Rules For Spanking: MMF Bisexual Romance

by A. Anders

  “That’s thirty minutes,” Billy said.

  I turned around and saw him. His brow was furrowed, telling me how much he had heard. I was embarrassed.

  I was about to pretend that none of what he heard had been real, when Rose took hold of my cheek and kissed me again. I turned to her, recognizing the gesture. It was the way you kissed someone when you were kissing them for the last time. She was kissing me goodbye.

  As I walked away, I could almost feel the powerful bond that drew us together. It stretched taut. Its hooks pulled at me, peeling me raw. It splayed my chest, exposing my heart. When the agony was too much and I had to say something, I said what I hoped would be enough.

  “I love you!” I said.

  But when I turned around, Rose and Billy were gone. I was alone.

  I stared into the trees, knowing the truth. Not only had I just lost her, but my cowardice had made today my last day on earth. Perhaps it was a fitting end.

  When I caught up to the others, I found Brad and Thorin temporarily setting up camp. Gray and Bob had gone hunting. It had been Bob’s idea. He wanted his time with Rose to be while eating the meat that he had killed, so he had gone off hunting. Wanting some of the credit, Gray had gone with him.

  Neither Brad, Thorin, nor I said much to each other as we waited for everyone to return. I sat in silence while Brad looked around for ingredients. I didn’t ask him what the ingredients were for, but I assumed it was to get Rose high.

  I didn’t judge Brad for exploiting his advantage. It was a good strategy, and I didn’t judge Rose for needing an escape. I thought it was incredible that she was dealing with the situation as well as she was. Considering everything going on, I couldn’t imagine someone handling it better.

  When Bob returned, he had a dead pig slung across his shoulders. I had heard two shots, and when Bob tossed it to the ground, I saw the bullet holes. They had been fired at close range as it charged the shooter. Apparently, like the bear and panther, the wild pig was another non-native animal trying to kill us.

  The island had to have been stocked with wildlife. Was it stocked so that we could do what we’re doing now? Were we supposed to leave the resort and fight the wildlife in route to the compound? Was all of this just another part of the game?

  I didn’t know, and I was quickly losing interest in finding out. My time on the island was growing short. When I died, it wouldn’t be because of the wildlife. It would be because of my inability to face the truth. It would be from damage done long before I got here.

  Bob set up a spit and began roasting the boar. When Rose returned, she was impressed. Leaving with Bob and a chunk of the cooked meat, the two dined on the outskirts of the flickering firelight.

  As I sat thinking about how much I had done wrong, I could hear Rose’s contagious laughter. She laughed without self-consciousness. She had an openness to her and a vulnerability. Perhaps that was why it didn’t work out between us. At our hearts, we were completely different people.

  Unable to listen to the two laugh any longer, I ripped off a chunk of cooked meat and took a walk. Pushing past the branches entering the darkness, the jungle night wasn’t as quiet as I thought it would be. The sounds of squawking birds and screeching primates filled the air. I even heard squeals as prey succumbed to their predators. The sound sent chills down my spine.

  It felt good to feel fear, though. If nothing else, it told me that I was still alive.

  I had truly made a mess of things—not just with Rose, but with everything since Jill. Forgiveness was hard to find. It’s even harder to find when you can’t admit to what you’ve done.

  I was sure that that was it. I could neither forgive myself nor give anyone else the chance to forgive me. I deserved to die. An eye for an eye. Wasn’t that how it went?

  My mind snapped back to the present when I heard a crackle come from a few feet behind me. I turned and stared into the darkness. I stood motionless, listening for what was following me. I heard nothing but my own stilted breath.

  I took a few steps forward and heard the sound again. A hot flash shot through me. I was being stalked.

  Was this how I wanted to die? Eaten alive in a foreign jungle? Or was I going to fight? I had already given up once today. Why not do it again?

  Because I didn’t give up, I realized. I never gave up. I always continued to fight, no matter what the odds. No, fighting this predator, whatever it was, wouldn’t be my time. Not now and not like this. I would not give up so easily.

  It’s amazing how being face to face with death can remind you of who you are. I wondered what I would have to do to survive this time. I felt the cold steel of the butcher’s knife stuck to my leg. A rush of adrenaline coursed through me. I was ready to do whatever it took.

  No, I couldn’t stand and fight. I had to get back to camp.

  Still facing the noise, I backed away. Turning around and picking up the pace, I could hear it following me. I was sure that it was faster than me. Why hadn’t it pounced yet? It could be on top of me any moment.

  I looked back. Something slithered through the branches. I couldn’t tell what until I saw its glowing yellow eyes. I swallowed. I had escaped it once, but now, it had found me.

  That was certainly enough to be dealing with at the moment, but when I looked back, I noticed something else: the tower. Its light was pale pink. Two things were chasing me, and I knew I couldn’t outrun them both.

  Although I wasn’t sure how much good it would do, I stopped being casual, and I ran. I pumped my legs as hard as I could, leaping over the fallen branches made visible by the increasingly red light. I didn’t look back after that. Looking back wouldn’t do me any good.

  I imagined the rippling beast behind me and the campfire in front of me. I then thought about Rose. I wanted to get back to her. I had to escape the demon so that I could get back to her.

  It was then that I stumbled. Had it gotten me? I didn’t know. If it hadn’t already, it would now.

  It didn’t, though. I found my balance. Each step was bringing me closer to the woman I loved. That was why I couldn’t open up, because I loved her. I loved her like I had once loved someone else.

  The sharp lines of the camp’s firelight cast shadows in front of me. I knew where I was headed now. When I entered the clearing still in one piece, I entered a changed man.

  Everyone at camp turned to me as I raced toward them. I spotted a gun on the ground. Diving toward it, I picked it up continuing into a somersault. Stopping on my knees, I twisted. Pointing the gun into the darkness, I was ready to fire.

  “What is it?” Brad yelled.

  I crouched waiting. With my arms shaking, I looked down the barrel of the gun. It had been right behind me. I had been sure of it. With every passing second, though, I wondered if I had been running from anything at all.

  “Speak to us,” Thorin begged. “What is it?”

  Nothing was there. Nothing was after me. My eyes shifted to the strained curves of my forearm. I loosened my grip and looked around.

  Gray stood behind me with his nozzle searching the darkness. Beside him, Bob did the same.

  “It’s gone,” I said, releasing them from their stance.

  “What was it?” Gray asked, catching his breath.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. As my mind cleared, I remembered something else. “The tower. Did you see it?”

  I turned around and saw Rose. She was back. I hadn’t expected to see her.

  “Yeah. We did?” Gray said returning his gun to his waistband. “We were trying to decide what to do.”

  I looked around at everyone. They all had the same expression as when they denied me a rose.

  I slowly turned to the beautiful woman to my right. Although moments before I had sworn to be a new man, to fight to stay alive, I still couldn’t change who I was at my core; I had to protect Rose.

  “She shouldn’t watch this,” I said to the guys. I turned to her. “You shouldn’t have to.”

  The guys
looked at each other in agreement.

  “You’re right,” Brad said, confident that he was safe.

  “No, she shouldn’t,” Gray added to everyone else’s nods.

  I stood and tucked the gun into my belt. Approaching her slowly, I took her hand. I half expected someone to stop me, but no one did.

  Cupping her delicate fingers with mine, I stared into her sober eyes. “I should have let you in.”

  She inhaled as if fighting back a river of tears.

  “I want you to remember that none of this is your fault,” I paused and looked into her eyes. “And I forgive you.”

  That was it. Those words were all of the protection I could offer her for when I was gone. I squeezed her hand. What I said next came out as a raspy whisper, “You should go now.”

  I let go of Rose and turned away. I could hear her shoes slap the dirt as she ran off.

  I looked into the guy’s faces. Their solemn gazes told me that they understood. My extended stay on the island was coming to an end. All I had left was the time it took for the wine colored light to become bright red.

  I turned my back to the tower when it became a matter of seconds. I really would have done things differently if it hadn’t been my turn, I thought. And those weren’t just a dying man’s words. They were my last rite, my confession.

  Feeling a burning in my chest and a pain in my stomach, I steadied myself. I was ready. A cough, the first cough, drowned out the sound of the waves below. A rawness burned my throat making me want to throw up. My body convulsed, but not because of the chip in my head but because the cough had come from someone else.

  I could barely look up. My soul was tearing apart as both joy and guilt fought to get out. By all rights, it should have been me. Rose had told me so.

  She had said that everyone else had had the courage to be open with her. Wasn’t that the only challenge in this game that truly mattered? And it was the only challenge I couldn’t win.

  Out of respect, I forced myself to look up. I had to face the man who had unfairly taken my spot. The man falling to his knees in a halo of red light was Billy.

  No one moved to help him. What could anyone do that hadn’t already been done? I didn’t need to be reminded how helpless it felt to watch one of your men die, but here was evidence again.

  I stood wondered if there was anything I could have done to save him. I couldn’t be sure.

  One thing I was sure of. I was going to do everything possible to bring an end to this game. Staring into the lifeless eyes of the dead man in front of me, I slowly reached behind my back and gripped my gun.

  Chapter 10

  “What are you doing?” Gray said, pointing his gun at me.

  I retrieved my gun, allowing it to lay flat on my open palm.

  “We need to talk,” I said calmly.

  Gray gripped his tighter, noticing how unintimidated I looked. “About what?”

  “You’re not in charge,” I told him.

  “Oh?” he challenged manufacturing a smile. “And what makes you think that?”

  “Gray,” I said in an unwavering tone. “You’re not in charge.”

  Gray chuckled nervously, shifting his weight as he did. “You threatening me with that gun, boy?”

  “No.” In a flash, my hand tilted, and the pistol fell into my grip. “Now I am.”

  “Ford, what are you doing?” Brad asked.

  “Gray, I’ve told you that you’re not in charge. Now, I have no problem giving you this gun. You can hold them. I don’t mind. But before you do, I wanna hear you say it. You’re not in charge.”

  Gray laughed nervously. He shifted back and forth, unable to stand still. I knew that he was thinking about shooting me. If he did, he would probably kill me, but I was betting that he wasn’t going to pull the trigger.

  “You know what they say. The person with the biggest gun makes the rules,” he said, testing me.

  “Gray, you are not in charge.”

  I stared at him, unblinking. He was dangerously nervous. When his finger tightened on the trigger, I considered that this tactic might not work. I considered that one of us was going to die.

  “Gray!” Brad began, breaking the silence. “No one’s in charge. You’re not in charge. I’m not in charge. Just tell him that. He said that he’ll give you the gun.”

  Gray’s eyes bounced between me and Brad.

  “Yeah, Gray. Just tell him you’re not in charge,” Bob said. “One person already died tonight. We can’t be fighting between us. Just tell him that, and take the gun.”

  Feeling the pressure on Gray mounting, I twisted my wrist, returning the gun to my palm. “I just wanna hear you say it: ‘I’m not in charge.’”

  I had gotten to him. I could see the sweat bead on his forehead. Now, I just needed him to hear it in his own voice.

  “Say it, Gray. ‘I’m not in charge.’”

  His lip quivered as he formed the words. “I’m not… in charge,” he finally said.

  He tried desperately to hide it, but I could see his hand shake. He would still kill me if he fired at this range, but he no longer had the balls to pull the trigger.

  When he thought about this moment later, and I knew that he was going to, he would hate himself for not shooting me. He’ll search desperately for the reason he didn’t.

  What he will conclude is that he had a good reason not to shoot me. He won’t be able to say what that reason is. But that belief will keep him from ever shooting me. Simply put, I neutered him and put his testicles on my keychain.

  I slowly rotated my gun, handing him the grip. Matching my pace, he grabbed it with his free hand. To emphasize our new pecking order, I turned my back on him and addressed the other guys.

  “Grab as much of the cooked meat as you can eat tonight,” I announced. “The rest, we’re dumping over the cliff with Billy’s body.”

  “You’re dumping the food?” Bob asked confused.

  “Everything has to go. There are a lot of things out there trying to kill us. The last thing we need is to lure them to us with a free meal.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t…” Thorin searched for the right words, “dump Billy’s body. I mean, we all knew him.”

  “Yeah, we did. But there’s nothing we can do for him now,” I said, presenting the cold, hard facts.

  “I came back. What if they can bring him back too?”

  “Then they fish him out and revive him from there,” I stated confidently.

  “Look,” Gray barked, “why are we talking about Billy? We all know who’s responsible for this. She’ll just keep killing us one by one.”

  “And what are you proposing?” I asked, allowing everyone to lay their cards on the table.

  “Get rid of her before she gets rid of us. If we had done it sooner, maybe Billy wouldn’t be dead.”

  I didn’t like it. I wouldn’t let it happen. However, logic was hard to argue against, so I didn’t try. “We’re not gonna do that.”

  “I thought we voted here,” Gray said, reaching in my pocket for his balls.

  “Not about this,” I barked, asserting my authority.

  “He’s right. It’s not smart,” Thorin added. “Killing her could just as likely kill us as save us.”

  “And who are you again?” Gray asked the diminutive Thorin.

  “I’m just saying that in certain configurations, killing her means killing us. We shouldn’t do it.”

  “Okay, is everyone done talking about killing Rose?” Brad asked. “Because if you are, I’ll go get her.”

  “No, you’re not,” Gray claimed. “You’re not gonna spend time alone with her.”

  “Then come with me. It’s not safe for her out there. Like the man said, it could get us all killed.”

  “Go get her,” I ordered. “Meanwhile, the rest of us will clear the site.”

  “You want us to dump your body when you’re next?” Gray taunted.

  “Look, I’m gonna go get her,” Brad said before heading into the d
arkness.

  “No, wait,” Gray protested.

  “I don’t wanna dump Billy’s body. I knew him just like all of you did. But we need to do whatever we have to to survive. That comes first.”

  “And what if he’s not dead? Or what if they can bring him back or something?” Thorin protested.

  “Wait a minute,” Gray interjected. “Who is this they you keep talking about?”

  “I don’t know. The producers. Whoever it was that got us here. The people who sent me back.”

  “Yeah. About that,” Gray said bouncing the gun in his hand. “You wanna tell us one more time how you ended up back here. Because as far as I can see, there’s no way off this island except as a corpse.”

  Thorin’s shoulders lifted as if he was holding something back.

  “What. You do know something,” I said giving him my full attention. “If you’re holding something back that can get us out of here…”

  “No. Of course not. It’s just that he asked me how it is that I’m back here, and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about it.”

  “And what did you come up with?” I asked, unable to catch his darting lowered eyes.

  Thorin hesitated and then squirmed as his mouth opened.

  “I think it was Rose,” he admitted.

  “You think she asked for you to come back?” I questioned, confused.

  “Yes, but not exactly. I think it was Rose who brought us all here in the first place.”

  “So you’re saying that Rose masterminded this whole thing? Chips and all?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “And why would she do that?”

  “To find a man?” Thorin offered sheepishly.

  I was the only one to scoff aloud, but no one was buying Thorin’s theory.

  “Think about it,” he continued. “She’s gotta be a little crazy, right? I mean, we tell her that she’s responsible for a dozen people’s death, and a few hours later, she’s dancing around with each of us in woods like nothing’s happened? A sane person wouldn’t do that. Would they?”

  I didn’t want to think it, but he did have a point. I tried to explain it away by saying that she was high, but how high would you have to be to forget about that?