by Lilly Black
"There's a woman squatting on the property," she finally said. "I asked her to join us. She doesn't want to, but she asked if we could spare a chicken. I've been letting four hens clutch their eggs, and we'll have dozens of chicks in a few weeks, so I felt like we could spare one."
"I'm sure you know what you're doing," she said. "Want some company?"
"It's a long hike," Olivia said as she looked at Dani's boots. Though not her trademark spiked heels, they certainly were not made for hiking.
"I can walk five miles uphill on concrete in stilettos. I think I can handle this."
"By all means," Olivia said as she handed Dani the box of chicken and started off up the hill. Dani narrowed her eyes and followed.
Along the way, Olivia pointed out the well so Dani would know where it was if something happened to her, and a five minute trek thereafter, they came upon the shack to find that the woman was not home. Olivia opened the door, which had no lock, stepped inside, and let the chicken out of the box to stretch her legs. The rooster immediately came down from the windowsill to inspect his new companion, and while Olivia watched to make sure they were going to get along, she asked Dani to look for a pen so she could leave a note. Dani didn't find a pen, but she did notice a lot of things that reminded her of Madam Levinia's parlor, including tarot cards, a crystal ball, and perhaps most interesting, a spell book. She picked it up and began to leaf through it.
"Put that away," Olivia hissed.
"I thought there might be a pen inside," she lied as she continued to examine the grimoire until Olivia snatched it from her hands and placed it back on the shelf.
"Forget the pen," Olivia said. "When she comes home and finds the hen, she'll know where it came from."
"If the rooster doesn't kill it first," Dani said as she watched him jump onto the hen's back, pecking at her neck. Olivia laughed.
"She'll be more likely to find a fertilized hen than a dead one." She winked at her confused city friend.
"Oh," Dani said, gritting her teeth.
Dani's Journal
Day 30
Today Olivia took me up to cottage of the Witch of the Wellspring. She didn't call her that. She didn't even call her a witch, but come on, Olivia! Her cabin was full of witchy shit. Animal parts in jars. A book of spells. Herbs and dried flowers hanging all over the walls. The whole, damn shack was creepy and amazing, and I can't wait to go back and actually meet her. I paid close attention, and I think I can find it again on my own. I don't really want to cast any more spells. I just want her to look into her crystal ball or something and promise me Jax can be faithful to me.
It's not that I don't trust him. I don't trust other women. It doesn't matter that the world has ended and he isn't in a band anymore. Every time a new woman joins us, she knows who Jax Bonham is, and most of them want a piece of him. Olivia and Liana wouldn't understand. No one has recognized Liana's obscure, Canadian hockey player, and even though a lot of women recognize Alek, Olivia has nothing to worry about. He's completely obsessed with her for one thing, and for another, it's not like actors are all that used to women flashing their tits and handing them a sharpie, you know? I mean, no one in the compound has actually done that to Jax, but there are a lot of fuck me stares because that's just expected of a rock star. Part of his job was whoring it up. So even if he's trying to be faithful, when they have their breasts pushed up or they find some bullshit excuse to bend over in front of him in tight jeans, how long will it be before he falls back into that old habit?
God! I realize what I must sound like, and if anyone ever reads this and assumes that I think like June, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I am not blaming men's sexual behavior on women. If Jax cheats on me, it will be because he's a fucking pig, not because some temptress turned him into an animal who couldn't control himself. It's just that I know he is easily tempted, and it makes me utterly batshit, fucking crazy. It's because I love him so much, losing him would kill me. I need a little insurance. That's all. I just need to know he's not going anywhere. Then I can relax.
Dani's Journal
Day 30, Second Entry
Jax was on patrol tonight. I didn't know who he was working with as he walked the interior perimeter for six hours, but even though there are only five acres inside the wall, there are plenty of quiet, secluded spots along the path. Most of the new trailers they brought in are in the same area because Olivia had been planning to add more cabins there before the apocalypse, so the plumbing was already in place, and since the original layout included a lot of trees to give the cabins privacy, there are lots of wooded areas.
Around midnight, I decided to go check up on Jax. I had to be extra stealthy because his entire job tonight was listening for anything out of the ordinary. I finally found him near the corner of the property on the side opposite the back gate, and he was alone. On the way there, I had passed his partner, and while it made me happy to know that he wasn't on patrol with a woman, the fact that they had split up made me suspicious. But I found Jax all by himself, looking sexy and bored as hell.
As I watched him from behind a tree, I accidentally stepped on a dried twig, snapping it loudly, and Jax whipped around, raising his gun. The light from a solar, landscape fixture cast his silhouette on the wall behind him, tall and still, as he scanned the patch of woods and listened for another sound. There was plenty of ambient noise. The last dead leaves clinging to their trees in the cold wind. The night animals foraging on the forest floor just outside the fence. A lone owl hooting in the distance. But I was silent. I could have made the game more fun. I could have sneaked up on him or lured him into the woods with more suspicious sounds, but even though Jax wasn't a coward who would shoot first and ask questions later, he was armed, it was dark, and things that go bump in the night were no longer restricted to children's nightmares. I decided it would be best to announce myself.
"Is that an AR-15 in your shadow or are you just happy to see me?" I asked as I sauntered out of the tree line into view.
"Dani," he said, a smile spreading across his face as he lowered his rifle. "You scared me."
"Did you think I was a zombie?"
"You never know these days."
"Well, I do plan to bite you," I teased as I got close enough to lean in and nip at his neck.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I think you know what I'm doing," I said as I went for the button on his jeans, slowly walking backward and pulling him toward the trees.
"I'm on watch," he protested.
"We'll be quick and quiet," I assured him, and he sighed, looking both ways for his partner because he knew he was going to give in.
"If anything happens, it's all on you," he warned me. "You know I can't tell you no."
He followed me into the small patch of forest, unzipping his pants for me as we walked toward a large tree where he stopped me, pushing my back up against it. He took my hands in his and wrapped my arms around the trunk behind me, and they were just long enough for him to interlock my fingers behind it.
It was cold out, and we were both wearing coats. Jax unzipped mine and unbuttoned my shirt beneath. When he found that my bra wasn't a front closure, he folded the cups down to release my breasts, and my already hard nipples tightened painfully in the frigid air. He grinned as he took one in his mouth, biting down in an exquisite combination of pain and pleasure that made my breath catch loudly. Nervous because his partner could be within earshot, I sucked the sound back in, but Jax just laughed.
"To hell with quick and quiet," he said with a heated stare, then he grabbed my breasts, soothing away the sting of his teeth with a swirl of his smooth, warm tongue. I tried to keep my hands locked together, but as he began to make a trail of kisses down my belly, I couldn't maintain it, my fingers winding through his hair, gently urging him to go lower. He unzipped my jeans and pulled them down over my hips, and when faced with my panties, he pressed against me, breathing me in through his nose and exhaling warm air back through the th
in, slinky fabric. I shuddered, gripping his hair tighter as he slipped his fingers inside, pulling the crotch out of his way.
With my jeans impeding me, I couldn't spread my legs at all, but he gently held me open with his fingers. And when his tongue made contact with my clit, it was like fireworks going off head to toe. He's so amazing. People think it's because he's had all this practice constantly getting laid as a rock star, but it wasn't practice on other women that taught him to control my body like he was born to do it. The fact is that he was born to do it. He has instinctively known just how to please me from the first orgasm he gave me through my jeans in the middle of a crowded bar, and tonight as he knelt before me against that tree, he knew exactly what to do to make me forget everything else in the world around us.
He slithered his tongue over me, teasing me gently, and once I was fully aroused he used his thumbs to spread my lips further, pulling my skin taut like it would be if I was lying on my back with my legs wide apart. Then he started going faster, flickering rapidly over my swollen clit as I held him there with my hands on his head, and I could feel my fingers clinching, my nails making impressions in his scalp as the orgasm began to overtake me. It excited him. He moaned against me, bearing into me and intensifying his attack until suddenly, I exploded!
"Oh, Jax!" I cried loudly, forgetting where we were as he swiftly grabbed my hips, pulling me against him to tap every last bit of pleasure my clit had to give, and when I started to feel the sensitivity coming on, he slowed down, softly teasing as I weakly breathed his name over and over again.
"Did I please you, my queen?" he asked, looking up at me as I leaned against the tree for strength.
"Oh, God, yes," I moaned, weakly reaching out for him to stand. I was going to switch places with him and return the favor, but he had other plans. He spun me around to face the tree, pulling my ass back several feet to bend me over, and with my jeans still around my knees, he slid his dick inside me. I held my hands in front of my face so I didn't accidentally scrape it against the bark, but as Jax started thrusting, he reached around and cupped my breasts, pulling me upright. Then one hand meandered toward my clit.
"It's too soon," I whispered, but he ignored me, teasing around it without making direct contact. I didn't fight it. I stood upright, one hand against the tree for balance as he tried to reawaken my spent clit, and with his dick slowly thrusting into me and his tongue my ear, I began to feel like it might be possible. Jax felt it too. I heard a pleasured hum escape his lips. Then I heard another noise - the sound of a limb cracking beneath a shoe. I froze.
"Someone's watching us," I whispered.
"Then let's give them something to watch," he growled in my ear, and an unexpected flash of excitement radiated outward from my clit as his warm breath against my neck and his magic fingers brought it back to life. Then Jax began thrusting into me again, amplifying the sensation.
"I think someone likes the idea of being watched," he accused me, and when I instantly grew wetter at his words, I couldn't deny it. I was being fucked by the hottest man on Earth. Of course, I liked the idea of being watched, and as I imagined who it might be, Jax knew just what I was thinking.
"It's probably my partner," he said meekly. "He wants you, Dani. Everybody wants you. All the men in this camp jack off just thinking about what it must be like to kiss your beautiful lips, touch your perfect tits, taste your sweet, sweet pussy. Should we let him see it, Dani? Should we give him a little peek at the most luscious pussy in the whole fucking world?"
He didn't let me answer. He slowly began to turn me sideways to face the direction the sounds had come from, holding me upright so my breasts were exposed. He pinched my nipple in one hand as his other sped up the assault on my clit, his dick resting inside me as I leaned my head back on his shoulder.
"Give him a show, beautiful," he commanded. "Let him see how fucking hot you are when I make that pussy come."
"Oh, gooooood!" I cried as his fingers instantly drove me over the edge again, a pleasure more intense than the first tearing me apart as I shook and convulsed against him, shocked that he was able to do what I thought was impossible as the rush of endorphins devastated my body and mind.
"That's it, Dani," he breathed as he teased me through the aftershocks, and when I finally started to come down, he switched hands, gently massaging my clit with one as he shoved the other in my mouth.
"Suck," he demanded, and as I did, I could feel his dick twitching inside me. He was so close, I couldn't stand it. Abruptly, I pulled forward, spinning around and falling to my knees so I could finish him.
"You said to suck," I reminded him, staring into his eyes seductively as I grabbed his shaft and slipped the head between my warm, wet lips.
"Oh, God, Dani," he groaned as I swirled my tongue around, drawing him into me deeply then spitting him out again. His hands went to my head, and I sped up, one hand teasing his balls as the other matched time with my bobbing head.
"Oh, fuck. Oh, yeah," he growled, his hips thrusting into me as his legs began to shake, his praise constant until he suddenly erupted with a loud growl of my name. I kept going, giving him as much as he could take, and when he withdrew from me, panting and weak, the only other sound we could hear were the faint crunching of leaves beneath sneaking shoes. Jax laughed as he called out to his partner.
"Hey, Phil, come back, man! The show's not over 'til I take a bow," he shouted, and the footsteps became louder and faster until they fell off our radar entirely.
Day 36
June started therapy with Dani shortly after her son shot her husband, but she wasn't there to work through the stages of grief. She had reached acceptance years before Jimbo was actually dead since the man she had fallen in love with in college and planned to be with in this world and the next died a long time ago, and whatever evil it was that had begun to inhabit his shell after that was not someone June felt like she had any reason to mourn.
She needed her sessions with Dani because she was plagued by guilt. She had taken on all the blame for Jimbo's death, and even though both she and her children were better off for it, she expected to be the one who paid with her immortal soul. And then there was Jobe. Even though her false accusation was not what got him killed, she still felt as much guilt as if it had.
"I wish I could just tell him I'm sorry," June sighed.
"He knows, June," Dani assured her friend.
"Does he?"
"Jimbo put a sign around his neck that said adulterer. You think he didn't explain exactly what his issue was to Jobe?"
"I just can't shake the feeling that I'm going to be the one held accountable for it all in the end," June lamented.
"By the community?"
"When I stand before the throne of judgment," she said, and though Dani's inclination was to tell her she was being ridiculous, she was not having this conversation in the capacity of a friend who had had her absolute fill of June's hellfire and damnation. As an objective therapist, she saw a broken woman who had been so psychologically abused, her fears of Hell were as real and terrifying as if she were staring down the barrel of a gun 24/7, and this gun would fire over and over for all eternity.
Hell was something that Dani had stopped believing in a long time ago, at least in the context that June understood it. She agreed that there were souls who deserved punishment in the afterlife, but she could never wrap her brain around a just and loving God sentencing someone to be tortured for all eternity for the acts committed in a single, finite human lifetime. She had tried more than once to explain this to June, and every time she got the same response as today.
"But according to Pastor Weiland..." June insisted, and Dani began to wonder if Pastor Weiland had read the same Bible she had because Pastor Weiland seemed to have some specific, fucked up ideas that did not jibe with what Dani knew to be in there.
After their session, June went directly to work a shift in the kitchen, and since her sons were at target practice with Liana, Dani knew the cabin woul
d be empty but probably unlocked for the boys. She hurried down the hill and slipped inside to look for clues about Labor of Faith Ministries and Pastor Weiland. Though June's luggage had been left in Pittsburgh, her sons' suitcases were there, and Dani found that each of them had a Bible and a book called Pastor Weiland's Bible Companion. She took a copy.
Back at her place with a couple of hours of free time before her next session, Dani sat down and leafed through the companion, and the insanity immediately began to jump off the pages, including lists of unforgiveable actions that would lead to an eternity in Hell. It was no wonder June was scared of everything.
Disgusted yet fascinated by the revelations about her friend this book brought to light, Dani skipped to the interpretation of verses about marriage, and she instantly understood why June put up with Jimbo's abuses. She found a terrifying litany of eternal tortures a woman would suffer for disobeying a husband or denying him sex.
"Un-fucking-believable!" she spat as she came to a realization that could have been the cornerstone of the sex study she was working on before the world went to shit. Like June, there could have been millions of people out there exposed as children to abusive misogyny disguised as spirituality, and Dani could have made an entire practice out of guiding them back. Right now, there were five people in their compound who needed her help, and it would have to begin with June.
She picked up her cell phone. After the issues they had with the walkie talkies the day Jimbo was shot, Olivia had asked Rena to come up with a solution, and from a stash of looted cellular equipment, she had created a short range system to allow them to communicate with each other using Wi-Fi boosted by the compound's existing cell tower. She had neither the supplies nor the time for everyone to have their own yet, but all of the community founders had one and there were units mounted at the gates, in the security room, and at other strategic places around the property. Dani had her own line, and she called Liana first, then Olivia.
That afternoon, the three of them convened in Dani's cabin to prepare for an intervention with June, and they knew what they had to say would not be well-received because June had been raised in a branch of Pastor Weiland's Labor of Faith Ministries since she was ten-years-old.