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Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 13

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Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 13
Hospital Conjugal

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on a post by Break The Bar. Listen to the
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Let’s review the list

of character you’ve already met, in this series;

House Black

Harrison 'Harri' Black;

Sheriff of Black County, 'Jason Momoa-looking motherfucker' mountain man (mixed
heritage), former Army MP

Vanessa Peters; Construction

Forewoman, Daughter of Brent Peters the head of the construction project,
Brunette

Erica LaCosta; Fiancée of

Harri, Leo's sister, Italian Tattoo Artist, Dark Brunette

Macho; Rescued daschund

puppy, named for his big balls, mascot and beloved pet of House Black

Ivy Gauthier; Quebecoise

stripper, half-tattooed, Dirty Blonde anal queen

Kyla Bautista; Trained

dancer, Filipino Spy, Harri's Deputy Sheriff, Raven hair

House LaCosta

Leo LaCosta; Harri's best

friend and former roommate, Italian carpenter, Erica's brother

India; Girlfriend of Aria,

Hippy Stripper/Sugar Baby, grew up in a commune, Brunette dreads and braids,
Member of House LaCosta

Danielle 'Dani'; Australian

stripper, Brunette, Member of House LaCosta

Aria; Girlfriend of India,

Stripper/Sugar Baby, Ginger, Member of House LaCosta

Other

Abigail 'Abi' Jónsson;

Co-owner of Valkyrie Falls women's athletic retreat, Icelandic Personal Trainer
and CrossFit Competitor, Athletically Thick Blonde

Josie 'Joss the Boss' Draper;

Professional Wrestler, Athletically Trim Blonde

Captain Toranno; Oregon State

Trooper

Referenced Characters

Lieutenant Colonel Miriam

Abarbanel; Military friend of Harri's, Air Force Lt Col, Jewish heritage,
Commanding Officer for Valhalla Hills construction and the Oregon Quaranteam
research project

Mary Duncan; Attended high

school with Harri, former cheerleader, Husband has disappeared while looking
for work

And now, let’s get back to

the story..

My tough little construction

working lover, still wearing her high-vis vest, opened her eyes and looked at
me. "Harri, can I come? Can you fill up my cunt with a giant fucking load
of sperm, and send my brain to the fucking moon? I need to go back to work, so
I'm just going to pull up my panties and feel it leaking out of me for the rest
of the day, and I'll be thinking about you constantly, and that's the best day
I can think of."

"You can come when I

come, beautiful," I said, leaning down and planting a hard kiss on her.
She pulled an Erica and kissed me back ferociously to the point of biting my
lip. I grunted and she didn't let go, and I took that as a challenge and
started really pumping into her hard until her teeth loosened on me as she
moaned loudly from her throat. I pulled away and pushed her down onto the bed
hard by the chest and I thrust into her in three brutal strokes, her ass smacking
on my thighs as I carved in and out of her with my cock, before I unloaded.

"Ah, gaw," Vanessa

moaned at the top of her lungs, throwing her head back as she matched my orgasm
with her own. Her orgasm released in a wash of girlcum sloshing out of her and
soaking the bottom of the bed. Her moan lowered into her mumbling gibberish for
a long moment before she shook her head hard and blinked. "Holy fuck I
needed that," she gasped as she tried to catch her breath.

"Ugh," I groaned as

I slowly pulled out her, my cock a mess of our mixed juices. Erica jumped on
the opportunity first, leaning in and getting her lips tenderly on the head and
starting to clean me off with a soft blowjob.

"So, no work today,

or...?" Kyla asked me with a smirk from the head of the bed as Vanessa
wiggled her hips so that she could pull her panties up and catch my cum as it
started to leak out of her.

I barked a laugh at almost

the same time I winced at the tenderness of my shlong. "That
depends," I said. "Are you going to want some alone time soon, or
wait until tonight?"

Kyla looked down at Erica

sucking my cock and bit her lip.

It had been a week and a

half, based on the timing Miriam had given me, since the Vaccine had started
going public down in California but we still weren't seeing any word of it on
the news. Leo was the most invested in trying to spot the Government maneuvers
in that regard; he was fascinated at having gotten a peek behind the curtain,
and I would have worried he might become a crackpot if not for the fact that
Dani and Aria would keep him grounded. India maybe not so much, she was the
child of hippy communists (real ones who walked the walk on an actual commune)
so she had a tendency to offhandedly distrust just about anything that espoused
authority.

Thankfully that distrust

hadn't transferred to me in my new job.

The only thing that seemed to

have slipped through the new embargos nationally was a social media thing that
went viral about trucks full of bodies in New York City. I likely would have
been skeptical if I hadn't known what I knew; they were picking up bodies in
trucks out here in the sticks of Oregon, too. Not big transport trucks, but
smaller refrigerated box trucks driven and manned by the National Guard. I
could only guess at the death toll in a place like NYC where so many people
were stacked on top of each other. I'd been there once for a trip in high
school and the fact that it dwarfed Portland in almost every way had boggled my
young mind at the time. Now I'd seen Paris, Berlin, and Istanbul, not to
mention a bunch of the cities across the Middle East, through my time in the
military and while New York was still the biggest I'd seen, I had
realized Portland wasn't as big a city as my teen mind had thought.

Even still, transport trucks

full of bodies disappearing in the night? It was chilling.

It had also led to some hard

questions over at Valkyrie Falls. Erica had come along and met everyone up
there on the first supply run I did for them; mainly because she needed to sit
down and talk with Sara and Abigail about facilitating things for them and what
other supplies they would need. But also because she wanted to get eyes on both
Josie and Spencer, who Vanessa, Kyla and Dani had spread the word about back
home. Both Josie and Spencer had been a little quieter than I'd known them to
be when meeting my fiancée, and it had been kind of funny to see two such
physically powerful women intimidated by Erica.

Ivy had come up on the second

supply run with me, and things had been a lot more playful. In between supply
runs, Kyla, Dani and I had gone up twice more for workouts; Vanessa had needed
to back out due to the construction work starting up again; and things had
stabilized a bit as Abi trained me and Spencer trained both Dani and Kyla. Both
of the girls pointed out that Josie was never far away when I was around and
ribbed me about it, and both Josie and Abi had continued to shower with us
after our workouts.

It was on the third supply

run, which was the second one with a big load of groceries that took eight
people to unload from the truck in one trip, that I had to field the questions
about the viral video and explain that it was likely true, and what I knew of
how we were handling things here in the region. That had been a sobering
conversation for a lot of us, myself included. Every time I'd gone to Valkyrie
Falls before then, even that first time doing the Welfare Check, it had been an
upbeat place full of women who took charge of their lives and were constantly seeking
to better themselves.

Knowing something is real,

and seeing it play out, are two different things.

Dani had done the trip with

me this time and we were heading back out to the truck when Melina came jogging
out to the parking lot. "Sheriff! Hold on a second." I hadn't exactly
spent much time with Melina, only meeting her in passing just like most of the
clients at the Falls. She was the blonde bodybuilder who was stunningly
gorgeous and was obviously highly focused on her appearance. Her face was almost
too perfect and symmetrical and I guessed she'd either had a bit of work done
or was a former beauty queen, and she sported a full, round bosom that was just
on the edge of looking like they were bolted on without crossing that line, at
least with her workout gear on..

"Hey, Melina," I

said as she jogged over and stopped. She had a worried look on her face, not
that I hadn't left several of those after the conversation we'd had in the
kitchen, and she sucked her lips in between her teeth for a moment as she put
her hands on her hips. "What can I do for you?"

"I; Well, I don't know

if you can help with this," she said.

"If he can, Harri will

try," Dani said, coming back around the truck and giving the woman a
caring smile. "Just ask."

Melina took a breath and then

nodded. "After the first time you came here, I tried calling home and to
the local police and I haven't been able to get ahold of anyone. I haven't been
able to get ahold of my boyfriend for almost three weeks now. I know that we're
not supposed to travel or anything, and if I leave here I can't come back, but
I'm starting to get really worried. I was wondering if you've got any way to
maybe help me track him down?"

"Well, that might depend

on a few things," I said. "You haven't been able to get ahold of
anyone back home?"

"My parents died years

ago, and I don't have any siblings," Melina said. "I have some aunts
and uncles and stuff, but they all live out on the East Coast. I haven't been
able to track down a few of my friends either, but I'm trying to prioritize my
worrying here."

"Hmm," I nodded,

thinking to myself that this wasn't panning out to sound very good. "Where
are you and your boyfriend from? I can try giving a call to the local PD with
my rank to see if that gets any answer."

"Just down in

Eugene," Melina said.

"Oh," I said, a

little surprised. I would have pegged her for a Californian for sure with her
look. "That's only like three hours away."

"Four with

traffic," Melina nodded. "Not that there is much, from what I
understand. I'd go myself, but Abi says she really can't let me come back and
if I go down there and find out he's just ghosting me or something... well,
being without the ability to hit a gym would really hamper my ability to cope
with shit."

"I totally

understand," I said. "Look, I don't know if calling will do anything,
but I could maybe take a drive down and see what's up."

"Really?" Melina

asked, her eyes getting big as she put a fist to her mouth like she was trying
to hold back the hope she was feeling. "You can do that?"

“I can stop by your place,

and check in with the local cops if I can't find him," I said.
"Shouldn't be too hard." It also wouldn't put me at any large amount
of risk compared to Melina going down herself. All I'd need to do afterwards is
have a bunch of sex with my partners. Oh no, poor me.

Melina thanked me, pulling me

into a powerful hug that actually cracked my lower back a little, and Dani shot
me a look asking me to wait as she walked the other woman back to the building
with an arm around her shoulders. When Dani came back she stepped up into the
truck passenger seat and shut the door.

"You sure you want to

help with this, Harri?" she asked. "It's very sweet of you, but,”

"I might as well,

Dani," I said. "There aren't as many welfare checks for Kyla and me
to handle anymore, and if I can help her find a little peace of mind just so
she knows if something is wrong or not... Well, I think it's worth it."

Dani smiled softly.

"You're a good man, Harri," she said. "Just don't burn yourself
out trying to help everyone, all the time."

"I won't," I said

as I started the truck.

"Not bad, by the

way," Dani said with a smirk.

"Not bad, what?" I

asked.

"Oh, adding another

Muscle Mommy to the list of hotties that want to bang you," Dani chuckled.

"There isn't a list, and

she's got a boyfriend," I said.

"Says you, there's no

list," Dani shot back. "And I'm not ashamed to say I'd be at the top
of that list if it weren't for Leo. Remember how I almost imprinted on you
instead of him?"

"'Almost' is a little

strong," I said. "But thanks."

"No problem,

buddy," she grinned and patted my arm. "But there's definitely a
list."

"Oh my God," I

sighed as I pulled the truck off of the forest path and onto the highway,
heading for home. "There is no list!"

I left early the next day.

I'd thought about leaving the truck for Kyla to use if she needed it and
borrowing either Erica or Leo's car for the road trip down but was easily
talked out of it by the girls. Erica walked me out to the truck that morning.

"Love you," she

said with a little kiss. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Wait, how many things

are on that list?" I asked. "Like, five?"

"Seven, now," she

smirked. "No more sex with guys who aren't named Harrison Black. And no
more daydreaming about hooking up with a guy named Harrison Black. That last
one became redundant."

I snorted and kissed her.

"Hold down the fort," I said. "I'll be back by dinner."

"And I'll be waiting

with bells on," she said. "But do me a favor?"

"What's up?" I

asked.

"Don't bring home any

strays," Erica said.

"What, like a dog?"

I asked.

"No, babe. Like some

lady who needs shelter or something," Erica said. "Because it would
be just like you to find some beautiful young thing, down on her luck and in a
desperate situation. And probably injected with the Vaccine but not imprinted
yet. That's the kind of luck you have."

"Okay, so say I really

do find that beautiful woman, down on her luck and destitute, and in dire need
of imprinting. What am I supposed to do with her?"

Eric rolled her eyes.

"Fine, you can bring her home. But we don't have any room in the bed. And
the point of this was to say it out loud so that it wouldn't happen."

"Noted," I laughed.

The drive down was downright

pleasant. It was another overcast summer day, which meant I got the occasional
peek at the sky but otherwise it was just pleasantly warm and I didn't even
need to wear sunglasses. Coasting down the highway and skirting through the
southeast of Portland, I hit the I5 in record time and was headed due south.
Traffic was almost non-existent until I hit Portland, and even then it was only
a few cars on either side of the highway. I'd never liked driving so much as I
did during the pandemic.

Passing through the small

towns south of Portland was the same as on my way from Jewell. Salem was a
slightly different story, but not by much. It wasn't nearly the size of
Portland but was the State Capital so I'd been there plenty of times as a kid
and teen on school trips to different government and historical sites. The city
itself looked about the same as I remembered, just sort of cleaner; with no
tourism and no cars around it looked like the city had decided it was a great
time to refurbish their outdoor spaces. It was downright pretty, even for a
city, in my eyes.

The first two hours and fifty

minutes of my trip down were a breeze. Then, right at the end, I hit the
roadblock about ten minutes outside of Eugene.

"What the fuck?" I

muttered to myself. There were four big, green army trucks parked across both
lanes of the highway and a big tent off to one side that was some sort of a
waystation or command center. I slowed down my truck as I approached; there was
one car stopped at the roadblock, and another one was being directed to turn around
onto the opposite lane and was getting sent off. A national guard soldier with
a big handheld stop sign waved frantically at me as I came in behind the car
ahead of me and I slowed to a crawl and then a stop. The driver of the car was
being interrogated by a National Guardsman while another two were doing a
security check on the vehicle, checking under it for what I could only assume
would be explosives, and peering inside the windows.

Another Guardsman came around

that group to me but hesitated when he took in the bold white stripe and
'Sheriff' printed along the side. I rolled down my window as he approached and
put on my best 'I'm not someone to argue with' glare from my MP days.

"Uh, the highway is

closed," the Guardsman said as he approached. He was dressed in his
regular fatigues but had a hazmat hood over top, along with gloves. I found the
medical mask inside the hazmat hood to be a little silly and just served
to muffle the guy. "What's your purpose of travel, Sheriff?"

"Is the highway closed,

or are you interrogating travelers, soldier?" I asked. "Because the
first one is understandable, but the second one breaks at least two
constitutional rights that I can think of off the top of my head."

"Both?" the soldier

hedged, and then firmed up. "I mean, both. The highway is closed, and
we've got orders to ask for the reason for travel."

"On whose command?"

I asked. "Where are your orders coming from?"

"Oh, uh, my regimental

command," he said.

I sighed and rubbed under one

of my eyes, levelling my glare at him. "Why is the highway closed,
private?"

"That's

classified," he said.

"A major interstate

highway is closed and it's classified?" I questioned him. "What, did
aliens crash land in the middle of Eugene or something?"

"That's all I can say,

sir," the soldier said. "You're going to need to turn around."

I snorted and shook my head.

"Hold on," I said. I pulled out my phone and dialed Miriam, keeping
it off of the truck speakers.

"Please don't tell me

you're in another shootout," Miriam answered her phone.

"Nope," I said with

a little smirk. "And hello to you too, Colonel. I'm currently on the I5
outside of Eugene, travelling on official business, and I've got a National
Guardsman telling me it's closed for classified reasons."

There was a long silence on

the other end and then a short sigh. "What are you doing heading that far
south, Harri?"

"Investigating a

disappearance," I said.

"There's a lot of those

going on down there right now," Miriam said.

"So this is a real

thing, then," I said.

I could practically hear

Miriam quickly thinking through what options she had for how much she could, or
wanted, to tell me. "Eugene is under martial law," she finally said.
"Do you really need to go in there?"

"Well, if I'm going to

try and find the person I'm looking for, yeah," I said.

"Alright. I'm going to

make a couple of quick calls and you'll be let through. Just; and I know I
don't need to tell you this, but no photos or video, Harri. No leaks."

"Okay," I said.

"Talk to you soon."

"You too. Stay

safe."

I hung up and looked at the

Guardsman. "You're going to get a call."

Another car pulled up behind

me, and the one in front of me was turned around and sent back the way we had
come, by the time the Corporal in charge of the roadblock crew got called over
to the command tent at the side of the road to pick up a sat phone. I watched
as several men had a quick back and forth before the Sergeant in the tent and
the Corporal waved over the Private who had stayed at my door the whole time.
After another quick chat, the Guardsman jogged back over.

"I'm, uh, sorry for

delaying you, Sheriff," he stammered. "We didn't know you had
clearance."

"Well, my clearance

levels seem to fluctuate by the day," I said. "No worries, soldier.
Stay safe out here."

"Our Sergeant says

you're expected down at the HQ. We're set up in the main Eugene Police
station," he said. "Do you need directions?"

"I'll figure it

out," I said and gave him a nod.

They had to move one of the

big green trucks for me, the engine in the thing making my bowels shake as it
turned over heavily. All it did was remind me of days I thought had been long
behind me. I could just barely hear the guy in the car waiting at my rear
shouting at the Guardsmen when they didn't let him follow me.

Parking at the Eugene PD

was... limited. Not because there weren't many spots, but because the place was
packed. More army trucks, along with some Humvees and jeeps, took up a good
portion of the lots on either side of the station and into the commercial
office space around it. Several staging tents had been deployed outside the
front door in the little courtyard-like area and the grass of the front lawn
was torn up from trucks and lots of travel over a short amount of time. The
entire area looked like a mix between an army depot and the remains after a big
music festival.

Except that, other than a

couple of National Guard posted up at the front door, there wasn't anyone
around.

I pulled into the visitor parking

area right at the front, my pickup flanked on either side by military jeeps. As
I approached the front door both of the National Guardsmen glanced at each
other and looked ready to stop me, but I stopped short and pulled my new badge
out of my back pocket. It was in a little leather frame that I had attached to
a chain and I looped that over my head so it hung on my chest.

"Boys," I said in

my MP voice and gave them a respectful nod. Between the badge, my confidence
and the voice they let me through without issue. Inside there was a lot more
activity going on; there was a buzz of conversations as National Guard, and
several members of other military branches, along with local PD and other
emergency services and civilians that I assumed were running admin roles were
all working in a quiet frenzy. Despite the energy through the room, there was
also exhaustion; big maps of the city were posted on walls with neighborhoods
and areas colored in quickly, or with stats written across them.

When no one immediately

approached me, or even really noticed me, I went up to the front desk where I
assumed a secretary or officer would have usually been stationed. Still
nothing, so I tapped the service bell firmly. The ring cut through the noise
and almost thirty people looked over at me just in that front office area.

"Who are you?"

someone in the crowd asked. They were all covered in medical masks and gloves
and it was hard to tell who had actually spoken.

"Sheriff of Black

County," I said. "I'm,”

"Here to see me,"

Captain Bloomberg said, coming out of a side corridor and pointing at me with
two fingers and then giving me a 'follow' beckon. That seemed enough for the
various officers, both military and emergency services, and they went back to
work as I skirted around the front desk and caught up to the Captain as she was
headed back down the corridor.

"Captain," I said.

"Nice to see you again."

"What happened to

staying out of trouble?" Laura asked.

"I'm pretty sure that

was a suggestion," I pointed out. "And this barely constitutes as
trouble."

The Captain scoffed and shook

her head. "Harrison, you just drove into a city on the edge of
collapse."

"I... really? It didn't

look that bad on my drive in," I said.

Laura led me to an office she

seemed to have temporarily appropriated and shut the door behind us, gesturing
for me to sit. "You can take off the mask, I know you're safe," she
said as she peeled off her own. "And I disinfected this whole fucking
room."

I took my mask off and along

with the seat she offered as the Captain sat behind the desk, sorted a few
papers and then turned to me. "Yes, Harrison," she said. "It
really is that bad. Just over two weeks ago there was a run on a bank downtown
when it couldn't fulfil cash withdrawals; they weren't out of money, their delivery
was hijacked. Insurance and the Treasury would have covered it. But one bank
'failing' cascaded into issues for all the banks, and that turned into a
full-on riot. There was a full day of chaos across the city before the National
Guard rolled in; looting, vigilante justice, protests, the works. The locals
and the National Guard did what they could to mitigate the fallout, but best
guess is there are two distinct waves of Duo Halo outbreaks that have swept
through, not to mention the COVID outbreaks that are shitty enough to deal
with. Now I'm down here seeing if there's anything that can be done to save
folks with the vaccine, but after the debacle with your construction site we're
low on vaccine supplies and California can't make it fast enough for their own
rollout right now. You're literally catching me on my way out."

"Well... fuck," I

said. Eugene was a city of around 175,000 people, give or take. Based on how
Duo Halo had hit the construction site, that meant... "Fuck."

"Yeah," Captain

Bloomberg said. "Official death toll is over 50,000 right now, and that's
just confirmed deaths. We're expecting it to be much higher."

The weight of it hit me like

a brick in the gut. Five hundred construction workers had been the estimated
death toll at the site, and that was with emergency vaccine deployment. It had
seemed like a massive number. Now we were adding two zeros onto that number, and
growing.

"I; well, shit," I

said. "And this is all being kept quiet?"

"Think about it,

Harrison," Laura said. "One bank has one delay, and the powder keg of
this city got set off. The fact that we were able to keep it locked down is
practically a miracle. The entire western seaboard could be on fire right now
if people saw anything about what happened here. The whole city is cut off; no
news, no cell service, no internet, no landlines. Every road out is blocked,
and the algorithms are constantly searching for any mention of what's going on
to strip it from social media."

"And if it was handled

so well here," I guessed. "Eugene probably isn't the only place this
has happened."

"Probably not," the

Captain nodded. "But I'm not privy to that information. It's the only city
in Oregon, at least. Well, other than a couple of smaller towns that are
looking more like ghost towns now."

I wiped my face and sat back,

sucking in and breathing out a long stream of air. "Okay," I said.
"So... shit."

"The Colonel said you

were vague on the phone about why you came down here," the Captain said.
"How about we start there?"

"I'm looking for

someone," I said. "I've got a name and an address."

"Why, though?"

Laura asked. "And I mean this with exactly the tiny amount of respect your
office holds considering I'm the one that made it legal to begin with; what the
fuck are you doing down here?"

"A glorified welfare

check," I admitted. "There's a woman I,”

"You're doing this for a

woman?" Laura asked, levelling her gaze at me.

"Not like that," I

said, holding up a hand. "She's part of a quarantine group that I've been
helping out, and it's her boyfriend. She hasn't been able to reach anyone down
here, for obvious reasons now, and asked me to look into it. I figured it would
be less hassle for you or Miriam if I just came down here to find him myself
instead of bothering you with it."

"And yet, here you

are," Laura smirked. "Bothering me with it. But roll it back, Black.
What's this 'quarantine group?'"

I told the Captain about

Valkyrie Falls, and that just made her more incredulous that I'd stumbled across
an Amazonian heaven in the middle of the forest and had somehow not only met
them but befriended them and was now their go-to person for interacting with
the outside world. She asked for pictures as proof and I told her I didn't have
any. Then she asked for names and took out her phone, but we quickly remembered
that there wasn't any service so she couldn't look them up anyways.

"You realize that you

are the luckiest fucking person this side of the Rocky Mountains, right?"
she said.

"It's not a big deal,"

I said. "Really. They're just friendly people who needed some help."

"Miriam is not going to

believe this one," Laura sighed and shook her head. "Alright, here's
the deal. The records are kind of loose right now, so what I can do is hook you
up with a local guide. I'm hitching a chopper ride out of here in about an hour
back up to Portland, so if you get into any shit I'm not going to be around to
pull you out of it again. Think you can handle that?"

"I'd argue I don't get

into that much trouble, but I think we both know you'd win that one," I
said.

"Good, you're

learning," Laura smirked.

She led me out of her

temporary office, after we both masked up again, and down to the main area and
flagged down an admin person and spoke to her quickly. That woman took her
directions and then went looking for someone else.

"She'll bring you your

guide," Laura said. "And seriously, don't get into trouble."

"I won't. Thanks,

Captain," I said.

She nodded and left me

waiting in the front lobby area, and I had a moment to process what she'd told
me. The city was fucked.

Fifty thousand dead.

I had to step over to a wall

and put my hand on it to keep myself up as I tried to imagine that number in my
head.

"You Okay, sir?"

someone asked me, and I realized my legs had buckled a bit as I'd had my eyes
closed.

"Um, yeah. Yeah," I

said, getting myself up and standing straight, blinking rapidly to try and
clear my thoughts. The woman was dressed in a firefighter's uniform, which was
to say a button-down short sleeve navy shirt with the Eugene Fire Department
crest on the sleeve. She was brunette, with a sort of severe angle to her face,
and while she wasn't tall she still had a somewhat powerful and active build
that made me think of the women back at Valkyrie Falls. "Sorry, I just got
filled in on... what's been going on."

"Mm," she hummed

with a single nod. There was a sort of hollowness to her expression that told
me she'd probably been going through waves of what I'd just been feeling.
"My name is Kristine. I've been ordered to help you get around town?"

"Yeah, yes," I

nodded, offering her my hand. "Sheriff Black."

"Sheriff of where?"

she asked, shaking it and then immediately turning to a wall-mounted sanitizer
bottle and squirting her gloved hand with it and scrubbing thoroughly. I did
the same, following her lead.

"Black County," I

said. "It's small and up north."

"You're Sheriff Black,

of Black County?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. It was the first bit of
real emotion I'd seen from her.

"Long story," I

said.

"Alright, well, if

you've got a vehicle then we might as well take yours," she said.
"What exactly are we doing?"

"I'm trying to locate

someone," I told her as we headed for the door.

"That might be

tough," Kristine told me.

"Well, I've got one day

down here to try and get it done," I said. "Might as well make the
best of it."

I led her out to my truck,

which got my second flash of emotion from her as she raised both eyebrows this
time and whistled behind her mask. "Brand new?" she asked.

"Yep," I nodded.

"I got her a couple of weeks ago now."

We piled into the front.

"So who are we looking for, and where?"

"His name's Victor

Fenton, goes by Vic," I said and fished the slip of paper I'd written
Melina's directions on. "Lives in a condo block at 3614 Goodpasture
Loop."

"Alright, I know

Goodpasture," Kristine said. "Let's see if it's still standing."

"What?" I asked.

"There's been more than

a few fires over the last couple weeks. Some residential, some commercial. The
riots were the worst for it, but every day there's one or two. Our crews, those
of us that are left, have dealt with more in the past two weeks than in the
past five years."

"Fuck," I said and

shook my head as I pulled out of the visitor parking.

"Yeah, that about sums

it up," Kristine frowned. She gave me directions through town and pointed
out where some of the fires had been, and we took a quick detour through a
commercial neighborhood where one of the big riot sites had happened. The
buildings looked like they'd been burned out and gutted.

"You ever serve?" I

asked her.

She shook her head.

"Took a straight shot to becoming an EMT out of high school, then
transferred to firefighting after that."

"Well, you've been

serving in your own way," I said. "But this; this reminds me of over
there more than it does back here."

"I can imagine,"

she sighed.

We pulled onto Goodpasture

and had to do a bit of driving to reach 3614, but as we got close it quickly
became apparent that this wasn't going to be easy.

"Well, I guess I jinxed

it," Kristine said as we looked out the window at the blackened pile of
rubble. The place hadn't just lit on fire, it had burned to the ground.
"We've been prioritizing which fires we fight hard, and which we think we
can let burn themselves out. We don't have the manpower to save
everything."

"So what now?" I

asked. "Is there somewhere that the displaced people from the fires are
going, or are they in the wind?"

"There are a few

sites," Kristine said, picking up her phone.

"I thought there wasn't

cell service?" I asked.

"There isn't,"

Kristine said. "But I loaded the 'Refugee Doc' onto my phone this morning
when I got in. If there are survivors from these condos, I should be able to
figure out where they are in the city."

"Do you have

names?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Too

many people moving. We're just keeping them in groups. Alright, looks like the
survivors from this building got moved to the Rink Exchange. If your Victor guy
wasn't dead from the virus or died in the fire, we should be able to find him there."

"Shit, alright," I

said. "Where to?"

Again Kristine had to give me

directions by memory, backtracking us to a main street before working us around
through the city. We passed by a few different gathering points throughout the
neighborhoods. Several were supply depots where the National Guard were handing
out provisions to people since all the stores were closed. A few were
checkpoints we had to pass through, but between my truck and badge and
Kristine's outfit we got through with little more than a cursory glance. One of
the active places we passed was the hospital, which looked like it had been
through its own warzone. All of the lower-story windows were boarded over, and
several of the entrances were blocked as well. The ER entrance was manned by armed
National Guard soldiers.

"The riots hit the

hospital twice," Kristine explained when she saw I was slowing down and
looking. "It was one of the first places the National Guard secured, and
they are processing wounds but stopped all other treatments."

I grimaced, thinking of all

the people who were missing out on important healthcare they relied on. Duo
Halo was killing tens of thousands, but how many would end up dead at the end
because they just didn't get what they needed?

The Rink Exchange was another

National Guard-manned building, the complex parking lots stuffed to the gills
with both civilian cars and army transports. I ended up needing to park a ways
down the street and we walked our asses over. At the front, we got cursory
inspections and then were allowed in. It looked like several of the ice rinks,
all of which had been cleared and turned into barracks areas, were housing many
of the National Guard but one of the rinks was housing displaced folks.
Kristine led me over there, and we checked in with an admin person who huffed
at us interrupting whatever she was doing. She struck me immediately as someone
who had created her own little fiefdom of power and seeing someone outside her
little world step in with some real authority got her back up.

It took almost an hour for us

to get the answer that Victor Fenton had been at the Rink Exchange, but
he'd 'moved out.' It took another half hour for the lady to confirm that she
was allowed to release the forwarding address to us, and it ended up being another
condo block in the south end of the city.

We sanitized heavily coming

out of the complex and got back in the truck, again heading back to a main
street so that Kristine could get us to the right place. By the time we pulled
up in front of the condos, it was going on the middle of the afternoon and I
hadn't had a lunch and could feel my stomach wanting to revolt against me. Ever
since that first time with Erica, I'd found I was eating more, and the more sex
I had the more I found myself wanting to eat for energy. Four partners had me
eating three full, hearty meals a day usually. Add in the new workouts and I
was usually snacking in between meals as well. All of that added up to me
starting to get a little impatient, and trying to figure out where the hell I
was going to get a meal. Everything in Eugene was shut down, so I'd need to
drive north out of the city, past the roadblock and back to one of the other
towns on the way to find an open fast food place with a drive-through.

Katrina and I parked in the

condo parking lot and headed into the building. The front glass doors had been
broken and boarded over, but other than that the place seemed in general good
maintenance. The lady at the rinks had told us he had moved into Apartment 122,
so Katrina and I made our way through the lobby and followed the signs into the
corridors of the building down to the right door.

I knocked lightly at first,

and we could hear the muted sound of some sort of small dog barking behind the
door but there was no answer. I knocked louder. "Police. We're just
looking to contact Mr. Fenton," I called with authority. A door down the
corridor opened as someone poked their head out, but quickly pulled back inside
their own place.

The barking continued, but

still no answer.

"We're on the first

floor," I said to Katrina. "I'm going to go check and see if I can
get a look in through an outside window. You mind staying here?"

"Sure," she nodded,

and I left her.

Outside it took a bit of work

to figure out the right window to peek into. As best I could tell, Apartment
122 had two windows. The first one was mostly covered and seemed to lead into a
living room of some sort. The place was a mess, but a lived-in mess and not a
ransacked one. There were also, oddly, several piles of what I thought was dog
poop.

I figured out why when I went

to the second window.

Back inside the building I

met Katrina. "What did you see?" she asked.

"They're in the

bedroom," I said. "Dead. We need to get in."

"That's not

protocol," she said with wide eyes.

"Exigent

circumstances," I said. "I don't need a warrant if there's a dead
body in plain view."

"That's not what I

mean," Katrina said. "It's dangerous. We're supposed to report it,
and the National Guard come and handle it."

"Not good enough,"

I said. "I'm going in. You don't need to come in with me."

"I'm going to be in the

same car as you," she said. "If you catch something in there, I'll
just get it from you then."

"I'm not going to touch

the bodies," I said. "And I'll sanitize. Fuck, I'll take a full bath
with a hose outside if you need me to."

"...fine," she said

with a sigh. "But if I catch something from you and die, I'm haunting you
every night."

I suppressed the urge to

snort; Katrina's ghost would find my nights were a little jam-packed with women
already.

It only took me two solid

kicks to bust the lock on the apartment door, and a shoulder slam to push it in
fully. Inside I caught the strong waft of Death, along with dog shit. Katrina
started coughing and gagging in the hallway, and I tried not to let my eyes
water and took shallow breaths behind my mask as I moved through the apartment.
It was clearly a woman's place, but not one who took a lot of pride in keeping
it clean. There were also several unopened boxes of electronics and a big stand
kitchen mixer sitting in the living space; likely looted goods from a box
store. At the door to the bedroom I knelt down before opening the door a crack,
the thicker stench of the corpses inside making me gag now, but I opened it a
bit more and the little bundle of fur came flying out at me and I caught it.

He, and he was definitely a

he with the oversized pair of fuzzy nuts hanging off him, wasn't exactly full
of energy. He was more desperate than anything as I manhandled him around in my
hands so that I was holding him under his gaunt belly and he yapped and
snapped.

"You're nothing more

than a puppy," I said to the little guy. He had shit on him; likely from
being cooped up in that room for days; and he stilled quickly as he ran out of
what limited energy he had from going hungry for so long. I bundled him up
under my arm despite the dog shit on his coat and I kicked open the door to the
bedroom more fully. Inside, Victor Fenton was lying in bed next to a woman; the
only reason I could tell was that he had that dumb mutton-chops moustache that
was in the picture Melina had sent me of her boyfriend. The covers were thrown
off and they were both naked, though not in a sexual way; it was clear that
they'd both gone through an uncomfortable stretch at the end of their lives as
the Duo Halo took them.

"Okay, little guy,"

I said, almost gagging on my words. "Let's get you water and food." I
headed for the kitchen and scrounged in the cupboards until I found a couple of
Tupperware containers, then filled one with water and set the little guy down
with it so he could get some hydration while I looked around for his dog food.
I found it and filled the second container with food and water to let the
kibble soak and get soft to be easy on his stomach, then scooped him up away
from the water bowl before he sucked back too much of it and got sick. I
carried him, the container with the food, and the bag of food, out and met
Katrina in the hall.

She gave me a look as I came

out with a shit-covered dog in my arms. "What the fuck?"

"Well I wasn't going to

leave him in there," I said, a little affronted. "He's just a puppy
and he was starving."

"The shelters are shut

down," Katrina said bluntly. "It wasn't safe to run them, if the
people running them are even still alive. They put down all the animals."

That turned my stomach in an

entirely new way to the 50,000 dead number, or the smell from the apartment.
"Then I guess I'll need to find him a new home myself," I said.

Katrina just shook her head

and sighed. "Did you find your man?"

"Pretty sure," I

said. "Looks like he shacked up with his mistress or something. There was
some looted goods in there, so one or the other of them probably caught it
during the riots."

"Fucking assholes,"

Katrina grunted, shaking her head again, but then glanced at me sharply.
"Sorry, if you knew him..."

"Nah, he seems like he

was a real prick," I said. "Come on, let's go find a hose so we can
get this little guy cleaned up." It took some work not to feel a bit of
revulsion at Katrina's lack of empathy, but I'd seen it before. She was living
through a trauma that I could recognize; the trauma of seeing things that most
people weren't equipped to handle, over and over. Of being exposed to horrible
things at an increasingly speedy rate. I'd seen it in soldiers overseas, and
had experienced it a bit during the worst of my MP investigations.

I had to forgive her for her

callousness because she was still living through it.

Outside we found a hose on

the back of the building, and after the little guy had a chance to scarf down a
bit of food I gave him a quick wash and rub down, then cleaned myself off as
well. I wasn't completely sure since he was still a puppy, but I was pretty
certain he was a full-blooded dachshund.

"Well, when he isn't

covered in shit, I'll admit it," Katrina said. "He's cute."

I was making sure his ears

were cleaned as he gobbled down another few mouthfuls of the soaked kibble and
he didn't mind being touched one bit as he was eating. "Well behaved
too," I noted. "Not scared or aggressive."

"Well, I can't take

him," Katrina said.

I sighed and smiled behind my

mask, then couldn't help but laugh a little.

"What?" Katrina

asked.

"Just something my

fiancée said before I left this morning."

We headed to the truck and I

stripped off my wet shirt and wrung it out before stowing it in the bed and
grabbing a t-shirt from my gym bag that I'd stashed there, along with a towel
that I wrapped the little guy up in. Katrina held him in the passenger seat,
her eyes slowly softening as she gave me directions back to the Police Station
and she played with the puppy.

I pulled up out front and

looked over at her. "Last chance," I told her. "He likes
you."

She shook her head again.

"Get him out of this hell," she told me, handing him over to me.

"Katrina," I said

as she started to get out of the truck, stopping her as she turned to look at
me. "Don't blame yourself for this."

She frowned at me with her

eyes over the mask.

"Survivor's guilt,"

I explained. "None of this is your fault. You're doing what you can."

"You don't know what I'm

doing," she said.

"I served,

remember?" I said. "This place, the way you all are running on fumes
and there's still more and more bad shit raining down on you... Don't let it
break you." I pulled out a pen from the center console and scribbled my
number on the paper I'd originally had Victor's address on and handed it to
her. "If you need to talk, and somehow get access to a phone that works,
you can call me. Just to talk or whatever, or if you need anything brought down
here. I owe you one for today, Okay? So don't be afraid to collect."

Katrina took a breath and

nodded, accepting my number. "Get out of here while you can," she
told me. Then she reached over and ruffled the head of the puppy and her eyes
softened again as she did it. Then, before she could change her mind about
anything, she hopped out of the truck and closed the door.

"Fuck," I sighed as

I watched her head back into the police station. I looked down at the puppy in
my arms, laying belly up and cocking his head to the side as his big eyes fixed
on me. I pulled off my mask and gave the little guy a scritch behind the ears.
"You are going to cause me a lot of grief, aren't you?"

I let him eat a bit more,

sitting on the passenger seat of the truck, then took him out onto the torn-up
grass on the front lawn and he pee'd a little, which was a good sign.

"Melina, I'm sorry but

it looks like your boyfriend passed when his condo unit burned down," I
said.

Melina deflated a little,

tears springing to her eyes. "He... literally died in a fire?"

I pressed my lips together

and nodded, lying my ass off. "I couldn't get too much info, but Eugene
isn't a very safe place right now and fires aren't uncommon. It's possible he
was sick when it happened, which would explain not evacuating the building when
the alarms went off."

She broke down, and Abi and

Sara both held her. The two of them had come out to meet me with Melina when I
called from the gate that I was on my way in with news. I consoled her a bit
and didn't have much more information I could give her. She hugged me tightly,
squeezing hard enough to make my ribs ache a bit, and thanked me for trying.

Sara led her back to the

compound where a few of the other women were waiting and immediately surrounded
her and started loving on her. Abi stayed back with me.

"You're lying," she

said bluntly but quietly.

I swallowed and nodded.

"Worse?" she asked.

I glanced at her and then

looked away.

She hugged me, not quite as

desperately as Melina had but still firmly. "If dying in a fire is the
easy version, thank you for not hurting her more," she said.

I hugged Abi back.

"So, remember what you

said about not bringing home strays?" I asked as I walked into our little
RV compound with the puppy bundled up in my arms.

Erica laughed when she saw

what I meant, and all of the women were immediately taken with the little guy.
I had to tell them not to spoil him with snacks since his stomach was still
adjusting to food again. Ivy took charge of the little guy, parading him around
our home and talking about what sort of toys and other stuff would be needed.

"You really know how to

turn my words back on me," Erica said as she hugged me from the side.
"Where'd you get him?"

I gave her a sad smile, and

she frowned. Kyla, after a brief snuggle with the puppy, had come back over to
me as well and hugged me from my other side. "Something's wrong," she
said, looking up at me.

They took me into the RV, and

I told them about all of it. About the death, and destruction. About finding
the dead boyfriend of a scared woman, in bed with someone else. About finding a
starving puppy, and a woman who was balancing on a knife edge of holding it
together, and leaving a plagued city.

And they held me softly and

listened to it all, and cried with me at how the world seemed to be on a
downward spiral into hell.

"You know, I totally get

why, but I'm a little jealous that you're getting this and I'm not," Leo
said. Then he let out an entirely relaxed groan that bordered on inappropriate.

"Hey, I consider it a

family heirloom," I grunted back, already with my head thrown back and my
eyes closed as I enjoyed the soft breeze coming in through the trees.

Over the past day or so I'd

spent a lot of time up at the spring. Vanessa's warning had been taken to heart
and after my minorly traumatic trip down to Eugene I'd been more than happy to
take a day off and make sure my girls and I had good, solid memories of the
space tucked away.

That is to say, I fucked each

of them on the banks of the Spring and enjoyed the cooling waters with each of
them individually. Now we were running out of time and Leo and I had decided to
take Man Time for ourselves. It only felt right since, before the world turned
upside-down, it had been just us.

I reached over and grabbed

another beer from the little cooler we'd brought up with us and cracked it
open, the sweet snap and sizzle music to my ears. "So, how are things over
at your house?" I asked after taking a sip. Leo and I had been spending
less time together than in the past few years, both because I'd taken the
Sheriff's job seriously and also we were both trying hard to make sure
everything in our multiple relationships was running smoothly.

"Weird and wild,"

Leo said, grabbing his own second beer and cracking it open. "Sometimes I
don't know what to do with myself in the morning, and I miss having the barn to
work in, but all of a sudden it's dinner time and between Dani, Aria and India
I've been doing stuff all day, and then family dinner keeps us busy halfway
into the night and my head hits the pillow and I'm out like a light."

"Yeah," I chuckled.

"I feel like that a lot too." It was odd, knowing that I'd thought I
filled my days pretty well when it was just Leo and me up here. The amount of
just 'stuff' to do with our girlfriends, let alone the sexual time, was almost
mind-boggling.

"Says the man with an

extra girlfriend and who is playing cop," Leo teased me.

"Well, not today,"

I said.

"Good," Leo nodded.

"You need to take breaks, dude."

"We need to take

more breaks," I said. "Like this. It's not like I missed you or
anything, but,”

"Yeah, I get it,"

Leo chuckled.

We sat and drank in silence

for a few minutes, just enjoying the sound of the water and the trees around
us. We couldn't hear the tree-clearing crews yet, but by later in the afternoon
they would be audible and by that night they'd be close enough that the Spring
wouldn't be usable until after all the construction was finished.

"You know I love you,

right?" Leo asked me.

"Better not have a boner

over there, looking at my fresh new bod," I teased him. I'd only had five
workouts with Abi over at the Falls so it was too early to show any signs of
the effort going into them, but I still felt great... a day or so after.

"You know what I mean,

asshole."

"I do," I grinned

and stretched my arm out to offer him my fist for a bump. "I love you too,
man."

He bumped my fist and

smirked, taking another sip of his beer.

"Speaking of

which," I said. "When this whole thing started, you remember that
conversation we had about becoming brothers-in-law?"

"Yeah. And then you go

and make my sister be the one to pop the question, you dick," Leo laughed.

"Pift, you know she's

more decisive than I am about that sort of thing," I said. "Anyways,
we haven't set a date or anything for the wedding, but I wanted to make this
official too; would you be my best man?"

Leo took in a deep breath,

grinning widely, then let it out. "Sorry, I can't," he said.

That made me blink in

surprise. "What?" I asked. "Why not?"

"Erica already asked me

to be her Man-of-Honor," Leo said. "And walk her down whatever aisle
you end up with, too. So I'm spoken for, buddy."

"Are you fucking kidding

me?" I asked. "She didn't tell me she was asking you."

"First she pops the

question, then she snakes your best man," Leo snickered. "Come on,
Black. Get your shit together."

"This is

unbelievable," I groaned. "Who the fuck am I supposed to ask now? I couldn't
choose between my girls, and I'm pretty sure they'll all be bridesmaids
anyway."

"I dunno, dude,"

Leo said. "For a macho military guy, the fact that I'm your only close
male friend is a little sad."

"Hey, I've got plenty of

male friends," I said. "We just live all across the country, and some
are still in active service. And we rarely talk to each other." And, the
silent thought hung in the air, I had no idea how many of them were still alive
what with the pandemic.

"Well, I'm sure you'll

figure something out," Leo said. "Worst comes to worst, you can ask
my sister if she'll share me."

"Bastard," I

laughed, splashing him across the spring pool. That just made him laugh more.

"I hope you guys aren't

naked in here," Vanessa called from somewhere outside of the trees that
ringed the pool and the clearing around it. "Or, hell, maybe I do."

"Just mostly," I

called back, looking over my shoulder as my partner came trudging through the
woods. She was dressed in her work gear, steel toe boots and reflective vest
and all. The only thing she was missing was her hard hat on her head, which was
instead hanging from a carabiner on her belt. "Hey, Vee."

"Hey, big guy,"

Vanessa said, coming over to the spring pool and starting to kick off her
boots. "Hey, Leo."

"What's up?" I

asked. "How'd you get up here?"

"I walked my ass up

here," Vanessa said. "You two had both the ATVs."

"I would have come back

down to get you if you called," I said.

"Nah, it's fine,"

Vanessa said. Her boots were off and she peeled her socks off her feet, then
rolled up her jean legs to the knee and slipped her feet into the cold water.
"Oh, fuck that's good."

"What's up, Vee?"

Leo asked.

"A girl can't take a

hike in the woods?" Vanessa asked with a little teasing smirk. "No,
but seriously, I just needed a hot minute to myself with everything going on
and coming up here to check on the site of our house was a good enough excuse
to slip out for half an hour."

Just that was a change from

the old days. A hike up here would have usually taken an hour even if you took
the quickest path, now with all the new roads being cut the time was in half.
By the time things were finished, it might only take twenty minutes from the
highway to the spring. Hell, maybe fifteen.

"Everything good?"

I asked.

"Good as in what?"

she asked me. "Everything is on time for the new schedule. We've got
almost two hundred workers bussing in for each day and night shift, which they
mostly hate because some of them are coming from up to an hour away. The renos
to the first barracks are almost done and we'll probably start moving people
over in the next few days, but they're going to hold half the number of actual
construction workers as before. My laborers crews are going to explode with
completely untrained women who the foremen are going to need to watch like
hawks to make sure we don't have any safety issues, and I've only got so many
cleaner and cook jobs before they'll need to be doing physical labor. My ass is
dead tired, my brain is fried, and I'm not going to get an actual day off for
at least another two weeks."

"God damn," Leo

said.

I'd already asked her almost

every morning when she woke up at 5 AM to start her day if there was anything I
could do to help her out and she always said no. I felt bad, but tried not to
let it show since I knew even though she was cranky and tired and ached all
over that this was the life she'd chosen and that she actually enjoyed it. So
instead of asking her, or commenting, I just reached over and took her feet in
my hands and started washing them off lightly with my thumbs to get the sweat
and grit from her boots off of her.

"Fuck," Vanessa

groaned, closing her eyes and laying back on the ground.

"How are the house

plans?" I asked.

Vanessa snorted. "I

finally got back an email about some of my requests."

"Which one did it?"

I asked with a smirk.

"The stripper pole

stage," Vanessa chuckled.

"Not the full-sized

shooting range?" I asked.

"Nope. They know you're

the official law enforcement for the 'county' so it wasn't even
questioned," Vanessa said. "And Leo, they approved the woodworking
shop outbuilding for you. I'll get you the plans when they are done so you can
check them over and ask for changes."

"Awesome," Leo

grinned. "And I can tell you one thing right now for sure; more electrical
outlets."

Vanessa smirked and nodded.

"We'll get you covered."

"Did you know Erica

asked Leo to be her man-of-honor?" I asked Vanessa.

"Hah! I knew she was

going to, not that she did," Vanessa laughed. "She beat you to it,
didn't she?"

"Yes," I grumbled.

"Just ask Dani,"

Vanessa said. "Or Miriam."

That made me purse my lips

into a thoughtful frown. I had assumed Erica would have Dani as a bridesmaid
along with Kyla, Vanessa and Ivy, but if I got to her first I could get one
back over on my fiancée.

"You two want me to give

you some time alone up here?" Leo asked.

"Nin-yeah-no,"

Vanessa wavered back and forth. "I can't. I need to get back."

"Don't move too

fast," I teased her, considering she hadn't moved from her lying-back
position. I tickled the bottom of her foot lightly and she just shifted a
little.

"Five more

minutes," Vanessa groaned.

Leo and I just laughed.

The buzzing of Erica's tattoo

machine had been a steady drone since we had gotten back from the spring pool.
Vanessa had ended up riding on the back of my ATV instead of hiking back down
herself, and I'd gotten a chance to give her a proper kiss in the shadow of the
storage container where we parked. As we'd kissed she'd groaned and her hands
had travelled a little, rubbing my torso, and I could tell she wanted more but
was holding herself back. I decided I would stay up late that night so that I
could get some alone time with her.

As I entered the compound,

sweeping through the door of sheets that gave us our privacy, I found Erica was
set up in the shade next to our RV and was currently tattooing India's
shoulder. The tanned woman was topless and face down on the folding table as my
fiancée sat next to her on a stool.

To be frank, the whole

'outdoor tattooing' setup wasn't the most sterilized set-up, but Erica was
doing what she could and as long as we weren't getting a breeze blowing dust or
grit through it seemed to be doing fine. It didn't help that Macho, the
dachshund I'd rescued, was tied up in the shade and barked happily from under
the table to see that I'd come back, his little tail whipping wildly.

While Erica was tending to

India, I saw Dani already heading into the other RV with Leo while Ivy, Aria
and Kyla were all laying out in the deck chairs taking in the sun that was
peeking out from the soft cloud cover overhead. It wasn't nearly as hot out as
the late spring had been but still pleasantly warm and it had been a few weeks
since the girls had a reason to break out their bikinis.

"Hey, Harri?" Aria

asked me as I went over to the little covered wooden board that Leo had rigged
for us to hang our keys on. "You got time for that design now?"

"Oh, sure. Let me go get

my stuff," I said. I passed by Erica on my way to our RV and she stopped
her needlework on India just long enough to give me a little peck on the lips.
She was still doing the linework on India's shoulder, some sort of a tropical
flower piece. I went to one knee to give Macho a good head rubbing too, and
that turned into a quick belly rub as well; the girls had given him the name
due to the big fuzzy balls that wagged between his short little legs and seemed
almost oversized for the little guy. Inside the RV I quickly changed into a
fresh pair of shorts and shirt after wiping the dust off of me from the ATV
ride back down the hills, then grabbed my sketchbook and some pencils.

"Alright, what were you

thinking, Aria?" I asked as I went to the sunbathing women. I leaned down
and kissed Kyla, who smiled softly and reached up to run her hand under the
bottom hem of my shirt and stroke her fingers across my stomach briefly.

"So, I was thinking of

doing a matching design," Aria said as I went around her to Ivy, leaning
down to kiss my other girlfriend. Ivy, unlike Kyla, wasn't happy with a brief
and firm peck and she wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a deeper kiss
as she fed me her tongue.

"Umm!" I grunted

against Ivy's lips, holding a finger out to Aria asking her to wait a moment.

"Ivy, he was in the

middle of a conversation," Kyla chuckled.

Ivy finished her kiss with

me, letting go of me and falling back slightly into her chair with a big
shit-eating grin. "Love you, mon amour," she said.

"Je t'aime aussi

chéri," I said, my French 'lessons' still pretty much limited to
telling Ivy that I loved her, and different little things I could call her. It
still worked as she beamed at me and pursed her lips again in an air kiss.
"Okay. Sorry, Aria. A matching design?"

"It's fine," Aria

smiled. "Yeah, matching. I've had this idea for a while of doing a nature
landscape on my left leg and a city landscape on my right leg. They would go
around my lower legs, and if possible I thought it would be cool if they formed
a loop since it'll be a mini leg sleeve."

"Oh, that is cool,"

I said, opening up my sketchbook to an empty page and tearing it out. "How
big were you thinking? I'm not huge on tattoo design, but I could probably do
it tight like a band, or all the way out to just under your knee down to just
over your ankle."

"I know, Erica said

tattooing wasn't your thing," Aria said. "That's Okay. I was thinking
a couple inches below my knee and above my ankle, so you have most of the lower
leg to work with but it doesn't need to be solid or anything."

"Neat. Okay, so if I've

learned anything at all from Erica about tattoo design it's that fitting the
curve and shape of the location on the body is really important. I'm thinking
that we can wrap the paper around your shin and calf and I can mark the curves.
Sound good?"

"Nice thinking,

babe," Erica called over from her work on India. "Glad to know I'm
rubbing off on you."

"Wait, did you sayon

orto?" Kyla called over teasingly.

"And with!"

Erica laughed.

I slipped off of my chair,

shaking my head at the banter, and knelt in front of Aria. She sat forward on
the chair to give me room to work, and soon I had the paper around her leg and
was tracing the curves of her calf.

"Harrison," Ivy

said to me. "Do me une petite faveur and look up, mon amour?"

I glanced over at her with a

questioning look, then glanced up at Aria; right into her cleavage. Now, Aria
had very nice, big tits; just about the same size as Erica's and full and
natural, so it wasn't anything I hadn't seen before. She also took after her
girlfriend and often went braless when she was wearing a T-shirt or tank top,
so seeing them bouncing and jiggling as she moved around wasn't even that weird
now.

Being six inches from her

pale, bikini-clad cleavage was new, though.

"Oh my God, he went so

red," Kyla started laughing behind her hand.

"You Okay there,

Harri?" Aria grinned at me. I immediately ducked my head down and went
back to trying to outline the curves of her calf. The fact that my hands had
been touching her bare skin when I glanced directly into her cleavage had just made
the whole thing that much more weird and intimate.

"Yep, totally

fine," I said.

"For a guy with four

girlfriends, you definitely don't seem Okay," Kyla teased me.
"They're just boobs."

"Not the same thing,

dear," I said.

"What about showering at

the Falls?" she asked. "You never go that red there seeing Josie or
Abi completely naked."

"Still not the same

thing," I said.

"Oh, leave him

alone," Aria said. "He's being sweet. And doing me a
favor."

I stood up, generally happy

with the marking of the curves of Aria's calf, and I set down my sheet and
pencil on my chair before stepping over to Kyla. "Come here," I said,
picking her up out of the chair bodily. She naturally looped her arms around
the back of my neck and her legs around my waist as I held her by her butt.
"Would you rather I stared into Aria's cleavage and got hypnotized by the
boobs?"

"No," she said with

a little smirk and an eye roll.

"Would you rather I have

lost control and motor-boated her?" I asked, lifting Kyla up and pressing
my face between her own bikini-clad tits and making the sound.

She laughed, shaking her head

and running her fingers through my hair before pushing my head back from her.
"No, dear. I wouldn't want that."

"Then stop teasing me

about being tricked into doing something rude," I said and gave her butt a
little swat.

She sighed and nodded, then

kissed me. "I'm sorry, dear. You're right."

I set Kyla back down on her

feet and turned to Ivy. "And you," I said, shaking my finger at her.
"Don't think I magically forgot you're the one who tricked me to begin
with."

Ivy was just grinning, curled

up on her deck chair and chewing on the inside of her lip. "I am not
sorry," she said. "Aria has great tits."

"Awe, thanks I’ve,"

Aria laughed.

I just shook my head and let

out an exasperated sigh. "Troublemaker!"

Ivy scrunched up her face in

a pleased little teasing expression and stuck out her tongue.

"Alright," I said,

turning back to Aria. "Let's talk landscapes."

To be continued, Based on

a post by Break The Bar for Literotica

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