. 01

Author's Note:

Early on in this chapter is a brief description of a video depicting a terrorist attack. If this is bothersome to you, it would be easiest for you to skip it by jumping ahead to the third set of ###.

Thanks again for reading, voting, and commenting. All your feedback is appreciated.

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August

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"Hey, you texted? What did you...oh." I'd been down in the basement getting a few things for our impending departure when I received the text from Jessie telling me I should hurry up to the second floor. Six in the morning and McKenna was already here - I'd peeked into the livingroom on my way up, seen the little programmer playing dolls with Jane.

Now I leaned against the second-floor bedroom door and watched the sapphic scene unfold.

Sienna was bent over Jessie's lap like she was waiting for a spanking. She lifted one hand from the floor when she saw me, waved, then tried futilely to tuck a strand of platinum blonde hair behind one ear. A black g-string was looped around her spread knees, and as I watched, Jessie pushed her short denim skirt up over the curve of her rump. My lover unsnapped the cap on a bottle of lube, squeezed some out onto two fingers, and then those finders disappeared between the blonde's thighs, making her sigh and close her eyes.

"Give me the beads now."

I hadn't seen the loop between Sienna's lips. She pulled the strand of two kegel beads from her mouth and passed it back to Jessie. Slippery fingers emerged from between her legs, and the gothic girl rolled the beads around in her hand for a moment before easing them into her girlfriends pussy. Sienna inhaled deeply as each bead popped inside, giving me a smolderingly lustful look through the veil of hair hanging across her face.

"You get to choose her plug, daddy," Jessie announced brightly, holding up two plugs that had been sitting beside her on the bed. "Small and decorative, just to keep her turned on, or something a little bigger to open her up?"

I made eye contact with both girls very deliberately. "I think anal is definitely going to be on the menu later, so let's go with the bigger one."

Jessie slicked the wider bulb up with lube before squeezing a dollop of it onto the blonde's rosebud. She giggled at the cold, wet feeling, and gasped as the brunette slowly eased two fingers in, slowly pumping and twisting, coating her back passage before pressing the blunt point of the plug to the smaller orifice.

Sienna squeezed her eyes shut, shifted and Jessie's lap as the plug was pushed inside, a small whimper escaping her lips as the widest diameter cleared her backdoor and she clenched involuntarily around the thick stem. My lover stroked her friend's hair for a moment before giving her a smack on the bum. "Go get ready!"

The blonde laughed and carefully straightened, adjusting her denim skirt down before bending at the waist and giving Jessie a fantastic view as she shimmied her barely-there panties up to her waist. She wore a cutoff, white sleeveless Bucks t-shirt that exposed her midriff, and a black choker that made me think of her collar. If I had to guess, there was no bra under that shirt, arousal very prominent in the hard points tenting the fabric. I grabbed her hip as she passed, pulled her into a brief kiss. "Thanks for the show."

"You bet." She passed me, walking slowly and very deliberately.

Jessie rose from the bed and grinned at me before running over and jumping into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist. There was nothing on under her loosely belted, short, blue kimono, and I cupped each warm, bare asscheek as I held her to me. "You'll meet us this evening?"

"Yup. Class first, then I'll start driving. Meet you at that restaurant on the water?"

"We'll be there."

"Good. I can't wait for this weekend." Jessie kissed me, hard, heart-stoppingly deep and intimate, slowly grinding her pelvis against me. When we parted, the look in her eyes was adoring, loving, submissive. "Thank you, daddy. I love you."

I set her down. "Thank YOU. I love you too."

She laughed and showed away towards the bathroom, turned and pulled the robe open, show me flat chest and bald cunt. "Think of what you want to do to me while you're driving."

I winked and blew her a kiss, shut the door behind me and headed downstairs.

McKenna wrapped me in a hug when she saw me. "Hey you."

"Hey. Thanks for watching the kiddo this weekend."

"No worries. We're gonna go to the park and eat junk food and watch Disney movies and be girly girls. It'll be fun."

I chuckled. "You are amusing."

She stepped back, cocked a hip, and rolled her sucker from one side of her mouth to the other. "Still aggravating though, right? I don't want to lose my charm."

"I'm sure you can be. Do you need anything for this weekend?"

"Nope. All set."

"Any money?"

McKenna laughed. "Never again. You're gonna pay me back a different way when you get home."

"Insatiable little nympho."

She stepped closer, whispered. "Wrong. I'm a slut."

"That you are."

Her smile was very...fulfilled.

Sienna said goodbye to Jane, I whirled the little girl around the room until she laughed, then I said my goodbyes, and loaded up the vehicle.

The day was already hot at six-thirty in the morning, a lazy haze hanging over the city despite the brilliant blue sky. Sienna looked back at the three-story house as we drove away, and I could sense she was uncomfortable with leaving her daughter behind. She wanted to go, wanted to take a vacation, be an adult without so much responsibility and worry... But she was still a parent. I put my hand on her bare leg and she gave me a soft smile.

Despite living with her and her daughter for nearly a year now, the thought of Sienna being a mom still surprised me at times.

The route I'd chosen up to Bayfield was two hours longer than it could've been, but we drove through much more inhabited areas rather than shooting straight up the middle of the state through hours of boring farmland.

We drove around the Packer stadium a few times once we hit Green Bay, and I stopped so Sienna could take pictures, then I pulled her into a selfie with the massive entrance rising up behind us.

That was our only stop for anything but gas until Marinette. We were following major highways, so there was usually SOMETHING along the side of the road every couple of miles, but for hours and hours the trip was a blur of verdant farmlands, sweltering stops at gas stations, and the soft drone of Mandino and the air conditioner in the truck.

Sienna napped lightly between stops, her head on the window, snoring gently. It made me smile to see her relaxed, at peace.

We pulled into a Mexican restaurant along the waterfront, and I gently roused Sienna with a hand on her shoulder. "Rise and shine, sleepyhead. Time for lunch. Or breakfast. Whatever."

The pavement was baking hot, and even the presence of the lake a few dozen yards away did nothing to cool the air. I immediately started sweating as soon as I got out of the air-conditioned truck, and we headed inside. Inside was not much cooler.

I studied the menu for a while and ordered a burrito with beans and lettuce, and after seeing Sienna hanging back, ordered her two chicken tacos.

We took our food to the patio, watched the waves pound the sand, the gulls circling the parking lot. Marinette wasn't a very big city, maybe a twentieth the size of Milwaukee, and sitting at the edge of the shore with just little clusters of buildings in either direction, it felt like we were alone in the town, on a frontier maybe. We ate and drank our quickly watering soda and relaxed in the scorching heat.

This was a good day so far.

My phone rang and I accepted the Skype call. Dammit, I didn't think there was decent cell service this far up the state.

Jessie appeared on the screen, and she looked like shit. Her eyes were red like she was fighting tears, and there was a haunted expression on her face. "What's wrong?" I asked immediately.

She covered her mouth with the back of her hand, looked off-camera. Everything about her was trembling. "Not gonna be coming up north with you this weekend." She tried to inject some levity into the words, failed.

"Jessie."

"There was a shooting here this morning, a couple of - "

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, but -"

"Are you safe?"

"I'm at school. They're sending a bunch of the casualties here cuz the hospitals are overwhelmed. We're kinda... Working."

"What happened?"

She inhaled sharply, held it, fought for composure. "Shooting in rush hour traffic. Blocked a highway and then shot people in their cars. Then a stolen ambulance showed up with the first responders. It was a bomb. Gary, the victims are..." she bit her lip and I could tell she was grinding her back teeth to hold off from crying.

I rose, walked down the sand dunes as the sun sparkled off the water and the gulls cawed overhead. It was impossible that this kind of pain existed in the same state, on the same planet as the wet sand that folded in along the sides of my shoes. Fucking dammit. "We're coming home."

"No, don't bother. I'm gonna be here until Monday at least. I'm sleeping here at the training college. I called McKenna first and they're gonna stay in all weekend. You literally can't do anything for me, and all you're gonna do is stress out Mike and Jane. Go. Have fun. I'll see you Monday."

I gritted my teeth. "No. We're turning around. I'll be there yet this afternoon."

"No. Please. Go. I don't want you two anywhere near this city. Best case you just sit in the house and worry. Worst case, there's another incident while you're out... Just stay away, Gary. I don't want to have to worry about you too."

"I'm gonna worry about YOU."

"But at least you're safe. And I won't have wasted...all that money." A slight smirk twisted her lips.

I couldn't argue with that. Presence at my shoulder and Sienna looked at the screen. "Jess, is everything alright?"

On-screen, my lover drew a shuddering breath. "No. I'm not gonna be joining you guys. Gary will fill you in." She cocked her head like she'd heard something. "Gotta go. Gary, if you want to do something for me, send food to the training hospital tonight. Pizza, that sort of thing. Next couple of days are gonna be fast."

The call closed, and a few seconds later, a text came through. "Sorry. I love you." Followed by a smilie face.

Fuck.

We trudged back to the table and I started searching the web for news. There was video. Dammit, there was video.

I held the phone out to Sienna, and we watched the ugliness unfold in our home town. A local TV station had a helicopter out to monitor the traffic situation caused by the crashed van, and after a few seconds of watching the stalled highway, we saw three small figures begin moving car to car. Flashes of light connected them to the car windows, and then people began exiting their vehicles in droves, running, scattering away from the horror unfolding around them. In a jammed highway, there wasn't much room to maneuver.

The three figures were shooting unarmed, defenseless fish in a barrel.

I tuned out the announcer, reached across and held Sienna's hand.

The video cut out and the talking head talked for a minute, then it returned to another aerial shot. This time the camera was watching first responders triaging a crowd of people around a cluster of emergency vehicles at the back of the traffic jam. For a few seconds, the scene was just frantic squirming movement of the crowd, and then there was a flash of light and a roiling cloud of flame obscured the scene and the helicopter banked away.

Sienna stared at the sky for a long time. "That was my ex," she said finally. "He did that. Planned it. Organized it. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if he was there. He's looking for me."

"See, I - "

She cut me off. "All the other hotspots in this country? He could be in California or Oregon or Washington or Massachusetts where he has more support, bigger targets. Instead, he's in fucking Milwaukee Wisconsin? Where I am? He wants ME!"

"He's not getting you. I won't let him. I'll kill him first."

"You can't fucking stop him, Gary. He's America's fucking bin Laden. He's got cells in every fucking city. He's a fucking Force Recon Marine."

I rubbed the scar on the side of my head, grinned at her. "I keep telling my girls, I'm like The Rooster. Ain't found a way to kill me yet. I fought him once and walked away, and I was unarmed. Never making that mistake again. We go hand to hand again, I'm gonna gut him."

The grimace she gave me was an ugly, fighting-back-tears smile. "So I'm your girl?"

"Something like that. What do you want to do?"

"Go home."

"Me too. Jessie says not to though. She doesn't want us near Milwaukee, doesn't want to be worrying about us. McKenna and Jane are staying at the house, they're safe, she's staying at the teaching hospital so she's safe." I shrugged. "What do you want to do?"

"Call and make sure my daughter is alright."

"I'll give you some room." I kissed her forehead and went inside to use the restroom. The proprietor had the TV tuned to sports, and after I came out of the bathroom, I leaned against the counter, motioned at the game. "Hey bud, you might want to put on the news. I just got a call from my wife, terrorist attack in Milwaukee."

We watched the news in the still, empty restaurant. More footage coming out, a couple of people had been live-streaming the traffic jam, and the news footage did NOT cut away from them being shot in their vehicles. I could feel the rage building inside me. The mastermind for this massacre had literally been in my hands. If only I'd fought better, harder, had a weapon, this wouldn't have happened. Maybe.

Or maybe the vile losers Morgan Skolnich had organized were now self-sufficient enough to plan and execute this shit themselves.

Motherfucker.

The waiter noticed me gripping the counter like I wanted to rip it off and throw it through the TV and flashed a nervous smile at me. "You want a drink?"

I shook my head. "I'll have one where I'm going. Thanks though."

Back out in the burning afternoon sun, I found Sienna sitting at the patio table, having stopped her pacing. "How are they?"

She sighed. "They're good. McKenna didn't even know anything had happened until Jessie called. Their plans remain mostly unchanged."

"So what do you want to do?"

"Big part of me wants to go home and be with my daughter."

"Then that's where we're going."

"The other part wants to keep going north. I can't fix anything. All we're going to do is make Jessie worry and waste a LOT of her money."

I stared at her, trying to make up my mind. I felt like a selfish asshole, but I really COULDN'T do or fix anything by returning. Jessie was staying at the teaching hospital. McKenna and Jane were safe. "Do YOU want to continue with this weekend?"

The blonde seemed to shrink under my gaze, and I had to remind myself I was nearly a decade older than her. "Yeah," she said softly. "I've been looking forward to this since I helped Jess plan it. I just...I don't want you to think I'm being selfish, trying to steal you away or anything. I hope you can see I've changed..."

The specter of our previous...relationship...still loomed large over whatever it was we had now.

"Will you be ok being alone with me up north. Doing...that...to me...with me...without Jessie around?" She asked the question hesitantly, like she was afraid I might break down, like my emotional status was a nest full of baby birds that had to be handled with extreme care.

It was a fair question.

"Yeah. Probably." I chuckled harshly. "We've both come a long way in five years."

"Are you in...do you have the right... Mindset... For this?"

I sighed, wiped sweat from my scalp with a hand through my short hair. "I think so. You?"

"I think so."

"So how about we keep going and see if either of us want to do this?"

"Deal." She stuck out her hand, laughed when I shook it, and I pulled her close, put my hands on her hips. I was still...off...still bothered, still smoking with anger, but I wanted to reassure Sienna, wanted to get this back on track, wanted to feel... Normal.

I kissed her, and she made no other motion than to press herself against me, hands still at her sides. She LET me kiss her. I tasted spice on her lips, soda on her tongue, and she gave a muffled moan when our kiss lasted longer. I could feel her full breasts rising and falling against my chest, and a part of my anger melted into arousal.

My strong emotions almost always blended together like that.

This woman was dangerous. I could lose myself with her. I had to fight to focus my attention elsewhere when I was with her. The desire to simply POSSESS her was intoxicating, and her willing submission was like handing a handle to an alcoholic. To quote one of Jessie's favorite songs, I wanted to hurt her just to hear her screaming my name, and the fact that she'd let me, WANTED me to had always threatened to teeter me into addiction.

Sienna gasped when we separated, and she looked like I'd need to hold her.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, just...wow. I really want you to kiss me like that again."

I smirked. "Let's get going."

The air conditioning cut the heat in a matter of minutes, and I turned the book on tape back on as the mile markers sped by. The highways this far north had been carved out of the forest, and greenery towered along the road, reminding us that we were very small and very alone in this vast wilderness.

In my previous life, I loved being on my snowmobile and riding the countryside, hiking through snow-covered backcountry, hunting deer and squirrel in the desolate winter landscape. There was a lot less of that now that I lived in the city and my vacation home was a scorched hole in the ground. I still liked nature though, and I could feel myself relaxing as the Suburban wound its way through the Wisconsin North Woods.

I looked over at Sienna dozing against the window and smiled, immediately felt guilty. Jessie should be here too. She should be riding in the front seat with me instead of covered in other peoples blood. I tried to imagine her in the hospital, my gothic girl in her scrubs. I had no idea what she was doing other than she was helping. Was she stitching people up, delivering medications, answering call buttons? Bandaging and rebandaging wounds I guessed. An endless procession of them as the hospitals are overwhelmed with casualties. I missed Jessie, profoundly. I'd trade my time with Sienna this weekend for time with her in a heartbeat.

I could feel myself getting angry again. I could see Morgan's face in my mind, blonde hair and goatee, hear his southern drawl. If I'd just fought harder, better, a lot of people might still be alive today. I resisted the urge to switch to the radio, to news coverage. Better not to get worked up over it.

"You awake?" I asked quietly.

Sienna turned her head to me and gave me a lazy smile. "Yeah, kinda. Just dreaming about you kissing me before. That was really nice."

"Play with yourself."

"Here? Right now?" She straightened, looked around the road. This far north, the road was barely trafficked, and the truck was high enough up that only a semi driver could see in. Still, she seemed surprised by the command.

"Yes. I want you to masturbate for me."

"How?"

"However you think is best."

"Can I take my kegel beads out so I can finger myself?"

"If you'd like."

Sienna gave me a vixen's smile and slouched back in her seat, sliding her hips forward, spreading her legs. Her hands slid under her shirt and I could see her cupping and squeezing her breasts under the thin, white material. Her fingers avoided her nipples for a long time, but eventually I heard her groan and looked over to see obvious pinching and pulling going on beneath the fabric.