A gibbous moon illuminates the mountains and valleys below. Its light only shines through the canopy of evergreen in brief patches. Somewhere, in the dark spaces between, chains are rattling. There is a rhythm to the sound. Soon the chains are accompanied by grunting, and another voice panting. Occasionally a muffled moan.
There is a voice - soft, melodic - broken occasionally by pops and clicks.
"Right there! Yes! Do that!" Charity pleads. Her voice is somewhat desperate. The rhythm of the chains hold steady for a while, but then the rhythm falls apart. There is a shifting of bodies, a random series of moans. Then the rhythm starts up again, perhaps faster or slower. "No! Fuck! Here... turn this way a little."
"(Tock) (tut) thhh!"
"Ow! Sorry!"
Faith rolled over from where she was trying to sleep. "Please. Please stop! Baby! I know you are really horny, but you've been trying for half the night. You're going to kill poor Hope! We need to get some sleep. Please!"
Charity let out a frustrated groan. The rattling of chains stopped. "Fuck!"
<>--+-
The next day in the mid-afternoon, the small road they were following summited another pass revealing another valley, no difference in appearance to the last.
"Are we walking in circles?" Charity asked, using her fingers to indicate walking and then rotating her hand around. "Do you have any fucking idea where we are going?"
Hope obviously knew that she was being challenged by the look of frustration on her face. She spoke quickly in her native language, emphatically pointing at the road and the direction that they were going in.
"We've been walking for two weeks!" Charity said. "We haven't seen a single fucking person." She pointed to her eyes, then shielded them as though she were searching the horizon. Finally she placed her hands next to her temples with her fingers pointing up. "Have you seen any sign of Dammasch? Or Blue?"
Hope held up her hand with only her middle finger extended. This gesture had had no meaning to her prior to meeting Charity. Charity was proud to see that Hope was using it appropriately, but still she simply growled in frustration.
"We're committed now," Faith said. "The road must go somewhere. We walk on." She started down into the next valley.
<>--+-
A woman's screams rose up over the sounds of the nocturnal creatures in the darkness of another summer night. They were screams of ecstasy.
"Oh, Hope! Just the sound of your voice makes my blood boil with desire. Do me now!" Charity popped her finger out of the thimble that dangled on a chain from Hope's navel and spread her legs. Dutifully, Hope climbed on Charity's chest, pinning her down and pushing her butt against Charity's chin. She stroked her sex slicked, metal tipped fingers down Charity's belly, over the chastity's faceplate and into the tender skin of Charity's inner thighs. She leant forward and let the needles protruding from her lips barely graze her lover's abdomen.
"Oh!" Charity moaned and her muscles spasmed with stimulation. "Oh! Oh... OW!" Hope quickly raised herself up, chains rattling, her voice popping and clicking. "I'm ok! I'm ok! That was my fault. Just..."
"For fuck's sake! Stop!" Faith yelled from a few feet away. "Either you two are going to kill each other, or I am going to kill myself before you have an orgasm, Charity. Please. It's been hours! Again! You've got to have abrasions by now!"
"Fuck you, Faith!" Charity screamed. There was a rattle of chains as Hope was pushed to the side. Charity stood up and stumbled in the most convenient direction. "Ow! Fucking tree limb! Arrrgh!!"
Hope's exhalation of exasperation sounded half-hearted.
"Charity! Babe! I'm sorry. Come lie down," Faith pleaded. "We'll sleep and figure out something tomorrow when the sun is up. We'll figure this out together."
<>--+-
Hope placed a collection of green leaves and small red berries in Faith's hands which she held cupped together. She bowed her head down and grabbed one of the leaves in her mouth and began chewing. Charity was sitting on a log with her collection of leaves and berries arranged in a line, mindlessly munching.
Faith stopped chewing for a second and made a retching sound. She spit the leaf out of her mouth. "That's it!" She tossed the leaves and berries on the ground and pulled out her revolver. "I'm going to shoot one of those fucking squirrel looking animals."
"Put that away, Faith!" Charity said. "We only have four bullets left."
"How do you fucking eat that shit, Charity?" Faith said, frowning. "I can't live on grass. Those berries are so bitter and I think they are giving me diarrhea. I'm not a tiny girl like the two of you. I need meat!"
"Then eat some of these grubs," Charity said, holding one up. "They're not all that bad. Kind of like fried moz... mozz... cheese sticks. Crunchy on the outsi..."
"Don't say another fucking word!" Faith said. "You're making me sick."
Hope picked up the leaves and berries that Faith had dropped and pushed them back into Faith's hands speaking quietly in her native language.
"Yes, ma'am," Faith said, sarcastically.
"Ha! Even Hope hates a hangry Faith," Charity said.
Hope turned towards Charity suddenly, and started speaking much more quickly and loudly than usual, distinctly pointing in the direction opposite from the one they had been traveling in. Whatever she was saying, it ended in a very distinctive "Fuhk you!"
"What crawled up her ass?" Faith asked.
Hope turned toward Faith and started talking again, clearly angry about something. She pointed at Faith, then used her right hand like a puppet patting her fingers and thumb together rapidly and clearly vocalizing something equivalent to "blah blah blah blah". Then she pointed to Charity and used her left hand to make the same motion.
"I think that she is tired of all your bickering," Charity said.
Hope was not finished though. "Hh-oe do!" she said with her right hand puppet in motion. "Hh-oe do!" she said again with her left hand puppet. Then she pointed to the distance in one direction. "Hh-oe home!" Then she pointed down the road they were traveling. "Day ah bru!" She held her hands by her temples with her fingers raised. She was indicating the Goddess Dammasch. She pointed to the needles protruding from her lips. "Day ah bru!" She pointed to the array of sharp needles poking out around her nipples. "Day ah bru!" She pointed down at the needles around her clitoris. "Day ah bru!" Then she clacked the seamless manacles welded around her wrists together. "Day ah bru!" She pulled at the links of jewelry chain criss-crossing her face. "Day ah bru!" Finally, she pointed at Charity. "Day ah bru. Do you!!"
'Day ah bru' was the name that Hope used for Dammasch. She clearly blamed Dammasch for all of her most inconvenient body modifications. The inconvenient modifications were only a small subset of the full array of tattoos, piercings, and implants that covered Hope's body. She had never told Charity who was responsible for all the rest.
"If that is what Dammasch wanted to do to me," Charity argued, "she could have already done it. Besides, she had Blue. And Blue has the collar with the key that can take this fucking belt off me!"
"No!" Hope yelled. "No B-ue! B-ue, no!"
Hope pointed at her eyes. Then she made a circle motion around her neck. Then she pointed at Charity's crotch. "No B-ue!"
Charity pushed Hope's hair to the side and slipped a finger in the eyebolt protruding from her scapula. She yanked on it pulling Hope off balance for a moment. "You couldn't see whether or not the girl in the frame had a collar or not! You were hanging thirty feet up in the air!"
"No B-ue!" Hope yelled again.
"It was Blue!" Charity yelled. "You don't even know Blue! Do you want to leave, Hope? Do you want to go home? Aban.. ab... leave? You don't care that I'm going to turn into some kind of horny wild animal."
Hope most likely had no idea what Charity was saying, but she had a very sour look on her face. For some reason that made Charity even madder. She pushed the elastic band of the asylum pants down to her knees and pointed at the chastity belt. "Dammasch! Day ah bru! Whatever!" She pointed at her head. "Day ah bru! I have no choice, but to get this fucking thing off! She has Blue! We have to save Blue!"
The whole time Charity was speaking, Hope kept saying, "No! No! No! No B-ue!!"
"Y.. I... Fff..." Charity was so angry suddenly that she couldn't even make words form in her mouth. "Y...!" Suddenly, her anger began to turn to fear. She knew what she wanted to say, but she couldn't make her mouth form the words. Her fear level rose and suddenly she could only think of one thing to do. Run!
Charity started to take a step, but started to trip since her pants were around her knees. She kicked her pants off with her feet. Then she grabbed her shirt in the middle with both hands and, with a loud ripping sound, tore the entire front of the shirt from neck to hem.
"Arrrrggghh!" Charity screamed, throwing her shirt into the air. She started running through the woods. Somewhere inside her head, there was a small, logical thought process that was saying to herself, "I'm running naked through some alien forest. That's it! I'm crazy! I'm going to twist an ankle or run into a tree and injure myself."
But, when she looked ahead of her, she felt as though the world was passing by in slow motion. She knew exactly where her next step would land and two more after that. All the obstacles in her way were clear and she could see a path though. There was a certain ecstasy in running. The wind in her hair. The feel of successfully ducking and dodging tree limbs and rocks. She leapt over bushes and slipped past thorny tangles of vines.
"I could just run forever. I'll just never stop!" she thought to herself.
She did stop after a while. Her anger had run its course. She looked around. She sat on a nearby rock. She had no idea where she had come from. She couldn't see Faith or Hope or the road. She looked down at herself. She was completely naked except for her chastity belt. She was sitting in an alien forest with nothing. Nothing! She opened her mouth. "Can I speak?" she said aloud to herself. "Yes, I can. Now what?"
Luckily, after about five minutes she heard Faith call her name. She stood and started walking in the direction of her voice. After another five minutes she could see Faith and when she met up with her they just looked at each other for a second, then Faith turned and led Charity back towards the road.
When they were finally able to see Hope, Faith said, "I guess that you can mark 'Tear off shirt like the Incredible Hulk' from your bucket list. Are you good?"
"Still part human, I guess," Charity said calmly.
Hope was methodically pressing the end of a fat stick into a hole in a fallen log, crushing some combination of leaves, moss, and mud. She put down the stick when Charity walked up. She grabbed Charity's right hand and pressed it firmly over her heart. Tears were running from her lapiz-blue eyes.
"I know, Hope," Charity said, taking Hope's right hand and pressing it in the same manner over her own left breast. "I'm sorry, too!"
"For fuck's sake, Babe. Was this all just a lovers' spat?" Faith asked, holding up Charity's ripped shirt. "Put on your fucking clothes."
<>--+-
