Learning to fend for oneself

A few minutes later, Jim found himself in a medium size hallway with a lot of other students. People just milled around, and the effects of the week of friendliness were beginning to show. Everywhere people stood in small mixed-gendered groups and a lot of French kissing was taking place.

After a few moments he spotted Cathy and walked towards her. "Hi," he said, kissing her soundly on her mouth. She just moaned in return, then she put her arms around his waist and pulled him in close.

"How was your run?" she asked when they broke apart. Jim never got to answer her before a dirty blonde girl scooped him away and kissed the bejesus out of him. Had anyone bothered to think about it, it would have been obvious that she had only barely managed to wait until Jim had kissed his partner.

A few minutes later, the hectic activity was interrupted as a small man and a tall woman entered the scene and loudly cleared their throats.

"Welcome to Firearms 101," the woman practically shouted. "Guns are a key part of our society. We are pacifistic at heart but acknowledge that pacifism sometimes requires a firm hand to be upheld.

Today, you are going to learn basic firearm safety, taught to hit targets and end up being graded.

Most of you will train with your partners. Some individuals will have far better skills than most of you, and like in every other matter, they will be separated out and trained differently..."

Jim, embedded in Cathy's embrace, wondered how skilled he would be. His parents had always disliked guns and believed in strong gun control, so he had never had the opportunity to shoot a gun. He silently hoped he would not make a total fool of himself.

Cathy on the other hand had shot quite a lot and was confident in her proficiency. Her parents were both members of their local gun club, and Cathy could not remember how old she was when she joined them the first time - or how many times she had been shooting.

While the woman was talking teens - especially girls - look at each other unbelievingly. A girl interrupted the tall woman and asked, "What if we don't want to shoot?".

The woman gave her a cold stare and answered with a feigned sweetness, "Well, that would be too bad, because you're gonna."

Just as she finished saying that, the short man (who no one had noticed leaving) returned with a large crate and said, "Come here, get a gun".

After some time, everyone had a weapon and the couple spoke up again.

"Gun safety is really easy. Always assume a gun is loaded and never point it on anything you would be unwilling to put a bullet in.

That said, there is a lot of practical skills and routines you need to learn..."

They spent the next hour going through the working of the guns (including taking apart and reassembling them) and how to safely handle them. In the end the short guy asked everyone to put the dummy guns back, as they would now receive real guns.

After all the dummys had been collected and new guns had been distributed, the tall woman continued, "As some of you might notice, the real guns are not generic weapons. We produce them ourselves.

They have a different caliber than every other non-society gun available, and they will only fire if they are held by a society member, that is it is in close contact with the ring."

A few minutes later the students and the teachers had entered the shooting range behind a thick steel door. The pupils were asked to sit and watch an instructional video that showed them the specific handling of their gun and how to aim.

After that they split up in two long lines and were asked to enter a booth one by one and demonstrate how to handle the gun. After the teacher who supervised the line thought they had shown proficiency with gun safety they were given a clip and asked to hit as many of the targets as they could. While they were doing the shooting, the other students and the instructor stood behind a transparent wall that would shield them from the gun if necessary.

After almost an hour, the students were let to a new range, with more challenging targets.

The tall female instructor gave one last speech, "So, we are almost ready for the normal part of your shooting training. But first we will have some final instructions.

First of all, your guns are personal, that is you take them home to your rooms, where you must store them. You can order ammunition at any time from the waiter and there are always "free-for-all" ranges open.

You are encouraged to shoot at least a few hundred rounds each week to keep up the training.

Next, all formal training is, like most other society training, competitive. So each of you will have a training partner of the other gender, and at every training pass, you will wage a sexual favor for the winner.

All shooters except Jim Johnson and Cathy Johansen may begin their training by agreeing on todays sexual favor and move to one of the unoccupied stalls... Jim, Cathy come here."

Jim and Cathy looked unsure at each other as they approached the instructors. As they arrived the female instructor smiled warmly at them and said, "Don't worry, everything is good.

It just happens that Jim shows enormous potential and Cathy "only" good potential. As we have a couple from last year with the opposite problem, that the girl's skill greatly outweighs her partners, we have decided that you will swap shooting partners. Cathy please follow Bill to your stall."

As Cathy and her new shooting partner, Bill, left Jim was alone with the instructors and a tall dark-haired girl. The instructors introduced them to each other, the girl's name was Elena, and asked Jim and Elena to follow them.

They exited the building and went to non-descript steel door in another hangar-like building. The female instructor held her ring to the door, and it clicked and opened. Inside they rode an elevator down for a minute or so.