Jamie was aware of the Animal Rights Movement. Who wouldn’t be after they announced they had infected chocolate Mars bars with rat poison? He remembered how the confectionary shelves had been stripped bare that autumn of 1984. When he read the flyers being handed out explaining how the Mars confectionary company was torturing monkeys to study tooth decay, he had been shocked. The accompanying photographs of monkeys in tiny cages had distressed him almost as much.

He was sitting on the bus one afternoon on his way home from college when he saw a group of young campaigners collecting signatures for a petition and rattling collection tins. One of them was a girl in a dark green army surplus jacket, tie-dyed leggings and para boots. She looked gorgeous, all alternative looking with long pink dreadlocks and a pierced nose.

The bus crawled down the road through the traffic, giving him plenty of time to study her. He craned his neck to get one last view of her as she pushed the pink hair out of her face before the bus turned the corner and she disappeared from view.

He got up and rang the bell, signalling for the bus to stop. He hopped off and quickly made his way back to the Animal rights stall.

The girl was the most vocal of the three people there, calling out to people as they passed to help close a farm a few miles down the road that was involved in animal cruelty. She looked directly at Jamie as he approached.

“Come on then, sign the petition. Close Shamrock Farm.”

Jamie stepped forward and took the pen. As he scrawled his name, the girl explained how the farm supplied primates for animal experimentation. When Jamie pointed to the photographs of monkeys screaming in pain, mouths open in frozen protest and asked how a petition would help, the girl glanced around and whispered, “It won’t. It’s time for the abusers to have a taste of the fear and anguish their victims suffer on a daily basis."

Jamie also glanced around to check they weren’t being overheard before whispering back.

“And how will you achieve that?”

“By any means necessary.”

The girl’s pale blue eyes burned into him. He could smell the patchouli oil she wore. He swallowed as she grinned and asked if he was interested in finding out a bit more.

“I’ll see you in that pub over there in half an hour. Mine’s a pint of Tuborg.”

With that, she turned and called out to another passing shopper to sign the petition and Jamie took that as his hint to leave.

He sat in the bar and waited. The frothy head on the pint in front of him was slowly deflating by the time the doors swung open and the girl and her two friends from the animal rights stall came in.

Introductions ensued. The girl was Bernadette and her friends were Simon and Duncan. Bernadette picked up her pint and indicated for Jamie to follow her over to one of the empty tables in the far corner of the bar.

Simon and Duncan leant on the bar and watched as Bernadette grilled Jamie on his beliefs, intentions and how seriously he wanted to get involved. As they discussed animal rights, vivisection, torture and pharmaceuticals, Jamie found himself falling for Bernadette. Her blue eyes sparkled and the pink dreadlocks made her seem exotic, alluring and different.

She shrugged off her jacket and he got a glimpse of a bright green bra strap as she rearranged her tee shirt. She was so passionate about everything. He could see her getting worked up with the evangelical zeal of a preacher as she described how because animals were so vulnerable and oppressed and they couldn’t fight back to attack or kill their oppressors that they had to do it for them. He swallowed as she looked directly into his eyes.

“Are you prepared to do whatever is necessary?”

Jamie licked his lips, took a quick swig of his beer and nodded.

“OK, let’s go then.”

He saw Simon and Duncan slide off their stools and head out of the bar ahead of them. Duncan had the back door of the battered blue Ford Transit van open and Jamie followed Bernadette into the back with Duncan getting in behind them and closing the door.

He banged on the side of the van and Simon, Jamie presumed, drove off.

They bounced around in the back of the van for ten or fifteen minutes. He had no idea where they were going, but by the way the van twisted and turned, he figured they were zooming along country roads. The van drove over some rutted tracks and the three in the back were bounced around from side to side. The van finally stopped and the back doors were flung open.

Duncan reached in and grabbed Jamie by the jacket and pulled him out of the van. Jamie landed in a heap and Bernadette, Simon and Duncan surrounded him.

“Strip him.”

The order wasn’t shouted, it was as if Bernadette was simply stating a fact. Hands reached out and pulled his jacket off and ripped his tee shirt as they yanked it up over his head.

“I can do it myself,” Jamie protested, quickly unbuckling his belt and sliding his jeans down before their hands could reach for them.

“Everything.”

Jamie looked pleadingly at Bernadette but she just stared impassively back, tapping her fingers on her arm as she stood with her arms folded, waiting. He swallowed then slowly pushed his boxer shorts down his thighs and let them fall around his ankles.

“Well he’s not bugged anyway,” Duncan laughed, walking slowly around Jamie who was standing with his hands in front of his cock and balls.

“We haven’t been followed either,” Simon stated, looking back down the road in the gathering gloom.

Jamie let out a sigh of relief as he saw everyone smiling and laughing.

“You can get dressed,” Bernadette announced. “We just had to make sure you weren’t an undercover cop.”

Jamie glanced at her and could have sworn she was checking him out. He quickly grabbed his boxer shorts and jeans and struggled back into them. He could feel the temperature dropping as the sun dipped below the horizon.

“Ok,” Simon announced. “We’ll drop you and Duncan at the lorry park and I’ll take Jamie with me on guard duty.”

“No,” Bernadette interrupted. “I want Jamie with me.”

“Don’t be daft. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“I don’t care. I want Jamie.” Bernadette’s eyes flickered towards Jamie before staring defiantly at Simon. “Otherwise, the mission is off.”

“Jesus, Bernadette, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Jamie wasn’t sure if the last part of that statement had been directed at him or Bernadette.

As they drove along the road, Bernadette outlined the plan. They had had the farm under observation for weeks and had decided to attack the office building which was in a separate part of the farm from the sheds housing the animals.

Bernadette indicated a black bin bag beside Jamie.

“That’s full of cut-up rags. They burn better when they are cut up smaller.”

Jamie nodded as the reality of what they were planning to do slowly dawned on him. Bernadette had a sparkle in her eyes as she described how they would break into the office and pour paraffin everywhere. She explained how paraffin burns better and for longer than petrol. then they would throw the burning rags onto the paraffin and run for it. Simon and Duncan would have retreated once they had cut the fence and would pick Jamie and Bernadette up at the main road.

The four of them stood by the side of the road. Bernadette had handed him a black ski mask and as he saw the rest of them put them on, he was reminded of pictures of IRA men he’d seen on the news. Jamie felt the sweat trickling down his back as the realisation that he had somehow got involved with a bunch of eco-terrorists hit him.

It was dark by now and Duncan quickly cut a hole large enough for them to slip through in the chain-link fence with a pair of large wire cutters. He stepped back to let Bernadette and Jamie slip through.

“We’ll be waiting out of sight just around the corner up there,” Duncan told them. “Don’t hang about.”

Bernadette nodded and picked up the bag of rags while Jamie carried the petrol can full of paraffin and they crept into the yard. Jamie froze as he heard a dog bark. Bernadette held out her hand to signal him to stop.

Jamie looked behind him. Simon and Duncan could no longer be seen. Bernadette slowly edged around the corner of the building and saw the dog was chained up on the far side of the yard. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned her attention back to the office building.

She was just about to break the padlock on the door with the bolt cutter she had in her bag when Jamie stopped her. He pointed to the burglar alarm on the gable wall of the office. Bernadette swore. They hadn’t noticed that from their observations through binoculars from the road on the previous reconnaissance trips.

“What’ll we do now?” whispered Jamie.

Bernadette pointed to the four trucks parked in a row. Jamie could see her eyes sparkling under the ski mask. Sticking to the shadows, they made their way over to the first truck.

“You unscrew the petrol tank caps and I’ll soak the rags in paraffin.”

Jamie nodded and quickly got the petrol caps off the four trucks. Jamie’s eyes constantly switched from the road to Bernadette as she pushed one end of a rag into each petrol tank, unfurling them to make longer wicks to allow them time to get away.

“Ok Jamie, the rags are long enough that we should have enough time to run to the fence and be away before they blow.”

Jamie nodded. He felt like he was going to be sick. This was definitely not what he had expected when he signed the petition only a few hours ago.

He looked at the four trailing lengths of material, soaked in paraffin, hanging from the fuel tanks.

She pulled out her lighter and Jamie saw her smile under the ski mask. She ran her tongue over her upper lip. She closed her eyes for a second and inhaled deeply, savouring the moment.

She flicked the wheel of the Zippo and the flame flickered then held steady. Jamie stood, transfixed as as she lowered the lighter to the first rag and watched, almost reverently as the flame took hold and scampered along the ground, heading for the open petrol tank.

“Come on,” Jamie cried, tugging Bernadette by the arm. She backed away slowly, watching the flaming end of the rag get closer and closer to the truck.

“Run,” She cried.

Jamie ran. His lungs felt like they would burst as he pumped his legs as fast as he could, closing the distance to the fence. He could hear footsteps pounding beside him and by the time he’d reached the gap in the fence, Bernadette was in front and had squeezed her way through the gap. She reached back and pulled him through. Jamie had only taken a couple of steps when a flash of orange filled the sky. Bernadette stopped and they both turned to watch. They stood side by side as a sheet of flame exploded into the sky quickly followed by the sound of an explosion.

Bernadette turned and grabbed Jamie’s face with both hands and kissed him. As Jamie stood there, bewildered, Bernadette dropped her hands and quickly loosened Jamie’s belt.

“Quick, we don’t have much time,” she hissed as she pulled his cock out of his boxer shorts.

Despite the surrealism of the situation, Jamie’s cock stiffened as Bernadette ran her fingers forwards and back along the shaft. She pushed him backwards.

“Lie down. Quick!”

Jamie stumbled and fell onto the grass. He looked up, watching as Bernadette pulled her leggings down. She straddled Jamie as he lay in the damp grass. He arched his neck to look behind him and could see flames rising into the sky. He looked back and watched as Bernadette pulled her black lace panties to one side and lowered herself onto his cock. Her eyes were fixed on the burning pyres. Her mouth was open, lips parted. One hand pawed at her breast through her tee shirt as she ground down on him.

She rode him, bouncing up and down on his cock but her eyes never looked at him. They stayed transfixed on the flames. An orange glow now filled the sky. The whoosh of another petrol tank exploding seemed to drive her on faster and faster. As the fire spread and the four trucks exploded and blazed, the wail of sirens could be heard in the distance, she threw her head back, climaxed and collapsed on top of him.

“Ohh fuck me, that’s better than sex any day.”

She scrambled off him and, with Jamie still buttoning up his jeans, they slipped away into the darkness, heading for the hopefully still waiting van.