“Don’t have too much fun.”“I won’t. Promise. I’ll try and be back before you go to bed.”“Alright.”I walked to the door.“I’ll be ...ack.”“Hope so.”I sat outside Miranda’s house for a while before I went in. I was conflicted. If I do this, then it’s over. But what if it’s just the beginning. I don’t want to leave Alex, but Miranda has this way of making me do things I don’t want to do. Fuck. I took a deep breath and stepped out of the car.I knocked twice, and the door swung open. She made me dress. No, really, Nike pays their sweat-shop workers almost as well as Nestlé make use of debt to enslave people! Yay, equality! Like I was saying, things we're looking grim. It looked like humanity was going to be wiped out, once and for all. Not just by one great apocalyptic event, but by several smaller, seemingly insignificant events. Humanity was dying. It was for the better, really.Much to the despair of everyone this apocalypse did not have a happy ending. Humanity persevered like the. Mary, Jill and I sat and talked while Sara finished up some homework. Sara joined us after a while.We talked until it got late and then the girls went in to bed. We fed the dogs and washed and changed. We climbed into bed and got comfortable. Of course, you don't have far to climb when you're using a sleeping bag on the floor. Jill felt nice and warm, snuggled up against me."Jack?" Uhhm?" We need to talk about something."I'd heard horror stories about that phrase. I probably tensed up."Oh?". Camille agreed to keep the count.Standing to Linda's left I began applying the whip to her right shoulder. I managed to lay five stripes from shoulder to the lowest portion of shoulder blade without overlapping once. I then moved to Linda's right side and began again, this time using backhand strokes to lay matching patterns of welts on the left shoulder. Linda was in tears and I could see the efficacy of the pepper oil as it seeped into the raw welts.I motioned to the girls to walk toward me.