It's My Party

"Toshi is very wise. Mark… I love you."

"I love you too." Mark took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. "And I wish I could be holding you when I say this."

"I know. How strange our lives have become. Last night, I kept reliving my memories, our first sexy night together, exploring the mall with you, all our chess games... Mark, it was very sweet of you to take the time to date me."

"Gee, I don't know. I didn't think I was being sweet. I was thrilled to date you. Damn! I wish I could be holding you right now."

"Uh, Mark?"

"Yeah?"

There was a long pause, and then a squeaky whisper, "Am I your fiancée?"

"Jada… Will you marry me?"

"Yes, I will." Her acceptance was spoken in a calm voice, a great contrast to the whirlwind of emotions she was feeling inside. "Just a minute dearest. I have to blow my nose." A moment later she returned. "My love, I knew you wouldn't refuse me. I remember your other promise. You promised you wouldn't refuse me a third time."

Mark gave a soft cry. Jada thought it sounded like the bleat of a lamb. "Sweet Jada, do you mean the night before the Intruder? I thought you were asleep."

"I was asleep. I saw the promise later, in your mind. I saw it so clearly…" Jada started to cry.

"Jada?!"

"I'm okay!" She sucked in several deep breaths. "I'm okay! I'm so happy Mark!" Several more deep breaths. "We have so much to talk about…" There were more sounds of her blowing her nose. "But… But wow. Maybe can we put it off, just for a bit? I need some time to settle down."

"Sure, sure. I love you."

"I know! I love you back… Uh, I have to blow my nose again, one more time. Hang on…"

A few moments later. "Right! Mark, there's a few things you should know about. First of all, the three-way mind link you and Toshi and Frida are able to form, we tried to duplicate your ability last night. We must have tried over a hundred different three-way combinations, including lots of combinations with one man and two women. Emily has the exact number and all the details in her notes."

Unseen by Jada, Mark's face broke into a very worried frown. "And nobody could do it?"

"No, not at all. No triplet felt they even came close, and a whole bunch of us got dizzy trying. Paige and Holly say the effort gave them headaches. I wasn't feeling too well myself."

"Wow… I don't know what to say. It's so easy for us. The three of us can sit and lock almost instantly. Any idea what the problem is?"

"Oh, a whole bunch of guesses. Mark, you and Toshi displayed exceptional linking abilities when you were us. Perhaps Frida is exceptional too, and it's just a natural ability the three of you have and the rest of us don't."

"Well… Gee, I don't know… I hope not. Toshi and I, Frida too, we want to share this with you Jada."

"Thank you. And you might get the chance. Emily has a completely different conjecture. She suspects something external, perhaps another drug in your environment that we here haven't been exposed to." Mark was silent for so long and Jada gave up waiting for a response. "Mark, are you still there?"

"Uh, yeah, sorry. I was thinking. We made our first three-way link the second or third day we got here. I'm trying to remember when. It's been so long ago in subjective time. I think it was our third evening here. I remember now. Jada, you're right, I think Emily is right. Our third evening, we were all a little… It's hard to describe, sort of like drunk but not drunk, like our first night here."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, not as severe as the first time, not nearly as severe, but we were all feeling a little spacey. Frida was playing with me. It was late afternoon. We were lying down. Frida was petting me, coaxing me to have sex with her. We were nose to nose, eyes locked, sharing a lot of erotic thoughts…"

Jada gave a small giggle. "I'm starting to feel jealous again, but go on."

"Toshi butted her head in. I think she wanted sex too. Our three heads formed a very tight triangle. I had Toshi pressing against my left cheek, and Frida against my right. I still had the mind lock with Frida, and then I looked at Toshi's eyes and the lock jumped to her. And then Frida whimpered at being abandoned. I remember a great desire to return to Frida, but I didn't want to abandon Toshi either. And then… Well, all three of us were suddenly together, together in contemplation space. That's the easiest spot to reach."

"Huh? What? I don't understand your words."

"I know, I know, the three of us didn't describe this yesterday. Oh Jada, I'm sorry! I didn't realize! I should have told you this before asking you to marry me!"

"What? Tell me what?" Jada could feel Mark's distress and she suddenly felt nervous herself. "Mark, what the hell is bothering you?"

"Abilities within the three-way link are highly elevated."

"Huh? Why should that make a difference with us getting married?! Mark, what are you talking about?"

"Please forgive me. I thought… We all thought you would find out for yourselves, and besides, we were afraid… afraid you'd think of us as something other than human."

"My God Mark! No I wouldn't! That's ridiculous!"

"You don't know what it's like Jada," he whispered. "It's not just the accelerated time, being able to live a week within an hour of clock time. Toshi and I, or Frida and I, when we two-way link, we can share thoughts, share emotions, share desires, just like you and I used to."

"Yes, of course. I remember."

"When we three-way link, we can still do that. We call it contemplation space. But there's more. We can go back in time, back into our memories. The details! It's the ability to return to past moments! Such clarity! Jada, do you remember how we talked and noticed that our actual experience with the drug was so fuzzy, but we could recall the experience afterwards in perfect clarity?"

"Yes, I remember. I agree, it's strange, the opposite of how memories usually work."

"My childhood Jada, Toshi's and Frida's childhood too, all the things we thought lost forever… There's such clarity Jada!"

"Mark… Can you describe what you're talking about?" She paused and took a deep breath. "An example maybe?"

"Sure. I remember… I think it was four days ago real time, Toshi was showing Frida and me her bedroom, her bedroom in Japan when she was ten years old. Within the link, the completeness of the details is astonishing. I can go into her small closet and open it. I can see and feel the dresses and slacks, children's clothes, young Toshi's clothes in the closet while Frida and Toshi are looking out the window and seeing what Toshi saw through her window as a child. I was there! I was more than there!"

"What? What do you mean, more than there?"

"Images Jada! Self images! I have a clear self image of what Toshi thinks she looked like as a ten-year-old. I know what it's like to be a student in her primary school, to be child Toshi and wear her seikufu."

"Her what?"

"Sorry, I guess I dropped into Japanese. Her school uniform Jada, it looked a lot like a sailor suit, very cute. I know what it feels like to wear that uniform, dark blue with some white trim, a sailor suit with a skirt to my knees and then white socks and black shoes. I know what it's like to spin and feel my skirt flair up. And I can go on the class trips Toshi took. I can play with her friends, not make new decisions but experience the world through Toshi's eyes and ears in the games, smelling and touching and tasting the world around me. I'm so small and the adults are so big. I'm a child again, I become Toshi, and I know how much Toshi's parents loved me. Or I can be at her desk at school, have it become my desk. In takes a tremendous amount of trust, but in the three-way link, we can share our self images. We can share our childhoods."

"My God Mark!"

"And there's more. The learning we acquire, it's transferable, and much faster than even the accelerated time would suggest. Frida and I now both speak fluent Japanese. Toshi says we speak without accents."

Jada whispered, "Are there any limits, any limits at all?"

"Oh yes, there are limits. The ability to transfer seems to be localized to the cerebrum. Cerebellum transfers are faint shadows by comparison."

It took Jada a moment to figure out what Mark meant. "Oh, you mean like riding a bike, stuff like that?"

"Exactly. Early on, Toshi tried to teach me how to play the biwa. I think I might be better able to appreciate her music now, the artistry, the hidden beauty and subtle complexity of it, but for me to play?! It's sort of like reading a book on judo. Intellectually you might learn a lot, but that's not the way to prepare yourself for a fight."

"Wow Mark…" There was a pause and then she half shouted, "I love you!"

Mark returned a long pause of his own. "After telling you all this, I was daring to hope that I would still hear that."

"I do love you." She sighed. "Wow, I think I understand now. Sweet Mark, thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me. I understand your worry now, about being thought of something other than human."

"Yeah."

Jada could hear a lingering echo of strain in his voice. "Mark?"

"Uh huh?"

"Relax! I still want to be your wife, more than anything! I love you!"

There was a long pause, and then he replied, "Just a moment. I have to blow my nose too."

Chapter 39.

Later that morning, at spiral mark 63,577 of Black Mall

Time: Tuesday, January 29, 2019 9:58 AM

Amber looked at her list and then around the large sporting goods store, trying to find where the Bowie knives would be. Earlier her team had inspected the edge of Black Mall's unlocked territory, but now she was alone on the second floor of Herman's Wilderness Outfitters, performing what was now a boring daily routine of shopping. Amber yawned and thought for a moment. They should all be back home well before noon. Perhaps she would take a few minutes then to stare at the strange orange sun and the landscape. It was rather pretty. But in truth, maybe she would just collapse and take a nap.

Amber was low-person on C-team, a three member group comprised of herself, Ricardo, and Hernando. Hernando was nominally in charge, but nobody really gave Ricardo orders except Uno and possibly Alfredo, and even they were careful with what they said.

Tonight it would be thirteen days since Frida had run off, and so much had changed since then. Uno had organized the nine people with him into three three-person teams, and each team was on duty twelve hours a day, with no breaks whatsoever until Chico returned. And that was looking more and more unlikely with each passing day.

The C-team had the graveyard shift, guarding their Mall entrance at Jacob's Bar and Grill from midnight to 8 AM. Then they would spend the next four hours making their daily fifteen-kilometer round-trip hike to Rabbies Dram, doing various shopping on the way back.

In the afternoon Amber would do a little eating, a little cleaning, a little collapsing, a little more eating, and then sack out after 3 PM and sleep for almost eight hours before getting up for a shower and starting the cycle all over again. This was her life, and she silently admitted to herself, it was pretty shitty.

The team that relieved her was the A-team, commanded by Alfredo who was Uno's second-in-command now. A-team also included Diego and Whitney. Diego technically was fourth-in-command and could have been in command of C-team, but he had wanted no part of Ricardo and had persuaded Alfredo to let him be on A-team instead.

Amber didn't know whether she would want to trade places with Whitney or not. Ricardo was genuinely frightening to Amber, but Alfredo was openly pressuring Whitney to submit to him for fucking, and it was easy for him to be alone with her. He would order Diego to shop a few stores away while A-team was on their daily hike. So far Alfredo had not raped Whitney, but he was open in his lust for her and would fondle her when they were alone, over and under her clothes, even after Whitney asked him to stop. Whitney had confided to Amber in despair that her rape seemed both imminent and inevitable.

The remaining three members of Alfonso, his whacky girlfriend Jessica, and Jenaro formed B-team, and they worked the swing shift, guarding Jacob's Bar and Grill from 4 PM to midnight.

At last Amber spotted the Bowie-knife display. Uno had told her to pick up eight, one for everyone except Whitney and herself. She walked to the back of the deserted store and stood for a moment staring at the knives. Such thick blades, she thought, quite an impressive knife. And then for no apparent reason, she started to shudder, suddenly feeling the store was an eerie, creepy place to be in.

Amber screeched in shock. It felt as if a lobster had snapped a claw down low on her left buttock. The pressure was incredible and it brought tears to her eyes. She turned instinctively and tried to jerk away and failed. Ricardo! He had materialized behind her as if by magic.

"That was sloppy Amber," he said with a disdainful sneer. "Aren't you ever aware of what's going on around you?"

"Please, you're hurting me," she whispered through clenched teeth.

"This? This isn't hurting. You don't know what pain is Amber. Pretty Amber. Such a pretty Amber."

"Ricardo please, let me go!"

"I'm testing. Relax Amber. Relax your butt muscle for me. I want to test something."

Amber felt like shouting back, "Test what?!" But she knew better than to challenge a direct order from Ricardo when she was alone with him. Desperately hoping Hernando would somehow appear soon, she took a deep breath and tried to relax.

In a perfectly calm voice he went on. "That's better. When I let go, I want you to turn to the counter and drop your pants to your ankles, panties too." At the same time he spoke, his grip increased, and the pressure made Amber feel that her butt cheek was being torn apart in a vice of iron fingers. She gave an explosive gasp.

"Then bend over the counter for me, knees wide apart, as quickly as you can. Arch your ass up nice and high."

"Ricardo?!"

"You heard me. I won't tell you again. Amber, I can show you what true pain is. Is that what you want? It's your choice. Move!"

Ricardo released his grasp. Amber sucked in a crying breath and realized she had no time to decide. But she had to decide. Would her life end like this, filled with pain at the hands of a madman? She had witnessed Ricardo's version of true pain. She had been forced to watch Britney die from it, and had stayed up with Lynn the night she was branded.

Was it her turn now? She had tried so hard to be careful, but would she die now in a sporting goods store? Uno had promised her she would not be hurt, but Amber was dismayed to realize Ricardo could probably get away with her murder. Hernando didn't know exactly where she was, and it would probably be easy to for Ricardo to hide her body in some useless store where it would never be found. The rest of the group would assume she ran away.

Or was she still willing to pretend Ricardo would leave her unharmed if she played his game? Did she really have a chance to have her life returned to her?"

"Frida got it back. I think she got it back for real," Amber thought. "She offered to tell me something, something important, and I refused. And now…" Amber was out of time. She was beginning to see Ricardo's body relax as he decided she was refusing him. She had noticed the effect before, Ricardo's body looking totally relaxed before he would strike with lightning speed. What was his target now, her eyes, her throat, her kidneys? "Not my throat," Amber thought. "There are so few people left to torture. He would not make my death so swift." She finally realized she didn't want to die, not here, not now, not like this.

"Okay!" she cried out loud and turned around, presenting her rump to Ricardo and fumbling with her belt. A moment later she bit her lip in frustration as she dropped her pants and panties to her ankles. Ricardo tapped the small of her back to remind her she wasn't finished. Amber leaned over the counter, bending at the waist and pressing her knees as far apart as she could. Another tap on her tailbone and she rotated her pelvis and arched her ass up, completing Ricardo's demand and her humiliation.

The glasslike top of the counter felt cool against her tummy and breasts, but at least she still had on her shirt. The counter was downright cold against the insides of her bare thighs and calves. Ricardo gave her butt a light tap, a warning she wasn't quite in the right position, and Amber tried to hug up against the counter as tightly as she could. She was arching her tailbone up as Ricardo had demanded, as high as she could raise it, putting so much weight forward on the counter and the balls of her feet that she was almost on tiptoe. Amber stood there shivering, her butt and genitalia completely exposed and open, and she waited with shut eyes wondering about her chances for survival.

In absolute silence Ricardo poked the tender flesh on her butt where he had grabbed her so fiercely. Amber shivered on the counter, sensing that Ricardo was squatting on the floor behind her. She could feel his breath on her rump. She had no idea what would happen next. She was well aware that Ricardo was probing her right at his first choice for a branding spot. It felt as if he were testing the firmness of her bruised flesh. Did he think of himself as a surgeon, examining his patient before an operation?

Was his interest sexual? As far as she knew, he had never checked out a hoof pussy from the pussy barn. He had not even participated in group sex with the selections of the other three muchachos. Ricardo had called her pretty. It was the first time Amber had ever heard him give a compliment to anybody, even if sarcastically. But was he being sarcastic? Somehow, Amber was guessing he was sincere.

Ricardo was stroking the inside of her thigh with one hand while poking her butt with the other. At first the hand on her thigh was just a strong grip to lock her position. But now he was stroking up and down, back and forth slowly from her crotch almost to her knee, letting his hand brush against the fur of her pubis at the top of his stroke. Did he really think she was pretty? Amber shivered on the counter, gulping in great breaths of air. Did he really think this was how a man should express his interest to a woman? Was he going to rape and kill her?

One thing for sure. If she were going to die here, Amber did not want to go meekly into the night. She quietly curled her hands into fists, fighting her rational mind which was screaming at her that she had no chance, not now. But Amber couldn't die without protest. She began to imagine spinning her body and striking back. She had seen Ricardo practice his martial arts and knew she had no chance, but she was still going to do it.

Two thumbs pushed into the crack of her ass and pushed to the sides, completing the separation Amber had started with her spread legs. A finger pressing on her butthole caused a jolt of panic that shattered her thoughts of attacking.

"You and Neto didn't have much butt sex?" Ricardo asked in a tone that was not really a question. He was so close, Amber could feel his breath on her anus. It was so bizarre. His voice was so calm, like a doctor's voice filling out a medical form on her.

"Uh, no, I guess not." Amber whispered. "Please Ricardo…"

"How often?" The fingertip was lightly probing the closed ring of exit muscles that was guarding her bowels. Then Ricardo pushed in stiffly, with enough pressure to depress the pad of his finger into the annulus of her outer sphincter. Amber worked mightily to control her panic, trying not to squeeze her anus and push the finger away. Ricardo would interpret that as a direct challenge to his domination of her. Amber grimaced at the thought of her pending rape.