Chapter 5: Hook, Line, and Sinker

Victoria Eglin

Silvia Cornish tried her best to comfort Victoria and even tried to get in the shower with her but Victoria was not in the mood.

“Leave me alone Silvia. Make yourself useful and get me something for my cuts and bruises,” Victoria pushed Silvia away.

Victoria threw the filthy cum-stained clothing she was wearing in the trash and cranked up the water as hot as she could stand it and washed her filthy body, mindful of her black eye, split lip and bruised ribs. She cleaned her sex, douching several times and finally she washed her hair.

Silvia returned with salves and a cold compresses for Victoria’s eye and her ribs. She helped Victoria dry her hair and put on her makeup.

Silvia had brought in babydoll pyjamas for Victoria to wear and finally gave her some paracetamol.

Billy Brody had done a good job beating up Victoria. Her injuries were convincing and substantiated her story.

“I need a drink,” Victoria said when she was finally clean and feeling better.

“You shouldn’t drink whilst you’re medicated,” Silvia said reproachfully.

“Get me a fucking drink Silvia. Pope hasn’t finished interrogating me and I’m going to need it,” Victoria slipped into sheer-to the waist pantyhose, full-cut satin panties and kitten heels and put on the babydoll pyjamas.

Silvia returned with a double gin and tonic in a highball glass and handed it to Victoria who supressed the urge to gulp it down. She’d need a clear head for what was coming.

“Pope wants to see you,” Silvia said forebodingly.

Silvia stood and gritted her teeth a little with the pain.

“Was it bad?” Silvia whispered.

“What do you think?” Victoria hissed and hobbled to the opulent, open-plan lounge room where Pope sat, still wearing his smoking jacket and sipping bourbon on ice.

“I should probably hand you over to my interrogation team but I prefer to hear what you have to say myself. If you’re honest that won’t be necessary,” Pope said smugly and placed his mobile phone on the glass-top table.

“Take a seat. Get comfortable, this is going to take a while. Silvia, bring over the gin, a bottle of tonic and an ice bucket and a bottle of bourbon for me then get the fuck out,” Pope gave her a crocodile smile.

Victoria sat across from Pope and made herself as comfortable as possible.

“Why did they let you go?” Pope began the interrogation and hit voice record on his phone.

Victoria began her well-rehearsed tale. As with most good lies, her story contained elements of truth.

“Put simply the ransom was worth more to those scum than I was. Once they had all had a turn with me their leader knew that his men would continue to fight and squabble over me until I was useless to them,” Victoria whispered.

“They’re just like you say they are: not much more than an organised rabble, one step above the scavengers,” Victoria’s timbre became stronger as she got into it.

She didn’t know where the Revolutionaries base of operations was because she had been blindfolded when she was taken there and again when she was transported to the ransom rendezvous. She didn’t know where she was held but it appeared to be a group of rundown buildings that the Revolutionaries had rudimentarily fortified, possibly in or somewhere near Odessa, she couldn’t be sure.

The Revolutionaries had a leader (of course she made no mention of the fact that their leader was a woman) but his control over his men was fragile and discipline was poor. Their equipment was old and poorly maintained and their raids into Durden City and on Pope’s convoys were opportunistic and not well planned.

When they attacked the television studio they had no idea that Victoria or the Comfort Girl were there; their goal was to try to knock out the broadcasting facility but when they found the two women the men had become undisciplined and disobeyed their leader, insisting on abandoning their mission and taking the women as prizes.

There was no doubt that the Revolutionaries were formidable fighters, there was plenty of evidence of that, but they were opportunistic hunter gatherers.

Victoria had to be careful. She couldn’t describe the Revolutionaries as a disorganised throng; there was too much evidence to the contrary but she played down their organisational and planning skills and reported their number to be a fraction of what they actually were.

“Also they are poorly supplied, that’s why the fuel, ammunition, food and vehicles they demanded were worth more to them than I was,” Victoria explained.

Victoria extrapolated and elaborated her story, careful to ensure that what she said was based on the observations of someone who had been held captive in one room for most of time she was their prisoner and had spent most of her time on her back, servicing the sexual needs of a succession of men.

“What about the Comfort Girl?” Pope asked.

“Madeline? She was held in a room next door to mine. I could hear them ... you know ... using her. I only know her from The Mating Game and the time we spent handcuffed and blindfolded when we were captured,” Victoria sounded dismissive of the Comfort Girl.

“They knew that she would be virtually worthless to you so they kept her to ... well you can guess why they kept her,” Victoria tried to sound flippant.

The interrogation went on for hours, Pope made Victoria tell the story over and over; trying to catch her out in a lie but eventually he began to believe her. Her story made sense and corroborated what Pope thought he knew about the Revolutionaries. She played to Pope’s vanity: of course everything that Pope thought about the Revolutionaries was true. His assessment of his enemies was astute and accurate.

“Okay, I’m going to send a doctor in here to see to your injuries and when you are well enough you can resume your duties,” Pope clicked off the recorder.

“Until then you won’t be much use to me. Silvia has been deputising for me here in your absence and will continue to do so until you are fit enough to take the reins,” Pope stood up and adjusted his jacket.

“Has she been deputising for me in the bedroom too?” Victoria tried to sound jealous, once again playing to Pope’s vanity.

“She’s not as good as you are in bed but I’ve taught her a few things. You will be performing those duties too once your cunt is up to it. I want to hear more about what those men did to you. You’re a whore of course so you probably enjoyed every second of it, just like you did in the breeding chambers. It would have been like old times for you I suppose,” Pope stroked Victoria’s cheek but his words were designed to be like acid poured on her wounds.

Pope loved Victoria in his own sick way but he couldn’t help hurting her emotionally and sometimes physically whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Victoria pretended to be hurt by what Pope said to her but she was secretly gloating. He had swallowed her story hook, line, and sinker.

Pope did send a doctor to tend to Victoria’s wounds but the doctor was also tasked with making a forensic examination of Victoria’s body to confirm that her injuries were consistent with her story. The doctor confirmed that Victoria’s injuries were compatible with someone putting up a struggle and being beaten into submission. The bruises on her wrists were consistent with her being cuffed for an extended period and her vulva and vagina were bruised in keeping with someone who had undergone rigorous intercourse possibly with multiple partners.

The doctor was unable to confirm this via a vaginal swab because Victoria had douched in the shower but her clothing was recovered from the trash and the lab technician described the stains on her dress, underwear and hosiery as ‘a primordial soup of semen and bodily fluids’.

When Victoria heard the results of the forensic report she was glad that Susan had been astute enough to get volunteer troopers to come to the ops centre barracks and masturbate into Victoria’s panties and nylons and over her dress while they watched pornography.

Victoria’s story was believable and verified by medical and scientific examinations. She was returned to ‘full duties’, as Pope referred to them, and she undertook them enthusiastically.

Unlike his grandfather and his father before him Pope realised that the world was slowly and inextricably recovering from the disasters of world war three, the civil wars and the ravages of SARS X. The new world would look nothing like it did before the pandemic of course but if history had taught men nothing else it was that empires fall and new ones take their place.

What was once the United States of America was a collection of city-states stretching across the land, most ruled by leaders like him; the citizens working as vassals for the common good. Trade between the cities was increasing, some cities were rich in commodities, they were farming, growing cereal crops and raising cattle and sheep. Other cities were rich in technology and manufacturing, whilst others preyed on the other cities taking what they wanted by force.

Durden City was a fortress where oil production and refinement was the main trading staple. Being one of the first cities to arise out of the Armageddon it was the most sophisticated and organised and traded petroleum products for what the city lacked in other staples.

What all of the city-states had in common was a dearth of females. Some had set up breeding programs similar to Durden City but they were late to the party; Durden City held the largest brood stock of females on the continent and females were the most valuable resource and Pope was willing to trade. A consortium of cities traded with one and other, with gold as the agreed standard under a system whereby nearly all cities fixed the value of their currencies and credits in terms of a specified amount of gold.

This made sense if the shattered nation was going to emerge from its current feudal archetype and Pope wanted to be the richest citizen of whatever new world was coming.

There were many secrets to Pope’s success as a people smuggler. The first was absolute secrecy. Only a select few had access to the breeding program data and the mechanics of the program itself and everyone was kept compartmentalised. Access to the Breeding Facility was tightly controlled. Except for the Brood Mothers no one had access to the young virgin breeders except for the medical staff.

Even the Commissioners, who were permitted one-on-one dalliances with the female breeders, were not allowed anywhere in The Breeding Facility except for the bedrooms put aside for that purpose or the comfort chambers. The most trusted members of the City Guard, a small elite force called the Praetorian Guard policed the population and protected the Breeding Facility. They also guarded and escorted the Comfort Girls when they left the Comfort Palaces and as recompense, were given gratis access to the Comfort Girls.

The breeders themselves only had each other and the Brood Mothers to converse with. When they were providing sexual congress to the Commissioners they were strictly to forbidden to talk about the mechanics of the breeding program and the fact was that they knew little about it themselves. In the breeding chambers there was little opportunity to strike up a conversation with the men breeding them.

Anyone who became too suspicious was dealt with ruthlessly by Pope Durden; Harlan Cooter being a case in point.

Pope only traded females that had not yet entered the breeding program or had retired. While the females were in the breeding program they were to some extent public property. They were publicly advertised and some men had their favourites; their disappearance would be noticed. But girls not yet active in the program and women who were retired were sequestered away from the public.

But Pope couldn’t pull all of the strings himself. He needed people he could trust implicitly inside the Breeding Facility. Someone who selected which girls and women to trade, someone to keep the females disciplined, repressed and compartmentalised, someone who had unfettered access to Durden City’s data banks, someone to cook the books so to speak.

That person was Victoria Eglin and her accomplice was Silvia Cornish.

This was another reason that Pope was disposed to believe the story of her capture and release. Victoria was just too valuable to him.

Madeline Smith

Madeline lay on the bed dressed in a red satin chemise with matching bikini panties and black fifteen denier hold-up stockings and red fuck-me high heels. Her short black bob accentuated a face painted to perfection, her emerald green eyes framed by her bangs.

It was to be their last night together before they went back into Durden City. For over a year Madeline had been Virgil’s concubine, mistress, paramour or courtesan; pick a label. Madeline didn’t have one. She was in love with Virgil Benning and he was in love with her. They were devoted to each other and Madeline wanted tonight to be special.

Virgil came out of the shower and found her lying like that on the big bed, her fragrance wafting across the room, exciting him. As soon as he saw her lying on the bed like that, smelling her, knowing that she was his and that she was ready to please him, he was instantly rampant.

He lay down beside her and kissed her tenderly, moving her hand away when she reached for him. Madeline was disappointed but sensed that Virgil had done so because he was on a hair trigger. She smiled to herself, knowing that she had caused him to be in that state.

He kissed her and tasted her sweet breath when his tongue slipped into her mouth and then he mounted her, rubbing his cock against hers as the kisses became more passionate. The feel of his steely rod pressing on her hard phallus shrouded in her red satin panties gave pleasure to them both.

Virgil followed her neck to the hollow of her shoulder with his mouth, kissing and licking her smooth creamy flesh, then he moved down to her breasts and licked around both of her areola until her nipples hardened and Madeline ached for him to touch her ripened teats. She guided his mouth to her teat and Virgil suckled it gently, taking it into his mouth, using the tip of his tongue to tease the engorged pink berry. Madeline threw back her head and moaned.

He circled his cock against hers, grinding it, feeling the heft of it through her panties. He could feel her panties becoming damp with pre-ejaculate and he smiled and moved on to her other nipple giving it the same attention. He alternated between tending to her sensitive breasts, to licking and nipping the hollow of her shoulder which he knew inflamed her desire and then on to her mouth where he kissed her fervidly and stifled her moans. All the time grinding his cock against hers, feeling the head of it poking above the waistband of her panties as it grew to full tumescence.

Madeline was in a paroxysm of bliss and her whole body was tingling but she felt guilty because her intention was to give Virgil her unfettered attention and to pleasure him until he released. He had turned the tables on her. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and held him close; sliding her legs along his sensitive flesh knowing that he adored the feel of her nylons on his skin.

Madeline reached between their bodies attempting to take him in hand and guide his manhood to her puckered bud which was aching to be pierced but Virgil outmanoeuvred her. He hooked his forearms under her calves and pushed her legs back, forcing her ankles back up high. He shimmed down her torso and took the head of her cock which was poking proudly above her panty waistband into his mouth and lapped at it with his tongue and Madeline screamed with lust and delight as he took her glans into his mouth and suckled it, licking the underside so that the tip of his tongue tickled her fraenulum.

Virgil was rewarded with a flood of sweet, viscous pre-seminal fluid which he gratefully swallowed. Then he took the whole of her phallus into his mouth and began to fellate her. She twisted her fingers in his hair and rose to meet him, her breathing erratic, waves of pleasure radiating from her penis.

Virgil eased aside the gusset of her panties and shifted his attention to her freshly-shaved scrotum, licking the delicate wrinkled flesh, taking one and then the other of her testes into his mouth and gently sucked them causing Madeline to shake and shiver.

Her whole body was alive with pleasure, the centre of which was concentrated in her loins where Virgil alternated between sucking her engorged penis and lapping her scrotum, driving her ever closer to extremis.

When she and Virgil began to live together he had been reluctant to use his mouth on Madeline’s genitals but as they cohabited longer he had become more adventurous with his lovemaking. Whatever measures Madeline used to pleasure him he began to mimic, returning the favour until all his inhibitions had been swept aside.

He licked her perineum, causing Madeline to tug harder on his hair, the delicate ringlets of pleasure coming from her grundle were delightful but she wanted him to take her in his mouth and finish what he had started. She ached for release.

But Virgil moved on and he drove his tongue into her delicate pink puckered sphincter and Madeline screamed. He was holding her legs open, her feet high in the air, her pubis fully exposed and her lover was licking her sphincter and lapping at her taint and there was nothing she could do but lie back and enjoy his ministrations.

She thought that she would faint if Virgil didn’t give her release soon. He kept licking her sphincter, lapping her perineum and scrotum and softly sucking her penis, rotating his attention to each pleasure centre, sensing when she was about to climax and then moving on. He was edging Madeline ever closer to climax but never letting her achieve it.

Madeline was wriggling, moaning and whimpering; wrenching at his scalp almost painfully; trying to guide his mouth to her penis to induce her orgasm.

When Virgil sensed that she couldn’t take any more he sprang to his knees and without warning he thrust his cock all the way inside Madeline’s slick anus.

She screamed as jets of scalding semen erupted from her trembling phallus as a massive orgasm overwhelmed her. She was trembling and crying and Virgil held her close and kissed her as his cock shuddered and planted his seed deep in her rectum. Madeline clung to him, feeling his body quake as he deposited his issue inside her, her own penis juddering between their bodies, spilling her seed onto her belly, Virgil’s belly smearing the viscous fluid on their flesh as he humped away at her.

They held each other tight, kissing as if there were no tomorrow, no words needed to be exchanged to express their love for each other. Madeline felt a little cheated because she had imagined herself edging Virgil to extremis until he begged for relief and Virgil, ever the attentive lover, had turned the tables on her and made her beg for her own climax.

Madeline lay in Virgil’s arms feeling the comfort and love that Virgil bestowed on her. She could hardly believe that her life had turned out to be like this: hopelessly in love with one man who was hopelessly in love with her. She had morphed from docile Comfort Girl to a warrior in Susan Solister’s Freetown army. She had been given the callsign Battle Angel and she adored it.

And now she was going back to Durden City to her old life.

“It won’t be the same,” Virgil tried to comfort her.

“I don’t want to go back,” Madeline was close to tears.

“You know why you have to,” Virgil mussed her bangs with his fingertips.

“Yes I know why and I will do my duty but I don’t have to like it,” she whispered and Virgil kissed the corner of her mouth.

“I’ll be there with you,” Virgil kissed her lips.

“You’d better be,” she wrapped her arms around him.

“You’re a warrior Madeline. You can take care of yourself,” Virgil consoled her.

“Yeah but I’ll feel so much safer knowing that you are there,” Madeline wrapped her legs around Virgil and held him close.

“Make love to me again,” she whispered and Virgil obliged.

Victoria Eglin

Victoria was like a spider in a web with access to every database, online information repository and inventory in Durden City. As a matter of course she had access to sensitive information available only to Pope and herself. It had been a relatively simple task to reactivate Virgil Benning’s personnel file. It had been suspended when he went missing from the City Guard because no one was sure if he had been killed in action, taken prisoner or deserted.

Victoria had reinstated him with the rank of Sergeant and assigned him to the elite unit, the Praetorian Guard so that he had unfettered access to the Breeding Facility and Comfort Palaces. She reactivated his bank account and filled it with credit. Not enough to draw attention but enough to live comfortably and to provide the necessary funds to complete his mission. She assigned him an apartment in an upper-class suburb. It was one of Pope’s new building projects, expanding the city’s infrastructure in anticipation of an ever increasing population and Virgil was the sole occupant.

Madeline’s personnel file had also been deactivated after she was kidnapped. Victoria reactivated it and assigned her to Comfort Place number three. Madeline had worked at Comfort Palace number one for the last few years but it was not unusual to assign Comfort Girls to different Palaces to meet the ebb and flow of commercial demands.

Madeline Smith and Virgil Benning

Virgil wore the full uniform of a Durden City Guard Sergeant and Madeline wore a simple black cocktail dress, hose and sneakers. She would put on her high heels once they were in the city proper. Her new shorter hairstyle was coiffed and she was wearing full makeup. Virgil carried a rucksack and Madeline carried a small suitcase, the contents of both would likely get them executed should they be stopped and searched.

They ran the rat-runs this time as passengers in an APC with a scout car leading the way. As they approached the kill zone around Durden City the vehicles switched off their lights and turned the interior lighting in the personnel carrier to red. The small convoy continued on slowly using the moonlight to find their way to the copse of trees where the vehicles pulled up using the thick growth to shield the heat signatures from their engines.

“I know I’m asking a lot of you Madeline but I wouldn’t send you unless it was absolutely necessary,” Susan surprised Madeline by hugging her and kissing her cheek.

“Take care of her sergeant,” Susan said gruffly to Virgil.

“Aye, aye ma’am,” he saluted her and she returned the salute and then surprised him by leaning and kissing the side of his mouth affectionately.

“You two troopers do your fuckin’ duty!” Major Billy Brody said gruffly to them both, but he was choked with emotion.

Both Virgil and Madeline saluted him and he saluted back but even in the red light they would see that he had tears welling in the corners of his eyes. The internal lighting was extinguished completely and Virgil and Madeline exited the rear of the APC, Madeline hanging onto Virgil’s webbing because he was wearing NVG.

He directed them to the sewer entrance.

“I fucking hate this place!” Madeline hissed but she climbed gingerly down the ladder.

Vigil passed down the rucksack, her suitcase and his rifle and then he followed her, struggling to put the manhole cover back in place but eventually succeeding.

“I’ll lead and you hang on tight to my webbing,” Virgil said as they both picked up their luggage.

“I don’t see why I can’t have NVG,” Madeline whined.

“The rats are bigger at night so it’s best that you don’t see them,” Virgil couldn’t help niggling her.

“Fuck the rats! Get me to Durden City and don’t get me covered in shit doing so,” Madeline replied.

They both wore disposable facemasks with air fresher inside to nullify most of the stench. Madeline heard the squeal of rats and the splashes they made as Virgil kicked them out of their way into the sewer and she felt the crunch of cockroaches under her feet when they weren’t quick enough to scurry away. The smell was offensive but at least it wasn’t as overpowering as it had been last time.

They made steady progress and eventually Virgil climbed a ladder and wrestled with a heavy steel manhole cover and managed to push it aside and they exited the tunnel into the crawlspace under the loading dock. They waited awhile and caught their breath and Madeline took off her facemask and sneakers and hoiked them away. She put on her heels and adjusted her clothing and picked up her suitcase. Comfort Girls did not wander the streets with suitcases without a valid reason.

In a purse inside her suitcase was her SIG Sauer M17 pistol. If she was caught with it she would have a lot explaining to do but Virgil’s Praetorian Guard shoulder patch and his rank should keep any nosy City Guards at bay.

Virgil shouldered his rucksack and his M4 carbine. He wore his M17 pistol in a thigh holster.

It was a long walk from the abandoned warehouse near the Durden City railhead through the industrial district and the housing precinct to downtown. They would have a difficult time explaining their presence in the industrial district and that was where they are most vulnerable. During the kidnapping, the van Virgil had used as a getaway vehicle had taken a long circuitous route through the city. Now at least they could walk directly towards the bright lights of downtown.

The lonely whistle of a railway locomotive pierced the night followed by the of clatter of turnbuckles and buffer stops, then the grinding sound of steel wheels on rails as a train pulled out of the railhead, the engine pulling a succession tank cars filled with petroleum products bound for other city states. A flatcar was connected in front of the engine, a twenty-five millimetre cannon and four 12.7 millimetre machine guns colloquially known as ‘fifty-cals’ were mounted on the car, manned by City Guards.

The Guards were on high alert because the Revolutionaries had been known to attack trains and sabotage railway lines but Virgil and Madeline knew that this train was safe. The Revolutionaries were keeping their powder dry for something bigger.

The huge steel doors in the protective wall around Durden City slid open to allow the train to pass. A platoon of City Guards was ready to repel any invaders that attempted to enter the city through the gap.

Virgil and Madeline hid in the dark and watched the train depart and the gates close behind it and then the platoon of soldiers left to take up their regular duties. Virgil led Madeline through the commercial district and they stopped only when vehicles approached, hunkered in dark doorways. There was no foot traffic until they entered the housing precinct.

Virgil took on an aggressive pose keeping Madeline ahead of him: a Praetorian Guard escorting a Comfort Girl to her place of employment. Madeline commanded some attention from the men they passed and a few whistled or made crude comments but Virgil ignored them and he knew that Madeline was immune to such taunts.

As they approached downtown the foot traffic increased. Men were busy entertaining themselves in the cinemas showing reruns of classic films, drinking in the bars and nightclubs, lining up outside the Comfort Palaces. The neon lights of the Durden City Casino competed with gaudy lights of Comfort Palace number one located adjacent. They continued past, Madeline looked at the building that had been both her home and her prison for many years but she had to admit that at the time she didn’t really think of the Comfort Palace as a prison. It was just a place where she lived and worked.

They continued through the city until they arrived outside of Comfort Palace number three. It was smallest of the Comfort Palaces and was located closest to the Breeding Facility. Comfort Girls from Comfort Palace three were often seconded to assist the Brood Mothers during the day.

“Ok this is it,” Virgil said grimly to Madeline and she nodded and smiled solemnly.

He would have liked to have taken her in his arms and kissed her but such behaviour would be unbecoming his station. Praetorian Guards might have free access to the Comfort Girls but they would never show them affection in public. Virgil gripped Madeline by the arm and took her to the entrance where a Praetorian Guard stood watch.

“She’s a bit old to be transferred between Palaces isn’t she Sarge? She’s either a great lay or she’s due to become a Comfort Granny and Brood Mother,” the soldier commented.

“She’s still a looker though and that body is hot. I might try her out when I finish my shift,” the soldier smirked.

Virgil resisted the urge to punch the man in the face. He knew that this was exactly how the City Guards talked amongst themselves, especially the Praetorians.

“She’s not a bad lay at all but I think her fuckin’ days are over. I think she’s being transferred here so she can start training to be a Brood Mother,” Virgil answered.