by Sam Hall
“Girlfriend!” Nerida said, running over when she saw me. “So, what happened to you last night? Sneaking off with Shaun, you naughty minx.”
“Nothing happened. He just walked me home.”
“Treat ‘em mean, keep 'em keen. Used to be my motto too, until I came here. Now it’s kind of redundant. Well, you ready to learn how to slop up?”
“Sure, it sounds delightful.”
“Ah, it’s not that bad. C’mon.”
It turned out that slopping up wasn’t really sloppy at all. It was weighing and portioning a combination of raw meat, bone meal, fish oil, eggs and some other stuff to keep the dogs healthy. I hadn’t heard or seen one yet, so I was dead curious as to what they looked like. I thought maybe I’d get a chance to see them through the fence, but no dice. Buddy sat there drooling as we divvied up a bit over a hundred meals, the meat coming from a massive walk in fridge, and the other ingredients in big bins along the walls. “Oh, look at you,” Nerida said, putting a half serve in front of my dog.
“Sit, Bud,” I said as he went to devour it. He sat alright, but made that growling/yodeling sound Huskies make when they are unimpressed. I just cocked an eyebrow at him and waited for him to settle. “OK, now you can eat.”
“Oh, honey,” Nerida said. “With that kind of attitude, you’ll have no problems with the guys here.”
“What, you make them sit and stay before they…” I said as a joke.
“Before they eat me out? Sure, honey, gotta show them who’s boss. Then they take their fill, and keep on taking right up until I tell them to stop…” The bubbly brunette had instantly transformed into some kind of languid, khaki clad dominatrix. She laughed and went back to normal when she saw my face. “I get it, you’re probably wondering what the fuck you’ve done, landing in a hotbed of sexual deviants. But seriously, it’s pretty boring most of the time. People work, sleep, get laid, just like everywhere else.”
“Right, so Finn said ask you to show me the stock control system?”
She gave me a cheeky smile, seeming to see through my transparent attempt at changing the subject. I really, really needed people to stop talking to me about sex for a moment. I’d had plenty of conversations with girlfriends back in the day, but they were in the circle of trust. Complete strangers? Not so much. She started showing me what to do, pulling up the stock order on the animal shed computer, and how to fill out the forms and get proper authorisation. She pulled some clipboards off the wall and demonstrated how to monitor stock levels, ticking off what we had and writing down amounts, when a couple of carts arrived.
“Looks like its feeding time!” Nerida said. "Use your swipe key to get into my office, the one you were in the other day. Ask Lou and Aidan to come out, they always go on the feed run.”
Ah, the freaky couple I’d seen yesterday. I wandered up the hallway, looking at the various doors, until I saw the one with a light on. I swiped open the door and there they sat, almost in identical positions as before. The only thing that betrayed the fact they were alive was their eyes moving to take me in as I arrived.
“Hey, Nerida said you guys were going on the food run?” No response. “Did you want to come out…and get on the cart?” Nothing. “Guys? Hello?” I waved a hand in front of the closest one’s face, but got no reaction other than a flutter of eyelashes “OK, guys. If this is some kind of taunt the noob thing, can we cut the crap? This day has been confusing and weird already without the Village of the Damned vibe you got going on. Guys?” I looked at the two of them in frustration, then moved to try and take the arm of the one I was standing next to. I could drag them out if I had to.
Yeah, no I couldn’t. Eyes slowly swivelled to look at my hand wrapped around what I thought was an arm but was apparently really a block of cement. Lou or Aidan had the kind of wiry build that often proved to be stronger than someone puffed up by body building, but seriously, I couldn’t move his or her arm an inch. They just sat there, regarding me with those yellowy green eyes. “Hey.” I’d taken a step backwards, looking at the two of them warily, when another person appeared in the doorway. I turned and saw a guy with a long and lean build, a mop of black hair and grey eyes standing there. “Can’t get ‘em to move?”
“No, Nerida seemed to think I would just have to ask them. I’m Julie, by the way.”
“Brandon. She would, she’s pretty good at getting almost anyone to do her bidding, that’s why she gets lumped with these guys.” He gave a low raspy whistle and then gestured to the hallway. “C’mon, it’s feeding time. Time to sort out those hungry dogs.” Slowly, the two of them got up at the same time, moving to the door as one.
“Thanks for your help. I would have been here all day trying to move them. What’s the deal anyway? Is there some kind of disability?”
“Not really my story to tell, but Lou and Aidan are siblings, and they got hurt a while back, never been the same. They can function, sort of. Look, next time, tell Nerida to do it. You don’t have to put up with her shit.”
“OK…” I said, detecting an undercurrent.
“You’ll be at the mess hall for dinner?” he asked.
“Maybe not tonight.”
“Someone got to you already, huh? Lucky bastard. Well, maybe I’ll catch you around.”
“Uh, sure…” and I watched him lope back down the hall. I returned to the slopping up table to see a group of blokes loading the meal containers we’d made up into the cart. A couple stopped mid delivery when I appeared, causing the men behind them to stumble and curse, but they seemed to recover quickly enough and got back to the job. That was something I was never going to get used to. Being the invisible waitress was more my speed, seamlessly taking and delivering orders, only noticed if the kitchen screwed up the order. I squared my shoulders and decided to ignore the attention, heading over to the storeroom where we had been doing a stock check and opening the door.
“Oh yeah, honey, you can ride me hard tonight…”
“Oh, shit! Sorry!” I said as I walked into Nerida in a clinch with some tall, dark and handsome guy. His eyes opened first, and he regarded me with a sly smile as I beat a hasty retreat.
“You OK?”
I blinked a few times, searching around mentally for the brain bleach, to see Brandon looking concerned.
“Stop chasing skirt and help us get these containers,” one of the guys shouted.
“Blow it out your arse, Sam!” he called back. “You want me to get someone?”
I shook my head. “It’s just taking me a bit to adjust here, is all.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Same thing happens to most girls who come here.” He had a look at his watch, and said, “It’s nearly lunchtime. Why don’t you wander over to the mess hall and grab a bite? Nerida and Sonny will be up to whatever they are doing for a while, and Finn’s stuck with something behind the fence, so…”
“Yeah, sure, sounds good. Are you coming?”
He shook his head ruefully. “Animals eat before we do. Anyway, go on, these guys are gonna take forever if you don’t.” I looked around him and saw the blokes had slowed down to a snail’s pace, watching what was going on.
I walked past the line, Bud at my heels, and over to the Mess Hall. Being outside in the fresh air instantly made me feel a bit better. I looked at Bud, and said, “C’mon!” taking off at a jog, him running between my legs and barking as we went. I nearly tripped twice, but he was grinning and I was laughing by the end of it. I wandered inside and saw the place was half empty, thankfully. People looked up, but I just swept past, grabbing a plate and the makings of a huge sandwich and some juice, before scanning the tables for one where the guys on it didn’t look up to see what I was doing. I found one towards the back, with three blokes sitting a fair way apart, not talking to each other and not looking around either, and made a beeline for it. “Do you mind if I sit here?” I asked.
The three of them looked up with a start, one guy’s eyes flicking to the other, but the third nodding an
d gesturing for me to take a seat. I sat down at the other end, giving the guys their space if they wanted it, no sound other than the clink of utensils or the sound of people chewing. Finally, I said, “I’m Julie, the new girl.”
“I know,” the guy closest to me said. He had short greying hair and intense blue eyes. “Mack,” he said, pointing to himself. “George and Al.” The other guys gave me a nod and went back to eating. Well, thank fuck for that, I thought, not everyone here was gagging for it.
“So, what do you guys do?” I asked, relieved to treat them like any other person I’d meet on the job. Getting people talking about themselves was always an easy way to start a conversation.
“Construction, on the married quarters side,” Mack said, apparently the spokesperson for the group.
“So, do you have partners? What’s your wife’s name? Have I met her?”
Mack smiled slightly and seemed to relax a little. A girl would have to be a bit weird to try and use questions about your girlfriend or wife as a way to crack onto you. “Louise, and I don’t think so. She works in the married mess, running the kitchen.”
“So, there’s two different messes? You guys don’t eat with the single blokes?”
He shook his head, “Not normally, we just needed to grab a quick bite today. Too many hot heads, and I’ve got a daughter. Not old enough to date any of these idiots, but some of them don’t seem to get that message.”
“Are single women allowed in? I mean, if they aren’t looking to…you know.”
The guys all looked at each other, as if considering it, then shrugged. George, an older guy with thinning blond hair, said, “I guess so. I admit, you’d want to run it past the women first. They get a bit…protective at times, but we’ve had some come over if the crap that goes on here gets a bit much. If you’re not a troublemaker, people shouldn’t take issue with it.”
“God, no. I just want a bit of peace and quiet and normality.”
“Hello there, Miss Julie.” As if summoned by the devil to contradict my words, I looked up to see Brett and his buddies, the three blokes from this morning, coming and taking a seat in front of or beside me. Mountain dude boxed me, blocking my view of the people I had been talking to.
“How’s your day going?” the darker haired guy asked, picking up a sandwich and biting into it.
“I’ll talk to the missus,” Mack said, getting to his feet, his mates following suit, “and get back to you.”
“That’d be awesome,” I said as they filed out. I turned to dark haired guy and said, “I’m Julie, and you are?”
“Darren, Brett and Monster.”
“Monster? He’s a big bloke, but why….” and then it occurred to me why he had that name. I looked down at my plate, studying the other half of my sandwich with rapt attention.
“Don’t worry about it,” Monster rumbled. “Most girls want to know if I’m big all over.”
“Right, well, your mother didn’t name you Monster. What’s your real name?” I asked, wanting to change the subject to something, anything else.
“Peter,” he said, almost shyly.
“Right, well, Pete, what do you do around here?”
“Well…” Darren said with a smile.
“Seriously, what’s your job.”
“Some construction, some mine work,” he said.
“Mining? The place behind the fence?”
“It’s the cash cow that keeps all this ticking along,” Brett said. “No mine, no Sanctuary.”
“So, what do you two do?”
“Drive trucks, haul out the ore and take it to the export site. So has Kelly had the chat with you?”
“Yep, and it was seriously awkward, and then I walked in on my colleagues making out in the storeroom of the shed. So if we could get off the sex topic, that’d be great.”
“Nerida huh?” Darren said. "She on with Sonny now?” I nodded. “She likes her variety, does Ms Nerida. We had a bit of fun with her there for a while.”
My eyes flicked to Pete, who was eating from his full plate with gusto, to a smirking Darren, to Brett who was watching me closely for my reaction. “What?” I asked, knowing I didn’t want to know the answer, but unable to stop myself from asking, “All three of you?”
Brett nodded slowly, his light hazel eyes, a weird mix of green and amber, held mine. “See we grew up together here. Been mates since we were little kids. Girls, they think they want the Monster there, but when push comes to shove…” Darren grinned at the clumsy joke. “They need us if they want to climb the Mountain, or they will be very sad and sorry for themselves the day after. We help to…broaden their horizons, in preparation.”
“So what? This is like Goldilocks and the three bears? This one is too small…” I pointed to the grinning Darren, whose smile was wiped away. “This one is too big and will rupture my cervix.” I pointed to Pete. “But this one is what? Just right?”
“You cheeky bitch…” Darren muttered, but Brett held up a hand, silencing him.
“Only one way to find out,” Brett said.
I looked sideways at Pete to see his fork had been put down, and he watched me as well with hooded chocolate brown eyes. Now, I’m not too prissy to admit I was in some ways curious. I lived in the age of the internet, so I’d seen a bunch of monster dicks going into places it seemed physically impossible to fit them, and seen girls moaning like it was the greatest fuck they’d ever had. Finding a partner similarly blessed and looking forward to a long life of painful sex and possible prolapse didn’t seem like the most awesome thing in the world, but as a once off… He was like the sexual equivalent of bungee jumping or parasailing. I looked back into Pete’s eyes and then said, “So you’ve been quiet during all of this. Is every sexual encounter you have a foursome? Do you like always sharing with your mates?”
His eyes dropped to his plate, then flicked to Brett and Darren before coming back to me, meeting them head on. “A lot of girls, when they’re horny, think it's gonna be the greatest thing in the world, so the expectations are sky high. But when it comes down to it… Hearing a girl yelp in pain doesn’t do it for me, not even a little bit. Watching them freak out and pull away, trying to put as much distance between you and them…” He turned back to his food and picked up his fork, methodically putting food in his mouth and chewing.
Don’t look at his pants, don’t look at his pants, I told myself over and over. The part of me that wasn’t an arsehole recognised that his story made me sad. I couldn’t imagine the majority of my sexual relationships ending with my partner shrinking away in horror. The other part wondered just how big was big.
"OK, I get that I asked, but seriously, enough. You call him Monster?” I shook my head. “Look you guys, you all talk amongst yourselves, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you can circulate something for me. I had a chat with a couple of the married guys here, and they’re going to ask if I can get permission to take meals over in their mess.”
“Fuck, you wouldn’t,” Darren said.
“Yes, I will disappear into the married quarters. Fuck, I’ll ask for my accommodation to be over there if needs be.”
“Or…” Brett said, jaw flexed tight.
“Or you can circulate that I want everyone to back off a bit. I’m in a new job, a new place, and I’m trying to adjust. I’d like to get to know my workmates, not be told about the size of their dicks within five minutes of a conversation. I get that I started this, and I’m sorry Pete. I shouldn’t have checked you out.”
“It’s OK,” he said with a small smile. “I checked out your arse when you took off for the admin building.”
“OK, then we’re all even here. But going forward, I want everyone to chill. No more getting food for me, or offering to stretch my vagina enough to take your friend’s dick, are we clear?”
“That go for Shaun as well?”
“It goes for everyone.”
“Yet he gets to take you out this afternoon.”
&
nbsp; “Because he was nice to me.”
“You can’t blame us,” Brett said, seemingly the leader of this little crew. “Some guys, they do the nice and supportive thing well. Some guys, their skills are elsewhere. Every guy that’s interested is gonna want to offer what they have, no matter how you might react, just in case it gets them a picnic in the afternoon sun.” He got to his feet, Darren following hard on his heels. I turned to Pete, putting a hand on the broad expanse of his arm as he went to go as well.
“Y’know a woman that wants you for you, she’s going to find a way to deal with whatever you’ve got going on there. Women have babies, some even stick fists up their twats. There has to be at least one who’d be able to deal with what you’re packing.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he said, and then followed his mates out of the hall.
“Hey Finn, you want me back at the shed, over?” I said into the walkie talkie.
“Yeah, we are en route. Get the doc and tell her we have some injured incoming. You might need to broaden your skill set and act as a nurse.”
“Um…” Was he fucking serious? Can do attitude, Jules, can do. “OK, will do.”
I made my way over the vet at a rapid clip, Buddy getting tangled in my feet, thinking I was playing again. “Settle down, dog!” I snapped. “Stay here,” I said, and he settled down by the surgery door. I opened it to find the vet working at her computer, a sandwich sitting uneaten beside her. “Doc, I just got off the comms with Finn, and he said they are bringing in some injured people?”
“More?” She sighed and got to her feet. “Help me get the kit out, then scrub up using that soap over there. Do not touch anything once you’ve washed your hands.” Several guys came in not long afterwards, carrying the limp body of a man. “On the table,” the doc said. “What do we have? Contusions and lacerations?”
Whoa. When I turned around, I saw the man was covered in blood, long shallow slashes having cut through his clothes and skin. I swallowed, then blinked. I’d seen stuff like this on TV, but never in real life. I knew I should do something, anything, as the man moaned in pain, but I found myself frozen to the spot.
