

### The Grand Adventure

### A Novel

### James Peters

Copyright ©2015 by James Peters

Smashwords Edition  
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Chapter 1

In the middle of nowhere we cleared stones cactus and scattered brush to create a graded stretch of level land smooth enough for a mass grave. The borders of the burial mound formed an irregular rectangle encompassing row upon row of oblong pits roughly symmetrical. We planted the children's bodies in opposition to Powersby himself who judged their lives not worth nurturing. Together Hater and I dug holes amounting to no more than a few spadesfuls of earth. The Sisters Sans Merci swaddled the dead infants in clean white cloth and carrying them from the orphanage to the field fast becoming a cemetery laid each bundle with exact gentleness into a nameless plot.

Out of respect we leaned on our shovels until the nuns with heads bowed finished mumbling their say. As they returned to the main building Nadezhda placed at the head of each burial mound a smooth stone scavenged from the Deadland. The nuns had clapped a straw hat on her head to protect such delicate features from the depredations of the scalding sun. Clever as ever she discovered a way to do her part by finding headstones for commemorating the termination of so many innocent lives.

Drifting between us like a departed spirit herself Rachael Cozy followed the nuns or in other odd moments joined Nadezhda in searching for suitable glowstones or she took a seat in the weary shade of the church building for an exhausted moment's repose. I witnessed her dark reveries as though she was drawn into some black hole from which no emotion might escape.

Since I first told her the truth that day concerning the death of her child and Hater carried her limp body to the ramshackle rented room and laid her down on the mattress on the floor her shining soul contracted until the light from her eyes dimmed and she ceased to be Rachael Cozy. Gamely I tried to arouse an interest in her for the tribulations of this world. Lamely I exhorted her to join us on a grand new adventure sure to lead somewhere, who knew where.

"No. Oh no," she thanked me, shaking her forlorn locks. The more time she spent among the Sisters the greater she resembled them both in their habit and demeanor. The cruelty of the world lodged in her spirit and toward the end of our days together I realized how much these poison experiences, the blows delivered against a defenseless woman by the Powers That Be, critically wounded her and ended yet another epoch in her life. She was no longer a girl because you could read her sad history in the creases where time runnels cracked the corners of her sorrow filled eyes.

We finished the infant burials within the space of a single week. On the final day of toiling the rotating earth obscured the sun. The gathering gloom starkened into darkness. We stood with our feet firmly planted on the body in motion while the stars appeared to swirl in the ink black sky relative to where we huddled together motionless and still. In the pitch-black night our eyes dilated revealing in the enveloping shadows the stones Nadezhda had arranged emitting their spectral glow.

Standing behind Nasty I wrapped my arms around her and nuzzled her neck in appreciation of her sensitive and creative homage to the poor and innocent dead. Even scientific Mr. Hater wiped away a boyish tear.

We retired to separate beds the nuns prepared for us and waited discreet moments listening to the sound of their footfalls fade before Nadezhda crawled in with me and by rubbing in muffled joy we washed away our silent grief. Afterwards lying in my arms Nadezhda squirmed about until she ended up facing me.

"Now time is. We go. I no in dis place stay. Dry up and blow-da-way, ole tumbleweed. We no belong here, Sasha my savage. Tomorrow. Early. Our tings we pack. Say bye-bye. See you later. And we go."

"Where exactly do you expect us to go?"

"I don care where. Not here. Anywhere another place is. I not ready to die. I no wanna go bad person. But I need life. And you need life. Here no life is. Only dead. You did-did good ting for old friend. I'm wait around for dat. Now over is. You no love her. You love me. So now we go to get her. Where at, I don care. Away from dis place, someplace else. Any someplace else."

I questioned the lump in the bed next to us: "What do you have to say about the matter, Mr. H.?"

Without shifting his bulk, the lump replied, "I think Nadezhda makes a good point. We can't do anything more for Rachael, and we can't take her with us."

"If we leave her with the Sisters of Sans Merci they'll turn her into a zombie."

"The Powers That Be reduced her to a vegetable state, Nika, not you. The Nuns will make sure she's fed and clothed. She's in good hands. Face it, girl. There's no future for us here."

At Hater's slang and accurate appraisal, I blubbered blobby tears, the last I would ever shed for the one and only Rachel Cozy.

Hater rolled out of bed and trotted over in his boxers accentuating that six-block and he snuck into bed to lie between the sheets among us girls. He and Nadezhda comforted me and so I stopped crying.

"Maybe we could cross the border and go hang out with black people." We had come so far and were in fact very close to the border.

"Those boys aren't always happy to see white people, considering the way they were deported en masse."

"I think you're not supposed to call them boys. There's history there, and it isn't polite. It's not nice to say black boys."

Nadezhda emerged from a reverie and spoke with a dreamy vision in her voice:

"Black boys are delicious."

Hater looked at me in expectation of my reply.

"The exception tests the rule." I looked away for a moment to clear my own thoughts before resuming. "I know you guys are right. We have to go. I can't stay in this place, either. We'll leave first thing in the morning." I tried to sit up but for some dumb reason they both pulled me down and that silly maneuver started us laughing. "It just makes me mad," I said, growing serious again. "How they can hurt a fellow human being like that and get away with it."

Hater said, "So do something about it."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Think about it. You'll come up with something. You always do."

We puffed our cheeks and scratched our heads displaying the outward manifestations of logic and reasoning; in reality our posturing was a bluff. Then Nadezhda spoke, in a meek tone.

"You say, one time, we three of us to get her make baby."

"Not here, though," I clarified.

"Oh no, not here," Nastya agreed.

Ever the pragmatist Hater declared, "We need to find a pure water source first."

"We can't very well roam the Deadland looking for some mythical well," I said.

"We'll have to secure one by other means."

"Armed insurrection?"

"Coup de ta."

"Revolution!" Nadezhda squealed. Hater and I clapped our hands over her mouth and we suppressed our bubbling laughter like virgin novitiates in some lubricious dormitory.

"It could work," I said.

"What's to stop us?" Hater wanted to know. "How much longer does the planet have to live anyway?"

"The supreme act before we die."

We made a vow so heroic we grinned like fools and held our breath against sniggering laughter and without any further expressions of idealism my friends returned to their separate beds and we slept until our wobbly planet swung head-on into the beam of the blazing yellow sun and thus Rosey-palmed dawn and her five lascivious sisters arose.

Chapter 2

We ate our morning ration followed by implicit cooperation in packing and preparing ourselves for leaving the orphanage and once again venturing into the bleak unknown. Considering our basic plan involved capturing the Ramparts of Empire I figured any way we headed would be a step in the right direction. We emerged into the cool dawn and while the other two waited in the desert air I snuck into the sacristy and peeked in on Rachael. She was sitting alone on one of the front benches where it looked to me as though she was silently imploring the crucified figure, for what, exactly, I'll never know. Support, surcease of sorrow, forgiveness for sins both real and imagined, a desperate plea to stop the pain because she had suffered as many shocks as her poor mortal soul could possibly withstand.

Before intruding on a private moment I pondered whether or not to simply leave her be and quietly depart without saying goodbye. A second of reflection convinced me such a course of action would be cruel or at the very least not in keeping with the spirit of friendship; plus, she had suffered enough losses to occupy her for the rest of her life without my silent desertion. She didn't need me rollicking through her head as well. I'd travelled far and endured too many hardships not to say a proper goodbye. I scuffled up behind her so she could hear me coming and placed my hand on her shoulder.

Peering upward, she said, "Thanks for coming", as though I'd just dropped by for a chat in her bedroom back at The Club Abattoir. "I wouldn't have made it without you."

"You're going to be okay?" The things we say, I swear.

The question turned out to be more than she wished to consider. The query too rough. Her emotions too raw. I bent down to kiss her cheek and then I walked away leaving her to commune with her favorite mannequin wearing his tiara of sagebrush while strapped to an electric power pole. By stepping outside, I rejoined the ruined world and my friends also I rejoined.

"This situation is too wretched for me to cope," I said, shaking my head as though to clear my mind of the sadness written within.

Without knowing the specific radiation content in the air that day we donned our protective eyewear, took a slug of reclaimed water, and turned our faces to the warm wind blowing across the Deadland. One foot after another and we wheeled off church property in no time, or as they say, in the time we had at our disposal.

We hadn't traversed the straightaway very long before we heard in the distance the whump whump whump of the whirly blades treading air and saw the deadly drooping thorax body pendulous underneath. That the world had run out of fossil fuels could not be entirely true. Powersby must have horded enough for his own purposes because anytime he wanted to travel from point O to point X he found plenty of energy to take him there. Exactly how much he held in reserve nobody knew for sure. They had cut the supply to the general public generations ago. At the time solar energy had posed such a credible threat to the power structure they issued orders to their Senatorial sock puppets to pass legislation making it illegal. Long after the dirty black goo ran dry those laws remained on the books and the ancient animosity passed down from one generation to the next and so we lived in perpetual darkness as slaves to an anachronism.

Yet Powersby somehow found enough gasoline to power his favorite toys from time to time. This desert bird stalked the same path we were traveling and the most we could do was await its overpass. If you stopped, they might open fire. If you suddenly ran, they were certain to open fire. We lapsed into single file without having to say a word. Me first, Hater last, and Nadezhda tucked in the middle for safekeeping.

The chopper passed us on the left. Craning my neck, I tried to make eye contact. Along the bay door various troopers reposed with their legs lodged securely against the landing carriage support struts or dangling freely into space. They each cradled their own weapon except for the trooper with the skull and crossbones stenciled onto his oversized helmet. With both hands he gripped the handles of a T44 Liquidator, so called because a blast of its beam boiled the human body down into a pile of hot steamy goo.

To my great relief the desert bird passed us by and only then I realized my airflow had stopped, not exactly a full-blown panic attack but I had to struggle to regain normal breathing. Sand kicked up from the rotor blades found its way into my mouth as fine particles of grit scraping between my molars. I spit and took a slug from my water canister, swished my mouth, and spit. Then I remonstrated with myself for having wasted a swallow's worth of liquid. Having gained the lead on us the dirty bird turned sideways across our path and hovered in midair for a moment and gaining its precarious balance slowly settled onto the road directly in our path. Amid the blow blast of sand the chopper kicked around I noticed the crew had stenciled on the nose of their warship Carrion Comfort.

A formidable looking sergeant in full black battle armor hopped down from the bay door to the ground and advancing a few steps towards us he cradled his Stingray locked and loaded with his finger running aslant the trigger while keeping the muzzle pointed at the ground. He waved at us in that stiff military forearm manner indicting 'move forward this way'. I don't know why, a gesture of good faith, I suppose, I raised my hands into a posture of surrender and stepped lightly towards this beckoning daemon. The Sargent patted the air directly in front of him to indicate I needed to lower my hands so the copter blades wouldn't slice them clean off at the wrist. The closer we approached the louder their elliptical gyrations clipped the air and we had to lean through the gust until we penetrated to the eye of the storm.

The Sargent had the vocalizer on his battle mask turned up really loud. When he spoke it sounded like he was shouting through a megaphone. We could certainly hear him above the whine and wubba wubba wubba of the whirligig.

"The insurgents are massing in this area. It isn't safe for you to be traveling on this road. We're on recon, but we also have evacuation of civilians as a part of our COMSAC directive. For worthy citizens, that is. You look worthy. Are you?"

"Oh absolutely!" I cried, bobbing up and down on the balls of my feet. The trooper reached out and placed a suppressing hand on my shoulder. He again pointed to the rotating blades.

"Better not to jump up and down underneath the blades," the Sargent bellowed, before reverting to the subject at hand. "I thought you were good people, I could tell just by looking at you, and plus, you didn't run."

He looked Nadezhda up and down and under the glare of his appraisal she curtsied. Metallic laughter crackled through the battle masks of the troopers loaded on board. Imagine if buzzards had the power of expressing mirth electronically. He then turned his attention on Hater who in the moment had turned quite pale.

"You're an engineer," the Sargent declared as though assigning him a new identity from now on.

"Yessargent," Hater replied.

"What are you doing out here?"

"Field work. Relief mission to Sisters of Misery. To restore their power. Their coal burning unit had malfunctioned."

The battlemask betrayed no response to this information. My intuition told me the trooper had no idea what Hater was talking about. Neither did Hater until the second before he spoke.

"We can use you," The Sargent finally responded. "Nothing like good clean coal."

"I'm at your disposal, of course," Hater said. "I'll help anyway I can, but you know, there's really no such thing as clean coal."

That same cackling erupted from the ship's crew.

"Right, good one. Climb aboard people. We need to remove ourselves from this sector, roger dodger."

Obediently we did as ordered and clambered aboard the helicopter. Four benches, the one in the back facing forward, two in the middle back to back facing in either direction, and the one in the forward area near the cockpit facing rearwards created two compartments and we were directed into the rear area by helping hands outstretched. Our bid to conquer the world was not even two hours old and already we had been waylaid and taken into custody ostensibly for our own protection. In the forward area crouched the boots as yet not on the ground. Out of politeness or to ease the process of chatting us up they unhooked their battle masks and pulled that protective gear aside. In our section of the carriage we were elbow to elbow with a very young looking lieutenant whose recent assertiveness training course led him into a delusion concerning Nadezhda as though he might actually have a sexual chance with her.

The Sargent wore a saucy expression on his sunburned face. Two provocative and merry blue eyes drew my attention away from his stern jowls. The civilian in the squad, a political officer by the looks of him, leather proletarian cap and thick-lensed spectacles, had been running his gaze over us as well, but more in a professional manner, in particular analyzing our clothing.

The whirlybird whined into high gear lunging us upward and forward in one queasy surge. In reaction to the G-Force my vital organs compressed like a sack of offal. For a moment the air pressed out of my lungs. Once the copter achieved cruising altitude the Sargent yelled out conversation loud enough to be heard over the whirring blades and the whooshing wind:

"What are two pretty young things like you doing wandering around in the Deadland?"

In response to the compliment Nadezhda smiled with the simplicity of heart typical of her naïve and gentle nature. I found his arrogance and condescension off putting personally and yet I smiled by way of response. Hater was our companion, after all. He might have been my boyfriend as far as the trooper knew. Hater remained composed sitting next to me. He kept watch on the trooper since the trooper was busy reckless eyeballing Nadezhda and me. I knew he was analyzing details. With one hand stuffed into his bomber jacket and fondling a Taser, Hater studied the weak points and pressure points on the war monger's body. Like a lot of nerds, he was dying to put theory into practice.

"We were returning from a mission of mercy," I yelled, just making myself audible above the din.

The Sargent was on the verge of making what I'm sure would have been another witty observation when the Political Officer blocked him.

"I couldn't help but notice your clothing. I'm wondering how it is you come to be wearing state issued trooper gear. Your trousers, your boots: where'd you get them?"

The flirtatious atmosphere suffered a buzz kill as every soldier present narrowed his eyes and regarded our footwear.

"We bought them in a bizarre outside the city," I yelled above the rushing wind.

"Selling trooper gear is strictly prohibited by law," the Commissar murmured, and yet I could hear him clearly.

"If you want, I'll go with you to point out the guy who sold them to us," I said, entering upon a dangerous fiction in the process.

The Political Officer didn't flinch. He said, "Not much chance of going near the city on a goose chase like that. The place has fallen into lawlessness."

"But we have the Sargent to protect us."

The Political Officer retracted his head down between the upturned lapels of his leather coat.

"An dis nice man here," Nadezhda said, taking charge of the lieutenant by patting his arm. The young leader's face turned positively sanguine.

"It's illegal to buy state issue," the Politico said, persisting in his killjoy routine.

"You should arrest that evil gypsy for seducing two innocent young virgins into a life of crime," I said, kicking heel to toe in the style of the old soft shoe, from a sitting position. Oh yeah, and when I said the word 'virgin' a tick twitched the skin on the Politico's cheek just below the right eye. Nadezhda recognized the steps of the old soft shoe and joined me in attracting the attention of the troopers in the forward compartment who scrambled and crowded facing backward on the bench to enjoy the show. Our diversionary tactic worked its magic on everyone but Killjoy Was Here.

"How do I know you didn't strip them off the body of a dead trooper?"

"What the helleryou talkinabout? They're just kids," the Sargent snapped. He'd been annoyed since the Political Awful Sir first interrupted him. Now a tension developed between the two of them. I would have been satisfied with encouraging the Sargent as my champion and watching him blow the brains out of the nasty little man wearing a leather jacket and representing Powersby although I'm sure he would have been considerably less gallant after a pint of whiskey, my champion. This squabbling became moot and my secret machinations to set these two at each other's throats halted in the next violent moment.

Chapter 3

Later Hater explained to me what hit us was called an RPG, in his opinion not a sophisticated piece of ordinance and hence a very lucky shot. It didn't matter how many times I told him the story. Neither Hater nor Nadezhda would believe me. Nadezhda never sided with me anyway; she always believed Hater, no matter what he said, when I claimed to have seen the projectile ricochet a spark off the roof and land behind the eight troopers who were on their knees backwards over their seats watching Nadezhda and me goofing with our feet. They died with smiles on their faces. Their meat splattered in every direction. Then the chopper listed to one side and their various body parts slid out the open cargo door and spiraled toward the sand. Eight guys sliced into four or five parts each. That's quite a payload splattering to Earth and pattering the sand like vomit.

Once they dearly-departed I could see into the cockpit where both pilots slumped dead in their seats. Across from me the Sergeant tightened his safety belt. On our bench Hater did the same for Nadezhda and me, cinching us both so tightly we gasped in turn. I put my arms around her and kissed her full on the mouth. At that point who cared? We were going down. Hater and I both hugged. I noticed the Political Officer experiencing his own existential moment dangling sideways out the cargo bay door. He had not tightened his belt properly and he had slid sideways dangling out the door over the roving landscape rapidly approaching impact.

The sergeant laughed baring his teeth and bracing himself by planting his clod hoppers squarely on the floor and folding his arms tightly across his chest as though there was nowhere else he'd rather be than riding in a troop carrier crashing onto hardpan. We bowed our heads between our knees as the copter careened onto the desert floor and skidded across the sandy terrain.

Whippo-whang whoppa-wee! The overhead blades snapped off and flew away with decapitating intensity. A suffocating spume of sand and dirt curled into the cabin area like a scoop of deadly mocha ice cream entering our cabin area and threatening to fill it to the brim and bury us all. We struggled to breath in the thick and gloomy dust as metal screeched to a halt. The Sargent's closed fist smashed his seatbelt buckle and it collapsed into pieces releasing him from his seat before either Nadezhda or Hater could pry their eyes open and then suddenly the Sargent loomed in midair and pulled Hater up to the bay door opening skyward. While I clawed away at the desert sand burying me up to my waist he motioned for Nadezhda, whom he hauled up next. She squawked and I stretched my arms up and shoved her towards the two men who stood above grabbing her arms. Only then did I realize the young lieutenant who only a moment before had been sweet on Nadezhda lay lifeless and buried alive next to me. Hater disappeared ostensibly to aid Nadezhda in sliding off the carriage to the ground below as Sargent Rock climbed down into the wreckage again and unbuckled my belt. I was having trouble uncoupling and I slid sideways which is to say downwards and then we both grabbed ahold of the Political Officers ankles and feet and yanked his body skyward essentially unearthing him. The Sargent must have tripped the lieutenant's safety buckle. He slung the body over his shoulder and climbed skywards with the dude dangling lifeless. I followed, copying his use of toeholds and hand holds. In fact I followed under my own power all the way to terra firma. Sure enough Hater was attending to Nadezhda by washing her dirty face with bottled water. Poor thing. Her eyes glowed bloodshot red and her hair stood out in clumps gnarly with dirt and twigs. I shouldn't talk. I'm sure we all looked equally traumatized.

The Sargent laid the Politico on his back flat on the ground. Taking off his own backpack he dropped it and pulled bottled water out and proceeded to pour most of it onto the guy's face as though expecting him to splutter awake and open his eyes amazed. He just lay there with a pendulous drop of water clinging to his dead beak. You couldn't see it with him lying there face up. The back half of his head had been shaved away. I'd seen the damage underneath when I was following the Sargent up and out of the crashed helicopter.

I joined my friends and removed my own pack and dropped it on the ground. Extracting a tortoise-shelled comb with spaced teeth I picked at Nadezhda's hair while she and Hater performed the same cleaning for me and like three happy monkeys hunting for lice with our fingernails we cleaned and pruned one another back to some semblance of humanity.

We barely had enough time to pull ourselves together before the Arabs appeared at every swing of the compass point. They resembled Bedouins of some sort. Nomads. Desert Jackals. Extremists. Jihadists. Behind them straggled pack beasts loaded with their nomadic swag and women draped head to foot in muslin and children wrapped in cotton and chintz supervised by the very old. The Warriors traveled aboard camels stolen from a zoo because those beasts were definitely not indigenous to these parts. Muslims appeared everywhere in the final days even the least likely of places stirring up a whirlwind of trouble wherever they camped. Always trying to enslave free people by threatening them into silence, their mullahs using religion to justify their lust for penetrating defenseless young girls and treating their women in a way you wouldn't treat a dog. In this regard they were as bad as Christians.

His demeanor hardening the Sargent allowed his weapon to slide though his fingertips until the butt struck the ground next to his boots and toppled over sideways landing lengthwise on the hardpan with a metallic clatter. At this sign of surrender the Jihadists let loose a hellborn howl in disparate unison and swarmed over the prisoner of religious war. Several sets of dark desert-worn hands with cream-colored palms patted his body and rifled his pockets for matchsticks cigarettes chewing gum and chocolate bars.

Once sure the Sargent was restrained and couldn't hit back one of the insurgents slapped the prisoner across his face causing the rest of the tribe to erupt in jubilation. The light dimmed in the Sargent's expression. Neither passive nor aggressive his mind executed a tactical redeployment to a safe area behind his eyeballs. In this way he allowed his antagonists nothing in return, nothing they could joke or brag about later on that night when they gathered around the communal supper dish. No emotional reaction. No satisfaction. Nothing. The Sargent remained hard. Obdurate. The Arab warriors took note of this attitude and remained alert and aloof amid the tribal cacophony keeping their late model foreign made high caliber Chomp-Chomps trained on their living target.

One of the desert jackals unzipped a side pocket and discovering a map he ripped it forth and dutifully trotted this restricted document over to the Sheikh sitting high upon his mount who without deigning the least perusal snatched the item and plunged it deep inside the voluminous folds of his tribal robe as though the map had always belonged to him by right. He berated his dutiful minion and waved him away while the lowly dog wrung his hands and bowed and begged forgiveness.

More armed young men infiltrated the crash site. A few climbed onto the wreckage and inspected the pilot's dead bodies inside before riddling the corpses with a quick burst of gun fire just to be certain. The noise made me flinch I'm sorry to say. A different member of the a vaunt _guard_ kicked at the heels of the dead Political Officer who of course failed to respond. To my ears it sounded as though they were all talking at the same time. After further deliberation a Jihadist fired half a dozen rounds into the dead man. I thought about how strange it was to lodge bullets into a dead body like that. Then they turned their attention onto us.

The shot caller who had delivered the slap strode over to Hater and berated him with a volley of verbiage. The merry band of camel jockeys fell silent.

To my astonishment, Hater replied.

"Engineer. Civilian."

"You we can use. Go stand over der, you."

Ali Achmed Oxenfree ordered by pointing his riding crop and Hater obeyed. Next he looked us over, my girlfriend and me. He pointed at our boots to inspect them and swiped at our pants cloth. His speech betrayed a British accent:

"You wear trooper boots and trousers, but civilian blouses and jackets. How is so?"

"We're civilians," I answered, tugging at my shirt blouse.

He stepped closer and in a creepy way tested the material of my blouse by rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. "You ride chopper." He observed, testing the logic of our presence.

"On his orders," I said, pointing at the dead Political Officer. "We were walking together, us here together," I said, defining our little threesome. "They landed on the road in front of us and forced us aboard at gun point."

"And heem," he said, pointing at the Sargent.

"Can't say. He belongs to the copter." I pointed at Hater and wound my arm around Nadezhda's shoulder. "My husband, and this is my sister. My virgin sister, innocent of the world."

He yelled something in Arabic over his shoulder and the entire rag and bone shop chuckled in unison. Hater bowed his head and studied his steel-toed boots. Nadezhda and I bowed our heads as well. I wanted to kick him in his castanets. Doing so would have provided a death sentence.

"I think maybe you spy," he said, "You Jezebel. You wanton woman."

"Mercy, oh mighty and powerful Khalif!" I cried.

My sudden ejaculation must have disconcerted him into blowing that monosyllabic puff of hot air as though my existence were beneath his contempt. He turned away and began shouting orders till the din of the jinn burst forth once again. Not speaking the lingo I nevertheless felt incredulous that it took so many words to articulate a marching order. It was like he had to give the command individually to each member of the clan before anyone would listen to him and start moving. A fair share of social commentary must have been thrown into his rant for good measure.

Nadezhda and I were nudged forward at gunpoint. They bound the Sargent's wrists and shoved him non-too gently sending him lurching into motion. The Shot Caller meanwhile ranted and raved until some lackey dragged forward a spare camel by its brightly colored halter and he encouraged Hater to mount the beast. Hater must have sensed I was burning holes in his back with my fiery glare because he turned a glance halfway my way before instinctively not meeting my eyes and turning his back to climb aboard.

My friend Nadezhda and I were suffered to trudge along with our heads down. A couple of women dressed in tents came running alongside me and force-wrapped my head in a scarf and jammed a pair of cheap plastic sunglasses over my eyes. They did the same to Nadezhda. Apparently we ran the risk of inspiring in their fellas a boner, and that would not go over too well in the eyes of their god. No boners allowed, unless of course you were raping a Christian child.

For some reason the women folk were put in charge of goading the Sargent forward. They put a sack over his head and in his blinkered state he only stumbled and fell three times which I thought was not a bad average all things considered.

We finally met up with the main group and they raised a terrible ruckus. The women did that ululation thing with their tongues. I thought it was creepy. The Sheikh stood on a slight rise and made a speech which I must admit was very well received. At one point they dragged the Sargent forward and forced him onto his knees and whipped off his hood. Sentience had returned to his eyes and as he surveyed the caterwauling crowd he clearly understood his fate. His gaze bobbled around to mine and like a fool I tried to flash him a smile of encouragement. I couldn't believe he had the presence of mind and the bravado to return the smile and wink.

"It could have been great between us, Princess!" He shouted.

"I would have rocked your world!" I yelled back, and he laughed. If only I could have left it at that. If only I could have kept my stupid mouth shut it would have been so cool. Instead, I yelled, "Don't show them any fear!"

I meant my words to be encouraging and supportive. I was only trying to bolster his spirits. The expression on his face drooped. Tears came into his eyes as though I'd somehow challenged his manhood. Then he took a last look around realizing as he did that for him this was really it and then fear flooded his eyes. At the Sheikh's command one of his subalterns drew out the largest scimitar I'd ever seen, steadied his aim a couple of times and sank the blade deep into the back of the Sargent's neck. On the second chop the whites of his eyes turned dull grey and he was dead for sure and the third attack sliced right through so body and head toppled separately into the dust. The faithful rejoiced.

Sometimes the memory of the last look I caused on the Sergeant's face makes me queasy with shame.

At the Chief's orders Nadezhda and I were turned over to a cadre of women covered head to toe in light blue burkas. Like their men they harangued us with a torrent of angry verbiage. I tuned them out and I hoped Nasty had sense enough to do the same. For the remainder of the day we toiled on our march toward the setting sun. Out in the front guard the warriors of the tribe road camels. In the wake of their dust the women, children, old people and goats straggled along as best they could. I should point out there was a rear guard behind us even, mostly younger single men riding camels and protecting the caravan in a rear-guard action. They draped coverings over their faces to keep the trail dust out of their mouths and noses.

The women looked through their belongings and found more fabric to hide our beauty so that we would not be guilty of sexually arousing the menfolk. I tried to assure them through hand gestures that arousing their men was the last thing on our minds. Accepting their tentage created a certain amount of goodwill in our captors towards us. They stopped haranguing us and spread out a pace relaxing their vigilance. Their words turned softer and more musical. Their idle chatter elicited laughter until the elder matron chastised the younger girls for their frivolity and everyone fell silent as we trudged along.

While we were walking I had time to ponder why we had not been beaten, raped and murdered outright. Perhaps the proximity of their women had checked their biological urges. Their leniency may have also had something to do with Hater's presence. They needed him to make repairs. Their Mullah had boldly said as much. So for whatever amount of time Hater prolonged fixing their tech gear our heads would stay attached to our necks. Occasionally I caught sight of Mr. H. perched upon his saddle. Even at a distance I could discern his alertness, taking in every detail of his surroundings. When he threw a glance in search of us over his shoulder I raised my hands as though adjusting my coiffure. In reply he ran his fingers through his tussled hair. I showed him my middle finger by pretending to scratch my head. I took Nadezhda by the hand. Only her astonishing green eyes were visible. She'd thrown the cheap sunglasses onto the ground. Following her lead I did the same.

Chapter 4

Our relatively smaller contingency met up with a larger force, one which had already made camp for the night. Their tents were resplendent, made from velvet and brocade with decorative tassels and window flaps for ventilation, signifying a monadic people in the process of migration. At that point I had no clue where they were going nor from whence they had come.

Rowdy shouting and ululations greeted our arrival as we marched into a large clearing adjacent to the main body of the bivouac and while the woman went with the mules and other beasts of burdens to facilitate the unpacking the leading men took charge of us again and we were reunited with Hater as they escorted us to the central meeting area for presentation before the Wazir. The men spent the requisite amount of energy shouting and firing their weapons in the air, which I had always understood to be incredibly dangerous considering the effect of gravity on lead. Then I noticed they were angling their weapons at a very discreet angle and while a stray bullet might still drop back to Earth and kill a mule or a woman no real threat existed for the men of the clan. I felt good standing amongst the men. The Chief drew us forward and introduced us to a tall thin blade sporting a most prodigious nose. His black eyes stared opaque and pitiless and I had to avert my eyes. Hater kept his eyes fixed on the Chief so long as he was looking at the Wazir and telling his tale. When he turned our way and gestured with emphasis Hater stared at the Wazir's feet. Not having a clue in her head Nadezhda looked around her in wonderment at this gathering of men in robes. I tugged at her sleeve in an attempt to draw her gaze down. She pouted and complied for about a minute before she was again peeking and watching the action.

To conclude the presentation the Chief directed us to remove our veils. An appreciative sigh escaped from the all-male audience and I felt as though we stood in the presence of real Persian gentlemen, whatever that means. Not understanding they would hate her for her beauty Nadezhda took a good look around and ended her display by bowing her head and curtsying toward the Wazir. I hadn't planned on moving a muscle and I didn't know how to curtsy so I bowed instead, not too much, not in a servile manner, just enough to be polite.

For a few moments the Wazir pondered our beauty and I detected rising to the surface of those black orbs a look of appreciation for our form and substance. Very subtly he banished the longing revealed in that glance back to the depths of those cruel black eyes. He looked away and fire rose in his eyes and he flashed that anger for the crowd to see how profoundly he disapproved of a beauty voluptuous enough to condemn a man to the depths of Hell. He gestured at us dismissively and our guards stepped forward from their position behind us gesturing for us to understand we must restore the modesty of our veils.

Next a pair of young warriors gestured with their hands never touching Hater and yet entreating him to step forward and be put to the question. The chief proclaimed Hater's skills to be nothing short of miraculous. Of course he knew nothing of the kind. He was basing his entire supposition on the coveralls Hater was wearing. The Wazir forged a bargain whereby if Hater could indeed perform magic to satisfaction then his life and the lives of his lovely companions would be spared. To this end the tribe's own local handyman stepped forward and produced a laser pistol. Despite the best exertions of his ingenuity he hadn't been able to fire the gizmo. Glaring with jealousy and petty resentment this hapless and hairy fat man handed over the weapon to Hater and retreated a few steps saying he was sure the device could not be fixed while his eyes belied a dread the device might indeed be healed in the hands of this infidel magician.

Everybody watched Hater as he held the device in his hand and took a looksee. He was such a star. To me it looked like a typical Bright Boy Vaporizer, boxy and awkward to carry, easy to aim, some minor recoil, delivered a medium punch. Ultimately it didn't amount to much of a weapon in my opinion. Hater fondled it this side up and that side down poking and twisting and tightening every aspect. He gripped it in his right hand and extended it arm's length causing the whole crowd to flinch in expectation of him firing off a jolt. Most of the warriors experienced a similar epiphany cocking their own percussion weapons in case the infidel did succeed in fixing a Bright Boy so it would fire a laser flame. Hater ignored the stir his sudden motion had caused. He pointed the weapon down at the dirt and squeezed the trigger. In the restored silence where everybody in the crowd was holding their breath a metallic click echoed. Nothing happened. Hater maintained his grip on the laser pistol as he ran a spot check inventory. For the second time he pointed the weapon away from himself and pulled the trigger, again no result. A murmur of discontent rippled across the crowd. The failed local expert crossed his thick forearms over his man bosoms. He smacked his floppy lips and his head bobbled about searching for sympathizers. Finding none he cracked his neck instead as though he hadn't really been looking around at all. Meanwhile Hater continued to ignore everyone and everything so absorbed was he with this technical problem in need of a scientific solution. He held the thing up close to his eyes and away at arm's length and then fidgeted with some tiny lever until the battery slid right out the butt end and plopped in the sand. Some of the younger guys snickered. Hater seemed unaware the thing had fallen out. Without really looking at it he knelt down and retrieved the energy box and blew on it a few times and then rubbed it against his shirt sleeve to clean away any sand particles it may have gathered and then he examined it before shoving it home where it belonged. Grabbing the device by the barrel he ceremoniously passed it into the hands of the local expert who looked askance at the weapon as though peering into the abyss. Speaking in their language Hater explained directly to the Wazir the gun was probably not broken. What it required in order to make it fully operational was a proper, neutron grade battery. The current battery had been insufficient to begin with and had thus died prematurely, reason enough for the weapon not to fire.

Hater wrapped his arm around the poor fellow holding the weapn and began conducting an in-service while also helping his former rival in saving face. The inevitable yelling and gunfire burst forth and it was some minutes before the crowd settled down again. Hater requested the local fellow be placed under his direct tutelage. The magnanimity of the request did not go unappreciated by the Wazir. He granted Hater's request as well as tasking him with repairing everything mechanical in need of fixing in the entire camp. Reminding Hater he was a guest and should thus honor the rules of hospitality and not try to escape. Hater bowed and thanked the Wazir most graciously and paying obeisance assured his illustrious host he would do his utmost to endeavor to make himself useful and never to abuse the hospitality of so great a prince. Once this little performance was over Hater looked my way and winked. What a nerd.

Our safety secured for the time being Hater in his own chatty and charming manner sought to further ingratiate himself with the Grand Wazir. As women Nadezhda and I didn't rate any more consideration. In situations like that I wished I knew kick boxing so I could kick my instep upside a man's jaw. I'd like to learn how to do that except it takes a lot of practice and it's really physical. And I can't stand violence. So never mind. Forget I said anything.

Chapter 5

I lowered my head and we were led away to a tent well-guarded by a bare chested man and his partner both in poofy red pants and armed with an outrageously long saber dangling from a golden sash. They were well disciplined and their eyes never strayed as we were led between them and into the Wazir's own harem. No sooner were we positioned in the middle of twenty veiled women then their hands were upon us unbuttoning unfastening and stripping away our clothing until we stood bare naked beneath their exotic gazes.

These other girls gazed on our secret flesh made public against our will and as their full lips pressed against each other's delicate ears and whispered, sexy mirth ensued, interrupted by the same old crone, the ranking dame, when she clapped her hands imperiously and gave orders judging from the subsequent action for a petite washtub to be brought forward into which Nadezhda and I stepped daintily, one foot set down and then drawing the other slender leg along for poise and balance and our long locks flourished and must needs be swept back and out of the way. A few smart smacks of the leathery old hand and we girls turned to face each other together in a washtub. She squeezed appreciatively the flesh of two such fine specimens and as a sign of approval the leather palm delivered one final pop apeice. From squat earthenware pots and jugs the other harem girls produced pure sweet water and a solid block of scented oil worthy of a king's ransom. The Crone slapped her palms again and their girls disrobed. It must have been Saturday night in the harem.

They plunged their hands in above the wrist, into the spermy blubbery mass and kneaded and squeezed rending the solid fat into slippery liquid lubrication. They soaked and combed my tresses grown luxuriant in our time on the road and hands so many hands touched me claimed me caressing spreading oil smoothly evenly covering my quivering flesh entire. The pleasure centers in my brain burst into a cascade of falling stars. Water bearers poured the sparkling libation over my head and with the utmost care splashed my front while the rest trickled chaotically down my dimpled spine. Each time demure Aquarius sloshed forth more aitch too oh wetting my breasts and bottom she exhaled breathless sighs of amazement and delight and every ablution performed on me was likewise bestowed upon Nasty whose beauty shimmered like the full moon.

With their hands they cupped the spill gathering at the bottom of the delicate basin. My feet and ankles completely submerged under the generous allotment. They rubbed and messaged and rinsed and repeated until they removed every speck of grime. The old crone had reposed upon a couch and gathered two barechested beauties to comfort her during the performance. She gave an order and one of the slave girls took a hold of my hair and twisted it into a pony tail for a squeeze dry.

Bodily they lifted me clear of the basin and shimmering like a star in the firmament I was laid with the base of my spin resting on a smooth ivory block and as if by some mystical spell I floated poised there while the magic hands of the nude bath maidens massaged my person with the gentlest touch of long brown fingers spreading sweet oils and unguents. My temples were assuaged and the tears of pleasure flowing from my eyes they sipped in butterfly kisses. I turned, spun slowly, as though turning in space freed from Earth's gravity. My entreaties for mercy they ignored and my subsequent cries of ecstasy brought raucous laughter and a smattering of applause. They had their way with me and shamed and spent the only thing I could think to say was "Thank you" in appreciation of so much pleasure.

The men dressed as women departed. The denizens bedded Nadezhda and me down for the night atop a bevy of naked girls so well trained they offered only the softest parts of their bodies as buoyant cushions, thinking nothing for their own comfort or rest. Immediately I fell into a profound slumber dreaming the sweetest dreams a woman knows.

Chapter 6

The next day I soon recollected how tedious life in a Harem can be. After our initiation the main focus of their curiosity centered on our sisterhoods, which were still intact. Each of these beautiful young women recounted having her clitoris sliced away at a very young age in an oral history driving shivers through me. The barbarous reality of these mutilations plunged me into deep despair relieved only by their repeated entreaties for me to show them my whole one. Even the Old Crone, sitting on her corner stool and making a pretense of embroidering glanced over from her work belying her surreptitious interest in my enduring stub of humanity. A bevy of brown fingers plied my sisterhood. They seemed especially fascinated by its completeness and its serpentine effect upon the rest of my body and the contortions wrought in my facial expressions as they plied my organ this way and that. I looked down and regaining my sensibilities noticed one ivory white finger sly among the brown. The anomaly of the ghost finger produced quite a shock until I realized Nadezhda had joined the crowd. She was always a great joiner-inner.

"What on Earth are you doing?"

"What!" She exclaimed. "Is looks like fun. I want to play, too."

I shuddered with laughter. "You're acting like you've never seen it before."

"Oh you hush and lie back."

For several days we sated ourselves with the sumptuous luxuries surrounding us in the harem tent. In reality the water ration turned out to be miniscule. They did the best they could with their basin and minimalist jug approach leaving me wonderfully clean and refreshed. It was also during this epoch I began to heal from the emotional residue left over from undergoing enhanced interrogation techniques. Torture spoiled my love affair with baths and pure water for a while. By degrees I reacquainted myself with its cleansing properties. Using a washcloth I scrubbed away at the bad feeling. A certain amount of time would have to elapse before I felt full at ease standing beneath a shower nozzle. The sponge baths these harem girls applied stirred me towards a recovery.

The novelty of our presence in the camp quickly faded until the Wazir judged the coast stood clear to summon me into his personal chamber. This command performance caused quite a stir among the other girls. They all pitched in anointing my body with sweet scented oil and dropped the burka over me and The Crone encircled my wrist with her bony fingers handcuffing me and leading me naked beneath the covers and escorted by an armed guard through such a throng of men while my body wobbled about underneath that ridiculous tent.

The Crone released her hold and the guard swept the tent flap open allowing me to step through and into the presence of the Wazir. He wore what looked to me like a cloth diaper. At first I thought he might be into some kind of infantile kink. Then I realized it must be some cultural thing.

"On the bed," the Imam commanded, "and you may remove the burka." He hadn't turned from admiring himself in the mirror. I have to admit: he did have great hair.

I removed the burka and discarded it in a heap on the floor. Failing at nonchalance I rolled onto my back and silently lamented my return to slavery, so much for conquering the world. I fingered myself absently intuiting this guy wasn't going to be into foreplay. His performance wasn't exactly leg straightening. He did curl my toes a little. Fast and furious. I don't want to talk about how bad this experience made me feel. Afterwards I tried to engage him in conversation as an act of revenge, to scar him in return for scarring me, to plumb the depths of whatever wisdom this leader of a people might possess with mixed results as the sequel is about to reveal.

"I heard a commotion the other day, my Sheik, and to be honest, I could not tell if it was a celebration or lamentation."

I lay on my stomach; the Sheik lay on his back. With my face turned towards him I could study his countenance as he spoke.

"To say the truth the voices you heard were expressing both joy and sorrow. The family of a holy martyr were conducting the funeral rights for their youngest son who sacrificed his life in the name of jihad against the infidels."

For a quiet moment or two I lay there beside him mulling over both what he'd said and how he'd said it.

"Do you mean to say he killed himself?"

"Indeed, for the sake of Allah, praised be his name."

"But is it not a sin for a man to take his own life?"

What had been a look of soft wonder changed into a harder aspect, one of annoyance.

"It is not a sin to die the glorious death of a true believer. Such a death is a glorious occurrence, no different than a soldier's death on the field of battle."

"Except a soldier is shot against his will by an enemy. Whereas a martyr clearly is willing his own death with a pistol."

"Not with a pistol. Not like that. He fights with explosives. Under his clothes that he was draped with, pipe bombs filled with ball bearings. He climbed aboard a metro bus filled with women and small children. It was an honorable victory."

"Small children?" I gasped, horrified at the prospect.

"Of course. How many of our children have been blown up in their beds while they slept? How many of our women have the drones killed? None of the infidels shall be spared. The killing of children is . . . how do you English say . . . nipping the problem in the bud."

"The slaughter of innocence," I murmured. Then I asked, "but won't that fellow, your martyr, be punished in the afterlife for such wholesale slaughter?"

"No, of course not," The Sheik said, "It is on the contrary. He will be eternally rewarded in Heaven. For his sacrifice to Allah 70 Virgins shall be his to enjoy."

"70 Virgins!" At this revelation I rose up rolling onto my side and propping myself on an elbow. "Where did they come from?"

"What do you mean, 'where did they come from'?"

"I mean, what is the nature of their existence? Why are they to be punished eternally with life as a sex doll? Is their hell the same place as the martyr's heaven? And you say they are virgins. Does that mean they lose their virginity one time and then exist as slatterns till the end of time?

"Or does their hymen regenerate like the liver of Prometheus bound to the cliff side? And let's say two friends are martyred together, does that mean they can meet up in heaven and combine their celestial concubines, 140 virgins? Theoretically that would be one rocking orgy. I start to get claustrophobic with a group of twenty. If we're talking virgins, in this day and age let's face it, we're talking young girls here, probably teenagers. Can you imagine trying to share a bathroom with that many girls? Can you imagine the catfights? And seriously, how many virgins could you personally work through in the space of a single day? One? Two? Let's say honestly, five at the very most. What in heaven's name would you do then to fend off 65 lusty young wenches in need of your attention? My goodness, they'd tear you to pieces like a mob of Maenads. How could a grown male survive being cooped up with that many teenager girls?"

"You ask too many foolish questions," The Sheik said, his face hardening into a frown.

Deflated by his dismissive air I subsided onto my stomach again and thought about how to tell him my curiosity was driven far more than by what the guy across the street was selling. That Christian salesman was offering a permanent seat at some kind of eternal Thanksgiving dinner with your family. Since my mom had been a prostitute and my dad a brutal and sadistic pimp eternity with those two didn't appeal to me as much of a deal. I really wanted to know more about the details of the deal the Sheik's deity was offering. I had one more question to ask: was the 70 virgins deal open to women as well? If a woman martyred herself for the good of the team, would she be rewarded in heaven with 70 young males with stiffies? Or in my case, could I opt for the all-girl package? I hate it when people say you can't ask questions.

"So if sex is such a huge sin, why is it allowed in heaven and not here on Earth?"

"A good man must first earn his reward in heaven by resisting temptation here on Earth. Thus, a woman must wear the burka so that a man will not have impure thoughts and displease Allah."

"If a man has seventy virgins on his mind and he's planning on diving into a big pile of them next week allow me to assure you he's having an impure thought about every five seconds and besides I don't get how your inability to control your perverted nature becomes my fault. I have to stay covered from head to foot because you can't control your own erections? What kind of patriarchal projection nightmare nonsense is that?"

The Sheik sat up on the bed, spun a quarter turn, pressed the souls of his feet against my hip, and used his legs to shove me full-force off the bed. I landed knees and elbows against the floor of the tent really hard. For a few moments the pain invaded my brain and knowing nothing was broken I still had to endure the bright white hurt subsiding in my temples.

"I can't believe you just did that," I said. "That was so incredibly rude."

"Shut up! Shut up! Stupid infidel whore. What do you know about anything? You're just a woman, you ignorant blasphemer."

Once on my feet again I snatched my burka off the floor and flung it on over my head. On my way out the door I flung a few choice expletives over my shoulder. It was a good thing my friends weren't there. If they'd heard me curse like that they would have washed my mouth out with soap.

On the way back to the harem my temper cooled and I realized I may well have put my life in jeopardy. As it turned out they did punish me by removing me from the relative luxury of the harem and condemning me to the laundry detail. They kicked out Nadezhda as well. Guilt by association.

As we stood together, each of us stirring the same vat of dirty cloth diapers, Nadezhda turned to me and said, "You know, ah sometimes... not easy is your friend to be."

"This won't last long," I promised. "The time has come for us to go. We've got to skedaddle."

For several more days we labored as washerwomen. During that time I developed a new found respect for working people. Indeed, I discovered a new kind of nobility in laboring at the kind of work clearly useful to the rest of mankind. Anyone who denigrates the worker is an effete snob wholly lacking in character. Naturally though we watched for a way to get out of working. Why work when you can live free? It doesn't change the fact I feel sorry for people who have to work. Our labor provided recompense in another way. Undergarments were not the only haberdashery piled onto the laundry detail: jackets, shirts, pants, skirts, fine silk serapes, the ubiquitous burka, and sandals and boots they submitted for cleaning, mending, and polishing. To my eyes the laundry works resembled an open air bizarre with a rich array of fashion choices.

Through my window pane on the world I studied the movements of the camp and all of its members and I noticed a certain laxity in the attitude of the guards and sentries towards the burka clad victims in this population. While the guards were obsessed with not thinking about their women's sexuality so successfully had they beaten down the females of their clan the men no longer considered them capable of subterfuges of any other type. In other words, it never occurred to them a woman might try to escape the confines of their camp. A girl sold into an unhappy marriage had tried to run a time or two. Having endured one too many beatings at the hands of a drunken husband or vicious mother in law the poor child had been separated from her senses and plunged blindly into the Deadland. Desperately seeking a mirage of safety or death itself she was invariably caught and dragged back and the flesh of her nose sliced off down to the bone as a lesson to her and to others. Thus mutilated the girl became a living symbol of the consequences for lifting the veil on willful self-determination. I think that was the reasoning. Personally I thought the husband should have been held accountable for beating the girl in the first place. They had some ancient scrap of parchment saying otherwise and there's just no arguing with tradition.

At the risk of having my nose slit I resolved to once again escape from slavery and steal Nadezhda along with me. Clearly she did not share my sentiments of the nobility of manual labor. She never said that she found it demeaning. Rather she made the argument washing dirty linen was not her fate. Everything happens for a purpose, she said. As a free will advocate I never felt comfortable with fatalism as a rational for any type of behavior. But if it would motivate her to risk an escape attempt I was willing to set ideological differences aside.

We established the philosophical basis for our escape each in our own way and figured it was time to go shopping for new outfits. Practically every girl in the proletariat tent arose at some time in the night and trekked to the facilities so leaving the tent and wandering into the desert downwind from the camp was not an action likely to raise an alarum. Since it was on the way, taking a sidestep into the laundry proved easy enough as well.

Nadezhda tried on several pairs of freshly mended desert boots until we found ones fitting just right. We tried on men's trousers and found comfortable and durable pairs. Mine were brown. Hers were green and even in the dim grey moonlight brought out the beauty of her eyes. Together we selected several men's shirts, some made of comfy plaid cotton, combat ready; others dressier and made of silk. A couple of Eisenhower jackets and matching head rags later we looked like the sexiest terrorists to ever haunt the desert. Dressed as a boy I felt incredibly sexy. Nadezhda's costume couldn't entirely hide her full curves. She kept on morphing back and forth in appearance between man and woman until I experienced some kind of gender bending hallucination and nearly passed out from the blood pulsating through my flesh.

After such a liberating experience donning the slave's hood over the top of our freedom fighting outfits felt acutely degrading. My only reassurance emerged in knowing, live or die, I would never again wear a burka, let along the type bearing the embroidered rose, symbol for a comfort girl.

As we minced our way toward the tent of the Wazir we were both wary lest our boot tips protruded beyond the hem of our cloth prisons. Other than that concern we passed several guard posts unchallenged. Sex slaves summoned to the bed of their spiritual leader in the middle of the night presented a common enough occurrence, not enough to raise an eyebrow.

To my surprise the fellas in the party tent were still rolling even after spending their primary energy and most of the naked male and female bodies lulled in postures of repose with their pink flesh or their brown flesh glowing in the candlelight. Every alcove in this outsized tent came equipped with soft rugs and pillows and a love divan. The appearance of two fresh slaves drew nothing more than a groan of satiety from certain orgiasts. Oh no, really, I couldn't eat another bite.

We peeked into several alcoves and eventually discovered Hater squeezed between two fair maidens on a couch and several more concubines spent and lying asleep scattered about on the plush rug at his feet. He was soul kissing each slave alternately while yet a third ensconced above him occasionally dangled a bunch of luscious grapes for him to nibble. The concept of penis envy flashed through my mind and I had to remind myself it was not the male member itself I envied but the privileged position. I grabbed one of the maidens by the ankle and yanked her off the couch. She emitted a yelp of surprise landing softly on a cushion on the floor. I dove onto the couch in her place. Mr. Hater was so blissed out the bait and switch didn't even register as a substitution until his tongue met with the unexpected barrier of burka cloth. He immediately drew back in revulsion and surprise. Before he could exclaim I whispered, "The time has come for us to go, and the tide is in our favor."

Hater's surprise turned to joy. I guess I really surprised him. He was also high. He tipped back his head and his mouth fell wide open in silent hilarity. The grape girl mistook this posture as her cue to dump the whole bunch in his gaping maw. His face frowned and contorted and he turned his head and expelled the whole mess sending grapes flying in every direction and the grape girl herself tumbling off the back of the couch. Individual grapes flew everywhere bouncing off bare breasts and bottoms and disappearing into the crevices of the pile.

"Gather your wits, sir," I hissed, "and meet us at the leeward side of the camp in fifteen minutes."

Already appearing soberer Hater nodded his assent and blinked his eyes ridding himself of any further lotus allusions. Modest as novitiates we bowed our heads and retraced our steps through camp to the lady's outdoor latrine.

Hater soon joined us stumbling forward with the best of intentions. He carried the volumuminous bag and Nadezhda's kit as well. We liberated our bodies from the slavery of the burka, tossing them into the dung hole.

"Watch for tripwires," I cautioned my companions and we hiked single file out of camp.

"We're headed the wrong way," Hater said when we reached the rolling hills at the foot of the mountain. "We should have our faces turned to the wind, not the wind at our backs. We need to go out and around the camp, and head for the hills in the opposite direction."

"I don't care which direction we head," I said. "So long as we don't stand down wind here any longer."

One hearty agreement later we moved off through the brush and spent the better part of an hour putting a healthful distance between the camp and us. We turned our noses to the eternal wind and trekked towards the low mountain range Hater indicated. Trudging over the hills I questioned Hater on the reliance of judging direction according to the wind. He said I had a good point and that walking into the wind had just occurred to him in the moment and was not a good general rule for finding one's way. The sun served perfectly well in the daytime, of course. I never understood the stars beyond their beauty.

I steadied a nervous eye for any nocturnal creatures we might disturb. If there were any they saw us first and either hunkered down or scampered away to safety.

Climbing the range hastened the dawn, whom we met half way up, and the creepy foreboding of night gave way to the giddy exaltation of a new day, of escape from slavery into freedom. I shared with Hater my sense of joy. It was then he told me the story of how on my behalf he had pled for leniency from the Wazir in the aftermath of our confrontation. As a punishment for my disrespect and blasphemy they had originally planned to bury me up to my shoulders and chuck rocks at my noggin. I slurred the word 'barbarism' and told him certain practices would not stand up in the bright lights of the world stage. At that point I realized I was lecturing the professor and so I quit talking.

At the top of the ridge the wind force increased and the sharp peak narrowed enough and we could look back at the valley we were escaping and into the new valley of our salvation. Hater said we needed to stop and rest. I argued for the urgency of pressing our flight. He reached into his bag of tricks and removed three pairs of welder's goggles and passed them around keeping one pair for himself.

"We have to wait awhile," he said. "There's something I want to see." He led us across the peak and we stepped across the demarcation line into the new valley side where he bid us to sit down. I couldn't imagine what Hater the scientist needed to observe. We hadn't been sitting for very long when our attentions were drawn by a high pitched whining sound like a metallic mosquito. We all three rolled onto our stomachs and Hater pointed to the winged craft wobbling through the sky and approaching the air space above the camp. None of us had ever seen a jet before. We'd only seen pictures. I couldn't believe an object travelling so slowly could stay aloft on transparent air.

"I thought they were supposed to be fast," I said, amazed at seeing a flying machine I'd only read about in books in action but let down by its decrepit condition.

"I'm amazed they could even get a craft so old off the ground," Hater said. "Do you have any idea how old a crate like that is? It has to be the only one of its kind left in existence."

"Where do you suppose they found the fuel?"

"Oh, the government has fuel stashed away, for whatever good it does them."

"Is like a sad little bug."

"It's a messenger of death."

Later I tried to tell Hater I saw the silver metallic glint as it fell from the sky. Hater said it must have been my imagination. The bright light flashed like a rip, a tear in the fabric of reality. The cloud of lightening rose flashing every color imaginable. Emerging though the foreskin of smoke a bulbous penis punched into the sky. Talk about an expression of the male ego. The shock waves immolated the desert camp beneath the heat and weight of a single broken atom.

"Duck and cover," Hater yelled, and we didn't have to be told twice as the shock wave rolled across the desert floor and up the side of the mountain range into the heavens. We could definitely feel its force. Lying flat on the off side we weren't blown away by it. I lifted my head.

"Imagine the feeling of necessity giving birth to that monstrosity."

Nadezhda uttered a noise resembling agreement, something in her native tongue I couldn't understand.

"Definitely old school," Hater said, enraptured by the science aspect.

We could no longer hear the whine of the rickety jet engine above the roar of the throbbing member it had unleashed yearning for contact with the stratosphere. The craft made its turn directly in front of us to the point where I could read "Jesus Delivers" stenciled on its nose.

Chapter 7

Hater repeated my phrase, "The time has come for us to go."

I stood up and paused for a moment, letting go an exclamation of wonder in words I admit were vulgar and in poor taste. As we plodded down the hillside both of my friends chastised me.

"You have such pretty mouth. I hate for hear such ugly words come out dose lips. You smart girl. No potty mouth no good is."

"She is right, you know," Hater said. "Obscenity really is beneath you, Nika. You're so much better than that. Naughty words only make you sound cheap when in reality you have so much to offer."

Rather than be offended I accepted these chastisements as the sure proof of friendship, for a true friend will always seek to read your heart in the most sympathetic light possible and if a true friend lays upon you the gentle finger of admonishment then you can rest assured the impulse arises from the purest source of affection. Not unlike a hickory switch their words had swatted the backside of my conscience and left me chastened and humbled by what was in essence an expression of their deep and abiding love.

We plodded down the mountain away from the nuclear nightmare. I looked back once to see the dreadful bloom rising higher before flattening against the stratosphere and slipping along the ceiling of the world dropping seeds of cancer in gardens downwind.

For my part I was heartily sick of wandering the Deadlands. We were about halfway down the ridge towards the next valley when my head cleared enough to ask an obvious question:

"Hater, how did the Powers That Be know where to find that tribe of Jihadists? And how close did we come to being fried ourselves?"

Hater plodded along ahead of me and watched his feet as we wound our way down the animal path.

"I don't know. The timing was indeed a piece of great good luck."

I knew he was lying. Maybe we'd grown used to each other like a pair of inmates sharing a cell for the duration of their life sentences and I was familiar enough with his 'tells' to break him on his nonsense whenever I felt like it. Like the time he tried to tell me he'd read all of F. Scott Fitzgerald and I responded with "no way have you read those books." My calling him on his fib with such certainty broke him up and he laughed and wanted to know how I'd been so sure he was lying. Something about the way his natural lineaments contracted into a mask, a slight pursing of the lips, a hint of levity or embarrassment congealed into a grimace.

"Nobody who'd ever read those novels would ever refer to them with that kind of nonchalance."

I caught up to him and grabbed him by the arm and spun him around to face me:

"You little liar! I can read you like a text. Tell me! Tell me the truth!"

"What do you want to know?"

"Oh, you cheeky boy, Glasscock. Don't tread on my patience. I'm the woman who stole your virginity, remember? You can't hide from me. How did you do it? How did you summon the firebird?"

"As you saw yourself, I managed to ingratiate myself with the Wazir. In a very short time he put me to work fixing every manner of contrivance including their short-wave radios and one ham. There wasn't anything seriously wrong with them. It's the bloody sand, really. Gets into everything. So as I was fixing their gadgets and weaponry I put in a transmission signal to proceed to COMSAC ANSOL waiting on standby."

"Oh my goodness, Hater. Who are you? How did you know whom to call? How could you tell them where to drop the bomb? Without a map, without coordinates?"

Hater clasped my shoulders and steadied me to achieve a certain clarity:

"If I tell you who I am you have to promise not to repeat this information to another living soul. Same goes for you, Nadezhda."

Nadezhda looking very solemn gave her childlike pledge.

"I would never give you up to anyone," I said, and then the memory bit me: I'd already given him up under the pain of waterboarding except the stories I told about him weren't true; be that as it may, put to the question I concocted endless creative alibis to stop the pain. For obvious reasons I never told Hater what I divulged under torture.

"I know you wouldn't," Hater said, releasing his grasp. "You've more than proven that already."

"So who are you, really?"

"I truly am Hader Glascock. That's my name and everything you know about me is true. The conspiracy is only skin deep, so to speak. In the time between when we were first separated and you showed up at the research stronghold the minions of the old Empire recruited me to perform some intelligence work."

"So none of this happened by accident. You planned everything and knew what was going to happen the whole time and you kept it a secret."

"Not exactly. I had no idea what was going to happen and I didn't plan anything. It was one crazy accident after another. Do you think I arranged for us to be shot down in a helicopter? I didn't know they even managed to fly those things around anymore. When they told me I would have the power to summon a firebird I smiled in their faces and said 'yes sir' because I was sure they were lying to me. Apparently I was wrong about that."

"How did you know what to do then?"

"My directive was very broad and general. Take up position in one of the outposts of Empire and observe the situation and report back. When you suddenly showed up with Nadezhda and your plan to rescue Rachael Cozy I decided to come along... well, for a lot of reasons. Some of them personal but your sudden appearance on the scene also fit the requirements of my mission."

"And I fit the mission how exactly?"

"Because, my dear, while I love you madly, you're a trouble magnet. Everywhere you go trouble is sure to follow. I knew that all I had to do was tag along and you would stir up something interesting and as usual you did not disappoint."

"I'm not a trouble magnet. What a mean thing to say."

"No, is true," Nadezhda chimed in. "Everywhere you go trouble come. You bad luck."

"I wouldn't go that far," Hater said, and Nadezhda smiled and hid behind her lashes. "I'm not saying you're a jinx but you do live life at full speed."

"I hate it when you two gang up on me."

The biggest drawback to entertaining friends and opening up your heart to them comes afterwards when you're vulnerable to their malice. How our misfortunes suddenly became my fault I felt to be grossly unfair. I mean, naming me a jinx? That hurt my feelings. Implying I was somehow carrying misfortune with me at the molecular level.

"I am not a jinx," I protested. "What are we now, back in the middle ages? You're going to blame me for every last misfortune you yourself equally incurred but because I'm a woman who by the way was motivated by the purest of impulses to help a fellow human being I get all the blame. Fine. You have me dead to rights. I'm a witch. Burn me. Go on. Burn me at the stake. Everything is my fault." I burst out crying. "You guys say the meanest things you can think of to hurt my feelings on purpose. I was just trying to help a friend. The rest of the time I spend trying to find food and water for you and protect you from harm and we agreed we were going to find the right place to create the perfect life, a beautiful little house with a green lawn in the back where the kids can play. Where the water that comes out of the tap isn't poisonous to drink but pure and odorless and blue. But now you blame me for everything. You call me a jinx. You call me bad luck. You blame me for the way the world is. It's not far. It's not true. I'm doing the best I can to survive and take care of you and love you, which isn't easy for me, and... and...."

I broke down. I'm such a deplorable wimp sometimes. I guess I'd felt responsible often enough about the negativity of the world and secretly wondered if in some way I really did deserve the blame so that when Hater and Nasty started teasing me I took it more to heart than I should have. Still, calling me a jinx wasn't a very nice thing to say to someone.

I tramped down the trail by myself and chose a random spot to embrace myself with my own arms and hug myself and squeeze me tight to hold onto something and not go flying off the face of the planet as though I was a little girl again back in the orphanage with no one to love me but myself, my selfhood splitting apart so one side of me could comfort me while the other one wept at the cruelty and indignity of the world. Nobody wanted me because I was bad. Pimp Step-Daddy told Mama I was bad luck when they ditched me at the orphanage. Mama's broken face wept tears.

Two hands touched my back simultaneously. Gently messaging my care and woe one appendage each belonged to a friend. At first their contact felt acutely painful as though not content with wounding me with their words once they had come back for a second helping. From the depths of stubborn self-pity and despair I could sense them drawing me back towards the surface. They had to see my tears. They had to witness my pain. Before I forgave them anything they had to see the hurt and admit they caused it and say they were sorry or our friendship would be destroyed forever. They both put their arms around me and drew my body to them and drew the bad feelings from me as though draining a deadly venom from my veins and I was potently reminded love hurts but it can also heal and I held onto them greedily for as long as I needed and didn't let go until I had recovered my equilibrium. Even though I let go first they still clutched me tightly in their embrace and thus I knew they were truly sorry. They needed me as much as I needed them. Maybe we had emotions to talk about yet. For the time being we were going to be okay. Maybe our proximity to Nuclear Holocaust had strained our nerves and left us more open and vulnerable than usual. Genocide does that to you sometimes.

We broke apart and I said, "One thing is for sure: I don't want to be the leader anymore. Either one of you two will have to take over from now on."

"I sorry for agree with Mr. Hater. All bad talk his fault is."

He bowed and turned his palms up for my inspection, saying, "I'm really more of an ideas man. I'm not motivated enough for a command position."

"Fine, then I'm still the leader. We're going this way."

"Why that way?"

"I have no idea. Because it's downhill and I'm tired of walking up hill."

We renewed our descent and I hadn't managed more than a few steps when I slid standing up and created a shale landslide shaped canonically like light and time cascading down the mountain.

I didn't fall down so much as I sat down in order to create drag and stall my downhill momentum followed by shale chips sliding willy-nilly without logic.

We reached the valley floor and without loss of life trekked across the flats where the desert brown disappeared under a carpet of green algae until we were filing across levies separating fantastic expanses of this moist green plant.

"What is green stuff?" Nadezhda called out, watching where she walked on the green carpet.

"I don't know," I answered. "Hater, what is this stuff?"

"I don't know either. Let's find out," Hater said, heading off the trail and down the embankment towards what looked to be concrete algae pools. Before I could stop him Hater fell to his knees with his face pressed close to the surface of the bright green moss.

"Hater, honey, don't put your face quite so close to that stuff. There's no telling what it's made of or what might be lurking beneath its surface. I'd hate for something to leap out and bite off your face."

"Da, come away Hater. I no want to know no more. I take back question. I don' care. Come away, boy-o."

Hater scrambled up the bank and rejoined us on the trail.

"It's definitely organic whatever it is. It may represent the remains of a government experiment to increase oxygen levels in the Earth's atmosphere"."

"Did it work?"

"Look around you. Does it look like it worked?"

"I was just asking."

"Or it might be an exotic opportunistic species which left to its own devices completely took over with time."

"These pools look uniform."

"They do," Hater agreed, scanning the landscape. "Good eyes, Boss."

I reached down and selected a dirt clod and I reared back and chucked it as far as I could. The missile plunged through the organic green surface with a surprising green ker-plop. A moment later something beneath the covering of algae spit back the dirt clod and it wobbled through the air and landed on the incline at our feet.

"Okay, let's move out now," I commanded.

"We shouldn't run." Hater urged. "Walk with purpose."

"I go first," Nadezhda declared, scurrying along the top of the dike with Hater and me following along right behind.

None of us felt secure until much later when we finally cleared the algae fields and entered into an area of solid ground covered in long grass growing over the peaks and valleys.

"Which way now?" Hater asked. His attention turned invariably to research. Administration held no interest for him at all.

"Wherever people are," I replied. "A settlement or city."

"And then what?"

"We find a shaman or priest or medicine man or necromancer, somebody with the power to rid this curse from my body."

"What are you talking about?"

"You guys were right. I am jinxed. The reality dawned on me while we were walking. I don't know how or why but somebody put a hex on me early on like when I was a child and I've struggled against it ever since. My whole life I've been facing the odds and losing but it's not me it's this bloody curse working its evil magic against me the whole time. I've got to find a black magic gypsy to cleanse me of this evil. Perform some kind of exorcism."

"Now you're talking nonsense. We were teasing you, for clean water's sake. You always take the silliest nonsense totally to heart."

"Maybe but in every joke there is a hard kernel of truth kind of like a snowball with a hard flinty stone at its center. So you're all like, 'snowball ha ha paff! Ouch.'"

"You need to lighten up."

"I need to find someone who can help me improve the quality of my life by lifting this curse."

"When do we take over world?" Nadezhda asked.

"World domination will have to wait. You can't expect me to successfully conquer the world with this curse lodged in my gizzard. C'mon you two. We're headed this way."

I felt myself motivated with a whole new sense of purpose. Whoever cast this dark shadow over my soul had enjoyed their last sick thrill at my expense.

For the rest of the day we trod over green rolling hills and the storehouses underneath these recurrent undulations were filled with nerve gas cooked up according to toxic recipes created by the nightmare vision of the old order. More than once we encountered skeletal remains of tomb raiders stupid enough to disturb those deadly canisters held together only by rust. Each bunker sported a half-moon entrance like the front of a Quonset hut. As long as you didn't intrude on an actual stockpile you were safe enough simply walking past which is why I suppose they quit guarding this area since these killer toxins had a way of policing the area automatically. The bleached bones made me wonder what mad enterprise their hearts and minds had partnered.

We paused atop a buried chemical weapons bunker and spread a red and white checkered blanket and the three of us reclined to enjoy a succulent picnic lunch. Our repast included fried chicken potato salad corn on the cob and for desert a fresh slice of apple pie. Of course we gathered the tins afterwards being ardent supporters of recycling. On our hill green perch I silently remarked the yellow and black warning signs posted about most eaten through by rust. What a pestilential quagmire awaited some as yet unknown archeologist.

After lunch Nadezhda asked, "Which way we go from here?"

I replied, "We have an even chance of choosing the right way or the wrong way. If I choose it's a sure bet we'll be doomed. You choose for us, Hater. That way our chances will be regular bad luck instead of celestial bad luck, the cursed for all eternity kind I'm carrying around."

Hater sighed. He placed his hands on his hips and studied the road in both directions.

"I think we should go in this direction," he said. "Look at the wear marks of people turning this way. To me those gradations indicate a majority of the traffic coming from that direction."

"Good thinking, Professor." I was joking.

"Oh, I was never a professor. While it's true I do hold several Doctoral degrees I never actually held a lectureship."

"You don't say."

"I do."

"Let me ask you this, Hater: You supposedly hold all these advanced degrees but you're the same age I am. How did you manage to achieve so much at such a young age?"

"I was a child prodigy. I showed immense aptitude on every test I was given. The Powers That Be removed me from my home early on to carry out advanced mental training. You know, for the sake of National Security."

"Did you have to actually study and learn the information for yourself or did you simply upload it?"

"They did both."

"What do you mean, 'they did both'? If they just uploaded the knowledge into your brain then you didn't have to work for it."

"What you just said represents a widely held misconception," Hater said. "True they uploaded data in bulk but you still have to work very hard to learn how to manipulate it. You have to synthesize, evaluate, extrapolate, create...."

"You think you're so much better than I am. At least I read."

Soon the bunkers were buried more closely together and we quit walking across the tops of them and followed the service road stretching in symmetrical patterns crosshatching the base the nearer we approached to the main road running along the front of the toxic storage depot.

We walked for a while in silence and I could tell Hater felt dejected because of my contempt for his knowledge implants. I knew he must have spent years working to gain mastery over those multitudinous facts and I strove to lighten the negative energy wrought by my previous expression of contempt.

"Did it hurt uploading those implants?"

"Not really," Hater said, watching his feet as he walked. "Afterwards I suffered headaches sometimes. If you suffered severe headaches or migraines or a bloody nose they booted you from the program. So my headaches weren't debilitating. Fortunately in my case Powersby proved correct about my brain. I could hold my knowledge."

"Ever regret you volunteered to be so smart?"

"Well you see I never actually agreed. I was contracted, same as you."

"I don't remember ever being tested for my aptitude in sex work."

"No, I don't imagine," Hater said, rubbing his chin. "The one thing I regret the most was being separated from my parents at such a young age." After a moment's reflection he added, "You know, it's a shame you weren't tested. You're smart as a whip. You're very bright and very knowledgeable.

"I just read a lot."

"That in itself is significant. Most people read only because they have to. You read because you enjoy it. That's a rare inclination."

"And look at all it's done for me!" I yelled into the empty and level expanse before us.

"When we rule world not so much walking every day," Nadezhda interjected. She was getting tired.

"In our perfect society will we own slaves?" I liked asking her philosophical questions because although she was uneducated she too was smart as a whip.

Nadezhda thought about my question for a few parapatetic paces before saying, "No I don' tink so. I tink da people better free are. As slave I like the good food, pure water, nice easy day, but I don' like the sex with fat ugly man. To be slave is safe, though. No worry. No harm come to good slave."

"I daresay a great many souls in the late Rebulic felt the same way," Hater said.

"I like this dirty hot freedom. It's messy and risky but I go where my choices take me." Nadezhda thought twice and said, "I admit to it though: I miss luxury." Sometimes Nadezhda would produce a sudden rare surge of eloquence.

"Maybe someday we can have nice things. We'll see," I said, not really believing our poverty would ever be alleviated.

Chapter 8

By and by we arrived at a small settlement of shops and houses. At some point in the town's history it must have been reasonably sized. Main Street remained more or less intact. You could tell parts had burned down and other sections were blown away and the usual haphazard amateur rebuilding sprawled across the burned places. Each boxy building shared a wall with the next door neighbor although the height and breadth of the facades varied. Foot traffic streamed up and down both sides of the street and the general bustle of the citizens gave a busy impression varied enough to allow us to glide unnoticed amongst them.

We made inquiries of perfect strangers who directed us to the office of a doctor who lived nearby. As it turned out he practiced medicine from his home. When we knocked on his door he greeted us himself and conducted us up a hallway with a bare wooden floor to a bedroom converted into an examination room where my friends and I shared hugs before they left to give the doctor and me some privacy.

The doctor left me to sit by myself in the room until he returned some moments later and inquired how he might be of service. Amid the wood rot stench and peeling wallpaper I couldn't think how best to describe the malaise settled upon my soul, didn't know if I should even bring up a metaphysical conceit like the human soul in the presence of a man of science.

"My friends seem to think I'm carrying a jinx around inside me," I said at last.

Only then did I notice this doctor wasn't just old but ancient. His bald head shone brightly covered with liver spots and tufts and wisps of white hair sprouting from the sides of his cranium. Watery blue eyes peered at me over the tops of his metal spectacles, a very rare medical item indeed. Apparently he had connections.

"This office isn't that sort of a place, young lady," the Doctor said. "What you're suggesting is illegal. I could lose my license."

"I'm not aware of having suggested anything illegal. I don't want you to go to jail. I don't want me to go to jail either," I said. The thought went through my mind to say something about how I'd been to jail before and didn't want to go back but fortunately I heard myself admonishing me not to tell him anything about it and I was glad for the circumspection of that inner voice and heeded its advice by compressing my lips.

"Good girl," the doctor said, "a proper young lady. But you can hardly expect me to wait around all day and night while you go through labor which by the way is excruciatingly painful. I have my supper waiting. What say you I cut it out now and have done with it? It doubles my fee and I get home at a decent hour, what's known as a win-win situation. Yes, a C Section is the best procedure available in cases like these."

"I'm not pregnant," I said, speaking louder in a vain attempt to make myself better understood.

"Oh, no?" The ancient physician wrinkled his brow and scratched his chin. "Then what good would a C Section do you?"

"I'm suffering from a curse and I want you to lift it."

"I think we should begin with pills."

The Doctor groaned to his feet tottered over to a glass cabinet and extracted pill bottles and set them on a nearby counter in a more or less orderly fashion.

"You'll need some of these blue ones and some of these green. Of course if you're going to take some of those then you'll need some of these purple pills to offset the side-effects. A good diuretic goes without saying. This one is mild. No worries. Of course a powerful enema will cure almost anything. Perhaps we should consider exploratory surgery first. I could slice you open just to have a look around. The problem is I'm running short of anesthetic."

"I didn't know you could surgically remove a jinx."

"A jinx you say? Well no of course not. You'll need a poultice of some sort. Some kind of homeopathic remedy. You'd be better off visiting the lady across the street. Calls herself a midwife. See her for a cure for what ails you."

I left the good doctor contemplating his labeled bottles and went to collect my friends sitting in the makeshift waiting room and whispered to them it was time to go.

Once outside we crossed the street while I related to them the futility of my medical examination. We arrived on the porch opposite the doctor's office and swinging the half-ring brass knocker clack-clacked an announcement of our arrival to anyone dwelling within. Some unseen spirit momentarily thrust aside a curtain hanging in a bay window. We heard a muffled scream and a sound like a china bowl or glass vase shattering. Silenced ensued. The feminist inside never answered the door despite our persistent knocking.

"I bet I know what the problem is," Hater said as we descended the porch steps. "You two are still wearing your desert garb. You look like a pair of jihadists. Feminists are notoriously reluctant to interfere in human rights abuses outside their own culture. They don't like to meddle with anything that might interrupt their own toast and tea. Like incurring a fatwa. Better to allow clitorectomies and public stoning than overstep their bounds interfering with a patriarchal prerogative."

"Do you think it's because I'm white?"

"No, I'm sure if you'd been smothered in a burka her reaction would have been much the same."

As we wandered the settlement I worried my curse might have the power to prevent me from finding the help I needed in eradicating it. It screwed up everything else in my life. Naturally it would work overtime to preserve itself from destruction. Would it kill its own host and then move on or die with it like a leech? Nadezhda suggested I find a holy man to help me with my healing. I agreed reluctantly because my relationship with Christians had always been precarious at best. I could remember them tossing Bibles over the barrier walls into the Pleasure Zone where I lived. I picked up a copy off the dirty pavement and carried it back to my dungeon hovel and tried to read it but I got bogged down in the begats. Stuffed beneath kindling those religious books burned better than peat moss. I know it was wrong on several different levels but regardless of how hot it got during the day the nights could still be cold. I think I read Lady Chatterley's Lover instead. I liked that vision of sexuality better. Running around naked in the rain as though sex was something spiritual. Those Christians called me names too like devil child and Jezebel. Shouting how my lifestyle was an affront to decency and an abomination and I ought to be burned at the stake. I didn't want to be burned like a steak. Since then that particular cult died out because their fear of sex was so virulent they stopped reproducing. Other cults continued to propagate in the old fashioned way, with plenty of guilt and shame.

Hater brought up the Christian's high reputation for exercising demons and so long as I didn't bring up my wanton past I would probably be okay because while being a whore was not okay being possessed by a daemon to them was understandable, and for the millionth time he'd only been joking and considering I wasn't really cursed what harm could it do and I might as well try talking to a priest. We searched the skyline for the tell-tale belfry and followed a path to the first belfry full of bats that came into view.

Inside the otherwise empty church we found a monsignor with a feather duster tickling a nativity scene. He stopped what he was doing and gave us a tired smile. I told him I was a poor lost lamb in need of redemption. I could sense Hater rolling his eyes nevertheless I persevered and the holy man agreed to talk to me and counsel me.

"Daughter, are you a Christian?" he asked. He was older than I was by at least ten years. His watery brown eyes appeared vacant, empty I suppose of sinful worldly knowledge. He wore a white short sleeved shirt exposing elbows red and raw. You could tell he had no woman.

"I'm not a Christian," I admitted, "but I'm willing to learn."

"What would you like to know?"

"Maybe we should begin at the beginning."

"In the beginning was the word."

"I like words," I said, encouraged my first step towards salvation was meeting with success.

"God created the heavens and Earth."

"Wow."

"Yes."

"Big job."

"Indeed."

"How long did it take?"

"Seven days."

"That's really fast. How long ago did this creation take place?"

"6000 years."

"Really? Because I heard it was more like 14 Billion years ago, or thereabouts."

"That number is mistaken."

"What about the dinosaurs scientists say existed on this planet?"

"They never existed."

"The scientists never existed?"

"No, the dinosaurs never existed. How I wish the scientists had never existed."

"Facts can be very troubling," I conceded. "Please tell me about sin because I think it might be the root of my problem."

"Sin usually is," the Priest said, smiling with warmth for the first time and unnerving me a bit with his perfectly yellow teeth. "Adam and Eve lived in Paradise. The Serpent beguiled Eve into transgressing God's law."

"Women," I said, shaking my head ruefully, "you know you really can't trust them. I'm one of them so I should know. How did a dumb old snake manage to cause so much trouble?"

"Well that's the thing," The Priest said, eagerly leaning forward into the teachable moment. "He wasn't dumb at all. He could talk nonstop, and golly what a liar."

"Do you mean to say that this snake actually talked to her? In English? How did he manage that without any vocal chords?"

"He was the Devil in disguise."

"Oh, well then, that makes sense. Because I was going to say... well never mind what I was going to say. Wow. A talking snake. I'd like to see that sometime. Are you sure that's not meant to be some kind of metaphor?"

"Positive. It really happened exactly the way it's described."

"So contrary to a Library full of scientific evidence mankind did not emerge from the primordial ooze but was zapped into existence by a super-deity."

"Not a super-deity. God."

"And so why is the sky blue?"

"God."

"Bad things happen to good people?"

"God."

"All the children who suffer in the world?"

"God's mysterious plan."

"So in order to become a true believer a body pretty much has to disconnect her brain from reality. Because if you remove metaphysical speculation our only demonstrable purpose as a species is to reproduce."

"Sex is sinful."

"Sexual impulse is the urge to procreate."

Sitting next to me on the bench the priest listened to my concerns and much to my surprise he remained calm. He must have been registering my scientific understanding as ignorance in need of enlightenment. He patiently went on to explain how Super-Deity impregnated a woman without having sex with her. I thought about Zeus and his sexual exploits but there was really no comparison. Zeus was a player, a cad, a bounder. This other fellow appeared rather chaste in comparison. His son was a queer sort. While growing up he disappeared off the radar for a while. My guess is he was sowing some wild oats in the big city as young men often do. When he showed up again he'd learned a bunch of magic tricks called miracles contradicting the known laws of nature and physics. He also helped poor, weak, sick, infirm, and elderly people, pro bono no less. I said he sounded like a modern day socialist. The Priest smiled and said you'll never fill the collection plate with that kind of talk. He admitted giving up preaching about greed because it wasn't a popular message with the rich and powerful. I suggested if Jesus came back he wouldn't have lunch with Hedge Fund Managers or CEOs; he'd be down in funky town or the bowery alleviating the pain of drug addicts, counseling prostitutes to give up the life, or washing the dirty feet of an AIDS victim. The Priest winced and said he doubted Jesus would waste his time with those kinds of people. God must love the Rich more. Why else would they get all the luxury and comfort? He went on with his narrative and reached the part where that Mexican fella Jesus died and came back to life as Zombie Jesus. I think it would have been a better story if he'd attacked Judas and bitten off his face and eaten it. Instead he achieved lift off, space shuttle style, and became a Shining Star in the Heavenly Firmament of Super-Friends. It made me wish I was wealthy so God would like me better too. The Priest said pray and my prayers would be answered. I said I had to be going. By the end of our discussion I was too discouraged to ask about an exorcism. At those prices I was sure salvation was beyond my means.

By the time I finished my colloquy with the priest the afternoon had spun beyond reclamation. We stepped out the doors and heard the priest lock them behind us. The poisonous fumes in the sky appeared phosphorescent blue and pink a ghastly reminder of the race towards extinction threatening Senator and Cuff alike.

The crowds on the sidewalks and streets disappeared down various side streets and alleyways as siesta grew near.

"We could sleep inside tonight," I ventured to my companions, and they both agreed a bed with clean sheets would make a welcome change from sleeping on the ground. We reconnoitered the strip and settled on a place called the Palace Hotel and although the façade was not the least palace like in appearance the place did look renovated and clean and stationed outside a pair of bully boys armed with black truncheons promised a safe night's slumber. We talked to a wizened little man in dirty white gloves and a faded shabby uniform who after a brief conversation and a quick glance at my billroll granted us permission to enter the lobby. I liked his large ears and myopic eyes and drooping chin probably because he understood about respect and he was polite and accommodating.

In the lobby the air was redolent with the ether of cheap cleaning fluids ammonia and bleach and some kind of granular cleanser. Coming in off the Deadland we must have radiated a musk of our own. Our sweaty healthy glow had soured while sitting in the cool confines of the church. We paid for a room and a shower ration and advanced up a flight of stairs and located our room and once we were inside set the lock against intrusion and by tacit agreement stripped off our clothing in preparation of a communal hot shower.

Nadezhda and I stood naked beneath the nozzle as Hater stood poised to do the honors. First though he produced his thingamajig and tested a few drops lingering on the shower head and discovered the water was not of the best quality. The score registered low green, near yellow almost, meaning the sample wasn't spring water. The establishment maintained a juicer probably on the roof. After trudging about in the desert low green would suffice. We washed each other like hairless monkeys in a soapy slippery reaffirmation of our cleanliness and comradeship. We stood sudsy head to foot before forming a circle of manual mutual satisfaction. As the water washed away the lubricant Hater lost interest and began cleaning his teeth. I always thought it interesting the way Hater's erections seemed a matter of indifference to him. He could orgasm or not and be just as happy to be part of the pleasuring either way.

Feeling well-wanked and clean we threw down the sleeping pads and bags on the floor and slept naked huddled together for who knows how long.

Chapter 9

By the time I awoke the next morning Hater had already dressed and gone in search of fresh food, tired of the tinfoil packets we'd carried with us for weeks. Darling Nadezhda slept on her stomach her dimpled rump arched into the air. I contented myself with admiring her contours until lust overcame me and I very selfishly mounted her and rubbed my button against her well-muscled cheeks. She woke and submitted to my humping her. Giving her a few playful swats incited me to finish. I marked her with my scent and rolled off and lay on my back panting for breath. Her submissive eyes begged for approval or some reassurance I had found her satisfactory. Quickly before my ardor cooled I moved to her and rolled her onto her back and enjoined cold dry kisses quickly enough turning hot and moist. I thrummed her button in the old high way of love. We had both fallen asleep again when Hater's return woke us.

"Sorry to disturb you," he said, "but I've located someone who I'm sure can cure you."

In reaction to Hater's declaration I flinched and followed the natural inclination into an upright sitting position. Poor Nadezhda, discommoded by the sudden departure of my support and warmth floundered in the surf of wakefulness before sinking once more into the depths of sleep.

"What are you talking about, Hater?" I demanded, only half awake myself.

Hater kicked his feet out from under himself and sat on the rug and leaned his back against the wall.

"I took a look around while you two were still sleeping and I found out this settlement is much larger than it appears at first glance. The parts we've seen here are just the outskirts. What we took for Main Street is really one of several loosely connected districts. The Central Hub is where I found her."

"Found who?"

"The witch woman who can cure you of your malaise."

"It's not a malaise; it's a curse."

"Call it what you will. I watched this Mistress myself strike the afflicted with every manner of cudgel and cure their sick and twisted hearts. I know she can cure yours, too."

Instinctually I knew Hater was on to something good even though as I rose to my feet and collected my scattered clothing and dressed myself I forbore any comment committing myself to this sorceress he'd found. Of a pragmatic necessity I have always proceeded by means of a rational and skeptical inquiry. So before I embraced any scheme I would first have to see the miracle worker for myself.

"We'll be back, Nasty, in a little while."

"No you don't, young lady," she declared. Apparently she had only been feigning slumber. "I want to see the magic show too."

Normally I would have disdained Nadezhda's enthusiasm for the occult but a woman in my predicament could hardly have criticized another who was caught in the thrall of superstition.

Our intrepid trio stepped into a day filled with revelry and mischief. The city appeared to be lawless in the best way, a locale given over entirely to sinful pleasure.

Like most of the cities surviving the great heat this one supported an inordinate amount of women. Some chemical in the water creating hormonal changes caused nothing but little female fishies to be born in the human stream of things. Despite their obvious numerical superiority they remained vassals concubines and slaves in a patriarchal fantasy world. True sometimes women drove younger girls in their immediate bondage but invariably behind the dominatrix cracking the whip stood the real shot caller who was a man, a pimp and a power broker. Streetwalkers of tremendous variety plied their trade in a sexual carnival of lust and confusion. Shouts screams hollers. Glass shattering as an empty whiskey bottle smashed against a brick wall. Men and boys shopping for the pleasure of their choice in a flooded market. Sex. Money. Power. Greed. Desperation. What a noble creature is man.

With every step we slogged deeper into an underworld. Denizens of every description and wondrous creatures of the night paraded in full regalia. In our Deadland wandering gear we must have appeared positively square. Tourists. Bumpkins. Straight off the stage coach. A darkness stirred within me. My ancient freak lusting for black leather. The whip crack rapture.

We stopped in the middle of the sidewalk in the midst of the busy city foot traffic and I asked for Hater's pocket knife. Selecting the longest blade I sliced the pant legs off my trousers well above the thigh so short the white pockets hung down in plain sight. I tugged and hacked at them too until they gave way leaving interesting peep holes. I took off my terrorist plaid shirt and handed it to Hater and then I removed my sporty girl and handed that to him as well. The revelation of my ample bosoms brought immediate stares from strangers passing by. Nobody stopped. Not in that jungle of delights. I pulled the serape off my head and wound the short cotton around my breasts like a tube top and told Nasty to tie it off in the back tight enough so it was sure to stay put.

I don't know what you might call the look of boots ragged short shorts clinging to my hip bones bare shoulders and neck. I felt freer right away. I fit in more. Nadezhda couldn't decide if she was puzzled or excited by my transformation.

"I need to be depilated first before I offer myself as a sacrifice," I said to Hater.

He pointed up the street to the opposite side and I saw the sign for the tattoo parlor. They would offer hair removal services in conjunction with their needles and ink. I brazenly led the way acting the proper strumpet.

Inside, the tattoo parlor was brightly lit. We entered and came into contact with a well-endowed illustrated canvas in a man beater. She wasn't pretty. She was gorgeous sprouting a fright of dishwater blonde hair. Amusement filled her blue eyes and her luscious lips appeared fuller under a coat of blue lipstick. Her upstart breasts would someday hang in dejection for never having known bra support. For now they were holding their own in a world of free enterprise.

"I need to get clean", I said. "All over clean." I analyzed her immaculate blue jeans and velvet boots.

"Clean from the neck down? We can do that for you. In preparation for some artwork?"

The same type of artwork covered both her arms as the man with the needle tatting the tailbone of a skinny hell-bent young denizens with her jeans slid down exposing her butt crack. Even though the artist never looked up from his work I could tell he was aware of our presence. He'd poised to listen with his head cocked.

"Just the sheep dip. No artwork."

"Shame," Pygmalion said, "You've got lovely skin for it, clear and firm, if you ever change your mind."

We smiled at each other and looked each other up and down and then smiled more. She told my friends they could hang out in the shop if they wanted to while they waited.

The painted lady led me down a dimly lit corridor to a wet room in the back with a surgical table and two sinks overhung by dual cupboards. Public health posters and licenses and legal notices plastered the remaining walls. The graphics on some of those warning bills were graphic and disgusting enough. Real vintage stuff some of it. Nobody had wielded that kind of regulatory power in several lifetimes. The dipalator patted the table and I accepted the invitation by hopping aboard and crossing my legs and unlacing my boots.

"What are you using for currency?" she asked, opening one of the glass cupboard doors and pulling down various jars.

"I have Empire script," I said, fishing a wad out of my back pocket and proffering the whole bunch to her. She took the fatty roll and peeled away a couple of big bills before handing back the rest. I stuffed my roll into my boot and stuffed a white knee sock in on top and flung the whole mess into a corner followed by the other sock and boot. I undid the knot Nadezhda had tied and flunk my scarf towards the corner. The skimpy shorts unzipped and slid down my legs and with an expert flip off the end of my foot landed on the pile in the corner as well.

The dipper let loose a gasp of appreciation, her real appraisal. I don't take compliments well. She went to work applying the warm wax evenly and smoothly. A thousand bee stings later she asked if I wanted to rest before she went any farther. When I gasped yes she perused my torso as the muscles fluctuated and pumped for air. She poured me a cup of cold reclaimed water. It tasted cool and refreshing. I returned her the cup and lay back again. She hoisted my ankles into the stirrups and commenced with her most delicate violence. By the time she finished I felt as though I was wearing underpants made of live red ants biting and nipping me everywhere. What she did to my underarms was simply cruel. The forearms, unexpected. The last step included my demanding she work on my scalp as well. She balked at the request. I insisted. Free of charge she brought out a pair of sheers and in seven deft strokes she sheared me to the white of my skull. She lathered my head and with a straight razor took the stubble right down to the flesh. There I lay pink and bare, smooth and delectable. The last to go were the eyebrows. My beaming countenance reassured her. She sighed with pleasure and relief. Her lotions were lubricious. I lay limp under her ministrations as she loosed me from the stirrups and righted me into a sitting position and she led me naked by the wrist into the tanning room. She provided me with protective goggles. At this point she maintained a hands on relationship her fingertips sliding to and fro across my slippery smooth flesh. She had probably never seen skin like mine spared from exposure to all manner of depredation and preserved by decent nutrition. I lay in the easy bake oven a dozen minutes to a side until I caramelized.

Putting clothes on seemed a waste after so much exertion. When Nadezhda saw me she squealed and covered her mouth with both hands.

"What you do?" she exclaimed, clasping my bald dome between her delicate fingers as though investigating the messages embedded in my phrenology. She must not have liked what she discovered there. Little tears of consternation slipped from the corners of her eyes.

"It'll grow back," I tried to reassure her.

"All you pretty hair," she lamented. "You so crazy all de' time."

"Wow, you even shaved your eyebrows," Hater said. Nadezhda's second emotive burst signaled she was unhappier than before. She and Hater both rubbed at the affected area with the tips of their fingers.

"Okay," I said, "If we're all done now with touching Nika's face."

Hater's visage had frozen into an expression of surprise.

"When it comes to the world we live in you are definitely a free radical," he said, and his expression changed from surprise to delight. "I like it, and it will grow back, but not too soon. You look like a radiation zombie, if a radiation zombie could look sexy."

"Hater, darling, sometimes you say the sweetest things."

"I mean it in a good way. You look exotic, other worldly."

Hater ventured to place his palm upon my scalp, cautiously, as though I really were radioactive. When Hater was done Nadezhda took another turn palming my head.

I reached up and took ahold of her hands and kissed them both to mitigate the potential shock I really didn't want them touching my bare scalp anymore.

To the dipper I gave my thanks via a peck on her check. She said to come back anytime. I liked the way she said it. Nadezhda heard that tone too and scowled so that wasn't cool.

Out on the street again I didn't garner any more snide remarks or derogatory glances. Like a pair of invisible ghosts my friends floated in my wake as I danced through the crowed to the sexual beat of world music emanating as if from the heart of the night itself. Joyous boys and girls intoxicated by the local spirits joined in my one-woman carnival and with prancing feet and loosened hips emulated the conjugal union with the beat and rhythm of time slipping away.

The leather shop appeared as if conjured by the street dancers. I broke away from the chorus and charged though the black double doors. When I emerged I had transformed into six inch latex boots thigh high and a tight leather wrap snug around the hips. I knew people could see my leather panties peaking. That was rather the point. A black lacy bra with the straps dangling down. The latex gloves fit tight and shiny. Big bee stung lips painted black. I trod on those high heels. We arrived at the black warehouse slathered in dried tar with the garish pink neon light blazing over black leather double doors. They opened and a strange greenish mist poured forth. Only the darkest denizens gained entrance inside that dungeon. Slaves and masters, a place where you might lose your soul, and then I saw my salvation, a dominatrix for the ages in pitch black regalia rich in plumage like a raven with sure and diabolical intent. My mistress stood center stage on a theater in the round surrounded by solid marble bleachers. The denizens filling the seats gossiped and marveled in anticipation of the next whipping. Before I could reach the stage her minions in leather shorts intercepted me and stripped me of my costume and hooded me like a prize falcon. Only then did they allow me in the most abject subjugation to approach Dominatrix.

"What do you need from me, child? Why have you come?"

"I have done bad things, Mistress. I suffer from a sick and guilty heart. No one deserves the lash more than I do. Strike this flesh and cure my troubled spirit."

The minions pulled me off my knees and dragged me on the tops of my feet towards two massive marble pillars where they strung me up spread eagle for the entire mob to judge. The crowd rose to their feet and roared in approval egging my mistress on to ever greater acts of cruelty, encouragement most unnecessary. My body became a canvas she filled with scarlet stripes of pain and pleasure. One high priest of the macabre remarked how the screams emanating from my throat belonged to the demons escaping from my tortured flesh. Oh let it be true, I begged. Let it be true. I wanted to be clean, not dirty. I needed to be cleansed of all my worldly transgressions. My hips jerked violently and half unconscious I showed the mob the issue of my sin.

For several hours I lay in a shallow pool of restorative liquid, cool and healing. A fever tormented me in the aftermath of the daemon's departure. Time had no meaning in the dungeon. Torches provided the only light in this perpetual darkness. Minions whose job it was to watch over me crouched in corners or fornicated lewdly or slept in sympathy with my sleep. After certain intervals they brought me food: apples, brown bread, legumes crushed into paste sticking to my famished fingers.

I lay naked on the floor when suddenly Hater was there kneeling near my head.

"The time has come for us to go, my dear."

"You mean I'm not dead?"

"No my sweet. On the contrary. Cured. Cured of your spiritual malady."

"But you don't believe in the soul," I protested in my delirium.

"Let's save the metaphysical debate for later, shall we? Right now, I need to transfer you out of here."

The minions converged rubbing salve into my spiritual wounds and wrapping me in sanctified cheesecloth until I resembled an ancient mummy. They lifted me into Hater's cradling arms and the pressure against my wounds heated them causing me to wince.

Hater carried me into the drear light of day. I closed my eyes tightly and yet still the sunlight blazed against my paper thin lids exposing green blood vessels. I could hear him whispering to Nadezhda. She had collected my gear from the denizens and packed it into the voluminous bag. I surrendered to Hater's strong arms and in my brain kept time the best I could to the measured bump bump bump of his propulsive stride.

Chapter 10

I must have fallen asleep in transit because when I awoke I lay on the bagmats spread over the floor of our rented hotel room. I sat upright and freed my arms from the confines of the cheesecloth as Nadezhda placed a cup of hot chamomile into my hands and kissed my cheeks and sat beside me gently stroking the stubborn brown stubble poking forth from my shaved and naked scalp. Hater sat across the room regarding me with his usual sardonic expression.

"We thought we had lost you there for a while. We weren't sure the ghouls would surrender you up to us."

"How long have I been out of bounds?"

"Several days. Your Mistress drew blood. Isn't your hard fast rule no permanent damage? There are several gashes that might leave a scar."

"Usually. I forgot my safe word. Now that I think about it I'm not sure we ever established one. Unfathomable lack of decorum. As I remember we didn't have time to talk about the rules beforehand."

"Like I said, there could be scarring."

"We'll have to wait and see."

"You feel better?" Nadezhda asked, inspecting my scalp and still mourning the loss of my shaved locks.

"I feel much better. Yes, I'm fine."

"I'm assuming they cured you. Did they, in fact?" Hater asked.

"Of silly superstition? Most definitely. Drove all that nonsense about being cursed right out of my mind. I feel very clear and clean inside. Very focused. Free of cant. Engaged with reality. No more hocus pocus for me."

"Sounds positive," Hater said. "We can stay on here a few days more. This neighborhood is a safe area. Full of wicked denizens, but peaceful, safe. Unless you stride into the pit itself again."

"You're the one who encouraged me to prostrate myself in front of her," I reminded him.

"She wasn't the witchwoman I was talking about. She's not the one I found for you. I meant for you to meet an old gypsy woman with a crystal ball I paid to read your fortune. No, my dear, with your own unerring sense of direction you located that whipmaster all by yourself."

"You have to admit, when I go looking for trouble, I surely find it."

"That you do," Hater concurred, nodding his head several times.

A couple of days later I was stirring more and definitely feeling better about my condition. No more worries about absentee fathers or lost mothers nor ghosts of any kind. Regardless of what the whip had done to drive superstition from me I couldn't very well recommend a good thrashing for everyone whose lives were ruled by nonsensical notions although the temptation to try knocking sense into people can at times be overwhelming but for the operation to be successful the victim of delusion whether Christian Muslim Jew or any other type of Conservative must be a willing participant. Otherwise a beating like the one I endured would only mortify their delusions and drive the cursed ignorance deeper, straight into martyrdom. For the mind to be flushed and clarity restored the monkey sapiens must be willing and the power of the femdom respected otherwise the exorcism will not properly depose the diabolical.

I contented myself with the rectitude of the choices I'd made and reveled in my earthliness as an animal on the prowl whose only certifiable reason for existence was propagation of the species and only saving grace an evolved mental capacity to manually override that impulse. My only redeeming qualities being an aptitude for mischief and deep devotion to my friends.

"You're not suffering from any more metaphysical delusions?"

"I couldn't summon fire from the sky even if I wanted to, which I don't."

"Then only one problem remains. How to fill the void."

"By always choosing the path presenting the most difficulties."

"At one time you talked about ruling the world."

"I think it's still a theoretical string well worth pursuing."

"I don' want you rule whole world," Nadezhda interjected. "I want us three to live in leetle house with clean water, and leetle garden, too. And yard. And tree.

"Anything else?"

"No," Nadezhda said, biting her nails and smiling meekly. "You two, and me too, you put heads together and you fund such place." Afraid she may have been too peremptory she added, "Okay?"

"As day dreams go it sounds like a nice one,"

"I think I know a way to satisfy the urge for empire as well as the Nadezhnian dream. The challenge isn't the house. There are hundreds of thousands of abandoned hovels scattered across the landscape. What we should look for is a place with a juicer, or a pure natural spring that hasn't been fracked."

"Finding a water well that hasn't been poisoned by fracking will be the hard part," Hater said, having no problem following the absurdly idealistic trajectory of my scheming. "Any natural spring will have a whole city full of denizens fighting over it."

"I know a place where decidedly fewer people will be competing for access."

"You mean it belongs to a Powersby."

"Only the most powerful man I've ever met. He was the one who unwittingly lead me to you."

"Oh! You mean Da Master!" Nadezhda cried. "Oh jes. He own bery nice water well. Best drinking water in da whole damn Empire!"

Even though she was mimicking a brag someone else had uttered Hater and I immediately admonished our friend for her untoward vulgarity. People who had been taught good manners simply did not employ such crass expressions. With a jolt Nadezhda realized her mistake and was instantly mortified by her own transgression. Her ears glowed red with embarrassment and she hung her head in shame and dejection. I dare say tears sprinkled the carpeting. I put my arm around her and comforted her with the knowledge our friendship meant enough never, as Aristotle said, to lead her into a behavior she would have to feel ashamed of if the truth became known publically later on. She wiped away her tears at the mention of friendship as I concluded by saying the important thing was not to dwell upon the mistakes of the past but to learn from them and avoid making the same mistakes in the future. Our expectations for her included greater civility than a mere potty mouth. Hater crawled over and we both hugged her. She vowed ever to strive to do good not evil and always to avoid such vices as foul language and thanked us for our chastisement asking for forgiveness Hater and I both easily granted.

"So where is this mythic house?" Hater asked.

"No house left. She burn it down," Nadezhda said, pointing at me.

"I didn't really burn it down," I protested.

"Oh, you lying little so and so," Nadezhda said.

"Euphemisms are just as ugly as the words they try to hide," Hater said, and thus was Nadezhda chastised a second time. This time I lost my patience. I ordered her to pull down her pants, panties as well, which she did only with the poutiest reluctance, and laying her across my knees her bare bottom up I administered several smart smacks. A sadder wiser girl was she who pulled up her pretties and britches, a lesson in morals applicable to young ladies everywhere.

Nadezhda sniffled and wiped away a tear.

"You did so burn Master's house down."

"So what if I did? It was an accident...sort of."

"No, remember? You move candle, push flame under curtains and it light fire."

"But I didn't intend to burn the whole house down," I protested in my own defense. "I merely meant to create a diversion so you and I could escape. I thought surely someone would respond and quench the flames before the fire grew too out of hand.

"Were their people in the house at the time?" Hater wanted to know.

"Yes," Nadezhda said. "Everybody. Whole house full of party people. Burnted up."

"You don't know that for a fact," I said. We left in a hurry and never found out what happened for sure."

"People were burned up in their sleep?"

I was losing Hater as an unbiased member of the jury.

"They probably died of smoke inhalation long before the flames ever reached them," I said. "We'll have to kill the ones who didn't die when we arrive anyway."

"Understood," Hater said. I loved when he said that, because with Hater, you know he really did understand. "Killing people in their sleep is more humane."

"You set fire on purpose," Nadezhda insisted, having calculated her words carefully.

"Okay, I agree to that. I did set the fire on purpose but I didn't mean to burn the whole place down and if a few people survived or whoever we find there we'll murder them first and then move into the slave quarters."

"I tink it pooty important tell troot."

I agreed trying to be patient with what was essentially petulance on her part. She boldly suggested I too deserved a spanking for misstating my facts. I answered it might be a bit soon for that reminding her of my recent trial. She took note of the discomfiture I was yet experiencing and forgot all about crimes and misdemeanors by gently encircling me with her arms.

"Whipping her bare bottom wouldn't do any good anyway," Hater said. "She would enjoy it too much."

For a moment my cheeks turned pink and I had to reflect upon the disparities I felt warring in my heart.

With our destination and purpose firmly set I felt the old sense of grit and determination return. We required a day for the purchasing of new traveling clothes and supplies. Greet any endeavor requiring new clothes with good humor and gusto. And then we set out on foot from the City of Sodom and turning to bid goodbye to such a fun place yet feeling fairly salty for a new adventure.

Like a lot of denizens I often wondered what it might've been like to live during the zenith of Empire rather than at its nadir. Before our time citizens lived in a Republic always pictured forth as such a sweet bucolic time even harder to imagine. In our time everything lay about broken or abandoned run down and rusted empty rotten ruined. In the past a multitude of people cultivated so many different kinds of knowledge. They knew how to create, how to build. Not everybody spent all day everyday milling about like peasants in search of food before the seas died when the air was fresh and clean enough to breathe and water flowed so plentifully people poured this precious liquid down sinks and gutters.

Most of what I know about the past I gleaned from reading novels. Back then nobody worried about poisons and toxins. They only cared about their safety and comfort and traded away their freedoms in exchange for false promises from The Powers That Be about keeping everyone safe from terror. The denizens of those times prized selfishness and bigotry above generosity and love and hence were deluded and tricked by the corporations into voting away their good lives in favor of poverty and abject subjugation. After the rioting and the Dying Time they found themselves thrust into slavery right along with the very poor people they had sought to avoid. Then followed the expulsion of the undesirables and the emmigration of the serfs. I may not have the timeline exactly right.

I don't know how many times I've asked people how we arrived at our present putrid state. Some say greed. Others aver The Powers That Be. No history exists telling how the Empire caught fire and burned. When I searched for answers in the library I realized the historical record stops at a point where no more books were printed. I'm guessing the end of printing formed a major milestone in the collapse of Empire. I can't corroborate that supposition for the very reason no printed matter exists on the subject. The electronic bases prove useless except for ample demonstrations of pornography, the demand for which never went out of style, and kittens in a box, whose cultural significance can never be underestimated.

The kinds of knowledge Hater had stored in his head was useful yet it was merely useful. He could fix a mechanism if it was broken but he couldn't invent or create a machine by himself. I had a million questions but not a single answer. Nadezhda remained optimistic about the future. She had dreams, borrowed or otherwise. What slave never dreamt of wearing a crown?

We headed north and stayed the course in an attempt to be as pointed as possible towards our nesting destination. We passed a certain number of denizens traveling on foot like ourselves and like them we hid our appearances our rough and ready leather gear and our super abundances of charm and grace concealed underneath standard issue burkas. Most women travelling across The Deadland wore this obfuscating gear for safety's sake. Thievery and murder occurred and no recourse existed for revenge let alone justice. If anything the commoners remained overly polite and would share fire and water as though such commodities belonged to everyone equally, an attitude The Powers That Be frowned upon consistently. Try as they might they could never quash the spirit of giving prevalent among the peasants and a major source of annoyance to those who sought to regulate life-sustaining commodities. Having lost everything else the citizens rediscovered sympathy empathy kindness and decency. People along the highway valued truth telling and esteemed it more than any other virtue. Those who lied or who displayed pettiness or greed the tribe of denizens on the march across the Deadland shunned. Large numbers of good citizens banded together for safety on a long journey. Often they told stories as they traveled together as a means of passing the time. Personally I couldn't stand ordinary people like them and avoided story tellers at every turn. I once made Hater and Nadezhda wait all morning in our chambers until a group of pilgrims and their horses left the stables and headed towards some religious shrine with a huge head start on the road ahead of us in order to avoid their telltale nonsense.

Not long after my triumphant exorcism I became enmeshed with difficulties of a different sort. We had traveled far on foot enjoying the unrestricted freedom of the open road. From town to town we wandered and venturing everywhere took note of the poverty and the lives ruined for the sake of a few outmoded abstractions, ideologies possessing no other efficacy than making people miserable, producing the drawn expression on a woman's face who wonders where she will find the next meal to feed her babies and the furtive gestures of a random man impoverished and bereft of dignity. Grinding poverty suppressed the populace and apparently as a result of others suffering the champagne poured by the powerful in the penthouses atop the golden towers tasted that much sweeter.

For attempting to aid these poor indigent people the local constabulary arrested me on the street clapped me into handcuffs and bundled me into a Black Maria. I frowned at my two friends who had remained undetected a few yards away forbearing them not to give themselves away by any gesture of recognition. The crust of bread I'd been proffering to a toothless destitute old woman I clenched in my palm until they searched me at the station and the cops were chagrined at having missed exhibit A the first time they ran their hands over every inch of my body. I had remained silent and been very cooperative so they hadn't shot me or bounced my face off the sidewalk.

For the entire ride the troopers in their battle gear rode in complete silence. The crust of bread grew moist in my sweaty palm. It wasn't until I was booked on charges of aiding and abetting the poor sick and needy and one count of socialism in the third degree and then strip searched before the agents of patriotism found the crust and pried it from my grip. The same leather gloved fist a moment ago filling my anal cavity with stiff probing fingers then deposited the condemning bit of charity into a plastic evidence bag and pinched it shut, the crust of bread I mean.

In the olden days of empire I heard they would douse you with powdered soap and zap you with pressurized water from a hose. Here in the final epoch of the human race with an ever vanishing water supply held increasingly dear the agents of oppression could only spare a handful of soap sponges. I stood naked at the center of a concrete room square with no windows and the floor depressed where I stopped after walking humiliation mile. Gravitating toward a metal grating near a drain a pair of matrons crushed their sponges on my breasts thighs buttocks and smeared the cleansing oil over my body and scrubbed away life's dirty vicissitudes none too gently. They did spray some reconstituted stuff to wash away the oil and I was surprised when they shut off the water and advanced bearing gnashing electric clippers shearing me clean and naked as a lamb yet again.

Around my neck Dominus affixed a slave's leather collar and attached to it a long metal chain light in weight but powerful in its linkage. As she led me onward Dominus realized I was reveling in the cat calls and abusive language and so she jerked me faster onward past the cell doors of my incarcerated admirers. One oily haired dyke reminded me of a pretty blonde actress. She wasn't bad looking until she smiled. The gaps between her teeth appeared monstrous when she reared her head and laughed. In return I winked and ran the tip of my tongue across my lips. I enjoy a woman with a sense of humor. I had a premonition she would be my celli soon enough. We arrived before an empty cavern where my escort ushered me in while her law enforcement partner tossed a pair of folded pajamas a towel and a few sundries onto the lower bunk. You see they could have allowed me to don the pajamas before parading me past the denizens of Cell Block C. Humiliation can be a powerful tool. Unfortunately for them I rather enjoyed what they intended as a degradation.

I drew on my convict sports bra and boy shorts, slipped my body in the pajamas absurdly too big in the waist. I folded them a few times at the waistband so they wouldn't slip off my hips and fall to the floor. They had assigned me to an austere cell. I squatted on the bone white commode and then I curled up on the bottom bunk and fell a snooze.

Sometime later one of the uniformed bull dykes woke me none too gently and told me I had an appointment for a psychiatric evaluation. Over the years I'd grown fatalistic and uninterested in exposing the hypocrisy Powersby perpetrated in order to enslave women. If calling me unsound or unfit didn't work for them they'd only find some other label to affix to their official medical report. I actually preferred a psych rap to a criminal conviction. In a mental lock up the other inmates coexisted much less violently on a day to day basis and the pharmacy dispensed far better drugs. In a criminal facility they only handed out pain pills and muscle relaxers. Some people got high off those kinds of pills but I couldn't take the inevitable withdrawal symptoms.

Meek and humble I followed my escort farther into the belly of the beast down institutionally blank corridors with dark grey floors and light grey walls topped by white ceilings. Somewhere along the line I adopted the stern gait of the recidivist.

"Stand up straight, Stupid Girl."

I did as I was told, pleasing the bull so thoroughly she patted my fanny as she ushered me into the doctor's office. What a miserable life having to schlep into this lousy concrete hole every day I reflected and stepping into the office and its horrid blankness did nothing to dispel that oppressive feeling. A diploma. An antique calendar. Nobody counted time that way anymore. Two metal file cabinets. A metal desk and behind that desk Dr. Devlin Dribble. He wore large eye glasses magnifying his eyeballs out of all proportion. His head floated about loosely connected to his neck like an oblong helium balloon on a stick. A seedy jacket starched white shirt, clip on bow tie. My soul recoiled like a bare foot pressing down on a slimy wet slug. He introduced himself and flipped through a file folder. Occasionally he made notations while we talked. He asked me my name and I told him a lie. I said my name was Sasha Savage because you would not want to give your proper name to a sea slug.

"Is that some sort of stage name?"

"It's the name they gave me."

"Who gave you?"

"The people who ran the orphanage."

"You never knew your natural parents?"

"The dimmest of memories, mostly unpleasant."

His lips pursed and drooped down in concentration as he scribbled.

"Are you sexually active?"

"Not at the moment."

"Do you often use humor as a weapon for avoiding topics you find unpleasant?"

"Practically all the time."

"Is that another attempt at humor?"

"At first it felt like it might be funny. Now maybe not so much."

By the time he finished making notes his lips had drawn so far down his chin had practically disappeared. Then began a series of seemingly disconnected questions commencing with a list of my favorite things.

"I like the alphabet," I said. "I especially like the letter O. Although, I'm partial to X as well. Mind you, I'm not endorsing any kind of cheap theatricality."

Dr. Dribble propped his head in one hand, two fingers indenting the texture of his cheek.

"Why X and O? Why not, say, Q or S?"

"Q?" I echoed. "There's a sweet scented dandy for you, to be sure. And as far as S goes, well, where doesn't she go? Far too lascivious. A girl can't' be too careful these days. What with talking snakes and what not."

The eyes encased behind the magnifying ovals blinked languidly.

"Are you currently taking any medications?"

"No, but I'm open to suggestion."

"What are some other, non-linguistic interests you have?"

"A girl named Nadezhda."

"Girl?"

"Woman. Although my interest in her is somewhat lingual as well."

Dr. Dribble's head floated up from his hand before reaching maximum altitude and descending back to its original position.

"I can cure you of that."

"You can cure a person of love? Why would you want to do that? It's not a disease."

"Perhaps not, but homosexuality certainly is a pathology, and as such, it has its causes and cures. Have you ever been with a man?"

"Just one?"

That head began floating towards the ceiling again so I apologized to bring it back down to earth.

"I'm sorry. Yes, Men. Plural. More than one."

"How many exactly?"

"Exactly? I have no idea."

"A dozen? Two dozen? More than two dozen, roughly?"

"Some were rougher than others."

"And despite this promiscuity with males you find yourself drawn to the unnatural connection for this other female..." and he peered down at his notes to insure accuracy "... this Nadezhda person?"

"I don't know about unnatural," I said, feeling a bit defensive. "Between the two of us it's the most natural thing in the world. The situation is this, Doctor. It doesn't matter how execrable you might feel a practice is. Somewhere in the world exists a very beautiful woman who is willing to perform it if the price is right."

"Are there no limits?"

"Oh, I have personal limits, certainly."

"Such as?"

"No permanent damage."

"This might be a little off subject, but considering your humble origins, you have a rather remarkable vocabulary. You seem highly intelligent."

"The only thing I know, Doctor, is that I know nothing at all."

The good doctor leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk.

"That line sounds familiar. Is it a quote?"

"Yes, an old school philosopher said it."

"Which one?"

"George W. Bush."

"Never heard of him. But let us return to the topic of your unnatural affections."

"I don't know about unnatural," I said, feeling a tad defensive again. "Between the two of us it's the most natural thing in the world."

"Allow me to assure you it is not," Dr. Dribble snapped, placing two fists on his desktop. "Homosexuality is a type of barbarism that can be trained out of a person the same as any other aberrant behavior."

"Suppose I don't want my feelings for Nadezhda 'trained out' of me?"

"Then I will have no choice but to keep you confined to this ward, indefinitely."

"What does the final exam look like on this one?"

"I'm making a note of your hostility, and I'm ordering you placed in a private cell under 24 hour watch until your general attitude improves."

"I'll change my ways."

"It's not as simple as that. Real change takes time."

"How much time?"

"It's impossible to say. Each case is different. Weeks. Months. Years."

"Years? I haven't got years."

"As much time as a full transformation requires."

"We better get to work then. Bring in your stud muffins for me to practice on and start lining them up, and I'll get started. In art they say technique is everything, or what's the old saw about inspiration versus perspiration? The ratio might be reversed in a situation like mine."

"Stop talking like that," Dr. Dribble insisted, and his head floated upwards dragging the rest of his corporeal frame to its full extent. "Stroking your subconscious to lay bare the root of your malady needs to be a very slow process. Very long and drawn out."

He stood up from his desk and went to the office door and opening it called the orderly inside instructing him to collect me and take me to my room. It was really a cell but he called it a room.

"Fortunately, your protestations notwithstanding, we have plenty of time. Take her to Ward 8. Solitary confinement to begin with. Give you a chance to clear your bed. Head. I meant head, of course. Clear your head."

The orderly escorted me to my cell and pushed my immediate reflections about the good doctor out of my mind in favor of the body language squeezed into the uniform of the gorgeous bull dyke whose grip steered me on my way. Perhaps I have never mentioned it before: I am a bull dyke aficionado. This creature sported the bona fide figure 8 hips and bust. One ounce heavier and I might have declared her fluffy. She wasn't, though. I could tell already she was pleased with me. For one I moved slowly, docile to her every command. I had successfully transmitted to her my intention of not giving her a hard time. As every good submissive knows pleasure derives from approval. For as much as I despised other people in general approval bestowed from the proper quarter provides a heady elixir. At every step around each corner, at each gate, pause, move forward, pause, and wait for the firm and unerring hand of command. I glanced at her through my lashes until I was sure my every gesture met with her approval. By the time we reached my cell I was in love.

Most people would roll their eyes at my acquiescent behavior and label me obsequious. What my critics in this situation do not understand stems from their failure to appreciate how every encounter in the sadomasochistic realm requires you to play your part and to a true bottom player flirting with power promises the most fulfilling gratification. Whenever two tops come into conflict the struggle between their competing egos for domination can result in a very counterproductive negativity. Often times one or both participants will back off in a way daring the other to do your best for all the good it will do since I'm nobodies doily and hence the performance becomes pro forma and spiritless. To the inmate exists only obeying the all-important laws crucial for her survival. Down on all fours wearing a diamond studded collar around my neck and eating from a monogrammed dog dish would not have been outside the realm of possibility. Stripping for a probative body search felt chaste in comparison.

I was careful not to touch her, not until ordered to do so. She opened my personal padded cell and standing behind me grasped my trapezius muscle firmly. I settled into myself, neither accepting nor rejecting her touch. She squeezed hard and I whimpered without offering any resistance, only meekness, a deep sigh signaling a willingness to serve. Oh, my cruel mistress could not have been more pleased. She released her grip, sliding her hand down the length of my back and patting my fanny again.

"Step all the way into the cell," she ordered, and I obeyed.

I snuck a sly glance at her through the length of my lashes and took note of her watery eyes troubled with shame and her face shining bright pink with pleasure. In any true master-slave relationship the bottom is always in charge. They wouldn't succeed in keeping me here a week, let alone months.

I jogged around my cell and threw myself against the walls to check the padding. Satisfied as to the completeness of my isolation I crumpled to the floor and sucked on my thumb in the fetal posture. Then I cast off my clothes and rolled around on the padded floor. I heard a loud exclamation demanding that god decide something or other. I gathered my discarded clothes and threw them in a corner and rolled around naked some more. I straddled the unpadded commode backwards and made sexy, breathless faces at the observation glass. I thought I might have heard some weeping even though those thick padded walls muffled most sounds.

I'm sure multiple swollen egos will charge me with capitulating in the face of the enemy. They will descry my lack of will the easy surrender of my virtue and hence my integrity. I was never trained as a soldier. Honor never constituted who I was as a person. I had been conditioned to survive. It was not my destiny to impress anyone with my powers of endurance. My only mandate was to draw another breath. When you're first violated the shame and guilt not to mention the physical pain overwhelm your senses and if you survive the initiation then subsequent degradations lesson in their physiological severity. Go ahead. Wrap yourself in your integrity. Lay down. Die. Not me. My biological mandate is driven by the urge to keep myself alive and somehow propagate the species. Even though I don't want kids. Staying alive, though. Yeah. That's still important.

They couldn't dispirit me because I have no values no morals no ethics to deflate. I can go lower than you every time, you checkers player. I play chess, my mind contemplating six moves ahead at all times. Lying naked in my padded cell I almost felt sorry for them.

At the beginning of my treatment I had to look at ink blots in the shape of vaginas. I wondered why there were no ink blots depicting the male member. Dr. Dribble answered that my curiosity revealed I was turning in the right direction already. Because I showed no aggressive tendencies Dr. Dribble wisely decided not to thwack me with thiazine. Instead he prescribed something to calm my nerves; I must admit I always felt a little frayed around my edges. Along with a mood elevator he created a cocktail I can only describe as yummy. Apparently some of the other guests didn't enjoy taking their medications. They complained about bad side effects. Not I. For me pill popping time guaranteed to brighten up my day. My jagged nerve endings were smoothed and as I opened wide and lifted my acrobatic tongue to prove I had swallowed my allotted dosage in toto I felt (though committing the fact to paper makes me blush) oh, I don't know, I suppose one would have to say, optimistic.

The one person in all of this I felt the sorriest for turned out to be Dr. Dribble who suffered from the delusion he himself had been set straight by a combination of prayer and aversion therapy. I was lucky enough to escape before he began zapping me with his electrodes. I'd heard about many cases where people committed suicide after this particular brand of therapy. In Dr. Dribble's case driving his essential nature whipped and cringing into his psychosexual closet and then slamming the door behind it had created all types of unfortunate tics and glitches in his thinking. Too bad because if he'd only been honest with himself and admit openly to the world the true nature of his sexual preferences he might have flourished both as a human being and a doctor and gone about the business of helping and healing others, a gift I believe he possessed. Unfortunately, he had been born and raised in a milieu plastering the onus of shame and guilt like a caustic sticky fig leaf over the simple pleasure of sexuality and thus perverted his life and work and in due course driving him into misery along with any other poor confused soul unlucky enough to stumble into his hall of mirrors reflecting nothing but lies and self-delusion.

How or why anyone could embrace such perpetual unhappiness eluded me. To deny anyone their essential core being smothers their identity, the very source necessary to orient yourself in a world bewildering to say the least. Coercing anyone's sexual orientation out of its natural trajectory is like interfering with the arrow on an explorer's magnetic compass or robbing someone of their torch as they try to negotiate the darkest cavern corrupting the owner's sense of self so drastically they might never identify the proper direction for them to travel in life stumbling along lost in perpetual darkness unsure at every step.

When I explained all this to Dr. Dribble he cried, poor man. My sympathy for him had its limits because to the best of my knowledge he never came out and instead continued hurting people on account of his cowardice. I think there ought to be a law against his brand of therapy. But you know how that one goes. The rule of law cannot stand in the way of profit and like the good book says never help a person when you can hurt them instead. Better to be superstitious and miserable than enlightened and happy. I could go on with these axioms all day knowing they must have been true because we heard them so often repeated.

Bereft of my freedom separated from my loved ones by concrete walls and iron bars stuck among the ruins of a once great Empire while the environment collapsed and toxins invaded every portion of our lives and we struggled under the iron boot heel of grinding abject poverty inflicted upon us by the Powers That Be I rejoiced when Candy Striper Candace pressed a ceramic cup filled with piping hot chamomile tea into my hands and I went off to my favorite stuffed chair curled up between the barrel arms and spent a calm afternoon noticing pretty little things the likes of which we rarely have time for in our frantic struggle for survival. Butterflies. People said they used to flutter about. I thought they were a fascination to watch dragging their despondent wings along in the dirt behind them. Trees. Granted, they had no leaves and had dried up and died a long time ago. Nevertheless, their barren branches appeared like some supernatural hieroglyphic pointing beyond the obvious fact of climate change. Nothing could compare however to the beauty of the poppies. Even though they had imbibed so much coal ash their color changed from gold to black when they bobbed in the sweltering afternoon breeze I knew the human race would live forever and be prosperous because the poppies talked to me and were full of reassurance. They said we had nothing to worry about. Climate change was just a mirage. Listen to the poppies poppies poppies poppies poppies.

Just when I thought my day could not become any more special I watched in mild wonder as a rope ladder sailed over the high stone wall surrounding the garden in order to prevent the clientele from wandering off. Imagine my pleasant surprise when both of my friends cleared the wall's summit and descended via the rope ladder into the garden where the black poppy blossoms bobbled. What perfect angels floating down to earth and trailing behind them celestial light. Before I knew it they were beside me and lifting me from my chair. I implored them to try the tea, saying I was willing to share mine, except Dr. Dribble said sharing was bad. Maybe his prohibition was limited to sharing meds. I bragged to my friends how I was in the process of being transformed into a rugged individualist through the power of prayer. It really was an extensive and encompassing therapy they were offering.

By this time we had reached the rope ladder, an elaborate affair once you grabbed a hold, terribly difficult to negotiate with a brimming cup of chamomile tea. I would have offered my friends a sip but nobody ever built a skyscraper by sharing sips of chamomile.

I could have sworn we clambered and wrestled on that rope ladder for the better part of an hour. Hater told me later it was in fact a matter of minutes. By the time we alighted on the other side my tea had mysteriously vanished. Hater tried to reassure me he would find me another cupful somewhere. With the loss of my warm beverage reality began to intrude and I realized I'd been sprung from a mental institution with a little help from my friends.

In spite of The Powers That Be I decided to embrace my proclivity for Hater some of the time and Nadezhda all of the time and if handing out bread and cheese to homeless old people challenged the status quo over its most deeply cherished beliefs about rugged individualism then I resolved to be a bread and cheese terrorist and subvert Powersby one old person at a time.

Chapter 11

Before the revolution could commence I felt badly in need of a shower and a change of wardrobe. I couldn't very well go schlepping through the crumbling nightmare of post-apocalyptic cities while I was still wearing slippers pajamas and a robe. I needed new clothes and when it came to Deadland attire nothing satisfied quite like real leather. Stiff as a riding crop. Musty as a barn full of saddles and stallions. We found a suitable shop and after bartering with script I marched forth a leather clad Femenista ready for anything.

Judging by the stench in the air we were colder not warmer to finding our place in the world. Such a disgusting odor could have only originated from an organic source, namely human beings, the one creature dirty enough to foul its own nest. We paused to don our rebreathers and lit Hater's laser to survey the landscape and flinched when we discovered a confluence of excrescence surrounding us as far as the laser beamed. A more hideous conglomeration of fetid copper and black not even Milton could have devised as the archangel's chained repose.

Hater immediately fetched his Geiger counter powered it on and held it forth to read the temperature of the air. By pure luck this muck lake didn't register as inordinately radioactive. Raw human excrement mixed with coal sludge informed the darker splotches. The copper piles and patches belied the green and yellow taint of chemicals. Such a grotesque spectacle could only betoken we had unwittingly entered the corporation's private domain. Donning his geekedout night vision goggles Hater confirmed the presence in the distance of an industrial enclave. Entering a dirty energy zone even upwind through the entrance creates nausea and revulsion in the sternest constitution. Crawling up the fundament of a conservative enclave offered a prospect dirty and dreary almost beyond our endurance.

Going back the same way you came never represented a serious option in the Deadland let alone standing in one spot. The majority of successful wanderers and by that nomenclature I mean those who stayed alive put their faith in forging forward always forward as the most probable path for survival. To backtrack now and find our way around this cursed lake could have taken weeks including continued exposure to those noxious fumes emanating from its poisonous depths while our precious water supply drained away without any hope of finding a fresh supply located anywhere near a cesspool this size.

We consulted the voluminous bag and retrieved three chemical suits. Only Hater's turned out to be the heavy-duty industrial kind. Nadezhda and mine were white not orange and more light-weight than thick. Hater sought to ease this inequality by volunteering to lead the way. Together he and I determined to keep Nastya between us as we proceeded single file.

A green vapor exhaled from the leprous lake once a vibrant crystalline blue living entity now despoiled beyond reclamation into a dank and poisonous breeding ground for sickness and horrid mutations. Long dead and beyond justice lay interred the corporate monster who with a shrug stupidly plopped his squat into his own drinking water because doing so didn't cost anything and his morals not to mention his common sense had rotted from greed.

An industrialist is a dirty unclean beast, dirty in his hygiene, unclean in his mind. He gutted the environmental laws so he could defecate in our drinking water. Dirty, unclean man. Shameful, wallowing in his own filth. Drinking from his toilet and expecting us to do the same.

The filth of the fracker is legendary. Grease between the creases of his double chin. Carrying his own fecal matter dried and matted in the hair surrounding his bum. Ignorant and brutish. Urinating everywhere without care and later walking through it barefoot. Ignorant and cruel destroyers and despoilers of clean nourishing life-giving waters. A fright to behold, power mad and blind with greed. In nature, pestilential. As they grew rich their riches corrupted the laws. Their stunted intelligence from brains evolved only so far and no farther. Their bestiality dragged down the whole human race. Poisoners of the world.

The black and copper muck encroached on the two-lane highway we had been traveling for most the day narrowing to just the oncoming lane before submerging altogether and reappearing like leap frog Lilli pads and then reemerging near the city's edge built on relatively higher ground.

No Earthly creature could exist in that toxic filth. Our trepidation concerned the depth of the sludge and the footing underneath the surface. With the aid of his night goggles Hater discerned the water was not that deep. Step by step he led the way inchmeal each time he planted his front foot resting his weight on the back foot while pressing then with his forefoot and testing the solidity before shifting his weight forward. Even where the asphalt had dissolved or been completely washed away the gravel bedrock remained solid enough underfoot. Still we made our way cautiously breathing a sigh of relief through our filters each time we regained an island of solid ground.

Our suits remained impenetrable and yet I felt a growing sense of dread with every footstep sinking into the muck slurping and popping loose as we trudged forward. We regained dry asphalt and my legs wobbled because of a certain sedimentary build up clinging to my boots. The toilet smell was as dense and palpable as humidity. In this damnation landscape I shuddered at the prospect of a human personality equally repulsive in nature to have manufactured such a fright with the capacity to remain complacent in his handiwork. Such brainless destruction staggered my credulity.

That man's image recurred to me as we finally reached the concrete block piles skirting the edge of Industrial City. The stench penetrating our quality rebreathers brought up memories of an obese hairy-backed aristocrat exiting the hallway water closet back at The Club. The odor might have been slightly more tolerable if the progenitor had remained anonymous. To look into those coal black eyes bulging from his face flesh and the look as though his conscience snagged for a moment on the guilt of what he deposited before breaking away and aloof over a thing unflattering to be sure but not having anything to do with him. Flushed away. Out of sight out of mind. His fat thighs created friction and his tubby torso twisted around when he walked. I didn't want to acknowledge that stench anymore and tried blocking his image from my mind.

We scaled the concrete debris barrier dumped there to facilitate denial. No troopers were on guard at that end of the enclave. They probably figured no one could ever stomach traversing the waste-filled lake.

The sullen streets revealed both the depredation caused by a lack of environmentalism and the scars left on women's lives by the anti-abortion laws. When they outlawed terminating unwanted pregnancies women's reproductive organs became subject to warrants for search and seizure. As a result of their zealous religious blindness even some women had been complicit in subjecting other women's bodies to the intrusive tyranny the patriarchal oligarchy held as proprietary.

The thrust of these laws never occurred to conservatives who couldn't imagine their own granddaughter snatched off the sidewalk on the way to the store by conservatives like themselves only stronger, more powerful. Guilty or innocent, virgin or not, had nothing to do with her ankles handcuffed to the stirrups while a roomful of men poked and prodded in cruel delight and the camera's lightening flash recorded the exhibition of the exhibition of the image stored in a data base hackable like any other electronic repository. Manufacturing whores, hundreds, thousands per year. Publically the Powersby's decreed prostitution a social evil. Privately they delighted in putting the whole transaction on a cash basis. A free market economy can achieve anything. A whore can't say no. Whether she wants to or not, she has to do it. She doesn't want to do it. She has to. Nothing says Powersby quite like the will to penetrate. Slap her around, do whatever you want because it's always the woman's fault since that liar Eve. The cult of virginity turns the whole gender into potential victims and it's God's will if she turns out a whore or is turned into one against her will. Nice girls don't get raped so carry that rapists baby to term, bitch. You're not a human being anyway. At best you're a vessel.

I surveyed the wreckage of this institutionalized double-standard by the damaged women's souls flickering in their victimized eyes. In their bedraggled clothes they lined the sidewalk by the hundreds. Some of these were visible in the dark dank alleyways on the receiving end of unspeakable degradation lust power and greed.

We must have looked like spacemen from the future exploring the gaseous surface of some cruel and nightmarish planet.

Chapter 12

Mrs. Whore smelled us coming. Her sardonic smile and long pointed fingers at the end of her arms revealed life on the street had not completely stamped out the fire of her humanity.

"There's a chem wash up the street that'a ways," she said. "You all from the government?"

"No ma'am," Hater replied, always the mannerly type. "We're just passing through."

"Not dressed like that you're not. Let alone the smell. Maybe I show you where the wash station is. Maybe then you lay me some script."

Hater twisted toward me for a quick consultation and I gave him the go-ahead shrug. Our guide gave us a wide birth and kept pace well ahead of us as she led us up the angular lanes between the dank and dark tenements. It occurred to me she might be leading us into an ambush. We'd already taken so many turns my lousy sense of direction could never find our way out again.

Our entourage emerged onto a street better lighted than I would have anticipated. She had directed our steps onto a main artery leading uphill. The denizens on this street dressed flash and moved with more animation through the smoke and gas illuminated by neon purple pink and sickly green.

We joined the throng and drew looks of revulsion from every quarter. With her street smarts she had waited until we were practically on top of our destination before plunging us with our stinky boots into the mainstream. Hater stepped into the wash area without waiting to haggle with the attendant and grabbed the long nozzle. The craggy-faced old baldy at the controls caught a whiff of us and flipped the lever in self-defense.

What streamed out of the nozzle wasn't water exactly. It was more like a chemical substitute. Hater turned the business end towards Nadezhda and me and the pressurized stream scoured away the copper and black filth. With the cleansing process completed he handed the butt end of the nozzle to me so I could return the favor. I couldn't hear what Mrs. Whore said to the old man but she convinced him we were good for it. She stood with her arms crossed remaining out on the sidewalk a pace or two away and spoke out the side of her mouth to the old man in case his wife or her pimp happened to appear.

After the power wash our radiation suits were clean enough for us to climb out of them. Only then did I realize the stink had infiltrated our rebreathers to the extent the filters would have to be replaced. The outside air felt lighter in comparison. It had the usual cigarette and carbon monoxide stench preferable to the other stench emanating from our stained booties. I violently sneezed a few times before my sinuses acclimated to the thick pollution in the air. In their wisdom the High Court had ruled clean air to be unprofitable and profit is everything whereas who really needs clean air.

I settled our bill with plenty of stolen script to both the old man running the spritz shop and the prostitute who had guided us there while Hater and Nasty stowed our cleansed gear into the volume. The sly smiles on the shopkeeper's lips and the lips of the prostitute told me they were pleasantly surprised by my largesse. With my team assembled I offered to buy Mrs. Whore a meal knowing in the bargain we would benefit from her selection of a decent eatery.

"A nice place won't let us in," she said, and her acute class consciousness reminded me of the system I had quit a long time ago. "I know a dive with really good food, though."

"That sounds like us," I said, and so she led us once again along the lighted thoroughfare. We passed several taverns rollicking with drunken denizens. Drunks staggered in and out of these establishments crawled on all fours on the walkway passed out in the gutter. Flamboyant prostitutes in old fashioned corsets wagged their bosoms at Hater as we passed by and responded to his red face with peals of uproarious laughter. At the risk of sounding like Beowulf's mother hilarity has always annoyed me. Maybe if I'd been hammered to the extent they were I would have seen the ribald humor of the situation too. Observing the glazed expressions in many of the passers-by it was obvious they had more than just booze coursing through their veins. A chem zombie is not hard to spot. Their skin tone has a shiny embalmed quality.

We followed our whore as she ducked down a flight of stairs and knocked on a metal door. A peephole cover slid aside revealing an aperture glowing with light. She supplied the password and vouchsafed for us. The cover slid shut the door opened and we stepped between two gorillas who relieved Hater of the voluminous bag handing it over the counter to a young floozy who slid Hater a ticket in return. Security patted down each of us in a firm no-nonsense way and satisfied we were unarmed ushered us forward into the speakeasy. Behind the bar stood a hundred bottles and two young bartenders in black slacks and white button down shirts. Booths lined two sides of the room and in-between round tables covering the main floor. Completing the room at the far end stood an empty band stand fronting a dark stage. Citizen patrons crowded the place along with underworld shot callers and their molls drinking tonics of blue-green and gold enjoying overmuch their legal and public evening.

Compared to the mayhem outside they appeared civil and level headed, desirous of respectability. For as curious as I was to study the patrons I quickly realized getting caught staring wouldn't be healthy. The men in shiny suits suffered from social anxiety as killers with fragile dignity. Their women struggled as the type for whom the cheap façade of class under the protection of a violent man represented a step up in the world. Low level criminality like this continued to flourish regardless of Powersby's ideology descrying dishonesty and crime of any sort. In most instances you had to expect hypocrisy as a given. The louder they came out in favor of sexual morality the more deviant proved their nighttime escapades.

Hater slipped the Maîtres de some script and you could tell underneath the face paint and rouge he was pleased. The shirtless fancy man straightened his bow tie and led us to a booth about halfway down the floor. Heads turned momentarily as the in-crowd eyeballed us up and down before dismissing us as inconsequential wastrels. We took our seats and bowed our heads over the menus or maybe under scrutiny in a public place that impression emerged from my paranoia. In a crowded place I'm unable to hear what the people sitting at my own table are saying and yet I can hear each conversation taking place at every other table arranged around the room. I don't know what that's about. In the instant this phenomenon brought back to me how much I hate trying to eat in a crowded public area. Considering going out to dinner was my idea in the first place.

I couldn't help but notice a beautiful woman at another table who wielded an attitude like cut glass. Her hauteur cost me a double take, her unseeing unflinching arrogance. I resoled not to look her way again. My fragile ego couldn't sustain the haughty disdain. I only wanted something to eat not to engage in a contest of wills I was sure to loose.

"Are you okay?" Hater asked, and while I struggled to believe he meant well nothing is less encouraging when the walls start closing in than to have someone read the very fear I was struggling to overcome.

"I'm fine," I lied gamely. "It's been a long time since I've sat in a public place like this."

"The food is great," said Mrs. Whore, sensing the unease threatening her promise of a free meal.

"I'm sure it is. I'm fine," I said. In my mind I could feel the whole place staring at me and I could feel the presence of a threat. A saber-toothed tiger was prowling through the tall grass out there somewhere nearby. To dispel the bad feeling I lifted my gaze and forced myself to scan the roomful of patrons who were not looking our way and a few who were and my gaze ricocheted off the hauteur glaring from the beautiful woman I had promised myself not to look at anymore. In one respect I felt elated because the reality of our situation turned out to be not as bad as my paranoid fantasy about everybody in the place staring at us and hating us for being there. On the other hand, a few patrons were overly aware of us. In a feeble attempt to dispel my fear I engaged our guide in conversation.

"Were you born in this city?" The waiter appeared and I motioned for Hater to order for me. Naturally Mrs. Whore wanted to order for herself and my question went unanswered while she did so. I knew she didn't mean to snub me. I was merely the victim of bad timing, my asking the question and then the waiter arriving. Still in her zest for food she had blown me off without a by-your-leave. I guessed I was the kind of person people could easily ignore.

Watching Nadezhda order for herself was a trip. She asked so many questions and had no qualms about taking her own sweet time. The waiter didn't care. He used her indecision as an excuse to study her beautiful face and body. She took so long to decide before long we were all studying her gorgeous features. Not the least perturbed her self-assurance made me envious. Then it made me feel like I wasn't good enough for her.

"To answer your question," Mrs. Whore said, breaking the silence and placing her hand on my thigh below the table, "I'm not from around here. I grew up in Company housing. My Daddy was management. My mom was a homemaker."

"Management?" I inquired, "High up?"

"No, not high up," she replied, the honesty distasteful on her lips. "More like middle-management. He did the best he could. He got outplayed a lot. He wasn't good at office politics." She began twisting her napkin.

"Is that how you ended up on the streets? Someone outplayed your papa?"

"No, not exactly, not directly. I don't know for sure. After my marriage ended I never saw him again."

The soup arrived and you could see the fresh louse jumping about over the larvae. It looked delicious. We fell into an awkward silence while the hot bowels were passed around. The waiter bowed and departed. Charming Hater intervened.

"You were married?" He flashed a smile assuring her he was only making the politest conversation.

"I was," Mrs. Whore said, "and that man was my downfall." Her candor established her willingness to divulge her personal history to strangers who had drifted into her life and just as randomly might drift out again. "I was a good girl, see? I started out with a life of purity. Kept in ignorance. All girl's school. No reading. No writing. No math. Nothing to clutter my mind up and possibly mar my feminine beauty. My daddy taught me to read a little, which, I know, I know, is against the law. But he wanted me to be able to read certain passages from the One Book for myself. Especially the ones about daughters being servile to their fathers. I was married to Jesus and Daddy in the Virgin's Till Marriage Club. Oh I was brought up strict. Strict and proper." She lifted her glass as if to toast a job well done.

"What went wrong?" I asked, and this time I understood we would only have to wait until the waiter set down our entrees in front of us before she would continue her tale. "My Daddy was a good man. He meant well. I'm sure, when he started out he only wanted what was best for me. He'd been with the company twenty years but he hadn't reached the upper echelons, and he never would. My impression was he knew his stuff well enough. He was competent. Could do the job. He didn't have the killer instinct and it stopped him from taking it to the next level. He showed them how trustworthy he was, good at his job, loyal without any real talent or flair for pushing the big project or closing the deal. A terminal nice guy. He was like one of those fish who lives in the sea, before it went dead I'm talking about, one of those toothless fish who lived in the sea who would join the sharks swimming in circles as a last ditch defensive effort, trying to pass himself off as one the sharks in the hopes they'd mistake him for one of their own and not devour him. Like when they invited him to join a game of hoops and he ended up getting elbowed in the mouth. The real sharks could sense he lacked the killer instinct.

"Sometimes if you couldn't fight your way you could barter instead. For that, he had me. After all, what more is a daughter good for?" She laughed and took a swig of her tonic. "I was too young and stupid to realize I was being traded like a bargaining chip. In his own mind I'm sure my daddy thought he was securing a brighter future for not only me but for our whole family. To sweeten the deal daddy offered a cash dowry in the hundreds of thousands, his entire life savings. The best investment he'd ever made. That's what he thought, anyway. In reality he wildly underestimated the level of cruelty in his future son-in-law, Wilhelm D. Powersby III.

"What did a few measly hundred thousand mean to a billionaire from a family worth trillions? No sooner had my dowry passed into his hands then dear Wilhelm's friends began placing bets on how long I'd remain Mrs. Powersby once he deflowered me. Looking back so many strange behaviors should have warned my family and me. Raised in silence, never told anything about sex other than it was sinful and I shouldn't think about it. As the saying goes, a debutante has three men in her life: her father, her husband, and her first male child. I couldn't have been more defenseless.

"My mother formed a true helpmeet, as they say. She would have preferred immolation to confrontation. Her opposite number in this nuclear confrontation was called Regina Powersby, my mother-in-law, whose widow's peak of oil black hair and pinched expression reduced my poor mother to a shambles. Fawning and weeping for approval from that old harridan who begrudged every inch. My mother's expression melted into a pool of shapeless despondency. Old Powersby refused to shake my Papa's hand. In that first meeting at their palatial estate we sat in their drawing room the size of our whole house. I would have run from the room screaming if it hadn't been for Powersby the son, my intended, patting my hand and winking and laughing noiselessly at the whole charade. Papa had often said that in business you had to steel yourself against rejection.

"He acted as though his taciturn in-laws were nothing more than difficult clients who first had to be won over to the idea of a merger. Foolish man. What a foolish, stupid man my father was, and yet my fate was ruled by him. Arranged marriages are common enough among plutocratic families. Nothing seals the deal in a gigantic merger quite like the blood from a ruptured hymen. In my case the deal was more like a hostile takeover or a deregulated house loan. They took what should have been my dream moment and reneged on all their promises and stole from me everything my family and I possessed worth value.

"The wedding itself took place in a picturesque stone church filled with bright flowers. After the quick exchange of vows we toasted a single glass of champagne before boarding his private yacht. The honeymoon lodge faced a lake ringed by white sand. It must have been artificial. As I'm sure you know water doesn't exist in that state anymore.

"Powersby owned the bridal suite where we stayed. Standing there with my new husband I had no idea what to expect vaguely understanding I would eventually have to be naked in his presence. Door locked. Curtains drawn. Lights out. In bed under the covers, I prayed.

"I emerged from the bathroom. The lights still burned brightly and the sliding glass door leading outside remained open. A slight breeze stirred the svelte silk drapes.

"I wore my bridal getup, and I approached him, humbly. He had removed his tuxedo jacket and top hat. Otherwise he stood fully dressed. Emptying his whiskey glass he set it down with a tinkle of ice and lost no time in removing my rustling garments. To my whimpering protest my feeble reluctance he responded with an admonishing tone and a reminder about my recent pledge of obedience. Then he grabbed me by the wrists and dragged me not to the bed but to a piece of furniture designed like a plot chart flat at the near end with rising action climax in the middle and then falling action with a flat denouement at the end. Powersby forced me down onto this board and quickly manacled my wrists together so my forearms and elbows rested flat upon the board. He next spread my ankles and manacled them as well. The climax of the board forced my derriere aloft and allowed no room for cringing or hiding. A wave of panic flooded through me provoking an inarticulate cry in protest. My noisemaking displeased the master. Retrieving a red leather ball gag he shoved it into my mouth and fasted its strap securely around the nape of my neck. I watched him fix himself another drink and then disappear directly behind me where he reposed in a leather armchair to fully appreciate the view. A gust of wind stirred the curtains and the breeze gently caressed my backside as I realized how exposed I was positioned for his viewing pleasure.

"Words of protest formed but my mouth was filled so that my tongue could only squirm helplessly. In retrospect I'm surprised I didn't cry. I suppose I was too stunned. Mama never said anything about restraints or a private viewing. As a proper Christian she never answered any of my inquiries about matrimonial affairs other than a pre-emptive pat on my hands and the cryptic reassurance I would know what to do when the time came. Well, the moment for something had certainly arrived. Unfortunately, I had no clue as to what was expected of me. I tried to form an image of my mother's shapeless face and having failed tried to test the fastness of my restraints. The leather bound my wrists and ankles snuggly and securely leaving no room for resistance. I stretched my body fore and aft as far as she would go. The design and solidity of the rack allowed for a very limited range in movement. On the surface I could feel the spongy softness against my knees. Some kind of ultra-soft animal fur covered the apex. Sliding back and forth sent a twinge through my body giving me an electric shock. Beneath its soft covering the plot chart was formed underneath by quality Maplewood and marble. Nothing budged in spite of my struggling and wriggling.

"About the same time I understood the permanence of my predicament an involuntary dribble of saliva sluiced over my lower lip down over my chin and hung pendulous and suspended. I tried to crane about to catch sight of Powersby out of the corner of my peripherals. This awkward attempt at eye contact stirred him from his reverie. My exposed posture the recurring caress of the breeze my new husband's unwavering appreciation the strategic brush of ermine fur combined to produce an effect I believed to be that to which my mother had alluded. The intuitive and unwilling response of my body welled to the surfaces met there by the gentle embrace of my lover's lips sipping at the Pyrean spring. Another feeling welled up from even deeper inside me this time met by the slap of a leather whip across my virgin's flesh. Not knowing what to expect I accepted this contact and the sting it brought to be the appointed moment and my poor head lolled in despair at being wired to those hips snapping uncontrollably. Then the pleasure surged into my brain in wave after wave and when I tried to thrust my hips forward to escape the hot lash I found the contact with the smooth ermine fur brushing and rubbing against my button intolerable.

"The hunger driving the spine consumed me and I lost consciousness of everything except pain and pleasure. Wave after wave of deviant sexual pleasure. No I didn't intend to lose control of myself; no virgin ever does. I was trapped in a trance between lash and ermine. The lash quieted for I don't know how long forcing me to rub and rub uncontrollably forcing one last incredible wave to cascade out of my core with unspeakable pressure and pop to the surface with the utter joy and release known as orgasm. I came to know the world.

"My senses were slow in returning. When they did I still couldn't prevent my body from rocking. My bottom prickled as though covered in red ant bites. The cool breeze caressed my hot flesh. I hung suspended between the fear those feeling might return and the dread they might not. I rocked to and fro, open, expectant. Ready for whatever my new Master might demand."

Mrs. Whore paused her tale long enough to tuck away a few bites of roasted rodent and grey slops this establishment was billing as mashed potatoes. Hater and I sat with eyes like owls our varmint soufflés untouched. Nadezhda had finished her meat but left everything else untouched. To me her twisting torso and bobbing head suggested she was searching for a waiter. She certainly showed no interest in our dinner nor the saga unraveled by our dinner guest.

After a few moments of observing her bobbing and weaving I understood she had become fascinated by the verve and jollity of the crowd. Their various antics transfixed her. Her behavior appeared almost as bad as that child riding on a public conveyance who turns all the way round and stares at you over the back of her seat. I gently patted her to get her attention and have her turn around and sit still in her seat. I tried to encourage her to take a bite of vegetable.

"I don't want none of that." Only, the nod she gave indicated not the contents of her dinner plate but our storytelling companion. For a second I felt mortified by the brazen insult and a pang of dread passed through me at the potential for an altercation that could turn physical and violent. For although Mrs. Whore had transported us back in time to her seminal sexual experiences she no longer retained many vestiges of her former youthful beauty. Under the phony candle lamps adorning this dive her appearance reminded me of a lizard crawling forth from a storm drain to prop herself up on the bar stool next to me and ordering a bourbon whisky and smoking a cigarette. Her left arm circumscribed a defensive posture around her plate while she plied her supper with a soup spoon gripped in her right hand. If she had heard Nasty's ostensible rejection of her vegetables she belied no notice of the double entendre so absorbed was she in consuming her own victuals. I gave Nastya a quick nod to indicate she needed to back off. In return she smooched the air playfully in my direction and then resumed her people watching.

Eventually our dinner guest resurfaced and the first thing she did was flip her lids Nadezhda's direction. At first I froze because I thought this denizen might have intuited Nasty's impertinence after all. Then I realized she couldn't quite fathom a creature no matter how beautiful wanton enough to leave food uneaten on her plate. To spare her the embarrassment of asking I lifted the plate over to her and she scraped the leftovers onto her own plate and smiled and with street sense said, "Don't mind if I do."

"I need to visit the restroom." I said to Nadezhda, "You come with me."

When I stood up the room tilted off kilter upsetting my equilibrium. Until that moment I hadn't appreciated how much the noise and confusion of the night club had worn on my nerves. What I really sought in going to the restroom was a moment's respite from the thick smoke the raucous chatter and high pitched hilarity clattering drink trays the click and scrape of cutlery the dark under current of our dinner guest's morbid tale running like an effluence composed of every sordid inequality ruling and ruining our lives.

The energy draining from my limbs signaled a panic attack already underway. My face froze into a mask of complacency hiding I hoped the ramshackle apparatus of my confidence. I know the reaction to the countenance I wear during these moments of crisis are ironically interpreted as a kind of aloofness when in fact I am on the verge of nervous collapse. Nadezhda could not have been more pleased mingling among the multitude. I needed a quiet place away from our table to sit down for a moment and rest my jangled nerves.

The lady's powder room provided the necessary oasis. The carpeted confines muffled the racket from the lounge to a more manageable degree. Perhaps the nervous frustration incited the riot driving me to grab Nadezhda by the wrist dragging her into one of the capacious stalls and shove her back against the sidewall. I thrust my hand under the hem of her frilly dress and took what I wanted. Squeezing and rubbing with no thought for tenderness. The more roughly I exploited her body the steadier I felt. A mixture of shock bewilderment and sensual submission comingled in her quavering lips offering no token of resistance. In frustration I yanked at her thin black panties stretching them taught ruining their elasticity so that they slid down her long supple legs to her bare ankles. At the same time I hoisted her little black dress up and over her head and I forced her down onto her knees there to pay homage to the symbol springing forth from my trousers. Her beleaguered lips parted as I plied my way into her mouth and pumped deeper and deeper. Observers often wonder what can be gained by this connection. True no actual sensation emanates from the dildo but if your straps are properly tightened pumping the hips produces an innate pleasure. The sheer perversity adds a special something as well. Unable to swallow she continued to salivate as though she was experiencing some degenerate Pavlovian response. She hungered in the presence of my exposed member which I withdrew with a fillip and encouraged her to regain her feet spinning her around facing the wall in the corner stall. She obeyed my handling without resistance dazed by domination, stripped and oblivious to moral constraint. Rest assured both my palm flats slapped that impudent bottom my freewheeling dexterity bringing her stinging discomfort to a peak before I penetrated her. Under the potent mixture of pain prickles and pleasure waves she cried out against her will in response to the first few strokes. Somewhere in the quiet confines of the ladies room I heard an astonished laugh letting me know we weren't alone. I'm sure the wet slapping noise delivered a dead giveaway and while not usually prone to exhibitionism I couldn't occlude the torrent of desire flowing from my hips having lost my own wits as well. When my senses finally cleared I realized I was lying on top of Nastya who was lying face down upon the carpet. A dutiful bottom, having had my way with her, she waited patiently whatever pleasure might come next. I sought to assuage the look of fear glinting in the corner of her eye as she humbly turned her head to regard her mistress. Gently I kissed her lips and murmured soft love words.

On the way back to our table there was no hiding the hitch in her step if you knew what to look for. For the remainder of the evening Nadezhda ignored the rest of the room and solicited my approval.

The dirty plates removed we were prepared once again to hear the sad tale and feel compassion. Because a young girl's heart once broken never fully mends.

"For my whole upbringing I'd been kept in the dark about sexual matters. I'd also been raised to put total trust in my dad and then a husband. I never questioned the perversions he subjected me to since I had nothing by way of comparison. My own brother could have molested me and by the rules of our house not knowing any better I would have submitted. For two months we sojourned on our honeymoon beach. Now I recall that was his term for it. It all felt good to me. I only wanted to please. I had been trained in ignorance. I had no idea he was preparing me for the porn sphere. Before my marriage I never knew such activities existed.

"Around my neck he clasped a gold collar and from time to time he attached a leather leash whenever we travelled. He told me it was a symbol of our marriage and our connectedness and it would ensure we were never separated. As long as he tethered me this way I could never be lost or stolen. Not wishing to end up a kidnap victim in my incredible ignorance of worldly matters I submitted myself humbly to my new husband's safe keeping, thankful he was taking such good care of me and watching over me so carefully.

"For the price of the red silk dress I wore you could have fed four families for a month or more. Pilloried upon a pair of high rise heels I clambered into and out of limousines and private jets. My bare bottom made contact with each luxurious surface. Sometimes exposed leather, soft and cool. At other times mink throw rugs impossibly furry and soft. Everything touching my life pleasured the senses. Over time my fingernails grew elongated and smooth because they never encountered any obstacle rough enough to cause a break. Only the best food prepared by a master chef in collaboration with a nutritionist passed my lips. My thirst slaked any time day or night by the purest spring water. I bathed in milk brought in by the pail full or in the finest champagne frothing forth from uncorked bottles or rare herbal oils at first alone but later with the aid of several geishas contracted to wash my body for me. I'm getting ahead of myself.

"It's because the days jumbled together in confusion I became enervated by the luxury and pleasure. Sipping melted chocolate for breakfast while barefoot servants padded about noiselessly none daring to notice my nude form reclining upon the divan until my keeper a stern and rather severe blonde woman past a certain age tall and erect strict and unbending in her spirit as well as her demeanor clapped her hands and all but the female slaves departed.

"On the morning I'm remembering the transparent glass tub with gold lion's paws gripping the marble floor she ordered filled with fragrant oil and my two bath companions with their hair pinned by kanzashi and their pale bodies so white they were almost grey shimmering as they took hold of my hands and guided me into the tub. They used their hands arms legs torsos to rub against my naked body to clean me. In her tight white silk blouse tucked into her immaculate black leather skirt Mistress stood watch over the whole proceeding. Her stern gaze penetrated my timid heart. Again I was overwhelmed by the desire to please for I knew her eyes represented the extended gaze of the one who kept me locked away in that stone mansion as if for safe keeping like inside a lock box.

"The first woman slinking into our marriage bed seduced me while my husband watched seated fully clothed in a hard-backed chair nearby. On the low-lying rumpus table she lay hard and gawky and decidedly blonde, long and lanky arms like a tarantula. Then they sandwiched me between them. I didn't want them to. I didn't like that much pleasure. They seduced my body into betraying my will. Robbed me of my secrets, a hostile takeover of all my finest assets left me naked and exhausted while they continued a few more rounds without me. If not for business affairs constantly calling her away she would have trumped my position entirely.

"The spankings he delivered posed the most perplexing challenge to my understanding. Had I in fact committed some marital malfeasance? As a result of a petty trespass punishment at the end of each painful cane stroke might have then made sense. The guilty must suffer. Yet I had done nothing wrong and despite my innocence or perhaps on account of it he whipped me without mercy. His cruelty left me contemplating throwing myself from the highest balustrade anything to free myself from the tempest of pain and pleasure I was subjected to daily.

"Somewhere in the mist of this horror filled delusion I became pregnant. I don't remember being consciously aware of my condition. I understood in the way you feel rather than know. For several days towards the end I had been on the verge of crying for mercy. An overwhelming fear of violent retribution smothered my will to survive. Having undergone the brunt of his controlled anger I knew I would never survive the onslaught of his unfettered fury.

"In retrospect I can see now how much I overestimated him. At the sight of blood streaming from between my legs his domineering act shattered and he sweated and trembled panicking like a pale little boy. He untied me and I collapsed into his arms and then slide to the floor. The spell of my ignorance and naiveté snapped and for an interlude as I lay there bleeding out and listening to him bleating into his compod cries for help a kind of elation swept through me because I knew my life of terror and degradation finished with that last beating and whatever hardships were to come would be duller and grinding in nature but he could steal from me no longer for I was emptied of value and contained nothing more to give.

"With the loss of a fetus there followed the mandatory criminal investigation. I lay on the examining table for hours cuffed by the ankles to the stirrups while one government agent after another poked and prodded and snapped flashbulb photos of my exposure. Most of those photos were splashed across the internet within a week. Public humiliation remains a potent weapon in the fight to control a woman's body.

"He told them he found me at the bottom of a flight of stairs in our mansion. My grim and devastated silence and the multitude of bruises covering my body confirmed their suspicion of assault against an unborn infant for the purposes of terminating a viable pregnancy. His father's buddies on the high court granted him an annulment and I was freed from his sadistic clutches forever and sent to prison to serve a sentence of indeterminate length. They had so many documents with my coerced signature they chose to hold me without filing formal charges to spare the sensibilities of such a powerful and respectable family.

"In disgrace on account of my alleged behavior my father was fired from his position in the company. While I was still in prison he shot himself in the head. Mother lost the house and was tossed into the street. She proved more resourceful than I would have imagined by obtaining work as a char woman in an upscale building. I've tried to contact her without success. She blames me for the destruction of her safety and comfort after my dad had gone to such great lengths to provide for my security through an arranged marriage. Of course it was all my fault. I was a woman.

"My arrest and subsequent incarceration wore down my fine edges. While still in prison I heard he'd remarried. Some princess with a pedigree as fine as his own whose brothers delivered a few bruises of their own to put the prince on notice there would be no repeat of the previous debacle in marriage. I heard those rumors only after I was paroled. Unable to beat the fairy princess with impunity he sought the satisfaction of his sadistic urges in these lowly environs we find ourselves in now. I caught sight of him once on the street and my heart nearly stopped. Free from his constraints and torments however I began to see him more clearly and understand his inherent weaknesses for what they were, the frailties of aristocratic breeding and the attendant culture of indifference.

"You see, aristocrats become isolated in ways stagnating the evolutionary process. In their retarded minds they embrace selfishness as a life philosophy a sure sign of weakness clearly indicating any pretense to power as a construct and a rickety one at that. The more evolved of our species demonstrate through their actions the power and wisdom of feeling sympathy and empathy and the strength of will to act from an enlightened place of love.

"In prison I learned sharing and on the streets I learned caring and I also learned the upside down lies the powerful repeatedly tell in order to justify their petty selfishness and cruelty as somehow humane. Greed and selfishness are defects left over from a primordial and bestial past.

"At one point in my life I possessed the humanity to rise above the petty slights of other people. Over time they succeeded in destroying in me those nobler aspirations. So you see in the end I'm a false profit. I know I should forgive and forget, turn the other cheek, but I lack the power and grace. Oh, I can help out my fellow denizens any way I can but upon that class of sadists and tormentors I have exacted a terrible revenge. You see, as a result of selling my body on the streets in order to earn the script to survive my body is now infected with the worst diseases of mankind. I say it simply, as a matter of fact, I haven't got long to live. In my short career as avenging angel though I have spread my corruption with at least a dozen of their favored sons. In their top hats and black tails they have wandered into these mean streets desiring to penetrate the weakest members of society and found me, a wet and willing cauldron bubbling with everything foul contracted from the society of callousness they themselves espouse. I'm filled with grim satisfaction whenever I reflect on the number of favorite sons whose pure young wives and innocent children carry my pretty marks. I am a destroyer of worlds. I'm the crimson retribution.

"Before my death I have one final act of vengeance. I discovered a chink in Powersby's armor, a way into his fortress, proximity to the finest mansion on the hill. The culinary house where their food is gathered and prepared for every meal has an exhaust vent. It carries away the bad air, pumps it outside over a vermin infested gully. An iron grill covers the exit, held shut by a cheap little lock. They're too penurious to properly protect themselves. I bashed the lock with a rock and lifted the grating rotating on hinges and crawled in; my invasion was that simple. Take a run at the front gate and you'd die in a barrage of hot led. Try to scale the walls you'd be met by razor wire and heavily armed patrols with attack dogs. On the lowliest sewer pipe they clipped a three penny lock.

"I've already explored twice without getting caught. By crawling on my hands and knees I've been able to reach the vents positioned over the soup pots simmering on the stove. I've also experiment with dropping bodily fluids into the mix as well as select chunks of skin which as you can see is sloughing off at an alarming rate. My last act of vengeance against Powersby will be to strip naked and lie on the grating above where his food is prepared for all the great houses. The whole purpose of those vents is to carry away bad odors so I'm confident my decaying remains will go undetected for quite a long time. The grating meant to keep out vermin I will prop open just enough. It will only be a matter of time before they join me, bringing with them their poop pellets and fleas as they nibble at my corpse."

Nadezhda bowed her head and vomited all that rich cuisine onto her desert plate. Cutting short the Crimson Vengeance in her recitation.

"Are you okay?" Obviously she was not okay but I had to begin my examination somehow.

"I not feel good."

Startled and concerned I reached out my hand and placed it on her shoulder. She turned to me in bewildered expectation as if counting on me to explain her illness. I never suspected I might possess an instinct like motherly affection. Testing for fever's warm glow I placed my palm on her forehead and then the back of my hand against her pale cheek.

"Is she feverish?" Hater wanted to know. I turned and caught him in a clinical manner regarding our sick girl. In that big brain of his he stored the knowledge of a medical doctor, just not the practical training.

"No, if anything she feels a little cool. Clammy, you might say."

"Too much excitement. Too much rich food," he pronounced, and my long acquaintance with Mr. Hater had taught me never to question his sagacity when it came to science.

"It's the atmosphere in this rotten city," Vengeance opined, and I found myself growing annoyed with our dinner guest and then alarmed lest she had poisoned our food as well when we were absent from the table. Certainly Hater would have been alert enough to prevent her. I also had to inwardly acknowledge she had a point. All day long we had breathed in the fetid air circulating in this dark and dank morass. Inside this club the wicked mixture of cigarette smoke and a profusion of some exotic spice along the lines of red pepper permeated my own senses. Adding of course the charming dinner conversation.

"This city reeks like an outhouse full of pollution and other wretched stink," I said, angry because it had made my girl sick.

The maître' de appeared at our table, our waiter standing behind him and to one side.

"Madam does not feel well?"

"No, I'm afraid not. I'm terribly sorry for the mess. I'll help clean it up."

"No no no," he admonished, "It is of no concern," and with a snapping gesture he signaled our waiter forward who without hesitation or grimace whisked the plate away and concealed it in a trundle cart and with equal celerity and agility cleared away the rest of the finery including the tablecloth. Facing a bare table in front of us we rose to go.

"Mademoiselle requires a doctor?" Realizing the guy spoke with real concern increased my respect for him.

"No, that won't be necessary. You're very kind. I think we should just go. A little outside air will revive her, I'm sure. We travelled a long way today and I think exhaustion has set in."

"I think it was the crappy food you served us. I never tasted worse swill in all my days. She probably has food poisoning. You should give us our money back." The Crimson Vengeance spoke so rudely and abruptly for whatever dumb reason I felt more humiliated than I had the moment before. The guy was being really nice about everything and she was coping an attitude like a full-on tart. Apparently Hater had paid the bill in our absence.

"You say the food is no good?" The poor man looked crestfallen. It wasn't often you encountered service people who actually took pride in their work.

"It wasn't the food," I interposed. "The meal was delicious. The food was fine."

The maître de' turned to our waiter to confirm our bill had already been paid. Then he turned and addressed me. "You wish a refund for your meal?"

At the same time I said no the Crimson Vengeance said yes. I turned on her and snapped, "Why don't you go outside and wait for us. I'll handle this."

My impatient flare up caught her off guard and she adopted a posture saying hey I'm on your side.

"Let's all go outside and let Nika handle this," Hater said, backing me up by taking Nadezhda's hand and enfolding it over his proffered arm for support.

The Crimson Vengeance skulked along behind them. I looked the man in the eye. "It will not be necessary to refund us our money. Like I said, the meal was fine. You've been very kind and decent and I'm sorry for the mess and the trouble. We'll just leave. I'm sorry for the rudeness of that person."

He would not even acknowledge that a rudeness had occurred.

"Perhaps when the mademoiselle is not so tired with her travels and feels better she will visit us again."

Dude was killing me with kindness.

As we were leaving the club the footlights dimmed and the band blared a fanfare and the stage filled with life as the floorshow began. I caught up to my friends near the entrance and slipped my arm around Nadezhda relieving Hater of the burden. Poor dear. With my arm around her I could feel her wilt and tremble at even more noise and confusion blaring from inside.

When we arrived out on the sidewalk I slipped Hater some script and asked him to go back inside and give it to the nice man and thank him for his patience and kindness. Hater understood how I felt and set off glad for the opportunity of exercising his charm.

"Why didn't you let me get your money back for you? We could have eaten for free. That guy was about to cave."

"Because there wasn't anything wrong with the food and he was being really nice about it."

"What about you, Cream Puff? You're the one who puked your guts up. Do you think we should have gotten our money back?"

A puff of exasperation escaped Nadezhda's lips as she closed her eyes and burrowed her nose into the side of my boob. Other than that she didn't respond.

"There are more important things in life than money."

"Like what?" Vengeance demanded. Now she was annoyed to the point of anger.

"Like human decency."

She laughed in my face, loudly and pointedly.

My arms still cradling Nadezhda we turned to greet Hater trotting down the steps.

"How did he take it?"

"With perfect equanimity, like a real pro."

"Do you think it was a put on?"

"If it was a put on it was a very convincing one."

"Why are you people always so bloody polite about everything?" The Crimson Vengeance crossed her arms and spit to one side.

"It's an act of rebellion," I said.

"Rebellion? Against what?"

"Against a world that prides itself on cruelty and indifference."

Her lips fluttered in exasperation so strong was her incredulity.

"We're going this way," I said.

"I'm headed that way," she said, pointing in the opposite direction and abruptly we parted company.

After we had walked about a block I said to my companions, "That went downhill fast."

"I don't feel good," Nadezhda said, pouting before she added, "I sorry I ruin 'tings."

"Oh no, Sweetheart. I wasn't talking about you," I said, giving her a reassuring squeeze. "I was talking about ditching that psycho woman back there."

"Did you believe her story?" Hater asked.

"I think maybe parts of it were true. Bad things have obviously happened to her in her lifetime. You can tell just by looking at her. She had my sympathy until she started in with the waiter." We plodded forward as a tightknit little group until it occurred to me to ask, "Do you think that waiter was really foreign?"

Hater twisted his lips and shook his head no.

"I tink use bad words not okay is," Nadezhda said in piteous protest from her safety zone nestled against my breast.

At first I didn't understand her complaint. Seeking clarification from Hater I wrinkled my brow. In reply he mouthed the word bloody.

"You're so right, Nadezhda," I said, squeezing her a little tighter. "Life is hard on everyone but that's no excuse for vulgar language. Mr. Hater, put your arm around this proper young lady as well and let's find a place to sleep for the night in this awful smelly place. We'll leave first thing in the morning. Even when life is hard and unfair people shouldn't abandon their principles by developing a potty mouth."

Chapter 13

Fog crept into the city and mixed the smutty coal smoke into a filthy mixture of rank human odors and rotting animal flesh. Many of the denizens glided through the shadows their faces obscured by gas masks. Others wore designer rebreathers, a combination air filter and carnival mask while a third type wound scarves or long strips of cloth over their noses and mouths with or without tight fitting goggles covering their soot sensitive eyes. The poorest among them without benefit of filter or cloth wore the begrimed aspect of coal dust chiseled into the creases on their faces.

We struggled to march three abreast through the crowds on the boulevard. Nevertheless, Hater and I did our best to hold onto Nadezhda and bolster her between us. Besides the scuffling of feet and shouts and reveler's ravings we heard constant coughing and hacking as though we were traversing the corridor in a tuberculosis ward.

Shortly after our abrupt departure from Lady Vengeance we paused to don our own rebreathers serviceable enough though not as fashionable as I might have liked. If we had been planning to stay for any amount of time I would have wanted to invest in a model chicer. Searching through the clouded shadowy murky environs populated by pimps prostitutes confidence men pick-pockets drunks thieves and murderers everyone wearing a masque everyone a pretender I struggled to identify a halfway decent hostel for spending the night. I resolved to make our stay in that bastion city of conservative aristocracy as short lived as possible. For a while as I silently plotted a course I entertained the notion of seeking alms at the iron gates protecting those mansions on the hill maintained above the smog line. Then remembering the malice aforethought outlined for us over dinner I thought the better of it and resolved to quit that cesspool of conservatism the very next day.

Eventually we were lured by a neon sign into procuring for the night a cramped bungalow. On the streets I saw vendors bartering their goods. Script purchased goods and services just as well and in the course of our adventures we had stolen so much of it peeling off a couple of bills never posed a problem.

The room came furnished with only one skinny bed so we wrapped Nadezhda in a blanket and laid her on it where she curled up and fell straight asleep. Hater and I zipped our body bags together and lay them over pads on the floor. Laying together in the dark I reiterated to Hater my desire to quit the city early next morning and he earnestly concurred. Having formulated our plans for departure we cuddled and spooned for a while with neither one of us able to get comfortable, especially not with Hater's second-self standing at attention and poking me in my moist spot repeatedly.

In exasperation I finally crawled out of the body bag and forced him to get up too and follow me into the bathroom where I stood him in the shower and yanked down his boxers and gave the man a proper reach around. As his mead pump shrank I wiped clean his tip before restoring his boxers and leading him back to bed. In relief he murmured his thanks and fell fast asleep. A man is such a simple beast to care for and keep loyal if you know how. Now with everyone asleep except me I rubbed my button until my legs shot out stiffly and my monkey toes flexed in delight as though clutching at the primordial memory of Bobolink filled tree branches. Thoroughly relaxed I too fell asleep without shame and guilt free.

Some days a horrible anxiety clutches my lungs as though all hope is lost. This pain originates in the belly and rises through my lungs into my brain where it constricts my breathing. Scientifically I suppose it operates the other way round. Enduring the day becomes that much harder when the bad feeling is already present first thing in the morning. My eyelids rolled up into my skull. Day had dawned. Let the pain begin.

A persistent feeling of unease nagged at my equanimity threatening to capsize me. As I ran through an index of my personal problems no particular one pressed any harder than it had the day before. Hunger, thirst, starvation, sickness, death. No, I would characterize what my imagination pictured as a future problem inherent in the vast uncertainty and manufactured from sinister and ethereal vapors a whole host of oppressive and threatening chimeras. For as much as I set goals and solved problems and created happy scenarios to relieve the tedium of walking the Deadland step by step and indeed of rending this very narrative from awkward slabs of reality, my mind could invent sadness and anger and paranoia out of warm sunshine.

"You're inventing," I admonished myself anytime my own genial faculties turned traitor against me. Against some portending doom beyond my immediate control and the suffocating gloom gathering in my mind I had to fight my way back to the surface and dispense with those murky morbidities or allow them to overwhelm and bury me expiring in a miasma of my own making. From time to time I had to crack the whip over my own creative impulse by reminding myself I held no control over the monsters roaming back and forth across my intended path stretching forth into the unforeseeable future and instead hitch my creativity to my libido, and right away ensued that mad dash in the troika of my desire to kiss and lick and suck guiding my thoughts racing straight to Nadezhda.

Her color had returned with restorative sleep as she lay on her side her legs pulled up and her backbone arched. The palm of one hand she tucked between her thighs; the other palm she slid beneath her pillow. Watching her in repose I judged she might no longer be asleep. Aware Hater and I were up and moving around she chose to remain in bed that much longer. We tacitly honored her need for more rest by dressing and primping silently. Standing elbow to elbow in front of the bathroom sink we performed our ablutions as the seconds on our purchased water credits clicked away on the automatic timer. After Hater finished shaving I kissed his smooth cheek confusing him somewhat and he blushed. Understanding my predilection for other girls he never knew quite how to receive my displays of affection. Plus I think basically he was kind of a shy person. When we first started hanging out we used to bicker like brother and sister. Sharing the responsibility of caring for Nastya softened us both in our attitude towards each other and I hate to say it but not having Rachel around as a constant bone of contention made life easier for everybody. Staring into the mirror above the sink I shied away from my eyes reflected there after a thought as uncharitable as that one. Eventually I checked my appearance and tried to cheer myself up by smiling, fooling none of the negative voices in my head for a second.

Hater stayed in his boxer shorts and took up position sitting with his back to the wall in the main room. To pass the time he thumbed numbers into his calculator, practicing some abstruse equation. The way Nastya's petite mouth hung open gave her face a look of a cherub's naive wonder. She had succeeded in falling back asleep. I joined Hater in holding up the wall. My compod stored books galore most of them ancient since no one read or wrote new ones anymore. I was reading Akhmatova again for the personal tears she shed over her beloved people's suffering and I couldn't help wondering who would weep for the plight of mine.

Nadezhda opened her bright green eyes whose soft radiant beam shone forth from the obvious source of a pure and gentle heart. If only her morning smile had dawned on me instead of Hater. She smiled at him exclusively as though I wasn't even present. For the entire time required for me to vault onto all fours and scramble across the floor to her she never stopped staring at him until I rose up in front of her face and demanded to know: "Why are you looking at him and not at me? You're supposed to love me, not him! Why can't you see me?"

Nadezhda brushed away my grip on her shoulder and rolled over to the opposite side of the bed to escape me.

"Oh my goodness, Nika," she cried, jumping off the bed on that side and circling around the foot to avoid me on the way to the bathroom, "I can't not take your crazy jealously first ting when I wakes up. Your angry face. I can't not be awake for two seconds before you are mad at me!"

I gained my feet and trailed behind her trying to apologize until the point where she entered the bathroom and slammed the door in my face as though someone had slammed a coffin lid over my soul. The jarring sliced through me as I wheeled away and collapsed in a heap on the floor. In love, jealous angry needy begging rejected abject and groveling on the floor. Why did my emotions spin out of control in a manner of seconds?

Hater hadn't moved. He sat quietly thumbing his calculator like before while a few feet away I lay squirming and weeping like a burlap sack stuffed with unhappy kittens.

Behind me the bathroom door opened and I heard Nadezhda ask, "The water left on the meter is for my shower?"

"Yes," I replied, a moment of clarity momentarily emerging through the tears from the depths of my pity party. "We took our showers last night." I wiped the snot away from my nose.

No acknowledgement came other than the door slamming shut again. The second time the shock wave wasn't as potent but it echoed like the first one.

"Why doesn't she love me?" I begged to know, dragging my sorry carcass over and resuming my spot next to Hater.

Without looking up from his device, he said, "Try not to act so needy."

"But I am needy," I wheezed. "How can I not act needy when I need her to love me so much?"

Hater sighed turned off his compod slid it into his bag and turned to me though I could not meet his gaze. "You asked," he said, and scrambled to his feet. "Are you going to get with the program or sit there sniveling all day?

"Sit here sniveling."

"Fine."

"You asked," I mimicked him.

The door leading into the hallway opened and clicked shut and I realized I was alone having successfully alienated my only two friends in the world and it wasn't even breakfast time yet, probably where Hater had disappeared to, foraging for food.

The feeble drizzle of Nadezhda's water ration fell pitter-pat on the cold grey concrete of the shower room behind the closed door. The surface niceties like carpeting wood paneling and linoleum time and constant occupancy had worn away revealing beneath the solid mass of iron and concrete. Slow erosion dusted the bottoms of our feet with a fine grey and white powder we briskly slapped before drawing on our woolen hiking socks.

By the time Nadezhda stood fully dressed adjusting her jeans and bra straps and billowing peasant blouse meant to camouflage her curves though really nothing about her appearance could be hidden two mice began tussling in the pit of my stomach loudly enough for Nadezhda to glance dully in my direction.

"You ready to move?" I demanded in my best imitation of combat readiness.

Nadezhda ignored my question smoothing once more her hair her blouse her hips. I stood there foolishly waiting for an answer until she gestured impatiently at the door with both her upturned hands signifying to me the door wasn't likely to open itself magically.

For safety's sake I stepped into the hallway first. Despite her sullen anger I sensed Nadezhda's gravitational pull as she orbited just inside my body space. Her healthful sense of vulnerability always alerted me to the danger for two women travelling together in a society where women had no rights. Her clinging so close even in her anger imposed the burden of responsibility on me for her safety. I bore up under it for a lot of reasons partly to serve a penance for my behavior earlier. Now she needed me and I wasn't above playing her dependence to my advantage. That particular morning her paranoia might have been intensified by both our strained emotions and when I say paranoia I mean our heightened sense of awareness. Maybe she couldn't rely on me entirely as her guardian and guide.

Before stepping across the threshold into the landscape of experience shifting beneath our feet I said, "No worries. You're with me. Hold on. Let's go find Mr. Hater." To my surprise she took my injunction literally by grabbing a hold of my leather jacket and together we stepped outside.

Cold air froze my pours shut. Errant snowflakes like floating razorblades flitted across our path. We were both stunned for a moment. Poor Nadezhda whimpered and let go of my jacket to zip up her own.

"Freak weather," I said zipping my own jacket along with her. "You never know what it's going to be like, boiling hot one day, freezing the next."

While I was speaking Nadezhda's complexion turned white and her cheeks and the tip of her nose turned red. She stared at me in a way silently suggesting in the strongest terms that saving her from this frozen discomfort fell squarely under my list of immediate obligations.

A snow veneer painted over most of the oil filthy horizontal surfaces creating the illusion of a fresh new beginning. In the street a few ragamuffin boys chased each other in circles making a game out of kicking each other in the bum. Under the general weariness the oppressed populace trudged with purpose through the stinging cold as though intent upon conducting some sort of business or other. Early in the morning the women appeared better dressed than they had the night before. Maybe they weren't the same women, these early risers. Now they wore knee high boots and homemade blue jeans and jackets with faux fur collars. Most of the men appeared shabby content in black hard soled shoes black trousers and the same proletariat zip up jackets. In comparison to the personal beauty of the women the men's faces appeared thin and sallow or puffy with lax expressions the kind of premature aging resulting from a steady diet of potatoes cigarettes and high-powered tonic, the clear kind. Along with their unpresupposing appearance came a reputation for boorishness towards their women though I never witnessed any such behavior myself.

Even in the midst of a cold snap an exotic spice aroma permeated the air in competition with the carbon monoxide stench and second-hand cigarette smoke. The ancient buildings on both sides of the street towered several stories above our heads and blocked out the sun as much as the putrid grey air, solid and obdurate constructions testifying to a high-water mark in culture long since passed. As odd and out of place in the post-apocalypse as waist coats coat tails broad brimmed ladies' hats and trellised gowns.

Eventually we came upon a roundabout bordered on one side by a public square fronting an enclave of some sort housed in a power edifice. A building with marble pillars. Who knew what horrors might reside within? Sadistic whims of the Oligarch.

A cluster of troopers loitered in front of the building producing in me the usual paradoxical reactions of reassurance and distrust. Did the plutocrat possess a beneficent spirit? Then his soldiers represented the rule of law. Had the plutocrat's cash reserves bred in him a contempt for the peasantry as he looked down on them from his lofty summit? Then cruelty followed as surely as in his childhood he tore the wings off little girls and focused the burning rays of the sun through a magnifying glass torturing a squirming servant.

To avoid contact with those minions we veered to the far side of the roundabout and followed a street leading towards the city's edge and beyond that the Deadlands. I figured to locate Hater in the illicit black market bizarre inevitably thriving at the entryway to every ancient city. This goal formed our intended path. The roasting meat smell drew everyone like a blinking beacon. He'd be there.

We arrived at the bizarre and it was obvious some unnerving event had recently transpired. A kind of weird tension filled the air. Everybody seemed nervous with watery bloodshot eyes. A hysterical woman loudly lamented raising her hands to the sky and then gesturing to the ground where I realized she was surrounded by some large green orbs, fruit or vegetable I wasn't sure. An older man maybe her husband or eldest son grabbed at her gesticulating hands in an attempt to calm her. Somebody had definitely upset her little cart.

I clasped Nadezhda's hand in the passion grip and drew her closer to me as we approached a nearby booth serving up food and gossip in equal portions.

"I'll take two," I said to the strapping young entrepreneur behind the counter and indicated some kind of braised rodent flesh on a stick. As we transacted the deal, I asked, "What went on here?"

"Slavers swept through not a moment ago," the young man said. "They kidnapped a few poor souls and escaped into the desert before anyone knew what was happening."

"And grandmother there? She lost a daughter in the raid?"

"No, I don't think so. I think in their rampage they knocked her over and trampled her produce. Besides, they weren't snatching girls. It wasn't that kind of a raid. They were collecting male slaves."

"Femenistass?"

"Sure enough, I reckon. They don't call themselves that anymore but it was an all-female tribe. They had a slave cage on a big cart drawn by a tandem team of poor souls. And they were heavily armed those women. Nobody around here can brandish a cutlass like that. We've got defensive clubs is about it. They had guns, too."

"Any ammunition?" I asked. The man smiled wearily at the worn-out witticism and I regretted joking in the presence of other people's suffering.

"Poor boys. Magistrate isn't likely to send sand troopers into the desert just to rescue a few unfortunate denizens."

In response to this information I'm afraid I behaved very foolishly. I handed my rodent on a stick to Nadezhda and proceeded alone to the center of the square. Hands on hips turning in a slow circle scrutinizing every face at every stall I'm sure I made myself a perfect spectacle but during this process the unfortunate truth formed like an empty space. Mr. Hater was nowhere in sight.

By the time I returned from my reconnoiter mission Nadezhda had eaten both her and my rodent. I noted the selfishness but I felt more relieved than anything because if her appetite had returned she must've been feeling better. Grasping her jacket sleeve I drew her away to an area near some garbage cans where nobody else was standing. The stench of rotting offal was so obnoxious I dragged her a few steps further. She wrenched her wrist free even though I wasn't gripping her that hard. In response to this gesture I informed her point blank about Hater's absence. As I spoke I stood with my back to the bizarre and the crowd of strangers. Nadezhda peered around me on both sides, first left then right, to have a look for herself. Not a lot of enthusiasm in the endeavor. She had to settle for looking me square in the face to better discern the implication.

"The man over there said a group of slavers marauded through her a while ago. Femenistass snatching men and boys off the street in broad daylight. They must have taken Hater because otherwise he'd be here."

The distraught muscles in her face realigned and then drooped until she looked like a sadder, older version of herself.

"Who take heem? Who take Mr. Hater?"

"Femenistass."

"Who dis person is? You get me knife. I slit hees throat. I stab hees eyeballs." Her threats weren't grounded in reality and thus broke my heart.

"It's not a guy. It's a group of women."

"Who dey?"

She could see me working up to an explanation and cut me off before I could start. "Give de short version." An expression she'd picked up from Hater.

"It's a slang term. It means women warriors."

"We women warriors, too, no? We go and we fight dem to death and we take back our man!"

"We're not really women warriors, not really. We're more like drifters. Runaway slaves ourselves if you want to be honest."

For the first time ever Nadezhda struck me. I'll be darned if she didn't ball up her little fist and bring it down on my shoulder. I said something brilliant like, "Hey, cut it out." She balled up her other fist and began dancing around building up the momentum to throw a punch. I stood there in amazement wondering where she had witnessed this behavior long enough to mimic it now. I was so dumbfounded by her aggression I stood still until she actually threw the punch accentuated by a very brave little grunt. I easily slapped it aside, not so the kick she delivered to my shins.

"Knock it off, will you? It's not going to help Mr. H. any for you and I to fight with each other."

"We go now. We fight dis bitches and take back our boy. You get me weapon. I need blade. What you call . . . long blade, like dees, dees long."

"Sword. A long blade like that is called a sword. Listen. We don't need weapons. I think that violence is not our best gambit. I need to think. Think this out first. Formulate a plan. I need time to think."

"You tink while we walk."

"We're going to need food and water. We can't go traipsing into the desert unprepared."

"So buy dis food. Buy dis water. Now!"

"Yes. Fine. Of course."

That's the way it was with some slaves. Give them a taste of freedom and they go haywire.

"Which way dey go, deeze slavers?"

"That way!" I swept my hand broadly from east to west, "into the Deadland."

"We buy stuff. Den we go. We follow. We grab Mr. Hater back."

To hide how much script we were packing I visited several different stalls and paid various prices for much the same goods. Nobody was selling really quality water, only the flavored bottled stuff to mask the impurities.

The road only ran in one direction. Newly stocked we followed the trajectory away from Industrial City. I couldn't help but stay motivated by the naïve ferocity on display from Nastya. For some time I had felt the chemistry growing between them. The blow up that morning back at the hostel testified to the growing tensions between us. I'd been angry with Hater all morning and now I was heartsick over his abduction. He was my friend, too. I loved him, too.

Whenever I discovered a freshly graded service road like the one we were traveling I couldn't help but wonder who wielded the cat-o-nine tails flailing the slave gang into shouldering the ropes drag draw hauling the steel grader to flatten this path. Sand granules crunched beneath our heels. The hardpan level and smooth underneath the surface sand. On either side mud swales arched away like a wave in mid curl the dirt frozen for an eon at least as we tramped by on foot, slowly.

The realization registering in the pit of my stomach and festering unspoken focused on whether or not the mountain range in the distance stood to scale with their power to eradicate any sense of progress despite our perpetual trudging, their ponderous mass over there diminishing my resolve over here.

In the in-between times my mind wandered across the desert spaces contemplating the shrub and cactus. The crowded and empty expanse sapped the poison of recrimination from me. Maybe so much exercise forced a superabundance of oxygen into my brain. I felt like I was no longer a coward. Then I suffered a moment of doubt. We needed to concoct a plan before gleefully hurling our bodies onto the sacrificial pyre. The dumbfounding spaces had drained some of Nadezhda's gumption and replaced it with the dry brittle reality of our situation. In response to her parched expression I called a halt and produced one of our water canisters to assuage her thirst.

I watched in fascination that odd way she had of not touching her lips to the rim. Instead she parted those luscious lips and extended the dainty tip of her tongue ever so slightly and tilted the canister allowing the water to trickle freely into her expectant mouth. No matter how carefully I tried to emulate her a dram always sloshed down my chin. She produced a tiny tin filled with soft wax and coated her lips with it. I was on the verge of asking her when and where she had procured an item like that when she daubed some onto the tip of her middle finger stepped up and began spreading it evenly across my own dry lips. The care and concern her living breathing proximity and the soft caress stirred in my blood created a secret flood of emotion flowing in her favor. I knew we'd be walking together for a while. We gazed into each other's eyes until the morning's jealousy was forgiven and forgotten.

She hadn't forgotten Hater. Her mind had been focused elsewhere, inside herself. She lived an interior life full of experiences and memories I knew nothing about. Her pleasure in gulping water belied the slippage in her intentions. Even in a cold snap high desert acted as a dehydrator on the human system. Dying would help neither us nor our mutual friend. We drank lots of water in order to stay healthy.

Only a god could know the names for such a variety of flora and fauna as we found growing in the desert. Canna flowers dotted the landscape and as the cold snap abated and the air warmed the cherry blossoms awoke like so many yawning sleepy children. We crossed a delta and climbed an embankment and on the other side of the dune columbines and hydrangeas waved in a breeze otherwise imperceptible. We surmounted a hill and made our way around a butte and were careful to keep the sun behind us casting long shadows across the lagoons and marshes. Calla Lilies bowed their heads like priests over the Lilies of the Valley who though members of the same parish acted like complete strangers.

We climbed a mesa on a plateau near the mountains and entered a valley where Black Eyed Susans dominated the landscape and Blue Bells hung onto life out of primordial stubbornness that can be remembered but not memorized let alone taught. We reached a wetlands fed by a waterfall leading to a tributary surrounded by Blue Bells and Lantana who some call a weed and yet many find it difficult to extirpate such beauty. At the edge of a canyon we saw the lights of the prison camps twinkling from the archipelagoes. The desert gave way to a fjord and then another desert covered in roses and poppies and Mussaenda erythrophyllic flourished as though man had no right to name such a voluptuous gift. We marched across a desert and through an arroyo and off a cliff and landed on a bed of begonias and Ixona and that warm-blooded feeling returned and as we lay there I felt up Nadezhda and we became naked because that is the kind of chick I am though the dendrobium grew as a constant reminder demanding to know am I my brother's keeper forcing me to remember poor Hater captured by Femenistas.

So we got dressed and with metal spoons we ate chili beans out of wooden bowls and washed it down with freshly brewed coffee in earthenware mugs and the gas we passed was like the ghosts of the natives who drift through the ancient ruins of the pueblo when they are pretty sure nobody is looking. We adventured onward to aid our friend and soon found ourselves once again in the high desert without approaching to those mountains whose presence was beginning to annoy me.

While I didn't feel as though we were approaching any closer to the mountains where the slavers defended their enclave a group of buildings located near the outskirts of industrial city did appear and our plodding brought us demonstrably closer until we were near enough to discern several bonfires tended by the Cultus Homopuer Priesthood under the protective escort of Dark Matter Troopers. Either one of those groups by themselves would have been a cause for alarm. Together they represented the two most oppressive entities in the Deadlands but weren't likely to commit atrocities in the full view of each other whose agenda leadership and chain of command were separate and not always operating with full cooperation.

The troopers spotted us first and most of them eventually turned to regard our approach since they didn't have anything better to do considering we were the only travelers on this lonely stretch of open road. They probably wouldn't rape us I figured in the presence of the priests and monks even though ultimately the male member occupied a position of supreme privilege in their faith and any pregnancy resulting from such a gang rape would have to be carried to full term because after all in a male dominated society every sperm is sacred; nevertheless the priests would also be squeamish about sex for the fun of it and when I say the fun of it I mean of course from the male perspective obviously since such boys will be boys hijinks would have something of a detrimental effect upon the mental and physical wellbeing of creatures who nevertheless by their very nature present bodily temptation to poor mankind and hence is always asking for it (although to tell you the truth in my considerable experience I have never witnessed a single solitary woman make such a request in so many words). Sex for procreation is one exercise, sex for pleasure quite another, and a sin unless a priest takes in hand a small child for buggery's sake. Somehow those peculiar carnal delights enjoy special exemption from church law. No one would mistake us for children, Nadezhda and me, and so we felt covered. Then too the priests wouldn't attempt to torture us into a confession sparking the fire of the auto-de-fa, not in the presence of the civil authority, not without a writ of corpus delecti, unless of course this demolition crew travelled with a doctor in tow giving them the legal right to hold us down and penetrate us to our very wombs and they didn't even need a warrant for that kind of procedure, but the two groups working in concert on this occasion weren't on a rampage against harlotry. They were hunting much bigger game.

I knew the word library meant a place where in the olden days books were stored. About the meaning of the word museum I was much less certain. I'd broken into a couple of buildings marked as such yet I never found anything other than cavernous bare spaces. Whatever they held once must have been judged as very useful for denizens to steal it all. Surprise incredulity and wonder followed fast then when I perceived the priests emptying this particular building of what looked like giant bones. Some of the specimens were so large they sent my imagination grasping after answers, for never a creature so behemoth ever walked this world's surface. I knew that much for sure.

Before we went too close I removed the voluminous bag and setting it on the ground I rifled through its contents in search of scarves we could wear to cover our heads and conceal our faces. The last reaction we wanted to inspire was an erection that might imperil a man's everlasting salvation. Out of several cloths I chose a nice pink one for Nadezhda. She approved the choice because she knew as well as I did it would go well with her lighter coloring. For myself I chose black. Unless the green exactly matches my eyes the contrast comes across as tacky and without a mirror I couldn't be sure. Black would serve. My leathers might seem less wanton and more survivalist with proper head adornment and we zipped up tight and I shouldered the volume again and prepared for the looming interview with the two authorities.

To my surprise the gang of pickets playing cards on sentry duty didn't seem terribly interested in who we were or where we were going. Nadezhda clung to the crook of my arm on the side away from the troopers when we passed. The vibe I received from them suggested they were too comfortable in their soldier's ennui to bother with us. We were only women. We didn't count. Running through the drill of stopping us and demanding our identification and the like might have interrupted the easy boredom of their duty. You'd think they might have been tempted by the lure of novelty to break up the monotony. Not so. We passed by under gazes of haughty disdain. In my mind I was like, for real? Listen you boys, I invented haughty disdain.

Curiosity won out over sound judgement as I turned onto the lane leading up to this enormous classical building. Nadezhda uttered a low squeal of alarm and squeezed my arm in protest at the sight of so many priests. I couldn't help myself. I had to know the facts inside this giant mausoleum and the charnel remains the zealots were bent on destroying.

Priests continued carting out the bones, some normal sized, others whose length and girth staggered credulity. Although they stoked several bonfires the bones didn't readily burn. A few of the priests looked to be experimenting with various sledge hammers and saws in an attempt to break apart the larger bones into shards and rubble if they could not be reduced to ash. If they were merely seeking to keep warm I considered they might have chosen a les recalcitrant fuel.

Busy in their work the priesthood took no notice of our presence leading me to the erroneous conclusion we were somehow invisible. A few heads turned to regard us briefly but no one raised a hand to stop our progress. We approached the venerable structure up some wide stone steps and through colonnades four times my own height. I'm sure in the olden days the whole effect must have been beautiful. Two metalic beasts stood guard on either side of the grand stairs. Perhaps because of the remote locale these bronze figures had been spared the usual ravages of vandalism. For the same reason apparently no one had claimed the structure as their own living quarters. Location. Location. Location. I marveled at the passage of time. All the while this old bone filled mausoleum locked up tight, its cache of bones perfectly preserved. How strange.

Until the monks and priests showed up, that is. What busy little termites they turned out to be swarming over whatever they found objectionable and reducing it to a pile of splinters and ash. Busy boys, those monks.

We inserted ourselves into their marching column and filed in with them and jumped aside once we had gained entrance into the cavernous main hall. A realization confronted me in stages. The size and scope of the sculpture on display was unlike anything I'd seen before.

The aggregate comprised what looked like the skeleton of some giant lizard bird except the head appeared much too large for the neck and the rest of the body and the forelegs dangled and shriveled and looked far too short to be right. In those two areas the artist formed the proportions of his chimera all wrong. I liked the jaws though and the rows of sharp teeth and the huge hindquarters and tail. What a vivid imagination.

In my amazement I'd lost track of what I was doing. Nadezhda had wisely gravitated to one side of the hall and taken up position behind a pillar where she could appreciation the sculptured bone creature while remaining unseen. On the other hand I glided toward the business end of this monster as though I were in a trance. Standing as close as I dared to those flesh-eating bone crushing mandibles forced me into reversing my initial appraisal. I could totally buy into this creature as some voracious bird of prey. I found the overall effect unnerving. No wonder the priests wanted to destroy these sculptures.

An informational placard stated this rough best had once thrived in these parts... followed by a bunch of numbers whose significance I couldn't understand. Like a fool I looked around for someone who might provide clarification as to the meaning of these numbers and their general relevance. I was used to Hater standing by my side. I could always count on him for an explanation. At that moment I incurred the glare of a Holyman wearing a red dress and not a black one like the others so I assumed him to be the high muckamuck.

"How do you, do, senior?" In addressing him I bowed slightly though I don't know why. Perhaps a fear of him putting me to the question and burning me at the stake.

"How do you do, young daughter. How is it you come to these remote parts without a male chaperone?"

"We're on our way right now to find our brother. He's gone into the hills hereabouts to preach the gospel to the heathen and convert their poor impoverished souls which are in mortal peril."

"He sounds like a good and pious man. Is he of the brotherhood?"

"I'm sure he must be. I don't know. He doesn't really talk about his work much. He says too much worldly knowledge ruins feminine beauty."

"Such a wise man should have also known better than to venture into these hills alone and leave two such lovely pilgrims to fend for themselves in these badlands."

I drew my veil over my face in the forlorn hope of not giving this perv a stiffy. I glanced over my shoulder in time to watch Nadezhda duck her head and retreat behind a pillar. I spun back to the Holyman and said, "Well, that's my brother for you. Always ready to take one for the team."

Holy Father seemed taken aback by the abruptness of my language so I changed the subject.

"Say, would you happen to know if any of these big fellas are still outside stomping around anywhere in the general area? I would surely hate to run into one of them while I'm out looking for that holier-than-thou brother of mine. Not holier than you personally, of course. I just meant...."

So saying I rested an elbow in the palm of my hand and with the other pointed surreptitiously at the giant beast dwarfing his eminence.

A terrible scowl contorted his face when he spoke in reply. "Remember my words always, my child. This monstrosity never existed. It is the fantasy of a diseased imagination. An abomination, and that is why we are here today to destroy these blasphemies and wipe them clean from the memory of mankind."

I was on the verge of referring to the informational placard when I thought the better of it.

"I know what you mean," I said, trying to sound as reverent as possible. "I know I'll never forget what I've seen here today." At this statement on my part the Holyman bared his teeth and tilted his head at an angle remarkably similar to that of the giant lizard bird on display. "I mean, until I walk out of here and leave the building. By the time I get outside I'm sure I will have forgotten everything, except for the parts you told me to always remember." Sometimes when you find yourself in a hole the only remedy is to stop digging. "Big teeth," I said, bowing and scraping and backing away from such a dangerous predator. I had managed to redirect his scowl towards a contemplation of the lizard bird and yet his expression evolved not one iota.

I turned and hastened my retreat grabbing Nadezhda on the fly and exiting the premises. Once more we linked arms and calmly strolled past the scurrying monks and the torpid sentries. Soon we regained the graded dirt road and quickened our pace. I felt a twinge of guilt about lying to the Holyman because I had no intention of forgetting about what I'd seen and I resolved to question Hater about it just as soon as I could redeem him out of captivity assuming we didn't run into any of Big Boy's living relatives along the way because I didn't believe the man in the red dress when he said those creatures never existed. Let's face it. Priests are awful liars. You can smell their hypocrisy rising like the stench from a fetid swamp.

Chapter 14

Several times I had secretly read their main text, in secret because any attempt to interpret the law for yourself constituted a serious crime. For a woman to presume to do so brought a punishment twice as severe. What I found most disturbing was the way these nominal Christians cherry picked the Bible for only those passages supporting their personal bigotry. Mostly words condemning gays and women while these fig leaf sexaholics completely ignored many other passages I thought contained a few gems of real wisdom, stuff about giving to the poor the sick and the elderly, not beating them with a stick like you saw all the time. Even more surprising to me were the number of passages about the evil of money and the corrupting influence it could have on a person's soul. Nobody talked that trash nowadays. I'm sure you can understand my astonishment when I read about how that Mexican fellow Jesus lost his temper and chased all the pay-day loan companies out of the temple. It was easy to understand why a priest would want to keep that kind of anecdote on the downlow. Imagine the repercussions if the Powers That Be caught wind of a parable like that one being preached on Sunday. No Holyman I ever met would try it on, not if he cared about his own job security he wouldn't. Let's face it: when money is the bottom line 20 gold pieces is twenty pieces of gold and there's simply no arguing with cold hard cash.

Personally, if I was looking to cover up my sex I would shop for drapery a tad less sticky and caustic than a fig leaf. At the orphanage they had a fig tree growing in the back area more for symbolic purposes since Sister said the fruit wasn't good for little children and only adults who know better should eat the fruit thereof. She plucked a leaf and handed it to me demanding to know how well I'd like one of those rubbing against my unmentionables all day long. In my own childish way I averred that I wouldn't like it very well at all. "That's the only knowledge you'll need to know about what goes on down there between your legs," Sister said. "Any time you get a good feeling distracting you from your pain and suffering think of this itchy fig leaf and it will help you to drive away evil thoughts, that and the image of our savior whipped and flayed spread eagle on the cross should do it." I tried to hand her back the fig leaf. She waved it away, saying, "I don't want that thing child. Drop it on the ground." She plucked the fruit forbidden me and parted her wrinkled lips so I could see her red tongue flickering as she sucked the fruit into her pie hole with apparent relish. Watching her reminded me of the way the priests often sucked on the figs dangling between the legs of the little orphan choir boys during bath time. Already the fig leaf worked its dark magic and I was filled with a sense of guilt and shame. I realized such maters needed to remain under cover. The upshot of the lesson seemed to be, you could have all the sex you wanted if you were powerful. If you were weak, better not to speak a word.

Careful not to run or in any way give the impression of flight from The Powers That Be we nevertheless strode with purpose putting as much distance as possible between us and them. Our close call with the most vicious hands belonging to The Powers That Be filled me with the urgency to escape their fanaticism before one of the infallible Fathers tented with a desire for power tripping rapacious excess, afterwards burying us up to our necks and pelting with stones our beleaguered brains or straight-up burning us at the stake, punishment for having bewitched them into carnality against the true wishes of their spotless natures.

If our paths had not crossed with one of those creatures whose ancestor's bones posed such a quandary for the ghostly fathers, not to mention the direct threat to their job security, our fate might have been decided in a radically different manner. Our luck seemed preordained in that living specimen we discovered nibbling on ferns. Despite his three horns and armorial shield we knew him for a gentle knight and no tyrannous king or chairman of the board.

Despite his rough exterior I patted vigorously to gain his trust and his demeanor expressed itself through a pair of gorgeous brown eyes as well as his peaceful ruminations upon one of his simple pleasures in life. From the voluminous bag I retrieved a knife for pruning a tasty bunch of ferns and I already had a rope coil I fashioned into a makeshift halter and reins. Mounting this prodigious beast we took up position straddling his neck, and dangling the fern bunch before his eyes motivated him to thunder forward saving Nadezhda and me both time and energy. Once having prompted this beast into motion I no longer tantalized him who seemed congenial enough transporting us towards the distant mountain range. Instead I fondled his ears, kindness and love ever the best means of establishing a symbiotic relationship.

As a result of his determined plodding we arrived at the mountain's base before nightfall and as I set up camp and lit a fire I paused for a moment to appreciate Nadezhda playfully dandling the last of the ferns before our champion's tremendous snout as he bit and munched with obvious delight and I considered myself fortunate indeed to count within my circle two such gentle spirits.

Chapter 15

As Rosy Dawn and her five sisters stroked the sleep from my body Nadezhda stirred in the body bag next to me. After a first thing in the morning howdy-do I helped extricate her from the bag and held her hand for balance as she stepped into the bath pail. Using a combination of water and glistening oil I sponged her whole body until she glistened in the morning light. Venus standing in a metal bucket.

In our camp at the base of the mountain range I shouldered the voluminous bag and for safety's sake I draped a black burka over Nadezhda lest her sexual appearance lure me from my crusade to liberate fellow in distress Hader Glascock who by now might have suffered untold indignities at the hands of his female captors.

Our gentle giant transport had wandered off during the night since I hardly possessed the means to hobble or tether him. Led footed reality ground us down the farther we ascended the path and the more I realized we were approaching a point of no return. My plan such as it was included advancing far into pagan territory to be taken prisoner. Once inside their camp I would think up what came next.

Despite the best efforts of its original engineers against the thousand-year rain this road had suffered serious depredations. In several spots sand drifts covered entire swaths. As a precaution I pulled Nadezhda in behind me and fastened her wrist cuffs to my utility belt forcing her to stay in a single file position reminiscent of some sheik and his favorite concubine.

I gritted my teeth at the prospect Hater might prove ungrateful after this level of danger and self-sacrifice.

Finding a switch lying near our path I gathered it up and employed it as a device for prodding into one of those periodic sand slews covering a declivity in the road again having to admit to myself how much I didn't know what I was doing. For some reason I was afraid of sinking into quicksand. I slowed down until I couldn't move a muscle, frozen in trepidation beyond taking one more step. Perspiration beaded on my brow until a droplet funneled down the bridge of my nose and hung off the billows end, pendulous and wavering. My own saltiness burned at the corners of my eyes.

The soft explosion sounded first. Pack. Then the bullet whizzed past my head. I dropped my prodding stick and raised my hands in the air as a clear indication of surrender. So far my plan was working perfectly.

Along the high ridge bordering the road on the mountain side human heads appeared bobbing up and down in and out of sight and we heard derisive laughter as these Homicide Girls bounded down their mountain trail to confront us. Before they arrived I reached back and unsnapped Nadezhda who nevertheless continued to cower behind me. They emerged fully into view at the top of a slope off to our right. Hands still in the air I rotated a quarter turn to face them. Nadezhda scampered in behind deploying me as her human shield.

"You can put your hands down, as long as you ain't got no weapons."

I lowered my hands palms outward to display them empty of weaponry. A second pair of hands emerged from beneath my armpits in a silent demonstration declaring they too had nothing to hide. With so many burgeoning hands waving about I must have looked like some kind of elephant god seeking peaceful accord.

"Alright you two, come on up here a spell. We seen you coming up the road like a hunk o' fire most the morning. You slowed down rightly where them burned out cars is."

Encouraged by her loquacity I ventured a question.

"Do you think it's safe for us to cross the road to where you are?"

"Nope. I'd say it aint safe a'tall. I'd say you two is standing in the middle of a mine field, far as I can tell. Don't you see them burned out Hummers?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I did notice them, and I figured it was indicative of some kind of danger."

"You figured it was what?"

"Well, I was using that stick, you see, to test for hidden land minds."

My interlocutress squatted on her haunches. She was a woodpecker diesel dyke, widow's peak swept straight back off her face.

"What was you testing for? To see if one'll explode when ya poke it with a stick? You'd think common sense 'ud tell ya the answer's yes."

I despise when people resort to common sense. "I wasn't trying to make them explode. I was attempting to locate one before I stepped on it."

"Poking it on top with a stick ain't no different from stepping on it. Pressure's pressure. You mean to find one of them rascals you got to lie on your belly and poke at it from the side. But that's only if you're crazier than bat shit."

She glanced over her shoulder at her sister in arms, a raw gangly blonde with a low center of gravity, a once gentle face pitted and creased from prolonged exposure to sun and snow on a high desert plain. The two of them shared a laugh at my expense.

"You'd be out here all day long squirming on your belly and never see an end to it. Nobody ain't never made it any further n' where your standing right now."

She again looked over her shoulder at her sister-cousin for corroboration.

"Naw, nobody, I reckon," the blonde said, repositioning her grip on the Dark Matter issued automatic rifle she gripped.

The raven-haired dyke stood upright and said, "Come on up now to where we're standing."

"But is it safe?"

"No darling, it ain't safe, That's what I been telling you. But you ain't got no choice. Your chances of getting blown up is a sight better if you cross that there ten feet crossways than if you go ten feet further on up or ten feet in reverse. Now listen here, city girl, we ain't got all day. You get your skinny ass up here right now and don't go getting yourself blown up neither."

"Yeah, get on up here, girl. Get outta that mess," Blondie said, motioning impatiently with her muzzle.

I could see the look of callous expectation in their eyes. They were as curious to interrogate us up close as they were for us to step on a landmine so they could watch us explode. Displaying more dash than sense I grasped Nadezhda by the hand and dragged her behind me as I marched across the road and onto the shoulder and up the slope while staring defiantly into the eyes of Peckerwood Girl as though I were the living embodiment of blind luck. She watched my bravado drain away from the moment my boots crunched the sand. To my surprise she didn't relish my fear. Instead her face took on a look of concern as she waved me forward with both hands. "That's right. Might as well get it over with. You're fine, girlfriend. Climb on up here. Get outta that mess now."

We arrived on the promontory where we joined the sentries of the rebel camp.

"My name is Nika. This is Nadezhda. We want to join your rebel faction."

"That says maybe," the dark haired daemon said, ignoring me in favor of her fascination and wariness over Nadezhda's burka. "Let's see what we got here." She grabbed a hold of the black drapery and whipped it off her in one dramatic flourish. Nadezhda stood revealed in her scantily clad glory.

"Hello," she sing-song intoned in perfect modesty. The two hard core warrior babes stood amazed. Without a modicum of restraint the two pickets looked her up and down, admiringly.

"You seeing what I'm seeing?" Diesel the Woodpecker asked.

"I'm seeing it," replied Blonde on Blonde. I wondered what she would be like in private conversation since she only seemed to parrot whatever the black haired chick had to say.

"What's your name, sweetmeat?" I winced at the vulgarity inherent in that derogatory form of address and the hot blood pumped from my maddened heart and coursed through my veins to the furthest reach of my extremities. I hate getting punked. My protective instinct to beat that woman unconscious for her rude familiarity subsided when I witnessed what an expert job my lover did handling herself in such an extreme situation.

"My name Nadezhda. Sometimes friends they call me Nastya, and I hope you call me dis, too. And what your name is?"

"Rhonda D. is my name," she said. "Though most the time folks call me Dee."

That quickly a note of civility entered her tone, one I hoped was not entirely disingenuous because it bore as well a hint of mockery.

"I'm Taylor. That's what they call me," the blonde interjected. Though no one had asked she obviously wanted in on the action.

"Very nice to meet you, I'm sure," Nadezhda said, pivoting away from them and towards me. Putting her arm around my waist and then positioning her palm between my shoulder blades pressing me into service again as a kind of shield. "Dis woman is my Master, name of Nika, and she with me everywhere, together we go."

At the same time Nastya stepped away in order to gather me into the conversation Rhonda D. took a predatory step forward in pursuit. I advanced a step as well squarely confronting the opposition. At close range little Dee failed eye contact. She may have meant it as a slight, but in the game of civility Nadezhda had initiated, eye twitchery counted as a fail.

Taylor had more sense and social grace than her earthy counterpart. "Master? What's that mean?" A smile wrinkled at the corners of her eyes and her eyebrows pitched upward at the contact ends. I turned toward her so that now an empty square space opened between the four of us.

"I stole her out of slavery, so there's been some transference, but we've been making our way towards freedom, for both of us."

"You two go around together, then?"

"Yes, we're a pair. A couple."

"You're going to fit in around here, I think." Any tension from a moment before disappeared and a darling intelligence shone through her sun damaged face. She could have been really pretty if she'd taken care of her skin.

Ronda D. on the other hand kept track of me in her peripherals and strained without success to make eye contact with Nastya who airily ignored her. Dee could have shot me or knocked me out with one punch but she couldn't sustain eye contact with me.

Nastya looped her arm in mine and patted and petted me. She met Rhonda D's gaze and delivered a gentle rebuff in a whisper: "My Master. I'n all tings in dis life we go together."

Her countenance fell but her predatory nature would not be denied so easily and haunches squirming she readied to pounce. Sensing the impending attack I stepped into the empty space again under the pretense of talking more directly to Taylor. When Dee's pokey nose impacted with my shoulder I pretended not to notice and in the politeness game she was forced to retreat again. Nadezhda slid around to my other side effectively blocking Dee for the moment. I continued to ignore her although I was aware of her glaring frustration. I mean, when two people declare they are together you should really back off. I directed my comments to the one called Taylor.

"I'm glad to hear we might be welcome. We came in search of freedom. We want to join your group. That's why we're here."

I was just making conversation, trying to make friendly so we could get inside the camp and find Hater. Jealousy flashed from Nadezhda's eyes because of the attention I was paying to Taylor. I patted Nastya's hand trying to reassure her my talking to this young woman didn't mean anything. I had no way of communicating in a subtle fashion my need for amity, not only for getting us inside the compound but also to block the egregious Dee and work around her. My placating pats failed in their mission. Nastya dropped her hold of me and as Taylor continued her affable line of patter I understood why she let Dee take the lead. I also realized any more of this charming conversation about female freedom and Nastya would pound her fist on the game board dashing the pieces into the air and the four of us end up in a freeforall cat fight. Physically I didn't think we could win. Nastya couldn't fight. She'd scratch and pull hair and then scream and cover her face and cry and carry on at incredible volume. But she couldn't throw a punch to save her life. Neither could I which is why I ended up having to negotiate my way through life. Most of the time she was a good life partner but never a perfect one. My mind and hers did not work the same way and I couldn't control her actions let alone predict and plot the free radicals in her nature. My impulse turned toward the handgun in the volume and just as quickly rejected gun violence as plain wrong.

By inducing Taylor to lead the way I narrowly averted Nastya pouncing. She followed after our guide I feared with the intention of sharing a few choice thoughts. I ran to stop her from insulting Taylor. She was leading us as welcome guests into their camp and hence to Hater, for goodness sake. Dee blocked my path. My mind leapt six squares ahead to a square well up the trail. I had no intention of playing a simpleton's game of you jump me and I jump you. I moved around her and sped along the trail after Nastya leaving the outmaneuvered Dee to bring up the rear.

For the remainder of the afternoon we tramped along the dusty trail and the posturing subsided. At times we ascended almost to the apex of the ridge without ever quite reaching the summit. The trail rose and fell but the hike always strove uphill. We reached a river running at barely a trickle with the mostly dry riverbed strewn with pebble fragments of the larger boulders lodged upstream.

My ears popped from the altitude and to relieve the air pressure built up in my Eustachian tubes I worked my jaw like a madwoman. I know my contortions made Nadezhda laugh until she remembered she meant to be angry with me and jealous of our guide. Nastya cast an evil glance at Taylor, who much to her credit, I thought, deigned not to acknowledge the affront. Her attack thwarted, Nastya's puffed up attitude deflated and she lapsed into a dispirited funk. Knowing she would rebuff my gentle advances I nevertheless reached over and patted and rubbed my girl's back and just as quickly withdrew my affections before she had the chance to shrug me away in annoyance.

"How much longer do you figure until we get where we're going?" I asked Dee. The other young woman Taylor smiled to herself at the awkwardness of my tone in addressing with strained civility someone who obviously didn't like me.

"We get there when we get there," Rhonda D. replied, adjusting the straps on her backpack while it sat on the ground between her feet.

Annoyed with herself for the taciturnity of her own remark she relented somewhat and in a frank admission indicated Taylor was in charge and I should direct my question to her. Knowing full well she'd heard me the first time I walked over and stood next to Taylor at friendly proximity and alongside her peered up the trail to where it disappeared around the next bend. She was sipping water from a banged up old canteen and thinking her own thoughts.

My own thoughts revolved around several conflicting notions primary among them the guilt I felt over the calumny I was perpetrating against this humane and noble creature. If I succeeded in liberating Hater from his confinement she would undoubtedly face the consequences for having introduced us into the camp in the first place, an event still unforeseen and without precedent and hence fraught with imaginary peril. That coupled with my now childlike dependence on her and my growing fatigue in every limb but especially my sore feet rendered me beholden to her I sought to betray.

"Up around the bend there I'll have you folks stay put while I go ahead on up and alert the sentries. We had a friendly fire incident a few weeks ago and I'm not looking to make that kind of mistake. So I'll alert them to what's coming. Let 'em know you're harmless. Far as I can tell. Before I search your bags anything you wanna tell me first about any contraband you might be carrying?"

"I have a handgun stored in my volume. It has a clip but it isn't loaded. Nastya doesn't have anything. Girlie stuff. Lotions. Lip balm. Nothing dangerous."

"Let's have a look at that handgun."

Not feeling I had much choice I slid the volume from my shoulders and set it at her feet. She took a knee and unzipping the bag she rifled through several compartments. At the rate she was going we would have been there all day. In the spirit of cooperation I pointed out the special pouch where I stored the piece.

"There's six in the clip."

"One in the chamber?"

"No, it isn't loaded," I said again, doing my best to be honest and helpful.

She snapped the chamber open causing a live round to pop out and fly off and land in the dirt.

Taylor fired a supercilious smirk of disapproval at me.

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't think it was loaded." I bent down picking up the bullet and handing it to her.

My ineptitude put her at ease. She removed the clip and counted the live rounds into her palm including the dropped one she dusted off and blew on to clean before reloading the clip and slipping the pistol into her jacket pocket.

"You know how to fire this thing?" Taylor asked, cinching closed the voluminous bag standing up and handing it back to me while keeping the pistol.

"Not really," I said. "I mean, I know you hold it in your hand point it and pull the trigger but I've never really tried it before." I was slaying her with my honesty.

"Two beautiful young girls wandering the Deadland together and you never once had cause to defend yourself?"

"We're grown women, not girls."

"You're a pair of young girls," Taylor contradicted me. I didn't dispute the point. Her condescension signaled she was underestimating us. Playing to this advantage I lowered my gaze and waited for her to be in charge.

"Call the lovely Miss Nadezhda over here so I can check her bag, too."

"Nasty, come over here, please. I need your help." Taylor was right. We were little girls compared to her. Her character had been forged stoking furnaces far hotter than anything I had ever faced. My sulky kitty wandered over taking her own precious time. "Slip your backpack off so Taylor can search it."

"Why she look tru my tings? I have no ting for her. I carry my tings, mine," Nadezhda protested in a library whisper.

"She's not going to take anything of yours. She just wants to make sure you're not bringing anything dangerous into their camp."

"I not bring a dangerous ting," Nadezhda began, but Taylor cut her off.

"Take off your backpack," Taylor ordered. "Here, let me help you," she said, lightening her tone as she moved around behind Nadezhda and slipped the backpack off her shoulders in a no-nonsense fashion. The look Nastya gave me about broke my heart, as though saying, how could I passively stand by and allow her to suffer such an indignity. Her look of hurt cut me to the core. As a slave she'd never had anything to call her own and so the little bag of trifles she'd gathered along the way amounted to her own personal nest egg although to look at it you wouldn't have seen anything but a bunch of junk. Plastic combs, brushes, an empty key ring, a mangled postcard featuring white sands and blue sky, various lotions and unguents in every size shape and hue of bottle and tube.

Taylor pulled out a teddy bear and set it on the ground. Before I could grab her Nastya lunged forward and for a split second of panic I thought she was attacking Taylor's throat. Taylor may have had the same premonition. Still gripping the backpack she rose to her feet and stepped back a pace.

Nadezhda reclaimed her stuffed toy dusted off his bottom and placed him inside her jacket and zipped him in for safekeeping. I didn't know she owned such a toy and I couldn't imagine where she had picked him up. Taylor and I both stood there regarding her not knowing what to say. She crossed her arms in defiance against us. Her lips quivered and I pulled her to me enveloping her in my arms.

"Nobody's going to steal your bear," I said. She was really breaking down so I spoke to her in code. "Remember we planned for this. We had a plan, remember? We're going to join the women's tribe in the mountains where we'll make new friends and be safe from the world of men. You remember about friends, right? How we talked about safety? And friends?"

Pulling Nastya to me again I reached around to rub her back some and smooth the tears out of her lungs. I was also keeping her back turned while the gist of my words filtered through her defenses. She hadn't forgotten about Hater. Only in the drama of the moment was she tripping on the petty details.

By the way she swiped her eyes and straightened up I could tell she'd received the message. Nadezhda bowed her head for a moment and when she raised up again I'll be darned if she didn't look me straight in the eye as a signal she was back in character.

Fully recovered she turned around to face Tanya and smiled in a bashful way that said she had remembered herself and all was forgiven. For her part Taylor's smile tried to dispel any awkwardness as well. She peered into Nadezhda's bag one last time and retrieved a tiny black cylinder. She held it up and asked, "What's this?"

"Is a lip balm," Nadezhda said, speaking softly and shyly in a way I recognized as play acting.

"What's a lip bomb?" Taylor eyed the cylinder and then looked at me and queried, "Bomb?"

"Different word entirely," I said. "Balm, b-a-l-m. Sounds the same. Different spelling. Different meaning. It's a jell that goes on your lips. A moisturizer."

Judging by her sun ravaged skin I could easily believe she'd never heard this lingo.

"How does it work?"

"Here, I show you," Nadezhda offered, walking over and taking the container from Taylor and removing the cap she twisted the base dialing up the product. To facilitate the making nice session I went over and relieved Taylor of Nastya's backpack. I held it for her while Nasty demonstrated first on herself then on my lips and finally on her recent antagonist now turned buddy the minor miracle of lip balm. If you find this interlude facile then you've obviously never walked the Deadland. Protecting yourself from the depredation of the sun is no joke.

Tanya might have been somewhat deliberate herself in playing the neophyte thus creating the opportunity for Nadezhda to come to her aid. She wasn't the same level of player my Nadezhda was though. Not by half. Nadezhda rubbing soft goo on your lips was enough to mesmerize anyone, man or woman.

Meanwhile Rhonda D. kept her distance observing fascinated but not about to take part. Once the girlie artifacts were stowed safely away and we'd shouldered our packs she rejoined the group. In a surprise attack Nadezhda sprang on her and applied lip balm on her as well. Smiling, laughing, hair flips. Full frontal assault. Dee surrendered and had her lips moistened as well. Her eyes switching from side to side as though searching for an exit to make good her escape.

Now that we'd all been officially anointed into the sisterhood of quality moisturizing products we turned our shiny lips towards the setting sun and moved on up the trail.

After a few hundred steps Taylor sidled up next to me leaned closer and whispered "Note to self: don't touch Nadezhda's stuffed bear."

While wearing the guise of a shared private joke I thought to myself you have no idea.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught Ronda D. swiping her lips clean with the back of her hand. Then she spat. After that she never flirted with Nadezhda again. The time came for us to stop so Taylor could go on up ahead and announce our impending arrival. Nastya was still carrying her bear zipped inside her jacket. She had unzipped it a little way so his nose stuck out and he could breathe easier. While we were standing around waiting for the clear signal I helped her stow him safely in her backpack again. To use up time she applied more wax to my lips. Dee spat and kept her own council. Eventually Tanya returned to announce the way was clear. I felt relief knowing we wouldn't be shot.

Chapter 16

The women's auxiliary had been holed up in these mountains a long time and they were dug in deep. If he didn't step on a landmine like we'd almost done any man foolish enough to advance up this trail and attack these women would step into the kill zone demarcated between two ridges leading up a narrow incline.

We confronted a military grade riot barrier wedged between two sheer rock cliffs. I wondered how they had managed to acquire such a pristine piece of Government Issue. My guess was violently. The audacity necessary to capture a prize of such magnitude amazed me by its power and will. They must have overpowered and overrun a government position and upon retreat uprooted the barricade and carried it away with them. These warriors had their collective act together.

The aperture slid open and we stepped through single file. Although these women didn't show paramilitary uniformity they were geared for war. Some revealed a little cleavage; others remained buttoned down tight. Bare arms sported copious and colorful tattoos. These fierce warriors stopped performing their duties or milling about to take a good long look at us and make their appraisals. They formed a tough looking bunch lean and athletic healthy severe ideologically driven.

"These are the new arrivals," Taylor declared as we threaded our way through the gathering crowd. "They're hungry for freedom and asylum."

Her phrasing struck my ears as odd but the announcement brought smiles from the crowd and a murmur of approval followed by a smattering of applause.

"Hello everybody – is very nice to meet you all," Nadezhda called out, doing her best jubilee wave. She acted like such a dingbat sometimes she made me laugh. People found her charming though and loved her for it. Her display elicited laughter and more vigorous waving from a crowd doubling in size. Everybody turning out to see the newcomers. So much attention from so many quarters spawned a shyness pang inside of me activating my invisible force field. I did the best I could to smile and wave from behind my protective barrier which often times felt more like a prison. When they got a load of me the smiles faded somewhat and a few hands fell empty of waving. I caught one girl whispering to her friend as they shared a judgmental malicious joke at my expense no doubt. I looked embarrassed which only made me shyer and self-conscious and not a little irritated resulting in a frown.

By the time we emerged at the gauntlet's far end my tendons were vibrating and my knees felt weak. I did my deep breathing exercise and flexed my hand and did what I could to relax and stay confident. They'd been cheering and waving and my body reacted with the instinct to fight or flee. In reality we hadn't come to do them any harm. We only wanted to steal our boyfriend Hater out of captivity.

We followed a broad and level dirt trail shaded by tall pines and bordered on one side by a random boulder field shielding from our view a cataract echoing through the trees. Off to our left in the glaring sunshine prospered a field of waist high silken wheat with more forest burgeoning on the far side. The trail led us past a graveyard surrounded by a wrought iron fence filled with ancient tombstones. According to one of the epitaphs some poor little lamb had drowned in the water a century ago. The inscription's wording recorded that the river had taken her. I don't know why this ancient tragedy moved me so much but it did. Of the dates I could manage to read on the march some denoted lives long passed and I marveled at the longevity of their settlement.

Threading our way through a copse of trees we emerged at the edge of a smoky village populated with female denizens bustling about their business. Well maintained wood cabins were scattered about more or less in rows. Bright green grass flourished in sparse clumps. Otherwise hard packed brown earth radiated coolness in this forest setting, a tidy settlement bearing the worn-down air of snow covered country revealed during summertime.

To my relief we didn't attract a crowd of gawkers as we marched along between the well-spaced cabins. I could see our destination ahead, a two story lodge surrounded on the ground floor by a spacious veranda protected from direct sunlight by a balcony on the second floor likewise girdling the building.

The way we were brought right up onto the front porch and in through the main door belied either a lax security apparatus or an over reliance on gender-based loyalty. Their open armed acceptance of two waifs from the Deadland revealed the weakness in any isolated enclave namely the need for a perpetual infusion of new blood. Over time I would also come to realize those merry sisters never shifted their watchful gaze from us for a moment.

Before bringing us in front of the council Taylor told us to wait in the lobby, a cavernous entrance area, while she went ahead to announce our arrival and request for us an audience. Nadezhda and I gravitated toward one of the hard wooden benches lining the walls and rested our arches after several days of hiking. With a pointed look Dee fixed us to the spot and content we were unlikely to wander off she sauntered over to the long front counter and indulged in gossiping about our arrival to the woman on duty there. Even though they tried to be subtle it appeared obvious to me they were talking about us.

Beside me on the bench Nadezhda lapsed into a reverie. I rubbed her back and she signed in a way denoting simple fatigue and nothing more so I didn't attempt to interpret her continued silence any farther. Various girls and women appeared from behind closed doors crossed in front of us and disappeared down one of the hallways as though their movements were preordained when in actuality they were just going about their random office business. The whole establishment possessed a quiet air of good natured efficiency. I assumed Dee and the straight backed lady with a grey ponytail and her hands folded neatly against the counter edge in front of her must have exhausted the story of our arrival and moved onto a different topic of conversation because neither one had shot a glance our way in several minutes.

Dee rested her elbows and chest on the wooden counter and shoved out her big booty and placed one foot forward and one foot back for balance and support. I found myself analyzing her butt thrust out there for the whole world to see. Personally, it was a tad overly large for my taste. Other people might have found it attractive, if you like a big butt.

I was deep into a day dream contemplating the exposed wooden beams running the length of the ceiling when Taylor returned emerging from the hallway on the right and paying us no mind. Moving around to the front of the counter and traveling its length to join her friends in their powwow. With my elbow I barely nudged Nastya who had lapsed into torpor.

In this situation I suppose a normal person would have stood up and gone over and tried to join their group. I got as far as standing up and proceeding about half way when it occurred to me I didn't really like Dee very much and wasn't interested in anything more she had to say. I'd heard enough for one day. The woman behind the counter appeared civil, but honestly, who really cares? I'm single, enjoy knitting, botchy ball. Because I work with the public all day long I've developed this discreet smile to deflect the pot shots rude people take at me and yet I never tire of meeting new people. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I'm a desert wanderer. I had an unhappy childhood in extreme poverty until I was dumped in an orphanage where I died of loneliness surrounded by chattering little girls. I did a short hitch on the island and then in the harem before my first contract to a sleazy strip joint in The Pleasure Zone where I danced naked and tended bar. I've killed people. I'll kill you if you threaten me or my friends. My hobbies and interests include fine literature sadomasochism and spreading anarchy. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

Tanya wrapped up her conversation finally and turning motioned for us to follow her and the three of us coalesced into a new group. As we rounded the corner together and headed for the hallway I realized Dee hadn't budged. She wasn't invited and so I breathed easier.

Following this one corridor of polished hardwood covered intermittently with broad throw rugs we arrived at the back of the building and as we turned left I realized I'd barely taken notice of the artwork hanging on the walls probably because the oil paintings depicted nothing but nature scenes trees mountains lakes elk or deer and the like which seemed redundant considering the proximity to the real thing right outside. We exited out the backway and crossed the veranda and headed toward an English garden.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To meet the council members so I can introduce you. They like to meet all newcomers personally."

"Do you think we'll be allowed to stay?" An obsequious tinge crept into my question.

"I'm sure they won't have a problem with you," Taylor said, glancing at me surprised perhaps bemused I should betray uncertainty over what was apparently a foregone conclusion. Just a formality, meeting the tribal elders.

We followed a gravel pathway bordered on either side by roses and lilies. Larger shrubs divided the garden into various sections. Emerging on an expanse of well-trimmed lawn we found the matrons in their flowing chiffon enjoying their late afternoon tea at serval tables scattered around at the far end of the clearing. Considering the gravel path and the distance to the lodge I reflected on what a hassle it must have been to schlep an entire tea service that whole way. Then I saw the male slaves standing in a row obviously excluded from enjoying the tea themselves and waiting in silence until they were called upon to pile up the China on the broad silver trays and porter it back to the lodge. Their heads were shaved down to the scalp and each wore a bow tie around his neck. I thought it strange these masters would supply serving jackets to their slaves while leaving them bare chested underneath. Stranger still the swaddling they wore instead of trousers and black soled dress shoes with shiny buckles and yet no socks. The chief boy wore a pair of khaki short pants hanging precariously from his lanky hips. They were the only males we had seen all day. Hater was not among them.

Everyone in the crowd of women spoke at once and nobody listened. Joviality spiked into hilarity. You could smell refreshments other than tea. They looked us up and down while they continued talking and laughing. This time I didn't feel uncomfortable being the center of attention. The afternoon tea set had reached that party place where everything is funny and there was no point in trying to drag logic and reasoning into the conversation. Work was done for the week and now the weekend had arrived and the time for relaxation was now. These silly drunk creatures representing the local powers that be were in no mood to be judgmental. Still, it wouldn't do for us to join in the spirit of revelry uninvited. We stood with our heads slightly bowed waiting to be presented, waiting for an audience.

"Oh look, they're holding hands," a disembodied voice declared.

"Isn't that sweet," a condescending voice chimed in, not unpleasantly.

"Don't make those poor things stand there all day, Diana. Ask them to sit down. Somebody get them a piece of cake and something to drink."

Ignoring the injunction for hospitality Diana swiveled in her seat and turned her bright brown eyes towards us and following a split-second calculation about the two of us fixed her attention on me.

"I'm Nika. This is Nadezhda."

"Where are you girls coming from?"

Her age probably was double ours at least empowering her to speak to us like children. Her power and position as Matriarch plus whatever clear liquid she was sipping from her porcelain cup fueled her expression of superiority over us.

"We've been walking the Deadlands," I said, opening the blinds in my filter so she could see all the way in revealing to her my intelligence. When it flashed my mind caused her to stop laughing and set her cup down. Next to me I could sense Nadezhda beaming so brightly she positively glowed.

"What is it you seek from us?"

"Shelter from the storm," I answered, again allowing her to peer into my depths.

"Universal drifter speak," Matriarch Diana said, and I averted my gaze lest she think me impudent.

"What are you running from?"

If anyone else had spoken to me in that fashion I would have pointed out how she was begging the question. For Hater's sake I chided my errant tongue.

"We're on the run from the world of men." My filters closed as I spoke in expectation of incredulity but her aspect softened at my words and she resumed her questioning in more cordial tones.

"Where were you specifically; specifically, where were you before coming here?"

"I was contracted in the Pleasure Zone in Plutosville. She was slave to a Powersby. I escaped. Then I found her and helped her to escape, too."

"You found her?"

"I escaped The Zone in the back of a limousine, only to fall into slavery. That's how we met. It took a couple of tries to break free but we made it and I brought her along with me."

Standing before this regal interrogation I could feel my cheeks and ears warming to shame red.

"I know the suffering you must have endured. We do not endorse shame and guilt here. You did whatever you had to do, I'm sure, to survive. That's all behind you now. You're here and that's all that matters."

Her consoling words and the somber sympathetic expressions the facts of our case elicited from those within earshot made my eyes water.

"And what about you, my dear," Diana said, addressing Nadezhda for the first time.

"Good day your Majesty," Nadezhda replied, effecting a perfect curtsy.

For a moment Diana's companions at her table stalled in their merriment, then they burst out a torrent of new laughter directed at their leader.

"Your Majesty?" One demanded.

"Were you promoted and didn't tell us?" Exclaimed another.

"Did we vote on this? I don't remember it if we did," said a third.

From another table inquiries were made and Nadezhda's misnomer was repeated and the joke spread from the occupants of one table to the next who heretofore had paid no heed to our conversation. Her friends relished teasing her and she had no comeback other than self-deprecating laughter. Contrary to her smile she shot a look at Nastya to challenge what she perceived as audacity. Nastya turned to me and pleaded for help.

"I say a wrong ting?"

"You were very polite," I said, putting my arm around her and giving her shoulder a squeeze and then for moral support rubbed her back. "They don't call people Majesty here."

"But she is queen. You say we go to meet Queen of Femenistas."

I rubbed my eyes and ended up pinching my nose.

"What say you to that, traveler?" A disembodied voice called out.

"Yes, what say you, Traveler," Diana pressed me, crossing her arms, "explain yourself."

In the heavy silence gathering around me I felt a tremendous pressure to say something as a way of making amends but a perusal of that crowd and the silly look of expectation on their faces told me anything I said they would laugh at but I had to say something fast or lose the moment.

"It was a joke, your Majesty, I apologize," I said, and did an awkward curtsy of my own.

Well that about did it. The dam of tension buildup broke and hilarity burst forth from every table. I'm not sure what I did was really all that funny. The amount of tea that crowd had consumed by then helped our cause immeasurably.

Diana seemed to be their leader and they must have loved her very much because they had no qualms about taking the piss. Amid the rollicking laughter I apologized several times so only she could hear. She and I shared a moment. Once the laughter died down the loyal opposition demanded to know where we had learned our fine manners. Reassured we were having a good time Nadezhda said, "Master says sex dollies must have fine manners."

Silence fell again, only this time from their grim realization of what we were and how we'd been treated.

"We escaped the Master, sweetheart," I said, feeling so noble in my condescension.

"You my Master now," Nadezhda exclaimed, and I was at a loss how to spin the randomness of her proclamations.

"We don't allow masters here," a brazen matron declared and I could sense every gaze turning on me.

"I'm not her master," I said, quickly trying to prevent the scene from turning sour. For as much fun as they'd been having at the spectacle we presented I could tell potentially there were some mean drunks scattered among the revelers.

"Oh, I am so wrong," Nadezhda said, "I always say wrong ting. You not my master. I you master."

If nothing else her words confused the audience. They stopped glaring at me and turned to her in bewilderment. I myself wrinkled my brow at her uncertain meaning.

"You're my master?" I gently prodded trying to coax forth her sense. "What do you mean?"

"When I do dis," Nadezhda yelled swatting my bottom with a smack, "You cry tank you Master!"

The first swat shocked me and everybody else. When I jolted upright in unison they flinched in sympathy. Nadezhda wound up and swatted me again. The second sting sent a shiver down my spine closing my eyes. I kept them closed only for a moment. When I opened them again the loyalists were pointing at me and laughing. They struggled looking for the words to articulate this fetish. Bawdy old broads. They loved it. Nastya swatted me again and they realized we were engaging in foreplay for their benefit. Amid the titters and guffaws Diana took back the high ground.

"What say you to this revelation, Nika the Savage?" The tension squeezed its coil.

"We carry the scars of our slavery with us. But it's a different kind of mastery," I said softly, hiding my eyes for shame.

"She not master. I her master. If you know wot I mean," and Nasty kissed me on the cheek.

"I think they understand," I said and my admission sent a ripple of soft laughter through the crowd.

"No shame or guilt here," Diana proclaimed, showing her benevolence again now her dignity was restored in the light of our buffoonery. "You'll learn that much if you stay with us long."

"Are they staying with us long?"

"Should they be allowed in?"

"I think they're delightful."

"So do I!"

Diana stood up and her long gown trailed on the grass as she approached us touching my shoulder trailing her fingers along us both ending on Nadezhda's far shoulder. "What say you, Femenistas? Do we allow them entrance into our coven? Do we grant them probation?"

Applause erupted in our favor. Diana made a motion with her hands as if to say so be it and went and sat down again draining her glass. Following her lead the rest of the crowd filled their glasses and drained them some of them remembering to salute us along the way. For longer than we should have we stood there waving back at them like a couple of nitwits until Taylor snagged my attention and we exited without saying a proper goodbye to anyone. In their merriment and revelry we had been a momentary diversion, nothing more.

Tanya walked in the lead again turning half around to coach us along. "I'll show you the housing office and they can hook you up with your living quarters. They'll give you a bed assignment. It may only be a couple of beds in the unmarried dormitory until something better becomes available. Or you make yourselves useful. Show us a special talent or put in solid work."

"What special talent do you have?" I asked, trying to get a feel for her as well as the situation.

"I make myself useful in a lot of ways," Tanya said, confident and proud of her place in the society. She wasn't boasting. She possessed the simple optimism of youth. By volunteering for the dirty jobs she had proved herself resourceful, a problem solver earning preferment and someday soon as a result of accepting the burden of more responsibility eventual and inevitable promotion as a real shot caller. Taking charge of our particular case for example rewarded her with bonus points. Inducting two new members seeking and receiving official approval on our behalf without creating any extra paperwork for anyone and now escorting us to the housing office, none of which was included in her official duties. She recognized business needed taking care of so she stepped up and did the job herself. Ambitious people can be worth knowing so long as they don't throw you face down in a mud puddle and climb across your back to get where they're going unscathed.

When we reached the housing office Taylor did most of the talking until we needed to submit our names in writing to earn a dormitory key. Nadezhda took a pointed degree of interest in the letters making up her name the clerk delineated in a neat hand and it stunned me to realize Nastya had never seen her own name written out before. Taylor and the clerk noticed her keen interest as she bent over the counter to watch the characters forming. The petite women with good penmanship spun the log book around and shoved it towards us.

"Is that correct?" In her mind she thought Nastya was concerned with the accuracy.

"Oh yes. Is very nice," Nadezhda said, rearing back. "I thank you very much. Is very nice."

We left the clerk to puzzle out Nadezhda's aesthetic response to her pragmatic question taking our keys and following our guide wholly dependent on her as she parked us in the corridor and went into some other office entering through an unmarked door. Who knows if her business in there had anything to do with us or not. My feeling at the time was it did not. She knocked on a lot of doors this girl and had no qualms about keeping us waiting. Why should she? We were vagabonds who had drifted in off the Deadland. They were doing us a great favor by taking us in and she was facilitating our induction. Even if she was taking her own sweet time and leaving us standing around. I should have been grateful.

Through the grand bay window in the back of the building I saw the slave boys humping the tea service and covered trays on their return to the kitchen in the main lodge.

"Stay here for a second," I said to Nastya, slipping the volume from my shoulders and plopping it on the floor next to her feet.

"Where you going?" Nadezhda pleaded.

"To snag us something good," I answered over my shoulder. "I'm going to get us some food. Just sit tight and I'll be right back."

I was out the double doors and surveyed the scene and quickly concluded these male slaves were operating under their own supervision. I gave a curt whistle and called out, "Hold up there, Chief. Let me see what you got. Anything good left over?"

"There's cake, Mistress. Would you care for a piece?"

"Yes I would. Perfect. Two please. One for my friend as well."

From the force of a mere gesture on his part one of the cabana boys knelt on one knee so the Chief Boy could remove the silver dome covering the remains of an amazing yellow sheet cake covered in white frosting. He loaded two generous slices into a pair of cloth napkins and handed them to me. "If Mistress would only be so good as to return the napkins to the kitchen when she's done with them."

"No problem. Thanks for the solid. So tell me Chief, what's life like her on the reservation?"

He bowed his head as he spoke avoiding eye contact. "If all do their duty they need not fear harm."

"Good answer," I said, "right from the company manual. But what I mean is this: you're all prisoners here, right? You males. You men."

He gave a bow and whispered, "Yes, Mistress."

"No worries, man. I'm not going to beat you. I'm on your side."

I could tell my patter was disconcerting him so I dropped the glib routine for a moment and addressed him more directly.

"You seem to me like a man who knows about how operations are carried out around here. Where do they keep the new arrivals? Suppose a man was recently captured down below off the plains area and brought here against his will. Where would they house him?"

"House him?"

"Yes, you know. Keep him. Hold him. Lock him up."

"Slave quarters are located in Sleepless Hollow, including the caged animals."

"Any recent arrivals?"

"I take no notice of such things."

"How long ago did they snatch you?"

"Over a decade ago."

"Oh, I see. They've given you good training. You speak well."

"Thank you, Mistress. I am a propriety slave helpful in all culinary matters."

"Alright, Gunga Din, I get you, but listen here. Forget all about our little conversation. Nobody likes a gossipy slave. And oh yeah, thanks for the pie."

"Cake, Mistress."

"Just testing you."

After successfully raiding the gravy train I returned to Nadezhda with the spoils of war and shared the sumptuous sheet cake with her. We sat on the floor in the hallway and ate our desert with our fingers, so to speak. Nadezhda savored every bite. She loved anything sweet. I relented and gave her some of my portion as well. Too much sugar on an empty stomach made me queasy. Taylor took so long in her behind closed doors meeting I had time to search out the kitchen and return the napkins. I didn't talk to anyone because the place was empty. I left them on the counter where somebody was sure to find them. I don't know why I acted like such an uppity bitch toward the Chief Boy. He seemed like a good sort. I probably could have extracted the same information without the name calling.

Unfortunately, I know the slave's mentality from personal experience. They respect the sharp tongue, the brash bullying demeanor. Would he tell anyone about my line of questioning? Of course he would. A lifer, raised as a natural, would of course display uncommon loyalty to his victimizers. The door opened and Taylor stepped into the hallway breaking apart my reverie.

Her business apparently concluded Taylor lead us forward out of the main lodge and back towards the settlement of cabins we had travelled through earlier and the doors of the cabin we'd been assigned to stood propped open at both ends to air the place out while its denizens were busy elsewhere performing their assigned duties. Taylor supervised Nastya and me as we both took turns practicing our keys in the lock to make sure they would properly tumble.

"To tell you the truth, you won't find these doors locked very often. The girls are coming and going all the time. And they should stay unlocked during the day anyway. If you want privacy for whatever reason you should arrange that with your bunkmates beforehand. Work out some kind of a system. Hang your bracelet on the door handle or something."

We stepped into the bunkhouse and in the sunless interior I appreciated the cooler air. Six bunk beds were arranged military style with a walkway down the middle though each inhabitant had personalized her coverlet and instead of footlockers the girls stowed their gear in brocaded chests and actual wooden nightstands with a couple of drawers the girls shared. Each girl had a drawer of her own for storing whatever, personal items. At the other end a kitchenette took up the rest of the space. A long wooden table with matching chairs completed the furnishings. Somewhere in the compound a carpenter was keeping busy plying her saw and plane. Nadezhda nuzzled in close to me and together we regarded the empty bunks.

"These two bunks here look like the open ones," Taylor said, pulling at her lower lip. "I didn't think to ask for bedding."

"We have our own we can use," I said, putting her mind at ease. "We have comfy pads and body bags. Looks like most of these girls do their own thing anyway. We can make it our own thing, too." I flung the volume onto the lower bunk.

"I would wait on that though, if I were you," Taylor advised. "Until the girls come back tonight, cuz you wouldn't want to put your stuff in somebody else's bunk. I mean, it looks to me like these two bunks are it, but you never know. Better to wait and talk to your cabin mates about it. They'll tell you for sure. This isn't my cabin so I don't know."

I reached out and retrieved my volume and walked it over and set it on the table safely apart for the time being. "Where do you stay?"

"My woman and me share a private cabin for now but we're next on the waiting list for a house."

"There are houses here?"

Taylor nodded and smiled gleefully like an ambitious crab at the prospect of occupying a slightly larger shell. Suddenly our surroundings, which seemed opulent enough a moment before, now shrank in my estimation, looking cramped and overcrowded, no doubt the bottom run, the tiniest shell. Even in feminist utopia I cursed the weight of poverty. You always have to start at the bottom. This revelation made me wonder about the status of my bunkmates. Poverty's sting poisoned my heart and I felt envy and jealousy against Taylor because favor and fortune had smiled on her and not me. I could have been working my way up the ladder too if I'd known it existed. Through the accident of birth I was abandoned at the orphanage and sold onto the island and into the harem and then contracted to the club where I worked all day long and never got ahead one bit financially. Hand to mouth my whole existence. I hid these glum recriminations as Princess Taylor bid us farewell and cheerily left the low life cabin behind and moved on to her fancy upper class house. After that demoralizing little exchange I needed a hug and Nadezhda was happy to accommodate me.

We didn't have to wait long sitting together at the mead table our knees touching for the other denizens of the girl's dormitory to arrive. No one had alerted them about our joining their group. The gregarious among them danced before my eyes. The prospect of meeting new people made them giddy. Other more conservative members after polite introductions retreated onto the territoriality of their mattress where they took stock of their personal treasures. The shy one retreated straight to her bunk in the face of beautiful strangers.

The housemother Judith confirmed for us which were the open bunks. For something to do under so much social pressure I unpacked our bedding and laid our mats and bags out on the mattresses, top and bottom bunks. With an officious air Judith conducted us on a largely unnecessary tour of the barracks. Because she was unlovely I found looking at her pale oval face and clear blue eyes framed by curly orange hair easy enough to do. Listening to her lecture on the importance of keeping the kitchen sink slicked down at all times provided refuge from the antics performed on every side for our benefit. I hoped the boisterous noise level wouldn't always be that intense. The girls were excited about the arrival of newcomers. Someone who might enliven their dreary lives. They would settle down and grow accustomed to our presence although we weren't staying.

Nadezhda either stared icily in front of her or directly at me. Whereas I may be misanthropic, Nastya doesn't like people pressing too close to her. Judith eventually led us outdoors to the general lavatory, a fancy concrete outhouse with four private stalls.

"One of your first chores is going to be for you girls to keep this bathroom clean, using a mop and a scrub brush," she said.

I took a look up and down the room and said, "Yeah, I have to be honest with you, Judith, and say upfront, that's not going to happen."

Judith placed her hands on her hips and lowered her gaze at me. "And pray tell, why not?"

"Pray tell, because you're not going to dump the dirtiest job in camp on us just because we're new here and you think we won't know any better."

"But all women are expected to do their part."

"Right. I get that. I'm sure they are, but for us, toilet duty isn't it."

"If you don't do your assigned chores, you don't share in our food."

"That's fine. We brought food of our own."

"Listen, if you refuse to help with chores then I'm going to have to report you to the headmistress."

"That's the way it's going to have to be then," I said, "because we're not cleaning toilets. I'll go have a talk with our headmistress too and we'll find out what's fair and equitable. We'll find some way to do our part but cleaning toilets ain't it. Not gonna happen."

"Whatever," Judith said, tossing her ugly orange hair and stomping off.

We followed her back to the cabin but we were no longer a cozy little threesome. While she didn't openly denounce us as shirkers she banged around pots and pans in the kitchenette thus putting everyone on notice she was not at all pleased. In awe of her tirade the other denizens withdrew meekly into silence looking at each other and then at us wondering what drama was afoot.

As Judith and some of the other girls cooked a meal and set the table Nastya and I retreated to our bunk and sat together on the lower mattress and shared some rations stowed in the volume. For as noisy and raucous as the atmosphere in the cabin had been before the mood was now equally somber and unpleasantly tense. Nadezhda didn't care I'd gotten us ostracized from the dinner table. Growing up in the harem she had lived most of her life this way. If you didn't create boundaries right away before long people might borrow your toothbrush.

"You can have some of our food," one sweet soul offered from across the chasm separating us.

"No thank you. I appreciate the offer, though. I need to have a talk with the headmistress first so we can work out what our responsibilities are going to be around here. In the meantime, I don't want anybody saying we're freeloaders."

As soon as the weight of that remark sunk in with everybody Judith threw her utensils onto her plate and stood up shoving her chair skidding and stomped over and threw her mess into the sink creating a loud clatter and then she strode stiffly the length of the cabin and slammed the door on the way out.

"She seems nice," I said. A couple of the girls tittered despite their best efforts to remain solemn. "So much for keeping the kitchen area slicked at all times."

Guilty laughter sputtered forth prompting the girls to rise in masse and begin clearing the table and washing the dishes. They weren't ready to be disloyal to Judith. On the other hand, they recognized what I meant and belied a certain sympathy.

The leftovers were packed into the icebox and the dishes stacked and put away and the girls drifted to their bunks either singly or in pairs. We turned our backs on the sleeping area and faced the kitchenette area. Nastya and I spooned on the lower bunk content to be together in our own little world. Whenever one of the girls wandered into the kitchen area for whatever reason we ignored her and averted eye contact even though a furtive glance sought to snap a mind's eye impression of us lying there together my protective arms wrapped around my girl Nastya.

I tried not to listen as they alluded to us indirectly without actually saying anything. During the course of the evening their comments grew bolder. They only wanted to engage us in conversation. The perversity of our lives prevented us from obliging them.

Lying on one side for so long grew uncomfortable for Nadezhda so she rolled over to face me and finding it cozy and convenient in the moment we snogged.

"So that's the way it is," a voice declared. She was trying to be funny but it rubbed me the wrong way. Defensive anger flashed through me and I lost control of myself rolling over to face that side of the room and loudly stating to everyone and no one, "Yes, that's the way it is. Anybody have a problem with it?"

In reaction to my angry challenge everybody in the room was shocked into silence. Most of the girls averted their eyes. One didn't. With her eyes she caught my hostile gaze and directed my attention toward someone on a top bunk I couldn't see. The mischievous grin on her face said that she would love to see a confrontation. Fear filled the space inside me previously occupied by anger at the prospect of some unseen antagonist. I rolled back over and wrapped my arms around Nastya again dreading lest another impertinent remark slap me down. Much to my relief nobody wanted to fight and soon after Judith returned and she ordered lights out.

During her absence I speculated she had gone to the headmistress to lodge a complaint against me first. With a satisfied smirk she informed me the headmistress wanted to see me first thing in the morning confirming my suspicion. Nadezhda remained oblivious to her surroundings and I strove to emulate her indifference. In the dark she softly sang to me a lullaby in her native tongue and I could sense the whole room listening to the melody...

... I woke up very aware of voices whispering in the dark, a chorus of commentary, each one a different voice.

"The really beautiful one has a pretty singing voice. Did you hear her?"

"Her song sounded sad."

"Better not tease the mean one."

"I think the mean one told Judith to get off."

"Shhhh!"

"Do you think she's dangerous?"

"Can you imagine what they've been through?"

"No we can't."

"Listen girls, they're a pair of escaped slaves who've been wandering the Deadland totally lost. So give em some space, ya know? give em a chance to adjust. Give em a chance to get comfortable. They'll come around. They'll be alright."

Tears squirted from the corners of my eyes as I labored to breath in a way masking from them my weeping.

Chapter 17

In the morning the bunkhouse denizens stirred about in a noisy manner requiring everybody to rise and shine and precluding anyone from continuing to sleep except for Nadezhda who could sleep through a revolution. Rolling onto my back I paused to allow myself a few minutes for wiping the sleepies out of my eyes and spawning refreshed and renewed. The interweaving rope mesh supporting the upper bunk mattress absorbed my attention long enough for me to formulate an opinion about the many ways this tribe of women appeared clever and resourceful.

A good night's sleep had restored my equilibrium to the extent I was able to watch the girls don their robes and sandals and pad out the door towards the showers without the same rancor in my heart from the night before.

The last girl to go before she went bent over so she could see my face up close. She had pretty blue eyes and a heart shaped face surrounded by a helmet of short blonde hair. For modesty's sake she clasped her robe at the throat to prevent it from falling open.

"If you want to, you can come to the falls with us and have a shower."

I stretched and smiled in return. "What's the ration like?" I asked, doing my best to match the decency in her voice.

"Ration? There's no limit to it. You can stay in the pools or under the falls as long as you like."

I wasn't sure what she was talking about but it sounded generous whatever the terms. I swung my feet off the bed and sitting up carefully so as to avoid hitting my head on the upper bunk. "You have my attention. How is it you manage to supply unlimited shower privileges?"

"I'm Cynthia, by the way. We met last night but I wasn't sure you'd remember my name after meeting so many new people all at once," she said, sitting down on the lower bunk opposite facing me. Her high cheek bones were too pudgy causing a perpetual squint in her face. Other than that you could say she was pretty.

"So Cynthia, why no water rationing?"

"We're based on a natural underground spring. We siphon some for the showers. A lot we store. The rest we let flow naturally to wherever it goes. The volume has decreased over the years but the purity level is still green. Some people say if it keeps on getting hotter we might have to move inside the caves permanently in order to survive. I don't think that will really happen, though. I think that's just talk."

Like everybody who lived near good water she spoke with a practiced voice about quality and quantity. She was a chatty little soul but I was starting to warm up to her.

"So nobody will mind if we take a shower and get clean? We don't have to earn the credits first? No special permission? No card? No key?"

"Nope nope nope," she wagged her head, "nothing like that." She seemed tickled by my incredulity.

"I have to admit I've never heard of such a thing. In all my travels I've never seen such an arrangement. Sounds nice."

She stood up and straightened her robe and retied the sash. "Why don't you and your friend come with and I'll show you."

"Sounds like a plan." Twisting round I put my hand on Nadezhda's hip and gave her a gentle wiggle. "How's that sound to you, Miss Nastya?"

"What?" She complained emerging from sleep and slapping at my hand. "I don't care what you eat for dinner."

Cynthia and I exchanged quizzical expressions and shared a puzzled laugh. Normally I never would have sided with a stranger against Nadezhda on any issue. I'd go so far as to say loyalty was a guiding principal of mine. In this instance her non-sequitur was so bizarre I wrote it off as a scrap from a dream.

"Get up, Nasty. Free shower, baby girl. Not to be missed."

"I like nice shower," Nadezhda said, rolling off the opposite side of the mattress so we wouldn't see her before she had a chance to straighten her appearance. "How much minutes I get?"

"No minutes, Nastya. Unlimited water," I said, speaking to her turned back.

"Oh is not funny, Nika, to make stupid joke. Is false promise. I hate lie."

"It's going to take us a few minutes to wake up," I said to Cynthia. "If you want to run along first that's fine. This may take a while. We can find our way later."

"Oh I don't mind waiting," Cynthia piped up brightly. "Let's wait until everybody's ready and then we'll go up together. That way I can show you the way. The pathway there is kind of tricky and you might miss the fork in the trail."

With a tacit smile I accepted her offer to be our guide and continued around to the other side of the bunk bed where Nadezhda stood clearing her eyes and blinking already in the advanced stages of spawning.

Staying an arms distance away I stretched out an exploratory hand to rub her back and gauge how grumpy we were.

"I'm not joking, Nasty. They have some kind of underground spring here where clean water runs all the time."

"You know is true?"

"I think so, yes. Let's go check it out. It sounds really nice."

"You don't need to wear your leather armor to the falls if you don't want to. Most the girls just wear a robe or a towel.

"Nadezhda, this is Cynthia. She's going to be our guide."

"Of course is Cynthia. We meet last night. Yellow again. You show us room location outside." Nadezhda bussed her on both cheeks flustering the poor girl no end.

"Let's peel out of these dirty duds and go get clean."

We commenced to strip. Our trapped body odor released into the environment staggered Cynthia backward a step and a half. Then she was embarrassed by her own reaction.

"Sorry we stink so badly," I apologized, "but we've been on the move for a while. There's no more fresh water in the Deadland. It's all reconstituted."

"Oh no problem. It's perfectly natural. I didn't mean anything. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I said. "We'll leave them outside to air out and get our bodies clean in the meantime."

"What I wear?" Nadezhda whispered, standing there nude and gorgeous. Cynthia overheard and stifled the sorrow and empathy she experienced at the realization Nadezhda needed help dressing herself.

"Let's go with nice long Tee's," I said, embracing our freakishness and pulling out a pink and blue pair from their long internment in the voluminous bag. "They're a little musty but that's okay. Once we get outside they'll air out, too. C'mon honey, take your thumb out of your mouth. We're not doing that anymore, remember? Hands in the air. Be a big girl. That's it. Good girl. Look how nice you look."

Nadezhda regarded herself and giggled while I pulled on my blue tee. When we turned to face Cynthia who had been averting her gaze.

"What do you think, Cynthia. Do we look presentable?" I asked to challenge her obvious discomfort.

"Oh yes. Oh nice. Oh fine," she sputtered, as she fought her own embarrassment and managed to look at us again. "Everybody will really like the way you're such a cute couple in your matching pink and blue."

"Shall we go?"

"Yes, we should go. I'll show you the way. So if you want to you can... right... follow me, and first, we'll go outside."

We arrived outside and I asked Nadezhda to go back inside and grab our leathers so we could lay them out on a nearby picnic bench to air. As soon as she was out of earshot I turned on Cynthia matter of factly.

"Listen, this is just the way we operate. There's nothing wrong with her. She was raised a natural in captivity so she doesn't know a lot about how to take care of herself. But now she's free from all that and I take care of her. I'm showing her how to survive on her own. Okay?"

Cynthia had burst into tears and covered her face in her hands but she nodded her head in furious acknowledgement of everything I was saying. Just as quickly she rose to the surface and like a trooper wiped dry her eyes.

"You seem like a good sort, Cynthia. Just treat her like a human being and she'll respond to that. You've never met one before, have you?"

Words failed her. She ducked her head shaking no.

"You're doing fine. You interacted with her last night when you first met and didn't notice anything."

"Actually, I did notice. I didn't mean to but I did. I saw her get up in the middle of the night and I watched her do a little dance looking at you. You were asleep. She didn't want to wake you up because she said you were tired and needed to sleep. She said she needed to go potty so I lead her outside and showed her the privy, then inside the house, then inside the stall. It all happened kind of naturally. I didn't mind."

"You helped her go potty"

"Yes."

"You cleaned her and everything?"

Cynthia bowed her head and nodded. I pulled her to me and gave her a hug. "You're a good soul. When you get to know her, she is..." I left my sentence intentionally incomplete allowing Cynthia to complete the idea.

"She's magnificent," Cynthia said, raising her head with such alacrity I was instantly convinced of her sincerity.

"Yes, she is indeed magnificent. In every way and every day her mind wakes up more and more to the world around her. She's not dumb. She's not slow or anything. Quite the opposite. She's actually very bright. But they damaged her in captivity. They never fed her mind. They infantilized her. So now I'm making up for that."

We'd been watching Nadezhda lay out our leathers. I went over to where she stood contemplating her handiwork with uncertainty.

"Looks good, Nastya," I said, drawing her to me for a heart to heart. "You got out of bed last night and went somewhere without me."

She shook her head no but said yes.

"Don't ever do that again."

"But you tired asleep."

"I don't care about that. I don't care, tired or asleep, it doesn't matter. You wake me up. You do not go off in the middle of the night with strangers."

"But she not stranger. She Cynthia. I met her before."

"Don't ever do that again. Please don't. Don't ever go off in the night with someone you don't know. You wake me up. No, now stop it and listen. It doesn't matter how tired I am or if I'm asleep. You did a bad thing. Don't go off in the night alone. Done leave me asleep and go off all alone like that. Please don't leave me. Don't leave me alone."

Nadezhda hugged me and held me and patted my back the whole time whispering, "Don't cry, Sweetpeas. Don't cry. I come back. I not leave you alone in the dark. Little girls are afraid of the dark. I know. I know."

Gaining control of myself I placed my lover at arm's length and with my fingers ground the pits of my eyes in their sockets but I had to leave off rubbing because I was seeing stars.

"I'm a wreck," I groaned, and to avoid going into a tailspin I said, "Let's go check out this shower scene. It sounds too good to be true."

"What about leathers?" Nadezhda indicated our Deadland outfits.

"We can leave those there to air out. They'll be okay. Nobody will steal them."

We rejoined Cynthia and she lead us away from the cabins along a footpath and up a steep incline trail winding around the side of the mountain before switching back and affording a grand view of the whole encampment and for the first time I spied the outdoor holding pens where the male slaves of the colony were held prisoner.

Taking a bath, while down there somewhere Hater languished in abject captivity, felt horribly selfish, yet even in the course of the most trying campaign a good soldier will wash his feet and maintain his pedicure. Clean and refreshed we would redouble our efforts to liberate our friend.

My skepticism vanished concerning the much-vaunted baths when we rounded a hump in the trail and I caught sight of the transcendent portal leading down to the mist filled cavern. We descended via steps carved into the very stone. For intermittent stretches of this slippery path an ancient metal hand rail made from what looked like iron piping steadied our steps. Slowly and without incident we descended into the rocky jumble where for a brief interlude this underground river emerged and was exposed in sunlight.

A train of robed women their wet hair turbaned inside of towels climbed up from the falls and pools picking their steps expertly and ceding the handrail to us. In passing I readied my greetings but they found no opportunity to greet us, the gaze of each not unfriendly but fixed on finding the proper footing. One human being observing my ready overture left unrequited accosted me with a greeting full of sympathy and good humor reassuring me I wasn't being snubbed. I like it when people are nice to you like that for no reason.

The cavern carved by the water's wear never fully occluded the sun. Marvelous oval apertures let in the sunlight and one long slit along the mountainside prevented the formation of an actual tunnel. Guided by gravity the water pooled eddied found a crack leapt and crashed and pooled again. The water smell wafted fresh and clean, no chlorine or other chemical smells. Fresh. Pure.

The temptation to search for water sprites responsible for this magic place surged in my soul. Instead we found water maidens of a decidedly human hue. Unburdened by either clothes or modesty little pixies scampered about near the edge of a large and shallow pool guarded over by elderly matrons who remained wrapped in cloth. Each pool we passed contained a unique configuration of naked female flesh, submerged recumbent floating standing aloof drying in the speck of sun filtering through. The most remarkable feature of this cataract was the aid human hands had lent in carving and channeling the water so it ran along a crevice atop a natural stone wall and cascaded in runnels creating dozens of personal showers. The picturesque and pragmatic melded seamlessly in a configuration achieving the sublime.

Politely indifferent to our arrival on the scene heads turned regardless in expectation of the great unveiling. In one motion I stripped Nadezhda of her cloth covering. Simple in spirit she giggled, nothing more. She was a natural. With the same dexterity I freed myself from the imposed encumbrance. As though we had stepped forth from a Waterhouse canvass Nastya and I padded naked to a generous funnel of free flowing water. Testing the temperature with our fingertips we found the water cold to a degree requiring total immersion rather than slow and painful acclimation.

In turn we stepped under the deluge and out again the shock drawing shrieks from us both and from the community of bather's laughter and nodding approval at our audacity. This initial dousing was followed by the pure clean water flow cool and mesmerizing washing away the grit and dirt and sweat from our flesh and rendering us fresh and clean body and soul.

Still virginal in her robe Cynthia approached us bearing a wooden bowel brimming with gelid green pudding. She called it aloe and claimed it washed away grime better than any soap. Scooping two fingers worth I applied a daub onto my flat belly. The jelly disintegrated into a pleasing clear emolument discharging a fragrancy of pleasant herbs. Charmed by these properties I accepted the whole bowl from Cynthia. Scooping a generous wobble into the palm of my hand I liberally smeared it all over Nasty coating her breasts until her nipples rose and her oily sheen sparkled in the mist. Playfully scooping a larder of aloe from the sacrificial bowl herself Nasty splotched my breasts in return messaging the gelid substance into oil.

Lost in our ministrations and manumissions we subsided to the deck where we slithered and intertwined as though a hundred intently watchful gazes were just so many nonentities noting our every convolution. Our desires rinsed and wrung we crawled beneath the shower and commenced with the serious business of washing our hair searching with our fingertips chasing and dislodging every last granule of sand from between our stolid hair roots.

Finished with the preliminary washing we retired to one of the pools where Cynthia sat submerged up to her neck. Below the waterline she reposed with legs crossed and hands folded neatly in her lap as though about to conduct a business meeting. Nadezhda and I swam around each other before coming to rest opposite Cynthia. Nadezhda crawled into my lap, both of us buoyed by the water.

Perhaps inspired by our performance or maybe revisiting a ritual of their own two young Sapphic sisters hand in hand approached a waterfall of sensual delight. I won't hazard a guess as to their ages. Suffice it to say they appeared younger than Nastya and me by a handful of years. Nature had swelled their development in ways several seasons more would fully ripen.

They wetted themselves much like we had with a yip and a yelp amid playful splashing. As they too oiled each other's naked bodies I marveled at a society thoughtful and enlightened enough to recognize and tacitly approve of true love between two such nimble water sprites. Back pressed to the wall Sappho stood tiptoe on one foot her other leg wrapped around her lover with precision and commitment. The doe in a dull lidded trance looked over her buck's shoulder and caught my stare. Rather than embarrassed or annoyed by my indiscretion she swept her hand over the narrow expanse of her lover's sexy brown back and with her hungry mouth sought her lover's tongue who fed and fueled her desire. She again opened her eyes and when she looked at me again and swept her hands up and down over her lover's expanse she gave me a look that can only be interpreted as pride of ownership. Look what I have. Look who loves me. She's gorgeous and she's mine heart and soul. I nodded in total tacit understanding and sisterly adoration, sympathy and empathy empowering me to be happy for her sake saying indeed little sister accept my congratulations. You found love.

We spent a fair amount of time soaking our bodies in the pools under the falls. Cynthia showed us a curved ivory stick she called a stay used for depilating your partner. From those sweet water pools we emerged clean and refreshed like creatures reborn from life's primordial ooze. Seeing that we were naked we covered ourselves again in soft cotton cloth clinging to our shapely figures. Among the community of nudes reclining by the pools our departure drew a few wistful farewell glances. I can't remember anyone who ever tired of admiring Nadezhda's voluptuous beauty.

We climbed from the cave's mouth up the same stone steps and then by the winding trail descended back down into the village. Our wet and clinging attire inspired a few raised eyebrows, quizzical or penetrating glances. Adequate words failed me when I tried to thank Cynthia for escorting us to the baths. Bar none the best fresh water source I ever experienced.

Exposure to the open air and sunlight had baked the stink out of our leathers. We carried them with us into the cabin and I took the opportunity to rub them down with a special oil for cleaning and preserving leather. Arranging them on the bunk beds to dry I dressed us both in more civilian attire. For me the proletarian workers uniform: brown boots, brown painter pants, and a thermal top with the sleeves pushed up. For Nastya fresh panties and push up bra and a mid-thigh button down sundress made of fabric thin to the point of translucence. Her dainty feet I shod with a pair of leather sandals. Let Nastya spend the rest of the day enjoying cool air flowing between her thighs. At heart she was a girlie-girl. Wearing dresses improved her mood. Made her carefree and playful.

In order to hear whatever the Headmistress had to say I needed to initiate a meeting of the minds and I didn't want to drag Nadezhda along and subject her to that potential unpleasantness so I arranged with Cynthia for the two of them to visit the nursery and kindergarten while I went to take care of business. Nastya loved babies and little kids. She was crazy about them and I knew now Cynthia would pledge her life to protecting my girl.

With these happy arrangements agreed upon we walked together as far as the kindergarten where at the sight of so many playful children Nastya forgot about me. Passing through the miniature gate Cynthia conscientiously closed behind them my girl gravitated toward the one little yellow haired daisy who wasn't having a good time. I'd never seen such a frizzy ball of hair in my life. She knelt before the unhappy camper and kissed away teardrops and assuaged the child's discontented frown inviting her along to see the babies inside at the thought of which the child forgot her woes and outstretched her arms to be picked up. Nadezhda formed a cradle with her forearm and the child threw one arm around her neck and clung with convulsive fingers to Nastya's ample breast. Anyone seeing them for the first time could have easily mistaken them for mother and child. With a shrug and a laugh Cynthia and the other women accepted Nadezhda's proprietary air in joining their group her love for children natural and demonstrative. They called an end to recess. The children froze in place like so many statues then a whistle blew and they shepherded the children inside the building. Before entering the doorway Cynthia paused to wave goodbye embarrassed for me since Nadezhda has obviously forgotten about my existence.

I didn't mind. I felt relieved. Knowing she would be safe and her attention occupied for the rest of the afternoon I headed for the main lodge and my appointment with the headmistress concerning the rules governing latrine detail although my real mission regarded locating Hater's whereabouts and plotting his escape.

Without drawing any undue notice I proceeded to the Main Lodge and arriving at the front desk encountering the same woman whose acquaintance I'd avoided yesterday. Now we had business so I didn't hesitate to address her directly. But when I told her about the meeting Judith instigated the counter girl appeared nonplussed since the Headmistress had an open door policy and didn't usually make appointments. For a few seconds I was confused about the apparent misunderstanding until the obvious dawned on me and I realized Judith was a liar and a game playing little witch. Didn't hurt me any. I had totally called her bluff and suddenly felt a surge of triumph watching her lame power play fall to pieces.

Emboldened by the discovery of her lie to press my advantage I pointed towards one of the hallways. "So I can just walk in and see her then?"

"She's not in right now. She'll be out of her office until late this afternoon. She should be back by around Four O'clock. I'll let her know you stopped by if you want to come back later."

"And I don't need an appointment?"

"No, we're not as formal as that. I mean, you can make a sit-down appointment if you have something really official you need to discuss."

"No, that's fine. It's not that formal. I just wanted to have a quick chat."

Thanking the receptionist I turned away and smirked because the Headmistress wasn't even in her office and had no idea about me.

Outside I met up with Taylor who greeted me first. "There she is," and I smiled in response to her friendly overture and the pretense she'd been looking for me.

"I've been meaning to talk to you, too," I began.

"What about?" She inquired with mild curiosity.

"The kind of jobs Nadezhda and I can do around here to support the cause. Earn our keep. Pay our own way. I left Nastya at the day care center. She loves babies and little kids and is really good with them. I'm hoping she can fit in there and make herself useful."

At first Tanya nodded in a way betraying she already knew of Nastya's whereabouts. She tried to slide into a general agreement Nastya would be good at that kind of duty. Then realizing she'd failed to pull it off stated frankly she'd been there and seen her in action and it was looking like a perfect placement. "So she's good to go," Taylor said. "What is it you think you'd like to do?"

"Kill someone," I said without hesitation.

In response to my phony bravado Taylor didn't so much smile as bare her teeth. "Slow down, sailor. You've got to show your mettle in smaller ways first. Go through some training before we send you out on patrol. If you're serious about joining the warrior class I can get you started but it's not as glamorous as you might think. You have to start at the bottom and pay your dues if you want to work your way up."

"I'll do anything. I mean, I'll do whatever is required."

"What's your motivation in wanting to become a warrior?"

"Revenge. It's as simple as that. I want to be able to protect myself so I never get caught up by slavers ever again. And keep Nadezhda out of slavery as well. I'll do whatever it takes."

"That includes washing pig shit out of the cages."

"I'm not afraid of pigs. And I'm not afraid of hard work either. If you'll show me what to do I'll do it and get started. Right now, if you want."

"You've got the right attitude. Alright then. If you're ready now let's go down to the cages and I'll show you around and put you to work with a bucket and a hose earning your keep."

"And you'll show me how to fight like a warrior," I said, asking for clarification.

"Let's see how you do around the cages first. I need to see first off how you handle yourself in proximity to pigs. I'm not going to lie to you, Nika. Those cages can be rank. If you don't keep them washed down they turn ripe and ugly real fast."

"I don't want to do any foolish bragging up front. Let's go see if I can handle what you're talking about. I want to help out, plus that I want to be a warrior. You're the one who knows what's needed. I'll follow your command and do whatever's necessary."

"Alright then. Follow me."

Chapter 18

On the far side of the settlement we followed a trail running parallel to a thick copse of birch trees and then veering into them on a trail narrow but well beaten and defined by the constant wear of foot traffic. Emerging from among the trees we confronted the kind of barbed wire fence meant to keep cows in not people out yet on the other side grew a field of green leafy vegetables listlessly tended by men wrapped in cloth diapers leaning on farm implements and looking withered and emaciated except for their pot bellies. Their bulges showed reproductive organs shriveled almost to the point of non-existence forming a shared physical oddity.

"What are they growing over there?" I called out to Taylor, whose purposeful stride outdistanced me by several paces.

"That's a vegetable patch," she replied vaguely, waving to the women armed with machetes, the bosses driving the field workers.

The trail declined into a broad hollow dominated by a concentration of raw concrete buildings very unlike any other structures in the settlement. A sickening outhouse stench struck my sinuses the next instant to the extent a monosyllabic cry of protest escaped my lips involuntarily. Using both hands I covered my nose and mouth, a futile gesture so I dropped them to my sides and resolved to get used to the odor of hot dirt and sweltering piles of human excrement.

"You going to be okay?" Taylor asked when we reached the metal prison door. She banged on the door a few times.

"I think so. The smell caught me off guard for a second. You weren't kidding."

"It takes some getting used to. Men are filthy animals. It's in their nature to live unclean. And it's a full-time job keeping em hosed down and healthy. Sometimes it easier just to let em be filthy. It's their nature so why bother? But if you don't force em to wash they'll get so filthy dirty they start getting sores and infections and stuff and then they get really sick and start dying. So if you hose em down once a day and force some soap on em it helps cut down on the smell and it keeps em healthier which is kinda the goal because you want em healthy enough so they can work."

The iron door scraped open and who should be on the other side but my old friend Dee Dee.

"Got a new recruit here ready to start paying her dues," Taylor announced.

"C'mon in. I gotta keep this door closed and locked. Ain't you got a key?"

"Naw, I gave that one up. I'm not down here enough to carry it around anymore. I'm aiming at that level two pass key."

"Moving up in the world. Gonna forget all about yer friends in lowly places."

"Damn right I am," Taylor said with good natured bravado steamrolling over the other girl's pity plea. Taylor slapped Dee on the back who winced more under the forthright condescension than the sharp physical contact.

We had stepped into an office area of sorts with a couple of metal desks and a bench secured against one wall and a few scattered chairs. No fancy wood working here. This décor looked scavenged from an ancient army dump. The walls were completely bare which for some reason I found disconcerting. A certain numbness set in constricting my blood flow as I retreated inside myself to escape these surroundings.

"I been cooped up down here all morning," Dee whined. "I shouldn't hafta be down here. At the very least I oughtta be on duty at the gate or out on patrol. At the very least."

"I meant to ask. Who'd you piss off to be sent down here?"

"I think you know who went out on patrol in my place. And I went up to the office and complained about it and you know what they said? Know what their response was? We're aware of the situation. I felt like saying you're damn right you're aware of the situation cuz I've complained about her a dozen times so I went ahead and lodged a formal complaint this time."

"Did you really?"

"Damn right I did. Filled out the form right there and then and stuffed it into the box, you know, right on the front counter there."

"I know the one," Taylor said, her clear-eyed expression not betraying any emotion. "It'll be interesting to see if anything gets done about it. It's a long time coming. Her behavior is way overdue for some sort of disciplinary action."

"If nothing gets done about it ain't gonna surprise me none. And you know why nobody won't do nothing."

"Oh I know. I know."

"You and me both know. Everybody knows."

"I know. I know."

"Cuz they're playing favorites like always. That's why. You know who got miss so and so wrapped around her little finger because you know what stuff's been going on for months."

"This situation has got to come out at the next review board hearing."

"You know what I'm saying? I'm gonna be right there saying the same old stuff all over again. What they're going to be saying is the same old stuff they been saying. They've been favoring her all along."

"Tell you what I'll do, Dee Dee. I'll go take a look at the work schedule myself and see if I can't get you reassigned for the afternoon. If you'll show Nika here how to clean the pens I'll go see what I can do for you."

"Miss Thang wants to clean the pens?"

I didn't trust my voice to answer so I looked at the ground and nodded my head.

"Whattaya think?" Taylor asked.

"Better her than me," Dee replied.

"Alright. It's a deal then. I'll be back before lunch and let you know what I managed to find out," Taylor said. "Dee can show you what to do, Nika. I'll be back before lunch and if you have any appetite left I'll take you to go find some food." She exited the office abandoning me to be alone with Dee.

To my surprise Dee didn't immediately launch into a belligerent attack. Taylor's commitment to her case may have put her into a better mood. Two types of women seek power, those who think like women and those whose overpowering daddies spanked their bare bottoms slut shaming them into a deranged acceptance of patriarchy. Intense physical and emotional slut shaming warps most women into pleasing a man at any cost. Ironically maybe Taylor had it worse than Dee.

"We start over here in the supply room. You got your cleansers your soap and buckets. Water from the sinks there. One of them long handled push brooms and you go outside to the pen area."

Without dropping any of her implements she lead us down a short hallway and deployed her elbow to depress the doorhandle and then she butted the door open and propped it open with her foot allowing me to scoot by. We were standing on a T shaped walkway with multiple cages on either side. We rounded the corner to the right and I felt impatient we were starting with the empty cages first.

"These here empty cages house the pigs out on work detail right now so we'll start with them first. They're easier to clean when they're empty," Dee said, tossing her buckets and brushes into a corner of the walkway. Grabbing the steel nozzle of a long canvas hose wrapped around a metal spindle she dragged the hose unfurling its entire length reaching all the way to the intersection of the walkway before rounding the corner.

"So first you gotta wash the crap down the crap hole there. They're supposed to do their business straight into the drain but you can see they don't do that."

"Why not make them clean it up?"

"Cuz they're filthy animals who can't be trusted to do a damn thing for themselves. They're so dumb they're not even human. They're subhuman as they say. You'd havta trust em with keys and such and it just ain't worth the hassle."

Dee wrenched the nozzle and a fierce water jet shot out and she waved the spray back and forth chasing turds rolling across the cage floor towards the aforementioned drain.

"Once you're done washing away the dirty bits you grab yer bucket like so throw a heap of cleanser in the bottom like so fill it up with water and grab your long brush and basically give the cage a good scrubbing."

Approaching as far as the cage door I stood there watching Dee dunking her push broom and working the cleanser across the floor. Without pausing in her methodical strokes she looked over at me and said, "You can grab the hose and get started on the next cage down, if you want." Noticing the finicky way I picked up the nozzle she straightened her back and leaned on her broom handle. "If you don't wanna touch nothing there's some rubber gloves I threw in one a them buckets. Grab me a pair too while you're at it."

Dee paused in her work until I returned and we pulled them on together.

"Cool," I said, inspecting my gloved hands.

"Yeah, makes it better. This here is a dirty job no two ways about it."

I left the cage and picked up the nozzle and leaned into it as I dragged the hose to the next cage. It took concentrated self-control not to crane my neck in search of Hater. Two young guys huddled together in the near cage starting on the other side of the walkway but beyond that I couldn't catch a glimpse.

In order to pay my dues I twisted the nozzle and commenced hosing down the next cage. Chasing errant turds. Sending them rolling towards the drain. I experimented with a direct spray assault versus a sweeping motion. Dee finished her cage and hung around outside my cage watching me until I was ready to move on to bucket and scrub. She supervised how much cleanser I poured, which I thought was kind of comical. Then she coached me back on the handle so I didn't bend over so much and to slow down in nice even strokes. While I worked she went down to the next cage and clasped the wire and appeared to engage in conversation with the two occupants though I couldn't make out what they were saying.

It wasn't long before I finished as well and taking the initiative I dragged the hose as far as to where Dee stood to await further instructions. One lad was describing the health of the other, whom he cradled in his lap. Apparently the sick boy enjoyed some good days but mostly they were bad days.

"Do I clean this cage, too?" I asked, quietly respectful in the presence of terminal illness.

"Yeah, this one too," Dee confirmed as a matter of fact.

"With them inside?"

"Yeah, with them in it. Don't ever let em out. Not for any reason."

Dee unlocked the gate and I stepped inside dragging my length of hose.

"I'm going to turn this on now. Is that okay?"

The healthy boy nodded as if to indicate he had no choice. The sick boy he cradled in his arms had been reduced by illness to a skeleton wrapped in skin. His teeth protruded from gaunt cheeks and lips drawn thin from weight loss. His eyes only focused when his gaze met that of his lover as though drawing the only strength he had left from the beaming love connecting them both.

Even though I tried to be conscientious when I twisted the nozzle handle that brutal gush burst forth at once and hitting the concrete ricocheted tiny droplets arching through the air and landing on them both causing the invalid to convulse. Immediately I twisted the nozzle to make it stop.

"I'm sorry," I apologized to both boys.

"You might as well go ahead. At this point a little water isn't going to hurt anything," the healthy boy said.

"You can adjust the pressure if you want by twisting that ring at the base there," Dee said, bemused by my solicitude.

Despite the boy's stoic resolve I still did my best not to splash them. When it came time for bucket and brush I scrubbed studiously around them. Before I commenced spraying to chase the soap off the deck I asked the one boy whether or not he wanted me to gently rinse them down.

"Step closer and have a look at that," Dee suggested, still standing outside the cage and clinging to the wire. "I'd be in'erested to hear what you make of it." The compliment of appealing to my intellect masked her real purpose of trying to shock my senses. "Go ahead and step closer. They won't bite."

The boy who possessed loving kindness in his eyes glared down the length of his lashes at Dee's remarks. His look softened again as I approached to inspect his dying lover. Purple bruises splotched the poor boy's emaciated frame. Down on a knee I took a closer look.

Dee called out from behind me, "Ever see anything like it?"

"No, I never have," I said, not so much in answer to Dee. "What's wrong with him?"

"Oh, a little bit of everything, seems like," the gentle boy said, kissing his mate on the forehead with solicitude. His every word glance and gesture bespoke love pouring from a broken heart.

"Let me sprinkle you guys down some," I said. "It can't hurt any to keep clean."

I removed my rubber gloves and put my hand on the boy's shoulder as a symbol of my resolve to ease their suffering.

"I wouldn't go touching either one of them if I was you," Dee cautioned. "If the one's got it the other one's got it, too. It just ain't showing yet."

I rolled my eyes to indicate my membership in the human race. Adjusting the pressure down as low as it would go I placed my thumb over the spray and sprinkled them liberally with sympathetic drops. Then I directed the boy to roll his companion onto his side so I might wash his back. To my great shame as I allow myself to remember this I cried out and leapt backward onto my feet in alarm and disgust. Oh the misery my reaction incurred where I had only sought to do no harm. Seeing his look of hopeless dismay I closed my senses and stepped forward to resume my task. I quit as soon as I began because the flow of water washed off some of his skin. I turned away to confront Dee over this human rights violation.

"Why don't you go get a doctor and bring her down here?" I demanded.

Without a flinch Dee responded, "Who's going to pay for that?"

"Spoken like a true conservative."

She laughed and marveled at my obvious distress in reaction to their plight. I resolved to help the healthy one first. I mastered my emotions and approached the loving couple once again and placing my hand on his shoulder forced him to sit forward away from the wall allowing me to inspect his back. The red blotches I could see were not attributable to any immune deficiency. The pressure of sitting in the same posture for too long had rubbed the skin raw. I sprinkled his back with water and reaching into my pocket produced a small jar filled with aloe compliments of Cynthia. Handing it to my gentle boy to hold I unscrewed the cap and scooped a dollop and daubed the affected areas on his back. Screwing the lid on I eased him back slowly and told him to keep the jar. With a crushing sense of powerlessness I dragged the hose after me and left the cage.

"You're gutsier than I thought," Dee said, shutting the cage door for me and locking it. "Hell, we might even take you on as a full-time veterinarian."

"Sorry I snaped. It just took me by surprise to see him like that, to see his back in such bad shape."

"Oh I understand," Dee said. "But what can you do? There's no budget for doctoring down here. If they take ill all you can do is let nature take its course."

In total rejection of stupidity and cruelty I turned away from Dee and her conservative lack of humanity. I turned toward the next cage to be cleaned and beheld Mr. Hater naked as the day is long lying on his side asleep with that remarkable tool of his drooping over his thigh and peering close range at the concrete like Narcissus of old who gazed into a pool of water and fell in love with his own image.

"What's the story on this one?" I asked.

"He's harmless enough," Dee said. "Talked too much at first but I cured him of that. He's just back from the milk shed so he should be docile this time of day."

"Milk shed? He's milking cows? You have cows here?" My mind skipped along like a stone across a placid lake.

Dee laughed that high pitched Hyena laugh of hers and her eyes darted to the side to avoid contact. "Not cow shed. Milk shed. They're milking him for his seed. Get it? For breeding purposes. It's rare to catch one as clean as this."

"And that's all he does all day?"

"Yep. Five times a day. He's a real breeder. As long as he produces he'll enjoy the easy life. So no worries. Just don't get him talking though. He'll talk your damn ear off."

Widening my stance and gripping the nozzle with both hands I prepared myself for Hater's rude awakening.

"Up varlet!" I commanded. "Up I say! Meet your new mistress. Hater's eyes fluttered open. He recognized me and I swear he was about to call my name so I shot him in the face with a vicious zots of water to shut him up before he revealed our relationship. Believe me, if there had been any other alternative I would have gone in a different direction. "Get up, miscreant. Not another word out of you."

Dee doubled over in laughter and gripped her guts and staggered away and came back again for more fun and games with cruelty and degradation.

"Come closer," I ordered. By the dull look in his eyes I could tell I'd stunned Hater. He was working up to being really angry. "Tell me, malefactor, are you strong? You're nodding yes? Then pick this up." I meant to spit on the concrete but my spit flew wild and hit him on the thigh.

"What are you doing?" Dee asked, struggling though her belly laugher to make sense of my actions.

"It was supposed to be a joke. You know: Are you strong? Then pick that up. Only I missed and hit him on the leg." I turned on the hose and washed my spittle off Hater's thigh.

At first I thought she was laughing at Hater's misfortune. As it turned out she couldn't believe I had aimed at the ground and missed.

"How can you miss the ground?"

"I don't know. I don't spit very often so I don't get much practice."

As her laughter continued Dee struggled to gain control of herself. "When you're done make sure you roll the hose up and gather up the buckets and mops and bring them inside." She unlocked the cage and stepped in repeatedly jabbing a finger into Hater's chest and bullying him into a corner. "You go stand over there and stay there. When I come back if there's one word of complaint from this child about you I'll castrate you on the spot. Turn around and face the corner. He won't give you no trouble."

I stepped into the cage and dragged the hose along with me. I gave Dee the big thumbs up as she went by on her way out.

"Man, I sure am glad that crazy chick Nika came to work today," Dee said, thinking aloud for my benefit and chuckling to herself once more. Aimlessly I sprayed the concrete until she went inside the building.

"I'm sorry for all that, Hater. But I am so glad to see you!" I kept up the pretense of hosing down the cage although this one was scrupulously clean. "I didn't mean to hit you in the face so hard but you were about to say my name and that wasn't cool. Nobody here knows our connection yet and I aim to keep it that way until I can get in to see the Headmistress here and bargain for your release."

Hater pinched the moisture out of his nose and turned his head to the side to talk to me. "I'm glad to see you, too. I'm really glad. I am in real physical danger. They don't have any respect for human life here. You've got to get me out. What's your plan of attack?"

Dee suddenly stuck her head out the door and yelled, "Make sure you hose down the walkway too before you quit."

I waved and gave her the thumbs up. "Understood," I yelled back. Luckily I'd kept my back to Hater as we talked because I didn't see Dee until I heard the sound of her voice. Satisfied she went back inside again.

"I don't really have a plan other than to offer a ransom. There's no breaking you out of here by force. This place is an armed encampment. We wouldn't make it alive a hundred yards from this cage if we tried to run for it.

"Do you possess adequate funds for a ransom?"

"I have a stack of script. I don't know how much is enough. I'll offer them all I have. I'll figure something out."

"You need to hurry. You hear her threaten to cut me? That's not an idle threat on her part. They have a stainless-steel table here with a drain in the middle and leather straps."

"I don't get it."

"She means to cut my stones. Neuter me."

"Oh goodness!"

"Indeed."

"That's not good."

"No, it isn't. I'm glad you concur."

"I concur wholeheartedly. Listen Hater. Don't worry. I'm working to get you out of here. I didn't come all this way for nothing. I'm going to talk to their headmistress today. They're not going to cut you between now and then. That one, Dee there, told me they weren't going to cut you as long you're producing, you know, in the milk department."

Hater buried his face in his hands. "Thanks a lot," he groaned. "No pressure there. Why did you tell me that?"

"I was trying to put your mind at ease."

"By letting me know that if I fail to perform they're going to slice off my scrotum?"

"Oh don't worry so much. You'll do fine."

"Easy for you to say."

"Just think the dirtiest filthiest thoughts possible."

"I don't cultivate nightmares."

"Here's a fantasy I'll loan you for free," I said, stepping over to him and whispering into his ear. I wasn't more than halfway through my bawdy tale when he whipped his head away putting an end to story time.

"What is wrong with you?" He demanded. "Are you demented?"

"Oh Fine. Whatever. I was only trying to help."

"That wasn't erotic. It was sick and disgusting."

"Do you know you're hurting my feelings right now?"

"Focus on getting me out of here."

"You'll be free by tonight."

"The sooner the better. I wasn't a misogynist before I was dragged here in chains but I am now. These harridans have put me off women for life."

"Even Nastya?"

"Is she here?"

"I like the way you said that. You can't blame all women for the way some of these have acted. There are basically two types of women who seek power. Those who think like women and those who underwent slut shaming by suffering the patriarchal mind set paddled into their psyche via their bare bottoms."

"I wish you wouldn't reduce everything down to an over-generalized dichotomy. You're much better than that."

"But the second part was good, don't you think? About how some women have the voice of the fathers lodged in their brains?"

"Yes, that might be an idea worth elaborating. But what am I always telling you? Brevity! Brevity!"

"I have to make sure I don't end up with your mind set lodged in my brain either."

"I'm not trying to brainwash you, for decency's sake. I'm just offering constructive criticism."

"Listen, Hater, we're going to have to continue this delightful conversation some other time. I should probably go so Dee doesn't wonder what's taking so long."

"Nika?"

"Aye, lad?"

"Get me out of this cage, please. And find me some clothes."

"It's what I came for, boy. Regardless of what happens I'll come back tonight to visit you and give you an update on how my plan is progressing. I think it's safe for you to stop standing in the corner now. Why don't you turn around and have a seat. Try to relax a little, son. Listen, I don't know exactly how this is going play out tonight. So when I come for you, you need to be mentally prepared. So no more melancholy lounging about like some metaphysical poet with his blouse undone and who's lost his hat. Gear up, boy. Be ready."

"Thank you, Nika."

"Don't thank me yet," I said, directing a spray to gently wash his feet. "Thank me when we're a hundred miles away from here. Don't worry. When the time comes for thanks, I'll be sure to remind you."

"I'm sure you will."

The cage door clicked shut locking by itself. Rolling up the hose and gathering up the buckets and brushes I hauled everything back inside all the way to the storage room before dropping the gear with a tremendous clatter.

"Take it easy on the equipment," Dee's loud voice boomed from the next room.

I turned off the light and closed the door and went to rejoin Dee.

"Sorry. Slipped out of my hands."

"How'd it go with the cages?"

"Fine. I washed down the walkway to that one drain against the outside fence. That was the only way I could see."

"There's another drain around the far end there but it don't matter none. The way you done it's fine. How about the stud pig. He behave himself?"

"Oh yes. He was fine. No problem. I didn't mean to torture him like that."

"No, you know what? That was good what you done. You put him in his place right away. Showed him who's boss from the get go. So from now on he'll respect you and mind you when you tell him to do something. He was a good one for you to learn on cuz he's been docile since they brought him in. Today was also a good start cuz the field hands were gone. Makes it a heluva lot easier for you to clean the cages."

"Field hands a little tougher to handle?"

"Oh yeah. Can be. Seeing as you're starting out you shouldn't try to clean their cages while they're in there. You can wait until the guard comes to escort em to their work assignment. If you find yourself having to clean with them inside it ain't a bad idea to carry one of them truncheons with you like you see hanging in the storeroom. Make the whole bunch face the wall like you saw me make that one pig do today. Usually they're pretty docile but sometimes when they see you're new one of em might have a mind to test you. I tell you what, Nika, one of them animals reaches out a hand towards you, you hit him with your truncheon across the knuckles, hard. Hit his hand so hard you break his fingers. On the one hand a field worker is an expensive item. So you ain't allowed to cripple one for the fun of it. But nobody's gonna think twice cuz he grabbed for ya and ya stopped him in his tracks."

"Maybe while I'm still learning the ropes I'll stay out of a full cage unless either you or Taylor is present."

"Taylor ain't likely to be down here very much but yeah go slow. If you ain't comfortable that's the first sign you ain't ready. Like I been saying just wait until they go off to their work detail. Takes all the worry out of it."

Taylor's arrival interrupted our conversation. Dee looked at her in expectation and queried, "So?"

"After lunch you can rotate to the front gate."

"And is she coming down here like she's supposed to?"

"You know what Dee, to be perfectly honest, I didn't even go there. Know what I'm saying?"

"Oh I know. I know. I understand exactly what you mean. Believe me."

"So the front gate this afternoon."

"I thank you, sister."

"My pleasure, sister. So how'd this one do?" Taylor lowered her voice as though I wasn't standing right there.

"She done good."

"Yeah? Done good?"

"Got herself off to a good start."

Taylor now looked my way and addressed me directly. "If Dee says ya done alright you musta done alright then. How'd you feel about it?"

"It was kind of gross at first. But I got used to it. I can handle it."

"Kind of rough," Taylor said, commiserating without any real sense of sympathy.

"True, but I won't die from it. I'll come back and do it again. If it's a job nobody else wants I'll do it."

They looked at each other and after a quick conference they agreed the job was mine.

"Just remember what I told ya," Dee said.

Taylor looked at me and her face showed interest.

"Stay out if the cages are full," I said.

"Oh yeah," Taylor approved. "Do doubt. Don't try to clean a cage full of field hands by yourself."

"Like I told you, wait till somebody comes along and takes 'em away. Somebody always comes along, sooner or later," Dee said, her low morale on full view.

Taylor drawled, "Well... not always." The two women shared their private joke. "If nobody comes cuz they're flaking on their duties and the smell gets really bad you can always hose em down from outside the cage. Just to tide things over."

"Throw a little soap on them through the wire?" I offered, wanting to engage them both in conversation.

"No..." they intoned in chorus.

"You throw soap on em," Taylor said, "more'n likely they'll throw it right back."

"Then they might start throwing other stuff," Dee warned.

"Oh my."

"Yeah."

"What do I do if that happens?"

"You inform the guard on duty, and there will be a reckoning," Taylor promised.

"Yeah, for reals though that hasn't happened for a long time now," Dee admitted.

"Nope, it's true. Amazing what peeling off a few strips can do for an attitude adjustment."

"Works wonders," Dee agreed, smiling with relish at the prospect of whipping slaves.

"So how's the sick one doing? Dead yet?"

"Naw, still drawing breath."

"He's close though," Taylor said, seeking clarification.

"Yeah, real close. Getting close to a shovel smack against the back of the head time. Put an end to it."

"Don't bother taking that on yourself, Dee."

"How's that? It ain't no trouble."

"Just leave it be. It'll work itself out. Otherwise you're just making extra work for yourself. You have to fill out paperwork on a thing like that. It ain't worth it."

"True. I didn't think of that. So who's coming down here to replace me?"

"Lisa."

"Is she happy about it?"

"No, but that's okay. Lisa can be unhappy if she needs to be. Know what I mean, sister?"

"Oh, I know what you mean, sister."

"Listen Dee, it's almost lunchtime. Why don't you take off before the gangs get back so you don't get caught up having to do their jobs for them."

"Afternoon, front gate?"

"Afternoon, front gate."

They punched knuckles. Dee said to me, "see ya, Newbie," in a callous way feigning unconcern and lost no time exiting the building. I waved bye to her but she didn't care. Then I drooped a little feeling rejected and stupid.

"So you must have done okay," Taylor began again since Dee was gone and it was safe to talk about her behind her back. "If Dee was pleased you must have done real good."

"I tried my best. I did whatever she told me to do. The only thing that kind of got to me was that dying boy."

"He's a wreck. Don't even mess with it. Don't waste any food or soap on it. Just let it die. Then it becomes a mortuary problem. You don't want to get caught up having to move dead bodies and filling out the forms and stuff. It's not your job. Steer clear of it." Taylor dismissed the whole problem with a wave of her hand. "So about ready to get out of here and go have some lunch? Got the stomach for food? Any appetite left for eating?"

"Get out of here and get some fresh air first, maybe. Get this stench out of my sinuses." Then not wanting to be seen as a complainer I said, "but yeah. Food would be good. I could eat something."

Taylor laughed, indicating she could understand my shaky status based on her own experience.

We left the building behind and were passing through the birch copse when Taylor grabbed my hand and led me off the trail and into the thicket. Bringing us both to a standstill she encircled me with her arms and smiling in a way that made me smile in return she turned serious again as she pressed her lips to mine.

"I'm with someone," I said, pulling away.

"I know. So am I. I told my mate all about you. She wants to have you and your mate over to the house."

Then she kissed me for real, plying her tongue into my mouth and rubbing my outsides. "Don't worry," she said, "nobody around here cares about harmless kisses between sisters."

"That was harmless?"

Quickly I bussed her lips and took her by the hand drawing her back onto the trail. I tried to continue holding hands but she didn't want that.

"People might see."

Nobody cares, indeed.

Chapter 19

Away from the cages my sinuses cleared and marching alongside Taylor in the fresh air my appetite returned. Food was never a big priority with me. Somehow Powersby still managed to manufacture food rations and you could always find canned food and potted meat. Whether or not it tasted good really didn't matter. Food as fuel. Toss it down your neck quick before the taste catches up.

The fare served at the outdoor cafeteria where Tanya and I ate lunch came as something of a pleasant surprise and a nice treat. Those women knew how to grow crops grind wheat and bake bread. In the city we sometimes received an allotment of black bread. Each citizen received so many heavy thick chewy ounces. Nothing like the puffy white bread they baked daily in this village. Soft sourdough covered by a thin brown crust. The chubby girls in the bakery wore white aprons with no shirts on underneath for no apparent reason. They were a goofy bunch laughing all day cat calling and teasing each other having the time of their life baking bread and making pastry. The vegetable soup was good, too. I ate two helpings while we sat at one of the picnic tables and Taylor shared with me her life story.

"I wasn't born here. They took me in after my folks was killed. They were traders or merchants of some sort near as I can recall. I kinda have a problem sometimes remembering things. Certain parts of my life are a blank. I can't remember being a little kid. We were out in the Deadland. I can remember that much. I don't remember anything about the marauders who attacked us. They raped my mom and sisters. Killed the men. I don't know how they missed me. I was about ten years old at the time. I remember fires burning and the smoke stinging my eyes and dead bodies covered in blood lying twisted around every which way. A squad of warriors out on patrol found me and picked me up and carried me away along with 'em.

"After that I don't remember much. They tell me they brought me back here and adopted me into the tribe. I didn't speak for the first two years, never said a word or made a sound. Sorta like when my old reality got torn away it took all my words with it and I had to spend some time in my new surroundings before I could find the right set of words to call things. Then one day I found my tongue again and started jabbering away like I'd never stopped. My own voice sounded strange in my ears like I was somebody reborn, somebody different, somebody new. The other warriors always say they miss them two years of silence. They're only kidding me, though."

"Do you remember everything from that time forward?"

"Kinda on again off again. I don't know if it's just me or if most folks can't remember their growing up."

"I feel like I can remember too much of my upbringing. There are a lot of parts I wish I could forget."

"Oh don't say that, Nika. Believe me, it ain't no good not remembering stuff. Life is special. Life is precious. You want to store up good memories so's you can look back and remember the good times. Since I been with Martha I been remembering stuff. I ain't forgot nothing since I been with her. She took me in at a young age, helped me become a woman and all that. I mean, she's older than me by a lot."

"I understand that," I said, dropping a crust of bread into the au jus. "Have you ever tried keeping a diary to help you remember things? Writing down the stuff that happens to you?"

"Naw, I ain't much of a hand at writing. It's mostly stuff from a long time ago I can't remember, on account of the trauma." I smiled because of the sarcastic way she said it revealed it was a term she had heard applied to her case in therapy enough times but that she'd never really internalized. "Now how about you? What's your life been like?"

"My mom was a lady of high standing who was ruined by an unscrupulous man. I never knew my real dad. She became a prostitute, basically, and her pimp made her ditch me at an orphanage. I got shipped to an island and then sold into a harem. From there I got contracted into the sex trade. Prostitution. Public exhibition. A little porn. You know, the glamorous life every girl dreams of."

"How'd you hook up with Nastya?"

"I basically sold myself into slavery and I met here there at the mansion of a major Powersby."

"I remember when we first met you said you was both runaways. You know, Nika, if there's one thing they don't encourage around here it's shame and guilt. Modesty is encouraged, generally, but not shame and guilt. You got to leave all that behind you now and move on."

"I'm not sure I'm really ready to talk about it yet. You've had years to come to grips with your trauma. Mine only ended a few weeks ago."

To my relief Taylor was not put out with me for not wanting to share. Some people you meet on a park bench will bare their souls to you. I'm not one of them. She patted my hand and said, "I want you to meet Martha. She's a good one to talk to. When you're ready. I'm sorry for prying. I didn't mean to pry. I can tell you ain't comfortable talking about yourself. But what about your friend Nastya? I don't mean to be rude but... is she simple in her head? I mean, is she all there?"

"She's not simple, and yes, she's all there. Like you said about yourself she used to be a sleepwalker but she's waking up more and more each day and like you say she doesn't have a lot of words for things but she's gaining on it. She's not stupid. She's really smart and she learns very quickly. She just never had the chance to do a whole lot of thinking on her own. Nobody ever taught her anything because she was raised a natural. Nobody teaches girls anything out there anyway because it's illegal to but when you're a slave it's ten times worse. Sensory deprivation is the only way I can think to describe it. Lack of mental stimulation. Not abuse so much as neglect. But like you described in your case, she's waking up a little bit more every day."

"She seems real sweet."

"Yeah, she treats everybody real nice, except me."

"Aw, c'mon now. I seen the way she looks at you. Whether you know it or not her eyes are tracking your every move."

"Thanks, Taylor. That was nice of you to say."

"You about done there?"

"Yes, I'm finished. That soup was really good. It was deep. I needed that. And the bread? Oh my goodness."

"Yeah, they do a nice job. Let's clear our plates and head on. I'll take you down to the arena and introduce you to the warrior women if you really want to become one."

"That sounds great," I enthused without meaning it. I cringe at the prospect of meeting new people and I had no intention of becoming a warrior. We weren't going to be here that long. But I had to play along until I could talk to the headmistress about ransoming Hater out of captivity. So we bussed the dishes and visited the facilities then off on another trail leading down a broad incline toward a solid wood and stone arena.

At first appraisal I thought they might have been so foolish as to build that magnificent structure on a flood plain. They'd anchored the lower structure in quarried stone and carpentered on top a wooden edifice large enough to seat maybe a thousand spectators max. They'd placed this athletic structure in the middle of a sandy plain and I could see in the distance beyond maybe a hundred yards away a pebble strewn declivity water had carved and coursed. In a season of heavy rain water would jump the banks and sweet across the very spot where our boots now crunched the sand in the unlikely event the rain returned.

Rustic in its construction the arena was modeled after the colosseums popular for their spectacles in the ancient Republic. We entered through a cool archway and tunnel and its intimate interior struck me as more of a theater in the round. We strode up a walkway to the railing surrounding the level sand pit and I could tell at first glance no one would mistake these players for thespians.

About a dozen women warriors with massive musculature, thighs larger than my torso, were costumed in scanty barbarian chic, athletic and sexy at the same time. Flesh on full display in celebration of the body beautiful. I loved their hair. Dreadlocks, corn rows, even a Mohawk with the sides of her scalp shaved clean. These women were sculptured beasts possessing a tremendous amount of strength and capable of horrific violence. For a while we leaned on the guard rail and watched them practice, the clack-clack of their wooden swords resounding in the acoustics of the empty seats.

"Do they fight to the death?" I asked, rapt in awe.

"Not against each other. We're not barbarians. They put on exhibitions mostly. Or they use the space for training sometimes if they catch a male feisty enough they might give him a weapon and set him loose on the sand, let him fight for his freedom. But some of the seats on the council object to it saying it ain't our way."

"How do you feel about it?"

"No man's life means a damn thing to me. If he's got an ounce of spirit put a sword in his hand and let him go out of this world fighting cuz you know he ain't gonna win. You see that one there, on the end nearest us," Tanya said, pointed to the buffest gal in the bunch, "That's Brune. She's the one who rescued me and brought me here. Carried me a dozen miles on her shoulders and carried me around the camp all the time after that, me hanging onto her dreadlocks. You wouldn't know it to look at her or talk to her but she's about the gentlest soul around."

As though she had heard Taylor's characterization and sought to contradict it in defense of her reputation as a brawler Brune bellowed a war cry and dealt her training partner an overhead blow sending the poor woman reeling backwards and landing on her backside. Just as readily she proffered a forearm clasp hauling her opponent onto her feet again.

"She looks plenty fierce," I ventured, feeling legitimately awestruck and wanting to be respectful.

"Yeah, you wouldn't want to make her mad none. These gals were out as a group back when they used to go on patrol as a group, before my time and they come across a convoy of troopers and attacked them. The gals joined battle and killed about half them men. Brune by herself slaughtered the other half. They say she cut through them troopers in such a rage the last one standing lost not only his will to fight but his will to live. Dropped down on his knees waiting for her sword to cut his head off. Course that's the kind of story gets better each time they tell it but I don't doubt it's mostly true."

"I don't doubt it either," I averred. Taylor glanced sideways at me and smiled with satisfaction to see she'd impressed me with her tall tales.

A thin wizened old woman with a venerable plethora of thick white hair and draped in a cowl from head to toe appeared on the sand and rang a large bell several clapper clangs as a signal for the warriors to break from training and take a few minutes respite. Brune howled to the sky in celebration of all things in life proper and true, of war and peace, work and rest, victory and spoils. Something about the conqueror, wearing captured virgins draped like clothing.

Some of the women followed the timekeeper through a door I assumed lead to a staging area or maybe a locker room. Others drank copious draughts of water from various wooden buckets positioned outside the door. Only Brune came our way. When she reached the edge of the arena Taylor leaned over the side and the two embraced with tenderness and prolonged affection.

"How you doin' little sister? You don't visit me for long time. How you been?"

"Not since the solstice feast. I've been busy with work. You know me. Running around all the time."

"I know my little honey pot. I know I hear all good tings about you. Making your way in the world, a real woman they say. Who den you bring Brunhilde?"

"This is my friend Nika the Savage. She thinks she might want to train for women warriors."

Her eyes turned on me and her largemouth spread into a broad grin full of pure white teeth.

"How you do, little sister, how you do? Welcome, welcome. So you come join the sisterhood?"

"I thought so before, but now, after seeing you in action, I'm not so sure."

"Ah haha! Oh hoho!" Brune nodded vigorously and laughed in a way I found disconcerting. Then to make matters worse she unfurled her tongue and wagged it about in a manner truly obscene. Why do aggressive people have such abnormally long appendages? I crossed my legs at the prospect. "Dis young chicken too young now. Someday mebbee. Put some meat on dem bones. Right now skinny little chicken with two high melons way up top. Nice looking little chicken."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"No? She don't know?" Brune turned to Taylor. "She don't know?"

"Stop scaring the poor girl," Taylor remonstrated. "She's a good kid."

"Huh, what? Brune scares you some?"

"A little. You look very strong."

"Oh I'm strong. Plenty you bet. You come over here, little chicken. Feel dis here muscles."

I did as I was told and leaned over the balustrade to grip her knotted bicep in both hands pretending I wasn't afraid. I rubbed my hands around her muscles and patted the big gun appreciatively.

She liked my gesture and dropped the rude pretense and spoke plainly. "You nice pretty young ting. You go up in them fine Villas and you lie around naked on them fine couches and all dem rich old women's gather round make a fine praise of you. Or mebbe dey fill you up wid seed and you pop a new baby girl. Really earn your keep. But you no woman warrior. No, not a pretty soft touch like you."

"Okay Brune. I know what you're saying is right. I can see now I'm not cut out to be a warrior."

"How about you, skinny butt?" She demanded, addressing Taylor.

"What about me?"

"When you gonna come down on the sand where I can make a warrior outta you?"

"You told me the same thing, remember? You told me to stay off the sand. You chased me away. Told me to go run errands for the lodge," Taylor said, leaning over the railing again and gripping her protector around her thick neck and pasting her with light kisses.

"Of course I done it," Brune said, patting the orphan who she plucked from the Deadland's brutal maw. "You tell dat Martha if she mistreats you I gunning for her."

"She knows, Hilde. She treats me right."

"She better done," Brune said, turning away, and then a notion occurred to her and she turned back. Reaching down into her leather leggings she withdrew two steal daggers. Handing one to Taylor and one to me she said, "You two take dese. Even skinny girls need to know how to fight."

We both thanked her for the gift. She waved us off and turned away howling for her companions who came bobbing on the run into the arena where they chose a partner and without having to be told resumed practicing.

Taylor and I exited the Arena the same way we entered and we were crunching our way across the sand and as we walked I marveled at the blithe generosity.

"This is a quality weapon," I said turning it over in my hands and inspecting it from various angles.

"She gives and gives till she ain't got nothing left, practically."

"Should we not have accepted them?"

"No, I'm just saying. She'd give you the shirt off her back if she thought you were cold," Taylor said, and into her voice crept a note of distress that comes from loving a difficult person.

I didn't want her to worry or feel bad so I tried to change the subject. "Can you show me how to use this?" I held the short sword in my grip and stabbed the air.

We halted and Taylor taught me the overhead blow I'd seen Brune deploy as well as other thrusts and parries. We spared for a while until my arm tired and as an excuse to quit I said I'd better get back to the kindergarten and check on Nadezhda. Tanya understood my concern and so we slung our daggers inside our belts and returned to the nursery.

The ever helpful Cynthia waved at us as we approached while she also kept watch over a brood of little girls playing in a sandbox.

"I'll go get her for you," she said, shoving off from the picnic table top where she'd been sitting and disappearing inside the nursery. Tanya and I waited outside the waist high white picket fence although no reason kept me from going inside and looking for Nastya myself. Maybe they had a rule about asking for permission to be around the little ones. They weren't protective necessarily but they were very watchful I noticed.

Nadezhda emerged from the building a moment later looking more radiant than I had ever seen her before. Her eyes shined with the sparkle of new ideas. We'd only been apart for a few hours but she appeared to have matured by months if not years.

"Hello baby. I miss you," she said, opening the gate and stepping through and letting the spring action slam it shut and throwing her arms around my neck. She kissed me aggressively and the forwardness caught me off guard and I almost drew back. Once she'd finished having her way with my lips she snapped the connection and turned to level her gaze at Taylor.

"Not in front of the children," I said, sliding my fingertips along Nadezhda's jawline to get her to stop reckless eyeballing the ever popular Taylor and pay attention to what I had to say to her. "Are you having a good time here hanging out in the nursery with the kids and babies?"

"Oh yes. I tink so. Very much."

"I missed you. We haven't been separated since we ran away."

"Aw, I miss you too bobolink. But now I say the ting to you is wery important. And so you listen while I tell."

"Okay. I'm listening."

"Woman, in dere. She has big belly," Nastya said, curving her hands over her own flat belly to indicate the woman's girth. "Big, big belly!"

"She's pregnant."

"No, hush. I tell you."

"Sorry."

"No, she has in her belly a little baby girl, in her belly. She grow dere, never been out before. And now she about to plop out. Ploop!" Nastya pointed downward and out indicating the anticipated trajectory the baby would take when entering the world. "Ploop! Just like dat. Baby moving around. I could feel its kick. Baby go headfirst."

"Sounds like quite an event."

"Oh Nika, pretty Nika, I can stay and watch, yes? Dis midwife she say I can sit quiet and watch dis new baby girl be borned. Oh please Nika, I to stay and watch, yes?"

"Sure, you can stay and watch the baby being born if you want, if that's what's happening. If it's okay with the people inside."

"It's okay. The Midwife invited her to watch," Cynthia interjected. She'd resumed her perch atop the picnic table.

"If the Midwife says it's okay then you can stay and watch. But be a good girl and stay out of the way and mind the Midwife. She's the one in charge."

Nadezhda drew a face so solemn in her pledge to be good I felt guilty for having admonished her. "Enjoy yourself. Have a good time. I'm sure it's going to be quite an experience."

"O tank you, Nika, tank you so much!"

"You're welcome. It's not that big a deal. Listen, I've got more business to take care of. I have to go see the headmistress and talk over some of our arrangements."

"Nooo, you stay and watch baby borned too," she protested, turning petulant, lower lip thrust forward.

"No, I can't, Nasty. I have to have a meeting with the Headmistress, like I said. I've got to straighten a few things out."

"Okay," Nadezhda capitulated immediately, not wanting to jinx the permission she'd already won to stay and watch a new born baby's arrival.

"Okay, so I'm going to be gone again for a while and you're going to stay right here. In fact, I'm glad you're staying to watch because you're really going to learn something, and I'll know exactly where you are, safe and surrounded by good people."

"I'll make sure she's okay," Cynthia volunteered.

"Okay? You hear that? You're going to be a good girl and mind Cynthia. So you're going to stay here until I come back, which at this rate is going to be after nightfall. Do we have a deal? I love you, Nastya."

Nadezhda looked askance at Taylor and then she cupped her hands and placed them over my ear because she had something personal to whisper about and she didn't want anyone else to hear.

I said, "Me too. And I'll see you later tonight."

Nadezhda spun out of my orbit and let herself in through the gate. As she reached the entrance she paused at the doorway and placed her hand on the jamb and turned her head to take one more look at me before she stepped across the threshold. Cynthia saw the pause too and smiled to herself.

"Why are you meeting with the Headmistress?" Taylor asked as soon as Nastya had gone inside.

"I'm having an issue with Judith and I'm in need of a point of clarification about how chores are assigned."

"Judith tried to boss you around," Taylor said, clearly indicating my conflict with that person was not the first.

"Yes, I don't know what to make of her exactly."

"Just look at her and where she is. Look how old she is and she's still living in the single girl's dormitory. Fact is, she's running out of options. They've tried to find a place for her in just about every area in the village and it never works out cuz she specializes in getting on people's nervers."

"So I'm not the first."

"Not by a longshot."

"Well that's good to know, in a way. So the Headmistress won't be looking at me like this new girl's a trouble maker."

"I doubt it. She knows Judith. Has plenty of experience there. You should still go talk to her, though. Tell her your side of the story. Headmistress is a wise old gal. She understands people and situations. That's why she's in charge."

"Thanks for letting me know, Taylor. I really appreciate it. Puts my mind at ease before I have to talk to her. You coming with, or no?"

"No, I'm staying here. I've a mind to see the new baby girl as well. Catch ya' later," Taylor said, opening the gate and stepping through. In passing, she said to Cynthia, "Not used to people paying so much attention to you, are ya?"

Cynthia ducked her head without making a rejoinder. After that pointless cruelty I wanted to bolster her spirits if I could. She'd been nothing but nice to the two of us since we got there. I appreciated the way she'd been looking after Nadezhda. She'd fallen into such a morose reverie I had to say her name to get her attention.

"So you don't mind keeping an eye on Nadezhda for me while I'm gone?"

"I don't mind. I'd be happy to," she said, her aspect brightening again.

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

"No problem. Good luck with your meeting."

"Know what I mean?"

"Oh I know. Believe me, I know."

I left the kindergarten nursery at the heart of the village and went in search of the Headmistress. I thought I knew the way to the Lodge by now but I took a wrong path and ended up in what looked like the manufacturing area closing up shop for the day where I drew some quizzical glances making me self-conscious and so I removed my short sword from my belt and hid it in my boot and then I had to double back and try again and on the second go round I found my bearings and arrived at the Main Lodge.

Chapter 20

Judith was the first person I saw when I entered the lobby. She was standing at the counter talking to the poker faced receptionist. I pointed toward the main office as if to ask is the Chief in and she nodded drawing Judith's attention my way. I kept on walking because I had nothing to say to her.

"She volunteers to clean the pig cages but she won't help us with our own latrine."

I flicked my wrist without even looking to signify I didn't have the time of day for her remarks.

"Did you see that?"

As I rounded the corner into the hallway I could only imagine the receptionist nodding her head yes she had seen the gesture too.

I thought I knew who the Headmistress was but as it turned out she hadn't been among the jovial afternoon tea drinkers who had greeted us on the first day. If she had been I would have remembered the hair. Bright orange split ends faded dull brown in the middle and old lady gray at the roots. Her various hues represented how many decades she had endured to arrive finally with her years of experience draped in folds of diaphanous taffeta ensconced behind the power desk. To my surprise her bright blue eyes beamed friendly and untroubled by my presence in her office. Her imperturbability took a moment to register with me. She was the rock providing a solid foundation for the entire tribe. In comparison I was an errant leaf blown haplessly about by the random winds of chance. She had nothing to fear from me and again to my surprise her uncontested power made her benevolent.

"Your name is Nika Savage, yes?" She inquired without stirring from her spot. I averred I was and she invited me to have a seat. Her office was decorated in the same rustic manner as the rest of the lodge although in here a few water colors depicting waterfalls and Elysian Fields brightened the otherwise oils heavy mood. They were a personal touch and I wondered if she herself might not be the artist. Taking my place opposite her I sat in the awkward silence for a moment while she formed a quick appraisal. My gear was quality leather but strictly Deadland.

"Well my dear," she began with a condescension belonging to a grandmother living in a world populated by teenagers. "It would seem we have a problem."

"Yes, I'm afraid so," I said, dispirited by her negative overture. "And I wanted to come talk to you about it."

"Why don't you describe to me your impression of the situation first and then we can discuss possibilities in terms of what's to be done about it."

She spoke like a politician but her display of open-mindedness and willingness to listen put me more at ease as I began.

"The problem I'm having is with Judith. Our first night here my friend Nadezhda and I, my girlfriend," Headmistress nodded to indicate she already knew about Nastya, "well, Judith tried to put us on latrine detail and I balked at that because I have this thing about not being taken advantage of. I don't mind helping out and I certainly don't mind hard work and pulling my own weight but I needed to make sure we aren't being dumped on just because we're the new girls. I just wanted to make sure this Judith person actually has the authority to put people to work like that. I'm looking for a point of clarification."

"Judith's organizational skills are well thought of around here but that's not the problem I'm talking about. I'm talking about your male comrade we're holding as a slave down in the cages."

She stated the case bluntly and yet she belied no sense of satisfaction in unmasking me completely. For a moment I felt gravity lift and the ground disappear out from under me. Pressing my palms downward I gripped the armrests and held on. The moment of crisis was at hand. So be it.

"His name is Hader Glascock. He's a scientist currently AWOL from the Dark Matter Corporation. He deserted his post in order to help me on a personal mission to help a friend of mine. But that's over now. Since then we've been wandering the Deadland looking for a safe haven. When he... disappeared... from an open market in the valley and we were told he'd been taken by... women... by a women's tribe... so we followed him here."

"So you are an operative for Dark Matter?"

"Goodness no. I'm their sworn enemy."

"But your friend works for them."

"He did, but he doesn't anymore. See, we were friends before he got conscripted by them. He's not very political in nature but he's kind of brilliant. And he helped me out in a bad situation involving a mutual acquaintance of ours, a woman, by the way."

"You've shown yourself to be very resourceful in following him here."

"It mostly involved a lot of walking."

"Why didn't you announce your true purpose in coming here when you first arrived?"

"I wasn't sure how my objective would be received. Usually slavers turn hostile if they know you're on a mission to rescue a captive."

"We're not slavers, my dear, we don't buy and sell women. We take the occasional male to strengthen the gene pool. You can't make a slave out of a beast that's not a human being in the first place, and we are all human beings here."

I didn't see any point in arguing against her world view. She didn't seem likely to crumble as a result of my chipping away at her beliefs.

"So where does that leave us?"

"Indeed, my dear, where does that leave us?"

She seemed mildly amused by the question.

"I don't know. You're the one in charge here."

"What is it you want from us?"

"I want my boyfriend back. I want for you to let him go."

"And what will you give us in return to compensate us for the loss?"

"I have a certain amount of script I can offer as a ransom. Not a fortune but a reasonable amount."

"That filthy lucre is no good here. We don't recognize that patriarchal value system. There's your real slavery."

"I can stay if he can go. I'll stay for as long as it takes to work off the debt."

"Oh no, my dear, you cannot be allowed to stay here now. There can't be any discussion of such a possibility. You've been lying to us from the moment you arrived. You're a savvy little alley cat and to an extent I admire your will to survive, but how on Earth could we ever trust you now? True womankind abhors the lie most of all, and you, my dear, are constructed of nothing but lies, so you must be expelled, and you will be, as soon as our business here is concluded."

"So you're kicking me out and keeping Hater regardless, no deal no nothing?"

"I'll tell you what the deal is going to be," Headmistress said, pleased to finally be reaching the crux of the matter. "Your friend Nadezhda is a remarkable creature. By every standard she is ideal. Her hips have width. Her bosoms are ample and healthy. Her teeth are flawless, strongly implanted in healthy gums. I could go on naming her parts but that's not our way. Suffice it to say she is a real beauty, with a voice of pure magic and a soul full of goodness. She is innocent and pure. Quite frankly, she's golden. So here's the deal, as you say. You take your slave boy. You may have him. I give him to you, and the two of you can go free."

I bolted to me feet. "No way," I said as a paroxysm of anxiety paralyzed my frame. "No deal. No way. Uh-uh. Negative. I am not trading Nastya for Hater. Guess again."

"I'm not offering to trade a slave's paltry life for a young girl of her quality, the two hardly being equal. Think of it in terms as a trade for your own life, which we could find an easy justification for terminating, considering your treachery towards us. Make no mistake about it, Nika. You are leaving, never to return under penalty of death. If you want, take that worthless slave with you; do that, if he means something to you. But the beautiful one with the pure soul, Nadezhda, belongs to us now. She belongs here with other women who can provide for her. Pure water. Clean food. A proper education. Physical protection. You should be happy for her. She has succeeded in finding a safe haven. Isn't that what you said you've been searching for your whole life?"

I didn't have to search my vocabulary very far to find the filthiest name you can call a woman and then sling it in her face. It didn't faze her one bit. She said foul words wouldn't change matters any. I bethought myself of the short sword hidden in my boot. I readied myself for unsheathing it and leaping across the desk and plunging it repeatedly into her throat and drilling that complacent attitude full of bloody holes. I only made it as far as tensing every muscle in my body before a pair of overpowering arms encircled me from behind. When I realized Dee had snuck up behind me and was now grinning with diabolical glee I completely lost my pride. I began kicking and screaming, squirming, pleading, and begging. Tears and snot ran down my face.

"Please oh please! Please don't do this to me. I'm begging you. Don't take her from me. On hands and knees. On my belly licking your feet. Please don't take her. You don't understand. She's all I've got. She's my only person in the world. I love her, don't you see? I've already lost one lover in life. As a result I'm not a whole person. There are just pieces left. I'm not altogether here. If I lose her I'm done for. She's the only thing holding me together.

"I can do so much for her. Maybe not the creature comforts of this place but you can't give her love like I can. I have love to offer. I can give her love. You can't do that for her. Have pity on us, for goodness sake. I love her. She loves me too, understand? We're like that. We're lovers. We're married. Our souls are wedded together."

Seeing my desperate pleading was having no effect I switched back to spewing bloody imprecations invoking maledictions of pestilential rot upon their bodies and souls. Again the Headmistress ignored my ineffectual cursing, touching her contemplative fingertips together, but Dee took my words personally, flinging me back into my chair and bitch slapping me back and forth something fierce. Her palm only stung but her knuckles split my lip bloody on the backhand volley. I was reaching for my short sword and would have plunged it into her guts had the Headmistress not called her off me. Suddenly she disappeared from in front of me and stood behind me instead where I heard her cock her rifle and felt the cold steel muzzle pressed against my neck. They punked me and my spirit evaporated leaving me washed out and hollow inside and powerless.

"Calm down, Nika. There's no point in putting on such hysterical displays. Now are you going to remain calm?" She handed me a clean rag to wipe my face.

I accepted the rag but I also accused her mother of crimes against morality. Dee swung her rifle around and gave me a love tap upside the back of my skull. Any more love like that and I would have ended up unconscious on the carpeting.

"Alright Dee. You've made your point. Go back to your seat by the door there, please; and Nika, I want you to take a moment and gather your wits and listen to me as I talk to you for a moment. I understand you have a certain affection for this girl. But if that's true, if you truly love this girl, with all your heart and soul as you say, then you'd be willing to sacrifice anything to insure her safety and wellbeing, am I right? Even if it meant sacrificing yourself, your own safety, your own happiness, in exchange for hers. Do you understand what I'm saying? You stole this girl out of slavery and you've been searching for a safe haven ever since, and now you've succeeded in finding one, but not for yourself, for her only. Think about the quality of life we can offer her here. Clean running water in super abundance, both for showering and drinking. She'll never feel thirst again. She'll never become dehydrated again. Pure wholesome nourishing food three times a day. She'll never feel hunger pangs again. She'll be elevated to the highest stature in our society, to a position of comfort and grace and respect. We can educate her, teach her to read. We can care for her every need in ways you won't ever be able to match. What do you have to offer her? Follow you back into the Deadland? Heat, thirst, hunger, dirt, squalor, violence, rape, death?"

"I'm going to teach her how to read," I objected dully.

"When, Nika? You obviously haven't made any effort to teach her thus far. And how? Where? We have a library here. We have full time teachers who will dedicate themselves to helping her to improve her mind, and if her wish be to bear a child, which by every indication she's given seems her obvious desire, then in the Spring we will apotheosize her into our fertility goddess and fill her full of seed, the very seed we've collected from your stupid slave boy. She'll be loved and revered and cared for, body and soul as you say, by our entire community here in our mountain stronghold, protected by the likes of Brunhilde and the Women Warriors and Dee Dee here. Safe from all who would seek to do her harm. To live as a true woman should, respected, healthy, safe, happy, and free. Nika, look at me. In comparison, what do you have to offer her? More of the same hunger and poverty and suffering? You would drag her out of this paradise back into the Deadland? Out of pure greed and selfishness on your part. To what end? So that the next band of marauders you encounter gang rape her to death? Or slavers capture her strip her naked and put her up for public auction? You're feisty, Nika, I'll give you that. But let's be honest, you aren't strong, and you can't guarantee her safety like we can. Nadezhda told us the story of your other lover. You weren't able to defend her very well either, were you? The patriarchal fathers destroyed her like they destroy every woman they touch. You can't protect Nadezhda from the world of men. We've been on this mountain for generations and as the situation out there continues to decline here we only grow stronger. How can you claim to love this girl and care about her health and wellbeing and then take her by the hand and drag her back into the Deadland and those wretched cities full of pollution and disease and famine and violence where the only thing that you can promise her is a gruesome and untimely demise? If you love her, prove it. Prove your love for Nadezhda by leaving this place without saying goodbye. Don't make us the villains with a protracted and emotional farewell. Leave her with the impression you abandoned her here, and as a tribe we will coalesce around her with loving arms and work to mend her broken heart. My intuition tells me she won't mourn you for very long. She's a young girl, and young girl's hearts heal quickly. She'll soon find another to take your place, and yet you can always be satisfied knowing a small piece of her will always be thankful to the gutter snipe who brought her here to us, and I'm sure, by far, leaving her here for us to care for will be the noblest action you've ever performed in your pathetic misbegotten life."

"Why don't you kill me and have done with it, take her away? Why the elaborate plea?"

"Because we are not barbarians. We do not kill womankind indiscriminately. And because I'll have to look that child in the eyes for the rest of my life and tell her truthfully how you abandoned her of your own free will because you recognized it was for her own good. Because I do not cherish lies."

"So I'm supposed to give her up to assuage your guilty conscious."

"You're going to aid me in making her transition to life here among human beings as smooth as possible. If my guess is correct you were taught how to use these," she said, pushing forward a pencil and a sheet of paper lying on her desk. "You're going to write her a farewell letter, outlining all the right reasons I've already provided, for why its best she stays here and you go away, taking all the responsibility for the decision on yourself and casting no aspersions on us."

"I can read and write. She can't."

"She will someday. We'll explain the content to her now, and later on she'll discover the truth of it for herself."

"And if I refuse to write the letter?"

"Well cut off your boyfriend's cock and balls and hand it to you as a parting gift before shoving you back into the Deadland anyway."

"As long as you're not barbarous."

"No, we're not. We cut slave boys all the time as a matter of course. It calms them down and improves their attitude tremendously. And while your concern makes no sense to me, I can see that somehow he matters to you. So come now Nika Savage. Make your parting from Nadezhda as quick and painless for her as you possibly can. Do it for her sake."

A heavy object thudded to the floor behind me and I turned to look and saw my voluminous bag had been delivered.

"For the sake of that child, beautiful inside and out," Headmistress implored, "give her the gift of life. Release her into our care, secure in the knowledge she'll be loved and cared for, nourished in paradise for the rest of her natural born days. Release her, Nika, then take your slave boy and slip back into the sewer you came from and where you belong, but don't drag Nadezhda down with you. She doesn't belong out there dying of dehydration. She belongs here with us who can provide her with everything."

I grabbed the pencil and scribbled a quick note saying goodbye. The Headmistress dictated most of it so I won't bother reproducing it here. As soon as I dropped the pencil I was struck with hiccups and hysterical sobbing. Dee took me roughly by the arm and lifted me out of my chair and hoisted the volume onto my back and pulled my arms through the straps like she was dressing an oversized doll. Headmistress rose and walked around the desk and secured the straps and she massaged my shoulders and neck and gently stroked the back of my head and said, "You have made a very noble choice. You have insured her safety and wellbeing for the rest of her life. In time you'll come to fully realize you made the only choice possible, for her sake."

She walked me to her office door and closed it behind us once Dee and I were out in the hallway. Under armed escort I sniveled and whimpered and hiccoughed, misery dipped in vinegar, all the way down the paths to the cages.

Unlike earlier that morning at night the cages were filled with field slaves fast asleep. The poor boy and his sick lover remained in the same attitude they'd occupied all day and I marveled at the deep commitment level bonding those two together and doubted whether any thinking feeling person claiming membership in the human race could observe that bond and fail to recognize a pure example of spiritual love.

We arrived at Hater's cage and Dee rattled the key in the lock as I called out for him to wake up. Roused from the depth of sleep his puffy eyes and mussy hair framed an expression of fear and morose resignation as though I might be the bearer of bad news and I realized the pain wracked expression my own face wore could not have projected much reassurance. In my heart I was struggling not to blame him for the loss of Nadezhda, for my having merely traded one captive for another.

The voluminous bag slipped from my shoulders and landed on the walkway and I knelt over it and rummaged for some of Hater's spare clothing. I handed him clean undershorts a pullover shirt pair of khaki shorts thick woolen socks white jumpsuit and brown ankle boots in preparation for our descent into the Deadland.

"Get dressed. We're leaving this place. I've arranged for your release."

Hater pulled on his skivvies and desert shorts and sat on the walkway pavement to pull on his socks before he dared to question good fortune.

"Did you pay a ransom?" He whispered, still much under Dee's cruel watch standing guard but a few paces away.

"Not exactly. She wouldn't accept my script. Wasn't interested in it."

"How'd you manage it then?" Hater asked, pulling the shirt over his head his face still wearing the look of inquiry when it popped through the neck hole.

"Get dressed, Hater. Here's your jumpsuit. Get your boots on before they change their minds about letting you go."

He did as I demanded, not out of obeisance to my command but understanding intuitively remarkable circumstances surrounded his release and time was a major factor. While he parked his butt again to pull on his boots I struggled to keep my mind clear contemplating the two lovers sequestered in the cage next door. In this draught of cruelty an impulse of decency blossomed in my heart and I knelt down and rummaged through the volume and I selected a handful of euphoria stabs. Later on if an emergency arose out there in the desert I might regret this decision I realized but in the moment it felt like the right action.

With his boots tied in double knots Hater jumped to his feet and smoothed down his kit and I could tell he felt human again properly covered. Keeping the stabs hidden in the ball of my fist I hoisted the volume onto my back and Hater and I turned to face Dee who returned a glare of repressed hostility and fingered her carbine showing how hopeful she was we would make a false move and provide her with an excuse. She motioned with her weapon to proceed and stay ahead of her where she could keep watch over us.

We rounded the corner and headed for the building and I drew even with the corner of the cage where the lovers sat in repose. I stopped our procession stuck my hand through the wire ad let five euphoria stabs roll off my fingers and land on the concrete next to the tragic young lads.

"Hey boy," I said, calling him out of his reverie, "take these. Use half a one a day to ease your boyfriend's pain."

As though prompted by my words to inspect the sick boy's status he rolled his lovers head up and cradled his neck in the crook of his elbow. His glassy eyes and gaping mouth revealed he had died. To the living boy the state of his partner came as no surprise leading me to understand the poor sufferer had passed away sometime earlier in the day and his husband had found no emotional strength to say goodbye and relinquish his loving embrace. The bereaved young lad raised his gaze and looked me in the eyes and the reciprocal light of love they had shared had been extinguished in the one and dimmed to a barely discernable pinpoint amid the starkening loneliness in the survivor. He looked right at me but in his profound grief and misery I'm not sure he saw me or if he did he didn't possess full cognizance.

He did look at my empty hand and he saw the pain killers arrived too late to assuage the pain. To my shock and horror I watched powerless to stop him as he popped the safety cap off one of the ampules and jabbed the spike into his own jugular region and then another phial penetrated a vein in his arm and then he embedded a third and a fourth into the artery in his thigh.

In anguish I screamed for him to stop, doing nothing to impede his self-destruction but awakening the denizens in the other cages some who mimicked my cries of despair creating a hideous cacophony of caterwauling to accompany the violent seizures gripping the poor young man's body as his eyes rolled up into his head and white froth seethed from his mouth. With both hands I gripped the wire cage and sank to my knees in utter defeat. Hater knelt beside me and put his arm around me and did his best to silently comfort me. He reached through the wire mesh himself to retrieve the unused euphoria stab and pocketed it in case of an emergency later on. I couldn't blame him for that. In the Deadland you conserve every last drop.

The inane shrieking and chatter emanating from the cages behind me deafened my senses. The oblivious cruelty of their excitement paled in comparison to Dee's reaction. The laughter booming from her belly up through her lungs had doubled her over in exquisite hilarity and joy.

Gasping for air and relief from the humor she construed in tragedy she cried out, "Oh my God! Oh my God! Jesus Mary and Joseph that's the funniest goddamn thing I've ever seen in my whole goddamn life. Oh my God. Oh my God. Nice touch there, doctor Nika. You've got one helluva bedside manner!"

People often say when describing how a person turns unexpectedly homicidal that in essence they snapped. For me it wasn't like that, nothing snapped or broke inside of me instantaneously. It took longer than that. In my mind I was standing in the middle of a large warehouse surrounded by dire consequences illuminated by dozens of bright hanging lamps, and one by one the bulbs began to explode in bright pops strewing sparks. The image of each imagined consequence was thrown into darkness and ceased. I could no longer picture the danger or even feel it. Pop by pop everything inside of me went dark until the only person standing in a perfect illuminating cone of white light was Nadezhda.

Whole pieces are missing from my memory when I try to recall the exact sequence of events. I can remember the tone of Hater's kind words as he pulled me to my feet. I remember Dee shouting at the slaves to quiet them down. Can't remember passing through the prison office or the trail leading away from the building. I sort of woke up for a moment while we were passing through the birch grove because I remember the chill air against my face and drying tears turned cold and the bare branches clacking in the breeze.

Hater kept whispering, "Where's Nastya? What about Nastya?"

I kept repeating, "I don't know. I don't know. She's somewhere else now. They have her."

The lights of the settlement blurred as we reeled away towards the Deadland darkness. Then Dee was telling us to watch our steps because we were descending along a long series of switchbacks towards the desert floor across a series of rock escarpments and in the dark my depth perception deserted me. At the line where the lava flow disappeared under a sand covering Dee called a halt. I dully expected her to execute us both. Instead she gave us her final instructions.

"Okay now, listen up. I'm telling ya how to get across this here minefield. Without blowing yourselves up." She stood right next to me, holding her assault rifle in one hand and giving pointers with the other. "You see that star shining away over yonder on the other side of this here sand flat? About four fingers up you see that really bright star? In the sky there? the bright one? Walk along the edge of the skirt here. Don't step off into the sand until you see the magic lights. Keep that star as your point of reference. But be looking at the desert floor. Keep your eyes peeled and you'll see the path, plain as day." Sure enough, across the desert at about ten foot intervals, a line of glowing stones created an unmistakable string of pearls glowing in the dark. "Go single file. Don't get any bright ideas about coming back this way cuz it don't work the same way in reverse and you'll get blowed up." Then she added under her breath, "Not that I care."

A cry pierced the night. As though a fluffy white owl had shrieked in distress.

Dee swung around and pointed her rifle uphill in the direction where the sound had originated.

"What the hell was that?" She demanded of the darkness, but I answered instead as though nodding under the effect of heroin. "That's Nadezhda," I said, bending over and using both hands to roll up my pant leg.

"No, Nika," Hater said softly, soothingly, having intuited she wasn't coming with us. "Not Nastya. An owl perhaps, or some wild animal."

"Yeah, that was some dumb critter," Dee said, turning back to face us.

"Madam, I beg to differ," I said, raising to my feet and sinking my sword edge chunk deep into the side of her neck.

I startled her, to say the least. Her hands began to tremble and she dropped her rifle. I gave a couple of tugs and wrenched free my blade. I stepped forward and as she collapsed backward I mounted her and road her down. Her severed jugular spurted jets of hot gore into my face. I opened my mouth and drank hot blood. Spitting the rest into her face. Plunging my sword into her chest repeatedly I rode her bucking and quivering body cowgirl style until that hateful bulldyke bled out and lay dead and inert under me and I felt satiated and fulfilled.

"Holy Cinco de Mayo," Hater said, standing breathlessly to one side. "Muy beuno."

In the course of rising to my feet I yanked my sword loose from her ribs and stood holding it over the corpse of my dead enemy.

"C'mon Hater. Nadezhda's in trouble and I'm not done with these people yet."

"I really don't think that was her that we heard."

As though in answer to Hater's doubt a second shrieking peel shattered the silence.

"The hell it wasn't. C'mon."

Gladiatorial sword in hand I leapt and sprinted up the layers of the lava escarpment and as I ran my moral lights flickered back on and I could see standing at the top Taylor and Nadezhda silhouetted by the moon and clutching at one another and wrestling right at the edge of a great precipice. As I landed on the trail leading to them and ran along it faster than my legs had ever carried me before. Nadezhda's guttural cries reached my ears and I knew she was fighting for her life. When I rounded the final rocks I saw them each strangling the other and their feet scuffling on a ledge near the edge.

To break the stranglehold Taylor let go with one hand long enough to slap Nastya hard across the face, slapping even harder a second time, a cruel blow knocking Nastya to the ground.

"Don't you hit her!" I yelled upon approach. "Don't you ever hit her!

Tanya swung around in the direction of my voice and her eyes narrowed when she saw it was me and she took stock of my aggressive advance. At the sight of my smoking blade she drew her own sword and prepared to counter my overhead blow. Steel rang on steel. Again and again I brought my sword down against hers held crosswise in defense. We shuffled around vying for advantage until my back was to the cliff. I thrust and she parried. With my next thrust she swept her weapon with such force on contact my sword flew out of my hand and sailed over the cliff and vanished into the dark abyss.

I looked over the dark precipice. "Oh darn."

Still crumpled in a heap on the ground Nadezhda whimpered in expectation of the sequel. Taylor stepped forward intent on running me through. Crackling electricity formed around her neck like a noose and raised her onto her toes. Her eyes popped wide in terror. Her mouth formed a perfect O and as though she was blowing smoke rings perfect circles of electricity floated from her mouth. Her brain must have short circuited because her body went limp and it was she who crumpled into a heap revealing Hater and his Shockmaster 3000, inspecting it and finally finding the off button powering it down. Then he gave a slight kick to the smoldering corpse in front of him.

"Dude, where did you get that from?"

"It was in the inner pocket of my jumpsuit right where I left it. Don't you remember? Before I left to go find food that day I said that I was leaving it behind. I wore my jeans instead. In retrospect I should have taken it with me."

By the time Hater finished talking I'd already helped Nadezhda to her feet.

"I don't know, Hater. If you'd tried to use that on those women warriors you only would have made them mad and they probably would have hurt you if not killed you," I said, inspecting the bruises on Nadezhda's neck and her split lip.

"Worked well enough on this one. I always wanted to use the 'lasso' setting. I never knew what it did but I caught her just right on the nape of the neck."

Ignoring Hater I asked Nastya if she was okay. "What on Earth are you doing out here?"

Her strength and bravado spent she burst into tears and said, "I follow evil woman here to stop her killing baby."

I looked at the remains lying in a heap. "Taylor killed a baby?" I asked, totally confused. "Why did she do a thing like that?"

"She throw brand new baby off of cliff!" Nadezhda exclaimed, and more sorrowful tears rolled from her eyes. I released my hug and stepping to the edge of the cliff I peered into the abyss but it fell steeply down and the bottom was obscured by darkness.

I went back to her and resumed my hug. We were both badly shaken. "What baby? You mean the new one you stayed to watch being born? Why would she do such a thing?"

"Dey don't keep a boy baby. No value to dat kind of baby. Trow it away, dey say, like is trash. No ting but trouble for too many years till it grown up."

"Infanticide," Hater said. "Their society doesn't value male children, only females. This one here brought the baby to this place to dispose of it. Threw it off the cliff to its death. Dastardly."

Nadezhda threw her arms around my neck and cried convulsively. "Oh Nika," she lamented, "you never see such pink little man in all you life. Little fingers and little toes," and she wiggled her pinky, "and tiny little dingus. So cute, Nika. So nice. Den everbody be quiet and Taylor say everybody leave back. Go home. Even mother of child say take it away. Oh Nika, I can hold baby nobody wants. I could love a little man and take care of heem. I love heem like my own. Deb det don't do dis bad ting. I love a leetle boy baby. Why not they give him to me if dey don want him?" Her voice cracked with perplexity.

"Did you offer to take him?"

"Yes and no cuz I no know dis evil ting dey do till we go back to bunk beds and Cynthia whisper me truth. They let not nobody keep a boy baby. She say dey dispose of dis baby off a cliff. Den dey call lights out but I sneak out. I follow her here to dis place."

"Did you see her do it?" Nadezhda's somber nodding broke my heart. "I'm sorry you had to see that, Sweet pea. I wish I would have known."

"I hate deez people. Evil women. I no want to stay here no more. Not a single nother night, no!"

"Not another night, indeed. We're leaving right now. We're going. Right away."

"Mr. Hater, you free man now?" Nadezhda swiped the tears from her eyes and feeling guilty for not noticing him earlier went over and gave him a hug. "Dey let you go free? How come?"

"I don't know. Nika arranged it. I don't know how. Talked them into it, I suppose."

"We can't stand around all night chatting," I said. "We need to move. Nadezhda, does anyone know you're gone?"

"No, no. I put pillow under blanket pretend it's me. Remember, like we do in Harem?"

"I do remember. That was really smart. So if we're really lucky it might be morning before anyone realizes you're gone."

"I don't suppose you have any toilet paper, do you?" Hater asked. "I really need to go before we head out."

I reached into the voluminous bag and produced a clean rag. "Okay Hater. Here you are. I'm going to take Nadezhda up around the bend on the trail and get her away from all this first and then get her changed into traveling gear while you have your privacy. Then we really need to get a move on," I said, taking the time to pry the sword from Taylor's petrified grip.

"Yes, I guess in the excitement, well, I really need to go badly."

We left Hater to do his business even though during the course of our travels together we must have shared the bathroom a million times. After his recent ordeal though I understood his need to restore some semblance of human decency and personal privacy.

Nadezhda and I followed the trail leading back to the village and then I randomly called a halt and started pulling her travel gear from the volume when a dark figure appeared approaching us in the moon light. My first impulse was to get Nadezhda changed.

"Sit down on your bottom and pull your leathers on," I directed her. She was still wearing her sundress from that morning.

Gripping Tanya's sword by the hilt I readied my stance for the impending confrontation. Considering how badly I sucked at sword fighting I determined to stab and slash and not try to get too fancy about it. By her slim figure and girly gait I could surmise to my relief no woman warrior had been sicked on us yet. As this mysterious creature grew nigh I thrust my sword's point throat level well in advance of her arrival to show I meant business. Apprehending my threatening posture Cynthia gasped in surprise covering her mouth with both her hands in dismay. Somewhere between hurt feelings and wonderment she asked me what was wrong.

"We're leaving," I informed her, lowering my point, "and we really need for you not to alert anybody. Think you can keep quiet for us?"

"Oh my god," Cynthia effused, "you girls are leaving and you're not telling anyone? Take me with you! Oh please take me with you! I've been planning to escape myself only I didn't want to go alone which was the only way I could go until now. Nika, let me go with you girls." While she pleaded with me in this manner she knelt down and helped Nastya with pulling on her socks and donning her boots and cinching the laces and tying rabbit ear knots. "I can't stand it here. Everybody is so pushy and competitive and mean. It's like if you're not a jock you're not anybody and they're always talking about everybody else behind their backs and back stabbing each other. And then there's my mom and having to live with her. Of course I don't have to tell you what that's like."

"Who's your mother?" I asked, nonplussed that she expected me to know anything about her.

"My mom's Judith. Didn't you know that? God I can't stand her. She drives me crazy until all I want to do is get out of this place and away from her. I want to live my own life. I don't care how bad things are in the Deadland. Anywhere is better than here. I could go to one of the cities maybe and find work designing clothes or jewelry or something. I just want to get out of here."

"I had no idea Judith was your mom. I'm totally over that, Cynthia. She has nothing to do with me anymore."

"Oh my god I know exactly what you mean. I'm totally done with it, too. I am so ready to leave this place. Look, if you take me with you I can be totally helpful. I know how to cook and I can help you look after Nastya and I can pull my own weight and take care of myself and I'll do whatever you tell me to and I won't argue or be any trouble or anything at all. I swear!"

Nadezhda sat in the dirt clicking her boots together and watching me to see what my judgement would be. As far as Cynthia's sincerity was concerned I had no doubts. I was having to reformulate everything I'd seen: Judith's curt expressions and constant impatience towards Cynthia assumed a whole new depth of significance. Their relationship certainly explained how I found her rather sweet and charming taken on her own merits whereas everybody else in the village lumped her together with her obnoxious mother. All things considered Cynthia was not a bad kid.

"Listen Cynthia. You can't travel the Deadland dressed like that. Sandals, short pants, and a nighty aren't going to cut it. You have to wear thick socks and ankle boots, if you've got them. Some kind of footwear suitable for hiking. Dungarees, you know what I mean? Thermals and flannels and a jacket. Whatever you have that's warm and durable to keep out the heat and cold, both."

"I have all kinds of clothes like that. You mean I can go with you? Oh thank you, thank you, Nika, so much! I've practiced packing a dozen times, believe me. I can go get my stuff and be changed and ready to go in no time."

"We can't wait for you. We leaving right now, but you can catch up to us. Do you know about the path through the mine field?"

"The shining stones? Sure, everybody knows about that. They only work in one direction. I'll be careful."

"We'll be on the same trajectory as that path straight to Iron City. Just follow the shining star. You'll catch up to us, and we'll pause every now and again, but we can't stand around out here in the dark waiting on you. We have to make our escape right now."

"I totally understand, and it's no problem. As long as I know you're ahead of me and where you're going I'll move really fast and catch up to you. I can be confident so long as I know I'll find you."

"We'll be together again by dawn if not sooner. It's really important you not wake anybody up or rouse suspicion or the whole camp will be up in arms. We need a head start, as big as we can get."

"I totally get that, and nobody will know. Nobody patrols this end of camp anyway. It's like the back end nobody thinks about because of the minefield. I'll be in and out of the quarters quick as a flash with nobody the wiser. Believe me, I've stood here before, packed and everything, ready to leave, but I always chickened out because I was afraid to go alone, but now that you guys are going, I'm really going to do it! I'm really going to leave home." The last part she whispered in amazement.

"You better get going, then. If we don't see you by about noon tomorrow we'll stop and wait for you. Right now, though, we're leaving. So, see you later."

"See you soon," Cynthia cheerily chimed, scampering off into the dark exalted by her new mission to free herself from the camp's confines.

"You let Cynthia come with?"

"Do you think that was a mistake? It seemed kind of hard to say no to her. I'm pretty positive she's on our side."

"Hmm. No, no mistake. She nice girl, she true. People here treat her no good."

"Stand up now, sweetie."

I lead the way and we descended the granite folds to the sandy valley floor and the minefield.

"Listen Nastya. There's a dead body lying on the ground up ahead and I don't want you to see it. I had to kill a woman, one of the guards, in order to free Mr. Hater and I'm sorry to say it but that's the truth of the situation."

"Is why your face so messy?"

"Yes, that's why," I confirmed. I hadn't thought about how gruesome I must look so I took one of our water canisters and a clean rag and daubed my face to wash away the blood.

"I no want to see dead body," Nastya assured me. Together we averted our gazes and worked our way carefully to the jumping off point and no farther. Hater joined us a moment later and I noticed he had Dee's carbine slung over his shoulder.

"Did you just pick that up?" I asked, indicating the rifle. I had to confess, "I didn't even think about it."

"No, I noticed you didn't. I took it right away and I've had it with me the whole time."

"Why didn't you use it instead of the volter?"

"Too noisy. The report would have woken up the whole camp."

"Always thinking, Mr. Hater. Good thinking all the way around," I said, scanning the ridge for our enemy and one more thing I had to say but my mind went blank and I turned and contemplated the path glowing intermittently before us. "So you guys see the glowing stones, yes? On either side there lies a minefield. I don't know how far off the straight and narrow you have to wander before you step on a mine and get blown to smithereens and I don't want to find out. So pay attention to what you're doing and stay directly behind me, both of you. Understand?"

I think Hater was miffed for a second because I'd lumped him in with Nastya but my concern for their safety was equal and he quickly got over it. My hearty companions nodded their noggins in mute testimony showing me they understood the seriousness of the situation.

"I'm going first to make sure it's safe. Who knows if any of this is for real. Everybody who's talked about it sounded for real. Then once I get out ahead a little ways Nasty, you come next. You step right where I stepped. Put your feet right in my footprints if you can. Stay focused on one stone after the next and walk directly over it. Hater, you come last and keep an eye on Nastya here to make sure she stays on the path. Keep her safe." Hater smiled, reassured I had faith in him.

"I understand," Nastya said. "I stay on path." She pulled at her lower lip before asking, "Nika, what a 'minefield'?"

Yeah, she understood perfectly. "There are bombs, honey, planted in the ground. You can't see them because they're buried underneath the dirt. If you step on one the weight of your foot makes it explode. It'll blow you into tiny pieces, boom!"

Nadezhda recoiled from the very thought of it. "Why anybody plant such horrible ting for us to step on?"

I could see she was upset not just by the immediate danger to us but by the insult to humanity. Hater gave her a little backrub and she smiled shyly at him.

"Okay, Nasty. Here we go. Wait until I get past the first stone so you have a clear sight of it then you follow me across. You walk where I walk."

Taking a deep breath I set out walking at a brisk pace. I figured there was no point in pussy-footing around about it. Either the path was for real or it wasn't and one way or the other we would soon find out. About a dozen paces out I stepped over the first stone and glancing back and observing Nadezhda moving to follow along filled me with forward resolve. The entire time we were crossing the minefield I never looked back again. If I'd given in to that impulse anxiety would have eaten me alive. I kept my head bowed and stayed focused on the path ahead. Even when I reached the far side of the sandy plain and mounted the first rocky hillock I motored uphill until I stood at the crest and saw a whole series of ridges and troughs undulating into the foreseeable distance like ocean waves rolling towards shore but there were no more glowing stones to light the way and only then did I spin around. I have to be honest: I was freaking out a bit. I was so scared for my friends. First Nadezhda then Hater crept up and joined me on hard rock.

"What are we waiting for?" Hater asked, breaking the silence.

"I can't see any more stones where the path might be," I whispered. "I can't tell if it's safe. Do you figure it's safe?"

"The minefield ended back there on the sandflat, Nika. Remember? Dee even said so. This is solid rock we're standing on. They couldn't bury anything in this even if they wanted to. We're through the minefield and we're safe now. So all we have to do is follow the brightest star towards Iron City. Smooth sailing."

Unable to move my feet I asked Hater if he wouldn't mind leading for a while.

"Why?" He joked, "so if there is a mine I'll step on it first and get blown up instead of you?"

I had to grab his arm to get his attention.

"I'm having a bit of a problem," I said to him.

They both examined me more closely and realized I was having trouble breathing.

"Sit down and relax for a minute, kiddo. You're going to be okay. Everything is fine. We made it. The danger is over."

Nadezhda sat down beside me and without saying a word she massaged both my back and my sternum.

"I'm sorry I'm so weak," I said, and burst out crying. Way too much excitement for one evening. However, the terrors began to recede.

"Oh you're weak are you? Is that the problem?" Hater chided me. "Doesn't really explain your plunging head first into an armed encampment in order to save my life. Doesn't explain your engaging in mortal combat to save Nadezhda. Doesn't jibe with volunteering to go first across a – what was that back there? Oh yeah, a minefield!"

Hater's histrionics made me laugh and helped me to catch my breath. Nadezhda kissed my cheek and continued her caresses, saying, "You brave as trooper."

"Okay guys. Stop or you'll give me a big head. Let's get going again. I feel better now."

"Sure you don't need to rest another moment?"

"No, we need to keep moving," I said, struggling shakily to my feet. "If I sit like that any longer I'll get stove up. Walking will help me breath. For a moment there I lost my bearings and felt a little panicky. You're right, Hater, this is solid rock we're standing on. I don't know what I was thinking."

Side by side, arm in arm, we forged ahead, clearing several rolling hillocks in our flight.

Poom! A sickening dull thud exploded far behind us arresting our steps.

"Somebody was trying to follow us," Hater said. "I knew they would. But I fixed that. As I reached each stone I picked it up and tossed it about a dozen feet off to the right, closing the door behind us."

"Cynthia," Nastya said, a look of horror spreading across her face.

"Who's Cynthia?"

"Oh my goodness, Hater. She was this girl who wanted to come with us. I forgot to tell you. She wanted to escape that compound too and I told her she could follow us."

"You told someone they could follow us? Why didn't you tell me?" Hater didn't know which part to be angry about first. "How was I supposed to know? I wouldn't have disrupted the path if I'd known someone was following along trying to join us. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know Hater. I guess I forgot. It was in my mind to tell you then the thought just went away. I can't think of everything. Besides, you would have gotten mad and said no and I didn't want to argue."

Nadezhda's countenance really sagged because mom and dad were fighting, let alone poor Cynthia who had never been anything but kind to us.

"I'm so sorry Nadezhda. She was like your little friend. I can't deal with this anymore. I'm sorry for everything. It's totally my fault but I just can't think about it right now. I can't take responsibility for every last thing that happens in this stupid random universe and I'd fix it if I could but I can't so come on. We're moving forward. We're going to Iron City and that's that. We can't go back because the stones don't shine in reverse and there's nothing we can do anyway. You heard that explosion. That young girl is dead. So come on with me right now. It was a very unfortunate incident but I don't want to hear another word about it."

"Poor Cynthia. She nice girl," Nadezhda lamented.

"I'm sorry I killed your friend."

Hater said, "I didn't know." I could tell he was feeling guilty, too.

"It's not your fault, Hater. I should have said something. I had it in my mind to. It was right there in my mind to say something, to let you know this strange little person wanted to follow us to Iron City. Then I was standing there facing that stupid minefield and I got distracted and poof the thought vanished. I forgot all about her. It's nobody's fault. It's my fault. It was random stupidity on my part."

We had to follow the evening star until the dawn dissolved the night. You cannot imagine three more tired comrades driven by fear trudging over a mountain. Another blast echoing across the rocky expanse reached our ears only this one much fainter than the first.

"I wonder how long it will take them to figure out a way through," I speculated aloud.

"Depends on whether or not they were smart enough to create a map or a diagram for future reference. Could be they laid out that star path first and then planted their explosives randomly. If that's the case, if they didn't keep track of what they were doing, then it'll work to our advantage, time wise. At the very least they'll have to wait for nightfall again before they can take a bearing on that star. My impression was that narrow path represented an ancient bit of trickery. They may not have anybody within living memory with a solution to that puzzle. On the other hand, they might have a solution as simple as a map tucked away in a file drawer somewhere and all they have to do is retrieve it."

"So let's think about this. If they have to go out the front entrance to chase after us, go out the same way we originally came in, how long do you figure it'll take them to go around and catch up to us?"

"Going the long way around they'd have to traverse the whole base of the mountain practically. It could take them as long as a week."

"It should only take us a couple of days to reach Iron City. We've put in a full day's march already."

"If they catch up with us I'm sorry but we're done for. If we make it to the city I think we should find a hole to crawl into and lay low for a while. They might send assassins after us for the sake of revenge but somehow they don't seem the type. If they wanted to kill you they'd thwack you over the head with a sword not poison your gruel."

"No, I get what you're saying, and I think you're right. Still, we need to keep moving."

"Yes, we should be okay if our luck holds."

I grew silent at the mention of luck. Why Hater tempted fate with a word like that I'll never know. If I scolded him for his loose use of words he'd only dismiss my concern as superstition. I tried to be more scientific like he was but in the face of random calamity holding fast to logic and reasoning presented a real challenge.

Chapter 21

As though the gods had been monitoring my thoughts we crested another ridge and halted at the edge of a precipice falling into a chasm whose depth could not be measured from our present position. The distance stretching from one side to the other was also clearly insurmountable.

"Oh c'mon, man. What gives!" I exclaimed, momentarily losing control of myself. The sound waves carrying my cry of despair probably travelled a good fifty feet before dissipating into nothingness.

"Now here is an interesting development," Hater said.

Nadezhda picked up a small stone and tossed it over the edge and watched with great curiosity and amusement as it plummeted until it vanished.

"The gods are against me," I whined. "I can never catch a break."

"There's no such thing as gods," Hater remarked with annoyance. "This chasm has existed for eons of geologic time and its presence here has nothing to do with you."

"I stand before you, Master, chastened and subdued. So what do we do now, dude?"

"Our only two options are uphill or down."

"You decide," I said to Hater, "because whichever way I choose is bound to be the wrong one."

"It isn't a matter of probability, really. At least, that's not the most useful way to think about it. I think it would make better sense to follow this chasm downhill because when fleeing an enemy you never run uphill and if we proceed downhill sooner or later we'll reach the Deadland if nothing else; whereas if we travel uphill the chasm's depth is only likely to deepen."

"How can you tell which way is downhill?"

"It's to our left."

We picked our way along the edge of the precipice for about half an hour I'm guessing before we discovered a rope bridge rigged with a solid walkway of wooden slats. For a moment I marveled at the engineering feat and then puzzled over why anyone would go to such great lengths in so remote a place as to build a footbridge no one would ever use.

As though reading my mind Hater opined, "They must have anticipated greater commerce with Iron City than ever materialized."

"Or that's where they came from and they stopped going back."

Hater nodded his head while continuing to examine the bridge including testing its strength with a tug on the guywires and a stomp or two of his foot testing the slats underneath.

"Let's get on the other side of this thing."

Hater and I both tugged at the woven railing. "Seems sturdy enough."

"It does seem well preserved. Our only other choice remains downhill to the valley floor."

"No, let's cross here. This structure points the way to Iron City. Look, there's a trail in back of us there we should have been on. I think we wandered off course since the sun came up. So let's cross here and that way we can pick up the trail on the other side."

"Sounds like solid logic to me."

"What do you think, Nasty?"

"I tink we cross bridge here and get to udder side and den burn it down so bad girls can't follow us. We get away safe for sure."

"Seems a shame to destroy such a well fabricated piece of architecture," Hater said.

"Are you for real? Sounds like a heck of a plan to me. Let's put ourselves out of reach."

"I go first!" Nadezhda announced. It dawned on me she'd never seen a bridge before and the novelty excited her.

"Sure, you go, girl."

She leapt forward and proceeded a few steps onto the sway but then felt the loose buoyancy and even though she had a good hold on the guidelines draping across on either side she suddenly felt daunted.

"Nika, I no want to go first. You go first."

I could tell she'd become a little frozen so I tread lightly up behind her and removed her grip and slid past and encouraged her to follow me assuring her it was safe and going to be fun even though I knew nothing of the kind.

The footbridge was old and creaked beneath our weight. In retrospect it would have been smarter to cross one at a time instead of the way we did the three of us piling across like excited girl guides. Clearly though the bridge had not received much wear and tear over the years and remained basically sound.

Once safely arrived on the far side I searched through my pack for a can of kerosene, a clear gasoline like substance used for fueling a particular kind of lamp. I never owned one of those lamps but I snagged the can of kerosene when I saw the chance anyway because you just never know when you might want to set something on fire. I soaked the ropes and slats at our end and Hater zotted the fuel with his electric killer gizmo and our whole end leapt into flames that spread.

We stood together and watched the fire consume wood and hemp and grow hungrier moving the length of the walkway greedily devouring the structure whole. Before too long the entire bridge was ablaze and disintegrating into black ash before our eyes. I suggested we rest and eat something while we waited for visual confirmation of the bridge's total destruction. The slats burned more slowly than the hemp or maybe there was just more hemp to burn and we'd finished our rations and been lost in contemplation of our flame induced reveries before the main structure disintegrated in the middle and the whole bridge fell asunder.

"Dat was cool," Nadezhda said, surprising me because she usually didn't offer her appreciation of any event's entertainment value.

"That was cool," I agreed. "We should really invest more in infrastructure. The whole Empire is crumbling to pieces. C'mon. Let's head down the trail a ways and look for a place to camp and take a nap. I'm fully exhausted."

Being of the same mind and body my weary companions agreed and we hiked with muscles tight and joints creaky far enough to leave behind anyone who might be pursuing us seeking revenge. Farther down the trail we chose a point to deviate off the path not far enough astray to get lost but beyond immediate eyesight of any merry travelers who might come tripping along near our slumbering heads during a restless night. After tramping over hardscrabble we circumvented a scrub clump and settled for a reasonably flat location of bare earth for spreading our mats and bags. None of us had enjoyed any sleep for too many hours in a row so when our heads hit the pillows even though it was still daylight we were all three lights out.

For the rest of the late afternoon I slept through troubling visions plaguing my uneasy sleep as my subconscious wrestled to sort out the moral complexity surrounding the act of murdering a human being. The only moral I could draw in response to taking one life turned on my resolve never to take another. Sometime during the night I awoke and in the star lit dark for a while I listened to the breeze stirring the buck brush and the bare oak branches creaking. Then blissful unconsciousness wiped clean my existence until early the next morning the light of dawn broke once more antagonizing my sleep heavy eyelids.

Pop I was awake and the sun was risen and I was aware my two friends were sitting together on a nearby log and sipping coffee made from doused coffee granules while quietly allowing me to slumber.

"You save a cup of coffee for me?" I stretched and gaped in the moment of awakening from nourishing sleep.

"Of course," Hater said, picking up a tin cup with black crystals collected at the bottom. "Just waiting for you to wake up."

Hater poured a few ounces of scalding water from the camp kettle. Settling on a stump alongside my two friends I accepted the tin cup full of the blissful beverage and before burning my tongue found the patience to position the cup's steaming contents under my nose and indulge in a few deep and hearty whiffs.

As my eyes focused on the real world and things as they are I was reminded of our dire circumstances troubling me with wonder whether or not we could ever find a way to solidify our existence, either that or else live our empty lives forever wandering the Deadland.

My friends indulged my dour reflections and offered me a cold ration pouch to fortify my body since I wasn't ready to discuss the calamitous events from the night before leaving people dead.

We finished breakfast and worked together to break camp and pack the volume and scrabble our way back to the trail heading downhill being the only facts I can relate because my mind blanked in terms of direction. I'm sure if I'd wandered off course or headed in the opposite direction Hater would have corrected me. Most of the time I wasn't leading so much as just going first.

Conversation dwindled on the trail that morning and ceased altogether by the time we entered a complex of gravel strewn switchbacks and watched our steps absorbed with maintaining proper footing. On a stretch of straightaway we halted our march in deference to a young rattlesnake sunning himself on a rock slab in the middle of the trail. Neither the high road nor the low road provided enough leeway for us to safely circumvent this dangerous reptile. For some reason my mind went back to those ancient cartoonists who incurred death threats for teasing fanatics of a certain religion. While I couldn't help admiring their freedom of speech impulses since anything sacred can be derided I questioned the wisdom of tickling a rattlesnake. Doesn't really matter how pure your intentions the results are pretty much predictable. Maybe I was wrong about it. Maybe caution amounted to appeasement. In the moment I decided to climb off the trail and go around the actual snake crawling on its belly and confront later on the type with two legs seeking to enslave mankind in superstitious chains. Poor old snake. No doubt he received a bum deal no matter whose religion you're referencing. Mostly he didn't want to be stepped on.

Chapter 22

Around midday we descended into the shadows of a small valley and taking advantage of the cooler air stopped to hydrate and swallow some rations. The direct line to Iron City ran over the high steep ridge directly in front of us. Wise feet had created a trail of least resistance around the drooping end of the ridge or perhaps instinctive hooves had done the job. A dry creek bed meandered in the same direction. We trooped along the base of the range and reached its tapered end and rounded the corner only to be confronted by yet another range requiring us to reverse direction and follow this new base as well to avoid mountaineering. By the time we reached the next tapered end and could see two more ridges lying at cross purposes to our quest we decided to make camp while we still had the energy and plenty of sunlight.

To combat the encroaching darkness we huddled around a hologram campfire produced by one of Hater's tech toys. That evening wasn't cold enough for a real fire.

"You know the other night, the big night in question?" Hater began, mesmerized by the artificial flames and turning philosophical on me. "You said that tribe were monsters. I'm not sure you were entirely correct. I think in many ways they remained human beings."

"It was just a manner of speaking," I replied. "I was upset in the moment and engaging in hyperbole. We are talking about the women who kidnapped you and milked you like a goat and threatened to castrate you if you didn't produce? In reality they were human beings and you can't let them off the hook for their lack of humanity. The tabula rasa is so easily corrupted into a tabula sinistra. How a human being behaves depends entirely on what messages you imprint on her blank mind. Take a group of newborn babies with you to live on a tropical island and you could raise them to worship you as a sun god. I've been there. Believe me. I know. Without competing input they'd never know the difference. Even in the midst of competing evidence to the contrary superstition and tradition prove more formidable than truth and knowledge. Add to that oppression guilt and shame over your constant bodily stirrings amounting to nothing more than the urge to reproduce evolved over a millennia and you have the essence of the most effective aspects of cultural imprinting. Any libertine with a talent for spectacle could declare himself a god. What's that going on in your pants? Shame on you you disgusting creature! Worship me and I'll forgive you. Don't we obsess about that good feeling because it's not good, it's bad? Stamp people's brains with that kind of nonsense and the imprint never fades completely. Precious few intellects can rewrite whatever proclamations were plastered onto their brains before they were old enough and strong enough intellectually to resist. Few people possess the mental agility to objectively evaluate their own tabula sinistra. Only evil inscribes hatred onto the mind of a child. You know what I mean?" I turned to Hater for validation to discover he had fallen asleep. Quietly so as not to awaken my sleeping companions I switched off the campfire and lay on my back looking heavenward and contemplating the stars and disliking Hater on a personal level immensely.

In the morning we awoke with the dawn and after the first meal and performing our ablutions we looked forward with a mixture of uncertainty and hope to interacting with one of the largest remaining centers of civilization. A city that size presented as many challenges to survival as it solved. Most people weren't cut out for the back-breaking trials of subsistence farming and unless you were born into a farm-family corporation the best you could ever hope for was toiling for bread and a cot as a field hand. Living in the city meant life on the dole if not outright slavery working day and night in a factory.

Scavenger. Junk collector. Fixer. Hater could fix machinery. Nobody knew how to make things outside the factory. Not from scratch. Pyramids of broken useless devices mounted into the sky from the planes of the Deadland compiled in homage to the dead Republic. The Empire never built anything except the golden spires the oligarchs and plutocrats disappeared into trying to escape the seething swelling of unwashed humanity.

As the day progressed the air grew hotter and we needed to find some shade to escape the scorching sunlight. We were crossing a barren hump of granite when the sun cleared the last ridge before the desert floor and the direct rays were baking my biscuits. I called a halt and ordered my stout companions to strip out of their full length heavy gear and change into shorter lighter cloth. Hater already wore his walking shorts underneath his work clothes. I called it a flight suit because he always wore it whenever we were running for our lives.

Nadezhda stripped her clothing off easily enough. Motivating her to dress herself again posed something of a problem. Her saucy stretching and yawning gave notice she was in no hurry to cooperate. She was just being cutesy as usual standing there bare naked and showing off her gifts. Maybe the recent violence we'd encountered put me into a foul mood or perhaps the sun shone in my eyes and the encroaching heat inflamed my impatience. Normally I exhibited infinite patience, with her anyway. Not that day. I wanted her to don fresh panties and her walking shorts and she wouldn't do as I asked. Now she knew as well as I did sparing the rod spoils the slave.

Before administering corrective strokes to that perfectly formed yet impudent backside I informed Mr. Hater of my intentions and after a moment of introspection he concurred. The pouting lip thrust forward the arms crossed in defiance beneath her soft pendulous breasts signaling she intended to deter me from my intended course of action served as a sure confirmation the time had arrived for applying a mild corrective.

Of course we tried reasoning with her first. She saw it as a game and was rather enjoying herself.

"I no tink Mr. Hater gives me no spanking," Nadezhda protested, although you could see the idea had its appeal. "By what right he spank my naked bottom?"

"Because he's older than you are," I retorted, not sure that he really was but the slight annoyance in my voice confirmed the sad truth of my own emotions not enjoying their usual state of benign equilibrium requisite for anyone employing the flat of their hand to administer corporal punishment.

Bewilderment baffled any further protest from Nadezhda long enough for Hater to take up a sitting position on a nearby flat boulder and then create a fulcrum over which he and I working in concert might bend our unyielding beauty. With gentle hands firm but fair and directed by an impulse of pure love I crossed her ankles before shifting my ministrations to her shoulders and sliding my fingertips along her upper arms elbows and finally drawing her wrists together and fixing them in a crossed position as well behind her back. Lacking proper leather restraints buried somewhere in the volume I clasped both her wrists with my one hand although through long training with actual restraints she had long ago lost the will to resist.

Hater began correcting Nadezhda by first smoothing the skin of her round backside jutting upward at the apex. The flat palm of his rotating hand sweeping across her exposure in a figure eight taking her measure before spanking her bare bottom in earnest. Very sensibly I thought he then sought to warm her flesh by slow degrees lightly slapping each square inch drawing a pinkish hue to the surface of her skin so the blood acted as a kind of buffer or cushion. With exemplary control he increased the intensity, each slap of his hand leaving an outline of white effaced by the next smart slap those two naughty globules glowing warmer and redder. I could see the tension in Nastya's face as her pride resisted replaced by duress as the pain mastered her will. Whenever she received a spanking her face wore the expression of a wireless operator listening intently while deciphering Morris code. At last she surrendered to Hater's dominance and cried out in relief brought on by the pleasure as the demons fled her body through her mouth driven out by Hater and my combined love. The poor slave bucked stiffened and shuddered and then fell limp whispering for mercy. Her blushing bottom provided ample proof of her contrition. Hater and I pursed our lips and both blew soft air to cool her flaming red flesh. We never went beyond red to purple, and we never drew blood. No permanent damage was our hard fast rule.

Nadezhda crawled into Hater's lap while he spoke in soft dulcet tones about the beauty and mystery of science. In an apparent non-sequitur Nastya asked him how old he was, perhaps in awe, curious to know what age conferred so much privilege and power. When Hater confessed ignorance of his exact age Nadezhda turned on me with a look of shock scandalized because I had lied to her.

"How old are you?" Hater asked, defensiveness creeping into his voice because knowing your own age was sometimes indicative of a privileged background and not knowing an indication of ignorance and poverty. Hater was penniless like we all were but he certainly wasn't stupid.

"I no know," Nastya quickly admitted. "But den how she know you older?"

"Because he's taller than you," I said, for Hater's sake not wanting to enumerate the signs of his premature aging so it wasn't a complete lie. Clearly a spark of rebellion still glowed in her soul Hater's chastisement had failed to extinguish because she would not let the matter go sensing she might get the law on her side yet.

"Who older, you or me?"

"I'm older than you. You know that."

"How old you?" Nadezhda persisted, boring into me with a suspicious glare.

"I'm eleventeen," I blurted out, never very sure of my numbers. Hater struggled to suppress his laughter so I knew it wasn't right.

Nastya looked to Hater for corroboration and saw him silently laughing towards the heavens and she spun back at me and exclaimed, "You one little liar girl. We find out now fo' sho' who older girl is. Mr. Hater you look see who girl older is."

The traitorous Hater agreed to judge the contest arranging us back to back and declaring after less than three alligators Nadezhda was taller than I was by a good inch and therefore by my own logic the older sister.

Obnoxious creature. She grabbed me by my wrists and jumped up and down chortling triumphantly how she was older.

"Oh for goodness sake," I said, only I didn't say 'goodness'. I substituted a different word conjectured to be of barbarian origin beginning with a fricative and ending concussively denoting in a vulgar manner the Laplander's dance.

Allow me to assure you the playful light illuminating our little group dimmed in the aftermath of my ejaculation. The look of disappointment on Hater's face not unlike that of the farmer who discovers his daughter's nickers in the hayloft portended consequences beyond a verbal reprimand from the tallest among us.

"I tink not is berry ladylike to say word like dat one," Nastya decried, crossing her arms and pointing her nose in the air away from me as though the lingering stench of vulgarity had offended her olfactory senses.

"This isn't the first time we've had a talk about acceptable word usage, Nika. You know we've talked about it several times before." Hater added, "You know how much it pains us to hear such ugly words come out of such a pretty mouth. You do yourself a horrible disservice."

"It slipped out," I shrugged. "It won't happen again."

Nadezhda slide her arms around Hater's neck while she shot me a look of glaring disapproval.

"I think we give you reminder you not forget anytime soon." Nadezhda spoke with such clarity in her pronunciation of certain phrases I wondered whose voice had imprinted her memory. Who had taught her that remark?

"I think Nastya has a point, Nika. You know it's for your own good."

I removed my clothing as if in acquiescence before throwing down the challenge, "You have to catch me first."

We ran around playing grab fanny and spankies for the rest of the morning yet still we were not quite done.

"Why Hater need a spanking?" Nasty asked me. Her insistence on producing the body habeas corpus revealed to me a streak of fairness in her as well as a propensity for the intricacies of the law she might have studied had she not been born and raised a sex slave.

My own bottom red and stinging I pronounced judgement. Mr. Hater deserved a spanking because he allowed himself to be kidnapped by a group of vicious Femenista warriors which proved very inconvenient for the remaining members of our group who had to drop everything and at great personal risk come rescue him from being milked to death by said Femenistas.

"Guilty as charged," Hater sighed wearily, knowing we wouldn't quit until we'd found a way to even the score. While it was true a spanking didn't charge Hater with the same tingles Nadezhda and I registered once he dropped trow his special buddy stirred to life perhaps stimulated by the breeze and after Nasty and I began the assault stood perpendicular like a Greco-Roman sun dial. Although neither Nastya nor I considered ourselves huge fans of the male member his particular specimen presented such a pronounced example of the form we found amusement and pleasure in fondling him liberally with no obligation to buy. I noticed Nadezhda exerted her fingertips exclusively and when her reverie broke and she looked up at Hater's face her expression filled with spritely glee at his obvious state of transcendence she had managed to induce. Ah Hater, the postures into which we shaped him. While we had our way with him he suffered the indignity with great courage and nobility of spirit.

Finally, we stood side by side to compare the relative redness of our beleaguered rear ends. Nastya's blush had faded somewhat so she received a few more paddy whacks to bring her up to snuff. Then her fanny glowed bright red much more so than mine so I received a few more patty cakes and we were on the verge of bringing Hater up to speed when a man's loud voice startled the daylights out of us.

He wore a three-piece pinstripe suit and sat upon a noble Roan stallion. Over his fancy suit he wore a Western duster and on his head a broad brimmed cowboy hat shading his bright blue eyes and protecting his pale skin from the glare of the sun. A few days' worth of stubble offset a carefully trimmed black moustache.

"Yes, I say, excuse me," the stranger said, and it registered in my brain he was saying it for the second time. "I hate to bother you seeing as you're so gainfully employed, but I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of Iron City?"

Nadezhda raised her arm and pointed. "Da," she said, and then we all looked up and sure enough there on the distant plain rose the indomitable iron walls and towers surrounding the fabled city. We'd been so busy running around and fooling about we were unconscious we had stumbled into plain view. The horseman had only to swivel in his saddle to realize his own proximity to his declared destination. If he had kept to his right rather than approaching us on his left he could have found it for himself without asking. I'm sure we presented a spectacle too rich to be ignored. I noticed he carried a carbine rifle slung alongside his saddle and I wondered if he had any ammunition. Most people didn't. A dude like him might.

"Thank you, young lady, I am much obliged. Please allow me to compliment you on your choice of attire, a most becoming ensemble." He touched two fingers to the brim of his hat saluting us farewell. Oblivious to his sly boots Nadezhda curtsied and smiled shyly standing there naked as a heathen.

"Okay everybody get dressed right now. Forget short pants. Back into leather road gear and boots." As we made our way back to camp I was surprised by how far afield we had drifted in our play. "I swear to goodness. We have to be three of the biggest freaks."

Nadezhda forgot to play helpless and pulled on her leathers and her boots all by herself, leaving only her laces to be properly tightened and tied by Hater and for me to snap her trouser button. I was so proud of her dressing herself. Real progress.

Chapter 23

Fully dressed and our gear loaded up we tramped off the ancient lava flow and stepped onto the mush sand of the plains and followed the horse and rider ambling towards Iron City.

The public bath we visited first thing turned out to be a gregarious and vivacious locale. One pool they reserved for old people who mostly kept themselves wrapped in large cotton towels until they slipped into the stew. Another shallower pool sportive and naked children occupied oblivious in their joyful splashing. Here and there stood rectangular soaking tubs filled with loud power stars. I think our brave little triumvirate could have shown those brazen bucks and shameless hussies a show they would not have forgotten anytime soon.

In the spirit of fun and comradery we opted for the general pool and I must say enjoyed ourselves thoroughly bobbing amongst the hoi polloi between those walls of cool marble. I can't attest for the quality of the water other than to say there was a huge quantity of it. With people dying of thirst maintaining public baths posed a certain moral quandary occurring to me only after we had dried and dressed and stepped back into the unbearable and oppressive heat.

I suppose there was really no harm enjoying the public baths since the Powers That Be repeatedly assured us the heat and drought were a punishment for godless liberalism and rain would fall again as soon as people stopped enjoying sex. I always figured let the other gal embrace abstinence, let her bring rain. Hater said that if I gave up sex a monsoon might ensue. I never really understood the science of it but people said having sex caused the drought so many times the lie became truth.

We moved with caution through the ruins of the once grand and glorious city. No one for a very long time had possessed either the knowledge or the political will to stack marble on top of marble creating pillars of such monumental proportions. At some time in the past small arms fire pock marked the columns and the walls of the rectangular building. Heavy ordinance had blasted apart a single great column smashing one horizontal wheel and scattering the rest.

By my estimation at least one complete wheel had been obliterated. The rest lay on their sides in an order not difficult to reconstruct. Other than these damages the building remained remarkably intact. We paused and rested on the sculpted steps of a building just opposite the one eliciting our awe and wonder.

Very few pedestrians wandered near the great structure. Random troopers stood guard and didn't seem to mind us hayseeds gawking at the big building. Long ago the structure apparently housed some kind of high court. Hater deduced this from the strange lettering chiseled into the façade. I wondered aloud if this ancient edifice might be the fabled high tribunal of the ancient Republic, the corrupt ones who had opened the gates flooding the political process with cash and thus drowning Democracy. Hater knew the myth, hesitating to identify this cite as the exact location where they sold out the zenith of human freedom to the lowlife highest bidders.

The judges had been corrupted into allowing the giant corporations to wield their financial might without a modicum of restraint and they committed this heinous treason in exchange for a ride on a yacht and a steak dinner. Within a few short years the corporations wiped out the rule of law and established Empire run solely for the sake of the elite. For the countless million others life degenerated into a living hell of famine poverty violence and death. Protesting made no difference. The time for opinions had passed. Not even burning and looting brought change. Certain farmers supplied certain households guarded by private armies well fed and adequately paid. The killing rape and murder didn't slow down until the ammunition ran out and the fuel and the food. Signing a contract became the only way a peasant might align herself to a great house and thus slavery was reborn. Money could buy anything, not the least of which were human beings.

To say that money was unimportant would be foolish and untrue because we quickly ran out of script and the time arrived when we hadn't eaten in two days and our bellies were sore. How quickly one's head drops below the surface.

Our script had all been spent and we were too weak to travel any farther in search of food. We resigned ourselves to signing away our freedom in order to survive. What we didn't know were the terms we might negotiate for our bodies and whether we might ever renegotiate to regain our freedom and autonomy. If we could eat a few meals, drink clean water, replenish our strength some, earn enough, save ahead a little, enough to move on.

Power enshrined in a marble edifice of this magnitude would have no reason to deal fairly or honestly with the likes of us. The best we could hope for would be to read the contract sign our names and hope for no permanent damage. Our empty bellies ached and pleaded with us to enjoin a contract. It wouldn't be the first time one of us had exchanged freedom for life. Never had we subjugated ourselves to such a mighty power, except maybe Nadezhda. Her previous owner had definitely been a Powersby. Once in, we might be years in service of the roughest kind. The will to live urged us on towards a fatalistic acceptance of our indentured servitude.

"Let's go get something to eat," I said, and without an ounce of hyperbole I added, "I'm starving."

Poor Nadezhda. She burst into tears, standing up to join me just the same. In spite of our long list of travails she had developed a real taste for freedom and had grown to like it. Returning to slavery must have discouraged her tremendously. I felt sorry for Hater, too. I knew abject slavery could be doubly hard on the male ego since they tended to be so much more fragile. In choosing this path I only hoped to live one more day. With some food in my belly and thus nutrients in my system maybe a new and better plan would pop into my head but we were starving to death and I couldn't think straight. We chose to live regardless of the personal cost.

We supported each other bodily as we crossed the spacious and empty plaza surrounding the temple of the Three Wise Men, a suitable monument to those who decided riches and power counted more than personal freedom or any other rights of the individual. As we mounted the marble steps the troopers on duty monitored our every movement. They were well fed. Considering the lethargy in our gait I'm sure they understood our desperation in daring to approach. We passed into the mammoth portico and typical of such bastions the guards outside were not of the same ilk as the interior eunuchs. The ponderous double doors would undoubtedly clamor closed soon after sundown and the outside pickets move a discreet distance away from the interior orgy.

At the entrance a priest stepped forward to meet us. He had shaved his head close to the scalp and his bifurcated tongue flickered when he spoke. He reminded me of a reptile and he adorned himself with baubles symbolic of a potent vanity. Mascara created an effect of sinister intentions more than effeminacy. His fluttering hands encouraged us onward into the lofty hall. Prodigious curtains hung two stories down from the lofty ceiling concealing the interior of the temple even if an outside trooper were inclined to sneak a peek. We floated towards a venerable oak table where a minor flagellant sat for his rice bowl and waited patiently for the next victims to wander in. A stack of readymade contracts was stacked at his elbow, the general admittance kind stating we agreed of our own free choice to surrender suzerainty over our bodies and submit to the will of the Master. No death. No permanent damage. Otherwise, our flesh belonged to them to flog penetrate and torture as they saw fit for a period of indentured servitude lasting three years. During that time we would be fully cared for in every bodily respect. They desired healthy sex slaves and so they were determined to plump us up not wear us down. At the end of the contract we would be given the balance of our pay minus any expenses incurred or we could negotiate a new contract and parlay our earnings unto some future date. The weight of three years pulled at my heart strings and knelled like an eternity. Our hunger signed not our wills.

As expected Hater was drawn off to one side and after a private interview led through side curtains. They hadn't mistaken him for a harem boy. Nadezhda and I exchanged glances dull and empty. The priests led us through an entirely different set of curtains a moment later.

We were escorted to the shower room and treated to a luxurious shower. Dressed in short leather pants the minions smiled to see us tilt our heads upward and drink the water cascading from the showerhead. Our naked bodies were searched for bugs and who knows what else they were looking for. They checked every orifice in a clinical, professional manner and doused us with a hair removal dressing rendering us hairless and pink from toe to crown. Even our eyebrows and lashes fell depilated. That treatment stung a bit until they submerged us first in a solution filling one vat and then in a second solution filling another vat and then prodded us under the shower again. Oils and unguents applied liberally covered our pores like a sugary glaze. Naked and shorn we shivered and held onto each other trembling in our reduced state.

The Chief Dominatrix strode into the room and she was dressed in full regalia. She commanded us onto our four bones down on the marbled floor and by way of introduction we thrust out bare bottoms into the air while we licked her shiny black leather boots. She urged us on with the smart application of her whip. Satisfied with the alacrity of our submission Domina bade us rise and the attendant bound my wrists with a brown leather strap running athwart my back. Our hands were festooned in such a way we could not bring them past our hips. Domina ordered us to face each other and kiss with open mouths. This command we fulfilled with more relish than any boot licking. Having evaluated our snogging she brought forth a broad, flat wooden paddle and gave us both a spanking where we stood. She tested our flesh well and I'm sure the pink heat glowing in Nadezhda's cheeks mirrored my own. For a moment I feared our new Domina might not be satisfied unless she could wring tears. No one watching, not the attendants the ushers her minions nor the doctor and two nurses who appeared could doubt her success in driving us across the line into acute prickly discomfort and pleasure. Both Nadezhda and I vocalized our discomfort at every new resounding swat and smack. We were burning red at both ends before she sated her lust for inflicting pain. As a group we sent up a prayer to the Three Wisemen for bestowing upon the Master supreme power but for the lowly peasant sex slave not a word. For who knew better than the Powers That Be how to exploit our otherwise useless lives to their greatest benefit.

For some reason I got the impression the doctor would have preferred to examine us first as though admittance protocol had somehow been breached. I thought the Domina had shown up amid a flourish of bad timing and afraid of losing face become impatient for her turn. The Doctor's appearance saved us from further torment although from then on Domina would enjoy her way with us without interference.

Next we were led away by the doctor and nurses and given a very thorough medical exam including blood tests required before we could be released into the general population. The exam lasted a long and boring time and turned into something of a buzz kill.

The leather shorts boys who had attended us at both the shower and at the edges of the flogging reappeared and led us along wide corridors where everyday people in civilian dress went about their bureaucratic business. We had more legal papers to sign having passed the preliminaries. At times we were left to huddle against each other while office workers both men and women ogled our naked bodies and degraded and shamed by the radical difference in our own prosperity we turned sideways to documents lying on a dark desk and did our best to sign and initial considering our wrists were still bound by leather straps. Two young secretaries wearing identical black framed glasses red lips and tight white blouses stood near a water cooler whispering in each other's ears and giggling at the spectacle Nadezhda and I posed with our lanky nudity. When I looked too long in their direction mesmerized by their catty cruelty they were affronted and glared so angrily in return I was forced to avert my gaze. Tears welled in my eyes and fell in globules plashing my exposed breasts. My usual ability to crawl inside my mind and hide there failed me and I registered their cruel laughter at both my physical and emotional exposure. I had to remain in the scene to protect Nadezhda who cowered and trembled nearby.

Given half a chance I knew I could be just as good if not better an intellectual worker as those two. Knowing my own strength of mind I could have succeeded if I'd been given any kind of encouragement. The system didn't encourage or nurture innate ability. If you were born a slave you stayed a slave and if you were born rich you were afforded every opportunity whether you deserved it on merit or not. Bloodlines and patronage were the only things that mattered. The history of Democracy shone from the distant past as a revolution of the spirit. Giant corporations destroyed it and the world sank into a digital dark ages. The spirit of revolution rankled in my breast at least in part because I had educated myself to the point where I understood their lies about opportunity and knew better.

Cash credits did not validate every cruelty imaginable. They jailed me in a prison for the criminally insane as a punishment for speaking these heresies. The tears I shed on the carpeting of the Human Resources Office fell from a sense of rage and anger at the injustice of the status quo as well as my naked humiliation. For the remainder of the induction process I kept my head lowered and my gaze blind and focused on my feet. At one point I reached out my pinky and brushed Nadezhda's thigh to let her know things would work out somehow or maybe a part of me finally needed to be reassured I was not alone in how low I had sunk.

"Those are a pair of very red bottoms," said two black shiny pairs of business shoes. A pair of suits stood looking us over and offering their unsolicited appraisal.

"I guess they're putting them to the question earlier in the process to make sure they're not just looking for a free shower and bowl of hot soup," the other one wearing brown loafers with tassels replied.

"Good thinking," Black Hardsoles replied. "No free lunch here. Let these welfare moochers know what it means to pay the price and work for a living."

"They look scrawny to me."

"They'll fatten them up, soon enough. Nobody forced them to walk in here. Everybody has choices to make in life. By the way, you ever avail yourself?"

I could actually feel him nodding towards us so raw were my nerves.

"I'm saving up the credits. It's a part of my perquisite package. I can earn time with them. You?"

"Naw, I moved up to the Executive Package last quarter. I can access the more high-grade tail they keep on tap uptown."

"Really? You earned the Exec Package? You must have really impressed the bosses. Dude, how'd you do it? Can you tell me how I can do it?"

We were herded away before I could hear the big explanation of the Powersby compensation package. We were paraded passed the entire office again on our way back to the great inner halls. I managed to restrain myself until we stood out of earshot in the cool marble hallway once more before I wept from utter humiliation.

"No point in allowing mistress hear you ball like a baby," the minion in leather lederhosen whispered. "Come on, let's get you some food to eat. After all, it's why you came here, isn't it? Once you've had some bread and soup you'll feel better. If you're nice I might even find you a nice piece of real fruit. Would you like that? Then stop crying. Underneath it all we help each other out around here. Tell anybody I said that and I'll cut your pretty tongue out."

As he spoke this leather shepherd stroked my head and neck. He had to stretch in order to reach. He was testing me by rewarding threatening and judging my reactions. This midget minion didn't want trouble from his mistress any more than I wanted a lashing from that same imposing personage.

"I won't tell a soul," I squeaked. "I don't want trouble. We'll be good. I promise... for both of us."

Nadezhda silently nodded her assent.

"No package deals," the Shepherd broke in. "Everyone pulls her own weight. Understand?"

He grabbed me by the nape and squeezed.

"Understood," I said.

"I understand, too," Nadezhda said in hopes of heading off the rough touch.

"We'll see," our jailor and savior said. "In the meantime we'll get you some supper. You've been through a lot."

His sudden changes in tone from psychotic to caring were disconcerting. He directed us through a maze of corridors and stairs. We arrived in a lushly decorated room, variations in red, shag to ceiling. Couches heart shaped beds and trolley carts bearing a half-eaten feast.

"You girls can eat any of these left overs you want. The mess is closed this time of night. This food is still fresh," the leather shepherd said, lifting several lids and inspecting the contents of the pots. "Here you go. Here's some soup hasn't even been touched, and it's still warm. I knew the food would be better in here. They never finish what they start. They're like locusts, I swear. Sit on the floor, here. Mistress charges in and catches you sitting high and mighty she'll peal the skin off my butt."

He released us from our restrains and then removed the cellophane covers from the bowls of soup and handed them down to us along with a real metal spoon apiece. We slurped our soup while he picked at some leftover shrimp. While we were eating the door opened and the minion's little doppelganger entered.

"Here you are. I've been looking everywhere for you. What are you doing?" He never so much as glanced at us.

"Feeding the novitiates."

"Why here?"

"Mess is closed," the shepherd said, exhaling and nibbling on a limp shrimp. "They missed the midday and the evening feeding. I knew there'd be stuff in here for them. Give them a little break. Take one myself."

"That's all well and good but what do I tell you-know-who?"

"Tell her I fed them table scraps. That should make her highness juicy."

"If she even get's juicy."

"You scamp."

"Nice scraps. Is the shrimp any good?"

"I figured, you know, what does it matter? I mean, look at them."

"What if they vomit after so much rich food?"

"They won't. They're not that far gone. I snuck a peek at their chart. A little soup won't hurt. I promised them a piece of fruit if they're good."

"We help each other when we can around here."

"So true. That's exactly what I told them."

Those boys kissed on the lips in parting.

"Remember to tell her 'table-scraps'."

"You're a genius." Then he turned to us for the first time and said, "Be good little bitches or you'll hear from me," before he flounced out of the room.

I continued devouring my soup and bread. On an empty stomach that and the shrimp was all we were allowed. We finished eating and stood up and the blood drained out of my brain and into my digestive tract. He came back in and refastened our straps and we were lost in a labyrinth of side entrances and back corridors until we entered an octagonal shaped room whose walls were covered around with mirrors. Obviously we stood in some kind of observation room furnished with an oversized bed covered in pink plastic.

"Lie down on that thing and take a nap. If you're good girls and don't barf that expensive soup I'll bring you a treat when I come back like I promised. You stay on the bed and don't get off it for any reason. You have to pee or poo you use this golden bowl. Understand? The fancy toilet is not for slaves. All right then. Try to sleep. You look knackered. Like I said, I'll be back in a little while."

Like his partner before him he left the room and Nadezhda and I were left to digest our meals in peace. The mirrors of each wall and the one covering the ceiling reflected the pink tawdriness of the room. I wondered whether each mirror shielded a private observation room or perhaps operated as a hub in a large banquet room where wealthy patrons in evening dress sauntered about enjoying champagne and cocktails while pausing to observe the naïve love interests played out on the heart shaped bed. Nadezhda interrupted my paranoid inner ravings.

"I don tink I much like dese two leather boys dey put in charge of us."

"They don't seem too bad, do they? I think they're being as nice as they dare."

"I don't care much for gutter language they speak. Making in my mind question, asking whether such place decent is or not."

I'd forgotten how narrow an education Nadezhda had received. Programming would be a better term for the nonsense they had forced into her brain. In eliminating shame and guilt in relation to sex they had for whatever reason inculcated a prejudice against vulgar language. Which led me to wonder just how much of a specialty she represented as though she may have been raised a custom order from birth.

The Temple of Justice housed more raised in captivity human beings than I had ever before encountered in one place. These 'naturals' were completely illiterate and I doubt any one of them possessed a vocabulary much beyond a few hundred words. They spoke evenly fluently and emptily the way people do who talk all the time but never read. They possessed no knowledge of any kind and were not interested in any topic outside of who said what to whom. Since they never had a care in the world they were neither petty nor peevish. Pleasure supplanted religion and I dare say a happier race you cannot imagine except for the interminable gossip about pairings and partnering. I had sex with him. I had sex with her. I had sex. I had sex. It's the only thing they ever talked about. Considering the programmatic promiscuity I was surprised they could maintain such a high level of interest in the same boring topic day after day.

I myself watched the shifting landscape of faces the constant mixing and separating of the slaves only to be separated out and thrown together and mixed again and I couldn't tell where one group ended and another began. The total number of sex slaves must have totaled in the thousands. After a few weeks of constant shifting and sifting I lost Nadezhda. I watched her drift farther and farther away on the sea of naked assess until one day I found myself immersed in bodies filling one of the enormous stone flesh pots squatting in the enormous main gallery.

These flesh pots had been carved from solid marble and polished to a smooth finish. Bowl shaped with a drain at the center bottom they could hold two dozen naked human beings at one time. A slight tier ran around the interior of the rim where it was convenient to seek food when feeding time rolled around. Suspended above the bowls ran a complex of piping. Showers were instantaneous and unannounced. The water fell pure and delicious. The highest quality. Sometimes sweet oils fell from a different set of spouts. We were kept clean and sweet so that when milk rained down from the special blue pipes we drank it as it fell and slurped it off each other's bodies. Once chocolate and whipped cream spurted from the overhead piping coating the denizens and driving them into a particular paroxysm. We lived in these bowls. To crawl out on your own was strictly forbidden. Woe to the tender toes touching without permission the cool marble floor.

Food and other drinks were brought to us in abundance. Quadrupedal upon the upper tier I stretched my neck over the bowl's lip and was rewarded with a sumptuous bite of fresh strawberry. Perfectly round balls of oatmeal embedded with blue berries always gave me the impression it was morning although inside these hallowed halls we lived in soft shadows and time did not exist. Our diets were perfect. I fleshed out a little for the first time in a long time but not too much. Just enough. Our bodies enjoyed a perfect even rhythm of pleasure.

Constant sex food sleep and at the very moment when I felt myself surfeited with one pleasure it ended and we entered nose first into the next one. I never spent any time with the same partner, male or female. We shifted from body to body bowl to bowl room to room. One day I found myself in the following exchange with the woman next to me.

"Who first? Him or her? Him? The cute one? That one. No, not him, him." My brain had degenerated until I was one of them.

As time went by I regained consciousness laying at the bottom of the bowl. They had hit us with the double whammy of magic brownies and an oil dousing. I'd been squirming against my fellow creatures for what felt like eons. Under the thrall of the drugs and slippy-slide the slaves lost control of themselves. Pleasure blinded my brain. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of the aristocratic voyeurs standing fully clothed outside the flesh bowl. To my addled brain they resembled harlequins.

Cresting the pile I lay on my back buffeted on the smoothly shaved bodies squirming and writhing beneath me like a cauldron of seething eels. At suppertime the other slaves scattered to perch along the rim and hail the approaching food crews trundling towards the slaves with meal carts, and as the porgies dispersed out from under me I sank accordingly to the bottom of the cauldron where I felt against my back contact with the smooth stone basin slick with sweet scented oil easing my enervated body into descending head first down the final incline until arriving at the nadir of the flesh pot I skidded to a halt over the ungrated drain.

Days later I squirmed to the top of the pile again and lay exhausted from the exertion. Floating on my back atop the flesh pile looking up at the tangle of pipes for water and oil and whatever else they chose to douse us in I espied a character crawling through the rigging. At first I thought I must still be hallucinating. I couldn't focus worth anything so I relaxed and tripped instead. Whoever the rascal was up there he appeared to be waving at me. What a cheeky monkey crawling about in the overhead rigging giant wrench in hand.

In a flash I had a vision of a judge in a black robe. "You lack wisdom," I said, and yet he was neither the judge nor even the ghost of the man whose decision condemned the Republic to slavery and ushered in the era of Empire. We used to be citizens; whereas now all you could see were denizens and slaves, and in their lack of wisdom the judges did that to us. They sold us out for a night of floating on a yacht relishing an expensive surf and turf dinner washed down with fancy liquor. They showed the moral integrity of a group of high priced call girls, with apologies to call girls everywhere for the unflattering comparison. After all, there are some things call girls won't do, even for money. The same cannot be said for Supreme Court Judges.

I lay perfectly inert until Hater poised directly above me in his white overalls and brown boots. His tousled hair hung down over his eyes as he clung to the rigging and applied his wrench to a valve. I smiled and would have motioned to him more energetically had my body not been so drained and lethargic. He fixed his gaze in my direction and I tried to make him understand how happy I was to see him by matching his gaze in return. In response to my silent plea he formed a globule of white spit between his lips and let it drop, bombs away. His spittle splattered on my thigh and he laughed as though it was the funniest joke in the whole Empire. His spittle represented the kindest gesture of friendship anyone ever made towards me.

"You little brat," I whispered, and fell asleep.

Thirst dried my throat and woke me up still lying on my back. I must have been snoring and suffered sleep apnea. Everyone in the lower concave of the bowl slumbered until I crawled over them and ascended the tier. One of the feeders stood just outside the bowl and held a large water bottle topped by a generous tan nipple. Oh sweet succulent water! I suckled fervently like a greedy new born lamb. One of my fellows crept up next to me and nuzzled my mouth right off the nipple and guzzled herself just as frantically. When excess aqua dribbled down her chin I lapped it up so powerful was my thirst. The feeder being rather good at her job procured a second bottle from off her cart and thrust it at me and I secured it in my mouth. Driven mad by greed the other girl tried for the new nipple too. I pushed her away and she pushed back.

"No fighting," the feeder said, popping a fresh bottle into my competitor's mouth. Altercations between pleasure models were rare. Need has a way of reducing your humanity so all our basic needs were met. Another feeder standing outside the bowl approached and whispered into the ear of his colleague and took over my feeding drawing the water bottle away with me following in pursuit of the nipple. Still sucking I rolled my eyes upward at my new feeder and recognized Hater manning the bottle. His sudden appearance at floor level shocked the bottle out of my mouth. The great hall slumbered in shadows as always. The only light flicked from smudge pots.

"Are you alright?" Hater whispered, and leaned closer for inspection.

I folded my arms for balance on the lip of the bowel.

"I'm fine," I said. "How are you?" I slipped slouching onto the tier and turning on my back. The other feeder moved on to the next animal. As she moved away we were emboldened to speak.

"I think it's time we moved on from this place," Hater said.

"How long have we been here?" I folded my arms behind my head to cradle my thinking.

"Several months. I'm not sure exactly. The deadly heat has come again. Outside is dying time again."

"More of the Devil's Heat? Why not stay inside here then. It's cool and there's plenty of water."

"The Devil has nothing to do with it," Hater said, struggling to suppress his annoyance at my superstitious terminology. "They're sitting on an aquifer in this place. Like the rest of his kind, the Powersby in charge here thinks he's invulnerable. His scientists confided in me, though. What they used to measure in thousands of cubic meters has now evaporated into the hundreds. They're feeding a lot of mouths here and at the same time the source is drying up."

I was still tripping on Hater's denunciation of my slang term Devil's Heat. It's what everybody called it. He hated scientific terms like God's particle and that kind of usurpation of knowledge by ignorance. "How long can the water supply last?" I asked, musing on the elaborate interchange of overhead piping.

"Hard to say. A year. Half a year. The rate of consumption is easy enough to quantify and plot. Evaporation rate can't be predicted. Nobody seems to know where the source is located. The only thing they know for sure about the aquifer is that it's down there. Here, drink more of this, while you still can," Hater said, proffering me the water bottle. I latched onto it again with less gusto this time. "The water supply is not the major problem we're facing here. We could hang on here with everybody else for a month until they start jettisoning bodies, which is what they're whispering about. Just kicking naked bodies outside to suffer and die."

"Until the proverbial well runneth dry," I said, yawning without bothering to cover my mouth. Regretted right away referring to a proverb. What can you do? That kind of language gets hammered into your head and stays there.

"It's Nadezhda I'm worried about."

"Why? What's the matter now," I asked, propping myself up on my elbows.

"She's been placed on the ladder to advancement."

"I know. I have, too. Look at my wrists." I displayed for Hater the permanent Byzantine ink patterns staining my skin. "I've only earned the first rung of tattoos. The second rung represents a kind of social promotion."

"Our friend Nadezhda has already been rewarded more often than you," Hater said, leaning over the lip and putting his face directly in front of mine. "She's wearing those tattoo bracelets like you are, plus barbed wire around her upper arms and matching circlets around her ankles. If she continues to be such a crowd pleaser they're talking about painting her over entirely, including her face."

"Her face?" I blinked my eyes and shook my head to clear my head but succeeding only in making myself woozy. "That's a tad extreme. I would have thought a belly chain came next, or a tramp stamp. Legs and arms. Belly, back, breasts, then face last."

"Have you seen the most favored concubines?"

"Yes I have. They're covered head to toe. I know."

"And they're modified, their tongues, ears, nipples, and you know what else. Modified. Split."

"Is she really standing on the verge of greatness?"

"Six rings like I described, scheduled for the seventh around her belly, like you indicated. After that comes the jumping off point, the point of no return. A seven day ordeal. Tattoo her all over. Covered head to toe in colored markings, including the whole face. How long a subject lasts after that is up to the whim of the Master. Some fill-ins he's kept for years; others he marked up he's tired of quickly and ordered them shoved outside and you can imagine what happens to them out there as naked painted ladies."

"They get eaten alive by slavers and scavengers, or their heads caved in by zealots."

"You know what I'm talking about."

"I do," I said. Hater paused for a moment allowing the full portent of my own agreement and understanding to register. "We need to get out of here," I said, pinching snot out of my nose. "Has she received her belly chain, did you say?"

"No, the work hasn't been done yet. She realized too late the rapid rate of her own advancement. You know her, though. A pleaser by nature. Now if she holds back she risks scaring of a different sort."

"Didn't the contract we signed stipulate something about no permanent damage?"

"Tattooing is in the fine print. It's not defined as damage. Besides, you think anyone in here has the wherewithal to pursue legal aid? This place is a temple dedicated to the three wise men who judged the Powers That Be above the law. They can't be challenged. Apparently at one time the rule of law was there to protect the weak from the strong. At least that's the myth enshrined here"

"Get out of town. Tell me another one."

"No, seriously. Then it was the Three Wise Men who granted the corporations the sole rule of law. Too big to fail, too big to jail, the law reads now. They empowered them to enslave the populace. They celebrate and venerate that decision here by ceremoniously chewing us up and spitting us out."

"You're including yourself in this nightmare?"

Hater pulled up both sleeves on his jumpsuit to reveal stains depicting interlocking pipes.

"The thing Nadezhda worries about the most is that you won't love her anymore if they deface her beauty. She remembers how much you hate tattoos."

"Tell her not to worry."

"Why don't you tell her yourself?"

"Hello, darling Nika."

"Hello, sweet girl. Nice outfit. You're a full-fledged domina."

She giggled and said, "I come to you, so now, you rescue me."

"I'm supposed to be rescuing you? You're the ones standing on solid ground. I can barely move."

"Wait for a moment," Hater said. "I put a little something-something in that water you just drank. It's bound to kick in any moment."

"You drugged me? Oh Hater, you know how much I despise people doing that to other people. The Body used to always drug me when he wanted to break my spirit and have his way with me."

"It's nothing that dire. Some vitamins. Some uppers. Enough to clear your head and sharpen your senses. You're way too drugged as it is."

"Come down is going to be a bitch after the good drugs in this place."

"I thought of that, too," Hater said, reaching into the volume and retrieving a large, crumpled brown paper sack. "I've already raided the commissary."

"A brown paper bag? Hater, for such a modern geek you are definitely old school sometimes."

I rolled over onto my belly and took ahold of the lip of the bowl and eased myself over the side until my feet made contact with the cool floor and I tried to steady myself on wobbly sticks. I crouched for a moment and with the help of Hater's vitamins I powered upward through my thighs and stood erect, my legs still quivering.

"Even in bad place is no excuse for potty mouth," Nadezhda admonished.

"I didn't say anything bad, did I?" Meeting Nadezhda's stony glare I appealed to Hater: "Did I?"

Hater drew in his lips until they disappeared and closed his eyes tight and nodded his head in the affirmative.

"What? What did I say?"

Hater's visage opened again.

"You said the B word."

"I didn't."

"You did, I'm afraid."

"I no think the letter any better than the word. We in a fight for life. No time for gutter talk."

"I'm so sorry, honey-girl. You know I never mean to curse. I slip up sometimes, you know, on account of my bad upbringing."

"To be lady is a choice we all must make."

"Okay, Nastya, you can wash my mouth out with soap later. Right now let's go find me some clothes. Having eaten of the forbidden fruit I suddenly realize I'm naked."

We moved towards the side exit and Nadezhda continued remonstrating with me about the importance of maintaining proper diction. Had she held a rod I might kiss I could have thanked her for thus correcting me. The gift of true friendship ennobles the spirit.

"We'll have to disguise ourselves if we're going to sneak our way out of here."

"Look around this place, Nika. Do you really believe you're free to go any time you choose?"

Normally I would have been in the lead with Nasty in the middle and Hater bringing up the rear. Now Hater led the way and no one thought twice about a utility worker walking one of the long side hallways. Dressed in her dominatrix regalia Nadezhda slapped at my hips with her long riding crop guiding my steps in front of her. The three of us passed into a storage room where they housed every manner of Romantic costume.

I encouraged Hater to pull the leather hood over my head and affix the pink ball gag in my mouth. It was a really first-rate hood with a horsehair knot. Hater slid onto my arms a pair of latex gloves, wonderfully tight fitting. The thigh high boots were to live for. They clicked my wrists behind my back before inserting a horse hair plug & tail to match the one sprouting from my headgear. I hadn't been tricked out in fancy gear like this for quite a long time. I must admit I felt much loved and well cared for. Nadezhda fixed around my neck a studded collar proclaiming 'sex slave' in white lettering and connected to a long, pliant leader. I felt wonderfully normal and since the escape plan did not rest on my shoulders I submitted to her guidance entirely. The drugs were kicking in, too.

We reemerged into the long empty marble hallway and I caught a glimpse of myself in a shiny black stretch of wall. Strings of saliva trailed from my chin and dribbled on both breasts. I looked with envy at the pendulous black phallus fastened to Nadezhda's leather chaps. In my absence and on her own she had really done well for herself. Her helmet sprouted a veritable main of black hair standing in a tall arch and cascading down her back like a Roman warrior. My envy turned to admiration and pride because she wore it so well.

We rounded a blind corner and ran face to face into a quartet of security troopers dressed in black battle gear. Hater swerved around them and didn't give any indication he even knew us, sly devil. Nadezhda and I startled them into combat ready positions, their trigger fingers straight aslant across the trigger guard, erect and at the ready. I thought their reaction a bit much.

Nadezhda presented a little show to put them at their ease. After removing the ball gag, she uncorked my horsehair tail and plugged my mouth with it instead. Then she began flagellating my buttocks in front of those four leering men. I didn't entirely mean to but while I was standing there I lost control and urinated on the floor. The growing puddle proved one too many for the men in black. These drones had never been allowed in to witness the fleshpots, obviously. The corporal in charge turned and called down the hall after Hater and ordered him to contact a janitor to clean up this mess. Hater paused and turned back.

"Roger that," he responded, saluting with two fingers on the one hand and plucking forth his compod and making the transmission with the other.

"Naughty girl," Nadezhda said, removing the tail from my mouth and reinserting it, a tad abruptly, I felt. Normally she proceeded with a lighter touch.

"What are you two doing in this sector anyway? Do you realize you're in the outer defense corridor?" The four guards had taken a precautionary step back after I had my accident. Hater returned to our group and stood with his hands on his hips surveying my puddle. He was putting on a very businesslike air as he examined the problem.

"Master says to me, take dis here slave outside and put her in sunlight for a while because she too white is. I go to exit but I think I take wrong turn."

"You should have taken her to the front if you wanted outside. You're all the way to the side rear down here," the corporal said, producing a compod and pressing several buttons and showing a map on his display. I've always been fascinated by maps and I almost blew it by leaning in with Nadezhda and Hater to have a closer look. I noticed Hater glaring at me and I immediately drew back.

"Can we get out dis way?" Nadezhda gestured slightly with her whip.

"You can," Corporal Punishment said, "but you can't come back in this way. You'll have to go all the way around to the front entrance if you want to reenter the building."

"Oh, dat okay. My orders be take dis naughty little slave girl outside and march her around anyways so a walk to the front of building will be okay, meester. Exit is dis way?"

"Hey buddy," Corporal Punishment barked, "Think you can manage to take these two gals and show them the exit door?"

"Sure thing, and I'll give maintenance another call while I'm at it."

"Thought you was maintenance," a buck private interposed.

"No, I'm not maintenance. I'm tech support," Hater said, pointing to his own identification card dangling from the lanyard hanging around his neck.

"What are you doing back here then?" The Corporal demanded, continuing to sound annoyed. Hater launched into an answer so long and jargon filled he quickly made the four troopers sorry for asking. I loved it when he did that routine to other people.

Meanwhile I'd been standing there languishing in humiliation the whole time. With the troopers permission we moved out and headed for the exit. They could have gunned me down. I wouldn't have cared. I was a woman without a will. Everything appeared very sparkly and beautiful. What a wonderful world.

The exit door opened and we stepped into a curtain of heat wrapping around us until it was skin tight. We stood stunned for a moment, acclimating but poorly. We started walking across a dry and desolate patch of dirt.

"I want to go back inside," I said, shutting my thin eyelids against that horrid orange glare.

"No you don," I heard Nadezhda saying, "You want freedom to regain."

"Not in this heat I don't," I averred. "Let's go back inside where it's cool."

"We have to leave this place," Hater said. "Otherwise, they'll tattoo your face and slice your tongue."

"I don't care about any of that," I said. "They can do whatever they want with me. Just get me out of this heat."

"You don't want Nastya's pretty face obliterated, do you?"

"Right now I'd trade her pretty face for a big glass of ice water."

Despite my protests they drove me forward across the dirt patch and onto a concrete walkway leading in an arch away from the Temple of Greed.

"Is there any reason you're still treating me like a slave?"

"We have to maintain our cover until we're safely away," Hater whispered.

I opened my eyes but the landscape appeared a terrible blur. To me it didn't feel like we had gone far enough to be walking through a graveyard. I suffered the creeping realization I'd blacked out for a while. I'd never blacked out before no matter how high. My heart was absolutely pounding. The sky had changed and the air smelled dust laden under the shedding eucalyptus trees. My hearing sealed up and shut off. I staggered toward an open sepulcher while dragging Nadezhda behind me. I barely managed to mount the steps and lie down before collapsing onto the cool marble floor inside. A cold shudder ran through me and I wondered if I were going to die.

"She's not doing right," I heard Hater say.

They rolled me onto my side and finally removed the handcuffs. They also plucked the gloves from my arms and unplugged the tail and unzipped my boots to remove them. Perspiration sheathed my entire body as Hater positioned himself with my head in his lap and sprinkled water from a metal canister over my face. Nadezhda anointed my temples with a fragrant herb as well as the pressure points on my naked body. Her ministrations felt like icicles inserted into my flesh.

My eyelids flickered open again and I beheld myself bristling with acupuncture needles. An obvious witch with particolored hair streaked with brown and yellow and orange and whose green eyes sparkled when you looked right at them erected a picket fence guarding her gaze with her eyelashes so I couldn't see in. She finished driving her needles into my temples. My scalp dissolved revealing a winter field covered in smooth virginal snow.

"How you feel?" Nadezhda asked, leaning down toward my face.

"Your head is enormous," I said. "I never realized before."

She straightened up immediately and sought explanation from Hater. I saw it all. The brown walls. The water stained ceiling. A dreamcatcher strung in every corner near the ceiling. Opaque glass windows. Beads hanging over the doorway.

"She doesn't know what she's saying," Hater said. "Don't have hurt feelings."

He put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed.

"What's wrong with me," I asked.

"Heat fever," the Witch answered, which annoyed me because I was asking Hater. "She's cooling down now. She'll be okay. Needs more rest, and more ice."

From a porcelain bowl she produced a glossy diamond dripping cool droplets. Pressing this rare agent against my body just below the navel jolted my body like an electric shock ricocheting from each inserted needle point in turn and her cooling magic supplied such exquisite relief I easily let go my annoyance in deference to her healing touch. I turned white and blue producing flakes of snow rising from my body and twisting about in midair as though I was encased in a snow globe someone had given a good shake producing my own personal blizzard. Everything else in the room sweated red, orange, yellow, brown. I could see Nastya standing next to the operating table and I tried calling out to her. She didn't hear me probably because Hater had his arm around her. I demanded to know who among us was the patient.

"This one is very conflicted inside," the Witch crooned as she slid the ice cube directed by her index finger. One small ice cube; hundreds of acupuncture needles multiplying the shivering effect. Over my smooth contours the diamond slid around melting by slow degrees and leaving a water trail behind. "Jealousy poisoned your life once. Don't let it work that evil again."

I thought her reading my mind a neat trick. Next her teeth parted to reveal a delicious overbite. She unfurled a prodigious tongue with an angular tip she touched to my nipple. The question ran through my mind whether or not sexing up an immobilized patient might be construed as unethical. Then it occurred to me witches probably weren't bound by conventional ethics.

She confirmed this suspicion when she banished my friends from the room and after their departure increased the intensity of her intimate ministrations. I saw at one point she gracefully rose into a levitating position above me and we became conjoined at every pressure point where we shared the double pointed needles. The pleasure swelled to an excruciating peak until I passed under the surface and into unconsciousness. When she tried to follow me into the shadows I blocked her out. Too often in my life people have mistaken kindness and decency for weakness. I emerged into sunlight on the other side. On the soft white sand near the waterfall pouring into the reflecting pool with blue green water I reveled in my loneliness and drew strength from my isolation.

By the time I resurfaced the Witch had withdrawn her magic ice needles from my heat prostrated flesh and withdrawn herself by melding into the sultry air. My friends were nowhere in sight and I lay naked under a cool white sheet where my red-hot skin had returned to its natural pink and white.

Pushing off with my elbow I rose to an upright sitting position and surveyed the scene. I sat on a well-padded examination table my dangling feet not touching the floor. Sliding off the table I landed on the balls of my feet and stood unsteadily while I gathered the sheet around my naked body toga style. A trio of shrunken heads hung in a corner their lips sown shut. I couldn't judge their authenticity. Depending from another corner hung a wind chime apparatus made out of petrified chicken claws. Around the room little X figurines constructed from twigs and scraps of intertwining gray cloth stood watch over the witch's domain keeping an eye on things while she was out of the room. The floor immediately surrounding the exam table constituted a wet area tiled with hard red slate. On the floor at the other end of the room several embroidered rugs overlapped near collections of bric-a-brac collected on various shelves and end tables. I could have sworn the chicken claws scratched out a warning while the shrunken heads bobbled about, humming their mummery. I couldn't judge the extent of their authority. The tiny X men hopped about from one anxious foot to another in my honor. When I rubbed the sleepiness from my eyes and looked again the menagerie remained perfectly still and I'm sure their seeming motion can be attributed to my waking wooziness. To claim otherwise would be to indulge in the worst kind of ignorance and superstition.

My unsteadiness proved short lived as I set one foot in front of the other and regained power with every step. I was surprised such an obvious sorceress had survived the midwife purges. Once the Powers That Be laid claim to women's reproductive organs they never relinquished them torturing and burning alive any witch who helped another woman with an unwanted pregnancy. After putting into the law books a woman's second class status Powersby raped with impunity and women never recovered. By making abortion the issue those Christians successfully subjugated half the population. This one midwife must have been the one the priests and senators kept in reserve to clean up their own private messes with wayward daughters or careless wives and girlfriends.

I stepped through the clinking beads and pushed aside the flag with the image of the long extinct golden bear suspended over the open doorway. The room I entered appeared more conventional with its worn down carpeting, couch, and two overstuffed and sagging chairs. Sitting in one chair a huge sweaty bald man wearing a too small tee with some faded logo on it and a regrettable pair of cargo shorts with enormous hairy calves and caveman bare feet flexed his thighs and placed his palms on the arm rests as though ready to stand. I waved him back down into a sitting position.

"Don't bother," I said. "Where is everybody?"

"Out on the back patio," he intoned in a deep voice, motioning with his thumb as though indicating a passed life behind him.

The Strongman proved true to his word for I found my two friends sitting with the Witch in thick wrought iron chairs set around a tree stump acting as a table covered with an ashtray hemostats matches and paraphernalia enough for a 20 year prison sentence at least.

"The ghost of Julius Caesar," Hater said when he caught sight of me wrapped in my sheet.

"Et tu, Brute?"

"A chair, a chair, my kingdom for a chair," the Witch pitched in, using her foot to shove the remaining seat toward me as an invitation to join their circle.

"Doth my shoe not have a hole in it?" Nadezhda asked.

Hater and I exchanged quizzical rhetorical glances as I took my seat. Sure enough, she was fingering a hold worn through the soul of her boot.

"Let me see that," I gently commanded. Nadezhda extended her leg until her ankle rested on the top of my thigh. I stuck my middle finger into her hole and wriggled it about causing Nadezhda to shriek like a housewife standing on a chair to escape a mouse skittering across her kitchen floor. I don't know how or when these sexist images wormed their way into my narrative so I'll move on.

"We'll have to find you a new pair," I said, retaining custody of Nadezhda's foot. Forbearing any further tickling because I knew it caused a sensation I myself could not endure. Instead I stroked her shins and massaged her calf muscles. Actions the White Witch took notice of digesting them with a secretive smile.

"We can start looking as soon as everyone's on their feet again," Hater said, raising his brows and smiling slack jawed.

"And how long was I off my feet?" I rejoined.

"Two days," the White Witch interposed. "You allowed yourself to become overheated and succumbed to heat prostration."

"Allowed myself?"

"Mr. Hater here," and she extended her hand resting it on his forearm like I might not know whom she was talking about otherwise, "Informs me you are a great believer in free will."

"Did Mr. Hater also inform you about the overwhelming socio-economic forces conspiring to crush us under an iron heel?"

Like a magnifying glass focusing a ray of sunlight my jealous glare scorched her hand forcing her to withdraw it from contact with Hater's arm. She wasn't the only witch sitting around the tree stump that afternoon.

She looked at me with an expression of surprise and newfound respect rubbing for relief at the hot spot on the back of her hand. Her glance rose above my head and she addressed her familiar who had appeared behind me.

"No, no, Lancelot. It's quite alright. No problem at all. We're just getting to know each other. In fact, I'm glad you're here. Bring us four ice-waters." The Witch pointed toward the house, imperiously.

I twisted my neck around in time to catch sight of the enormous bearded man plodding away from me toward the sliding glass door leading into the kitchen area. Resuming my normal position I required a few moments reflection to fully appreciate the apparent danger I'd placed myself in by scorching the Witch's tan hand just a moment before. Hater stared at me telepathically validating my inference. On the one hand I doubted Nadezhda had seen anything, on the other as my own familiar she sat scowling at the witch, not in an overly protective sort of way, more in the style of pure jealousy, a confrontation between white and black magic. In response to this look the Witch was avoiding eye contact with her. She obviously didn't want any trouble. She surprised me, I must say. I would have expected her to be more butch on her home turf and I had to admire the way she gamely tried to rise above it in the hope of avoiding any unpleasantness. She probably didn't receive houseguests very often either and wanted to offer her hospitality to the three of us. Her eyes moved from contact with my eyes over to Hater, a man of science and easy pickings for a women like her well versed in the black arts. Her eyes rolled up into their sockets like a shark in attack mode as her line of vision passed over the hostile Nadezhda. On the return trip her gaze took note of the purple and white sparkling constellations appearing in the sky over the gathering dusky gloom. She looked away from our little group entirely as though Nadezhda's hateful gaze was causing her physical pain somehow. Naughty Nadezhda.

I was in the process of jumping to my feet in order to put a stop to this nonsense before the hard feelings grew any worse when the bearded familiar suddenly appeared from nowhere again and slammed down his tray of drink glasses sending an upheaval of their contents splashing over their lips and down the sides. Nadezhda returned the fierceness of his gaze with a ferocity of her own.

"What I would like to know," I said, leaping quickly to my lover's side to derail the immanent head on collision, "is what I am going to do about clothing. I can't very well go about for the rest of my days wrapped in this sheet."

"We raided Canada in the Temple before we left," Hater interposed, now on his feet as well and working in concert with me to drag Nadezhda away from the brewing fight. "The voluminous bag is in the house. Come on, Nadezhda, let's show Nika the clothing options you selected for her."

With both our pairs of hands working to guide her away Nadezhda leapt wildly at the man and we barely managed to contain her in time. The bearded familiar flexed in readiness to meet her attack; he made no attack of his own.

"I'm so sorry you can't stay," the Witch said with her head averted addressing the setting sun. "It really was most charming to have made your acquaintances."

"Thank you as well, for everything," Hater said, correctly guessing any farther communication between the Witch and me might provide the launch codes for an all-out preemptive strike from our lovely companion.

I made sure Nadezhda was well in the house before speaking to the Witch:

"I'll quickly change my clothes, and we'll be on our way."

I was only trying to be polite and defuse the awkwardness of the situation. I felt rather offended when the bearded familiar actually growled at me and the Witch continued to survey the horizon and deign not to notice I had spoken. Now it was my turn to rise above it and retreat into the house and draw the sliding glass door shut behind me. The sound of my cohort's voices reached me from the foyer entrance on the other side of the premises where directly I rejoined them.

"What do you have for me?" I asked unabashedly as they pulled forth garment after garment as though unloading a dirty laundry bag.

Either they were too busy bickering to notice my approach or they too were patently ignoring me.

"I think she like this," Nadezhda said, clenching a silky black frock in her upturned fist and shaking it at Hater.

"I'm telling you she isn't going to like it," Hater replied, releasing his grip on the voluminous bag and raising his empty palms indicating he could not be held liable for any consequences that might ensue.

"She won't like what? Can we move these proceedings along in a quicker fashion? We're standing in the foyer of Castle-Non-Grata and I'd like to put some clothes on before we make good our escape."

"I pick dis for you," Nadezhda declared, unfurling the scrap of silk she'd been using to threaten Hater.

"A silk shift? Are you insane? In your life have you ever known me to wear a mini-dress?"

"But I pick it out for you in mind," Nadezhda said, protruding her lower lip as she draped the garment across my front. I'd abandoned the sheet in premature expectation of their supplying me with something serious to wear.

"You picked it out for yourself, you mean. Put it on with your black leather combat boots. You'll look adorable."

I loved her dearly but in reality Nadezhda was a terrible gift giver. She chose items for herself in the hopes I wouldn't like them so she could take them back for herself. She slipped out of her clothes and into that skimpy little negligée and twisted and turned a flouncy hem in front of a full-length hallway mirror as though eager to snap a selfie of her own sweet ass. Sorry. I promised not to say that word anymore.

"What are these?" I asked, stooping and retrieving what turned out to be a pair of navy blue old man pants.

"Those are mine," Hater said, grabbing for them after I'd already yanked them out of his reach.

"You mean they were yours. I'm sorry," I said, nevertheless holding the pants away with one hand while with the other I rubbed Hater's back to assuage his crestfallen demeanor. "I sounded like Rachael just then, selfish and cruel. I didn't mean it like that. I just meant, back off, these are mine now. You're already wearing a pair of pants. Nadezhda, stop flirting with yourself in the mirror and show me the panty choices.

"Somebody I tink better feels."

Red lace thong. Blue sports bra. Under a mini black wifebeater. Black leather ankle boots. I stuffed the white sheet into the voluminous back and we were out the door, three free radicals.

"Hater," don't be ridiculous," I said. "These pants will not fit you. Look, they fit me perfectly."

"They do look snug on you," he replied running his index finger around the inside of the beltless waist where the fabric floated free. He slipped his fingers adroitly between the thong and my flesh, prickling and warming under his subtle ministrations. Prior to that moment I hadn't noticed the blue jeans he wore over his slim, boyish hips. His red flannel shirt untucked and unbuttoned floated in swirls revealing at piquant angles his hairless, marbled torso. He withdrew his fingers from my pants and clasping my hand dragged me along in a playful manner as he grasped Nadezhda's as well thus forming a human chain stronger than the irons of sex slavery tattooed into our flesh because our links were forged by the power of friendship and love.

No sooner had I conceived of our bonds as indissoluble then Hater let go his passion clasp on my hand to grab Nadezhda around the waist and twirl her around as she laughed and squealed only half-heartedly protesting. He slung her about his body slowly while she ceased to struggle and relaxed and their rough-housing assumed the smooth gestures of modern dance. Hater's clasp had bunched her slip revealing her darling underpretties. I realized before she did Hater was displaying her for my pleasure. When Nadezhda realized she had been seduced and betrayed she struggled to be let down. Hater would not oblige her. If anything he gripped her harder and lifted her slip higher. She had no choice but to cling to his neck and wrap her legs around his waist because that was the posture he demanded. Only by folding my arms low across my own waist and holding tight did I muster the self-control to hold my place and participate in her shaming. Her little panty clad bottom exposed. Her mouth open and the sensation of the cool air registering in her eyes. Furtively she glanced at me and then to Hater. My eyes were locked and loaded from the spectacle and Hater's gaze stayed trained on me. Was she squirming to escape, or had the shame inflamed her delight? Why I warmed to her innocent uncertainty I don't know. I moved to my companions who became naked as we lay down on the pliant asphalt. We did it in the road.

Sometime later after we regained our senses we brushed away the asphalt crumbs and we pulled up our pantaloons and otherwise straightened our demeanors. Our heedless passion seduced my attention away from the time of day until the sun set and the amount of ground left for us to cover before we found shelter for the night remained uncertain. We irrigated our bowels with reconstituted water against the dry hot wind ransacking the Deadland as night fell. To fortify my companions I embraced them each in turn sharing what small portion of determination I could spare from my own depleted store. As a result my love empowered my friends while at the same time my altruism lit up the receptors in the pleasure center of my brain.

Linked arm in arm we traversed the lonely highway, for a few steps anyway. We dropped arms because when you have to walk with the serious intent of actually getting somewhere arm in arm isn't practical. Nevertheless, I fancied invisible bonds forged by our mutual attraction would sustain us on our quest for a clean water source.

Chapter 24

We remained friends until the end but we never found the tranquility we were searching for. Inequality grew worse and worse in the Deadland until tempers flared and the cities burned. The climate continued to melt down as well because the world was coming to an end. Well, the world wasn't ending. Planet Earth will continue to roll around the sun for eons. There just won't be any human beings on it left alive. If you can picture the landscape empty of people and not backslide by imagining survivors then you are a true philosopher.

Hater went back to the research center and resumed undergoing cognitive improvement downloads. Apparently he had been self-loading for some time until his mind became so enhanced a brilliant notion finally clicked in that big brain of his and he reached a place of total enlightenment about the universe and mankind's place in the grand scheme of things. In response to gaining this ultimate boon, this new knowledge, The Truth, he climbed Boot Hill where he dug a shallow grave for himself and wrapped himself up in a blanket and then climbed in and lay down before shoving a pistol barrel into his mouth and blowing his brains out, expecting no more of the human race than someone who might come along and be willing to kick a few dirt clods in on top of him filling the hole and covering his corpse. I've often wondered where he managed to find live ammunition. He was always such a clever and resourceful boy.

Around the same time a senator lured Nadezhda to a hotel room ostensibly to discuss helping indigent children, then he drugged and raped her instead. To rid herself of the impertinent seed planted against her will she used a coat hanger to perform an abortion. About two weeks later she died of septicemia. The Powers That Be announced her death as divine justice leveled against a baby murdering whore. Those conservative men speak lies. They're not pro-life, those jackanapes. They want women relegated to a weakened state because underneath it all they're driven by the will to penetrate.

My body has become riddled with cancer from over exposure to toxins and nuclear particles floating through the Deadland. I have about six weeks to live, give or take. The doctor asked me if I had any rich friends who might pay for cancer treatments. When I said no, he said it was a shame for such a pretty girl to die so young, but medicine exists only for rich people, a fact I already knew. He spoke as though somehow an exception was going to be made in his case.

Here at the hospice my face is the same grey color as the walls. Thousands are dying and hundred more arrive every day. Charity affords me a bowl of soup a crust of bread a slops bucket and a cot. One by one I've bartered objects from the voluminous bag for extras like a moldy potato, or a cup of milk for the babe cradled in the young girl's arms who sat propped upright against the opposite wall. Eventually I couldn't afford any more milk and the baby's eyes glazed over. The mother held her dead baby in her arms until her own eyes glazed over too and then both their bodies were removed and other living souls moved in to occupy their space.

For someone who always grew impatient with people I find myself elbow to elbow with teeming humanity. I miss my friends and imagine them often and wish they were here on either side of me instead of these total strangers. I comfort myself with the knowledge life will soon be over. They say next month the Devil's Heat will return and when that happens the mortality rate will rise and my name will be added to the official census after I'm baked to death in the bright red heat.

When I'm through writing these words I'm going to stuff my journals into the volume and stow it beneath my cot. Maybe someday aliens from another planet will find them and be interested to know what the end of days was like for us here on Earth. I hope nobody stupid finds them first and throws them away.

For obvious reasons people might object to the tale I've told thus far so let me provide you with a different story. I was walking through an industrial section of the city one day obsessing on my Compod and not watching where I was walking when I tumbled into a ditch. The road suddenly wasn't there underneath me and I fell right in.

The bottom of the ditch turned out to be filled with a pink mist. I don't know what type of gas it was exactly, fumes from some kind of solvent maybe or a leak from a pharmaceutical plant. The mist had been manufactured to smell like bubble gum. I'd only tasted that candy once in my life but there was no mistaking the sugary sweet pink taste.

Inhaling that vapor brought on a kind of vision, and in my vision I saw Hater and Nadezhda and me walking to a further country where we discovered a hill covered in green grass and at the top of the hill stood a tidy pink house surrounded by a white picket fence where we could share our lives and be happy together. The sparkling water pumping from the well tasted pure and sweet year-round. Various types of nutritious fruit grew on trees thriving in the backyard and we tended a small garden full of healthy vegetables and we worked to raise chickens so during the lean times we always had meat and eggs.

At night after the chores were done I taught Nasty how to read and she developed a taste for poetry to the extent she even tried writing some of her own. I tried to pull away and spend more time by myself but Nadezhda was having none of it. She drew the three of us together and drew us into her orbit, the woman at the center of our humble home. She cured me of ignorance and superstition, anger and hatred, once and for all. Love healed my wounds to such a degree I no longer got angry with people the way I used to in my younger days. I didn't become paranoid or nervous or hurt or mad. It's safe to say that in the end I was cured by genuine love.

So in saying farewell, rest assured, I'm now at peace with myself and the rest of humanity. As far as I'm concerned, the whole world deserves a good spanking.
