Chapter 1

Heidi Swenson read the letter a third time.

The first time she had laughed thinking it was a practical joke being played on her by one of her conniving friends from the auto dealer shop. The second time, she had carefully focused on each word and double-checked the return address looking for some weakness to reveal its bogus nature because she was still convinced it was either a trick or some silly game. This final time, she absorbed each word and understood it could easily be confirmed by merely calling the contact number and acknowledging the receipt.

She remembered it was only about six months ago that she had seen the tweets on her pretty little cell phone that made fun of the fact that her country had re-instituted the draft for military conscription, only this time it would be non-gender specific and would apply to both males and females. It had seemed so funny and ridiculous at the time and she had almost fallen out of the bed laughing right in front of her two-timing boyfriend Oscar with his silly pretense of constant eagerness to make love no matter what time of day or night.

She hardly talked to her grandfather any more despite the fact he was the one that completely underwrote her carefree and hedonistic lifestyle with no interference or complaint about her lack of responsibility for her own actions. Still, she was concerned enough about the disturbing letter from the military induction center to call his emergency number and ask for a few minutes of his time.

Heidi’s parents were both killed in an unfortunate airplane crash that was said to be “pilot error” in local television stations, but many news organizations from other countries labeled the incident as “terrorist-related”. The whole terrorism thing was something she preferred not to think about at all because it was so depressing that she usually needed a massage just to get her mind off the grisly details. Her grandfather was fairly pragmatic about such things and rarely spoke his mind in public. She liked that about him because he was always more of a “listener” and not a “talker” like her doting father. She had cried profusely when her parents were lost forever, but he had just told her,

“Get a grip on it and keep a stiff upper lip, dear.”

It had sounded totally generational and led to her pretending to have a fit of coughing just to hide her giggles that would most certainly annoy her elderly grandfather at a time when she only wanted his sympathy.

She was not all that familiar with the term but she was certain his intentions were good even if talking to him was like talking to a history teacher with little interest in things she found less boring. He was the kind of person that always looked on the bright side and kept his opinions to himself.

She heard his deep voice at the other end of the line and immediately started to disclose her worries about the letter erasing the polite chatter of usual telephone conversation from her preoccupied mind.

“Oh, grandfather, this letter is from the central headquarters of the military induction program and it has my birthdate and my identification number right up on the top. How could they possibly want me to pick up a rifle and go out into the woods and do those nasty war things? It all seems so dirty and not my style at all.”

Heidi was on the verge of crying. She felt so sorry for herself that she had to get her grandfather’s opinion. Hopefully, he would have some sort of plan to get her out of this silly mess because she was not at all certain it was the sort of thing that she would find even remotely exciting or adventurous.

“Listen, my little dumpling, you shouldn’t get all worked up over this. We are not at war except for the Russians making trouble. But that is not at all unusual. They are always making trouble and that will never change. There is always the “terrorist” problem, but the government seems to think we are not truly involved in that. After all, we were quite generous in allowing so many of their people to come into the country and let them set up their own little enclaves with their brand of law. I am certain it will only be a ceremonial thing and you will have an interesting story to tell your girlfriends about when it is all over and finished.”

He managed to cheer her up and she started to think that the next twelve months would not be so bad even if it did mean she would not be attending parties and finding partners with new fetishes to expand her sexual horizons. She was still young and had plenty of time to taste all that life had to offer. It was just her bad luck that they had randomly selected her. It angered her that they were picking females in equal shares with the males, but that is what they told her was best for all females. She was all for “equal rights” but the concept of “equal responsibilities” seemed a bit too much to a young girl of only eighteen. Besides, there must be hordes of trouble-making boys that wanted to shoot things and brag about how brave they were at this or that battle.

Her best girlfriend Natasha told her in the strictest confidence,

“Dear little Heidi, there will be oodles of young men in tip-top shape all primed to look for the nearest pretty little thing when the sun goes down. Just play your cards right and you will be getting more propositions than you can shake a stick at because it is still almost two men for every woman in the service.”

Her words brightened Heidi’s thoughts immensely and she wondered if it might be possible to alter the terribly designed military clothing to enhance her well-endowed chest development and accentuate her generously curved backside. It would give her some added leverage in dealing with the drooling males and keeping them on short leashes when the opportunity for nocturnal exercises arose unexpectedly.

The last experiment with her Uncle’s best friend had turned out to be a complete disaster despite her staunch efforts to stiffen the older man’s equipment when push came to shove. It was quite disappointing to be left frustrated after midnight even with his willingness to compensate for his shortcomings by using other means. The entire affair convinced her that she would concentrate on pleasing younger men and avoid the May-December romances that constantly fell short of the mark in that area where passion was of the essence. Her fling with “Mark” was doomed to disaster from the very beginning because he was so addicted to the pain killing pills that were all the rage these days. Her doctor had informed her that the ingredients that made the brain their prisoner were the same culprits that made the male equipment useless at times when stiff resolve was needed to cement a relationship in the only way humans were able to achieve complete satisfaction.