“Motherfucker,” cursed Nora as she felt the bone in her right forearm snap. The intense pain radiated from the break, letting her know that her heightened sensitivity to feelings could also be a major drawback.

 

Nora swung a left fist into the head of the Glowing One, rocking it back. She took some quick steps back, to put some distance between her and the powerful monster, then reached over and pulled her .44 automag from its holster. The Glowing One was back on her in a moment, and she rammed hastily thrust pistol into its skull. A couple of quick pulls of the trigger blew its head off its neck, killing it instantly.

 

Grimacing in pain, Nora stood looking at her forearm, hanging at an obscene angle. Her bones were many times harder than those of a normal human, with reinforcing carbon fiber deposited by the augmentation process. But this ghoul had been many times stronger than its normally powerful lesser allies. And the bone had met its match. The pain was threatening to cause her to black out, while her stomach threatened to send its contents over the floor.

 

“You alright, Partner,” called out Heather, coming up the stairs.

 

“No,” hissed Nora, cradling her right arm. “Damned Glowing One broke my right forearm. I didn’t even think that possible.”

 

“Hey, you’re tough, Nora. But not invulnerable. Now let me get a look at it. I’m thinking we need to set it as fast as possible.”

 

“Why?” asked Nora, plopping down on the couch and staring at the body of the highly radioactive creature. “And I’m thinking we need to take this conversation elsewhere, before you catch too many rads from the Motherfucker.”

 

Nora took a seat on the couch on the bottom floor, looking at all the ghoul bodies. Getting to Croup Manor had been a struggle, fighting through Raiders and robots, including a couple of Assaultrons and some Gutsies, just to get to Nahant. Everyone had come through with some dings, and it had been pure luck that it hadn’t been worse. And then to fall to a ghoul. She had gotten cocky with the irradiated creatures. Thinking herself far above them. All of the ones they had encountered when walking into the small town, up to and including the swarm that had come out of the Manor, had been easy prey. Going down with single shots of all of their weapons dispensing shots to the head.

 

“Let’s get your armor and Vault suit off your upper body so I can get a look at the damage.”

 

“Pervert,” said Nora, with a short laugh that turned into a cry. “Hurts like hell.”

 

“Okay. We need to get the bones set before you start to heal up,” said the closest thing her party had to a doctor. “With your healing factor it will have set to the point where we need to rebreak it in less than a half an hour. And as easy as that Glowing One took out your bone, it will probably not be that easy for us. Now here, bite down on this rolled up rag.”

 

Nora had seen enough movies to know what was coming. Heather was gentle with her arm, until she jerked it into place with all of her strength. Nora screamed, her hyper-sensitive nerves on fire, her gorge rising. Heather slammed a needle into Nora’s arm and the pain faded behind the sensation of wellbeing that the opiates brought on. Heather skillfully placed the splints, then wrapped the gauze tightly around the arm. She then secured the arm to Nora’s body with more gauze.

 

“Now sit there for a couple of hours,” Heather told Nora in an authoritarian tone. “Don’t move the arm until I check you out and give you the go ahead. Understand?”

 

“You got it, Doc.”

 

Nora wanted to get to this future settlement. The property was in fine shape, the house with intact walls and roof. The windows were shattered, but they could be replaced easily enough. She wasn’t sure what she would be doing to this house. A recreation and gathering center? Quarters? She was thinking of building a three-story settler center for the people to live in, another building for crafts and jobs, and of course the Core Services Building. The QESS was filled with nuclear material bought from Deb. That had used up almost all the caps the three had made from the Trade Center prostitution gig at Finch Farms.

 

And damn that Kessler, had thought Nora once again. She had tried to bring the Trade Settlement into the alliance. When that didn’t work she had asked permission to use the workbench to connect to the QESS. Again denied. It would have solved so many problems. She could have bought goods from Deb and put them into the system. Instead she had to wait until she got to a settlement with a system to put the materials in, or simply carry them with her. Both methods came with their difficulties.

 

“You want us to go into the basement and see if it needs clearing?” asked Barb, sitting carefully beside her boss so as not to jar her.

 

“Wait for a couple of hours. I want to go in there with you.”

 

Think we can’t handle it?” asked the raven-haired beauty.

 

“Hell, I almost couldn’t handle something unexpected upstairs. So I’m not about to make assumptions on what’s down there. Meanwhile, let’s set up the QESS and get the robots through.”

 

“And we’re going to have to check out our neighbors as well,” said Barb, a troubled look on her face. “I think we have Raiders across the street, and possibly some Supermutants closer to the Oceanological Society.”

 

“Wonderful. Well, once we get the basement cleared we’re going on a hunt.”

 

The basement was home to three ghouls, none particularly powerful. Three quick shots and the estate was ghoul free. Nora took a few minutes to look over the logs in the terminal on the basement desk. It was a horror story of a man who had witnessed the bomb going off in the distance, then watched as his family started to change, quickly. Going feral, while he lived on and on in his misery. Until he had gone mad as well, the radiation rotting his cognitive centers, making him an animal.

 

Nora set a robot to cleaning the basement, while two more cleaned up the bodies littering the estate. Two constructrons began work on the CSB, while one of the handies, clean up duties done, started to replace the windows of the house.

 

“Ready to go meet the neighbors?” Nora asked her people.

 

“How’s the arm?” asked Heather, reaching out to gently palpate the limb. “I think the bones have set, though it might be some hours before you’re fully healed.”

 

“Damn. I don’t want to wait that long.”

 

Look, partner. You’ve almost fully healed an injury in two hours that would take anyone else two weeks. That’s quite a feat of recovery. So quit complaining. By morning you will be as good as new.”

 

“Well, I still want to take the neighbors out tonight.”

 

“I recommend against it, but you’re the boss,” said the redhead with a frown.

 

Nora wanted to act tough and go out and kill the scum infesting the Nahant area. Thinking better of it, she nodded to Heather. “We’re going to do it your way, Doc. Tomorrow morning it is.”

 

Nora set the robots to constructing turrets on the house. If something came at them in the night, the intruders would be the ones receiving the surprise. The party sat down to a dinner of heated workshop rations at the dining room table, engaging in conversation.

 

“So what the hell started the war anyway?” asked a curious Barb. “I mean, we live with the result around us, but still don’t know what kicked it off. And how could anyone start a war they knew would result in so much destruction?”

 

“As far as the official word, the Chinese launched a surprise attack on us. That was the official word.”

 

“And you sound like you don’t believe the official word,” said Heather. “Any reason why?”

 

“Many. Starting with the military response. Two minutes after they were reporting nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania, we had APCs on the streets and vertibirds in the air.”

 

“APCs?”

 

“The wheeled armored vehicles with turrets on top. Smaller than real tanks. You see them all over the place, along with crashed vertibirds. Anyway, those would have been based at the National Guard Training Center or the Army Reserve Center. Yet they were all over the streets of my neighborhood as soon as the strikes were reported. As if they had been pre-alerted. Same with the vertibirds. I’m thinking that Vault Tech had something to do with it. And for another thing, the multi-megaton blast went off to the south of Boston. If they had been trying to kill the city they would have hit it dead center.”

 

“Looks like they did a pretty good job of fucking the place up,” said Barb.

 

“Believe me. If they had hit downtown it would have been much worse. And for another thing, if these were submarine launched weapons, which all of the records seem to agree upon, why did they hit Pennsylvania first, Pittsburg as a matter of fact, before coastal Boston.”

 

“And how are you going to go about finding out for sure?” asked Heather, frowning.

 

“Checking every damned terminal I come to,” said Nora. “Looking over all the written records I can find. Talking with ghouls from that time.”

 

“And what’s the point?”

 

“I don’t know. I just need to know. I think Vault Tech had something to do with it, but I don’t know what.”

 

“And it’s apparent that you really hate Vault Tech,” said Barb.

 

“Better Living Underground,” said Nora with a grimace. “That was their promise to me and my family. And without warning, lying about the purpose of the cryo pods, they froze us. As part of an experiment. I certainly didn’t give my consent for my family and myself to be run through an experiment. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the Vaults had similar purposes. The clues are there, people. I just need to find them and put it all together.”

 

“Well, good luck,” said Barb, reaching over and putting a hand on Nora’s good arm. “We’re here for you, so whatever you need from us, you’ve got.”

 

“I keep finding references to CIT,” said Nora, her quick mind jumping around from node to node.

 

“That’s the old ruin on the North side of the Charles, isn’t it?” asked Heather. “What was it?”

 

“The Commonwealth Institute of Technology. Probably the most advanced research institution in America, though the people at Georgia Tech disagreed. But if there was any cutting-edge research going on in the Commonwealth before the war, they would be the ones.”

 

Commonwealth Institute,” said Heather in a hushed voice. “The Institute? Could they have been the beginnings of the terror of the Commonwealth?”

 

“I doubt it,” said Nora. “They were a college. With scientists of all types. If there was a nefarious origin to this Institute, I would expect it to be the Government or a corporate giant like Vault Tech.”

 

“So, when are you going to start looking into who took your baby?” asked Heather.

 

Nora winced. That was a sore point with her. “Whoever stole Shaun could have taken him ten years ago. Maybe forty. I have no way of knowing, and he has no way of knowing who I am. Two possibilities. He’s either already dead. Or he’s alive and well. And there is nothing I can do about either instance. If I can find him, great. I’ll go after him on the chance that he is not in a good place. But right now I’m concentrating on getting back at the kidnappers, and to do that I need an organized force behind me.”

 

“So you concentrate on the Minutemen,” said Barb, nodding. “While getting in on the good side of the Brotherhood. I still think the Institute is your best bet. They have a reputation for kidnapping people, after all.”

 

And they get blamed for everything, thought Nora. The easy mark, but what if they weren’t responsible for all the kidnappings in the Commonwealth.

 

The next morning they took out a Raider lair and a nest of Supermutants. Both groups acted to form and were easy targets. The Mutants had no suicider, though Nora wished that every group did. It made it easier on her team to know the threat was there. Instead they spent time and energy looking for something that might not be there. Or running the risk of being surprised.

 

By the next morning, after a quintet of settlers had come in, tracing the recruitment signal, Nora and friends were ready to move out to the next target. Up the coast, they could see it across the water, small in the distance. A lighthouse. That was intriguing, and Nora couldn't wait to explore that site.

 

*     *     *

 

The lighthouse appeared to be fully intact. The night before Nora and her friends had noted that there was a light in the housing at top, though it had a strange glow to it, not like an electric or even a gas lamp. Well, that was a mystery which would be solved when they got to the top.

 

There were more robots to destroy along the way, including some that seemed to be cobbled together from spare parts. They were equipped with lasers, carrying a lot of firepower and little in the way of defense. Nora tried out some of her new 40mm pulse grenades to take them down in groups.

 

The death claw seemed to materialize in front of them, using a chameleon effect much like a stealth boy. It immediately charged and headed straight for Barb, who froze for a moment that might have cost her life. Nora hit it with a burst in the side, capturing its attention. The beast turned toward the Sole Survivor, its massive claws ready to rip and tear. If it got those claws into Nora she was sure it would rip her apart in seconds, and no amount of supercharged healing would save her life. A strike came in, hitting the shell of the power armor and rocking her back. The creature realized that it wasn’t getting it well named claws through that armor and grasped her by the arms, lifting the recon suit in the air and slamming her to the ground.

 

“Taking damage,” said the computer voice of the suit. “Take cover.”

 

If I could I would, thought Nora, struggling to get away. But if she did get away it would go after her friends, who, lacking her armor, would be dead meat. Fortunately for her they were hitting it with everything they had. With a shudder that beast released Nora, then fell to the ground dead.

 

“Shit,” said Heather, looking down at the monster, then at her friend. “Nora, are you okay?”

 

“Just shaken up,” she said, running a diagnostic on her armor and seeing, with some relief, that other than some superficial armor plating damage to her arms it was relatively intact. “I didn’t realize they could go invisible.”

 

“Well, fortunately, most can’t,” said Barb. “The chameleon variety is rare.”

 

Not so rare that we didn’t run into one, thought Nora, setting her Handy to butchering the beast for meat and hide.

 

“Unbelievers,” shouted a voice from near the house built below the lighthouse. “You intrude upon the holy light of Atom. Begone.”

 

“Oh, great,” groaned Barb, checking her weapon to make sure it had a full ammo load on board. “These fucking crazies.”

 

Nora had heard of the Children of Atom, a cult that worshipped radiation. They would be mostly harmless if that were all they did, but they gathered in radioactive places that they considered sacred and held others away. The Pip-boy on Nora’s wrist was not picking up high background radiation, but there had been that weird glow the group had seen of nights.

 

“We would like to examine the lighthouse,” said Nora over her suit speakers.

 

“Begone, unbelievers. Blasphemers. Only those whose destiny is linked with division are welcome here.”

 

Nora had no idea what the crazy woman was talking about. Still, she was crestfallen that this prime spot might have already been claimed. She couldn’t see herself killing them for merely taking a spot that it was their right to claim. When one of them fired an energy weapon at the party that all changed.

 

“What the hell is that?” yelled Nora as the rad counter on her suit went off the scale as the burst of radiation hit. Truly little got through its shielding, just enough to let her know she had been hit. She felt slight nausea before her body shed the rads. Barb cried out as she was hit, going down to a knee and grimacing.

 

That was enough for Nora. These maniacs had attacked without reason, and now they had harmed one of hers. She jacked a grenade into her launcher and sent it on its way, to land at the feet of the Cultist with the strange gun and blast her into her afterlife, whatever that was.

 

“Kill them,” screamed a frantic voice. “Kill them all.”

 

The weapons of the fanatics were not really all that effective. The bodysuits of the party had good shielding, deflecting most of the rads. Enough hits could still kill, but since that was true of most weapons the party had gotten particularly good at cover and concealment. Rad meds took care of the rest, and soon they had the place cleared of fanatics.

 

“I’ve never seen the fanatics acting this violent,” said Heather as she and Barb were sitting on the couch in the living room of the house. Both were sucking down purified water to rehydrate from the effects of the rad meds they had taken.

 

“Well, this might explain it,” said Nora, sitting at the desk and using the computer terminal. “Seems this is a radical branch of the movement. The Sword of Atom, with a stated purpose of forcing unbelievers into the fold, or killing them if they refuse. I can’t allow that kind of behavior. And it also says they was set up at the small blast crater to the North.”

 

“Anything about what’s at the top of the lighthouse?” asked Heather.

 

“Something about a Blessed of Atom shedding his holy light. I need to see what’s up there.”

 

What was up there was another Glowing One, its rads sending Nora’s Pip-boy into a frenzy. She didn’t know how strong it was, but she was unwilling to take chances. Barb stood by the door, ready to loosen the bar, while Nora and Heather sighted in on the monster. As soon as the door was open it started forward, to run into a killing hail of fire that sent it in pieces to the floor, to join the bodies of a half dozen traders and settlers that the Cultists had given it for some unknown reason.

 

“We’re going to need to clear out that crater to the north,” she told her people.

 

“What the hell made it?” asked Barb.

 

“I’m guessing a tactical nuke. A battlefield weapon, and not a city killer. That would explain what, but not why. That may have to remain a mystery for now. But let’s get this place started and some defenses in place.”

 

A QESS in place and the robots working, Nora marked out what she wanted built. Resources were starting to get low, but she thought she might have enough steel, wood and concrete to complete this settlement and one more. After that it would be a wait for her settlers to gather more, while she used the caps they made to buy from traders and did some gathering herself.

 

The CSB up and the fusion reactors running, Nora ordered turrets placed along the roof, most oriented toward the north and the trouble spot up there. No sooner were they up than the laser turrets started to send beams out in the direction of the Crater House. The bright bursts of radiation came back, targeting the turrets that they could not harm. The Children of Atom took almost a dozen casualties before they gave it up as a bad job.

 

“I guess that sent them a message,” said Heather, smiling.

 

“The only message I want to send them is you are now dead,” said Nora. “It’s getting late, but we own the night, so what do you feel about hitting them in the dark?”

 

“Sounds like the way to go to me,” said Barb. “The maniacs have proven that they will not live and let live. So I say kill them all, and the equation becomes live for us.”

 

As soon as it was pitch black the trio was creeping forward, night vision engaged, weapons ready. Even Heather was equipped with a firearm, Nora’s assault rifle, decreasing her chances of being given away with invisible bullets instead of visible laser light that pointed back to her position. Nora had her Garand sniper rifle, quickly becoming a favorite, and well as her M79 GL.

 

They made it to the lip of the crater before they saw anyone. The interiors of the ramshackle shacks were illuminated by lamps and candles, while a couple of small generators chugged along in the background. Nora spotted the heat of a quartet of machine gun turrets and made note of them in her Pip-boy.

 

“Okay,” she whispered over the radio. “I’ll service them all with the GL, stir them up for us. Then I’m going for that shack in the middle right of the complex. Heather, take the nearer shack, Barb, the one on the left. Then we’ll select our secondary targets.”

 

“Wilco,” said the pair in unison, both stifling giggles at their timing.

 

Nora aimed in and let loose with a 40mm, landing the round directly into the opening of the shack to the front. The round went off, shredding everything within that structure, while she jacked in another round and serviced the next building. Six rounds, and every location got some love. Heather and Barb started taking out targets, Children of Atom, those who survived the grenades, coming to their feet and looking for enemies. Most just fired in random directions, the proclivity of people to want to fight back, even if they weren’t sure where the assault was coming from.

 

They went down one by one to the snipers, screaming about how Atom would protect them and destroy their enemies. Nora thought Atom was no more useful than most Gods if the results of his intervention were any indication. Soon there was no more movement in the compound, and Nora crept in through the first shed, looking, listening. There were bodies everywhere, still glowing with heat. All in rags, no helmets, most with the gamma guns laying next to them. A few had more conventional firearms. They were a sorry lot as a fighting force, and Nora thought that Atom needed a better sword.

 

Good thing I can joke about it now, because the dreams tonight are going to be holy hell, she thought, as she and her people started to gather up the gamma guns, which would give them more energy weapon parts for building defenses.

 

Late that night, after taking cold showers, the trio retired to their bags on the floor of the CSB. The double dildo came out and the three went to it, pleasuring each other with both the double and a couple of singles. Nora thought that she had missed this with her best buds. All knew how to work the bodies of their partners, and all experienced multiple orgasms before they fell into an exhausted sleep in each other’s arms. The nightmares still came, the faces of the poor dumb Children of Atom screaming as they fell, the death claw fighting with them. She made it through the night, her partners too exhausted to awaken from her whimpers.

 

“I think I want to check out Longneck Lukowski’s Cannery this morning,” said Nora as the party awoke and had breakfast. She had been hearing bad things about the place, people eating their meat products and becoming ill. While realizing that this time and place did not have the cleanliness standards of her time, still, selling tainted meat was beyond the pale.

 

The cannery was a mile down the road to the south, right on the coast. Nora thought the place might be a great addition to the Lighthouse Settlement, in the future. Right now she just wanted to see what was going on. They walked into the cannery to an argument between a pretty freckle faced lady in a Vault jumpsuit, the number 81 on the back, and a middle-aged thin man.

 

“Only the best ingredients go into my product,” said the man. “If your customers are getting sick after eating my meat, it must be something you are doing.”

 

“That’s it,” cried the woman. “Go out on the roads and sell your own damned meat. I’m through.”

 

“Are you a trader?” asked Nora before the woman could get too far.

 

“I’m Rylee,” said the woman. “Nice Pip-Boy by the way. Mine was a piece of junk.”

 

“So, you’re from a Vault?”

 

“Vault 81. The place bored me to death, so I left. Though the road is starting to get on my nerves.”

 

I’ve got a permanent place you can set up at. Actually several.”

 

“You’re that lady whose been helping out settlements, aren’t you? Well, what do you have?”

 

Nora sent her off to the Trade Center at Finch Farm, feeling good about getting the pretty young lady off the road, where she was a disaster waiting to happen. She could make a good living at an established market, and with her looks she might just make a good bit of money working the brothel part time. If she wanted to.

 

“Can we have a look around?” asked Nora. “I represent a consortium of settlements, and we might be able to send a lot of business your way.”

 

“Go right on ahead,” said the smiling man, rubbing his hands together. “But stay out of the basement. It’s dangerous down there.”

 

Nothing could have been more likely to draw Nora into the basement than that warning. Something was going on here, and she was sure the answer was down there. Taking the elevator down, she looked up as something clicked and the elevator locked into place. With nothing to it but to explore, she looked over the terminal and read the history of this place.

 

It turned out that Lukowski was leavening his meat with ground ghoul, the disgusting irradiated creatures going into otherwise wholesome food. It was no wonder people were getting sick eating his product. The miracle was that people weren’t dying.

 

It took about an hour of going through the maze of tunnels and putting down all the ghouls before she found a way to the surface. Barb and Heather looted everything they could find. After all, Nora was going to shut this man down as a public service.

 

“I told you not to go into the basement,” screamed the man, running for his office up the stairs. “Now I’m just going to have to kill you.”

 

The short fight didn’t go the way he expected. The Handies attacked, to go down quickly. She actually would have preferred to take him alive, but he kept shooting at her and a lucky shot from Barb took him through the head. They searched the place, coming up with a lot of loot, including the circuitry of the Handies and the packing machines, always something in demand. And a Bobblehead, this one unlocking some of her merchant abilities.

 

Back at the lighthouse they found four settlers had arrived, following the recruitment signal. Nora got them set up and made sure everything was as she wanted, then made plans to head up the coast the next morning to the last workbench on her list.

 

*     *     *

 

Coastal Cottage had one problem with it. Not that there was anything on the site to contest their occupation. A couple of Raiders, a few Mirelurks, and the property was cleared. While they were setting up the QESS and getting the robots ready a trio of death claws came charging onto the property. Nora ran to her power armor while Barb and Heather scrambled up some rocks. The death claws all converged on Nora, too stupid to realize that was the last move they wanted to make. Nora pulled the nano-sword she had sheathed to the outside of the armor and cut the arm off of one creature, then delivered a backhand blow that took the head off the second.

 

“Well, that’s over,” said Barb, climbing down from the rocks, the barrel of her assault weapon smoking. Three death claws lay on the ground, now dead claws.

 

“I don’t like the look of that valley over there,” said Nora after climbing out of her power armor. “I think the first order of business is to cover it with turrets.”

 

The ruins of the cottage came down quickly, the CSB went up just as fast. By the next morning they had the makings of a settlement. And were treated to the entertainment of a pair of death claws striding across the open area to the north one at a time, and being taken down by lasers. By late afternoon the place was finished, and later that evening they welcomed their first settlers and vetted them in, teaching them how to use the supply system.

 

“Where to tomorrow?” asked Heather as she, Nora and Barb lay in bed, basking in the post orgasmic glow which their efforts had brought.

 

“I think back to Finch first off, then to Bunker Hill the next day. From their I’m thinking of looking into Goodneighbor.”

 

The next morning there was a message from Preston in the QESS, with one question. Is it time to take back the Castle? Nora thought that over for a couple of minutes, then sent a message back. Sure, meet you outside in ten days. Nora wasn’t sure what they would be facing, only that it had chased the Minutemen off when they were still a power to be reckoned with. She wanted to go pick up her suit of assault X-01 from Home Plate, and then see about setting it up as a club to lure in caps from Diamond City. Maybe a dance venue and a small brothel as well, someplace the settlers who didn’t mind selling themselves could make caps. And a place where she could dance and whore as well. She really didn’t care if it cut into the profits of the Red Seat. While doubting it would put him out of business, it might cause the big boss to rethink his methods.

 

*     *     *

 

The party arrived at Finch Farm by late afternoon the next day, taking out some trouble spots along the way. Nora went looking for Rylee, hoping that she had made it safely. If she was here, it was another trader off the road and safe. The woman had chosen to go solo, and most of those didn’t last long.

 

“Yes. The young lady came in three days ago,” said Abigail. “She’s a go getter. Started working double shifts from the second day she was here.”

 

“I didn’t know we had enough business to keep her that busy,” said Nora, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Well, she spends her days setting up her shop and making contacts. And her evenings working the Brothel and making more contacts. Jake and Daniel have both been over there making her acquaintance, though I’m afraid they might be using their positions as the sons of the Duke to take advantage of her.”

 

“The sons of the Duke?”

 

“Kind of a joke name the caravanners have tacked on Abraham. We had a good laugh over it.”

 

“I’m really not sure what I’m doing,” said a voice that sounded a lot like Rylee’s as Nora approached her room.

 

“I thought you were a professional,” said a woman’s voice, rising in anger. “I expected for you to get me off.”

 

Nora recognized the voice as belonging to one of Lucas’ guards, a statuesque blond that reminded Nora of a Valkyrie. She knocked at the door then waited. Rylee, naked as a jaybird, cracked the door open. “Can I help you?”

 

“I want to know the same. It sounds like you’re having some problems.”

 

“I’m used to dealing with men,” said Rylee in a panicked voice. “Not women. But the guard insisted that since I’m a professional, I needed to get her off as well.”

 

“You want some help?”

 

“You would do that for me?”

 

“Sure. This Trade Outpost, including the brothel, is partially mine. And it hurts our reputation if you can’t handle all of our customers.”

 

“What’s going on out there?” asked the guard in an angry voice.

 

“We were just discussing how you were about to have the best orgasm in your life, Stacy,” said Nora, walking into the room and starting to pull off her armor.

 

“Nora,” said the woman in an excited voice. “Some of the boys have been raving about your technique, but I didn’t know you were into women.”

 

“Who do you think takes care of my two traveling companions when we’re on the road. Here’s what I’m going to do, Stacy. You get all your caps back, and you act as my demonstration lover to teach Rylee how to handle a woman. Deal?”

 

“Hell yes.”

 

Nora finished stripping, then climbed into the bed, her arms going around the body of the guard and her lips sought the mouth of the other woman. “Watch and learn,” she told Rylee, looking over at the clearly embarrassed young woman. “If you see something you can caress or kiss, go for it. And don’t be shy. There is no judgement here, and you can only get better by doing.”

 

Rylee nodded, and Nora started to work her way down the body of Stacy, spending some minutes working on her large and tender breasts, bringing sighs of pleasure to the woman. “When I move on start to work on her tits,” she whispered to Rylee, then worked her way down, licking and kissing along the tender flesh of Stacy’s inner thighs. She spent some minutes there, building up Stacy to a gushing bundle of nerves. Then she went for the prize, her tongue thrusting into the other woman’s pussy as her fingers manipulated the lips and clit. It didn’t take long under Nora’s expert touch, and soon the thighs around her head were quivering with tension. With a cry Stacy arched her back and her pussy gushed juices.

 

“That was wonderful,” said Stacy, sighing.

 

“We’re not through yet,” said Nora, giving her a couple of more seconds to come down, then attacked the clit with her tongue. In less than a minute the woman was having another, more intense, orgasm. Nora worked her into four more, until the guard was lying limp on the bed.

 

“Satisfied?”

 

“The guys didn’t lie about you. Nora. You were wonderful. I wish I could take you along on the road with me.”

 

After the woman got dressed and left the room, leaving a tip on the counter, Rylee started for her clothes.

 

“What are you doing?” asked Nora, raising an eyebrow.

 

“That was the final one of the night,” said the confused trader.

 

“What about me? I haven’t been seen to. And I want to Cum.”

 

“But…”

“I’m your practice dummy for the next couple of hours. So get to it. I’ll lead you along, but I want at least a half dozen orgasms before the night is through.”

 

She talked Rylee through her technique, licking and kissing breasts, running her hands over the soft sensitive spots of Nora’s body, gently rubbing the older woman’s clit. Nora cried out her pleasure, then pulled Rylee into a kiss.

 

“Am I doing okay?”

 

“You’re doing wonderful,” said a smiling Nora. “Now go for the prize.”

 

Rylee chuckled, then dove in, her lips and tongue doing to Nora what she had seen Nora doing to Stacy. Nora had to admit that the girl was not particularly good. She was clumsy, too fast, inexperienced. On the plus side she was eager, and was motivated to get Nora off. The plus side won out eventually, and Nora was arching her back as she pulled the woman’s face into her pussy, clamped her thighs around Rylee’s head, and exploded into an orgasm.

 

“Was that okay?” asked Rylee, running her hands over Nora’s tits.

 

“You still need work, but you got me off. It’s only upward from here. Now, would you like for me to get you off?”

 

“My God. Yes.”

 

Nora took the young woman to the heights of ecstasy over and over, until both giver and recipient lost count of the orgasms. Then Nora maneuvered her into a sixty-nine, taking pleasure as she gave it.

 

“Are you working the brothel tomorrow night?” Nora asked.

 

“If I have an customers.”

 

“Then I want us to partner up again tomorrow, so I can teach you some tricks to use on men, and more about pleasuring women if there are any available.” Nora thought that if Lucas’ caravan were still here the next day, Stacy would be a return customer. Maybe even Abigail. It wouldn’t give her enough time to make Rylee an expert, but it would set her well on the way to being a competent lover of both sexes.