds then I felt a

quick series of stinging sensations against the back of my thighs and

buttock. I kept my hand at her back, but backed off from the kiss.

"Bad

boy," the little script writer scowled. "I didn't give you permission

to kiss your Mistress." Huh? Oh, the stings behind me had been her

riding crop. Well, this would definitely convince the people around me I

was nuts. I lowered my head in contrition.

"I

apologize Mistress for my hunger for your body, my thoughtlessness

concerning your authority, and my willful ignorance of your majesty," I

begged softly.

Her voice dripped with rapture.

"Kiss

my foot, Dog," she commanded. I knelt down, there was no way I was

groveling on my belly (I'd been forced to do that), lifted up her left

ankle while she steadied herself by resting a hand on my head, and

kissed the toe of her foot. I waited. She tapped my shoulder with the

riding crop then I put her foot down.

"Back

to work, Dog," she purred. "Your Mistress will punish you when it is

more convenient for me. Scurry." As I stood up, I flashed her a quick

peek. She was radiant, confident and vibrantly alive. For me, it was

another spark of happiness given to another. It was also confirmation

that I had to escape. Otherwise I could end up with a leash, dog collar

and little else.

"Ah, ah," Elvira regarded us. "Is he going to be capable of a rational response?"

"Ms. Booker, are you prejudiced against alternative lifestyles?" Capri rallied to my defense.

"Oh, please," Elvira countered. "That was a bizarre form of workplace encounter in anyone's book."

"Absolutely,"

I nodded. "Normally I get a ball gag and she uses me as furniture. She

is obviously in a good mood today. Let's not spoil it." Elvira stared.

"The

answer to your question is 'yes, he really is off his rocker'," Dimples

remarked dryly. "He is capable of intelligent conversation. That will

not be your problem."

"Fine,"

Elvira finally turned back to me, "the President is going to ask you to

volunteer to help your Nation in its time of need, to help with

scientific research regarding a looming threat to our population. You

need to understand that we need you to say 'yes.’"

"Okay," I nodded. "Can I stay in the city? I have friends here."

The

rules for a verbal exchange are the same for a physical exchange.

Intelligence, initiative, audacity, and application of power. I noticed

what she wasn't saying. There was no mention of the coming plague. This

was yesterday's battle. They knew better. They didn't seem to understand

that I knew better as well.

"We

will most likely have to take you to a facility closer to the Capital,

initially," Elvira assured me. "After some initial research, we should

be able to at least allow you some visitation."

She

lied like the pro she was. It sounded like she actually had negotiating

power, which I knew she didn't have. I was a PR guy too.

The

last time I made a decision as a Public Relations Officer, they kicked

my ass into Federation custody along with pushing me into the

unemployment line.

"Thank

you," I smiled. "If it isn't too much of a pain, I'd like Capri O'Hara

here," I indicated my friend, "to stay close by. She's my legal

counsel."

"You

will be legally represented by the Ministry of Justice," Elvira

informed us. "A special unit is being formed to handle your case

exclusively." It took me a moment to realize this was a trap.

I

was an asshole, a pain in the buttocks and the man who had proudly

declared he'd never help another woman, much less the country.

"No

way," I shook my head. "I'll help. That doesn't mean I trust you

people. Last night I realized I had to do more, too many of us died.

That is why we are even talking right now." That was laughable. We were

talking right now because some moron on the Capital thought this would

be good PR for the President.

Otherwise

I'd be somewhere else and without even the illusion of control over my

life. This wasn't the approach I'd taken with Dimples and Shelia. That

had been a case of withholding information. This was a case of feeding

someone, Elvira, the lies she wanted to hear based on her selfish desire

to succeed.

If

the Presidential plea worked, Elvira could chalk up a big one in the

win column. Most likely that would lead to a promotion and hopefully

Press Secretary one day. After that, she would retire and become a paid

pundit until the end of time. Elvira believed I had a conversion

experience when I was surrounded by all that death because she wanted to

believe it.

Still,

I was willing to bet that Dimples tipped things over in my favor. She

was calm and in control. Elvira trusted Enola's judgment and Enola was

giving every sign that she believed in what I was saying. Piercing the

male psyche was Dimples' job. What Elvira didn't know was that while

Dimples had done her job unraveling me, she was now, not only on my

side, joined with me in fighting a greater evil, namely Elvira's boss.

"How about this?" Elvira proposed. "Before we take you out of the city, we define Ms. O'Hara's status as your legal voice?"

"Make that phone call right now and I'll do this," I replied after a few seconds of pretend thought.

This

was the best of both worlds for Elvira Booker. She wasn't overcome by

her prejudice against males. She was better than that. No, she was being

taken in by the belief that, while she thought I was smart, she was

smarter. She was going to put on a show in front of me, I'd eat it up

and she'd come out of this smelling like roses. She'd win and personally

trick me doing it.

Elvira

made that call, was transferred and then went into her sales pitch on

my behalf. She really gave it her all. I interrupted the call the same

way I had with Capri's boss on Thursday. Sure enough, it was the

President's Chief of Staff. I was suitably embarrassed, gave the phone

back and the deal to include Capri was done.

Elvira

tried not to look victorious. She'd suckered me good. She should have

gone with her first impression. Hadn't Dimples told her that I was

totally insane? I wasn't afraid of the President or her legions. The

person I was most afraid of at that second was Mistress Script Girl. The

lady was a woman on a mission that left me curious about how happy I

wanted to make her.

They

finally let me at Maribel Cartwright who seemed amused by the whole

Elvira interaction. She reached out and covered my mic while also

covering her own.

"This is going to be a complete disaster, isn't it?" she humorously whispered.

"Do you trust me?" I responded.

"Hell no," she giggled.

"Then I think you are right," I grinned. "What's next?"

"I

think starting off with a few commercials would be wise," Maribel

sighed. "Once this shit storm starts, we are seeing it through to the

end."

"Thank

you, Maribel. I know you haven't done what you have done for me. That's

okay. I think you have helped the world in a way that really matters," I

confided in her.

"God," her eyes grew wide, "this is going to spectacularly suck, isn't it?"

"And how," I chuckled. Maribel released our audio hook-ups.

3,

2- 1, and we began. Maribel began her spiel, opening up the issues for

the audience as well as paving the way for the President. I was given a

cursory introduction which was a nod to my celebrity status. My buddy

from Ontario was there as well as that nice neurologist from Texas who

hadn't thought I was a complete idiot. For five minutes we all danced

around the subject.

The,

blank, at the Blazer Arena was the 400 kg gorilla in the room. I wanted

to say massacre. The women wanted to run with the word 'tragedy.’ We

all agreed that far fewer men would have died if men hadn't panicked.

They were less enthusiastic about concurring that death by led poisoning

would have been eradicated if the cops had run first.

Elvira

moved to the stage manager to let her know the President was about to

come on-line. She also motioned for Dimples and her people to close in.

She wasn't taking chances, or so she believed. If anyone at GNN was

annoyed with Doyle Crane doing a simulcast, they didn't say anything

about. There was an added benefit that, from his viewpoint, you could

see the Feds closing in on me.

"Greetings, Madam President," Maribel smiled politely.

"Hello

again, Maribel," the leader of the Federation gave out such genuine

warmth and comfort. "Hello to you too, Mr. Jensen, or may I refer to you

as Israel?"

"Thank you very much, Madam President. Whichever name works for you," I smiled.

"I

apologize for this interruption, Maribel. A matter of national

importance has arisen and I want to take prompt action," the President

kept going. Huh? Yeah, like I normally have armed females closing in on

me just out of camera range, wait, I do, oh fuck. My life really is a mess.

"The

issue of the reduction of male reproductivity has come to the attention

of myself and my administration and there is no time like the present

to attack this issue. Mr. Jensen, your personal adversity has gifted the

human race with a second chance to throw off the yoke of fear invoked

by the Gender Plague," the President declared.

"I

am personally inviting you, no, begging you, to help out your people,

your nation and your race," she appealed. Hmmm, had I not despised her

and everything she stood for, I might have been moved to actually help

out. As it was, she hadn't used the magic word and it wasn't 'please.’

"Come

to a research facility near the capital, run by the Ministry of Public

Health, and we can start working today and figuring out what makes your

antivirals so special that they may truly hold the secret to global

human survival," the President mothered me.

"I

can hardly say 'no' after an emotional appeal like that," I tried to

look stunned. "But, I do have one request first." Everyone paused.

Elvira was definitely starting to rethink what I'd told her. I hadn't

said 'Yes'; I had said 'I'll do this', which was now open to all kinds

of interpretations in her mind.

"I

have a friend named Dara Castelo and she is going to die without your

help," I pleaded. The President was a pretty good public speaker. She

was capable. She was also tired. The President went for the rote

response.

"Israel, my people will do everything possible to look into her problem and work to keep her alive. I promise you," she added.

She had, in fact, promised nothing, which was what I expected.

"Great,"

I beamed. "She's on the West Coast where a new version of the Plague

from China has broken out. Since its mortality rate is somewhere near

100%, could you find her and get her out before the quarantine goes into

effect. In case you can't, and if you are listening Dara, I never told

you I loved you. I was too ashamed and I'm sorry for that."

By

the looks I was getting there was only one thing worse than a babbling

nutjob Prophet of Doom, and that was a babbling nutjob Prophet of Doom

who was annoyingly correct.

To

give credit where credit is due, the President's eyes barely flickered

off-camera. You had to be looking for it. Off screen, some woman, phone

in hand, was starting to run down the information leak I'd just used to

urinate on the President's hopes and dreams. The Leading Lady was no

slouch in the debate forum.

It

took her about a second to unleash her inner attack dogs. The vector

was formulaic, destroy your opponent's credibility by exploiting their

vulnerabilities. She got high marks for information, education and

experience but you don't get to be President because you take risks, or

are imaginative. Voters don't like people in charge who have 'new'

ideas. That's scary.

My

most glaring weakness was my sanity, or lack thereof. An attack on it

was obvious and the weapon was my history. Me having been sexually

traumatized in the past was maternally endearing if you were a Mother

and I was your 20 year old daughter's date she'd brought home. For a man

acting as the harbinger of a pandemic, it was most likely fatal for my

message.

"Mr.

Jensen, Israel, I was afraid this might happen, that the accumulated

stress that has been inflicted on you has unhinged your mind. I am so

sorry," she played the Great Mother so well, "I am fearful that such a

public appeal would be too stressful to your fragile mind. Trust me, I

understand. You have been brutalized repeatedly in your life and none of

it has been your fault. I beg you to find that thread of human decency

that reaches back to the boy you once were, and break free of the

vengeance-filled, trapped and battered young man you have become. Women

have wronged you. The multitude of womankind have not. Find it in your

heart to break free from your chains of madness and let us help you."

"Hold

on, Madam President," I rallied, "are you implying that I've been

raped, lost my mind, or both?" Come get some, Bitch. Make my case for

me. By destroying my credibility, she was going to give me credibility.

It was simply credibility that no one with political ambitions would

want.

"It

is too late in the day for evasions, Israel," she sighed. "When you

were 16 you were kidnapped, raped and tortured. You went to,”

"Wait,"

I shouted. I turned to Capri, off camera, "how can she know that?" I

wailed. No, I wasn't denying it and I was looking at Capri because,

while my voice inflection was good due to my training in public

speaking, I was afraid my acting wasn't up to par.

"Israel," the President kept coming.

"There

is no record of me being raped," I interjected. "Who are you saying

raped me?" I was hoping I sounded like a hysterical person trying not to

sound hysterical. Capri later told me I did a good job, probably

because I was terrified I would fail at this crucial moment.

"Israel, that's not the issue," she tried again.

"Yes

it is," I insisted. "You can't accuse someone of being raped without

proof, President Pillyere. That's immoral, and slander, I think." I had

to put her on the defensive so she'd have to drop the kid gloves and

really come at me. Please, please, please,

"Your

tragedy shouldn't be exposed to public scrutiny, Israel," please,

please, please; for all the needless cruelty I've suffered, let this

once be something that helps me, "but you were kidnapped, raped and

tortured by the Aurora Slasher for 87 days. That broke you as a man.

With the help of women, some very skilled and devoted women, you

recovered."

"Sadly,

after you exited therapy, you were the victim of a truly barbaric act.

You went to a Sorority Party and were viciously used as a sexual toy by

the girls there," she poured on the sympathy. Barbaric was a nice touch,

but I wasn't raped, I was used as a sex toy, at a party, according to

the President, I'd gone to willingly. Well done.

"Saturday

night, you fell into the clutches of a known underworld figure who

inflicted all those bruises on your precious body we have all become

familiar with. The Arena was a tragedy. You were beaten, lethally

threatened yet still managed to save a life even though you were clearly

falling to pieces on the inside," she added.

"Bravo!"

I clapped. "Well done, Mrs. President. The problem is, Show of hands," I

raised my hand. "Who here didn't know I was insane when I showed up

today?" I looked over the studio. Virtually everyone, Mirabel included,

raised their hands.

"Come

on now, after Monday's career implosion and my plea to the police at

the hospital last night, I am undoubtedly off my rocker. This doesn't

mean my information is bad," I pointed out.

"Sure,

I could be deluded, or you could be lying too. This is an easy bit of

confusion to clear up. Why don't we contact the GNN affiliate in

Shanghai? Or San Francisco? Have their journalists go to the relevant

hospitals and observe how lethal this 'flu' outbreak is."

"You are causing needless and irresponsible panic, Mr. Jensen," the President firmly chastised me.

"Irresponsible?

Perhaps, but I'm not paid to be responsible, you are and you are

sucking at your job," I grinned. "Why? That's the 'needless' part. The

people need  to be told that you are letting a pandemic spread across

the country so you can isolate a few key economic centers so that some

shell of a country can persist that you can rule. That's pathetic if you

are a woman, or man, considered vital as you are all going to die off

in a few decades anyway, and truly suctacular if you aren't one of the

Chosen Few. They are about to catch a disease that kills both men and

women in seven days, the last four are really unpleasant, I can assure

you," I told them.

"Mr. Jensen," the President snapped.

"Shut up!" I shouted back.

"Madam President, you will have your chance at a rebuttal in a moment," Mirabel jumped in.

"Thank you, Ms. Cartwright," I nodded.

"For

everyone else, here is the puzzle of the day: Why am I here? We all

know I'm a nut and a troublemaker and if you believe the President

'happened' to show up, well, stick your head back in the sand, you'll be

happier, believe me. For the rest of you, please recall what Dr. Vasco

said yesterday on GNN."

"My

antivirals kill the T1. She proved it which surprised me as much as

anyone else. What you probably don't know is that I did not develop

these antivirals on my own. As the President just confirmed, I was

kidnapped by the Aurora Slasher. She experimented on me with a variety

of things. One of them was Carabolix-37."

"It

was stored at St. Jerome's hospital, which records will confirm was the

place where the Carabolix-37 live trials were performed. Twenty years

ago, it killed or caused every man who was given the drug to have their

nuts cut off. I am the only survivor and no one knows why, save the

Slasher herself. Why don't I know?"

"The

Aurora Slasher did many horrible things to me, a sixteen year old

virgin boy. They were so bad that the therapist had to suppress many of

those memories so that I could be functional in the eighteen month

timeline they were given.

Saturday

night, along with spending a painful sexual encounter with said mobster

and having my sexual liaison with the woman I love used as a marketing

tool in the slave auction I was forced to participate in, Dr. Delilah

Fremont, creator of Carabolix-37, woke up one of those memories. Yes, it

was the torment of those resurfacing nightmares of being trapped in her

cellar that broke me."

"There

it is. I admit it. I was driven insane when I was sixteen and I'm close

to being that shattered husk once again. That doesn't change the fact

that I was in that basement, I was experimented on with something that

has made me immune to the Gender Plague, and it doesn't change the fact

that a new, updated version of that Plague is coming to kill you all."

"The

how and why of Carabolix not killing me may be locked up in my head

somewhere. With it would be a way to allow men to create antivirals to

counteract the Gender Plague and this new horror coming for us all. This

is why the President is making her appeal to me now on world-wide

video."

"This

is not some ego-driven fantasy. Think about it. This 'gift' from the

woman who destroyed my childhood is nothing but a curse. Rape survivors

don't want the limelight, we want to hide. Last time we were 'noticed'

something bad happened to us. I agree I have had an egregiously unlucky

life," I was winding down.

"Yet,

I have managed to find love and compassion at this late date, and with

that, hope. That's all I can really pass on. Spend the next week giving a

damn about a total stranger, tell the person you love how you feel and

follow your heart. If I'm wrong, you've blown one week of your hopefully

long lives. If I'm right, how else would you like to go out?" I

finished.

"Madam President," Maribel passed the verbal baton.

"Mr.

Jensen, you are a lunatic," the President sounded so full of concern

and sympathy. I really had to hand it to her. She was about to screw me

royally.

"Agreed," I nodded.

"Wait your turn, Israel," Maribel cautioned me.

"You

have turned an unfortunate influenza outbreak into an epidemic only you

can cure. How realistic is that?" my current aggressor kept chiseling

away at me. "I'm trying to bring men into the pending gender issue and

you are jumping off the Cliffs of Reason."

"Mrs.

President," the neurologist from Texas interrupted, "we know he has the

cure to the  Gender virus, as he claimed on Monday. Can we at least

find out the source of Mr. Jensen's information?"

"It comes from his imagination," the President was getting snappish. No more Christmases!!

"No,

it comes from the Ministry of Security, Operations Section, as well as

members of J SOC and certain satellite intelligence," I confessed. "The

pertinent fact is not that I'm undeniably crazy. It is that your own

administration has betrayed you, Madam President." Boom! Take That! It

was no longer about my credibility or confidence, it was about hers.

The

logical next step was to mock my access to anyone with their hands on

such sensitive information. Except the military had made a grab at me an

hour ago, it looked like her Attorney General had bungled the handling

of the Jensen Investigation on Monday and her National Security Advisor

had talked her into this public appeal fiasco this morning.

"Who

told you these things?" she growled. "I want names." Even as those

words poured out of her mouth she realized the enormity of her mistake.

It was too late now. Her mental turmoil, brought about the disaster at

the M A L rally, the on-coming plague, lack of sleep and her anxious

efforts to save what she could, had eroded her poise enough to give me a

ray of hope.

Whether

you wanted to consider it irresponsible journalism, or a matter of the

public having the right to choose, it was Maribel that landed the

killing blow.

"Madam

President," Maribel shot up from one of the elevated stools she, and I,

were sitting on, "I have only this moment heard confirmation that there

is going to be a quarantine that encompasses the San Francisco Bay Area

in four hours. What is going on here?"

What

was going on was a matter of human psychology and logistics. No one,

not even the President, could simply order the cessation of all land,

air and sea travel out of a location and have it happen instantly. You

had to marshal forces, seize chokepoints and organize your internal

resources for the crisis's to come, disease, hunger, lawlessness, and

fear.

The

last problem could be the biggest. When told that a horrific disease

was breaking in your hometown, your instinct was 'I'm healthy, so I

should get out while the getting is good.’ It was a very human reaction.

If you were trying to contain a contagion, this was very, very bad.

This virus had a three day incubation period.

People

who felt perfectly healthy could be walking corpses and not know it.

Sadly, none of this mattered to San Francisco. The infection had been

spreading around the cities of the Bay Area for six days by this time.

The path of the initial plague bearer was a nightmare. She'd been at the

airport, as well as eating, shopping and clubbing for two days all over

San Francisco.

As

an act of kindness, the director of GNN San Francisco began informing

the Emergency Managers of every city about to be affected that she had

spilled the beans. By the time the listening audience made up their

minds to tell their buddies before packing up and making for some means

of egress, the wheels of the quarantine were rolling.

Rental

cars were no longer available, trains and metros stopped running, and

the ports, ferries and all airports, great and small, shut down. It was

an imperfect containment, but it was something.

"This conversation is over," the President barked. "Who is in charge there?"

"Special

Agent in Charge Enola ‘Dimples’, Treyvon, Gender Investigative Unit,

Federation Bureau of Investigation, Madam President," Dimples stepped

forward, cloaked in an invincible aura of purity. "What are your

orders?" Camera's panned to her and she came on-screen for the masses.

"Special Agent Treyvon, arrest that man," the President commanded.

"I can't do that, Madam President. He is not in violation of any Federation Law," Dimples replied.

"His bracelet is malfunctioning," our Fearless Leader pointed out.

"Noted

and explained, Ma'am. It was disabled in a police action, by an

authorized law enforcement agent striking him accidentally. He has

informed the proper authorities and has an appointment to remedy the

situation upon leaving this building," Enola answered.

"It happened last night," the slightly exasperated President continued.

"Ma'am,

the offices were closed last night and don't open for another thirty

minutes. What exactly was Mr. Jensen supposed to do?" Dimples was a

cool, sedate calm.

"Just arrest him!" the President's patience was wearing thin.

"Well, Madam President, if you declare a State of National Emergency, I could do that right now," Dimples pointed out.

"So

ordered," the President commanded. Clearly the woman was exhausted from

a long sleepless night. She was definitely worn down, stressed and not

at the top of her game.

"Could you please clarify," Dimples requested monotonously.

"I declare a State of National Emergency, now take him into custody," she barked.

"Thank you Madam President. Madam President, I am placing you under arrest, the charge is Treason," Dimples announced.

"What?" the President shouted. "You can't do that."

"Yes

Ma'am, I can. Page 37 of the Emergency Powers Act, Section 40,

paragraph 1: 'Any authorized federal law enforcement agent, or armed

forces member directed to act in a law enforcement role may arrest and

detain any public officer, or employee, deemed to be acting against the

public welfare, and interest, for 72 hours without a legal hearing.'

"You

really should have read what you just made into law, Madam

ex-President," Dimples remained totally neutral and comported herself

with astounding gravitas.

"I'm going to call your boss, the Attorney General, and settle this matter right now," the maybe ex-President threatened.

"Mrs.

Pillyere (the Quebecois former President's last name)," S A C Treyvon

mused, "if the AG takes that call, she will be charged, quite legally,

with Conspiracy to Commit Treason. I imagine your popularity is going

down the toilet right about now, so please be cooperative. As we speak,

Ms. Montanyard, of the 10th Federation Legal District is sending an

arrest warrant to the Minister of the Treasury, directing her to order

the Secret Service Presidential Detail to take you into custody."

"Aren't you at least going to arrest Mr. Jensen?" the stunned ex-President mumbled.

"Why? He's been totally cooperative and up front with everything we've asked him to do, unlike you," Dimples lectured.

"But, the cure," our former leader pressed.

"He

doesn't have access to a global, or even national cure. He never has.

Besides, he's not a public officer, or official," Dimples pointed out.

"He isn't required to do anything to help anyone. To force him to do so

would be unconstitutional, the 14th Amendment says so."

"Wait, he's a member of the staff at City Hall, isn't he?" the ex-Pres. kept trying to tread water.

"The

world would be a much tidier place if everyone would simply read the

handbooks created for such situations," Dimple sighed. "Mr. Jensen is

under a termination notice by the Civil Affairs Review Board which, I

quote, 'removes all duties and responsibilities from said individual

until the time of their termination review hearing.’

"That

is next Tuesday, if you are curious. To pre-empt your next suggestion,

only Mr. Jensen can request a speedy hearing. The Civil Affairs

department cannot request one because that violates his rights to mount a

'timely' defense," Enola remained outwardly detached. I didn't know

this shit and I worked for the city.

A

Grand Cosmic Law was being revealed to the world at large: Dimples

wins. Dimples always wins. You see, there were only two outcomes

possible. The President successfully resisted and the country descended

into civil war because if the Chief Executive of the Nation was

publically disobeying the law, why would anyone follow her?

Or,

the ex-President went to the FBI, squealed like a stuck pig and took

down her entire cabinet for their complicity, including the Vice

President, and the country was decapitated. By issuing the State of

National Emergency, she'd silenced and neutered the Congress for 72

hours as well, so neither the Speaker of the Assembly nor the President

Pro Tem of the Senate could legally take over the country.

The

Supreme Court was technically still intact, but what in the hell were

they going to do? They had no enforcement powers and the government

bureaucracy was running on autopilot. In theory, authority devolved down

to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. More likely, it was in the hands of the

Regional Military Commanders.

On

paper, a million women warriors were theirs to command. In reality, the

majority of these women were clerks, mechanics, armorers, medics and

other support personnel. The minority were combat troops. Very few were

actually military policewomen or shore patrol.

The

military had three missions: military confrontation, police actions and

training the next generation of women to fight effectively. Among other

things, this meant a disparity of combat power between installations.

South Atlantic Command had a plethora of Coast Guard cutters and

frigates, several air bases of mostly reconnaissance planes, a combat

air training facility and a dozen battalions of Reserves.

There were two Ranger Regiments in her area plus their training base, but they answered to a separate command, the J SOC.

In

comparison, the Mid-Atlantic MC was a God of War. She had two fully

functional combat divisions, six combat air wings, the world's third

largest naval base, the Naval Academy and roughly two and a half

divisions of reserves from various branches of the armed services.

While

the commanders of the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic regions were

theoretically equals, if South Atlantic did something Mid-Atlantic

didn't like, or had something, like that nuclear power plant, that

Mid-Atlantic needed, a major ass-whooping was in the offing.

To

add to the fun, if a naval or Coast Guard vessel was at sea, it was

under their various Naval Fleet commands. If it was in port, it was

under the local Military Commander's command. The Chief of Naval

Operations was ordering all naval vessels to bolt for the high seas. If

you were a civilian in Halifax, Hampton Roads, Veracruz, San Salvador,

San Diego or Vancouver, watching all those grey ships running for open

water must have been a sight, and not a good one.

In a final cluster-fuck,

there was the majority of one airmobile division and two Ranger

battalions right outside the city that were not part of our Regional

Military Commander's power structure. The Rangers belonged to Joint

Special Operations Command and the Airmobile belonged to the Old

Southwest Command, the old U S Southwest States and several northern

states of old Mexico.

Their

RMC was probably really, really curious when she was getting her only

active service division back, too. I hoped she wasn't holding her

breath. She had a shitload of territory to cover, a small number of

support and reserve units to use and, oh yeah, there was a plague

breaking out right over the border in California with the corresponding

exodus.

While

the Federation was in a really bad way, the Europeans were totally

screwed. All morning long, their leaders had been standing up and

telling their populations that things were bad, a deadly flu outbreak in

China, but they were going to ride out the storm. The E U and the

Federation were on top of the crisis. They could all breathe easy.

Somewhere

between lunchtime and dinner, depending on which European time zone you

were in, the Federation government was overthrown by a military coup,

or so it seemed. Collectively, the citizens of Europe took a deep

breath, and then totally freaked out. There were runs on the banks and

mass migrations from the cities.

Factories,

trains and overnight package delivery via the internet stopped. The

Pope called for calm while quietly sending units of the Swiss Guard to

protect a handful of boys' schools the Holy See had established on the

island of Sardinia. In France, Italy and Spain there was a call for a

General Strike. Some midlevel functionary ordered the evacuation of the

Louvre, setting off more panic.

In

Germany, a peaceful vigil turned violent and the Chancellor declared

Martial Law. In Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ukraine, a State of

Quarantine was declared along with a midnight curfew. There was a run on

the stores. Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and Scandinavia

appealed for calm.

You

could see it in their leaders' eyes. It wasn't going to be enough. The

European economy was going down the crapper in the next 48 hours and

nothing could stop it. After Nigeria imploded at the end of the first

Gender Plague, the only states in Africa that mattered economically

where Egypt, Greater Ethiopia, Kenya and the Republic of South Africa.

Yes,

there were states in West Africa. That was the problem; there were a

lot of little states. In the center of Africa, southern Angola and

Katanga had been gobbled up by the RSA. North of that was a No Woman's

Land all the way to the Sahara, which has spent the last fifty years

marching south.

The

RSA had 'leaked' the information to its people about the oncoming

Plague, so the official revelation wasn't crushing. They were talking

quickly with their African neighbors, the few European powers that were

still taking their calls and South America, trying to keep some kind of

economy going. They needed India.

India's

response was that they had Plague in 18 of their largest cities. India

was one of those nations that came through the Gender Plague 'okay.’

Unlike China's One Child policy that had left them male-heavy, India

always had plenty of women. She was sent reeling from all the deaths

like everyone else, but she'd come out comparatively stronger

world-wide.

India

was one of the five great world economies along with China, the

Federation, Russia, and the RSA. Everyone thought China was fading fast,

now India was about to go the same way, Russia's biggest trading

partners were the rest of Europe and China, in that order, and now the

Federation was 'iffy.’ There was no way the RSA could carry the weight

alone.

To be continued

By FinalStand for Literotica

The final hours of normalcy.

Based on ‘One In Ten’ by FinalStand, adapted into 17 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.

In Peace, daughters bury their mothers. In War, mothers bury their daughters. The death of sons is too painful to recount.

"What does this mean?" I inquired gently. Brandi looked up at me and smiled.

"It means we are not all going to die," she breathed deeply for the first time since this experiment began.

"Israel

is too nice and shell-shocked to ask you what the hell is going on, but

why don't you enlighten me?" Capri stood on the sofa, on her knees,

looking over the three Vanishers.

"The

Plague has broken out in China and made its way to the West Coast. We

have operatives and men we'd like to rescue in threatened areas. We were

hoping to inoculate our people so that they don't get infected.

Infected people have to be left behind," Jen explained.

"How many men are going to die?" Aniqua groaned.

"Wait, you said 'our people'," Capri's eyes narrowed. "Why would you need to inoculate woman against the Plague?"

"This

is a new plague," Zara finally spoke. "It is killing everybody." How

exactly does a person respond to that? I wanted to erase the last five

seconds of my memory and trundle along like nothing was wrong.

Well, more wrong than was normally wrong for me.

"Israel,

you have to vanish, now!" Capri insisted. "No more screwing around. Let

them take you out of here to someplace safe." I did not want to deal

with the logic or emotion behind that statement. Capri wanted me to go,

knowing she was going to die in some unpleasant manner.

"Why did you call me Frank?" I turned to Brandi. She was setting up another machine that had tubing and a really sharp needle.

"Inside

joke," Brandi's smile tried to be comforting. "See, I'm Brandi the

Veterinarian, Jen works for Nasa and you're Frank the Duck."

"I don't get it," I mused.

"Are you really a vet, as opposed to an honest to God doctor, or paramedic?" Kuiko wondered. Aniqua groaned once more.

"Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, courtesy of the University of Minnesota and Uncle Sam," she confirmed.

"I

thought I'd work with K-9 units, but after my initial evaluations, they

informed me I had another valuable skill set that I'd been

overlooking," she added.

"What would that be?" Capri muttered.

"I'm really good at blowing things up," Brandi chatted while setting me up for the blood withdrawal.

"Oh God," Venus gulped. "Were you girls behind the Arena bombing?"

"Yes," Jen replied.

"You killed all those people," Aniqua stood up angrily.

"Wake up," Jen growled. "What did you think was going to happen when society crumbled?"

"Billions

are going to die. We can't save them. We, the movement, have to bring

the government down before we can move to stage 2 of the plan. If you

ladies can't deal with that, you are hanging around with the wrong man,"

Jen continued.

"Israel?" Samantha called out.

"I

figured it out, Samantha. I didn't know at the start, but I figured it

out. Everyone you know, who is not Angel, or Roni that is not in this

room will be dead in two months," I sighed.

"Oh,

you are trying to save as many as you can," Venus murmured. Had I a

cohesive plan, or an iron will, maybe I would have understood that

enough to save more.

"Do you know why Frank is so willingly giving up his blood right now?" Jen asked the group.

"He's got hot-sexy eyes for Zara?" Kuiko offered. Jen snorted. Zara's back was to me.

"Well,

that and, look around the room," Jen told them. "Do you know how many

women are on the list of those to be taken to safety?"

"None," Capri responded.

"Precisely,

and he's trying to change that. Of the nearly twenty-six hundred men we

have 'vanished', less than twenty asked for another woman to be saved,

every one of those asked for their mothers," Jen stated.

"Israel asked you to save us?" Kuiko sounded surprised.

"Asks the woman who was fuck-stunned

for thirty minutes," Jen joked. "He hasn't asked. He didn't have to.

That first Sunday, he was on the list. The following Saturday morning,

he was off it because he had a female attachment. We kept an eye on him,

just in case."

"Saturday

night he took a beating you cannot imagine because he wouldn't betray

Angel Kristi," Jen explained. "Men don't do that. We never give them the

chance, but Frank did. We didn't know what Carabolix, 37 was yet. All

he had to do was tell another woman that he loved her and treat her the

way he treated Angel. He wouldn't do it. He was back on the list."

"Since

then, somewhat inadvertently, Frank has been working his ass off to

help us with our plans," Jen mused. "We didn't think he knew about our

background until today, but he put all of the pieces together, seconds

after freaking out and walking into a wall. If he hadn't been screwed-up

in college, and wasn't a man, he would be on the fast track to academic

recognition, political office, or the head of some conglomerate."

"Instead,

he's a mess, but he's a mess that gets to live as the world dies," Jen

finished. My mind was still in the kitchen. Brandi's equipment wasn't

powerful enough to see either the T1I1 or T2 viruses, but it was clear

that my guys had cleaned house. It also meant,

"You brought a sample of the T2 to the city," I whispered to Brandi. She nodded.

"It

was risky, but we had to know if we had to write off dozens of our

people. Now," she sighed happily, "thanks to you, we don't. Some of

those people I've known for years."

"Until

Frank," Jen continued, "we weren't planning to save anyone but the

chosen men, despite their disadvantages. Now, your small crew might make

it."

"You'll save us because he loves Angel?" Kuiko inquired sadly.

"Love conquers all," Capri murmured.

"Basically yes," Jen nodded. "Because he loves all of you, you might just make it."

"That means I get to have sex with him again!" Kuiko exulted.

Yeah,

the world was going down the crapper, billions dying, civilization as

we'd come to know it was fading into darkness, but having sex with me

again made it all okay with Kuiko. She was wonderful.

"Me first," muttered Venus.

Things

calmed down after that. I was given a pillow for my head and two for my

feet as I lay on the floor giving up two pints of my blood. Brandi was

going to replenish me with two fresh pints of blood plasma to keep me

going. Somewhere along the process, Brandi left for a spell and Zara

came in.

She

took my free hand and held it tight. Our eyes met. She had some

comforting glow about her. I was woozy and very tired, barely awake.

"How did I get so lucky?" I whispered. Her eyes grew brighter and her glow warmer.

"Get some sleep," she advised and off I went.

(Wednesday)

"Wake

up," Capri was calling out quietly while shaking me by my shins. With

no feminine face over me as I awoke, I didn't have to worry about

freaking out. "Eloise called Kuiko and asked her to come back in and be

re-interviewed." That was pretty sad code for me and Capri to come to

the Sentinel offices. The cloak and dagger ratcheted up my worry.

I

sat up. The other girls were all awake now too. I came to a sad

realization. I was a whore by necessity. I was trading my body for

services. There was also no misunderstanding in the relationship either,

except, maybe for Capri, and Kuiko, and Angel. Maybe I was simply a

morose bastard filled with self-loathing and self-pity. I was being a

jerk.

"I'm

going to take a shower now," I stood up and announced. "Venus, can I

convince you to join me?" I wasn't going to have my sex life become a

matter of 'turns', or a rotation. Monogamy wasn't going to happen. It

was a selfish fantasy on my part and totally unfair to my friends, my

female friends. Thank you, Kuiko.

For a second, Venus froze. She was up and removing her shirt so fast it tore; she was trying to steal back that second.

"Sure!"

she declared. Venus rushed past me on the way to the bathroom. I could

hear the shower coming on as I finished undressing, placing my clothes

in my bedroom hamper.

Damn,

laundry day was overdue. That was a problem I'd have to save for later.

At the moment, I had to make my way to the bathroom where a terribly

frightening, and terrifically sexy, naked Venus was waiting for me with a

burning hunger. I had faced the black depths of Flame's gun, a wall of

angry cops and the threat of that unknown cop in the arena, so I could

do this.

"There

are going to be some ground rules," Venus held up her hand. Uh-oh.

"Whenever I do something that is starting to weird you out, you let me

know, right away."

"Uh, yea, wait, why do you get to set the ground rules?" It came out more as a plea than the strong voice I wanted to project.

"I

want to have sex with you again. I want you to want to have sex with me

again. You don't have to treat me the same way you treat Kuiko, unless

you want to," Venus grinned wickedly. "Now let's get in the shower

before all the hot water runs out."

"Trust me, that doesn't happen," I reminded her. Angel and I had a real, time in the shower.

I followed Venus into the shower then began shifting around. I couldn't get her rhythm. It was like,

"Are you a virgin?" I whispered. Venus gasped and her eyes widened.

"What makes you think that?" she countered with bravado.

"Let

me rephrase, you are a virgin," I said softly. Another denial formed on

her lips, but then she nodded. I quickly cupped her jaw and kissed her.

I kissed her again then French kissed her. Her tongue was ready and

willing. Venus had no idea what to do with it. I inched back.

"Let your tongue follow mine. I won't bite," I soothed her.

Her

smile went from uncertain to aggressive. She wasn't Kuiko, Venus was

unskilled but confident. She initiated the next kiss and took my advice.

I had to break the embrace because I was not prepared for a tongue

wrestling match.

"Next: French kissing is not a contest finished with a three count," I joked.

"You

do know if you tell any of the girls about this I'll, I'll, I'll nipple

twist Kuiko until she cries," Venus threatened. I was willing to bet

the first idea in her mind was 'punch me.’ She was not Kuiko, not Kuiko,

not Kuiko, I spanked Venus' ass.

"No

you don't," I challenged her. I was gaining solace in my mentorship and

that let me wash myself clean of the corrosive toxicity that threatened

my joy of life and take delight in Venus' body.

"You hit me," she smiled.

"I spanked you," I corrected, "and nipple punishment is my teaching technique. Find your own."

Venus snickered, tried to stare me down then relented with a kiss.

"Deal," she panted when the kiss broke once more. "I think I like being spanked." Oh, God.

I

dodged our next connection, going for her jawline instead. Her hands

fumbled to redirect me, but I slipped past her efforts to her neck. I

lightly kissed my way down to her left nipple, tickled it with my tongue

then nipped it with my teeth. Venus' hiccupped, her teat flared and her

body spasmed. Her hands insistently held my head in place.

My

hand drummed against her hip, giving her a gentle reminder of where the

'freaky' began for me. It took a few seconds, but Venus did relent,

though she groaned as she did so. I switched to the right nipple, sucked

the whole, half-dollar sized areola into my mouth then worried it

briskly with my teeth while suckling like a starving infant.

I

could feel her muscles ripple around me. She pushed her breast forward,

doing with her chest what she couldn't do with her hands. Her arms were

flexing, her fists clenching and unclenching, her calves and feet

pushing up so she could tilt farther forward. Venus was hissing her

extreme arousal through her grinding teeth.

My hand went straight to her nethers, my thumb hunted for a button while two fingers found a cave.

"Ai, ai, ai, ai," Venus chirped. She was nice, juicy, warm and ready to go. I kept this up for over a minute.

Her button came out to play and I began to tap on it like a telegraph signal.

"Oh, fuck me Israel," she pleaded. "If I've been good, stick it in me, if I've been bad, forgive me, but please, please fuck me. I don't want my first orgasm with you to be from your damn fingers."

"If

that's what you want," I murmured to her with true affection. Venus was

aggressive, but she didn't know what to do. Her hormones had to be

racing. She couldn't order her thoughts through the storm clouds of her

emotions. I was telling her that she was on the right course while she

took control. I knew that would make Venus more comfortable and happy.

I

leaned against the back of the shower. Venus put one foot on the

quarter meter lip between the tile floor or lip and the glass door and

wall. She pushed up, balanced her hand on the far wall and poised crotch

on my stomach. I wedged my left hand between our bodies. I straightened

up and rubbed back and forth before Venus trapped it and slid down.

It

was easy for me to see women as leering, lustful villains wanting to

take from me. That was not a far-fetched picture based on my

experiences. I had let that caricature stop me from reaching out. It had

stopped me from really seeing women for what they were, past their

prejudice of my gender and their perceived place for me in their world

view.

They

were confident yet fearful, emotional and confused, practical dreamers

and romantic pragmatists. The fascist proletariat, good one Capri. We

were blessed by our differences, not divided by them, we complemented

one another. Nature never intended for us to be at each other's throats

until one or the other was dead or subjugated.

Crap,

the Vanishers kept getting smarter and smarter in my estimations. If

you reduced the equation down to raw survival all the extraneous shit

went out the window, pure democracy. You couldn't emotional, or

physically, wreck another member because the group needed everyone

working at their best so that the group could survive.

The

gender ratio would still favor the women, but even that was purely

practical. It would take time to train the men to be equal contributors

to the group. Men would have to earn the right to be considered an

equal. This wasn't a carrot at the end of a stick. It was a goal with

set mileposts and a graduation date. We would seize equality by our own

efforts, free of doubt and the fear it could be taken away.

And

some of us would end up being devoured by tigers, or chipmunks, or

whatever other ravenous monsters roamed the Federation wilderness.

Things weren't going to be easy.

"Oh

God," Venus moaned loud enough to be heard across the hall, "this is so

much better." I imagine she meant 'better' than artificial aids.

She

placed her palms against the wall on either side of my head, grinning

triumphantly, while trying to leverage her hip gyrations with her

limited mobility. I rested my hands on her ample, muscular ass cheeks,

Kuiko's were smaller, but firmer. Venus' and Angel's were very much

alike.

I took over Venus' revolutions, lifting her free of her footholds.

I

could tell she was mildly surprised at my strength. Since I buckled

under so often, it was normal to see my social weakness mirrored in

physical under-development. It was too easy for women to ignore the

enforced workout regimen of men meant we were indeed tougher than we

looked.

"Oh,

shit-damn, that feels great," Venus purred as she added her thigh

compressions to my lifting to keep control of her sensual stimulations.

Debra had been nice, but it had been 'work.’ I didn't want to think

about Magdalena at that moment. Angel was love, Kuiko was fun and Venus

was, easy.

She

was easy in that she knew what she wanted, and once I opened the portal

and showed her the correct pathway, she gladly took the lead. True to

her word, she was experimenting in the things she could do to bring me

pleasure, but it was all her.

I

could have sat back and made all the proper noises and she'd have been

happy. I didn't cheat Venus. Once she had established her mistress-ness

of the situation, I tuned up my own game. I began chewing on her breasts

and teats, spanked her ass and played with her anus, kissed her with

enough tongue to excite her sense of domination and bit her lips.

My

fount of cream first caught me by surprise. Normally I was more in

control. I attributed it to the blood transfusion earlier as well as a

lack of sleep.

"Oh

my God," Venus growled victoriously, "you came inside of me, you came."

She struggled on with that sense of accomplishment for thirty more

seconds.

"Ah, Shit!" she screamed. Her wet cave clamped down on my slowly deflated cock.

Then the waterworks began, both top and bottom. Venus began sobbing

tears of joy. She coated me with thick, creamy fluids. Her body shook

through an intense orgasm for nearly half a minute before her forehead

fell on my collarbone.

Slowly her head turned so that her mouth was puffing her breaths on my neck.

"When

are we going to do this again?" she panted. There was a pause as I was

putting my own mind back in order. "If you say next month, I'm going out

there and paddling Aniqua's bottom. I've caught you sneaking peeks at

it when you think no one is looking."

I

was starting to think that I didn't need an Alpha female, I needed a

God-damned referee. There was also another way to approach this, I

discovered.

"When

do you want to make love again, Venus?" I murmured playfully. I saw the

pleasure in her eyes. That was more than she hoped for.

We

hadn't graduated from mentor and student. It was wonderful seeing the

dawning realization in her eyes. I wasn't going to be the problem, her

female cohorts were. She'd 'won' me. She now had to face the wrath of

her peers over that deed. Sure, she could say 'let's do it at lunch',

but then she'd have to face down the other six women.

With

that came the understanding that Angel and Kuiko had convinced me to be

available too. Monogamy wasn't going to happen so she would have to

work it out with the other women. This was a totally different outcome

than she'd expected. Having the upper hand in our relationship was a

bitch.

She

couldn't even be angry with me because this was what she wanted.

Welcome to equality. I could refuse to choose. There was no longer a

power structure that required me to do anything sexual so I could freely

concede the initiative to the ladies without giving up a thing.

"Are you smarter than Capri?" Venus studied me, face to face and eye to eye.

"Please

God, tell me you are the smartest person I know," she teased me.

"Please tell me you are smarter than that red-haired witch, because if

she can trick me as easily as you just did, I'm never going to live it

down."

"Venus, I am happy to be with you here, right now," I replied. "That's all that matters to me."

Venus kissed me deeply, pulled back and gave me several slow pecks on the nose and lips.

"That was very sweet of you to say," she purred. She gave me another passionate French kiss.

"You aren't going to answer my question, are you?" she glared.

"Not in this lifetime," I grinned.

We

cleaned up and exited the shower. Venus gathered up her torn shirt,

shorts, bra and underwear. I reached out and took her hand.

"We

can dress in the bedroom if you prefer," I offered. She looked like she

was about to fall over. Venus had considered Kuiko's review to be so

much hysterical tripe, until now.

It

wasn't the sex. I really thought she liked it. It was a simple,

adolescent romantic gesture, the holding of hands. It wasn't sex, it was

affection, and effortless gesture that said 'I like you' and there was

not enough of that going around these days. Venus blushed slightly.

"Sure," she tried to sound nonchalant.

She

was going to a boy's bedroom and she was not going to have sex. The

possibilities expanded in her mind. 'He cared, he really cared.’ Sure, I

also cared for some other girls, but now, for the first time, she was

on the inside looking out. She had a guy who wanted her, and that was a

magical thought all on its own.

For

a poor working girl like Venus, this had been a cruel dream dangled

just out of reach. She was attractive, played baseball and had steady

work, but she knew in her heart she wasn't marriage material. Men

married up. Whatever man she might get was destined to leave her, not

matter how hard she tried.

When

she first came at me, it was as a She-Wolf, trying to get one good

bite, one taste, before I departed for greener pastures. Against

pre-ordained fate, she was here, at my side, her partner and mate. She

could nuzzle up against me (cautiously) and expect gentle contact in

return. Sex isn't slamming a cock into a vagina, that's rutting and all mammals do it.

Sex

is contact and connection. Sex is sensual as in utilizing all your

senses to comprehend the pace your partner is setting. It flows both

ways as you give and take, act and respond. They told women this stuff

in romance novels. They also teach it to broken men in therapy so we

won't be afraid to give again. Venus had this now, a romance with a

broken man.

"No

peeking," I admonished her as I began getting dressed. For a moment she

almost laughed at me. We'd made love only a minute ago. Then she felt

my frontiers closing in, rolled over and buried her face in my pillow

(Angel's actually). I hadn't asked her to leave and she honored my

request. We were both making steps forward.

"Finished," I informed her when I was done. Venus rolled over and stared at my ceiling.

"Oh

God, I'm getting to be as bad as Kuiko," she moaned. She noticed my

confused expression. "We caught her back in your bedroom, humping your

pillow last night, making these cute little whimpering sounds," she

enlightened me.

I

would have been really weirded out if it had been one of the other

girls. I was still a little weirded out though because, well, I had put

my head on that pillow last night. Couldn't someone have warned me?

Maybe this was their revenge for me not coming straight home.

"I'll

go change clothes in Capri's room," Venus said as she hopped out of

bed. "You can watch if you like," she added with a sexy hip-bump.

I opened the door for her. As she stepped out, I responded.

"If I do that, we might end up having sex again," I warned Venus.

"No!"

screamed Capri from the living room. "And have less impressive sex,

Jerk!" Venus looked decidedly miffed in Capri's direction. I thought

miffed because the alternative was murderous.

I made my way to the kitchen and breakfast, someone had bought me or us food, a 'filled all my cabinet space' amount of food.

"Thanks, Capri," I called out.

"I swear it looked like all you ate was gruel and those loathsome power-shakes," she answered.

"I didn't get my curvaceous body by eating healthy, damn it," she added.

"Actually, you look a bit out of shape," Kuiko noted. Capri pulled out her stun gun.

"Don't

make me spark up your little ass," Capri grumbled. Did every freaking

sound carry to every corner of my abode? Seriously? I stepped out with

my bowl of milky granola.

Kuiko looked my way and grinned.

"This

little ass?" she giggled. She turned facing away from me and slowly

bent a quarter over. Capri's stun gun crackled again. "This little ass?"

Kuiko repeated but this time she bunny hopped, in reverse, toward me. A

smile over her shoulder and another bunny hop.

"That's

it!" Capri shouted and lunged, stun gun in hand, toward Kuiko.

Fortunately, Aniqua intercepted Capri and wrapped an arm around her

waist to pull her back.

"Slow

down, Red," Aniqua pleaded. "I need her so I can make rent." Kuiko

wiggled her cute, tight little posterior at me. Capri almost broke free.

I

had a sneaking suspicion I was contagious. I was making people around

me crazy. It could also have been the close confines and high stress

from knowing the world was about to end. Maybe I was getting better and

realizing that not everything was my fault, or within my ability to fix.

I also realized that Angel and Roni were still not back.

Thankfully,

Kuiko backed down, the other way. Capri took a shower and dressed. She

had eaten breakfast while Venus and I were otherwise occupied. Venus

came out to the expectant stares of the other three women.

"How was it?" Samantha inquired. "Did you enjoy yourself? Did he enjoy you?"

"It wasn't bad," Venus shrugged.

"I'm

about to beat you back into the Stone Age, Bitch," Aniqua growled

playfully. "Spank my ass, will you? Besides, it isn't like I mind him

checking me out, but did you have to tell him we all knew he was doing

it?"

As

noted on my first day in my condo, this place was built like crap. The

only damn thing that seemed to work was the water heater. That worked

like gangbusters. Otherwise, the walls were way too thin, yet somehow

offered great acoustics. Wait, the windows appeared to work well. I

guessed I'd have a better chance of running through a wall into the next

condo than jumping out my window.

Of

course, that meant people could get at me by punching through the

walls. That would make my walls marginally less effective than my door's

security system. In my short history here, it did a better job at

keeping out those I wanted in than hindering those I wanted to keep out.

This retrospection was costing me more sanity than I could afford to

lose at the moment, so I stopped it and went back to eating.

Kuiko

and Aniqua were leaving with us today. Kuiko wanted to talk to 'her

guy' who turned out, according to Aniqua, to be a 67 year old ex-Navy

veteran co-worker. Despite our disbelief in Kuiko's enthusiasm, Aniqua

believed there was something to this relic. She suspected he got

cigarettes from somewhere and drank more than a 'skittish whore',

Aniqua's words.

How

in the hell that old geezer was passing his physical was a mystery

solved by Kuiko, he was banging his doctor on a regular basis. It seems

he was in perfect working order despite his plethora of bad habits. Why

hadn't he had sex with Aniqua or Kuiko? His words, 'I go to work to get

away from those sex-starved bitches.’ He only banged college girls (and

his doctor, whom he knew from her college days).

My

life became dependent on non-communication, miscommunications and lies,

and I was totally ignorant of the facts so crucial to my survival.

Outside was a strong, steady downpour and we were expecting rain, on and

off, until mid-afternoon. Capri relied on a rain hat instead of an

umbrella so I stooped down to give her some shelter under my device.

Kuiko

and Aniqua waved goodbye under their umbrellas as we parted company,

they were taking the bus. Had I seen or heard the helicopters, I would

have worried. The visibility was low and the sound of the storm

dominated the air, so I didn't and was momentarily okay. Something else I

didn't know, someone was tracking heat signatures.

Kuiko

and Aniqua were one group, Capri and I another, and lastly, and more

important to the viewers, there were two head signatures in my condo,

Venus and Samantha. They didn't have to be at work until nine. Capri and

I were across the street and nearly a block away when we heard the

small convoy screech to a halt in front of my complex.

There

was some sort of 'armored' vehicle with a turret and gun. Two others

were those light transports called jeeps and hummers in various

incarnations. The final two vehicles were like the first one, but with a

smaller gun and a lower profile. Those two were also disgorging troops

who were now running into my building.

There was another fissure in our old reality.

I

must have had a look of anguish on my face. Venus and Samantha were in

danger and I was powerless. Capri kept a painfully tight hold on my arm.

There were three women right behind us. They were also looking over

their shoulders as the drama unfolded. They turned and looked at me,

recognizing my face. They rushed forward, I was gripped with fear.

Inside

one meter, they slowed and closed ranks. They were shielding me from

the view of the convoy, standing between me and danger. As we passed

through the intersection between us and the metro, we heard a low 'pop'

followed a second later by another. What I didn't know at the moment was

that they had blown my door then tossed a stun grenade in the room.

They'd

blown the door for the same reason they hadn't accessed my internal

security footage, they were doing something illegal. There was no State

of Emergency, or Martial Law. No Federation agency had called the Army

Rangers in to assist. Nope, the Minister of Defense had decided that I

would be 'safest' in her custody.

You

really couldn't blame the Rangers. She was the freaking Defense

Minister. The average trooper assumed she was acting responsibly and

within the law. At the core of this disaster was the big, honking unit

the Armed Forced had that studied all kinds of chemical and biological

threats. They had reached three conclusions.

The T2 was going to effectively wipe out mankind.

The T 1 I 1 was the best bet to keep a few thousand select individuals alive.

The

sole known source of the T 1 I 1 antivirus was strolling around the

city in danger of ending all sentient life on Earth by way of any number

of fatal urban tragedies.

Upon

reading that report, the Defense Minister's response should have been

foreseen. 'Fuck the Ministry of Justice and their slavish devotion to

the Constitution, I want to live.' She still wanted to remain Defense

Minister so she had to do this carefully. A few Rangers, backed up with

some helicopter support, were going to make a quick raid into the

southern suburbs, grab Mr. Jensen then roll back out before anyone was

the wiser.

For

the Ranger lieutenant in charge of this part of the raid, this was a

real problem. She had swept Mr. Jensen's apartment, but neither of the

'bodies' were Jensen, or even cooperative. The Minister of Defense,

conferenced into this fiasco, was furious, these were some of her best,

God-damned troops and they'd taken a corner kick to the tits and let the

ball bounce into the goal.

'Wait, weren't there two other clusters of heat signatures?'

'Yes, one was boarding a bus and the other was entering the, subterranean, metro station.'

About

this time the Ranger lieutenant and her Captain were becoming truly

curious as to why no one was accessing the city's top notch security

system and simply telling the unit where their target was.

New

plan, the land column was going to stop and search the bus. The

Captain, with the other two squads of the Ranger Platoon, were going to

repel down to the metro entrance and search for him there. The Captain

had a suggestion.

"Ma'am, there is a Metropolitan police cruiser pulling up right now. Why don't we ask them to help?"

"Go in there and get him!" the DM growled.

"Madam

Minister," the Captain protested. "I think this is a really, really bad

idea." The Captain knew the DM was former military. She'd been a

fighter pilot. The Captain also knew the woman had zero experience with

special operations and urban warfare.

"Do I need to relieve you of your command?" the DM seethed.

"No, Ma'am," the Captain ground out.

The

Captain had to think about her women, if she was even acting legally

anymore, and if there was any way to accomplish her mission that didn't

involve a firefight in a crowded metro station.

"Shoulder

arms," she commanded. This was going to be fun in the same way getting

the inside of your eyelashes tattooed was fun. "We locate the target,

put a perimeter around him then extract him from the situation." The

Captain was a Buddhist and she was really starting to worry about karma.

Even

as her helicopters raced for the metro, the operation was hitting a

serious snag. As the land column began to pull out, a car sped up to

them, crossed 'traffic' and swerved to block their progress. The Ranger

on the 50 caliber swivel mount covered them. The driver and passenger of

the car stepped out, holding up their badges.

"FBI,

Gender Investigative Unit. Who is in charge here?" Special Agent

Fraklos called out. The Lieutenant informed her command chain of the

current events as she dismounted and headed to the now-soaked FBI

agents. Fraklos was coming to meet her.

"Get out of there," the Defense Minister demanded. The Lieutenant stopped.

"What? You can't be serious," she sounded confused and exasperated. "I have two FBI agents right in front of me."

"You have the guns, get out of there and return to your forward base," the DM clarified. The Ranger Lieutenant had enough.

"Listen

and listen good, Minister," she snapped. "I am not going to fire on

authorized Federation agents without a God-damned (she was old school)

good reason. Nor am I going to engage in a high speed flight from

justice. Ma'am, I suggest you get your shit together before you issue

anymore senseless orders. Kilo-6 out." That done, she stepped up to the

agent, saluted and started trying to figure out what the hell was going

on.

After

the women I barely knew shielded me from scrutiny, we made our way down

into the metro. Lots of women, and Kenny and Luanga, and three guys I

didn't know. Unlike, me, Kenny and Luanga, these guys looked tough. They

were all over six feet and 225 lbs. They also had dowels. Following

this sign of the coming Apocalypse, a fourth man appeared.

He

was pretty average looking. I could tell he was better off than most of

the other commuters which left me a bit more curious than fearful of

his approach.

"Hello, Mr. Jensen," he began. I offered and I shook his hand. "I'd like your help." That was new, a man asking me for help.

"What,

oh, his is my friend and lawyer, Capri O'Hara. These two gluttons for

punishment are Luanga and Kenny." I looked to the other three newcomers.

"I haven't met these three yet."

They

introduced themselves as Rashid, Quinn and Tone. Tone had decided that

our (men's) problem yesterday was that we hadn't been in large enough

groups to make a true difference.

The

women vastly outnumbered us, but we outnumbered the cops, especially in

localized skirmishes like this. They knew I'd be here and that trouble

would follow. They promised not to start something but they also

promised to not back down.

"Mr.

Jensen, I'm Doyle Crane and I've created a blog covering our struggle,

the one you started," he smiled. "It is called 'The Final Word.’"

"Call

me Israel, and I didn't start this. The second women decided we're

somehow less than them, this was inevitable," I countered.

"Glad

to see you aren't a demagogue," Doyle chuckled. "Something tons of my

readers want to know is why did you save that cop then copulate with

her."

"When do you think the Feds will shut you down?" Capri interrupted. I was pleased to see that Doyle didn't seem to mind.

"Soon,

I think," he shrugged. "I have a Computer Technology from Lakeview

Community College. I'm going to try to keep it up as long as possible. I

have to do something."

"Cops," Quinn grumbled. Sure enough, the same two officers from yesterday were coming our way.

"Her

name is Freya Passey," I answered Doyle. "She has a three month old son

who doesn't have the Gender Plague yet. The antiviral in my blood and

semen provides immunity."

"You are trying to save lives, nice," Doyle nodded.

"Alright,

the same crowd plus some," Cop One remarked. "You know the drill. Hand

over the dowels and open your coats and containers."

"No," Tone glared. I echoed that 'no' a half-second later.

"I guess we arrest you then," Cop Two sighed.

"What for?" Capri snapped.

"No," Tone kept glaring.

"We aren't doing anything wrong," Kenny added.

"If

you want them, come get them," Rashid growled. Tradition clashed with

mathematics. Before last night, forty years of experience told those two

policewomen that we would fold despite outnumbering them. Today, it was

distance, how quickly they could draw and shoot their tasers and how we

would handle the violence.

The

six men plus Capri were going to counter aggression with aggression.

Even if they dropped the two biggest men, they would still be swarmed.

Two on one wasn't good. Three on one would be desperate. The women in

the metro looked completely willing to sit this round out. This morning,

to these women, cops shaking men down for sticks seemed trivial.

"Is

there a problem here?" a voice called out from the side. It was Debra,

she had her hand in her purse and she was giving the cops a baleful

look. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Capri was a known

gender-traitor, but Debra? The sudden prospect of more and more women

rallying to the side of men caused the two cops to retreat.

They

called for back-up. They explained the problem, men not surrendering

their dowels. Explanation? There was a mob of us, and some women too.

Could they possibly proceed without aid? The two cops looked us over.

Five more women had joined our defiant stand. 'No.’ The cops were told

to retire from the confrontation.

Every

woman but Capri were smiling and viewing this as a great stride

forward. They had recognized the plight of men and made a stand. They

felt good about themselves. It took them a while to realize the men

weren't jumping for joy. The cops had our faces and names. They'd come

back for us later.

As

our knot of resistance entered the metro a tremor moved through the

crowd behind us. Two groups of troops in urban camouflage had entered

the station and they were rushing to board the metro too.

Several people repeated the same refrain, 'Oh my God, is that the Army?'

"Hey," Tone bumped me, "is there something you haven't told us?"

"Tone,

I am such a lousy member of this society, I couldn't begin to tell you

why they might be coming for me," I shrugged. Tone smiled at me in the

same way a cop smiles at a man before the 'tuning up' begins. This was

'not good.’ Ten soldiers piled into the rear or fifth car with me. Ten

more made it into the first car.

Through

the press of female bodies, I met Ambrosia's gaze. I could see the

conflict. I'd rejected her. My women had threatened her. The odds of her

coming out on top in this mess were small. She tapped Amelia and turned

away. I almost missed the two taking out their stun guns. But I had so I

noticed them gathering forces and moving to the fourth car to protect

us from behind as well.

As

Ambrosia's little group moved to the next car, the pressure behind me

grew and I was swept forward. One soldier offered her knee for another

to step on. That woman rose up, spotted me and the communication began

over their little headsets under their helmets. The Rangers formed a

wedge and worked forward.

Our

only option was to retreat to the fourth car, but that ran the risk of

the group becoming separated. A mental haze was whirling through my

ability to process the world correctly. I tried to move to the 'rear' of

the group. Capri lost contact with me. We became a mess of women and

men interspersed.

Tone

was facing the oncoming soldiers. I tried to get to his side. Somehow I

could fix this. A hand grasped my right upper arm in a vise-like grip. I

tried to shrug it off with no luck. Looking behind me I saw a woman

unknown to me. She was silent and grim, of Mexican heritage, with a

compact, five foot-nine body.

I failed to pull free on my second attempt.

"Fall

back," the woman hissed. At the same time, we noticed Tone push his

jacket aside as his right hand reached behind him and pull forth an

automatic pistol. The leader of the soldiers pushed the last woman

aside. Tone pointed the gun at her face, point-blank.

"No!"

I shouted. There were gasps and cries of alarm. A man had a gun which

equated to a man had lost his mind and gone homicidal in the feminine

mind. The soldiers froze. It wasn't panic; they were professionals and

opening fire in a crowded commuter car was abhorrent to them. Tone was

furious. The woman, a Captain it appeared, was coolly taking in the

situation.

"Tone,

if you came all this way just so you could act like a woman, get off my

damn train," I declared in a voice that was blessedly calm and steady.

No one flinched. I reached out with my left hand and placed it gently on

Tone's pistol. The Captain realized that I'd placed my pinkie finger

between the hammer and chamber, now I had to thank Flame. Tone didn't

seem to get it.

"You were soft on that cop," Tone grumbled.

"Wrong,

I was true to myself, Tone," I replied. "Women shoot us when we are

defenseless. They treat us like we were worthless, like our lives have

no value beyond a cock and ball set. Is that what you want to be like?"

There

was a false stillness. I couldn't concentrate on the task at hand and

take in all the turmoil boiling around me at the same time.

"Huh?" Tone stole a look my way. The stars were aligned properly. The Captain didn't rush in.

"Do

you even know this woman? If you want to shoot her solely because she's

a woman, you are as bad as every cop who shook you down," I explained.

"She's

not threatening you. She's doing her job, that's all. She's, an equal, a

human being," I continued. "If you are going to kill her because she

has tits then what are any of us fighting for? How can we expect dignity

if we don't extend it? Put the gun away and prove to every woman here

that they need to be more like us, like you, please."

Tone

tilted the gun up until it was pointed at the ceiling. I withdrew my

hand, he lowered it and put it behind his back once more and everyone

drew a collective breath.

"Very well done, Mr. Jensen. Now come with us," the Captain said.

"No," I responded.

"After all that, you are going to make me detain you by force?" she grinned in a non-condescending way.

"That won't be necessary,” I got out.

"Because he has a lawyer," Capri finally managed to wiggle in front of me.

"Morning

Jarhead; does the Posse Comitatus Act mean anything to you?" Capri

snarled. "You are currently tap-dancing over the Supreme Court as we

speak. Bitch, you aren't getting demoted, you are going to prison." The

Captain regarded Capri.

"Jarheads

are Marines. We are Rangers," she corrected my legal counsel. "We are

operating under an executive order directing us to seize and detain

Israel Jensen."

"Rocket Rangers, Girl Scouts, or Brownies, I don't give a fuck,"

Capri sneered. "Until I hear something resembling a declaration of

Martial Law if you lay a hand on Mr. Jensen, I will have all of you

arrested."

"Really?" the Captain scoffed.

"I'm

with the Public Defender's office, Sweet Cheeks," Capri gave a feral

glare. Technically, this wasn't a lie. She had not been officially fired

yet. "I am an officer of the Court. I will deputize everyone on this

metro and have them use whatever means necessary to subdue and detain

you and your fellow Green Pixie Faeries."

Two

things were crucial to this scenario. One was that Capri was the

greatest litigator of her generation, or the best poker player. The

other factor was that the Captain was not a lawyer, or even a student of

the law. Though the lawyer's argument sounded far-fetched, Capri was

absolutely convincing. Stacked with that was the Captain getting a

really hinky feeling about this whole mission.

"There is still the matter of the man with a handgun," the Captain pointed out.

"What

gun?" Capri instantly replied. The Captain decided the best course of

action was for her squads to fall back to the doors and exit at the next

stop. As soon as the Rangers retired, Capri turned on Tone. Considering

that we were pressed tightly together and he had over a foot on her,

Capri had to stare straight up.

"You

are an idiot," she snapped. "Did it occur to you that there were nine

women behind her in body armor with assault rifles who would have shot

the hell out of all of us had you killed their officer? Did you think at

all, or do you suffer from testosterone poisoning of the brain?"

"Bitch," he grumbled, "I still have a gun."

"Please Tone, don't make me kill you," I sighed.

"I have a gun for you too," he tried to stare me down. I laughed.

"There

is a professional killer within five meters of me that will not

hesitate ending your life," I explained. "You will never see it coming."

That Mexican woman had to be a Vanisher.

I could tell Tone was trying to figure out who it was. I wasn't giving any visual clues. I kept looking at him.

"You are with the women," he sneered.

"Duh,"

I replied. "Haven't you been listening? I don't make friends based on

gender, or profession. Doing so would make me a cock, and not in a good

way."

I

looked around and realized that I had imparted a certain level of

understanding to both the men and women with my words. They understood

that I was a nut, except Capri and Doyle. Doyle had captured the entire

encounter and speech on video. Capri already knew I was a nut but

believed in me anyway.

"What about the Arena?" Quinn asked. "They slaughtered us. We have to do something."

"Okay,

what?" I looked at him. "Are we going to kill one for every one of ours

they killed? Why don't we make it two to one, better yet, five to one?

How much is going to be enough?"

"We have to do something," Kenny complained.

"Not

a damned thing we do, Kenny, will bring any of the dead back to life," I

pleaded. "There is nothing we can do for them. If we take revenge it is

because we want to hurt women and no better reason. We all know women

who deserve to have their asses kicked. That's not important because

nothing changed last night." Now they were sure I was bonkers.

"Yesterday

morning they treated us exactly the way they have for forty years. Last

night 936 men and 178 policewomen died in under thirty minutes. The

fundamental situation did not change for us men. They are treating us

the exact same way today," I continued.

"They didn't take our dowels today," Luanga countered.

"True,

but irrelevant. They shouldn't have asked for them in the first place.

To have changed, the cops shouldn't have even showed up," I explained.

"To have really mattered, none of the women in the metro should have

even called the police on seven peacefully assembled citizens. Women

continue to treat us as second class citizens, except now many more men

realize it."

"Wow," Doyle laughed after an extended period of silence. "You are not out to make many friends, that's for sure."

"Around

the age of five we figure out we can lie to our mothers and get away

with it. From that point on, dodging responsibility becomes an accepted

approach to life," I answered.

"After

that, it is easy to see nothing as your fault. You can ignore almost

any injustice around you because it isn't you, you can't make a

difference, or isn't that someone else's job? We were all so afraid of

dying, men accepted subjugation and women accepted subjugating us to be

the only option. Now we will reap what we've sown," I sighed.

"You

could all do worse than treating the next few days as if they were your

last," I begged. I didn't want to tell the whole truth yet. They

wouldn't believe me yet, that was coming. At the next stop the Ranger

departed. With that done, I had one other chore to attend. I went to the

fourth car and wiggled through the crowd to Ambrosia.

"Thank you," I said. Her look was not that of a happy camper.

"Does any of this make a difference?" she asked.

"It does to me," I nodded.

"What are you doing tonight?" she hinted.

"Sorry,

but this is it for me, my last ride," I confessed. "After this morning,

I'm gone one way or another. I am glad my last image of you won't be

one of fear." It was all I could offer.

"I wouldn't have hurt you," she grumbled. She didn't get it, even now.

"Would you have taken 'no' for an answer? Would you have let me go to the rally?" I countered.

She

was kind enough not to lie to me and I was conscious enough of her

warring emotions to retire after a moment's silence. When I made it back

to my knot of men and Capri, I expected to get some shit for my

sojourn. They looked at me with concern.

"What?" I inquired.

"Hold out your hand," Capri directed me. I did so. My hand was shaking like a leaf in a gale.

"You

look like you are about to keel over," Capri informed me. "Please

accept the fact that you are saving people. I don't know why you want to

get beaten, battered and killed, but stop it. We need you, as sane as

you can be and alive." Those words were accentuated by the tears welling

up in Capri's eyes.

Paraphrasing an old saying: my desires were writing checks my body and soul could not cash.

"You

would think after all the crap I've heard you went through, you would

want payback more than any of us," Tone gruffly stated.

"I do and I did," I met his gaze. "Last night, I saved one of us and I saved his mother too."

"When

I do that, Tone, I'm spitting in all their faces because they didn't

break me," I declared. "I am a good person and I won't let any woman

take that away. I don't need to beat some woman in the face because I

know I'm better than that. I'll pop one in the head to remind them to

give me some respect. We deserve respect. You cannot take that with the

barrel of a gun."

"That's

fear and that's what they've been doing to us for way too long, and it

clearly hasn't worked," I grinned. "We are here, proving that point. We

are not afraid anymore. We will not bow down ever again." Tone stared at

me for a few seconds, then nodded.

"I'm still angry," he grinned.

"Brother,

you would have to be crazy not to be angry," I sighed, but in a

positive way. "We've been beaten down, degraded, ignored and lied to. If

all you have is anger, then all you have is what they've given you

since you were born. The trick is dropping all their crap and being who

you are supposed to be."

"How do we figure out what that is?" Quinn mused.

"Pole

Dancer!" one girl close by blurted out. We all slowly turned and stared

at her, even the women. "Hey, he's kinda good looking and I like meaty

men."

The world cracked a tiny bit more.

"You first," Quinn challenged her. He crossed his arms and looked at her sternly.

"What?" she gulped.

"You pole dance for me first and then I'll see if I want to pole dance for you," Quinn announced.

"I,

ah," she stammered. "I don't think I could do that." There were a

multitude of things Quinn could have said, many of them harsh and

confrontational. Instead,

"Pity,"

he smiled at her. "You are kinda cute. I like the short feisty ones."

She was embarrassed yet smiling. That little exchange was the highlight

of our ride. A man and a woman, strangers, had played. A few sentences, a

few words, but they'd experienced a playful exchange. In my heart, I

prayed they walked away enjoying that moment and exploring the

possibilities of such a thing.

We exited at the Downtown Central Hub. The seven of us made our way upstairs to the edge of the downpour.

"Excuse

me," the 'pole dancer' woman called out. She approached Quinn. "Can I

scan you?" she murmured. She didn't need to ask; the law was on her

side.

"So, maybe, you know, we can talk later," she mumbled. We were all blinking in surprise.

"Sure.

I'd like that," Quinn smiled back at her. He held out his bracelet, she

scanned his I D and off she went. "Shit, man," Quinn shook his head

after she was gone. "I don't know what to make of that."

"That's

what we are fighting for," I answered softly. "We want to be asked. We

want to be able to say 'no', or 'yes' if we like."

"Eh, we are all still going to get arrested," Kenny groaned.

"Not likely," I shook my head. "All you guys need to get the hell out of town, like before noon if you can."

"Are we, or are we not, worried about getting arrested?" Tone inquired.

"Something

much worse than arrest warrants is coming down the pipeline and you

don't want to be in a populated area when it hits," I cautioned them.

"The rest will come out soon enough."

"Hmm." Quinn mulled over the situation. He rolled up his jacket collar and took off into the rain, after that woman.

"Israel,

you are annoying as crap, but take care, Brother," he hugged me. I was

still freaked out. I was pretty sure a man had never hugged me before. I

fended off the others with handshakes and then it was only Doyle, Capri

and me.

"Off to the Sentinel?" Capri asked.

"I

have to stop by City Hall," I replied. Capri was glaring at me

venomously. "I need to say good-bye to Francesca," I explained. Capri

gave a deep sigh then nodded. As we approached that imposing structure

that had launched my fall from sanity, I used Capri's phone to call

Francesca. It took a few seconds.

I could envision her looking at the number and the caller I D and wondering who the hell Capri O'Hara was.

"Ms. O'Hara, Israel?" she answered.

"It's

me. I'm outside and I don't think coming in to the office today would

be wise. Can you come out and talk to me?" I pleaded.

"Considering

the wreckage you made of the administration Monday and yesterday, and

the tragedy of last night, we are swamped with work," she sighed. "But,

for you, who has made my life So interesting, I'll be right out." She

hung up and the three of us waited in the rain. I didn't even dare stand

in the outdoor entryway to get out of the rain, such was my popularity.

Doyle Crane cut through the silence.

"So

what's going on at the Sentinel this morning?" There were a great many

things I could have said, should have said, but somehow my tongue ended

up talking and my brain sat on the sidelines.

"I make this shit up as I go along," I grinned. Doyle waited for the punch line.

"Mr.

Crane, you do realize Israel isn't doing a 'crazy act'; he really is

insane," Capri told him. Apparently that possibility had not occurred to

Doyle.

"How has he avoided the G E D for so long?" he whispered.

"I run real fast," I confided.

"He

has the very best lawyer, his girlfriend is a cop and he has the sexual

prowess of Eros, Greek God of Female Transcendence," Capri explained

things far better than me.

"How about I say he's insanely lucky?" Doyle offered.

"Works for me," I sighed.

"Israel?"

Francesca called out softly. It was almost drowned out in the rain. I

moved inside the covered area because she hadn't brought an umbrella.

She reached out, cupped my jaw in both her hands and kissed me on the

cheek.

"Time

has not made you wiser," my former boss chided me. "Thanks for getting

all of us our jobs back. Bethany seems to have disappeared though."

"Don't look at me," I chuckled. "I am done with her and moved on. I came because I need a favor."

I pulled Francesca tightly to me so that my lips were beside her left ear. Her arms spread around my waist and hugged me.

"Francesca,

get out of town, right now. Something bad is coming and you need to be

as far from any populated area as possible. Grab some food, clothes and

stuff and make a run for it," I whispered.

"If you tell me where you might be, I'll try to catch up with you if I can," I promised.

"I

have a cousin who owns a place outside Cody, Wyoming. I'll go there,"

she whispered back. Security cameras watched the area but our heads were

obscured by my umbrella and the rain hopefully would mask our quiet

words. "She's a Silverhorn as well."

"I

have to go, Francesca. I hear there are some Inuit who aren't howling

for my head yet and you know I can't stand that," I joked. I was off to

battle and she knew it. She gave me one more good squeeze.

"Remember you don't have to do all the fighting by yourself," she smiled sadly.

"Despite my best efforts I've made a friend, or two," I grinned.

"Like that Ms. Sano," Francesca teased me.

"Ugh," I lowered my head in shame.

"Israel," she put a finger beneath my chin and tilted my head up, "never be ashamed of giving anything your best effort."

There

was a pause. "I won't stand for it, you hear? Now go. I have to go walk

on water for a few more minutes as civilization comes crashing down." I

had already said good-bye in my own way, until we meet again,

hopefully, so there was nothing more I could say that would have added

any meaning.

To be continued

By FinalStand for Literotica

The race to apocalypse.

Based on ‘One In Ten’ by FinalStand, adapted into 17 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.

The

Persians marshaled all the nations under the Sun and Stars yet they

were defeated by a single idea: Sacrifice, and their inability to

appreciate it.

Final Curtain Call

What

no one in the Federation knew at that moment was that we were racing

for the final curtain call. The W H O knew that something was very

wrong, but they were still digging, and desperately hoping they were

wrong with what they were looking at. The U N was only learning of the

footsteps of doom. They too were praying.

The

moment Judas took his thirty pieces of silver he had a date with the

end of a rope, he just didn't know it. This time it wasn't the fault of

those doctors, jurists and politicians from forty years ago. They had

never intended for the extreme efforts of the different societies they

were creating to go on forever. They were buying time.

The

problem was men stopped publically dying. The next generation of women

would never know the flush sexual possibilities of their mothers, but

they became comfortable with the system they had inherited. The men who

knew what gender equality felt like; were too old to cause many problems

and could be safely ignored.

They

were still searching for a cure, but no one was hopping mad about it

anymore. Infant boys were still dying at an abysmal rate, but in the

collective memory of womankind, we always had. They became complacent.

The male voice diminished then fell silent. Twenty years ago, when key

world leaders learned that the male side of the species was dying out,

they had a choice.

If

they told the people of the Earth the bad news, the women feared that

anarchy would ensue. The world economy would collapse. The civilization

their predecessors had fought so hard to keep afloat would go under. It

would be the End.

Or, they could make the men soldier on in futility while women waited for a miracle.

They

had made a deal with the Devil, but the Devil doesn't deal in

Salvation. He gave them twenty years. Old Nick was smiling behind his

polite façade. He'd also provided them with the means of killing

themselves. I was born a year before the Big Lie was concocted. Another

boy, half a world away, was born a year later.

Like

me, he had his innocence torn away at an early age. Born on Java in

Indonesia, he was kidnapped and sold to the slave trade. He could have

ended up anywhere, but fate landed him in the Chinese port of Shanghai.

By the age of twenty, prodigious amounts of performance drugs and

continuous sex had rendered his mind a shell, a few memories still

bouncing around.

Outside

of a small family circle in his native land, no one cared about the boy

and no one would have known about him if he hadn't died. In the end,

they didn't even care about his body or his name. The W H O named him

Patient T2 Zero because by the time they found out about him, the only

person who might have remembered his name was dead also.

It

would be poetic to say he struck back at his tormentors from the grave.

In fact, women had stolen away any ability to know what he had done.

The fact was that on the Saturday before I moved into my condo, his long

laboring T1 antibodies, his reward for surviving infancy, lost their

struggle to produce more guardians than naturally degraded.

In

those seconds, sometime after the lunchtime clientele returned to work,

the most mutated version of the T1 virus ever seen 'woke up.’ The

cluster of antivirals that encased it crumbled away. It attacked the

first cell it came across. In minutes, that cell became a factory.

Inside an hour, the antiviral or viral battle became a rout.

Under

normal conditions, the T1 Gender Plague manifested in three days and

the male was dead in four more, max. The boy from Indonesia wasn't

normal. He was fighting off some influenza that a few patrons had

coughed on him. The housekeeper gave him something for that. He was

'profitable' after all. He had been given an injection at the start of

flu season, as well.

The

boy's blood was a soup of medicinal drugs, aphrodisiacs and performance

enhancers. Both his red and white blood cell counts were a wreck from

long exposure to these substances. He was fed regularly, they only

chained one of his legs to the bed when he was 'working' or sleeping.

His throat had hurt so much that he hadn't been eating enough. Besides,

his will to continue on was already gone.

He

was a prostitute, a sex trade worker, a slab of meat. If you get told

that enough times, treated like that enough, it becomes all you know.

When was the last time you saw a slab of meat fight to stay in one

piece? Around four in the afternoon, the housekeeper came by, allowed

him to go to the bathroom and gave him some food to eat.

She

wasn't overly concerned about him barely eating. The boy had a good

run. He'd much more than made up the cost the 'providers' extorted from

her 'community.’ She mused it was a pity they didn't have more Asian

boys. They fetched more money. They couldn't be Chinese, of course. The

police put you against a wall and shot you for that, so mainly they were

Indonesians, Malay, and Africans.

When

she shackled the boy back to his pallet for the evening rush, she

noticed his pelvic region and cock were enflamed. She checked, the boy

was still feverish. She gave him something for the fever and doused his

crotch with powder so as not to disturb the clients. Had she been

forty-five or older, she might have recognized the onset of the Plague,

but she wasn't.

Even

then, she could hardly be blamed for not understanding. No adult had

died from the Plague in forty years. It was a childhood disease. In a

final irony, two kilometers away was a very fine hospital. They would

have recognized the ailment and quarantined the boy. He would have died,

but the Human Race would not have, yet.

The

housekeeper was indifferent to his suffering. She had other boys to

take care of before the working class women began flocking in with their

hard-earned Yuan. In a final sad reaction to the impending crisis, she

dimmed the light in his room so as to not upset the clients with the

condition of his genitals.

On

Tuesday, as I struggled through the last few hours of my normal life,

the boy's was clearly failing. The housekeeper was seeing the local

patrolwoman off, with a freebie and the monthly 'allowance' money for

the precinct when a junior attendant came running. The Indonesian boy

the policewoman had just visited wasn't performing and the client was

being noisy.

She

was feeling irritable and ill, so she went straight for the 'electrical

stimulation aid.’ She soothed the client, jolted the boy's anus until

his cock finally

responded then left the room. She told the assistant to help her move

the boy to the storeroom after the latest patron left. The dying boy was

no longer profitable.

She

wasn't going to waste the drugs to simply put him down. One day without

food or water would do the trick. Besides, she was angry, she felt like

crap and her cunt itched. Inside that boy on that Saturday, the T1

inside the boy had become what was known as the T2 and it had made that

last, great leap. It was no longer gender specific.

The

housekeeper wasn't even Patient T2 One. That distinction fell to a

worker at a large electronics factory close by. On Tuesday night, she

and some co-workers went out for some drinks after their shift ended. A

good friend was heading out into the countryside for a wedding. A man

from a nearby village was marrying into her village and she wanted to

attend, much to the ribald teasing of her comrades.

On

Wednesday morning, a stewardess with Air China stopped by to see her

sister who was home sick with the flu. The woman teased her ill sister

about going to 'those places.’ The stewardess wanted to make sure her

sibling had enough food because the stewardess was going to be gone a

while. She had a short hop to Nagasaki, Japan, and then a long one to

San Francisco.

There

was much she wanted to do in the Federation city, not the least of was

spending time with the boyfriend of one of her girlfriends. The first

few patients wandered into the doctors' offices and emergency rooms

Thursday afternoon and evening. They were treated for the flu outbreak

that was currently running its course in the city and sent home.

On

Saturday morning, as I was being beaten by Flame at Isobel's party, the

first terminal patient was rolled in by ambulance to that very fine

hospital. It took them an hour to figure out what was wrong with her.

They didn't panic. They called the W H O and Beijing. They went into

full quarantine.

As

I was plotting out my little 'dowel rebellion', Chinese authorities

were hot on the trail of the outbreak. The W H O had just flown a team

out of Geneva. The 'community' that ran the brothel was figuring out

that the trail led back to them. The housekeeper was dying in her room,

alone. Patient T2 Zero had already died and been consumed by the flames

per the criminals' protocols.

His

ashes went into the river. Along with them went the only known

antivirals that had ever killed a T2. That evening, the local precinct

raided the brothel and began rounding up the criminal 'communities'

members. A third of the policewomen were so sick they wouldn't have come

into work if it wasn't for the emergency. In Beijing, the Central

government met to discuss the crisis. Containing the outbreak in

Shanghai was a pipe dream.

Multiple

international ships sailed into and out of the port every hour. There

was the river traffic every night and day. Train service linked the

entire country with round the clock service. It had an international

airport, two regional airports and one military airport. It had a naval

base and over a division worth of troops in barracks around the city.

Military personnel were always being transferred around.

Their

decision was totally logical. They would start shifting 'key personnel'

to distant governmental bases slowly as to not attract attention. They

would lean on the W H O not make its findings known until they were

'absolutely' certain of what was going on. Once the governmental,

restructuring, was underway, they would notify other key communities so

they could do like-wise. The word went out of the Security net where one

woman saw it then decided to go see her brother.

If

you were a poor assembly line worker in Hangchow, you were boned. Not

that it mattered too much. As I was making my spastic declaration on

Monday morning, my time, they rolled in the first reported male case. He

was definitely terminal. His community had done everything within their

power, and budget, to keep him alive. Only in the final hour did they

relent and bring him in for help. Such was the fear that the government

would 'take' their man.

The

Chief of Staff at the hospital was 66. Across the dying man from her

was the head of the W H O mission who was only 52. The Chinese physician

started crying inside her protective suit. She'd been a medical student

and later a doctor when the Gender Plague first struck. There was no

doubt in her heart. The Reaper had come back for them all.

The

W H O doctor had lived through the Gender Plague, but only as a child.

Her iron-willed Chinese counterpart was losing it and that vanished all

her doubts. She raced as quickly as possible to exit the quarantine

area. She had to call Geneva. She had to contact the U N. If drastic

measures weren't taken right now, she ran into her Chinese

'Communications' officer.

"The

government needed a few hours to 'assess' her data before allowing a

general announcement," she told the doctor. The W H O doctor was an

expert in her field. So, the Communications officer repeated the same

statement. This was a global pandemic. Same statement. Millions were

going to die. Same statement. The W H O doctor tried to push by then saw

the two soldiers calmly waiting for her.

That

'few hours' turned out to be twenty-four. Tuesday, as valiant,

delusional men were getting pummeled all over the Federation, the U N

began to meet on the matter. Discreet inquiries were made to the

Federation's U N Ambassador about Carabolix-37. An hour after those four

men in San Francisco got their asses handed to them over a collection

of sticks, six women and one man arrived at a hospital with flu-like

symptoms.

All

but one knew a certain Chinese stewardess. The last one would later

recall she had served the woman at a restaurant. Just over an hour

later, the police and paramedics located her in her hotel room. She was

too feverish to get out of bed. It wasn't until nightfall in the city

that the Federation got the true picture.

The

Chinese government was bugging out, jumping ship, getting the hell out

of Dodge before the Great Wall fell on their heads. Then the panic in

the Capital set in. It wasn't just the Plague. China was a huge 'X'

amount of the global economy and in a matter of days they were going

belly-up.

Fuck

the Plague; dead people didn't eat, work, or vote. Millions of

Americans were about to lose their jobs. Any kind of public assistance

at this level was a lost cause. Soon there were going to be lots of

lonely, hungry, pissed off women looking to lynch somebody. They

wouldn't kill doctors and engineers. Doctors were their best hope for

staying alive. Engineers kept the lights on.

Lawyers

and politicians they could do without, or so it was believed. Pulling a

'China' was no longer possible. Not only would people suspect it after

the crowd in Beijing bolted, the Federation didn't have a 'Bunker'

strategy anyway. The fact that no one had told the 'little' nations of

the Doom on the horizon didn't seem to bother anyone there.

Virtually

as an afterthought, the Press Secretary turned to the Presidential

Chief of Staff and said, "What about that lunatic on TV this morning?"

It

was a clear indicator in the room how bad things were that any of them

would consider a man to be the answer to anything that didn't involve

stress relief and impregnation.

The

President looked to the Attorney General who was thanking her lucky

stars that this male idiot had stuck around after making an ass of

himself to the Nation.

"I have a team on him right now," she stated confidently.

"Why isn't he in custody?" the Minister of Defense questioned.

"We

had him in custody, but let him go," she responded. She was leagues

above the city's old Police Commissioner. "There was nothing to hold him

on at the time and he's under round the clock surveillance. He's ours

when we want him." She looked to the President for the order.

That woman thought about it for a second.

"Ask him," she ordered. "Ask him to come in and help his countrymen and women out in this time of crisis. Be nice."

"If he refuses?" the AG wanted clarification.

"Snatch

him, of course," the President directed. "Have Congress declare him a

National Treasure as a legal pretext if you must, but bring him in."

"What if this is all a hoax of some kind?" Health and Human Services chimed in.

"Then

we claim he is a promising lead, wave him in front of the Europeans so

they don't panic too," she smiled. "In two or three days we will have

something in place for when the dam bursts, but right now we need calm."

As they were filing out of the room, the AG put the plan in motion. No one liked what they heard.

"Riot? What riot?" the AG blurted out.

"What explosion?"

"Oh my God! Is he among the dead?"

"What

do you mean you don't know? Check his bracelet!" The AG gave the

President a worried look. "It gave its emergency signal then cut off,

did it?" Everyone was looking at the President once more. She was the

team's lead striker.

"Well, find him, damn it!" the President snapped. "Find him before his body decomposes, or whatever it is that dead bodies do."

"Madam President," the AG said solemnly. "The men are rioting in the city, hundreds dead including many police officers."

"Hundreds

of men? We killed hundreds of men? Oh, shit. Tell me it was a bomb that

did it. Please tell me it was the MRA," the President groaned. "How did

this happen anyway? How did so many get in one place?"

"It was the  M A L rally, Madam President," the National Security Advisor delivered the crushing news.

The

 M A L was the President's baby. Congress was going to crucify her. Now

she started hoping for the Plague to break out soon. That would

distract her critics long enough to do, something.

"Madam

President, I can have two battalions of air mobile and one battalion of

Rangers in the city in three hours," the Minister of Defense pledged.

"We

could use this as a pretext to round up the men in the city," the

Minister of the Interior suggested. Several voices yelled 'No!.’

"There are 300,000 men in the city. Where do you plan to hold them?" the National Security Advisor reminded them.

"We

use Army troops to round them up with support from the police," the DM

stated. "We train for this kind of mission all the time."

"There are also 3.8 million women in the city," the National Security Advisor asked. "What do you plan to do about them?"

"We will call out the reserves," the Defense Minister answered confidently.

"Should we call out the reserves in all the  M A L cities, just in case?" the NSA persisted.

"Do

it," the President said. "This can be a good deception plan for

preparing for the Plague outbreaks when they hit." The NSA took a quiet,

deep breath. It had taken her twenty long years of crawling through the

grime and slime of capital politics to get to this place and time, but

with the help of her co-conspirators, she'd made it.

The

noose was closing on her. They couldn't put her in the room with that

initial research group, but they could put her sister there. She had

been a naïve congressional staffer when her sister sat her down and gave

the bad news. It had taken her weeks to agree. Once she had, there was

no looking back. It was treason without an exit plan.

Putting

the Reserves on the streets wasn't to maintain order. It was meant to

put as many guns in as many hands as possible when the Big Lie came

tumbling down. The NSA was guilty of treason, but the rest of the

Cabinet was guilty of genocide. In a way, the genocide bothered her less

than the callous disregard it was approached with by the guardians of

the public welfare.

Why

had it taken weeks for her to decide to join? It wasn't the risk to her

career, or the thought of the punishment upon getting caught. It was

that they weren't planning to save everyone, or even the majority. No,

from the outset, the plan was to save a tiny few. They weren't elitist

or supremacist; they were brutally practical.

At

a critical point in a population, people stopped being doers and became

'consumers' and in the 'Vanisher' model, they couldn't afford anyone

who couldn't pull their own weight. They predicted the world economy

would collapse violently without hope of recovery. All their needs and

requirement would be met by the group alone.

There

were no bulging bank accounts or massive stockpiles of goods and food.

Cash would be useless and neither food nor goods in the amount to be

useful could be hidden for long. They were avoiding as many traditional

human and fugitive models as possible. That being said, they knew this

was a long shot. A mythical gamble, but the only shot mankind had left.

Twenty

years ago, they had been called romantic idealists and their science

ignored. Twenty years ago boys born of husband or wife duos had an

infinitesimal greater chance of surviving than boys born of convict

(drugged) fathers. It was a tiny enough fraction to ignore. In twenty

years of study since then, that fraction had grown noticeably.

Capri

had called it a 'love conquers all' plan. It was and it wasn't. The

conspirators had gone over all the data, even the W H O study in

Kwaziristan. They had found nothing to explain it. Nothing at all. Yet

men were living despite all the science that said they shouldn't. At

that moment, it became an act of faith.

They

weren't abandoning science. Science was telling them the men were

making it. The scientists just couldn't see why. The hope became that if

they followed through with this project the 'why' would present itself

finally, after years of failure to find a cure. They didn't know what

they had, but they knew it worked.

It

was simply too late to save global society. There were too few men

left. The whole marriage thing was about to be moot anyway; rendered

obsolete by act of Congress. The National Security Advisor had obtained a

lethal dose of muscle relaxants. She had to figure what the last moment

of her utility would be.

She

had an idea what her captors would do to her before they believed she

had nothing worthwhile to tell them and she had already decided to forgo

that experience.

Across

the globe, GNN was already showing the footage of several Metropolitan

policewomen in the Blazer Arena finding a suspicious piece of equipment

in the catwalks.

They

then put it back after a member of the arena's technical staff told

them what it was. It wasn't lost on the commentator that this device was

off camera for a minute or that the device was the origin of the

explosion as witnessed on multiple live feeds. It also proved that the

explosive device didn't actually kill anybody.

Oh,

it had started the stampede alright which ended up delivering a

thousand casualties, but the bomb itself killed no one. That was left to

the men trampling each other and the policewomen turning to deadly

force after the struggle for containment became a fight for survival.

There were twenty  M A L rallies across the nation. Only one was a

disaster but it was the only one that mattered as the sun rose the next

day.

(Behind the Scenes)

By

act of Science I had ceased to be a rarity of one. All seven of my sons

were capable of producing the T1I1, the Israel 1, antivirus. Their

underdeveloped testes could do it, but weren't. The watch word was

puberty. The current scientific consensus was that removing a portion of

their sex organs was also unlikely to produce positive results.

Still

unknown to the Federation researchers, the Chinese had the answer to

the production dilemma and it was coming their way, one infection at a

time. If they had, they probably would have started praying. After all,

could the T1I1 kill the T2? All the mothers were getting lawyers, and

private security. Before long, the Ministry of Justice would start

issuing warrants.

In

Shanghai, where the first mass burnings of corpses was beginning, a

tired hospital worker was touched by a patient in the Dying Ward. It was

across the street from the hospital and had been a mall before

commandeered by the city. The worker was, in reality, a part-time supply

clerk. After being laid off from her textile job, this was the only job

she could find.

She'd

been given extensive first aid training when she started work a few

months ago, so now she was in charge of a whole section of the Dying

Ward. People reaching out wasn't all that new to the worker anymore.

People were being eaten alive and their fevers were extreme. This one

though, her eyes were clear and she asked for water in a weak but steady

voice.

The

woman was dying, that was certain. She'd been given minimal support for

the last, 4 days? The clerk's heart began racing. This was a 'day 2'

center. The Plague ran its course in a total of 4 days, so this woman

should have died two days ago. The clerk rushed over, took one of the

two thermometers for the entire ward and took her charge's temperature.

39 celsius, or 102 fever.

The

clerk raced over to the one doctor (a male medical student actually)

and dragged him over to the patient. The dying woman had risen to the

rank of patient in that attendant's eyes. The doctor examined the

patient's body, ignoring her shame, and nearly fell over. The clerk had

been quiet so as to not cause an alarm. The doctor yelled for two of the

volunteers to grab a stretcher and come running.

These

volunteers were women who had decided to help out at the hospital in

this crisis because, it seemed the right thing to do. Now they removed

the dead women from the Dying Ward and took them to trucks for

cremation. It was doing something. They arrived with the stretcher, but

the woman still appeared alive. 'We are going to the hospital' he

informed them.

That

was new. They crossed the street, passed the soldiers and the group

walked straight to the Hospital's Chief of Staff's office. Her assistant

informed the medical student that the doctor was asleep. 'We have a

patient in Day 9' he responded. The assistant nearly tripped over

herself running in and rousing her boss.

Ten

minutes later, he was happy to be allowed to simply observe the

specialists at work. The woman was nearly dead alright. She'd been

fighting off the T2 Plague for nine days now. For half that time she'd

only had an IV drip to sustain her. Three things made her different.

She'd been gifted with a small dose of T2J1 (Java) antivirals.

That

could only mean she had sex with that poor, dead boy. Unlike the other

patrons, she'd been given enough of his seed to last this long. The

second difference was almost a fatal one. She'd been cannibalizing her

own body to save her unborn child, who was really nothing more than a

lump of tissue at that time. It was good old Mother Nature trying to see

the next generation through the womb and into the light of the world.

The

final difference, somewhere, the doctors guessed a day and a half

earlier, the antivirals hovering around and protecting that little lump

of unborn boy realized that the tissue had grown to a sustainable size

and they attacked it. It wasn't out of cruelty. It was out of necessity.

They were fighting that battle to keep the mother alive, but without

the ability to replace their losses, they were succumbing.

Quite

frankly, there weren't enough of them and they were dying by the minute

while the T2 kept getting stronger. The T2J's needed a factory and the

lump of boy was it. A few select cells died and became antiviral

factories and the counter-attacked into the mother's body, and they were

starting to come out on top.

The

swelling was going down, the fever was breaking, plus her heart rate

and breathing were steady, if weak. For the team of doctors at their

breaking point, this was a breath of fresh air. One was going to live.

They also realized that this little boy wasn't going to be saving anyone

else for quite some time. Extracting him would most certainly be fatal

and provide a onetime dose for only a handful of people.

Instead

of keeping thousands of patients alive, they now had to keep one boy

alive. They conferred, agreed that they all were of one mind, then

separated. The head of the W H O mission had been supplied with her own

satellite hook-up this time. She called Geneva then the U N, giving them

all the data they had. What she got back was surprising.

They

already had a virtual carbon-copy of the T2J antiviral, but they were

calling it the T1I1. Apparently there was an adult male in the

Federation running around with it. There was also a nasty rumor starting

to surface that he'd been killed in a police action in Chicago. The W H

O doctor wept silently at her desk. It felt like her gender was trying

to commit genocide on themselves.

The

Chief of Staff sat down with the battalion commander of the unit

assigned to protect the hospital. By disease and fortune, it was a young

captain. The Chief of Staff laid out the whole story. The boy wouldn't

be saving anyone but himself and his mother for months. Most likely,

everyone in the hospital and her unit would be dead by then.

If

they harvested the boy, there would go the last, best chance for any of

China to survive. She had to tell Beijing before their spies told them.

Beijing would demand the mother and boy, she would delay as long as she

could. Eventually they would see through her deceptions and then they

would come to take him by force. The Chief of Staff wanted to know what

the captain was going to do when that happened.

(Back at Home)

"What do you want?" I requested.

"We are here for you, Israel Jensen," the voice answered. I looked to Flame once more.

"What if I don't want to go with you?" I tried to sound brave as I responded. There was a pause.

"We are with Zara," the voice countered.

"There are two of them," Flame whispered. "I can do this."

"Bitch, we are dangling off the edge of a bridge. Have you lo,” I mumbled. "Yeah, you have. Knock yourself out."

"Why isn't she here then?" I inquired.

"She is here," the voice said. I put a hand on Flame's thigh.

"Don't move," I whispered. "They have a sniper."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, pretty much," I nodded.

"I'm tossing you a phone," the voice informed me.

"Toss

it to the woman," I pointed. "Her hand-eye coordination is much

better." The phone didn't fly high. It actually skidded to a stop less

than a half meter away. I looked at Flame who looked at the phone then

back at me.

"Bitch, it's right there. Pick it up yourself," she groused.

I

picked it up, flipped open the opaque cover and was gifted with the

sight of Flame's back with a little red dot centered between her

shoulder blades. Flame was looking out over the city. I thought she was

bored. After nudging her, she looked over the picture and smiled. She

leaned into me. The dot followed. She leaned away and the dot followed.

"Good sniper," she smirked to me. "Okay ladies, you can have him," Flame called out to our visitors.

I typed Hugs Zara.

A few seconds later, I added; ‘Come In.’

Not Ready Yet, came back the response.

‘Please’, I pressed.

I added; ‘You probably can't understand how much that means to me.’

No? I added, in anticipation.

Not yet, came the final word.

The

closer woman began backing away. A few meters and on the other side of

the roadway, a second woman did the same. I had to wonder about their

interest. What rejection would be one too many? Did other men get this

much leeway? No, they didn't. They bailed out the first chance they got,

yet I was sticking around.

I stood up and followed them for a few meters before stopping. I still had no plan.

"Hum," Flame walked up to my side. "You don't see that every day."

"You are not supposed to see them at all," I confided.

"Do you know what's weird?" Flame tapped me with her gun.

"You still don't want to kill me?" I guessed.

"Yeah, it's freaky-weird," Flame nodded. "Do you think that sniper-chick is still watching us?"

"You are asking my advice about women and guns?" I gasped. "God, we are a fucked-up pair."

"Tons of fun," Flame laughed. "Let me take you home."

"Your home, or my home?" I worried.

"Your home," she snickered. "My clit intimidates you." Now she was giggling.

"Thanks," I smiled. We remounted her bike, put on our helmets and headed into the city.

"I

have never said this before, but I'd like to take you someplace, tie

you down and make long passionate love to you," I confessed through our

helmet links.

"You make passionate love to a lot of women," she countered.

"No, the 'tie you down' part," I clarified. "I don't normally do that."

"What makes me so special, not that I'm not special, but why this?" Flame snorted in amusement.

"There

is no way in hell I'm giving you an orgasm when you have ready access

to a weapon, or any other means of hurting me," I squeezed her tightly.

She was quiet for several minutes.

"Cool," she murmured.

"Yeah, it would be," I agreed.

"Then do I get to kill you?" she perked up.

"No,

damn it," I bumped helmets with her. "First I get dressed, then I open

the window and then I untie you, hopefully jumping out the window before

you get your gun."

"Bitch!" she laughed. "You are going to make me work for it."

"That's what friends are for," I teased.

"Thanks

for clearing that up for me, Bitch," she shook with amusement. I

couldn't do this with anyone else. Death and killing weren't things I

embraced.

I

didn't like violence, but I was causing tons of it. I didn't joke about

casual violence, except now I was doing it with Flame. I wasn't sure

why I liked her. I couldn't pinpoint that factor, or moment that put us

in this current setting. She'd beaten me up, beaten me again, then I

spasmodically came on to her, came on to her again, and she'd responded.

It

wasn't a one-sided relationship. Flame wanted something from me that

was equally indescribable. I don't think she'd felt alone before she met

me. She hated everyone, so didn't really miss their company. Just like

some office functionary, she was going through the motions of life, even

if that life was that of a Mob enforcer, thug, and killer.

She

wasn't an adrenaline junkie. Her fearlessness had robbed her of that

thrill. In the firefight she had not flinched or panicked. I believed

she had become completely emotionally detached. Oh, God, I made her

laugh. Not in an artificial professional comedian kind of way, but a

'looking at someone and discovering they make you happy' way.

Unintentionally,

I had made Flame feel something, anything, and it was tearing her up

inside. It wasn't happiness. Flame felt happy when she killed people, or

made them cry. Perhaps that was it; I gave her happiness that didn't

involve her taking something, be it a life, or sense of security, from

another person. That had her confused.

We

pulled up to my place in relative silence. What I didn't know was most

people, even in their places of work on second shift, or just working

late, were glued to their video feeds. Even at the hospital, I had not

grasped the magnitude of the carnage. I put the helmet up.

"Take care and no 'Death by Cop'," I patted Flame's shoulder. She opened her face plate.

"I can't die," she grinned. "I haven't killed you yet. Want me to kill you now?"

"I

want you to live," I replied softly. She laughed, dropped her visor and

sped away. I took the steps to my apartment two at a time. I was tired,

but I actually wanted to see some female faces for the first time in

forever.

I accessed my door and recalled that Venus had a gun, so I called out.

"It's

me." I opened the door and stepped in. All the women, from whatever

place they had staked out on my living room floor or furniture were

looking, or craning to look at me. Kuiko and Capri had their arms out so

that no one grappled me in the entryway.

"Where have you been?" Capri inquired with barely controlled fury.

"I, I had to,” I mumbled.

"Skip

you banging that cop in the god damned emergency room and your version

of the Gettysburg Address to a room full of ladies in blue who wanted to

shoot you, fuck nut Bastard," Capri growled.

Honesty is never the best option. In fact, honesty is the refuge of the unimaginative and thoughtless, or so I've been told.

"Well, you remember that girl with the hand cannon in the shootout this afternoon,” I managed to get out.

Capri put her face in her hands and groaned.

"I got on a bike with her, we rode out to the road construction on the new freeway,” I continued.

"Where on the new freeway?" Venus rumbled.

"That part of the unfinished overpass," I informed them.

"You mean the big, uncompleted bridge, that part of the new freeway?" Venus pressed.

"Yeah.

We sat at the end, dangled our feet off the edge and talked for a bit,"

I tried to make my insane decision sound reasonable.

"Gee, Israel, did she try to kill you, the mobster hitwoman?" Capri muttered.

"Ah,

she pointed her gun at me a few times, asked me if I wanted to die a

few more times, but she couldn't pull the trigger," I enlightened them.

"We talked."

"Israel!"

Kuiko squealed at a deafening pitch. "The cop nearly killed you

tonight! Wasn't one time enough? Do you want to scare us to death? Do

you want to leave us?"

Kuiko freaking out was expected. The look of fear on the rest of their faces was unfathomable to me.

"What am I missing?" I asked. Roni and Angel not being back was starting to worry me.

"Israel, what is the last thing you remember at the Arena?" Aniqua requested.

"Shooting,

a lot of it. The cops at the exit with the EMTs arming themselves and

heading in. I was listening to the chaos on the radio, but I was really

concentrating on escaping. Why?" I looked around the room. Samantha was

channel surfing until she found one of the local updates.

Confirmed Dead: 152 Women, 849 Men. Final figures still unavailable.

Oh

God, it was the second biggest disaster to overtake male-kind since the

last days of the Plague. It was highly unlikely that anything would

surpass the Holy City, but Carabas in Brazil had just been supplanted as

the second largest slaughter of my gender in 42 years. The most

demoralizing piece was the three SWAT snipers on the Arena with their

back up weapons going to fully automatic fire at the men below.

During

the Gender Plague the countries of the Developing World went three

ways. Some, like the Republic of South Africa, clung to their democracy

and rode out the storm. Others, like India, went to Emergency Rule and

they survived. The last group, like Brazil, tried to walk the middle

path and they collapsed. The public didn't know who to trust, so they

began looking out for themselves.

Brazil

made it into Year 6 when the police in Brasilia rioted. The government

called in the closest military units to restore order. The military

tried to seize control, the executive branch of government was

decapitated and the country went to shit. A few months later, the

legislative body set up shop in San Paulo and began reasserting control

over the coastal regions.

Their

navy had remained loyal through the crisis so not only did the

democratic government survive, but the Brazilian export economy didn't

wither and die. They grimly persevered for eighteen months until the U N

was finally able to cobble together some kind of relief force from the

member nations.

On

the Brazilian & U N side was that they were organized and

well-equipped. The rebels were balkanized and often as much threat to

each other as to the central government. Brazil took back their capital

and launched an offensive against the largest of the rebel groups. They

drove the rebels back to their base at Carabas.

On

the eve of the last government offensive the Revolutionary Council met

and decided on their final course of action. There were men on the

Council. It is said that one objected but the other two agreed. In the

last hour before dawn, the rebels rounded up every male still under

their control and executed them. The rebels considered it a last act of

defiance.

The

U N considered them all War Criminals and hunted most of them down. It

was the end of old Brazil though. The upper Amazon basin remained

lawless even until this day. The government was too afraid that other

female groups would do the same thing and the real estate wasn't worth

the risk.

The

Holy City was a different, and far more horrifying, legacy. Before the

Plague, there were places where men not only ruled, but women were

barred from any true power. As a result, when the men started dying off,

there were no, or not enough, professional women to take their place.

The electricity went out, hospitals were overrun and law and order broke

down.

The

U N was doing triage and if your country couldn't at least limp along,

it was abandoned to its fate, unless you had oil. In those bygone days,

it was a petroleum driven economy. There were some fucked-up

places around the globe that should have bit the dust, except the U N

had to keep propping them up, or everything would have broken down.

Human

Rights abuses? They would deal with that later. Few women want to talk

about exactly what the U N was thinking back then. They kept the engine

of civilization turning and they paid for it in blood. Whose blood? The

blood of women. See, around Year 8, there just weren't too many men left

in these Male Dominated cultures.

Life

was horrible, but the men simply wouldn't give up their power. They

filled their security forces with whatever men they could lay their

hands on. Things got so bad that these powerless women protested. The

questionably recruited and poorly trained security forces raped and

killed them for their audacity. Massive atrocities were committed.

The

U N did nothing, sort of. They covertly began supplying all kinds of

aid to the women while publically appealing for mediation. The men were

having none of that. It was their God-given country and women had better

know their place. Apparently God decided their places was behind a

machine gun, rocket launcher, or rifle.

The

men still had more plentiful equipment like tanks, artillery,

helicopters and planes. What they didn't have were numbers. They

couldn't cover everywhere at once. Soon enough the women grabbed and

held onto valuable parts of the landscape. The U N recognized their

movement and it was payback time.

Every

advantage now turned the women's way. If anyone in the U N thought this

was a bad idea, they were ignored. The U N was thinking a popular

insurgency overthrowing a corrupt, outdated regime. They weren't

thinking of thousands and thousands of brutalized rape victims,

traumatized and often mutilated suddenly seeing a light at the end of

the tunnel of their suffering.

They

didn't give a crap about the survival of the U N, Peace, Prosperity and

the Human Race. They wanted to silence the demons in their heads

forever. They wanted to make sure that they never heard a woman cry out

in unanswered, wretched agony ever again. They pushed the men back to

the Holy City, their last stand.

Most

of the female fighters were relatively sane. They knew what was going

on around the globe. They agreed with the U N that certain men, if

captured alive, would suffer international justice. Most of the men

would spend their lives in permanent detention so that their culture

could attempt to rebuild. It was the only rational thing to do.

The

fighting was incredibly brutal. Hardcore elements on both sides refused

to take, or be taken, prisoner. For seven days the women pressed

forward. In the core of the city, the last band of fanatics died to a

man. After that, the resistance collapsed. Most of the male army by this

time were the scrapings of the barrel.

Old

men in their seventies, young boys in their early teens, the ill, the

infirmed and the mangled; this was pretty much all that remained of a

male culture that had lasted thousands and thousands of years. The U N

representatives stepped in, helped sort out the men and prepared to

rebuild. Those women mentioned earlier? They weren't done. There were

men still alive.

The

male army had used a variety of chemical weapons on their female

enemies during the conflict and those dissolute women had been gathering

up the stockpiles as they were overrun. They rolled into the outdoor

prison camps with those weapons, pretending to be a food delivery. The

men gathered around and the women detonated themselves, in all the

camps.

Those

who didn't commit suicide began opening fire on the men who weren't

dead, or dying fast enough. Some women fired on those zealots. Other

women simply fell down and wept. They couldn't shoot the women who had

fought and bled so much for their cause. If the men died, they died as a

people. It was an internal conflict they couldn't handle.

Between

the battle and the mass murder afterwards nearly 25,000 men died. Fewer

than three hundred remained. Today, a Pakistani regiment guards the

city. It is still a place of pilgrimage, but it has never been

repopulated. It remains pretty much as it was abandoned, forty-one years

ago, a silent reminder of all that can go wrong with the human species.

Back to my plight.

"I didn't say or do anything at the Rally, honest," I pleaded to my female companions.

"We know you didn't," Capri grumbled. "That's why you are not on the list."

"List?"

"The

arrest list," Venus snapped. "They are using facial recognition to file

arrest warrants for all the men who broke the law at the rally. It's

over two thousand names long and posted so that all their female friends

and neighbors can turn them in."

In the midst of this disaster, what insight did my mind grab on to?

"At

least Kenny should be getting out of jail soon," I mumbled. Where in

the hell were they going to hold all these people? Hell, how were they

going to try all these guys?

"So, what's with the cop?" Venus stared at me intently. "The one you fucked."

"That would be Officer Freya Passey. She's a pagan," I evaded.

"I wonder what her review of you is going to be like," Samantha studied me with conflicting emotions.

"Oh, there's a problem with that," I looked heavenward.

"Problem?"

Capri choked. "Do you mean 'problem' as in you snuck off and murdered

the Mayor, or something that is remotely fixable?"

I was beginning to question why Capri kept hanging out with me.

"My bracelet is broken," I confessed.

"How did that happen?" Aniqua inquired.

"Have

you seen that whole bit with me, on top of Passey, the riot cop, the

stun baton hitting my wrist?" I outlined. "That apparently fried it."

The women looked around at each other.

"Oh, thank God," Capri exhaled. "I thought it was something important."

"Damn,

Israel, we don't give a crap about your bracelet," Venus groused. "Can I

have my sex now?" Capri, Aniqua and Kuiko all pelted her with

something.

Kuiko used the commotion to hop up and come my way.

"Hugs?"

she smiled hopefully. I opened my arms and she flowed into my embrace.

She began breathing deeply my scent and rubbing her cheek against my

shirt.

"Damn it," I groaned. Kuiko looked up, concerned.

I tried to turn her around and pull up her shirt.

"No!"

she insisted. "You were bad. You weren't thinking of us. You should

have come straight home." Kuiko wasn't angry about Passey. She was angry

because I had acted without concern for the group, our group.

"I

apologize, to all of you," I groaned. "I honestly can't tell you what I

was thinking. It, it all changed and they'll never fix it. Men rose up

in defiance and they are going to crush us for it, but their brutality

doesn't matter anymore."

In a cosmic twist of black humor, the situation had reversed.

For

forty years the female regime had been keeping men internally

disorganized and obedient. There were a multitude of all-female groups.

There were even a good number of non-gender groups, but there were no

male-only clubs (unless you included male musical groups). Unlike the

cross-cultural men that took public transit with their sticks today,

this male group had been uniform.

They

were some of the best men could put forward. Not the smartest, richest,

best looking, or most famous. No, they were the iconic representation

of what all men were supposed to want to be. They played by the rules,

got ahead and were living the good life, and they had been gunned down

at a meeting the women invited them to.

Robert

White had most likely not identified with the man in the chicken

processing plant, the microchip production line, the mechanic, or the

starving artist, but they had identified with him. In their hearts they

knew society wanted us to be like Robert White, pre-massacre. To

complete the picture, the doctor, lawyer and banker identified with him

too, as one of their own.

The

police had still gunned him and hundreds like him down. Males weren't

salivating with glee as Robert took out those two water cannons. Most

couldn't understand that kind of dire courage. What they felt was

horror, horror that he'd been shot in the first place, shot in the gut

with his life placed in jeopardy. It was the horror that their sense of

security had been shredded and the promises they'd been believing all

these years were lies.

Men

were uniting in fear, disbelief and outrage. They had been rendered

into one mind, 'They have betrayed us.’ On the other side of the aisle,

it was the opposite. Women were being torn asunder. What had the police

been thinking? Why hadn't they let them leave? Why hadn't the men been

punished?

What

were the men going to do next? What should they do to protect the men?

What should they do to control them? Is my man in danger? Sure, all

women knew policewomen carried a sidearm, but they would never use them,

right? Well, they had, mostly to defend their lives and those of their

partners.

But

women didn't care about that. Cops had shot men! It was like China only

a hundredfold worse. Women were confused. Society had told them as they

grew up that men 'liked' it, that they didn't mind the aggression and

most of all, men were safe to be around, docile, though no one would

have dared use the word.

"Israel,

you did your thing. It was your right," Aniqua stated, "but have some

mercy on us. It is damned hard to watch you walk out that door then

witness all that madness on TV. We were worried. You called, but you

wouldn't come home. No, you had to go into a building full of cops and

screw a woman, and then you disappeared again."

"Couldn't you keep in touch?" she persisted. "Did you even think about us?"

"Yes

I could have and no, I didn't think about any of you," I confessed. "I

was a lousy friend and, I'm going to continue being a lousy friend.

Frankly, all of this," I indicated the women in the room, "is a lot for

me to take in. Worse, it is necessary for me which makes me resent all

of you."

"Huh?" Venus muttered. "In the video you said you liked us."

"I

like all of you a whole bunch, but I don't want to," I pleaded. "The

last time I took a shower, I was terrified one of you would come in and

hurt me. It is not any of you, it is me. When Flame had her huge, fucking pistol barrel pointed into my face tonight I couldn't even muster enough fear to beg for my life."

"Damn," Capri whispered. Kuiko started quietly to shed tears onto my chest.

"Sometimes

the desire to live until the next day was all I had to keep me going," I

stated. "Even as you gave me your care and affection, you were breaking

me down inside. I spent three years learning to avoid and live without

women. In a week that had become a futile endeavor."

"I

can't live without you even as I know it is going to tear me apart. I

want to be free and I want to be alone. I can't have both so I've chosen

to be free because that lets me be with all of you," I finished. "I'm

going to be a terrible friend and you deserve better than a fucked up guy like me."

"No we don't," Kuiko sniffed. "I don't want anyone else but you."

"I'd

sell Kuiko's left tit to make you work right, or righter," Venus

sighed. "I'll still take the man I'm here with though over any other

I've ever met." Samantha seemed to calm down. Capri was relentless.

"We need to establish a punishment system for you, maybe a denial of sex," Capri grumbled.

"Eek!" Kuiko peeped then shook her head rapidly over my chest. She wasn't happy with that idea, not one bit.

"Capri, just so we are clear," Venus menaced. "Sammy and I are about to kick your ass for even suggesting such a thing."

"Fine,

fine," Capri held up her hands. "Let's compromise. Kuiko, punish

Israel." Kuiko turned her head sideways, regarding Capri while her ear

was listening to my heartbeat. "You know, teach him a lesson." Kuiko's

eyes grew wide. She hurriedly help me get her shirt and bra out of the

way then stripped of my jacket and shirt.

"Well?"

I asked softly. I was wanting to do this more than I initially thought I

would. I welcomed the frivolity of the act; the carefree sensuality.

"Put me against the wall and pick me up?" she meeped.

"Is that a question or a command, Mistress Sano?" I teased. It came so easily with her.

"Mistress

Sano,” her face blossomed into a smile that seemed to erase the

tear-tracks on her cheeks. "I like that. Lift me up, press me against

the wall and get to nipple licking!"

I picked her up, pressed her against the wall and began my nipplage.

"Damn it," four women muttered behind me.

"Support your weight with your legs around my hips and your arms on my shoulders," I instructed Kuiko.

She

was curious, but obeyed. I released my hold on her ass, brought my hand

up to the sides of her breasts the pressed them together. I tongue

flicked her now adjacent nipples.

"I warned you I'd get them both next time," I admonished her.

"Mistress Sano approves," Kuiko purred, "approves."

"No, Capri," Venus mocked my lawyer, "you couldn't say 'Venus', could you?"

"Nope," Capri smirked. "You getting pissed off is normal. Kuiko wailing is a noise I can live without."

Capri

was a clever girl and way ahead of the game. By foisting Kuiko on me

she was reinforcing our congealing dynamic. She would let Kuiko lead the

way. No one else had heard her declaration of love for me, so this

simply seemed like fun. I had little doubt that she knew this was

healing me. She was creating isolation in a crowded room; just Kuiko and

me.

I

would give the girls sexual fun. It would be a personal relationship

that would move me beyond what I did with Officer Passey, I still had to

explain that. They were my partners. I wouldn't belittle them with the

term 'attachment.’ We were one group, one entity, not some cosmetic

appendage or accessory.

In

retrospect, Kuiko had been the perfect choice. She was our 'Omega.’ She

wasn't the prettiest, the best built, the smartest, or even the most

athletic. She was wacky, just a smidge off kilter. The other women,

sadly, didn't see her as a threat. Angel was a threat. She was the

Alpha. Kuiko though, if Kuiko could get this level of attention, by

their thinking, any of them could.

Kuiko

was not my Omega. She was my liberator. Before anyone else, she had

connected with me. Angel stole my heart, but she still hurt me. Kuiko

gave me patience and time. She sensed my frontiers and there she

stopped, waiting for me to let her in. I prayed to the Divine that she

made it out of this mess with me intact.

I was so caught up in my threads of this Kuiko experience I missed her coming to fruition under my ministrations.

"Israel,

I'm, ah, ah, ah ah ah ah ha," she orgasmed. We clung to each other as

she slowly regained control of herself. "Thank you," she whispered.

"He made her come, didn't he?" Samantha murmured. "With his lips,"

"Fuck

all of you," Venus growled to the room. She stomped off to the shower.

The water was running in seconds, the glass door opened then shut. Capri

started giggling.

"Don't

worry, Israel," Capri snickered. "Forcing Venus to take a cold shower

can't be better than sex with you, but until then, it will do nicely."

"I need to change," Kuiko grinned sheepishly at me. Her crotch was soaked.

"Me

too," I sighed. My belt and the top of my pants were damp as well.

Kuiko and I changed clothes, the cold shower didn't' seem to have done

Venus much good and after some consensus building, I was convinced to

sleep on the sofa with the ladies around me.

It

was much later when I woke up. I hadn't heard Roni, or Angel come in

yet but Dimples' FBI was close by again, apparently I was lost and the

Attorney General was looking for me,

The

fact that my bracelet wasn't talking to the system never came up.

Dimples' people didn't get around to it and my sanity kept me from

mentioning the fact.

The

Federation Government had thought I was dead, but my stunt at the

hospital went viral, so they knew I was alive again. Officer Passey was

vocally and profusely refusing all attempts at a vaginal swab. Outside, a

city-wide curfew was in effect. The Armed Forces Reserves were being

called up and the rumor was that regular troops were on the way.

All

that left me truly curious about who was knocking at my door an hour

before dawn. I activated the TV and nothing happened. It was on but not

responding. I began to panic then I recalled the past two days of my

life. I got off the sofa and headed for the door.

"Who is it?" Capri and Aniqua asked at the same time.

Samantha

and Kuiko were slow wakers. I lightly knocked on my own door then

opened it. Sure enough, it was Zara and those two women from the bridge

earlier in the night. I silently stepped aside and ushered them in. The

middle woman, the one I had talked to on the bridge, had two carrying

crates worth of stuff and she went straight to the kitchen.

"Israel," Zara began. "We need some of your blood."

"Okay," I nodded. There was a short pause.

"Shit,"

the middle woman griped as if she had just lost a bet. The third woman

chuckled and removed her ball cap. They all had ball caps, jackets and

street attire.

The

third woman had short, shockingly white hair. Like Zara and the other

woman, she was fit, but with a different quality about her, more agile

than tough. The second woman was of the same mold as Zara, quietly

competent though she smiled more often, with her raven hair pulled back

in a ponytail reaching half way down her back.

I

migrated into the kitchen because, while tiny, it wasn't packed with as

many women as my living room. The second woman was kneeling beside her

two crates, pulling things out and stacking them around her while

wearing blue surgical gloves. One of them held my curiosity. It was a

30cm cube. It seemed to be solid plastic except one portal on top and a

small open sphere in the middle.

"By

the way, I'm Jen, the woman in the kitchen is Brandi and, in case the

word hasn't gotten around yet, the last woman is Zara," the white haired

woman introduced the new group.

"Who are you with?" I asked her.

"Nasa," she snorted. "That was cool, you figuring it out."

"Frank,

let me stick your finger," Brandi requested. I extended a finger her

way and it was dutifully pricked. Apparently I was 'Frank.’

"Who are the rest of you with?" Venus prodded. Zara hesitated.

"1st Special Forces Operational Detachment, D," she replied. "Both of us."

I

knew who that was because of my studies. By the look on Venus' face,

like she'd been hit in the face with a skillet, she knew too. Everyone

else seemed clueless.

"Oh," Kuiko popped up, "you shoot people? Just like real soldiers?"

"Yeah Kid," Jen chuckled, "just like real soldiers."

Brandi

extracted some of my blood in a miniscule hollow tube. She trimmed

that, opened the top of the globe and fitted the tube into a series of

rollers. She sealed the tube and then, in stages, the tube descended

into the heart of the cube. Brandi switched her attention to the small

screen device at her knees.

At

first, all it showed was some roughly circular objects, grey and fuzzy

around the edges. A few seconds later, red objects, about the same size

as the grey ones entered the scene. Brandi grew tense, so I began to

massage her shoulders while keeping my eyes on the screen. One of the

red, cells, they had to be my blood cells, turned grey and ruptured

along the sides.

The

grey objects were ruptured, infected blood cells. My blood cells were

getting clobbered. One by one they succumbed. Brandi was almost too

tense for words. I picked up on her chanting 'come on, come on' as if

some sort of encouragement would help in this lopsided fight. I caught

sight of the miracle first.

On

the edge, one of my blood cells began turning grey then stopped. It was

turning red once more. Brandi began muttering 'oh please, oh please, oh

please.’ A grey cell began to wither, blacken and die, then another. In

seconds a colossal trouncing was in progress. Brandi could barely

scroll the screen back fast enough to catch the death of the infected

cells. In two minutes, it was over.

To be continued

By FinalStand for Literotica

Men’s Rally And Riot

Based on ‘One In Ten’ by FinalStand, adapted into 17 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.

The

Persians marshalled all the nations under the Sun and Stars yet they

were defeated by a single idea: Sacrifice, and their inability to

appreciate it.

After

tonight, we would become a democracy because I could trust the group to

see beyond gender and into the ideas and ideals of the speaker. True

democracy was not about the tyranny of numbers, but consensus. Consensus

was the result of the belief that everyone in the group, even the

opposition, had worth, they counted.

How

in the Hell, after all the wrong turns my life had taken, could I still

believe I was an idealist? It was simple. I had not let them win. In a

very crude, sexual way it was that I had the confidence in one girl, my

first date, to ask her to hold off on true intercourse and she respected

my wishes. In the kaleidoscope of my fractured mind, that memory burned

through.

Listening

to the women in my living room talking while I dressed in the bedroom, a

tiny shiver of one memory collided and melded with another. No women I

had ever known had not betrayed me in one way or another. That was the

terror of distrust for me, but, no woman, or man, was perfect. They

would all betray me, sooner or later.

I

now understood this wasn't bad. It was human nature. We all let people

down around us, even the ones we cared about. Pain had led me to hunt

for perfection. That was a pointless quest and a pursuit that led to

madness. What I should have been looking for was restitution. Did that

person know they had wronged me and were they trying to make it up to

me?

The

same held true for me. Was I a true friend, looking after those I had

wronged and balancing accounts with them as well? Honesty, Truth and

Love, the harshest bitches on the block. I meditated for twenty minutes

before heading back to my assembled friends.

"You look nice," Kuiko beamed. "Really nice."

"Thank you," I blushed slightly. More Bethany clothes.

"That wasn't a compliment, you jerk," Capri glared. "Last chance. This is stupid."

"Noted

and acknowledged, Ms. O'Hara," I nodded. "I need a taxi." I pulled out

my phone and began looking up taxi services. My phone rang.

“FBI across the street” it read. I shuddered. I wasn't upset. I was peeved.

“Do you like my new underwear you Pervs?” I hung up. I didn't care if they liked my underwear.

"Them?" Capri asked softly.

"Yeah."

"Damn it, you just took a shower, shaved and got dressed. Can't they leave you alone for an hour?" she griped.

"Who?" Roni got out first.

"Santa's Little Helpers," Capri grumbled. "I really ought to do something about them."

"Let

us not revisit the whole 'you dismembered in the morgue' thing, shall

we," I requested. "Besides, I gave them a piece of my mind this time."

"Not the sexy part!" Kuiko blurted out.

"What did you do?" Capri studied me.

"I called them pervs," I declared. "No, I did not, Kuiko. The sexy is all for you." She smiled.

"Oh yeah, that will do it," Capri pressed her wrist to her forehead and announced dramatically.

"What do I want to do more," Venus mumbled, "fight over the sexy or find out what the hell is going on?"

"Perverted

Santa's Little Helpers who leave dismembered bodies in the morgue and

have an apparent issue with Israel naked or semi-naked," Roni mused.

"Capri, after he leaves, you are going to do some explaining."

"I think this is my cue to leave," I told the room then headed for the door.

"Aren't you going to call a taxi?" Aniqua reminded me.

"The FBI is going to drive me there," I grinned.

"What makes you say that?" Samantha gulped.

"When

the alternative is letting me flag down a cabby that may, or may not,

be homicidal, my bet is they'll drop me off at the arena," I explained.

"Makes sense to me," Kuiko nodded. "If I had a car, I'd give him a ride."

"Kuiko, for once I agree with you," Venus muttered.

"I'm not as dumb as I look," Kuiko turned that 1000 watt smile on Venus.

"Of course you are not," Roni chortled. "Otherwise you couldn't walk and talk at the same time."

I

went around and kissed each one of them, on the lips. Normally that

should have made them happy, but they kept looking at me like they'd

never see me again. Clever girls. I left the complex and scanned the

streets. There was the car, at the edge of a car park down the street.

It wasn't as if there were many car owners in this part of town.

I

hurried across the street and I was whistling. Special Agent Sosa

lowered the window as I approached. Across from her was S A Saris, also

with Dimple's team.

"Yes?" Sosa sighed. "When staking out a place it sort of blows our cover if you walk right up to us, by the way."

"That's cool," I grinned. "We aren't staying here anyway. I need a ride to the Arena."

"Do we look like a taxi service?" Sosa smirked.

"I'm going, you are following. We might as well make it easy on us, save a few volts," I reasoned.

"Get in," Saris grumbled. I gladly did so and off we went.

"Planning to get arrested?" Saris asked.

"Planning? No. Expecting it to be a possibility, yes," I admitted. "Any news?"

"Dr. Fremont is still missing, but her company hired a GlobeMaster to haul a whole lot of something to Bolivia," Sosa answered.

Seeing my confusion, Saris added.

"A GlobeMaster is a really big aircraft, used for hauling freight, not passengers."

My impulse was to say 'can you shoot it down,' but the illegality of the action was stunning.

"Anything on your front?" Sosa inquired.

"Let

me see, my Capri's Mom wants her to be a cum-dumpster, seven girls

stopped by my place today to drag me out of my home and make me their

bitch. My tribe made them back down, this time. Now my ladies are camped

out at my place, murdering my AC unit and praying I make it back home

in some sort of working order," I outlined.

"Why did they let you go? Are they some kind of pansies?" Sosa mocked.

"I'd

hit you upside your head for that comment, but you are driving, armed

and most likely a much better fighter than me," I replied. "They are not

pansies. They risked harm for me today."

"What happened at the firefight today, anyway?" Saris asked.

"Not really sure," I lied. "Bullets were flying and I was running for my life."

"You didn't see anything?" she persisted. Damn her interrogation abilities.

"Wait, with guns going off I thought you would be happy I was running away," I evaded.

"Why didn't you wait for Agents Vabishi and Fraklos to get there?"

"Capri and I got across the street so we ran for it," I shrugged.

"Next time, lay flat and we'll come get you," Saris told me.

"Thanks,

G I Jane," was my snarky comeback. "Maybe if you let me have some sort

of combat training I'd know what to do next time." I was making light of

things, but in the back of my mind, like a cornered badger in the dark,

I knew I was in a vehicle with two women I didn't know.

It

wasn't like I could tell myself they were law enforcement agents and

feel better. Kwan, Riga, Seger and Somerset had all be cruel to me in

some way. Dimples' crew had tackled me on the ground, intimidated me,

deceived me, torn away my rights and played upon my feeble psyche. Trust

hadn't placed me in this car, expediency had.

The

FBI was the best chance I had to get to the Arena intact. I doubted

they would have appreciated me defining their actions as our evolving

tribalism. I was their investment, so it behooved them to take me safely

to my destination. I didn't believe they yet understood that they had

stopped working for the Director of the FBI, or the Attorney General and

had become self-employed.

They

may have had this delusion that this would end up with criminal

indictments against the people behind the Big Lie and Carabolix-37, but

that was an unsustainable fantasy. Once the system betrayed them, as it

had betrayed me so often, Dimples' crew would know that escape was the

only option left. It was obvious to me the moment I saw Dimples.

She

would never let them win. She was the only one allowed to win. I didn't

count the freebie she threw my way. That was a draw at best. The ride

to the Arena turned out to be nothing much. I was dropped off. Men, and

cops, were all around. I dutifully showed my I D to Arena Security, they

triple checked it and then brought a coordinator to check it one more

time.

They

realized I was in the front third of the arena floor seating. I had a

nice folding chair on the outer aisle. The coordinator decided that was a

bad idea so she had me exchange seats with a guy in the middle of my

row. I knew why this was, though I only had theoretical knowledge how a

rally would work.

When

the authorities left, having neutralized me, I politely went to the man

I had exchanged seats with and asked him to switch back. He seemed

dubious, but when I explained that all the blame would be foisted on me,

he relented. See, here is how it worked. First your Talking Heads would

get up and make their speeches.

Then

would come the long question and answer portion of this farce. Women

would walk up and down the aisles, men would raise their hands, wave and

asked if they could present a question. In a totally democratic

process, these women on the aisles would provide a sound system for the

men to ask the speaker their question.

The

speaker answers, on to the next man. As you might guess, men sitting on

the aisle seats had the best chances of being heard. Men stuck in the

middle were out of luck, men like me and my 'new' assigned seat. Men

like me in my original seat, were potentially dangerous. Still, things

went along very smoothly until the tenth question.

Up

to that point, the speakers had done their thing with the basic theme

being 'all you men are appreciated, doing your part, and we love you.’

Not that they were going to do a damn thing to help us beyond patting us

on the head, but they loved us. They loved us because we were doing

what we were told. The men in the audience ate it up. It was what they

wanted to hear.

I

imagined that handing us all 'little lamb' outfits to wear would have

been counter-productive to their agenda, though it certainly would have

been more appropriate to how these women viewed the situation. It was

clear to me that all the questions the men in the audience were asking

were scripted. Some had to actually look down at their phones when

reading off their instructions.

Most

adults don't like being treated like six-year olds, so they ignored

this mounting stupidity until Man 10 stood up, was recognized and read

off his question. He was around fifty and clearly in a prosperous

profession, positive he was a member of the winning (female) team.

"Is

it true that at this very moment Congress is voting on increasing the

cycle from 28 days to 14, and abolishing marriage?" he asked.

There

was a hush. By the dumbstruck expression of the woman on stage, this

was not the prepared question. The problem wasn't moving the cycle to 14

days. Men were prepared to knuckle under and do their part for the

Human species. But marriage? Men loved marriage. They didn't love the

idea of finding love, getting married and living happily ever after.

That

was idiotic. No, men loved marriage as our last refuge from a women's

world. Gaining 'attachments' was a warning flag we could wave at other

women, telling them 'hey, we are doing our part, so please, leave us

alone.' Marriage was your shield and armor. It was 'Don't touch. I'm

with somebody!'

The

hope was that if someone did do something to you, your wife would

scream bloody murder and things would get done. She was a woman after

all. Marriage had been preserved in the Gender Inequality Act because

most of the signers were either married or had been recently married and

lost a loved one to the Plague.

I

imagine they thought it was a quaint institution that would gradually

fall to the wayside as society progressed. At the start, it looked that

way. The number of marriages did slowly decline for thirty years, but

about ten years ago, the trend began reversing. When a man is in his

late teens, early and mid-twenties, going out with lots of girls sounds

nice.

Women

pay for everything, they take you to nice places and if you end up in

the three- or four-way occasionally, well, you've got the stamina for

it. When you hit your late twenties and early thirties, men start

slowing down. Pulling a train on a Saturday night, all night, becomes a

burden you could do without.

About

that time, marriage starts looking good. You've probably been in a few

attachments. You pick the one you can live the best with and who has the

best financial status and you keep dropping hints until she realizes

what you really want and she pops the question. Congratulations, you

only have to screw one women for the rest of your life.

Okay,

maybe her sisters, your mother-in-law and her boss, but still, that's

not too bad. Ten years ago, that generation of men who grew up after the

plague were hitting their thirties and they were taking a renewed

interest in the dying institution of marriage. Men got interested, women

got real interested. For women, it meant no more desperate hunting

every weekend.

You

wanted cock? Call your husband, tell him to be home by six and wear

something sexy and it got done. Best of all, you could make that call,

look around your office and see all your female co-workers dripping with

jealousy. If you truly wanted to turn the screws, during that call, you

told your hubby to take some enhancement drugs because you wanted it

deep and hard all night long.

By

this time in our social evolution, men didn't mind being treated like

that too much. We had safety. As married men started to bask in their

safe status, their unmarried brethren began wondering if marriage would

be a good idea for them, too. More took the plunge and most of them were

marrying up social and financially.

As

I keep repeating, women aren't stupid. When rich, successful bankers

began marrying sales clerks and custodians, the social stigma of

marrying beneath your station evaporated in the burning reality that

they had their genetic future waiting at home, willing to do his duty.

The floodgates were open.

More

married men meant fewer men in the fishing pool. That meant greater

pressure on the remaining men, who were now opting into marriage to

relieve that pressure. That meant even greater pressure on the fewer and

fewer remaining men. Last year the marriage rate began its climb toward

30%. From the gender quota point of view, this was a disaster.

To

put that in perspective, that's thirty percent of all men. Then you

have to drop out every male below the age of 16. Then you have to

consider that once men are over 59, they need a yearly physical. If

something is wrong, you get a limited deferment. That means you don't

have to have sex as often.

You

never get to 'not have sex' unless you are on life support, or a rape

victim. There are waiting lists for kidneys, livers and hearts, if you

are a woman. If you are a man, they'll slap an artificial heart in you

if they have to. Men must perform for the general female population,

unless they are married.

Back

to the question at the Arena. Men had been quietly bleating, nodding

our heads, and smiling without real passion until that point. Sudden,

like scenting a wolf for the first time, they were very attentive. If

you were a twenty-something guy, this wasn't 'good.’ If you were a

forty-two year old husband, with a wife, three kids and twelve years of

marital bliss, this was disastrous.

The

government was about to shove you back into the deep end were packs of

starving women were going to devour you because your avoidance skills

were rusty. You were about to be waking up wondering if the pain coming

from your groin was worse than the headache you had from whatever the

hell those women drugged you with.

Oh,

and by the way, you were about to lose your parental rights to your

offspring and most of your shared property. Effectively you were being

forced to divorce. The magnitude of this was amplified by the speaker.

If she had a pat lie handy, she could have defused things because men

wanted comforting words more than unforgiving reality.

But

she stammered. She could have said yes, and that might have been

better. By stammering, she told the men that 'Yes, you are boned, but we

are going to lie to you about it.’ In my opinion, she did the worst

possible thing.

"Next question?"

That

was the equivalent of 'Yes, but you don't deserve to be told about your

fates.’ There was no riot over that. No, it was something far, far

worse. Before that moment, the 20,000 men in the arena thought they were

part of this society. They were deluded into thinking they were equals.

They thought I was a lunatic. Now?

As a group they came to a consensus and it wasn't a pleasant one. 'They think we are sheep, Mother-fuckers!'

This wasn't the crowd that carried dowels this morning but they were

starting to wish they had some now. The shift was subtle. Men had been

sitting back in their seats. Now they were leaning forward.

There

had been polite whispered banter. Now there were grim faces and quiet. I

jumped up and waved my hands around. The communications girl came my

way, was offering me her microphone when she suddenly realized who I

was, I wasn't the man they had reassigned to that seat. She back-pedaled

and another questioner was immediately tapped to speak.

"Let

him speak," the man pointed my way. There was a hush. His comm girl

backed up as well. Another man was found. He started asking his

state-sanctioned question but then the hissing and boos began. The

speaker's response was barely audible over the racket. I jumped up

again. The next man repeated the plea, though it was more insistent now.

"Let him speak!"

I

wasn't sure what they expected me to say. I wanted some sort of redress

to our legal plight, something to defend us against the G E D and the

most egregious insults to our dignity. An arena security guard, neat and

prim in her freshly pressed uniform, moved from the wall nearby and was

clearly coming for me.

The world cracked a little more.

Five men jumped up around me and they looked angry.

"Don't,"

one of them menaced the guard. Cops would have kept coming. It is what

they do, but this was a security guard. She wasn't armed and she

certainly didn't like the mood presented to her.

She

suddenly realized she was down on the floor of the arena, back to a

wall with a sea of angry faces looking her way. She stepped back then

ran, calling for back-up. It was the most horrible thing she could have

done. Two cops were already advancing my way from the front of the

arena. The ripple of the men's successful defiance moved through the

crowd.

The

majority of men kept their seats. They had not come to get in a fight.

They were not rowdy. In fact, they were becoming afraid as most sane

people do when violence approaches. Two patrolwomen came my way. Men

rose as they passed by, but they held firm. Courage was the important

thing. The belief was if they held firm, the men would back down because

they always backed down.

I

saw Officer Passey and her partner as they closed. They didn't have

weapons drawn because they didn't want to spook us. There must have been

sixty men standing around me. I was still standing at my aisle seat and

no men had left their seats to pour into the aisle so the cops had

unimpeded access to me.

"Come with us," Passey beckoned.

"I

haven't done anything wrong," I begged. She grabbed my arm, and then

two men hit her. Passey went down, I heard her partner yelling for

everyone to get back as the males on all sides charged in. A taser went

off then the men were punching and kicking the crap out of the two

women.

The

source of this rage was two-fold. These men had come here completely

wrapped up in the belief that they were equals. These were successful

men with good homes, jobs and lives. They weren't Kenny and Luanga who

worked in a factory. They were professionals and semi-professionals.

They had just been told they were considered nothing but sheep and now

they were being treated like sheep.

The

other factor was the fact they were not the men with dowels this

morning. They'd watched those morons getting plastered, stomped on and

arrested. They didn't admire or even empathize with those men, they held

them in contempt because why on earth would any man be rebelling? It

wasn't that they didn't suffer from the same indignities.

They

did, but they accepted it as normal and went about their days. Smacking

a woman in the head with a stick was stupid. It would accomplish

nothing. This was the mental quandary these men were in. The morons of

this morning had been right in their futile protest and they had been

the fools.

Like

most people, when someone makes a fool of you, you don't say 'Gosh, I'm

foolish.’ No, you get angry with the person who made a fool of you.

They were sheep, they had little lamb bells in the shape of a bracelet

and they'd been fleeced. Those two cops had simply been too vulnerable

to resist.

I

pushed forward, then threw myself on Passey's body, hoping to buy time.

I didn't see her partner. From later footage, I was to learn that five

more policewomen came storming up from the front, tasers out and firing.

Men were dropping, but not fast enough. At that crucial moment when it

seemed those five women might stem the tide, the men discovered

something really bad.

The

floor of the arena was covered with folding chairs which make nice

weapons. Up went the chairs and down went the cops. The majority of the

men in the arena were angry, but weren't as angry as the mob around me.

Cops were pouring in from every exit so the men did what came naturally,

they tried to get out.

No

catastrophe is one mistake. Men were panicking and trying to get out. A

stampede could prove fatal to the crowd of men. The police had to

restore order. They also wanted to capture and punish the men

responsible. The commander on the scene ordered the police to hold the

exits until the riot was dealt with. The policewomen were polite but

firm.

The

men responded like good little frightened sheep and obeyed, though they

were clearly nervous. Around me, the men saw a wall of ten riot police

coming from the front, backed up by a small group of normal policewomen.

Riot cops had knee-to-shoulder length transparent shields and stun

batons. This was the kind of thing they had trained for. They were not

afraid.

The

men also discovered they had seven pistols, things got worse. A few got

some shots off before they were stunned into unconsciousness. Others

couldn't even figure out how to work the safety. The police wall pushed

forward, they were recovering the bodies of their fallen co-workers then

they finally got to me.

The

policewoman saw me on all fours over a semi-coherent Passey and swung

her stun baton. I raised my arm to defend myself and a sharp shock burnt

through my arm, but didn't knock me out. At that moment, the riot squad

became a victim of its own success. Having pushed so far forward, they

presented an avenue of egress for the panicking men on their side of the

arena.

The

human wave shattered the police cohesion. It became a desperate fight,

everyone for themselves. The riot cops went down under the surge of

bodies. For a second, the area around me cleared up. I saw Passey's

partner. She looked to be in a bad way, but I didn't know her. I knew

Passey. I was still ordering my jumbled thoughts when the bomb went off.

It

had been suspended over the arena floor, disguised as sound equipment.

The blast wave was focused down into the audience. The concussion

knocked people down, but that was the only direct effect. The designers

of the bomb weren't looking to create casualties on the floor, oh no.

They were looking to spread chaos, confusion and fear.

They

did that admirably. That thin blue line holding those 20,000 men at

bay? They were still trying to figure out what the explosion was when

the men surged forward once more. They yelled at the men to stop. Their

hands went to their tasers. Most likely, the men facing the cops tried

to stop, but with hundreds of men behind them urgently trying to get

away from the explosion, it was a hopeless gesture.

Police

escalation was simple: command, taser, physical takedown, and pistol.

Most of the policewomen never got to the takedown phase. A few went

straight for the pistol phase. Shots began ringing out. Police

communications were overwhelmed with calls for orders, or help. At the

main exit's long series of doors it got even worse.

A

police lieutenant was trying to bring order out of the chaos. She could

make out what was being said by a subordinate in another part of the

arena.

"Shots fired? I repeat, shots fired?" she requested over her link. That's not what a man a few meters away heard.

"Oh

my God! They are going to shoot us just like China!" he screamed. He

wasn't rational, but a bomb had gone off, another one might go off and

the cops weren't letting him leave. The rational thought should have

been 'I'm too valuable to be slaughtered,' but he was gripped by fear.

"They are going to kill us all!" he continued.

The

closest police officer tased him. That was normal procedure; the man

was starting a panic. Unfortunately, there was already a panic, the man

was claiming the cops were trying to kill him, and the cops had just

proved him right. He wasn't dead, or even unconscious, but the men

didn't know that. They attacked.

Men

tend to be taller, heavier and have superior reach. The policewomen had

training, weapons, body armor and morale, they were policewomen facing

men after all. The deciding factor was weight of numbers, quite

literally. The men rolled forward like a wave. The front men were

tasered, but couldn't fall down in the press of bodies.

There

was no way the women could hold back five, six, or even seven men

pushing against each one of them. Realizing the women at the first exits

were being pummeled to death, the supporting police went straight for

their guns. Had the men had some sort of organization, the hail of

bullets might have stopped them. The men were a stampede.

Men

fell and were trampled into mush. The women? They were savagely beaten

to death for the most part. Some were literally torn to pieces. The men

slammed into the glass doors and walls. The material was tough. It bent

and bowed before finally popping out of its fixtures. The men cascaded

into the city's last line of defense.

It

was a police auxiliary riot unit. These women had 'day jobs' but served

in uniform on special occasions, like this. What was coming at them

wasn't something they were mentally prepared for. Still, they were in

full riot gear, with each flank secured by a water cannon. The unit's

sergeant had a horrid dilemma.

Over

her comm, she could hear wounded officers crying out for assistance. A

SWAT unit on the second level was in dire need and running out of

ammunition. For once, men had the numbers in this cruel twist of fate,

plus, they had and were using guns. An equine unit had snapped under the

pressure on the north side of the arena and been overrun.

The

water cannons began working over the men. That stopped them,

momentarily. It was deceptive because the pressure behind the men was

building up, but the police couldn't see it. Seeing the mob recoil, the

sergeant acted. She ordered her command forward at a steady pace. They

were going to rescue their fellow officers.

Things

began to fall apart from the start. As the cannons both swung to the

center of the riot squads' entry point, a man slipped around the edge of

the water stream. His name was Robert White, African-American and

worked at a modeling agency as a manager. He had two attachments and

four healthy daughters. He was thirty-two and he was dying.

In

the playback, it was clear that he was gut-shot. Had he made it to an

emergency room in the next thirty minutes he might have lived. His dress

jacket was gone. His dress white shirt was water-soaked and blood

stained from his wound. He also had a shotgun and a preference for

action movies so he had a clue how one worked.

Robert

sprinted around the periphery of the riot line, jumped on the front of

the first water cannon and fired the shotgun through the vision port the

driver left open. Three shots later, the crew inside was dead or

wounded and the cannon shut down. While Robert was becoming a martyr for

all man-kind, the riot squad was falling apart.

As

the sergeant urged her troops forward, the individual women were coming

to the realization that their cork was too small for the hole they were

expected to fill. The dimensions of the mass of men coming their way

made the power of the stun batons in their hands feel irrelevant. You

could see the reasonable fear in their eyes turn to terror. They knew

they were about to die.

Even

then, not one woman didn't go forward. The problem was some went more

forward than others. The Plexiglas shield wall fractured. The sergeant

tried to reorganize her people, the water cannon on her right shut off

and she committed a totally rational sin. She looked over her shoulder

to see what had happened. She wasn't the only woman in her command to do

that.

The

man charged forward with a hellish howl. The auxiliary policewomen

cringed and hunched up, but none of them ran. They held their ground as

best they could. Their doom was in their sergeant's decision to advance.

The riot squad's flanks were open and the men come pouring around at

both ends.

The

second water cannon thrashed the area around it, trying to buy time for

the women on the outside. Within their armored vehicle, the patrolwomen

thought they were safe. Of course, the women inside the first water

cannon had thought the same thing. Re-enter the doomed Robert White. He

had run around the far side of the first water cannon and to the back of

the second.

Something

whizzed pasted his thigh and ricocheted off the pavement. Sure enough,

the crew had left a back viewport open. They weren't following protocol,

but they weren't stupid either. With the ports open, the vehicle was

much cooler in this early summer heat. Besides, men didn't have guns, so

what was the problem.

Robert

White stuck the barrel into the port and fired. As he got a second shot

off, something tore off a section of his calf and he fell. Unrelenting,

he stood back up, felt something burn across his thigh, but still

managed to get off a third shot. He was pumping the next shell in when

the sniper finally stopped following fire protocol for men and put a

round into Robert White's heart.

It

was already too late for the auxiliary policewomen before the second

water cannon went still. The initial rush of men pushed in their flanks

and a secondary surge shattered their middle. A smaller, right-most

faction, tried to form a circle, but fell and were overwhelmed. The left

most, with their sergeant, formed a defensive ring only to be taken

down by the stun batons of their fallen comrades.

This was the moment when that first sniper and two more who had rushed to join her decided that 'fuck it,

they must pay' and opened fire on the mob. That was the last hurrah.

The men broke up and scattered, which was pretty much what they had

wanted to do all along. The blood lust was dissipating.

As

one final, sad footnote, the sniper watched a lone, battered man

walking among the bodies. A member of the riot squad, clearly in a bad

way, made a weak attempt to touch him. He stopped and knelt by her. They

exchanged words. For a second, the sniper felt remorse for opening fire

on all those men then the kneeling man pulled out a pistol, pressed it

to the policewoman's forehead and blew her brains out.

As

the man stood up, the sniper returned the favor. As unaccustomed to

true violence as men were, some snapped. Maybe he was a gentle soul who

saw too much, too fast. Maybe he dreamed of striking back for years and

was overcome with the prospects of achieving his fantasy. Maybe he was a

bastard. Whatever he was, he was erased from the human equation like

nearly a thousand of his brethren that night.

Back

inside, I was in a battle for survival of a different kind. I pulled

myself off Passey after the explosion. Men were scattering in all

directions. A few cops pulled themselves from a floor littered with

bodies, male and female. I went over to Passey's partner. I knew

jack-all about first aid, but she was clearly not doing well.

I looked up to see a cop pointing a gun at my head.

"She

needs help," I told the barrel of the gun. "I don't think we should

move her." The gun moved up and away. She spent a few seconds trying to

contact various people unsuccessfully. "I'm going to move my friend,

Officer Passey, to the EMTs and I can send back help when I do," I

offered.

The cop studied me.

"Where do you know Passey from?" she asked.

"We met at City Hall. She told me about her son," I replied.

"Take her that way," the cop pointed. "Stick around. People will want to talk with you, Mr. Jensen."

"I

can't promise you that," I responded. She glared then nodded. She began

moving off in a hurry. War was being waged against my gender. I scooped

up Passey and headed off in the direction the policewoman had

indicated. I began to hear gunfire. I hurried along. I was around the

stage and running down a tunnel when I saw three parked ambulances, half

a dozen cops and an even more EMTs.

The cops regarded me with a great deal of suspicion.

"Officers

down, several around row 23," I explained. Then the echoes of automatic

weapons fire reached us. I wouldn't normally be privileged to hear

police chatter but the EMTs had turned their radios to it to keep pace

with events.

Whole

units were going down. A SWAT unit had been jumped in mid-deployment

and opened fire after taking fire from men using captured police

weapons. A riot squad had used tear gas to break up a knot of men only

to have the fire suppression system cut on, reducing visibility to less

than a meter.

What

I didn't know about the group dynamic around me was that the V I Ps had

already raced down here and fled the scene in the limos and S U Vs. The

V I Ps they could do without, but the twenty members of the Executive

Protection Detail that they'd taken with them were urgently needed here,

at the arena. The cops were pissed, but not with me, with their own

gender.

The five cops looked at their Section Leader. She bit her lip.

"Shotguns

and gas masks," she barked her orders. "We are going in." The cops

raced to obey while the SL called her superior to inform her of their

team's intentions. I wasn't sure if she got permission. I handed off

Passey gingerly to the first team of EMTs to come at me.

"You

might want to assign an officer to the EMTs," I suggested obsequiously

to the SL. She looked like she wanted to rip my limbs off. "A good

number of men were worked over with stun batons and things could go

badly if the EMTs don't have a minder. The girl across from my condo is

an EMT," I offered up as an explanation.

"Polanski,

stick with the paramedics. There may be some pissed of males on the

ground," the Section Leader called out. "Don't go anywhere," she told

me.

"Yes ma'am," I replied. She led her troops off toward the arena floor. The second she was out of sight, I jogged the other way.

I

broke out into the fresh air, the wail of sirens, the clap of gunfire

and the screams of men. Some men were trying to get to their cars and

drive away, those privileged few. The cops were already closing of the

arena parking exits, so I wasn't sure what they were thinking, if they

were thinking at all.

My

path cut across the greenway and toward the metro. I wasn't taking the

subway, I was walking along the tracks in an effort to make my getaway. I

decided to get rid of my phone then realized I hadn't activated it yet.

My phone didn't know it was working for me and neither did anyone else.

As

a phone it was worthless but as a media device, it serviced me just

fine. Once I made it to the subway tunnels, I took stock of my

situation. Where was I going to go? Home? Most likely bad for me and bad

for everyone I cared about. My arm still throbbed where the cop hit me

with her stun baton but was functional.

My

bracelet looked none the worse for wear despite taking the brunt of the

impact and shock. I didn't want to sit uselessly by while the Vanishers

or Dimples' people picked me up. I had to do something, but I didn't

know what. The sane, rational decision was to hunker down somewhere and

let someone I liked find me. Insanity sucks.

I

went through some convolution to get a pre-paid phone card. Two college

girls and not 'actual' sex. A half-dozen calls later, Capri knew I was

still alive, she told me Angel was okay and worried about me, and I was

headed into what may have been the worst decision of my life. I was

drawn to it because I need to do more than live, I wanted to scream at

the Void that I was alive.

Getting

in was stunningly easy, there were bodies everywhere, cops and males. I

was given a few quick looks, but the staff were busy and the cops were

still stunned. A male nurse came into my perception.

"Hey, I'm looking for an Officer Passey," I grabbed his arm. "Can you tell me where she is?"

He looked up angrily. I was about to be told where I could shove it when the realization of who I was crossed his face.

"I

brought her out of the arena and I need to tell her something," I

added. He was weighing all kinds of factors before he decided in my

favor.

"Bay

2-E," he told me then hurried off to the job that needed him. There

were cops and guys stacked up all over the place. Doctors and nurses

were doing triage. I could sense the low level hostility the police were

showing the male nurses and doctor (just one so far). As I pulled the

curtain aside at 2-E, Passey was putting her shirt back on.

"Excuse me?" a female nurse challenged me.

"Israel?" Passey muttered. Her head and ribs were bandaged and she looked a little off.

"Israel Jensen?" the nurse confirmed. "Listen up asshole, this is all,”

"Wait,"

Passey patted the nurse. "He saved my life tonight. He jumped on top of

me so that the other men didn't kick me to death."

The

nurse went back to studying me. That was most likely the last thing she

expected a cop to say about me. She didn't understand that it was the

culture and not the people I hated.

"What

do you want, Israel?" Passey asked. "If they find you here, they are

going to take you away." By that she meant her fellow cops.

"I have three questions I need to ask you," I began. Yes, it was a need, not a want. Passey nodded.

"Do you still breast feed?" I inquired. Passey nodded. The nurse looked angry.

"Do you want me to save your Son?" was my second question.

"Yes," she whispered.

"Are you willing to have sex with me?" was the final one.

"Yes," she whispered again.

"Is she healthy enough for sex?" I turned to the nurse.

"She

has some bruised ribs and a concussion," the nurse said. "Are you

serious about this? You are just going to come in and screw her, in her

state?"

"I don't know how much time I'll be around," I answered. "Once I'm gone, nothing and no one will save her little boy."

Passey

removed her shirt. I tossed my jacket on some medical device and

quickly worked off mine. Passey was struggling with her shoes so I bent

down and took them off for her.

"I must look a mess," she worried. I looked up at her.

"You are beautiful. You are a Mother and there are few things more wonderful," I said.

I

stood and took off my shirt. The nurse softened slightly. She knew the

pain I had to be in. The thing was, I was feeling better.

"Aren't

we the pair, Raggedy Man?" Passey whispered. We both had heavily

bruised torsos. I had no clue why she was calling me Raggedy Man.

Our pants and underwear piled up on the floor. The nurse had slipped out somewhere along the line.

"I wish I could give you more time," I sighed as I pulled Passey to me until our bodies were tightly pressed.

"You

are giving us what precious time you can, Israel," she responded. I

cupped her ass cheeks and placed her on the edge of the gurney. Slipping

into her was like teardrops on my soul, honest and purifying. Passey

gave a little gasp then tenderly wrapped me up in her arms. We gently

rocked back and forth, her sitting on the gurney, I standing in front of

her, her legs supported my arms at hip level.

It

was painful sex for both of us. I was helped by the fact that the

normally gorgeous Officer Passey was so battered. It was the whole

beautiful = entitlement thing rearing its ugly head.

"What's your name?" I mused, not really thinking about our circumstance. Passey giggled then winced.

"Freya," she panted in my ear. "My name is Freya."

"That's beautiful," I murmured. "That was a Goddess, right?"

"Was? Is," she nuzzled me. "My family are Pantheists, pagans."

"Would that make me Frey?" I stumbled along verbally.

"No,"

she snickered then began kissing my neck. "Frey is Freya's brother.

That would be a little weird. You are more like, Baldur, the Golden

One." Our banter had a purpose. We were dispelling the desperation of

the moment. We were foolishly shredding the tyranny of time. We could

take as long as we wanted because we lied and said everything was going

to work out.

For

some indeterminate time, we simply rocked back and forth. I could feel

her fire rising toward the point of combustion. What I had to do next

went against my nature. It went against the dark, gnawing fear that

lurked behind the reflection of every woman whose gaze I met and stalked

the edges of my erotic nightmares.

"Tell

me you love me," I breathed into her. "Tell me we are going to have

many strong male babies together." I wanted to die. Freya Passey

hesitated a moment as if she knew she was about to cause me great pain.

"I love you, Israel," she murmured. "We are going to have many strong male babies together."

My whole body shook violently. I felt my testes contract. I was terrified, but I had to live.

"Say it again," I sobbed.

"Israel?" Freya whimpered.

"Please," I gulped.

"I love you, Israel," she sniffled. "We are going to have many strong male babies together."

The

fear tore my heart and reason apart. My cum fountained deep within

Freya. Again and again, it shot forth. Freya tensed then climaxed, which

was doubly painful for both of us.

'Take that, Aurora, you bitch,' my mind spasmed and whirled manically.

'I

stole one life back. I made something good from the madness you gifted

me with. You haven't won, not yet.' I'd been climbing out of that

basement for nearly five years. I was almost free until Bethany kicked

my back down into that pit again. Maybe this was why I had lived? Maybe I

hadn't been stupid or weak for surviving when I should have died.

Maybe, please God, maybe, my life had purpose.

"After

the death of my first child," Freya hiccupped. Her arms and legs were

still wrapped around me. "I didn't know if I could stand to lose

another." She didn't say 'son' and the fact that she didn't make that

distinction confirmed in my soul I'd taken a worthwhile risk.

"I

can't imagine what it has been like for you," I told Passey. "I was

never informed of the birth of my children. I never knew the fear that

they might not make it."

"Yet you saved me from that feeling of hopelessness," Freya breathed into my chest.

"I

did it for me," I replied softly. "I don't know the world, so I can let

it go, but I knew you and I don't want to be the kind of human who sees

a fellow human in need and does nothing."

"You were that man before you came here," she said.

"I

have been rendered worthless, Freya," I struggled for my own

understanding. "Because of that I will probably never be comfortable

believing I'm worthwhile. I'll have to prove it to myself again and

again. I doubt I'll ever accept that I'm the man I should be, or can be.

Consider it a flaw in my lenses of perfection."

"You

have a way with words," she smiled. "You need to go." We dressed

quickly. I wiped up some escaping semen with a piece of gauze which I

then pocketed.

"Don't share that if you can get away with it," I requested.

"Which

reminds me," Passey pulled out her phone and scanned me, and scanned me

again. "Your bracelet isn't acknowledging my scan."

"Maybe you're special," I hoped.

"I think it is broken," she clarified.

"Perfect,"

I sighed. "Just perfect." That explained why the Vanishers and the FBI

weren't all over my ass right now. I had no phone and my bracelet wasn't

betraying my location.

The

foul little stooge that had haunted my life since I was sixteen was

dead. Had it actually broken and fallen off, I would have danced on its

grave. To be fair, its diehard little capacitors must have soaked up the

brunt of the stun baton's power before the beast croaked. We finished

getting dressed, I kissed Passey good-bye and pulled open the screen.

There

was a wall of cops staring at us. On the periphery were those jokers in

white coats over scrubs with all kinds of collection gear. Oh hell no. I

wasn't going to pee in a cup. I certainly wasn't going to jack off into

one. I stifled the urge to scream. I followed that minor victory by not

shutting the curtain, crawling into a corner and hoping the world would

go away.

"Mr. Jensen, you are coming with us," the lead officer, a lieutenant named Metzer said.

"Lieutenant,

I'm begging you, give me two minutes of your time. If you still want to

drag me in, I'll go quietly and without complaint," I pleaded. "Please,

I'm begging you."

"He came here of his own free will," Freya spoke up, "knowing what might happen to him."

There

was no reason tell them what I had done here. Neither Freya nor I were

terribly quiet. The officer blinked. She was clearly stressed and

unhappy.

"Speak."

"The cure I have in my system will not help anyone here, besides Passey," I started off quickly.

"That

isn't how it works. Only my body produces the antivirals. None of my

twenty three children, boys and girls, produce it. It is only me and as

you might guess, there simply isn't enough of me to go around. You can

imprison me unjustly and milk me like a cow and you'll get a few

thousand doses a year."

"Sadly,

each dose will be less effective than the last. Stress breaks down the

antivirals. Even then, at best the antiviral will only last two years

before you need another dose. If they take me, where do the rest of you

stack up with the 100 million women in the Federation? When do you think

you will be getting your dose?"

"What I have will not save you," I repeated. "Given any free will, I will not help any of you."

"You helped Officer Passey here," Metzer pointed out.

"Which

is the best hope you have. Despite being raped and imprisoned by a cop,

gang-raped then having law enforcement laugh me out of the office,

being driving to Isobel Diaz's party by a cop so I could be raped yet

again,”

"Are

you getting the picture? I have no reason to help any woman whatsoever.

You have been the bane of my existence since I was sixteen," I huffed.

The look the cops were giving me wasn't one of sympathy. It was

wonderment that I'd been allowed to babble for so long. "Why should you

let me go?"

"Because

I love Detective Angel Kristi. I'm truly enamored with Kuiko Sano and

Capri O'Hara. I like Aniqua, Venus, Samantha and Roni. I think Francesca

Silverhorn walks on freaking water. I'm erotically drawn to a warrior

named Zara and a psycho I call Flame. I have every fucking reason to hate every woman who has ever lived, but I don't."

"I've

pulled love out of hate. I have forgiven a few of you for your

indifference to my suffering. In time, I may forgive others and do what I

can. I will never have that chance if you take me away now. The Human

Race will never have that chance. Lieutenant, I'm not asking you to save

everyone. I'm asking you to save one person, me," I finished.

"What are you going to do if you I let you leave?" Metzer asked.

"I

haven't a clue. I didn't come here with a plan or a schedule. I

couldn't let her child die while I could do something. It is that

simple. If you let me leave, I'm most likely going to walk around a bit

and think. I didn't ask for this and it isn't my birthright. I was a lab

rat and I should have died."

"I

didn't, so I have to go on," I told her. Worst 'let me go' speech ever.

My lecturers at Bowden would have tossed me out on my head.

"Clear a way out," Metzer commanded.

"Ma'am?" a senior officer questioned.

"He's

not charged with anything," Lt. Metzer stated. "Until the possession of

Magic Sperm becomes a crime, detaining him would be illegal."

Thankfully, Passey kept her mouth shut about my bracelet. They could hold me for that.

"Lieutenant, Mr. Jensen," one of the doctors stepped up. "If we could have a blood sample to verify Doctor Vasco's findings."

"I need to walk and clear my head," I evaded. "Let me think about it."

I

was out of that emergency room as fast as decorum would allow. Not only

was my mind teetering, my body was coming down from the rush of

adrenaline followed by the exhaustion of a twenty minute sex session. In

the parking lot, a black racing bike pulled up. The owner had on black

leather from neck to toe with a black helmet hiding her features.

As

I went to climb on, she handed me a helmet. Her size was an indicator

but as the bike rocketed away, the sensation I received when I hugged

her tightly gave her away. She sped off into parts of the city I was

unfamiliar with before ending up at the unfinished expanses of an

elevated highway, one of the Mayor's pet projects.

I

dismounted, handed off my helmet then walked over to the unfinished

edge. I sat down, letting my feet dangle off into the darkness. I

guesstimated we were 20 meters up. I'm not an engineer, architect or

surveyor so what did I know. Flame took off her helmet and followed

behind me. She pulled out her pistol and chambered a round.

"How did you find me?" I wondered.

"Cops talk on their radios too much," she enlightened me. I turned my body so I could look at her. She aimed that huge fucking

hand cannon my way. Looking down the barrel was definitely worse than

trying to hold the damn thing. She slowly started smiling.

"This is where you start begging," she smirked.

"I

want to live, but, I can't think of a convincing argument not to

shoot," I confessed. Flame spun around, dancing with her arms

outstretched.

"Come on, give me something," she laughed.

"Well,

I'm glad you survived the shootout," I mused. "I wasn't sure at the

time if I cared one way or the other. After thinking about it a bit, I

think I'd be, less if you died."

"Less'?" she stopped spinning to regard me intensely. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"I really can't claim what I said was a rational statement," I answered.

"That makes even less sense," exulted happily, fucking psycho. "Are you trying to be crazier than me?"

"What?

I am crazier than you," I declared. Flame looked skeptical. "Would you

go out on an uncompleted bridge with yourself while unarmed? Bitch, I

got you beat hands down."

"You're

right," she concluded. "I hate people who are right about me." She

aimed again. I stared. She looked trapped between bottled rage and

something she couldn't identify. "What have you done to me?" she asked

as she lowered the gun. "I think you are fucking with my mind, mesmerizing me somehow."

"People

don't mesmerize other people," I told her. "Look at it this way;

leaders don't take control, followers surrender it. They surrender it

because the sane thing to do is live and the leader convinces you that

the best life you can hope for is with them. The sane person can always

chose to die instead, it is just very hard to do. I'm not doing anything

to you, Flame," I explained, "beyond liking you for reasons I don't

feel like grappling with right now. I'm certainly not offering you a

better life in any way, shape, or form."

"But I like killing," Flame declared. "I'd like to kill you."

"Killing isn't so much. Death is inevitable for us all. Since we all die, why not try to make our deaths worthwhile?" I mused.

"Worthwhile," Flame scoffed. "Like saving people? Sparing your life?"

"Bitch," I chuckled, "you know me better than that."

"Killing is hastening the inevitable. Saving a life is holding death back for another few seconds, a 'fuck you' to the Universe. It changes things," I said.

"Killing people changes things too," Flame laughed. "I'd rather serve Death."

"There is no serving Death because Death doesn't need you. Death is going to win no matter what," I pointed out.

"Even

if killing someone buys you a few more seconds, minutes, hours or days,

Death will always come back for you because it is friendless and

remorseless. It always wins in the end," I related. Flame stared at me.

She raised the gun, staring down the barrel at me. She let it drop,

raised it again then finally lowered it.

"That's

why you fight," she whispered. "You are defying Death, trying to make a

difference. You've seen people die, most likely horribly, so you know

what death looks like. When you look into my eyes, you don't see Death,

you see me."

"I think I do," I nodded.

"I like you. I never had a boyfriend before," Flame enlightened me.

"We are not boyfriend or girlfriend. I'm not a cheater," I responded.

"Pish,"

Flame chuckled. "Not like that, dipshit. I mean me 'liking' somebody. I

can't remember liking anyone before. Sure, I tolerate Little M and,

Davia, but this is different."

"My

whole life I've always wanted to kill people. To me it is like

breathing. It's what I want to do. I don't give a shit if someone

deserves it. I want them to die. I've always felt that way, until now. I

don't feel the overwhelming desire to kill you. I can't say I

understand it, it is so alien to me," Flame murmured.

After several minutes,

"You going to leave now?" she asked.

"Nah.

I've got nowhere to go really," I shrugged. Flame came over, sat down

next to me at the edge of the bridge and dangled her feet off into the

dark.

"Going to beg me not to kill you?" she continued.

"Not really thinking about it actually," I grinned at her.

"Want me to go out and start saving lives?" she teased.

"I'm

happy where you are right now," I bumped her shoulder with my own.

"Unless you want to go and play Good Samaritan, then go knock yourself

out."

"Are we friends, Israel?" Flame inquired as she rested her head on my shoulder.

"I guess so. Despite my traumatized background and your violent nature, I'm willing to accept we can get along," I reasoned.

"Are you going to beg for your life now?" she snickered.

"Bitch, were you not breastfed as a child?" I retorted.

"Not

much; I choked out my mom when she tried to burp me," Flame laughed

hysterically. We'd been down this road while she was punching and

kicking the crap out of me at Isobel's party.

"What do we do now?" Flame wondered out loud to the night sky above.

"You could always give me a parachute then shove me off the bridge," I suggested.

"There is no way,” she began giggling as she got the joke, "it would open in time."

"It's the false hope that often keeps us going," I pointed out.

"Do you want me to get you a gun?" Flame asked me as we rocked side to side at the edge of a long fall to a messy death.

"Well,

I wouldn't mind some lessons and a pistol that doesn't threaten to

blast me back to the 20th century," I stated. "A few guns for my lady

posse wouldn't suck either."

"I'll

see what I can do," Flame sighed happily. "You know, if I let you get

away, you die and I didn't kill you myself, I'll never get over it,"

Flame mused. "I want to spend time with you too. It doesn't make sense.

It's a,”

"Conundrum?" I offered up the word.

"Yeah,

conundrum. Good word, Beatrix Potter," she snickered. "See, when you do

shit like that, I don't get angry. You aren't trying to get one up on

me, make me look stupid just because I didn't get much schooling."

"I'm

not. Survival is a much under-appreciated art these days but that's

about to change, Flame," I confided. "You are a survivor."

Flame tilted to the side, turned her torso and looked into my eyes.

"That's

it. You are nice to me and not in a way that says you want to screw me,

or 'begging me to let you live' sort of way. You are just fucking nice to me and I don't get it," Flame seemed truly confused.

"I'll

give it a go. No one understands us. When we walk into a room, no one

knows what's going on behind our eyes. You and I are totally different

in what we are going through, but in that total separation from our

peers, we are alone. I guess that is what I meant when I called you

pure. You are pure in your thoughts. There is no confusion," I pieced

things together.

"But you confuse me," Flame pointed out.

"And you don't think you confuse me? Ha, I should be running the fuck away

from you every chance I get. For a guy who claims to not be a

masochist, I certainly have a lot of violent women in my life," I

chortled.

"Hmm”

she then paused. "Want to have sex?" This may have been the first time

Flame had actually asked a man that. I imagined she normally took it.

"Sorry, I never have sex with a woman whose clit is bigger than my cock," I teased.

"Bitch!" she wacked me with her gun while she giggled and swinging her legs back and forth.

"Woman,

don't make me come over there and make you beat me up with that

flyswatter of yours," I teased. Nothing was said for a while. She

snuggled back to me. Outside our little world, sirens blared while the

city lights turned the night sky into a dirty, charcoal-colored haze. In

that tiny segment of time, we were both comfortable in our skins.

Eventually Flame found the silence unbearable. "What is it like to be tortured?" Flame inquired.

"Different tortures do different things," I tried to explain.

"Some

things are so painful that the pain is all you recall. The phantom of

that agony carries on long after the act is done. Other tortures are

humiliating. They erode your understanding of the world. You lose your

perception of the peripherals, collapsing into your core values even as

those crumble apart."

"Finally,

there are those thing that seem good, but are actually bad, sexual

torture. They wreck you emotionally and leave your body's responses

cross-wired. All of those break down your mental picture of yourself,

chip you away until you are some creature you don't recognize, but

that's the person you now have to live with," I sighed.

"I'd rather die," she punched me very lightly.

"It

is never that easy," I explained. "Keeping you alive is part of the

torture. Making you want to die then stealing even that hope from you."

"If I was about to be captured, would you kill me?" Flame prodded.

"Yeah," I nodded.

"Bitch, why?"

"I

couldn't deal with looking in your eyes and not seeing that madness

there, a purely selfish reason," I confided. There was a long silence.

"That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, and meant it," Flame breathed deeply.

"I wouldn't want to do it. I don't consider myself a killer," I sighed, "but I'm the only friend you've got."

"That's the damn truth," she snickered.

"I'm sure Davia would shoot me, but I think it is because she wants to be sure I'm dead," Flame giggled.

"Davia? Do you mean your partner? I call her Silent and I really didn't want to know her real name," I groaned.

"Why's that?" Flame asked.

"Take

it easy, Lady and Gentleman," a soft female voice called out behind us.

"No sudden moves." I looked to Flame. She was giving me a toothy smile

and pumping her eyebrows. I raised my hands, slowly.

To be continued

By FinalStand for Literotica

Dining with Mobsters.

Based on ‘One In Ten’ by FinalStand, adapted into 17 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.

Had

my life been a comedy, I would have bumped my noise, looked sheepishly

over my shoulder and given a weak smile. I had experienced an infantile

urge to run away from the shame, violation and the pain Zara's

information brought. My hands had instinctively come up to save my face

from impact. My fingers were trying to dig into the stone until my tips

felt as if I was tearing the skin off.

I

loved sex. I loved the pleasure it let me share. What I didn't love was

the romantic mystique I tried to weave around that act being torn away,

shredded for the entertainment of people I didn't know. How could I

protect myself if any woman looking at me had seen me naked, in

coquitos? How could I tell who was really a threat if I couldn't see

behind their eyes?

Step, Capri and Zara were not talking. They were not closing in on me.

Step, people passed by. The scuff of their footfalls told me they were looking my way, but not stopping.

Step, I had to get out of here. The authorities would come looking and we all had to leave.

Gears

contacted gears and the machine that was my mind lurched forward once

more. I had things to do. People were taking incredible risks on my

behalf. Capri and Zara understood what had happened and let me heal,

just enough to get my feet back under me.

"Let's go," I muttered and we moved down the sidewalk once more.

We covered two blocks in silence.

"Zara,

you are with the government, aren't you?" I began. She gave me a quick

look, but didn't respond. "Let me rephrase: you are still an active duty

soldier, aren't you?" Now Capri stumbled.

"Yes," Zara whispered.

"Shit," Capri groaned.

"Okay, I understand now," I nodded. We traversed another block.

"Fine, what do you understand?" Capri nudged me.

"I know who the Vanishers are," I leaned in and replied quietly. Zara's eyes flickered my way again.

"You do, don't you?" Zara's eyes blazed with pride in me and wonder.

"Either one of you care to enlighten me?" Capri grumbled.

"I

need to get you off the street," Zara intervened. "The FBI is on its

way. I can deal with the cameras and your phones, but not the bracelet."

She steered us into a café where the early lunch crowd as only starting

to come in.

"How do you know he's right?" Capri prodded Zara.

"The last two questions he asked," she seemed almost sad to leave us, me.

"Zara,

take off and stay safe," I told her. "I don't think I would want to do

this without you." Zara had a twinkle in her eye, nodded then left.

Capri and I moved to a nice corner table. I took the seat that would

allow me to watch the door and most of the café.

"Okay, what's going on?" Capri leaned in.

"You

start off with two guiding principles. No large organization creates

only one plan to choose from. Bureaucracies throw away nothing. So,

twenty years ago, when the Federation and or the U N figured that the

current system wasn't working, they planned out various contingencies."

"One

of those proposals was the 'Vanisher' conspiracy. It was most likely

advanced by a small cadre of mid- and low-level functionaries brought in

to work on the forecasted collapse. Their idea was obviously rejected

because we stayed the course and are now in the fucked up situation we are in now."

"The

thing was, those planners didn't die and didn't give up on their plan.

At the start, they were powerless to do anything. Besides, they had to

believe all their idea was doing was postponing the end, not solving the

extinction problem. So, they worked on that dilemma,” I said.

"And that's you?" Capri doubted.

"No.

They didn't know about me until five years ago at the earliest and

that's highly unlikely. Odds are they found about what Carabolix-37 did

to me when everyone else did," I replied. "What happened, happened eight

years ago while the W H O was combing over Central Asia building a

genetic database."

"What

they found was the Warlord of Kwaziristan, the last bastion of male

rule on the planet." No, the Warlord wasn't some kind of John Carter of

Mars. By all accounts he was a castrated, obese, mostly bald and very

old man. During the collapse that Plague engendered, Central Asia went

under, their political systems, economies and infrastructures broke

down.

In

those last few, chaotic years, a recovering soldier and a small

detachment of troops found themselves guarding an orphanage. With the

city burning down around them, this man was ordered to take the boys and

flee. He went to the only place he figured they could hide out until

the fighting died down and the authorities could come rescue him.

He

went to an old 17th century palace or fortress complex outside his home

town in remote Kwaziristan and there he held up while his nation died.

Eventually, hope faded and the 'Warlord' began to raid the recovering

female tribes for supplies. He had to feed his people. Somewhere along

the way, the female tribal leaders figured out he had a large number of

young men under his charge.

They

struck a deal. The Warlord was worried that the women would steal his

men. The women wouldn't storm the place because all those men had guns

and killing them all would accomplish nothing, except to stop the

raiding. The agreement they reached changed everything, though it wasn't

immediately obvious.

The

tribal leaders would send young women up to the fortress. In exchange

for making the young women pregnant (or one year to pass), the tribes

would pay tribute to the Warlord. The catch? The men inside the fortress

chose which woman they would mate with and by mate, they meant live

together in the same dwelling for months at a time.

It

was courtship. It wasn't a plastic romance; it was practical. The men

needed the goodwill of the tribeswomen that inhabited the land in all

directions. Building up affections and bonds with their female mates was

necessary for the survival of the male community. Conversely, the women

lived in a mostly male world, from the beginning, the Warlord did have a

few female soldiers.

Men

were lovers, providers, protectors and housemates. They shared in

chores, but compared to what the women had to do in their own tribe, it

was nearly paradise. Men still had their military duty, but when you had

a mate, you were given quarters in the dungeon of the fortress. Carved

out from the depths of the hill the fortress sat on, it was much cooler

than the baking heat above during the summers and warmer in the winters.

Enter

the W H O eight years ago doing their survey. They ran across a serious

problem. Waziristan’s population was 24% above projections (they were

supposed to be dying out) and 2% over their previous level. Waziristan

was 'surviving.’ Sure, their tiny population was one Black Death away

from annihilation, but their numbers where slowly growing, very slowly.

This

was great news right up until they found out about the Warlord and his

contract with the local towns and tribes. Was the U N really going to

say that some old fat eunuch in a clay fortress on a dusty hill in the

middle of nowhere was the savior of all mankind? The answer was obvious.

The

U N sent in advisors and film crews to show the world how barbaric and

primitive the Warlord was. He certainly wasn't photogenic. The men

seemed enthusiastic enough. They even slept with some of the film crew.

They also became very irate when the women picked up and left. After

all, hadn't the women agreed to mate with them?

Why

else would women come to the fortress if not to mate? The local women

were a bit peeved too, those were their men those floozies were

poaching. The U N began fishing around, seeking to convince some of the

local leaders to call in the U N to deal with the Warlord. When the

Kwaziri women figured that out they got really pissed.

They

may have herded goats and sheep, woven wool into fabric and scratched

some crops out of the semi-arid soil for a living, but they also knew

they had more daughters in this generation than last. They couldn't

fight off the U N, there were only a few thousand of them and they lived

in near-desert conditions, but they did everything to let those foreign

women know they were unwelcome.

In

one antidotal tale, a U N soldier guarding the mission found a lost

lamb and brought it to a local tribeswoman. The woman promptly beat the

lamb to death with a stone, explaining to the horrified soldier that the

lamb had been contaminated. In the end, the Kwaziri got what they

wanted, the outside world left them alone.

The

W H O took gene, blood, air, water, and soil samples and found

absolutely nothing that explained this abnormality. The Big Lie was only

starting to sink in. Discovery World devoted a portion of a documentary

to the Warlord. A fourteen year old boy saw it and regurgitated that

memory to a twenty-one year old man in search of understanding.

"I know you are not advocating male rule," Capri studied me. "So what is it?"

"A

colossal gamble," I sighed. "I am a freaking liberal arts major. I'm

not a scientist, certainly not a doctor and definitely not a virologist,

but what if, if stress strengthens the Plague, what if the reverse is

also true?" Capri mulled that over.

"You

mean, what if love, compassion and respect, as viewed by the male,

weakens the Plague?" Capri mused. "Damn right you are not a scientist."

"It

was the word Zara used and I believe it was intentional," I persisted.

"She said 'courtship.’ She also mentioned men choosing their mates.

That's what clicked in my mind."

"So this cockamamie scheme of the Vanishers is based on 'love conquering all'? Crap, we are all going to die," Capri muttered.

"Hey,

I'm not saying I'm a convert, but it is the current idea I'm running

with. I'm willing to bet Zara's people studied the Kwaziri for some time

too," I countered.

"With

no cure looming on the horizon, they began recruiting young women from

various agencies and branches of service into their plan. Heck, some of

the 'Vanishers' may still be thinking this is a sanctioned covert

operation. Even those women will want onboard when they understand this

society is going down the toilet."

"One

of the saddest parts of all this is that the women who set this all in

motion won't take advantage of it," I bleakly assessed. "The government

will be closing in on them now."

"I

wish I could disagree, but I think you are right," Capri nodded. "If

you figured it out, someone who does this kind of detective work for a

living has put the pieces together as well."

There

was no way to hide an operation this big once various intelligence

agencies started looking. They would figure out the key military and

civilian players. The only thing they could do was to totally detach

from the program. Now their baby was out there, running on its own

power, directed by people who had already vanished themselves long

before any investigation started.

"FBI,"

I warned Capri. Special Agents Fraklos and Vabishi had come in to our

hideaway. Vabishi was showing I D to the girl at the counter while

Fraklos was coming our way.

"How did you get away?" Fraklos seemed truly curious. There was a host of good answers and the truth wasn't one of them.

"Come

on now," I leaned forward, "Princess Leia didn't beat Darth Ventress,

the Empire and the Dark Empress with the help Ewoks alone. She had the

help of Admiral Squid."

"Gial Ackbar; a Mon Calamari," Fraklos corrected me.

"Who?" I questioned.

"Gial Ackbar, that was the Admiral's name," Fraklos clarified.

"Is that really important right now?" I asked.

"Having a bad day?" Fraklos turned to Capri. She was asking if I was having a bad day.

"Yeah, pretty much," Capri nodded. "He walked right into a wall about ten minutes ago."

"We

need to get him out of here," Fraklos shook her head. "Get him

somewhere safe. The Capital is screaming bloody murder over his latest

stunt." Vabishi had finished making a quick call and joined us.

"I can't do it," I stood. "I have a date with a V I M at 12:30."

Fraklos stared at me.

"Very

Important Mobster," I explained. "If I don't show up they will probably

do really bad things to Kuiko and I'm not going to let that happen."

"What is he talking about?" Vabishi worried.

"I

am attracted to violent psychopaths and for the love of God, I don't

know why," I sighed. "Worse, to hang out with me you have to be insane

or prone to fits of brutality. It is how I roll."

"There has to be something we can give Israel to keep him on an even keel," Vabishi asked Fraklos.

"I'm not good enough at that sort of thing to take the chance," Fraklos then looked to Capri.

"Fuck you both," she stood, "I'm a lawyer."

My phone rang. 'G E D' it read. I typed back 'ty' and cut the connection.

"Time to go," I announced and headed for the kitchen. My guardian angels were working overtime.

There

are few things as beautiful as competence under stress. Not me. The

three women tagging along with a lunatic didn't question me; they

divined my intentions and moved to cushion me from the world. By the

time we exited the back of the café, Fraklos was in the lead, then me,

Capri and Vabishi looking back from signs of pursuit.

"Ewoks,"

Fraklos guffawed. "We need better code words." Ewoks meant Vanishers

and Admiral Squid meant I didn't need to be brought in. Next time we

would use different words. Dimples said it was a book cipher,

essentially unbreakable if you didn't know the material.

"Be happy I didn't fall over laughing," Capri snickered.

"Israel, you play crazy really well," she added. "I'd feel better about it if you weren't actually crazy."

"Who are we evading?" Vabishi spoke up.

"G E D," I answered.

The

problem facing me and Dimples' crew was that we weren't the Vanishers.

We couldn't manipulate phone and surveillance feeds. Slipping down

alleyways while avoiding loading areas left us in the 'digital dark.’ We

were going to reemerge soon.

"We are trying to shift through the chatter and figure out who is really trying to get their hands on you," Fraklos clued me in.

"Montanyard

is building such an air-tight case against you she could patch the

Hindenburg," Vabishi stated. "She thinks she can hold them off a week."

Shelia could hold off the full weight of the Federation Government for a

week, one week. I needed a fucking miracle.

(Magdalena, Round Two)

My

two FBI ladies delivered me as close to the Prometheus Club as they

dared. Mobsters had eyes too, though this was actually a pointless

exercise since the moment 'Little M' asked me what I was up to I would

bury her in the minutia of truth instead of the real deal. Capri would

stick with me. Mainly because the FBI would have to taser her to keep

her from my side.

As

I entered the restaurant, I was getting a whole new look. It was the

'what in the hell is this guy still doing walking around?' expression.

Either I was a maniac or a national resource, or maybe both, not all of

them could decide. The maître de pointed me toward the semi-curtained

off area. A second later he motioned Capri to the bar. We knew this was

going to happen.

On

my side of the curtain were two women; one sitting, one standing. They

didn't look like, well, what I though mobsters would look like. They

looked normal. The standing one ran a 'wand' over me then ran her free

hand over my frame quickly.

"Are you hiding anything?" she finally spoke.

I have a love affair with pain. That was all I could think of when I opened my mouth.

"I

had my knee caps replaced with high explosives. Does that count?" I

stated resolutely. She stared at me for a second then this smile crept

over her intimidating countenance.

"Damn,

you really are a nut," she snickered. "This way." She put a hand on my

shoulder, I trembled and she led me into the V I P area.

Three

of the tables were occupied. The closest had Flame and this woman whose

face looked like it had lost a head-on collision with a truck. She also

looked to be around 250 pounds. The second table, close to an exit, had

two Hispanic women who had to be sisters, and pissed that they were

missing out on their 'killing kittens' time.

I

was dealing with being manhandled, near terror, proximity issues, and

being in the company of yet more casual killers. Somehow, all of this

had to be my fault. Regular men stay locked in their homes. I needed

help. I shrugged off the hand on my shoulder and made a bee-line for

Flame.

There

was a 'whiff' behind me as my guide tried to corral me back in, but

failed. Flame and her 'buddy' (I was pretty sure it was a woman, or a

man with huge pecs) stood up. I extended my hands forward and just above

my hips. Flame and I collided. Her hands went to my ass. My right

cupped her leather clad left ass cheek while my left wrapped fully

around her lower back, touching something big and hard.

We

did more than kiss. Flame discovered that I had my wisdom teeth removed

and I learned that she still had her tonsils. It was also revealed to

me that during a French kiss, Flame likes to bite tongue, my tongue, her

tongue, it doesn't seem to matter. We were both healthy adults with the

experience to know that breathing through your nose is a must.

It took us a while to come up for air. I had pulled her up until she was on her toes. Her eyes were boring holes into mine.

"I

need some strength," I whispered to her. Now, there is no great Gestalt

among the insane. There is no shared universe, psychosis, or delusion.

What

we do share is the fear and pain that comes from being trapped in our

own minds. The greatest creation of man, our brains, had betrayed us. We

were living a lie because our truths would destroy us. And, worst of

all, we were alone. That is why crazy people lash out. It isn't to hurt

others, it is to make others stop hurting us, with a reality that we see

as a lie.

I

breached that inky bubble that shrouded Flame's mind. It didn't make

her my friend. It didn't stop her from being a beast and a sadist. We

were alone together. Each alone, but knowing that the other was in the

same condition. It wasn't understanding, it was kinship. Flame reached

up with her right hand, made a fist, and lightly tapped me on the

forehead.

"There

you go," she smiled. I returned the smile and let her down. As I turned

to walk away, she spanked my ass hard. I kept walking, but half-turned

so I could shake a finger at her.

"Just for that, no tongue penetration during our next cunnilingus session," I threatened her.

"Oh, you love it, Bitch," she laughed. Turning to her buddy, "That guy is loads of fun."

Belatedly,

I came to Magdalena's table. It was a round table, two-thirds wrapped

up in a booth. To my right was this weightlifting scumbag, oily,

arrogant and stupid. Sometimes people don't try to hide their ignorance.

I wasn't sure this guy even knew what ignorance was, much less how to

spell it.

He

had too much time in a tanning booth, too much chest hair and a

cultivated five o'clock shadow. He was also in a chair which suggested

he wasn't someone important. Next were two women, dressed nicely,

Francesca-nice, not Isobel-nice. They weren't likely to be putting any

ships into orbit anytime soon, but they were clever enough to observe

before commenting from their booth seats.

In

the center was Magdalena in a dark blue Kashmir shirt with a plunging

neckline. Damn that woman was proud of her big mammaries. Her jewelry

was understated, her hair nicely done and her eyes laser-quick. Next to

her was this guy, ruggedly handsome, manly, yet, missing something? It

hit me. He was a gigolo and 'Little M's boyfriend or property.

Here

I was thinking he'd been shot while trying to escape. Next to the

Man-candy was Silent and lastly was an unknown woman, in a chair, of the

same breed as the two on the left of Magdalena. Between Grease-ball and

the last unknown woman was an empty chair.

"Israel," Magdalena greeted me, motioning me forward with a spoonful of sherbet.

Apparently, I had missed the food-eating part of this party.

"Thank

you, Magdalena," I replied. I was pulling the chair around so I could

sit when a few bad things happened. Grease Ball looked at me then

flashed a look to Boy Toy who looked less than happy. Boy Toy was really

good with masking his emotions, but Grease Ball was an open book.

"Please, Israel, call me Maggy," Magdalena asked nicely.

"Not happening," spilled forth from my madness. Lead, Zeppelin, or dirigible, or balloon maybe.

"Israel, why are you being mean to me?" Little M tilted her head.

"Status

update: your opinion still doesn't matter to me. I'm only here because

I'm afraid you will do bad things to my friends," I confessed. Maggy

took another dip at her icy dessert then waved off a few of her

companions, the women whom I didn't know.

"Here we are again," she stated as the other disappeared. "You being needlessly hostile and me wondering why I put up with it."

"Lady,

what fantasy world do you live in?" I grumbled. "The last time I

couldn't perform, you beat me half to death." Magdalena snorted and the

gigolo smirked slightly.

"By

the way, the man next to you is my older brother, Kenneth," she

introduced the group. Her news that Grease Ball was her brother sucked

big time.

"The man next to me is my companion, Eckly,” she got out.

"Silent,

I know," I interrupted. I liked the name 'Silent.’ I didn't want to

ruin that mental image with a new name. I was starting to think Silent

had all her facial muscles frozen.

"Have I said something to amuse you?" she stopped in mid-sherbet interface.

"Absolutely not," I shook my head.

"Hmmm,

I don't believe you," Magdalena remarked. "Maybe we should ask your

little Asian friend. She works around all kinds of equipment that makes

honesty a plus."

'Blow it out your ass' seemed counter-productive, but I was saved any serious decision making by my lips.

"Can I have a gun?" I inquired politely. What the fuck was

I going to do with a gun? Magdalena ground up my intentions with her

eyes then nodded to Flame. I stood up as she came my way. I certainly

wasn't expecting what I got. She pulled out this chrome hand cannon from

behind her. That was the big metal thing I had felt earlier.

"This is a 12 millimeter pistol," she presented the device. 12 millimeter sounded so big. She did 'something.’

The

clip dropped down into her left hand. Next she pulled back on the top

of the pistol, ejecting a round. That round went into the top of the

clip then she moved close beside me.

"Here

you go," she said seductively as she gave me the gun. "The clip holds

seven rounds," she slammed the clip in. "That slight click means the

magazine is locked in place."

"Damn, this thing is heavy," I muttered.

"Well

yeah, I use it to shoot through concrete walls and steel doors," Flame

enlightened me. "If you don't know what you are doing it will rip off

your thumb and knock you on your ass. In your case, let's hope it merely

knocks you down."

"This,"

she pointed to this 'thing' on the side, "is the safety. Right now,"

she said lovingly, "the safety is engaged." She flipped it. "Now it is

disengaged and you can fire the piece." She reengaged the safety. "Hold

it with both hands," she used my hands to demonstrate as she moved

behind me. "Use one hand and this bear will break it. Now, hold it like

this," she peeked around me.

This

entire time we were pointing this monstrosity in the general direction

of the Hispanic sisters who were less than pleased. When Flame got

behind me, they got up and moved.

"How does it feel?" Flame asked.

"It is still heavy as hell."

"Good,"

Flame responded. "Look down the barrel. Match up the top and barrel

sights. Take careful aim and give the trigger steady pressure. Unloading

in the general direction of the enemy is for amateurs. In a fight, dive

for cover, figure out where the next corpse is hiding and put this

bullet down range. I don't care what they are hiding behind, this will

find them."

"Ready to fire?" she teased.

"The

safety is still engaged," I replied. She hugged me. Had all the bruises

she gave me Saturday night not hurt like all get out, that action might

have been construed as a romantic gesture.

"Please, Little M, can't I keep him?" Flame pleaded.

"Let's keep that thought in mind," Magdalena said to Flame. "Well, you have your gun; what do you plan to do with it Israel?"

"I honestly didn't believe anyone would give me one so I am at a loss for words," I mused.

"I did you a favor. Now you do one for me," Maggy prodded.

"Your

brother and your boyfriend are having an affair. Your brother is gay. I

imagine your boyfriend is merely an opportunist," I blurted out. Dead

silence. The brother was rigid. The boyfriend masking his emotions.

Finally, Magdalena began chuckling.

Then

everyone was laughing. Okay, not everybody, just the women. Then I

began laughing, but not at the men. I was laughing because everyone in

the room with a gun was laughing at the two who didn't seem to have one

and for the first time in my life, I wasn't one of those guys.

"Sis," Kenneth mumbled.

"Cool

it, Ken," Magdalena held up her hand. "Mom told me you were gay when I

was eight. The only one who still thinks it is a secret is you."

"But," he stammered.

"Ken, did you really think all of your boyfriends found jobs in other cities?" Maggie chastised.

Kenneth clearly was an idiot.

"This

guy hadn't known you two minutes and he figured out you were gay. Come

on now. Mom and I have been cleaning up your messes for years. Now beat

it. I have business to take care of," Magdalena went from sister to mob

boss in no seconds flat.

Kenneth

took his chastisement like a well whipped dog and slunk away. Eckly was

looking in a bad, bad way. The only one not on Little M's payroll was

me and I would hardly make a reliable witness in the investigation of

his disappearance.

"Maggy, it isn't what it looks like," Eckly began coolly.

"Just stop," Magdalena shook her head. "You clearly think I'm stupid. I mean, damn, you fucked my brother, you fucked me and you fucked me over. You are a fucking prostitute, not a criminal mastermind. I know about you and the O C T." Organized Crime Taskforce.

"They had me in a bind," Eckly began to plead. Maggy pressed her fingers to his lips.

"Israel, what would you have done?" Maggy inquired.

"With your brother or the cops?" I asked for clarification. Flame snorted.

"Both."

"Not

only is homosexuality not my thing, the cops blew up the two in my

neighborhood which is what I call double deterrence," I replied.

"You

stick with the one you're with," I continued. "A man betraying a woman

is a loser's game. I guess that means I'd roll the dice with your

reaction as opposed to trusting the police. The cops are always the

enemy."

"Was that so hard to understand Eckly?" Maggy regarded her now ex-boyfriend.

"It wasn't like that," he persisted.

"Eckly, you are twice the fuck in

bed that Israel is, but he is ten times the man. Don't whine to me

about how tough it was. Brigit beat him black and blue because he

wouldn't utter a single damn phrase. He loved some cop that much," she

growled. "That's when I knew you had to go."

"You

wouldn't take a year stretch for me, much less a beating from Brigit.

You were always a selfish prick and now you are gone," she seethed.

"What! No!" he begged. "Let me make it up to you." I thought he was going to hump her right then and there.

"Shut the fuck up,"

Magdalena snapped. "I'm not going to kill you. You deserve it, but you

aren't worth the hassle. Rosario and Yaris are going to take you home

when I'm done, you are going to pack up and leave. I don't recommend

showing your face in any establishment I might frequent. Brigit's

feelings might be hurt," Magdalena smiled carnivorously.

Silent shuffled out of the booth. Eckly followed reluctantly.

"Israel?" he looked my way, pleading. What was I supposed to do?

"Eckly, you have an inflated sense of your own importance. No one cares what you did because you are a whore," I pointed out.

"Hey,

you did what you did to survive. I'm not holding that against you, but

don't think you are all that important. You are not. Magdalena isn't

going to waste a bullet on you. Flame," I motioned to Brigit to assuage

his confusion, "might break a few of your bones to hear them snap, but

she'd probably kick ass on a kindergarten playground to hear the kids

cry, too."

That

was not what Eckly wanted to hear. He didn't want to face the reality

he was just another man living on his cock alone. He had gone from a

Mobster's boyfriend to a street bimbo in a matter of seconds. The cops

wouldn't help. Why should they? He was useless to them now. Sure, he was

walking away, but there wasn't a professional escort service that would

touch him with a ten foot cattle prod after this.

What

woman would want a male prostitute who doubled as a police informant?

That profession was still illegal after all. I'd save my worry for Kenny

and Luanga. They had reached beyond themselves in an attempt to make a

difference. Rosario and Yaris turned out to be the Hispanic sisters.

They led Eckly out the back door then returned.

"Playground,"

Flame snickered. "That would be so cool." Yep, she was psychotic. A

fraction of my mental and physical discomfort was this lump of metal in

my hand. I took the barrel in my right hand, pivoted my body and offered

the grip to Flame.

"Thank you," I told her.

"You owe me," she leered.

"For the beating or the gun?" I grinned weakly.

"Whichever leaves me fuck-stunned, staring at the ceiling for thirty minutes," she chuckled. Ah, the gift from Kuiko kept on giving.

I

finished turning around, cupped Flame's jaw with both hands and stared

deeply into her eyes. She was totally devoid of any understanding of the

human condition. I doubted if she even cared about herself.

"Okay," brushed her lips, "you've earned it."

"Israel, you are supposed to be interested in me," Magdalena interrupted my moment with Flame.

"Flame is pure," I responded without looking away from her eyes. That brought out a new round of laughter, even from Flame.

"I

said pure, not pure good," I reminded them. "You brought us together. I

have more than a few screws loose, so it can't be too surprising that I

picked the totally wrong woman." Flame wasn't offended.

"Damn," Maggy mused. "Brigit, are you going to let me have a crack at your boy?"

"He's

not my boy, Little M," Flame said. "I'll put a good word in for ya

though." We were both unhinged. The proof was me being here and Brigit

for defying her boss.

"That

is something to work on," Magdalena allowed. "While this is fun, it is

not why I wanted to talk with you. That reason has become irrelevant

over the past 24 hours, but now I want to know 'what's the deal with

your blood?"

"Why do you want to know?" I asked. I wasn't offended; only curious.

"A cure for the Plague is money in the bank," she grinned. I groaned and looked at the floor.

"Magdalena,"

I looked up at her, "this is not something you want to do." She didn't

believe me, or even feel she needed my advice.

"They

came at me with a Writ of Exclusion yesterday," I continued. "They

aren't going to wire-tap you, Magdalena, they are going to torture and

kill you. Worse, I am Carabolix-37's only success. Every other male is

nutless, or dead and no one sane knows why. Dr. Delilah Fremont has the

only doses of the drug and the research notes, but she's not sharing."

"Rare is good," Maggy enlightened me.

"Rare

is dead," I corrected. "Magdalena, I'm not spinning falsehoods to the

World. Society is about to implode and what I have can't save it."

It hit me like a bullet to the brain. How could I have missed it?

If

the Vanishers were to win, they couldn't have society running around

either. They would get the men out while the situation was still stable

and hide them, but then what? You couldn't keep us in a bunker forever. I

was a club-footed, one-eyed hunchback playing with people who had been

studying, competing in, and winning, the survival game for 100,000

years.

Who

in the hell did I think I was? Did I really delude myself that I had

control, that I could slip away, all I could do was take a step. If they

didn't stop me, I'd take another. That was the plan.

"All the better to keep a hold of you," Maggy reasoned.

"Magdalena,

I don't like you, but I'm not going to do anything that I know will

make you dead," I replied. My phone rang. 'G E D FB.’ I thought about my

response. I typed 'C h L t B g' then hung up. I wondered if they would

figure out that 'Charge of the Light Brigade' meant I was making a break

for the front door.

For the life of me I couldn't figure out why I didn't type 'F' or 'FD' for front door.

"Magdalena, the police are coming around the front and back. Time for me to go," I sighed.

"What have you done wrong this time?" Maggy smirked at me.

"They don't need an excuse with me," I tiredly informed her.

I turned and walked toward the curtain. The woman who had brought me in blocked my path.

"Why do you think you can leave?" Magdalena asked.

"Staying,

or running, it doesn't really matter," I shrugged. "For that matter, I

might as well start screaming, because I can always rely on the sick

curiosity of strangers."

I inhaled. I figured I was about to get punched, pistol whipped or kicked in the nuts (but not too hard).

"I'll

keep in touch," Magdalena said. "Besides, I don't really feel like

sitting around while some police officer pretends she is the next Claire

Wyatt."

The

character, Claire Wyatt, was a famous criminologist on a current TV

drama; equal parts Laura Croft and Veronica Mars, a perfect mix of body

types if there was any doubt. It wasn't bad if you could get past the

boy-in-distress turned bed buddy every damn episode. Technically she was

bi-sexual, but that always translated over as a three-way boy sandwich.

"Magdalena,

if I make my getaway before we meet again, well, I'm not going to say

anything more that might piss you off, so good-bye," I edged around my

feminine barrier. I virtually sprinted to Capri, who hopped off her

barstool at my approach. "Cops coming," I blurted out. She grabbed my

hand as we fled out the door.

"Mr.

Israel Jensen," a woman called out. I knew who it was, but looked

anyway. It was Detective Somerset Trainer. She was about 7 meters away,

getting out of her car, facing me. Her partner, Detective Gayle Seger

was already on the sidewalk, coming my way.

"Bad news," Capri squeezed my hand.

I

followed her gaze. From the other direction Detectives Kwan Po and

Regina Riga, also of the G E D. The limousine in front of the restaurant

meant they were slightly farther away.

"Hey, Somerset," I mumbled. "What's up?"

"Stop right there," she grinned. "You are under arrest."

"What's he charged with?" Capri snapped. The cops were cautiously closing in.

"Theft," Somerset kept smiling. "It seems he has some little bugs running around inside him that belong to someone else."

"That's a load of crap," Capri shot back. Me, I was getting ready to plunge into the post-lunch traffic.

"That

would require someone to confess they had the damn research," Capri

seethed. Right then, I saw Flame stepped outside, Silent right behind

her. Flame's eyes took in the scene. The World cracked a little more.

It

was an unfortunate convergence of poor choices, bad timing and ill

intentions. When Flame stepped out of the Prometheus Club, she didn't

see four cops. She saw Somerset Trainer, minion of Isobel Diaz, with

three armed associates closing in on Magdalena Keverich's entourage

exiting a restaurant. It was a daylight ambush in her eyes.

She

knew that Mamma Keverich was coming back to town soon, that Isobel and

Little M were worried or freaked out, because they had both betrayed

Mamma, and that one of them had to offer the other's head up on a plate

or they'd both likely end up dead. The fact that this feud would most

likely end up with her as compost didn't bother Flame so much. She was a

psycho.

Had

Detective Somerset Trainer known that Little M was in the restaurant,

she would have most likely grabbed me elsewhere. Isobel's career was in

danger of going down the toilet and she was going to drag as many people

down with her as possible. She was that kind of cunt. One of those

people going down with Isobel was Somerset.

That

did not mean she wanted to engage in a gun battle in broad daylight, on

a busy street, with Keverich mobsters while attempting to bring me in

on trumped up charges. It was potentially fatal and certainly

embarrassing, in an Internal Affairs busting your ass open kind of way.

After all, Kwan and Riga weren't part of the program. They thought this

was the real deal.

Flame

reached around to the small of her back for her light artillery piece.

Silent, in tune with her compadres, went for her two rationally sized

pistols, scanning the other way. Det. Gayle Seger, drawing forth her

handcuffs, was only then starting to track my gaze back to the

restaurant door and the menace there. She was critically behind in the

arms race and standing in the middle of a broad sidewalk.

The

other three cops were already going for their sidearms, not Tasers.

Det. Po Kwan was on the far side of her car. Det. Regina Riga was in

Gayle's boat, middle of the sidewalk with a firefight about to break

out. Capri and I were in the middle of it all. The first move was

Capri's, she dragged me with all her might toward the street.

Our

choices were traffic versus bullets. Capri decided that collision with

the hood of a car going around 30 miles per hour was preferable to a

minimum 9 millimeter penetration. I was too ignorant of the physics to

argue. Next, Silent started firing. Had my back not been to her, I might

have marveled on how fast she was. As it was, she wasn't hitting

anybody, just shooting.

After

some after-battle counseling, I would learn this was 'suppression

fire'; Silent was purposely not hitting anyone. Shooting cops was bad.

Shooting cops in an area with extensive security cameras was worse. She

was simply buying time for the rest of Magdalena's crew to hustle her

boss back inside. That was her job.

Flame,

on the other hand, was there to kill somebody. She knelt down in the

doorway, aimed and shot. Det. Seger was a second too slow in reacting.

Gayle was still clawing at her piece when the 12 millimeter round took

her in the solar plexus. The front of her body armor never stood a

chance. It was shredded.

The

hydrostatic shock of the projectile ripping through her core was most

likely terminal. Had she landed on a fully staffed operating table, she

might have lived. The bullet severing her spine was critical all by

itself. The back of her body armor did a marginally better job of

slowing the round as it left her body, but it didn't stop it.

No,

it flew down the street, hitting a ceramic composite lamp post. They

build them to withstand the 7 mile per hour winds (the max recorded that

whip down into the spaces between the high rises) yet crumple under

impact, such as a car. It blew a hole so big in the lamp post, it slowly

keeled over into the street. That was a problem for a few seconds down

the line. The ceramic did take a great deal of the bullet's energy.

Two

blocks down, it ricocheted off a reinforced glass window, careened into

the street and the conjecture was it landed on a car window catch, or

went down a storm drain. They never found it. I doubted Gayle cared and I

had other things on my mind when I got the news. Somerset managed to

get a shot off before she realized that her unmarked police car's

composite materials weren't going to have much better luck than Gayle's

body armor at stopping Flame's rounds.

I

suddenly understood the purpose of Flame's gun. It wasn't femismo. Her

weapon dominated the battlefield. When shooting, you had better kill

Flame because if you didn't, someone was going to the morgue. Somerset

had just witnessed that reality. As Flame began swiveling her aim that

way, Somerset dove behind her rear tire, putting as much material

between her and death as possible.

Kwan

was made of sterner stuff. She moved down the side of her car, toward

the action and firing. Like Silent, she was more concerned with keeping

her assailants' heads down than killing anyone. Det. Seger was down and

her own partner was in a bad way. Riga had to dive into the narrow space

between her car and the curb for what minimal cover it provided.

Silent

had to duck back into the restaurant and Flame came close to being

decapitated. Kwan ran out of bullets before Flame ran out of nerve. My

eyes met Kwan's as she ducked down to reload her pistol. She was angry,

fearful and confused. This situation made perverse sense. She knew the

Organized Crime Taskforce wanted to talk with me.

Magdalena Keverich had sex with me, painful sex obviously. So why the fuck was

I walking out of an eatery with Keverich mobsters? I was obviously

running for my life. A fellow officer was down, maybe dead. Did this

have to do with my stunt this morning, or was this something else? That

was what I imagined her thinking anyway.

Flame

responded to her near-death experience by giving Kwan one of her own.

Her round penetrated her car's battery assembly, passed clean through,

missed Kwan then hit a car driving by, wounding the driver in the lower,

right side before lodging in that car's rear passenger door. A wreck

was imminent, but not my immediate concern.

What

was my concern was Capri and me crossing the road. It was two lanes,

both way. The first lane was empty, but a delivery van nearly rolled

over us in the second. A passenger car coming down lane one slammed on

its brakes, as did the car behind it, that's the one the pole fell on.

By

the time the van passed, I was in the lead. We dodged a car going the

other way in lane three and lane four was free, that was the one with

the wounded driver, but the badly wounded driver was still coming at us.

We were on the sidewalk. That seemed to be as far as Capri and I had

thought things out. The FBI were theoretically on the way, but we

couldn't see them.

The

Vanishers couldn't help me unless I was out of public view. To get to

them, I had to think like a Special Forces 'operator.’ My mind was still

wandering through that morass when Capri started dragging me away from

the gunfire. We ran crouched over. I'm not sure why. The only cars

parked on the street were across the way, Maggy's limo bracketed by the

two unmarked cop cars. This was a 'No Parking' area.

For

fifteen minutes we ran down the street, fleeing for our lives. We made

it around the corner, 17 seconds had passed? Twice before in my life I

had lost all conception of time. On this outing I didn't feel violated,

but the gut-wrenching terror was identical. When Capri looked back at

me, I could see the fear in her eyes. Good, I had too many crazy people

in my life as it was.

The

gunfire had stopped. Capri slowed us to a pace closer to normal.

Fleeing people drew unwanted attention. We were at the crosswalk one

block away when the first police car, sirens blaring and lights

flashing, went racing by. I wished I could have hoped Flame and

Magdalena were okay, but my heart wasn't that big and my pain was too

fresh.

"This way," Capri hustled me along. "Upload your phone data."

"Damn, I just got this one," I muttered. "Drop the GPS and battery too?"

"Nope,"

Capri grinned. "Let's go to the Metro." One such station was right up

ahead, but it wasn't our line. We sped down the steps into the

underground facility.

A

metro cop glanced our way, but I was looking down, and praying hard. We

swiped our cards. No alarms went off, so I wasn't officially a wanted

felon yet.

"Okay,

we have a northbound to Bright Bay coming in two minutes," Capri

whispered. "We go in the first car, stash the phones then race out the

back car before the subway pulls out."

I

looked dubiously at Capri. I didn't question the basic merits of her

plan. Her deep breathing, flushed face and short legs worried me. Me, I

was doing fine. I was, barring my full-torso bruising, in excellent

shape, tall with long legs. Getting down the length of five passenger

cars in the allotted 90 seconds the train was in the station was going

to be close.

"When

we get out, we catch the metro to Northwood in eight minutes," Capri

related. Why a district called Northwood was in the Southwest section of

the metropolis wasn't something I was going to worry about. "After that

I guess we walk home." Using a credit card was foolish, but,

I ran over to the ATM and inserted my card then typed my Personal Identification Number. I was praying again.

There

it was, my $7,800 from GNN. I had money! Bless Maribel and Eloise,

those wonderful, wonderful social media parasites. I withdrew the

maximum amount, $1000. I had never done that before, but I had seen

Bethany do it, a lot. I quick-stepped it over to Capri and slipped her

five hundred.

"In

case we are separated," I murmured. She nodded. I had a strange

flashback. I started giggling. I had a vision of a man giving a woman

money for sex. How ridiculous was that? On second thought, I imagined

that among the handful of rich men out there, they probably got a kick

out of it. I had never heard of a male 'Joan' being arrested for

solicitation. Could they?

Technically,

he was doing his duty. If the moron wanted to give a woman money for

helping out with that, well, it had to be more kinky than illegal. I

felt pain. Capri was elbowing me.

"Stop

it," she hissed. I was giggling maniacally again. The metro's

air-brakes and electro-magnetic clamps were giving off their low pitched

squeal as the transport came to a stop.

We

were running at the doors before they separated. They slid open right

on time, we stashed our phones in a first aid wall mount and began the

sprint to the end of the train. That would put us out under a different

camera, which we hope would help our evasion when someone finally did

start looking.

We

made it to Northwood, grabbed a taxi and I was recognized. Cabbies get

bored. The city's roads use a grid system that 'mediates' auto behavior.

It doesn't drive the car, but it cuts down on collisions and running

red lights. Cops don't worry about this and an automotive 'getaway' is

very difficult. Marlene, the cabby, didn't seem to hate me.

"So, are you really going to let the world crash and burn?" she asked after getting our destination.

"'Let' is a bit harsh," I rebounded. "I'm not going to stand in the way of society killing itself is more like it."

"Eh, I could care less," she shrugged. "Ovarian cancer five years ago. I'm an only child so my genetics are pretty much shot."

"That is a rather grim outlook on life," Capri noted.

"Kid, no one has ever stuck out their neck for me, so why should I bother?" Marlene shrugged once more.

I

hope I didn't sound like that. I cared about people, but I would be

damned if I would reward barbarity and indifference either. I was a

father and I was terrified that my children might go through what I had

experienced. I could keep telling myself that I was doing some good. I

wasn't sure if I was, or if that was wishful thinking.

I

was truly horrified by the fear that this was just me lashing out at

the world for my misfortunes. That would make me as bad as my first

love, the Aurora Slasher. I had loved her. I had loved her with all my

heart because if I hadn't, she would have killed me. The problem was, I

had really loved and cared for her.

Somewhere

along the way, it had become real for me. We were going to live

together and have babies, strong male babies. I had wanted that more

than anything. If I loved her enough, she'd set me free. If I loved her

enough, she'd let me live. In therapy, they had given me all kinds of

psychological terms for that. The emotion had never gone away.

True,

I was also terrified of her. For a year, any voice that sounded like

her made me wet myself. I never looked at pictures of her. She wrote me

letters a few times. I never asked for them. I pray to whatever divinity

matters most that they never give her computer access. I'm still afraid

that if I did see her I'd run into her arms and beg her forgiveness.

Maybe

that is why I gravitated to women like Angel, Zara and Flame, secretly I

wanted to end this and I felt they are strong enough to do it. It could

be I was trying to replace my first rapist. I could be doing penance

for not dying when I should have, or telling the wrong women I love

them. Maybe I liked the pain but couldn't face up to it.

"Earth

to Israel," Capri nudged me. "We are here." The cab was two blocks from

my dwelling, in case someone was watching the place, we could make

other plans.

"Here

you go Marlene and good luck to you," I smiled. I paid and tipped her. I

hadn't had enough money to tip anyone in ages, budget too tight.

"Thanks,

Israel and be careful," Marlene laughed. "I imagine you are as popular

as a tampon covered in Jalapeno sauce with the people upstairs." That

was too sick and, or frightening and, or hurtful for me to think about.

"I now know what I'm getting Isobel Diaz for Christmas," Capri smirked.

"We are not going to make Christmas," I pointed out.

"I'll

mail it to Hell," Capri grinned up at me full of mischief and spite.

Without further comment, we made our way up to my condo. I opened the

door and saw Angel up and mostly dressed (no shoes). She came right at

me so fast, I freaked and back-pedaled out the door.

"Sorry, Israel," Angel looked frightfully worried. I took a deep breath, stepped up and embraced her.

She

hugged me tighter than I would have liked in my current mental state.

In a perverse way, it felt motherly yet protective and passionate at the

same time.

"Baby,"

Angel murmured into my shoulder, ”Po called. She said you were in a

firefight. Gayle Seger is dead and the culprits are on the run. Are you

hurt? Are you in danger, I mean more danger than normal, for you?"

"He's okay," Capri inserted smarmily. "I'm okay too."

"You, I can replace, at the local pet store," Angel shot over my shoulder to Capri. "He's irreplaceable to me."

"Oh,"

Capri drew out as she slipped by us to the living room and the remote.

The news was vibrant to say the least. Four out of five medical experts

were tearing Dr. Vasco a new asshole.

For

her part, Vasco was resilient. Her bosses and staffers held fast about

their methods and results. Her public speaking presence may have been

exceedingly poor, but her mastery of the science was unassailable. The

darkly amusing part of one interview was when a critic demanded that Dr.

Vasco repeat her results at other labs across the nation.

"I

can't do that," Dr. Vasco sighed. "Mr. Jensen and Ms. Sano requested

that anything remaining of their blood samples after the battery of

tests was to be destroyed."

"My God, you didn't do that, did you?" the critic fired off.

"Of course I did. I'm their physician," Dr. Vasco seemed puzzled.

"Can't you bring them back in for more samples?"

"Ms.

Sano has refused, citing that to do so might result in a denial of

sexual favors in her near future," Vasco read off a report. "Mr. Jensen

made it quite clear that he is willing to let us all die, though we

continue trying to contact him."

"If your results are genuine," the critic persevered, "Mr. Jensen has an unknown strain of the T1 and needs to be quarantined."

"Why?"

Vasco mumbled. "There is no indication that his variant of the Gender

Plague is harmful to anything but the T1, and we've run extensive

tests."

"How

can you verify your finds with the global scientific community without

the blood and tissue samples?" the critic challenged.

"After

some consultation with the Psychiatric Department, we are contemplating

getting down on our knees and begging," Vasco related with same voice

used when contemplating the prices of toilet paper brands.

"This is not the time for jests," the critic bit back. Vasco was bewildered.

"What

do you mean? We consulted some experts on male psychology and that's

what they suggested giving their minimal time to come up with an

answer," Vasco responded. Capri started giggling.

"You are coming across as a fraud," the critic lambasted.

"I've

posted my findings," Vasco stated softly. "Beyond that, we are

contacting his previous sexual partners for the past two years. We hope

they can provide antivirals with their blood."

"Two years?" the critic scoffed. "That's reaching."

"Excuse me," the virologist questioned. "What makes you say that?"

"Two years?"

"Yes,

from the level of degradation, or lack thereof, it is our current

hypothesis that this variant of the Plague is designed to give immunity

to the woman and her offspring through the child's first year," Vasco

informed the world calmly.

"The

belief is that by breastfeeding, the child would gain a boost to its

immune system where the T1 is concerned," she concluded.

"Angel?" I looked to my lover.

"The hospital called. I said 'no'," she answered. "What we did was between us."

It

was my turn to hug her. It wasn't that she had said 'no.’ It was why

she said 'no.’ Angel kept her embrace light, which only made it more

valuable to me.

"Israel,

I have to go to work soon," Angel sighed as our foreheads touched.

"Officer Involved Shooting plus running security for the arena tonight."

"Does this mean you are no longer with the Feds?" I worried.

"Babe,"

Angel laughed roughly. "You don't know how it works, two jobs doesn't

mean two people; it means overtime." I wasn't sure what came over me.

Maybe it was that 'love' thing.

"Wake me up when you get in," I requested. "I miss you."

The

concern directed my way by Angel only made me want her more. I didn't

see lust. I saw a desire to make me feel safe, not physically, but

emotionally. The cherry on top was that she was yet another sane woman

in my life.

"Okay, Babe," she smiled cautiously. "I'll whistle to wake you. You like whistling right?"

"Yes, that would be nice. Am I going to see you at the rally tonight?" I asked.

"What?" Capri squawked. She began beating up the sofa in her own, feisty style.

"Israel,

I, okay," Angel sighed. "I'm not going tell you that going is nuts,"

which was her way of telling me that she didn't approve of my plan in

the slightest while being respectful.

"Jerk,

this isn't okay with me," Capri snarled. "Why in the hell would you go

to something like the  M A L fiasco? You don't believe in it. Have you

decided that you want some pissed off men to beat you up because being

pummeled by women isn't enough?"

"They may let me get a word or two in," I explained, "though most likely they will leave me socially impotent."

"And if they arrest you?" Capri glared at me. "Will you at least call me?"

"As soon as we get new phones," I gave a wan smile.

"Why do you need new phones?" Angel asked; at this point the whole metro & phone idiocy was revealed to us by Angel.

Of

course, we had been totally ignorant of the technology we were trying

to spoof. The metro doors have a scanner which sweeps you when you get

on each car. The beams could detect the card through several layers of

clothing. That's how they know how much to bill your card each month. We

had thrown away our phones for nothing. Capri mumbled something about

too many bad spy movies, but looked suitably embarrassed.

Seneca

showed up a few minutes later. She and Angel had a hushed conversation.

It appeared that Seneca had some contacts with the local precinct and,

by calling in a favor or two, could have a patrol car close by tonight,

in case things went poorly with the evening commuters. I thought about

it. I figured two cops wouldn't be of much use if things went bad for

me.

I

would rather have them in a place to support Seneca and Angel instead,

if that was even possible. They left, Capri and I cleaned up and had a

late lunch. I was happy my stomach had calmed down enough for me to hold

anything down. Shortly after finishing, Capri received a bizarre call

from her mother while I was in the bathroom. 'Mom' quickly got to the

point.

"Capri, my child, do you still do that 'thing' with Israel?" she asked.

"Thing? What thing?" Capri wondered.

"Fellatio. Put his thing in your mouth until he ejaculates," Mom clarified.

"Yeah, Mom, four or five times a day," Capri fabricated convincingly. "He's a real beast."

"Oh,

Good," Mom smiled. "Could you regurgitate some into a plastic baggy?

Put the baggy in a chilled thermal container and mail it to me?"

"I can do that for you, Mom," Capri agreed. "I can go start on that right now, if it is important."

"You do that, Honey. It is very important, four or five samples?" Mom pressed.

"At least," Capri concentrated. "Do you want anything from our anal intercourse?"

"Ah," Mom stammered. "No, I think the oral product will be enough for now."

"Okay Mom, I'll overnight it to you," Capri smiled lovingly.

"Thank

you, Capri. I'm proud of you," Mom smiled back at her daughter. They

cut the connection. Capri stared at me as I tentatively stepped forward.

"She's

proud of me being a cum-dumpster?" Capri growled. "Whore!" I struggled

for the sympathy, for the diversion, for any words that would ease her

anger.

"Well, I guess it's nothing but ass-sex now, eh?" I moped.

"When we survive all this madness, remind me to kill you," Capri laughed, but she was happier.

Men’s Rally

We

went to the gym early today. First off, being around multiple women I

barely knew wouldn't have done me much good, so going while most of them

were at work seemed to be the best choice. Also, if the world held

together long enough, I would be going to the  M A L rally at seven.

Capri said she understood. She spent the rest of the afternoon trying to

stomp on my feet and kicking at my ankles.

Samantha

showed up at five with our new phones. She immediately requested a hug.

I readily complied; an indicator of my rebounding calm, if not sanity.

She took her time and I wiggled her hips against me playfully. Sam and

Capri coordinated with the other girls on what food delivery service to

use and dinner plans were solidified.

Kuiko

and Aniqua both had their hugs and were settling in when Capri's

prophecy from this morning started coming true. Ambrosia, Fatima,

Carrie, Amelia and three girls I didn't recognized showed up at my door.

Whatever defensive benefits of not opening the door would give us, it

would only make the mood worse, so I suggested we hear them out.

I

knew what they wanted and it wasn't to tell me what a good job I'd done

this morning, or to see if I was okay. We had lost a guy last night,

now there were only six males left. They were probably going through the

same nightmare right now, or would soon. Samantha and Aniqua met the

crowd at the door. They were the biggest. I didn't have to tell them the

score; they could sense it.

In

this district, tribalism was starting to rear its ugly head. Faith in

the city to provide for their welfare was disintegrating. Since the

police (in their minds) were letting all the men in this district move,

vanish, or die or be killed, the local women had to take over the

responsibility for the welfare of their men.

To

put it politely, the women at the door, and the doors of my fellow

males in my district, were about to turn men into property. Less kindly,

they were here to rape us.

It

was akin to people rushing the superstores for water when disasters

hit. My plan was working. Trust in cops was being thrown to the

roadside. As a consequence, a very personal battle for my survival was

working itself out on my doorstep. If my allies got the shit kicked out

of them, I was going to get a lesson on just how bad anarchy could be.

"We would like to talk with Israel," Ambrosia said. She was learning the art of a 'request not being a request' very well.

"Talk,

he's listening," Aniqua replied. Kuiko came out with a collection of

knives, dumped a few on the sofa cushions then brandished two.

Had

one not been a bread knife, I would have been more confident in our

chances. As it was, I felt paralyzed. I wanted to go to the door, stand

bold and firm as I told them to go home, thus saving my friends. I

reached for that person, but he wasn't ready to jump in the fight at the

moment. The best I could do was not run to my bedroom, or bathroom, and

slam the door shut.

"I think he should come to the door," Fatima menaced. "We outnumber you."

"I

think you know the price of admission," Capri grumbled right back. The

situation was tense, the women outside were wavering, crossing the line

into assault, maybe murder, wasn't easy. The question about who had the

advantage on who was resolved though.

I heard a gun hammer click into 'I'm about to kill someone' mode.

"Alright,

you bitches," Venus snarled. She and Roni had climbed the stairs behind

the mob and out of my camera view. It didn't take me a second to

realize by the look on the ladies spinning around in the back that they

didn't like what they saw.

"What? Who are you?" Carrie gulped.

"I'm

the possessive bitch with the gun. Now I'm not a good shot, but you

idiots are packed around the door of my man, so I'm not likely to miss

at this range. Ladies inside, you might want to back up, in case I blow a

hole in one of these whores," Venus growled.

"No

one has to die," Roni tried to soothe down the situation. "All you

ladies I don't know, there is a stairway down at the far end of the

hall. Use it." Clearly walking past Roni and Venus on the stairs those

two had just come up was not an option. I would have liked to think we

had stepped back from the precipice of chaos, but we hadn't.

Venus

didn't own a gun that I knew about. I seriously doubted she had gone

through the background check and required waiting period to get one

either. By brazenly threatening others with an illegal firearm in this

manner, all we had proven was that my tribe was tougher than theirs, for

now.

The

'invading' tribe left. Aniqua, Sam and Roni retrieved the food that

Roni and Venus had left on the stairs when they heard the commotion. The

girls took turns heading out, gathering a few clothes and toiletries

and settling into my place. Only when we settled down to eat, did the

first of two problems arise.

"Venus," Roni asked, "where did you get the gun?"

"Have

none of you been listening to Israel?" Venus scanned the group. "The

world is going down the crapper. We need to be prepared. We should all

get some guns."

"Okay," Kuiko grinned. "I know a guy." The rest of us were skeptical.

"Kuiko, I don't think that is a good idea," Aniqua cautioned her friends.

"It's

okay. He likes me and I think he has some assault rifles," Kuiko

chirped. Oh yeah, that was going to make the next complex pool party a