Chapter 203

“For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.”
—Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

IT WAS MY OWN FAULT. I was just such hot shit. The President quoted my memes. The National School of the Arts recruited me. I should have known they only wanted Cindy. That’s what I was there for: to give her career a boost. I was stupid to think my musicianship was in demand. I consulted with the Reform Commission, commented on the new drafts. And told them the President needed to do something right fucking now. Yeah. I was really a pain in the ass and now they were getting back at me.

I should just tell the boss to go suck it and let him send me for disciplinary action. But this training, the attitude, the pride my teammates had in what they were doing ... It all combined to weaken my resolve. I had no idea where I was or where I could go if I just walked away. It felt like the only thing to do was to keep training and survive.

I’m sure in a year or two they’d be all apologetic about how it was all a computer glitch that routed me to the wrong place. By that time my hands would either be so tough and calloused by the ropes I was handling in training or my fingers would be worn to the nubs by digging in the dirt.

I glanced longingly at my guitar locked in the cage at the back of the cabin. No chance I’d be playing it again but I’d never leave it behind.

I’m here, J. Don’t let go.

The days blurred. My responsibility was improving their endurance and ability to run. I didn’t need to improve their times, but their endurance. Derek’s was to increase our ability in the water. Longer swims. Rougher and colder water. Paul was a team leader. Dana learned emergency trauma care. Beyond stuffing a pill in someone’s mouth. Rick was a rock climber. John was a body builder. Lonnie was a spelunker.

Everybody had a specialty and taught it to the others under the watchful eye of the boss.

Our emergency kits, issued the second day of camp, included five day-rations of 2400 calories each. Each day we were in camp, we resupplied our packs so we always carried five rations. We all got used to stripping and swimming nude, sleeping nude. Sitting around nude on the days we needed to wash our jumpsuits and hang them out to dry. Eventually, even Dana went mostly unnoticed.

“Everything’s fine. He hasn’t got a clue,” a voice said somewhere. I came slowly out of a dream thinking the voice I heard was in my head. It started again, but there was a squeak and a shift in my bed. It had been too hot to sleep inside our bags, so we pretty much all just laid on top of them, stretched out naked. The shift in the bed pressed a warm naked body against mine.

“Hold me a little?” Dana asked. Her soft boobs pressed into my chest and she stretched out on top of me. Over the past ten days, we’d learned to depend on each other. I’d fallen during a rock climb and my partner had held the belay to keep me from plunging down. She was as strong as she was beautiful. I wasn’t about to turn down the request to hold her naked body stretched out on mine. I stroked her muscular back with rough hands. She rubbed her face against my chest. I could feel my cock begin to stiffen between us and for once, I didn’t care. That was part of the agreement I had with my pod. Accepting and giving comfort when we were away was accepted among us. All of the girls had at least one lover while in service. Some, several.

Dana lifted her lush lips to mine and slowly moved her body on me. Our tongues touched and it wasn’t long before I filled my hands with those perfect half-orbs. English be damned. These were orbs, the hard points of her nipples pressing into my hands. The kiss heated up.

“What about all the other guys?” I whispered. I was worried they’d be awake and watching, maybe wanting a go at Dana themselves.

“They can fuck each other,” she whispered in my ear. “I want to fuck you.”

“Yeah. We should still be quiet.”

“Then quietly stick your cock in my panty hamster.”

It didn’t take long for us to work into position so the tip of my cock was touching her wet slit. Panty hamster? What the hell! I pushed and she pressed down on me. For the first time since I last fucked Cindy almost two weeks ago, I felt the hot slick walls of a vagina encase my penis. Add to that the luscious tits that filled both my hands and I was stiff as a board. She kept kissing me as I pinched her nipples and used her tits to guide her speed in pumping up and down on me. She was slick and bare. I was looking forward to the next time already when I would get at least one hand on her bubble butt.

I started pounding up into her and had to move a hand around to the back of her head so she didn’t sit up and bang it on the bunk above. I wrapped my hand in those curls and hauled her mouth back to mine as we both increased our tempo.

“Fill me, Jake. Let me feel your come flooding me. I need this!” I felt her hand wiggle its way between us as she started beating on her clit to get over the edge. The explosion was almost silent for both of us, our mouths locked together to try to keep quiet. As my balls emptied, I just kept hunching at her, her nether lips dragging against my cock to keep it hard. Nor was she finished. She kept diddling her clit until we both climaxed again as I pulled hard on her long nipples.

She collapsed on me, panting, and I finally reached around to hold both of those glorious buns in my hands and squeeze. We rolled to our sides while still connected and went to sleep.

We headed for the pond at first light to wash the evidence off her pussy and legs. Neither of us bothered with clothes, either direction. In shallow water, she bent over and I pounded into her from behind until we both released our morning pressure. The guys coming down to the pond as we walked back to the cabin openly admired her breasts and pussy. She no longer seemed to care.

We didn’t screw every night. We were just too tired most nights. We still slept together most nights unless it just didn’t cool down enough during the evening that we could stand to touch each other.

It was one of those nights, hot and sticky, when I was having trouble sleeping. I heard the voice again. This time, I was positive it wasn’t part of my dream. I slipped out of bed and went to the door. The screen door let fresh air in and kept bugs out, but once I was close to it, I could hear the voice clearly and spotted the boss a few yards away, leaning against a tree, smoking a cigarette, and talking on his cellphone.

Cellphone? He told us there was no signal up here. But of course, none of us had actually been able to check our phones.

“He’s bought it hook, line, and sinker,” the boss said. “Totally believes he’s in a new branch of service. They all do. And the whore is doing great. We’ll get evidence soon and then you can run the photo with a nice headline. Like ‘President’s Poster Boy Dodges National Service to Run Off with Black Whore.’ He won’t be able to affect the election even if they forgive him and let him back in.”

I shrank back away from the door and returned silently to my bunk. I paused and looked at Dana in the top bunk, stretched out sound asleep on her back with her tits pointing skyward. In that moment, I was filled with such rage that all I wanted was to reach out and break her pretty neck. I wanted to fuck her dead corpse and spray come all over her tits. I wanted to piss on her. Shit on her. Got my back? She was just the boss’s whore, there to discredit me. My hand was reaching for her throat when I jerked myself away and shrank from my own vile thoughts.

I lay in bed wide awake the rest of the night, staring at the underside of the bunk that held the sleeping whore.

I wondered how many of the others were in on this little ruse. Paul? Our acknowledged leader? He had been the one to give me help in the bathroom—get me stripped out of my clothes and into a jumpsuit. Give me a drink. What would they have done if I hadn’t been sick? Drug me? Maybe they had drugged me. I didn’t remember anything from that whole day I signed my papers.

My papers. Were they even legit? They said they checked my papers and saw the bus number. The boss knew a lot about my background, but never mentioned that I was a musician. Had the service had anything to do with my assignment at all?

And now that I knew ... I knew they had set me up. My wives would have no idea what happened to me and wouldn’t hear a thing until they saw a photo of me with Dana that said I’d run off. What would they think? What could I do?

If I suddenly started acting differently, they’d know I was clued in. I needed to act the same. Even make love to Dana. I needed to watch for my opportunity and be prepared at any moment to escape. To run to my family and set things right.