Midnight Squad: The Ties That Bind

by J. L. M. Visada

  “Wow, it’s hard to believe that Katy wouldn’t want that? I mean who could turn that down?” I froze, and hoped she didn’t realize that inside I was secretly begging to find out.

  “That was part of the problem. Katy did want it; she just didn’t want to be exclusive to Grim. She wants to have her own boyfriend. She wants to find love out there on her own, but in the meantime she wants all the benefits of being a pet. It’s an insult to Grim, and an insult to our relationship.” Her face showed a pain that actually twisted something inside me, and made me want to just hold her to make everything better.

  “Penny, maybe it’s for the best. Katy really hasn’t had a lot of relationship experience. Maybe she wasn’t ready to…you know…do all those things you two like to do?” God why couldn’t she just back up. She was so close to me that I could barely think of anything but her lips, and could she at least stop brushing against my chest. My nipples were already so hard that even the slightest brush against them was painful.

  “Are you not listening? She didn’t have a problem with what we did in the bedroom. She didn’t want to be exclusive with us. She wants to have her cake and eat it too. Now I’m starving because she doesn’t want to give blood anymore. She just wants me to bite her, turn into a drooling humping little freak, but not actually feed. That’s like asking you to make a cake, rub the frosting all over you, and never take a bite. IT! I mean putting frosting on the cake and never taking a bite. Putting frosting on you would be just silly…right?” Penny hesitated, leaned in and then hugged me. “I’m sorry DD. I shouldn’t be dumping my problems on you. It’s just hard. I’m always hungry now, and I’m nowhere near as strong as I should be because I can’t feed enough. Then I’m surrounded by all of you, and it’s like being a kid in a candy store, but I can’t eat anything.”

  Oh God, she feels so good. Her body is cold, but smooth, and her breasts are like two huge pillows. I just want to lay my head down on them and go to sleep. “M-m-maybe you and Grim need to talk about it some more? I mean you can’t force Katy to do what you want.”

  “Of course I can, but Grim’s already put his foot down. The man is just not being reasonable. He expects me to tolerate the insult. He refuses to stop being her friend, and he’s even supporting her decision to stop being our pet. The thing that makes it really rough is that, no matter what that big lummox does, I still love him.” Penny hugged me closer, and nuzzled into my neck. I could feel her shoulders rise and fall. She was crying.

  “You really do love the big guy don’t you?”

  Penny stepped away, and for a brief moment I could think about something other than her huge breasts pressed against me, pinning my back to the wall. Oh dear lord, I’m practically leaking through my pants. “DD, that man is a giant goofball. He’s a little crazy, and always unpredictable. Joseph…loves me. He doesn’t judge what I do, but he cares enough to find out why I’m doing it. He accepts me, and acceptance isn’t something vampires find often amongst humans or even each other. That man might occasionally be filled with evil glee at tormenting me, but I know he would move heaven and earth to make me smile. So yes, I love the big guy. I just wish that he’d understand why what Katy is doing is such a problem.”

  “But isn’t there something that could be done? A compromise of some kind?” I asked.

  “Not really. Katy refuses to allow any extra warm bodies into the bedroom, and it is her right to refuse anyone additional as long as she’s our pet. Katy refuses me food, and Grim respects her right to choose her own path. The problem is that vampire tradition states that the pet has final say on any additions to the bedroom. She’s being spoiled, and when I try to explain to her what the problem is, she just tells me that she’s not comfortable with anyone else. We can’t release her as a pet until we have a replacement, and she won’t let us try new people to find a replacement. So it’s been a stalemate for a while now.”

  “Would it help if I talked with her? Maybe having someone discuss it with her could go a long way to finding a solution for you all?” That’s it DD…just stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. I want Penny happy. Frankly, right now I just wanted Penny, period.

  “You’re welcome to try, but she’s pretty determined to keep ahold of the reigns. She doesn’t want to give up the sex. If there is some way out of this then I’ll take it, but I’m stumped.” Penny’s voice was sad, and frustrated.

  “Would you like me to talk with Grim as well? Maybe I can convince him you need a little more support?” Seeing them almost ready to fight was shocking, to say the least.

  “You can if you want, but he’s been about as supportive as I could hope for. The man loves me, and is trying really hard to see things from my perspective, but he’s also Katy’s friend. So he wants us both happy. He won’t toss her away because he cares about her as a friend. If he completely refused her friendship, then we could move on to finding another pet without Katy’s input. That being said, I do think Joseph is almost at the end of his patience with her. Grim knows how hard this has been on me, and while he doesn’t necessarily agree with vampire tradition, he respects that I do hold vampire traditions and customs in high regard. I suppose that’s really all I could ask of a man that loves me as much as he does. I’ve heard him trying to talk her into stepping down, and I’ve even heard their discussions getting pretty heated. I’m not trying to pry, but my hearing means I’m privy to practically every conversation in a one block radius. Grim’s starting to get very irritated at her behavior. The unwillingness to budge is really starting to grate on him as well.” Penny’s face was full of concern.

  “I’m just sorry that things have gotten to where they are. I knew there was some strain between you and Katy; I didn’t realize it had fallen apart so badly.” I said.

  Penny’s smile was kind but sad, “DD, I don’t hate her, if that’s what you’re thinking. I still care about her. I’m angry that she’s acting like a spoiled brat, and I’m hungry, so that’s made me a lot more grumpy than I’d normally be. I still love her as much as I ever did, but I’m not happy that she’s put me in these circumstances.”

  She meant every word, and I wanted to help her. The situation was practically ready to explode between these three. Penny was irritated, and sad. She needed a little cheering up, and I thought I had just the thing for her. “Penny, I’ll go talk with them when I can. Now wait right here. I have something for you.”

  Penny raised an eyebrow. I definitely just got her attention. I ran out to the hall and started digging through my suitcase. Finally, I found it. I took the rectangle out and brought it back to Penny. “I’ve been working on this for a while. I know that painting of your family is important to you, and that it irritates you that you can’t keep it with you. So while you were out with Grim one night I snuck in your room and…”

  “YOU SNUCK IN MY ROOM?!” Penny’s eyes melted to blood red, and I heard the distinct snap as her fangs popped out. Contrary to how they are portrayed in the movies, vampire fangs don’t actually extend. They actually snap forward like a rattlesnake. Another little fact about their fangs is that they are hollow, and they have “grippers” that extend out through tiny holes in ridges along the fangs. Those “grippers” hold their victim in place. None of that mattered now, though, as Penny had already pressed me against the wall. She wasn’t hurting me…yet, but I could tell she was fighting a losing battle with her own urges.

  “Penny *ack* wait! Look!” I lifted the rectangle, and tapped on the power button. A picture of her entire family blinked onto the screen. Penny gasped, blinked, and her eyes were back to normal.

  “DD? You made this for me?” She sounded like she was almost ready to cry.

  After coughing and wheezing for a moment I was finally able to talk, “Yeah, I thought you’d like to have it with you. It’s a smaller version, and if you tap on that grey button, then I have something special for you.”

  Penny nervously tapped the button, and the picture blinked. Now the picture looked a few years
older. Penny was in the photo looking just like she did now. All her family had been aged a few years along with her. “How did you do this?”

  “I scanned your portrait, and then used some software to age all of you, and if you tap the black button...” I said. I could barely keep the smile off my face, when Penny tapped the button and suddenly, the picture started changing. The clothing and hairstyles morphed. It showed what Penny and her family might have looked like together throughout the years.

  She gasped, “Oh DD! How? Oh DD…it’s…it’s wonderful. Thank you!” And before I had a chance to respond she’d already wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a long, luxurious, full body hug. I never wanted it to end, but eventually she pulled away. Her lower lip was trembling, and she looked ready to cry.

  “I’m so sorry. I should have known you wouldn’t have snuck into my room without a good reason. This is an amazing gift. DD…if there is anything I can do for you. Please…just ask.” Penny’s words sounded so appreciative. I thought now would be a good time to slip back out of the room while I could still think, and also before I embarrassed myself by falling all over myself to just touch her again.

  Chapter 4

  I really considered making my way down to Katy. This needed to be discussed, and then I finally remembered that I’m a big clucking chicken when it comes to this kind of stuff. I grabbed the cart and pushed it off to my room. Once I got there I started putting everything away. I’m just not comfortable living out of a suitcase, and so twenty minutes later I had everything neatly hung in the closet. The only other things I didn’t put away were the new body armor, because I needed to go over it one more time before tomorrow’s tests, and my laptop.

  After laying out the body armor, I started going over every detail. I had to make sure every seam was solid, and that there were no punctures. I had made body armor for all of us, but only Grim and Penny were going to be giving the demonstration. Military men really like to see how stuff works, and so Grim could put the armor through its paces. My guess is if the armor works well, then we’d be about eighty percent of the way toward making the sale. The other twenty percent rested on how absolutely delicious Penny was going to look wearing the full-body, rubberized suit. Grim’s body armor was camouflaged, but with Penny, we made it look like skintight latex. It shined, it gleamed, and it practically fit her like a second skin. Our resident neck biter was going to look so hot that a few of these old military men might just have a coronary. The idea was that we wanted to show them how flexible the material is, but in reality, we just wanted them to be thinking so much about Penny’s perfectly luscious breasts, that they open their wallets and forget our price tag.

  The armor was rubberized mesh on the outside, but soft and comfortable on the inside. Between the two layers were a contained non-Newtonian fluid, and a layer of dispersal gel. The combination was what made the armor so special. Under normal circumstances the fluid allowed easy movement and the whole armor didn’t weigh much more than a typical wetsuit. That meant soldiers were lighter, and being lighter and easier to move around it would be a big help to any soldier. The best part was that the material could be plugged into a cooler for an hour and no matter how hot the day was, they’d feel like it was a nice cool spring day for roughly twenty hours. You could also warm it up, and stay toasty for a good long while even in arctic conditions. Little details like that are what would make life much easier for a soldier.

  The comfort wasn’t the most important thing. What really mattered was how well it stopped a bullet, and on that point the body armor was something amazing. Any outside force that hit the suit would cause the non-Newtonian fluid to crystallize. The crystallization made that impact area harder. The more force, the harder the impact area. So a bullet slamming into the armor would basically turn the spot it hit into something much harder than steel, and as soon as the impact stopped, the fluid returned back to its liquid state. The military has been working on liquid based armor for years, but I really took the idea and ran with it. The impact spot hardened so that nothing could get through, and the dispersal gel carried the force of the impact throughout the suit. So a Barrett 50 caliber sniper rifle round to the skull just felt like someone just slapped you upside your head. That’s a big improvement since normally all that would be left is a red mist.

  In theory, the suit could take up to a tank shell, but the mass and speed of the shell would still probably kill most people on impact. The sudden jerk of impact would throw the wearer like a rag doll, and likely reduce their brains to jelly. So while in theory it would work, none of us would dare test it out. The only real weakness that the body armor had was to knives and things that might puncture it. A bow and arrow could slice right through the armor. A knife just slipped through with almost no resistance. Grim believed that it would make the battlefield much more brutal. Once bullets didn’t stop you, then everyone would be fighting up close and hand to hand. Grim said that we made walls and armor to stop blades and arrows. Then we made guns and cannons to puncture walls and armor, and now that we just made armor that could handle cannon blasts, it wouldn’t be long until we were back to using knives and archers. I just didn’t see it, but I’m not a soldier like him. What I saw were men and women getting shot, roadside explosives mangling them. This body armor would stop that. Grim just said that people would find ways to kill people…it’s one of the few things we as a society are way too good at, but he was still willing to test the armor.

  That’s one thing I just love about the man. He may disagree with you, but he’ll respect your position. He just accepts you as you are, and never tries to change you. Of course, he’s a little crazy, and he has a real problem taking things seriously, so maybe it’s just the tradeoff. He’s so nutty they should stamp Peter Pan on his firm…muscular…juicy booty. Great…now all I can think of is that man spread out on a giant piece of bread. I felt my belly rumble, and my woohoo would have growled as well. Thankfully, my girly parts are a about as vocal as Harpo Marx, but just like Harpo, they have a way of getting their point across. I still needed to change my soaked panties before we all went out to eat. So how depressed should I be that I just compared my bajingo to a dead guy with big, poofy, curly hair? Just another sign that my sex life isn’t sleeping…it’s dead. Also, I probably need to do some trimming because if I ever do find a man then the last thing I want is for them to think I have Buckwheat in a headlock. Buckwheat? Seriously, I really have to stop watching old black and white movies and television with Grim. A girl just should not be comparing her pubic hair to the adorable little black kid from Little Rascals…it’s just wrong.

  Thankfully, I still have my B.O.B. A Battery Operated Boyfriend is probably the only reason I’m still sane. I’ve tried to find a date, but with our hectic schedule it’s next to impossible. We’re almost constantly on the move. It’s like after we saved the world, we became the world’s most famous gypsies. Commercials, business deals, and of course demonstrations of equipment like this armor really don’t leave time to put down roots.

  I keep hoping to just stumble across someone. Not to sound easy, but it’s been so long that I’ve almost given up. Maybe if I was all alone I’d be able to find someone, but we’re all together wherever we go. It’s next to impossible to get the attention of the opposite sex when you are surrounded by what looks like a militant wing of lingerie models. I’m not ugly. Grim even says I’m pretty…beautiful even, but I’m just not in the same league as the rest of the girls.

  When we walk into a room there are a lot of options before you get down to me. You have Penny, a crimson haired seductress with breasts so large that they are almost cartoonish. My breasts may be bigger, but she’s so tiny that her boobs look freakishly large in comparison. Janine usually stays invisible, but when she decides to show up she looks like a supermodel. She’s six foot, and perfectly proportioned, and her blue eyes are so striking that men actually do look her in the eyes when they talk to her. Katy is this dark gothic Lolita-esque beauty. She�
��s nineteen, and you wouldn’t believe she was that old when you looked at her. I guess it’s kind of hypocritical calling her young when I’m only three years older than her, but then again I had to grow up a long time ago in order to take care of my mother and sisters. Her purple hair with white highlights often gets pulled up into pigtails, a ponytail, or some other hairstyle that makes the young woman look even younger. To be honest, she looks like a really hot anime character, and I don’t mean those animes where they are trying to collect them all, or save the world. I mean those animes that involve groping, tentacles, and a lot of behavior that really should make any sexy young woman very afraid of visiting Japan. Danika is the least attractive of the girls…at least to me, but she’s still out of my league. She’s super slim. At first you think she’s skinny, but then you realize when you look closer that she is just solid lean muscle. Her body is just hard. She’s got this amazingly fast metabolism and just can’t keep weight on. So she eats food like Pac-man eats power pellets, and never gains a pound. I’m not jealous…bitch. Finally there is Niki; she’s like a hot little mentally deranged cheerleader. She’s Grim’s sister, and is every bit as confident and funny as her brother. She’s also every bit the horndog, but Danika seems to know how to keep her in line.