Chapter 31

Things were finally coming together, and Mike couldn’t help but smile from the Deuce’s passenger seat as Charmagne turned onto the small, private lane leading to the school, with Eric and Rachel following close behind in the digger derrick. The solar power scavenging mission had been a resounding success.

The four of them had spent most of the day exploring the valley, hunting for components among the vale’s dozens of homes. Their break came when Rachel spied the glint of solar panels on a palatial mountain home, high up on a hillside, and whatever millionaire owned the place had spared no expense. They discovered an elaborate forty-panel, seventy kilowatt-hour off-grid setup that far exceeded Mike’s original design specs, and besides the panels and mounting hardware, they also stripped out the inverter, charge controller, and transfer switch, plus most of the wiring.

Scavenging the deep cycle batteries from the Cherry Creek Golf Club the day before had been another relatively easy success. As Mike hoped would be the case, no one else had yet clued in to the fact that a goldmine of power storage sat parked at the golf course’s clubhouse. It took only a few hours of turning wrenches to liberate fifty batteries, and they had just enough room left on the Deuce to also bring back one of the still-functioning golf carts, which would provide a convenient mode of transportation around the campus and surrounding environs.

Charmagne backed up the truck to the gym, and Eric parked the digger derrick next to it. At first light, Mike would conscript a work crew to begin setting the panels on the roof, but after a long day of labor, and with barely an hour of sunlight left before dark, it was time to eat, shower, and get some well-deserved rest.

“Mike,” Charmagne said after setting the brake, “Come down to the house with me. I got something I need to discuss.”

The house she referred to was her new residence. A home situated on a five acre wooded lot adjacent to the campus, a half mile east of Overton House. Scirewood was far from the only property in Copper Cove. Continuing east on Morgan Creek Road, past the turn for the school’s private lane, a handful of rural properties emerged, tucked away at the extreme east end of the cove, where two of the surrounding ridges met.

Charmagne and her troops scouted the house shortly after she arrived. Based on family photos hanging on the wall, and an empty bay in the garage, it was found to belong to a middle-age couple who must have been out when the gamma-ray burst occurred, and never returned. The small amount of food they discovered inside was added to the school’s pantry, but the house itself was deemed too far separated from the campus’s other buildings to be of much use.

Two recent developments altered that initial assessment. The observation post on Fitzhugh Mountain now provided a comprehensive view of both the campus and the house, and the recent acquisition of the golf cart would allow someone to cover the distance between the house and the dorm in less than three minutes by cutting through the woods near the Scirewood graveyard.

“I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I need a shower,” Mike said. “Can it wait until morning?”

“It’s important.”

He checked his watch. A Casio G-Shock that he’d owned since grad school. He stopped wearing it a few years ago because it was simply more convenient to check the time on his phone, but he found it in a bin inside his lab, still running after all that time.

“I can give you ten minutes, then I have to get back.”

“It’s gonna take longer than that,” she said. When he opened his mouth to object, she barreled ahead. “Look, you ain’t got shit to do. There’s food at the house, and you can get cleaned up while you’re there. The guy who owned the place left all his clothes behind. I bet you can find something that’ll fit. Shit, you can take it all back with you if you want, for you and them other guys.”

The prospect of fresh clothes sounded promising. Rachel, Theresa, and Haylee were all petite enough to wear some of the clothes left behind by the deceased students, and even Kali, with her enormous breasts, still found plenty of things that fit her, with the exception of bras. But there hadn’t been any clothing options for the men.

He and Eric browsed through the clothes at the mountain home while collecting the solar panels, but nothing fit. The owner must have been quite a big boy, because everything was two sizes too big. They did grab several things for Marcus, however.

Several times over the past couple weeks, Mike considered asking Chapman for a ride to his house to retrieve his clothes and a few other personal items, but something more important always came up. In fact, the only thing Mike had added to his wardrobe since the day he ran back from the Morgan Creek checkpoint was a blue hooded raincoat he found hanging in Davey Baden’s office, which he frequently wore to protect himself from the sun

Wearing what was likely to be a dead man’s underwear didn’t sound very appealing on paper, but it beat the hell out of washing the same pair every night and hanging it to dry on the towel rack.

“Fine, but I can’t stay long. I’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

“You ain’t gonna miss your fucking beauty sleep,” she said as she opened the door. “Cross my heart.”

Rachel was waiting for Mike when he dismounted the truck.

“Hey, I’m totally starved. Want to grab some dinner with me?” she asked with a mischievous smile.

They’d had “dinner” together the previous two evenings, when Theresa, who’d recently been cleared by Kali to resume clinic duties, and Marcus overlapped on shift. Dinner, in this case, being as much sex as they could cram into the narrow, thirty-minute window of opportunity, ending each time with a sensual blowjob for Mike, and a belly full of cum for Rachel.

Having become increasingly preoccupied with the business of securing the group’s collective survival, the four faculty members had very little time or energy left for orderly duties. At Kali’s insistence, staffing at the clinic was completely overhauled. Orderly duties now fell exclusively to a rotation of students, with faculty serving as supervisors. At the end of each shift was a thirty-minute overlap where the outgoing supervisor assisted Kali in the nurse’s office, dosing medication and sterilizing equipment. Mike and Rachel referred to this overlap as Dinner Time.

“I’d love to, but I can’t,” he said, much to her disappointment. “I still have work to do. We’ll grab dinner tomorrow. I promise.”

Rachel twisted her lips into a pouting smile. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

The four scavengers made their way to Overton House, where the golf cart sat parked beneath the porte-cochere. As Mike and Charmagne climbed on and prepared to depart, Theresa rushed out of the dorm.

“Thank god you’re here!”

Mike silently cursed. They hadn’t spoken much since her attack, and he felt like a terrible friend for avoiding her, but he didn’t know what else to do. He wanted to help her work through her trauma, but he lacked the mental health training to do so. When she was convalescing, he paid her visits from time to time, but whenever she mentioned their night together, or tried to discuss their relationship, he found an excuse to leave or change the subject.

She finally clued in on his refusal to engage, but it caused her to withdraw, until she eventually stopped bringing it up altogether. At first, he was relieved, but he could tell that even though she no longer talked about it, she still wanted to, and his rejection of her, even if it was all in her mind, hurt her badly.

Based on her expression now, however, he could tell this was about something else. She looked frazzled.

“Linda’s back,” she said.

Mike took his hand off the steering wheel and wiped his face. “Well, good. It’s about time. We need all the help we can get.”

“You don’t understand, Mike. She’s not helping at all. She forced Kali to put the feeding tubes back in, and now she says the students aren’t allowed to work in the clinic anymore.”

“What? Why not?”

“She says they shouldn’t be exposed to that kind of thing. She’s been upstairs for the past hour now, talking to them and laying down all kinds of new rules.”

Mike exhaled an exasperated sigh. “Fucking Linda,” he muttered. “What rules?”

“How they need to be back in their rooms every two hours for headcount, and how they’re not allowed to be on the second floor anymore. What they can and can’t wear. She’s even talking about resuming classes again! Who the hell is going to teach them?”

Mike sighed and raised his hand. “What do you want me to do about it, Theresa? I have ten more important things demanding my attention right now. I don’t have time to go to war with Linda over curfews and dress codes.”

“But we need help in the clinic. There’s not enough of us to do all the work. Kali and Renata are already working sixteen hours a day!”

“I don’t know what to say about that. We’re all working hard. The clinic is Kali’s to run. Besides, if Linda wants those patients to get the treatment they need, and I know she does, then she’s going to figure out soon enough that she has no choice but to let the students help out. It’s simple math. But that’s something she and Kali will have to work out between themselves.”

“Want me to talk to her?” Charmagne offered. “I’ll straighten her out.”

“No. Definitely not,” Mike said firmly. “You’ll only make it worse. Kali can handle this.” He turned back to Theresa. “Look, when I get back, I promise I’ll have a private discussion with Kali about it. We’ll figure something out.”

“Where are you going?” Theresa asked, casting a suspicious look at Charmagne.

“I won’t be long,” was his response.

Mike put the golf cart into drive and pulled away. As he sped down the narrow gravel footpath leading to the edge of campus, Charmagne kicked her boot up onto the center console and stretched her arm over the back of the seat. She turned to look at him.

“So ... dinner, huh?”

Mike looked at her from the corner of his eye. “That’s right. Dinner.”

“Mm-hmm.” She faced forward. “What’s on the menu? Sausage and clams?”

The house was nice. A fourteen-hundred square foot A-frame with three bedrooms, two baths, and two wood-burning fireplaces, tucked away amid the dense forest at the edge of the cove, with a small stream burbling down the hillside in the back. A true mountain retreat.

“Pilot on the water heater’s still lit, so the shower’s fucking hot,” Charmagne said, lighting several candles around the house. “That guy’s clothes are in the master bedroom.”

“Mind if we eat first? I’m starved.”

“I’ll get something going while you get cleaned up,” she said, removing her camouflage jacket. Her olive green tank top was soaked in sweat.

“Sure you don’t want to go first? You reek.”

She lifted her arm and sniffed. “Nah, this ain’t nothing. In Iraq, I once spent four days fixing an airfield in hundred and twenty degree heat. Had juice running down my legs. Stank so bad, I had to ride back to base in the trailer.”

“There’s an image,” he said dryly as he wandered to the back of the house with a candle.

She wasn’t exaggerating about the shower. The water was scalding compared to the cold showers he’d been taking at Overton, and there was slightly more pressure too. The bathrooms at the dorm all utilized tankless water heaters, which needed electricity to function. Such wasn’t the case here. Mike placed his palms against the wall and hung his head, letting the hot water wash over his back.

“Heavy lies the crown, huh? Move over.”

Mike turned to see Charmagne throw a towel onto the vanity through the steamed up glass door. Then she opened it and stepped naked into the shower with him.

“What are you doing?” he asked as she took his place under the heavy stream of water pouring from the shower head.

“You need to learn to relax, Mike,” she said, soaking her hair and quickly rinsing off her body. “You said you was in a rush, so I’m just trying to save us some time.”

“You know, it actually takes longer for two people to shower at the same time.”

“Fine,” she said, drizzling body wash into her palm. “Then we can talk in here. Back up a little bit. Little bit more.”

When he was fully out of the water and his legs touched the narrow shelf at the back of the shower, Charmagne squatted down in front of him to lather up his cock and balls. It took mere seconds for her slippery hands to bring him to full hardness.

“You said this would be quick,” Mike said, but the edge in his voice was gone. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Oh, fuck me, that feels good.”

“See? Even you get that itch every once in a while. Just try to relax. I’ll scratch it for you.”

Her hands moved in perfect concert, stroking his girthy shaft with long, slow, twisting strokes, and gently massaging his balls. The sensation was exquisite, and he knew he wouldn’t last long. Charmagne knew it too.

“You gonna blow it on my face, or what?” she asked.

Mike opened his eyes and looked down at her. “If you want.”

“I don’t mind it, but I already told you I prefer it in my ass.”

“Stand up,” he said, and she did without taking her hands off his cock. “I’m not fucking you in the ass until you’re clean.” He held out his hand. “Give me some soap.”

Charmagne eyed him critically. “You’re gonna wash me?”

“Sure. Why not?”

She stared into his eyes with a surprised look on her face. “No one’s ever done that for me before.”

“Really? Well, you’re in for a treat then. I’m going to wash you, and you’re going to wash me.”

Her eyes lit up. “Well, don’t that just sound sexy as fuck!”

She retrieved the body wash from the caddy and squirted enough soap into his hands to wash her three times over, then put the same amount into her own.

“Do you go first, or do I?” she asked.

The naive question told him that she had truly never done this before. He reached over her shoulders to add a little water, rubbed his hands together, and put them on her breasts.

“We go at the same time,” he said as he glided his palms over her nipples.

She grinned and went straight back to his cock.

“Not that it doesn’t feel good, but you have to wash my whole body,” he said, wiping his hands underneath her armpits to demonstrate.

She smirked and moved her hands to his chest. For a long time they didn’t speak as their hands explored every square inch of each other’s bodies. At first, Charmagne couldn’t stop smiling, but as Mike’s skilled hands and fingers found increasingly sensitive slopes and clefts to explore, her expression changed. It became more serious and determined, and he increasingly found her staring into his eyes.

The hissing water, hazy steam, and flickering candles created a sensual atmosphere that straddled the line between erotic and romantic, and that’s precisely what he saw in her face. He knew that look well. She wanted to kiss him.

Despite his worries that she would constantly pester him for sex, Charmagne had been surprisingly restrained. She only asked him for it a handful of times, and only when they were both incredibly stressed. And even though he didn’t want to admit it, each new time they fucked was better than the last.

She was always perfectly candid with him. She let him know exactly how she wanted it, and clearly communicated when he got it right. She also had the filthiest mouth of anyone he’d ever been with, but her dirty talk served as encouragement to heighten the experience. Charmagne loved sex and threw herself into the act without inhibition.

What he never saw from her, until that very moment, was intimacy. They sometimes kissed while they fucked, but there was never anything behind it. They didn’t stare into each other’s eyes, and they never held each other afterwards. If sex with Kali was utilitarian, then sex with Charmagne was recreational. Sport fucking. Nothing more.

The mood in the shower was different. She sighed and gasped and moaned. She lowered her eyelids and parted her lips. She moved her hands slowly, almost lovingly over his body. She leaned into him and rubbed her tits and ass against him. Charmagne was making love to him.

They were both covered in soapy suds from head to toe. Charmagne leaned her back against him while he fondled her breast and massaged her clit, his big cock sliding between her chubby thighs. She was beside herself with arousal and lust. She reached up to cradle the back of his head and ran her fingers through his wet hair.