Rules For Spanking: MMF Bisexual Romance

by A. Anders

  Pink hues tinted the tower’s light. It happened quickly. Just as quickly, the pink became coral and then turned to red.

  When it stopped, it was blood red. The demonic light cast eerie shadows over everyone. Looking around, only one person wasn’t disturbed.

  Throughout it all, Rose had never taken her eyes off Carl. Was she humiliated? Was she feeling used? I didn’t know, but it was clear that she was mad. As my attention shifted between the two of them, Carl began to choke.

  Fighting for breath, Carl fell to his knees. He was dying. Rose was doing it. He had betrayed her, and she was killing him for it. Finally, when he lay motionless with a dead man’s stare, the tower’s light quickly turned from red back to a white.

  What had we just seen? Rose, the red light, Carl’s death, all of it had to be connected.

  I looked up at Rose. She was shocked. She threw her hand over her mouth and searched our faces for answers.

  Finding none, she looked down at Carl’s lifeless body. She stared at it in silence until she began to tremble. She was shaking uncontrollably. She was about to fall apart.

  “I think I know what’s going on,” Thorin said from the back of the group.

  Thorin pushed past everyone settling beside Carl’s body. Kneeling, he brushed back Carl’s shaggy hair.

  “Someone help me, please,” he asked, looking back at us.

  I hurried over and helped him flip Carl onto his stomach. Again moving his hair, Thorin positioned the nape of Carl’s neck into the light.

  “There. Look. See?” Thorin chirped.

  I leaned in. He had a small mark behind his ear.

  “Do you have a chip?” Thorin asked Rose.

  “Of course. Why?” she replied.

  “Is there anyone here who doesn’t have a chip?” Thorin asked the guys.

  “Yeah, me,” Brad said confidently.

  Thorin ran to him, and I followed. Turning Brad into the light, I saw the same mark behind his ear.

  “Well, you do now,” Thorin confirmed.

  “That’s impossible. How?” Brad protested.

  “What about me?” Thorin asked showing me his neck.

  “Yeah, it’s there,” I confirmed.

  “I didn’t have one either,” Thorin said deflated. “But now, it looks like we all do. I think I know why I’m here. I know why they sent me back.”

  Chapter 9

  Billy suddenly snapped the tension. “I don’t understand. It wasn’t time yet. We just had an elimination. Why did Carl die?”

  “Neuropathic inceptors,” Thorin explained. “Everyone here has been chipped. And if I’m right, then they’re like the ones I put in product testers.” He paused. “Well, maybe not exactly those ones. These seemed to be getting a signal from the tower.”

  “I don’t get it,” I admitted. “So, the tower’s killing people?”

  “Not exactly. I think that the tower is reading Rose’s neuro patterns. When Rose makes a decision about someone—it could be subconscious, it could just be her losing interest in them—but, whatever triggers it, her chip sends a signal to the tower. The tower then transmits the signal to a local computer, then that computer sends a kill signal to the chip in whoever Rose has lost interest in.”

  Brad stepped forward. “So we can end this by taking down the tower, right? No tower, no signal.”

  “Chips are continuously looking for a signal. It would be like a dead man’s switch,” Thorin said.

  “Dead man’s switch?” Brad asked.

  I answered. “A dead man’s switch is like when a dying man holds a grenade knowing that once he dies, he’ll let go of the trigger and the grenade will explode. Thorin’s saying that if we kill the tower, we’ll all die.”

  “Then what do we do?” Billy asked. “Are we supposed to just sit around trying not to upset her until we’re all dead?”

  “No. He can take the chips out,” Gray replied. “You said that was your job, right?” he asked, turning to Thorin.

  “Yeah, but…” Thorin said, hesitating.

  “Then take them out!” Gray ordered.

  “With what? A coconut and toilet paper?” Thorin spit in terrified outrage. “I worked in a sterilized lab with specialized equipment. I could kill you trying to take it out.”

  “That’s not what we’re gonna do,” I told everybody.

  “Okay, big man,” Gray said, turning to me challengingly. “You tell us. What are we gonna do?”

  “We’re heading to the compound. It’s what we all agreed to do. And it’s the only place on the island where we can shut off the chips.”

  “And that’s what we’re all gonna do,” Gray commanded.

  Stepping forward, Gray’s demeanor had instantly changed. He was standing taller and speaking in a lower register. He reminded me of a boy trying to impress a girl on the playground.

  “We’re gonna follow the coast to the compound. And when we get there, Thorin will take these chips out of our heads,” Gray confirmed.

  “That’s a bad plan,” I interrupted.

  “Well, if you want to leave yours in, then go ahead,” Gray said with a glare.

  “Not that part. We shouldn’t follow the coast. That would put our backs against the shark infested water. If something attacks us, we won’t have anywhere to go.”

  “Then we fight,” Gray announced. “You scared to do a little fighting?”

  I looked at Gray. Had he forgotten that I had whipped his ass every time he came up against me? I guess some guys just didn’t know when they were beaten.

  “Let’s put it to a vote,” I said, knowing there was an easier way of defeating him.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “Who here wants to leave themselves open to being attacked from either side?”

  No one raised their hand. Even I didn’t at first. The man knew how to misrepresent an idea.

  “And who wants to follow the coastline to a building which is also on the coast?”

  Brad, Thorin, Bob, Billy, and Gray all raised their hands. I had to admit, he had outplayed me with that one. My only shot at changing everyone’s mind lay in the only person who hadn’t voted, Rose.

  “Rose. What do you think? You wannna take the fastest path there? Or do you want to travel the entire way without an escape route if… I mean, when something large attacks us?” Obviously, two people could play that game.

  “I don’t know,” Rose whispered. “I’ll do whatever you all decide. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else getting hurt.”

  I looked closer at Rose. She was still shaking. Again, I had forced her into a no-win situation.

  I had gotten too caught up in my pissing contest with Gray to realize what this tension was doing to her. Either directly or indirectly, she was responsible for everyone’s death. She knew it, and it was tearing her apart.

  “There you have it,” Gray concluded. “We’re gonna stay here tonight. At the first sign of light, we’re heading to the coast.”

  Gray looked at me to see if I would challenge him. I didn’t. It was still a bad plan, but I was going to let him have it.

  I was more concerned about making sure Rose was alright. I decided to subtly keep an eye on her. As I watched her, I learned some unexpected things.

  Although she stood tall and stuck out her chin, her hands were shaking. She was trying hard to appear unaffected and strong, but it was just an act. She was scared and devastated by all of this. It broke my heart.

  But then, the longer I watched, the more I admired her for just remaining upright. Most people would have collapsed under the same weight, but Rose didn’t. It made me wonder where her strength came from. What could have forged her mettle? She had to have gone through a lot in her life.

  Apparently, Rose wasn’t just a girl on a game show looking for love. There was more to her than I had ever imagined. I really liked that.

  Gray ordered us to sleep in one room. I didn’t have a problem with that. I was done with fighting for the sake of fighting, and I was comfo
rtable with letting him take the lead for the time being.

  The only thing I did have a problem with was how Gray had distributed the guns. As far as I could tell, he had brought back three of them. He gave one to Bob, one to Billy, and kept the third one for himself.

  Both Bob and Billy were his “group date” allies. It seemed that Gray was still treating this nightmare like a game show. I was the person most likely to be eliminated next, so I didn’t think this was the time for silly alliances and show tactics. Considering that Buck-Naked Billy was wearing pants for the first time since we got here, I was sure that Gray’s ally would agree with me.

  Back at the prop room, I was open to giving Gray a second chance. But if he kept this up, sooner or later, he and I were gonna have a problem. He didn’t want that.

  By first light, we were all awake. Unable to relax my mind, I only got a few hours of sleep. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was too late now. It was time for us to get ready to head out.

  After the fireworks from the night before, the power never came back on. We guessed it meant that the pawns and food printers were dead. We couldn’t be sure about the pawns, but searching the kitchen for food proved we were right about the printers.

  Abandoning our hope for anything cooked, we searched the kitchen for anything edible. It was set up like it was once used for manual cooking, but all we found were printer supplies.

  After our failed search for food, everyone else filed out. I remembered the panther and looked for one last thing: a butcher’s knife. There was no way I was going back into the jungle unarmed. And preferring that Gray think I was defenseless, I pushed the blade through the seam in my pocket to hide it.

  I caught up with the others, and with just the guns, my knife, and the clothes on our back, we headed to the coast. I liked having everyone in front of me, so I took up a position at the back of the group. Thorin just ahead of me, and watching him, I remembered that I had a question for him.

  “You said that the chips in our heads are like the ones you implanted?” I asked him.

  “I can’t be sure until I look at them. But they have to be close,” Thorin explained.

  “Does that mean that there are people watching everything we do and listening to everything we say?”

  “Probably.”

  “And you said you thought the audience liked you?” I asked, getting to the heart of the matter.

  “I thought that was what Dan had said. But I can’t be sure anymore.”

  “Dan, the producer?” I clarified.

  “Yeah.”

  “So do you think that’s what’s happening; people are paying to tap into our chips to watch us die? Do you think that’s the premise of this game show?”

  Thorin looked at me with awe. “I… never thought about that. You might be right. Wow. Yeah, that works,” he confirmed with a growing smile.

  I didn’t share Thorin’s delight. I might have figured out why we were dying, but it didn’t stop me from becoming the next corpse. And dropping back from Thorin, I considering what this all meant.

  Literally, a million people could be seeing the world through my eyes, right at this very moment. They could have seen every private moment I had on the island. Every time I went to the bathroom. Every time I took a shower. It was a creepy thought.

  I guess that would explain why I never saw any cameras. We were the cameras. Maybe people paid to watch us like they paid for porn. You could choose one perspective for a certain price or pay more for multiple perspectives.

  It was all sick. I wasn’t sure how I had gotten myself involved in this insanity.

  It took twenty minutes to arrive at the coast. Once there, we followed it east. The elevation increased slowly, so an hour later, when we got to the fence, we were forty feet above sea level. Staring down the cliff face, we found that the chain link wrapped over the edge like a fan.

  “Over or around,” I asked the group.

  “Over,” Gray declared.

  “Yeah. I think over,” Brad agreed.

  I looked at Rose. She was staring intensely at the razor wire curling across the top. So as the others planned their route over, I subtly approached her and whispered. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, unable to hide the dread she felt.

  “You know you can trust me, right?” I told her with a comforting smile.

  “Can I?”

  “Yeah,” I reassured her.

  She looked away without a reply.

  “Rose, I’m gonna keep you safe. I understand that things are the way they are. None of us can help the way we feel. But none of that matters. You didn’t ask to be in this position. You’re a victim like everyone else here. And I want you to know that I’ll protect you.”

  “And what if I don’t need you to protect me?” she asked dryly.

  “Then I’ll have more time to catch up on my reading,” I said, playfully.

  Rose smiled. “Oh, did you bring a book.”

  “A book? No, no. I read the leaves and the stars,” I said with a coy smile.

  “I didn’t realize you were so into nature.”

  “Absolutely. I was born in nature. Nature is my favorite place to have sex.”

  “Nature is your favorite place to have sex?”

  “Naturally.”

  She looked at me, still smiling. “Wait. You like having sex in nature, or ‘naturally, you like having sex.’”

  “Absolutely,” I confirmed, teasingly.

  Rose chuckled. “Naturally.”

  Rose looked back at the fence with a big smile on her face. She thought for a moment before speaking again.

  “What if I told you what was wrong, and you couldn’t do anything to protect me. What would you do then?” she asked.

  I thought for a moment. “I’d probably die trying,” I said, still smiling.

  “Yeah, I’m sure you would,” she replied ambiguously.

  Rose paused again.

  “I don’t think that I can make it over the fence,” she admitted.

  “You don’t think you can climb it, or…?”

  “The razor wire. I don’t think I’m tall enough. I think I’m gonna try to climb over it, but I’m gonna fall onto the razors. I don’t think I can get over it. But please don’t say anything. Okay?”

  “Rose…”

  She cut me off. “Please don’t. You know what? I shouldn’t have said anything. It was a mistake. Just forget what I said.”

  “Rose…?

  “I’m fine. Okay? I’ll handle it. I’m fine,” she protested before joining the others at the fence.

  I watched Rose as she slowly disappeared behind her mask. As she shook the fence testing its strength, I considered what I could do to help her.

  “I think we should go around,” I announced grabbing everyone’s attention.

  “Yeah, right,” Gray scoffed.

  “No. I mean it. We’re going around.”

  Brad approached me presenting his usual charm. “Ford, it’s a forty foot drop. Don’t be ridiculous. We can just go over it.”

  “And you’re outnumbered,” Gray pointed out. “Besides. I’m in charge, and we’re going over. All of us.”

  “No, we’re not. I’ve been over this fence. The razor wire got me pretty bad. If it wasn’t for the magic dust I might have died.”

  I decided to leave out the part of the story that didn’t help my argument.

  “And now, the pawns are gone, and our magic dust is gone. That means that whatever injuries we get from here on out, we keep. So I’m gonna scale the side of the cliff. And I’m taking Rose with me.”

  “No, you’re not,” Gray declared.

  “Yes, I am,” I said, not giving him an inch.

  Gray sized me up. When he realized that he would have to go through me to stop me, he wisely backed down. I could see him boiling on the inside.

  “We’ll go around,” Gray announced. “Bob you go first, followed by Rose, and then the rest of us.” He turned
to me. “You’re goin’ last.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was doing there. If he thought going around was dangerous, he should have had me go first. What else did he have in mind?

  After a quick search, I found a path that scaled the cliff face. It was narrow, but it dipped below the chain link and spanned the crumbling limestone. My guess was that it had been used for the fence’s construction. As it was only wide enough now to hold the balls of our feet, I was sure that they had tried to destroy it after the fence was complete.

  Bob was the first to test the path. It held under his heavy weight. Grabbing onto the grass above, he worked his way down. When the grass was out of reach, he gripped the pockets in the limestone.

  Methodically securing each hand before shuffling his feet, Bob moved slowly. It was dangerous. The explosions as the waves crashed onto the jagged rocks below sent my heart racing.

  Rose glared at me as she prepared to go next. I wondered if she thought I betrayed her. When I offered her my hand to help her onto the path, she refused it. She didn’t even look at me.

  Kneeling in front of me, she gripped the grass. She matched Bob’s movements exactly. Stepping onto the small crumbling ledge, she slowly descended out of sight.

  Next up was Brad. Thorin and Billy followed him. And when it was Gray’s turn, he took a hard look at me. There was something dark behind his eyes. I was expecting for him to pull out his gun, but he didn’t.

  With Gray working his way across the cliff face with everyone else, it was finally my turn. Heights had never been a problem for me, but as soon as I let go of the tufts of grass and transferred my weight onto the path, I knew I was in danger.

  Without magic dust, falling would mean death, so when the ledge wobbled beneath me, I sunk my fingertips into the limestone. The stone crumbled in my hands, and I pressed my chest against the rock.

  Even as my pulse thundered in my ears, I knew that I couldn’t stop or turn back. So I took another step. As I did, the crumbling path sent me to my toes.

  When the stone ledge collapsed from under me, the limestone crumbled in my hands. The cliff face rushed past me in a cloud of dust. My heart was in my throat as I fell. As I struggled to grip onto anything, my face hit the wall, whipping my head back.