Rules For Spanking: MMF Bisexual Romance

by A. Anders

“Is that it? Maybe he just didn’t want you to shoot him?”

  “No. He’s keeping something from us. And he’s gonna tell us, or he’s gonna die.”

  “Every person you kill brings your death one elimination closer,” I reminded him.

  “Then I won’t kill him. I’ll just hurt him really, really bad.”

  Gray aimed the gun at Thorin’s crouch. I had to admit, it was a good threat. Sure, if Gray blew something off, magic dust could reattach it. But would it ever work the same? Who would want to take that chance?

  “I don’t know what you think I know, but I’ve told you everything,” Thorin said pleading.

  “Yeah. Everything after you were eliminated. But you never once mentioned anything about what you did before you got here. And something tells me that you’re hiding something.”

  My chest tightened when I heard his question. What would I say if he turned the gun on me next?

  “I was a biotechnician at a research company.”

  “Meaning what?” Gray demanded.

  “I put chips in people’s head.”

  My body stiffened when I heard that. Chipping people was a son-of-a-bitch.

  I was very familiar with it because of my work as a corporate recruiter. With corporations getting more desperate to find the next great product, they began hiring “lifestyle researchers.” Basically, what that meant was that they put a chip in a person’s head that gave their research department a continuous stream of everything the person saw and heard.

  It was as creepy as all hell, but I heard that it paid well. With jobs hard to find, some found the money too hard to pass up.

  Brad had said that he had worked in entertainment. Until he mentioned that he wasn’t chipped, I thought he had meant porn.

  The porn industry was alive and kicking thanks to chipping. On some sites, you could watch people having sex from their perspective. And if you were chipped yourself, you could direct connect and experience it first person. I heard that it was better than the real thing.

  “What else?” Gray demanded.

  “Nothing else,” Thorin insisted. “I went to school for biology, got hired right after graduation, and then worked there for ten years. My life is boring. That’s why I’m here. I’ve seen shows like this. I just thought it would be fun.”

  “And what else?” Gray prodded.

  “And I thought I might make a connection with the bachelorette.”

  “And what else?” he asked again.

  “Nothing else. I thought that they brought me back because the audience liked me. And I shot myself because I knew I couldn’t win the challenge, and I didn’t want you to shoot me in the chest. That’s all.”

  I thought about what he said for a second. Previously, he had said something similar, but it hadn’t registered.

  “You said you thought the audience liked you and wanted you back on the show?” I asked confused.

  “That’s what I thought,” Thorin confirmed.

  “Is this a live show?” I asked both men.

  Gray’s mouth slowly dropped open as he considered the idea.

  Thorin’s eyes darted between the two of us. “I don’t know. Isn’t it?” Thorin asked.

  “Did someone tell you that it was?” I asked Thorin.

  “No. I just assumed that it was. Aren’t all of these shows live?”

  I didn’t watch these shows so I turned to Gray.

  “No. They’re not,” Gray confirmed. “Who told you that the audience wanted you back?”

  “I thought it was Dan, the producer who handled me. But maybe he didn’t. Maybe I just heard one thing and assumed he said something else.”

  There was something about Thorin that I found unsettling. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I was beginning to think that it was his profession.

  “Didn’t you think chipping people was as creepy as hell?” I interjected.

  “I didn’t think much about it,” Thorin explained. “Biotechnical Conflation was what I got my degree in. It was pretty ordinary to me.”

  “But you didn’t think that eavesdropping on every moment of people’s life was sick?” I insisted.

  “I didn’t work in that division. All I did was put the chips in and take them out.”

  “You said that you worked there for ten years. That means that you left the job. Why?” I continued.

  “I don’t know. Bored, I guess. I was a glorified tattoo artist without the art. There’s got to be more to life than that, right?”

  I understood that. Thorin the Pale wasn’t menacing. Sure, he was a little weird, but how much of that was him just being an awkward tech geek? I didn’t think there was much more to it than that.

  Gray seemed to agree with me because he slowly lowered his gun. I had to give him credit for being reasonable. Maybe I had misjudged him, too. I wondered if things between us might have been different if Brad hadn’t forced us to be on opposite sides.

  Tucking that thought away for later, I continued my search for useful weapons. I got an uneasy feeling looking at them. It took me a moment to figure out why. It wasn’t the memories from the Thunderdome that made me uncomfortable. It was the smell in the air.

  Had these guns been recently fired? Because I could smell smoke. Wait, that smoke smell wasn’t from a discharge.

  I looked around the room trying to figure it out. It didn’t smell like burning rubber. It smelled like burning wood. My eyes darted around the room. The walls were made of metal. It wasn’t here.

  I ran to the door. Looking out, I found it. Smoke billowed into the air. It was coming from very close.

  “Fire!” I said turning back to the men.

  “Where?” Gray asked running out to see.

  “A quarter mile. It’s close.”

  “Then grab the weapons and let’s go,” Gray ordered.

  “Don’t you think we should check it out?” I asked.

  “I think we should get what we need and get out of here.”

  “You do realize that the island we’re on is on fire? It’s an island surrounded by sharks.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t you think we should, at least, try to put it out?”

  Gray gave me a frustrated look then agreed. While Gray and Thorin gathered the guns they had loaded, I grabbed a couple of axes and shovels. I was thinking about containing the fire.

  When we arrived at the burning building, I was happy to find Bob and Billy already there. I hadn’t been the only one who had thought to put it out. Soon after we got there, Brad ran up, as well.

  “What happened?” I asked Bob as the swirling flames roared and leapt into the air.

  “We don’t know. We saw the smoke and came over,” he yelled.

  I turned back to the building. Considering the humming come from within, it had to be the generator room. That was bad.

  Pawns were generally good for fourteen hours of power. Eventually, though, they had to recharge. Food would also be a problem without power. Everything we ate was created by food printers. No power, no food.

  I scanned the area for solutions. Sixty feet behind the generator room was the water tower.

  “We gotta put this out,” I yelled back at the guys. “Come with me.”

  With tools still in hand, I ran towards the building. At fifty feet, I hit a wall of heat that whipped my head back. The brutal punch in the face made my eyes water. It burned the air in my lungs. Suffocating, I stumbled backed.

  Still dizzy, I slowly circled around. The heat waves distorted the image ahead. The metal tower was the pulsing head of a giant buried to its neck, its green skin bubbling and popping under the blistering heat.

  Clearing my head with a shake, the bulbous water tower reappeared. I was already succumbing to the inferno. I knew I had to work fast.

  “Look for a valve,” I ordered, stopping in front of it.

  The guys looked around the base of the four legs as well as the ground surrounding it. I dropped the tools and hurried towards the
metal ladder. Touching it brought crippling pain. Pulling off my shirt, I wrapped the cloth around my hands and climbed.

  The heat sizzled my bare back. I wondered how long it would take for my flesh to burn. Cresting the ladder onto the encircling catwalk, I quickly put my shirt back on.

  Searching the belly of the beast for a valve, I couldn’t find one. The only things that caught my eye were below: the lights from the resort and the pitch black over the ocean. They gave me an idea, but before I could think more about it, I had to put out the fire.

  “Someone throw me the ax,” I yelled down, fighting the roar of the flames.

  Bob grabbed it and offered to bring it up.

  “No time. Just throw it.”

  I was not a circus performer. I didn’t catch axes. But stilling myself, I leaned against the bubbling hot railing and waited.

  The ax came at me fast. It flipped end over end. When it was high enough to grab, the only thing within reach was the blade. I stuck my hand out before quickly recoiling it, and the guys scattered as the ax returned to earth.

  “Again,” I yelled, feeling my flesh blister through my thin cotton shirt.

  Bob collected it and threw it again. The rotation was slower this time. I leaned against the scowling railing bracing myself. Handle, blade, handle, blade. It was getting closer. I would have to reach out and grab it… Now!

  I had it. Pulling away from the railing, I could feel parts of my skin peeling off.

  Without hesitation, I aligned the ax and swung. Bong! The swollen tank bellowed under its thousands of gallons of water.

  I hitched back and swung again. This time, the metal dented. Feeling the heat mount behind me, I swung again and again, each time harder. When the corner of the ax finally punctured the weakened metal, water gushed out like a fire hose.

  With a swing, I widened the hole. The pressure was uncontrollable. The stream of water shot out. It was about ten feet off of its mark, but I knew that one more blow would do it.

  I had to drive the blade through the water and hit a point on the far side of the breach. It was a nearly impossible, but I took aim, braced myself, and swung as hard as I could.

  The blade entered the stream and wrenched my grip. I was unable to keep it steady, and it changed direction and then flung out of my hands. As it shot towards the ground, the guys dove for cover.

  Thrown against the railing, I got up and looked out at the stream. It had increased by ten feet. It wasn’t enough to completely extinguish the flames, but at least it was on target. Now some of it sprayed the burning building and the rest carved through the dirt.

  I leaned over the railing and barked instructions. “You need to dig a trench around the downhill side of the building,” I yelled over the thunder of rushing water. “We can’t let the fire jump to the trees. If we do, we’re all dead.”

  No one argued. Everyone grabbed a shovel or an ax and ran to the far side of the generator.

  With them out of sight, I fell to my knees cradling my throbbing hands. The vibration from metal hitting metal had rattled them useless, and the pain pulsed through my body mercilessly. I had to get up, though. I had to climb down.

  Focusing as I gripped the railing, I spun my body around. This time, the metal ladder wasn’t as hot, or maybe I just couldn’t feel it. Either way, I worked my way down, relying as little on my hands as possible.

  Again on the ground, I knew what I had to do next. Running past the still burning building, I approached the guys who were hard at work.

  “The trench has to be at least a foot deep and three feet wide,” I ordered.

  They heard me, but I didn’t know if it was possible. The water was pouring down too quickly. As soon as someone shoveled a hole, it was filled and washed away. It was a nearly impossible task.

  They had to figure it out, though. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t have to worry about being eliminated. We would die in the forest fire long before that.

  I turned and began jogging away from the fire.

  “Where are you going?” I heard Brad yell.

  “Keep digging. We need the trench,” I replied, not looking back.

  Standing on the water tower looking down, I had realized something. No one was in the camp. The fire had drawn everyone out. If Carl had set the fire to get free access to the camp, that’s where he was now.

  It was more than half a mile to the camp, and I jogged the entire way. The distance wouldn’t have been so bad if every step didn’t shoot a bolt of electricity to my hands.

  When I arrived at camp, I didn’t find Carl, but I did find drag marks. Their shaky lines were scraped across the stone walkway and continued through the dirt. I followed them out of camp and towards the shore. And I stopped when I saw what was making them.

  “What are you doing, Carl?” I asked demandingly.

  Pulling one of the bamboo bed frames, Carl looked at me startled. Worried, he turned to his left. That’s when I saw Rose. She looked scared.

  “Carl, don’t do anything stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid. I’m getting out here. And Rose is coming with me.”

  “Kidnapping Rose isn’t a smart idea, Carl.”

  “I’m not kidnapping her. She wants to come.”

  I looked at Rose, not believing him.

  “He told me that you all were planning on killing me, Ford. Was that how you were gonna keep me safe? That’s what you said, right? That you would keep me safe?”

  “No. Rose, he’s lying. No one’s gonna hurt you,” I protested, unsure of how to get out of this situation.

  “You heard them, Ford,” Carl claimed. “They wanna kill her.”

  “No!” I turned to Rose. “It’s not like that. Someone said something. We all agreed that it was a stupid idea.”

  “Oh my god, you did. You discussed killing me,” she realized in horror. “Well, what did you all decide on?” she asked feeling scared and betrayed. “What, are you gonna drown me? You gonna use one of your steak knives on me? Huh? You gonna get together and beat me to death?” she taunted.

  A surge of anger rushed through me. “We’re dying here, Rose! Okay! People are scared. No one knows who’s next. People said things they didn’t mean, but we have a plan now. I told you that I would keep you safe, and I will.”

  “We have a plan too,” Carl explained. “We’re gonna use this bed frame and paddle our way out of here. You’ve seen them float. You know it’ll work. We could even take you with us.”

  I considered it. Yes, the Viking funeral proved that the bed frames could float. It might even be able to carry three people.

  “Are you forgetting about the sharks?” I asked.

  “As long as we don’t go swimming, we’ll be fine,” Carl offered desperately.

  “This is a stupid idea. Where do you plan on going? You just gonna float until you hit land? What about food? What about water? You’ll die in two days.

  “Look, we have a plan. We’re hiking across the island to the compound. It will take a few days, but it’s our best chance.”

  Rose spoke up. “And what if there’s another elimination on the way? You really think they’re gonna sit around doing nothing as I kill people?”

  “And you think people won’t die if you drown at sea?” I countered.

  “There’s gotta be a range limit or something, right?” Rose asked.

  She had a point. She wasn’t suddenly psychic. Something had to be helping her kill people, and whatever it was had to have its limits.

  “But will we all die the second you get out of range? There could be some sort of failsafe. If it loses your signal, it could be programmed to kill us.”

  “We could sail to the compound,” Carl spit. “We’ll get there a lot faster.”

  That was a good point. With the right currents and a little luck, it could take us less than a day.

  “But what if the current pushes us the wrong way?” I asked. “We could smash into the rocks or end up drifting out to sea. Or what if the waves pick up
. If we capsize, how long would we have before the sharks found us?”

  Carl didn’t get a chance to reply. The sound of men running up behind me drew our attention.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded. “Is the fire out?”

  I looked back at the hillside sky. Clouds of smoke still hung in the air.

  “It’s out,” Gray barked. “What’s going on here? You making plans with your friends?”

  Rose stepped back in fear. I felt the instinct to protect her. “You’re fine,” I said reassuring her. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “And what are you doing with that?” Gray demanded. “Planning on going somewhere?”

  Carl stood frozen. The tension was building quickly. And when Gray withdrew a gun from his pocket, things turned dangerous.

  “He made a mistake, Gray. Carl thought we were gonna do something to Rose. I told them about our plan to go to the compound. Everything’s okay now.” I turned to Carl. “Right?”

  Carl didn’t reply.

  Gray snarled. “Carl thought that Rose was in danger? Is that what he said?”

  “Don’t, Gray,” I said, not convinced that I could stop him.

  “Honey, that’s not why he took you. He took you because he thought that taking you was his best way to survive. You think he cares about you? He’s using you.

  “He was the first person to suggest killing you. You know when that was? It was three days ago. He doesn’t give a shit about you. He’s just trying to save his own ass.”

  That was a revelation to me. None of them knew what was going on three days ago. So, why would Carl have suggested killing Rose then? I wasn’t sure that true.

  I looked at him, expecting a full-throated rebuke, and didn’t get one.

  “That’s not true, Rose,” Carl said. “It was Gray who said it. He said it tonight as well. I just wanted to keep you safe. I love you, babe. Don’t you know that?”

  Crackling shrieks screamed behind me. Startled, I looked back. A fountain of sparks flew up from behind the trees. A loud boom! was followed by another. When the fireworks couldn’t get any louder, the light from the camp blinked off.

  Everything around us wasn’t dark, though. The pale white of the lighthouse tower hovered over the horizon like the moon. All night it had shone the same pale white light, but suddenly it was changing.