Face The Strange - Chapter 3/11: Needs Must free porn video

FACE THE STRANGE by Crazy Baron Chapter 3: Needs Must What followed next was quite possibly the most surreal part of my adventures so far. It could well have been just a hallucination, a dream, or perhaps a dream within a dream--but then again, much the same could be said about everything I had experienced ever since I had left my city apartment a couple of days before Halloween. It began with total, complete darkness. Breakers Woods, Dawn, Willow, Giles and the others disappeared into thin air in a heartbeat, and then there was nothing. My first thought was that I had fainted or that someone had knocked me out cold, but I immediately understood that was impossible. I was clearly able to think and sense, so I had to be conscious. Something cold and moist was pressing against the bare skin of my hands and my right cheek, and this led me to the terrifying realization that I was lying face down on dirt. Another startling observation followed on the heels of the first one: I was indisputably back in my own body and once again a male from head to toe. For better or worse, my move to Sunnydale and into Buffy Summers' life had not been final after all. Not wasting another second, I rolled to my side and sat up. Slowly my eyes began to distinguish lighter shades of gray above me, and after a little more time had passed, I recognized the view as a cloudy night sky. The air was chilling and my clothes were wet in places. Shivers ran through my body and my sore muscles protested when I clumsily clambered to my feet and looked around to see where I was. A wide open space surrounded me. I was standing in the middle of a barren field that was covered with dead grass and hay. My eyes caught no signs of trees, notable elevations or human habitation anywhere in the vicinity; the land seemed absolutely plain and monotonous. In the distance, it faded into an indistinct, dark and shadowy mass that joined the sky at a barely discernible horizon. This was a dreadful place to be, and I was completely alone and without any kind of shelter. Before panic could get a firm hold of me, however, I noticed a faintly visible strip of light gray perhaps a hundred yards away to my left. It had to be a road, I reasoned and started making my way towards it. Unless my luck had completely run out, I might be able to flag down a passing vehicle. The ground was moderately wet and my shoes got dirtier on every step, as did my trouser legs. My outfit, a pair of comfortable jeans and an old tattered denim jacket with a red pullover underneath, had not been selected for plodding through fields in late fall, and I would have happily traded every cent of my meager savings for a warm overcoat, boots and a knit cap. Finally, I reached the side of the road and jumped over a shallow ditch by its side, but even as I was approaching my destination, I had to face a bitter disappointment. The road was nothing more than a narrow driveway with a coarse gravel surface, hardly the sort of communication lane that had plenty of traffic and offered ample opportunity to hitch a ride. I could well freeze to death before the first car came past. Be that as it might, I was not willing to give up yet. I looked in both directions and, to my surprise, spotted a rectangular shadow some distance off. Maybe the darkness, abetted by my desperation, deceived me; but the shape looked exactly like a parked car. It was my best hope of finding help, and I began to jog towards it without delay. It was further away than I had estimated, but as I got closer, it started to seem more and more familiar to me. Nevertheless, I wanted positive confirmation and kept my rising spirits at bay for fear of another, potentially fatal setback. From twenty paces or so, I could just about read the letters and numbers on the front license plate, and then there was no more doubt. The car was mine. "Thank God!" I breathed and fumbled my jacket pockets for the keys. They weren't there, and for a short but scary moment I considered my remaining options in case I could not get into the vehicle (without breaking a window, for which I had no tools at hand) and start it. A hard, small object was pressed against my thigh in my trouser pocket, and when my fingers reached it, I recognized it as the missing car keys. I sighed in relief, opened the door lock and let myself in. I very nearly collapsed on the driver's seat and closed the door, immensely grateful to have a roof of some kind over my head. The feeling of cold assaulted me for a second time now that I was no longer moving. The cabin had cooled down, so the car must have stood there for quite some time since its engine had last been running. Fervently wishing for yet another stroke of good luck, I pushed the main key into the ignition with a shaking hand and turned it. The engine hesitated for a second and then rumbled to life, settling to a steady purr on idle. "Yes!" I burst out in gratitude to the powers that be and put the heater on its maximum setting. The heating system needed a few minutes to gain enough leftover energy from the engine, which was as cold as the rest of the car and only slowly building up heat, but then the interior began to warm up gradually. Even a moderate increase in temperature was heavenly after what I had had to endure outside. I wondered how long I had been lying out in the field; likely not more than an hour or so, I surmised, as an extensive exposure would have been a serious health risk under the current conditions. The fabric of the jacket and that the trousers were moist on the surface but thankfully not wet through and through everywhere, nor anywhere near as dirty as my shoes, but the clothes that I had on couldn't have kept me safe from hypothermia for long. In sum, it seemed I had escaped this trial virtually unscathed, aside from the lingering cold and the beginnings of hunger. When I had basked in the lovely heat for a while with my eyes closed, I could finally afford some thought to finding out more about the situation. I risked turning on the headlights for a few seconds to see what was in front of me. That revealed little, though. The deserted road continued forward in a straight line, crossing through the equally deserted farmland. No movement was in sight anywhere. However, when I switched the high beams off again, I believed I could just detect one or two very dim specks of light almost directly ahead. They had to be in the windows of a house, but the building was nowhere near me. Above it, roughly where I assumed the horizon to be, the sky had gotten a fair bit lighter than it had been when I had come to in the field. Unless I was seeing artificial illumination reflected by the clouds, the morning was about to break. I had something of a headache already, and it duly increased in intensity as I tried to make sense of all this. My car being parked out in the open, apparently in the middle of fallow farmland, and my clothes suggested that this was what I regarded as the "prime" reality, the one where I was a middle-aged man writing my PhD dissertation and supposed to be going on a vacation with Jake, Scott and Charlie. Even if that was true, though, the logical flow of events must have been disrupted here. As far as I could recall, we had been traveling with Dan towards the town of Bedford to drop him off when we had gotten lost. After driving on for a while and crossing a wide river via an inordinately long covered bridge, we had ended up at the homestead of one Lady Cinnamon, a hippie woman living with a group of girls in a farmhouse. She invited us to tea and also asked us to stay overnight, which became inevitable when she had spiked our drinks with a strong sedative. I ran out of the house with Charlie on my heels as soon as I had figured out what was going on, lost my consciousness and then regained it in the kitchen of our family home. However, that dream (if it was one) very soon ended with me waking up in my car with Charlie in company. We had set out to liberate our friends from Cinnamon, but a strange trip or a vision followed almost immediately. In it, a man dressed in a bizarre horse costume had led me to an idyllic but psychedelic garden where I had briefly conversed with him, along with Faith and a little girl whom I had never met before. At the end of all this, the mysterious force that was toying with me had returned me to the mid-2000s Greensville and the Buffy form. As a result, it was absolutely impossible for me to tell the actual and imaginary events apart. However happy I was to be alive, reasonably well and in possession of a functioning automobile, that was only the beginning. Staying here indefinitely was out of the question, but coming up with reasonable other courses of action was not easy. I glanced over my shoulder at the back seat and spotted an item that had slipped from my mind completely: Jake's AR-15. At least the expensive rifle was accounted for, I thought with a wry smile. I wouldn't have to explain to Jake how I had misplaced it. Seeing the weapon there, within easy reach, had a strange effect on me. Desperation and passiveness instantly gave way to resolve and fearlessness. I suddenly knew exactly what to do. I would rescue my friends at any cost, just like I had rescued Dawn a few minutes ago. Granted, I didn't have Slayer powers or Buffy's mace at my disposal, but the AR-15 was most definitely a factor to be reckoned with in this reality. I was alone this time--if the person who had accompanied me had actually been Charles McGee, as opposed to a mere phantasm conjured up by my disturbed mind or some magic spell--but I would make up for the lack of a buddy with my sheer determination. Anyone getting in my way had better be prepared to withstand 5.56 NATO hits in their center mass. I didn't find the spare magazine, but the one in the rifle was still full and there was a round in the chamber, precisely as I remembered. I had loaded the rifle myself when I had moved out with Charlie to ascertain what had happened to my other friends and Dan. I conscientiously locked the car and slipped the keys in my pocket, checked the weapon once more and took off. The sky was now becoming noticeably brighter by the minute, and the increasing illumination did indeed reveal a red house on top of a little hill in the distance, surrounded by a few trees and a smattering of small outbuildings. That was Cinnamon's home, my objective. I began by walking on the road, so as to shorten the time I would need to get to the house, but when I was close enough to make out details of the buildings and the garden, I jumped over the ditch on the right and continued across the field with the intention of circling around to the back of the premises. The miserable soggy dirt stuck to my shoes and soiled them further, and the moisture was starting to seep in. A pair of good rubber boots and dry socks to wear inside them would have been worth their weight in gold to me, but as with many other things, I had to make do with what I had, ignore the discomfort as best I could and hope there would be a chance to rest someplace warm in the near future. The sun was already climbing over the horizon somewhere behind the looming clouds, providing more and more light and very slowly warming up the air. The field ended and the tended lawn began without a clear demarcation, aside from a tiny, less than knee-high bank of sorts that sloped down into the field. The ground rose slightly, and only a few yards further away stood a line of birch trees that had dropped their leaves for the winter. I crouched and then knelt on the ground behind one of the birches to observe the place, with the AR-15 in my right hand and its barrel pointing in the general direction of the house. In front of me, I saw the back yard of the house, the long, red-painted farmhouse itself, a large garage or a shed and a smaller building that seemed like a cabin, perhaps serving as guest accommodation. What attracted my attention, however, was the person, a man, standing on the lawn. He was wearing a thick white robe, which covered him from his neck to almost his feet, but his head was bare. His features left not the faintest doubt as to his identity. The stringy, sand-brown, unkempt and unwashed hair; the small eyes with an empty gaze behind the large lenses of his glasses; the pudgy, dull-looking face of an overweight and mentally disabled man approaching middle age, with a triple chin, a small mouth and a round nose--these were instantly familiar to me. The man was none other than Daniel Mancini, staring at the eastern sky with his mouth hanging ajar. Without a conscious decision, I took up a shooting position on one knee, steadied the butt of the rifle against my shoulder and aimed. Dan's robe filled my sights. The range was not more than twenty yards, Dan was completely unaware of my presence and I had a clear shot. The tip of my index finger pushed the selector switch from Safe to Semi and then found the trigger, feeling it and resting on it lightly. I wouldn't miss; I couldn't miss. My mind was overflowing with wrath, but not of the explosive, uncontrollable kind. Mine was icy cold and it followed its own unyielding logic. Dan was a danger to me, my loved ones and the entire Universe. He was the one who wanted and was attempting to release Angronok, and maybe the reality distortions and every bit of grief they had caused me had originated with him in the first place. Therefore he had to die. The front sight was moving up and down as I breathed, assuring me that my firing stance was correct. I could effortlessly imagine that I was back at the boot camp rifle range, eager to score as high as possible and listening to what my instructors were telling me. There was nothing more to this, I told myself. I was only putting a couple of bullets in a target. Dan had chosen to serve evil and condemned himself to death. I felt my forehead itch, and I had to remove my finger from the trigger for a second, but then the sensation passed and I pointed the barrel at Dan again. The rifle had become heavier and the sights were no longer as stable as they had been. I took a firmer hold of the weapon and braced for the ear-splitting cracks of the shots. It was pointless to delay the inevitable. To be sure, firing at Dan would alert everyone in the house, and I might become the hunted instead of the hunter, but I'd have 18 rounds left in the magazine if I were to dispatch Dan with two. I would be far from helpless. Once more, I raised the rifle to gain a better position and target picture through the sights, but when I resumed aiming at Dan, my index finger refused to go inside the trigger guard anymore. "Fuck this!" I cursed quietly, but the words sounded excessively loud in the silence of the desolate land. Just as I had often tacitly feared, I was too soft to go through with what I had to do, despite my talk and posturing. So much for the military training I had received, or childish dreams of becoming a hero on a battlefield one day. Nevertheless, I could deny Cinnamon Dan's membership in her commune and take him away from here. Angry but full of new determination, I rose to my feet, safed the rifle and jogged to Dan, despite the risk of being seen from the house. The man, whose life had been hanging by a thread only seconds prior, merely turned his head and cast an impassive look at me when I was standing right by him. "Dan," I addressed him. "Dan, what are you doing out here? Where are your clothes?" "Hi, Mike," he replied in his customary high-pitched monotone. "Where have you been? We've been waiting for you to come back and join us, thusly, because that is what you're destined to do." "I'm asking the questions here," I retorted and suppressed the temptation to threaten him with the AR-15. "What's going on, Dan?" "I'm meditating," he said. "Cinnamon told me I should meditate, to rest my sound mind and spirit and groove on the power of Mistress Morning. It's good for your respective body and soul, out and out." "Okay, that sounds nice. Where are Scott, Jake and Charlie?" "Your bully pals are in the house," he said, and I thought I could hear a smidgen of malicious, triumphant joy in his otherwise flat and emotionless voice. "Cinnamon said she'd take care of them." "What did she do to them?" I demanded. My anger was receding and worry for the safety of my best friends was moving in. "Something cool," Dan replied, and his lips curved into a smile. My heart sank at that instant. It was as good as certain that all three had been forced into skinsuits by now. If I ever ran into them again, they would be living their new lives as adolescent or even pre-adolescent girls, essentially unfamiliar people who had no connection with me anymore. "Cinnamon told me she's giving me a skin baby too," Dan continued after a while, "but first I need to purge the bad stuff from within my soul, thusly. Then I can be a lovely girl like I always wanted." His smile widened into a grin that impressed me as exaggerated and robotic, much as the majority of his other facial expressions and laughter did. For a split second, it made me want to smash his yellowed teeth in with the butt of the rifle. "Dan," I said with every last bit of calmness that I could summon, "you need to come with me. We have to leave for Bedford as soon as we can." "Why?" "Because we have to go there. Your cousin Flint is waiting for you at the bus station, remember?" "It's not important anymore," he asserted. "Kent Noggin said, and Cinnamon said too, that my life is here now. I can work for the better future of everyone and my friends from here." "Dan, this is not a fucking game. We must go." "No. You're just another male bully, Mike. You've always been mean to me, out and out. You only want me to do stupid and boring and useless things, and not what I really want. I don't have to listen to you." "Somebody has to tell you to do those things because you don't know what's good for you. Look, Dan, you think flying cartoon mice are real and that they talk to you in your head. You're a child, even though you've got an adult man's body." "I protest that name-calling!" he responded, agitated and in a shrill falsetto that was sure to wake up Cinnamon and her flock. "I'll have you know---" "Alright, fine," I cut him off. "Have it your way, but for God's sake, shut up!" To my immense relief, he closed his mouth and resumed his former staring at the sky. As far as Dan was concerned, I had ceased to exist. I was at a loss as to how to handle this development and yet again feeling cold, alone and out of ideas. I decided to head for the cabin and check it out. What drew me there was assuredly something other than cool, sound judgment. I risked being seen and apprehended, and there was no guarantee I would find anything even remotely interesting or useful in the small hut, but I was not ready to leave without at least trying to help my friends. So I advanced in a forward-leaning posture, as if going to battle, holding the rifle with both hands. I couldn't bring myself to walk casually and upright across the lawn, no matter how comical I probably looked like. I saw no movement in the windows of the house and made it to the door of the cabin without incident. The door was not locked, and I pressed the handle and pulled, letting the door open partially but not stepping inside until I could see there were no nasty surprises waiting for me. The room had no windows, and so it was totally dark, apart from what little light could sneak in through the doorway. The temperature difference between inside and outside was very noticeable at the threshold, although the room was not nearly as warm as the living spaces in the house had been. Cinnamon was possibly using the cabin as a workshop, I reasoned. A worn, old-fashioned light switch box was mounted on the wall next to the door, and after hesitating for a second or two, I decided to turn the lights on. A dim incandescent lamp, hanging from the ceiling without a shade, came to life and revealed the contents of the room in their entirety. This was indeed a workshop or a studio: a good quarter of the floor space was taken up by a large table with a bewildering assortment of bottles and cans sitting on it, together with a multitude of other similar items, such as paintbrushes, syringes and small knifes. A merry disorder apparently reigned supreme. However, the most chilling discovery by far was resting on a hanger on a coat rack opposite to the door. It was an empty skinsuit, waiting to be worn. Cinnamon herself had told me and my friends that she made these suits, but I was nonetheless shaken by the sight of one. Realistic and detailed in the extreme, they resembled actual flayed human skins so closely that gruesome mental images and associations always surfaced in my mind. The mysteries surrounding them only added to my fears, rational and irrational alike. It was my understanding that they were not so much fabricated in any traditional sense as they were bred. They were biological entities instead of simple inanimate objects, whether they could be regarded as living beings in their own right or not. Either way, the smart thing to do under normal circumstances was not to get involved with them, or the people making and wearing them, in any manner whatsoever. Then again, my situation was probably as far from normal circumstances as it could possibly be. I was currently trespassing on the property of a skinsuit-making hippie lady who had drugged and captured my friends, I didn't have a clue as to where this place was, I had nothing to eat or drink and I was toting around an AR-15 that I didn't own, with a full magazine of live rounds locked and loaded. All I had to go on was an instinctive conviction that come what may, I was obliged to take Dan to the town of Bedford, never mind the problem of finding my way there. Ignoring my principles regarding the skinsuits and largely also common sense, I went to take a closer look at the specimen on the coat rack. When donned, the suit would turn its wearer into a pale-skinned, portly and tallish woman, with long hair dyed a harsh, unnatural shade of neon red. Several large tattoos adorned the skin, from a butterfly above her buttocks to the female symbol on her left upper arm. The headpiece of the suit was resting on her breasts, which were conspicuously large even though they were hollow at the moment. Her face appeared to be wide and round but by no means unattractive as a whole. There was a piercing under her lower lip, a silver stud, and she sported a small ring on the right side of her nose, too. Since the skin was unoccupied, her age was difficult to estimate. She was certainly an adult, twenty or twenty-five, but not much older than that. If I had passed her by at the University campus, I would most likely have categorized her as just another left-leaning humanities student who had mild to moderate feminist tendencies and interests--in short, a type of person I could maybe tolerate but was not keen to socialize with. A baggy, unisex brown winter jacket was keeping the skin company on a separate hanger. In addition, there were piles of clothes on a small table next to the rack, that is, sweaters with and without hoods, pants and jeans, tennis socks, bras, a number of t-shirts and women's white boxers, as well as several knit caps and a ragged beige backpack. As for footwear, a few pairs of sneakers and one pair of black combat boots stood on the floor. The selection was certainly meant to be worn with the skinsuit. None of the items could really be said to exude alluring femininity, but they did seem practical and comfortable and served to cement the initial impression I had gotten of the redhead's personality and style. The suit, by virtue of being there, suggested a plan. Dan had on several occasions in the past made it abundantly clear that he disliked and despised men in general, and I was no exception. He saw me and the rest of our entourage, Jake in particular, as despotic bullies who delighted in ordering him around and threatening him with violence when he refused to obey. But the skin could change the entire picture. If I disguised as a woman, my chances of gaining Dan's trust and being able to talk him into leaving the commune with me would skyrocket. The idea was perfectly rational and realistic, especially considering Dan's strong inclination to take things at face value. It had only one serious flaw. For it to work, I had to put the skinsuit on. The prospect was downright appalling to me, and I spent upwards of a quarter of an hour mulling over the state of affairs, mainly trying to discover a good alternative to using the suit, but it began to seem there was none. I had rejected killing Dan and then driving away, regardless of how easy and safe (from a technical viewpoint) that might have been; openly threatening him would be unlikely to give results, at least positive ones; and my sense of loyalty and duty, combined with the aforementioned conviction which had proven impossible to get rid of, prevented me from fleeing by myself and abandoning the others to their fate. I hadn't found Charlie, Scott or Jake, and I was unable to help them anymore, but I could still get Dan. I placed the rifle gently on the floor, took a deep breath and started to undress. I emptied my pockets carefully and peeled the denim jacket, the pullover and the jeans off with great reluctance, piling them on the table. The underwear and socks were even less pleasant to shed, both because of the low temperature and the eminent sense of vulnerability that ensued. If Cinnamon were to barge in now, I thought, it would be all over for me in a matter of seconds. True, I might well end up in a skinsuit nonetheless, but one of her choosing, and then the next decade or so of my life would be spent as one of her brainwashed girl disciples. I briefly wondered if grabbing the rifle and using it to shoot either Cinnamon or myself was justified when confronted with that kind of a future--assuming that I could get my hands on the weapon before she could get hers on me. At any rate, the backpack was a godsend. Thanks to it, I wouldn't have to leave my own clothes behind or carry them along in some exceedingly awkward manner. Of course, I fully intended to take the skinsuit off at the earliest opportunity, and then the girl's clothing would no longer fit. I stuffed my garments inside, disregarding the musty smell that filled the air as soon as the main zipper was fully open. The cell phone, wallet and the car keys, however, I would put in the pockets of the girl's jacket and trousers for convenience. At last, I was ready. Despite telling myself that I was out of options and that I was in truth already fully committed to doing this, I still hesitated even to touch the suit. Its smooth surface, a flawless imitation of normal living human skin, felt cool but soft my fingertips, but it was the natural feeling itself that made the whole thing so repulsive to me. The Buffy skin had given me the exact same impressions, I recalled, when I had first put it on. The similarities didn't end there. Like the Buffy suit, this one had an opening in its back that extended from just below the nape of its neck to a few inches above its buttocks, cutting the butterfly tattoo in two when the skinsuit was held up by its shoulders. The headpiece, in effect a full-head mask, was attached at the front of the neck, and I would pull it up over my head when the rest of the suit was on me. "What am I doing?" I groaned to myself as I clenched my jaw and pushed my right foot inside the suit through the opening. There was plenty of space to go around. In contrast to the petite Buffy Summers, this girl was neither short nor very thin. The toes, the foot and the entire leg all the way up to my hip slid in place with less effort than I had needed with the Buffy skin. I repeated the process with my other leg and expended a good amount of mental energy attempting to dispel the thought that the suit was actually swallowing me. I could easily imagine that it yearned to have me inside of itself, which was not a mere figure of speech in this case. I lifted the suit to my waist and let my male parts settle in the crotch. Not that it mattered much--in a minute, they would no longer exist--but I wanted to give myself every last bit of comfort there was to be had. My penis was more cooperative than last time. The poor thing knew what fate awaited it and it showed no signs of rising, allowing itself and my testicles to be easily pushed into a small pouch behind the as-yet shallow and flat genitals of the skinsuit. The girl I was about to become was clearly not in the habit of shaving her nether region, I observed in passing. I proceeded to lift up the torso so that I could push my arms into the sleeve-like hollow ones of the skinsuit. Again, there was no trouble. Every single digit found its proper place immediately, as did the arms and the shoulders. The suit did its best to accommodate me, with its inner surface caressing my skin as it covered more and more of me. The sensation reminded me of touching a very fine silk cloth, now slowly warming up due to the heat from my own body. Having reached this point, there only remained the closing of the back of the suit and pulling on the headpiece. As it happened, the skinsuit had decided to spare me the trouble. I could feel it tighten around me, but I had barely had the time to realize I was not responsible for that when the mask part literally jumped at my face in a jumbled mass of red hair and skin-colored substance. I would probably have screamed if the suit matter hadn't blocked my eyes, nostrils and mouth so incredibly fast. I had become blind and deaf in half a second. The only thing I could do was to stay still and wait. In short order, the tactile sensations disappeared as well. My prior experience had taught me that there would be no pain or danger of suffocation, and while that knowledge did help me rein in the beginnings of a panic, I was anything but at ease. The transformation was over sooner than I had assumed. My vision returned, blurry at first, and then the sense of touch and balance were restored too. It was like landing on the ground after floating in the air, with the weightlessness suddenly gone. I also very nearly found myself face down on the floor immediately afterwards. My legs were unsteady and struggling to support the body mass that had shifted every which way but not diminished much, rather the opposite. Two heavy globes hung from my chest, and below them a sizable belly bulged out, denying me a view of my new crotch, which was duly sending out the kind of signals that I had become familiar with in my Buffy form. Another mass of flesh and fat was concentrated in my pillowy bottom. The dyed hair cascaded down my back and swept across my skin whenever I turned my head. A small, somewhat dirty mirror hung on the wall opposite the large table. Curiosity got the better of me and I trudged to it in small steps, a little displeased at the ungainliness of this body. The girl stared back at me from the mirror with her lips lightly pressed together. She had a beautiful pair of blue eyes, a fine smallish nose, slightly pointed chin and moderately pronounced cheekbones, although this delicateness was seriously undermined by the copious excess bulk in her cheeks, under her chin and in other parts of her body. Her skin was on the pale side, with faint freckles sprinkled here and there. She showed her set of clean and straight teeth when I forced myself to smile. As she was, I considered her attractive in her own way. If only she had taken better care of herself and not allowed her body to become so bloated, she would have had the potential to be a real knockout. "Hi there," I said to my reflection. Her voice was about average in pitch for a young adult woman but clear and bright, entirely free of the grating nasal tone I had more or less expected. "Who are you?" I asked her and tilted my head, and the girl did the same. "Who are we?" I was genuinely intrigued. Was she a copy of an actual person or just a generic character thought up by Cinnamon? For what purpose had the suit been made? Then again, not knowing the answers to those questions was probably a blessing. The coldness of the air finally spurred me back to action, and I readily helped myself to the clothes laid on the table. I started with a pair of boxers and then took out a white bra, nondescript aside from its considerable cup size. Fortunately, it had been adjusted to fit the woman's body shape, and so I had no particular difficulty in putting it on. I stretched my new thick arms behind my back to close the clasp, which succeeded after a few failed attempts, and then pulled a pair of socks on. They, in turn, were followed by warm dark-colored hiking trousers with a belt. A gray hoodie, the combat boots and a black knit cap completed my outfit, and I additionally picked up and donned the winter jacket in case I would have to spend a lot of time outdoors. I couldn't resist taking one more peek in the mirror after I had lifted the backpack on and was holding the AR-15. A subdued, almost involuntary little laughter in the woman's voice came out of my mouth the moment I saw my new look. The rifle transformed her from a tomboyish liberal city girl into a crazed militant preparing to participate in a communist uprising in an old fallout shelter. If only the weapon had been an AK-47 instead and the pants had had a camouflage pattern, I noted with a wide grin, the image would have been absolutely perfect. I walked cautiously out of the door and around the back of the yard, all the while trying to get used to the movements and dimensions of the form I now wore. Although I did my best to tread lightly and not make any more noise than absolutely necessary, it was as if the girl body were stomping the ground on its every step. The combat boots, while undoubtedly a good choice from the practical viewpoint, accentuated her heavy footfalls. Dan was standing at the exact same spot, gazing towards the eastern sky and the rising but mostly hidden sun with squinted eyes. Like before, he didn't react to my presence until I was within a normal conversational distance and right in front of him. "Dan," I addressed him. My new feminine voice sounded alien in my ears, but I strove to keep my tone as natural and casual as I could. "Can you hear me?" He turned to look at me slowly. His face was nearly devoid of any interpretable expression, as usual, but in his eyes there was a passing tiny flicker, which I took for a muted sign of excitement. Dan possibly knew the woman whose shape I had assumed. "Hello," he replied and went on to rattle off his typical litany of introduction: "I am Daniel Sparklestar Mancini from Chesterton; pleased to meet you. Anyhow, you can call me Dan. My friends do, so thusly if you want to be my friend, you can call me Dan." "I already did," I pointed out, to no effect. "I'm a big name artist and also a champion of this world, and all the other worlds, in the fight against closed-minded, evil people and forces and things and such. Anyhow, it's fine for you to just call me Dan." "Nice to meet you, Dan," I said. "I'm... Michelle. The thing is, we---" "Michelle?" he repeated back. "Is that your real name, or a full name? What is your last name, Michelle? How should I call you?" "Just Michelle." "Why do you have Mike's gun, Michelle?" he inquired and pointed his finger at the AR-15. "I found it," I lied. This was the critical part of my plan because everything hinged on Dan's inability to make the obvious conclusion. "Someone had dropped it, I guess, and it was lying out there on the lawn. I needed to pick it up before the little kids stumbled on it." "I don't like guns," he commented. "They are bad, out and out, in ways that they are used to hurt and kill people." "This one won't do those things. I'll make sure of that." "Good. I feel better because you're taking care of it." "Dan," I continued, "we need to leave fast. That superhero friend of yours, Kent Noggin, spoke to me a couple of minutes ago, and he told me to go get you and then drive to Bedford together. Remember how you were supposed to go there with Mike and his friends?" "Yeah." "This'll be a little like that, only you're traveling there with me and not the guys. We can take Mike's car." Dan needed some five or six seconds to process this information. There was not the slightest perceptible change in his facial expression, but his brain must have been hard at work for the entire time. "Okay," he said at long last. "So you're coming with me?" "Sure. If Kent Noggin told you thusly that we've got to do that, then we go to Bedford. He's my friend, so I do what I can to help him, out and out." I hardly believed my good luck, even though I was by that point well aware of Dan's cognitive limitations. Not even the rifle or the mention of Bedford had tipped the retarded man off. It was dangerous to remain near the house any longer, so I made Dan walk to my parked car. The journey seemed to take ages. I led the way in Michelle's cumbersome stride, and he was bringing up the rear, plodding along apathetically. We both had bodies that were physically out of shape, and unfortunately that showed. I had to wipe some sweat off my forehead when we arrived at the vehicle. I unlocked the car doors and shoved the rifle and the backpack on the back seat. Dan, of his own accord, sat down on the right front seat and buckled up while I took my place behind the wheel, put the keys in the ignition and started the engine. It responded at once, and then I began to turn the car around. I had no reason to believe Bedford was any easier to reach by going that way, compared to continuing in the direction we had been heading before the Cinnamon incident, but doubling back at least had the advantage of taking us further away from the commune and its mistress. There was just enough space between the ditches on either side of the road to accomplish the maneuver, but it took a fair amount of time, reversing and going forward, as well as a few instances of stepping out and checking where exactly the front or rear wheels were, to make sure we wouldn't go too far and into one of the ditches. I was soon sweating again and cursing under my breath, but my efforts were ultimately rewarded. Dan remained quiet during the whole operation. If my recollections of the previous stages of our trip were in any way reliable (which was admittedly a tall assumption), the road should have taken us to a mighty river in a short while. It crossed the river by a preposterously long covered bridge, continued forward and then connected with a blacktop road at a T-junction. Unfortunately, I could not for the life of me remember the distances or times, only that the trip in the opposite direction, from the junction to Cinnamon's house, had not taken us very long. Quite likely I hadn't paid close attention to the odometer or the console clock in the first place, and even if I had, the days spent in Sunnydale in the meantime had done much to erase the fine details. There were no other roads and we were traveling away from the farm, so we would necessarily encounter the river soon, then the junction, then the abandoned gas station where Cinnamon kept a stash of skinsuits, and then the other station where we had had a coffee break. The hazy line separating the bizarre and the normal world had to lie somewhere between the two gas stations. To reach the other station would mean to leave the Fairytale Land behind. "How are you doing, Dan?" I queried, more out of a desire to break the silence and distract myself from endlessly agonizing over the situation than actual interest in having a conversation with him. "I'm okay," came the characteristically vacant and dispassionate answer. "I'm a little hungry, though," he added after thinking for a moment, and I bit my lip, already regretting that I had asked. We had brought no food with us, and I had no means of keeping him satisfied in this respect. "Can you last a little while longer? We should get to a diner or caf? in an hour or two." "Yeah, it's not a problem. I'm okay." Both the gravel road and its surroundings stayed the same, a straight line cutting through flat or very gently undulating open land mile after mile. There was no other traffic, no cars or trucks or tractors, in point of fact no traces of human activity whatsoever apart from the land itself, which had been tilled and used to grow crops in fairly recent past. We were alone under a gray sky, on our way to nowhere. I longed to see other people, ordinary human beings as opposed to folks like Cinnamon and her Kids, and to talk to them and be bored by them; anything to get away from this eerie place which felt as though it existed on another planet. "Do you still have your cell phone, Dan?" I asked him after another ten minutes or so. Even Dan's petulant whining was beginning to appear preferable to a complete quietness, which gave the oppressing and foreboding atmosphere of this place a chance to sink in. "No," he said. "What happened to it?" "Cinnamon took it." "Why?" "She told me that it's not working anymore, as such, and that I won't need material possessions like that when I become a girl. Are you going to take me back there when we've met with Kent Noggin and Flint Brand, Michelle?" "Sure, but Bedford is number one on the list. You can talk about your future with Kent and Flint when you see them, but they have to give you their permission if you want to stay with Cinnamon." "No, they don't," Dan argued. "Not anymore. Kent is already accepting of my upcoming transformation and he endorses it fully from his sound mind and soul. He said so in telekinesis speech when I was meditating in Cinnamon's garden just now. Flint Brand has no say in this, when it comes to that, but I think it is still good for us and him, from our respective viewpoints, to tell him about it and the things that will follow from it thusly." "I'm glad we agree on at least something." The road climbed and entered a shallow cut at the top of a low hill or ridge. As we crested the modest elevation and were again greeted by the sight of open farmland stretching practically as far as the eye could see, I suddenly spotted a flatbed truck standing sideways on the road. There was also an old barn to the left, close to the truck. I was so flabbergasted to come across indisputable proof of civilization still existing in this world that I lost several crucial seconds and simply drove on, surprised and then curious instead of prudently cautious. My initial reaction was to assume that there had been an accident. Maybe the truck had collided with another vehicle and we would have to help the injured. Our resources were poor, as I didn't even have a proper first aid kit in my car, but I would do what I could. A number of people were gathered around the truck. This gave me pause, but turning back would have been difficult because the road was extremely narrow here. It was also too late. The members of the group had definitely noticed us, and they spread out and took up positions. They were all carrying long weapons, I noticed and my skin crawled. This was not an accident site, but a roadblock. One of the personnel, a middle-aged man with a heavy chin, walked in front of the truck and raised his hand as a stop signal. He was wearing an old woodland camouflage Battle Dress Uniform, complete with a patrol cap and a utility vest of some description. His boots were caked in brown mud. The man had a hunting rifle with a scope slung on his shoulder, while his men were holding a mixture of rifles and shotguns in their hands, ready to provide support for their chief in case of trouble. It was with extreme unwillingness that I lifted my foot off the gas pedal and pressed on the brake, allowing the car to come to a halt just a yard or two short of where the man was standing. The man walked up to the driver's window with long, determined steps, and bent down. Knowing better than to try anything creative and proactive, I rolled the window down. Brisk outside air promptly streamed into the cabin. "Morning, Miss," the man said in an unexpectedly high-pitched but forceful voice. He had a stout figure, I remarked, with the beginnings of a beer gut bulging out. In addition, when seen up close, he was not quite as tall as I had estimated at first. However, the stern features of his face and the equally stern, no-nonsense expression he had deserved for the occasion effectively canceled out any comical impression he might otherwise have given me. "Good morning," I replied politely. "Sorry for the inconvenience," he explained in a tone that conveyed he was actually not very sorry at all. "We're authorized to check every vehicle passing through here. You can't continue until we have established your identity and made sure you're not carrying contraband." "Excuse me, sir," I asked him, careful not to sound condescending or argumentative, "but I don't know what's going on. What's the purpose of this?" "Orders from the headquarters." "What headquarters is that? What's your organization?" "The militia," the man responded curtly, and I realized that this would most likely be the extent of background information he was willing to disclose. "Remain in the vehicle, Miss, and do not step out unless instructed to. Keep your hands where I can see them." Another man, considerably younger than the chief, left his place on the right side of the flatbed truck and approached. The two proceeded to examine the car, peering in through the windows. "Open the trunk," the chief ordered, and I did as I was told. The men vanished from view, presumably going over the luggage stored in the trunk. After a good five minutes, the lid slammed shut and the chief again appeared in front of the open window. "Step out of the vehicle, both of you," he said. "Slowly." I unbuckled, opened the door and got out with deliberate movements. Dan followed suit. I was constantly afraid he might open his mouth or do something that would prompt the posse to shoot us, but luckily he had the intelligence to stay quiet. After closing the door, I stood next to the car while the chief eyed me angrily and suspiciously, with his hands on his waist, from a couple of paces away. "I see you're in possession of an assault rifle," the chief said emphatically and aimed another grim look at me. The little nuances in the man's demeanor and gestures showed that, as opposed to a professional law enforcement or military officer, I had run into a civilian who was intoxicated by the position of authority to which someone had appointed him. He was supposed to maintain a checkpoint on a rural road in the middle of nowhere, nothing more glamorous or important than that, but he clearly loved it. The man's attitude towards his job and travelers such as us was exactly what made the situation so perilous to Dan and me. "Weapons like that are contraband. I have to confiscate any firearms before I can let vehicles pass this point." "Oh, you mean the AR-15? It's the property of my friend," I explained hurriedly. "I'm... uh, we're looking for him right now, as a matter of fact." "What friend?" the chief asked. "That's... He's a man named Jake White. The rifle's completely legal, and besides, it's only semiautomatic." "Makes no difference," the chief grunted, maintaining his stony expression. "I need to see your papers. Do you have a driver's license or any other valid form of ID on you?" The skin on my cheeks and the back of my neck felt as though it were on fire, and my hands were trembling. This was not a contingency I had prepared for. I had simply donned the Michelle skinsuit and her clothes without considering that she might need identity documents. I had nursed a glimmer of hope that the chief might let us continue our drive after taking Jake's rifle, which would have been a grievous but acceptable loss, but now there was no saving us. We would be captured and held, possibly even punished somehow. "No, sir," I responded quietly. "I see," the chief said and nodded to the younger man. Both Dan and I were subjected to a quick pat-down search by the chief's assistant. He was not particularly careful but did find our cell phones and my wallet. Again, I wished fervently for Dan not to resist the procedure, and again he submitted meekly, to my amazement. No weapons turned up, so the man handed the phone and the wallet back to me with a small, sympathetic smile. I put the items in my coat pockets, returning the smile and feeling grateful that I would at least be allowed to keep them. "You have to come with me," the chief declared after the frisking was complete. "As of this moment, you are under arrest for violating the provisional firearms and transportation regulations and failing to produce a valid identification when requested by an officer. Follow me." I broke out in clammy sweat as the men marched Dan and me into the barn. My feet felt like a pair of lead weights, and I wondered once more how a casual, innocent vacation trip could have gone wrong this badly. If not for the fear of summary execution, I might have laughed out loud bitterly at the whole thing. "Sit there," the chief ordered and pointed at a pile of moldy bales of hay. "Martinez, Burkhart, guard them. Don't let them out of your sight for one second. We don't know who they are and what they're doing here." I heaved a weary, forlorn sigh and lowered my soft feminine butt on one of the bales resting on the worn concrete floor. It was moist to the touch, like most other surfaces in the barn. The air was cold; there were two large steel sliding doors on opposite sides of the building, to enable a tractor with a trailer pass through with ease, and for whatever reason both doors had been left fully open. Regardless, the smell of rotting hay and other plants, as well as that of wet dirt, was strong. I saw no light fixtures of any kind (the barn appeared to lack electricity altogether), and so the only illumination came in from the outside in the form of weak, cloud-filtered sunlight. The chief went back out while Martinez and Burkhart remained to watch us. The pair of militiamen formed a stark contrast, in more ways than one. The older of the two--Martinez, if the Spanish name and his appearance were any indication--was presumably somewhere between 45 and 55, a tall and stocky man with an olive-colored complexion, straight, cropped jet black hair and a neatly trimmed, thin mustache lining his fleshy upper lip. He had bushy eyebrows and dark green eyes that probed the world around him in an alert manner. A pink scar began from his right brow and continued to the middle of the cheek, maybe as a permanent reminder of some nasty accident in his past. Unlike the chief, whose outfit was at least an attempt at obsolete Army and National Guard regulation dress, Martinez had on a pair of camo pants, a wide leather belt and a khaki-colored hunter's jacket. The open zipper revealed a warm green turtleneck sweater under the jacket. His rifle, which I identified with some uncertainty as an M1A, rested casually on his lap as he sat on another pile of hay bales. Martinez seemed entirely relaxed, even tired and a bit bored, but something warned me against underestimating him. He struck me as a man who would more likely than not act fast and shoot straight when push came to shove. Burkhart, on the other hand, was much less convincing as a citizen soldier. Whereas Martinez gave off an air of easygoing confidence, his companion, who was barely past his teens, was skittish and nervous. He remained on his feet and was constantly pacing back and forth instead of sitting down. His thin and relatively short body was dressed in oversized hunting suit and a boonie hat, both a size or two too big. He had fair skin and red, curly hair spilling out from beneath the hat. Fittingly, his blue eyes were big and lively like a girl's. Prominent freckles adorned his cheeks. A long double-barreled shotgun served as his personal weapon and further reinforced the impression that Burkhart had gotten lost on his way to shoot ducks, rather than having joined the chief's unit out of his own free will and preference. The immediate consternation and worry for our physical safety subsided gradually over the next minutes, and they began to give way to regret and outright anger at my own slow-wittedness for not having taken any precautions. I had driven blithely and blindly into a trap. Whatever it was that had happened to this area and possibly the entire world, I should have known better and expect the unexpected, no matter how freakish it could be. I had forgotten the one lesson my misadventures, regardless of their objective reality or lack thereof, should unquestionably have taught me. I had no excuse. Nobody said anything for a while. I used the pause for intense thinking, which thankfully also consumed some of the energy I would have otherwise spent on blaming myself. All I could do was to plan ahead, so I concentrated on trying to come up with a strategy to survive and hopefully to regain our freedom, however little I had to go on. To start with, any chance of escape was extremely remote. Martinez and Burkhart were too alert to let me simply get up and run away. In a few hours, their attention might begin to slacken, but unless the chief was incompetent or negligent beyond belief, he would assuredly arrange fresh men to relieve the two guards before long. Distracting them was difficult and overpowering them was impossible. If I had still had Buffy's strength and reflexes, I might have been able to surprise and knock out one of them, but then the other would have pumped me full of lead. And finally--even if I had somehow managed to flee, there was nowhere to go. The barn and the road were surrounded by flat farmland that continued for untold miles in every direction, without so much as a grove of trees to seek cover in. A car was vital to have, especially because I couldn't leave Dan behind, not after going through all this trouble to save him in the first place. In an incredibly ironic twist, the well-being of a man whom I had set out to kill not two hours ago had become one of my main concerns. Thus, the only rational choice was to wait patiently. The chief of the militia unit had mentioned regulations, and I assumed that he was taking orders from some more or less legitimate authority, civilian or military. If so, he would have to report to his superiors at some point and notify them that he had us in his custody. What their reaction would be was unknowable, but with any luck we would be questioned and perhaps allowed to leave after anything they deemed contraband was confiscated. Then again, there was the distinct possibility that the chief was acting completely on his own. If that was the case, all bets were off. Michelle's clothes were basically adequate for spending time outdoors, even in this weather, but since we were restricted to staying put, cold inevitably began to take a hold of me as I sat on the bale. I tried to keep warm by hunching my shoulders and wrapping my arms around my body. Dan was slowly rocking back and forth, his eyes cast down and lips in a pout. He was undoubtedly struggling to comprehend and understand the recent events just as I was, though he had a far more limited brain capacity at his disposal. His body notwithstanding, Dan really was for all intents and purposes a child, and he could only deal with other people and life in general in the manner and to the extent a child could. I was unable to ignore the feeling of unease that seeing him in this state caused in me. If he threw a tantrum, I wasn't sure I could put a stop to it, and there was no telling what an incident like that might lead to in the end. These fears of mine proved well founded and they nearly came true. "Michelle," Dan spoke up abruptly. "I'm thirsty." "So am I," I said, "but we don't have anything to drink." "My throat is dry, oh so dry," he continued to complain in an uncannily theatrical manner. "It's like a desert, out and out. I'd love a nice soda pop." "You'll have to wait a little longer," I told him emphatically. "It'll be alright, but you can't have a soda right now." "Yeah," Martinez chuckled. "We're fresh out of soft drinks here, pals. Sorry about that." "But I'm thirsty!" Dan insisted. "My throat feels funny and itchy. I want a soda. Sprite, if you have that." "How about a glass of nice single malt whiskey?" Martinez suggested and chortled heartily before reassuming a more serious attitude. "Buddy, something tells me you're not quite getting the picture here. This is not a McDonald's and we're not your friendly waiters." "I'm thirsty," Dan repeated stubbornly. "I want a refreshing soda pop." "Jim," Martinez addressed Burkhart, "go and see if you can find some water for him. I don't want the fatbody over there to die on me on my watch." "Sure thing," the younger man responded crisply, adjusted the sling of his shotgun so the weapon hung more securely from his shoulder, and marched out of the door. "I'm not a fatbody!" Dan protested loudly. "I'll have you---" "Shut the hell up already!" I snapped at him. My prayers were answered, and he fell silent before any more damage was done. My false female form no doubt played an important part in convincing him to give up his inane bitching. "You're a pretty unusual pair to be traveling together around these parts," Martinez observed in a conversational tone. "What are your names?" "I'm Michelle," I introduced myself, "and this is Dan, Dan Mancini." "My pleasure. We are you guys from?" "The next state over," I said and gestured with my hand randomly towards the road and the fields. "A couple of hundred miles from here, by my reckoning." "And where are you headed?" "Bedford. Dan's relatives live there, and I was planning to take him to see them." "Okay." Martinez scratched his chin and nose, pretending to be disinterested. I waited intently for him to continue the conversation. It had been off to a promising start, and if I could keep it going, it was likely to work to our advantage. After a period of time that felt like hours to me, he finally gave in to his curiosity. "So, is Dan related to you, Michelle?" "No, he's not," I said. "I met him on the road and decided to give him a ride." "That was kind of you," Martinez commented, "but not very smart, considering what's going on. There are some really strange folk out and about, and you should be extra careful of who you trust. Anyhow, is he... you know, retarded?" Dan opened his mouth but, in a flash of extraordinarily good judgment for him, thought the better of it and said nothing. "Mentally disabled, yeah," I confirmed and nodded. "I don't know what the exact diagnosis is but Dan has trouble living on his own and understanding how things work. That kind of stuff. He's totally harmless, though." "Having a person like that in your family can be tough. My younger brother has a severely autistic son who goes to a special school. His family loves him, and I do too, but the kid is a pretty heavy burden at times, to be honest." Things were going better than I had dared to hope. Burkhart had not returned yet and Martinez was showing the first signs of opening up about personal issues, so I decided to press on, discreetly but with determination. "You said there are strange people around," I remarked, "and lots of things don't seem normal to me. What's up with that?" "You're seriously out of the loop, aren't you?" Martinez responded and gave me a wry smile. "Pretty much," I admitted. "I was driving with Dan towards Bedford when the cell service disappeared, and we got lost some time later. As a matter of fact, we haven't got a clue where we are now." "I also said you shouldn't trust every stranger you meet without reservation, so I'm not going to share all I know with you right off the bat," Martinez pointed out. "But I can tell you this. There have been these weird lights in the sky for two days and nights in a row, plus our communications are cut. Radio, phone, TV, internet, everything is down. We reckoned this can only point to a national disaster--a limited nuke attack, maybe, although we have no idea who's behind it. I'm guessing the Chinese or the North Koreans, but it really could be anybody." He added with a small laugh, "Little Jimmy for one is so high-strung he's babbling about an alien invasion, and Gittins thinks this is a psyop by the Feds." "That's... a lot to take in," I said, not knowing of what to make of the news. "You bet it is. But none of that matters much at this point. We're keeping ourselves and our community safe, and we'll stay out here until we get the word that everything is back under control and order's been restored across the country." "I like the sound of that," I commented and flashed a smile at Martinez. An idea was taking shape in my mind. It would be an extremely daring gamble with absolutely no guarantee of success, but I was so sickened and frustrated with my inability to do anything meaningful that I put it in motion. "I've always appreciated a man who's ready to step up and protect the weak." "So have I," Martinez said and smiled back. As we were exchanging these kind words and gestures, I furtively studied his face and eyes, attempting to gauge his attitude towards me. I drew a blank, by and large, but at least he didn't seem definitely averse to my overtures, which was encouraging in itself. "Thing is," I went on while doing my best to affect an air of seductiveness with a flirtatious smirk and an inviting look at him, "being on the road alone was, like, really scary. I missed having a strong and reliable man by my side, someone who could take care of me and save me if something bad threatened to happen." "Dan wasn't much help in that respect, I'd wager." "No. He... I mean, he's a nice person deep down if you ignore his disabilities, but he's no alpha male, not by a long shot. He can't keep me warm at night." "And you think I can?" "You sure look like that," I purred and let the smile on my face develop into an openly lustful grin. "I'm getting antsy because I haven't gotten any in days, never mind the weird stuff." "You want to get laid?" he asked and grinned as well. "Yeah." I arched by back to tease him some more and moaned, "I need to get laid. My panties are dripping wet when I even think about it." "A nice little quickie can make your day, no doubt about that," the man remarked and winked at me. "There's only one problem." "Oh? What's that?" Without warning, Martinez's features hardened and his gaze became patently hostile. "I know what you're trying to pull," he said in an even but menacing tone. "It's not going to work." My breath seemed to seize up and a violent icy shiver, like the stab of a knife, ran through me. To drive his point home, Martinez stood up and walked towards me with slow, purposeful steps. The smell of grimy, unwashed clothes arrived along with him. My heart raced madly in my chest and my pulse pounded in my ears but I was petrified, unable to do anything but to wait for what was to come. The militiaman held the rifle with one hand, in a relaxed grip, but one part of me fully expected him to aim the barrel at my head and pull the trigger at any second. I was too afraid to look him in the eyes when he finally stopped and hovered above me. "I read your face like an open book," he told me in the same understated but very frightening manner. "You wanna know what you are? You're a parasite. You live in the city where you enjoy the safety soldiers like me provide you, where you eat the food the farmers of this country provide you, where you can speak your mind and read what you want, thanks to the freedom of speech this country provides you--and you despise and hate all of those things. You hate them because they don't live up to some fucked-up Marxist ideal of yours of how the world should be. You say you want justice and equality and freedom and you shit on them everywhere you see them. You do nothing but complain and incite more hatred, just because. Well, have I got news for you, baby. That ain't gonna fly anymore." He bent a little closer to me and continued, "And as for fucking you, I guess I need to inform you that as a rule, I don't find fat commie lesbo whackjobs like you attractive. Not one goddamn bit. But if better alternatives are lacking after a day or two... Well, then we'll just have to get back to your offer, won't we?" I was unable to speak; I needed the whole of my willpower to prevent my body from shuddering uncontrollably. I had done everything wrong. My decisions had made me a prisoner and a potential rape victim, and I had no reason to assume this would be the end of my plight.