David was acutely aware of the unrestrained undulations of Deanna's breasts under her sweater dress as he drove his extra cab, Toyota Tacoma up the gravel road that lead to his parent's ranch. She had the seat leaned all of the way back so she could snooze during the hours long drive to the hinterland. He didn't begrudge her the sleep. She had worked extra hours at the hospital after her normal, twelve hour shift so she could get Christmas Eve off. She'd been exhausted when she picked him up at the airport. She had been on duty since midnight. He had slept during the series of military and commercial flights from a location that he was not at liberty to reveal.
Like most of the few women that David encountered whenever he returned to civilization, his normally demure wife had apparently gotten into the habit of going braless during the pandemic. He couldn't be certain because he was normally home only every third weekend. However; instead of her now seemingly habitual hospital scrubs, she was wearing a tacky Christmas sweater dress along with a pair of thigh high socks that he had given her years ago, when she picked him up at the airport. As the hem of her dress had ridden higher and higher during the drive East on Interstate Eighty-four, first her stocking tops then her red pubic hair had been revealed to his furtive gazes. He was not surprised to see that she'd gone commando again. The sight evoked memories of the collection of vintage, Penthouse magazines that he had discovered in his uncle's garage back when he was an adolescent.
The evolution of Deanna's attire really wasn't that remarkable. First the plague then the Ukraine war, then the abortive war in the western Pacific had stripped away many of the pretensions of propriety that had once dominated so many peoples' lives. People were far more concerned about survival.
Although President Biden's infamous press conference had been carefully choreographed and rehearsed, he'd screwed it up, royally. It had been the greatest diplomatic blunder, ever. Biden had even surpassed April Glaspie whose assurances to Iraq that the United States didn't have any position on that country's border dispute with Kuwait had emboldened Saddam Hussein to invade. Of course April Glaspie's FUBAR had only resulted in the First Gulf War, the nine-eleven terrorist attacks, the Afghanistan Forever War, the Second Gulf War, the endless occupation of Iraq, and the rise of wars against ISIS and ISIL.
Although he understood on an intellectual level that there should be no serious danger, habit compelled David to check the reading on the Geiger counter that he had Velcroed to the dashboard. Thanks to his connections, it was a military grade radiation meter. He had of course downloaded an app to his smartphone that transformed the imaging chip for the camera into an expedient Geiger counter. He had also constructed a couple of expedient radiation meters out of tin cans, Aluminum foil and fishing line just to ensure that he could do it in the most desperate emergency. Of course he kept his original copies of NUCLEAR WAR SURVIVAL SKILLS and Bruce Clayton's LIFE AFTER DOOMSDAY close at hand. Clayton had been gracious enough to offer an exemption to his copyright in the event of a nuclear war, but newly printed copies had become the best seller on Amazon.
When the war in Ukraine went bad for the allies, Biden in a fit of senile imbecility had escalated to limited nuclear strikes. Nutty Nancy Pelosi and Upchuck Schumer had even endorsed using nukes. The nuclear strikes might not have remained quite so limited if President Edrogen of Turkey hadn't seized control over the cache of nukes at the Incirlik airbase. Vladimir Putin's vengeance had been remarkably restrained. Russia had primarily targeted Kyiv and other cities in Western Ukraine as well as Warsaw. Germany had eagerly withdrawn from NATO and declared itself neutral when Putin threatened to nuke Berlin. All of America's other European allies had jumped from the sinking ship. Aside from the low yield tactical nukes employed against Langley and the Pentagon, the only city in the United States to get nuked had been San Francisco. Edrogen had nuked a Russian battlecruiser patrolling the Black Sea just to prove that he had defeated the Permissive Action Links on the nukes that he had seized from the United States and to deter any retaliation against Ankara. Nuclear War Two might have continued to escalate if President Harris hadn't yielded to the ultimatum to literally get down on her knees to appease Vladimir Putin on a live television broadcast. It had been the only Presidential duty that she was truly qualified for.
The total megatonnage detonated by both sides of the Ukraine War hadn't even equaled the Tsar bomb test much less all of the nukes that had been detonated before above ground nuclear tests had been banned. The global fallout had been trivial, and of course the shorter lived fission products had quickly decayed during the first few seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks. The limited nuclear exchanges that had resulted from China exploiting the Ukraine debacle as an engraved invitation to invade Taiwan hadn't been that much worse. Japan and South Korea had been content to merely demonstrate that they had covert nuclear arsenals and they had both been wise enough to target North Korea. President Harris had been compelled to once again get down on her knees, this time to appease President Xi, to avert further escalation Nuclear War Three.
The prospect of seeing their children again after half a year of isolation excited David. Given Deanna's job treating Covidvirus patients, they had both agreed that sending their kids off to live with their grandparents was a wise precaution. The kids had relished spending the summer riding horses and driving tractors to help their grandparents run the ranch. Everyone had agreed that the kids should stay at the ranch when the Ukraine war went nuclear.
David was acutely aware that Deanna was ambivalent about the prospect of once again sharing a bed with her husband after another three weeks of presumably sleeping alone. As the first few weeks of lockdowns had stretched into months, the tensions between them had gotten worse and worse. Having the children home all of the time had discouraged them from fully exploiting the time together. Their sex life had been the most obvious causality. Sending the kids away had helped, but for only a few weeks. They had both been relieved when David's business travels resumed because of rather than in spite of the restrictions that would prevent him from being home more often than every third weekend. Ironically, his absences seemed to have made her heart grow fonder. However; they had also been recently reminded of the potential consequences.
Thinking about Deanna's reticence during his last visit home inspired David to reach down to cautiously caress her pubic mound. When she didn't rouse to object, he slipped his hand down the loose, low cut neckline of her dress to furtively fondle her naked breasts. He felt his penis stirring with hopeful anticipation. It was Christmas Eve. It was their tradition that Santa would always cum down Deanna's chimney on Christmas Eve.
Unfortunately; the fear that Deanna might be offended if she awakened to discover that her husband was taking liberties without her consent deterred David from continuing to fondle her breasts. He withdrew his hand from her neckline. In an effort to distract himself, he focused his attention on the blowing snow.
Unlike Deanna who had been raised in the of Willamette valley where snow was an infrequent catastrophe because it was so infrequent, he had grown up in the mountainous interior where heavy snows were just a normal part of winter. He'd mastered driving in snow before he had even became a teenager. David enjoyed driving through the virgin snow that must have been a foot deep. He was free to savor the sight of the snow covered landscape that was revealed whenever the storm abated.
David reached down to covertly caress Deanna's pubic mound again. When he felt her getting moist, he inserted one finger then two to probe for her clit then her gee shot. Her drowsy moaning gave him hope that this visit, she would not refuse him.
Even in the almost white out, David could not have missed the turn off to the driveway that led to the main ranch compound that was nestled in a bowl shaped valley that was "only" a few hundred acres. His family's ranch sprawled out over thousands of acres of grain and hay fields, pastures and forests. They drove past wintering paddocks with their feed bunks, watering troughs and loafing sheds lining the driveway, then the hay sheds, grain silos, machine sheds and shops towards the spectacular log lodge that David had helped his father build when he was barely a teenager.
David felt himself becoming enraged when he noted that most of the paddocks were empty. Government agents had been requisitioning beef, allegedly to feed the disadvantaged, again. The normal procedure was to send out an entire platoon of heavily armed National Guardsman backed up by armored vehicles to appropriate vital supplies. David's family was willing and able to deal with cattle rustlers, but they were not yet willing to emulate Levoy Finnicum.
David exploited the legitimate need to awaken his wife as an excuse to fondle her breasts again. He was gentle and sensual about it rather than crude and rough. She was almost amused to discover that his hand was down her neckline when she finally roused. Unfortunately; she recognized where they were. She tilted her seat up which sort of compelled him to withdraw his hand then pulled the hem of her dress down so that she was decent.
David's dad and their two eldest children stampeded out of the lodge onto the porch to greet them. There were hugs all around with kisses for Deanna. It became obvious that Deanna realized that her father-in-law was noticing her somewhat inadequate attire, but he was trying to be a gentleman about it. There were plenty of hands to help them with their suitcases. It was obvious that David junior had finally entered the early stages of puberty. Dena was beginning to blossom.
The sound of a high pitched whoop alerted them to Debbie's approach. She was riding the big stallion that had sort of adopted her during her visit to the ranch during the previous, more idyllic summer. The horse and tween girl seemed to be melded into a Centaur as they jumped the rail fencing. Lodge pole pine had once again become the fencing of choice now that barbed wire was in such short supply.
As the stallion cantered up to them, David's gaze was drawn to the buttstock of the rifle that protruded from a scabbard lashed to the saddle. A casual observer might have mistaken the wooden stock as evidence of a politically correct rifle. It was in fact the stock of an M-1 Garand rifle. The thirty-ought-six, semiautomatic rifle had a magazine capacity of only eight rounds, but the larger caliber, far heavier bullets vastly outranged an AR-fifteen assault rifle. In the hands of an expert marksman or markswoman, it was vastly superior to an assault rifle in open country. Debbie had become an expert markswoman. His preteen daughter had killed armed looters on more than one occasion.
David's contemplation of Debbie's Garand reminded him of the Ruger Mini-fourteen that Deanna had stowed on the floor behind the rear seats. She suffered from no delusions that the Smith and Wesson thirty-nine-thirteen in her purse was anything more than just a self defense first aid kit. The Beretta ninety-two riding in a holster under David's left arm pit was a step up in firepower, but hardly a panacea. Stowing the rifle on the floor had been a reasonable compromise because it would be discreet but easily accessible if she encountered one of the roving mobs of mostly peaceful protestors during her safari through the People's Republic of Portland to get to the airport. The rifle was a stainless steel version of Ruger's Mini-fourteen complete with a reproduction of the original folding stock. It had once amused David to emulate Colonel Hannibal Smith. Now there was nothing amusing about the compact carbine. He opened the rear half door of his Tacoma to pull the rifle out, removed the thirty round magazine, folded the stock, then lifted the rear jump seat so he could stow the rifle in its customary place under the seat just in case they had passengers later.
Debbie was his only child who was still young enough that she wanted to greet her father with a kiss. David felt tears in his eyes as he hugged his youngest daughter, savoring the unadulterated affection. It was a stark contrast to the uneasy embrace that he had shared with her mother when she picked him up at the airport.
Hours later after a Christmas Eve supper, David found himself sneaking downstairs with Deanna to put the presents under the Christmas tree. He felt like Sidney Greenstreet in Christmas in Connecticut. Of course they didn't really have much to put under the tree. China would have stopped shipping to America even if President Harris hadn't attempted to salvage her dignity by imposing an import ban.
