Lieutenant Barley waited nervously outside the Colonel’s office. The information he had was incredible and completely unbelievable. But he had the proof. All that was required was the Colonel’s attention for five minutes.

“Sir, Colonel Sattersby will see you now,” the aide said, stepping out of his superior’s office.

The lieutenant stepped into the dark, wood paneled office. Colonel Sattersby looked very fit and professional in his gray uniform as he browsed through a manila folder. The Confederate flag hung from a pole behind the desk next to a wall map of the territories claimed by the Confederacy and the few outlying areas of civilization that still existed.

The Colonel looked up at the junior officer and frowned, then cleared his throat.

“You’re the head of intelligence in Knoxville?” he asked, his gruff voice unfriendly.

“Um, yessir!” the lieutenant said, coming to attention.

“At ease,” the older officer said more softly, returning his gaze to the folder in front of him. “Barley, Lieutenant, Conroy. Two last names. Humph.”

He cleared his throat again and read some more. The silence in the room was nerve wracking to the young lieutenant. After a long moment, the Colonel spoke.

“You have verification?” he asked, looking up, not even bothering to ask why this Lieutenant Barley, Conroy was there. They both knew why.

“Yes, sir!” Barley replied briskly. “I came here as soon as I received it.”

He handed an envelope to the Colonel. Opening it, the Colonel read the dispatch. His eyes widened as he continued to read.

“This would be very difficult to believe, Lieutenant,” the Colonel informed him. “Why should I take any of this – nonsense – seriously.”

“Sir, I…” Lieutenant Barley stammered and started again. “I f-found it difficult to believe myself! But, the facts are clear. The transmitters hidden among the supply shipments changed locations almost instantaneously, across three states, Sir!”

“This states that six transmitters were among the stolen supplies, and that four of them are now transmitting from somewhere in Colorado. Where are the other two?” the Colonel asked. He’d read it in the report, but he wanted the young greenhorn to say it.

“The… they’re in orbit, sir,” the lieutenant stammered, “directly over the transmitters in the Colorado mountains. Sir, I realize that this is difficult to believe, but I think that we’re dealing with a group of survivors that have advanced technology. It would be most worthwhile to offer them a place in the Confederacy.”

“That’s your opinion,” the Colonel stated, dismissing the idea immediately.

He looked at the young man standing in front of him for another moment, then decided to take him into his confidence.

“You ever been to Atlantis, Boy?” Colonel Sattersby asked.

The lieutenant looked at his superior officer, confused.

“It’s a casino,” Sattersby clarified, “off the coast of Florida. It’s underwater, of course, and it survived the destruction of the major cities in that area.”

“Sir?” Barley queried.

“They still have technology there,” Sattersby explained, “and some of it’s pretty amazing. What I’m about to tell you was top secret before the collapse of the Supreme Board, and was probably top secret back in the days of clandestine military intelligence.”

The Colonel stood up while he was talking and walked around his desk.

“Here,” he pointed to the edge of the Atlantic near Miami, “is where Atlantis Casino is located. Sit down, Boy, ya bother me, standin’ all stiff like that.”

Lieutenant Barley found an old wooden chair and sat down, stiff-backed and looking very uncomfortable. It wasn’t proper to sit in the presence of a senior officer who was standing, unless, of course, it was as part of a group briefing. The Colonel smiled gruffly to himself as he watched relief appear on young Barley’s face as he sat back down at his desk.

“They had – have – the most advanced technology for uncovering dishonesty in the world,” the Colonel told him. “They have technology that can read minds!”

He watched as the lieutenant absorbed that information.

“H-how did they come by this technology, sir?” Barley asked, curiosity overcoming his discomfort.

“They got it from a branch of the old Tomlin Security Corporation,” the Colonel informed him. “I looked up their last known corporate headquarters. Do you know where it is?”

The lieutenant shook his head.

“Do you know what NASA is, or rather, was?” the Colonel asked him, seeming to change the subject.

“Um, yes, sir, I think so,” Barley responded, not quite following the Colonel’s line of questioning. “It was the Space Agency back in the late twentieth century. But they were disbanded, I thought, when the U.S. government collapsed.”

“That’s right,” the Colonel said, smiling at the younger officer for the first time. “Cigar? They’re from Georgia.”

He opened a box on his desk. The aroma of rich tobacco wafted out into the room.

“Um, yes, thank you, sir,” the lieutenant said, timidly reaching forward and, feeling his way around inside the box, lifted a thick cigar out, then put it in his pocket when the Colonel didn’t take one himself or offer him a light.

“Yes, NASA, disbanded,” the Colonel said, repeating himself. “But a research and development group called Camden, after the university, mind you, salvaged what was left of NASA and began to finance it again.

“I thought it was interesting that Camden and Tomlin were both located in the same city – Boston, mind you. It was also interesting that both of those corporations ‘jumped ship’, so to speak, just before the collapse of the Supreme Board, relocating to the same town in the Midwest. In fact, the town was seemingly built just for them, right in the middle of the Colorado Mountains.

“Do you know exactly where in the Colorado Mountains these two corporations with the most advanced technology in the world are located?” the Colonel asked, leaning forward conspiratorially and glaring at the lieutenant.

The lieutenant nervously shook his head, sweating now. Then it struck him like a thunderbolt out of the sky.

“No!” he exclaimed, jumping out of his chair. “It can’t be! Can it?” The triumphant gleam in the Colonel’s eyes told him it was true.

“They’re the ones who’ve been stealing from us?” he asked, incredulous. “I mean, Sir?” He remembered just in the nick of time whom he was addressing.

The Colonel slowly nodded his head.

“Then that means,” Lieutenant Barley’s mind was working overtime now. “That means that they knew that there was going to be… that what happened was going to happen. I mean…”

“Yes,” the Colonel agreed. “They had to have known. An underground city was constructed for them long before the sun’s radiation became lethal. They had advance knowledge, and they have advanced technology, and they hid both those secrets from the rest of the world.”

“That also means they’re not going to be interested in joining us, doesn’t it, sir?” the lieutenant asked, understanding now why his proposal to invite them was rejected so abruptly by his senior officer.

“How do you determine what this report means?” the Colonel asked. “It states that two of your trackers, following the radio signals for the stolen shipments, arrived at the entrance of a highway going into the mountains, but were unable to enter. Can you elaborate on that, son?”

“Uh, well, sir,” the lieutenant replied. “I questioned them personally. They said that they encountered a, um, energy field that, um, expelled them every time they tried to walk into the cavern. I questioned them quite thoroughly on that point, sir. They both claimed that to be the truth, even under heavy duress.”

“So, assuming that these scientific renegades won’t join us,” the Colonel said slowly, “and assuming that they have managed to seal themselves away from the rest of the world, what would you assume to do? Or rather, what would you have me do?”

“Well, sir,” the lieutenant spoke up, more confident now. “They have what we need to survive. So, I would recommend military action to take them over.”

The Colonel grinned slyly. This lieutenant would make a fine senior officer one day.

“Thank you, son,” he said. “That will be all.”

The lieutenant stood at attention, did an about-face and left the office. Once in the outer office, he grinned in relief at the officer’s aide sitting at the desk. The aide grinned back. He knew how intimidating the old war-horse could be.

Once outside, Barley realized that any more efforts in regards to retrieving the stolen supplies would be set aside in favor of a military campaign against the renegades hiding away in their mountain stronghold. Orders of that magnitude would be decided and issued at a much higher level than he participated in. His own romantic ideas, of course, would have the renegades warmly offer their technology to the Confederacy in return for a safe haven in a peaceful new world. But, knowing how most people reacted with faced with such adversity, he doubted that a peaceful solution could come of this.

‘Might as well take the rest of the day off – it’s almost morning anyway – time to get underground!’ he thought, remembering a popular water hole he’d discovered that last time he was in Nashville, the capital of the Confederacy.

He walked briskly along the street in the same direction as several others who were headed underground until he came to the first subway entrance he saw. Along with most of the others, he trotted briskly down the four flights of stairs into the damp air of the hollowed out and renovated subway tunnels.

He found himself in a food court that contained a bar. It was a different bar than he’d been in the last time he was here, but it didn’t matter. Beer was beer, and a bond girl always served it. If he were lucky, she would be pretty, available, and interested in working off her debt. She could help him celebrate a rare day away from his home base, for a little pocket change, of course.

He entered the bar. It was still early, and almost empty. There were three bond girls there, so the competition was going to be fierce. He downsized the amount of pocket change he planned on spending as he picked out the girl that would win his affections for the evening.

The tall, slim blonde he didn’t pick came over to him first.

“Drink, mister?” she asked, smiling.

Crystal blue eyes gazing directly into his startled him for a moment. Her gaze was fearless, but interested.

“Beer,” he nodded, trying to be disinterested in her.

He watched her slim rear end move seductively from side to side as she walked to the bar to get his drink. Moments later she returned, drink in hand.

“Anything else I can get you?” she asked, smiling down at him, her distracting blue eyes gazing into his soul again.

“No, thanks,” he said, dismissing her. He tried to place her accent, then decided she was simply imitating some old Tri-d recordings to make herself more alluring and mysterious. There were few survivors from the northeastern states, and that area had been pretty much uninhabited for most of his life. The blonde didn’t look old enough to have a real accent like that.

Fifteen minutes later, his beer was gone. There were a few more patrons there, now, but not so many as to drive the price up for the girls. The petite brunette that he’d decided on came by and asked if he wanted a refill.

“Sure,” he said, pretending not to really care. “Who’s the hot blonde?”

If he pretended interest in one of the other girls, the little brunette would go with him will less haggling over price.

“That’s Alicia,” the girl said candidly. “You don’t want her, she has a son your age. Besides, she belongs to Sattersby. She just slums in here sometimes.”

Barley laughed at the girl’s audacity. “She can’t be more than twenty-five. Even you look older than that!”

The girl flushed, angered that someone would accuse her of being her actual age.

“She’s almost forty!” the girl declared. “I’m nowhere near that old!”

She looked angrily down at his laughing face, realizing that she’d been taken for a ride. She was the one he wanted and he was just trying that old hat stuff about the competition to keep her price down.

“It’s twenty for the day,” she informed him haughtily. “And there’s no haggling. Even the ‘old has-been’ won’t take less. You can ask her if you want, but I might be taken by the time you make up your mind, Soldier!”

Barley laughed at her backside as she stomped away from him.

Sally halfway expected him to call her back, but realized that the morning was young yet. There was time – if not with him, then with someone else. But he was very attractive. He might even be fertile. That would make him husband material. But right now, she was only interested in getting out from under her bondage debt.

Mr. Drake, her bond owner, had found her abandoned and alone, and had taken her under his protection when she was still a child. He’d provided food and shelter for her, along with several others near her age.

When she became old enough and her tits started to grow, he introduced her into the world of making pleasure for men. He’d charged her for her ‘schooling’, claiming that she could make up the additional payments by putting the special sexual techniques she learned from him into good use to please her customers.

It seemed like a good idea, and her expertise often earned her a nice tip at the end of the day, but her debt didn’t seem to go down as fast as she thought it should. She tried making extra payments to Drake with her body as well as with the extra money she made in an attempt to pay him off faster, only to discover that he charged her double for his services when she did that.

An hour later, she was back at the lieutenant’s table serving him another drink and he agreed to her price. By now, other girls had arrived and the competition was starting to get fierce. The tall blonde was gone, too, having left alone, presumably to return to her gilded cage and Sattersby.

“I usually get fed before,” Sally stated as she and Barley left the bar.

They both understood that the twenty she expected didn’t include dinner. But they were in a food court, and dinner could be gotten pretty cheap.

Barley gestured expansively at the booths around them, allowing her to choose one. She smiled up at him and led the way.

“Hey, Sal,” the guy behind a counter grinned, greeting her. “The usual?”

“Yeah, Sammy, thanks!” the young girl replied. The counter attendant slapped a long kraut dog up on the counter, already made, as he had seen her coming.

Barley looked at the girl as she greedily wolfed a large bite into her face.

“That’ll be two-fifty, mister,” the counter attendant informed him, “unless you want something for yourself.” Sally’s pickups usually didn’t, but he always asked, just in case.

Barley gave him three. “Keep change.”

He watched as the girl crudely swallowed part of the barely chewed bite.

“You should try it,” she said around the food still remaining in her mouth. “Kraut’s good fer yer digestion.”

Barley grimaced as his stomach informed him of what would happen if he ate that. Especially if he ate it like she was eating it…

“That’s okay, thanks,” he told her, grinning through gritted teeth. “Go ahead and enjoy it.”

He looked around, not seeing anything being served that he would trust in his stomach.

“My place or yours?” Sally asked before inserting the second half of her kraut dog into her mouth. Then she looked more closely at his uniform. “I guess it’ll be mine. You probably won’t want to share me in your barracks. Costs extra for groups.”

“Your place will be fine,” Barley replied, wondering if the willowy blonde who’d originally approached him would have actually been available. Perhaps Sattersby had sent her to keep tabs on him. His memory of her deep blue eyes burned into him and he wondered what it would be like with their bodies both naked with him stretched along her entire, languid length. What was her name? Alice? Allison?

Sally’s second bite was surprisingly more demure than her first. The girl had evidently been starving, but now exerted some control over her base need for food and ate the rest of the sandwich without any further vulgar display of her lack of table manners.

They walked a bit into the tunnel where a series of rooms had been cut into the sides of the main subway line. At the fourth door, they stopped and Sally let herself in with an old fashioned key that unlocked an old fashioned deadbolt.

Expecting her housekeeping to match her table manners, Barley was surprised to see her room was clean and neat. She didn’t have much in the way of furniture, but the basic appliances were there – stove, fridge, table and chairs. Another table by the bed held a small lamp. A tall lamp stood next to an old couch. There didn’t seem to be a Tri-d set or even a radio.

“All the simple pleasures,” she announced, presenting her home to him.

She smiled up at him hopefully. He smiled back, appalled that she could live like this.

“All this yours?” he asked, trying to be interested.

“Well, no,” Sally admitted. “I rent this place from my bondsman – the furniture, too. He makes sure I have room and board. I owe him for that.”

Barley understood only too well. This girl was a slave. She was owned. The surprising part was that she didn’t really fight it. She seemed to accept her lot in life. The reason for her Spartan existence was that she simply couldn’t afford more. Her pimp bondsman kept her too poor to escape this life. She would die of old age, still owing him, unless he threw her out. But that would be against the contract they had between them unless, of course, he convinced her to sign a release.

Sally watched the young officer, knowing that he had more than she did, even though he lived in a barracks. There were wonderful (but old) houses and apartments topside, but if you tried to live in one of them, you would be dead in a week – microwaved to death by a life-extinguishing, over-energetic sun. She privately breathed a sigh of relief as he seemed to accept these surroundings.

“Twenty up front?” she asked, smiling and trying to be as pleasant as possible about the business end of their relationship. Barley grinned sheepishly and handed it to her. She folded it and shoved it into a box built into the kitchen table.

“Neat,” Barley murmured, looking at the slotted table.

Sally grinned up at him. “Yeah, I guess. Drake, I mean my bondsman – he had the table made special order after I got beaten and robbed once. There’s a radio alarm in it that rings a bell over my door. It’s expensive, but it keeps me safe.”

‘And poor!’ Barley thought to himself. “How do you get the money out?”

“Oh, Drake does that,” Sally replied. “He always lets me know how much I made and how much I still owe him. I’m down to fifteen thousand.”

She smiled, pleased that she was making enough so that her debt was decreasing, despite food, rent and clothing.

Barley pulled the poor girl into his arms, mostly so she couldn’t see his face. He was pretty sure she couldn’t read or write. She could probably count well enough so that her customers didn’t cheat her, but the big cheat was her bondsman.

‘Fifteen thousand!’ he thought to himself. ‘She won’t make that in her entire lifetime – not with paying rent for this dismal room and her old, used furniture. The bastard probably overcharges her for the food in the fridge, too.’

Then he sighed. The girl was just a prostitute, after all. She probably didn’t have much of a career choice, given her lack of education. But there were thousand’s like her. He couldn’t save them all. He didn’t even have the fifteen thousand to buy her bond, even if he wanted to.

His emotions under better control, he put his hands on her soft, warm shoulders and slipped her blouse down around them. He loved the contrast of her alabaster skin against her dark hair. She looked frail and sweet, like a girl should look. She closed her eyes, enjoying his touch, trusting him much further than she should have for as long as they’d known each other.

Barley began unbuttoning the front of her blouse, enjoying the warmth of her soft breasts against the backs of his fingers as he worked the buttons free. When he was through, she stepped back as though she was on queue, allowing him to open her blouse and view her sexy, white breasts. There were no tan lines, of course, as it was too dangerous to go outside during daylight, and tanning salons were way beyond her financial reach.

He caressed her soft, milky-white breasts, always amazed at how soft and pliable a woman’s breasts felt in his rough hands. These were ‘all-natural’, having the same warm lack of texture throughout. He preferred natural breasts to the larger, better looking ones that some women sported. The feel was much more erotic than the view, and he’d cheerfully argued that point with his comrades-in-arms on several occasions.

A quiet moan in her throat brought his attention back to her face. She stood with her eyes closed, luxuriating in the sensuality of his touch on her breasts. Barley realized that this was probably the only form of adoration and acceptance she ever got as, one after another, unknown hands and faces passed through her empty life, and she was bravely making the most of it while she could.

Sally opened her eyes, sensing that he was studying her. She smiled, not really knowing what to expect. He wasn’t cruel, so she wasn’t concerned about being injured, but he was different than others she’d brought here.

‘Maybe he’s gay,’ she thought to herself. ‘Yep! He’s too nice! He’s really a girl inside and just doesn’t know it yet.’

She smiled up at him and put her arms around his neck, Her alabaster breasts rubbed against his uniform shirt as she stretched up to kiss him. The rough cloth felt really sexy against her nipples as it impressed upon her the fact that she was wickedly half-naked and he wasn’t.

Grinning and trying not to laugh at the bubbly feeling inside her, she began unbuttoning her consort’s shirt. Barley grinned back at her, unable to resist her playful enthusiasm, and began unbuttoning his shirt starting at the bottom. When their hands met, he pulled her hands up to his lips and kissed them, in true Southern Gentlemanly fashion – at least as best as he could mimic from the few old Tri-d recordings he’d seen.

She laughed out loud at him then, and pulled him across the room to her bed. There, she sat him down and, dropping to her knees, began to pull off his boots. After that, she massaged his feet, ignoring the sweaty feel and smell of him.

This one was special. She even planned on sharing her precious water with him to let him shower with her, knowing that many men liked soaping up her slender, sexy body and then taking her right there with the water running over the both of them before going to bed for the night. Also, shower sex usually meant a good tip – more money to pay on her bond.

Soon, she had his pants off and was playing with his half-hard dick, blowing on it and caressing it with her fingers. It was time for their shower. She stood up and held out her hand. He accepted it and tried to pull her down to the bed while she was trying to pull him up. They both laughed as she fell off balance on top of him.

“What were you doing?” he asked, enjoying even the sharp elbows and shoulders of her sweet, warm female body as she squirmed around on top of him.

“I was going to let you wash me in the shower,” she replied, giggling into his face. “Don’t you think that would be fun? Soaping me all over?”

“Sure,” he admitted. “But this is fun, too.”

He rolled her onto her back and began kissing and sucking on her breasts, chuckling to himself at her squeals of pretended protest. He began tickling her ribs, giving her something real to squeal about.

Sally realized that his lovely, tickling tongue and mouth were headed south and tried to pull him back, not sure of how she smelled down there. She’d bathed just before she went to the bar several hours earlier, but she knew some men were fussy about hygiene, insisting that she smell clean enough for them to believe they were the first ones between her legs – at least for today.

Barley laughed, understanding her sudden anxiety and placed his fingers between her legs. She went stiff the instant he touched her there, surprising even herself as she didn’t believe in the pretenses of social decorum often displayed by the girls who worked her bar with her. She forced her body to relax, and parted her legs for him. She shuddered at the sensation as he touched her labia and stroked up and down her slit with his fingers.

She watched with some concern as he brought his fingers up and touched them against his lips. Was he kissing his own fingers? Was he simply breathing in the scent of her body? She watched, mesmerized, as he inhaled slowly. He had an odd smile on his face as he breathed her in, his eyes locked with hers.

His smile broadened slightly as she shuddered with an emotion she couldn’t describe. Was it fear, awe, amazement? She didn’t know. And her mind didn’t seem to be working.

She sighed in relief as he turned his attention back to her body, caressing her more between her legs and kissing her soft, warm belly. Sally realized she wasn’t in control anymore and could only hope for a good outcome. She’d fallen in love before, and always, the burn of its death was worse than the heightened elation it gave her while it lasted. She didn’t want it to happen again, but she was no longer in control of her body. It would do what it liked and be damned with how she felt about it.

She hissed as she inhaled, feeling a finger caress her more deeply than before. Her heightened sensations were already carrying her beyond where she usually traveled in her lovemaking, and he wasn’t even making love to her, yet.

‘It’s only a body and he’s only a man. Christ! I don’t even know his name!’

Barley slowly licked his tongue along her moistening slit, still pressing his finger just inside her. She was trembling under his touch. That didn’t usually happen this early. He revised his plan of attack, realizing how sensual this girl beneath him actually was. He slowed down and began concentrating on her clitoris. It was already hard, and just peeking out from her woman-flesh – a tiny little bit of female sensuality for him to stroke with his tongue.

She shuddered as she felt his lips encircle her most sensitive spot, almost climaxing as he did so. She didn’t want to climax yet – she wanted this to last as long as possible, but her body was in control now. She was just a helpless passenger on a wild, sensual ride. She hoped it would last awhile.

She felt her hips jerk upward as a moistened finger slid back toward her rear end.

“Nuh… Oh!” she gasped, her body having an orgasm at the mere thought of him torturing her back there. “No… please,” she begged, gasping more coherently this time.

Barley stopped, waiting while she made up her mind. Her body was hot and willing for almost anything. She just had to realize it. After a few more seconds she wriggled her hips upward and moaned, pleading, needing him to touch her again.

She twitched as he ran his finger up and down her slit, moistening it again, then slid it back toward her ass. She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed as she decided to let him continue what he was doing. It felt too wonderful for her to want to stop, now.

His finger circled her anus, making her twitch, not knowing if he was going to enter her down there or not. She wanted him to, but she also didn’t want him to. She wasn’t clean enough. What was she possibly thinking, coming to the bar and not being prepared for something like this? It was positively insane! And insane was where he was driving her with his damned finger.

“Christ! Stick it in, damn you!” she cried out, not believing she said it even as the damning words came out of her mouth.

She was certainly damned, now. She was a slut and a whore who needed to be taken in the ass. She cried, accepting that she’d announced her slut status to him and cried out again as that magic finger penetrated her anus.

Barley heard her cry and felt her butt squeeze shut against the tip of his finger and realized that the dark-haired little sex maniac was having another crisis of acceptance. He waited patiently. She relaxed and wiggled at him after another moment.

‘God! If ever there was a girl I could make love to for the rest of my life, it would be this one…’ he realized.

She was so responsive to his every touch that it seemed they were made for each other; made to love each other. There was so much of her to explore.

He moved his finger into her a little farther, then stopped and pulled out a little. He licked around his finger and her butt hole for a few seconds, increasing the lubricating moisture available, then slid it back in. It went in much more easily the second time.

As his finger reached its maximum penetration, he felt Sally’s body shake as she experienced another orgasm. He looked at her pussy lips a few inches from his face. They were pulsating and a thin, clear liquid was seeping out. He delicately licked it off her pussy lips before it ran down onto his finger in her anus.

“Oh, Christ!” Sally wept.

That was her fifth, thunderous orgasm and he hadn’t even touched her with his dick yet.

‘His dick? Where is his dick, anyway?’ She opened her eyes and turned her head. ‘There it is! All nice and hard and ready!’

She tried to move toward it, only to discover that she had absolutely no energy to do anything. She couldn’t move. She could barely twitch with each lap of that magical tongue making her come, over and over. She finally forced her arm to move and grasped his nice, hard, velvety smooth dick in her hand.

Barley looked up as he felt her fingers fumbling around his cock, then she grabbed him tightly and began moving her hand up and down the length of it.

“Suck…” he heard her mumble. “Want…”

‘She wants to suck my cock? Sure!’

Eagerly, he moved closer. As he did, Sally forced her body to roll sideways so she could reach him with her mouth. At the same time, she raised her leg and draped it over his head so he could continue to pay all that wonderful attention to her pussy with that marvelous tongue of his.

She moaned again, content now with the give and take of the sideways sixty-nine she was experiencing with him. His tongue probed between her pussy lips while his cock slid slowly back and forth, riding her tongue into the back of her throat and out again, its curvature fitting the curvature of her mouth and throat perfectly.

Pressing the tip of his cock against the back of her throat, she pushed forward and swallowed repeatedly, trying to get more of him into her mouth. Finally, her nose touched his balls, and she grunted in pleasure to herself for accomplishing what she was beginning to think wasn’t possible. She kept swallowing to keep from choking, not really knowing what to do next. She’d never had anyone halfway down into her stomach before.

Barley groaned with pleasure as the sweet little slut took him into her mouth. He moved in and out a couple of times, not wanting to appear too greedy to fuck her face. Her leg wrapped around his head reminded him of what he’d been doing to her a moment earlier, so he returned to that task with renewed vigor.

He didn’t actually favor the sixty-nine position because when you give and get at the same time, it’s hard to concentrate on what you’re doing. Your attention keeps shifting from one end of your body to the other. As he felt his cock going deeper into her mouth, he found himself unable to do more than simply move his head up and down with his tongue stuck out to lick her slit.

Then her throat was completely surrounding the head of his cock. It was so tight it almost hurt, but the sensation was incredible, like she was trying to swallow him whole. He hadn’t intended to come in her mouth, and he realized with a jolt that he still wouldn’t. He was going to come in her stomach if she kept swallowing like that.

She did, and so did he, shoving his pelvis against her face. His cock jerked repeatedly, spending its load down into her stomach, spurt after spurt.

Then she was choking and he was pulling out of her. She lay on the bed, gasping and heaving and holding her hands against her throat. He lay halfway covering her, hugging her against him and telling her how sorry he was and that he didn’t mean it.

She finally put her hand against his mouth, silencing him. She gazed up at his face with her tear-streaked eyes. She was breathing more regularly now and her throat was returning to its normal size.

She smiled and uttered a half-laugh, half-sobbing sound.

“Nobody’s ever apologized to me before,” she whispered, her throat still raw from her self-induced torture. “And you haven’t even fucked me, yet.”

He laughed, half-delirious with relief. He thought he’d killed her and she was wondering why he’d apologized to her. She’d also reminded him that they weren’t finished.

‘You haven’t even fucked me, yet,’ her words echoed in his mind.

They lay there for awhile, recovering. When she stirred beneath him trying to stretch a cramped muscle, he realized that he’d fallen asleep lying halfway on top of her. When she jerked suddenly, he realized that she’d been asleep, too. He rolled off to give her some badly needed space to stretch her sore, cramped muscles.

Sally turned her head, trying to blink the sleep out of her eyes. She hoped whoever was on top of her wasn’t Drake. He often charged her for sleeping with him and his lovemaking didn’t come cheap. She’d found that out when she’d slept with him in an effort to reduce her bond and ended up owing him more instead of less.

“Oh, it’s you,” she murmured, her face inches away from his. She managed to smile at him. “You’re still here.”

“You mentioned that I hadn’t finished, yet,” he said, grinning into her sleepy face, “so I stayed.”

“Uhh,” she replied as brightly as she could. “Still here. Good.”

She twisted around and hugged him against her bare, sweaty body. They both needed a shower, now. He recalled that she had wanted to do that earlier. He wondered how many hours they’d been asleep like that.

“C’mon,” he urged her up, ignoring her protests as he half-dragged, half-carried her to her shower stall.

He leaned her up against the cold, stone wall and turned the water on. She yelped as the cold water splashed down on her. He watched, delighted, as her body shook and her nipples hardened. The water got warmer and he joined her, holding her up with one hand while he soaped her down with the other.

When he was finished washing her down, she wanted to do him, but she didn’t have the strength to even hold the soap. He carried her wet carcass back to her bed and toweled her down, again ignoring her yelps as she protested his unnecessary briskness when toweling down certain areas of her body.

Finally, he stood over her freshly washed, clean smelling, very cute girl body, grinning down at her as she gazed up at him with a strange satisfaction in her eyes.

“Why didn’t you take me in the shower?” she asked, noticing his hard-on dangling between them.

He shrugged, not really having an answer. He hadn’t wanted to. He wanted to, now, though. She was just too sexy to ignore, lying there on her bed in her dingy little room. He smiled and jutted his hips forward a little as she reached for him.

As she sat up and kissed the end of his hard cock, he remembered how she handled long objects like this and couldn’t help but comment on it.

“Don’t try to swallow it like a kraut dog this time,” he grinned down at her.

She responded by racking her teeth gently against the head of his cock. Then she lay back on the bed with her arms raised over her head. She was completely vulnerable now. It occurred to him that he’d never met a more attractive, likable girl.

“Fuck me,” she whispered to him.

She spread her legs and moved one hand down between them, stroking her soft tuft of freshly washed pussy hair.

He lowered himself down to the bed and began crawling up her body, kissing and licking his way from her belly to her breasts. He felt his cock rubbing against her between her legs, now, and let her guide him with her hand, probing for that wonderful opening. He found it with her guidance and pressed forward when she indicated for him to.

She hadn’t let him prepare her properly with his fingers or tongue, so it was dry going for a moment. She grinned at him through clenched teeth as he concentrated on establishing an in and out movement that drove him a little further up between her legs with each shallow thrust. On his third thrust, she gasped lightly and he felt that familiar wet heat surrounding the head of his cock.

Encouraged, he thrust deeper and her hot, melting pussy walls surrounded half his cock. Two more thrusts and he was all the way in, buried up to his balls in a sweet, wet, very warm pussy.

Sally squirmed beneath him, trying to get more action going. He could almost hear her in his mind.

‘A little less weight and a lot more thrust, save your plate?’

He chuckled, imagining her thoughts with her awful French and complied, raising his body weight off her a little and starting a sweet, slow fucking action that created maximum friction against the top of his cock and the inside front of her pussy. In less than a minute, Sally was shaking with her first orgasm (for this lovemaking session, anyway).

He moved off the top of her, still connected where it counts, and slid sideways so that his chest was halfway on the mattress, but he could still suck on a nipple. She seemed relieved to have his weight off her but looked him up and down as she checked out the new ‘scissors’ position she found them in.

Sally didn’t mind him lying almost sideways because his cock was moving in and out of her pressing in an interesting new direction inside her. After a few moments, though, she decided she still preferred straight up and down, and twisted sideways to reestablish that motion. Now their legs were scissored as well as their torsos, but Barley could choose which nipple to suck on now that he could reach them both.

Sally happily pressed his head to her breasts like she was breastfeeding. This guy was absolutely the best bed partner she’d had in several years. They hadn’t been making love for five minutes yet and she was arriving at her second orgasm.

“Bite me!” she urged him in an eager, whispered voice.

She pressed his face against her breast as she started to come. Then sudden flash of pain from his teeth crushing her tit went straight from her brain to her cunt and exploded in orgasmic sensation.

Barley felt her pussy tighten as she came for, he believed, the second time in as many minutes. But when he bit her tit, he didn’t mean to bit her that hard – he just got carried away. She got even a second later by almost crushing his cock with her cunt muscles. Then her pussy was quivering like it was trying to suck all the cum out of his cock. He wasn’t able to prevent that from happening. He felt like the end of his cock was ruptured and spewing out juices as he came harder than he’d ever come in his life.

It was over much too soon. They were both completely saturated with sex. Sally’s pussy was so tender that she cried real tears of pain when he pulled out of her. Barley was completely spent. Looking at her slender body and her purple, bruised nipple didn’t do a thing for him now. Old Johnny was dead – killed in action – but boy, what action!

For the rest of their time together, they slept. Barley’s wrist alarm woke him, buzzing from somewhere across the room. He staggered up to turn it off, then realized it was almost midnight. They’d both slept into her next workday and her bondsman would expect her to be at the bar, soliciting. He was supposed to check out a flitter at twenty-two hundred hours and return to Knoxville. He was already late.

Sally sat on the bed feeling empty inside as she watched him dress. Before he was ready to leave, she decided to take another shower. It would easier for them both if they didn’t say goodbye. She gave him a quick peck on his shoulder as she squeezed by, carrying a towel. A moment later, the water was running, washing away the events of the last day along with her tears.

Barley stood in the middle of the room, finally dressed and ready to go. He looked at the slot on the table. She would expect a tip for good service. He took out a K-note and laid it down on the table where she’d see it instead of simply shoving it into the slot. It would go a long way toward paying off her bond, but only if she knew it was there. He wanted the tip to be hers, not her bondsman’s.

He left, knowing why she’d fled into the shower when she did. Seeing her again would make it harder for him to leave. Best to go now – slip away in the night. She’d be used to that. It was how her life was; men slipping away in the night.

The old subway tunnel was almost empty when he stepped out into the main passage. Walking quickly, as though he could pound the empty feeling in his guts down through his feet and into the concrete, he reached the subway stairwell and started up, two steps at a time. By the time he reached the surface, he was exhausted and sweating profusely, but he’d maintained his pace all the way.

The night air quickly cooled him off, and he soon felt chilled. The northern lights danced across the sky, mocking the dead feeling inside him with their ethereal beauty.

‘She’s just a whore who has slept with hundreds of men. It’s her life.’

‘She didn’t choose that life. It was thrust on her! She’s an innocent…’

‘Innocent? What a sick joke! She’s probably already taking her next ‘client’ into her room – right now!’

‘No!’

‘Yes, you poor fool. And to top it off, you gave the slut two months pay!’

‘It will help her to pay off her bond! It was the least I could do!’

‘Fool! You gave her pimp a K-note for the services of his whore. She’ll never be free. She’s too valuable for him to ever let her go. Especially when she seduces romantic saps like you…’

‘You said it yourself! She’s too valuable to let go. So why should I?’

‘What would you do? Take her to your barracks? Perhaps you could make a place for her in your footlocker… or if you like, the guys in your company could take turns sharing their own cots…’

‘No! That’s not what I want!’

‘You don’t know what you want. You’re just a boy. Grow up and forget about the slut. There are thousands just like her. See that stairwell? You could go down there and find another whore to fall in love with… You’re just a romantic sap!’

After forty minutes of brisk walking and self-torment, he reached the motor pool.

“Could I see your I.D., sir?” the gate guard asked. Lieutenant Barley presented his I.D. and the permission slip to check out a flitter.

“You were supposed to be here three hours ago, sir,” the guard remanded him. MP’s got cocky sometimes. They had the power to arrest generals if required. They’re like cops – the trick is to not upset one.

“Well, yeah,” Barley pretended to be embarrassed. “There was this girl…” He grinned and raised his eyebrows. “You know?” He shrugged his shoulders.

The guard chuckled at the thought of a lieutenant getting into trouble away from his home post because some dame made him three hours AWOL. He let the young officer in.

The watch officer was more casual and offered Barley a selection of different vehicles (‘Take whatever you want in this row…’). For the amount of luggage he had (none), he chose a little Jeep two-seater. After going through the checklist for fuel, fluid levels and emergency rations (ugh!), he signed it off, climbed aboard and fired it up.

In seconds, he was alone in an alien sky, full of eerily dancing light that produced no light to see by. He closed his eyes for a moment only to see Sally’s face as she watched him dress. She was miles behind him now and getting more distant with each passing second.

‘She could be sitting right behind me, looking up in awe at this incredible sky.’

‘Where would you take her?’

‘Well, I…’

‘I know what you’re thinking and you’re truly a romantic fool! What makes you think they would accept you? And what would happen to you and your little paradise when the Confederate army comes up and nukes the hell out of… What did Sattersby call them? Those Damned Renegades!’

‘I don’t need to take her there. I could apply for private housing.’

‘Yeah, right! And while you’re waiting, she can work the bars in Knoxville and start a tidy little pension for the two of you.’

‘Don’t matter. I’m going back for her!’

Resolutely making up his mind, Barley banked the little jeep and circled back. Returning to town, it took a few minutes to find the same stairwell near the main offices of the Confederacy. Securing the jeep, he jumped down the stairs three and four at a time and ran toward her door. As he drew closer, he saw someone entering, using a key. The door closed behind the man.

‘See? She’s with someone already! They were probably just waiting for you to leave.’

‘He had a key. It’s probably her bondsman.’

Barley stood around for a moment, deciding what to do.

‘Are you going to rescue her? Do you think she wants rescued? Did she ask you to take her away from all this?’

‘Of course not! She has her bond to pay off. She wouldn’t willingly skip out on an honest debt. The man protected her for years as a child.’

‘Honest? Protected? You jest! The ‘honesty’ here is that she is ‘protected’ by people who would kill her before they would ever see her free! She’s a slave – a real moneymaker, in fact!’

An angry yell interrupted his thoughts. It was Sally.

“If you use me, you pay me!” she yelled, furious with someone. “This is for my bond debt! I won’t pay you to be raped!”

Something broke inside and he could hear thumping noises. Alarmed and fearful for her life, Barley kicked the door in.

Sally was being held up with one arm while the man he’d seen entering was slapping her back and forth with the other.

“Get out!” they both yelled at him – one in rage and one in fear for his life.

Barley ignored them both. The man dropped Sally to the floor and reached into his pocket. With a malicious grin, he pulled out a handle and pressed a button.

‘Fuck! An energy carver!’

“Yer gonna attack me with a turkey knife?” Barley asked, sounding as derisive as he could.

The man assumed a stance that let Barley know he knew how to fight with a knife.

“So, Sal, darlin’,” the man sneered. “Is this the chump that tipped you a grand? I bet he’s come back to take you away from all this… luxury.”

“Drake, let him go!” Sally begged him, half rising from the floor. “You have me, and you have the K-note! Just – let him go and were even! Okay? Please?”

She pulled on his leg, causing him to lose his balance for an instant. His energy blade slashed down at her, cutting deeply into her arm. She shrieked and rolled away. By the time he got his knife back in position, Barley was on top of him.

It only took an instant after that. Barley was, after all, the head of his local intelligence gathering unit and he knew all the dirty moves. Drake toppled slowly to the floor still holding the knife. His head was turned completely around on his shoulders and he seemed to be staring behind him at Sally as he fell.

Sally screamed in horror and backed away as Drake’s arm seemed to try for one final stab at her with the energy knife. Then he was still.

Barley rushed over to her and scooped her up. He sat her on the bed.

“Are you all right?” he asked, excess adrenaline making him shake uncontrollably.

“You… you killed him!” she cried out, shaking with terror. “K-killed! Drake!”

She shook violently for a moment, then suddenly seemed to regain control of herself. Barley was wrapping something around her bleeding arm.

“He’s dead,” she murmured. “They’ll kill me, and then they’ll kill you.”

“Who?” Barley asked, staring into her still terrified eyes. “The people… he owes money…”

“I have a jeep outside!” Barley said desperately. “Grab whatever and let’s get the fuck out! Now!”

His words seemed to have a positive effect on the girl. She leaped off the bed, completely ignoring the dead body on the floor and grabbed a handful of clothes. She quickly stuffed them into a bag.

“I’m ready!” she declared, more than anxious to flee. “No! Wait!”

She dropped down quickly to Drake’s dead body and callously flipped him over. She grabbed the wadded up K-note out of his pocket and held it up.

“Now, I’m ready!” she declared triumphantly.

She spit on her dead bondsman and quickly followed Barley out the door.

Sally was in good physical condition. She had to be to make the money she made, but she was practically dragged up that last flight of metal stairs leading to the street, completely out-of-breath. The jeep was undisturbed and no one was around to see them go. They both quickly clambered aboard and the little Jeep leaped into the dazzling night sky as the canopy dropped over the cockpit.

“Oh my God!” Sally declared, her eyes lit up like a child’s in wonder. “Look at all that!”

She was gazing at the northern lights surrounding the little craft. Then she noticed that the city lights were falling away behind her.

“Where’re we goin’?” she asked, looking ahead in the direction they were traveling and not seeing any lights anywhere down on the ground.

“Somewhere where we can be safe,” Barley told her.

“Does this place have a name?” she asked, using her sultry voice to wheedle an answer out of him.

“Probably,” he said absently. He turned off his navigational beacon. Now, he couldn’t be tracked by anything the Confederacy had. “But, I have no idea what it is.”

“You don’t know where we’re goin’?” she asked, getting worried now.

Barley sighed. “Yes, I know where we’re going. I don’t know what the name of the town is. But we’re going to Colorado.”

“Why?” she asked.

She may not be able to read and write, but she wasn’t completely stupid. If she was being abducted into some godforsaken wilderness, she wanted to know why.

“Civilization is dying,” Barley told her. It wasn’t anything everyone didn’t already know. “The Confederacy claims that it’s the salvation of mankind. It may look good on paper, but the only way it survives is by conquest, and there isn’t much left to conquer. These pretty lights in the sky are caused by the sun’s radiation. That same radiation is slowly killing the whole planet and everyone on it.”

“God,” Sally murmured. “That sounds pretty drastic. What’s gonna happen?”

“There’s a group of scientists that have gathered in Colorado,” he told her. “They may have an answer to this… problem.”

“Well, if they have the answer, why don’t they tell the Confederacy?” she asked. “They’re scientists, aren’t they? They figure things out for the rest of us! That’s their job!”

Barley laughed at her naiveté. “If anyone knew for certain that these people have any secret knowledge, everyone would want their blood for keeping it a secret.”

“Well, you know,” she chided him. “And you don’t want their blood, do you?”

“No, but Sattersby does, and he’s after their knowledge for himself,” he told her, “and he don’t care who gets hurt in the meantime.”

“But you’re a officer!” Sally protested. “Are you defecting?”

“Defecting?” Barley asked, half-laughing. “You’ve been watching too many spy movies. That world doesn’t exist anymore. It’s mankind that needs to survive – not the Confederacy.”

Sally sat quietly, thinking about what the strange man had said. While she thought, she watched incredible ribbons of light move in a surreal manner across the sky.

She decided to throw in with her abductor – not that she had much choice. Her old life was dead, along with her old master, Drake. Drake had shown her his true nature just moments before he was killed – no, just moments before she was rescued.

The man who made this last day heaven on earth – the man with no name – he owned her now. That thought pleased her.

‘Even if I die out here with him,’ she decided, ‘it couldn’t be any worse that being enslaved to Drake. ‘And I still don’t know his name. Kind of romantic, I think…’

Content for the moment, she drifted off to sleep listening to the rush of the air along the sleek skin of the little jeep while incredible ribbons of light danced in the sky above her head.

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