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 ï>¿Paint-Ball by suburbanne

   Two women, naked, hunted in woods, by men with guns.

   The other girl was black.  Serious black.  As in Somalian black, not
Caribbean black.  Not coffee coloured, or at least not coffee that had had
a touch of milk.  Her genes were undiluted by anything that might have
lightened her complexion.  Black skin, even her head, which was devoid of
hair.  Shaved, I guessed, the way so many guys do now, but not so many
girls.

   Which gave her the advantage.  In bright sunlight, my white complexion
would stand out, against whatever background I could find, trees mostly,
was my guess, perhaps a building, not much else.  She would blend into
woodland like a shadow.  Could lie in long grass like a mound.  A real
advantage for this game.

   Even her shaved skull would give her an advantage over me.  She looked
like one of those Vogue models, but with dark lips, not glossed scarlet,
not made up for a photo-shoot, just natural, for playing sport, or games,
if outdoor hunting is a game.  I have a mane.  Blonde.  Waist length.  Not
straight, nor curly.  Somewhere in between.  Tied back, for running, a pony
tail, scrunchied close to my scalp, another mid-way down, a third right at
the end.  Dressage, they call it.

   We were standing opposite each other, waiting for the klaxon that would
signal the beginning of the hunt.  Ready to run.  To wherever seemed a good
place to duck and dive and hide.  We had been given no prior briefing on
the layout of the grounds.  All that I knew was that the view on either
side of the long driveway, leading to what seemed like a large manor house,
was open grass, with copses of oak and ash and chestnut, with some pine
trees, and some weeping willows standing separately here and there.

   She was the first and only black girl I had seen butt naked.  Nice body.
I could see why she had passed the selection interview.  My height.  More
muscle.  Sprinter's thighs, where mine are more long distance runner's. 
Strong calves.  An afro butt.  Not quite the kind that you could rest a
glass on, but getting close to that.

   Slim waist, hard stomach, flat and firm.  An outie navel.  Good breasts.
Fuller than mine, and mine are pleasantly more than a handful.  I wondered
if in the part of Africa that her family had come from, there were melons,
whose skin was just as black.  Wide areolas, barely distinguishable, since
every inch of flesh was black, except that where most of her skin was matt,
the taut skin of her areolas had been polished to a sheen, right to her
thick, eraser, nipple stubs.

   She would be fast, over shorter distances at least, but I can run as
well.  Former college champion at ten kilometres, I can last the distance.
She would tire, get out of breath.  Her breasts would slow her down.

   Mine need a sports bra, normally, and since I could not wear one for the
hunt, they would slow me as well, but not as much as hers would do.  They
are full enough to push out tee-shirts, with small areolas, coin sized, and
cherry nipple stubs.  Like someone tied some thread around them, and pulled
it tight, so that they look like balls of chewing gum, stuck on the
areolas, or pink-red M and M's, without the nut inside, just sensitive
nerve endings, packed beneath the skin.  Malteasers.

   Not that my nipples are going to make a different in this race.  Still
comparing me with her, my core is not as strong as hers was either.  Where
her stomach wall seemed to emerge from just below her breasts, my rib-cage
shows.  My stomach is concave, my pelvic girdle shows beneath my skin,
rounded by my butt flesh, but by no means hidden.

   Her mound was just that, a mound, with a slit of an entrance, hairless,
whether she shaved it like her head, or had depilated it some other way. 
Mine, with its protruding labial flaps, is quite pronounced.  Not that I
starve myself.  Just my metabolism, burning calories as fast as I consume
them, before they turn to fat.  I no longer need to shave.  Laser made it
permanently smooth.

   And, of course, I run.  That burns the calories that I consume. 
Thinking of which I checked her shoes.  Like mine, issued to us as we were
getting changed.  Not trainers.  More like swimming shoes.  Slip-ons. 
Elasticated canvass tops, and rubber soles.  Flat heels, no cushioning for
running.  More like running barefoot.  At least we were the same, except
that hers were black, like her, and mine were white, like me.

   She spoke first, to break the awkward silence as we waited by the door.

   "Have you done this before?" she asked.

   Not what I expected.  Not Brixton.  She could have been Sloane Square.
Private school.  Well spoken.  Like myself, I guess.

   "First time," I said.

   "Mine too," she said.

   "I'm hoping it will be fun," I told her.

   "Me too," she said.

   Then silence.  We were competitors, not friends.  One prize going. 
Worth good money.  Five thousand up for grabs, for just two hours.  If I
could win it.  Which meant beating her, and, of course, avoiding them.

   "Do you think that it will hurt?" she asked.  "Getting shot, I mean."

   "They said it won't," I said.  "Or not so much we need to worry.  They
said that it might leave a bruise, but that would fade."

   "At least that won't show on me," she grinned.

   I had not thought of that before.  I bruise, too easily.  My milk white
skin turns dark purple when a squash ball hits it hard, or if I bang my
leg, or anything.  Black skin, the kind of black she was, is far too dark
to let a bruise show through.

   She had a nice smile.  Full lips, good teeth.  Nice eyes, that smiled
along with her mouth.  I could like her, I thought.  It was a pity this was
as much a contest between ourselves, as it was against the men.

   I wondered who the men would be.  Reasonably rich, of course.  Able to
afford to pay to hunt for fun.  Not shooting deer, or grouse, or rabbits,
but live human targets, on the run.  Four men, each contributing a decent
lump of cash, covering the prize itself, the costs of the equipment, the
grounds, the administration and the recruitment of the girls.  A moderately
expensive pastime.  But possibly no more so than golf, at one of those
elite clubs like my father's was, below the Surrey Downs.

   So they would be reasonably rich, but old, or young, or in between, and
fit, and fast, or overweight and slow to get around?  Hopefully the latter.
Hopefully the kind of guy I could outrun.  Zig-zagging, so as not to be an
easy target.

   They had let me try a gun.  Outside, before undressing and waiting to be
released.  The range, Sam had explained, was fifty metres.  Bull's eye
style targets mounted on straw bales.  Blue outer, white next, and red,
dead centre.  I had hit blue, the two times that I hit anything at all.  It
had felt good, though, firing the rifle, looking down the sight.

   They would be using the same sight, but not with any bull's eye target.
They would be lining up to fire at me.  Or her.  Pellets.  Not live
ammunition.  Not bullets.  Nothing that would break the skin.  Gas
propelled paint balls.  An oil based dye, Sam said, clear evidence you had
been hit, not washable, not without some kind of alcohol based wipe.  No
way to remove it on the field of play.  A hit would be a hit, Sam had
explained.

   I had not asked her name.  The other girl.  Or told her mine.  I was
about to put that right, except the door opened, the one that led outside.
Sam walked in and closed it.

   "Two minutes to klaxon," she said.  "Remember, you have just a
two-minute start on the hunters.  It's not that long.  Your decision
whether to maximise your distance, or to hunker down and hide.  You can go
anywhere.  The borders of the grounds are the roads and the stream.  Cross
them, and you are on public land.  Which you are free to do, if that's what
you decide."

   It was a restatement of what we knew already, but Sam was just doing her
job.

   Shorter than both of us.  Seriously petite, since I am just five-five.
Dressed in army fatigues, right down to the beret.  Shaved back and sides.
What remained was blonde, and crew-cut short.  Or so I had seen, when she
had interviewed me.  With her beret covering the top, she might as well
have been shaved as close my competitor, all round.  On my opponent, her
shaved skull could have meant anything.  On Sam, it suggested she was gay.
A latent lesbian, or active, who liked overseeing the hunting of naked,
heterosexual girls.

   "Five thousand in the kitty," she said.  "That's at the start.  Each
time that you are hit, the prize drops by one thousand, so don't get hit.
Whichever of you has least hits, will win whatever's left.  If it's a draw,
it's split.  All understood?"

   "Understood," we both said, as we were a duet, school-children saying
'yes' to teacher.

   It was a novel way to finance a holiday.  Some wives work.  Some
husbands earn enough to fund things on their own.  I had been made
redundant, "down-sizing due to Covid" had been the management excuse.  My
husband's job was good, and covered most things, but did not stretch to let
us have the kind of holiday where everything is paid for, and you just
enjoy the sun.

   So when I saw the advert, I had dropped an email asking to know more,
and met with Sam, and here I was, about to try to win five thousand in two
hours, or at the minimum, to win at least the one.

   "Check watches," she told us.

   I checked mine.

   Black, digital, strapped to my wrist by Sam when she was showing me
where I should change, if undressing, and leaving your clothes and waiting
naked, can be described as changing.

   Not quite mid-day.  Thirty seconds still to go.

   "Goggles," Sam instructed us.

   The one precaution they were taking, to make sure we did not get a paint
ball in the eye.  Like swimming goggles.  The same colours as our footwear.
Hers were black.  Mine white.  The straps that is.  The plastic covering
the eyes was clear.  I put mine on.  The black girl did the same.  The
lenses were quite clear.  Not much distortion.  Vision good.  I checked my
watch again.  Eleven seconds, and counting down.

   "What's your name?" I asked her.

   "Sophie," she said.

   I told her mine, just as the klaxon sounded, outside, somewhere in the
grounds Like an air raid siren, two long blasts.

   Sam opened the door.  I did not hesitate.  Each second mattered.  I went
first.  Outside, I ran, crossing an extensive lawn.  Not straight. 
Diagonally, to my left.  The hunters would assume we would go straight, I
thought.

   A ten-kilometre run will take me less than an hour.  You do not sprint.
You run, at pace, but steadily.  Which gave me time to turn.  Sophie was
sprinting, off to the right, legs thrusting, breasts bouncing wildly.  The
game was on.  Just her, and me, and some men who soon would follow, armed
with guns.

   Red, blue, green and yellow.  That was what Sam had said.  Four men. 
Each with a different colour of pellet.  The most times you could get hit
was four.  Which left one thousand.  That had been the clincher.  The way
that Sam had sold it to me.

   "You can't lose," she had said, while we were drinking wine together in
the pub in Oxford.  "The prize reduces, but never less than a thousand.  So
if it's help with uni fees..."

   I took that as a compliment.  Twenty-eight, and still mistaken for a
student.  But then, who else would do this, voluntarily.  Not many married
women.  Not that my husband knew.  I had told John that I was out walking
for the day, while he was catching up with paperwork.  That was all.  Not
being hunted.  Not by four men.  Just how I would explain the money, I
would work out later, assuming that I won.  Sam had sold it to me as a
certainty.  Sales hype, to be persuasive, I knew that now that I had met
the other girl who would be hunted with me.

   What Sam had not said was that there would be two of us, or that if the
other girl was hit by fewer of the hunters than I was, she would get the
prize, the lot, with whatever was deducted for the number of paint ball
hits that she received.

   "Okay, Sophie," I thought.  "It's you and me.  And I intend to win this
game!"

   The taxi drive up to the house had been reasonably long.  Long enough to
twist and turn a few times.  Maybe the best part of a mile.  Which led me
to assume that the land behind the house, where I was running, would be
just as extensive.  Space enough in which I could lose myself and hide from
harm.  I got that wrong.

   I heard the traffic first.  In front of me.  A road, somewhere ahead. 
Mostly low rumbling, tyres on tarmac.  Some engine noise as well.

   I was still heading diagonally left from the rear door of the house that
I had run from.  Flat ground.  Grass, cut short, a massive lawn.  Solitary
trees.  No copses.  Nowhere I could hide.

   Some of these estates have high brick walls, built a hundred or more
years ago.  This one had a fence.  Three bars between each upright.  No
animals to keep in.  No worries about foxes, who could come and go.  No
real concern that trespassers could climb through, it seemed.  Cars passing
on the other side of it.  No screening.  You could see over and between
those fence bars.  I was in full view.

   I stopped, perplexed.  Checked my watch.  One minute gone, and seconds
digitally marching on.

   Behind me, the grounds were far too small to hide in.  Not with four men
all searching.  You can hide beneath a weeping willow, where the fronds
hang down and touch the ground, and form a tent around the trunk, but there
were no weeping willows at the back.  The best that I could do would be to
stand behind a tree trunk, hoping that the men would go the other way.  Not
a great game plan, when they had two hours to find and kill their prey.

   I had to cross the road, or tack back right and hope for something
better.  A split-second coin toss in my head and I was on the run again,
tacking right, running parallel with the fence, just feet from it, ignoring
cars that passed me as I ran.  At least I was pretty certain John would not
be driving past, nor anyone I knew.

   Not that they ignored the naked girl, streaking on the massive lawn
behind the house.  Some looked.  Others used their car horns.  Amused,
appreciative, or outraged.  I could not tell.  I just kept running,
straight.

   I spotted it before I saw the stream.  The hump-backed bridge. 
England's quick and easy way of crossing narrow water.  No gentle slope. 
Just up and over, and if you drive too fast the risk of front wheels
leaving contact with the ground, and landing with a crunch to test the
car's suspension.  Red brick sides, supporting the hump of road.

   "Fuck!"

   It was just a stream, but too wide to jump across, and with no stepping
stones.  Clean water, flowing slowly, the bottom visible, and no more than
ankle deep, so I could have waded it, but my shoes would get wet, and
running with wet shoes, wet canvass, and potentially water still inside,
would not be anything like fun.

   Beyond were woods.  Dense trees.  Perfect to hide in.  I could last two
hours in there.  It would take an Indian scout to find me, to track the
broken twigs and stomped on grass, and my guess was, none of the men who
had paid to hunt me would be Cherokee or Sioux.

   The fence stopped at the bridge, where either side was low brick wall,
festooned with moss, and then continued on the other side.  I had seconds
to decide.  The cars were not exactly bumper to bumper, but there were
enough of them to make going onto the road seem daunting, except I had no
choice.  I did not even wait for any kind of quiet gap.  I just went
straight to the fence.

   I put one leg through, between the middle cross-bar and the top.  Then I
ducked, and got my head and body through.  For just a moment I had one foot
on the ground on either side, and the middle cross-bar nestling high
between my legs.  I pulled my other leg through, and I was on the road.

   A car passed.  The driver used their horn, two light taps, warning or
appreciation, I could not tell.  I did not know if they were male or
female. Right then I did not care.  I followed it, running up the slope of
the bridge, over the hump, and down the other side, as another car came
toward me.  Another horn.

   There was no time to care about the fact that I was naked.  This was a
chase, a real time hunt, and by now four men would have started stalking
me, each carrying a gun.  I felt incredibly vulnerable, my back and butt
exposed.  I did not care that drivers coming towards me could see my front,
my breasts and cunt.  What really scared me was the thought of being shot
at by a hunter, my rear a target for anyone who might be following behind.

   Another car, behind me.  This time the car horn was much louder, and
prolonged.  Intended as a warning, probably, but serving to alert the
hunters that something, at least, was going on.

   I had to get away.  There were woods on both sides of the road, now that
I had used the bridge to cross the stream.  Instead of ducking back through
the fence to the woods on the side of the road I had been on, I crossed it.
Just as another car drove by, and like the others, used its horn.

   I ducked through the fence on the far side of the road, and immediately
got stung.  I should have looked.  Nettles.  Calf length.  Not just by the
fence, but extending into the woods, blending in with knee high ferns.  If
this was what the woods were like, hiding would be painful.  Ducking down
would inevitably be worse.  Nettles at my butt and cunt.  Not worth the
time to think about.

   Stay on the road, was suddenly the only choice that came to mind.

   I clambered through the fence again, from nettles back to tarmac, and
started running.  Always, in the countryside, you walk or run towards the
oncoming traffic.  That way you see what is coming towards you, instead of
risking being hit from behind.  Drummed into me by my parents on our
country rambles, any time we had to use a road.

   This time, on the firm road surface, I was more conscious that the
rubber soles of my foorwear provided little cushioning against the impact
of each stride.  I tried to land on my toes, instead of my heels, and to
have my knees partially bent already as my foot came down, using my thighs
as shock absorbers to minimise the impact as I ran.

   It worked, up to a point.  My breasts, without support, bounced
rhythmically to my steady pace, left and right, as well as up and down.  As
I described, they are not unduly large, but breast flesh, unlike muscle,
will move freely, unconstrained.  It felt so very different to running on a
track, in trainers, with a sports bra holding things in check.

   The oncoming traffic mostly just ignored me.  The drivers looked, of
course.  Even at the thirty miles an hour or so that they were doing, I
could see their eyes.  Some carried passengers.  Some had children in the
back.  Two lorries had to swerve around me.  They used their horns, more
like wolf-whistles than irritation.  Strangely, I got used to it, and I
felt good.

   Someplace, somewhere up the road, there had to be a gate, a track, or
something, entering the woods.  That was my theory.  A black shape crossing
several hundred feet in front of me confirmed it.  Sophie.  She had got
there first.

   Two hundred feet is just ten seconds.  I turned into the track and
followed her, and immediately felt the stinging pain.  My back, below my
shoulder blade.  I reached around and fingered it, still running.  Yellow
paint on my finger-tips.  A hit.  My prize, if I survived to win, was down
to one thousand pounds.

   "Fuck!"

   That had to have been meant for Sophie.  She had to have been seen, and
followed, and would have been shot, except I had arrived and been that much
closer to whichever hunter had fired from his side of the road, and hit the
nearer target.  And Sam had understated just how much the impact hurt. 
Maybe she had never actually been shot herself to know.

   The track that I was on, was vehicle width, grass in the middle, hard,
dry mud on either side, where tyres had worn the grass until it died.  If
the hunter who had shot me was not alone, I was a sitting duck.  Especially
running straight.  Time to zig-zag.  Which I did.  While looking for a
pathway, anything, to get off to the side, into the safety of the trees.

   Sophie had gone.  Which way, I had not seen.  How far ahead when she had
disappeared, I also had not taken in.  I had been far too distracted by
that fucking pellet hitting me.

   This was, of course, insane.  Two naked girls, running wild in woods, in
England, being hunted like deer, except we knew that we were being hunted,
while deer just graze and only realise if they catch the hunter's scent. 
These, I also realised were not private woods.  Not the way that Sam had
said it was.  Not part of the estate.  Public.  Anyone could go there, for
peace and quiet, time to think, and walk.

   There was an opening on my right.  I turned.  A path, of sorts.  Not a
vehicle track.  One central, hard mud, curving trail.  People walked here,
not jeeps or vehicles of any kind.  I ran, then slowed, thinking that even
if I was now the quarry, being pursued, it would be guile and cunning that
would keep me safe, as much as burning thighs, aching lungs and pounding
heart.

   Dead end.  One hundred feet or so into the woods, the trail came to a
stop.  These trails are supposed to form a mesh in any wood, criss-crossing
it, meeting one another, allowing short-cuts here and there, excitement for
children running wild, and panic for their parents, when they lost sight of
energetic offspring.  The paths are not supposed to stop.  But this one had
just come to nothing, only uncut grass, and ferns, and possibly more
nettles in between the trees ahead.

   Going back seemed unwise.  The wide track that I had been on was open
ground.  If any of the other hunters had followed Yellow, I would be shot
again, too easily.  Another thousand down.  Going on, to God knows where,
seemed not that great a choice.  Standing still seemed just as bad, a
sitting target, or standing, unless I really did sit down.

   I went for something in between the last two choices.  I walked on. 
Taking care to trample down the undergrowth, and crush whatever nettles
might be there, high steps, in the knee high undergrowth, instead of
dragging my feet through.

   Twenty feet further in, I went behind an oak, and stopped, hiding from
anyone who followed by standing tight against the trunk.  The bark felt
rough against my back and butt, but it felt good as well.  I guess that
tree huggers experience something of the same.  A wholesome strength that
emanates from within the living tree.

   For several beautiful minutes I got my breath back, and with it my
thoughts, now settling.  Hiding like this was easy.  The chance that one of
the hunters would find me here were slim.  All I had to do was wait it out.

   The woods were my friend.  My place of safety.  I was on the far side of
the road, in what I knew was public land, as Sam had said, but it was quiet
here, the breeze rustling leaves above me, the sun filtering through, not
that I needed its warmth on my body.  The ambient summer temperature, and
the exercise I had just had in running, were all I needed to keep warm.

   Then more rustling.  Not leaves blown by a breeze, but something moving,
getting close, travelling through ferns.  Not footsteps.  Movement.  An
animal.  Maybe a bird.  But too loud and bulky.  I thought of foxes roaming
in the woods.  At least it could not be a wolf, not in England, but I still
did not relish a naked encounter with Brer Fox.

   I felt goose bumps emerging.  A shiver going through my spine.  Not just
my spine.  My breasts as well.  My nipples engorging with a flow of blood.
They do not elongate.  They swell.  My cunt feeling the shiver right to my
clit.  Feeling so exposed as well.  Woods can be friendly.  They can be
scary places too, with sounds that can make you think of bears or boars. 
Not that we have bears here either.  But tell my brain that.

   "Rusty!"

   A woman's voice, but not describing aging metal.  A golden retriever,
but more russet in its coat than gold.  Which rustled its way between the
trees from just behind me, maybe having smelled my scent, but finding me
and snuffling round my legs, and nosing in between my thighs and at my
cunt.

   It barked.  A friendly bark.  But still a bark, that could give me away.

   I crouched down, to pet it, and hopefully keep it calm.  With my knees
together, to protect my cunt.  Like all dogs, his or her nose would be wet
and cold.  I love dogs.  My father had bred German shepherds.  This dog was
beautiful.  Dark eyes, long coat, so good to stroke and run my fingers
through.  It loved me too.  Tail wagging, trying to climb all over me. 
Just friendly, playful, frisky, spirited, or that was what I thought.

   "Rusty, you naughty dog..., leave her alone!"

   She was just ten feet in front of me.  Sixties, grey hair cut like the
Queen's had been, before she died, plaid skirt, strong walking boots, and
windcheater top.

   Rusty kept on jumping, while I was balanced on my toes, and not too
stable, and also feeling very naked, now that someone, clearly not
participating in the game, was standing right up close.  Not travelling at
speed, behind a windscreen, but there in person, looking straight and
sternly at the disgusting, naked girl.

   My brain was whirring, trying to work out how I had failed to notice the
path that she was on, cursing myself, but forgiving myself as well, since
the footpaths here were narrow, the undergrowth dense, and even when you
are quite close to them, side on, they would be difficult to see.

   I lost my balance.  Knocked sideways.  Thirty canine kilogrammes of
weight displacing my own fifty-five.  Dogs moved fast.  Even thirty kilo
dogs.  I was still on my side, in ferns and grass, scrabbling to get up,
when I felt the cold of Rusty's nose prodding from behind, my butt and
cunt.

   "No, Rusty!," the woman was calling.  "Oh no!  Oh no!"

   I managed to sit up, then thought that standing might be good, to face
her, unafraid.  I turned onto my knees, hands on the grass in front of me,
intending to straighten up and get to my feet that way.  A serious mistake.

   Rusty jumped.  While I was on my hands and knees.  Dogs do doggy, all
the time, not just to get a change from face to face.  His body weight
landing on my butt and back.  Forelegs on either side of me.  Rear still on
the ground.  Something prodding at my thigh.  His cock.  Out of its sheath
and wet, all too ready, primed, and seeking somewhere warm and slick, where
it could slide inside and thrust and spurt and impregnate, to spawn a Rusty
litter with the convenient bitch he had just found.

   I knew, from watching when my father had arranged for his female German
shepherd to be taken by a male, that once inside, they knotted.  The dog's
cock, my father has explained, would swell, and lock inside the bitch's
vagina, so that until it came, and its cock reduced in size again, they
were literally locked together.

   I felt it touch my cunt, prod at my labia.

   "Rusty, no!" I heard again.

   No dog, however well trained by its owner, will be obedient all the
time. They will still chase rabbits.  Or fuck a bitch in heat.  I have even
known some of the smaller breeds who will hump a cushion, or will rub
themselves against your leg.  I guess you have to forgive a dog for
following its instincts, as the Rusty dog was doing.  My cunt was there,
and it was about to do the deed.

   I dropped.  Women have instincts.  Self preservation.  My cunt is not
available for any rampant mammal with a cock.  I took my arms away and let
my body fall, my cunt no longer right where Rusty wanted it.  Had my
assailant been a man, he could have still dropped down on me and found a
way to fuck me, but my new four-legged would-be fuck-mate could not get
down that low.

   Walking boots make short work of ferns and grass, and do not risk the
wearer getting nettle stings.  Rusty's owner grabbed him by the collar,
clipping on his leash, and then pulling him franticly away.  For someone in
her sixties, she seemed suddenly quite strong.  Panic does that. 
Adrenaline.  Terror of the unthinkable.

   "I am so sorry!" she began.  "But..., but..., what are you doing..., I
mean..., you can't just..., what are you thinking...?"

   She ran out of things to say.  Her mouth continued to open and close, as
if she was saying something more, but she was speechless.  Rusty was still
straining at the leash.  If dogs can look confused, he did.  Clearly
wondering what he had done wrong, six inches of brilliant pink-red cock
between his hind legs, narrower where it emerged than most men's but
bulging towards the business end.  It almost made me wish that men had
cocks designed to bulge and lock inside a cunt, the way he did.

   Whilst that thought flashed through my brain, I was also feeling so
exposed, and mortified, and my breasts were suddenly stinging me like fire,
and that sent alarm bells ringing, and I remembered that there had been
nettles, and got up on my hands and knees again, and saw the so easily
recognisable leaves, a clump of them, crushed where I had been lying, their
serrated edges full of poison, and my breasts beginning to show the tiny
bumps of pink where I had indeed been stung.

   It was a weird kind of pain.  Yes, it was stinging, but my nipples had
been stung as well, and there was something strangely pleasurable about the
way they felt.  I would have liked that feeling at my cunt.  Unbearable,
but bizarrely exquisite too.  My clit, as well.  Nettles as an erotic
fetish, stinging those most sensitive of nerve endings, packed into the
little nub of flesh, raw and burning, yet so tempting.  Something to
explore another time, when I was not being stared at by an irate woman with
her still so very rampant dog.

   I was still scrambling to my feet when she gave me both barrels, finding
her voice again, letting loose her parting shot.

   "You just disgust me!" she exclaimed.  "You should be ashamed!  You
can't blame my dog!  You brought it all upon yourself, going around like
that!  I really don't know what you young girls are coming to!"

   Neither, I thought, did I.

   I said nothing.  She turned and went back to the still invisible path
she had been on, Rusty following reluctantly.  As far as he was concerned,
any bitch would do.

   Right then, I was shaken by what had just happened.  More so, than by
being hit with the paint pellet.  Being naked in woods like this suddenly
had risks that I had never even dreamed of.  Not that I had much choice.  I
was going to be staying naked, as I was, until the klaxon that would end
the game.

   I checked my watch.  Just twenty minutes gone.  So much can happen in so
short a time.

   I wondered about Sophie, where she was, how far she had run, whether she
was keeping on the move, or hiding.  Whether she, like me, had been hit
already.  Then I thought about the hunters.  Stalking.  Carrying their
guns. Scanning as they walked, peering through the trees for pure white,
naked flesh, or black.

   Sam had been in army style fatigues.  Green and brown camo.  The
hunters, I guessed, might be wearing something the same.  I wondered what
kind of strategy they would use, to try to find us.  I was not that far
into these woods, but I had no idea how far they went on.  You could prowl
around for hours here and still see no one.  No naked quarry.

   Unless they worked together, as a team, and spread out, covering more
ground.  Both Sophie and I had been seen running down the wide track. 
Whether Yellow, having hit myself at least, had noticed where we each
branched off, or would tell the others, I could only guess.  Best to assume
the worst, I thought.  The other three could be uncomfortably close.

   I took the risk.  Walked gingerly the ten feet to the narrow trail that
Rusty and his owner had been on.  Checked both directions.  Nothing.  Rusty
and her majesty had gone left.  I jogged right.  The trail curved one way,
then the other.  More people.  A man and a woman, and another dog.  A black
alsation.

   Dog walker's paradise.  Streaker's paradise too.  I ran on towards them.
They saw me coming, stared for a moment, taking in the naked girl, then
stepped sideways, leaving the trail free.  The dog ignored me, more
interested in rabbit tracks than a mere human.  Maybe the alsation was in
fact a bitch, not interested in passing cunts, like mine.  I id not stop to
look.  Instead I jogged on past.  The couple, still in their thirties
watched me pass.  Her mouth open, his eyes wide, while I was running on.

   A crossroads.  Cross-tracks.  The same narrow paths meeting in one
place. Straight on, or left, or right?  Right should be back towards the
road.  Left would be safer.  I turned left.  Continued jogging.  Rounded
yet more curves.  Two minutes jogging, further on, someone ahead of me. 
Army fatigues.  Green camo.  Carrying a gun.

   Fuck!

   I stopped.  Ducked back, just far enough to see him still, but not be
seen, or so I hoped.  One way, I thought, not to be tracked, might be to
track the tracker.  The last thing that a hunter would expect, would be for
his quarry to be right behind.

   Unless he turned, and saw me following.

   I bottled it.  Too risky.  I turned around and started back.  I should
have gone straight on at the junction of the paths instead of turning left.
I still could, as soon as I got back there.  Except another hunter was
already there.  Side on to me.  Looking down the path that I had planned to
take.

   I ducked back again.  Just out of sight.  I waited.  Ready to run, if I
saw any sign of him approaching.  Which, inevitably, I did.  Even with his
camo, I could see him moving, looking through the trees.  Coming my way, on
my track.

   My white skin would stand out even more than his camo, if he looked in
my direction, so I had no choice except to move.  Except I now knew that I
was caught between two hunters.  Move too quickly, and I would just run
right into the first hunter I had seen, so once I thought I might be
getting close to him, I slowed.

   Good move.  Another careful twenty yards or so, and he was there,
although he still had his back to me.  Looking around.  No longer looking
through trees.  Where he was standing, there were no more trees.  Just open
land.

   I knew that the last place that he was likely to look was back down the
path that he had just come.  I also knew that somewhere not too far behind
me, the second hunter would be following, closing what was not that great a
gap.

   I had been looking left and right.  Desperate for another route.  But
nothing.  My breasts were still irritating me from lying on that clump of
nettles, so I was not keen to head into the trees, and risk whatever would
be growing in the ferns and grass and worse.

   Also, the nature of the undergrowth had changed.  In autumn this would
be a blackberry picker's paradise.  Right then, the berries were still
small, and tight, and red, but the ground was covered with long strands of
thorny brambles that would rip bare skin, and my skin was extremely bare.

   I was not entirely sure if what I thought of doing was within the rules,
but right then it seemed the only option left.  I ran.  Not jogged.  I
sprinted.  Straight down last few yards of narrow track, out of the trees,
into the open land, to where the first hunter I had seen, was standing,
still uncertain which, if any, way to go.

   He heard me, but by then I had closed the distance between us to mere
yards.  He turned.  He was carrying his paint gun in one hand, a serious
looking rifle with a metal shoulder stock and a magazine to reload the
pellets automatically each time it was fired.  The same kind Sam had let me
try that morning.

   The guy was carrying it midway along its length, a casual, relaxed way
to hold a gun, not with his finger on the trigger, primed to fire.  I had
planned to hit it, if I could, to jerk it, spoil his chance to aim and
fire, and run into the open land ahead and zig and zag while looking for
more trees, or somewhere else to hide.

   Instead, last minute thinking, or sheer instinct, I grabbed instead. 
The barrel.  He had no real hold on it, and was completely taken by
surprise.  He lost his grip.  I had it, swinging from my hand, but the
unexpected weight of it swung it against my leg.  It hurt.  Not agonising,
but enough to make me drop it.  Meanwhile my momentum had me well past the
guy, and so I did what I had started out to do.  I ran.

   No need to zig or zag quite yet.  He had to get to where I had dropped
the gun, then pick it up, then aim, before he fired.  Ten seconds.  Maybe
twenty.  A sprinter can make a hundred metres in just ten.  I had already
sprinted thirty before I had grabbed the gun, but still I covered a good
bit of ground before I had to slow, heart pounding, thighs screaming, back
to my ten kilometre pace, long paces, rhythm steady, but still uncertain
where to go.

   I heard him fire.  Expected to feel the stinging pain that I had felt
the first time.  Nothing.  He had to have missed.  Not a trained assassin.
An amateur.  But I started evasive action, side to side, diagonally,
instead of straight.  Then realised what I was zig-zagging towards.  A car
park, not tarmac, one of those informal places, dry earth, where you could
drive into, to stop and take a walk.  Quite full of cars.  Upwards of ten
that I could see.  Beyond the car park, another road, spasmodic traffic.

   He fired again.  I flinched.  No pain again.  Another miss.  I got
there, to the cars, and ran behind one, stopping, catching my breath, and
ducking down below its roof height.  I pictured all those television shows,
with shoot outs, people firing from behind crashed cars.  Except I had no
gun.  This was a one-sided shoot out, and even just a nick would be a kill
shot, another thousand of the prize money, done and gone.

   "Are you okay?  What's going on?" from just behind me.

   A man, in jeans, checked shirt and walking boots, a mass of wild, grey
hair and straggly beard.  Walking towards me, looking seriously concerned.
A plastic cup of something steaming in his hand.  Further behind him, more
than a dozen others, men and women, also holding plastic cups.

   Saturday.  A weekend ramblers' group.  Just back from walking.  Having
tea or coffee from the flasks that they had brought, and their weekly chat,
before they all went home.

   I never felt so naked.  I was still crouched down, side on to the rear
of the car I was behind, side on to the concerned, elderly citizen doing
his duty in checking if the naked girl in plastic goggles, who had just run
into the car park, was in need of any help.

   "It's fine," I said.  "It's just..."

   I stopped.  I could not think of a way to explain to him that this was
all a game.  That although I was being hunted, I had actually volunteered
for this, and no one had taken my clothes, or was after me for any other
reason than to shoot me with a pellet that had paint that would prove I had
been hit.  Not an easy explanation to give, while crouching down for
safety, to persuade him there was no need for his concern.

   "Is everything alright, Peter?"

   A woman from the group, joining the man.

   "Oh my goodness?  Is she naked?  What on earth...?", she added.

   I stood up where I was and turned to them, thinking what I could say to
reassure them.  Meanwhile several more were coming over.  All of an age. 
All with their steaming drinks in hand.  I could have done with a strong
coffee right then, but it was not the time to ask.

   Of course, standing, facing them, meant being even more exposed. 
Crouching down, my legs were tight together, and this Peter guy had seen me
only from the side.  Standing, arms by my sides, meant they could see my
breasts, and even more embarrassing, my cunt, with my protruding labial
lips.

   Yet, the aspect of my nakedness that I really felt most keenly was not
my cherry nipple stubs, nor the prominence of my labia, protruding from my
cunt.  It was the crop of swellings on my breasts, the nettle stings, still
there, and obvious, impairing the otherwise pure white complexion I would
have shown.

   "I'm fine," I said again.  "It's just a kind of game.  It's all okay."

   "Honestly," the woman said.  "What gives you the right...?  I mean...,
it's just indecent...!  That's what it is..., indecent!"

   By then there were six of them, ramblers all, staring at me, as if I was
the most disgusting thing that they had ever seen.  Worse than dog
excrement left, uncollected by the owner.

   "I'm going to call the police," one woman said, as she was getting out
her mobile phone.

   One of the men already had his mobile out, but was not calling anyone.
He had started to take photographs with his.

   There is a joke.  You are lying naked on a beach, reading a magazine,
when you see friends from church approaching, fully dressed.  They have not
seen you yet, so you have time to decide.  Which part of your body do you
hide.

   Most people say, their genitals, especially men.  Most people get it
wrong.  You hide your face.  Lie with the magazine covering your head.  Let
them see the rest of you.  They will have no idea who it is.

   As soon as I saw the mobile being used to take some pictures, I put my
hands to my face.  Upload my naked body on your Facebook page.  I do not
care.  I just would not want to be recognised, not by my family, nor any of
my more uptight friends.

   A hand took hold of my arm.  Strong grip.  Almost hurting me.

   "I've got her," the man who had just taken me by my upper arm said to
the others.

   "Well done, Eric," the woman said, who had been making the call.

   At least the man holding my arm was now in front of me, spoiling any
more photographs taken by the other man.

   "Think you can flash your tits and cunt anywhere you want to, do you?"
he said.

   Technically it was a question.  He was asking.  But it did not deserve
an answer.  Besides, he was taking every opportunity to get up close and
voyeuristic with my breasts and cunt.  Even at his age, I could tell that
he liked what he saw.

   Then I heard another shot, and remembered that my head and shoulders
could be seen above the car roof.  Again, I flinched.  No need.  I was
unhurt.  But the guy they had called Eric swore, and touched his chest. 
Red ink on his checked shirt.  Collateral damage.  Caught in the
cross-fire. But it gave me a moment while Peter was figuring out if that
really was his blood.

   "Have you been shot?" one of the women.

   I ducked, under Eric's arm, then ran.  Past the backs of several other
cars.  Thank you Red, for missing, and for hitting the bystander, who had,
in effect, been making his citizen's arrest.  Bye, ramblers!  Bye, you old
farts!  You have just seen a girl, stark naked in the countryside, and now
you really have got something to talk about over your hot drinks.

   I was out of the car park, back on the grass, running parallel to the
road.  I checked behind me to the left.  The hunter in his camo gear was
coming.  Not fast, but following.  A hunter's trot, a crouching run, which
will never catch another sprint.

   Ahead was just more open space, more grass.  Too exposed, although I had
now found that I quite liked exposure.  But not the kind that got you hit.
Or arrested by an uptight citizen.  Or fucked by an all too friendly dog.

   The woods seemed safer.  Not back where I had been.  The second hunter I
had seen would soon come out on the same track and then there would be two
of them, both after me.  There had to be a limit to the number of poorly
aimed shots a hunter can fire off, before probability theory says that one
will hit you as you run and you are dead.

   Red fired again.  I heard the shot.  He missed this time as well.  Tough
call, to run, then stop, take aim and fire, to hit a moving target.  This
was actually fun.  Even being naked.  Even being seen.  And stared at, and
spoken to like I was filth.  Sticks and stones can break my bones, but
words can never hurt me.

   Paint pellets can.  They can hurt me.  So I kept running, heading for
the trees, then running along the edge of the woods until I found another
path that went into the woods themselves, where I turned in.  I slowed
again.  I jogged instead of sprinting.  Neither Red nor the other hunter
could see me now.

   A hundred yards in, there was another crossroads.  Tracks met.  Five
ways to go this time, including the way I had just come.  I hesitated. 
Then I saw her.  Sophie.  Walking, not running, coming down one of the
tracks towards where I was, seemingly relaxed, head high, her full breasts
swaying with each stride.

   She grinned.

   "Hi, how's it going?" she said, as she got close.  "Been hit yet?"

   "Once," I said.  "I saw you at the road, and followed.  Got one hit
while I was running, on my back.  Yellow."

   I turned, showing her my shoulder-blade.

   "Same," she said.  "He got me just before I crossed the road."

   She turned and showed me.  A bullet mark of yellow paint, staining her
black butt.  It would have made a good sized target.  It would also have
hurt a little less, the impact deadened by the generosity of her
subcutaneous fat

   "Did you hear shooting?" she asked me.  "Just now?"

   I pointed down a track.  Not the one that I had run down.  One in
between the one that she had used and mine.

   "Red saw me.  Missed a couple of times.  He can't run that fast, but
he'll be here soon.  I thought maybe go this way..."

   I pointed, back the way I had just come.  Then added.

   "If you go first, I'll watch the rear."

   "Okay," she said.

   She headed down the track that I had indicated.  The one I had just come
down, from the open land, escaping Red.  I followed her.  I had to, since
otherwise she would have wondered what was going on.  She half walked, half
ran, her black butt swaying, the yellow bullet splatter brilliant in the
dappled light, thighs and calves working, torso held straight, breasts
bouncing, as they would.  I kept ten feet behind her, waiting for the
inevitable.  Red would have followed me back into the woods, and would be
coming down this path.

   "Fuck!" Sophie exclaimed with a throaty, whispered kind of shout.  "A
hunter!"

   She stopped.  She turned.  I stopped as well.  She waited for me to
move, to head back, to get away.  Instead I stood there, the path too
narrow for her to get past easily.

   "What the fuck!" she almost shouted, but kept it low in case he heard.
"We need to move!"

   I could see the camo on his fatigues, Red, coming down the path, as I
knew he would.  He shouldered his paint gun, aiming at the two of us.

   "All's fair," I said, keeping my body behind Sophie's.

   In love and war, I meant.

   "Fuck!" she swore, this time not whispering.

   Reached for her butt.  The other side.  Brought her hand around to look
at what it had just touched there.  Red paint.  Just as I had planned.  It
would suit her.  Balance out the yellow on the other side.  Both butt
cheeks now with bullet splatter, one of them even the colour of blood. 
Time for me to go, before Red got off another shot, and aimed for me.  I
ran.

   Neat, I thought, as I sprinted back to the five-point cross.  I had led
her to the slaughter like a lamb.  Or should that be like a black sheep. 
Then blocked her way on purpose, to give red the time to shoot.  Bull's
eye. Black sheep's butt.  Whatever.  It had worked exactly as I planned.

   At the five-point cross, this time I headed right.  Away from Red.  Away
from the other hunter too, assuming he had stayed in the woods and might
now be coming this way.  A jogging run.  Fast enough to gain ground and
lose the hunter who had just claimed his scalp, or rather, his black butt,
and who would soon come after my white butt so that he had scored a pair.

   I checked my watch again, while running.  Seventy minutes into the game.
Fifty left.  I had been hit just once so far.  Sophie twice, the second
time because I sent her right to Red himself.  The hits still counted. 
Right at that moment, I was winning, with one hit fewer.  My one hit might
have lost me a thousand pounds, but I still had four thousand in my hand,
if I could just keep clear of any of the three hunters who still were
stalking me.

   A fork in the path, and I chose left, then realised that between the
five-point cross and the fork, I had lost my sense of direction.  But I
kept running, until I reached the stream, with open land the other side. 
It was not where I had expected to be, assuming that this was the same
stream with the hump-backed bridge that I had crossed an hour ago.  My
choice was now to cross the stream and risk the open space, or turn around,
go back into the woods, and hope that Red, or else the other hunter, would
not be coming at me.

   No hump backed bridge here.  Just six foot's width of water, and a
field. I still did not like the idea of getting my shoes wet, so, without a
bridge to use, I took them off.  Then paddled.  No more than ankle deep,
but soft beneath my feet.  Like mud, my feet sinking into it.  The stuff
oozing between my toes.  So gross.  And slippery.  Dead leaves decaying. 
Too fucking slippery, I thought, as one foot slid off to one side, and I
went down.

   Shit!

   The summer's day was warm, for England, but the stream was seriously
cold, and I was lying in it, on my side.  My butt had taken the brunt of
the fall, although the muddy, leafy bottom of the stream had at least
served to soften the impact just a bit.

   That had hurt.  My ego, more than my body.  And my shoes.  I should have
just kept them on.  I had been holding them in the hand that had gone down
first as I had fallen, and they were soaked.

   No time to hang around, or feel sorry for myself.  I scrambled up, and
gingerly paddled over to the other side.  I could have put my gym shoes on
again, but that would take more time, and the thought of my feet in the wet
rubber made me squirm.

   Besides, the grass felt good beneath my feet.  And it felt kind of nice,
being even more naked than I had been while wearing them.  I even thought
to take the goggles off, but a pellet in the eye would not be fun.

   I started jogging, working out the geography.  Fence, stream, road,
bridge, cross the road, woods, out to open land, car park, another road,
back into the woods, more or less straight on, the stream again, crossed
it, which meant, I figured, that somewhere to my left would be the road I
had first reached when running from the manor house across the lawn, and
following the three-bar fence.

   Not quite full circle.  Three sides of a square.  Now I was jogging in a
field, a large one, with hay bales, six stacks of them, each stack three or
four bales high, and maybe two or three bales wide.

   It brought back memories.  Picnics in fields as a kid with my Mum and
Dad and my two brothers.  Climbing the bales.  Jumping from one level to
the one below.  Parachute dropping, bent legs and rolling sideways. 
Competing with male genes.  Proving that I was every bit as good as them.
Using the rope the bales were tied with to pull myself up, reaching the
top, and lying flat, soaking in the sun.

   Which gave me inspiration.

   I tucked my gym shoes in between two bales.  They would not get dry like
that, but holding them while I climbed would make the climbing difficult,
and leaving them on the ground, in sunlight, would give my hiding place
away.

   The first bale was chest high.  I grabbed at the rope tied round the one
above it, pulled myself up, digging my feet between the bales, then
reaching higher, to the third bale's rope, pulling again, feet on the
second bale now, straw digging into my soles, reaching up to the fourth and
final bale, pulling, scrabbling again with my feet, missing, hanging from
the rope, my breasts scratched by the straw, my thighs too, more scrabbling
with my feet, finding the foothold between the third and fourth bales,
using it to lift myself, reaching over that last bale's top, finding
another rope there, pulling, grazing my breasts even more, my nipples
feeling the straw pricks more than the rest, but finally on top, sitting
first, then lying flat, dead centre, on my back, legs wide, arms wide, a
star beneath the sun.

   Perfect!  No one could see me up there.  Not even from a distance.  The
stack was wide enough that, as long as I stayed dead centre, dead flat, I
would be safe.  Brilliant thinking on my part!

   Which gave me time to gather my thoughts.  To reconnect with myself.  No
more need to keep alert, and moving.  Time to get in touch with all the
feelings that the hunt had brought out in me, and feel the excitement, and
the warm caress of sun on my bare skin, and the pleasure-pain of nipples
dragged against cut straw, and the more gentle, pleasurable feeling that
all of this had kindled in between my legs.

   Even the sharp straw against my back and butt was a turn on.

   And I had time.

   And opportunity.

   And I could take off those so annoying goggles.  Which I did, thinking
again of what those ramblers would have thought of me, like a lost,
would-be skinny-dipping swimmer looking for a lake.

   I use my left hand, for most things, holding a pen, cutting with a
knife, playing tennis, masturbating.  My middle finger mainly.  It found
its way between the folds of labia, just the tip at first, delving
deliciously inside, with the pad nearest to my palm caressing my
wonderfully sensitive clit.

   It felt so good!

   I was wet.  Inside and out.  Still wet from my fall back at the stream.
Exuding lubricating wetness in my cunt.  Cock ready wetness, even if there
was no cock to satisfy it.  Just my hand.  My fingers.  My finger-tips now
wet with that delightful, wetness from my cunt.

   I might have simply carried on, but that was when I saw the slender
stem, the leaves, variegated, where nothing should have grown.  Yet it made
a kind of sense, that seeds can germinate in straw, and grow, which the
nettle clearly had.

   I dared myself.  I pinched the bottom of the fragile stem.  This was not
strong, well established, growth.  My father had explained that if you
grasp a nettle firmly, instead of stinging, the tiny hairs that serve as
needles to protect it, break, before they pierce the skin.  I broke the
stem right at the base, and dared myself again.

   I used my other hand, two fingers, opening my labia, holding them apart.
Then crushed the nettle right between them, closing them against it,
massaging them against the leaves.  You do not feel the sting at first. 
Which gave me time to rub the leaves against my clit as well, swollen as it
was, and out from hiding underneath its hood.

   It felt incredible, that self-inflicted, stinging pain, burning first my
labia, then the several thousand clitoral nerve endings that are so dense
beneath its tender skin.  Unbearably exquisite.  Torture of a very special
kind.  Making me squirm.  A delicious private moment, basking in the sun.

   Then two fingers.  The middle and the ring.  All the way inside, until
my palm stops them from going deeper.  At most three inches, and my hand
and fingers are quite slender.  Not the seven glorious inches of my
husband's cock that I prefer.  But I ease my fingers in and out, to an
internal rhythm, making sure I graze my tortured clit each time I slide
them back inside.

   My butt tautens in response to the cunt-teasing I am doing.  The same
way it does when he is on top and fucking me.  Wanting more of him, so
pushing up.  I play with my clit.  Both finger tips.  It is throbbing from
the nettle I have rubbed against it, but it loves to be abused.  Still my
middle and ring fingers, srumming on the nub of burning flesh.  While my
right hand goes to my breast, and finger-thumbs my nipple stub.

   Pleasure-pain is such a turn on.  John taught me that.  Bending me
across his knees, using his hand to turn my buttocks red.  Then fingering
me.  Alternating more buttock burning slaps and smacks with probing of my
cunt.  Pain, pleasure, pain again, more pleasure, until I come so strongly
that I gasp and scream.

   Then there is nipple teasing pleasure-pain.  Squeeze the stub and twist
it, til it hurts, and that alone, inflicted while I am fingering my own
cunt, or by my husband fucking me, his cock inside me, that squeezing and
twisting torture will inevitably make me come.  On a hay-stack, in a field,
on a summer's day, the self inflicted-nettle stings, together with the
straw ends pricking at my back and butt, inexorably bring me to the point
of no return.

   Three fingers.  Middle, ring and index.  Side by side, so that they
stretch me, but it feels divine.  I can even tuck the little finger
underneath the ring, my index similarly tucked below my middle finger, four
together, stretching my cunt that fraction more.  I draw my feet towards my
butt, flat on the straw, knees bent, and do the butt tautening so that my
butt is lifted off the bale that I am lying on, just feet and shoulders
now, and four delightful fingers in my cunt.

   A cock would thrust incessantly.  Not easy with a hand, but I can still
slide those fingers in and out and in and out and fuck myself to tortured
heaven, and squeeze that nipple stub, and once the four of them have
stretched my cunt enough, my hand can follow, palm deep, right to the
thumb, and I can play with the inner surfaces, finger-tip myself so deep
inside, with my thumb-pad playing on my clit.

   So, yes, I came.

   A delicious, orgasmic release of all the tension and excitement of the
day, the running naked, being shot, the dog that loved me, and would have
fucked me given half the chance, the grabbing at Red's gun, the ramblers,
being held by one of them, the black girl, setting her up so that she got
shot a second time, which meant that I would win this thing, and get four
thousand, and my entire body is one incredible vibrator that all of this
has just switched on.

   I am a screamer.  I am the girl that you will hear in the next hotel
room.  You will know when I have been fucked to orgasm, because I scream so
loud.  Out in the open, in a field, my screams would travel.  I cannot risk
that.  Instead I have to swallow that instinctive urge.  I clamp my lips
together.  Just as John clamps one hand across my mouth, when we have
guests, or stay with friends, to mute me.  I mute myself instead.

   But I am a volcano.  An earthquake.  A tsunami.  An avalanche.  No, an
avalanche is cold and made of snow and I am hot from running, and from
climbing up, and from sun, and from my own hand that is so deep within my
cunt.  I am a hot, shuddering, silently gasping, orgasmic, extension of my
cunt and clit and nipple stub, and I feels so amazing.

   I am delirious with it.  Almost blanking out.  My mind has gone.  My
body follows, collapsing back down onto the straw that I am on.  The
shuddering, gasping orgasm slowly comes to its natural end, with my hand
still in my cunt, and I begin to breathe normally again, and come back to
reality, the hunt, that is still on.

   I wear my watch on my right wrist, which puzzled Sam, but when you are
left handed, that works best.  I check it.  Nine minutes left.  Nine
minutes longer, to just lie, and chill, and enjoy the sun, and I have
almost won.

   I had to look, of course.  I was too pleased with myself to just lie
there with my fingers deep inside myself.  I removed my hand.  Rolled to
one side.  Peered over the edge.  And saw them.

   Three of them.  One coming from the woods.  Red, maybe.  One coming from
where I thought the road would be.  Blue or Green.  The third coming
diagonally across the field, between the other two.  Green or Blue.  All
three of them.  As if they knew exactly where I was.

   Eight minutes.  Not looking at my watch this time.  There is a part of
my brain that can also tell the time, that can count down seconds.

   Fuck!

   They had to know exactly where I was.  I might have muted my orgasm, but
I had raised by knees, and then my body, arching upwards, bringing it into
view.  They were coming very directly.  One might have seen me first, then
called the others.  Mobile phones.  Quarry spotted.  The white bitch, in
the field, at ten o'clock.  The direction, not the time.

   It would take them no more than a minute to reach the stack of bales
that I was lying on.  Another minute for one of them, at least, to climb
it. Another hunter could throw up a gun.  Bang, bang.  I would be dead.  Or
dead to the prize, if all four shot me, or just one of them, using each of
the other's guns.

   I squirmed to the far side of the bale stack, bits of straw scratching
me as I went.  I slid over the edge, holding a rope to stop myself from
falling all the way, four bales' height, to the ground.  Had I just
dropped, it would have hurt.  The straw scratched my breasts again.  I
lowered myself, using the next rope to hold on, arms stretched, taking my
entire weight.  Pushed off with my feet, away from the bales, and let go
with my hands.

   Parachute fall.  Legs bent, drop, twist to one side, and roll.  Get up
and run.  All I had to do was avoid getting shot for seven more minutes.

   You can cross an average field in a minute, when you are sprinting for
your life.  Which I did.  Zig-zagging, although no shots were fired.  I
would have heard.  I ran diagonally, to the far corner of the field. 
Taking in where I was heading to, and where I might have to run to next.

   The two sides of the field that formed the corner I was heading towards
were both fenced.  Both in wood, with three bars between each post, like
the one on the road, right at the start of the hunt, that I had clambered
through.  Except the one to my right changed from wood to metal at one
point, a hundred feet or so of dull steel tube, six or seven bars instead
of only three.

   There was a house as well, beyond the metal fence, set back from it, all
on its own.  Something smelled unpleasantly, but I ignored the pong.  My
best bet seemed to be the fence on the left, clamber through that, another
field beyond.  Keep running, zig-zag even more, and hope that I could last
another seven minutes longer, without one of the hunters marking me with
paint.

   Then, as I got close, I saw the wire.  Wrapped round the bars.  Not just
around them, but in between as well.  Barbed wire.  I could see the knots
in it, the barbs.  The kind that tears your clothes.  The kind that rips
your skin.  That makes you bleed.  That would draw lines of blood along
your leg or body, if you scraped yourself along it, climbing through.  Not
that there were gaps in it, large enough to get through.

   Maybe, if I was wearing shoes, and had some padded clothing that I could
strip off and put onto the top bar, so as to cover any barbs, I could have
climbed it.  But I was running barefoot, naked, and with one leg over the
top bar, I risked the most important part of my anatomy being dragged
across a barb.  Should I ever was a piercing there, I would use a piercing
studio, not a farmer's fence.

   The metal fence had no barbed wire, nor wire of any kind.  With five or
six bars between the posts, I could scramble through, but the gaps between
the bars were wide enough for feet to climb them.  So I ran to it instead,
and then I saw the other side.

   I should have known.  The stench had wafted towards me.  Now I knew the
reason why.  Mud.  Not hard, compacted earth, like the centres of the
tracks and paths through the woods, or like the surface of the car park. 
Real mud.  The squelchy kind.  Wet and black, and churned up by multiple
trotters strolling casually around.

   Fucking pigs.

   Not police.  These were the kind of pigs that go that abattoirs and come
out at the other end as bacon, sausages, ribs and chops.  The kind that eat
pig-swill, and digest it, and defecate, and urinate, in the open air
enclosure where they are kept.  The kind that make that stench.  The kind
that are pink and fat and short-haired, but are also encased with mud, some
dry, some wet.  Twenty or more of the disgusting things.  Three of them
looking straight back at me, wondering who I was, and what I was about to
do.

   Horrible, ugly things, with those rings through their noses.  Like some
girls I know.  Although why they do it there, I do not understand.  Ears, I
get.  Nipples can be daring.  Clit or labia, extremely sexy, but I do not
like a needle going through my skin, not even at the dentist, so I do not
wear that kind of ring, not anywhere.  But through your septum, so that it
dangles down like snot?  Thank you, but no.

   Too late to turn back.  The hunters would be closing in.  Perhaps no
longer coming for me, but taking aim.  No time, even, to turn around to
see. I had no choice.  I had to go for it.  Four thousand pounds depended
on my surviving just six minutes more, and if I had to get my feet all wet
and muddy, then that was what I had to do.

   The enclosure was twenty feet or so across.  Not far.  I had to do it.
No choice.  I put one foot between the second and third bars of the
enclosure's iron fence.  Barefoot.  The steel so slippery and cold.  Held
onto the top bar.  Lifted my body, threw one leg over, sat a moment, the
hard steel of the top bar pressed against my cunt.  A sitting target.

   I twisted round to get a foothold on the other side.  Not that a bare
foot holds that well on smooth steel.  But I managed somehow, drawing my
other leg over the top bar and down onto the ground.  It squelched, sinking
into the mud so that the top of my foot was covering with the black-brown
slime.  I brought my other foot down.  Both feet in the mud.  I let go of
the top bar.  Nothing now to keep me steady.  Turning, facing my fate, the
mud to cross, the pigs themselves to go between.

   Sows.  I could tell that by the multiple teats, caked in mud.  An image
of piglets sucking flashed in my brain.  No difference really, not in
principle, between sows and human females.  Just that they have multiple
teats to deal with litters, while we have only two.  Both born to breed and
wean their offspring, as I would do sometime.  Panic or just my weird
imagination, I though how it might feel to have those piglets sucking on my
teats.

   I had a choice to make.  Straight across meant going through the group
of pigs.  Going round them, would be twice as far.  In this mud, it could
be slow going either way, and I needed to get clear of the enclosure and
find a place to hide before a hunter reached the enclosure, aimed his gun,
and I got shot.  This mud was not the place that anyone would choose to
die.

   I had to go straight across.  Take my chances with the sows.

   Except I skidded straight away.  Not like the stream.  Not sideways into
water.  Forwards.  Flat into the mud.  Using my arms to stop myself from
going all the way, I saved my face.  Fuck, it was cold.  And disgusting.  I
thought again about the fact that all these pigs would eat whatever from
their trough, and then would do their business where they stood, and churn
it into the mud that I was caked in, which made me gag.  The stench was
foul, and now it was all over me.

   No time to throw up.  No time to get up either.  No point.  I would just
fall again.  Better just to do as pigs do, and stay down on all fours, and
work my way across on hands and knees.  Even that was hard.  Even on your
hands and knees, you can skid and slip and slide and drop down into the mud
all over again, and then again.

   It felt disgusting too.  My whole body was caked in it, legs, cunt,
stomach, breasts, and fore-arms.  But I kept going.  I had no choice. 
Slithering and sliding between the fattest, grossest pigs that I had ever
seen.  Who, instead of staying still, or moving sideways, to give me room
to pass, decided to move around, closing the gaps between them, so that I
had to squeeze through, touching them on either side.

   At least these pigs were sows.  No danger, here, of being mounted.  Not
like that dog.  My cunt was safe.  Caked in wet mud, pig urine and their
faeces, but safe from penetration.  Like me, these pigs were caked in mud,
their undersides.  Their teats, instead of being clean and pink, were dirty
brown, the same as mine.  My breasts I mean.  At least there were no
piglets there, to try to feed.

   I made it, though.  The same style of metal bars were on the other side
of the enclosure, and I used the bars to get back on my feet, and climbed
them, just as I had before, except this time I was caked in mud, and felt
disgusting.  I stepped down from the bars onto a cobbled driveway, between
the enclosure and the side wall of the house, all pebble-dashed and grey,
wondering why anyone would put a stinking pig enclosure right beside where
they would live.

   I had to keep moving.  Three minutes, maybe, left.  Going right would
take me back towards Red.  Left was outhouses, and that was where I ran.  I
could hide somewhere.  I would win this thing.  I had to, now.  You cannot
swim through pig muck just to lose.

   Time slowed, so that I could almost count the seconds.  Each door I
tried was locked, and although there was a kind of square shaped yard at
the back of the house, it was enclosed, outhouses on two sides, a high wall
at the end.  Nowhere else to go.  No way out.  Just trapped.  All I could
do was stand at the wall, and wait, and hope that the seconds would count
down all the way to zero, before the hunters showed.

   The house had windows facing me.  And a rear door, which opened.  He
seemed like he was in his sixties.  Everyone who had seen me was in their
sixties, or older still, as I guessed the ramblers were.  Thick, baggy,
grey trousers worn over a grey tee-shirt, that was actually tucked in,
covering an expansive waist, and with a rope instead of a belt, tied at the
front, and once black, wellington boots that were as caked in mud as my
legs, my belly and my breasts.

   He did not say anything.  Just looked.

   I looked back at him, still counting down the seconds, hoping that my
estimate was right.  Barely two minutes still to go.  I stood there,
covered from chin to toe is that repulsive pig muck, smelling myself, while
getting back my breath.

   He just walked to the hose that, until he picked it up, I had not even
noticed had been there.  Black rubber, steel nozzle, more rust than metal.
Steel handle of some kind fixed to the nozzle.  He aimed the hose at me. 
Turned the handle.  A jet of water shot at me, and backed me to the wall.
Cold.  Freezing, fucking cold.  And forceful.  You could have cleaned a
four by four with just that jet alone.  But the jet was washing off the
muck and mud, thank God.

   He turned it off, and I was sparkling clean, in less than thirty
freezing seconds.

   "Fucking city whore!" he said.  "Cunt!"

   Then went inside.  I was left wondering exactly what he thought I might
be doing in his yard, why I had clambered through his pig enclosure, naked
as the day that I was born.

   One minute.  Just sixty seconds, counting down.

   They walked in together, army boots resounding on the cobbles, coming
directly for me, from between the house and the pig enclosure.  Side by
side.  Only stopping twenty feet from me.  Levelling their guns, stocks to
their shoulders, barrels pointing straight at me, fingers on triggers.  A
firing squad.  An execution in slow motion.  I had been sentenced, and now
I would be put to death.

   Two thoughts.  One, that I had left my goggles on the hay-bales, and I
hoped that they would not aim for my face or eyes.  The second, that I was
not going to turn around, that I would confront my fate like all those
facing firing squads before me.  That second thought may have been a
mistake.

   My back had hurt.  Yellow had probably fired from a hundred feet or
more, not twenty, and although the backs of your body is not as sensitive
to pain, the paint pellet hitting just below my shoulder blade had hurt. 
So my thigh hurt even more.  Not that I had much time to grin and bear it,
or to register the blue paint, because my left breast hurt so much I yelped
in pain, right on the fucking nipple stub, a bull's eye for Green.  The
third went lower.  An inch above my clit.  That hurt the most, and made me
swear along with cried of pain, but also made me realise just how lucky I
had been.  One inch lower would have been truly agonising, and no sex for
my loving husband for a week.

   It seemed like just a second later, the klaxon blared, audible even at
this farmhouse, from the manor house where I had started out, to run and
hide.  Four hits, the last three just in time.  Four thousand blown.  The
last three thousand disappearing into gun-smoke in just seconds, just when
I had thought that I could win.

   The only question now was Sophie.  If she had also been hit four times,
that left one thousand, which we would share.  Five hundred each.  Nice
enough, but not the outcome I had hoped for.  Not by far.

   The guys were nice about it all.

   "You okay?  That was quite a chase!"

   "Sorry, I didn't mean to hit you there.  I was trying to avoid your
eyes."

   "You must be cold, can I...?" offering me his jacket to put on.

   I was not going to let myself look like any kind of wimp.

   "I'm fine," I said.  "I'm good."

   While my thigh and breast and pubic mound were all still throbbing with
the pain of being shot, close quarters.  I must have looked a mess as well,
blotched with paint, red, blue and green.

   Sam drove a jeep.  As did a guy I had not seen before, a second jeep
that is.  The hunters climbed on board with him.  I climbed into Sam's rear
seat, behind Sophie, who was already riding beside Sam.  I could not see
her butt, but her back was bare.  No paint.  No other hits visible, not
from behind at least.

   "Tough luck," Sam said.  "The last three getting you like that."

   Inside, I agreed.  That had been tough.  All three of them closing in on
me like that.  One would have been unlucky.  All three at once, seemed
strange.

   Sam reversed all the way down the cobbles, a hundred yards or so, onto a
tarmac road, then slipped into first.  She had driven this kind of jeep
before.  Straight line reversing, at a healthy speed, before she turned,
still backing, into the road.

   "It was shit," I agreed.  "And it hurt!  My nipple is still throbbing!"

   "And did you enjoy it?" Sam asked me.  "The game, I mean.  Not getting
hit."

   Thinking about it, I realised that I had enjoyed it, in a masochistic
kind of way.  It had been fun.  Not every aspect of it, but even that pig
enclosure crawl, now that I was clean again, I felt good that I had carried
on, and done it, instead of giving up, and being shot for cowardice.

   "I did, actually," I said.

   We were turning onto a busier road now, Sophie and myself still naked,
even though the jeep was open.  No sides or roof.  Just seats and an
engine. Being naked, however, by then was normal.  The fact that other cars
were passing us, their drivers and their passengers seeing us, both naked,
was just the way it was.

   "Just to confirm that way it went," Sam said.  "Sophie got two hits.  So
I'm afraid she gets a straight three thousand, and this time, you don't
even get a consolation prize."

   I noticed the way she said, "this time", in that sentence, as if there
would be other times.

   "It's fine," I said.

   No money for our holiday, I thought.

   I tapped Sophie on the shoulder.

   "Well done," I said.  "No hard feelings?"

   She turned and grinned.

   "No, bitch," she laughed.  "No hard feelings.  Like you said...,
everything is fair..."

   "It was war, wasn't it," I laughed.

   "It was war, okay," she laughed some more.

   It had been genuinely fun, I thought.  Just a pity that there was no
money to pay for the fortnight in the sun that I had wanted for John and
myself.

   "There's another game next week," Sam said.  "High stakes, though, but
if you're interested..."

   "Will that be here?" I asked her.

   "No," she said.  "We change locations.  Or we could get complaints. 
That thing with you and the ramblers could raise some eyebrows.  I don't
think the old farmer will complain, or the woman with the dog.  But we like
to use places where the public are likely to be walking, or whatever.  It
gives it all an extra edge."

   "I guess," I said, thinking that she was right about the extra frisson
of being naked in a public area, and the risks involved, but also wondering
how she knew already everything that had happened during the chase.

   "Ten thousand, next event," Sam said.  "Not five.  Lose two thousand for
each hit."

   Good money, if I could last the distance, I thought.  For just two
hours.

   "And, because the hunters are being asked to pay double, there's a bonus
for them at the end."

   "As in?" I asked her.

   Sam drove casually, one handed, holding the steering wheel at the
bottom.

   "As in, they also play for a prize.  Two of them won today, Red and
Yellow, hitting both of you.  They each get their stake back.  Had just one
of them won, he would have doubled his stake."

   "So what's the stake?" I asked.

   "They each paid ten thousand up-front," she said.  "Half the kitty is
the hunters' winnings.  The girls get whatever they get.  The rest covers
our costs, the equipment, and so on."

   "Okay," I said.

   "So next week it's twenty," she said.

   "And we get ten," I confirmed with her.

   "Or whatever is left, if you get hit, which you will," Sam said.  "The
guys who buy in at twenty a time know what they're doing."

   "I'd still give it a go," I said.  I basically still needed the money.

   "And the winning hunter gets to fuck the winning girl," Sam said, "or
she doesn't get her winnings."

   "So the loser gets off scot-free?" I joked, while taking in what she had
just said.

   "The other hunters take their turns with her," Sam said.  "But she still
gets two thousand consolation prize."

   "Fuck!" I thought.

   That would have been me, today.  Except there had been two joint
winners, who would have shared the right to fuck Sophie, while the losers,
would have fucked me.

   I pictured it.  The same game.  The same chase.  Everything the same as
today had been, except all the while aiming not to get hit, not just to win
the money, but to have to fuck just one guy, instead of three.  That would
definitely give the game a different edge.

   A guaranteed two thousand.  That would pay for a really nice trip, Spain
or Greece, all inclusive, two weeks of sun.  real sun, not like in England.
The Med.

   But I would have to let the guy who won it, fuck me.  Or if I lost,
there could be three.

   I felt my clit tingling.  Anticipation, or the residual sensations from
the nettle stings?  If I agreed, it would be the first time with another
man since meeting John.  Not that he had been the first man I had slept
with.  There had been more than several.  Maybe one more, to get the
holiday that we deserved, would not be all that bad.

   "I'm in," Sophie said to Sam, while I was thinking.

   Then she turned around again.

   "You are so going to lose!" she said, and grinned.

   I had not decided, even if Sophie clearly thought I had.  I had said
nothing to my husband, about why I would be away today, except to take a
walk in the countryside.  I could make the same excuse again.  But this was
different.  Right then, I did not know if I would do it.

   I said nothing, waiting until we got back to the manor house.  Once
inside, Sam showed us to a shower room.  The paint, she told us, would not
wash off with shower gel.  We would need to use white spirit, and some
shower rags.

   I did my front, while Sophie tried to clean her butt.  Yellow on one
side.  Red on the other.  But difficult to work on.

   "Can you do my shoulder blade," I asked her.  "Then I'll help you."

   She gave me a look that I could not read, then shrugged, and told me to
turn around.  It took a few minutes, but finally she told me it was all
done.

   She turned.  I wet my rag from the bottle of white spirit.  Her butt,
when I started, felt amazingly firm.  Beneath a layer of fat, there was
some solid muscle.  I worked on both cheeks, then between them, conscious
that this was getting pretty intimate, and wondering how far I could risk
going.

   She let me know.

   She put both hands flat on the tiled wall, leaning on it, and spread her
legs, giving me unfettered access.  The paint was gone, but the invitation
was there.  I used a clean rag, and shower gel, to remove the smell of the
white spirit.  Her butt, of course, the crack between those hard butt
cheeks, then underneath, around her hole, and further, crouching behind her
to do her cunt.

   "You do know that was a dirty trick you played," she commented, while I
continued washing her, dispensing with the rag and using my hand.

   "True," I said.  "I still lost though.  Although I don't get how all the
hunters knew exactly where I was, right at the end."

   "Your watch," Sophie said.

   "What do you mean, my watch?" I asked her.

   She turned around.  Leaned against the wall again, her back to it, her
legs still splayed.

   "I'm pretty sure that they have trackers on them.  Just like mobile
phones can.  I got caught like that that first time that I played.  This
time, I took mine off, and left it, after I'd been shot because of you.  I
hid nearby, and no one found me.  I got it just after the klaxon sounded,
so Sam has no idea," she explained.

   I was still crouching.

   "I'm sorry that I tricked you," I said.

   "Bitch!" she grinned.  "You know you want to."

   I leaned forwards, my hands on her firm thighs.  I kissed her first. 
Just above her slit, my lips feeling the wiriness of her pubic curls.  Then
moved down and licked, probing with my tongue.  Tasting her slit. 
Wondering if that was what mine tasted like, to John.

   My first cunt.  To actually lick.  Black as the night.  Except I used my
thumbs to open it and saw the pink inside.  The inner walls, the barely
there lips of her labia, the protrusion of her clit, emerging from its
hood. I licked that.  I know how good that feels.

   I felt her hands holding my head to her.

   "Don't stop," she said.  "You owe me."

   I did not stop.  Not until she shuddered and moaned and gasped as the
pent up craving for release washed over her.

   She took a moment to recover, a moment when her hands were still holding
my head against her crotch, and I was breathing the aroma of her cunt.

   "Thanks," she said, eventually.  "I needed that."

   No reciprocation.  She left me to use a clean rag on myself, with shower
gel this time, to rinse away the white spirit from my own front and back.

   She had dried herself and dressed and left, before I finished, so I
dried myself alone.  It felt strange to put back on my clothes.  Only two
hours of nakedness, outside that is, and it already seemed so natural.

   Sam had arranged my taxi to the station.

   "Decided yet?" she asked.

   "Not yet," I said.

   I thought about it on the train, while watching English countryside go
by.  Ten thousand pounds was tempting.  But there would be a price to pay,
and I would have to pay it with my cunt.  Maybe that was just too high a
cost.  I had promised to be faithful, but if it came from wanting us to
spend some quality time together, might that be justified?  I just could
not decide.

   I asked myself how John would feel about it, if I told him all about
today, and the way the prize would work if I said that I would play again.
Maybe not a good idea.  Maybe some things are better left unsaid.

   My station was announced.  I quickly keyed a text to Sam.  Pressed send.
Instinctive.  Not thought out.

   John would be waiting for me with our car.

   "Tonight," I thought, "I'll let him fuck me from behind,...  and think
how it would feel if it were someone else."