Overlord Ch. 03

Farren Heights Park was really where they should have met to begin with. The Disciplinarians rarely ventured into the park unless summoned, and the park's caretakers, more often than not, would refrain from calling them for a few grams of cannabis or a bar of chocolate.

"I ain't got any Belgian left," said the voice from the equipment shed behind the hardware store, "but I got Hershey's, wine, weed, three boxes o' cigarettes..."

"Hershey bar, please," Winston interrupted her. When the black market saleswoman popped out from under the forklift to hand him his purchase, Winston recognized her under the oil stains.

"Maria! I didn't know you were in this business."

A mischievous smile lit across her wide and normally innocent face. "I been doin' this since they brought me here. I guess I'm no good at running curfew, but they ain't caught me dealing, not once."

Winston was surprised to hear that. She hadn't impressed him with her lying skills the last time he saw her, but he wasn't going to argue.

Maria pulled herself out from under the machine and stood awkwardly up, wiping some dirty bangs out of her dirty face. "Last time you saw me," she admitted, "I wasn't doin' what I do best." She reached her free hand back and rubbed the seat of her workpants in painful recollection. "Here, pick a bar. Thirty credits a pop."

He handed her two fifties and took three bars. He was normally pickier in his choice of illicits, but this was just for bribery purposes. "Take care of yourself," he cautioned Maria after he had pocketed the change.

"You too, Win. I saw O'Brien chasing you around. That bitch ain't making life easy, not for no one."

Maria crawled back under the forklift to return the rest to her stash. Winston was treated to a head-on view of that implausibly huge bottom as she bent down, even her baggy workpants unable to hide how each cheek wobbled as she crawled forth. Not a week ago, he had seen it naked, being cruelly striped.

"See something ya' like?" Maria giggled playfully from under the machine, "I don't mind, but if you stay here too long they gonna get suspicious." She wiggled something that Winston liked in his direction. Winston left before they could get suspicious.

He gave a bar to the first park warden he met at Farren Heights and waited at the bench they had specified at work the other day. April was about to become May, but the wind was still frigid; Winston pulled his coat tighter around himself as he looked out through a gap in the trees. Through the clearing, below and all around the forested hills, City-71 lay coiled around the landscape. Some people said that Overlord built the city from scratch. Others insisted that it had been some obscure Soviet-era town or small city, run-down and under-populated, before Overlord's renovations. Many blocks away, a tall, rectangular building grew from the urban seabed, its spires topped by blinking lights. The command center was beautiful, in a surreal, futuristic way. Its strange beauty was harder to appreciate, of course, when one knew that the Disciplinarians were based out of that building, and that repeat offenders were incarcerated there for anywhere from days to weeks. When the prisoners returned, they were invariably meek, contrite, and incapable of sitting down. Rumor had it that in some deep, secret chamber of the command center, one of Overlord's own mechanical brains laired, connecting City-71 to the rest of its global network.

"Lots of Command Center activity this afternoon," said a Singaporese voice from behind him. "Sorry I'm late."

"No worries," Winston said as he turned to greet her, "I only just arrived."

Julia was wearing a much more modest, loosely fitting black overcoat today, which covered her torso and hung a foot or so past her waist. Her eye shadow and lipstick were much drabber and more subdued. Winston wondered if this was coincidence, or a conscious reaction to what happened four days ago. At his invitation, she sat down on the bench beside him, keeping a modest distance between their bodies. Silence. Through the clearing in front of them, the spires of the command center sparkled and gleamed against the grey sky.

"I'm really sorry," Julia finally said, "I knew it was too risky."

"I invited you in. Besides, is it riskier than sneaking out at night like you always do?"

Julia shook her head. Her hair shifted and flowed over her neck and shoulders. "If I get caught sneaking out, no one else gets punished."

Winston appraised her very carefully. Her face was neutral, her mouth carefully shut. She had the demeanor of someone avoiding a subject, and he was pretty sure he knew which subject it was. The question now was whether he had the courage to go there himself. On one hand, she might not want to talk about it. On the other, it was going to keep hanging over them until they did.

Winston made himself smile. "I hope you weren't too traumatized," he said, giving her a half-playful nudge, "having to see that."

Finally, Julia looked him in the eyes.

"It didn't bother me," she said unconvincingly. She paused a second, the chilly air biting both their faces. Then, in response to his unspoken argument, "Why would it?"

Her green, crystalline irises demanded an answer, even though the rest of her face was nervous. How many different emotions is she feeling right now? Are they the same as mine?

"Was just making sure," Winston said slowly, picking each word with care, "that you didn't get the impression I... liked... that."

As he said this, O'Brien's full breasts and gentle lips danced in front of his mind's eye, and he felt the ghost of her hairbrush on his butt and her tongue on his glans. He felt his penis get a little harder, and Julia's gaze became more difficult to meet.

The breeze slowed down. The sun started peeking through the clouds. It got warmer, but they kept their overcoats on.

"Winston," Julia looked back at the command center as she broke the latest silence, "when you walked me to the store and we saw Maria spanked, did you feel anything?"

Since she was looking away, Winston didn't have to force himself to meet her eyes. His mouth formed one silent word, and then another. The breeze picked up a little. Finally, he settled on "Yes."

Julia made a peculiar humming sound, still looking at the alien spires. Then, "I don't think Oh-vuh-load knows about us."

His head slowly turned to face her profile. She was staring placidly through the clearing, the emerging sunlight starting to highlight her skin.

"Us," Winston repeated.

"I was really sorry when the cop walked in on us," Julia avoided the obvious question, "but when I watched... it was like with Maria."

They looked at each other again. Uncountable, tiny signals passed from brain to brain through their faces and eyes.

"I brought some stewed lobster," Winston said as he held up the box.

They laughed. The sun started to really warm the air, and Winston shed his coat. Julia opened hers part of the way, revealing the silky tank top beneath. As they helped themselves to the well-spiced crustacean ("My father's recipe," Winston explained), the conversation slowly resumed.

"I've been like this since I was old enough to look at women," he explained, impaling a few snow peas on his fork. "Not that it's mattered in almost..." he stopped a moment to count "...ten years, until the world went to hell."

"Ten years?" Julia asked softly, wiping her painted lips in preparation for the next forkful, "how old are you?"

Winston chuckled cynically. "It's not polite to ask that; only our second date. But you're too charming for me. Fifty-five."

"Oh," she said, obviously taken a little aback, "I'm only twenty-four." She looked at the face that Winston had been trying to think of as his own for the last few months, shaking her head. "You can never tell anymore."

Winston placed a hand reassuringly on hers. She squeezed it gently as her other arm went back for more lobster. Unlike him, Julia looked her age. He wondered if her body would change and assume a mature sensuality like the other "old" women of City-71, or if she would remain a girlish flower until whatever age Overlord let people die at.

"I was spanked by my mother," Julia recounted at Winston's request, "never since I moved out. I went out with one boy my age that let me... um... use his belt," she blushed yet again. Damn, it was easy to make her do that. "But he never did it back."

"There must have been something wrong with him," Winston said, squeezing her wrist a little tighter, "I'm sure every man who sees you wants you over his knee."

Julia looked up with mock anger. "You speak from experience, Winston?"

He grinned, shrugging innocently. "So? You already admitted you liked what you saw in my apartment."

She growled incoherently under her breath. Winston chuckled.

"Anyway," she said forcefully, "I didn't always look like this."

Winston couldn't repress his curious grin. "Oh?"

Julia nodded. "I used to be a stick. I don't think I'll ever know why Oh-vuh-load turned me into..." she indicated her shapely torso.

"It's done a fine job, whatever it was trying to accomplish."

Julia took her hands off her face and puzzled out what he had just said. "So," she said slowly, gesturing to her torso again, "you're saying you like me like this?"

"I've never seen you any other way. But yes."

More sun and wind and singing birds. Two heartbeats in close proximity. Then their faces came together, and Winston savored the taste of a healthy young mouth as he pushed his tongue between Julia's lips, meeting and probing hers. He raised a palm behind her head, holding her in place and pushing her face deeper into his. She reached behind him and squeezed his chest to her body, digging her small breasts into his abs. Their faces merged for almost a minute before they came up for air.

"Why," Julia gasped as she clutched his neck and looked longingly up into his eyes, "are we doing this? We only just met."

He shook his head. "You were the one who wrote the first letter."

"I mean physically!" She rolled her head helplessly toward the clearing, through which the command center glittered. "I can't help it," she whispered in his ear, "there's always someone being spanked, right where I can see."

"It keeps you horny all the time," Winston finished for her, "and you feel like scum for enjoying it. For showing them pity and really feeling sorry for them, but then going home to..."

He trailed off. Reluctantly, she looked him in the eyes and nodded yes.

"I wonder," Winston mused, "if the sex ban is also part of it."

She raised a painted eyebrow. "How?"

Winston put an arm around her and let her lean in. "The coppers are always looking for signs of sex, or romance," Winston said, "and we always feel them watching us for it. So they're always reminding us of it. Making us think about it."

"But... why?" Julia exclaimed, "If Oh-vuh-load doesn't want us doing that, how could it possibly make a mistake like that?"

Winston shrugged, clutching her a little more tightly when his arms relaxed. "At the end of the day, Overlord's just a machine."

They looked back out at the sunlit command center. Then they looked at each other.

"Are we machines too?" Julia asked.

Winston raised an eyebrow. "Is that meant to be philosophical?"

"No," she smiled mischievously, "it's meant to distract you."

This confusing statement left Winston distracted just long enough for Julia to put her hand in his armpit and tickle him. Winston gasped, barely able to hold in a laugh, as his arm reflexively clamped back against his side. Julia pulled her hand out just in time and took off, giggling, across the hilltop. Winston shook his head, sucking in a deep, predatory breath as he watched her perky little bottom working under her coat as she fled. He didn't even feel his own boyish grin until he had gotten up and started after her. She was faster, but the row of bushes blocked her path, and soon Winston had seized her by the shoulder.

"What are you going to do?" she challenged, struggling against his muscular arms.

"That's kind of a silly question, at this point."

She squealed and reached for his armpit again, but this time Winston saw it coming and twisted out of the way, pulling her body back against his as he did. She kept squealing and struggling, but Winston was much too strong. Soon he had dragged the two of them under a big sumac bush and forced Julia to the ground beside him.

"What if someone hears us?" Julia cautioned.

"They'll think the Disciplinarians caught someone. Maybe it will even give us more privacy."

And with that, he pulled the young woman across his lap and flipped the tail of her coat up over her back. Her blue jeans were tight, clearly showing the tall, springy humps of her bottom cheeks. A thin beam of sunlight that broke through the bushes somehow managed to fall right on the thickest part of them, showing Winston exactly where to strike.

The first slap elicited an "ah!" from Julia. He rubbed her bouncy rear roughly, savoring its tightness through her thin jeans, and then slapped the other cheek. "Ai!" she yelped.

Julia's legs and stomach were probably getting covered with dirt and dead leaves, but when she looked over her shoulder at him her expression made it clear she didn't care. With the third slap Winston put in more muscle, and her bottom twitched as if it were a completely separate animal. The movement provoked Winston's frustrated endocrine system like nothing ever had before, and he started slapping faster and even harder, squeezing her against his lap with his other arm so she couldn't escape. O'Brien, Maria, the cold winds and cloudy skies, the alien spires and blinking lights, the fear and lust of City-71 poured through Winston's arm and into Julia's helpless rump. She started to moan pitiably, her struggles becoming less voluntary, her face flushing red. When Winston finally stopped the spanking, she lay in place, whimpering a little, as he massaged her tumescent bottom with both hands. The seat of her pants was burning hot. Winston only wondered how the skin underneath must have felt, let alone its color.

"You're evil," Julia whispered as she raised her bottom to meet his rubbing.

"We're even now," Winston retorted. His own pants were stretched painfully to contain his erection, which Julia could certainly feel. He squeezed her bottom a little harder, making her wince.

Julia shook her head, sending a pair of dead leaves tumbling out of her hair. "No. But we will be."

Suddenly, her leg shot out and around, bringing her into a sitting position straddling Winston's lap. She leaned her face in, giving him a quick kiss on the lips, before putting her hands on his shoulders and using her body to slam him down onto his back. As Winston blinked, Julia wrapped her legs under his and grabbed two handfuls of his torso. She smiled down at him.

"I told you I was sneaky." She kissed him again. "I can get out of handcuffs too."

"You'll have to teach me some of this," Winston said, his humiliation being drowned out by the heat and texture of her straddling body.

"Maybe later. Right now you-Ai!"

Winston had gotten a hand free and grabbed her right breast, finding the glass-hard nipple and pinching it. Julia instantly recoiled, breaking her grip long enough for Winston to use his greater size and strength to force her off of him and onto her back. She hissed as he climbed on top of her and forced her sore bottom against the hard, root-laden earth. Winston leered, victorious. A couple of sumac branches had whipped him across the face hard enough to leave marks, but it was worth it.

"You have your tricks, I've got mine. Overlord doesn't stand a chance against the two of us."

"Why are my clothes still on?"

"Ah, sorry. I'll get started on that."

*****

Winston only barely made it home before curfew. He smelled of sweat and sumac, but there were a million ways to become dishevelled and dirty in City-71. For the first time since he awoke here, he wasn't searching around for hidden danger as he walked up the street. When a pair of blue-suited Disciplinarians crossed his path at the intersection, he couldn't be bothered to spite them for their smug expressions and revealing uniforms. He reminded himself not to get too overconfident; whatever boasts he had made with Julia, Overlord was still living up to its name. The city was still an enemy. The planet was still occupied territory.

But at least Winston Fisher knew, as he sat in his little living room and hid the world behind the door as he lit up a contraband cigarette, that he wasn't alone anymore.