by Holly Ardent
“Well crap, we're five minutes late for the meeting. Mary, suck my cock clean since Molly did it last time. Molly, get on all fours. Mary when you're done cleaning my cock I want you to suck my cum out of Molly's ass.”
I was gratified to see that she'd been telling the truth. She blinked, once, after I told her what I wanted, then got to it.
Getting clean and clothed took only a couple minutes although I was very distracted when Molly started moaning with Mary sucking her ass clean. Mary seemed to enjoy it as well and I was very much tempted to ignore the meeting and hop back in. The lack of immediate reaction by my dick convinced me that it would be a few minutes before I could do anything else anyhow so I finished getting dressed and just watched the show.
The women quickly got dressed and presentable. Molly seemed happy with the entire episode, Mary looked at both of us and blushed while shaking her head a little.
“Regrets?” I asked Mary.
“Not really, I just hadn't quite expected that. It was fun though. I used to swing when I was younger and this was at least as good as that used to be.”
We headed out the door to get to the meeting.
I was greeted by the sight of a crowd in the back of the store. They didn't appear to have started yet so odds were that, as usual, things were running a bit late. There were perhaps seventy-five houses in our 'neighborhood' (The area that the guards patrolled and in which we shared costs for things like that), with fifty of them occupied. Each occupied house averaged between three and four individuals living in it. So the eighty or so people that were at the meeting were a little under half of those who could have potentially shown up, which was far less than normal.
A lot of people with older children tended to not bring them to the meeting and that accounted for part of it. As I looked around I noticed that there were absolutely none of the folks who lived on the eastern end of the neighborhood. I was on good speaking terms with a couple of them and had been looking for those folks when I noticed the complete lack of our eastern neighbors.
There were also several smaller groups of people off to the side up near the podium who I didn't recognize at all. Four groups from two to six in number. This was not common, but also not unheard of. Most of the time it meant that they were people with friends or relatives in the neighborhood that wanted to move into one of the vacant houses. Four groups at a time was a new record though, the most we had had at one time prior to this was two.
About this time the meeting was called to order. A surreptitious glance at my watch showed we were twenty-five minutes late. That was a little quicker than normal since the average delay on the meetings was about half an hour. The opening statements seemed to be the same as usual so I just tuned them out and watched the crowd.
I spotted Rita with Sandra, Kate, and Becky, munching on some popcorn they'd saved. Then one of the individuals in the group near the podium caught my eye. She was dressed in a typical Goth fashion with black clothing, slightly the worse for wear, and combat boots or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
What had caught my attention was that although she looked only in her early twenties, making her about sixteen or so at the beginning of the Crash, she had several tattoos (mostly black, only one in color that I could see) and piercings galore. The piercings visible were in her lower lip, her eyebrow, about six or more in each ear, and a flash of silver color as she licked her lips told me there was one in her tongue as well.
Being the kind of guy I am, I immediately wondered what else was pierced that I couldn't see. That occupied me for several minutes as she was relatively attractive. Shoulder length auburn hair, heavy on the red shades, set off the black clothing nicely. She was a little more voluptuous than most of the women in the room as well, indicating that either she had access to more food than most had nowadays or had a muscular body under the clothing contributing to her more fleshed out look.
She was slightly taller than the average woman (as best as I could tell with her sitting down). Her breasts were emphasized by the tight t-shirt she had on, or at least the portion of them that I could see were since her black denim coat was partially buttoned up, framing the cleavage of her breasts.
She was sitting in a group with a fairly nondescript man wearing work clothes, who appeared to be of average height with brown hair. A willowy strawberry blond, whose hand the man had a tight grip on, rounded out their group. They appeared to be paying strict attention to the speaker so I decided to quiet my musings and tune back in, just in time it seemed.
“Now the next thing on the agenda. We have requests to boost our security forces as there have been several incursions on the properties of those living on the east side of the neighborhood.”
This answered my unspoken question as to where all the people from the east side were, they'd stayed home to guard their properties.
“We can manage it through the winter by the next item on the agenda, which we will get to in a moment. We've spoken with the current guards and they are willing to switch over, come spring, to working with their pay going to purchase themselves houses in the area. Since we still have quite a few empties, we thought that might work if no-one has objections. They would continue on as security, but having their own places would space them out through the neighborhood more and in many cases make them able to respond more quickly than currently. To try to achieve the same thing for the rest of fall and the winter months, if we double the guards to twelve, we're going to use some vacant houses as guard posts with four guards per house. One on the eastern side, one in the center, and one on the western side. The center guards would also have responsibility for watching the south side.”
With the cliff on the north side we won't need any extra guards there, I thought.
Our northern side was a sheer cliff face that stretched for several miles east and west.
“Let me explain the next item and then I'll take questions or comments on this one and the next.
These four groups here next to me would all like to purchase vacant houses in the neighborhood. They have hard cash for the purchases and the amounts being discussed would pay for the additional guards over the winter with some left over for the coffers. In all cases the recent fire in Denver consumed their previous houses and they felt getting out of the area was better than trying to resettle in it.
Now, any questions or comments?”
The debate over extra guards went on for perhaps fifteen minutes with most of the people thinking it was a good idea. The few hold outs seemed to be the same people that had originally objected to a security force in the first place so the motion passed. In conjunction, the four groups were told that they would be allowed to purchase the houses they had been after.
When the two houses to be used as additional guard posts were named I was amused. Now we'd be even more protected as the old MacKenzie place behind us was to be used for the central guard post. It was perched up on a bit of a rise from its attached land and would offer a good post for watching the south side. I was slightly less amused when it was announced that the other vacant house alongside of us was one being purchased by the new folks. It wasn't too bad, I was betting that the guards would love to have my kids cutting their grass and such so I'd only lose about half my additional organics.
The rest of the meeting went by pretty uneventfully until near the end. I was amazed that even after the Crash people tried to make so much red tape for themselves. I pretty much ignored the politics of the whole thing and tuned out the rest of the meeting until close to the end when they asked if anyone had anything they wanted to bring up.
I walked over to Rita, took her hand and pulled her to her feet. Raising my hand I waited to be acknowledged. After several other announcements were made I was called on (which made me feel like I was back in school, the teachers used to ignore me then also). I raised my voice so everyone could hear.
“This is Rita, she's a new addition to our household. Get a good look so you don't think she's an intruder in ou
r neighborhood. And before you ask, no she isn't a relative.”
I knew the nosy only hens would ask that, so I answered before they got a chance.
There was a moment of silence and then a bunch of voices spoke up. As I had figured it was mostly the older women in the group. The gist of the comments were that it was just wrong, that we shouldn't have a non-related adult woman living in our house.
It all pretty much boiled down to, in my mind, fear on their parts that their husbands might decide that it was a good idea also. The same stick in the muds that were complaining were also those known to treat their husbands like dirt, figuring that the husbands either couldn't, or wouldn't, do anything about it. Noting the expressions on the males next to the old biddies that were complaining I thought the the women's fears might be justified. I figured it'd serve them right if something of the sort happened and maybe it would modify their behavior to something more equitable with their mates. If not, it was their own damn fault.
I had to raise my voice to be heard over the clucking of the old hens and even before I started I knew I wasn't going to endear myself to them.
“I've told you as a courtesy to you and to let everyone know that Rita belongs here in the neighborhood. I didn't ask for your opinions and most of you speaking them know that I don't particularly care to hear yours.”
The murmuring didn't subside, so I figured I'd affront them a bit more.
“As for why we're adding a second, unrelated, adult woman to our household? Ask yourself if you really want to know? If the answer is yes then my reply is that it's none of your business whatsoever. As I mentioned, I mainly spoke up as a courtesy to both Rita and everyone else here. I wasn't asking for comments. Now thank you all and let's continue with the meeting.”
I sat down in Rita's chair and pulled her onto my lap. I then proceeded to ignore most of the last announcements while glaring at some of the old biddies that were whispering amongst themselves. The very last announcement, by Allan, caused the muttering to dwindle. When he announced that the government dole was due in this week and could be picked up on Thursday through Saturday, many of the mutterers immediately had something else to think about. He also asked that they spread the word so everyone knew to come get their foodstuffs.
Finally, the meeting was adjourned and we got up to leave. I endured the other half of what I'd anticipated. Quite a few of the men were giving me winks, or elbow nudges, or the odd “You sly dog, you.” comments under their breath. We made our way out of the press and then back to Allan's office to get away from the old biddies who had decided that they needed to 'improve our morals'. My only comment to the three that accosted me verbally was “What do you think gives you the right to interfere in our lives?” to which none of them had an answer ready to hand.
It was with great relief, on my part at least, that the five of us entered the hallway leading to Allan's office. He'd beat us there, what with not being accosted by every envious man and every busybody woman. He led us to a conference room that was used for the infrequent meetings he had and made everyone comfortable.
As we sat down Allan commented to me.
“Damn dude, you nailed their reaction spot on.”
“Well I knew that some of the older ladies around here consider their life work to be interfering in other people's lives. I figured they wouldn't pass up the chance. The guys? They're still guys, what can I say. Now what, exactly, is this profit making venture that you may need some help with?”
Allan looked around and made sure that everyone was settled in.
“OK, Mary told me that she used to, when she was young, sew clothing by hand or with a sewing machine. She has all the gear she needs, including an industrial strength sewing machine, at her house. She also has quite a few bolts of cloth. She wants to start making some women's clothing to sell. Like I said, I know that Molly's a good seamstress and that she's taught Kate some sewing as well. We were thinking that having more than one seamstress might be a good plan and thought we'd offer for them to be part of it.”
Molly was grinning up a storm by this point.
“It seems that great minds think alike then. I recently pulled out a book that has instructions for sewing lingerie, including bras and panties. Tim, I was going to surprise you with this after using it for a piece or two for Rita.”
She pulled out several packages from her purse with a flourish and laid them on the table.
“If you have very much of these types of things that you won't need for the main clothing, then Kate, Rita, and I can also work on undergarments, or other pieces of lingerie if you think there would be a market for them. I've got lots of sheer and/or silky fabrics that would work wonderfully. Plus heavier fabrics to convert some of the patterns to pajama/nightgown type pieces.”
When I looked closer I caught her drift. In the packages on the table were several hundred feet of the type of elastic sewn that gets sewn into clothing to give a better fit or more support.
“Where were you planning on selling?” Molly asked.
“Just in the market, maybe at the swap meets as well. I think if we wanted to add undergarments or lingerie in we'd need something a bit more private though,” Mary said.
I had an idea then, spurred by some of the materials that were laying around in the back areas of the store.
“Allan, you might be able to make a bit more profit off this than you thought. Did you consider maybe making up some small stalls to fit on the store floor along the back wall? It would give you a place for items that anyone might want to sell in private. You could charge a flat rate or percentage. Probably flat rate though because trying to ensure they report what they sell would be rough. Anyhow, you could charge a much higher rate for that than for the open tables. I'd bet there are a few folks around with items they'd prefer to not sell in public.”
I paused to think it through a bit more.
“Give them a little chalkboard to write on outside the doorway to each so they can list the general type of items they have for sale. It wouldn't even necessarily be 'adult' items. If someone had valuable jewelry they wanted to sell they might want a stall instead of an open table to make 'snatch and grab' less likely. I'd recommend renting them only for hard cash and not on the same barter system you use for the open tables.”
“Good idea Tim, I think I have some materials around that would work for some semi-permanent partitions.”
“You do, I saw some in the back areas of the store a while ago. Remembering those is what gave me the idea.”
The women were talking sewing by now, what styles to use and which to avoid because they used too much cloth. As Allan and I continued to rough plan the partitions I noticed that Becky was off to the side and not involved in either discussion.
“One minute Allan...”
I walked over to Becky.
“What's wrong? Aren't you interested in any of this?”
“Well Dad, I don't know how to sew and I don't know how to build so I can't exactly participate in either conversation.”
“You could still hop in with general ideas if you have any. Hmmm, would you like to learn to sew? Or to build for that matter? I'm guessing that your Mom would be happy to teach you to sew or if you wanted to learn more all round useful sewing for making clothes Mary might be willing. If you'd like to learn to build I'll be happy to teach you what I know, but I'm not an expert or anything.”
“I'd like that, I'd like all of that I think.”
“Well, which would you like first? I'd recommend sewing as they can teach you any time but the building will have to be on the job instruction whenever we got to working on it.”
“I'd like to learn to make clothes first I think, then building and then probably I'll ask Mom to show me the lingerie stuff.”
“Do this then, go over to Mary and be polite. Ask her if she'd teach you how to do the kind of sewing that she's talking about. It would probably be a kind of apprenticeship so you'd observe and do some of the grunt work to sta
rt; fetching stuff, cleanup, maybe working with some cloth scraps and the like. If you're still interested, go over and ask her now.”
Becky trotted over to Mary and politely waited for a gap in the conversation. I watched Becky start talking to her and it looked promising. Mary smiled at the request, talked to Becky for a minute and then gave her a big hug. Becky started to come back over to me but Mary called her back and had her sit down. When the conversation restarted I noticed that within a minute or two they had included her into it. Relieved, I went back to Allan.
“Sorry about that Allan, I saw her sitting out of both groups and looking a bit sad. She's going to learn some sewing with Mary, if I were to make a guess. She also wants to help if we build the partitions. I'm amazed a girl that young is that interested in learning those things. I suppose the atmosphere nowadays without the television, video games, cell phones and all that leaves them more open to it but still...”
I shook my head.
“Where were we? I think we were talking about using hanging cloth for the doorways instead of doors because metal hinges are kind of rare right now, weren't we?”
The discussion went on for almost an hour before we had everything settled. Allan was going to arrange for Mary's work equipment to be hauled up to the store from her house. He said it wouldn't be until after the dole was over though since he'd be pretty busy until then. I agreed to take one of the two guard slots for the wagon and we'd have a driver and another general laborer. The general laborer he'd get from the day laborers out front, the other two we'd hire from the neighborhood. We decided to set the time for after the dole and we'd probably have all the stuff here by the end of the next week.
We left the store right as dusk was falling and I was a little nervous about that so Sandra pushed the cart while I carried my shotgun in the open to act as a deterrent for any possible problems. The trip home was uneventful even if I found myself jumping at shadows. With my new awareness of Sandra as an attractive (to my mind) woman, not to mention Molly and Rita being along, my mind raced at the possibilities of “Bad Things” that could happen. Kate was still only ten and Becky younger still, but the Crash hadn't gotten rid of all the perverts so I was a bit nervous there as well. I found myself thinking it was time to upgrade Molly from her .22 LR pistol to something with a bit more stopping power if she could handle it and I reminded myself once more to check with Rita and Sandra about any firearms training they might have.