Chapter 1

This is the first story I’ve submitted to Literotica which is not part of the Gabby’s universe. Or necessarily any particular universe, including our own, as familiar at the situation is.

For what feels like the thousandth time today, you’re forced to retreat. Your friend was grabbed and manhandled, surrounded, cuffed, and tossed into a transport vehicle. You would have been next, but the enforcers were occupied with her, and another friend dragged you away. The line can’t lose more key defenders, he said. So your back is against a storefront, with protesters trying to keep a visible distance between the line and the men with riot control weapons.

The videos and livestreams will show that your line is not engaging. All of the provocation is from the enforcers. It’s hard to stand firm, when they’re lobbing tear gas. Then the line breaks up and protesters stagger blindly, pushed by the crowd until they can be seen as a threat and taken in the resulting scuffle. You know you shouldn’t have been involved in the last one, but your friend… it’s a hard life for a girl in a center. You’ve seen women emerge broken. You’ve chosen to accept the risk.

There’s a disturbance close to the end of the line, away from the armed men. You push your way toward it. As an organizer, you can’t afford for your own people to fight, or, worse, provide an excuse for escalation. You find two of your comrades shouting at a man wearing a mask and sunglasses, holding a brick. He’s clearly intending to lob it through a store window, while the people around him are following the directive of avoiding violence. They haven’t mobbed him, but they’re trying to block his aim.

That will only hold him back for moments, especially when a similarly dressed man hefting a pair of bricks approaches. You dart in, attempting to wrest the brick from the first man. Small violence to prevent greater violence, which would cause yet more violence when the enforcement troops respond to looting. Brick dude is most likely hoping for that reaction.

You’re a girl of average height, and he’s a big guy, but his surprise lets you take a solid hold on the brick, though it doesn’t leave his hands. His compatriot drops his bricks and leaps for you, wrapping his arms around your chest to haul you off. As he lifts you, the one holding the brick releases it to let your assailant drag you away, but with the force of your grip on the brick, and the other’s grip on you, the brick flips upward in your hold, hitting the man’s jaw with a crunch that can be heard over the yelling.

As he drops to the ground, you let the brick fall. Your captor is screaming that you killed him, but now the crowd is rushing to your defense, and he tosses you to the floor beside his stationary companion. Every drone, phone and bodycam in the vicinity has video of you smashing in someone’s face with a brick. Though you wonder if that will even matter as you curl up, protecting your head with your arms. You may not live to stand again.

Troops have taken notice of the swirling fight. Tear gas lands near by, and riot shields form a line, pushing protestors and agitators away. In the gap that forms, tears streaming from the smoke, you drag yourself to a storefront, while the action moves away, leaving brick dude sprawled alone.

No one’s paying attention to you. You need to get away from here, to rest, if nothing else. You can’t do anything about video that’s already been captured and probably broadcast, but you’re no use to anyone if you abandon yourself to fate. You stagger away from the melee.

Rounding the next corner you almost collide with an apparition. You hadn’t expected anyone to be standing there. You look up, dreading the sight of a mask and sunglasses.

Instead, the tall woman who returns your gaze has ghostly blue eyes and long, jet black hair. She wears a fringed denim shirt, short denim skirt and calf boots. She doesn’t seem surprised to see you. She beckons for you to follow, then jogs in the direction you were traveling. It’s an effort to keep up with her, but you do.

Behind a dumpster, she pauses before a sleek black motorbike. She unclips a full-face helmet, tossing it to you, then pointing to your pocket for your phone. You hand it over, entering its code when she holds it out to you. You don’t know why you did that, except she’s clearly not on the side of the aggressors. She lets you see what she’s doing when she shuts down its GPS, then the phone itself. She takes a small metallic bag from her bike, wraps the phone in it, then hands it back to you. Bemused, you stuff it back into your pocket.

You take pillion after she starts the bike. Without warning, she lets the clutch out, taking off smoothly but quickly, skimming effortlessly past traffic as you leave the city. Her black hair flies out behind her, sometimes drifting over your visor. She corners fast and low, but you’re in no position to complain about being nervous about her speed.

An hour passes. Maybe more. She slows as she turns onto an unmaintained road. The black bike growls in sadness. The road curves down into a shallow valley. The woman coasts to a halt beside a large cabin. She waits for you to dismount before ending the bike’s misery.

There are rows of different vegetable plantings in the field. Not farming monoculture. A large propane tank lurks just off the road. The woman leads you to the cabin, her long, lean legs distracting.

Every window is screened for insects, but they are all open, including those in the bathroom, where she leads you. It’s small, with a shower and tub, but she immediately turns on the tub. After leaving for a moment, she returns with a long plain cotton shirt and underwear, setting them beside the washbasin. Handing you a glass jar of bath salts, she says, “Use this. And anything else you like.”

You realize those were the first words you’ve heard her say, and you’re surprised at how deep and musical is her voice. She leaves the bathroom, closing the door behind her, and you gaze confoundedly at the door. Then you check the water temperature and begin to undress.

The woman was right about the bath salts. Soaking has relieved most of your pain. Your left breast is tender where your assailant wrapped his arms around you. You were more concerned with getting away from him than the precise location of the assault. The scrapes on your hips and legs where you were kicked or stepped on will bruise, but don’t sting like they did on the ride to this place.

Why do you trust the woman who brought you here? Because you had no alternative? It seems deeper than that, but you don’t know why. Or how. Was she waiting for you? Did she catch a broadcast? You felt you needed to rest when you left the fighting. Is she some kind of wish fulfillment angel? What kind of angel lives in a cabin and rides a Ducati?

Why do you have the feeling that she will answer none of these questions?

After towelling off, you look through the small selection of products, choosing a shampoo and conditioner, then wash your ginger curls in the washbasin. You don’t feel your red hair and green eyes put you in the same league as the woman’s gorgeous raven hair and pale eyes, but at least you can try not to look like your head wasn’t dragged along a filthy sidewalk.

You rub the towel over your hair, then slip on the shirt and panties she left. Barefoot, you leave the bathroom. The main room is empty, and you don’t want to open doors. You call, “Hello?” but there is no answer. There’s a warm scent of roasting vegetables, so you’re sure she isn’t far away.

The back door is latched open, with its screen. You step outside onto soft grass. She’s no more than fifty feet away, walking toward the house carrying what looks to be a lettuce and something small and red. As she gets closer, you see they are radishes. She’s wearing sandals and a dark blue dress, with a deep neckline and pleated knee-length skirt, tight over her hips. The fabric has that slight sheen that makes you think it’s raw silk.

She gives you a smile that is both friendly and knowing, and maybe slightly challenging. “Sit,” she says, as she steps into the shade of the cabin. She carries her game indoors, then returns in a few minutes with plates of salad and two cups of an unusual, slightly bitter, tea. You’re sipping the tea, deciding whether you like it, when she emerges again with roasted green and yellow squash on couscous and yogurt sauce for the salad.

She doesn’t speak while she eats, and you feel that you shouldn’t, but you do glance at her occasionally. Her skin is a dark gold. There are the beginnings of laugh lines around her eyes. You guess her age at five years over yours. You’re fairly sure she’s no more than ten years your senior.

You look up when you’ve finished the food. “Who are you?” you ask.

“Does it matter?” she replies.

There’s the faintest trace of an accent when she speaks. You’ve heard her say around ten words total, but you don’t think you could place her speech even if you’d heard it for hours.

“The food was great, and I needed it, and the bath was perfect,” you say, “but who do I thank for the hospitality? What should I call you?”

“What would you like to call me?” she asks.

“Your name?” you suggest.

“Hmmm,” she says, thoughtfully. “I’ll give you a name.” She frowns in thought for several seconds longer. “Call me Bastet.”

“Are you Egyptian?” you ask.

“Does it matter?” she says again.

You shrug. This woman has probably saved your life. If she doesn’t wish to give you details, who are you to press?

You gather up the dishes and carry them into the cabin. The woman – can you think of her as Bastet, when it isn’t her name? follows you to show you how the system works, then dries the dishes after you wash them.

She stirs water, coffee grounds and sugar in a long-handled copper pot, lighting the gas stove beneath the pot. The two small mugs she takes from a cupboard have no handles. When the coffee foams she carefully pours just the foam into both mugs, repeating the process several times before turning off the range, then carrying the mugs outside.

She brings out a mosquito coil, and an ash tray, closing the screen door behind her. Moving the coil over the ash tray, she lights it with the same lighter she used for the stove.

“Does that help?” you ask.

She shrugs. Pointing to the planters beside the door, she says, “The plants help more.” The planters each have a compact bundle of green leaves. “And this, perhaps?” she adds, tapping out a cigarette from a gold soft pack. She offers one to you, but you shake your head, so she lights her own.

“When will I leave?” you ask.

She lets out a low chuckle. Raising her cigarette, she says, “Is my filthy habit driving you away?”

You hasten to reassure her that it isn’t troubling you. “I don’t know how long I’m here, because I don’t know why I’m here,” you say.

“When you are ready to leave, you will leave,” the woman says, as if the answer is obvious. “Until then, relax. Build your strength. Do you have pain?”

You consider the question and shake your head. The woman nods in acknowledgement, then reverts to silence.

The coffee is like nothing you’ve tasted, which could be your motto for this whole day. It’s strong and sweet, and awakes the back of your nose like smooth brandy. You sip it slowly. Even when you taste a few grounds in the bottom of the small mug you try to leave none of the dark nectar behind. You wonder whether the woman would taste as good as her coffee, and as soon as the thought comes to mind you wonder where it came from. You look up to see pale blue eyes studying you, as she stubs out her cigarette in the ash tray, and suffer a moment’s panic – can she tell what you’re thinking? Did she put that thought there?