The day after: An apocalyptic morning (146 page)

              For more than an hour they pleasured each other, making love in every possible combination. When Paula and Christine were done ganging up on Maggie, Maggie and Paula ganged up on Christine and then Christine and Maggie did the same to Paula. Every few minutes someone would scream out in orgasm, usually as a result of a mouth on their clitoris while another mouth kissed them or sucked on their nipples. By the time they finally collapsed into a naked, sweaty heap on the floor, exhausted, the room was as hot as a sauna and almost as humid.

              "I'm a lesbian," Maggie said as they cooled off. She was between the two other women, their legs intertwined with hers. "I guess I should just admit it. I'm a fucking lesbian."

              Christine giggled a little, rubbing her thigh against Maggie's.

              "You're not a lesbian," Paula told her lightly, planting a wet kiss on her cheek. "You're just a sexual creature, like we are."

              "But I liked what we did," she protested, shaking her head a little. "Don't you understand? I liked it!"

              "I would hope so," Christine said. "I gave you my best work."

              "Me too," Paula told her. "I think I'd be kicking your ass about now if you told me you didn't like it."

              Maggie was confused, much the same way that Christine had been confused the first time such a thing had happened to her. "But... but..."

              "No buts," Paula said, slapping hers a little. "We just had a little fun between the girls. It's nothing to trip about. It was nice. It was really nice. I like those bolt-on titties of yours, Mags. Very springy."

              "I'm going insane," Maggie said, near tears now. "I'm questioning my sexuality and you're telling me that what we did is normal?"

              "Normal for this reality we find ourselves in," Paula said. "Maggie, we're in a town where not only are there four times as many women as men, but where we all just survived a global catastrophe and where we're all facing a potential town catastrophe. Sometimes pleasures like sex are all we have to keep away the madness we're facing. Don't you understand that?"

              Maggie looked at her, wanting to find comfort in what she was saying but having difficulty.

              "We're just having fun together," Christine said, putting it into simpler terms. "There's so little fun in this world, you just have to catch it when you can. So what if the old world would've thought we were sick for what we just did? The old world is dead. If you enjoy something - smoking pot, drinking, having sex with a woman - why not do it? What's the harm?"

              Maggie knew there had to be some harm in there somewhere. Her religious upbringing had assured her of that. But she just couldn't say what that harm might be.

              "Listen," Paula said, toying with Maggie's nipple and making it erect. "Do you still think you'd like to have a nice hard dick in that pussy?"

              "What?" Maggie said, shocked.

              "Do you still want to get fucked by a man?" Christine re-phrased. "Is that still what you want sexually?"

              "Well..." she considered, imagining a nice, firm cock sliding into her. Yes, that is what she wanted. "Yes," she finally said.

              "So you're not a lesbian," Paula said simply. "You're just a sexual creature. So stop feeling guilty about making love to us. We don't feel guilty."

              "Well..." she said, starting to feel convinced a little.

              "And I think that maybe Skip would be happy to provide that nice hard dick for you," Christine said. "Don't you, Shellie?"

              "I don't think he'd protest too much," Paula agreed.

              She whipped her head back and forth, looking at each of them. "What are you saying?" she finally asked.

              "Well," Paula said, "if Skip's agreeable, maybe you'd like to join in our marriage. What do you think?"

              At almost the same moment, in the gymnasium of the high school in Auburn, a party of sorts was going on. The lights blazed brightly, using almost all of the generator's output but illuminating the large room in wonderful, pre-comet brilliance. The heater cranked away as well, burning many gallons of precious propane but raising the temperature inside to a balmy 72 degrees. Trays of food constructed out of the supply room staples by the kitchen staff sat on a large cafeteria table near the front of the room while bottles of liquor and mixers and buckets of ice sat on a similar table next to it. The table with the liquor was by far the more popular of the two.

              Upwards of two hundred women were in the room, most of them drunk, a few of them actually passed out. Most were sitting on the bleacher seats that had been folded down from the southern wall of the room, watching the "entertainment" that their glorious leader had organized for them. For the most part the women in the room were those closest to Jessica, those that were her inner and outer circles of gossip.

              Madeline had been invited to the party of course. She, as the military leader of the town, was most definitely inside of Jessica's inner circle. She had politely declined the invitation however, citing her ongoing training of the guard details and the security apparatus as an excuse. In reality, she simply thought such a party was a horrible waste of their supplies and the proposed entertainment was nothing short of barbaric. But when three of her nightshift guards failed to show up for their 11:00 PM crew change at the bunkers, she was forced to make an appearance.

              The hoots and cries of intoxicated females echoed throughout the room as she opened the door and entered it. Many of them were shouting: "Cin-dee, Cin-dee, Cin-dee!" over and over again in delightful glee in response to the current "participant" in the games: Cindy Miles. Madeline tried not to watch what was going on in the middle of the auditorium - which was the stage area - but her eyes were automatically drawn to it the way they once were to traffic collisions along the freeway. You didn't want to look but somehow you had to.

              "Oh Jesus," she said, shaking her head in shocked disgust. To hear about what Jessica had planned was one thing. To actually see it taking place... that was quite another.

              A wrestling mat had been placed in the exact center of the gymnasium, right in the circle where the tip-off was performed during basketball games. On his hands and knees on this mat, completely naked, his hands clenched tightly into fists, was Ron Schuyler. His face was currently buried in Tiffany Jenkins' crotch. Tiffany was naked from the waist down and seemed to be semi-enjoying the licking that he was giving her (or perhaps it was the attention of the crowd she enjoyed). But the real focus of the show was Cindy Miles, who was kneeling behind Schuyler. She too was naked except for a large strap-on dildo connected around her waist. The dildo was enormous, probably meant more as a gag-gift than as a practical penile substitute for lesbians, but apparently no one had told Cindy that it was for display purposes only. She was ramming it brutally in and out of Schuyler's anus, using exaggerated pelvic-thrust motions that seemed an obscene parody of the male thrust. Even from sixty feet away Madeline could see that the huge instrument had split him along the perineum. Droplets of blood pattered slowly but steadily to the blue mat, where a puddle had been formed.

              Madeline tore her eyes away at last, knowing that Schuyler would quite possibly die from the injuries that were being inflicted upon him. Tearing the rectum and the tissue around it could easily lead to infection, particularly if the wound was not repaired. And there was no way in hell that Jessica - who had put herself in charge of supply allotment - was ever going to kick loose any of their antibiotics for a man.

              She tried to put these thoughts out of her mind. What point was there in thinking about it right now? She had neither the power nor the support to put a stop to it. Stung by the way they had been treated by the men of Auburn, most of the women were enthusiastically in favor of a little payback, most of them pretending to not realize that there were turning out just the same as their former masters. And we're supposed to be the fair sex? Madeline sometimes wondered.

              She walked along the far wall of the gym towards the bleachers, her eyes looking for her missing guards. She knew they were here of course, most of the guards had been invited since most of them had been in Jessica's little takeover plot from the beginning. She found the first of them - Rhonda Marx - after less than a minute. Rhonda was sitting in the same row as Jessica herself, right up front and center of the action. She headed over.

              "Hi, Maddie," Jessica said as she saw her approach. "Decide to join us after all?" Jessica's eyes had a slightly glassy sheen to them. She was drunk and had been spending much of her time that way since the revolution that had put her into power. She started off with three or four bloody Marys in the morning and graduated to rum and cokes by afternoon. Madeline often wondered what she was going to do when the liquor supply finally ran out.

              "No," Maddie said, looking at her leader for a moment. "I came for Rhonda here. Her and some of the other girls seem to have forgotten to show up for their shifts tonight."

              "Oops," Rhonda giggled, the odor of whiskey wafting off her in a wave. "Am I bad?"

              "You're drunk," Madeline said, shifting her gaze and glaring at her. "I told you not to drink before your shift."

              "I just had a few," Rhonda said with another giggle and a playful slap that landed hard enough to cause pain.

              "Son of a bitch," Madeline muttered. She increased the power of the glare a little. "Get your ass home right now and sleep this off. You're pulling a double shift tomorrow for this crap."

              "Maddie!" Rhonda protested. "I didn't..."

              "No you didn't," Madeline said. "And now Karen is going to have to work a double shift tonight because you couldn't keep your hands off the booze. In fact, I think two nights of double shifts oughtta be your punishment. Karen certainly deserves a night off for something like this, doesn't she?"

              Before Rhonda could answer, a hand touched Madeline's arm. It was Jessica's.

              "Don't you think you're being a bit harsh on her?" she asked, favoring Rhonda with a conspiratorial look.

              "Harsh?" Madeline asked, fighting to maintain a proper tone. "For getting drunk and skipping guard duty? I think not."

              "Well I do," Jessica said, taking a sip out of her latest drink. "My God, you act just like Skip sometimes. Lighten up a little." She turned to Rhonda. "Rhonda, you pull a double shift tomorrow for Karen, okay? In the meantime, since you're already unable to go out there, just relax, have another drink, and enjoy the show."

              "Thanks, Jess," Rhonda said happily, giving a vindicated glance at Madeline.

              Madeline was shocked at this public mockery of her authority. "Excuse me, Jessica," she said, still fighting to keep her tongue civil, "but the guards and their schedules are my responsibility. I believe that disciplining them is my responsibility as well."

              "This entire town is my responsibility," Jessica said firmly, her eyes daring Madeline to contradict her. "And you'll do well to remember that, little missy. I think you're being too hard on poor Rhonda here and I'm vetoing your decision, as is my right as leader of this town. Do you understand?"

              "Jessica," Madeline said reasonably. "I don't think you understand..."

              "I understand everything," she said arrogantly. "But what I asked is if you understand? Do you?"

              Madeline sighed. "I understand."

              "Good," Jessica told her. "Now leave poor Rhonda alone and don't go chasing down any of the other girls that are here either. Just cover their shifts and have them all work doubles tomorrow. It's fair for everyone. Stay and watch the show if you want, but otherwise, leave everyone alone."

              Madeline bit back a number of angry replies. It took some work. Finally she just said: "As you wish" and left the room.

              "What's the count?" Stu asked Colby first thing in the morning, after the customary roll call.

              "182," Colby said. "Four killed in the raids last night and two desertions."

              Stu nodded as if he'd expected that. "That's enough," he said. "Again, as long as we stick to the single thrust from the north."

              With no one to counter this notion, Colby quickly agreed to it. "Let's start briefing the squad leaders," he told Stu. "We'll move out in thirty minutes."

              At 8:00 that morning Skip and Jack were up in the helicopter, hovering 2000 feet above the west side of town. Skip was reasonably well rested as far as current standards went. They had flown three night attacks in the previous twelve hours and he had gotten a little more than five hours of broken sleep. Jack had a little less sleep under his belt - he had spent a few hours experiencing the finer things in life - but he was younger and able to utilize it better.

              "There they go," Skip said, holding his hover while his eyes watched the tiny figures of men marching through the trees far below.