Secrets of Liberty Mountain (Final)

"Yes, and thank you."

Maybe a little of the hair of the dog which bit me would help take the edge off a crappy day. It had been years since my last overindulgence. I took a tentative taste of the colony's brew; my gut approved. I sighed and relaxed as the warmth of the spirits seeped into my tired bones. There is a heaven.

Sheila held the glass in both hands as she took a swallow and studied me. "You look like shit, too much party?"

"Yeah, something like that. Too much weed and booze." I took another swallow of the beverage as I tried to find a comfortable spot in the seat.

"Too much sex?" Sheila challenged with a wink followed by an odd smile of inquiry.

"I don't know. You'll have to ask them. I passed out in the second hand of strip-poker," I said, pointing my thumb over my shoulder in the general direction of our bedchamber.

"Interesting," Sheila said with an amused smile as she scribbled a note on the old-fashioned, green, ink-felt blotter that covered much of her desk.

A maze of cryptic notes littered the surface. Sheila's eyes were unblinking and unashamed as she tilted back in her chair and gazed at me. Like twin moons orbiting an alien world, her eyes peeked over the rim of her brandy glass. Two could play the game; I leaned forward and put my elbows on her desk and rested my head in the palms of my hand, and stared into her eyes.

"You'll do just fine," Sheila said with a grin as she broke eye contact and took a long, slow sip of her drink. "You're hired."

"Uhh, what's my new job?"

I sat upright in my chair. At some point, the conversation had shifted from idle chatter to a job interview. I missed the transition and found myself on an exit ramp to the unknown.

"Congratulations, you're my new administrative assistant. You're to start to work the first thing in the morning,"

"What happened to the old admin?

"You're the first. Now, go back to your quarters and get some sleep. I'll fill you in on your duties when you report in the morning,"

"What happens if I don't take the job?"

I didn't intend to turn her down. However, my curious nature wondered what the alternatives were.

"The only other job opening is mucking out the stables. Would you rather do that?"

"Umm, err, no. What time should I be here?" I asked.

"My day starts at 5:30. Do the math." Sheila motioned her arm in a wave of dismissal.

WTF? Administrative assistant? Why the hell would she want me to be on her admin team? Most admin types I knew were gophers, about two levels below indentured servants. Becoming the administrative aide to a powerful individual is a type of bondage. Assistants serve at the beck-and-call the boss. Essentially, I would be on duty around the clock. As a survivalist group, the tribe operated as a para-military democracy.

In many ways, Sheila's choice of jobs made absolute sense, at least from her perspective. Notwithstanding the society's vote, I remained an exotic commodity. What better way to keep an eye on a stranger than to keep the mysterious under observation twenty-four seven? Sheila put me in a place of maximum exposure. I would be under her microscope and the watchful eye of a judgmental Sisterhood. I had no place to hide and nowhere to run.

My trial hadn't ended; it had only just begun.

Chapter 29

Everything I knew about Sheila told me she was a master gamer with the skills of a chess genius. She did not offer me a job to alleviate unemployment; instead, she appeared to be working a gambit of some sort. The uncertainty of purpose generated within me a wave of anxious observation while I awaited developments. The chess pieces on the board were changing their position on their own accord.

~~~

"She wants you to be her what?" Darlene giggled in questioning amazement at my news.

"Administrative assistant. She wants me to be her number one gopher, and I start tomorrow."

I am by nature, curious. I wanted to learn Darlene's thoughts on Sheila's offer.

"That sounds like Sheila. She's got an excellent eye for people, and she has the knack of putting them where they do the most good or the least amount of damage," Darlene explained as she flipped a strand of hair out of her eyes.

"What time do you start work?"

"I'm not sure. She told me her day starts at 5:30 in the AM. I'm supposed to do the math and figure out when to report. What time do you suggest I be there by?"

"If she told you 5:30, then I recommend you be there no later than 5:25," Darlene advised.

"In any case, I need to crash and get some sleep. I'm dead on my feet."

I yawned and stretched. The drug of choice from Colombia and the adrenaline high for my new job both ran out of steam. My get up and go had got up and gone.

At 5:15 sharp, I stood at the door to Sheila's office with two steaming cups of coffee. Martha from the kitchen crew prepared Sheila's coffee to the leader's liking. I noted the recipe, black with a splash of cream and a dash of sugar.

"Here goes nothing," I mumbled under my breath as I rapped on her door the to the beat of shave-and-a-haircut two-bits.

"Very cute, come in and take a seat," a naked Sheila said as she motioned me to enter and waved to the chair by her desk.

"I'm taking a shower, and I'll be back in a few minutes. In the meantime, please familiarize yourself with our tables of organization," Sheila directed me as she leaned over my shoulder to fetch a manilla folder from the corner of her desk.

The side of her soft breast brushed my cheek with warmth as she stretched her body past mine to retrieve the paperwork. There were no accidents in Sheila's world. The physical contact was deliberate. She was either playing with me or testing me, not that it made any difference. She was the boss.

Titillating as her touch was, I shook my head and studied the organizational charts of the colony. Thirty-seven black boxes representing every member of the Sisterhood and one grey box labeled "SkyWolf" adorned each of the pages; my little box attached directly to Sheila's.

The table of organization for the Sisterhood was amazing. Sheila ran the show, but she served at the pleasure of the membership. Essentially, the Sisterhood operated like the pirates and buccaneers back in the age of sail. Piracy, despite its savage reputation, was a remarkably democratic institution. A pirate captain served at the pleasure of his crew.

Within the folder were scores of different organizational structures designed to meet every apocalyptic contingency and scenario. If the end came from war, the society plans were ready. Several of the women within the clan held degrees or training in radiation or nuclear medicine. Pandemic? Three tables of organizations stood ready for deployment.

Organizationally, the Society of Sisters was a bureaucratic Rubik's cube with the ability to morph and adapt to ever-changing circumstances. Like the Marines, every sister was first a rifleman. Riflewoman? Whatever. They knew how to shoot. About fifteen of Sheila's kittens had the claws of an expert marksman.

While serving in the United States Air Force, I worked as a staff member in several command wide conference rooms. I was a classic REMF (Rear Echelon Mother Fucker) with the privilege of sitting in on countless command level meetings and briefings. I happened to be at the 5th Air Force operations center the day the North Koreans took the USS Pueblo on January 23, 1968. It was a total cluster-fuck.

We stripped our ground forces of virtually all our weapons to feed the war in Vietnam, and the only air power available was armed with nukes. We had two armed responses: either start World War III or grit our teeth. We clinched our jaws and did nothing.

When it came to rank, I was an enlisted cellar-dweller with three stripes and an attitude. Nonetheless, I got to be a wallpaper witness in headquarters 5th and 7th Air Forces. I had the easy job of running the audiovisual equipment in the projection booth while generals with more stars on their lapels than the night sky planned strategy and conducted top-secret meetings, briefings, and strategic planning sessions.

Yeah, I get this. Sheila's batch of mix-and-match scenarios was nothing more than the Sisterhood's version of the Pentagon's never-ending contingency planning. The brass developed plans for almost any imaginable situation. Want to invade Mexico or Canada? The plans were on file.

I got a thrill from reviewing Sheila's tables. I loved strategy and tactics and had been an avid wargamer in my day. I shuddered to think of the hundreds of hours I squandered playing the games published by Avalon Hill and other war game companies. Little squares of cardboard represented combat units from platoons to brigades to divisions and even army corps.

The appropriate unit symbol adorned each of playing piece along with a set of numerical factors representing attack, defense, and movement. Our battlefields were map boards covered in a hexagonal "grid." Each hex-square of terrain added or detracted from a unit's combat capabilities. The actual gameplay was a mind-war between equally determined fanatics.

The devil lives in the details and in the case of the war games we played, the particulars resided in sets of rules often exceeding a dozen or more double-sided pages set in tiny type. Players scoured the rules for loopholes and would argue their interpretations with all the passion of attorneys appearing before the supreme court. Combat results were determined by a random dice throw; as the odds improved, so too did the chances of getting favorable results.

"Ahh hum! I said familiarize yourself with them. I didn't expect you to commit 'em to memory," Sheila laughed.

She was naked and dripping with water as she towel-dried her hair.

"Don't you think you should put on some clothes?" I suggested as Sheila stood next to me, a patch of pubic hair a few inches in front of my nose.

"Nope. My house, my rules. Deal with it and keep your trouser snake under control," she said with a chuckle as she patted the inside of my thigh. On the last touch, her fingers lingered a few moments longer than the others.

Memo to self: research the details of the Sisterhood's Sexual Harassment policy.

"I want to know your impressions about my plans, but first I need your help getting dressed."

Sheila tossed the damp towel on the floor and sashayed her way toward the walk-in closet. Midway she turned, folded her arms across her chest, and spread her legs, Amazon style.

"I said I want your help and you can't help me from over there." She snapped her fingers and pointed at the floor beneath her feet.

"Talk about boundary issues," I muttered under my breath as I clamored to my feet.

"What did you say?" Sheila gave me "THAT" look.

"Nothing. I said I was concerned about breakfast issues. We don't want to miss chow."

I shrugged and approached the leader. What kind of hands-on-assistance did this lady require?

"Danger, Will Robinson, danger!" a little voice screamed from the back of my head.

"After a hot shower, I like to rub on some bath oil." The Chief handed me a crimson bottle of some exotic mixture of spices from Turkey. "Please do the honors."

"Uh, right here?"

I studied at the flask in my hand like it was going to take a bite out of me. Then I glanced at Sheila who impatiently waited for me to play masseuse. Naked, she stood before me, her hands at her side and her legs spread eagle, daring me to disobey.

"Do you want a standing lube-job or do you usually lay down when you get an oil change?"

"Today I prefer to stand. Don't miss a spot and be quick about it. We're burning daylight."

I rubbed a splash of ointment between my palms and paid particular attention to her toes as I began to massage the mixture into the skin of her feet.

"Foot up," I instructed as I lifted her toes and anointed the sole of her foot with the balm. Sheila wobbled a bit and held my head for balance. Score one for my side.

I re-planted her foot and applied a sheen of the luxury salve to her ankles and caressed and massaged my way upward. I shivered as my fingers played tag with the soft warmth of her skin and my hands slowly slid upward toward the gates of heaven.

Water droplets from her shower hung like Christmas decorations from her neatly trimmed pubic hair and her sleek, smooth legs quivered with tension as I massaged and caressed my way toward paradise.

"I told you not to miss a spot," Sheila said as she looked down at my hands massaging the insides of her upper thighs.

She shifted position and spread her legs slightly further apart to improve her balance. The view was breathtaking. We locked eyes as my fingertips rubbed the scented emulsion lightly across the surface of her skin. She let out a quick gasp and tightly closed her eyes when my fingers brushed playfully across the edge of her lips.

Facial muscles contorted and relaxed as she fought against her growing arousal. Her face was conflicted as she fought against her rising sexual response to my touch. The more intense the thrill, the more she struggled for control in a weird game of self-denial.

I placed one hand on each side of her hips and turned her body around so that her bare bottom faced me. I loved the way her cheeks ripples and glistened with oil as I massaged and caressed her behind.

By the time I was applying lotion to her breasts, her chest was glowing a reddish pink. Her nipples stood as stiff as pencil erasers, and she had a difficult time keeping her balance. Sheila trembled and swayed to my vertical massage. She blinked, and her muscles tightened and relaxed as I applied the last of the lotion. My fingertips traced the outline of her mouth and the contours of her jaw before coming to rest on her shoulders.

"Will there be anything else?" I raised a questioning eyebrow.

"No, thank you. I'll take it from here," Sheila smiled and dismissed me from my chores.

The bathroom game, as I came to call it, became the standard start of each day. The unwritten rules were simple. I would do nothing overtly sexual. We pretended my application of bath lotion was purely functional and clinical, and she pretended not to be aroused. Thank God I was fully dressed. I leaked like a broken faucet at the end of each session. She got enjoyment from resisting, and I gained pleasure from persisting.

Other than the kinky start to my work day, I found the position as her assistant to be both fascinating and challenging as I did my best to anticipate her administrative needs. Through observation and experience, I learned to appreciate her organizational skills

Sheila took her responsibilities as the colony's leader seriously. Had she been a man in the army, I had no doubt organizational skills would have propelled her through the ranks to become a two or three-star general.

Chapter 30

The Society of Sisters and their compound at Liberty Mountain were the pride and joy of Sheila's existence. She devoted almost every waking hour toward her mission of building an organization that could withstand anything the apocalyptic whims of fate might send our way. The colony's Boss was an innovator who served both as a leader and also as a follower.

Like the Caesars of old, she had the authority to issue any order necessary to secure the safety of the group. Unlike the dictators of ancient Rome, her power was derived from a five-woman executive committee that could instantly countermand any given order and could remove Sheila from her leadership position without notice.

The Society's membership kept the ex-committee in check. Under the group's charter, any five members of the clan could call a snap election and reshuffle the power deck. The colony was a compact dictatorship driven by pure democracy. It reminded me of a snake from ancient mythology devouring its tail. The net effect of the dynamic, interdependent tension within their compact organizational structure was a remarkably stable form of self-government. Sheila had served as the chief executive officer since the group's inception.

I was ready to throw myself into the paper shredder headfirst after spending the first three days organizing Sheila's notes and files.

"What's the matter; you're awfully quiet?" Sheila asked as she dropped another stack of documents on the desk in front of me.

"I hate paperwork. Is the stable boy position still open?" I forlornly stared at the mountain of paper as I leaned back in my chair and took a deep sigh.

"You would rather shovel manure than do paperwork?" Sheila inquired with a sly grin.

I shrugged my shoulders and chuckled as I studied the folder in my hands and tried to figure out which paper pile was its home. Everything had its place; the trick was finding it.

About eight percent of the papers I'd been sifting through were detailed daily logs and detailed inventory reports. Everything consumed was assigned a color code: blue for items and foods produced by the Sisterhood, and red for non-renewable resources that could only be replaced by importing from the outside world.

There is an exception to every rule; iron was color-coded, both red and blue. Worn out equipment was smelted into ingots and recycled into new tools by a team of women who specialized in metallurgy and blacksmithing.

Broken, destroyed, or misplaced equipment necessary to the colony's survival were, according to Sheila, "a critical loss." Advanced electronics, radio transmitters, and computers at the top of her worry list.

"We're going to have to make do with whatever we have on hand when the shit hits the fan. We won't see any replacements in this lifetime," Sheila noted as she took the folder from my hands. "Or the next." She sighed and dropped the report into the red cabinet.

"You need to practice the OneTouch filing system, Sky. Touch a piece of paper only once. Don't let a document in your hands go until you have a home for it." Sheila picked up the file and scanned it for a moment before putting it away in the blue cabinet. "Ask me if you can't figure out where it belongs."

My Boss was an information Nazi. She tracked every aspect of life at Liberty Mountain. It was as if she was the brain of a living thing where data and paperwork were the central nervous system. My job was to sort through the debris field of previously chewed data and file it away for future reference. I was in the seventh circle of Hell reserved for those who hated office work.

"Christ on a crutch, did you guys ever hear of digital records? They're a whole lot easier to deal with then all this paperwork," I grumbled and lit a cigarette.

"Electronic documents are incredibly fragile. These documents are part of our history. We lose our identity and our culture if we lose our history. I will not trust our survival in computers." Sheila took a cigarette out of my pack.

"Why do you spend a million bucks a year on state-of-the-art equipment if you're so skeptical of technology? You've got a God-awful amount of server space according to your archives, and you keep expanding your capacity. Your group has almost enough storage capacity to put Google to shame."

I flicked the ash from my smoke into an empty coffee cup. Sheila looked at me, and she inhaled the puff and blew a perfect smoke ring at my face. I blinked as I passed through the circle of wispy gray.

"Enough of this. We're going for a walkabout." Sheila flicked the glowing tip of tobacco from her cigarette and rested the un-smoked remainder in the ashtray. "Come with me," she said, as she stood and extended her hand to assist me in rising out of my comfortable chair.

"Walkabout?" I gave my Boss my best puzzled down-under grin and tunelessly hummed the soundtrack to Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport by Rolf Harris.

"We won't find any didgeridoos or wallabies on this walkabout. Follow me," Sheila instructed with a hearty laugh.