Chapter 22

Two weeks after Doomsday,
Lancaster County, Virginia

“We ... have an idea ... a proposal of sorts. Now that we’re all bi ... and very polyamorous, many of us have decided that we want ... to be ... a group marriage. All of us are married to you ... and to each other. What are your thoughts on that, babe?” Hannah urged me, even as we set up camp in a sense in northern Virginia.

“So ... this is ... a mutiny,” I teased a bit, but I had to admit that I was flattered ... still, “how many folks are talking about here?”

“Well ... all of us ... we’re all ... committed to being yours ... and making you ours. Everyone who has been ... physically intimate with you. That’s all of us of age, I should say. But there’s definitely an inner circle more connected to you than most, right, guys?” Autumn spoke up as she began to kiss me repeatedly.

Hannah, Xia Delan, Autumn, Stacy, Eve, Kylie Anne, Kelly Rae ... they added their kisses to my lips immediately. Of the some one-hundred twenty-one others of age (besides myself) in the group now, they were clearly the most enthusiastic of my wives. Then again, the others were obviously rather interested of late, as they proved with kisses of their own ... to which the men now added theirs. It was a new feeling, being kissed by guys, but so be it. Luckily, I was then distracted before I could dwell on my adjustment to my new sexuality.

“Well, we’re now in Lancaster County, Virginia. What will we find here?” I mused as we looked at the map and I tried not to be too ... distracted by so much affection.

“Trouble,” Marcy announced herself.

“Explain, please,” I coughed now.

“The new power in Lancaster County, since Fireball Day, is the Sheriff, Aston Milam. Sixty years old, suffering gout, yet quite ruthless and ambitious. He’d never been able to rise above Sheriff in the past, mostly because of northern Virginia politics and too many enemies over the years. Well, now he’s taken his revenge. The Congressman from his District might have been killed on Doomsday, but all state legislators survived it long enough to get hanged on Milam’s orders.

“He’s an enormously paranoid guy, Sheriff Milam. Half of the mayors have been hanged, along with one-third of the town councillors, every member of the Board of Supervisors, the Treasurer, and the Commonwealth Attorney. The rest were shocked into obedience, to put it mildly. He’s also banned all private ownership of assault rifles, of course, and imposed a licensing tax for legal possession of handguns, thus triggering confiscations.