A dull popping sound entered his consciousness. It was accompanied by a stinging sensation on his thigh. It happened again and he moved, hoping that whatever was stinging him would go away. A third ‘pop’ and its accompanying sting brought him awake.

“What the hell?” Frank sat up and looked around, suddenly realizing he was naked. And freezing! The little campfire was just smoking ashes and would probably have to be rekindled. Holding his hand up from checking out his thigh where he’d been stung, he was surprised to see streaks of white paint on his fingers.

“What a fascinating little device,” an unknown male voice said from behind him. “I had no idea these things were so compact.”

As Frank turned around to see who was speaking, another stinging paint pellet struck him on his bare leg. He blinked and glared at the two rough looking men sitting on the ground next to his and Tanya’s packs, the contents of which were strewn about on the ground.

“Who the hell are you?” Frank demanded, staring at the two intruders. He looked around quickly for Tanya. She was looking around sleepily; clumsily trying to sit up with her arms still bound behind her.

“Oh, Christ!” Frank exclaimed, reaching over to untie her. “I’m sorry, Honey.”

“Ah-ah-ah!” one of the men exclaimed, holding up a real gun this time. “Just leave the goods tied up in the package.”

“Hey!” Frank argued, “Al least let my untie my own wife! She’s been laying like that all night.”

“What is she? Some kind of bondage slave?” the man with the gun asked. “How come she’s tied up? You plannin’ on shovin’ a stake up her ass?”

“What?” Frank asked, sounding as indignant as possible. “Of course not! If you don’t believe me, ask her yourself!”

Despite the fact that the man was pointing a gun at him, Frank untied his wife’s wrists and massaged her tingling arms vigorously while she sat very still and observed the two strangers. She made no effort to cover her blood-streaked breasts and belly, enjoying the effect her obviously well used body had on these two men – and Frank, as well.

“She’s a real cum-slut,” the other man ventured, speaking for the first time. “She looks like she’s been shagged a dozen times, at least.”

Tanya smiled at his quaint choice of words, but didn’t say anything.

“So how ’bout it, Lady?” the man with the gun said. “Any truth to what yer old man says, huh?”

Tanya remained silent, sitting perfectly still now that Frank was no longer rubbing her arms.

“What’s the matter? Can’t she talk?” the guy asked, starting to become confused.

Suddenly Frank realized what Tanya was doing. She was kneeling with her legs wide open, a stance they had both laughed hilariously over while reading a old, worn-out paperback about an iron-age slave culture on an alternate earth. Her hands were crossed in front of her stomach at the wrists, and her head was slightly bowed. Her legs were so wide apart that her pussy couldn’t help but be displayed, wide and available, like a proper ‘Kajira’.

“She can’t speak!” Frank announced. “I haven’t given her permission!” The slightest smile curled the edge of Tanya’s lips, pleased that he had caught on so quickly.

“What?” the man asked, incredulous. “She’s your slave?”

“She’s my sex slave. I own her, outright,” Frank informed the men.

He and Tanya had talked about sexual enslavement for brief periods of time, but when Alicia was born, their sex lives were put on hold for awhile and, except for brief periods when she was bound to their bed, nothing along those lines had happened.

Now, Tanya was playing his sex slave, hoping Frank would catch on, and would continue until she found an opportunity to disarm that nasty little man with the big gun. Frank wasn’t worried about her indignantly blowing her cover if he commanded her to perform for their captors – he knew she was up for anything at least once.

Their captor with the gun gazed into Tanya’s eyes for a few seconds. She gazed back at him, completely unafraid. She even seemed friendly.

“I don’t trust this,” the second man said. “That skank’s not near scared enough like a real slave would be! They’re faking it!”

“A true slave doesn’t act out of fear,” Frank explained quietly. “She responds to her master’s desires because she loves him more than life itself and wishes to please him better than anyone else can.”

“More than life itself, huh?” the man with the gun said. “Then make her do something. Tell her to hurt herself.”

Frank thought for a moment. It wasn’t very likely that they would permit her to handle the electric BB gun – if she was faking, she could put somebody’s eye out with it before anyone could react. But he didn’t want to hurt her, either. Then he remembered Tanya ‘confessing’ to the theft of his kitchen matches a couple of years earlier and what she and Béla had done with them.

“Pussy,” he used her old, defunct code name, not wanting to give away any more to these thugs than possible. “Put your hand over the campfire.”

She looked at Frank. “Yes, Master.” She held her hand rather high over the almost dead embers.

“Do you see that branch there?” Frank asked. “The little one that didn’t burn all the way?”

She nodded. “Yes, Master.”

“Pick it up.”

Tanya reached down, mindless of the heat from the glowing embers nearby and held it in the air in front of her.

“Now, play with it,” Frank commanded, leaving what she did with it up to her.

Tanya looked at Frank for a moment, then smiled and said, “Yes, Master, I will please you well.”

Her eyes seemed to glaze over as she gazed at the smoking stick. Lying down on her back, she brushed it across her stomach, leaving little charcoal trails and a tiny red ember or two. Tanya hissed softly and arched her back slightly as the embers burnt out against her flesh. Then she tapped the stick lightly, causing more tiny red embers to fall onto her now dirty stomach. These, she brushed across her stomach with her free hand, breaking up the embers so they would burn out faster, making a hissing sound as she breathed.

She was twitching, now, unable to hold her body still as she gently burned herself. It was obvious to everyone watching that she was becoming sexually aroused.

“Does that please you, Master?” she asked, breathing rapidly in her ardor.

“Play some more,” Frank commanded.

The faintest look of fear crossed her face, then she smiled and said, “Yes, Master, I will please you well.”

She took the mostly burnt stick and began caressing the insides of her thighs with it. After a moment, she was breathing rapidly and whimpering with each breath she took. Then she brushed her pussy with the stick, whimpering more loudly.

Gazing up at her master, Tanya pleaded with her eyes and shook her head ever so slightly. Frank frowned at her. She looked away, defeated, then lay back down. Taking the stick in both hands, she held it over her body and tilted her pelvis up to receive it.

“Wait!” the man with the gun cried. “Hold it just a God-damned minute!”

Frank quickly held out a hand, freezing Tanya in place.

“You’re gonna make her burn her cunt just for your demented pleasure?” the man said, standing up, furious. “You sick bastard! I oughta shoot you here and now!”

“I’m not making her do anything,” Frank said, imperiously. “She’s doing it out of her love for me and her devotion to my pleasure. She knows how much pleasure I get out of listening to her scream when we make love after she’s burned herself there. In addition, the quivering inside her burned cunt is quite exquisite to experience!”

“God!” he exclaimed. “You’re both sick, demented fuckers! Is that why she was screaming in the middle of the night? Did you burn her then? You fucking… Shit!” He was shaking in his fury that someone would treat a woman like that.

Tanya dared to raise an eyebrow as she watched the thug bring himself back under control and sit down, still terribly upset, on Frank’s half-empty backpack.

‘What an odd reaction,’ she thought to herself. ‘He intends to kill us both, but he’s upset about a little self-torture. Why does he think it’s okay to make little holes in a girl using a gun, then?’

“Well, if she’ll burn herself for you, then she’ll give herself to us if you tell ’er to, right?”

“She would,” Frank admitted. “But why should I ask her to do that?”

“Because,” the man sneered and pointed the gun directly at him. “I’ll blow yer fuckin’ brains out if you don’t!”

Frank and Tanya looked at each other for a moment, then Frank motioned with his head for her to go to him.

“As you wish, Master,” she said quietly. “I shall please you well.”

Frank settled back and watched as his naked, filthy-dirty wife crawled on all fours over to the gunman. His cock got even harder as he watched his wife’s dirty, naked ass sway with the sensual, undulating motion of her crawl.

‘Where the hell did she learn to be so fucking sexy?’ he wondered, in awe of her ability to perform on command.

“If yer gonna shag the skank,” the second guy said, seemingly unaffected by Tanya’s erotic approach, “then gimme the gun so’s I can watch over t’ other one.”

He walked over, careful to not get too close to the crawling blonde skank and held out his hand for the gun. Holding it by the barrel, the gunman held it out to his partner. That was what she was waiting for.

Tanya burst off the ground with two handfuls of sand going into the faces of each thug. Then she was on top of the man who’d threatened to shoot her husband. He was dead by the time he hit the ground with Tanya right on top of him, the hard boot of her hand shoved up between his eyes. Underneath her bloodied hand was the man’s nose, now compactly pressed into the frontal lobe of his brain.

When Frank saw Tanya leap up, he rolled sideways and grabbed the rock he’d been waiting to use, then continued rolling over until he located the three of them, again. The second man was reaching down to pick up the gun. Frank threw the rock at his head as hard as he could. The rock bounced off the thug’s head an instant before Tanya’s bare feet struck the thug in the chest, bouncing him backwards.

Tanya sat back and waited while Frank checked out the man he’d struck with the rock.

“He’s still alive,” Frank said. “Probably has a concussion, though. How’s yours?”

Tanya shook her head. Frank raised his eyebrows at her.

“I wasn’t trained to slap his face,” Tanya replied to the look Frank was giving her. “You knew what I was when you married me.”

Frank knew she was right. When they’d met, Tanya’s assignment was to snuff out Béla. Tanya was a trained assassin. The fact that she had changed her mind without consulting her handlers had probably gotten her in a lot of hot water with her superiors. But she hadn’t gone soft in her retirement. She’d just proved that.

“How many people have you killed, anyway?” he asked, wanting to know for the first time.

Tanya shrugged. “This makes six.”

“All of them hand-to-hand?” he needed to know.

Gazing into his eyes, she nodded slowly. She was extremely grateful that he didn’t frown or look away from her in disgust.

“Hot stuff,” Frank murmured, knowing full well how important his opinion of her was. Then he smiled at her and held out his hand.

“Yes, very hot stuff, indeed!” a voice called out loudly from nearby. It was that homely ranger that had visited them the evening before, stepping out from behind a rock. “That was quite an exhibition, my Lady.”

He doffed his hat and continued, “That was quite an exhibition last night, too.”

Frank frowned at the newcomer, realizing that he’d have to wait awhile before he could take care of that throbbing problem waving between his legs.

“You’ve been watching us?” Tanya asked, casually folding her arms under her filthy breasts.

Frank noticed that she didn’t bother to cover up. Obviously, she thought this ranger might be another threat. A naked woman tends to cause a man to let his guard down.

“You bet I have,” the ranger replied. “You made so much noise last night that half the mountain is out there looking for a piece of you right now.”

“Only a piece?” Frank asked, as he and Tanya began to dress. “What are you looking for?”

“Well, Mister,” the ranger replied. “That depends. Everybody’s having a wonderful, adventurous time looking for the dastardly fellow that staked out all those people last spring. The question is, what are you looking for?”

“Peace and quiet,” Frank grinned. “We’re on our honeymoon!” The two men grinned at each other in a not-entirely-friendly manner.

“ ‘Quiet’ is not what you two are about,” the ranger said, picking up the little BB pistol. “She’s bait, and you’re… what… the backup? The Protector? She doesn’t need protecting. She’s a natural predator – a loner. And you just come along for the ride, I imagine. What is this thing, anyway? Some kind of toy?”

“Yes, it is,” Tanya said, her voice sounding tense. She stepped forward, took the BB pistol out of the ranger’s hands, and dropped it on top of her pack, letting him know that he wasn’t to go through their stuff.

“A bit territorial, isn’t she?” the ranger asked Frank, grinning at them both. “Like a predator…”

Frank shrugged and continued lacing on his hiking boots. “What do you plan on doing with these two thugs?” he asked.

“They’re not my problem,” the ranger replied. “You killed them, you bury them. Otherwise, someone might come along and stake them up in another sacred burial site.”

“That might happen anyway,” Frank conjectured. “Some of those bodies they found last spring had been buried in avalanches or died of exposure. Somebody found them and staked them out long after they were dead. Any idea why somebody might do that?”

Tanya noticed something in Frank’s voice that made her more alert. There was something wrong with the ranger. Or, maybe they were just feeding off of each other’s unspoken sexual frustration. A dealy fight always made her incredibly horny afterward.

“Nope,” the ranger replied. “Maybe someone was trying to attract attention.”

“Well, they got it,” Frank replied. “Who would want people crawling all over these mountains? What would that accomplish? There are people looking around all over for this guy and he could be long gone by now.”

“Then that brings us back to the question of why stake those people out like that?” Tanya murmured, almost to herself. “It’s almost like it was a message of some kind.”

“Okay,” Frank said, looking at her logic. “But, who would the message be for?” Then he realized…
“Oh, my God!” Frank looked at Tanya. She nodded. “But, why?”

“Yes,” the ranger commented. “Why, indeed?”

“What do you mean?” Tanya asked. The ranger was looking at her very strangely.

“ ‘Why?’ is usually the last thing a person asks before they die,” the ranger replied. “They spend their entire lives searching for that answer, then they expect their killer to explain it to them. As if he would know…” he laughed softly.

“That’s rather morbid, don’t you think?” Frank asked. This ranger fellow was a very, very strange character.

“That depends on what you want to know,” the ranger replied. “For instance: Why weren’t you afraid of that man with the gun, my Lady?”

“Who’s to say I wasn’t?” Tanya asked.

“Fear has a very distinct aroma, my dear,” the ranger replied. “You smell of many things, but fear is not one of them, even now.”

“You have a good nose,” she replied, then noticing how large the ranger’s nose was, “Please, no offence. Should I be afraid of you?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not, My Lady,” the ranger replied. “But, you did not answer the question. Why weren’t you afraid of the man with the gun?”

“He was only a man,” Tanya replied quietly.

“And you are?” the ranger asked, his face glowing with an odd elation.

“A woman!” Tanya exclaimed, half-laughing. “A man might want to put many things into me, but a bullet is pretty far down that list.”

She frowned at the sudden look of disappointment on the ranger’s face. “What do you think I am?” she asked, stepping forward with a sensuous sway of her hips.

“Perhaps something, or someone,” the ranger conjectured, “whom being shot wouldn’t matter.”

“You mean like the Queen of the Undead or something?” she asked. “Do you think finding someone like that could be the object of last spring’s display of blood-lust?”

“That is not for me to say,” the ranger replied, evidently making his mind up about something. “In the meantime, I would request your aid in carrying the survivor of this morning’s little encounter to my station.”

“I thought these two weren’t your problem,” Frank reminded the ranger.

“That was before I noticed this one is still alive,” the ranger replied. “He must be taken in so that he may stand trial for assault and attempted murder.”

“Can’t you just radio for help?” Tanya asked, perplexed that he hadn’t done so already.

“I do not have a working radio,” the ranger replied. “There is one, however, at the ranger station. Come, it is only a few kilometers!”

‘Kilometers?’ Tanya thought to herself. ‘And this weird creep keeps calling me ‘his lady’ – some sort of title, maybe? What about that odd accent? What does Frank think about this guy? I can’t ask with him right here. What kind of a ranger doesn’t have a two-way radio? I guess we go with him. I hope there’s a shower at the ranger station. At least, maybe I can wash this stink off… God, I really need to fuck something!’

Frank and the ranger took turns carrying the semi-conscious thug with them for awhile, then made him walk the rest of the way when he became conscious enough to struggle.

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