Any man in the Family could take any woman he wanted. But Sandra, as the Matron, held final say as to whether a woman would be able to be married in. A woman had to have the right mix, she would say, of eagerness and submission. Knowing how to anticipate her man’s needs. Knowing how to cook for him, to clean for him, to keep the home free of filth and distasteful activities.
A rider for the Family could spend weeks or sometimes even months away on business, protecting their home. How awful it would be for him, then, to return to his haven and find it ill-kept. A woman had to know her place, and Sandra kept all the girls in line. Looking pretty, smiling amiably, never talking back. Robin believed all of this with her heart and soul. She burned inside to some day be a good wife for a strong, sure man who could lead her around, fuck her rotten, breed her stupid until she was drooling out praises and mindlessly sucking on his cock for hours at a time.
That Abigail got away with doing absolutely none of that must have driven Sandra wild, but Titus had favored the girl and treated her like a son, even though she was not his natural daughter. He’d always wanted two boys, he would say, taking Abigail and Case out on some hunt or raid.
Case, Sandra, Abigail and Troy walked to the back room, the conference room. Robin watched them go past and then turned back to the bar, ordering another beer.
“No,” said Sandra. “Inside.”
“What?”
“You may as well get used to it now. There’s no stopping it.”
This surprised Robin. She ran the numbers for the gang’s legitimate businesses—Titus had always wanted her to be the face of their public side. She was a chameleon—able to slide effortlessly between the leather-and-denim world of The Mud Pit and the suits-and-skirts land of the rich traders who came in from Dallas, a bustling metropolis which was still standing from all accounts (if, of course, rather drastically reduced in size and population from the Long War). From the brutally primal warrior men of the Family, she was afforded, if not respect, at least deference in matters of money.
But now Titus was dead.
And Troy was alive and well—her stepbrother, so hulking and terrifying. Eyes always on her. Waiting to have her alone with him in the house. Maybe in charge soon, if Case didn't edge him out. Or kill him.
God, wasn't that a lovely thought? Big, strong Case, strangling Troy to death. Maybe Robin could cheer him on while it happened.
Not that she would, of course. It was just a fantasy. Troy had fucked with her life for far too long to not fantasize about such things.
They stepped inside the conference room and circled around. Overhead was a long hanging light, the sort that went over a pool table. Pre-war pictures of dogs and landscapes were on the wall. Robin sat in one corner. Abigail sat next to Case, and Troy far down the table on one end. Sandra sat across from him, glaring coldly.
“There’s a problem here and we’ve got to sort it,” said Case.
“I don’t see a problem at all,” said Troy. The rubber lining around the table squealed and shifted in his hands.
Case gave him a look. “I want us to find some agreement amenable to both of us, all right? We’ve got to get along. Otherwise those Cauldron bastards will run right over us.”
Troy had something else smart to say, Robin could tell. But he swallowed the remark and nodded.
“Okay,” said Case. “We need to bring our families together. Titus talked about it all the time. You had your loyalty to him. All the work you two did for one another.”
“He was my blood.”
“And I’m not. And I know that. But I know you respect blood. And I know as much as you want other things, you don’t want war with the good men you’ve fought with. And you don’t want the Cauldron to ruin everything we’ve made.”
“You been thinking hard, boy. But you’re dead wrong if you thinking you walk out here in charge.”
“I’m proposing a joint rule. Everyone on the council gets a vote, and we each get a veto. That way, we aren’t stepping on each other’s toes.”
Titus had, beneath his own rule, set up a council of sorts of veteran riders and even women. Well, one woman—Sandra. But he had let it slip that he wanted Robin on the council in the future.
Case let that simmer for a minute.
“And?” Troy's posture languid, unimpressed.
“And,” said Case, “you’re to mate Sandra. After a year passes.”
Troy snorted. “A year?”
“She’s got to show mourning. Otherwise all the boys, they’ll get ideas about what happened. Not me, you understand. I know you’re clean as—”
The chair banged as it hit the wall. “If you think for a minute those boys will suspect me—”
“People suspect any old thing, Troy! But only if you let them. You wait a year. You’ll have the biggest estate in the region under your control.”
Part of being the boss was owning the most land.
“And what do you get out of that, huh? Pimping out your mother like that? Who are you mating to?”
Robin gulped. She had already put it together. It was simple addition, really—and these men had just reduced her to a number for acquisition.
Case turned right to her. “Robin.”
* * * * *
The shopkeeper was old and small, nearly fifty in a land that tolerated almost no one over thirty. His skin hung loose on his bones and his hair was all whittled and white. Abigail, smiling, picked up a long gold chain with a curious small jeweled pendant. It was not pretty—nothing really was pretty anymore, unless you were talking about Temple women—but it was nice enough.
“That’s seven.”
“Seven?” Abigail shook her head.
“...Six?”
If she wanted, she could easily flirt with the shopkeeper and convince him to just give her the jewelry. She had done so before, with other traders, before she learned of the greater power she possessed by being in the Family. But Abigail was a beautiful woman—even in the town of Temple, known all across the Texan region for holding some of the most gorgeous women left in the world. Her body was stacked with huge 36E breasts, her waist narrow, her hair golden and long. Bright ice blue eyes shone out from her almost unreal beauty, her entire face capable of melting men to pieces with a simple little pout.
But she did not pout—she smiled, small and cruel. She had done this before.
“Why don’t we go to my brother, and let him decide how much it ought to be?”
Sweat ran down the shopkeeper’s brow. He knew the score. He had, most likely, known before Robin even walked inside. But it was just occurring to him now how screwed he really was.
The shopkeeper shook his head quick. “N-no. That’s all right. You know what? Why don’t you take it?”
“Just take it? I couldn’t leave you with nothing.”
“Oh, then...half of one? Then...”
Abigail’s smile was dead inside; she waited for the shopkeeper to notice.
“No,” he said again. “No, no. My gift to you.”
Abigail knew how to live in the world as it was, now. Her father had taught her history.
The Long War had torn everything apart. Ruined everything. Civilization did not necessarily crumble—too ingrained for that—but it did fray and burn, like a quilt left over a burning fire. Pieces remained, none of them truly part of the fabric that had once been.
After the war, with so many men fighting, there had been an excess amount of women. Only the prettiest—the sexiest, the most willing to submit and comply—had been left. Others had been left behind and unused, unbred. Women now were largely busty, largely wide of hip and narrow of waist. Their bodies beautiful in every way, some voluptuous and some skinny and some slender and some athletic and some a mixture—but always lovely. Always pleasing to men. Otherwise they would not be alive.
Men got bigger and meaner, then, the ones who were left. To fight over the women who had survived. It was possible to think that with all the women being so pretty, it was imp
ossible to tell which ones were truly more attractive than others—but the body knew. The body always knew. Cocks knew, and pussies too.
Abigail knew she was horribly attracted to Robin, for example, but the only worse thing than her attraction to her stepbrother was an attraction to a woman; at the end of the day, even a stepbrother could get a stepsister pregnant and give her that perfect feeling of purpose in her life. Two women could not say the same thing for each other, and that was inexcusable in the new order. Lesbian forays were permitted, but only for the display to and pleasure of men.
Their town, Temple, was one of only five or six such towns that they knew about. Sometimes they would get traders coming in with tales from the East and the North—big protected, shielded supercities that were relatively untouched by the Long War. But Temple was not one of those places. They lived where the Long War had not spread, in the hot badlands of what once was Texas.
The closest city was Dallas, and Abigail had never been there. They had law there, and order.
In Temple, the order was the Family, and the law was whatever the Family decided.
The Cauldron, fools that they were, thought they would infringe on the Family’s territory—to their demise, most likely. Other gangs had tried, and Abigail had seen many of them fall.
And so, Abigail operated with the shopkeeper with perfect confidence, knowing that she didn’t even have to use her considerable feminine qualities to get what she wanted. All she really had to use was reputation.
The door rang—or tinged really, a small piece of tin hitting brass on the edge of the poorly crafted door.
Like a mountain in motion, Brall walked in. He did not make a pretense of looking around at other items. He was there for one object, and one object only—Abigail. She knew it as well as he.
Brall wanted Abigail. He had made no secret of this. Even Titus had known, before he died. It was one of the few times that the brutal wasteland barbarian-turned-warlord had offered any kind of a deal. Common terms of open negotiation for business in Temple, so long as Brall was able to indoctrinate Abigail into his gang.
“Indoctrinate.” Abigail scoffed inwardly. As if that were any term for a gang bang.
Titus had refused, of course. Abigail was a Family member. She would never be allowed to suffer under the brutal gang bang tutelage that the Cauldron required.
“Hello Abigail,” said Brall. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“I doubt its coincidence.” She shook her head. “Who do you have following me today? The one with the lazy eye? Or maybe that fellow who carries a hook around?”
He smiled. “Neither. You’re important enough for a man to do his own recon work for.”
She supposed he meant it as flattery. Being such an important, strong man, following her himself.
Abigail’s place, in his world—or any man’s world—was as an object.
There wasn’t much of a place in the world anymore for women. If a girl didn’t have a man’s approval or protection, she was basically walking naked through the streets. Forced marriages were common. Many women said they got used to them...but if they didn’t say that, Abigail knew, they’d have hell to pay.
Case was her protection. The biggest, baddest guy in the region. Or at least, he almost was. Only Brall was the clear stand-out tough guy who could top Case’s reputation.
Brall was bigger. Tougher. Monstrous, really. In a town full of monsters like Troy and Case and even Brall’s second, Carthage—Brall was the worst. Everyone knew it.
And he wanted Abigail, according to him, worse than he had ever wanted anyone or anything.
It was an exhilarating feeling. If every part of her didn’t already feel completely owned by Case, she would have probably easily accepted. Brall was a hunk and that was easy enough to see. Probably hung like a fire hydrant.
Hell, she might have accepted now except for a couple of small reasons, like sparking a war that might kill her entire clan and the fact that Brall would never, ever just accept a simple fuck from her. Brall fucked for keeps—his cock didn’t touch anyone he didn’t own.
Of course, since Case's cock didn't touch anyone he didn't own, and Abigail had been thoroughly fucked by Case's cock over and over again, she could feel the appeal of Brall's ownership easily enough.
“Your father’s dead,” he said.
“I had noticed.”
“His stupid decisions kept you from me. But we both know that was wrong of him. You should be mine. There’ll be peace in it. Lots of blood avoided.”
“That’s why you want me?” Slowly, Abigail gripped the knife she kept right above her waist. “To avoid blood?”
Abigail’s knife was a gift a long time ago from Titus. It was a wicked, curved thing, shaped like a crescent moon. The blade was hard steel.
He smiled. “You know why I want you, girl. You know why it is I deserve you.”
“That’s big talk from a man who isn’t even welcome in this part of town. If any of my brother’s men see you this close to me, they’ll shoot you.”
“They better shoot on target, then. Else they’ll wake up with their guts in their mouths.”
He closed the distance between them, pushing her up against the wall. His hands so big on her shoulders The shopkeeper sputtered out some protest. Silence overwhelmed him the second Brall turned his head.
“I want to fuck you for days,” said Brall. “God, you even smell pretty. Do you know that? Of course you do. I want to ruin your life, girl. I truly do. I want to ruin every last thought you'll ever have with my cock.” His hands ran up her waist, gripping tight. His grip was rough and hard, and Abigail fought to ignore the hot excitement she felt at his urgency in needing her. She had been bred, after all, to reward exactly this sort of forward behavior. Her cunt sang with the need to give in—submit, submit, please, lick, suck, submit!
But she wanted Case. Her love for her brother was everything to her. Everything.
She pressed up into Brall’s crotch with her blade. Instantly, Brall’s eyes widened, and his touch relinquished. He tilted his head slowly, smiling without teeth.
“If you talk to me again, if I see you again,” she held the knife up against his cock, thickly outlined in his tight pants, “you will not have much to boast about for the rest of your life.”
Brall smiled at her. “If you try that, I’ll kill you.”
“If I try it, I very well might succeed. You wouldn’t be the first that this blade has tasted. And how would you like that? Can you risk it?”
He let her go, slow. Desire still burning in his eyes.
Despite all her bravado, Abigail was a bit terrified. But the terror only encouraged her lustful rage that he would touch her. She wanted to be wanted, it was true—she wanted to be admired by all, held in high opinion by each and every man she came across. But she wanted to do it at Case’s side. No one else. Her heart thrummed with the need for all to know that her brother’s cock was the only one she had ever tasted, the only one she had ever had enter her.
Brall, exquisite a specimen of manhood though he was, was not her brother. And therefore, he would not do.
Slowly, he backed away. “I leave you, now. But you know where to find me once you change your mind.” He smiled. “And I know where to find you.”
“You’ll find me in your nightmares, animal. Fearing slaughter like every other pig.”
But despite her words, she found it hard to catch her breath, and harder still to fight the desire roiling in her pussy. She needed to find Case, right away, and work this out.
* * * * *
Brall returned to the shantytown outside of Temple. In truth, the shantytown was not much worse off than Temple itself; it simply did not have walls around its edges to create protection nor any solid stone-and-steel buildings to create legitimacy. But otherwise, much the same. Buildings wrought from spare sheet metal, some houses built from the stacked, hollowed-out bodies of automobiles that no longer operated, pathways paved with long boards over puddl
es of mud that could have been inches or feet deep.
His headquarters was a large tent bordered by a line of turned over tanks and a long trench, a moat really, filled with broken glass and gears.
Inside of the tent were a number of beds. Carpeting on the ground where there wasn’t shined and polished wood. A small liquor cabinet. A heavy table loaded down with navigational tools and maps—so valuable now in the days beyond regular communication with others. There was a long rack with several guns and a wickedly-bladed axe and a crowbar painted yellow. There was a small fire in the middle of the tent that was kept just beneath smoldering. Outside there was a couple of women tending a large fire, every so often bringing a coal in to keep the tent warm. They had done that for nearly three months now and the tent had not been cold once.
Cauldron women knew their place. They knew their jobs. They would not dare to deny a man like Brall. The Family had gotten too lax in showing women their proper place.
Along one side of the tent was a long couch they had taken from a city well past the borders of Texas. There had been plenty of men and women in that city once, and now there none—now there were a great many corpses and women who served at the command of Brall and the Cauldron. If the men had surrendered, Brall would have let them live. He could always use conscripts for his army. Servants to take care of what the army needed. The Cauldron had a code. But the men didn’t submit, and Brall had been clear about what that would mean for them. War was war, after all; life was war.
On the couch was his second, Carthage, enjoying the services of a skinny broad with thick dark hair.
The girl’s name was Miranda, as far as Brall could remember. Last week, Brall and Carthage had picked her up in the middle of a raid on a drug lab outside their border. Stupid Deathheads thinking they could get away with selling their own product in Brall’s market.
Carthage took a liking to Miranda. Busty and short, hair stretching shiny all the way down to her ass, she was Carthage’s type. She was cooing something in Carthage’s ear, stroking his enormous cock underneath a blanket.
This was fairly normal for Carthage. Hell, for Brall. Why would he mind? There was a blanket.
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