Chapter 15 - Anna's Underground Retreat
We seemed to have escaped detection by the aerial good guy cops and bad guy enemies of Anna, but needed to get to a rendezvous in the old mining town of Darwin as quickly as possible.
I looked at the black Camaro trying to hide under a few trees. A dead giveaway in the desert. There were a couple of choices. We could take it to Ridgecrest, where there was a mall it could be stashed. Or we could find another grove, farther away from here, to cover it up. Either way, let Anna take responsibility for retrieving it.
There was one other choice. Abandon the truck, cram into the hot rod, and make tracks back to Karen and the house on the hill.
I looked up, smiling. I was in the middle of four older women, all smart, all lovers of mine, all smelly in the heat. If I could smell them, they could smell me, all male animal.
"What's there to smile about?"
"I'm going to tell you what's in my mind, but first I'm going to tell you that I am surrounded by four incredibly smart, sexy women and all I can think about is loving you!"
They rushed me, bending my body back over the hood of the truck. "We should have known! Look at this!" They had my shorts down, pouring water on a hot, hard cock.
The strained faces were gone. Crouching in the dust, they took turns sucking me. Quick hard sucks, with a touch of their teeth. Smirks and laughs.
"No! please no! I promise to be good. Don't bite it off!"
Talia's stiletto from her boot flashed in the sun. Slowly, it lowered toward my stretched out shaft that was rapidly shrinking. "You are getting a special present, Jeremy. Watch."
The incredibly sharp tip made a quarter inch incision in the broad top of the penis. There was no pain, but a trickle of blood oozed out. Her long tongue reached forward and lapped at the blood. She stood back and gestured to the others. In a minute, four tongues had tasted blood and their owners stepped back, thin smiles looking at me, the shrunken cock no longer advertising any male dominance.
Carolyn spoke for them. "You are bound to us, Jeremy, and we are bound to you."
I opened my arms and we had a five way hug, smearing sweat around. I butt fisted Talia and said, "What brought that on?"
Silence while she looked around the circle. "I just thought that if we are going to get killed out here, we should show our appreciation first."
Chelsea muttered, "Hot damn, you are some woman, Talia."
It took another several gulps of water before I could say, "Dark one, we are going to have a talk about ritual cutting, but not right now."
Chelsea cradled my balls and asked, "Does teeny-weeny need a bandage?"
He had stopped bleeding and I did a quick tuck inside the shorts, "Are you kidding?"
Now was the time for my bad news, while they were still smiling. Pointing at the sleek, low slung beast, I said, "That is a dead giveaway in the desert, even at night..."
Heads nodded. Talia said, "Shit," under her breath.
"We could leave it in a big box parking lot in Ridgecrest, or somewhere in that wilderness preserve north of us. Hope that Anna's people can retrieve it."
Sophie had the right idea. "We don't want those bloody uniforms discovered in it. Better to find a place in the preserve and bury those bags nearby."
She also had the better thought about heading for Karen. "Anna's already considered that. There must be a reason why she wants us to stay over here on the east side of the Sierra."
Chelsea added, "The truck is brand new inside. Plenty of power to get us to San Jose when she wants us there."
My poor brain was scrambled by Talia's knifework, but some things were penetrating.
I straightened out my arm so that my hand was shoulder high, in the center of their circle. Theirs slowly extended as well, until five hands were touching, and then twenty-five fingers finding each other.
Continuing to wiggle my fingers, I said, "We need to relax a moment more. Regardless of whether it is the good guys or the bad guys, Anna is hoping we don't get captured. But their surveillance is just beginning. Every vehicle for fifty miles around is going to get the onceover. Those plates on the pickup tie us to the compound back there. And if we take them off, that is more of a giveaway."
My fingers were drawing them closer until shoulders were leaning on shoulders. Chelsea mumbled, "I could use a nap..."
My fingers wrapped in her hair, I kissed the forehead and leaned her more into me. "We all do. But let's finish the conversation. We didn't have a plan for this, so the odds are not in our favor. But are we worse off hunkering down here until dark, or trying to move up the highway in daylight?"
Sophie poked me, "Very sad leadership. Why weren't we on alert? I think poor odds favor us staying here. It's riskier than they will expect. Some sheriff's deputy is telling the helicopters he is sure we are heading out as fast as we can."
"We need to pair off and take turns staying awake. Let's get these vehicles better hidden."
Carolyn and Sophie insisted on taking the first turn, which had me in the shade and asleep in no time. Too soon, a Talia finger poked me as she said, "It's our turn. Nothing happening so far."
And still quiet for the rest of the day. This time of year, the sun was almost down by six, and everyone gathered for a snack. I wanted to talk to Anna in the worst way, but using the sat phone here was a no-no.
"Our lovely car has to stay where it is. The clothes should be buried as we discussed. We can tell Anna where it is. Let's make our way in the truck to the mall in Ridgecrest and make a call. Hard to localize us there."
Over the next twenty-four hours, our luck continued to hold, although it was really a matter of Anna making our luck for us. In Ridgecrest, she said, "Good to hear your voices. Keep this short. Go to the location I identified to Talia. You will be approached on the ground with further instructions."
In the dim illumination of the parking lot, everyone was looking my way, eyes asking whether we were trying for Darwin in the dark.
"There's a turn from the highway beyond Trona that leads to the ghost town. We will find a concealed spot there and leave before first light. Let's get some takeout."
I decided beer was necessary and asked Chelsea to buy a sixpack as we waited for our order at a Thai place. The business from the Navy lab at China Lake must keep it alive, I thought.
I drove while the women plowed through the delicious food, using fingers and feeding me at the same time. They even sluiced forbidden beer down my throat. The words from Anna had calmed all of us. Even in the dark, it was less than an hour to Trona, a mining town with soda ash deposits nearby. Talia used her iPad to guide us north of town several miles to the poorly marked gravel road that would follow the valley to Darwin. The information on Google said it wasn't completely a ghost town, having ten to twenty hard living residents who valued their privacy and independence.
I smiled and said, "Alright, PhD's, it is time for some Darwin identities. Who are we and why are we arriving in Darwin."
Chelsea pointed to a track leading into the brush and I followed, carefully. Within a hundred yards, there was the perfect little depression we were looking for. Stretching legs, we felt the icy pinpoints of many constellations above. We were nearly a mile high and chill was upon us. Chelsea dropped the tailgate and pulled a large water jug to the edge for washing. A wet soapy washcloth was not a shower, but would have to do. I was instructed to go pee somewhere so they could wash all critical places.
I was emptied out and watching stars when warm breasts pressed my back. "Jeremy, don't get a swelled head, but that was a good job today, getting us here safely." She applied pressure elsewhere and added, "If we ever find a shower, there will be rewards."
Turning her around, I pressed us tightly together, whispering in her ear, "That was pretty grim this morning, dealing with those bodies. Not many young people could handle that like you did."
After a very hot kiss, she smacked my head, "Who is young around here? Last I heard, you said I was an older woman!"
I lunged for her, but met a wall of bare tits. "Yes, Jeremy, what is this age stuff? How many high school guys call fire on themselves in a fight?" We all danced around for a few minutes, letting off a day of tension. Chelsea found a very large tarp and everyone unrolled the sleeping bags grabbed from the house this morning. A dry camp in the desert was not going to contribute any cleanliness, but we snuggled into a pile of bodies, not caring. I set my watch alarm for four.
My brain did not like the buzzing of the watch in the dark, nor did others, who groaned and complained. I said, "Up and out. The watchers never quit. We need cover."
By popular insistence, we took time to boil water for coffee while packing up. I stayed behind the wheel, which wasn't all bad, with fingers placing odd breakfast items in my mouth and holding the coffee cup. Carolyn and Sophie arranged themselves behind me.
"Jeremy, you will like this. We are a group of CCC people who just finished a project at Owens Lake, over to the west. We are exploring Death Valley back country before returning home. Maybe going to Saline Valley Warm Springs. Talia and the two of us were working off drug sentences from a court in Riverside County, which assigned Chelsea, one of their matrons, to make sure we toed the line. You were put in charge of us as your first team leader job with CCC."
Talia hissed, "A druggie, I should have known."
Chelsea jumped into her role. "Quiet, black one. You piss me off and you are back to the hall."
There were suppressed giggles. I said, "Brilliant. Let's get our vocabulary in check. No four syllable words. We're loose. Have been in dirt all summer and don't mind it any more. Clothes haven't seen a washing machine in weeks. Talk it up a bit back there. If we're lucky, we won't need to use these identities much."
Following Anna's instructions, we approached the mostly uninhabited ghost town of Darwin in early light, making as little dust on the gravel road as I could. Talia provided close in details from memory. "Take a left across from the Store and go about a block to a two story house on the left, standing by itself. Park under a tree in the back and go in the closest door, which will have a working lock that is unlocked."
