Chapter 28

Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 10:20 AM

At the end of their shift, Bambino and Cassidy waved tired goodbyes to the group returning home and then crawled back into their sleeping bag. After arriving at Chico’s site, they had slept for two hours and then did a two-hour shift of guard duty. Now they would have another four hours of sleep before Chico broke camp. Their bodies and the minds were desperate for it, but as usual, Cassidy had an easier time falling asleep.

Bambino unbuttoned the shirt of sleeping Cassidy and began gently fondling her breasts, not quite enough to wake her up. Cassidy sighed in her sleep and curled her legs slightly, offering her rump to Bambino. Her boyfriend smiled. In another time and place, he would quickly get erect with the thought of fucking sweet Cassie, and sometimes when she was really tired and sleeping nude, he could even copulate with her before she would wake up.

Not tonight though. “Or is it morning?” Bambino thought dimly. “Sun’s not up yet, that’s for sure. Such a fucked-up world. Where’s the fucking sun? And why the fucking orange color? Ah, who cares? At least Cassie has forgiven me ... at least in her dreams...”

Bambino thought about the new split that Uno had ordered. Returning to their home complex were Alfonso with his girlfriend Jessica, three compadres, Jenaro, Hernando, and Diego, and muchacho Ricardo, a real hardcase known as Twin Dicky before he pledged the frat.

Chico had kept Bambino and Toro as his two armed compadres, plus his girlfriend Brandi and the three muchachos Geraldo, Segundo, and Ernesto. Chico also had all six women slaves. That surprised Bambino at first. But then he realized that it would be more economical if one group did all the guard work. Uno didn’t want too much on his plate right now, and he certainly didn’t want the danger of a pussy revolt. With the current setup, it was all Chico’s headache now.

Chico had a sizable force, fourteen people compared to Uno’s group of ten. But Uno had six of their remaining nine guns. As Bambino thought of the situation, he idly began to play with Cassidy’s nipples, rubbing one until it started to harden, and then moving to the other breast. Cassidy stirred slightly in his arms.

Bambino didn’t blame Uno for scaling back on the expedition’s firepower. He thought he would have done the same. Waking up one day and finding Jacob’s Bar and Grill with a lock on it would be a disaster. Uno planned to have at least three people with two guns at the store at all times. Except for Uno, there would be one eight-hour shift of guard work for everybody daily, with Ricardo packing Jenaro’s gun while he was on duty. It made sense.

“Barry,” Cassidy mumbled sleepily, shaking his hand off her breasts and nipples. “Get some fucking rest.”

Bambino nodded and pulled his hand out of her shirt, taking a deep breath and relaxing with the familiar smell of Cassidy in his arms. That Barry stuff, he thought, that had to stop. Perhaps he would spank her when she messed up again. Pull her pants down in front of all the men and give her a proper spanking. The humiliation would be far more effective than the modest pain he would administer.

Bambino frowned for a moment. Could he really do that? He remembered Ann and Kiyoko, over a week ago, the day before the Santos disaster at Rabbies Dram. Bambino remembered the scene well, and his sleepy mind drifted back to it.

It was in the evening, a Monday, just the day before both women disappeared. Bambino was herding Ann and Kiyoko back to the pussy barn after an extra-long harness shift in the mall, and the two tired pussies had another one scheduled for early next morning. It was Bambino’s job to escort them to the barn and unchain them before letting them go upstairs to sleep. The simple chore had become routine for him.

On Uno’s orders, hoof pussies had to do their work with very little clothing. When he had made the announcement, Uno said it would keep the women off-balance and less likely to escape, though Bambino suspected it was just one more way to pile on the humiliation. Still, to disobey the order was unthinkable. Bambino had allowed Ann and Kiyoko to pick out new cotton white panties and halter sports bras earlier in the day, and they were wearing them now. It was as much clothing as he dared give them.

About ten stores from the barn, Bambino saw something curious. He had the two women marching in front of him, and he noticed a ting of a yellow line on both of the women’s panties, exactly in the same spot on both women, low on the left butt cheek just before the curve to the back of the thigh.

Bambino stared and thought as he walked. Where the women carrying contraband in their panties? It wasn’t just the yellow color. When he looked closely, Bambino could see a small bulge under the yellow line. What could these women be possibly carrying in their panties?

As he walked and stared, he suddenly realized he was getting erect. Well, the two women did have cute little asses, no surprise there he thought. But he had no desire other than to turn them loose for sleep. They had been a wonderful crew for him today, obedient, helpful, and very hard working. They had given him everything they had, and Bambino was going to reap all the rewards for their labor. Ann and Kiyoko deserved a good rest. Still, what the hell were they carrying in their panties?

They walked past the guard at the pussy barn and into the first floor of the store. Then Bambino unshackled the women, wrists and ankles, first Ann, then Kiyoko. But then he decided he couldn’t let the contraband issue go. With his hand on his pistol butt, he ordered both women to face away from him and take off their panties. Perhaps Ann’s lips quivered, just for a second, and then both women complied.

They did more than comply. In addition to stripping off their panties, both women took a wide stance and bent forward, presenting Bambino their open legs and rumps. Kiyoko was so sleepy, she almost fell over as she bent but she caught her balance on a nearby table.

The table! There were several boxes of latex gloves and water soluble lubrications on it, and Bambino in shock realized what the women thought he was going to do. He remembered something that Brandi had whispered to him a few days previously, that Jessica and Nadine were doing contraband searches with the hoof pussies with latex gloves, and that as junior taskmistress, Brandi was powerless to overrule them.

And the women’s rumps! There was a cruel x-wing of welts on both women, low on their left butt cheeks. The raised welts looked ghastly and were weeping a yellowish discharge. That was what was staining their panties.

Ricardo! That nutcase freshman was always walking around swinging those thin bamboo canes of his. He was an expert at it. In late September when he first pledged, Ricardo had demonstrated his skill to Bambino by knocking flies out of midair with his swings. He was that good and quick.

The X-wing cross of welts, they were identical on both asses, identical in position on the rumps, identical in length and angles, identical in the severity of the cruelty. Bambino cringed as he stared. It must have burned like hell to be double whacked like that. And the identical placement revealed the purpose of the welts. This was no punishment. The muchachos had branded these two hoof pussies.

“Such a change,” Bambino thought as he stared at the welts. “A month ago, I would have been so excited at the thought of two young and cute women showing me their bare butts. But this?!”

Bambino called out in a broken voice that he wasn’t going to use the latex gloves. The two women stood up and turned to face him. Bambino noticed a surprised looked on Kiyoko’s face. Their eyes met for the briefest of an instant. Somehow Bambino thought she might have whispered thank you.

Bambino gave Kiyoko permission to go upstairs but he ordered Ann to follow him out of the barn. Diego was the exterior guard that evening. It was breaking the rules for Bambino to have unchained pussy hoofing outside the barn, but Bambino explained what he wanted to do and he ordered Ann to turn around. Diego took one look at her bare butt and nodded and waved them through.

Two doors down from the pussy barn was a drug store. Bambino rooted around nervously for several minutes, praying and no one besides Diego would discover what he was doing. Ann meekly followed by his side, so tired and so used to her treatment that she made no effort to hide her indecency. And then Bambino found what he was looking for, a supply of wound and burn ointment. He handed several tubes of it to Ann and smiled.

He was expecting her to smile back, but instead she started to cry. Akiko’s ankle, she wailed. The women were afraid she was developing an infection. Could Bambino find some antibiotics, something Akiko could take orally?

Hell, that’s not what Bambino had in mind. He was risking a major blowup with Uno even doing what he was doing. Maybe he was even risking torture. And now this ungrateful hoof pussy wanted him to start searching the second floor of the drug store?! No way! He marched Ann straight back to the barn, frowning but letting her keep the ointment.

And now here he was, ten days later. “Ann,” he thought, “What the hell had happened to you, and Carol and all the others?” Bambino sighed. Would he ever know? Somehow he hoped Ann’s ass was better now. Somehow ... It was so strange. Later that night, after he had given Ann the ointment for the welts, Bambino kept telling himself he had done something kind. He had giving Ann the ointment. But his conscience kept objecting, saying that true kindness would have been to give Ann what Ann wanted, not what Bambino wanted to give.

Bambino patted Cassie’s rump as she slept beside him. Could he ever raise such a welt on Cassie? No, of course not. And Bambino saw now he would never spank her bare butt in front of other men. He’d have to find some other way to teach her the lesson.

“What lesson?” Bambino stirred. The question had come from his conscience, just as he was falling asleep. “Why, the lesson that the men are in charge,” his sleepy mind replied. He reached inside Cassie’s shirt again and idly squeezed her tits a few more times, just to show her sleeping body who was boss, and then he drifted off.

Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 11:57 AM

It was three minutes before the start of her next janitor lesson when Kiyoko noticed the sun breaking the horizon, beginning the day’s five-minute allotment of orange sunshine. “A pretty color,” she thought wistfully, “but I think I miss the lovely butter yellow sunlight of Earth. And the sky too. The hints of teal and green are very pretty, but I miss the pure cornflower blue.”

Kiyoko and had a nice early lunch with Aggie who was keeping her company at the Green Mall home complex. Aggie was also making hourly hops to the Black Mall sky-bridge to keep an eye on Chico’s progress. Meanwhile the scheduled work at Yellow Brick was complete and their group was now installing a dual sensor net from the Green Mall sky-bridge, the only sky-bridge still without one. The party was working their way to Kiyoko’s location first, installing the net from Green Mall kilometer marks 37.6 to 18.7.

After that, the fastest way to return to the sky-bridge would be to bike another dozen kilometers to the Green Mall home complex and then jump back to the sky-bridge. The group planned to have a brief lunch at home before the afternoon half of their work, completing an overlapping net all the way to the Hilton Executive Conference Center, Green Mall’s terminal store. They had phoned in ten minutes ago and said they were on their way. Kiyoko was glad. She loved the company of people in the complex with her, even if she was busy with her lessons.

Would they continue installing sensor nets after today? Maybe. It was a topic of discussion for tonight’s meeting. All the terminal stores except Green Mall and Yellow Brick would still be without one.

Kiyoko’s terminal beeped, indicating the interface was prepared to begin her next Janitor lesson. Kiyoko preferred mouse and keyboard over the voice interface, and she clicked the accept icon.

Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 2:18 PM

They’d been pulling the sleds for less than ten minutes when it became obvious there was something different up ahead. Chico sent out a two-person reconnaissance party with one gun (Bambino and Cassidy) to check it out while the main group continued to plod along more slowly. Not long afterwards his whole party was standing near the sky-bridge and peering into the two stores the bridge seemed to connect. There was Rubin’s Kosher Deli on the inside arc and The Modern Coin Superstore on the outside arc. They had no idea two women were silently watching them from the second floor of the coin store.

Cassidy was examining the stores, walking back and forth between the two transparent closed doors and peering inside. “I think both stores are largest we’ve seen, sixty meters, and they both have doors near the ... Chico, should I call it a walkway?”

Chico smiled. “Excellent guess. That’s what I’m thinking too. Pity it’s not transparent like the doors.”

Toro was staring into the coin store let out a loud groan. “Oh, fucking hell Chico! There’s a whole section in there on gold and platinum coins! I’ll bet there are millions of dollars of gold just beyond this door.”

Chico laughed. “So what?”

“So what?! What do you mean, so what?! Chico, how can you say that?!”

“Toro, have you forgotten where we are? Think about it. If the door were open, how much gold would you walk off with?”

“As much as I could carry!”

“And do what with it?”

“Chico, what are you talking about? Gold isn’t for doing stuff with. Gold is for having.” The two men walked away from each other, both shaking their heads, both thinking their friend’s perspective was ridiculous.

Bambino had a different set of thoughts, and he walked over to Chico. “A few weeks ago, I was on the expedition that explored almost this far. None of these stores were locked. If we had orders to explore just a little further, we would have”

Chico interrupted him. “Hell, I know Bambino. We were busy, remember?”

“Huh? Busy doing what?”

“Setting up the pussy barn.”

Bambino froze for a second and then nodded glumly, glancing to make sure he was out of earshot of the muchachos. “Uno and Santos and Gilberto, they were the three champions of that idea, and the muchachos too. Hell, they really screwed us. We should have been exploring.”

Chico took a deep breath and sighed. “They really screwed the women. We all did. Come on. There’s nothing for us here. We have to keep moving.” A minute later the expedition continued their journey.

“Interesting man, Chico,” commented Jada at the observation center on the second floor of the coin store. “A bit crude, but he seems to have a conscience.”

“From what I’ve seen, that’s true for Toro also,” Ann replied. “And even Bambino has some kindness in him. His flaw is not cruelty but a lack of courage.” Ann paused for a moment. “These three are perhaps our best hope for people whom we might be able to forgive. My feeling is they got sucked into a whirlpool of depravity that the others created.”

“You think so?”

Ann nodded. “Toro picked me several times, checked me out of the pussy barn I mean.”

Jada gave a quick grimace and then a sad sigh. “So he raped you.”

“No, he didn’t. He never asked me to do anything at all, not sexually. And after two hours in his bedroom, we’d just go back and he’d return me to the barn. He even trusted me. I think we shared some eye contact without knowing what we were doing.”

Jada was curious. “May I ask? What did you do in his bedroom?”

“Usually I would just take a nap on his bed while Toro rested in a nearby chair. He never asked me to do anything I didn’t want to, not in his bedroom. And sometimes we’d talk a bit if I wanted to talk, which wasn’t often. Mostly he just left me alone. Once he even asked me if I’d like a book.”