The Compound Part 10
Shawna had been cleaning for only about an hour when there was a knock
at the door. She was washing down the wood paneled walls with a brush
Grady had given her. It was tiring work, but she could set her own pace.
She was glad to do it, though, for her thoughts were increasingly upon her
cravings; and with nothing else to do, she knew she would be tempted to do
something stupid.
But it was a good time for a break when she heard the knock, and still
dressed in just the loincloth, Shawna answered the door.
It was Rhianna, in loincloth and leather halter. She smiled. "Hi, can
you swim?" Rhianna asked.
"What?" Shawna replied.
"Swim, can you swim?"
"Yeah, sure I can," Shawna replied, thinking of the pool behind the
family home and all those hours laying next to it.
"Good. Grady said you could help me out with a class of mine, and I
think it will do you some good to get out in the sun." Actually, Rhianna
thought that if she spent some time with this woman, she might figure out
what she was really doing on the mountain. Rhianna didn't trust Shawna;
there was just something wrong about her.
Shawna wasn't so sure that Grady said she should leave. "Er...he left
me with an awful lot of work to do," she said.
"He said it was okay. Come on!"
"I don't have anything to wear!" Shawna protested.
"What you've got on is fine. It's nothing formal, just some swimming
lessons for the children."
For a second Shawna was appalled at the idea of being seen topless in
front of children, then she remembered that for the most part the kids here
were naked a lot more than the adults were. They all grew up in a society
where nudity wasn't a taboo, she would be showing them nothing new, and she
doubted they would care anyway.
"Okay," Shawna said finally.
"Great."
Shawna put down her cleaning stuff and stepped out into the corridor.
She was dismayed to see that Rhianna was holding a leather cord.
"Don't worry," whispered Rhianna. "It's just until we're away from the
Compound, then I'll let you loose. I don't see the need for you to be tied
up, but most of the people here expect it."
Shawna swallowed and nodded, and once bound in that uncomfortable wrist
back-to-back position again, followed her new friend through the Compound.
Their first stop was the school, where they met up with a group of maybe
two dozen boys and girls, all between six and ten, and naked as jaybirds
except for the towels they carried. With them were two older girls of
about seventeen, dressed in loincloths and halters like Rhianna. Shawna
recognized one of them as Lilly from her evening in the stocks, and the
other was introduced as Catherine.
She was embarrassed to be among all these young children, tied up as she
was, but none of them really paid her condition any attention, which she
thought strange.
"Okay," said Rhianna, "let's go!"
The group flowed toward the nearest exit and on toward one of the gates
in the big wall that surrounded the Compound. Through it all, Shawna was
jostled by the small running bodies, and she felt rather uncomfortable. To
take her mind off her feelings and the constant need for a drink, she asked
Rhianna about the wall.
"It's there to keep out the wildlife," Rhianna answered, "bear and
wolves mostly."
"Wolves?" Shawna said, looking nervously around at the trees as they
followed a path away from the Compound. Her ideas of climbing the mountain
to retrieve her three million dollars now seemed in jeopardy.
"Yeah, but don't worry. They usually stay away from humans if they can
help it. You'll be fine. The fence is there mostly because they like to
get in our garbage and our food stocks. Bears can be a lot more trouble
usually, but even then, they aren't usually dangerous when given enough
space."
"Has the wall always been there?" Shawna asked.
"No. In fact, it's connected to the rule about curfew. Before the wall
was put up, back when the camp was new, several accidents with the wildlife
convinced the men that it was too dangerous for the women to be out after
dark alone. So they set the rule that we still follow today; no women out
alone after dark. As the years went by, the wall was built and rebuilt as
the Compound grew. But the men decided to keep the rule as an added safety
measure, and now it's just there as a sign of respect and obedience...or so
I'm told." Rhianna grinned and yelled at a couple of kids who were pushing
each other.
"You don't seem like someone who has accepted life here as completely as
the others," Shawna said to her.
"Sometimes it's hard," Rhianna replied after a moment.
Rhianna looked back and saw that the Compound was now hidden by the
trees, so she stopped Shawna and untied her hands.
Shawna was pretty happy about that, and while rubbing her wrists tried
to stop herself from holding an arm across her breasts.
Lilly and Catherine had already removed their halters and were enjoying
the warmth of the sun on their skin, so Shawna didn't feel quite as alone
being topless.
The group continued on, and Shawna started to look up the mountain. She
wondered if the crash site was visible.
Rhianna watched her out of the corner of her eye while she herded the
kids.
"How did you get all the way up there?" she asked.
"I don't know," Shawna lied, "I guess I was just lost. I'm glad you
found me; really I am."
"It's just odd to find people so high up, that's all," Rhianna replied.
Shawna didn't want to go there.
"Where are we going, anyway?" Shawna asked.
"There's a small lake in a side valley just up ahead. The river is too
fast to teach swimming in, but the lake is ideal."
"It seems odd, you giving swimming lessons, like this is a school trip
or something."
"It IS a school trip. But it's odder that these people have never
bothered to teach that skill to themselves," Rhianna replied.
"What do you mean? Couldn't anyone swim?"
"Not very well. Not beyond just staying afloat. Say, LILLY!" Rhianna
called out. "Tell Shawna when you learned to swim!"
"Just this summer, Shawna!" Lilly said, her hands held by several
six-year-olds.
"Just this summer? You're kidding!" Shawna said to Rhianna.
"No kidding. These people didn't take it seriously until Cheryl
O'Malley drowned. I had been pushing for swimming lessons since I got
here, but it took that tragedy for people to act. Now I teach kids'
classes AND adult."
"Is that what you do here?" Shawna asked.
Rhianna explained about her new jobs, but didn't tell the woman what she
used to do. She felt that Shawna would clam up, knowing she used to work
for the FBI.
"So why do you need me?" Shawna said.
"Well, Catherine and Lilly are both still novice swimmers, really.
They're a great help watching and teaching the kids in the shallows, but
for the older kids it's good to have someone else around who can handle
deep water. I normally get Estelle to help me...Have you met Estelle?
She's from New York, a city bride like me. Anyway, when she doesn't have a
class she helps me out with the swimming lessons, but I figured that today
you could use the time outside."
"Oh, okay. Thanks!"
They reached the lake, and Rhianna took charge of her group, the
children piling up their towels as ordered and sorting themselves out into
groups divided by age.
The younger kids went with Catherine and Lilly and began playing and
floating in the shallow water. The nine and ten year olds stayed with
Rhianna, who began setting tasks for them to complete.
Rhianna loved the work. Afraid of handling children at first, she found
she had a talent for it. The children respected her when she was stern,
because they knew she could also make things fun for them. Lessons were
rarely boring when Rhianna was around, and they all liked that.
When Rhianna had a young group of children around her, she felt
wonderful and doted on them as a mother would. She knew all their names,
and their likes and dislikes, and was on good terms with all their parents
as well. For many of the children, Rhianna was someone they could turn to
for help almost as much as their parents. It warmed Rhianna's heart when
she was asked for help beyond her boundaries as a teacher.
Sometimes, she would be reminded of the children she knew in the outside
world. Of Samantha, the nine...no, she had to be closer to twelve now, the
girl whose talents concerning lock picking were far beyond her age.
Rhianna owed the girl her life, and she was often in Rhianna's thoughts.
Then there was Heather, Maria's daughter, just a toddler when last seen.
Rhianna wondered how she was, and how her mother was as well.
Thoughts like these usually led to thoughts of the friends and family
she left behind, and it was sometimes hard to keep a smiling face in front
of the children.
Sometimes, and this was something she hadn't admitted to even her own
husband, sometimes she regretted her own inability to have children.
Surgically sterilized a few years ago, Rhianna sometimes wondered if she
should have the procedure reversed. More and more as she dealt with the
Compound's children, she wondered what it would be like to have a child of
her own.
She got back to business.
Out in the middle of the lake was a floating platform the men had built
for her lessons. Rhianna, after slipping out of her own halter and
loincloth, had Shawna and all the boys and girls in her group swim out with
her. The water there was at its deepest of about fifteen feet, so diving
was possible off the platform.
Today was treading water and breaststroke practice; Shawna and Rhianna
helped the youngsters build up their individual stamina and skills with
both. Standing on the platform, both women could enter the water at a
moment's notice if they needed to help someone, and frequently did.
It was a good morning for lessons, and things were going well, when
Shawna noticed a glint of light from the opposite side of the lake.
Puzzled, she looked again, and her brain suddenly resolved a series of
unrelated shapes into the silhouettes of a few men standing in the brush.
"Rhianna!" said Shawna, covering up instantly. Like Rhianna, Shawna had
left her loincloth on the shoreline with the towels, not willing to get it
wet. Now she was completely naked in front of strangers that didn't look
like they were from the Compound.
"What?" Rhianna asked, intent on her coaching.
"Look, at the shoreline behind you! Men!"
Rhianna stood up and looked where directed. In moments, she saw what
Shawna was looking at, but they weren't men, but boys from the town at the
base of the mountain. Teenagers with nothing better to do than to come up
here and spy on the naked women.
She was about to ignore them when she saw the glint that had attracted
Shawna's attention. One of them had a video camera. Rhianna was not about
to be some teenager's video masturbation prop. Ignoring them was one
thing, but having your picture taken was quite another. Besides, with her
luck she would end up on the Internet!
"Shawna," she said quietly, "I'm going to swim over to them."
"You're what? You can't do that, you're naked! What if they...?"
"They won't do anything. They're just here to watch. But one of them
has a camera and I want it. Gather the children quietly and have them swim
back to shore. When I get the camera, swim back yourself and have everyone
head back to the Compound as quickly as possible."
"You're crazy. Why don't we get one of the men to come sort them out?"
"I'm not going to argue with you. Just do it!"
Shawna shut up.
Rhianna stood up straighter and faced the boys directly. She posed,
hands on her hips, feet apart, knowing that their little pricks would be
hard and captivated by her apparent naked display. Rhianna was counting on
that. For too long she had been told to allow this illegal voyeurism.
Well, now she felt she had an excuse to act.
She stepped forward, dove cleanly into the water, and swam with powerful
strokes until she reached the shoreline near the boys. Walking out of the
water, she could see that there were five of them, and that they had been
startled by her approach. But she tilted her head back and slowly brushed
the water from her long hair, thrusting her breasts forward in a way she
knew men liked. All those times she played the sex slave; well, the
training was paying off now.
Stepping onto dry land, she shook her body a little, shaking off the
water, and not unintentionally making her boobs sway. She saw that the guy
with the camera had it aimed down low, and Rhianna knew that her hairless
pussy was getting a close up.
The other boys stood with their mouths open, and Rhianna figured that
while they may have fantasized about what they might do if they met a
Compound woman, they never really felt they would get the chance. Rhianna
smiled as she noticed the number of tented pants.
"Hi," she said, making her voice a little deeper and huskier, "What's
that?" She pointed at the video camera as if she had never seen one before.
She knew that the general consensus of the townsfolk was that the people in
the Compound were ignorant sex perverts.
"Hi," one of the boys answered. He was big; he must have been a
football player. "What's your name?" The other guys smiled and a couple
sniggered.
"Rhianna, what's yours?" Rhianna said, giving him a big smile. She felt
she was laying on the sex pot stuff a little thick as she struck another
pose; but then, these kids were too young to know the difference, and too
stupid to believe otherwise.
"Kale," said the big kid. "You're awful pretty, Rhianna!"
"I am? Thank you!"
The other boys began to move, circling around Rhianna to appreciate her
from all angles. Rhianna wasn't too concerned. There had been no violent
altercations between the townsfolk and the Compound before; these kids most
probably would go home happy at their close encounter!
The kid with the camcorder kept filming, and Rhianna was waiting for him
to come within touching distance.
The boys looked to her to be about fifteen or sixteen, a lot closer to
Lilly and Catherine's age than her own, but then Rhianna doubted that these
boys had ever been this close to a naked woman before, so she felt she
could hold their attention.
"Is that a camera?" Rhianna asked them.
"Sure, you don't mind if we take your picture, do you?" said Kale.
"I guess not. Never had my picture taken before," Rhianna replied.
One of the other boys said, "You probably have!" before he was elbowed
in the ribs.
So, Rhianna thought, this isn't the first time they've done this.
Rhianna vowed to have it looked into.
"What about your friends, can they come over?" Kale asked, gesturing at
Shawna, who sat with her knees up on the platform; and Lilly and Catherine,
who were naked in the shallows with the children across the lake.
"Maybe, I'll have to ask them." Rhianna faked a yawn and stretched, her
raised arms lifting her breasts. Every male eye was on her chest and the
camera guy stepped closer.
It was just close enough.
Rhianna brought her foot up and kicked him in the crotch. He
immediately went down, but not before she grabbed the camera from his
unresisting hand. The other boys were too stunned to move until Rhianna
make a break for the water. Then they moved in to retrieve their property.
Now, normally, four well-built young men would have the advantage over
one naked young woman, but this wasn't a mountain girl they were dealing
with. Along with all the exercise classes she used to take, Rhianna had
also taken self-defense classes for the FBI. The boys were in for a nasty
shock. By the time she reached the water, two more kids lay clutching
their balls, and none of them got so much as a decent grope.
Rhianna dove into the water as soon as it was deep enough, and knew that
the camcorder was now toast, as the water would have shorted it out. The
tape inside would still be good, though, so she wasn't about to give it
back to them. She stroked out to the center of the lake and stopped to
look behind her.
Kale had gone down with a case of impacted woody, but one of the other
guys was yelling and calling her names. Rhianna laughed and resumed her
swim, joining the rest of the group on the far side of the lake.
Gathering together her people and still holding onto the camera, Rhianna
led them all safely back to camp.
---***--
Giggling to herself at Rhianna's story of how she got the camera, Shawna
let herself into Grady's apartment to do a little more cleaning before
lunch. The swimming had done her some good, and she felt full of energy
for the first time in a long time. But when she entered the apartment, she
found she wasn't alone.
Grady was in bed, covered in blankets.
Surprised, Shawna padded over and saw he was sleeping, or at least
trying to sleep. He looked covered in sweat and when she touched him, he
felt hot. She pulled the blankets back and saw he had climbed in fully
dressed, or more likely collapsed. He was obviously sick, and it was more
than a stomach bug.
"It's okay," she told him softly. "I'll go get Gabe."
Grady groaned and nodded, and reached for the blankets, so Shawna
covered him up again.
She had traveled there enough times by now to be able to find the clinic
by herself, but she was stopped by two men.
"Shawna, wait!" one of them said.
"Yes?" Shawna answered. "I can't talk right now, Grady is sick and I
need to get the Doctor."
"Grady's sick?" one of them asked.
"Yes, so do you mind?" she said, pushing her way past them.
One of them grabbed her arm. "Hey, Ma'am. You can't go around like
that, you're under discipline!"
Shawna wondered what he was talking about; she had put back on her
loincloth, then it dawned on her that he meant she was supposed to be tied
up.
"You're kidding, right? He couldn't really tie me up before I left to
get the doctor, could he? Think about it!"
"He can't, but we can. Sean, you go fetch Doc Gabe; I'll take her back
to Grady's," said the man holding her arm. From somewhere he produced a
cord.
"Oh COME ON!" yelled Shawna. But the man was adamant and he bound her
hands behind her before escorting her back to where Grady lay.
They waited together inside, Shawna helpless to do anything but pace,
until Gabe arrived with Vicky and Sean.
One look at Shawna and Gabe ordered her released, then he went to see
Grady. The examination was brief but thorough, and after a whispered
conversation with the sick man, Gabe stood up.
"I'm pretty sure it's the flu. I think Shawna must have brought it in
with her. I confess I've been feeling it a bit myself."
"Oh no!" said Vicky.
"What's the big deal?" Shawna asked.
Gabe looked grim. "You could shake of the flu pretty easily, but since
we're more isolated a lot of people here don't have the immunity factors
you do. I can knock it down with fluids and some home grown medications
but I only have a small supply. Too many more people come down with it and
I'll have to send out for vaccination kits. It's not a crisis, but I have
a feeling a lot of people are going to get sick soon."
"I'm sorry!" Shawna said, horrified at what she had done.
"It's not your fault. Come on Vicky." Gabe left, and after a few
minutes, the two men did also.
Shawna went over to where Grady lay. "I'm sorry," she said to him.
"You heard the man," Grady said quietly, "it's not your fault."
Shawna gave him a hug anyway.
---***--
The afternoon was full of visitors.
Vicky came back and helped Grady drink something she had brought in a
mug; then with Shawna's help, she stripped Grady to his skin so he could
sleep more comfortably. She left after giving Shawna instructions for his
care, and told her that Gabe had immediately gone to Paul to have her
discipline restrictions lifted. Shawna was happy to hear that; she didn't
think she would be much use to Grady if she couldn't leave the apartment
without being tied up.
A little later Paul himself showed up with his wife Elizabeth. They
visited quietly for just a few minutes, and Paul told Shawna that she was
free to go around the Compound if she needed to, but that she still had to
do her time in the stocks. Shawna wasn't happy about that, but figured
that she was lucky to have gotten this much. They could easily have had
someone else take over caring for Grady.
Paul left, but Elizabeth stayed on for a little while, and was a big
help in getting Shawna organized. Now Shawna knew where to get water and
where to find food in the Great Hall's kitchen. She also answered a few
more of Shawna's questions about the Compound, and when Elizabeth left,
Shawna felt a little more at ease.
Others dropped by from time to time, but her surprise visitors were
Patch and Ruthy. Patch explained in that soft whisper of his that Ruthy
would watch Grady while Patch took Shawna to dinner. Apparently Shawna had
missed lunch, something she barely noticed. Ruthy would also stay while
Shawna did her time in the stocks.
They ate together outside with the rest of the community, and Paul made
the announcement about Grady being sick, and also conveyed a warning from
Gabe that it might spread around if they were not careful. He gave the
group a few tips on how to limit exposure, and then moved on to the subject
of Rhianna's encounter with the teenagers.
Holding up the camera as evidence, Rhianna told the story of how she got
it amid some laughter from the group, but like her, they were a little
shocked that the kids were being so bold as to photograph them.
Paul told everyone he would take it up with Sheriff Kinkade later.
After dinner, Paul took charge of Shawna while Patch took food back to
Ruthy and Grady. It was time for Shawna's second two-hour stretch in the
stocks. Again, Lilly was in charge of watching her, and while she had been
quite friendly at the lake earlier, now she worked with quiet efficiency.
Shawna still felt exposed and humiliated, bent over so that her breasts
hung free and completely naked. To be seen like this was the worst thing
she had had to endure since arriving, apart from the almost constant need
she had for a drink or a hit of cocaine. It was also very uncomfortable,
and her back was screaming by the time Paul arrived to free her. Vicky had
also come by, and like last time, took Shawna to the Bath House for a wash
and a rub down. Shawna wanted to head right back to Grady, but Vicky told
her that the Doctor ordered the bath as a part of her treatment.
At least this time Shawna could wash herself, and the massage given by
Vicky herself afterward, while not as deep as the one Johan had given her,
was also welcome.
Returning to Grady's afterward, she thanked Ruthy and Patch, who had
stayed with Grady all that time, and prepared for another night.
---***--
After Paul had locked Shawna in her stocks, one of his deputies told him
that he had a visitor at the south gate. Sheriff Kinkade had beaten Paul
to it, coming up to see him before Paul could go down.
Paul Anderson nodded and went to collect the camcorder from Rhianna
before heading out to meet his County counterpart.
"Make sure he knows these kids have done this before!" Rhianna told him.
Paul was not about to forget that.
Kinkade was sitting astride his Honda ATV, the small vehicle he used to
make the trip up to the Compound. While a normal four-wheel drive vehicle
could make it this far up the mountain, he felt that the ATV was less
intrusive. Kinkade was an unusual man; he respected what the people of the
Compound were doing, and was ready to allow them the freedoms they needed
to do what they wanted up here. Despite over seventy years of
cohabitation, the townsfolk in general still didn't like what the Compound
was doing and what they stood for. But Kinkade figured that as long as
they kept it on the mountain and out of his hair, these people could do
what they liked. They were law-abiding people, and what little problems
they had, they dealt with on their own.
In a way, he saw them as being very much like the Amish, wanting to live
on their own terms with as little involvement from the outside world that
was possible. Although the Amish would never be seen running around naked,
something Kinkade was never comfortable with.
Kinkade was willing to give them that room, but sometimes the outside
world had a way of getting on his case about them.
Right now, he had several angry parents who wanted him to do something
about "The naked savage who attacked my little boy!"
Kinkade knew there had to be more to the story than he had been told,
but he hated these times when the people of the Compound clashed with the
townsfolk.
When Paul Anderson finally appeared at the gate, the kids who had been
admiring the ATV scattered, leaving the men alone. They exchanged
greetings and asked about each other's families, and then Sheriff Kinkade
got to business, telling Paul about the complaints.
Paul held up the camera and gave it to Kinkade, minus the videotape,
which had been burned. "You should ask them about this!" Paul said.
"Shit!" said Kinkade with feeling. "You know, if you at least required
your people to wear something when out on the mountain, this kind of thing
wouldn't happen!"
Paul chuckled, it was an old argument, along with why didn't the
Compound fence off the entire mountain, as it was private property anyway!
"Rhianna feels that these kids have been doing this a while; one of them
made a comment that raised her suspicions," Paul told his friend.
"Rhianna Anderson? What does she have to do with it?" Kinkade knew
Rhianna from when she first came here undercover, back when she was still
in the FBI. Since then, Rhianna had kept her face, and sometimes her body,
known to Kinkade and his men with her curiosity about what was going on in
Law Enforcement these days.
Paul told the Sheriff that it was Rhianna that retrieved the camcorder,
and despite himself, Kinkade had to grin at the story. He would have
handled it differently of course had he been there, intimidation rather
than physical force, but he could well imagine the scene and wished he had
been there. It was no question that the boys were in the wrong, but that
didn't do much to appease the parents of the boys who now had to walk
around bow legged for a while.
"I'll look into it, taking pictures is something I wouldn't put past
this particular group, and I'm sure if I dig deep enough I'll find their
cache of tapes."
"Thanks," Paul answered, confident it would be dealt with. If it had
been Kinkade's predecessor, Paul doubted anything would have been done.
"Just destroy what you find, and that will be the end of it."
"Sure thing. Oh, by the way, while I'm up here," Kinkade reached into
his shirt and pulled out a sheet of paper which he handed to Paul. "I
don't suppose anyone here heard a light plane fly over sometime a few days
ago. It would have been a couple of nights before the big downpour."
"I can ask around, why?" said Paul.
"We're looking for a couple of people, robbed a bank out east on the
plains somewhere and escaped by aircraft. No one knows where they landed,
though. That's a composite from witnesses of the two we're after; a man
and a woman. If you hear anything, let me know okay?"
"Sure," said Paul. He had opened the paper up to look at it, and he was
frowning.
"Something wrong?" Kinkade asked him.
Paul wasn't sure.
End of Part 10.
