You always hoped to visit the Appalachians in summertime. You lived near Chicago most of your life but your grandmother was Kentucky born and bred, and her words painted a spellbinding picture of towering evergreen mountains. It seemed almost magical.  Sadly, as much as you wanted to go, things weren't to simply. Money was tight for a large chunk of your childhood though, so you weren't able to see the places your grandmother spoke of until you finished your psychology degree. It was a special occasion and your parents were eager to see where part of your family came from.

The first two weeks of the trip was relatively uneventful. You parked the car at whatever camping spots you found and slept under the open sky. The locals you met both on the trail and in the towns you visited were nothing if not amicable. You into a couple of hours long conversations when you mentioned you had some roots in the region but it was all good fun overall.

When you were a few hours into Ohio though, things got weird in a way that changed the course of your vacation and your life afterword.

It was midmorning. You were moving through some brush to get a lot at a spectacular valley when you heard the sound of something clicking. Not a twig. Whatever it was sounded too...firm. Mechanical.

"Alright, loser," you hear a female voice say from nearby. "Keep still." A figure moved out from some trees near you, covered in leaves and forest pattern camo. The girl moved toward you, lowering her rifle a little. She had shimmering green eyes and her face was covered with black and green paint. Her hair, or whatever of it you could see, was tied up in a bun. You could also see a handheld radio and some pouches on her belt. If you had to guess, she was in her early twenties.

Despite the shock, you weren't about to have a panic attack just yet. You were warned that people in this part of the country were a bit more direct in protecting their property than where you grew up. The most possible response to someone blundering into a local's front yard was a warning shot instead of a call to the police. You told yourself that as long as you made it clear that you weren't a threat and kept your eyes open, you could avoid that sort of trouble. You might not end up with a new pal, but so long as you parted on good terms things were fine.

You told her that if you were close to her hunting blind or was about to stumble onto her property, you'd head back right the other way no questions asked. There was no need for trouble. You felt a slight chill when she laughed.

"Ain't no way I'm letting' ya toddle back to wherever ya came from." she said firmly. "You're a prisoner of the Appalachian People's Front and you're coming with me."

It felt like your stomach fell through a trapdoor. She wasn't a farm girl or some hunter. She was something a lot more unsettling.

You knew that militia groups sometimes claimed parts of the mountain range as their own and were incredibly territorial. You didn't plan on what to do if you ran into someone belonging to one of those groups because their turf wasn't widely available information. You didn't hear many stories of hikers running into them either. But no matter how unlikely it was that you would run into a militia member, the stakes just got a whole lot higher. You weren't just intruding on property. As far as she knew, you were an enemy agent, and there was next to nothing you could do to convince her otherwise. 

It was then that you noticed another chilling detail. On the end of her gun, which you now realized was an SMG, there was an extension on the barrel that looked like a silver tube with a hollow center. A suppressor. What scared you most wasn't that her group had access to this kind of hardware, it was the fact that if you made a break for it, no one would hear the shots that killed you.

"Put the bag on the ground, empty your pockets." You slowly took the bag off and put your car keys, phone and wallet on the ground next to it. She looked through your wallet and chuckled. 

"Tell me, Ashton McCormick, what's an Ivy Leaguer doin' out here?" she asked in a mocking tone. She must've gotten to your student ID. You thought better of telling her that University of Chicago wasn't part of that system. She already thought you were an FBI spook or something, and being pedantic would only make things worse.  You told her that your grandmother was raised in the region and you wanted to see the place for yourself. She didn't say anything to that.

"Bag. Open. Now." You opened one of the smaller pockets first and took your trail gear.

All of a sudden, her expression softened. You glanced back at what you'd just put on the ground. A gold pendant you used for hypnotherapy. You brought it along in case you could amuse locals with it. A bit of novelty. The militia girl couldn't take her eyes off it and you were asking yourself if what you suspected to be happening was indeed the case. You asked if she wanted a closer look.

"Yes." she said in a softer voice. "Now." Gulping down your unease, you brought the pendant close to her face and slowly began swinging it. Her body language became more relaxed, her shoulders falling slowly. You asked if she liked the pendant.

"Yeah...I do..." You told her she could relax, flip the gun's safety back on, and sit back against a tree. To your amazement, she did so and lay her weapon beside her after turning on the safety. She sat down across from you as you continued to put her under. For a moment, you were shocked at how easy this was. Then you remembered a class that covered authoritarian personality traits. Excessively strict and downright abusive home environments, as well as the neglect of critical thinking skills in formative years could easily produce someone whose obedience was driven by fear and ingrained deference to authority.

You got curious and asked her to tell you about herself. What she told you confirmed a lot of your suspicions.

"My name is Caitlyn Maddox, Corporal of the Appalachian People's Front. I am twenty years old. I was born in a farmhouse in the mountains north of here. I was raised since I was a girl for a coming confrontation with the United States government and to be a soldier in the movement that would create a true patriot state that would defend America's values. I would be a warrior in service of an America where the Constitution and the Bible of equal stature. I was trained in sharpshooting, wilderness survival, small unit tactics and hand to hand combat."

This explained quite a lot. She was raised in an extremely martial environment. You started to feel...pity for her. Her whole life was going to be defined by paranoia and  hatred. Unless...

You then asked her what her dreams for the future were.

"I want to leave this place, see the nation I was raised to give my life for. I want to see its cities, its rivers, its valleys, its natural wonders. I want to have a deeper appreciation of this country's beauty. I want to at least somewhat live out my fantasy of being brainwashed by federal forces."

While the rest of what she said was deeply moving, that last bit caught you off guard and you shakily asked for clarification.

"I've masturbated to a fantasy where I am apprehended during a mission by the FBI or some other law enforcement agency. Instead of killing or even torturing me, I am hypnotized and made to touch myself to their propaganda. I come to see the government as a giver of pleasure in exchange for obedience. I pledge myself to the government's service. I am its soldier, spy, and slut. I have dreamt of such a thing since I was a teenager."

This was astounding. The propaganda she was raised with mixed together with the urges that come at the onset of puberty and resulted in her enemy becoming sexualized to her. Something like this was only theorized to be possible, you never thought you'd actually see it. Then it hit you. You knew what you were going to do and how you were going to do it. You decided to put yourself into the role of being an FBI agent tasked with indoctrinating Caitlyn into what it meant to be a true American and give her the courage needed to leave the environment she'd known since her youngest days. She repeated back everything she said to you as a way of embedding those suggestions.

"Yes, loyalty to you is loyalty to America." she said sleepily. "I must go with you for my re-education. I must throw myself into my re-eduction." Caitlyn started to shiver with pleasure and you gave her permission to touch herself. She took off one of her gloves and put her hand into her pants then began to stroke. "Through pleasure, my true devotion to the nation is awoken. Every climax is a display of patriotism. Every orgasmic scream is a pledge to defend the liberties of the American people. Pleasure is patriotism."

Caitlyn licked her lips and purred when she repeated the last thing you told her, right after she came.

"America is pleasure." she said with rapture. After putting her glove back on and redoing her buckle, she rose to her feet and smiled.

"Lead the way." she said with a smile. You could really start to see the woman she could be shining through her face paint. You told her to pick up her gun, and give a fake status report to the compound where she lived before you led her back to your car. She disassembled her SMG and put it in the trunk before sitting next to you, a beaming smile on her face as you drove off.

Caitlyn was your partner for the rest of your time journeying through Appalachia. You learned a lot of shocking things about her during that time. For instance, you learned that under all that camo and face paint was a stunning brunette with a two pack, double C cup breasts and an insatiable curiosity for the unfamiliar. You made yourself be patient with some of her naivety though. I

In the five years since you and her met, things changed dramatically. She started living with you not long after your return while she underwent counseling for her trauma. It took your parents a while to get used to her but she won them over in the end. She helped make it clear to them that she couldn't do much more than let the state authorities know where the compound was. She didn't trust local law enforcement in that area. 

When given the opportunity to study at your university, she jumped at the chance and never let her goal of being a trauma councilor out of her crosshairs. She also works part time as a fitness/self defense instructor at a well known gym. Her sexual fantasies were the basis of a scholarly article that won you great acclaim, "The Eroticization Of American Patriotism." While you will never stop being disturbed by her upbringing, you can't help but thank the Appalachian People's Front for giving her the most outrageous stamina and flexibility. Not only that, but you came to embrace the role of being her 'handler' during foreplay. Though it took you a while, you enjoyed acting as though you instilling your girlfriend with a fetishistic love of big government.

Well, fiancé now. And all thanks to a chance encounter in Appalachia.