Quaranteam: North West Chapter 21 (Alpha)

The following story is based on the fantastic Quaranteam series by CorruptingPower over on Literotica. You can continue to expect general themes of light Mind Control, bonding and Harems from the original, but with a slightly edgy and alternative cast.

This Alpha draft won’t be official until it receives the approval of CorruptingPower to make sure it falls in line with his plans and the overall timeline of the Quaranteam universe. As an Alpha draft, it may see small or large revisions before final posting. If any major revisions are made, I’ll make sure to let the Patrons know!

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The feeling of Ivy’s naked skin under my hands, especially after the day I’d had, was like stepping into a perfect pool. Every soft squeeze and caress made me wonder again at how perfect she was.

“Oooh, mon amor,” Ivy moaned as she leaned her back against my chest, sitting a little further down onto my cock. Her ass, with just a little lube, always astounded me at how quickly it could take my cock.

We were naked, up the trail from the Valkyrie Falls parking lot, and Ivy had practically scattered her outfit across the small clearing as she pulled her clothes off to get naked.

“I love you, mon cheri,” I groaned, sliding my hands from her hips. One I brought up her smooth stomach to her tits, palming one firmly and feeling the rubbery little nub of her nipple against my palms. The other I slid down across her shaven mound, pressing my fingers against it as I slowly inched them towards her pussy lips.

“I love you too, Harrison,” she mumbled, throwing her head back with her eyes closed, resting it against my shoulder as she sat that last little way down to press her ass cheeks to my hips and lap.

We fucked slowly like that, me holding her and teasing her as I sat on my knees and heels and she bounced forward and back. When she’d met me in the parking lot I’d thought Ivy would want to fuck, but this was making love. Analy, but still making love. I didn’t mind one bit that Ivy was still holding onto her fear of getting pregnant - it had been drilled into her psyche for years due to her family situation, not by any forceful or abusive means, but just by what she’d experienced. A father who loved her and her half-sister, but had to rely on their grandmother for childcare.

I thought she would make an excellent mother herself, with how loving and emotionally attuned she was. Sure, she had a playful side that was a little immature at times, but she was still in her early twenties.

But, for the time being, I was more than happy for her to be my little anal queen.

As we sped up our fucking a little, her asshole slick from the lube and squeezing my cock tightly every time she pulled away, she grunted and paused, a small orgasm already rolling through her.

“Can you fuck me harder, mon amour?” she asked me, looking over her shoulder hopefully. “Your leg will be OK?”

I slid my other hand up so I could grab both her tits, massaging them. “I can,” I told her. “How do you want me to fuck this perfect little ass, baby?”

“Doggy,” she grinned. She pulled off of me, her asshole winking for a moment as she went forward onto her knees, but she spun around and sucked my cock into her mouth in a slurping ass-to-mouth spectacle. It didn’t surprise me anymore after the dozens of times she’d done it, but it still struck me as such a nasty but intimate act. She kept herself clean down there religiously since we generally did anal almost every day, but it was still… It was like her telling me she would do anything for me. And I knew she would.

“Fuck,” I grunted, gathering her dark blonde curls up in both hands as I got up onto one knee and started thrusting into her mouth. She hummed a laugh around my cock, dropping her jaw a bit so I could start facefucking her. “God damn, Ivy,” I said. “You’re so fucking pretty.”

Her eyes were trained on me, and I could tell she liked the dirty-talk compliment. She pushed herself forward a little and on my next thrust between her lips she easily swallowed my cock into her throat.

“God, fuck-!” I moaned and pulled away, grabbing my slimy cock hard. “Baby, you almost got me there.”

“Hmmhmmhmm,” she laughed through her broad-lipped smile as she came up on her knees as well and shuffled. She kissed me lightly. “I missed you last night,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “I missed you too. But getting time with Vanessa alone was good, too. We need to do that soon for you.”

“I would like that,” she smiled, softly kissing her way around my cheeks. “I love Erica, and I like our bed, but once in a while being alone with you would be good too.”

“Soon,” I promised her.

“Bon,” she said. “Now, fuck me like ta petite salope, mon amour.”

I was exactly sure of the translation, but I figured I got the gist of it as she turned on her knees and went to her hands, pointing her booty back at me. It took me only a moment to get back into position and start wedging my cockhead into her ass as we both groaned happily. This, I knew, was her favourite position. She liked being on top, but getting bent over and slammed from behind was peak pleasure for her.

“I fucking love you, Ive,” I groaned as I started to rock forward and back, getting her ass ready for a pounding. Looking down at her back I realised that within months of meeting her, I couldn’t see myself without her. She was unique. She was my heart. Her pale skin, her body split in half by the thin navy line that separated her ‘clean’ half from her tattooed half. Her hair, sometimes shimmering blonde, sometimes shimmering almost ginger, always with her thick, wavy curls.

I even loved her moans, and out here in the woods we both let loose as I sped up my thrusts and she tilted her hips and bounced them back to meet me. Our skin was smacking together, the clap a dull rhythm in the trees. We were surrounded by nature - greens and browns on most sides, warm and close. To our right was the grey-brown of the ravine wall shimmering with the broken thunderstones embedded in it who knew how long ago, and the cool reflection of the waterfall.

Ivy moaned and growled loudly, letting herself go as she came again. I could feel my own coming soon, but I tried to hold it off by focusing on the tight pinch of pain in my leg from my gunshot wound. After the hike I’d made to scout the Golden Beaver bar and the sovereign citizens who called it home, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to put on this sort of a performance for all three of my girls at the Falls.

But I didn’t have time to think of Erica or Kyla, because Ivy was moaning and mewling as she went from her hands to her elbows while I drilled her ass.

“Fuck, Ivy,” I gasped. “God, you feel so fucking good. You’re so fucking- ungh, amazing!”

“I’m yours, Harrison. All yours. Take my ass. It’s yours forever,” she groaned. “Yes! Use my ass. I love you. Use my ass, mon amour.”

“I’m close,” I gasped.

“I want it,” she begged. “I want it, I want it.”

“Where?” I asked.

“On my face. In my mouth. I want to taste you.”

I pulled out of her roughly, giving her ass a hard smack on the tattooed cheek with enough force to leave a red handprint, and she turned and sat on her knees, putting her beautiful face right under my cock and opening her mouth as she stroked my cock with both hands. Her wordless sounds of pleading, and the eagerness in her eyes, pushed me over the edge as I exhaled with a heavy grunt and came, one ropey glob after another spurting onto her face. Her aim was a little rough, only two of the five strands of cum landing on her tongue and the rest dripping across her cheeks and nose.

“Huhuhuh,” she laughed as the taste of my cum made her body lurch and rock, rolling into an orgasm. As soon as it finished she pulled my half-wilted cock to her mouth and sucked, getting trace spikes of pleasure with every new taste. Then, keeping one hand on me, she used the other to fish the cum on her face to between her lips.

It was a vulgar, disgusting display of love, and I was 90% sure it was Ivy being her filthy, perverted self with me rather than it all being the vaccine.

When she was done, cleaned up as well as she could without a mirror or anything, I scooped her up from the ground and carried her over towards the edge of the overlook. I swept some loose stones and pine needles out of the way with my booted foot - we were both still wearing our shoes - and then laid her down and spooned up behind her as we looked out at the little waterfall.

“Now, mon amour,” Ivy said quietly. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She laid her head low and turned it so she could look back and up at me. “I could tell something was bothering you when you got out of your truck, Harrison. You were… how do you say it- Melancholic. Your smile when you saw me, I love, but before that something was wrong.”

I sighed and leaned in to kiss her cheek softly. “You know me so well, mon cœur.”

“That one is new,” she said with a smile and snuggled back at me a bit firmer. “I like that one on your lips. My heart.”

“Mon cœur,” I said again with a soft smile.

“Now, tell me,” she urged.

I told her. About the idiots at the bar, and the kids I’d seen there. I didn’t care so much if the adults suffered from their own delusions and stupidity, but when it finally hit them the kids would be in danger. And I told her about how my investigation was stalled - the easy leads had already run out. If I was going to find any of the people who attacked the construction site, my land, our home, it was going to take a hell of a lot of luck, risking myself by going back to the Golden Beaver and sitting ‘undercover,’ or piecing together the fast food receipts and hoping to track down security cam footage to put together faces and start tracking names.

And then I told her about the Rez, and Kara, and the outbreak.

“You need to help her,” Ivy said.

“I know,” I said.

“No, Harrison,” Ivy said pointedly. “You know, but you are hesitating.”

“She won’t let me save her if it means leaving her people behind,” I said. “I can’t make her take the vaccine and pick someone.”

“She doesn’t need to pick someone,” Ivy said. “She would have you.”

“She would pick a man from the tribe,” I said. “Someone who needs to be saved.”

Ivy just sighed and shook her head. “Then what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been trying to think of something, but nothing… nothing I can do, no favour I can call in successfully, would stop their outbreak.”

“Mon amour,” she said softly, turning on our rocky bed so that she was facing me. She put her fingertips on my chin and jaw, making sure I was looking at her. “You are trying to save the day, when you can only save the hour. What can you do for her?”

I took a breath, thinking of what Kara had told me. She was holed up in her place with her second cousin and her neighbour. Half the places on the Rez were double-wide trailers, and the other half were small homes; I wasn’t sure where she was living now, but either way, she was in tight quarters with three women. That meant three people living off of whatever supplies she had, and knowing Kara she would have been donating anything extra she had to the Rex relief funds. Especially after the fire took out their community centre.

“Food,” I said. “Water. Other supplies.”

“You can bring those to her at least,” Ivy nodded. “Then come back to me. To us. Just to be sure.”

“Just to be sure, or because you want another round?” I asked with a little smile.

“Maybe both,” she grinned impishly. I kissed her and she moaned softly and then patted my chest. “Kyla next,” she said.

“What if I want you again?” I asked. “My little minx. My sexy Quebecoise queen. Mon cœur.”

“I could never say no,” Ivy sighed, smiling sadly. “But it wouldn’t be fair. Go to Kyla.”

“OK,” I whispered and kissed her again.

We almost didn’t get up. Almost.

* * * * *

“It’s dinner time,” Kyla said, groaning as she stretched. Her bed was a little small for the two of us, just a twin since Valkyrie Falls wasn’t exactly built with the expectation that people would be sharing rooms. I had no idea how Leo, Dani, Aria and India were making it work. Still, after our time in the RV, two people in a twin bed was comfortable and cuddling with my naked girlfriend was always welcome.

“Guess that means we should get dressed,” I sighed.

She smiled and shifted so she was on her hands and knees overtop of me, looking down to kiss my lips lightly. “Well, I think I need to get dressed. I’m not sure how many people would complain if you came down naked.”

I snorted and shook my head. “Well, Leo would for one.”

Kyla smiled and gave me another peck on the lips. “That’s fair.”

We got dressed, me in the loose clothes that I’d arrived in and Kyla in a cute, comfortable outfit of loose sweatpants that hung low on her hips and a simple tank top with an unlined bra that supported her tits but left them basically loose under the thin, stretchy fabric. Just hugging her from behind before we left the room made me smile as I squeezed her breasts and could feel her nipples through the two layers.

“Pervert,” she snorted and laughed.

I kissed her neck and she groaned, pushing her ass back at me. If left like a horny teenager again, first with Ivy and now with Kyla, dreading the need to stop the intimacy.

We made it downstairs without too much more groping and kissing and found that the open cafeteria area with the big exposed kitchen and the big bench seating was almost full. With the addition of Leo’s family and my own, Valkyrie Falls was almost at its regular capacity even if we weren’t taking up all the rooms.

Dinner was an interesting affair - many of the women were on specific diets and Sara, acting as the nutritionist, had weighed and plated their portions. Some meals were vegetarian, one was even vegan, and some had no qualms about what they ate. Our families were also spread out around the room, not congregating together, which was nice to see. Kyla grabbed a seat talking with Spencer and another woman, and when I passed by Ivy at a table with Aria and two of the athletes I felt myself flush and didn’t look over because I could hear her discussing anal sex, which probably meant she’d either been teased or asked about our time up in the forest. Other than Ivy’s conversation, however, I got the feeling that the general emotional climate was a little depressed compared to most of the times I had seen the ladies in a big group. Most of the ladies were at least trying to put on a good face for the others, but reality was hitting the group hard again - the last time that had happened it was after we’d had to tell them about how deadly things really were out there. Now, after the bad news from my trip down south for Melissa, and the looter attack on the site, and probably me getting wounded again… I couldn’t blame them for getting some emotional whiplash. They lived here at the Falls in relative safety, but their homes and families and communities (not to mention country and world) were in chaos. Anyone they couldn’t get a hold of for a call or who didn’t reply to a text was another person who was more likely dead than alive. We’d brought that reality to them again, and morale was suffering.

I ended up sitting down at the end of a table with Erica, Leo and Abi. Erica welcomed me with a sweet little peck on the lips, which brought a faux-disgusted gag from Leo, which just encouraged Erica to kiss me more fully as Abi smirked at their sibling antics.

“Ivy told me about the Rez,” Erica said quietly once the kiss and teasing was over. “I’m sorry.”

I sighed and nodded. “I’m going to try and at least do a supply run for her. I don’t know what else I can do for them.”

“That’s more than you should do,” Leo said but held up his hands when I looked at him with a furiously confused expression. “Not like that,” he clarified. “I mean you shouldn’t be driving into an outbreak area at all. Wasn’t the outbreak on the site enough to see how dangerous that is? And just because you have the vaccine doesn’t mean you’re immune.”

That… was something I hadn’t considered. In my head, I’d been thinking of being vaccinated as being safe, but that wasn’t what that meant. Probably. I needed to call Miriam for more info on that.

“Abi, that face right there is my man realising he’s going to do something heroic even if it’s more dangerous than he thinks it is,” Erica sighed, gesturing to my expression.

Abi smiled a little and shook her head. “Harrison, if you were not a Sheriff, I would say you should leave such things to the police.”

I hadn’t had a chance to talk with Abi really about what she thought about everything we’d revealed to the Valkyrie Falls women last night about the vaccine and our relationships. My girls liked to tease me that she was interested in me, based solely on the fact that she showered with us after our workouts, but I still thought it was just her being more European, or even Nordic, in her temperament about nudity.

“I would have been helping even if I wasn’t a Sheriff,” I said.

“Hell, he was helping people before becoming a Sheriff,” Erica pointed out, then turned to look at me full-on. “Just be careful. And, actually, if you’re doing a supply run, we’re going to need more frequent runs for here, too. We just added seven more mouths to feed that we didn’t account for on the last run, plus you when you eat here.”

“OK,” I nodded. “I’ll do that first thing tomorrow once the grocery store is open. Just get me a list together.”

“I’ll go with-”

“No,” I interrupted my fiancee. “I’ll do it alone. We don’t know who might be around, or if I might run into the sovereign citizens. For now, I should be the one to do it.”

There was a bit of argument back and forth, with Erica pointing out that if I was taking time to do supply runs I wasn’t working on the investigation and getting us home faster, but in the end Erica reluctantly agreed when Leo pointed out that her being with me if something did happen would put me in more danger. After that she let it drop and we were able to move on to small talk. Slowly, as dinner finished up and the ladies filtered into the kitchen to help with cleanup or out to other parts of the compound, our little group became the last one sitting down.

“Ready?” Erica asked me, her hand having slipped under the table a while ago and rubbing my leg.

“One more thing,” I said, knowing what she wanted to get to. “I’m worried about morale here, honestly. Things feel different.”

Abi frowned and nodded. “It’s been a lot, lately. Many of the ladies are worried and starting to become stressed about…” She paused for a moment to take a breath, then gestured generally. “Everything.”

“The last thing I wanted was to make this place feel unsafe,” I sighed.

“It’s not that,” Erica said, taking my hand and squeezing it.

“Erica is right,” Abi said. “We are happy to host you, after how you’ve been helping us. And your family is doing more to raise spirits than hurt them. Your little wiener dog could do that all by himself.”

I smirked a little and shook my head. Macho was living up to his name. From what little Ivy and Kyla had told me, practically every woman in the compound was stealing him away to play or snuggle for a bit. If we weren’t careful he’d go from being a little hotdog to a bulging bratwurst, he’d get so fat from the snacks he was getting.

“Well, I was thinking maybe we could do a little more,” I said. “To make you all feel more safe, and to raise spirits in general. If you’re open to it, I know Kyla has most of our firearms stashed safely in Erica’s car and in her room. She could run some basic firearms safety courses for anyone interested, and some people find shooting a little therapeutic or stress-relieving. And I bet between Dani, Ivy and Kyla you could have a pretty good beginner dance class for some more active fun. And I could grab supplies for an art class if you’re willing to do some teaching, babe.”

“That’s a great idea,” Erica said, turning to Abi. “What do you think?”

Abi nodded. “We can use the cafeteria here for the art class, and we have all the space for a dance class. I will need to talk with Sara about firearms… We weren’t sure about you bringing them here to begin with.”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” I said. Then I turned to Leo. “Sorry I can’t bring out a full woodshop for you, buddy.”

He snorted and chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind teaching, but I think we only need so many birdhouses.”

That made me laugh, as it had been a long-running joke that he’d started his custom woodworking career making intricate birdhouses but had moved on to furniture because the market for birdhouses wasn’t actually very large. The market, he’d said, belonged to middle school shop classes and summer camps.

More ideas got thrown around - India could do a passable Yoga class, Leo could organise a Euchre tournament (after teaching the game to anyone who didn’t know it.) I could have done an art class as well, but I wasn’t going to be around enough.

“You could always teach sex ed,” Erica said with a laugh. “I’m sure your signup list would be full almost immediately.”

“And on that note, I think we’re done for now,” I said, standing up from the table. “Abi, I’m sorry for her. Leo, she’s your sister, so it’s partially your fault for her having the mind of a 14-year-old boy. Come on, babe.”

Erica whooped as I hefted her up bodily from the bench we’d been sitting on and tossed her over my shoulder. Erica was a full-bodied woman and nowhere near as dainty as Ivy or even Kyla, but even with my leg twinging once I had her up on my shoulder I could carry her pretty well. She was wearing a tight pair of jeans and had been walking around barefoot inside so, as she laughed and shouted to ‘put me down, you barbarian!’ she kicked her feet playfully even while hanging on to me. We passed several of the ladies, including Melina, on our way to the stairs and got some looks and smiles. I thought, for a moment, I saw a sadness in Melina’s eyes as we passed even though she was laughing lightly.

At the stairs I set Erica down, not wanting to risk my leg carrying her up and both of us falling all the way back down and breaking our necks or backs. Once I got her on her feet, though, I gave her a solid crack of my hand on her ass through her tight jeans. “Go on,” I said. “Get.”

In any other context, Erica would have probably bit someone’s head off for slapping her ass that way. But between her being horny, our playfulness, and the fact that we were so fucking down the rabbit hole of being in love, she just darted up the stairs giggling as I chased after her. Up on the second floor in the dormitory corridor she let me chase her all the way to the room she shared with Ivy before I caught her and pinned her to the wall, kissing her firmly as we kept laughing into each other’s lips. Thankfully no one was in the hall or I would have felt too embarrassed to do that in front of them. Instead, it took us a couple of minutes to even twist the door handle and work our way halfway into the room.

“Wait,” Erica said, a teasing smile on her lips as she pulled away from me. I was holding her ass with both hands and she’d been pressing her chest against me - she was wearing one of my T-shirts and I’d realised quickly that she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath.

“What is it?” I asked.

She smirked. “Let me go get Josie. I bet she’d-”

“No,” I said, pulling Erica into the room and kicking the door shut.

“Why not?” Erica asked.

“Because,” I said, scooping her up in my arms again but this time in a princess carry that only travelled the few steps to the bed, which I tossed her onto heavily. “Josie is sexy as hell and fun, but I want time with my wife. Not a threesome.”

“I’m not your wife yet,” Erica smirked even as she started to undo her jeans and wiggle out of them.

“I’d have married you the day after you asked me if my sister could get up here,” I growled, peeling off my shirt and shucking my shorts.

“I know, babe,” Erica said, and I grabbed the jeans and helped pull them off her lower legs and feet. She switched to taking off her shirt, revealing her glorious big tits to me. I got the jeans off and growled as I fell on her, getting my mouth on those breasts as I ran my hands from her bare waist and up to her arms, which I pushed about her head. “I would have, too.”

I loved on her tits for a bit, then kissed up to her lips as we made out like teenagers, rolling around on the bed. She ended up on top, both of us just wearing our underwear, and now she pinned my arms above my head as she looked down at me with a smile and her tits hung, brushing against my chest.

“Why shouldn’t I get Josie to warm you up?” she asked. “She wants you, and she’s been asking all three of us little questions about the vaccine and how it works. She could blow you for a bit, then watch us fuck.”

“Why are you wearing your full makeup?” I countered. “And walking around in one of my shirts?” Her brow furrowed as she opened her mouth, but wasn’t sure what to say. “You’re staking your claim, babe,” I said. “You’re letting them know that, even if they’ve been allowed to look, even if they’re ripped and athletic, you’re the queen of my castle. You wear my clothes, and you do yourself up for me in a way they don’t, or can’t. God, I love you, Erica. And for all that I love the others, you were first. You’ll always be that. And sometimes, even if we have fifty women, or a hundred, in this thing that’s going on I’m still going to want just you sometimes.”

She kissed me, soft and deep. Her lips, painted that deep red, were soft like rose petals and she smelled a little like vanilla as her hair fell around us. Her tongue teased against my lips, asking to be let in, and I let it. We weren’t making out like teenagers now, we were kissing like lovers.

“I love you,” she said as our lips parted and she sighed, laying flat against me.

"I love you too,” I said, hugging her to me.

“Alone time,” she agreed softly. “Make love to me. Then fuck me. Fuck me like I’m your whore-queen. You know what I mean.”

“I do,” I said with a grin, kissing her cheek as my hands travelled down from her bare back to her panties-clad ass, sliding underneath to grab her bum and then lower to tease her pussy. “Jesus, you’re wet.”

“I get that way every time I see you, Harrison,” she said. “Always have, for years. It’s not the vaccine, it’s you.”

We kissed again, and I started easing a couple of fingers inside of her as she wiggled and moaned. It was going to be a good one.

* * * * *

The alarm going off reminded me, once again, that I loved Vanessa but I really hated her work hours. I got up with her, made her a quick breakfast, kissed her goodbye and collapsed back into bed. The evening before, after I returned back to the Compound with a ready-to-heat meal sent on from the women of Valkyrie Falls for Vanessa, I’d had barely an hour to myself before she came home at 9 PM on the dot just like she’d promised. I heated her food, massaged her feet as she ate, and she’d let me know that her Phone Bank ladies hadn’t turned up any immediate leads from their calls to the gun shops hunting that revolver serial number. It was just as likely that the old piece had belonged to the dead man who owned the car rather than the dead men who had been driving it, so I wasn’t hanging on the hope that something turned up there, but it was still another frustration.

Then Vanessa asked me to tell her about my day, and I did. By the time I was finished, talking in graphic detail about my sex with Ivy out in the forest and Erica in her room at Vanessa’s request (but not talking about Kyla, since she was more private), Vanessa got on her hands and knees and sucked my cock, then she fulfilled the other part of her promise of ‘at least twice every night.’

I woke up a second time with sunlight blazing through the cracks in the shades of the RV back window and got myself moving. It took me a minute, when I checked my phone, to realise that the girls were teasing me again. This time, instead of naked photos of them in bed, they were sending me thirst trap videos. But it wasn’t videos of them, it was videos of the women at the Falls. Some of them were obviously planned and staged - Josie skipping rope as the video circled her, then suddenly doing the same thing topless as the camera rotated around her back; and Melina doing squats with perfect form, her amazing ass and tits both tightly encased in workout gear that was probably illegal in several states for indecent exposure. Or causing heart attacks. Then there was one of Abi in the middle of what looked like a yoga class, smiling and a little goofy, but it was cut with clips of her lifting impressive amounts of weight and doing other super-active CrossFit exercises with grim determination on her face and a hard, pumping music. I doubted she knew they’d done that, and I would also bet that they’d been a little scared to ask her.

Those I could handle, along with a couple more of women I’d been friendly with at the gym. The one of Spencer, though, made me feel weird. On the one hand, she was extremely attractive in a wholesome, lovable way. On the other, she was barely in her twenties and had shared such an intimate story with me that it felt wrong to even think of her like the way their thirst trap video made me think. She, like Abi, didn’t seem to realise she was being filmed during her workout and she did the move that made me think ‘classic Spencer,’ finishing a set and pulling off her bulky sweater to reveal her fit torso and big tits encased in an athletic bra. But then she seemed to notice whoever was filming her and she blushed and smiled, and then winked, at the camera.

I called Miriam.

“Later start this morning,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I’m running out of the fast leads quickly and soon I’ll be into the weeds for real,” I said. “Any luck on the FBI front?”

“Nothing so far. And, Harri, I haven’t been able to squeeze anything out yet on the vaccine front. I’m sorry.”

I sighed and nodded, even if she couldn’t see me. “OK, thanks for keeping me updated. I’m going to take some time today to do a supply run - the ladies up at the Athletic compound need more stuff since I added seven more people to their numbers, and I’m going to grab stuff for my friends on the Rez at the same time before I dig into the receipts. But those plans brought up some questions that I think only you can answer.”

“I’ll tell you what I can,” she said. “But - and this is awkward to ask - did you re-up your vaccination with the ladies since yesterday? If you go out and you’re infected from the dumbass sovereigns, you could be spreading it.”

“That’s one of my questions,” I said. “When we’re talking about me being vaccinated, or safe, what does that actually mean? Like, how safe are we talking? If I have four partners, am I good to go?”

Now it was Miriam’s turn to sigh. “Technically you only have three and a half partners,” she said. “Vanessa’s numbers haven’t changed. I’ve been keeping a tag on her studies; it looks like she’s still only getting mid-thirties coverage. It’s enough that they don’t want to try re-vaccinating her unless there’s an emergency, but she’s not in a great spot and isn’t providing you with the coverage the others are. And, to answer your question, the most recent math I’m seeing is that one partner still only nets a man 70% efficacy, the same as a month ago. Each additional partner only adds a fraction of that though. The current model says the best coverage will come from seven partners, so until you hit that point you’re taking real risks. With three and a half you’re still in the 85th percentile of efficacy, I think the number was, but…”

“Seven?” I asked, a little dumbfounded. “I thought we were done adding…”

“Getting tired of all that pussy, Black?” Miriam asked. I could hear the smirk on her lips.

“It’s just a lot,” I said. “What about all the construction workers?”

“They’ll get there eventually too,” she said. “Our rollout still isn’t starting though, or else I could do something about the Rez. Harri, the death tolls…fuck, never mind, I can’t tell you that. Especially not over the phone, but probably not in general.”

“OK, don’t,” I said, though I had a pit of dread in my stomach from that small hint. Greerson and his OGA team had hinted at apocalyptic being the level they were responding to, and I couldn’t spend time brewing on that.

“What was your other question?”

“I’ve been having these… God, this sounds a little fucked up. Every once in a while, I’ve been having these weird possessive urges,” I said.

“Over Erica and the girls?”

“No,” I said. “More like… I feel like I’m a horny nineteen-year-old with the world as my oyster sexually, and I get these flashes of wanting to fuck people around me. Not like, violent urges or anything, but weird feelings. Like I’m jacked up on testosterone or something.”

Miriam was quiet for a long moment, and then I could hear the telltale sound of keyboard keys from her end of the call. “Alright,” She said. “I’m not seeing any reports about that in the studies I have access to. I’ll put in a call, see if I can get one of the head brainiacs on the phone and run it by them. Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “And it’s not an urge that I start to act on or anything. It’s just a sort of animal urge.”

“Well, we’ve seen a general uptick in libido for men as well as women,” Miriam said. “You might just be having a bigger reaction to that than normal. Are you, um, getting enough? Sex?”

“I would have thought so,” I said. “I mean, to be frank, Miriam, it’s more than I could have accomplished in a day when I was a horny nineteen-year-old fucker.”

She snorted softly. “Well, keep it in your pants unless it’s one of your partners. We still don’t know what set of circumstances specifically caused Vanessa’s situation and whether something about you was the catalyst or not.”

I gulped a little, thinking of the blowjob from Josie. I hadn’t come in her mouth, and my cum had hit her ass and back and washed off in the showers. I’d need to be extra careful with Erica’s machinations.

“Anything else?” Miriam asked.

“Are you OK?” I asked in response. “Safe?”

“I’m in the middle of a military installation focused on the vaccine,” Miriam said. “I probably couldn’t be more safe right now.”

“I know, I meant, like… are you vaccinated? We never talked about that.”

There was a long moment of quiet on the phone. “The brass are going to pull the trigger any time now on mandated vaccinations for everyone in the military,” she said. “There’s just political pushback happening somewhere up there, too. I’ve been putting it off.”

“Not sure who you’d want to match with?” I asked.

“It’s just complicated right now,” she said. “I’ll uncomplicate it when I need to, and I’m too busy to do it properly until that need becomes immediate.”

“OK,” I said. “If you need to talk it out, just let me know.”

“I will,” she sighed. “Keep me updated on everything.”

“Will do,” I said.

We hung up and I grit my teeth a little. Seven women? My life was completely full already with four. How could I adapt to three more?

Hell, I couldn’t even fit three more in the RV. Maybe once the house was built that would be more realistic, but how was thinking of seven partners realistic to begin with? Or realistic for every man in America? And how the hell would our relationship keep working with that many more people just… injected into it?

I also had a… not a twinge, but maybe a wince, deep inside that Miriam was going to partner with someone. If she had to uncomplicate it I assumed she had someone in mind that was actively deployed. Maybe it was a guy from the pararescue crews that she’d had a thing for but couldn’t get involved with being in the command structure. Or maybe it was even more complicated than that and she had been involved but it was a secret, or the guy was married or something and she needed to make contact to get things clear with the couple.

If she had someone she trusted, I would be happy for her. But that didn’t change the fact that I was still feeling that weird feeling. That ‘It should be me’ feeling.

Shaking it off, I got myself together and kicked myself into gear. After a quick check-in with Vanessa on my way out, and introducing myself to the airmen who were on duty at the gate to the site, I headed into town. The grocery store used to open at 9 AM every morning except Sundays, but now it had reduced hours so I was showing up a little early.

That didn’t stop the parking lot from already being half-full and the entry line from winding down the side of the building.

Part of me hesitated, not wanting to risk getting spotted with my Sheriff's truck if the sovereign citizens came by again, but I wasn’t anywhere near in uniform. I made sure I had my badge tucked under my T-shirt and got out, heading for the back of the line.

It took almost an hour for me to get into the store. They were limiting how many people they had inside at once, which was a good thing in general. I also realised I was one of the only people who wasn’t buttoned up completely - I had a medical mask on, but I wasn’t wearing long sleeves and goggles and shit like we used to.

I looked like one of the people who didn’t care or didn’t believe the pandemic was real. I’d gotten comfortable.

That explained why the people in front and behind me in line weren’t even willing to spare me a glance and a chuckle when I made a little joke about bread lines.

A woman was working the front door instead of the pimple-faced teenager that was usually there, and she had me wait almost ten minutes for a couple of people to leave with their shopping before she let me in. I grabbed a cart and started walking around, running through the list that Erica had sent me and adding extras that I would bring up to Kara on the Rez.

The problem was, as I walked down the aisles, I realised there were big holes in what was on offer. Shortages of one thing or another had been happening since the start of things, but they’d always come back in. Toilet paper had been hard to find for a few weeks, and sanitiser had been pretty much non-existent. Now, though, it was whole sections in the food aisles and it almost felt like it was at random.

With my cart only half-full, I wandered towards the front of the store and went to the customer service desk, hitting the little bell since no one was there. One of the cashiers, pretty much locked in behind a booth of plexiglass at her till, called over asking what I wanted. It took a couple of tries to understand each other because she was even more bundled up than the customers.

When I finally got the manager to appear he looked haggard. It was the same guy that I’d seen arguing with the Sovereign Citizens in the past, except his shirt was untucked, his tie was loose around his collar and I doubted he’d shaved in a week or so. Part of me wondered if he was sleeping up in his office that overlooked the cashier area.

“What?” he asked curtly. It looked like the ‘customer is always right’ attitude had also been left behind.

“Sorry to bother you, sir,” I said. “I just noticed there’s a lot of stock missing and was wondering if you’ve had shipping problems or something.”

“We have what we have,” he said. “Everything is out there, we don’t have anything in the back. Alright? No one is going to check the back area for you.”

“That’s not what I was asking,” I said, reaching under my shirt and pulling out my badge on its chain. “I was just worried that robberies are getting more common, or if your trucks are getting hijacked.”

The manager looked at my badge, blinked and raised his eyebrows, then looked at my mask-covered face again. “You’re a cop?”

“Sheriff,” I said. “And from another county. But this is where I come to get my groceries, and sometimes my fiancee calls ahead for big orders because we deliver to other people. Erica?”

“Oh!” The manager said. “That’s you? Alright, um, sorry. I- Fuck, where do I start? The robberies are off and on. When we see them coming, whoever I have on the door tries to get it locked; that’s worked a couple of times. It’s always a group of guys, and they make off with a few carts worth of food. Other people are stealing stuff too, but I’ve given up on trying to stop them all. We did lose a shipment to a hijacking a couple of weeks ago too, but only the one that I know of.”

“So you’re just not getting everything in the shipments?”

He hesitated. “Partially,” he said.

“What’s the other part?” I asked.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “You really deliver food to other people in the area, and that sort of thing?”

“You think I need the amount of produce my fiancee calls in just for us?” I countered.

“Fair, OK,” he nodded. “We don’t put everything out.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

“There’s a… it might be easier to just show you, actually,” he said. “When you’re done shopping, ring the bell again.”

“OK,” I said, my brow still furrowed. He assured me he’d be listening for the bell and headed back up to his office. I went back out into the store and gathered everything I could, or found substitutes for what I couldn’t. Once my cart was full to overflowing I went through the cash, fitting about half of the groceries in the reusable bags I’d brought and trying to sort out some of the other stuff into paper bags that I could drop off with Kara easily.

The manager must have been watching for me because he came back down from his office before I was even done paying, and he asked me to meet him out back of the grocery store when I was done loading up my groceries. I agreed and did just that, slowly driving my truck around into the loading area of the store. He was waiting near a beat-up red Civic and waved me over.

“Alright,” I said as I got out of my truck. “What’s the deal?”

“Alright, this is off the record, right?” the manager asked me.

“That’s for journalists,” I said. “But yeah, you’ve piqued my curiosity. What’s going on?”

“Well, with the way things are, not everyone who needs food can pay… conventionally,” he said “So every shipment I get in, I’ve been skimming off goods and selling it at a huge discount to these guys. I write off some of it as shrinkage, and everyone in corporate knows that stealing and looting is happening so it’s not even questioned.”

“Who are ‘these guys’ you’re selling it to?” I asked.

He looked nervous. “Local guys. They’ve set up, like, a market where people can go when they don’t have straight cash.”

I blinked, a whole lot of things going through my mind all at once. “Alright, well, how about you tell me where it is? Because I don’t care what you do with your stock as long as people aren’t going hungry, but this sounds shady as hell and I want to make sure these guys aren’t… fucking evil, I guess.”

“I figured,” he said. “They operate out of that warehouse over there.” He pointed out beyond the back of the grocery store shipping area, across an undeveloped green space and past an old hardware store. Now I realised why he’d been standing by the car - the warehouse was only really visible from that point of the parking lot. It wasn’t very far away, only a couple hundred metres, but with the way even ‘downtown’ Jewell was things were forested and spread out. “If you want to go check it out, you should just walk from here,” he said. “And you probably don’t want to bring your badge, they pat everyone down as they go in.”

“Alright,” I said. “Am I good to leave my truck here?”

The manager agreed and I went and dropped off my badge in my centre console, along with my sidearm. If they were patting down people, I doubted they were big on 2nd Amendment arguments.

I made the quick walk, skipping through the green space to get to the road and then trudging down the gravel shoulder of the back road. The warehouse was the old Lumber depo that had closed over a decade ago, and there were half a dozen cars parked at one end. Figuring that was the entrance, I headed that way and found that the old loading dock door was closed, but a man door was standing open with two guys just inside. It took me a moment to see properly in the dark interior.

Oh, shit, I thought as my eyes adjusted and I saw the two guys. Both were big and burly, giving off bouncer vibes. The difference between them and a bouncer was that bouncers for bars didn’t usually point shotguns at people, and they both were doing that.

“Hey, whoa,” I said, holding up my hands.

“Lift your shirt,” one guy grunted.

I did, showing the front and back so they knew I wasn’t armed. One of them set his shotgun down on a cheap folding table that was off to the side and started patting me down, giving me a chance to look around. The small vestibule room we were in had to have been custom constructed since it would block the loading door, which meant these guys had been set up here for at least a while and had planned a defensive entrance.

The pat down also gave me a chance to see the leather vests each of them wore had a big, bold patch on the back. I recognized it immediately, though I hadn’t seen one in years.

The Guns of Thunder were a small biker gang that had sprung up in the back regions of Oregon. In the 90s and 00s they’d been a growing criminal element and had started to gain traction running opioids and knockoffs. Then they’d gotten into a short and bloody war with the other major biker gangs in the state, namely the Gypsy Jokers and the Mongols, and had dropped off the face of Oregon after a summer of killings that had spiked the murder rate for the state dramatically.

“He’s clean,” grunted the guy patting me down.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” asked the other guy, still with his shotgun trained on my chest.

“I heard you guys had a sort of market going on here,” I said. “I just wanted to check it out, see what was going on.”

The only thing that made me feel like this wasn’t the worst idea was that both of the bikers were wearing gaiters to cover their mouths. How could bikers, of all people, be more into pandemic safety than the sovereign citizens?

“So you didn’t bring anything to trade?” the big guy asked.

“Trade?” I asked back.

“Yeah, to trade,” he said. “Jesus, what, do you think you just walk in here and grab whatever you need and leave? This isn’t a charity.”

“Not for a big fuck like you, anyways,” the other guy grunted.

It clicked for me then. This was a black market. A literal one. People who didn’t have cash to spend at the grocery store were coming here and trading for what they needed. Now I just needed to figure out what they were trading.

“I didn’t know what to think, guys,” I said. “I just wanted to see what it was about.”

“Yeah, well, fuck off until you bring something worth trading,” the guy said.

“Like what?”

The two of them looked at each other for a moment. “Useful shit. Expensive shit. If you’re any fucking useful, you could trade services or goods.”

“That’s pretty vague,” I said.

“Are you a fucking cop or something?” asked the guy who patted me down.

“Do you see a badge on me?” I asked.

“Swear allegiance to the flag,” the one with the shotgun demanded.

“What?”

“If you aren’t one of those fucking hicks spouting off that dumb shit in the woods about not being an American, swear allegiance to the flag,” he demanded.

Shaking my head, I stood straight and cleared my throat before putting my right hand over my heart. “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The two of them both grunted and nodded.

“Still doesn’t mean you ain’t a cop,” said the guy who patted me down.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” another guy, also with the biker cutte, said as he stuck his head in the room. Beyond him I could see a sliver of the warehouse, but no details.

“This guy showed up on foot with nothing to trade,” the guy with the shotgun said.

The third guy came into the vestibule, shutting the door behind him. He was older, maybe in his fifties, and was also wearing a medical mask. He narrowed his eyes as he looked me over. “Military,” he said.

“I was,” I acknowledged with a nod.

“Navy?”

“You think I’d fit on a ship?” I snorted. “Army.”

“Not everyone who served in the Navy was on a ship the whole time,” the guy said and rolled up his sleeve. His inner forearm had an eagle gripping a globe, a K-bar knife stabbed through.

“Kuwait?” I asked.

“And Afghanistan,” he grunted. “You?”

“Afghanistan and Iraq,” I said.

“Hm,” he grumbled. “What are you doin’ here?”

“I heard there was a market, and I wanted to check it out,” I said. “I’m not looking to fucking steal or scope it out for a hit or something. I just wanted to see what was on offer.”

“Come on,” the older guy jerked his head towards the door. The younger two looked like they wanted to argue, but one glance from the older guy quieted them. He either had some ranking in the motorcycle club, or he was just respected as a hard-bitten marine.

I followed him through into the warehouse and found that there were about a dozen tables and booths set up. Perishable goods on one side, non-perishables on the other. Members of the club were behind both, and another two were armed with a couple semi-auto rifles of different makes as they stood guard. One glance up into the rafters told me there were at least another two of them up there on overwatch. In between the two main food tables were four other tables, each displaying different goods and worked by what looked like a local person. One table had eggs and a few roasted chickens rotating in what looked like an old warmer from a gas station. The guy also had live chickens in cages behind him. A woman at another table had fresh fruits that could have been found at any roadside fruit stand, except I realised that all summer I hadn’t seen any of the usual fruit stands. The third and fourth tables were both actually chest freezers filled with ice. One had a selection of meat and the other fish that looked like it had probably been caught off the coast yesterday and made its way here in under 24 hours.

“Wow,” I said.

“The market is no-cash,” the old marine said as he led me around. There were a few other customers around, and I could tell that they were bartering. “We take goods-for-goods if you want to trade in stuff, though I guarantee you aren’t going to get cash value for whatever you paid. And we don’t ask questions where it came from, but if we find out you killed someone for it then you’ll get whatever you gave. If you’ve got a useful skill, like working on cars or carpentry, we’re willing to bank some favours for free work in the future but that only gets you so far.”

A door closed somewhere deeper in the warehouse, the sound echoing through the space, and a couple came out of the darkness. One, the lanky man wearing a club cutte, was grinning and practically skipping. The other was a woman, somewhere in her late twenties, who looked a little frazzled but happily followed the guy to the perishables table and he started loading up a bag for her.

“You ain’t pretty enough to tempt any of the lads,” the marine chuckled. Then narrowed his eyes when he saw the look I gave him. “We don’t ask for it,” he said gruffly. “It’s one of the rules. But if a pretty lady offers, we’re still men. And we give them way more than a blow or a screw would have run from a hooker would have bought back before all this shit.”

Part of me was disgusted, but the other part of me was surprised by the anger he’d had at my silent accusation. If what he said was true, could I really blame them? Their operation was functionally feeding people who didn’t have cash, which meant people in need. How long ago had Mary crossed my path in the grocery store parking lot, begging for money? If I hadn’t met her that day, how long would it have been until offering a toss in a back room of this warehouse had been her only real way to get food into her kids' mouths?

“How many people?” I asked.

“What?”

“How many people come through in a day, or a week?” I clarified.

“Maybe fifty a day. A few hundred a week, maybe a little more. People don’t usually get enough to last a week.”

“Where’s all the food come from?” I asked.

“The booths are from locals we partnered with, other than the fish. We’ve got a guy who does runs from the coast and hits a bunch of places. The other stuff comes in where we can get it.”

“It sounded like you guys have had issues with the sovereign citizens. Did they try and roll you?”

“The Golden Beaver boys?” the ex-marine snorted. “Not a fuckin’ chance. Those pricks roll the grocery store and a couple of other places in the area, but they don’t have the stones to come at us.”

“So who are you so worried about?” I asked, nodding back at the vestibule. I was right, looking back at it - they had built it custom, and not only was it a little dry-walled structure but it was also lined with steel plates. No one was going to shoot up the place from that direction unless they got through the heavy door.

“You kidding, Legs?” he asked. “Everyone. Any fucker who comes in here thinks they can roll us. Tweakers especially. And just because the Golden Beaver idiots don’t have the stones doesn’t mean the crazy militia assholes that are running around are the same.”

“Militia assholes?” I asked. And then I immediately realised I’d crossed a line.

“You ask a hell of a lot of questions, kid,” the old guy said. “So are you going to tell me what you’re fuckin’ doing here, or what? Because if you were just looking to see what you could trade for, your questions would sound a hell of a lot different.”

I grunted out a sigh. “Alright,” I said, making sure my hands were visible. “Your boys in there were right, I’m a Sheriff.”

He looked at me and then snorted behind his mask. “Sheriff of what? There isn’t a sheriff's department around here.”

“Black county,” I said. “It’s new.”

“Yeah, you come up with that yourself?” he chuckled.

“I left my badge and sidearm in my truck so I didn’t antagonise you guys,” I said. “I parked it out back of the grocery store. If you have access to the roof one of your guys up in the rafters can probably see it from here.”

He narrowed his eyes again, his hands stuck in his pockets as he glared at me, but he didn’t call for anyone to check that. “So what is it you want?”

“Honestly? I wanted to make sure whoever was running this place wasn’t doing some evil shit,” I said. “The sexual favours stretch it for me, but if you’re swearing to me it’s an only-when-offered deal, then I can look past it considering the world. It still doesn’t seem entirely smart considering the pandemic, though.”

“That it?” he asked gruffly.

“You dealing drugs out of here?” I asked.

He made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a growl. “Stereotyping us, pig?”

“I grew up around here, I remember the Guns of Thunder,” I said.

He grunted. “There’s only a couple of guys left from those days,” he said. “I took over the last shreds of the club from my brother when I got out of the Marines. I’m not gonna tell you we’ve been straight and narrow, but we don’t do shit with drugs and we haven’t done anything to folks who don’t knowingly choose to put themselves in our way.”

“So loansharking, gambling, maybe a little running prostitution?” I guessed.

He just looked at me levelly.

“Got it,” I said. “I had to pledge allegiance to the flag on my way in here. Can you still do the same, with what you’ve been doing?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” he said.

“Then I’ve got no problems with this,” I said, gesturing to the market. “But, since we’re on speaking terms, I am looking for someone.”

“Get the fuck out,” the ex-marine grunted.

“I’ll pay if you’ve got the info I’m looking for,” I said.

He did not, in fact, want to be paid for information. He didn’t exactly say ‘Snitches get stitches’ but I definitely felt the implication. I did, however, give him my number just to try and build a little goodwill. I wasn’t about to ride out to save them if someone attacked their market, but if the Staties came around or someone else I could try and intervene.

Two of them trailed me back to my truck, openly brandishing their rifles as we walked the two hundred metres back to the store. They stayed about fifty yards back and watched me get into my truck, start it up and leave.

“Fuck me,” I groaned to myself as I pulled back around the grocery store. A fucking black market in Jewell. A biker gang that I thought was gone had risen from the grave and was running it. It was absurd. It was also, if I could find a way to get into their good graces, a possible lead if they had problems with militia groups. If nothing else, they might be able to tell me general locations or territories, but it was entirely possible they had connections that could narrow down who actually hit the site.

All I needed to do was convince them to help me.

The whole encounter had only taken maybe ten minutes, which meant the dairy and frozen food I had in the back was still fine and I had time to do my meat pickup before heading up to the Rez. Stopping in the parking lot of the grocery store before I left, I quickly pulled out my phone and texted Kara for her address or directions to her place.

‘Why? Did you figure something out?’ she texted back, making me sigh.

‘Not yet. Bringing you supplies,’ I responded.

‘Don’t. It’s dangerous here,’ she texted back.

‘Do you have enough food for all three of you?’

‘We can figure something out.’

I grunted and hit the voice messaging button. “Kara, if you don’t tell me where your place is, I’m going to drive around up there honking until I find you.”

She sent me her address, and I headed out. First stop, meat. Next stop, a reserve full of natives who hated my guts and were dealing with an outbreak of a deadly pandemic. What could possibly go wrong?