Chapter 10: There’s No Place Like Home!

We finished with introductions, and Emily led us to her home. She looked around beneath a potted plant, and finally found a key, with which she opened the door. We entered, shedding shoes and boots, dropping packs on the floor, and then settling into chairs.

I figured we ought to refill our canteens sooner rather than later. Leading us into the kitchen, Emily tried the tap, which produced nothing. As she turned, I saw a note flutter to the floor. I picked it up, and handed it to Emily. “This is not likely to be for me.”

She unfolded it, and visibly relaxed. “John set the boys up for a camping trip, and is taking them to his folks. We had casually discussed this sot of thing happening, and what we might do. This was one of his plans.”

No surprise there. I asked her, “Where is your hot water heater?”

“I’ll show you, in the basement. Why? We cannot have any hot water, after 5 days?”

I agreed. “Nope, you likely don’t. What you do have, however, is 30 to 50 gallons of clean water. Let’s grab some pans and pitchers, and get some.”

We trooped into the basement, and by flash light emptied a couple of quarts into the first pan. It looked sort of rusty, from the accumulated sediment. When I switched to the first pitcher, the water ran clear, and we filled 4 pitchers before shutting the tap down again.

Upstairs, I filled the canteens again. “Emily? How about you look for the camping gear, and John’s guns. Let’s collect them here, and see what we have to work with.”

While Lucy and I topped off canteens, I heard Emily moving around upstairs. She made a couple of trips to the living room, and finally joined us in the kitchen. She looked around, and finally opened a cupboard. “Hmm. Anybody up for some canned spaghetti? My kids loved it, and so I bought lots. It looks like, more than John could carry!”

Enthusiastically, yes! We dug out utensils, and sat down for our first almost normal meal in a couple of days.

Once we had cleaned the dishes, we trooped into the living room. Emily apologized for the character of the equipment heaped there. “I guess John took the best of our stuff with him.”

Lucy contributed, “I hope so! Isn’t he taking your sons to his parents? How far is that, anyhow?

Emily looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, it used to take us 40 minutes to drive it, so I guess around 40 to 45 miles. That probably would take them two to four days, right?” She looked at me.

“Well, if they move as quickly as you and I did, count on 4 plus days. If they moved more quickly, because John is not so suspicious of folks as I am, might be closer to two days.”

I turned to the firearms, set off to one side. “Didn’t you say John had a .45? I don’t see it here.”

Emily looked more closely. “No, it isn’t there. There are none of the magazines upstairs, either. And the black rifle he had, it’s not there either.”

“Your husband may have anticipated bad things, similar to how I did. I hope his luck in avoiding it, is better than mine!”

Emily swooped in, and retrieved one lever action rifle. “Here’s his deer rifle! Wait, I’ll get the bullets!”

She scampered upstairs, returning with an armload of cartridge boxes. I admired her efforts. “That’s very good. Did he have anything to carry them with, like old army stuff?”

Emily set them on the sofa, and returned upstairs. “Here, look what I found!” she announced her return. I separated out the various pieces of canvas and nylon field gear.

“Here, this may help you carry your .30-30 ammo”, as I handed her what appeared to be a chest pouch for a Chinese SKS. “If you see metal clip things, they look like flat pieces of metal, that would help keep your bullets from clanking, and not let them get all jumbled up.”

She again ascended the stairs, and brought me several clips. “Like these?”

I turned them over in my hands. “Yep, just like those. Here, let’s see how helpful they turn out to be!”

I opened a box of ammo, and began to place the cartridges one at a time on the stripper clip. It wasn’t an exact fit, but appeared that they would keep them from puddling in the bottom of the pouches. “Let’s clip this ammo together, and settle it in your new pouches.”

While Emily clipped ammo, I turned to the armory on the floor. Finding a pump shotgun, I examined it: 20 gauge, Remington 870, with dual action bars. Four shot tubular magazine. I turned to Emily. “Do you have any ammunition for this shotgun?”

She snapped the last round onto the clip, tucked it into her pouch, and said, “Sure do. Here it comes!”

Several boxes of shells later, Lucy was kitted up with the 20 gauge, 4 slugs in the magazine, and five more in the buttstock shell holder. She had a field bag to sling over her shoulder, and there were another 25 slugs, and 50 buckshot of various sizes, placed within.

There were several backpacks of various sorts of quality. Emily picked through the stack, and, glumly, noted, “One of the boys must have my pack. I really like that pack!” She selected one from the pile, as did Lucy, and they set about organizing themselves. I asked them both, “So, is this your way to tell me that you’re coming along with me to Eureka? Not that you’re not welcome, but, perhaps you might want to be certain that you want to tag along. I don’t suppose I’ll be back this way for quite a while!”

Lucy looked at Emily, Emily looked at Lucy, and both turned to me. Lucy corrected me. “I really don’t have anything to go home to. Every time I think of that house, I think of Martin, and the pleading look in his eyes. If I go back, I’ll go insane. If you will have me, I’ll tag along with you. You’ve been a perfect gentleman to me, and Emily even told my how thoughtful you are of your love slave. If she is going to your house, so am I!”

I glared at Emily. She shrugged. “Well, Master, she was afraid, and did not really want to trust you. I told her that would be a big mistake, and trusting you was the best decision I have made in a long time.”

“Do you want to tell me how the topic of your being a love slave came up?”

“Well, today while you were ahead of us, I filled her in on how we came to ‘be together’, and how it had worked out. At first, she was kinda indignant, thinking you were a watered down version of those scum from the clearing, but I convinced her that not only did I have to convince you to take me, after you tried several times to talk me out of it, but you also showed me a really good time. Several times. And in new ways.”

I nodded. “I’m still disappointed that you blabbed our business to a third party. We will discuss this later, young lady!” I turned to Lucy. “And, as regards your future, what do you think is on your horizon?”

Lucy looked away. “I first need to get somewhere relatively safe. Then I need to wrap my mind around the fact that Martin is dead, and my life with him is over. Then, I guess I’ll see what develops.”

Emily contributed, “If Marie is willing, perhaps we could bunk with you guys? You said that you had sometimes invited other women into your bed. Think this might be one of those times?”

Lucy blanched. “I’m no so sure that I’m ready for that sort of thing, just yet.”

Emily reassured her. “Well, you know, I had to work to have him take me to bed-even if it was a bed of leaves!-so I don’t think that you’re gonna get any pressure, until you signal that you might be open to that sort of hospitality.”

I weighed in. “I simply do not know. Once I get home, Marie and I need to sort out what is happening, and get our security situation straightened out. While that is happening, she can consider her position on the matter. Then we can see if there are group happy times, or even other forms of sharing. Until then, Emily has volunteered to be my slave, and you, Lucy, rightly appear to be reluctant. No problem, no pressure, you are a guest. While you guys sort yourselves out, we have the room for you to stay. As for me, I could use some sleep. Who’s with me?”

Emily hopped up and down, “Me! Me! Me! Choose Me!”

Lucy grinned, a little. That was welcome. She observed, “Emily, you certainly do not seem to be oppressed by your slavery!”

Having locked the place up, a grinning Emily led us upstairs. Lucy was directed into the boys’ room, and settled her gear and guns in the corner. Emily led me to the room kitty corner from Lucy’s, and we similarly stashed our own gear. She and I met in the bathroom, where we sponge bathed, with cool water. I was scrubbing her back, when she turned over one shoulder to ask me, “What do you think Lucy is going to do, once we arrive in Eureka?”

I thought about it, and replied, “I don’t know. She seems resilient, and that likely will take her far in the new world we are living in. I’m pretty sure that Marie will be OK with her bunking with us, for a while, in order to give her a chance to get herself organized. After that, I don’t know, but I suspect that she will do alright. Eureka is a friendly little town, and she ought to be able to set down some sort of roots, if she wants to.”

Emily turned completely around, and drew me into a clinch. “What about me? I don’t even know if I want to take John back, and, well, I don’t want to horn in on some other woman’s man, but you have been treating me very, very good on this little adventure of ours.”

“Once Marie has had the opportunity to consider what this new world means, and how she feels about sharing, we can talk. She might be OK with short term sharing, or she might be up for a longer term arrangement. And, there’s you to consider. Do you really want to leave John? If you do, is it reasonable to leap from one marriage, into another relationship right away? I think you might want to take some alone time, to sort that out, before you jump right into things. You’d probably be happier with the results, if you deliberated before tying yourself down.”

She simply looked at me for a moment, then drew me in for a gentle kiss. Drawing back, she looked me in the eye. “There you go again! Naked girl in your arms, almost begging you to take her home and keep her as your girlfriend, and you ask her to stop, and think if that will make her happy. That is why I wanted to be your slave. Well, that and the fact that you shepherded me home, and saved a random girl’s life, and killed desperadoes, and made sure the random girl got someplace safe, oh, and did not make any effort to take advantage of the random girl. Which random girl was naked and helpless when you made that decision, by the way!” She paused, and made a moue. “Oh, yeah! You think I did not notice! I could see that the only thing on your mind, where any other guy would be ogling the naked girl, was the safety of all of us. I noticed that you sent the girls off in what you thought was likely to be a safe direction, and went alone to find, and stop, danger. You DO know, don’t you, how hot that makes a girl? Even if she hasn’t made herself your love slave?”

My favorite organ noticed the direction this narrative was taking, and Emily noticed Little Mark standing up. “Mark, please take me to bed, and make love to me. Romance me just like I was the cute girl in your class who you’ve been flirting with all semester. Let’s play, just as if you were the nice older guy, who I decided to go out with, and, now that the evening’s ending, I decided to bring home.”

I grinned. “Nice guy, eh? Well, it’s certainly not character acting, but I’ll do my best!”

I drew back, and regarded her naked form. “Uh, one thing? Did you commonly bathe with your dates, back in school?”

She playfully slapped my arm. “You rat! No! You ought to feel mighty special! None of my other dates ... none of my other boyfriends, even, ever got me naked in the light! Before I married John, all my playtime, was fumbling in the dark. You, mister, are a singular case.” She turned aside, and muttered, “Commonly bathe with my dates! Huh! Think I’m some kind of hussy! I’ve half a mind to let you sleep on the sofa!”