Paint-Ball

Parachute fall. Legs bent, drop, twist to one side, and roll. Get up and run. All I had to do was avoid getting shot for seven more minutes.

You can cross an average field in a minute, when you are sprinting for your life. Which I did. Zig-zagging, although no shots were fired. I would have heard. I ran diagonally, to the far corner of the field. Taking in where I was heading to, and where I might have to run to next.

The two sides of the field that formed the corner I was heading towards were both fenced. Both in wood, with three bars between each post, like the one on the road, right at the start of the hunt, that I had clambered through. Except the one to my right changed from wood to metal at one point, a hundred feet or so of dull steel tube, six or seven bars instead of only three.

There was a house as well, beyond the metal fence, set back from it, all on its own. Something smelled unpleasantly, but I ignored the pong. My best bet seemed to be the fence on the left, clamber through that, another field beyond. Keep running, zig-zag even more, and hope that I could last another seven minutes longer, without one of the hunters marking me with paint.

Then, as I got close, I saw the wire. Wrapped round the bars. Not just around them, but in between as well. Barbed wire. I could see the knots in it, the barbs. The kind that tears your clothes. The kind that rips your skin. That makes you bleed. That would draw lines of blood along your leg or body, if you scraped yourself along it, climbing through. Not that there were gaps in it, large enough to get through.

Maybe, if I was wearing shoes, and had some padded clothing that I could strip off and put onto the top bar, so as to cover any barbs, I could have climbed it. But I was running barefoot, naked, and with one leg over the top bar, I risked the most important part of my anatomy being dragged across a barb. Should I ever was a piercing there, I would use a piercing studio, not a farmer's fence.

The metal fence had no barbed wire, nor wire of any kind. With five or six bars between the posts, I could scramble through, but the gaps between the bars were wide enough for feet to climb them. So I ran to it instead, and then I saw the other side.

I should have known. The stench had wafted towards me. Now I knew the reason why. Mud. Not hard, compacted earth, like the centres of the tracks and paths through the woods, or like the surface of the car park. Real mud. The squelchy kind. Wet and black, and churned up by multiple trotters strolling casually around.

Fucking pigs.

Not police. These were the kind of pigs that go that abattoirs and come out at the other end as bacon, sausages, ribs and chops. The kind that eat pig-swill, and digest it, and defecate, and urinate, in the open air enclosure where they are kept. The kind that make that stench. The kind that are pink and fat and short-haired, but are also encased with mud, some dry, some wet. Twenty or more of the disgusting things. Three of them looking straight back at me, wondering who I was, and what I was about to do.

Horrible, ugly things, with those rings through their noses. Like some girls I know. Although why they do it there, I do not understand. Ears, I get. Nipples can be daring. Clit or labia, extremely sexy, but I do not like a needle going through my skin, not even at the dentist, so I do not wear that kind of ring, not anywhere. But through your septum, so that it dangles down like snot? Thank you, but no.

Too late to turn back. The hunters would be closing in. Perhaps no longer coming for me, but taking aim. No time, even, to turn around to see. I had no choice. I had to go for it. Four thousand pounds depended on my surviving just six minutes more, and if I had to get my feet all wet and muddy, then that was what I had to do.

The enclosure was twenty feet or so across. Not far. I had to do it. No choice. I put one foot between the second and third bars of the enclosure's iron fence. Barefoot. The steel so slippery and cold. Held onto the top bar. Lifted my body, threw one leg over, sat a moment, the hard steel of the top bar pressed against my cunt. A sitting target.

I twisted round to get a foothold on the other side. Not that a bare foot holds that well on smooth steel. But I managed somehow, drawing my other leg over the top bar and down onto the ground. It squelched, sinking into the mud so that the top of my foot was covering with the black-brown slime. I brought my other foot down. Both feet in the mud. I let go of the top bar. Nothing now to keep me steady. Turning, facing my fate, the mud to cross, the pigs themselves to go between.

Sows. I could tell that by the multiple teats, caked in mud. An image of piglets sucking flashed in my brain. No difference really, not in principle, between sows and human females. Just that they have multiple teats to deal with litters, while we have only two. Both born to breed and wean their offspring, as I would do sometime. Panic or just my weird imagination, I though how it might feel to have those piglets sucking on my teats.

I had a choice to make. Straight across meant going through the group of pigs. Going round them, would be twice as far. In this mud, it could be slow going either way, and I needed to get clear of the enclosure and find a place to hide before a hunter reached the enclosure, aimed his gun, and I got shot. This mud was not the place that anyone would choose to die.

I had to go straight across. Take my chances with the sows.

Except I skidded straight away. Not like the stream. Not sideways into water. Forwards. Flat into the mud. Using my arms to stop myself from going all the way, I saved my face. Fuck, it was cold. And disgusting. I thought again about the fact that all these pigs would eat whatever from their trough, and then would do their business where they stood, and churn it into the mud that I was caked in, which made me gag. The stench was foul, and now it was all over me.

No time to throw up. No time to get up either. No point. I would just fall again. Better just to do as pigs do, and stay down on all fours, and work my way across on hands and knees. Even that was hard. Even on your hands and knees, you can skid and slip and slide and drop down into the mud all over again, and then again.

It felt disgusting too. My whole body was caked in it, legs, cunt, stomach, breasts, and fore-arms. But I kept going. I had no choice. Slithering and sliding between the fattest, grossest pigs that I had ever seen. Who, instead of staying still, or moving sideways, to give me room to pass, decided to move around, closing the gaps between them, so that I had to squeeze through, touching them on either side.

At least these pigs were sows. No danger, here, of being mounted. Not like that dog. My cunt was safe. Caked in wet mud, pig urine and their faeces, but safe from penetration. Like me, these pigs were caked in mud, their undersides. Their teats, instead of being clean and pink, were dirty brown, the same as mine. My breasts I mean. At least there were no piglets there, to try to feed.

I made it, though. The same style of metal bars were on the other side of the enclosure, and I used the bars to get back on my feet, and climbed them, just as I had before, except this time I was caked in mud, and felt disgusting. I stepped down from the bars onto a cobbled driveway, between the enclosure and the side wall of the house, all pebble-dashed and grey, wondering why anyone would put a stinking pig enclosure right beside where they would live.

I had to keep moving. Three minutes, maybe, left. Going right would take me back towards Red. Left was outhouses, and that was where I ran. I could hide somewhere. I would win this thing. I had to, now. You cannot swim through pig muck just to lose.

Time slowed, so that I could almost count the seconds. Each door I tried was locked, and although there was a kind of square shaped yard at the back of the house, it was enclosed, outhouses on two sides, a high wall at the end. Nowhere else to go. No way out. Just trapped. All I could do was stand at the wall, and wait, and hope that the seconds would count down all the way to zero, before the hunters showed.

The house had windows facing me. And a rear door, which opened. He seemed like he was in his sixties. Everyone who had seen me was in their sixties, or older still, as I guessed the ramblers were. Thick, baggy, grey trousers worn over a grey tee-shirt, that was actually tucked in, covering an expansive waist, and with a rope instead of a belt, tied at the front, and once black, wellington boots that were as caked in mud as my legs, my belly and my breasts.

He did not say anything. Just looked.

I looked back at him, still counting down the seconds, hoping that my estimate was right. Barely two minutes still to go. I stood there, covered from chin to toe is that repulsive pig muck, smelling myself, while getting back my breath.

He just walked to the hose that, until he picked it up, I had not even noticed had been there. Black rubber, steel nozzle, more rust than metal. Steel handle of some kind fixed to the nozzle. He aimed the hose at me. Turned the handle. A jet of water shot at me, and backed me to the wall. Cold. Freezing, fucking cold. And forceful. You could have cleaned a four by four with just that jet alone. But the jet was washing off the muck and mud, thank God.

He turned it off, and I was sparkling clean, in less than thirty freezing seconds.

"Fucking city whore!" he said. "Cunt!"

Then went inside. I was left wondering exactly what he thought I might be doing in his yard, why I had clambered through his pig enclosure, naked as the day that I was born.

One minute. Just sixty seconds, counting down.

They walked in together, army boots resounding on the cobbles, coming directly for me, from between the house and the pig enclosure. Side by side. Only stopping twenty feet from me. Levelling their guns, stocks to their shoulders, barrels pointing straight at me, fingers on triggers. A firing squad. An execution in slow motion. I had been sentenced, and now I would be put to death.

Two thoughts. One, that I had left my goggles on the hay-bales, and I hoped that they would not aim for my face or eyes. The second, that I was not going to turn around, that I would confront my fate like all those facing firing squads before me. That second thought may have been a mistake.

My back had hurt. Yellow had probably fired from a hundred feet or more, not twenty, and although the backs of your body is not as sensitive to pain, the paint pellet hitting just below my shoulder blade had hurt. So my thigh hurt even more. Not that I had much time to grin and bear it, or to register the blue paint, because my left breast hurt so much I yelped in pain, right on the fucking nipple stub, a bull's eye for Green. The third went lower. An inch above my clit. That hurt the most, and made me swear along with cried of pain, but also made me realise just how lucky I had been. One inch lower would have been truly agonising, and no sex for my loving husband for a week.

It seemed like just a second later, the klaxon blared, audible even at this farmhouse, from the manor house where I had started out, to run and hide. Four hits, the last three just in time. Four thousand blown. The last three thousand disappearing into gun-smoke in just seconds, just when I had thought that I could win.

The only question now was Sophie. If she had also been hit four times, that left one thousand, which we would share. Five hundred each. Nice enough, but not the outcome I had hoped for. Not by far.

The guys were nice about it all.

"You okay? That was quite a chase!"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to hit you there. I was trying to avoid your eyes."

"You must be cold, can I...?" offering me his jacket to put on.

I was not going to let myself look like any kind of wimp.

"I'm fine," I said. "I'm good."

While my thigh and breast and pubic mound were all still throbbing with the pain of being shot, close quarters. I must have looked a mess as well, blotched with paint, red, blue and green.

Sam drove a jeep. As did a guy I had not seen before, a second jeep that is. The hunters climbed on board with him. I climbed into Sam's rear seat, behind Sophie, who was already riding beside Sam. I could not see her butt, but her back was bare. No paint. No other hits visible, not from behind at least.

"Tough luck," Sam said. "The last three getting you like that."

Inside, I agreed. That had been tough. All three of them closing in on me like that. One would have been unlucky. All three at once, seemed strange.

Sam reversed all the way down the cobbles, a hundred yards or so, onto a tarmac road, then slipped into first. She had driven this kind of jeep before. Straight line reversing, at a healthy speed, before she turned, still backing, into the road.

"It was shit," I agreed. "And it hurt! My nipple is still throbbing!"

"And did you enjoy it?" Sam asked me. "The game, I mean. Not getting hit."

Thinking about it, I realised that I had enjoyed it, in a masochistic kind of way. It had been fun. Not every aspect of it, but even that pig enclosure crawl, now that I was clean again, I felt good that I had carried on, and done it, instead of giving up, and being shot for cowardice.

"I did, actually," I said.

We were turning onto a busier road now, Sophie and myself still naked, even though the jeep was open. No sides or roof. Just seats and an engine. Being naked, however, by then was normal. The fact that other cars were passing us, their drivers and their passengers seeing us, both naked, was just the way it was.

"Just to confirm that way it went," Sam said. "Sophie got two hits. So I'm afraid she gets a straight three thousand, and this time, you don't even get a consolation prize."

I noticed the way she said, "this time", in that sentence, as if there would be other times.

"It's fine," I said.

No money for our holiday, I thought.

I tapped Sophie on the shoulder.

"Well done," I said. "No hard feelings?"

She turned and grinned.

"No, bitch," she laughed. "No hard feelings. Like you said..., everything is fair..."

"It was war, wasn't it," I laughed.

"It was war, okay," she laughed some more.

It had been genuinely fun, I thought. Just a pity that there was no money to pay for the fortnight in the sun that I had wanted for John and myself.

"There's another game next week," Sam said. "High stakes, though, but if you're interested..."

"Will that be here?" I asked her.

"No," she said. "We change locations. Or we could get complaints. That thing with you and the ramblers could raise some eyebrows. I don't think the old farmer will complain, or the woman with the dog. But we like to use places where the public are likely to be walking, or whatever. It gives it all an extra edge."

"I guess," I said, thinking that she was right about the extra frisson of being naked in a public area, and the risks involved, but also wondering how she knew already everything that had happened during the chase.

"Ten thousand, next event," Sam said. "Not five. Lose two thousand for each hit."

Good money, if I could last the distance, I thought. For just two hours.

"And, because the hunters are being asked to pay double, there's a bonus for them at the end."

"As in?" I asked her.

Sam drove casually, one handed, holding the steering wheel at the bottom.

"As in, they also play for a prize. Two of them won today, Red and Yellow, hitting both of you. They each get their stake back. Had just one of them won, he would have doubled his stake."

"So what's the stake?" I asked.

"They each paid ten thousand up-front," she said. "Half the kitty is the hunters' winnings. The girls get whatever they get. The rest covers our costs, the equipment, and so on."

"Okay," I said.

"So next week it's twenty," she said.

"And we get ten," I confirmed with her.

"Or whatever is left, if you get hit, which you will," Sam said. "The guys who buy in at twenty a time know what they're doing."

"I'd still give it a go," I said. I basically still needed the money.

"And the winning hunter gets to fuck the winning girl," Sam said, "or she doesn't get her winnings."

"So the loser gets off scot-free?" I joked, while taking in what she had just said.

"The other hunters take their turns with her," Sam said. "But she still gets two thousand consolation prize."

"Fuck!" I thought.

That would have been me, today. Except there had been two joint winners, who would have shared the right to fuck Sophie, while the losers, would have fucked me.

I pictured it. The same game. The same chase. Everything the same as today had been, except all the while aiming not to get hit, not just to win the money, but to have to fuck just one guy, instead of three. That would definitely give the game a different edge.

A guaranteed two thousand. That would pay for a really nice trip, Spain or Greece, all inclusive, two weeks of sun. real sun, not like in England. The Med.

But I would have to let the guy who won it, fuck me. Or if I lost, there could be three.

I felt my clit tingling. Anticipation, or the residual sensations from the nettle stings? If I agreed, it would be the first time with another man since meeting John. Not that he had been the first man I had slept with. There had been more than several. Maybe one more, to get the holiday that we deserved, would not be all that bad.

"I'm in," Sophie said to Sam, while I was thinking.

Then she turned around again.

"You are so going to lose!" she said, and grinned.

I had not decided, even if Sophie clearly thought I had. I had said nothing to my husband, about why I would be away today, except to take a walk in the countryside. I could make the same excuse again. But this was different. Right then, I did not know if I would do it.

I said nothing, waiting until we got back to the manor house. Once inside, Sam showed us to a shower room. The paint, she told us, would not wash off with shower gel. We would need to use white spirit, and some shower rags.

I did my front, while Sophie tried to clean her butt. Yellow on one side. Red on the other. But difficult to work on.

"Can you do my shoulder blade," I asked her. "Then I'll help you."

She gave me a look that I could not read, then shrugged, and told me to turn around. It took a few minutes, but finally she told me it was all done.

She turned. I wet my rag from the bottle of white spirit. Her butt, when I started, felt amazingly firm. Beneath a layer of fat, there was some solid muscle. I worked on both cheeks, then between them, conscious that this was getting pretty intimate, and wondering how far I could risk going.

She let me know.

She put both hands flat on the tiled wall, leaning on it, and spread her legs, giving me unfettered access. The paint was gone, but the invitation was there. I used a clean rag, and shower gel, to remove the smell of the white spirit. Her butt, of course, the crack between those hard butt cheeks, then underneath, around her hole, and further, crouching behind her to do her cunt.

"You do know that was a dirty trick you played," she commented, while I continued washing her, dispensing with the rag and using my hand.

"True," I said. "I still lost though. Although I don't get how all the hunters knew exactly where I was, right at the end."

"Your watch," Sophie said.

"What do you mean, my watch?" I asked her.

She turned around. Leaned against the wall again, her back to it, her legs still splayed.

"I'm pretty sure that they have trackers on them. Just like mobile phones can. I got caught like that that first time that I played. This time, I took mine off, and left it, after I'd been shot because of you. I hid nearby, and no one found me. I got it just after the klaxon sounded, so Sam has no idea," she explained.