Naomi

Well that was interesting. Two weeks being cooped up inside with just the odd bit of Emily loving to brighten my days. I've never been much good at just doing nothing. From the time I started school, I was the annoying child who asked too many questions, who read every book on whatever subject I was being taught and then verbally fenced with the teacher until I got busted out or suspended. I was the teenager who passed her exams, but continually challenged every concept I was faced with. I. Was. That. Kid.. My poor mum must have thought she had found Superman's brat, abandoned by the aliens because it asked too many fucking questions. So my restless mind was eventually matched to a restless body. When I left college, all my friends were determined to go off to uni and shag the world, one fresher at a time . I wanted to make a real difference, and when this strange suited guy collared me after a particularly torrid lecture and asked if I had ever considered a career in the Civil Service, I laughed in his face.

Civil Service? Sitting at a terminal with all the other clones, clicking a mouse and waiting for the clock to hit 5.30. Not a fucking chance mate. I said.

Actually, he said, I was thinking more of field job. Field job, I thought? Did he mean meadows and butterflies? Turned out he was looking for recruits for the fucking Army. I think that was taking the Civil Service umbrella a bit far, yeah? In the end, we had a chat, I went to an anonymous office block in Whitehall and...well, just lets say two years later, I was a junior officer in the Intelligence Corp. Or the Green Slime, if you want the nickname other squaddies refer to us as. Sort of spooks with uniforms. I had been sent to several 'hot spots' over the next couple of years, Moscow, Baghdad, Central America, Mexico. Places where I could exercise the skills I had gained in that Bedford hell hole called 'special training'. Physical as well as intellectual training. I was taught to fight, both with and without weapons, infiltrate tight knit organisations, (not always the enemy type) , and make snap judgements which may or may not result in deaths, ours and theirs. Basically, we were part of a small section, known as the 'Caretakers' because we cleaned up other peoples shit. Sometimes living, breathing human shit.

Taking that 10 day leave to sort out Effy's problems with illegal substances was a purely personal move. But it meant that, unlike all my friends and fellow spooks, I was about 250 miles away from the shit when it hit the fan. Which was pretty lucky. Not that I felt particularly lucky at the moment I got shot. My head hurt like fuck a lot of the time, Effy took out the stitches three days after I woke up, but I felt like I had the worst sort of tequila hangover for another 2 days straight. I was building up resistance to the high dose dihydrocodeine, so I asked Effy to back it off. I had seen enough drug dependence in my time. Enough not to want to join that happy band.

So here I was, upright and mobile, with just a small patch of half grown hair over my left ear and the occasional night time migraine. Emily had been with me virtually non stop since I woke up on that gurney. It was getting so I couldn't function properly unless a certain brunette with chocolate eyes smiled at me and said "Good morning gorgeous" with that husky, early morning tone. Jesus, what ever happened to 'Fuck you Campbell' as I was known at the unit? Is this is what love does to you. It was more scary than any hairy arsed Iraqi with a preference for explosive waistcoats had ever been.

It looked like Effy and Cook had the place buzzing anyway. To see Katie Fucking Fitch obeying orders without question and getting her hands dirty loading stores was pretty amazing, I can tell you. Harry was like a little clockwork soldier, into everything, carrying stuff, bringing messages and generally acting like the Duracell bunny on amphetamines. And what can I say about Emily? Apart from the fact that she looked after me like I was the fucking Queen or something? She fed me, she washed me (well, sometimes that washing turned into something completely different) and generally made me feel like I was special. And no one had made me feel special for a very very long time. I was kinda getting used to it. It was nice, you know?

But the honeymoon had to end. Apart from having to put up with the endless Cook lesbian jokes, and the numerous barbs Katie threw my way about not hurting her sister again on pain of immediate death (Jesus, does she ever get fed up with that?), we had bigger things to worry about than whether Emily could find another way of 'amusing' me with various impromptu sexual aids... I'll let your imagination sort that little image out...

Things like, where the fuck were we going next? And would the world end before we even got organised enough to go? My fragile physical condition meant that we were stuck here for at least another week. I was getting OK at dressing myself, washing and eating, but any sort of real exertion made me breathless and dizzy, so I wouldn't be any good as anything more than a passenger for a while yet.

But eventually, things sort of overtook us. Cook got another long update from his friends in the North, and it looked like our window of opportunity was reducing quicker than we hoped. The UK had been hit a few times again, we knew that by the distant flashes in the sky to the north of us, but by all accounts, the remaining population was now reduced mainly to emaciated scavengers, trawling the country for anything edible. We had been very lucky to escape discovery until now. One night, we heard feeble screams coming from a few hundred yards away from us, down by the river. Cook and Effy went out armed with rifles and grenades. They found a group of 5 young men surrounding a woman in her 60's. She was half dead already and stripped of her belongings and tattered clothes by the jackals around her. Cook and Eff took them out with a fragmentation grenade and a few well aimed head shots. They couldn't do anything for the old woman, she was gone by the time they got to her, but it illustrated perfectly our vulnerable position. The men hadn't been armed with anything more lethal than machetes, but they were hungry and desperate enough to have killed anyone who stumbled into their path. It really was time to go.

So we made our move. The white panel van was loaded with as much as we could pack into it. I went with Emily in the Landie, although she insisted on driving. Cook drove the Wrangler pick up with Katie and Effy and Harry took the van. We had a vague plan to reach the coast at Portleven. It had a natural harbour and was likely to have several boats large enough to reach the Scillies, where we had decided to hole up for the time being. When we arrived in the little town, no one was surprised that there weren't any people around. I thought that in the event of something like this happening, people would stay put and hunker down somewhere they felt safe, but something strange had happened. Everywhere we passed was deserted. Not a soul, not a light and not a vehicle. We ended up parking by the quay, next to a pub called the Ship Inn (original or what?) The harbour wall was concrete and steep, but towards the back end of the harbour there were several small motor launches floating at anchor in front of a muddy flat.

They all looked about the same to me, but Cook had enough knowledge, despite his protestations about being a soldier, not a sailor, to spot the only one which would suit us. It was about 50 feet long and had a keel, apparently (Yeah, whatever, that meant it could actually go to sea?). It had a mast, but was powered by a big diesel engine, There was plenty of room on board for all of us. The only trouble was, we had no fucking idea how to drive the pissing thing. The keys were inside the wheelhouse, and I managed to get the engine to start. The whole boat vibrated with a deep rumble and water started to gush out of the on board pump into the silent harbour. The instruments showed it was over ¾ full of fuel and had a full tank of fresh water. OK, so thats the logistics worked out. All we needed was about 200 fucking sea hours experience! Basically we were buggered. Although the sea was flat calm today, and the charts in the overhead locker showed plenty of information on how to get to The Scilly Isles, it was still a fucking dot on the Atlantic, over 36 miles away and in the middle some of the fastest tides around the UK. It was a job for someone experienced, not us. Left to our own devices, we would end up going in circles. shipwrecked or heading for fucking New York, which considering NY would still be glowing luminous green, wasn't a good idea, quite apart from the 3000 mile trip being a little out of our range

"It's a pity my brother isn't here" Harry dead panned "Spent half his life messing around on boats. I bet he could get us there"

"Yeah, well he ain't half pint" Cook said "We need a fucking sailor, and they seem to be an endangered species around here"

Half a day later, we had stored what we thought we would need on the boat and made it our refuge. There were two double cabins and a single, as well as two bunks on either side of the living area/galley. We managed to pull up the anchor, by trial and error, and motored a bit further out towards the harbour mouth. Far enough to be away from the shore and danger, but close enough to be able to lower the little skiff, with it's outboard motor, and drive it to the harbour wall if we needed anything land side. That meant we could sleep easy at night, knowing no one could surprise us, but we were still protected from the sea and weather, if it changed.

Eventually, after another group meeting, it was decided that Cook and Harry would do a bit of exploring, just in case we came across an ancient mariner or something. It was a long shot, but I am fucking glad we did it. Within half an hour, the little skiff was speeding back across the water towards us, with Harry in the bow, grinning like she had won first prize in a survival lottery. When she and Cook scrambled back aboard, she could hardly speak, she was so happy.

"We found something" she gasped, jumping up and down as if possessed. "We found something!"

"Slow down Harry" I said, laughing at her enthusiasm "What did you find?"

Cook took over, because Harry seemed to have lost the power of coherent speech for the moment.

"A message, written on that wall over there" he smiled "And again, on another stone wall on the way in. We must have missed it when we passed"

"What fucking message" I said, along with Emily, Effy and Katie. It sounded like we were auditioning for a barber shop quartet.

He sat on the small bench surrounding the inner deck. "A message from a certain Jake Summers" he said "Tell them what it said, Harry"

She beamed at him and spoke in a slightly calmer voice "It said 'Winter is Coming, SW810325. Jake' she said.

We looked at her like she was mad.

"What the actual fuck does that mean?" we all shouted together. I think Ant and Dec would have been proud of our ability to yell in perfect four part harmony.

"Its the OS map reference for Falmouth. And 'Winter is Coming' is from Game of Thrones...its like a saying the Starks have about their lands in Winterfell?"

I was no closer to understanding, and by the puzzled looks around me, I wasn't alone.

"Starks? Winterfell? Have I woken up in a fantasy novel or what" Katie said sharply.

"Mind making some fucking sense, please Harry?" Effy said

Harry took a deep breath and explained.

"Its code for me" she said simply "Arya Stark, remember...Game of Thrones? "

We nodded uncertainly

"Jake knows only I would understand that. He has left a message here, and probably in a lot of other places on the coast. He's in Falmouth, and he's letting me know he's alive. If we can find him, we can get away from the mainland!"

We got it then, and everyone joined in Harry's smiles.

So the plan was hatched. Cook and Arya would go to Falmouth, and try to establish contact with Jake. We would hole up here until they came back. If they got lucky, they could be back inside 24 hours. We refuelled the Wrangler from the jerry cans in the Mercedes, and they set off with a couple of Hecklers and Glocks for protection. It was a risk, we knew. Cook was pretty much our only fully operational soldier, with me still recovering, but Harry would be safe with him, and, sitting a bit offshore in the boat, we would be OK for the time being.

12 hours later, we were sitting in the cabin, lights dimmed and curtains drawn so that no one on shore could see that the boat was occupied. Effy and Katie sat one side of the room, while Emily sat across me with her feet over my lap. A bottle of the finest Highland Park single malt stood half empty on the low table between us. Katie made a grimace as she swallowed another mouthful.

"Fuck Campbell, who said this stuff was wonderful? Tastes like fucking drain cleaner"

"Philistine" I said, smiling at her scowl "Its a 30 year old Islay malt, would have cost the better part of £150 quid a bottle in the days when you could actually go into a shop and buy it. Suck it up Katie, they ain't making any more"

"Well thank fuck for that Campbell" she pouted "Haven't we got any Coke?"

"Coke!" I spluttered, sitting up straight, and nearly spilling my drink and Emily at the same time "Fuck's sake Katie, that's one of the finest Scotch single malt whisky's in the world, aged for 30 years in a sherry cask by experts, and prized the world over for its complexity and sheer bloody drinking perfection, and you want to drown it in Coke?"

"Well" she said, and smirked "I prefer my whisky with Coke...sue me"

I shrugged my shoulders, no point in trying to educate THIS Fitch, I thought. Then a wicked thing crossed my mind.

"Anyway Katiekins" I smirked back "If you want to join the real lesbians, you'll need to learn to love whisky and cats...as well as dungarees and sensible shoes"

She spluttered and almost threw up her latest mouthful over me and Emily.

"Who said I wanted to join you beaver buffers, Campbell? I like cock, get it?"

This time, my smirk was joined by Emily and Effy. We had Katie on the run, this was too delicious to leave.

"Oh come on Katie baby" Effy smiled "When the cats away, or in this case the Cook...why not try it... I mean... what have you got to lose hun? We're all girls here. I can keep a secret, and I'm sure Emily and Naomi will be souls of discretion"

"Fuck right off Stonem" Katie spat. Just because you're into part time munching muff, doesn't mean its suddenly become compulsory, right?"

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much" Emily chuckled from beside me, spilling some of her whisky on my bare leg. I giggled as she leaned over and licked it off slowly. God, that tongue... I knew what skills she had with it and my stomach clenched at the thought of another night under her naked body.

"And you can fuck off too Emily" Katie frowned "One dyke in the family is enough, thanks all the same"

We all laughed at her discomfort, but Emily was obviously feeling that a bit more Katie teasing was due.

"Oh I don't know Katie..." she grinned "Wasn't it fun with...what's her name...at school? I seem to remember you didn't shut up about it all term...you know, 69 is my favourite number and all that"

Katie blushed, which is something I had never seen her do before.

"Shut up Ems" she hissed "Fucking teenage experiments don't count"

Effy and I exchanged a look immediately and moved in for the kill.

"So Katie... you have experimented then...?" I said slowly

"...And you obviously liked it" Effy finished my sentence.

"So what's the fucking problem sis...Effy's up for it...aren't you Eff?" Emily hiccuped.

At that, Katie stood up quickly, swaying when the effects of the whisky hit her.

"You can all pretty much fuck off" she spat "I'm going on deck to get some non lesbian fresh air. You three can spend the rest of the night with your brogues and strap ons, or whatever disgusting activities your filthy minds can make up"

Her nose in the air, she walked quickly away, and up the small wooden steps to the rear deck.

Effy exchanged looks with me and Emily and raised an enquiring eyebrow. Emily look at her, then at me, and winked extravagantly.

"Time for bed Naoms?" she said to me slyly "I feel an early night coming on.

"Hopefully, thats not the only thing that'll be coming" I said lamely. I still wasn't 100% OK with the crude lesbian verbal sparring, but I was getting there.

Effy stood and stretched as Emily and I untangled ourselves and started to walk to the front cabin.

"Have fun, you two" Effy laughed "Don't sink the boat"

We smiled back at her and closed the door behind us, Emily already stripping her tee over her head. My mouth dried at the prospect of having that wonderful body to myself for another whole night. The world may be at an end, but I for one was already in fucking paradise...

XXX

Katie

I had no idea it could be quite so dark outside. I suppose with no power stations, no people to man essential services and the national grid pretty much fucked, I shouldn't be surprised, but I was. The sky was clear and coal black with about a hundred million little pinpoints of light all over. There wasn't a moon tonight, so it was just me up here, and the heavens. It would feel peaceful, but I was still uneasy about what we were about to do. The sound of the sea hitting the breakwaters outside the harbour were unsettling. I had never even been on a boat before, not even one of those big fuckers that go across the Channel. Katie Fitch travels first class or not at all, so my trips to the continent had been in a jet, not a floating tin can. Especially one like this which rolls a little even in the calm water here. I shivered a bit and wished I had brought up a jacket from my cabin, but I wasn't going back down there now. Any minute there would be a totally unwanted soundtrack coming from the front cabin, when Campbell and my sister get into their stride. Jesus, doesn't anyone know the meaning of restraint any more?

And as for that juvenile lesbian teasing just now, well that was a bit unnecessary, no? One experiment when you're 15 doesn't get you a life pass to Groping the Growler club, does it?

"Want some company"

Oh shit, its Effy fucking Stonem. I glared at her, which is like, totally pointless, since you had trouble seeing your hand in front of your face in this inky blackness.

"Not really" I growled in what I hoped was a warning tone.

"Great, then I will" she said, and plonked herself down next to me on the rear seat with a sigh.

"I brought some cold Chablis...care to join me?" she said quietly

Oh well, fuck it, at least it doesn't taste like toilet disinfectant, I thought. Why not?

Half an hour later, I was feeling pleasantly buzzed and she went down and raided our supplies for another bottle. This one was warmish, but I was past making a distinction now, so when she poured me a big glass, I threw it down thirstily.

"So Katiekins" she slurred, and I was uncomfortably aware that she was right up against me now, with her bare thigh pressed against mine. "This experiment... was it fun?"

"Stop it Stonem" I said "It was a long time ago, I realised quickly I preferred cock to fanny and I've never looked back. Case closed. OK?"

"Hmmm" she said "No one said you have to lean one way or the other permanently babes. I mean, I have no problem bouncing on a hard one when the mood takes me...but sometimes, only a woman's... touch will do..?" She put her hand on mine and the hairs on the back of my neck went up like I'd been plugged in.

I took another swig of wine to give myself time to calm the fuck down. She knew what she was doing, pressing up against me and doing the whole Mata Hari thing. I had no intention of being another notch on her bedpost.

"Look Eff" I said seriously " I'm not gay and I don't want to..."

Suddenly soft lips were brushing mine and when the fuck did she get so close? My hand froze on the half full glass and I wondered why I don't just get up and walk away. My limbs felt heavy as she ran her tongue across my bottom lip. Fuck , I don't want this, do I?...I thought...

I felt her hand steal the glass from mine and it fell with a gentle thump on the rubber matting under our feet. Both her hands came up and cupped my face. I could smell wine and...something else, something feminine and addictive. If I don't get up now, I knew In never would. I realised. I grabbed her hands in mine and stood up shakily. I didn't recognise my voice when I spoke.

"L...look Effy" I said trembling "This might be a game to you, but I don't think..."

She stopped me by standing up and pushing right up against me. I could feel her small breasts up against mine and my heart thumped wildly in my chest.

"Don't think Katie" she sighed "It makes life so much easier if you don't. Just feel honey...what have you got to be scared of...it's just two people making each other feel good"

Just then I heard a distinctly ecstatic moan coming from the front cabin. Great, I thought, Naomi and Emily are just about to embark on round three...Soundtrack to a seduction anyone?

"I've got to go" I said, and brushed past her, stumbling slightly as I pulled open the cabin door. I found myself sucking in air like a surfacing diver.

Just as the door closed, I heard her say quietly..."Shame... Katie Fitch, we could have had so much fun tonight"

I ran for the safety of my bunk

There is absolutely no truth in the rumour that when I got into bed, I spent the first ten minutes efficiently getting myself off with my fingers. None whatsoever. What sort of woman do you take me for?

XXX