Oh, god.
When Crimson Flare painfully opened her eyes, the ceiling above her spun wildly. The drug that had at least in part shielded her from the pain she had endured in her rape and beating was no longer protecting her.
Oh, god. The pain…
The battered heroine tried to move, but her body refused to comply. Her jaw, even though it was already healing, still felt swollen, and she could still taste dried blood inside her mouth. Her bare torso, where Ape had kicked her so viciously, ached with a throbbing agony. Her sex, ripped raw by the double rape and pounded by the brutal kicks of her attackers, ached continuously with a torment that was off the Richter Scale.
Oh, god….
The beaten Maid of Mitropoulos again tried to move, but she discovered that she could not. Her gloved wrists and booted ankles were still securely bound to the pegs in the hardwood floor. And the simple effort to move sent jets of pain shooting straight from the points of origin up her spine to her brain. The Champion of Women just hurt too much to scream.
Oh, god, please….
The masked beauty tried to get a sense of her surroundings. Taking a deep breath, and wincing as a sharp jab penetrated her at the ribs, she recouped her faculties: she could feel… what, besides the pain? She was naked. The wood against her back and the cold air around her told her that. She still had parts of her uniform in place: her gloves, her boots, and… yes, her mask. Her bound wrists reminded her that she had been stripped of her strength as well.
Must… must find the claw; use it to cut the ropes.
Crimson Flare knew what she must do. She must cut herself free from her bonds. That would reduce her anguish in addition to freeing her, she knew. As she shifted her shoulders, trying to bare the claw at her right wrist, another sharp pain shot through her ribs. The intensity of this pain was something new to her. If she didn’t know better, she thought, it might be that Ape had broken one of her ribs. This was something the heroine thought was impossible, though she didn’t quite know why. Simply because of her extraordinary strength, she believed that it was impossible to injure her in this way. The severity of the agony that shot around her chest and up her spine told her that she might be mistaken.
Oh, god. Please… make… the pain… stop.
As the throbbing around her chest diminished, a new, familiar pain tore at her head.
Oh, god, NO! The Nemissesitor!!
Agony reached new heights as the powerless, beaten woman’s body convulsed. The sharp paroxysmal twisting of her torso renewed the throbbing across her chest and pain piled upon pain until the hapless heroine finally lost consciousness.
The gasping heroine’s quivering body filled the TV screen. Staring at the scene, Nancy smiled. She would enjoy the innocence of this young woman, and then she would serve her mistress.
When she awoke, the battered avenger shook and then started, and she was fully aware. The same bare bulbs illuminated the same bare room that was by now so familiar. Her breathing immediately became faster and more ragged as she anticipated the rage of the Nemissesitor tearing through her consciousness still again. She felt fear grip her and tears welled up in her deep green eyes. Oh, god, please, don’t….
Not through divine intervention, but rather the exhaustion of her tormentors, Crimson Flare’s prayer was answered. Nancy slept in a room set up in the basement, the TV monitor glowing brightly, shadows flecking across the redhead’s form. Ed and Morly had been sent away and they were now enjoying some well-deserved rest at the McLeod-Slaughter mansion.
Only Ape walked the halls of the old Conservatory. He mumbled under his breath as he paced quickly past the row of practice rooms. Not angry, but rather frustrated: frustrated by his lack of satisfaction in his attack on the masked superheroine earlier—he had had the superbitch, but that wasn’t enough, somehow. Frustrated by Nancy’s apparent lack of concern beyond getting him into a position of power; she seemed to care for him, but not like he cared for her. Frustration at the lack of respect that was evident in how his underlings spoke to him, and about him when they thought he wasn’t around. Frustration about the real respect he sensed surrounded Nancy as the leader of the gang. And frustration at his own inability to get out from under the debts that superslut had inflicted on him.
Working himself into the heat of a frenzy, he saw the helpless Champion tied to the floor in his mind’s eye, and he felt his manhood again rising inside his tight jeans. She had that effect on him, he knew. He could always get it up for her. Suddenly stopping, he turned and gazed at the stairwell leading to the top floor, still imagining the object of his desire. Absently, his left hand found its way to the bulge in his pants, gently brushing across the mound, stimulating it further. He knew what he wanted.
His mind made up, he turned determinedly, and made his way up the stairs.
As he stepped out of the stairwell, he saw the heroine’s black leather boots through the open door at the end of the hall. The highly polished leather reflected the bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling and only served to raise even higher Ape’s anticipation. As he walked toward the door, he watched those immobile boots as he drew ever closer to them; as he thought about their illustrious owner, the more he realised that what he wanted was not to again rape the powerless heroine. Rather, he wanted to defeat and humiliate once more this… Champion of Women; he hated this title that had been given her and he wanted to experience the thrill that came with battering this woman who had so often vanquished the criminal element in Mitropoulos, to show her her rightful place. He shifted his path to the left so that he could see more of her legs, and, as he strode up to the supine superheroine, he realised how very small she was: Couldn’t be more than 5’4”, he thought. What could she weigh? 120 maybe, tops? How could she have beaten the Normans and the Savoyards, JoJo, Chan, and Cos? All three, he knew, had been hot for her, as were so many of the gang members who had supported them. How could such a little girl beat them?
He stared into her masked face, trying to fathom why she couldn’t do the same against him. Again and again, he had beaten her. Nancy said it was because she found it sexually exciting to be beaten, that losing turned on the little slut. If that’s true, then why was she so dry when he raped her earlier? He leaned over her, trying to read her emotions in the unconscious face behind the mask.
Well, he thought, that ain’t going nowhere. I can’t see nothin’. Let’s see who she is.
The huge criminal stooped and turned his head to gaze into the closed eyes behind the mask. He reached his immense paw up to take hold of the shiny black vinyl disguise that protected her identity. The heroine lay absolutely still, apparently unconscious and, as her mask slipped from her face, not the slightest resistance passed across her visage.
Ape stared deeply into the face that was revealed, surprised that the bruises and battering inflicted during the most recent attack were already so nearly healed. But he had never seen this girl before. Who the fuck was she? How could she beat up men many times her size and never be noticed?
The more he stared at the helpless woman the angrier he felt. How could she take him on? How could she even hope to beat him? Why was Nancy so concerned about if he could beat her? Of course, he could beat her. He’d already done it, what, twice?
Absently, he curled his fist. He glanced at it and realised that it was almost as big as Crimson Flare’s face. How could she stand up to this? With his other hand, he grabbed the unresisting Champion by the throat and pulled her inert form toward him. She barely budged, her wrists and ankles secured to the pegs that Nancy had insisted be used to restrain her. He pulled at the young woman again, and again her bonds prevented him from lifting her more than a few centimeters from the floor.
What the fuck? He dropped his victim and he heard the breath come from her in a death-rattle gasp that accompanied the plop! of her body on the hard wood. The criminal turned his attention to the bonds securing the heroine to the floor. He worked on the ropes at her ankles, his large fingers having trouble picking their way through the small, tight knots that held her spread legs. First the left ankle fell free, then the right. He enjoyed feeling the soft, gleaming leather, like he enjoyed many soft things. After the rope had fallen away, he held his hand there, so that it rested against the black boot. He could feel her ankle and calf on the inside.
Finally, he returned to the heroine’s now-revealed face and again he tried to pull her from the floor. He could hear the leather heels scrape across the wood beneath her. But her wrists, still secured to the peg fastened tightly to the floor, prevented him from pulling her upward.
Again, he dropped her to the floor. He gazed at her naked body, now desiring to not only defeat her but to relish the fruits of that victory. Clumsily, he placed his large hand between her small breasts; then he stroked her body, pressing his hand toward her naked hips and the tantalising dark brown clump of hair that he saw there. A line of drool fell from his mouth, landing on her exposed right thigh. It ran down the inside of the tanned leg, settling on the floor. He licked his lips.
He thought back to when she had been untied earlier, while she had been unconscious. He and Ed and Morly had removed her ropes to move her, and then they had re-bound their victim. Nancy had said that it was safe while she was out cold, but to keep her bound at all times when she was awake. Well, she’s out now. And where’s the victory if you beat up and rape a bound woman, even a superwoman?
He reached out toward the peg securing the helpless woman to the floor.
Several floors below, Nancy stirred in her sleep. The image on the TV screen above her showed Ape undoing the knots securing Crimson Flare’s bound wrists to the peg fixed to the floor. He lifted the Champion’s arms, still secured at the wrists, from the floor, dropping them into her lap. The monitor showed only a small movement from the bound, gloved arms, barely noticeable on the screen, and completely invisible to the otherwise occupied Ape. For her part, Nancy remained oblivious to these events, enjoying her dreams of the thorough revenge she was orchestrating for a helpless, defeated, and broken masked Maiden. As she shifted in her sleep, she licked her lips and smiled an evil smile.
‘Champion of Women, eh? Hah!’ Ape talked to himself as he carried the still-bound heroine through the door and back down the hallway. ‘America’s Darling!’ He knew that a few of the practice rooms had been fitted out with beds, so that, while guarding their prisoner, some of the gang members would be able to sleep in shifts. ‘Maid of Mitropoulos! Ha! Ha!’ he laughed without humour.
At the end of the hall, he turned left through an open door and into one of the dark 12’x12’ cubicles. The bed waited in the dark shadows away from the doorway, where dim light from outside street lamps spread a yellowish cast. He tossed the unresponsive body of his captive on the mattress. Dust swirled up into his face, and then fell delicately through the sepia glow, so that he felt his nose and throat tickle. He snorted as he rose up to his full height, reaching for his belt buckle.
He dropped his trousers, the buckle clunking noisily on the floor in the small room. The boards squeaked under him as he shifted his weight to step free of the encumbrance. Ape peered into the shadow, looking for the powerless heroine, determined now to fully punish her for her transgressions: his debts, his shortcomings as a criminal mastermind, even his personal inadequacies. He felt his pectorals flex as he imagined her soft flesh giving under the power of his blows. His biceps involuntarily contracted as he bent his elbows and imagined her tiny form crushed in his embrace. It would be, he decided, the last thing she would feel. This superbitch was more trouble than she was worth. Maybe Nancy thought it was a good idea to humiliate her publicly before killing her, but that had already been accomplished, hadn’t it? She was all over the TV news and named as the supercriminal mastermind behind all the crimes he had done.
Shit! She even got the credit for the crimes he did pull off. He would beat her until she was almost dead and then fuck her until she was a corpse. Let the cops find her that way.
Where was she? She was on the bed a moment ago. She couldn’t have…
Crimson Flare’s fist powered into Ape’s side, shooting pain right through him and driving the air from his lungs in an audible gasp. The huge criminal took a single staggering step forward and then was hit again, in the same spot, by another powerful blow from the revived superheroine.
Blinded temporarily by the pain, Ape wrapped his arms around his chest, trying to protect against a third shot to his ribs. Bending slightly at the waist, he finally lifted his head to search for his antagonist in the small, dark room.
He saw her nude body move quickly from right to left across his field of vision. Turn quick, he thought, the next attack will come from…
Aaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhh! He stood straight upright as a powerful blow to the kidneys shot agony up his spine. He felt his knees buckle under him and the hulking former enforcer reached out for something to steady himself.
His left arm brushed something soft and, instinctively, he made a grab for it. Crimson Flare squealed as his huge hand wrapped around her arm, and she felt herself dragged toward the brute. A karate chop toward his throat missed, but the revitalised young heroine felt bone break in his jaw.
After the beating her body had endured over the last few days, Crimson Flare knew that she would have to end this fight quickly if she were to have a chance against the giant. The pain in her ribs was lessened by the return of her strength, but not eliminated. So, as her petite form, naked and unmasked, was pulled toward her enemy, who was naked from the waist down, she kicked and struck at him with all her remaining strength. The heel of her leather boot found his shin, and Ape screamed in pain as he fell sideways, back onto the bed, pulling the heroine after him.
The naked body of Mitropoulos’ beautiful guardian fell on top of her huge enemy. Confused by the spinning fall in the grip of her enemy, for the moment she was unable to defend herself. Her legs were thrown upwards and outwards by the fall; her free arm fell back against the mattress. And before she could react with another blow to one of his vulnerable, exposed regions, she felt both his arms wrap around her like the coils of an anaconda. He crushed her small body in his arms and pain streaked across her chest. As she tried to grip one of his arms to pry herself free, she realised just how large were these encircling extremities. When she grabbed at Ape’s massive forearm, far from encompassing the limb, her hand barely covered half of it. Beneath her fingers, she felt his brachioradials straining to press the struggling heroine tighter against his chest. Her palm felt the flexors pulling taut as his wrist curled inward to hold her closer.
She heard him grunt in her ear as he stood up, easily lifting the small form of the Champion with him. Planting his feet shoulder width apart, he now strained to press her against his massive chest. Warm blood from his broken jaw rolled onto her shoulder.
Her legs kicked wildly as Crimson Flare, desperate now, felt the breath, and along with it her strength, squeeze from her body. She tossed her head violently from left to right, wriggled madly in his grip, anything to gain a moment, a loosening of the vise that would soon asphyxiate her. The pain in her ribs broke through even her reinvigorated strength. Everything failed. Her leather boots could find no weakening as they bounced off his knees and thighs, despite the inarticulate grunts the blows drew from him. Gradually, her movement slowed and the Maiden of Mitropoulos, little by little, fell limp in his arms.
Got’cha! thought Ape. Ya little cunt, thought you’d get away with playing possum? Well, that was your last trick. And now there won’t be any doubt about who’d win our fight. You’re not tied up any more. I’m going to kick the shit out of you and then rape your ass, once and for all.
The red, purple, and white explosions that flowered in Crimson Flare’s vision told her that she was about to pass out. If only she could get some leverage, get to the floor, so that she could use her strength against her larger opponent. Held aloft in the huge man’s grip, she was helpless. And as the movements of her legs diminished and her arms failed to budge the limbs that wrapped ever tighter around her naked chest, America’s Darling could feel a sense of imminent defeat. Her vision was swallowed entirely in blackness. Her resistance took on the form of weak, desperate jerks, rather than her usual smooth, powerful attacks. Eventually, her finely formed legs were simply hanging limp onto the edge of the bed in front of Ape.
Ape wasn’t about to let Crimson Flare fool him again. She had obviously been playing at unconsciousness when he took her from the floor and put her in the bed. But now was different. Though she had somehow freed herself from the ropes that tied her wrists, her resistance had all but ceased. Her gasps told him that she was still conscious, but he could tell she had nothing left. All he had to do was to continue to crush her. To strengthen his hold he leaned forward.
Crimson Flare felt her legs bend as Ape bowed slightly at the waist. Her feet were solidly planted on top of the thin mattress. Now, quickly! she thought. It’s my only chance!
With all her remaining strength she pushed upward from the bed, driving Ape awkwardly backwards, crashing into the wall behind him. The cinderblock divider bowed from the force of his body and, when his head snapped back against the wall, the POP! echoed through the third floor. Fresh blood quickly matted his hair from the head wound, and, stunned, he released his hold on the young Champion.
She dropped to the floor, gasping desperately to fill her aching lungs. Get up! Get up! she thought, before he recovers. She fought the pain in her ribs, but planted her boot on the floor and struggled to her feet. The fact that she was naked made the unsteady motion almost obscene as she rose, stumbling and shaky. The Maiden of Mitropoulos turned to face her tormentor and saw him, sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, staring at his blood-soaked hand. In the dim, yellow light from the doorway, she saw that a smeared stream of blood had been wiped down the cinderblock wall, ending behind his head, which had twisted, curious, as he stared, uncomprehending, at the warm sticky mess.
Suddenly she felt sympathy for the pitiful giant. He seemed unable to comprehend his injury. His eyes shifted from his reddened hand to the naked Champion standing over him and back again, as if seeking an answer to an unspoken question. Her heart softened as the fight for her life was pushed into the past. ‘Ape, are you all right?’
‘Ah… right?’ he mumbled, his broken jaw not working.
America’s Darling quickly crouched next to him. She lifted his head slightly from the wall, and what she saw terrified her. She could see fragments of bone and—something else, some kind of gray membrane—mixed in with his slick black hair. Turning her eyes to the wall, she saw spots of the same substances plastered to the cinderblock in the blood trail.
‘Oh, Ape. I’ve got to get you help.’ Crimson Flare stepped quickly through the doorway. Her uniform was still laying on the floor in the room down the hall, where she had been secured only minutes before. Scant moments later, she returned, masked and clad in her familiar crimson-and-gold costume. It clung to her in dazzling fashion. Around her waist, her familiar black leather belt settled on top of her hips, and her baton hung easily in its holster. The short period of time had restored her to almost her full strength and she moved into the dim light of the room with her old confidence. But even in the darkness of the room, the Champion could see that Ape’s face had already gone ashen, and his shoulders were covered in blood.
Looking around for something to apply direct pressure to the wound, Crimson Flare grabbed a pillowcase from off the bed. She wadded the cloth against the wound. She heard Ape’s breathing, very shallow and noisy. He was dying. Holding the pillowcase against the open wound, Crimson Flare pulled the edges of the cloth toward the front of Ape’s face, and began to tie the ends together, securing the ad hoc bandage against his wound. As she was completing the small knot, a powerful blow against the back of her head sent her body falling across the injured giant’s lap. Pain radiated outward from the sides of her head. Though not unconscious, all she could see was a black field speckled with multi-coloured pinpricks of light. The heroine’s body twisted as she tried to find a way out from the agony that seemed about to crush her skull.
The Nemissesitor! her mind screamed. Where…?
But the Guardian of Mitropoulos couldn’t find the source of her torture. Her legs kicked spastically, then her form writhed in pain and fell from Ape’s lap to the floor, lying on her back. America’s Darling exercised no control over her body. Her hands gripped the sides of her head, as if physically trying to pull the torment away.
She cried out weakly, pitifully, desperately trying to find some relief from the torture.
But it only took another moment for unconsciousness to bring release.
When she came to, Crimson Flare peered through a blurry haze at someone’s face looking back at her. There was a voice, as the mouth moved slowly in the fog, but the words were incomprehensible, echoing against one another, resounding in a metallic chamber inside her head. Her muscles ached and the Champion drew a deep breath as she tried to pull herself together.
The sharp pain that shot through her ribs when she inhaled brought her situation into focus quickly. The pain told her that she had been bound again; and it told her that she may very well have a broken rib. She groaned.
‘…superheroine,’ the voice said. ‘Everybody knows as long as your wrists are tied, you’re helpless. And this time you’re going to stay that way.’ She recognised Nancy’s taunting voice.
Blinking away the haze, she saw the redhead scant inches from her. The tight smile was familiar by this time. The Guardian of Mitropoulos tried to speak, but her mouth was too dry. Swallowing painfully—another bolt of pain shot through her ribs—she croaked, ‘Wh-why… why are you… doing this… to me?’
‘I’ve already told you, superbitch. To get what’s mine. To get what I deserve. And what’s better than just getting it than also taking down the white bread heroine that has every guy in Mitropoulos—I mean, every guy: do you ever even see the stares that follow you when you come into a room?—taking down the oh-so-high-and-mighty heroine that has every guy in Mitropoulos creaming his jeans?’ She spit in Crimson Flare’s face.
The sputum rolled off her mask and onto her face. The heroine smelled the small bits of matter—probably lingering bits of her last meal—that had been expectorated. She desperately wanted to wipe the insult from her face, but her hands, tightly bound behind her as she sat in the chair, were absolutely immobile. She dropped her head hoping that the spittle would drop away, but Nancy’s cupped right hand lifted her chin before anything could happen.
‘No, you bitch. Nothing’s going to be so easy for you, ever again. You’re going to die slowly and in pain and humiliation. Then I’ll leave your body at the scene of your latest… no, make that your last… crime, a crime that went wrong.’
Struggling painfully for a breath, Crimson tried to respond to the challenge. But the pain and the bondage wouldn’t let her.
Nancy dropped her hand from the heroine’s chin to the sequined uniform that covered her torso. With a surprising gentleness, as the hate that had moved her seemed to melt away, the back of Nancy’s fingers began to press against the small round mound that was the Champion of Women’s left breast. Moving her hand counterclockwise from the center of her chest and under the perfect, raised bosom, the redhead felt the solidity of the breast stand up to the tender pressure she brought against its mass. She sighed, then turned her hand and laid it across the full expanse of the jutting mammary. She rolled her fingers across its top as if she were playing an arpeggio on the heroine’s teat. Her palm pressed a little harder against the face of the organ and, even through the costume, after some moments she felt the nipple hardening under her gentleness.
Crimson Flare felt the pain in her ribs diminish as she gave herself over to the pleasure raised by Nancy’s manipulation of her sensitive breast. Her breath came faster as Nancy multiplied the stimuli by bringing her left hand up to the glittering right breast, again ministering an affectionate touch to that increasingly sensitive orb.
‘Or…’ Nancy whispered.
It was the combination of pleasure and pain that stimulated Crimson Flare. The agony that she was experiencing from the throbbing in her ribs mixed deliciously with the expert tactile manipulation that seemed to come so easily from Nancy. The bondage, too, worked on the heroine’s mind. She sat in the high-backed chair, her hands secured tightly behind her back and, it seemed, also to the back of the chair (for she could not move them either side to side or up and down, but they stayed, fixed, in a single spot). Try as she might, she had not been able to twist her wrists in such a way as to move her claw into position to free herself. The masked Champion’s legs were spread and her ankles tied to the heavy legs of a chair that seemed to be large enough for a cathedra. Between her legs, Nancy sank slowly to her knees, all the time gently pressing, fingering, molding her small, perfectly formed mounds; Nancy could tell that they were naked under the heroine’s glittering costume. She smiled as Crimson Flare’s powerful thighs tightened and she pressed her toes against the floor, trying to raise herself up. But the ropes had been secured in such a way that the only result was a compression of her thighs inward, pressing against the redhead’s chest.
‘Or…’ she whispered again.
‘Oohh!’ Crimson Flare sighed audibly.
Nancy lifted one hand to the quivering chin of America’s Darling and raised her head to look into her green eyes. They glistened in the dim light in the room. She could tell that her victim was on the verge of defeat. Sliding up her body, as if providing the bound heroine with a lap dance, Nancy gently placed her other arm around the captive’s neck and drew her lips close to Crimson’s. Barely touching her lower lip, she delicately kissed her prisoner once, twice on the soft ruby tissue, then once on the upper lip; finally, once, twice, three times, and then again and again, each time exercising a remarkable restraint in order to tantalise, to awaken a sensibility to the possibilities of her own sensuality. ‘Or…’ she whispered a third time, with infinite softness. Their lips met and this time Nancy’s kiss was reciprocated. Nancy felt the muscles in her prisoner’s shoulders constrict, pulling forward toward her.
Moments later, Nancy opened her mouth and pressed her tongue into the waiting orifice of the near-broken Champion. There, inside Crimson Flare, the two pink shafts tried to intertwine; they commingled and danced, enjoying the shifting pressure and sensations. Below, Nancy’s hand reached behind the bound avenger and pulled the zipper down the back of her faintly sparkling uniform. As the metal teeth separated, revealing the vigilante’s silky back, Crimson Flare’s tormentor pressed her palm against the smooth skin. Her palm brushed evenly, gently, feeling the hard muscles pulled taut against her soft flesh. The redhead’s hand paused in its movement, seeming to enjoy the sensation of the skin’s silky smoothness against its own surface. Then it moved on, counting the ribs as it moved up and down the prisoner’s spine. Nancy felt the lust in her own groin begin the boil, as she foresaw the logical culmination of this train of events. That same hand now crossed the shoulder of her prisoner, seeking the hardening nipple she had felt through the sequined crimson-and-gold costume.
As the redhead ran her hand toward the pale pink aureole, all pain left the sensibility of Crimson Flare. The Guardian of Mitropoulos embraced only the pleasure and sensuality. She felt the passion rising within her, and, when the long fingernail of the ambitious criminal glided across the tip of her nipple, a violent chill swept simultaneously up and down Crimson’s spine. The tip of that nail pressed lovingly against the base of the nipple and that point of contact became the centre of the Champion’s existence. She threw her head back, drawing in a large breath, which was expelled in a long sigh of immense sensuality. The pain in her ribs formed only a diminishing counterpoint to the pleasure that was centered on that tiny point of contact. Futilely, she pulled again at her bonds, but the very immobility of her arms, and the powerlessness that it carried, only served to excite America’s Darling even more.
Focusing her attention on that one breast, Nancy slowly moved that diabolical fingernail round and round the pinkness, spiraling Crimson’s sensibilities ever higher. At the same time, Nancy pressed her lips tight against the heroine’s, smashing the young girl’s resistance and slowly, irresistibly, pulling from the heroine the sounds of her defeat.
‘MMmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnhhhh!’ Their lips separated, and Crimson Flare reached with her head toward the retreating criminal. Her entire upper body seemed to be reaching for the redhead. ‘Aaagghh! Oh!’ Nancy saw her lick her lips, trying to taste the sensuality that had been separated from her. When Nancy lightly squeezed Crimson Flare’s nipple between thumb and forefinger, the helpless avenger released a cry of infinite sensuality. ‘Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhggggggnnnnnnmmmmllllll!!’
Crimson Flare tugged again at the ropes binding her wrists and again failed even to move her gloved hands. Through her vinyl mask she looked out at the redhead who had so often sought to destroy the young woman. She could still taste the lips and tongue that had only just separated from her own, and she extended her neck, reaching her head forward, seeking to return to the pleasure and passion of that kiss. Simultaneously, Nancy noticed, she squeezed her thighs toward one another, a movement of almost unnoticeable dimension because of the bindings securing her booted legs to the legs of the chair. The helpless woman panted as her fervor crested.
‘Want some more, superheroine?’ Nancy asked, smiling. ‘Well, you’ve got to pay for it.’
‘Wh-what… do… you want?’
Before answering, Crimson’s tormentor fingered her petite breast. Nancy never pressed against the mammary; rather, her fingers, her nails, her knuckles all simply seemed to glide across the surface of the skin, a movement that served to both tease and torment her young captive. ‘I indicated there was an alternative, Crimson Flare,’ Nancy whispered. ‘You might die, painfully, humiliated. Or…’ she stopped again.
The nails of her thumb and middle finger pressed against the base of the hardening nipple. The Champion pushed back in the chair and jutted her chest forward as the mixed sensations of pleasure and pain flooded her. With a desperation born of this ecstasy, she pulled for all she was worth, vainly, at the ropes binding her wrists behind her back. ‘AAAaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!’ Her body was quivering.
‘You might, as an alternative, decide the help me. I think you already understand how rewarding that might be. I can offer… many incentives.’
Crimson balled her hands into fists and tried again to pull apart the ropes that bound her, and that had removed her great strength. Thus far, she had successfully hidden her efforts to free herself behind a façade of sexual excitement, one she knew Nancy was ready to believe. But Nancy’s expertise at raising the vigilante’s level of excitement, and the criminal’s facility in directing her captive’s soaring sensations were breaking down that façade. The bound Champion needed a reprieve from the torment; she needed to distract Nancy.
‘Are these… the same rewards you offered… Ape?’
‘Ape?’ Nancy looked like she had forgotten entirely about him. ‘All I promised Ape was sex.’ She answered almost as if it were an afterthought.
‘He’s hurt,’ Crimson Flare said softly.
‘Yes, you did injure him severely. I suppose you’re feeling guilty.’
‘I didn’t… mean to. He and I were fighting…. I…’
‘I saw what happened. The noise of the fight woke me up. When I saw that you had won, I knew that I needed the Nemissesitor again.’
‘Did you get him some help? He’s very seriously hurt.’
‘Oh, no. He’s going to die.’ Glancing to her right, through the open door, she added, ‘If he’s not dead already.’
‘But… but… I thought… you cared… for him.’
‘Oh, I do. He took me a long way. I’m grateful for that. Very grateful.’
‘Please. We’ve got… to do something.’
‘We will. But first… which will it be, Crimson Slut?’
America’s Darling felt her whole body slump as she realised that she was going to be forced to make a choice: a choice between her own safety and the life of her injured enemy. ‘He’s got to get help. He’ll… die.’ The last word was barely a whisper. Crimson Flare choked up at the thought that she would be responsible for another death.
‘You might still save him. Make your choice.’
The masked Maiden opened her mouth, but she knew nothing she could say would get Ape aid sooner than obeying Nancy. ‘All… all right,’ she said, almost inaudibly. ‘Just get him help.’
Nancy’s hand returned to its circling movement, gliding across the flesh of her breast. Under the crimson sequins of her costume, the caress was only barely noticeable. Crimson Flare, aware of her powerlessness and of her inability to free herself, felt a quaking in the pit of her stomach, as if a herd of buffalo had decided to move across a range. She may have been trying to create the illusion of weakness as a means to overcoming Nancy, but the illusion was coming dangerously close to reality. The muscles in her arms felt flaccid; she could hardly breathe. Her head slumped toward her chest. She wanted to ask the redhead once more to get help for Ape, but the words froze in her throat and remained unspoken.
Nancy was watching the heroine closely, and when her weakness became clear, she rose to her feet and her hands quickly moved to the knots that secured her victim to the chair. In only a few moments, the ropes that had tied her tightly to the large wooden chair lay strewn on the floor around the black boots of the Guardian of Mitropoulos. Freed, she slumped in her seat, exhausted. She tried to maneuver her wrists to bring the claw into play, but, right now, her weariness made it impossible.
Nancy gripped her bound wrists in her hand and lifted, pulling the unresisting heroine painfully to her feet. ‘You’ll have to start by standing, Crimson Slut.’ Guided by Nancy’s grip on her bare upper arm, Crimson Flare stumbled toward the door through which, only a moment earlier, Nancy had cast a glance.
Inside the room, Ape lay unconscious on a bed that was almost too small for his frame. The pillow was soaked in blood. Opposite the door, Ed and Morly, recalled from their revels, stood awaiting Nancy’s orders. Crimson caught her breath when she saw his face. Drained of all colour, she couldn’t be sure he was still breathing. ‘You promised to get him help,’ Crimson Flare declared as firmly as she could, turning toward her tormentor. Then she said, more softly. ‘Is he…?’
‘No, not yet. And I’ll get him help when I’ve got you where I want you,’ the redhead responded.
Nancy moved purposefully behind the bound woman. ‘On your knees, heroine,’ she ordered.
Knowing that Ape’s life was now in the balance, Crimson Flare gritted her teeth as she slowly dropped to her knees. The pain in her ribs was intense and when her knees struck the floor the shock was multiplied across her chest. She had never felt such intense pain as she now felt.
Nancy removed a syringe from her denim jacket as she bent behind the bound heroine. She didn’t say a word as she removed the plastic cover from the needle and examined the milky fluid on the inside. Then, before Crimson Flare knew what had happened, she felt the needle plunge into her bare upper arm near her shoulder. Nancy rose to her feet and walked slowly to face the Champion and stare at her reaction to the drug.
‘You know what that is, Crimson Slut?’ she asked with a broad smile in her voice. ‘It’s the same stuff that Ape put into you a few hours ago, the stuff that let Ape and the boys… have their fun.’ Crimson Flare’s eyes shot up at the woman standing over her. ‘And you know where it came from? Hmmh? It was Chan’s formula. He figured out what was needed to put someone with your strength out of action. He was brilliant, you know. He was a shit, but he was brilliant. He wanted to leave you awake, but unable to resist. He knew that with your strength, the stuff had to be potent.’
The Maiden of Mitropoulos began to sway as the effects of the drug hit her. She tried to speak. ‘You pr- prom-ised you… you’d help… Ape.’ The words were slurred.
‘Oh, don’t worry about him. In half an hour he’ll be dead. Another victim of Mitropoulos’ supercriminal. Ha-ha!’
‘N-n-no! You… you c-can’t!’ The Masked Maiden’s voice was almost inaudible.
‘I can do anything I want. And that stuff that Chan created will let me get away with it.
‘You know what’s really great about it? It doesn’t lose potency with frequent use. A lot of drugs seem to get weaker as you use them, so that you need more to get the same effect. But this stuff… Chan was so pleased when he saw that you could inject the same amount a dozen, two dozen times, and the effect was consistent. Even your constitution won’t develop a tolerance for it, superheroine.
‘I have enough to keep you under my thumb for the next year, if I want.’ She stared at her captive. ‘I don’t think I’ll need you for that long,’ she said under her breath.
Crimson tried to shake her head, but the delirium that was taking over only let her move her head in a series of uneven figure 8s. ‘N-n-nnnoo!’ she whispered. She felt her body swaying on a long axis now and the heroine knew that it was only a matter of time before she was totally helpless.
‘We don’t know if it’ll make you dependent, though, Crimson Slut. Seems all of the test subjects died before we could find out whether they were hooked on it. But they died, all of ‘em, with smiles on their faces. So the high must be pretty good. One guy had more than twenty of doses, small by comparison with what we gave you, but the effects were always the same.’
Crimson Flare felt the redhead’s hand grab her sequined costume and pull her to her feet. Under the influence of the drug, she didn’t resist. The bound Champion of Women was pulled from the room, leaving the dying giant behind. Her leather boots beat an uneven clump-clump into the hallway. She ran blindly after the denim-clad moll as she was pulled toward a destination she could only guess. America’s Darling felt herself falling a few steps past the doorway and the increasingly vicious Nancy pulled, demanded, dragged and cursed the heroine to move her further along.
‘Come on, you slut. There’s something very special waiting for you. God damn it, you, move! or I’ll kill you right here,’ Nancy promised, alternately dragging the young woman and tugging at her sequined costume. Then, when the bound Guardian of Mitropoulos would move no more, she hastened behind the fallen heroine to kick her the last few yards toward the door. In her delirium, the bound heroine crawled and rolled the last few yards to the room where she had earlier been pummeled and terrorised.
The kicks drove her into the open doorway. She couldn’t clearly see her destination, her senses having been addled by the effects of the serum streaming through her. Her ability to move ended as she crossed the threshold into her former prison. That was far enough for Nancy. She reached down and grabbed the unmoving vigilante by the back of her costume, grabbing the spandex where the open zipper had separated it. Three great tugs and the deed was done.
Nancy circled her captive in the middle of the floor. ‘So, here we are then. The end of the line.’ On the floor next to her, Crimson could make out the vague outlines of Ape’s black bag.
The heroine simply sat in the middle of the room, her head rocking back and forth, her dry tongue vainly trying to moisten her parched lips. Crimson Flare’s breathing was almost reduced to a panting now, and, as she realised how desperate was her situation, her head dropped, tears running out of the corners of her eyes.
‘Please,’ she whimpered. ‘Don’t hurt me… any more,’ she begged.
Nancy began to untie her wrists.
End of Chapter Nine