So this week I wanted to give The Arrangement fans a glimpse of ‘Whatever Happened To.’ There is a really wonderful scene with Lauren, Jill and Simone…except it has too many spoilers…i.e. the twins Jill was pregnant with. So instead you are stuck with more of the comedy duo of Daniel (the straight guy) and Samuel (BDSM’s own version of slapstick humor). Enjoy…
Brent and Monique had no problem locating Samuel and Daniel. They were in the emergency bunker buried over twenty feet underground. It housed not only the stocks of essential items such as flour and grain, but an impressive arsenal of weapons. The likes of which made even Brent, who had learned to shoot a gun by the time he was five, more than a bit uncomfortable.
But Brent truly had lost his innocence. He had seen too many disaster zones. And he knew that if the toll Mother Nature could exact upon her pitiful creations were not enough, then the atrocities that men could enact upon one another were far worse.
While he was prepared to help any that were willing to work together to help themselves, he was not ready to leave his family or those he cared about open to attack from predators…animal or man.
So alongside bags of sugar, flour, coffee and now tea were grenades, rocket launchers and full automatic machine guns. Obtained on the black market and if that bothered his conscious, not as much as the thought of what might happen to his girls without such necessities.
“Hey, you two, how are things coming?” he asked the two best friends that had together become the heads of his security team. He never forgot to thank Fate that years ago in a bid to win some stupid Department of Defense contract his father had generously replaced his normal security team with undercover Navy SEALs.
The dark skinned man with the easy smile and wicked sense of humor was the first to respond, “Hey, Doc, you find time to come up for air with the Missus?”
Daniel playfully slapped his friend on the side of his head, “Leave the man alone, Samuel. It ain’t like you don’t find time for some afternoon delight with Simone.” The man turned to Monique with a smile, “Sorry, Ma’am.”
Monique only laughed, “Don’t worry, mon cheri. I said the same thing. Not that I would not enjoy burying my face between her tits and motor boating.”
Samuel and Monique laughed and high-fived as Brent and Daniel blushed. Brent cleared his throat after a moment, “Can we please get back to business, you two?”
“Sure, Doc, whatever you say. You’re the boss,” Samuel joked.
Brent shook his head and turned towards Daniel, “How are things coming? Are all the planes in position? Fueled and ready to go when we give the word?”
Daniel nodded his head, “Yes, Sir. Of course, those in Europe are our biggest concern right now. Declan is channeling as much Intel as he can…without breaking any laws or endangering his position, of course. But it looks like you got your family out just in time. Of course, trains, buses and boats are still able to keep most of Europe connected.”
He sighed, “But if you are right. If this is it. If other volcanos begin to erupt, especially Etna and Vesuvius then all bets are off. No telling what chaos destruction on that scale might cause. The EU is no better prepared for such a wide scale natural disaster than the US or anywhere else for that matter.”
Brent nodded his head. It was the sad truth, but as powerful as man liked to think himself, in the end Mother Nature held the ultimate power to annihilate the whole species if she wished. And what few remained would be more than glad to finish the job for her if left to their own devices.
“We still don’t have a clear enough timeframe to raise the alarm. But I’m hopeful that once Lauren has a go at the data we will have a better idea of what we are dealing with here.”
“Smart as she is pretty then?”
Daniel punched Samuel in the ribs, “That’s the man’s wife, buddy.”
“I’m sorry, Doc. It’s just so much fun having someone to tease besides the old man here. Not that I don’t enjoy his switchy ass, but damn…fresh meat,” he laughed. “You have to give Simone all your birth information and hers, so she can do your charts. Though she’s already decided that…”
“De stars be wif you,” Daniel and Samuel keeled over laughing and even Brent had to chuckle.
Until he looked over at Monique. He noticed her brushing her eyes with the back of her hand as she forced that fake smile wider. “Any word from Dwayne on that other matter?” he quizzed.
Samuel stopped laughing as he shook his head, “Last we heard was yesterday, right after you took off. He said that he had a lead he was following up in Rosarita, but we ordered him to get Chloe, the kids and as many of the non-essential personnel as he could to the staging area in West Virginia.”
Daniel broke in, “I’m sorry, Doc. I know we may have overstepped, but those are our family. And we figured that if you were concerned enough to kidnap yours then we needed to give ours the best chance possible.”
Brent smiled in reassurance, “No, that’s why I chose you two. If anything happens to me, or I am not around, you have the capability of making decisions on your own. The right ones too. As you said, I barely got Lauren and girls out of England. And when La Palma goes…”
The potential consequences of that one did not even bear thinking about. The worst destruction he had ever seen had come not from a towering volcano but from normally calm, clear, warm waters. But if an earthquake had churned those waters to destroyed whole villages, kill hundreds of thousands of people and sweep life as they knew it away then he did not want to even consider what a mega-tsunami might do to all those countries around the Atlantic Ocean.
He drew his mind away from those dark days that had become the seeds of his new world view…and this project. “Once they get to the cabins of the bug out zone, please have him see if he can find out anything more. Have you heard from Travis either? He was supposed to be surfing somewhere around there in Baja California.”
“No, Doc, afraid not,” answered Daniel.
“We tried tracing his cell phone, but it is turned off or something. The last signal we got from it was in Rosarita like you said,” added Samuel.
“Damned irresponsible little brat,” Brent cursed as he ran his fingers through his hair.
“Do not worry, mon cheri. Travis is a big boy. I am sure he will be fine. Even if he misses the plane, he knows where we are. I am sure he will find some way of getting here,” Monique put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze.
He shook his head as he covered her hand with his, “Thanks, Monique. I don’t know what I would have done without you these past few years.”
Samuel shook his head, “Doc, might I suggest you don’t do that shit around your missus.”
Brent tossed him a glare, “What? Lauren knows that Monique and I are friends. Have been for years. I’m sure…”
Monique broke out in giggles, “Oh, my sweet naïve friend. Samuel is perfectly right, mon ami. Your wife always sees green when it comes to me.”
“But…” he stammered as he shook her head.
His friend only smiled, “Oui, but Lauren does not know.”
He could not hold back laughter at an oversight that explained so much of the animosity between his wife and friend. Monique had been honest with him from the beginning so it just never occurred to him that Lauren had not figured out the score for herself. How could such an intelligent woman not have figured out the truth that was so blatantly staring her in the face?
He would, of course, have to straighten out the oversight. In his own sweet time. Until then perhaps a bit of the green-eyed monster might just serve his own purposes. The idea of Lauren being jealous of Monique while preposterous was more than a bit reassuring as well. After all you were not jealous of a man you no longer cared for…someone you were just using for sex. Now he just had to make his wife see the truth for herself.
Not that he had ever been any good at that.
Tara Cox - Literary Erotica 