One in Ten Ch. 09

Life was horrible, but the men simply wouldn't give up their power. They filled their security forces with whatever men they could lay their hands on. Things got so bad that these powerless women protested. The questionably recruited and poorly trained security forces raped and killed them for their audacity. Massive atrocities were committed.

The UN did nothing - sort of. They covertly began supplying all kinds of aid to the women while publically appealing for mediation. The men were having none of that. It was their God-given country and women had better know their place. Apparently God decided their places was behind a machine gun, rocket launcher, or rifle.

The men still had more plentiful equipment like tanks, artillery, helicopters and planes. What they didn't have were numbers. They couldn't cover everywhere at once. Soon enough the women grabbed and held onto valuable parts of the landscape. The UN recognized their movement and it was payback time.

Every advantage now turned the women's way. If anyone in the UN thought this was a bad idea, they were ignored. The UN was thinking a popular insurgency overthrowing a corrupt, outdated regime. They weren't thinking of thousands and thousands of brutalized rape victims, traumatized and often mutilated suddenly seeing a light at the end of the tunnel of their suffering.

They didn't give a crap about the survival of the UN, Peace, Prosperity and the Human Race. They wanted to silence the demons in their heads forever. They wanted to make sure that they never heard a woman cry out in unanswered, wretched agony ever again. They pushed the men back to the Holy City - their last stand.

Most of the female fighters were relatively sane. They knew what was going on around the globe. They agreed with the UN that certain men, if captured alive, would suffer international justice. Most of the men would spend their lives in permanent detention so that their culture could attempt to rebuild. It was the only rational thing to do.

The fighting was incredibly brutal. Hardcore elements on both sides refused to take, or be taken, prisoner. For seven days the women pressed forward. In the core of the city, the last band of fanatics died to a man. After that, the resistance collapsed. Most of the male army by this time were the scrapings of the barrel.

Old men in their seventies, young boys in their early teens, the ill, the infirmed and the mangled; this was pretty much all that remained of a male culture that had lasted thousands and thousands of years. The UN representatives stepped in, helped sort out the men and prepared to rebuild. Those women mentioned earlier? They weren't done. There were men still alive.

The male army had used a variety of chemical weapons on their female enemies during the conflict and those dissolute women had been gathering up the stockpiles as they were overrun. They rolled into the outdoor prison camps with those weapons, pretending to be a food delivery. The men gathered around and the women detonated themselves - in all the camps.

Those who didn't commit suicide began opening fire on the men who weren't dead, or dying fast enough. Some women fired on those zealots. Other women simply fell down and wept. They couldn't shoot the women who had fought and bled so much for their cause. If the men died, they died as a people. It was an internal conflict they couldn't handle.

Between the battle and the mass murder afterwards nearly 25,000 men died. Fewer than three hundred remained. Today, a Pakistani regiment guards the city. It is still a place of pilgrimage, but it has never been repopulated. It remains pretty much as it was abandoned, forty-one years ago, a silent reminder of all that can go wrong with the human species.

Back to my plight.

"I didn't say or do anything at the Rally - honest," I pleaded to my female companions.

"We know you didn't," Capri grumbled. "That's why you are not on the list."

"List?"

"The arrest list," Venus snapped. "They are using facial recognition to file arrest warrants for all the men who broke the law at the rally. It's over two thousand names long and posted so that all their female friends and neighbors can turn them in."

In the midst of this disaster, what insight did my mind grab on to?

"At least Kenny should be getting out of jail soon," I mumbled. Where in the hell were they going to hold all these people? Hell, how were they going to try all these guys?

"So, what's with the cop?" Venus stared at me intently. "The one you fucked."

"That would be Officer Freya Passey. She's a pagan," I evaded.

"I wonder what her review of you is going to be like," Samantha studied me with conflicting emotions.

"Oh...there's a problem with that," I looked heavenward.

"Problem?" Capri choked. "Do you mean 'problem' as in you snuck off and murdered the Mayor, or something that is remotely fixable?"

I was beginning to question why Capri kept hanging out with me.

"My bracelet is broken," I confessed.

"How did that happen?" Aniqua inquired.

"Have you seen that whole bit with me, on top of Passey - the riot cop - the stun baton hitting my wrist?" I outlined. "That apparently fried it."

The women looked around at each other.

"Oh, thank Goddess," Capri exhaled. "I thought it was something important."

"Damn, Israel, we don't give a crap about your bracelet," Venus groused. "Can I have my sex now?" Capri, Aniqua and Kuiko all pelted her with something.

Kuiko used the commotion to hop up and come my way.

"Hugs?" she smiled hopefully. I opened my arms and she flowed into my embrace. She began breathing deeply my scent and rubbing her cheek against my shirt.

"Damn it," I groaned. Kuiko looked up, concerned.

I tried to turn her around and pull up her shirt.

"No!" she insisted. "You were bad. You weren't thinking of us. You should have come straight home." Kuiko wasn't angry about Passey. She was angry because I had acted without concern for the group - our group.

"I apologize, to all of you," I groaned. "I honestly can't tell you what I was thinking. It - it all changed and they'll never fix it. Men rose up in defiance and they are going to crush us for it, but their brutality doesn't matter anymore."

In a cosmic twist of black humor, the situation had reversed.

For forty years the female regime had been keeping men internally disorganized and obedient. There were a multitude of all-female groups. There were even a good number of non-gender groups, but there were no male-only clubs (unless you included male musical groups). Unlike the cross-cultural men that took public transit with their sticks today, this male group had been uniform.

They were some of the best men could put forward. Not the smartest, richest, best looking, or most famous. No, they were the iconic representation of what all men were supposed to want to be. They played by the rules, got ahead and were living the good life - and they had been gunned down at a meeting the women invited them to.

Robert White had most likely not identified with the man in the chicken processing plant, the microchip production line, the mechanic, or the starving artist, but they had identified with him. In their hearts they knew society wanted us to be like Robert White - pre-massacre. To complete the picture, the doctor, lawyer and banker identified with him too - as one of their own.

The police had still gunned him and hundreds like him down. Males weren't salivating with glee as Robert took out those two water cannons. Most couldn't understand that kind of dire courage. What they felt was horror - horror that he'd been shot in the first place - shot in the gut with his life placed in jeopardy. It was the horror that their sense of security had been shredded and the promises they'd been believing all these years were lies.

Men were uniting in fear, disbelief and outrage. They had been rendered into one mind - 'They have betrayed us'. On the other side of the aisle, it was the opposite. Women were being torn asunder. What had the police been thinking? Why hadn't they let them leave? Why hadn't the men been punished?

What were the men going to do next? What should they do to protect the men? What should they do to control them? Is my man in danger? Sure, all women knew policewomen carried a sidearm, but they would never use them, right? Well, they had - mostly to defend their lives and those of their partners.

But women didn't care about that. Cops had shot men! It was like China only a hundredfold worse. Women were confused. Society had told them as they grew up that men 'liked' it, that they didn't mind the aggression and most of all, men were safe to be around - docile, though no one would have dared use the word.

"Israel, you did your thing. It was your right," Aniqua stated, "but have some mercy on us. It is damned hard to watch you walk out that door then witness all that madness on TV. We were worried. You called, but you wouldn't come home. No, you had to go into a building full of cops and screw a woman - and then you disappeared again."

"Couldn't you keep in touch?" she persisted. "Did you even think about us?"

"Yes I could have and no, I didn't think about any of you," I confessed. "I was a lousy friend and...I'm going to continue being a lousy friend. Frankly, all of this," I indicated the women in the room, "is a lot for me to take in. Worse, it is necessary for me which makes me resent all of you."

"Huh?" Venus muttered. "In the video you said you liked us."

"I like all of you a whole bunch - but I don't want to," I pleaded. "The last time I took a shower, I was terrified one of you would come in and hurt me. It is not any of you - it is me. When Flame had her huge, fucking pistol barrel pointed into my face tonight I couldn't even muster enough fear to beg for my life."

"Damn," Capri whispered. Kuiko started quietly to shed tears onto my chest.

"Sometimes the desire to live until the next day was all I had to keep me going," I stated. "Even as you gave me your care and affection, you were breaking me down inside. I spent three years learning to avoid and live without women. In a week that had become a futile endeavor."

"I can't live without you even as I know it is going to tear me apart. I want to be free and I want to be alone. I can't have both so I've chosen to be free because that lets me be with all of you," I finished. "I'm going to be a terrible friend and you deserve better than a fucked up guy like me."

"No we don't," Kuiko sniffed. "I don't want anyone else but you."

"I'd sell Kuiko's left tit to make you work right - or righter," Venus sighed. "I'll still take the man I'm here with though over any other I've ever met." Samantha seemed to calm down. Capri was relentless.

"We need to establish a punishment system for you - maybe a denial of sex," Capri grumbled.

"Eeep!" Kuiko peeped then shook her head rapidly over my chest. She wasn't happy with that idea - not one bit.

"Capri, just so we are clear," Venus menaced. "Sammy and I are about to kick your ass for even suggesting such a thing."

"Fine, fine," Capri held up her hands. "Let's compromise. Kuiko, punish Israel." Kuiko turned her head sideways, regarding Capri while her ear was listening to my heartbeat. "You know, teach him a lesson." Kuiko's eyes grew wide. She hurriedly help me get her shirt and bra out of the way then stripped of my jacket and shirt.

"Well?" I asked softly. I was wanting to do this more than I initially thought I would. I welcomed the frivolity of the act; the carefree sensuality.

"Put me against the wall and pick me up?" she meeped.

"Is that a question or a command, Mistress Sano?" I teased. It came so easily with her.

"Mistress Sano..." her face blossomed into a smile that seemed to erase the tear-tracks on her cheeks. "I like that. Lift me up, press me against the wall and get to nipple licking!"

I picked her up, pressed her against the wall and began my nipplage.

"Damn it," four women muttered behind me.

"Support your weight with your legs around my hips and your arms on my shoulders," I instructed Kuiko.

She was curious, but obeyed. I released my hold on her ass, brought my hand up to the sides of her breasts the pressed them together. I tongue flicked her now adjacent nipples.

"I warned you I'd get them both next time," I admonished her.

"Mistress Sano approves," Kuiko purred, "...approves."

"No, Capri," Venus mocked my lawyer, "you couldn't say 'Venus', could you?"

"Nope," Capri smirked. "You getting pissed off is normal. Kuiko wailing is a noise I can live without."

Capri was a clever girl and way ahead of the game. By foisting Kuiko on me she was reinforcing our congealing dynamic. She would let Kuiko lead the way. No one else had heard her declaration of love for me, so this simply seemed like fun. I had little doubt that she knew this was healing me. She was creating isolation in a crowded room; just Kuiko and me.

I would give the girls sexual fun. It would be a personal relationship that would move me beyond what I did with Officer Passey - I still had to explain that. They were my partners. I wouldn't belittle them with the term 'attachment'. We were one group, one entity, not some cosmetic appendage or accessory.

In retrospect, Kuiko had been the perfect choice. She was our 'Omega'. She wasn't the prettiest, the best built, the smartest, or even the most athletic. She was wacky - just a smidge off kilter. The other women, sadly, didn't see her as a threat. Angel was a threat. She was the Alpha. Kuiko though - if Kuiko could get this level of attention, by their thinking, any of them could.

Kuiko was not my Omega. She was my liberator. Before anyone else, she had connected with me. Angel stole my heart, but she still hurt me. Kuiko gave me patience and time. She sensed my frontiers and there she stopped, waiting for me to let her in. I prayed to the Divine that she made it out of this mess with me intact.

I was so caught up in my threads of this Kuiko experience I missed her coming to fruition under my ministrations.

"Israel, I'm - ah - ah - ahahahhhhaaahhha," she orgasmed. We clung to each other as he slowly regained control of herself. "Thank you," she whispered.

"He made her come, didn't he?" Samantha murmured. "With his lips..."

"Fuck all of you," Venus growled to the room. She stomped off to the shower. The water was running in seconds, the glass door opened then shut. Capri started giggling.

"Don't worry, Israel," Capri snickered. "Forcing Venus to take a cold shower can't be better than sex with you, but until then, it will do nicely."

"I need to change," Kuiko grinned sheepishly at me. Her crotch was soaked.

"Me too," I sighed. My belt and the top of my pants were damp as well. Kuiko and I changed clothes, the cold shower didn't' seem to have done Venus much good and after some consensus building, I was convinced to sleep on the sofa with the ladies around me.

It was much later when I woke up. I hadn't heard Roni, or Angel come in yet but Dimples' FBI was close by again - apparently I was lost and the Attorney General was looking for me...

The fact that my bracelet wasn't talking to the system never came up. Dimples' people didn't get around to it and my sanity kept me from mentioning the fact.

The Federation Government had thought I was dead, but my stunt at the hospital went viral, so they knew I was alive again. Officer Passey was vocally and profusely refusing all attempts at a vaginal swab. Outside, a city-wide curfew was in effect. The Armed Forces Reserves were being called up and the rumor was that regular troops were on the way.

All that left me truly curious about who was knocking at my door an hour before dawn. I activated the TV and nothing happened. It was on but not responding. I began to panic then I recalled the past two days of my life. I got off the sofa and headed for the door.

"Who is it?" Capri and Aniqua asked at the same time.

Samantha and Kuiko were slow wakers. I lightly knocked on my own door then opened it. Sure enough, it was Zara and those two women from the bridge earlier in the night. I silently stepped aside and ushered them in. The middle woman, the one I had talked to on the bridge, had two carrying crates worth of stuff and she went straight to the kitchen.

"Israel," Zara began. "We need some of your blood."

"Okay," I nodded. There was a short pause.

"Shit," the middle woman griped as if she had just lost a bet. The third woman chuckled and removed her ball cap. They all had ball caps, jackets and street attire.

The third woman had short, shockingly white hair. Like Zara and the other woman, she was fit, but with a different quality about her - more agile than tough. The second woman was of the same mold as Zara - quietly competent though she smiled more often, with her raven hair pulled back in a ponytail reaching half way down her back.

I migrated into the kitchen because, while tiny, it wasn't packed with as many women as my living room. The second woman was kneeling beside her two crates, pulling things out and stacking them around her while wearing blue surgical gloves. One of them held my curiosity. It was a 30cm cube. It seemed to be solid plastic except one portal on top and a small open sphere in the middle.

"By the way, I'm Jen, the woman in the kitchen is Brandi and, in case the word hasn't gotten around yet, the last woman is Zara," the white haired woman introduced the new group.

"Who are you with?" I asked her.

"NASA," she snorted. "That was cool - you figuring it out."

"Frank, let me stick your finger," Brandi requested. I extended a finger her way and it was dutifully pricked. Apparently I was 'Frank'.

"Who are the rest of you with?" Venus prodded. Zara hesitated.

"1st Special Forces Operational Detachment - D," she replied. "Both of us."

I knew who that was because of my studies. By the look on Venus' face - like she'd been hit in the face with a skillet - she knew too. Everyone else seemed clueless.

"Oh," Kuiko popped up, "you shoot people? Just like real soldiers?"

"Yeah Kid," Jen chuckled, "just like real soldiers."

Brandi extracted some of my blood in a miniscule hollow tube. She trimmed that, opened the top of the globe and fitted the tube into a series of rollers. She sealed the tube and then, in stages, the tube descended into the heart of the cube. Brandi switched her attention to the small screen device at her knees.

At first, all it showed was some roughly circular objects - grey and fuzzy around the edges. A few seconds later, red objects, about the same size as the grey ones entered the scene. Brandi grew tense, so I began to massage her shoulders while keeping my eyes on the screen. One of the red - cells - they had to be my blood cells - turned grey and ruptured along the sides.

The grey objects were ruptured, infected blood cells. My blood cells were getting clobbered. One by one they succumbed. Brandi was almost too tense for words. I picked up on her chanting 'come on, come on' as if some sort of encouragement would help in this lopsided fight. I caught sight of the miracle first.

On the edge, one of my blood cells began turning grey then stopped. It was turning red once more. Brandi began muttering 'oh please, oh please, oh please'. A grey cell began to wither, blacken and die - then another. In seconds a colossal trouncing was in progress. Brandi could barely scroll the screen back fast enough to catch the death of the infected cells. In two minutes, it was over.

"What does this mean?" I inquired gently. Brandi looked up and me and smiled.

"It means we are not all going to die," she breathed deeply for the first time since this experiment began.

"Israel is too nice and shell-shocked to ask you what the hell is going on, but why don't you enlighten me?" Capri stood on the sofa, on her knees, looking over the three Vanishers.