One in Ten Ch. 09

Sex is contact and connection. Sex is sensual as in utilizing all your senses to comprehend the pace your partner is setting. It flows both ways as you give and take, act and respond. They told women this stuff in romance novels. They also teach it to broken men in therapy so we won't be afraid to give again. Venus had this now - a romance with a broken man.

"No peeking," I admonished her as I began getting dressed. For a moment she almost laughed at me. We'd made love only a minute ago. Then she felt my frontiers closing in, rolled over and buried her face in my pillow (Angel's actually). I hadn't asked her to leave and she honored my request. We were both making steps forward.

"Finished," I informed her when I was done. Venus rolled over and stared at my ceiling.

"Oh Goddess, I'm getting to be as bad as Kuiko," she moaned. She noticed my confused expression. "We caught her back in your bedroom, humping your pillow last night, making these cute little whimpering sounds," she enlightened me.

I would have been really weirded out if it had been one of the other girls. I was still a little weirded out though because - well - I had put my head on that pillow last night. Couldn't someone have warned me? Maybe this was their revenge for me not coming straight home.

"I'll go change clothes in Capri's room," Venus said as she hopped out of bed. "You can watch if you like," she added with a sexy hip-bump.

I opened the door for her. As she stepped out, I responded.

"If I do that, we might end up having sex again," I warned Venus.

"NO!" screamed Capri from the living room. "And have less impressive sex, Jerk!" Venus looked decidedly miffed in Capri's direction. I thought miffed because the alternative was murderous.

I made my way to the kitchen and breakfast...someone had bought me/us food - a 'filled all my cabinet space' amount of food.

"Thanks, Capri," I called out.

"I swear it looked like all you ate was gruel and those loathsome power-shakes," she answered.

"I didn't get my curvaceous body by eating healthy, damn it," she added.

"Actually, you look a bit out of shape," Kuiko noted. Capri pulled out her stun gun.

"Don't make me spark up your little ass," Capri grumbled. Did every freaking sound carry to every corner of my abode? Seriously? I stepped out with my bowl of milky granola.

Kuiko looked my way and grinned.

"This little ass?" she giggled. She turned facing away from me and slowly bent a quarter over. Capri's stun gun crackled again. "This little ass?" Kuiko repeated but this time she bunny hopped, in reverse, toward me. A smile over her shoulder and another bunny hop.

"That's it!" Capri shouted and lunged, stun gun in hand, toward Kuiko. Fortunately, Aniqua intercepted Capri and wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her back.

"Slow down, Red," Aniqua pleaded. "I need her so I can make rent." Kuiko wiggled her cute, tight little posterior at me. Capri almost broke free.

I had a sneaking suspicion I was contagious. I was making people around me crazy. It could also have been the close confines and high stress from knowing the world was about to end. Maybe I was getting better and realizing that not everything was my fault, or within my ability to fix. I also realized that Angel and Roni were still not back.

Thankfully, Kuiko backed down - the other way. Capri took a shower and dressed. She had eaten breakfast while Venus and I were otherwise occupied. Venus came out to the expectant stares of the other three women.

"How was it?" Samantha inquired. "Did you enjoy yourself? Did he enjoy you?"

"It wasn't bad," Venus shrugged.

"I'm about to beat you back into the Stone Age, Bitch," Aniqua growled playfully. "Spank my ass, will you? Besides, it isn't like I mind him checking me out, but did you have to tell him we all knew he was doing it?"

As noted on my first day in my condo - this place was built like crap. The only damn thing that seemed to work was the water heater. That worked like gangbusters. Otherwise, the walls were way too thin, yet somehow offered great acoustics. Wait, the windows appeared to work well. I guessed I'd have a better chance of running through a wall into the next condo than jumping out my window.

Of course, that meant people could get at me by punching through the walls. That would make my walls marginally less effective than my door's security system. In my short history here, it did a better job at keeping out those I wanted in than hindering those I wanted to keep out. This retrospection was costing me more sanity than I could afford to lose at the moment, so I stopped it and went back to eating.

Kuiko and Aniqua were leaving with us today. Kuiko wanted to talk to 'her guy' who turned out, according to Aniqua, to be a 67 year old ex-Navy veteran co-worker. Despite our disbelief in Kuiko's enthusiasm, Aniqua believed there was something to this relic. She suspected he got cigarettes from somewhere and drank more than a 'skittish whore' - Aniqua's words.

How in the hell that old geezer was passing his physical was a mystery solved by Kuiko - he was banging his doctor on a regular basis. It seems he was in perfect working order despite his plethora of bad habits. Why hadn't he had sex with Aniqua or Kuiko? His words - 'I go to work to get away from those sex-starved bitches'. He only banged college girls (and his doctor...whom he knew from her college days).

My life became dependent on non-communication, miscommunications and lies...and I was totally ignorant of the facts so crucial to my survival. Outside was a strong, steady downpour and we were expecting rain, on and off, until mid-afternoon. Capri relied on a rain hat instead of an umbrella so I stooped down to give her some shelter under my device.

Kuiko and Aniqua waved goodbye under their umbrellas as we parted company - they were taking the bus. Had I seen or heard the helicopters, I would have worried. The visibility was low and the sound of the storm dominated the air, so I didn't and was momentarily okay. Something else I didn't know - someone was tracking heat signatures.

Kuiko and Aniqua were one group, Capri and I another, and lastly, and more important to the viewers, there were two head signatures in my condo - Venus and Samantha. They didn't have to be at work until nine. Capri and I were across the street and nearly a block away when we heard the small convoy screech to a halt in front of my complex.

There was some sort of 'armored' vehicle with a turret and gun. Two others were those light transports called jeeps and hummers in various incarnations. The final two vehicles were like the first one, but with a smaller gun and a lower profile. Those two were also disgorging troops who were now running into my building.

There was another fissure in our old reality.

I must have had a look of anguish on my face. Venus and Samantha were in danger and I was powerless. Capri kept a painfully tight hold on my arm. There were three women right behind us. They were also looking over their shoulders as the drama unfolded. They turned and looked at me, recognizing my face. They rushed forward, I was gripped with fear.

Inside one meter, they slowed and closed ranks. They were shielding me from the view of the convoy - standing between me and danger. As we passed through the intersection between us and the metro, we heard a low 'pop' followed a second later by another. What I didn't know at the moment was that they had blown my door then tossed a stun grenade in the room.

They'd blown the door for the same reason they hadn't accessed my internal security footage - they were doing something illegal. There was no State of Emergency, or Martial Law. No Federation agency had called the Army Rangers in to assist. Nope, the Minister of Defense had decided that I would be 'safest' in her custody.

You really couldn't blame the Rangers. She was the freaking Defense Minister. The average trooper assumed she was acting responsibly and within the law. At the core of this disaster was the big, honking unit the Armed Forced had that studied all kinds of chemical and biological threats. They had reached three conclusions.

The T2 was going to effectively wipe out mankind.

The T1I1 was the best bet to keep a few thousand SELECT individuals alive.

The sole known source of the T1I1 antivirus was strolling around the city in danger of ending all sentient life on Earth by way of any number of fatal urban tragedies.

Upon reading that report, the Defense Minister's response should have been foreseen. 'Fuck the Ministry of Justice and their slavish devotion to the Constitution - I want to live.' She still wanted to remain Defense Minister so she had to do this carefully. A few Rangers, backed up with some helicopter support, were going to make a quick raid into the southern suburbs, grab Mr. Jensen then roll back out before anyone was the wiser.

For the Ranger lieutenant in charge of this part of the raid, this was a real problem. She had swept Mr. Jensen's apartment, but neither of the 'bodies' were Jensen, or even cooperative. The Minister of Defense, conferenced into this fiasco, was furious - these were some of her best, Goddess-damned troops and they'd taken a corner kick to the tits and let the ball bounce into the goal.

'Wait, weren't there two other clusters of heat signatures?'

'Yes, one was boarding a bus and the other was entering the - subterranean - metro station.'

About this time the Ranger lieutenant and her Captain were becoming truly curious as to why no one was accessing the city's top notch security system and simply telling the unit where their target was.

New plan - the land column was going to stop and search the bus. The Captain, with the other two squads of the Ranger Platoon, were going to repel down to the metro entrance and search for him there. The Captain had a suggestion.

"Ma'am, there is a Metropolitan police cruiser pulling up right now. Why don't we ask them to help?"

"Go in there and get him!" the DM growled.

"Madam Minister," the Captain protested. "I think this is a really, really bad idea." The Captain knew the DM was former military. She'd been a fighter pilot. The Captain also knew the woman had zero experience with special operations and urban warfare.

"Do I need to relieve you of your command?" the DM seethed.

"No, Ma'am," the Captain ground out.

The Captain had to think about her women, if she was even acting legally anymore, and if there was any way to accomplish her mission that didn't involve a firefight in a crowded metro station.

"Shoulder arms," she commanded. This was going to be fun in the same way getting the inside of your eyelashes tattooed was fun. "We locate the target, put a perimeter around him then extract him from the situation." The Captain was a Buddhist and she was really starting to worry about karma.

Even as her helicopters raced for the metro, the operation was hitting a serious snag. As the land column began to pull out, a car sped up to them, crossed 'traffic' and swerved to block their progress. The Ranger on the .50 swivel mount covered them. The driver and passenger of the car stepped out, holding up their badges.

"FBI - Gender Investigative Unit. Who is in charge here?" Special Agent Fraklos called out. The Lieutenant informed her command chain of the current events as she dismounted and headed to the now-soaked FBI agents. Fraklos was coming to meet her.

"Get out of there," the Defense Minister demanded. The Lieutenant stopped.

"What? You can't be serious," she sounded confused and exasperated. "I have two FBI agents right in front of me."

"You have the guns - get out of there and return to your forward base," the DM clarified. The Ranger Lieutenant had enough.

"Listen and listen good, Minister," she snapped. "I am not going to fire on authorized Federation agents without a God-damned (she was old school) good reason. Nor am I going to engage in a high speed flight from justice. Ma'am, I suggest you get your shit together before you issue anymore senseless orders. Kilo-6 out." That done, she stepped up to the agent, saluted and started trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

After the women I barely knew shielded me from scrutiny, we made our way down into the metro. Lots of women...and Kenny and Luanga...and three guys I didn't know. Unlike, me, Kenny and Luanga, these guys looked tough. They were all over six feet and 225 lbs. They also had dowels. Following this sign of the coming Apocalypse, a fourth man appeared.

He was pretty average looking. I could tell he was better off than most of the other commuters which left me a bit more curious than fearful of his approach.

"Hello, Mr. Jensen," he began. I offered and I shook his hand. "I'd like your help." That was new - a man asking me for help.

"What - oh, his is my friend and lawyer, Capri O'Hara. These two gluttons for punishment are Luanga and Kenny." I looked to the other three newcomers. "I haven't met these three yet."

They introduced themselves as Rashid, Quinn and Tone. Tone had decided that our (men's) problem yesterday was that we hadn't been in large enough groups to make a true difference.

The women vastly outnumbered us, but we outnumbered the cops - especially in localized skirmishes like this. They knew I'd be here and that trouble would follow. They promised not to start something but they also promised to not back down.

"Mr. Jensen, I'm Doyle Crane and I've created a blog covering our struggle - the one you started," he smiled. "It is called 'The Final Word'."

"Call me Israel, and I didn't start this. The second women decided we're somehow less than them, this was inevitable," I countered.

"Glad to see you aren't a demagogue," Doyle chuckled. "Something tons of my readers want to know is why did you save that cop then copulate with her."

"When do you think the Feds will shut you down?" Capri interrupted. I was pleased to see that Doyle didn't seem to mind.

"Soon, I think," he shrugged. "I have a Computer Technology from Lakeview Community College. I'm going to try to keep it up as long as possible. I have to do something."

"Cops," Quinn grumbled. Sure enough, the same two officers from yesterday were coming our way.

"Her name is Freya Passey," I answered Doyle. "She has a three month old son who doesn't have the Gender Plague yet. The antiviral in my blood and semen provides immunity."

"You are trying to save lives...nice," Doyle nodded.

"Alright - the same crowd plus some," Cop One remarked. "You know the drill. Hand over the dowels and open your coats and containers."

"No," Tone glared. I echoed that 'no' a half-second later.

"I guess we arrest you then," Cop Two sighed.

"What for?" Capri snapped.

"No," Tone kept glaring.

"We aren't doing anything wrong," Kenny added.

"If you want them, come get them," Rashid growled. Tradition clashed with mathematics. Before last night, forty years of experience told those two policewomen that we would fold despite outnumbering them. Today, it was distance, how quickly they could draw and shoot their tasers and how we would handle the violence.

The six men plus Capri WERE going to counter aggression with aggression. Even if they dropped the two biggest men, they would still be swarmed. Two on one wasn't good. Three on one would be desperate. The women in the metro looked completely willing to sit this round out. This morning, to these women, cops shaking men down for sticks seemed trivial.

"Is there a problem here?" a voice called out from the side. It was Debra, she had her hand in her purse and she was giving the cops a baleful look. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Capri was a known gender-traitor, but Debra? The sudden prospect of more and more women rallying to the side of men caused the two cops to retreat.

They called for back-up. They explained the problem - men not surrendering their dowels. Explanation? There was a mob of us - and some women too. Could they possibly proceed without aid? The two cops looked us over. Five more women had joined our defiant stand. 'No'. The cops were told to retire from the confrontation.

Every woman but Capri were smiling and viewing this as a great stride forward. They had recognized the plight of men and made a stand. They felt good about themselves. It took them a while to realize the men weren't jumping for joy. The cops had our faces and names. They'd come back for us later.

As our knot of resistance entered the metro a tremor moved through the crowd behind us. Two groups of troops in urban camouflage had entered the station and they were rushing to board the metro too.

Several people repeated the same refrain - 'Oh my God/Goddess, is that the Army?'

"Hey," Tone bumped me, "is there something you haven't told us?"

"Tone, I am such a lousy member of this society, I couldn't begin to tell you why they might be coming for me," I shrugged. Tone smiled at me in the same way a cop smiles at a man before the 'tuning up' begins. This was 'not good'. Ten soldiers piled into the rear/fifth car with me. Ten more made it into the first car.

Through the press of female bodies, I met Ambrosia's gaze. I could see the conflict. I'd rejected her. My women had threatened her. The odds of her coming out on top in this mess were small. She tapped Amelia and turned away. I almost missed the two taking out their stun guns. But I had so I noticed them gathering forces and moving to the fourth car to protect us from behind as well.

As Ambrosia's little group moved to the next car, the pressure behind me grew and I was swept forward. One soldier offered her knee for another to step on. That woman rose up, spotted me and the communication began over their little headsets under their helmets. The Rangers formed a wedge and worked forward.

Our only option was to retreat to the fourth car, but that ran the risk of the group becoming separated. A mental haze was whirling through my ability to process the world correctly. I tried to move to the 'rear' of the group. Capri lost contact with me. We became a mess of women and men interspersed.

Tone was facing the oncoming soldiers. I tried to get to his side. Somehow I could fix this. A hand grasped my right upper arm in a vise-like grip. I tried to shrug it off with no luck. Looking behind me I saw a woman unknown to me. She was silent and grim, of Mexican heritage, with a compact, five foot-nine body.

I failed to pull free on my second attempt.

"Fall back," the woman hissed. At the same time, we noticed Tone push his jacket aside as his right hand reached behind him and pull forth an automatic pistol. The leader of the soldiers pushed the last woman aside. Tone pointed the gun at her face, point-blank.

"No!" I shouted. There were gasps and cries of alarm. A man had a gun which equated to a man had lost his mind and gone homicidal in the feminine mind. The soldiers froze. It wasn't panic; they were professionals and opening fire in a crowded commuter car was abhorrent to them. Tone was furious. The woman, a Captain it appeared, was coolly taking in the situation.

"Tone, if you came all this way just so you could act like a woman, get off my damn train," I declared in a voice that was blessedly calm and steady. No one flinched. I reached out with my left hand and placed it gently on Tone's pistol. The Captain realized that I'd placed my pinkie finger between the hammer and chamber - now I had to thank Flame. Tone didn't seem to get it.

"You were soft on that cop," Tone grumbled.

"Wrong, I was true to myself, Tone," I replied. "Women shoot us when we are defenseless. They treat us like we were worthless - like our lives have no value beyond a cock and ball set. Is that what you want to be like?"

There was a false stillness. I couldn't concentrate on the task at hand and take in all the turmoil boiling around me at the same time.