The remainder of the day, and the next few days, passed without incident. Several times the troop saw hunters in the field, but they did not succeed in taking any game, at least not from their group. On one occasion they saw the body of a girl from one of the other villages hanging from a tree; none of them recognized her, and Jane speculated that she was probably a newcomer, ever the ones at highest risk. The nights passed quietly too--at least for a week. It was then, right after the evening meal, that one of the night Rangers announced to the troop that a party of hunters had bought the right to spend a night in the village, and that they would arrive sometime within the hour.

Jane looked around at the others as the Ranger left and grinned. "Showtime, girls," she said. "Let's make it good, let's make sure they talk about it back at the Lodge." Immediately, the girls sprang into action; Melanie simply followed their lead. Their first task was to load logs and small tinder into the firepit, getting it ready for the evening fire. After that they all went to the shower; once that was done they helped each other to arrange their hair and put on a little light makeup. Finally, Jane produced an urn full of a light aromatic oil, and they all, Melanie included, oiled their bodies lightly.

"Makes us shine in the firelight," Jill explained. Disappearing into her hut, she reappeared with, to Melanie's amazement, a box full of cheap costume jewelry and some rather elegant feathered headdresses. Soon enough each of the girls was decked out in one of the headdresses, gold chains hanging from her neck, bracelets on her wrists and ankles.

"Damn," Melanie said when all the preparations were done, "we do look damn good!" She grinned broadly. "Like a bunch of Amazons or something."

"It's too bad," Sunni observed, "that we don't have weapons like Amazons. This game might be a little different if we did!"

"It'd be a lot different," Jane said seriously. "We know the landscape here, and we're in first-class shape from running around in the woods day after day. We'd get more of them than they'd get of us, I'm sure of that. Which would mean that very few men would want to come and hunt here. Which would mean revenues would fall off to nothing, which would mean that this place would be closed. And, since we're almost all condemned prisoners, that probably would mean we'd be taken out and summarily executed. No, the rules are correct, they give us a chance. Without them we'd have no chance at all."

Melanie had listened to this, and she nodded agreement, but she'd focused on one part of Jane's speech: "Almost all condemned prisoners?" she asked.

"Yes," Jane said, turning to her. "We don't have time to explain right now. Ask Pi about it sometime."

Jane was right; there was no time. They lit the fire, and, just a few minutes later, the hunters--a group of four middle-aged businessman-types--were escorted in by the Rangers. As per the rules, they had been required to leave their clothes and weapons outside, and they had been provided with drawstring-held one-size-fits-all shorts and shower-shoe sandals. Melanie could not help smiling as they came in; they were such poor physical specimens compared to the girls. Jane was right, she reflected; arm both sides and the girls had a very decided advantage.

Acting as spokeswoman for the group, Jane greeted the men warmly and showed them to seats a little ways back from the now strongly burning fire. The women, naked, oiled, and costumed, took up positions around the fire--all but Lila, a Native American girl, a Pawnee--who was to act as their drummer. As soon as the girls were in position, Lila began to play, and the girls began to dance around the fire.

For Melanie, formerly a professional dancer, following it wasn't hard. The naked dancers circled the fire counter-clockwise, being very energetic and frequently executing moves that required them to spread their legs. Jill, Melanie noticed, was very skilled indeed; she began to imitate her moves, doing deep-knee bends with knees spread wide before the watching men, then leaping gracefully into the air. A light sheen of sweat covered the girls' skins, adding to the shiny effect from the oils. Several of the girls--Sunni and Pi, the Asians, especially--dramatically simulated being shot with arrows, grabbing at their chests, falling to their knees, and ending up prostrate on the ground--only to jump up again a moment later. The men stared, enthralled; the dance went on for quite a while, after which Lila ended it with several sharp strikes on her drum. As the dance ended, the girls remained in place, almost all of them down on one knee, breathing hard.

After several minutes, Jane rose to her feet, went to the men, and dropped to one knee in front of them. "The dance," she said, her chest heaving, "excites us. We hope it excited you, as well."

"You better believe it!" one of the men said enthusiastically. "It got my motor running, that's for sure!"

Jane smiled at him seductively. "You may choose among us," she said meaningfully.

The man gave his companions a glance, then got up and started walking around the circle. That he already had an erection was obvious. He selected Angie, the tall strawberry-blond teenager. Smiling up at him, she took his hand and rose to her feet.

"Can we--I mean--" the man sputtered. "We've never been here at night before, we just heard stories..."

"They're all true," Angie said in a loud whisper. "Come, come with me."

"Can we use the huts?"

"No. Out here, in the open. There is no need for embarrassment, we are not embarrassed." She guided him back to the seats, where soft mats had been placed behind them. Directing him to lie on one of them, she knelt beside him and began stroking his body lightly.

One at a time, Jane told the other men to choose from among the girls. Jill, Pi, and Audra--a girl of medium height with light brown hair, green eyes, and a charmingly freckled face--were the other three selected. Melanie irrationally felt a bit of disappointment that she hadn't been chosen, but she dismissed it by telling herself that none of these slightly pudgy and out-of-shape men were particularly attractive to her anyway.

By the time Audra, the last of the girls to be chosen, had gotten her man to the mats, Angie had already gotten the shorts off her partner and was stroking his hard cock gently. Following Jane's lead, the remaining eleven girls gathered around the mats; when Angie bent her head down to take her partner's cock into her mouth, Jane offered her breasts to the man's hands, encouraging him to play with them. Lila, the drummer, moved in close to his group as well, stroking the man's body and Angie's at the same time.

Melanie found herself close to the man who had chosen Jill. While the other dancer slipped off the man's shorts and began sucking his cock, Melanie teased the man's nipples; he pulled her head down and kissed her long and hard, playing with her bare breasts at the same time. When the kiss ended and she looked up she saw Cindy, a bright-haired blond with equally bright blue eyes and a delightful "babyface," playing with Jill's hair while the dancer worked at the man's cock with her lips and tongue. After sucking the man's cock with apparent passion for quite a while, Jill let him go, straddled him, and sank slowly down on his cock. Just as the man's penis was sinking into Jill's vagina, he was sliding a finger up inside Melanie.

Moving her hips languidly on the man's cock, Jill stared down at his face. "You'll be out hunting tomorrow," she purred. "Hunting for us. Maybe you'll find me, running naked through the forest. You think? Maybe you'll find me..." She paused and ran her hands over her oiled breasts. "Maybe you'll find me, and maybe I'll hear you as you're creeping up on me. I'll recognize you, I'll remember tonight." She leaned down over him and moved her hands to his chest, her fingertips finding and teasing his nipples. Her eyes were fixed on his. "Maybe that'll make me hesitate a second or two, maybe I'll stand perfectly still for a second or two, just looking at you and thinking about how your cock felt inside me, how it felt in my mouth, how it tasted... you'll remember too, you'll remember tonight. Will that make you hold your arrow?" She sighed deeply, sat up straight, and ground her hips down on his cock hard. "No, no, it won't, and I know it won't... you'll let that arrow fly and it'll fly straight and true, and it'll hit me right here, in my chest..." She touched her left breast as she spoke and pinched the nipple lightly. "It'll go way in me, deep inside me, blood will spurt out... I'll fall, and you'll come to me, and I'll look up at you as I'm laying there on the ground dying with your arrow sticking in my chest, with those sharp blades down inside me... if you come to me and I'm lying on the ground dying, dying from the arrow you shot into me, maybe you'll sit by me and hold my head, and touch my lips while I die..."

"Oh, God damn," the man sighed. His body started to twitch. Jill jumped off of him suddenly and took him back in her mouth; just a second later he was spraying his come onto her tongue. She let some run back out, but, grinning her elfin grin and looking at the man's face, she swallowed most of it. She then stretched her body out across his, her face next to his.

Melanie turned her attention to the next mat. There, Pi, the tiny Thai teenager, was on her back, being fucked by the hunter who'd chosen her, who was a big man with a very large cock. Kneeling behind her head, Sunni had her fingers wound in the small girl's hair and was kissing the hunter. Between Pi's legs knelt Juana, the Mexican girl, licking the man's ass and balls as he was thrusting. On the other side, Angie had already brought her man to his climax; his semen was smeared across her belly and Jane was spreading it around with her hand. Audra was still working hard with hers, sucking him furiously. While Melanie watched he erupted, spraying jets of come across her freckled face.

Once all the men had had their orgasms, everyone rested for a while, the girls lying on the mats around the four men, Melanie lying on "her" man's arm with her face close to his ear. After a while, she fell asleep.

She was awakened some time later by the sound of drumming. Blinking her eyes, she looked up; Lila was back at her drum, and now Jill was doing a solo dance before the slowly-dying fire. Sitting up, she watched for a while. Jill was, she told herself, very good, very good indeed; Melanie found herself a little envious of the other woman's beautifully graceful and agile pirouettes and leaps.

The man whose arm she'd been sleeping on sat up as well. He put his arm around her, then reached around her body to hold her breast with his right hand. She looked at him, found him gazing at her, and they smiled at each other. Reaching down, Melanie took his cock in her hand and began massaging it while they both watched Jill's spectacular dance.

A few minutes later, the man, his cock rock-hard, turned his attention to Melanie. She smiled, kissed him when he leaned forward to kiss her, then slid down on the mat beside his legs and slipped his cock into her mouth. Just as Jill had done earlier, she sucked him for a few minutes before releasing him, straddling his legs with hers, and impaling herself on his erection.

He lasted much longer this time than he had earlier with Jill, and Melanie, although she was from the outset accepting this as a form of prostitution, had an orgasm of her own before he finally climaxed inside her. They embraced for a moment afterwards; she felt his erection fading inside her. Sliding off him, she fell back to the mat with him, where he kissed her affectionately.

Lying on his arm again, she gazed at his face. He'd been gentle and considerate with her throughout their encounter; he'd not forced anything at all on her, she'd felt as if she could get up and walk away at any moment if she chose, and he wouldn't have protested. "Do you want to know my name?" she asked him after a long pause.

He cocked his head. "Yes," he answered. "I'd like that." She told him. "I'm John," he told her in turn. "John Edwards. Ordinary name for an ordinary man."

She studied his eyes. "I don't understand," she said slowly. "You seem... nice, and that doesn't make sense to me." She grinned crookedly. "That didn't come out right. I mean, you seem like a nice guy, you were nice to me, I think I could like you. And yet you're here as a hunter. You paid money, a lot of money, for the right to come in here and kill one of us. Maybe it's just because I'm new here, but I don't understand..."

John sighed. "Neither do I," he admitted. "I guess you'd have to say I'm new here too. It's my first safari, and I won't be able to do another one for a long time. They cost a fortune, I guess you know that."

She shook her head. "I don't have any idea what they cost," she told him. "I know they're expensive, that's all."

"Very," he said with a grimace. Again he sighed, deeper and longer than before. "What can I tell you? To kill a beautiful young girl--it's always been my ultimate erotic fantasy. You probably saw that, when that other girl was talking about it, it just sent me through the stratosphere. I don't know why. I've been that way since I was a kid."

Melanie considered this. Taking John's hand, she laid it on her chest between her breasts. "If you have a knife, right now," she asked him, "would you want to stab me here?"

He shook his head. "No. I just had an orgasm. After I have an orgasm I don't want to hurt anyone."

"But before..."

"Before, when that other girl was dancing... the idea of it was exciting... but..." He stopped speaking and shook his head again, vigorously. "Now, dammit, it's all different... it's all different for you, for that other girl... she was wrong, you know. She said I'd remember, but it wouldn't stop me from shooting her. It would. I can't shoot her, not now. I can't shoot you." He suddenly looked miserably unhappy. "I don't know if I can shoot anyone now. I've wasted practically my life savings..."

Melanie pursed her lips. "Maybe," she suggested, "coming here for the night wasn't a good idea..."

"I can't agree. I didn't know. I thought, hell, hardened criminals. Convicted felons, murderers, gangsters. I can shoot one, sure. But here we are and here you are. Sweet young girls. Oh, I know, you haven't been fucking us because you want to, they probably force you to, and--"

"No," Melanie interrupted. "We make the choices. We do get rewards for making the customers happy, I won't lie to you. But we can refuse."

John stared at the dying fire. "That means a lot," he commented. He glanced at her quickly, almost furtively. "Can I ask you what you're in for?"

She shrugged. "Sure. Prostitution without a license."

"That carries the death penalty?"

"All sorts of things carry the death penalty these days. That's a quote from my lawyer. But besides that, I'm not guilty. I'm innocent but I got convicted anyway."

"I don't understand... I don't know anything about these 'licenses,' I don't know of any prostitutes except those that work in the government brothels..."

She shifted her position. "Well, the prostitutes have to either work for the brothels or buy a license as an independent, and the license is so expensive that anyone who can afford it really doesn't need the work. So there aren't many, I don't guess. The point is, I wasn't one. I was an exotic dancer, a nude dancer, working in a club in New Orleans. One night this guy came into the bar and we got to talking. He was really nice, really attractive. He came back, several times; he asked me out and I accepted. On our second date I invited him up to my apartment and I slept with him."

"Well, that's not against the law, is it?"

"No. But the next morning the guy was gone, there was a thousand dollars in marked bills on my dresser, he'd already filed a complaint, and the feds were breaking down my door. I didn't ask him for it. For some reason he set me up, I don't know why--maybe he was disappointed with me, maybe I did something to piss him off, I don't know, I never saw him again. All I know is that I'm not guilty and I got sentenced to death anyway. And since I'm a class B--considered attractive but not a knockout by the federal reviewers--I wound up here. They tell me I'm lucky."

He stared at her eyes for a moment. "I believe you," he said finally. "And even if I didn't believe you, the death penalty for 'prostitution without a license' is ridiculous. You shouldn't be here."

She laughed. "Tell me about it!"

He waved his hand around in a sweeping motion. "These other girls? Same deal?"

Melanie shrugged. "Like I said, I'm new," she told him. "I haven't talked to all of them yet, I haven't heard all their stories. Jill, the other girl you had sex with, was busted on a drug charge. Cocaine."

"Now that I do know carries the death penalty..."

"Yeah. But she swears she was framed. She was a dancer too, just like me. They found the drugs in her makeup case while she was on stage. An anonymous tip, they said. She swears she never used drugs, they must have been someone else's."

"I guess they aren't too careful nowadays."

"No. I don't think they are."

Staring up at the night sky, John fell silent. Melanie, watching him, couldn't help but feel sorry for him. He'd come here to fulfill a fantasy, and now it had been spoiled for him; or, at the very least, he was conflicted about it. Wanting to make him feel better, she snuggled close to him, and he gave her an affectionate squeeze in return. Eventually, they slept.

And, when Melanie woke again, it was already light. The night rangers were getting the hunters up, telling them it was time for them to leave the village. They and the girls said their good-byes, and the men almost shuffled out, the other three seemingly having the same problems John was having.

"I don't think," Melanie said to Jane as they watched them go, "that we'll have to worry about them too much today."

"No," Jane agreed. "Probably not. But not certainly not. Once you're outside, if you see them, avoid them as you would any other hunters. They may change their minds about things."

"I sorta doubt that."

"You may be right; in fact you probably are right. Don't make the mistake, though, of thinking that all the hunters who come in here for the night are like those four. There are those that'll be your best friend for the night and cheerfully shoot you down the moment they see you on the outside. We've seen it go both ways."

Jane moved away; by then the truck with the food was rolling into the village. The girls ate their breakfast, and, like any other day, went out into the forest well before the siren sounded.

Today, Melanie stayed with Jill, who was becoming a close friend. There was nothing particular for them to do today, so they--along with Cindy--separated from the rest of the troop and wandered through the woods pretty much at random, talking about various things, but especially about the previous evening. Jill suggested they try to find the four hunters and see what they were doing, and that became the day's project.

It took a while, but, shortly after noon, they did find them--and, to their mutual amusement, found Jane, Sunni, Lila, and Pi, who had had the same idea. The hunters, unaware of their presence, were down by one of the pretty little streams that ran through the woods, sitting and talking among themselves. As Melanie had suspected, they were not even bothering to hunt.

"I am so tempted," Jill said in a low voice, "to go down there and let them see me. Just to see what they do, where their heads are."

"That," Jane advised, "could get you killed."

"It never has before," Jill shot back.

"You've done this before?" Melanie asked.

"Uh-huh. It's fun. I don't get too close, so I can dodge if they do start shooting at me."

"Sometimes," Jane said, "I think you want to be taken, Jill."

"Nah. I just like to play around." Before any of them could say anything she was off, running through the woods like a gazelle. Jane sighed; the rest of them hunkered down to watch.

It wasn't long before the black-haired dancer reappeared, moving along the edge of the stream where the hunters were. Staying well more then a hundred yards away from them, she splashed into the water, crossing the stream, acting as if she didn't know they were there.

The men spotted her almost immediately. All four got to their feet, and, to Melanie's surprise, two of them reached for their bows. John, she was gratified to see, did not. Instead, he yelled something at the other two men and pushed one of the bows aside.

Hearing the shouts, Jill looked around. By then, the hunters were struggling among themselves; one of them seemed determined to shoot at Jill, John seemed just as determined to prevent him from doing so, and the other two appeared to be waiting to see how the conflict turned out. Behaving as she would have been expected to behave when she became aware of the hunters, Jill started running for the far bank. But she was running slowly; more slowly, Melanie knew, than she had to--in short, still giving them an opportunity to shoot at her.

There was little chance of that, though, as John and his hunting companion were by now engaged in a full-blown fistfight. Fighting back the urge to cheer John on, Melanie crouched in hiding and watched. She was, she was aware, grinning from ear to ear. And she grinned even more brightly when John landed a solid punch that sent his opponent reeling back helplessly.

But that grin faded almost immediately. As he staggered back, the other man's foot caught a loose stone on the riverbank, which shot out from under him. He fell, and there the bank sloped downward sharply. He almost did a flip as he fell, his feet flying up in the air. In the end, he fell--on the rocks--almost squarely on his head.

The sharp sickening crack was audible even from the girls' hiding place.

Near the far riverbank, Jill had stopped running. The men now ignored her, though, as they rushed to their fallen companion's side. "Oh, my God!" Melanie heard one of the men yell. "He's dead!"

Jane shook her head. "That's bad," she said. Her lips were tight. "That's really bad. They're going to have a hard time proving it wasn't a murder."

Melanie glanced at her. "But... but... it was an accident! We all saw that!"

Jane nodded. "Yes. But nowadays you have to prove that. They can't. They're all liable to be tried for murder, convicted, and put on death row."

"But... but... the other two..."

"The court can say they're accessories. Believe it, it happens."

Melanie pursed her lips tightly. Down on the river, Jill was moving again--and this time she was moving toward the men--slowly and cautiously, but toward them nonetheless.

That decided it for Melanie. She rose from her hiding place. "We can testify to the truth," she said. "We may be convicted criminals but that doesn't matter. I'm going to go down there and offer."

Jane shook her head. "You," she said, "are as crazy as Jill is, and one day that'll cost you your life." She sighed and stood up. "But in this case, I'm going with you."

The other girls got up as well; a few minutes later, with Melanie in the lead, they emerged from the woods close to the men, just before Jill, coming back across the river, got to them.

John looked up. "Sure of yourselves, aren't you?" he said sourly.

"Not really," Melanie told him. "But we saw the whole thing, John. You were trying to stop him from shooting at Jill. His death was an accident."

"And we," Jill added, "are ready to testify to that." She stared down at the dead man. "This is my fault anyway," she said slowly.

"How?" John said, wheeling toward her. "How's it your fault? He spotted you, he was about to shoot at you, I was the one who decided to try to stop him."

Jill shook her head. "I was teasing you, playing with you," she admitted. "I wanted to see if you'd shoot. I really am sorry, I didn't mean for it to turn out like this."

"It isn't your fault," John told her. "It just happened, that's all. An accident." He looked around at the other men. "What do we do now?" he asked.

"I guess," one of the other men said, "we go back to the lodge. Get a ranger down here."

"That's what you should do," Jane said with a nod. "We'll stay here, close by. We'll be hiding--there may be other hunters in the woods and we can't afford to stand out in the open--but we'll be here."

John nodded; he and the other two men gathered their things together and left, while the girls faded back into the woods. A little over an hour later they returned, with Harry and two other rangers. With his hands on his hips, Harry looked up into the woods. To Melanie's surprise, he looked right at them, even though they all believed themselves to be totally hidden.

"Come on down," he called. "It's safe, we set a perimeter."

Less cautiously than before, the girls left their hiding places and came back down to the river. Using a small recorder to take their testimony, Harry, asking only a few incisive questions, took down the whole story.

"Looks like an open-and-shut case, accidental death," he said when they were done. "That'll be in my report. The testimony of these girls will do the job for you, gentlemen. They have no vested interest in this matter, the court will accept their testimony without a problem."

"Thank you," John said quietly. Then he turned to the girls, focusing on Melanie and Jill. "But how," he asked, "can I possibly thank you? You didn't have to do this. You didn't have to and you risked your lives to help us. Us, hunters who came here to kill you."

"But you didn't," Melanie pointed out. "I'm just sorry your fantasy was messed up and you wasted all that money coming here."

John laughed. "Don't worry about it," he said. "The trip sure as hell was memorable anyway."

"And," Harry added, "don't worry too much about thanking them. I'll see to it they get some extra perks for this. Maybe a couple of days off."

"That'd be really, really, nice, Harry," Jill said.

"Yes," Melanie agreed. She gave Harry a sidewise look. "I sure am glad," she said, "that you're not a hunter, Harry!"

He grinned. "You girls better go now," he advised. "Once we're out of here this perimeter will be closed, and there are two other hunting parties in the Preserve. Neither of them are close to you right now, but I can't say where they'll go." Then he turned away and, with the help of the other rangers, picked up the dead man's body. Melanie, Jill, and the others said their good-byes to John and his friends; after quick hugs, they melted back into the forest, fugitive animals once more.