Quaranteam - North West Ch. 21

There was a bit of argument back and forth, with Erica pointing out that if I was taking time to do supply runs I wasn't working on the investigation and getting them home faster, but in the end Erica reluctantly agreed when Leo pointed out that her being with me if something did happen would put me in more danger. After that she let it drop and we were able to move on to small talk. Slowly, as dinner finished up and the ladies filtered into the kitchen to help with cleanup or out to other parts of the compound, our little group became the last one sitting down.

"Ready?" Erica asked me, her hand having slipped under the table a while ago and rubbing my leg.

"One more thing," I said, knowing what she wanted to get to. "I'm worried about morale here, honestly. Thingsfeel different."

Abi frowned and nodded. "It's been a lot, lately. Many of the ladies are worried and starting to become stressed about..." She paused for a moment to take a breath, then gestured generally. "Everything."

"The last thing I wanted was to make this place feel unsafe," I sighed.

"It's not that," Erica said, taking my hand and squeezing it.

"Erica is right," Abi said. "We are happy to host you, after how you've been helping us. And your family is doing more to raise spirits than hurt them. Your little wiener dog could do that all by himself."

I smirked a little and shook my head. Macho was living up to his name. From what little Ivy and Kyla had told me, practically every woman in the compound was stealing him away to play or snuggle for a bit. If we weren't careful he'd go from being a little hotdog to a bulging bratwurst, he'd get so fat from the snacks he was getting.

"Well, I was thinking maybe we could do a little more," I said. "To make you all feel more safe, and to raise spirits in general. If you're open to it, Kyla has most of our firearms stashed safely in Erica's car and in her room. She could run some basic firearms safety courses for anyone interested, and some people find shooting a little therapeutic or stress-relieving. And I bet between Dani, Ivy and Kyla you could have a pretty good beginner dance class for some more active fun. And I could grab supplies for an art class if you're willing to do some teaching, babe."

"That's a great idea," Erica said, turning to Abi. "What do you think?"

Abi nodded. "We can use the cafeteria here for the art class, and we have all the space for a dance class. I will need to talk with Sara about firearms... We weren't sure about you bringing them here to begin with."

"Whatever you're comfortable with," I said. Then I turned to Leo. "Sorry I can't bring out a full woodshop for you, buddy."

He snorted and chuckled. "I wouldn't mind teaching, but I think we only need so many birdhouses."

That made me laugh, as it had been a long-running joke that he'd started his custom woodworking career making intricate birdhouses but had moved on to furniture because the market for birdhouses wasn't actually very large. The market, he'd said, belonged to middle school shop classes and summer camps.

More ideas got thrown around - India could do a passable Yoga class, Leo could organise a Euchre tournament (after teaching the game to anyone who didn't know it.) I could have done an art class as well, but I wasn't going to be around enough.

"You could always teach sex ed," Erica said with a laugh. "I'm sure your signup list would be full almost immediately."

"And on that note, I think we're done for now," I said, standing up from the table. "Abi, I'm sorry for her. Leo, she'syour sister, so it's partially your fault for her having the mind of a 14-year-old boy. Come on, babe."

Erica whooped as I hefted her up bodily from the bench we'd been sitting on and tossed her over my shoulder. Erica was a full-bodied woman and nowhere near as dainty as Ivy or even Kyla, but even with my leg twinging, once I had her up on my shoulder I could carry her pretty well. She was wearing a tight pair of jeans and had been walking around barefoot inside so, as she laughed and shouted to 'put me down, you barbarian!' she kicked her feet playfully even while hanging on to me. We passed several of the ladies, including Melina, on our way to the stairs and got some looks and smiles. I thought, for a moment, I saw a sadness in Melina's eyes as we passed even though she was laughing lightly.

At the stairs I set Erica down, not wanting to risk my leg carrying her up just for both of us to fall all the way back down and break our necks or backs. Once I got her on her feet, though, I gave her a solid crack of my hand on her ass through her tight jeans. "Go on," I said. "Get."

In any other context, Erica would have probably bit someone's head off for slapping her ass that way. But between her being horny, our playfulness, and the fact that we were so fucking down the rabbit hole of being in love, she just darted up the stairs giggling as I chased after her. Up on the second floor in the dormitory corridor she let me chase her all the way to the room she shared with Ivy before I caught her and pinned her to the wall, kissing her firmly as we kept laughing into each other's lips. Thankfully no one was in the hall or I would have felt too embarrassed to do that in front of them. Instead, it took us a couple of minutes to even twist the door handle and work our way halfway into the room.

"Wait," Erica said, a teasing smile on her lips as she pulled away from me. I was holding her ass with both hands and she'd been pressing her chest against me - she was wearing one of my T-shirts and I'd realised quickly that she wasn't wearing a bra underneath.

"What is it?" I asked.

She smirked. "Let me go get Josie. I bet she'd-"

"No," I said, pulling Erica into the room and kicking the door shut.

"Why not?" Erica asked.

"Because," I said, scooping her up in my arms again but this time in a princess carry that only travelled the few steps to the bed, which I tossed her onto heavily. "Josie is sexy as hell and fun, but I want time with mywife. Not a threesome."

"I'm not your wife yet," Erica smirked even as she started to undo her jeans and wiggle out of them.

"I'd have married you the day after you asked me if my sister could get up here," I growled, peeling off my shirt and shucking my shorts.

"I know, babe," Erica said, and I grabbed the jeans and helped pull them off her lower legs and feet. She switched to taking off her shirt, revealing her glorious tits to me. I got the jeans off and growled as I fell on her, getting my mouth on those breasts as I ran my hands from her bare waist and up to her tattooed arms, which I pushed above her head. "I would have, too."

I loved on her tits for a bit, then kissed up to her lips as we made out like teenagers, rolling around on the bed. She ended up on top, both of us just wearing our underwear, and she took a turn and pinned my arms above my head as she looked down at me with a smile and her tits hung brushing against my chest.

"Why shouldn't I get Josie to warm you up?" she asked. "She wants you, and she's been asking all three of us little questions about the vaccine and how it works. She could blow you for a bit, then watch us fuck."

"Why are you wearing your full makeup?" I countered. "And walking around in one of my shirts?" Her brow furrowed as she opened her mouth, but wasn't sure what to say. "You're staking your claim, babe," I said. "You're letting them know that, even if they've been allowed to look, even if they're ripped and athletic, you're the queen of my castle. You wear my clothes, and you do yourself up for me in a way they don't, or can't. God, I love you, Erica. And for all that I love the others, you were first. You'll always be that. And sometimes, even if we have fifty women, or a hundred, in this thing that's going on I'm still going to want justyou sometimes."

She kissed me, soft and deep. Her lips, painted that deep red, were soft like rose petals and she smelled a little like vanilla as her hair fell around us. Her tongue teased against my lips, asking to be let in, and I let it. We weren't making out like teenagers now, we were kissing like lovers.

"I love you," she said as our lips parted and she sighed, laying flat against me.

"I love you too," I said, hugging her to me.

"Alone time," she agreed softly. "Make love to me. Then fuck me. Fuck me like I'm your whore-queen. You know what I mean."

"I do," I said with a grin, kissing her cheek as my hands travelled down from her bare back to her panties-clad ass, sliding underneath to grab her bum and then lower to tease her pussy. "Jesus, you're wet."

"I get that way every time I see you, Harrison," she said. "Always have, for years. It's not the vaccine, it's you."

We kissed again, and I started easing a couple of fingers inside of her as she wiggled and moaned. It was going to be a good one.

* * * * *

The alarm going off reminded me, once again, that I loved Vanessa but I really hated her work hours. I got up with her, made her a quick breakfast, kissed her goodbye and collapsed back into bed. The evening before, after I returned back to the Compound with a ready-to-heat meal sent on from the women of Valkyrie Falls for her, I'd had barely an hour to myself before she came home at 9 PM on the dot just like she'd promised. I heated her food, massaged her feet as she ate, and she'd let me know that her Phone Bank ladies hadn't turned up any immediate leads from their calls to the gun shops hunting that revolver serial number. It was just as likely that the old piece had belonged to the dead man who owned the car rather than the dead men who had been driving it, so I wasn't hanging on the hope that something turned up there, but it was still another frustration.

Then Vanessa asked me to tell her about my day, and I did. By the time I was finished, talking in graphic detail about my sex with Ivy out in the forest and Erica in her room at Vanessa's request (but not talking about Kyla, since she was more private), Vanessa got on her hands and knees and sucked my cock, then she fulfilled the other part of her promise of 'at least twice every night.'

I woke up a second time, alone now, with sunlight blazing through the cracks in the shades of the RV back window, and got myself moving. It took me a minute, when I checked my phone, to realise that the girls were teasing me again. This time, instead of naked photos of them in bed, they were sending me thirst trap videos. But it wasn't videos of them, it was videos of the women at the Falls. Some of them were obviously planned and staged - Josie skipping rope as the video circled her, then suddenly doing the same thing topless as the camera rotated around her back; and Melina doing squats with perfect form, her amazing ass and tits both tightly encased in workout gear that would probably be illegal in several states for indecent exposure. Or causing heart attacks. Then there was one of Abi in the middle of what looked like a yoga class, smiling and a little goofy, but it was cut with clips of her lifting impressive amounts of weight and doing other super-active CrossFit exercises with grim determination on her face with a hard, pumping music beat overtop. I doubted she knew they'd done that, and I would also bet that they'd been a little scared to ask her permission.

Those I could handle, along with a couple more of women I'd been friendly with at the gym. The one of Spencer, though, made me feel weird. On the one hand, she was extremely attractive in a wholesome, lovable way. On the other, she was barely in her twenties and had shared such an intimate story with me that it felt wrong to even think of her like the way their thirst trap video made me think. She, like Abi, didn't seem to realise she was being filmed during her workout and she did the move that made me think 'classic Spencer,' finishing a set and pulling off her bulky sweater to reveal her fit torso and big tits encased in an athletic bra. But then she seemed to notice whoever was filming her and she blushed and smiled, and then winked, at the camera.

I called Miriam.

"Later start this morning," she noted by way of a greeting.

"Yeah, well, I'm running out of the fast leads quickly and soon I'll be into the weeds for real," I said. "Any luck on the FBI front?"

"Nothing so far. And, Harri, I haven't been able to squeeze anything out yet on the vaccine front either. I'm sorry."

I sighed and nodded, even if she couldn't see me. "OK, thanks for keeping me updated. I'm going to take some time today to do a supply run - the ladies up at the Athletic compound need more stuff since I added seven more people to their numbers, and I'm going to grab stuff for my friends on the Rez at the same time before I dig into the receipts. But those plans brought up some questions that I think only you can answer."

"I'll tell you what I can," she said. "But - and this is awkward to ask - did you re-up your vaccination with the ladies since yesterday like you planned? If you go out and you're infected from the dumbass sovereigns, you could be spreading it."

"That's one of my questions," I said. "When we're talking about me being vaccinated, or safe, what does that actuallymean? Like, how safe are we talking? If I have four partners, am I good to go?"

Now it was Miriam's turn to sigh. "Technically you only have three and a half partners," she said. "Vanessa's numbers haven't changed. I've been keeping a tag on her studies; it looks like she's still only getting mid-thirties coverage. It's enough that they don't want to try re-vaccinating her unless there's an emergency, but she's not in a great spot and isn't providing you with the coverage the others are. And, to answer your question, the most recent math I'm seeing is that one partner still only nets a man 70% efficacy, the same as a month ago. Each additional partner only adds a fraction of that though. The current model says the best coverage will come from seven partners, so until you hit that point you're taking real risks. With three and a half you're still in the 85th percentile of efficacy, I think the number was, but..."

"Seven?" I asked, a little dumbfounded. "I thought we were done adding..."

"Getting tired of all that pussy, Black?" Miriam asked. I could hear the smirk on her lips.

"It's just a lot," I said. "What about all the construction workers?"

"They'll get there eventually too," she said. "Our rollout still isn't starting though, or else I could do something about the Rez. Harri, the death tolls...fuck, never mind, I can't tell you that. Especially not over the phone, and probably not in general."

"OK, don't," I said, though I had a pit of dread in my stomach from that small hint. Greerson and his OGA team had hinted atapocalyptic being the level they were responding to, and I couldn't spend time brewing on that.

"What was your other question?"

"I've been having these... God, this sounds a little fucked up. Every once in a while, I've been having these weird possessive urges," I said.

"Over Erica and the girls?"

"No," I said. "More like... I feel like I'm a horny nineteen-year-old with the world as my oyster sexually, and I get these flashes of wanting to fuck people around me. Not like, violent urges or anything, but weird feelings. Like I'm jacked up on testosterone or something."

Miriam was quiet for a long moment, and then I could hear the telltale sound of keyboard keys from her end of the call. "Alright," She said. "I'm not seeing any reports about that in the studies I have access to. I'll put in a call, see if I can get one of the head brainiacs on the phone and run it by them. Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. "And it's not an urge that I start to act on or anything. It's just a sort of animal feeling that I've been equating to my lizard brain."

"Well, we've seen a general uptick in libido for men as well as women from the vaccine," Miriam said. "You might just be having a bigger reaction to that than normal. Are you, um, getting enough? Sex?"

"I would have thought so," I said. "I mean, to be frank, Miriam, it's more than I could have accomplished in a day when Iwas a horny nineteen-year-old fucker."

She snorted softly. "Well, keep it in your pants unless it's one of your partners. We still don't know what set of circumstances specifically caused Vanessa's situation and whether something about you was the catalyst or not."

I gulped a little, thinking of the blowjob from Josie. I hadn't come in her mouth, and my cum had hit her ass and back and washed off in the showers. I'd need to be extra careful with Erica's machinations.

"Anything else?" Miriam asked.

"Are you OK?" I asked in response. "Safe?"

"I'm in the middle of a military installation focused on the vaccine," Miriam said. "I probably couldn't bemore safe right now."

"I know, I meant, like... are you vaccinated? We've never talked about that."

There was a long moment of quiet on the phone. "The brass are going to pull the trigger any time now on mandated vaccinations for everyone in the military," she said. "There's just political pushback happening somewhere up there, too. I've been putting it off."

"Not sure who you'd want to match with?" I asked.

"It's just complicated right now," she said. "I'll uncomplicate it when I need to, and I'm too busy to do it properly until that need becomes immediate."

"OK," I said. "If you need to talk it out, just let me know."

"I will," she sighed. "Keep me updated on everything."

"Will do," I said.

We hung up and I grit my teeth a little. Seven women? My life was completely full already with four. How could I adapt to three more?

Hell, I couldn't evenfit three more in the RV. Maybe once the house was built that would be more realistic, but how was thinking ofseven partners realistic to begin with? Or realistic for every man in America? And how the hell would our relationship keep working with that many more people just... injected into it?

I also had a... not a twinge, but maybe a wince, deep inside that Miriam was going to partner with someone. If she had to uncomplicate it I assumed she had someone in mind that was actively deployed. Maybe it was a guy from the pararescue crews that she'd had a thing for but couldn't get involved with being in the command structure. Or maybe it was even more complicated than that and shehad been involved but it was a secret, or the guy was married or something and she needed to make contact to get things clear with the couple.

If she had someone she trusted, I would be happy for her. But that didn't change the fact that I was still feeling that weird feeling. That 'It should be me' feeling.

Shaking it off, I got myself together and kicked myself into gear. After a quick check-in with Vanessa on my way out, and introducing myself to the airmen who were on duty at the gate to the site, I headed into town. The grocery store used to open at 9 AM every morning except Sundays, but now it had reduced hours so I was showing up a little early.

That didn't stop the parking lot from already being half-full and the entry line from winding down the side of the building.

Part of me hesitated, not wanting to risk getting spotted with my Sheriff's truck if the sovereign citizens came by again, but I wasn't otherwise in uniform. I made sure I had my badge tucked under my T-shirt and got out, heading for the back of the line.

It took almost an hour for me to get into the store. They were limiting how many people they had inside at once even more now, which was a good thing in general. I also realised I was one of the only people who wasn't buttoned up completely - I had a medical mask on, but I wasn't wearing long sleeves and goggles and shit like we used to.