index


Message-ID: <27641asstr$975517803@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Al Steiner <steiner_al@hotmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} NEW: Aftermath by Al Steiner-Ch 6 (FM) 1/4
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 12:10:03 -0500
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

AFTERMATH
CHAPTER 6 PART 1/4
By Al Steiner
Send comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com
Missing chapters or sections can be found at www.storiesonline.net







"Oh come on," Brett chided, his words more than a little slurred, "put
more than THAT in there!"

Michelle giggled, upending the tequila bottle a tad more and letting
another half ounce of the liquid run into the orange juice glass.  "I
don't weigh as much as you do," she said, her words considerably more
slurred than his.  "Don't you know that therapeutic," it took her three
tries to spit this word out, "dosage is based on weight, goddammit?"

"It sounds to me like you can't handle your booze," he said, picking up
the two-liter bottle of warm Pepsi
and opening the lid.  About a quarter of the bottle was gone now.
There was a hiss as the gas escaped.

"I can handle anything you can throw at me," she declared, staring at
him defiantly with her reddened eyes.  "Pour the fuckin' soda."

"Right," he said, pouring an equal amount of the soda into each glass,
so that the total amount of liquid in each was about two-thirds.  They
then each picked up a small dishtowel, towels that were now damp and
boozy smelling, and placed them over the tops of their glasses.  "Are
you ready?" he asked her.

"Fuckin' aye," she said.  "On three."

They counted to three together and then slammed the glasses sharply
onto the wooden crate that sat in front of them.  They then removed the
towels from the glasses revealing a foamy, fizzing concoction of soda
bubbles and tequila.  As quickly as they could, before the bubbles had
a chance to begin to settle, they put the glasses to their mouths and
sucked the contents down their throats.

They were in what had once been an equipment storage room of the
community center.  Before the comet it had been where the athletic
equipment such as basketballs and badminton sets had been kept.  Now,
in post-comet life, it had been converted to a different kind of
storage.  All of the alcohol, marijuana, pills, and other drugs
stronger than Tylenol were neatly arranged on shelves.  Paul, after
having the need for a critical incident stress debriefing explained to
him, had opened it up and allowed the two of them unlimited use of its
contents for the night.  Jessica and Dale had of course balked at this,
as they did nearly everything, but Paul's insistence had eventually won
out.  They were sitting on the carpeted floor, their backs against the
wall, their legs stretched out in front of them.  The bottle of Jose
Cuervo and the bottle of Pepsi rested on the small crate along with a
small bag of potent marijuana and a disposable lighter.  On the floor,
directly between them, was a large ceramic water bong that appeared to
have been made by a master craftsman at considerable expense.  After
every second or third shot of booze they would load its bowl up with
the bud and add that chemical to their bloodstream as well.

"Blaaaah," Michelle said, sticking out her tongue and taking a few
breaths.  "I don't care what you say, it's still gross.  There's
nothing you can do to tequila to make it taste good."

"This is how I used to get drunk when I was kid," Brett told her,
secretly agreeing with her.  It did taste like shit.  "Good old Alabama
slammers.  The fastest, most tasteless way to get hard alcohol into
your system.  When you're trying to drink some of your dad's booze
without him knowing about it, it's the only way to go."

She stifled a burp with her hand, fearing for a moment that more than
gas was going to come out.  "I was more into wine coolers," she said.
"Remember those Bartles and James coolers?  I drank so much of those
once that I passed out in the toilet."

They shared experiences of past vomitus drinking episodes for a few
minutes, during which time they both had one more slammer.  Since
neither one of them had bothered with dinner on that night the booze
went almost immediately to their heads, increasing their euphoria and
making them forget about the tension that they had experienced earlier
along the wall.

Brett picked at a loose strand of carpet with his fingers.  "So what do
you think?" he asked her.  "Do you feel better about shooting that guy
now?"

Her face sobered a little as she was reminded of it.  "I'm not shaking
anymore," she said.  "That's something, isn't it?"

"Well, the booze is an artificial and temporary coping mechanism.  It's
easy to forget after you drink down a bunch of tequila.  The trick is
maintaining that coping after the booze wears off."

"We'll just have to wait and see then, won't we?"

He gave her a smile.  "You'll do fine," he said.  "You're a natural ass-
kicker.  I could tell that just from training."

"So now my cherry's been popped, right?" she asked with a giggle.

"Correct," he said, with a chuckle of his own.  "You're a virgin no
more."

That declaration called for another drink.  They poured the tequila,
topped it off with soda, and then wrapped the glass in a towel.  A
count of three and a slam and the alcohol was fizzing away.  They drank
it and then set their empty glasses back down.  The entire process took
less than a minute.

"I'm starting to get dizzy," Michelle said, wiping a thin layer of
sweat from her forehead.  "I haven't drank like this since... well, in
a long time."

"Me either," he said, remembering that the last time he had gotten good
and drunk had been in a cop bar after work about a month before the
comet.  He had worked a patrol car that shift because the department's
single helicopter had been down for maintenance.  Spending 10 hours on
the ground as just another grunt, responding to family fights and
domestic violence calls and false burglar alarms and making vehicle
stops had reawakened the camaraderie with his fellow cops that he was
not usually exactly a part of anymore.  And so he had gone to the 11-99
Club with them at end of watch.  Loud music had been playing on the
jukebox and the talk had been animated and profane, the way cops always
talked when they were among their own kind.  He had drank boilermakers
until nearly closing time and had to be carried into the house when he
finally got home.  And Julie had been so pissed at him!  He remembered
the angry expression on her face as she yelled at him about his no-good
friends and asked him if he had ever heard of a telephone before.

He sighed a little now, finding the memory very painful to think about
now.  Michelle's face was a mirror of his own, telling him that she was
recalling her last time with the same sort of agonizing nostalgia.
Where had she been?  With her husband?  With her girlfriends?  With a
magazine editor?  He did not ask her, not wanting to travel down the
road that such thoughts would open up.

"Did you notice that he wasn't starving?" Michelle asked him,
apparently just as anxious to change the subject.

"Yes," Brett said, not needing to know who the HE that she was
referring to was.  It could only be the man she had shot along the
wall.  "I did notice that.  It bothers me for some reason that I can't
quite put my finger on.  I didn't realize that you had noticed it too
though.  Pretty good eye."

"I'm a writer," she said, reaching into the marijuana bag and pulling
out a pinch.  She began to roll it between her fingers, compacting it
into a ball.  "Writers are observant by their very nature.  We notice
the small details of things.  It's how we earn our living."

"Cops too," he said.  "So tell me, Ms. Observant, what do you make of
it?  Why would a man who has been eating fairly well try to sneak in
here after he was already driven off once?"

"Lot's of reasons," she said, putting her small ball into the bowl of
the bong.  "He could be running out of food now and thinks he can get
more in here."

"He could be," Brett agreed.  "But perhaps you noticed that he did not
have a backpack or any kind of carrying device with him.  What was he
planning on taking his bounty out in?  He wouldn't go through all the
trouble of sneaking in just so he could grab a few cans and leave,
would he?"

"You wouldn't think," she said, picking up the lighter.  "But then
maybe he figured that he would be able to find something to carry it
with once he got inside."  She struck a light and began to suck on the
mouthpiece of the bong.  The marijuana turned orange and shriveled up,
finally disappearing down the hole below it.

"That doesn't make a lot of sense to me either," Brett said, grabbing a
pinch of his own from the bag and beginning to roll it around.  "An
empty backpack or carry bag does not slow down your movements enough to
justify leaving it behind in the hopes that you will find another one.
And I can't buy the argument that he just didn't have one.  If he's
been eating, he would have had something to carry supplies in."

She exhaled a plume of acrid smoke into the room.  "That all makes
sense," she said.  "So what do you think he was planning on doing in
here?"

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head.  He turned the bong towards
him and began to stuff the hole.  "It bothers me though.  Anything that
doesn't seem to make sense on the surface bothers me because usually it
does make sense in some way that you can't figure out.  Can I have that
lighter?"

She gave it to him and watched as he sucked up his own hit.  "Do you
think the committee will listen to you now and let you change the guard
posts around?" she asked him.

He exhaled, coughing a few times since his lungs were not used to such
treatment.  Nevertheless he felt the effects of the latest hit pushing
his intoxication to a level approaching obliteration.  It was not an
unpleasant sensation at all.  "No," he replied.  "Even though that
person did exactly what I warned them we were vulnerable too, namely
people hiding along the wall, Jessica and Dale will not let me move the
guard posts.  They will say it is an isolated incident or a freak
occurrence and that it won't likely happen again.  Hell, I wouldn't put
it past them to say that I bribed the guy to do that.  That I found
some outsider and gave him a week's rations to play hide and seek
outside the wall and that I then had him shot dead to cover it up.
After all," he said, mimicking Jessica's voice, "it was Chrissie that
spotted him first, wasn't it?  Isn't THAT just a strange coincidence?
Little frail Chrissie being the one to spot the big, bag straggler?"

"She does kind of live in a world of her own, doesn't she?"

"She lives in an entirely different universe," Brett said.  "And she's
trying to drag all of us in there with her."

As if speaking of her summoned her spirit, the sound of soft footfalls
began to echo along the carpet outside.  Both knew it was Jessica
before her face even appeared in the open doorway.  They stopped what
they were doing and looked up as she looked down at them.  Her sharp,
vulture's eyes took in the companionable way that they were sitting
together and her face twisted into an interested gaze.  Already she was
formulating the gossip she would spread.  Did you hear?  Michelle and
Brett!  I swear!  You should have SEEN the way they were sitting next
to each other.  Mmmm hmmm.

"What's up boss?"  Brett asked, unmistakable sarcasm dripping from that
last word.  Michelle began to giggle as she heard it.

Jessica's expression darkened, immediately changing to disapproval.
She looked at the tequila bottle and the marijuana bag.  "You two
certainly have helped yourself to quite a bit of our stock now, haven't
you?"

Brett shrugged.  "Adequate payment for protecting the sanctity of this
settlement, wouldn't you say?"

"Stragglers are shot several times a week," she told him.  "Do we
invite every guard who does that in here to raid our trade goods?"

"No," he said.  "But then they usually don't have to go track them down
and shoot at them in the open either.  Why don't you cut us a little
slack Jess?  Here," he held up the bong.  "Let me load you up a nice
bong hit.  It'll mellow you out."

"I do not take bong hits," she said with extreme distaste.  "I don't
know why we even kept that stuff.  It's illegal.  You of all people
should know that."

"I'll tell you what," he said, reaching in and pulling out another
pinch, "when the federal government and the California state government
gets its shit back together, reinstates civilization, reenacts the
penal code and the drug control act, and gives me a new badge, I'll be
the first to seize the supply, okay?  Until then, I think I'll just
burn it a little bit at a time."  He stuffed his pinch in and picked up
the lighter.

Michelle giggled again, shaking her head at Brett's quick tongue.
Jessica glared at both of them, daggers in her eyes.  "In any case,"
she said sternly, "there is something going on tonight that I thought
Brett should be aware of.  It is potentially very scandalous and
shocking."

"Oooh, let me guess," Michelle said, holding up her hand as Brett took
his bong hit.  "Someone has snuck out to one of the guard posts to have
unauthorized sex?"

Though this was not particularly funny, Brett and Michelle both found
it to be in their present condition.  Michelle erupted into hysterical
chuckles while Brett coughed out the carefully prepared inhalation he
had just completed, and more than a little saliva.  Michelle, still
giggling, began patting him on the back.

Jessica did not find this the least bit amusing.  "No," she said
huffily.  "Although that subject is not something that should be
laughed at."

Brett got himself under control, his laughter reluctantly tapering off
and dying away.  "Of course not," he said, wiping a tear from his eye
and giving a few more light coughs.  "Forgive me.  So what kind of
scandal is going on that I should be made aware of during this official
debrief session?"

"It seems," Jessica said, her expression now taking on the barely
repressed delight that it assumed whenever she was sharing a
particularly damaging piece of gossip, "that your young friend, Jason,
was seen accompanying our kitchen server, Stacy, to the house that was
assigned to her."

Brett looked up at her, uncomprehending.  "That's it?  What's the big
deal about that?  They're friends.  I see them talking together when I
go in for early breakfast."

"Jason does have the night off you know," Michelle, who had finally
gotten herself under control, added helpfully.  "He's not skipping out
on his detail if that's what you're worried about."

"She invited him inside," Jessica exclaimed.  "And he has not come back
out yet!"

Michelle and Brett looked at each other for a moment and then back at
Jessica.  "How do you know that he hasn't come back out yet?" Brett
asked.  "Do you have somebody following them around?"

"Well of course," she said, as if doing such a thing was by-the-book
doctrine.  "When I saw them leaving together I sent Maggie to see where
they were going."  She patted a walkie-talkie that was on her belt.
"As of five minutes ago, he was still in there, no doubt being molested
by that... that... bimbo!"

Michelle's jaw dropped as she heard this.  Brett's came close.  "Are
you telling me," he said slowly and carefully, "that you are using the
security division's communications gear to keep track of the activities
of two of the townspeople?"

Jessica scoffed.  "Stacy is no more a member of this town than you
are," she said.  "She worked making coffee before the comet.  She's
lucky we even let her stay here at all.  And now look how she repays
us.  By corrupting your friend!  I always knew she was a shameless
slut!"

"This is unbelievable," Brett whispered.

"I'm glad you agree with me for once," Jessica said.  "Now what are you
going to do about it?  Are you too drunk to take care of it yourself?
I can get Paul and..."

"YOU are the one that is unbelievable," Brett interrupted.  "Where in
the hell do you get off having people followed around like that?  What
the hell makes you think you have the RIGHT to do that?"

"She is taking advantage of a young boy!" Jessica screamed.  "Where do
YOU get off not even acknowledging that fact?"

"I hardly think Jason is in any danger," Brett said.  "In fact, he's
probably having the time of his life.  If he and Stacy want to boff
their brains out, what business is it of yours?"

"He's fourteen years old!" she reiterated loudly.  "Fourteen!  Are you
saying that you think its okay for a full grown, pregnant hussy like
that to take advantage of him?"

"It's okay for him to kill stragglers for you and protect you while you
sleep, but it's not okay for him to get laid?" Brett asked.

"I never wanted him on guard detail," she said.  "And that is beside
the point anyway.  He is a child that needs to be protected.  She is a
corrupt woman without any sense of decency!  Now, are you going to do
anything about this, or should I go get Dale and Paul to do it instead?"

"There is nothing to be done," Brett said.  "Call off your nazi spy
that's watching them and leave them alone.  Put the communications gear
back in the security room where it belongs and don't touch it anymore."

"You do NOT give orders to ME," she proclaimed.

"I am in charge of security," Brett said, "and you, committee member or
not, are abusing official security department apparatus.  Call back
your goon, put the shit away, and don't touch it again.  You know as
well as I do that it is well in my authority to tell you that.  So do
it!"

"How dare you..."

"And no one will bother Stacy and Jason," he added, standing up to face
her.  "I mean that Jessica.  Leave them alone."

"Are you threatening me?" she asked, obvious fear in her voice as he
towered over her.

He did not answer her.  "Leave them alone," he repeated.  "I mean it.
What they're doing is none of your business."

She took a step backwards, her fist clenching in nervousness.  "Paul
and Dale will hear about this," she said with a voice that was not
quite steady.  "The committee will take action against you."

"Groovy," he said.  "We'll talk about it tomorrow, after everyone has
had a chance to reflect upon the day's events, okay?  In the meantime,
why don't you do what I told you to and then go back to your house,
fuck Dale a couple times, and then start planning your speeches for the
meeting tomorrow?"

"You'll be ejected from this town," she promised, pointing a trembling
finger at him.  "I promise you that."

"Whatever will be, will be," he said.  "Now, can me and Michelle get
back to our debriefing?  We still have a lot of tequila to get through
until we put the painful episode behind us."

She turned and stomped off, heading towards the main office.  Brett
watched her go and then sat back down.  "So," he said, with a satisfied
smile.  "Where were we?"


+++++


It didn't take them long to blow off Jessica and her intrusion.  All it
took was another slammer, another bong-hit, and an animated discussion
about Jason and Stacy.

"You think he'll come out alive?" Michelle asked with a laugh.

"I think he's a very happy man about now," Brett replied.  "I'm
surprised Jessica didn't have Maggie stick a video camera through a gap
in the blinds so she could get a photo record of the corruption in
progress."

"How do you know she hasn't?"

"True."

He sighed a little, slumping downward against the wall a bit.  "Why is
everybody so wrapped up in all of this gossiping and scandal?
Everybody does realize that a comet hit the planet and killed
everybody, don't they?"

"Of course they do," Michelle said, putting her hand on his leg.  "They
can't drive their Mercedes or get their hair done in the salon anymore,
can they?  They only get to take hot baths every third day now, don't
they?  They are rapidly running out of fingernail polish remover and
Oil of Olay, aren't they?  You have no idea the hardships these women
are enduring.  I mean, sure, you've been out in the wilderness fighting
off starving outsiders, but they have not seen a new issue of Cosmo or
had a decent latte in weeks."

He eyed her hand for a moment, noting that it was resting about two
inches above his knee, seemingly companionably.  He then looked up at
her.  "I guess I just haven't appreciated all that everyone has been
through in here," he replied.

She inched a little closer to him, her hand sliding up a few more
inches.  It gave a little squeeze of his thigh, a squeeze that felt
very good.  "They're in a huge state of culture shock," she said.
"Everyone is.  You can't just live under one set of ideals all of your
life and then change in a few days.  Give them a while and they'll
slowly start to come around."

"I'll believe that when I see it," he said, starting to feel guilty now
for enjoying her touch upon his leg and not doing anything about it.
What would Chrissie think if she saw this or heard about it?  Despite
the estrangement between them, he did not wish to lose her.  And though
he could pretend that Michelle was just caressing his leg in
friendship, he knew, even through his haze of drunkenness that that was
not really the case.

As if to prove this point, she inched her hand even higher, so that it
was about halfway between his knee and his groin.  She edged her hips
over a few more inches as well, so that their shoulders were touching.
He could feel her warmth through her clothing.  "I've become very fond
of you these last few weeks," she said to him softly.

"Have you?" he said, not looking at her, only looking at her hand,
which continued to inch upward.

"I didn't think I would at first," she said.  "When you gave me that
speech about my not having a chance with you, I thought it was funny.
I never thought that I would be the least bit interested in someone
like you.  I figured that you were sort of a dull person, you know,
efficient at what you did, reasonably smart, but without much
personality otherwise.  That's how I always pictured cops, pilots, and
soldiers.  Whenever I wrote about one in a short story or one of my
many failed novels, that's always how I portrayed them: serious but
dull."

"That sounds like me all right," he said weakly, his penis now
hardening.

"Give yourself a little credit," she said, leaning closer and
whispering the words into his ears.  He could now feel her breast
pushing against his shoulder.  "You're very witty, very funny, and very
good looking.  You care Brett.  That's what really gets to me.  You
care about all of these shallow people that you're protecting.  You're
not just going for free room and board."

"Michelle," he said, pulling away from her and breaking the contact;
everything except her hand on his leg, she refused to give that up.
"This is a bad idea."

"Oh?" she said pointedly.  "And why is that?"

"Because I'm in charge of the guard force and you're one of the
guards," he said.

"Chrissie is one of the guards," she said, "and yet you sleep with her,
don't you?"

He nearly choked as he heard these words.  His erection wilted in an
instant and adrenaline went shooting through his veins, sobering him up
considerable.  Michelle simply smiled at him.

"Or at least you WERE," she continued, "until you had a fight on your
fifth or sixth day here.  You haven't been really speaking to each
other or doing anything else since then.  The fight was probably about
what happened your first night with Mitsy.  I imagine Chrissie told you
what she heard and you didn't deny it.  Am I right so far?"

"How... how... how do you know this?" he asked numbly.  "Did Chrissie
talk to you?"

She shook her head.  "Chrissie and I talk a little bit, usually at
breakfast and dinner, but she never told me that.  She's keeping your
secret."

"Then WHO told you?"

"You and Chrissie did," she said.  "Although not with your mouths.  Do
you remember a little while ago when I told you that writers are very
observant people?  I wasn't kidding.  If you just pay attention to
people's body language, you can learn a lot about them.  Hell, you
should know that.  Don't cops do the same thing?"

He ignored her question.  "Are you telling me that you just figured
this out by watching us?"

"Yep," she agreed.  "When you two were first voted in, I could see that
you and Chrissie were very close to each other.  Much closer than a man
and a platonic friend are.  I could tell that you had great affection
for each other but that you were restraining it when you were in
public.  You always made certain that you did not touch each other in
any way, that your eyes never met with that teasing, knowing little
smile that lovers share.  But at the same time, when you thought that
nobody was paying attention to you, you WOULD share that look, just for
a moment.  You would pass a little telepathic signal back and forth
with your eyes.  She loves you Brett, and I suspect that you love her
as well."

"Jesus," Brett said, thinking that Michelle was some kind of a witch.

"It was also pretty easy to tell when you had your fight," she went
on.  "All of a sudden you weren't eating breakfast together anymore,
you weren't looking directly at each other for any reason anymore.
Although, if you watch, as I do, you'll see that both of you look at
the other when you think they're not looking at you.  If your eyes do
happen to meet during such a look, you don't smile at each other, you
look away.  And then there's talking to Chrissie.  It's pretty obvious
that she's in the midst of a major depression.  She hardly laughs
anymore and her eyes have bags beneath them as if she doesn't sleep
very well.  You have the same thing, although your work keeps you a
little busier than hers keeps her."

Brett reached over and grabbed the bottle of tequila.  He removed the
cap and took a drink directly from the bottle.  "Okay," he said.  "So
you know.  What are you going to do now?  Are you going to tell
everyone?"

She smiled sweetly, scooting back over to him.  Her hand, which had
never left his leg, suddenly moved all the way up to his crotch.  "No,"
she said, squeezing and pinching his cock through the material, "I'm
not going to tell anyone.  That is not my place to do.  What I AM going
to do, is suck your dick.  You could probably use a little relief after
all those days of going without, couldn't you?"

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com> |
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html>  Moderator: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Archive: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org> Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository |
|<http://www.asstr-mirror.org>, an entity supported entirely by donations.         |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+