by J. A. Rock
But then looking at him earlier, I’d felt this perverse urge to complicate things. It was all in fun. He knew that, and I knew that. I just wanted to see: would he try his hardest to win—elude capture in order to obey me? Or would he risk a punishment from me later and let himself get caught? Whatever happened—whether he was captured or whether he won—I would enjoy hearing about it.
“Okay, slaves,” Greg called. “You have ten minutes to hide. Starting . . . now.”
The prey took off running into the woods.
Field Log
Date: April 7
Time: 0914
Weather: Partly sunny. Stratocumulus cover. Precipitation imminent.
Nature: Common blue damselfly. Eastern harvest mouse. Carpenter ants.
Mood: Operational.
Target: Target is ebullient and uncollected. Movements will be erratic until weariness sets in. Best to wait until target’s energy flags, then advance.
POA: I have found myself an outcrop on the western end of the woods. Coordinates approximately 40°N, 81°W. Will sit quietly and enjoy the occasional sunlight. Offer target the illusion of competence. Capture him too quickly, and it will dispirit him. Wait too long, and somebody else may find him first.
I DID NOT REALIZE HOW MUCH I HATED THE WOODS UNTIL I ARRIVED IN THE STUPID WOODS. THERE WERE BUGS. THERE WERE LOW-HANGING BRANCHES. MY SHOES HAD NO TRACTION. THERE WAS A BIRD THAT SOUNDED LIKE IT WAS BEING BUTT-FUCKED WITH A TOILET BRUSH.
IT WAS NOT EVEN NINE THIRTY.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MAY I PRESENT TO YOU: WHAT I DID FOR LOVE.
KAMEN HAD WANTED TO DO THE HUNT. SO I’D AGREED TO THE HUNT, FOR HE IS MY EVERYTHING. BUT I AM A MAN OF THE LAW, NOT A MAN OF THE WILD. AND WHILE I STROVE TO HUNT TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY, MY POD BELT WAS ANNOYING AND MY PROTECTIVE EYEWEAR WAS DIGGING INTO MY FACE.
I HAD NEVER CONSIDERED MYSELF A COMPLAINER, BUT THIS PARTICULAR MORNING WAS A NADIR FOR ME.
THE PLAN WAS TO SPEND HALF AN HOUR SHOOTING PEOPLE, AND THEN I WOULD MEET KAMEN BY THE OLD OAK TREE NEAR THE EDGE OF THE WOODS, WHERE I USED TO TIE HIM DURING OUR PONY PLAY SESSIONS. ONCE WE WERE UNITED, I WAS GONNA TAKE HIS PANTS OFF AND SEE WHAT KIND OF PANTIES HE HAD ON, BECAUSE I WAS A PANTY-LOVING PERV. I URGE YOU NOT TO JUDGE UNTIL YOU HAVE SEEN THE TAUTEST OF ALL MAN-ASSES IN A PAIR OF INTRICATE FRENCH UNDERGARMENTS. UNTIL YOU HAVE SEEN THE LACE STRETCHED BY GIANT BALLS AND A HARDENING DICK. UNTIL YOU HAVE SMACKED THAT LITTLE BIT OF BARE CHEEK HANGING OVER THE SCALLOPED EDGE OF LACE.
KAMEN IN PANTIES WAS A LIFE-CHANGING EVENT. AND ONCE I’D TAKEN HIS PANTIES DOWN AND FUCKED HIM IN THE WOODS, I WAS GOING TO HAUL HIM TO THE WHIPPING POST AND MAKE HIM STAND THERE IN HIS LACY UNMENTIONABLES IN FRONT OF EVERYONE AND JUST GROPE THE LIVING FUCK OUT OF HIM. I MEAN PULL THE TIP OF HIS DICK OUT THE LEG HOLE AND FUCK HIS SLIT WITH MY THUMBNAIL. I MEAN SUCK ON HIS BALLS THROUGH THE LACE UNTIL MY LIPS WERE CHAPPED. I MEAN RIP THE PANTIES OFF AND TIE THEM AROUND THE BASE OF HIS DICK AND WATCH HIS SHAFT TURN PURPLE WHILE I POUNDED HIS ASS.
BUT FIRST I HAD TO TRUDGE THROUGH THIS MISERABLE COPSE.
I DIDN’T HEAR OR SEE ANY OTHER PEOPLE. WHICH WAS WEIRD, BECAUSE THERE WERE A LOT OF KINKY FUCKERS IN THE WOODS; YOU’D THINK THERE’D BE SOME DEAD LEAVES CRUNCHING UNDERFOOT OR SOME TWIGS BREAKING. BUT THERE WAS ONLY THE OBNOXIOUS BIRD.
I CHECKED MY PHONE. NINE THIRTY. AND I HADN’T SHOT ANYONE. I’D THOUGHT IT WOULD BE WAY EASIER TO FIND SLAVES. BUT I WAS, VERY OCCASIONALLY, WRONG.
OH WELL. MIGHT AS WELL GO TO THE MEETING SPOT AND GET READY TO CAPTURE KAMEN.
EXCEPT THE WHOLE STUPID WOODS LOOKED THE SAME. EVERY STEP MADE ME HESITATE. WHAT DIRECTION HAD I COME FROM? HAD I SEEN THAT SQUIGGLY TREE BEFORE?
I WANDERED FOR ABOUT FIVE MINUTES, THINKING, DAMN, WHAT IF KAMEN GETS THERE FIRST? WHAT IF SOMEONE ELSE CAPTURES HIM WHILE HE’S WAITING FOR ME?
I COULDN’T LET THAT HAPPEN. I HAD TO LISTEN TO MY GODDAMN HEART AND GO BOLDLY. I STOPPED AND LISTENED TO MY HEART. IT DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING, SO I KEPT GOING STRAIGHT.
AND THEN I HEARD SOMETHING AND FROZE. SOMEONE WAS WALKING SLOWLY THROUGH THE BRUSH BEHIND ME. I TURNED AND RAISED MY GUN. WAITED AS THE FOOTSTEPS DREW STEADILY NEARER. PERHAPS THIS PERSON WAS A FELLOW HUNTER, AND COULD OFFER ME DIRECTION.
FROM THE TREES EMERGED A FAMILIAR FIGURE.
“WELL, WELL, WELL,” I SAID, RAISING MY GUN AS THE FIGURE STOPPED DEAD. “WHAT HAVE WE HERE?”
Kamen stepped on the end of a twig until it stood up, then kicked it in half. “Do you think they’ve unleashed the hunters yet?”
I checked the watch D had bought me for my birthday. It had a compass and a flashlight and a face roughly the size of a human heart, and was strapped to my wrist with something resembling a tractor tread. “Well, it’s nine twenty-five, so yeah. The hunters have been pursuing us for fifteen minutes.”
“It’s nine twenty-five already?” He was acting super weird.
“Yeah, buddy.”
“And we’re gonna keep walking farther away from camp?”
“That was the plan.”
I’d come up with our strategy. First, we’d found a sheltered area in the woods—a thicket, I was pretty damn sure. I’d been waiting to see a real-live thicket since Bambi. Then we’d stopped and covered our faces in mud, camouflaging even the edges of our protective eyewear. Then we’d kept going, staying close to the edge of the woods, where it bordered the meadow. My theory was that most slaves would try to hide deep in the tree cover, which would force the hunters to follow them into the depths. So we might be able to stay under the radar by walking back and forth along the tree line until the hunt was over. We’d just have to be careful—hunters who captured slaves would head toward the meadow in order to find their way back to base camp, and they might stumble upon us.
Kamen used a stick to whack a stringy shrub aside. “How many minutes do you think it would take to walk to the other end of the perimeter?”
“I don’t know, buddy. We’re gonna stay in this area for a while. Hey, don’t bushwhack, okay? It calls attention.”
“Okay.” He threw the stick into a pile of leaves, which made an even louder noise.
“Kamen.”
“Sorry.”
“We have to be extra careful now that we know Cinnamon’s a hunter. We can’t get caught by anyone, but especially not her.” I hated Cinnamon. I mean really just wanted to Wile E. Coyote up some big ol’ anvil that would fall on her head as she passed through a gulch. She was so nasty to me. And all I’d ever done to her was make fun of her pony play shit every single time I saw her. Which I tried not to do anymore, because now Kamen was a pony too, plus everyone’s kinks were valid, but sometimes it just slipped out.
Ah, life.
“I know.” Kamen refused to look at me.
Something was up. And this was Kamen, so it probably wouldn’t take long for him to tell me what. But D said part of survival was treating everyone like a potential enemy. So I took a couple of steps away from Kamen and concentrated on treading lightly as a shadow.
The woods were peaceful and terrifying in equal measures, and the adrenaline of the hunt’s first few minutes was starting to wear off. I stepped deliberately on a damp patch of ground, leaving a full shoe print to taunt D. If he was even tracking me. Sometimes I got the sense that his stoic-woodsman persona was more self-aggrandizement than reality. Like those people who say they can play guitar, but really they can just play “Free Fallin’” and “Brown-Eyed Girl.”
“I’ve just gotta prove to D I can do this,” I told Kamen. “Shut him up about how not-stealthy and not-independent I am.”
Kamen glanced at me with a level of guilt I usually only saw if he’d watched the latest episode of Space Camp without me. “You know, if you think, like, I’m gonna ruin your stealth, I can go.”
“No! Dude, are you kidding? We need to stick together. I don’t want to be in this creepy forest alone.”
“Are you afraid of woods?”
“No. Yes.” I sighed. “A little. Do you think there are reall
y wolves?”
“Nah, dude. Just squirrels and stuff. Hasn’t D ever brung you here before?”
“Once. A long time ago. He wanted us to hike.” I shuddered. “I’m actually surprised GK and Kel let him be a hunter. These are his woods. He knows them better than anyone else.” I paused at a birdcall. That was a . . . bluebird? Sparrow? Falcon? “That seems kinda unfair.”
“Like, if we got separated, you’d be okay, right?”
“Let’s not get separated, and then we won’t have to find out.”
“But—”
“Look, I need to defeat D on my own. But, also, never leave me.”
He glanced at me sharply, alarm on his face once more. It seemed to take effort for him to look away. “I’m surprised you didn’t be allies with Gould, man. He said he wanted to.”
I grimaced. “I didn’t want to be paired with Gould. If Gould gets caught, he’ll drop to his knees, give his captors the best head of their lives, and then knit them a neck-warming garment while they use him as a footstool. I don’t want to be on that team. I want to be on the team that wins.”
I’d gotten a smear of mud across the left side of my goggles, and I tried to scratch it off so I could take stock of my surroundings. There were thicker trees to our left, and a cluster of bushes slightly to our right. Somewhere in the trees ahead of us, I saw flashes of yellow caution tape.
“Holy shit.” Kamen stopped suddenly.
I stopped too. “What?”
“Look.”
I looked where he pointed. At first I thought he was crazy. Then I saw it: a bottle of Spicy Sam’s Wowza! Ghost Pepper Sauce. Just sitting there next to a stump.
He hurried over to it.
“Kamen!” I scrambled after him. “What are you doing? Stop.”
“What? It’s hot sauce.”
“It’s obviously a trap!”
He halted.
There was a string tied around the neck of the bottle, and the string disappeared into a clump of bushes a few feet away.
Kamen was practically trembling with need. “What if it’s legit hot sauce someone left in the woods?”
“It is definitely a trap. Back away slowly.”
“But who would—”
“Probably someone who wants to catch you! Probably Ryan.”
Kamen loved hot sauce more than anyone I knew. This did seem like a ploy aimed specifically at him. But who could have predicted he would come to this precise spot? Was someone following us?
I whipped my head around, checking behind us. Nobody. The woods to our left looked very dark and eerie. I homed in on the bushes to our right, where I thought I heard rustling.
Kamen shook his head. “No. This isn’t where we— I mean, I don’t think it was him.”
The bushes were definitely rustling.
Damn it.
“Someone’s coming! Get away from the hot sauce.”
But he wasn’t moving. He was Abu eyeing the giant ruby in the Cave of Wonders. And he was about to bring the whole fuckin’ woods crashing down around us.
“Kamen!” I whispered, louder.
More rustling.
Fuck.
If we continued straight ahead, we’d hit the perimeter. If we fled left, we’d enter the depths. And if we retreated, we’d be running through exposed terrain.
There was no time to decide.
“Run!” I shouted.
But he didn’t. He just stood there, an innocent lamb in the face of the axman, one arm still extended toward the hot sauce.
I had no choice. I left him there and bolted left, into the depths.
I am having fun, I reminded myself with grim avowal, as I picked my way down a slope carpeted in leaves, trying not to step on the few trilliums poking out of the leaf-litter. I reached out and gripped a dead branch that protruded from a hollow, felled tree trunk, steadying myself. It left a smear of timberland filth on my palm. Such fun.
The matter of cohabitation still weighed on me. Should I ask Drix to move in with me? It would be so much easier to weather events like unexpected school fees, falling profits at A2A, and general loneliness with someone by my side.
But he is by my side. Nearly all the time.
Except when he goes home.
Zac had already asked most of the big questions. “Is Drix my dad?” “Did he adopt me?” “Can we go stay with him?” And I had provided what I hoped were adequate explanations.
Really, You have two adoptive daddies was an easy elucidation. It was certainly easier than You have one adoptive father and one very charming guardian whom your father loves deeply but who does not live with you or have any legal claim over you because your adoptive father is fear’s own ward.
For the nth time, my cardigan snagged on a branch. I was displeased with the amount I was sweating, the way the knit wool interior grew progressively damper as I walked.
Very well. The sweater was coming off.
I unbuttoned my cardigan. Slipped it off and tied it around my waist, grateful that Dave wasn’t here. He made enough fun of my cardigans as it was. Were he to see me with one tied around my waist, I’d never hear the end of it.
In my gray undershirt, I felt transformed. The cool air on my bare arms gave me a newfound attentiveness, a sense that I was cunning, agile, and strong. It didn’t hurt that my arm muscles looked particularly formidable.
It was bracing to be out here in the woods, alone. I started to focus on my mission. Walk softly. Stay close to the trees. Be aware of your surroundings.
The farther I walked, the more into it I got. Birds twittered around me, but I was listening for more insidious sounds: the crack of a twig, the shout of a startled slave.
You are a wolf.
You are a spy.
You may be prey, but you are perfectly capable of outsmarting your pursuers.
If I eluded capture, I stood a chance of owning a vac bed. I could lie there, sheathed in latex, while Drix did as he wished with my body. My dick stirred, and I minced my steps as my mind flooded with unbidden fantasies.
Adrift in ces fantasmes, I didn’t even notice the narrow, furrowed stump half buried in grass until I tripped over it. I staggered into a shrub.
“Ugh.” I swatted at the bush and veered into a small clearing edged in thin white pines.
And found myself staring down the barrel of a paint gun rifle.
I threw my hands up, so startled for a second that my heart seemed quite capable of exiting my body.
“Well, well, well.” Ryan kept the rifle aimed at my chest. “What have we here?”
I dropped my arms. Pulled my cardigan tighter around my waist. “My goodness,” I said primly, trying to cover how disappointed I was at being caught so soon. “I suppose you expect me to surrender.”
He lowered the gun slightly. “I suppose I do.”
There was something about him—an agitation bordering on panic—that I probably would not have noticed without the heightened senses granted to me by my unsweatered torso. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong!”
I kept my hands nonthreateningly by my sides. “Are you sure?”
He waved the rifle unsteadily. “Do you know your way around this place?”
“You mean the woods?”
“No, the goddamn Taj Mahal. Yes, the woods.”
Where one door closes, another opens.
“I have a very keen sense of direction,” I fibbed smoothly. “Why?”
“I’m lost. I need to get to the edge of the woods, by the camp. Kamen and I have an agreement that we’ll meet there and I’ll capture him.” His hand twitched on the gun, like he wanted to raise it again. “Don’t tell anyone. That Kamen and I planned this, I mean.”
“So are you saying . . .?”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m saying if you take me where I need to be, I’ll let you go.”
I contemplated this. My only other option was to run. And running seemed untenable, given our proximity. What was more viable
was either to lead him to the spot he’d described and hope he’d make good on his word—though honestly, I wasn’t too sure where we were in relation to the camp—or lead him on a bootless errand and await a better opportunity to flee.
I nodded slowly. “All right. I can do that.” So spaketh a liar and deceiver and future vac-bed owner. “I’ll take you to camp. You let me go.”
He eyed me suspiciously. Then thrust out his diminutive hand. “Shake on it.”
I clasped his infant’s paw and shook. “Come on.” I jerked my head to the left. “It’s this way.”
Man, I’ll tell you what. Woods patrol? Not the most exciting. I hadn’t seen much action . . . just two couples making out against trees . . . Girltoy bounding over at one point to ask what kind of snacks I had . . . watching slaves struggle to figure out where to go . . . hoping for a glimpse of Kel in her neon vest. Which she pulled off. I get what a guy I’m being here, but big boobs in any kind of uniform . . . that shit was heaven.
I spotted Dave and Kamen hiking near the meadow line. Nothing better to do, so I trailed along, keeping my distance . . . If they’d checked behind them even once, they’d have seen my vest. And if they’d stopped talking for even a second, they’d’ve heard me. But they tromped along, yakking away, and I heard Kamen say, “I’m surprised you didn’t be allies with Gould, man. He said he wanted to.”
“I didn’t want to be paired with Gould,” Dave replied. “If Gould gets caught, he’ll drop to his knees, give his captors the best head of their lives, and then knit them a neck-warming garment while they use him as a footstool. I don’t want to be on that team. I want to be on the team that wins.”
I had to grin at that. Gould . . . ah, Gould. Yep. The guy was born on his knees. I didn’t quite get it. You know? I hated people watching me submit. Which was why Gould was fascinating to me. Because he did whatever Kel or I said. No questions asked. That’s some real “with great power comes great responsibility” stuff, right there.
Dave and Kamen lowered their voices, and I lost interest in following them. I doubled back a ways and then headed deeper into the woods . . . was strolling along, listening to the crackle of condom foil in my vest pocket, when I saw a movement in the trees. I stopped and watched, and after a moment, I saw a familiar face.
