Chapter Five
Once home, Karen didn’t even bother to remove her tattered uniform before she was on the phone to Stacy. The tragic and frightening ordeal she had just survived left her stomach twisted and painful, her sexual areas still reacting to the rapes with spasms and with excruciating throbs. As she punched the numbers, she saw her hand shaking almost uncontrollably. Her nerves made her drop the handset.
As her body tightened, she cut off the call before it had rung even once. Before she would talk to Stacy, she would have to calm herself. She bowed at the waist and bent her knees, trying to soothe herself, both inside and out. She dry heaved again, and the dizziness that followed dropped her to all fours.
Her gloved hand slowly reached up and removed the vinyl mask from her heavily perspiring face. She breathed deeply through her mouth as spools of saliva unwound and dripped slowly to the carpet. She reached up to just above her forehead and slowly pulled her cowl back, revealing her sweat-soaked brown hair. As she tossed the form-fitting black vinyl aside, she lowered her body to the floor. Her body shivered. Finally, the pent-up emotions gushed forth in a single roaring wave as she broke down and cried. She cried with relief at her survival; she cried because she had killed, something she had hoped never to have to do; she cried at the residual pain which she still felt, and at what the pain represented: her violation and degradation at the hands of JoJo Savanarol and the Savoyards.
It was fifteen minutes before she composed herself sufficiently to dial Stacy’s number again. It took a few moments for Stacy to answer this most private number, a personal connexion between Crimson Flare and her patron (Stacy called it the Batphone).
‘What is it, Karen?’ Stacy answered.
‘Oohhh, Stacy. I need to talk to you. I need to come and see you.’ Karen spoke so rapidly the words tumbled over one another and Stacy made her slow down and repeat herself.
‘OK, Karen, come right over. Are you sure you’re in condition to drive? You sound…’
‘I can drive. It’s not that far.’ Karen felt herself calming now. ‘Let me shower and clean up first. I’ll be there in an hour or so. It’s just…’
‘Just what?’
‘You’d better check the news before I get there. You can give me any details about… about…’ and Karen started to cry again.
‘Karen, Karen,’ Stacy tried to soothe her emotionally distraught friend. She spoke calmly and quietly. ‘Karen, I’ve already heard about the fire down by the river.’ She was ready to ask, ‘Were you there?’ when she thought better of it. ‘It might be easier if I came there. Take care of the things you were about to, and I’ll be there, like you said, in about an hour. Is there anything you want?’
Karen replied, ‘A chance to re-do the last ten hours.’
Stacy was silent for a moment. When Karen didn’t ring off, she spoke, again with a quiet reassurance, ‘I’ll bring something to quiet things down.’ There were infrequent times when this might have meant that the two friends would share a joint, but Stacy realised that this time it shouldn’t be anything stronger than some Earl Grey. ‘See you in about an hour.’ She hung up.
When Karen heard the line go dead, she wanted to scream at Stacy for abandoning her. Tears flowed again, more briefly this time, as she tossed the receiver aside. She rolled onto her side and curled up, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She didn’t move.
That was the way Stacy found her. Stacy had her own key for Karen’s apartment, and, when she let herself in, she came across her friend, still in the ripped uniform of the city’s champion, her mask and cowl thrown aside, lying on her side, her body showing the evidence of the night’s attacks. Bruises, scratches, and redness showed through on every bare portion of her face and body. The worst was her face and jaw, where JoJo and Vas had worked her over with their fists.
Stacy picked the heroine up and laid her gently on the overstuffed cushions of the sofa. The body of the superheroine was light, though Stacy could feel the well-toned muscles beneath the smooth, flawless skin. The wealthy patroness then walked to the kitchen where she put on some water for tea.
Returning to the living room, she began to unzip Karen’s black boots. Stacy noted the scuffs and tears on the highly polished leather surface. Removing the boots, she also removed the remains of the shiny flesh-toned tights that were beneath. Stacy stared at the fading red marks around Karen’s ankles, the residue of her bondage. Checking her friend’s wrists, she was not surprised to see the same marks there.
Stacy undid the black leather belt which served as a holster for Crimson Flare’s baton. As she did so, the sequined costume fell open, revealing more bruises on the crimefighter’s chest and abdomen. The marks on her breasts were almost purple, revealed as the costume was gently removed. Stacy lifted the heroine tenderly and slid her outfit off her shoulders. Then she pulled the tatters of the Crimson Flare’s highly recognisable attire down her legs. Each of these elements of the uniform was laid carefully aside.
Karen now lay naked on the sofa. She looked barely conscious, with her eyes closed, her mouth hanging loosely open, sucking deep gulps of air. Stacy knew that Crimson Flare had run into trouble, and that that trouble had climaxed in the fire at the riverfront this morning. Stacy steeled herself against any emotional outburst, even now. She would have to remain firm, for Karen would need reassurance.
It was at this moment that she noticed the blood residue and bruising at her groin and anus.
It had finally happened.
Stacy had feared this, perhaps, more than any other possibility. Crimson Flare had been captured and raped. Many times she had tried to reassure Karen that her strength made this unlikely and would see her through any crisis, but even she didn’t believe this. Now that it had happened, Stacy knew, she would have to use all of her persuasive powers to keep the heroine active.
She drew a bath for her distraught friend. Karen would need to be relaxed before they undertook the question of Crimson Flare’s continued existence.
The death toll had been high in the warehouse. Evidently, most of the Savoyards had not escaped before the explosion. Karen informed Stacy that she had been responsible for the deaths of JoJo and Vas, and maybe a few more during her break out.
‘The miserable thing is,’ Karen was saying while still sitting up to her chest in the bathwater, from which ribbons of steam rose, ‘I can’t go lodge a complaint, or charge any of the survivors with attempted rape or assault, or anything.’ She was more composed now. She had been sitting in the tub for almost an hour, Stacy rubbing her down with the sponge, pouring the hot water over her head and back. Stacy thought that Karen’s back and shoulders were her sexiest features, even though the newspapers and TV reports always talked about her legs.
‘I feel so helpless. Almost as helpless as I was when they had me tied. I can’t even go to the hospital for a rape kit. It was Crimson Flare who was raped, not Karen Perry. We should have realised this. How can Crimson Flare continue to do what she does, when everyone will know how to control her?’
Stacy replied, ‘I can’t simply tell you to continue the work. I can recall my own rape, but I know that your experience was more frightening and more deadly. But you have to believe in what your strength has given you the opportunity to do. I won’t even talk about obligations. Crimson Flare’s life depends on whether or not you are willing to risk that world out there. She could disappear and a year from now she’ll be a faded memory in the collective mind of Mitropoulos. Karen, only you can decide to continue.’
‘I don’t know whether I can. It hurt so much. Oh, god, it hurt. And some of the things they said were so degrading. I thought that Crimson Flare was helping people. There are people who HATE her. Hate her. Hate her for what she does; hate her for being a woman.’
‘I know. I hear some of them at meetings I attend. The people who say them are not all members of the criminal element. Some of them sit in board rooms.’ For a moment, anger crossed Stacy’s face and eyes. She swallowed hard. Crimson Flare’s patron knew she wasn’t helping her case with that admission, but she knew that if anything would keep Karen active, it would be honesty.
Stacy couldn’t explain it to herself, much less to Karen: she only knew that what Karen and Crimson Flare were doing was important. Crimson Flare wasn’t a Superwoman. She only had great strength. Eventually, Stacy knew, that would not be enough to deal with all of the enemies who would emerge. She had to use her intelligence, as well. Along with the superb computer system located in her home. The cooperation between the two allies would have to become closer, and yet the link between them could never be discovered. If that were to happen, then there would be a way to get at Crimson Flare, and everything she fought for, without attacking her directly.
‘I have this strength, Stacy. But it’s all I have. If someone took it into his head to shoot me, they could do it. This rape made me realise just how vulnerable I am.’
‘I know. And I’m not going to try to force you to continue. You have to believe in it. You believed in it easily when it was easy to be a superheroine. You saw it getting tougher. And yet you stayed with it. Was it still… fun?’
‘No. I was making things better. But will I continue to make things better by getting myself raped or killed?’
‘What can I do to help prevent that?’
‘Maybe you should ask your computer.’
The two young women continued talking in this vein for another half-hour. Stacy watched as Karen’s toes puckered in the water; but they also discovered that Stacy’s prowess with the computer and the money that allowed her to maintain cutting-edge technology, better than any police or criminal computer, could forearm Crimson Flare before she entered a situation similar to one she had most recently encountered. Stacy noticed that Karen was no longer discussing the pain, the agony, and the humiliation. Karen was looking for a solution to the problem. Inside, she was comforted. Outside, she let her soft hands comfort her best friend.
Karen, despite her willingness to continue in her role as superheroine, was not easily convinced. The openness that had cheered Stacy disappeared as flashes of pain, and anger, and humiliation flashed through the battered girl’s mind. More than once she was ready to give up. Each time she brought herself back. Stacy didn’t coerce or pressure her. Stacy’s position was clear: Crimson Flare was important to Mitropoulos; but Crimson Flare would only be effective if Karen willingly took on the responsibility. All Stacy could do was promise to do all that money could do to prevent a repetition.
Then Karen brought up a surprising issue. Stacy had to agree to continue to help her, even if it meant that Karen would kill again.
‘Does this mean you enjoyed it?’ Stacy asked, worried.
‘No, no. Rather, exactly the opposite. I’m still grinding inside at the image of the blood and bodies. It was like I watched myself do it. It was someone else was doing it and when I realised that that someone was me, I… I…,’ she paused.
‘I had never killed anyone before. I had always tried to leave them for the police along with all the evidence needed to convict them of their crimes. This kind of made it fun. But when JoJo… did what he did… and said what he said… I knew that it was either my life or his.
‘But it also made me realise that what he said was true. In the world I found myself, a world of men and their violence, I couldn’t continue to play according to those old rules.
‘I don’t know whether I like the idea of going back out there. There are men out there who would kill me without a second thought. There are some who want nothing more than to break me sexually.’
Stacy was shocked as she realised that her friend was right.
‘But I also don’t know whether I can go out there knowing that I might kill someone every time I’m in a confrontation. If I do, I have to live with it, or get out. Can you live with it?’
The long silence that followed was shattered periodically by the ‘drip, drip’ from the faucet. The drops sounded like gunshots in the bathroom.
‘I… can… live with it.’
It was a week later before Crimson Flare again went out on her late-night patrols. During that time a lot of makeup was used to cover Karen’s bruises around her face and jaw. This avoided any possibly embarrassing questions at work. When Crimson Flare returned to the fight, she was formidably armed with information from Stacy’s computer. Everything that was known about the Normans by the police in all localities and even at the State Capital was now also known by the crimefighter.
The Normans were the remaining gang in Mitropoulos. Rivals with the Savoyards until the destruction of their warehouse, their leadership, and their membership, the Normans had moved swiftly into the vacuum created by the events of several nights ago.
Crimson Flare was sure they had been contacted by Pitchblende. Whether the villain had been in touch with the gang before their recent rise to power was a relevant question, since they may have been informed about her weakness. But, at a minimum, what the superheroine wanted to know was whether the reports of her gigantic battle against the Savoyards had raised any doubts about that information.
One of the Normans’ headquarters was in an abandoned subway station in downtown Mitropoulos. Their pattern was to move their headquarters periodically, traveling between four or five meeting places during the course of a month. Stacy’s computer had given the heroine all of the known locations. She started with the one she knew had at least three points of access. She did not want to be trapped like she had in the vault at the warehouse.
America’s Darling arrived shortly after dark, keeping to the alleyways and back streets on the city’s blighted inner core. Abandoned and boarded-up buildings and collapsed houses provided cover as she made her way to the Austin Street Station. When she arrived, she observed two burly men standing at the top of the steps leading down into the station.
Evidently, there’s a meeting tonight, she thought. Crimson Flare wasn’t sure she was pleased to have guessed right. In her heart of hearts, she had the still small wish that her first encounter with the gang might take place a few days hence.
She made her way into the vacant Meyerson Company depot, through which, Stacy’s computer had informed her, it was possible to enter the subway system below. Crimson Flare found the ground floor rest room the computer had indicated would offer the access she sought. Sure enough, the rusted pipes gave way easily under her strength and she saw the darkened unused subway tunnel below. Crimson easily fit her diminutive body into the hole she had made, lowered herself so that she hung from the lip of the opening, and then dropped to the tracks below. It was a long drop, nearly twenty feet, but one which she could allow her strength to overcome. She landed squarely, like an expert gymnast. Looking around, she saw faint lights in the direction of the station.
There were the echoes of trains running elsewhere in Mitropoulos’ active subway system, so Crimson Flare could not hear any sounds from the elevated platform about fifty yards from where she stood in the dark. The sequins of her costume glinted dimly in the tunnel, as she moved to the inner wall. Pressing herself as close to the cement as she could, she eased toward the light.
As the masked champion drew closer to the platform, she expected to hear at least the muffled sounds of conversations among gang members. She heard nothing at all. If she didn’t know better, she would have believed that she had stumbled into another trap.
But that was impossible. The only person who knew that she was coming was Stacy; and Stacy protected her friend with all the security and technology her fortune could buy.
Crimson Flare continued her approach, listening, staring, mystified that there were no shadows, no whispers, no….
The rustle of bodies running, the heavy breathing of lungs stretched to bursting, a dozen Normans raced into the tunnel at full speed at the same time that two makeshift lamps illuminated the darkness around the avenger.
If this had happened two weeks ago, there’s no doubt that the crimson-garbed champion of Mitropoulos would have stepped forward and waded into her attackers, using her tremendous strength to bring them to heel. But after her pounding at the hands of the JoJo, Vas, and the Savoyards, she first froze at the sight of the purple leather jackets racing toward her. Before she even reacted, her mind wondered how they could know that she was coming. Only Stacy had been involved in the preparations. She still paused. Stacy? No, it couldn’t be Stacy. Stacy was her oldest friend.
A guttural yell echoed up the tunnel from the throng charging at the vinyl-masked heroine, and awoke her from her reverie. Two weeks ago she surely would have stayed to fight. Now, however, she turned and raced back toward the hole in the roof of the subway. All thoughts of her past, of her heroic persona, of her strength left her. She was simply a frightened young woman being chased by a gang of angry men, men bent on her destruction.
When she got to her entry, she looked up at the small hole in the ceiling. She turned and looked down the tunnel. Her superspeed had created some distance between herself and her pursuers, though the time she had before they were upon her was short. Bending at the knees until her heels were just below her hips, she sprang full force toward the little aperture through which he had entered this nightmare.
Her hands grabbed at the broken wood around the opening, finding two pieces at opposite sides of the opening that gave her a grip. But her body hung down from the breach, her booted legs swinging wildly as she tried to pull herself up. It was only seconds before she felt the hands of her pursuers tugging at her boots, first one pair of hands on one black leather boot, then a second on the other, then more hands, and more, and more, wrapping around her leather-wrapped calves as the gang members literally crawled on top of one another to get at the fleeing heroine. Their weight eventually became too much for her handhold and she tumbled amid the Normans, still gripping small shreds of the wood that had offered safety only moments before.
‘AAAAHHHhhhhh!!! NO! NOOOOOO!!’
She felt pieces of rope looping around her booted calves and her thighs as she struggled desperately to free herself.
“NNNOOOOO!! AAAaaahh!’
More rope was twisted around her shoulders and upper arms.
She screamed unintelligibly against her attackers.
Still more rope enveloped her waist and even more bound her gloved wrists.
‘AAAAHHHHhhhhgghhh!! NNOOO!’
At home, Stacy worked diligently at her computer, seeking more intelligence on the Normans and the as-yet unknown threat called Pitchblende, hoping that Crimson Flare would tonight uncover whether there was a connexion between the two.
Suddenly, and to her horror, she watched as her files melted away, seemingly devoured by an unknown parasite ensconced in her computer. She was near tears as days of work simply disappeared, the pixels evaporating and leaving her screen blank. And she feared for her friend, for this disruption of her previously secure system meant that Crimson Flare was in greater danger than either of them ever imagined. It was just possible that, if Pitchblende were behind this attack, then he already knew about their relationship.
If he knew about that, then she too was in danger.
Screaming and struggling futilely, the crimson-and-gold form of the champion of Mitropoulos was carried down the tunnel toward the brightly lit subway platform. Standing on that platform, smiling widely, were the three principal leaders of the Normans: Chan, the gang’s chief warlord, some said the real brains behind their success; Justin, chief bodyguard to this elite; and, presently the most powerful criminal figure in Mitropoulos, Cos, the androgynous sociopath who had organized them as a means of fighting the Savoyards. Each wore the customary purple leather jacket that marked him as a member of this group.
When she was deposited before this trio, her uniform was unmarred, for the gang had been ordered to deliver the prisoner undamaged. Crimson was stood before the gods, the many hands of the Normans still holding her erect. For many gang members, it was not a fear of her falling that led them to continue to fondle and caress their bound beauty, but rather the erotic rush of contact with her latex-and-sequin wrapped body, or the satin-gloved arms, or the nylon-enclosed thighs. Crimson Flare was the most desired prize of Mitropoulos’ underworld, and the Normans were not about to let it go.
End of Chapter Five
Chapter Six
It didn’t take long for silence to overtake the crowd swirling around Crimson Flare. As the three gods approached, the only thing she still felt were the hands of her captors fondling, squeezing, brushing her body. Unable to budge, the contact with her writhing body continuously stimulated her captors. They enjoyed the tactile stimulation as they beheld the heroine twisting sensuously in her restraints. In this situation, her sequined costume seemed out of place, marking her for unwelcome attention. She looked around her and saw a throng of purple leather. She saw a multitude of faces staring at her, some actually licking their lips at the prospect of having her. She felt fear now.
‘Crimson Flare!’ Cos called to her. ‘You have intruded into my affairs for the last time.’ The young heroine tried to draw herself up to full height, but could not because of her bondage and the weight of the ropes wrapped around her, and this only drew attention to her ludicrous effort.
A heavy rope crushed her small breasts at the same time it secured her bare upper arms to her sequined chest. The same rope was then wrapped around her waist and continued to her wrists, holding them tightly together and tightly to her waist, the soft skin under her crimson gloves joined in an ‘X’ in front of her. Still more ropes wrapped around her thighs, the unshielded lights reflecting from the translucent tights which encased them with a sheen that did full justice to the round, hard muscles there. Still another rope held the black leather of her boots together at the ankles. The champion of Mitropoulos was absolutely unable to move.
‘Take her to the storeroom.’
The next hours were a nightmare made real for Crimson Flare. She had been physically carried to a small room at the entrance to the subway tunnel, a room filled with pallets and wooden and cardboard boxes. Unceremoniously dumped there, she was closely observed by two members of the Normans, whose job it was to ensure that she did not escape her bonds. Because of the way in which her wrists were joined, it was not yet possible to bring the claw into use. She looked at the leather belt at her waist and saw her baton still in its holster, equally useless. Nevertheless, she began to twist her wrists, in order to free her claw. The tightness of the ropes made this a daunting task.
She had not been in the room for twenty minutes when Cos and Justin entered the storeroom with two other gang members.
‘Crimson Flare, I have been given complete independence to remove you as a thorn in the side of certain elements of Mitropoulos,’ Cos said quietly, the sweetness of his voice belying the malevolence of his intent. ‘You have had your way for too long, and you have limited our options in too many ways. I want your end not only to be painful, but also humiliating.’ He smiled wickedly, and a shudder ran through America’s Darling.
‘I have come up with something that satisfies all of those requirements.’
He nodded at the two men who accompanied him. They stepped forward and roughly grabbed the powerless heroine, standing her up. While one held her securely from behind, his large arms in a bear hug around her, the other took her right arm and gently rolled her satin glove toward her wrist. He pulled a small black leather case from inside his jacket and opened it. Crimson Flare started and struggled to pull away when she saw what he now held in his hand.
It was a hypodermic needle.
‘Nnnnnoooo,’ she whimpered. ‘NNNooooo… don’t… please.’
‘Jarvis here will be shooting you up with heroin over the next several days. Enough to give you a clear dependence. At that point, you will satisfy your habit by serving the sexual needs of the Normans. That will make my gang very happy.’ He smiled again.
‘In about a week or ten days-at some point when it becomes clear that we have tired of you and your currently evident charms are fading-you will be found by the police in a… compromising situation, shall we say? We even have the partner for you. You know, I understand, Miss Stacy Randle.’
‘St-Stacy?’
‘Even as we speak, half-a-dozen of my most trusted assistants are abducting the wealthy Miss Randle from her home. You will be rejoined with her in a few days, but, if all goes according to plan, you, my dear Crimson Flare, will be little cognizant of that reunion. I’ll leave the rest of the story of your demise, and that of the wealthy Miss Randle, to your imagination, Crimson Flare.’
With that, the man holding her dropped down a bit so that her forearms were secured against her hips. Justin, moving with a speed that contradicted his size, moved to her side and smoothly wrapped a rubber tube around her arm just above her elbow. A vein appeared. The strength of the man holding her kept Crimson Flare in check despite her efforts to twist away. In a moment, the injection was complete and the heroine’s struggles gradually became slow and uncoordinated.
As the heroine now slid from the arms of the large man who had restrained her, she felt the warm glow of the rush as it enveloped her. It would become the feeling that she would spend the next days trying to recapture, without success. The glow soothed her in her distress, swallowed her. Her mouth was dry and her mind lost focus. But all she knew was the comforting kindliness that the drug offered.
As the soles of her boots touched the floor, they slid out from under her and she fell clumsily, her right hip and shoulder striking the floor very hard, but she barely noticed. She lay uncomprehending as her body was rolled onto its back and Justin undid the ropes around her legs. Those at her wrists were to be a permanent fixture, Cos had dictated, and the rope around her chest and upper arms would remain for the next few days.
She lay on her back, her upper body slowly, rhythmically, turning with an internal cadence. As the first wash of ecstasy slowly faded, her body more aggressively sought the return of the feeling. Her mind could focus on nothing other than the missing part of that recent placidness as her mouth now curved downward and her lower lip protruded poutingly. How could so large a sensation have gone so quickly? What had happened to the soothing warmth that had just been filling her?
Yet, somewhere within the mind of the superheroine she knew what was happening and tears formed at the corners of her eyes at her body’s inability to respond to her desire to set aside the lost, fleeting moment of rapture and her mind’s inability to focus on anything other than the immediate sensation. Why was her body resisting her commands? She continued to sinuously curl, unconsciously looking for the sensation.
This would be the heroine’s condition for the next two days, as the momentary highs got progressively lower each time her captors ‘refreshed’ her. She failed to notice that she rarely ate and what sleep she endured was not from fatigue but from the drug. It was a sleep filled with monsters from the hell of her current world, images of JoJo and Vas, Cos and Justin, and other nameless faces, faces of the dead. Waking did not free her from this hell. Punctually, every two-and-a-half hours, a purple-leather-clad figure entered her prison, tied the rubber tube around her arm, and gave the captive Princess a prepared ‘stew’, sending her back to her painless, painful oblivion. After a day of this, the heavy rope was removed from her upper arms and she was allowed out of her storeroom prison.
By the time two days had passed, two and a half hours were insufficient for the duration of her high, and she walked the subway platform, nervously awaiting her next fix. Sometimes she stumbled against a pillar or fell to her knees on the filthy, faux-mosaic floor. There were always gang members there who watched her, some stared at her, awaiting the gift that Cos had promised. Sweat soaked her body, which twitched, giving evidence of the earliest symptoms of withdrawal. Just as her sweats became cold, a fresh mixture would arrive and her body retreated into bliss.
After two days, Cos had decided, the heroine would have to pay for her fixes. It was the moment that the Normans had been waiting for.
Crimson Flare’s face already reflected the dependency she had developed. Beneath her vinyl mask her eyes were sunken a little deeper into her face, and dark circles, hidden beneath the vinyl, told volumes about her. Beneath the vinyl cowl, her matted hair smelled of days of sweat and dirt. Her cheeks were hollowed and her lips cracked. Perspiration made her exposed skin shine, and her bound hands quivered constantly. She walked with unsteady steps, her boots scraping along the floor. Her head hung low; when she left her storeroom and she shuffled as if sleepwalking, bumping into walls and the metal stairwell that led to the surface, thirty feet above. With her wrists tied, she frequently lost her balance, falling to her knees, then struggling for long minutes to regain her feet. The fixes had actually increased in frequency in the last twelve hours, now taking place every hour-and-a-half. The world she saw was a coloured haze, populated with grey figures moving lazily about her field of vision. The heroine was no longer able to tell which figures were real and which were not.
This time the hour and a half came, and went, and there was no fresh stew.
Her throat dry, the former champion sought out the only recognisable figure. ‘Please, Cos, sir,’ she croaked pitiably. ‘I need a hit.’
‘Well, what do you want me to do about that?’
Bewildered, the masked avenger repeated, ‘I need a fix.’ There were tears in her voice.
‘Can you pay for it?’
‘How…?’ she gasped, thoroughly confused.
‘The same way women who need money have always got it,’ Cos told her, laughter and acid fairly dripping from his words.
Crimson Flare looked helplessly around. A few gang members were approaching, smiling at her predicament. As much as she was able, she ran toward one of the shapes she saw. ‘Pl…’ she gasped, ‘please, help m-me. I-I… I nee-d some money.’
‘What’ll you do?’ came the answer.
Crimson Flare stared at the floor. She saw her costume mocking her, and the eyeholes of her mask were sitting awkwardly over her face so that she could see them at the edges of her vision. ‘Any-thing… you want.’
‘“Anything you want,” what?’
After a pause, Flare whispered, ‘Anything you want, sir.’
‘All right, my little Crimson Slut. Let’s go talk about it.’ He led the weaving, bound superheroine back to her storeroom.
The first man didn’t take long. Many who watched were angry with that. They wanted the humiliation of Crimson Slut to be painful, to last many long minutes. When she reappeared, the zipper up the back of her costume only rose slightly above the small of her back. Her tights were gone, though her black leather boots were on her feet and the zippers on the boots pulled all the way to the top, just below her knees. She no longer wore her cowl and her hair showed debris from the pallets and boxes that filled the storeroom. Her thighs showed evidence of the speed, and of the excitement and enthusiasm, of her ‘lover’.
Crimson Flare crossed to Cos, and showed him the twenty dollars. ‘Cos, sir. I need a hit.’
Cos thin arm flashed outward and the back of his bony hand whacked against her jaw. In her weakened state, she dropped to the floor like she had been coldcocked by a blackjack. She looked up to the gang boss uncomprehendingly.
‘Your fixes are fifty dollars, bitch. Don’t come ‘round here asking for a discount!’
Tears welled up in the fallen champion’s eyes. She looked around desperately for someone else to help her. There were plenty of offers, it seemed.
In a moment, a second purple-leather jacket had disappeared behind the closing door of the storeroom.
So it went.
Three days later, Stacy was brought to the station platform. She was not bound, but her face showed the signs of the beating that had been administered during her kidnapping four days ago. Dried blood was still clotted on her broken lip, but the purple bruises and swelling were fading.
Cos was upset about that. ‘Why did you boys have to go and beat her like that?’ he ranted. ‘Now we have to keep her around here until all of that fades. We can’t leave her and the super-bitch in no motel room with her showing those bruises. Damn! What’s wrong with you? Were you born stupid or have you gone that way since the Savoyards left?’
Stacy was taken to Crimson Flare’s storeroom to recuperate.
Inside the closed storeroom, Stacy examined her prison, for although the door was not locked, it was truly a prison. The area was well lighted, and she quickly found Crimson Flare’s discarded vinyl cowl. Tossed carelessly aside into a corner, Stacy immediately recognised it when she picked it up. She feared what it signified.
Carrying the cowl, she drifted toward a small stack of crates where she could sit. As she did so, she heard the door behind her open.
In stepped the masked Crimson Flare, her hands still tightly bound in front of her. Stacy caught her breath as she saw her satin glove pulled down almost to her wrist, and track marks on her forearm. Dear god, Karen, what did I get you into? Stacy thought to herself. The avenger’s mask was askew, and the eyes beneath seemed almost sightless. Her costume hung loosely on her tiny body.
A man wearing a purple leather jacket was with her. She shuffled as she moved to a corner near the door where a blanket had been spread on the floor. Stacy struggled to hear as Crimson Flare turned to speak softly to the man.
‘Pull down my zipper, please.’ She turned her back to the gang member.
Her costume was already half-undone, the zipper closed only to a point just above the small of her back. He reached out and pulled the fastener all the way down, so that the crack of her ass was peeking out above the seat of the crimson uniform.
With an ease that indicated that she had practiced this a great deal, she let the shoulders of the sequined costume fall to her wrists, and then by simply stooping, she left its lower extremes at her ankles. She placed her hands on the floor and stepped from the costume. Her naked body looked emaciated. Already, the effects of the days without food, hours of scrounging for money to support her habit, were visible.
Shocked did not even come close to describe Stacy’s reaction.
‘Now you pull down my zipper,’ she heard the man say.
As he stood in front of her, the naked Crimson Flare knelt. With bound hands, she pulled the zipper of his jeans down, then reached into his pants, pulling his prick into view. She immediately began licking the head, moving her head so as to stimulate all parts of the organ. Soon it extended its full nine-inch length.
Having achieved erection, the desperate heroine took full length of the cock into her mouth. Her cheeks worked to maintain the stimulation, and her tongue aroused other sensations throughout the being of the gang member. She even called her teeth into service, using them to combine pleasure and small pain in an effort to please her customer.
Stacy felt tears roll down her cheeks as she watched.
The powerless heroine’s hands crawled underneath the man’s jacket and t-shirt, running up and down his abdomen. She hooked them onto his belt and pulled him closer to her, ramming his cock all the way to the top of her throat. Her tongue maintained stimulation, and her cheeks worked to push him closer to the edge. Finally, she released him, his erect penis looking somewhat absurd as it literally sprang from her mouth. Its upward curve glistened in the bright lights of the room. Again, Crimson Flare attacked the organ, twisting her head beneath it as her tongue again licked the underside all the way from tip to balls. In the past two days, the desperate heroine had learned many ways to please her customers.
Her hands felt the now-familiar shudder push its way through the gang member’s body, and Crimson Flare again enveloped his member with her dry, cracked lips, taking it into her again. He grunted, spasmed, moaned, then grunted again, and again. The white fluid crept out of the corner of the kneeling champion’s mouth and rolled down her jaw. At her chin it gathered, then dropped off, the white line stretching from the floor back to its origin.
As he pulled his flaccid member from her mouth, the man in the purple leather jacket reached into the pocket of his jeans. Crimson Flare smiled up at him in what she evidently hoped was a sexy way. He tossed two bills toward the edge of the blanket and turned to walk away, stuffing his penis back into his pants, and pulling up the zipper. Crimson Flare saw almost none of his departure as she fairly darted across the blanket, falling on the money with both hands as if it were likely to race away from her.
Holding tight to the bills, she stepped back into her costume and, simply by rising to her feet, she pulled it back into place around her hips. By raising her hands over her head, the shoulders likewise fell back into place. But now, because the zipper was fully open, it hung loosely over her spare body, wrinkled and sagging.
After the man had closed the door, Stacy moved forward. ‘Karen?’ she said softly.
Crimson Flare didn’t hear her. She was already heading toward the door to seek out yet another patron for her rapidly decaying wares. ‘Karen,’ Stacy said again, louder this time.
The superheroine turned at the sound, but she didn’t recognise the name. When she saw Stacy, she showed no sign of recognition. Stacy looked at the eyes behind the mask. She saw that her friend had no idea who it was she faced.
Stacy approached Crimson Flare. ‘Dear god, what have they done to you?’
‘Do you have any money?’ Crimson Flare asked, her dry voice cracking.
The door to the storeroom slammed open. Justin stood in the doorway. ‘Don’t you even think about untying her, you slut. She stays the way she is, and you live a little longer. Got it?’
Stacy looked at him with a mixture of fear and disgust. She nodded her head, then turned back to her friend. She heard the door close again.
Crimson showed almost no sign that she had heard the intrusion. ‘Do you have any money?’ she asked again.
‘Come with me, Karen,’ Stacy told her friend softly, as she led her back toward the dirty, wrinkled blanket.
Crimson Flare smiled and her eyes seemed to brighten a little. ‘Do you want to have a good time?’ She smiled that same hazy smile she had flashed at the gang member earlier. She took Stacy’s hand and walked with her.
Stacy walked the short distance with the drugged heroine. When Crimson started to remove her costume, Stacy stopped her. She stepped around behind the hapless champion and pulled the zipper to the back of her neck. Before doing this, Stacy saw with shock the ribs evident in her back. She then sat her friend down on the blanket.
Moving to a position in front of the helpless, crimson-clad figure, Stacy rolled the elbow-length glove up her arm, covering the needle marks now discolouring her forearm. She then sat in front of the sweaty masked heroine.
Without saying a word, she hugged her friend.
She heard a weak moan emerge from the defender’s lips. ‘I want to help you, Karen,’ Stacy whispered. She didn’t know whether the room was bugged or whether there were any cameras to surveille the storeroom. Justin’s entrance earlier had led her to believe that it was the case.
Releasing the vulnerable heroine, Stacy sat back and saw tears rolling down her face.
‘Ohhhh, god, please help me.’ Crimson Flare raised her bound wrists toward Stacy’s face. ‘Please.’
Stacy placed her hand over the ropes and wrists of her friend and pushed them back toward her lap. ‘Karen,’ Stacy said softly, ‘we have to get out of here. They’re going to kill us. Do you understand?’
Crimson Flare nodded weakly, seemingly resigned.
‘Do you have any strength?’
Crimson Flare shook her head.
Under her hand, Stacy felt the weakness and trembling of her friend’s hands, bound as they were.
Crimson Flare sighed. ‘I need… a… fix. Desperately.’ Stacy saw that she was sweating and that the trembling in her hands was spreading to her whole body. Crimson Flare’s tongue licked at her cracked lips but failed to bring any moisture. White flecks collected at the corners of her mouth and settled at the edges of her lips. Stacy saw that she breathing irregularly and that her draughts of air were sometimes very shallow, sometimes deep.
‘Would you have your strength if you were untied?’
Crimson seemed to be thinking more clearly. But the desire for drugs was foremost, and the effects of this need affected her. ‘Yes, I would. But… I don’t… know if… I could use it.’
‘We have to get out of here. I’m going to cut the ropes. Karen, it’ll be up to you to get us out of here.’
With that, she pulled her hand away from the superheroine’s wrists. The rope had been neatly severed. ‘Keep your wrists together until we get near the steps up to the surface. All we’ll have to do is run.’
‘I… don’t think… I can fight.’
‘You won’t have to.’ Stacy stood up, and then reached her hands down to assist her masked friend to her feet. When Crimson Flare was again standing, Stacy placed the form-fitting cowl over the short dark brown hair, completing the costume of the crimefighter. ‘You just have to get us out of here.’
They walked to the door. Stacy knew that the Normans would not hesitate to kill either of them, since that was their end in any case. She looked at her friend and knew that Crimson Flare was not a superheroine right now. She just needed a fix.
Crimson Flare had stopped shaking when the ropes had been cut. She felt the immense power flow back into her. She realised that she had stopped sweating. But she also realised that she still needed her drugs. Even she was not strong enough to overrule that. ‘We have to avoid a fight,’ she told Stacy. ‘I couldn’t win.’ A steady diet of heroin for the last few days had destroyed her confidence and left her dizzy and unsteady, even in her superpowered state.
The two young women looked at one another. Stacy saw fear in Crimson Flare’s eyes and knew that her spirit had been broken. Suddenly, she was very nervous about this enterprise she had undertaken. She did not have her usual confidence in Crimson Flare.
But she had no choice.
Stacy led her friend to the door, making sure to continue holding the heroine’s hand. Casting one last long, hard look into the terrified face of the champion, Stacy said simply, ‘Let’s go.’
Stacy led the way onto the subway platform. From the door of the storeroom, she could see the stairway leading to the upper world about thirty yards away. Keeping her hand over the now-freed wrists of Crimson Flare, she and the heroine stumbled toward the goal. In Stacy’s case, the instability was an act; in the case of her friend, Stacy didn’t know how much of it was authentic.
They had made it almost halfway when one of the purple-clad gang members shouted after the still-sexually inviting heroine, ‘Hey, Crimson Slut. Come here. How’d you like to earn a little something to support your habit?’ A couple of the men near him chuckled.
Crimson Flare looked into Stacy’s face, and Stacy saw the panic in her eyes. ‘Let’s go over to him. Remember that I’m with you.’
The two terrified young women moved away from their goal toward the small group of men. The men remained sitting on the floor of the platform as the two women stopped near them. ‘How much for the two?’ one of the gang members asked.
The women looked at each other again, and, surprised, said nothing. This seemed to incense the men. They immediately stood up and turned to confront the women. ‘Hey, superheroine. How come you’re holding hands with your rich-bitch girlfriend? You two got something goin’ on that we should know about?’
The volume of their voices was attracting other gang members sitting around the platform. Stacy was now genuinely frightened. This was not going at all as she had hoped. Everything had depended on their getting to the stairs quickly and with as little notice as possible. Now that was not going to happen.
One of the Normans approached Crimson and placed his arm around her shoulders. The heroine visibly shuddered. ‘Please,’ she said quietly, ‘don’t… please… leave me alone.’
‘Awww, what’s the matter, babe? You weren’t so particular a few hours ago. What say you and me go back to your little room and try to recapture the magic?’ he laughed.
‘Please. N-no.’
Another group of Normans approached, and Stacy noticed that walking slowly behind this group was the diminutive figure of Chan, the warlord. Observing events through narrow eyes, Chan’s face was an unemotional mask. He seemed not so much an observer as a critic.
A Norman grabbed Stacy. ‘Hey, Fresh Meat, how about we take your girlfriend and one of my friends back there for a foursome?’ He started to pull the blonde by the arm back to the storeroom.
‘No. No.’
Crimson Flare sighed. She stared at her feet for a long moment, then looked at the gang member standing next to her. ‘Do you have any money?’ she asked.
He smiled. ‘I got all you need, superheroine.’ She smiled the smile that Stacy recognised.
Seeing what happened, Stacy pulled vigourously to free herself, all the while yelling, ‘No, don’t, you can’t. You have to fight them.’
All of the gang members laughed at that. All except Chan.
‘Yeah, let’s see her fight,’ one of the Normans chuckled. He put his fists up in a mockery of the classic boxing stance, then hopped around on his toes, flicking a jab at the masked heroine. ‘C’mon, Crimson Slut, let’s see what you got.’
Each time the Normans heaped more ridicule on her, Stacy saw, Crimson’s shoulders drooped a little more, her head hung a little lower. The gang member dancing in front of her slapped her face. Then again. She took a step away from him. She turned her face toward the shoulder of the man standing next to her. Whimpering, she mumbled, ‘Please. S-stop. I just want a fi-fix.’
‘Aaawwww,’ he said loudly. ‘Well, you know you have to pay.’
‘I have money.’
‘NNOOO!!’ screamed Stacy. She tore herself from the grip of the man holding her. Covering the few yards to her friend in no time, she looked directly into her face. ‘My god, Crimson, what are you doing? You have to be strong. You have to fight them, fight….’ She was cut off by a blow from a gun butt to the back of the head. She fell to the floor, and twitched just once. Blood began to puddle around the base of her skull.
‘What the hell-!’ It was Cos.
The gang moved back immediately. Cos may have been slight of stature but he was a stone killer. The fear was palpable. Chan watched from his place in the rear of the crowd as Cos stepped quickly to the place where Stacy lay.
‘Who the fuck did this?’ He looked past the crowd to Chan. Chan indicated a bearded man to Cos’s left with a flick of his head. Only if you had been looking at Chan would you have seen the very quick movement.
Infuriated, Cos turned to the man. He pulled a .45 and shot him in the kneecap. The thunder of the explosion reverberated down the tunnels. It was quickly followed by a gut-wrenching scream. Chan stepped out of sight behind a pillar. On the ground, the purple-jacketed figure writhed, and screamed in pain.
Cos bent toward the unmoving body of Stacy Randle. He felt for a pulse at the base of her neck and, feeling none, he quickly stood. Looking down at the bearded gang member, he said evenly, ‘You fucked up, Pudge. You know what happens to fuck-ups.’
Two gang members followed Justin from the crowd. They grabbed Pudge under the arms and dragged him away. Even as he continued screaming in pain and shouting for friends to help him, no one looked in his direction. Cos had a reputation: Pudge would not be killed; rather, he would be turned loose, probably with his other knee shattered as well. The permanent disability would remind him, and alert any gang members, of the cost of failure. Any future he had in the gang was over.
Cos then turned toward the superheroine, who was at this point only absorbing the death of Stacy. ‘And what do I do with you now, Superfuck?’ He pushed her shoulder, as he attempted to walk past her.
She didn’t budge as she stared directly into his face. Her own face had taken on a hard demeanor. Through slightly open lips, she gritted her teeth, and her jaw muscles tightened. For the first time in days her eyes were wide open behind her vinyl mask.
‘What is it, Slut?’ Cos smiled a half-smile. ‘You going to try something?’ He raised the gun toward her face.
Faster than the eye could see, Crimson Flare pulled her hands free of the ropes which Stacy had cut. With one powerful hand, she grabbed Cos’s, and swung the .45 outward toward the Normans watching the drama. Cos began pulling the trigger, firing a series of rounds into the crowd. This stopped when Crimson Flare broke his hand.
She followed this up by grabbing the gang chieftain with her other hand. He screamed as his balls were crushed by this maneuver. She lifted him over her head and angrily threw his body against the nearest wall. As he slid down the wall, it seemed, in slow motion, Crimson Flare turned her attention to the Normans.
End of Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Pandemonium broke out on the disused subway platform. Acting without a sense of reason, Crimson Flare waded into the crowd of purple leather jackets which heretofore had been taunting her and demeaning her. Striking her first blows with a fearsome frenzy, she had dispatched three large gang members when two distinct and different responses occurred among the crowd: Led by Justin, several Normans focused on the superheroine and began to make their way toward where she continued to tear into the panicked bunch of criminals. This was made more difficult by the surging crowd moving against them, seeking escape.
In the rear of the crowd, Cos lay still on the floor and those Normans who paused over his body failed to notice the beginnings of revival, as his eyes and the corners of his lips twitched and his nostrils flared slightly as he drew a deep breath.
Only one figure was paying attention to the fallen chieftain. Chan, who was moving along the extreme rear of the crowd, saw the pale figure struggle to push himself from the floor. With a grim determination, Chan moved purposefully toward his reviving headman.
Crimson Flare grabbed another of the purple jackets, lifted him over her head with the same ease with which she had held Cos. She looked blankly up at him, squirming in her grip, her bloodshot eyes and open mouth conveying a sense of detachment from her actions. The fear this raised issued forth in a bloodcurdling scream, a scream cut off as his body smashed into the pillar ten feet away.
She moved slowly now, in sharp contrast to the figures scurrying around her. It looked like one of those digitised shots in recent movies, where one figure is moving out of the time sequence of other figures within the frame. Now, each time she reached out to grab a running gang member, she missed him more often than she was successful. The anger, which had given rise to her initial violence, was spent as her requirement for drugs overcame the natural chemicals that had fueled her show of aggression.
She was tired. The five broken bodies that lay on the subway platform would measure the extent of her assault on the Normans. Two other bodies lay in pools of blood, the result of Cos’s wild shooting. But the Normans were fleeing and escape for Crimson Flare remained possible so long as flight remained the gang’s priority.
But flight wasn’t the highest priority for all gang members. Justin and the half dozen who had provided a bodyguard for Cos had the heroine in their sights. Their chieftain had been attacked and injured-who knew the extent of his injuries? -by this woman who now seemed likely to escape the price of this violence. As they approached her, they saw her decline from the powerful superheroine who had captured the admiration and love of Mitropoulos as America’s Darling to a costumed figure waving futilely at figures moving past her rapidly. The decline had taken place in mere moments.
She was breathing heavily, her mouth open, her eyelids heavy, her nostrils flared. A slight tremor could be seen in her fingers. Her shuffling steps took her aimlessly around the platform; she seemed unable to find the stairway to the surface. Her body screamed in agony, pleading for the heroin, which offered not solace but merely relief.
The bodyguards spread in a semicircle, surrounding the figure isolated in her own reverie. As the last of the fleeing gang members cleared away the space around Crimson Flare, Justin saw the chance to seize her. ‘Now!’ he shouted, rushing at her. The other six members of his troupe followed his lead.
Justin reached her first. He drew his fist back and smashed it into her temple. Her head, covered in her vinyl cowl and mask, twisted, her body torquing in imitation. Her boots click-clicked a couple of times, then slipped out from under the heroine as she fell to the floor. By now, none of the gang members who had been in flight remained in the station.
The second purple-clad bodyguard to reach her sent a sharp kick into her side. This new pain seemed to revive her. But she could barely move, and, now surrounded by the hoodlums, her fate seemed sealed.
She was laying on her stomach, directly under one of the unshielded lamps. Her sequined costume glittered. Securely fastened, its tightness now accentuated even small muscle flexes, as she sought the regain control over her body. Her legs lay straight and together, the flesh-toned tights still able to glint in this direct light despite the dirt they had accumulated over the last several days of abuse. Her black leather boots likewise still found a sheen, lying toes down, heels together, scuffs plentiful. Lying in this position, the crack between her cheeks was shadowed, and the small movements of the muscles there gave a twinkly display to her observers. The black leather belt that held her empty holster had risen up to her waist. Her right arm stretched outward from her shoulder and bent upward at the elbow so that her gloved forearm and hand passed in front of her masked face. Her left arm reached straight out on the other side at a 45 angle.
Justin walked to her, a smirk on his lips. With a small move of his hand, he indicated for two of his followers to lift her up. The two brawny bodyguards did so, each holding an arm. They pushed her back against the wall, and lifted, so that only the tips of her boots touched the floor. In her tight crimson uniform, the roundness and separateness of her breasts was clearly discernable. Her predicament seemed to clear her head momentarily.
Her dry lips moved. ‘Wh- why don’t… you j-just… kill meee?’ she croaked, her eyes fighting the light.
‘That would be too easy, superbitch. That’s something that Cos taught us. It’s easy to kill. It’s so much more fun to make them live, and suffer. He taught us kneecapping, and he taught us how to cripple. And you better hope that you didn’t kill him, because we can make your life even more of a living hell than it is,’ Justin spat at her.
He reached out and took the sequined spandex in his left hand. Even in her condition, Crimson Flare felt fear overwhelm her pain as he looked her up and down, and licked his lips. Saliva rolled down his chin, and collected at its tip. He quickly wiped it away before his fellows saw it. His eyes were wide. A grin stretched from ear to ear.
‘Cut her open!’ he ordered.
Too weak to resist, Crimson Flare was unresisting as two more purple-clad gang members pulled knives from their jackets. The blades were used to cut away the sequins and fabric around her crotch, both the spandex and the synthetic material of her tights, exposing her muff of dark brown pubic hair and the now-raw intimate regions there.
‘Hold her!’
Justin dropped his trousers, revealing a mammoth bulge in his navy blue briefs. He stepped out of them as well, and grabbed the sides of Crimson Flare’s costume. Impossibly, the tactile stimulation of her uniform and body made him even more erect. His member seemed straining upward, seeking to enlarge itself against the limitations of nature. Pre-cum already appeared at the tip.
His face was ecstatic. Eyes wide, his tongue working the corners of his mouth, he struggled to bring his breathing and his body under control. He closed to the heroine and plunged himself fully into her in a single move. Crimson Flare’s restrained body jumped and a high-pitched squeal issued from her.
He sawed in and out, breathing rhythmically with his motions. Groans came from the powerless champion, and these eventually synchronised with those of her attacker.
The two stood, she with her back against the wall and her useless arms held outward, he with his hands first gripping her uniform at the sides then reaching up and seizing her shoulders from behind and beneath. This movement brought him closer to the helpless woman. Their bodies were now fully engaged, pressing together from the tops of her black leather boots, as he straddled her feet with his own, up their thighs, his bare, hers still covered by her tights, to their conjoined hips, then their stomachs, and chests. Justin’s grip on her costume tightened as he moved up and down, up and down, pressing his entry and withdrawing slightly again and again. His strength seemed to press her into the wall behind her.
‘Aaaahhgghh! Aaaahhgghh! Aaaahhgghh!’ Justin grunted, groaned, and exhaled his ecstasy with each thrust.
Crimson Flare’s head stayed upright as the violence of the rape increased. The pitch of her moans rose, but the two partners formed a sexual duet as their sounds coincided both rhythmically and harmonically.
‘OOOHhhhhhh! OOOHhhhhhh! OOOHhhhhhh!’ Crimson Flare’s bloodshot eyes alternated between a wide owl-like openness and a closed, tight, hard line that squeezed tears from the edges. In neither case did she see her attacker. But she was aware of what was happening.
Pain. Pain was everywhere. Her muscles ached. Every one of them from her neck to her calves. Her throat was unbelievably dry; in the midst of the violence of this assault she couldn’t slake her thirst. There was a pounding in her head and tears rolled down her cheeks. Her stomach was tied in a knot and the shooting pain leaped across her abdomen, never relenting, never fading. In her chest she felt her heart hammering, the rate of its beat increasing, always increasing, until it was indistinguishable from the rushing she heard in her ears. The sharp ache in her pussy was evidenced by the tinges of blood showing up on Justin’s prick each time he slid from inside her.
The gang members who suspended her by her arms allowed her to drop down onto Justin’s manhood, the much shorter crimefighter now leaning her head forward, the top of her cowl touching his chest.
As he pushed himself upward, he pushed downward on her shoulders, seeking to extend himself fully into her. Each time he pushed in, he stayed longer. Each push into her was stronger, and the grunts from both partners were louder. In the face of this, it was impossible for Crimson Flare not to begin lubricating, and his movements became vaguely easier and smoother.
Each time he rammed himself home, her head bounced. The heroine’s eyes finally opened, and her sense of what was happening, and her powerlessness to prevent it, rolled over her. With a great effort, she raised her head from her chest, and looked up at the face of her attacker. She saw the face of a man gone over the brink, his mouth wide open, saliva flowing from both corners of his mouth, his eyes seeming to burst from their sockets. His tongue continually licked what seemed to be perpetually dry lips, without effect.
Justin’s hand released her shoulders and slid underneath her arms and up to her face. He cupped her jaw on both sides, turning her still-beautiful, still-masked countenance up to face him. With his own mouth he lunged at her. Thrusting his tongue into her mouth, slobbering her cheeks, biting at her lips, he grunted and sucked at her noisily.
His cock crashed into the helpless heroine, and when he climaxed, it went on seemingly forever. His sexual triumph over the invulnerable, untouchable champion was something he had anticipated and dreamed of. For him, it symbolised a triumph that would carry him ever higher in the Normans power structure.
Justin collapsed as he spent his wad. Sweating, gasping audibly for breath, he simply sat on the platform, his briefs and pants partly under him. He was unaware of what his cronies did next.
When Justin had finished with America’s Darling, the purple-jacketed Normans carried her a few steps from the wall. The four other bodyguards watched intently, waiting their turn. By this time, she was able to begin voicing her resistance, albeit weakly, her voice cracking. They placed her flatfooted on the platform and drew both her arms straight back behind her, pulling upward at the same time, forcing her to her knees. Eventually, she was released, and rested on her elbows and knees, still too weak to resist. Her ass was higher than the rest of her body and one of the bodyguards knelt behind her, preparing to take her there. Another went to his knees in front of her, lifted her face from between her glove-covered forearms to face his erect member.
‘C’mon, Darling. Once more. For free, this time,’ he said, almost gently.
The man behind her chimed in, ‘Can you believe this slut? Remember how afraid we were? She ain’t nothing. She’s got nothing.’
The Norman in front of the bowed champion backhanded her across the mouth. ‘C’mon, bitch. Open up!’ He slapped her again.
‘No. Please,’ she whispered. It was her first independent act in days.
‘“NO!” Did you say… “NO?!?”’ He brought his fist down hard on the side of her head, driving her face to the floor.
She hit the platform hard, though her head was protected by her vinyl mask. He reached down, and with a firm grip on her chin, her attacker pulled her head upward to face him again.
‘Let’s get it right, you cunt!’ he snapped angrily. ‘Open… up!!’
Still too weak to resist his command, she slowly, with foreboding, opened her mouth. At that instant, the Norman behind her began pushing himself into her cunt from the rear. Her mouth closed slightly because of the pressure and pain. All this gained her was another slap across the face.
‘Keep your mouth open,’ was the impatient order.
She fully opened her mouth again.
Her double rape began in earnest. The man behind her firmly gripped her sequined costume, pulling it sharply in his direction with each thrust. He drove his hips forward with an exaggerated motion, penetrating deep into her, again and again and again. Her grunts were soon replaced by moans.
‘Oh, c’mon, girl. Don’t you give up on me now,’ he said between breaths.
The moans actually stimulated his partner in front of the helpless champion. The vibrations that she sent through his prick charged him to greater heights of rapture. Her motion, begun by the other rapist, meant all he had to do was remain still, on his knees, as her mouth traveled up and down his cock. With each cycle, the tip of his manhood pushed against the back of her throat. She felt her stomach heave.
One of the purple-jacketed gang members who were watching the spectacle began to cheer his buddies on. ‘Yeah! That’s it! Teach the bitch a lesson she’ll never forget,’ he said, growing red in the face. ‘Look at her. America’s Darling, hah! America’s Slut, you mean. I want her next.’
The rapist behind her reached down and pulled her left arm up and behind her back in a deep chicken wing. This pushed her further forward, and, as she started to droop from the pressure, he told her, ‘Ohh, no. Up, little heroine. Up, up.’ Wearily, painfully, she pushed herself upward.
Crimson Flare heard what was going on around her. She could hear, all too clearly, the laughter of the observers, waiting their turn. She heard the grunting of the rapist in front of her. She heard the orders of the rapist on his knees behind her, ‘Come ON, you little SLUT!’
One of the bodyguards watching asked, ‘Hey, she’s not tied. Where’s her fuckin’ strength? I thought she had to be tied.’
Crimson Flare didn’t have an answer. Certainly, she was untied and her strength was in her. But she was so tired, and she hurt so much. She had never been this exhausted.
The gang member raping her from the rear came first. ‘Come ON! Come ON! Come ON, You SLUT!’ Each time he drove home, he exhaled and accentuated the word. When he spewed himself into her, he released her arm, which immediately went to floor to help support the humbled avenger; he fell forward onto her back and pulled his arms around her torso. Amazingly, she didn’t crumble to the floor under the additional weight. He let out what sounded like a growl as he did so. Crimson Flare screamed. Briefly.
A moment later, further stimulated by her cry, the gang member in front of her came also. He shot himself into her mouth and throat. It just kept coming and coming, filling her orifice, dribbling out the sides of her mouth, washing down her throat, and even blocking the passage that led from the back of her mouth to her nose. He too shrieked his triumph over the heroine.
Both men withdrew. As they stood, they looked down on the bowed figure of Crimson Flare, on her knees and elbows again. She was breathing heavily, moaning with each lungful of air. They restored their manhood to their jeans, smiling. ‘Whad’ya say, superheroine? Do you understand what your good for yet?’ The one in front of her reached down and lifted her face toward them. They saw some of his cum dribbling from both her mouth and her nose.
‘Oh, that’s disgusting!’ he sighed, mocking her. Both laughed as they humiliated the heroine by displaying her to their fellows. They all seemed to enjoy it immensely.
‘Get her up!’ said the one who seemed to be bidding to take over leadership of the bodyguards. Roughly, she was wrenched to her feet. One, a big man, held her in a double chicken wing. The small round mounds of her breasts pushed forward and her revealed sex thrust outward and upward toward the group now gathering. Her head hung down.
‘Please,’ she was heard to whisper.
‘Ohh, please,’ he mocked. ‘“Please,”’ he said again, sounding just like the pleading heroine. He threw a right cross that resounded through the station. It caught Crimson right on her jaw. Her head twisted to the side.
‘How about you please us? How about we really put you in your place?’ His voice was rising in anger. He next threw a right that caught her in the stomach. She gasped and groaned at the same time and tried to double over. But the double chicken wing prevented her. The helpless champion audibly gasped for breath. The large gang member holding her used this opportunity to exchange the double chicken wing for a full nelson, lifting her easily. Her black leather boots swung six inches above the mosaic.
‘When you’re with a real man, you aren’t much, even with your strength. Are you?’ he taunted. ‘You’re just a woman, decked out like a whore on a holiday. I bet you and that rich bitch were going to bring law and order to Mitropoulos, weren’t you? All you sluts are alike, always butting into something that’s none of your business. You’re outta your league, babe. You shoulda stayed home and let some guy take care of you.’
Another chimed in, ‘She’s probably not interested in guys. Just like all those “new women,” she’s just trying to muscle her way in to men’s places. But even this one doesn’t have the muscle power. Right, slut?’ He spat at her.
Crimson Flare reacted weakly to the spittle running down her face. Suspended above the floor, her helplessness was evident.
Justin approached the group from behind. He had a large smile on his face. ‘Aww, leave the little heroine alone, fellas. She’s had a tough day.’ He now stood directly in front of the crimson-garbed avenger, and he took her costume in his hand, rubbing the material between his fingers.
‘What, were you some kind of fuckin’ majorette in high school?’ he asked, sneering. ‘Is that where you got this costume?’
Crimson looked over at the unmoving body of Stacy, lying in the center of the platform. She remembered how she had saved the young Stacy from her attackers in high school. She remembered their conversations about making a difference in the city. She remembered that Stacy, a half hour ago, had tried to save Crimson Flare-to return the favour-from the drugs that were taking over her mind and body.
‘Bo, take her over there,’ came the order.
Bo, the big man restraining her, easily carried the superheroine back to where Stacy lay. Justin and the other bodyguards walked slowly behind.
They stopped, Crimson Flare swaying like a stuffed doll in Bo’s muscular arms. Once again, she felt their eyes looking over her body. As she slowly raised her head to catch a glimpse of the gang, Justin’s hand lashed out and grabbed hold of her glittering uniform at the neckline. ‘It’s about time we removed the last bits of this slut’s mystery,’ he said. He pulled viciously at her costume, tearing it away from her body, the spandex yielding only grudgingly.
The small round mounds of her breasts seemed to be barely moving. At the peak of each, the light pink aureole sat, inviting. Justin’s hand next went directly at the left one, plucking the nipple between his thumb and middle finger, as he strummed the teat, teasing it to erection.
‘Ooooohhhhggghh,’ the heroine moaned. ‘No more…, pl- please.’
‘Crimson Slut, we have only just begun,’ responded the gang member in front of her. With his other hand, he reached down to her nether regions, still damp with her juices and lying exposed where her uniform was cut.
Her moaning grew in intensity as he pushed one, then two fingers into her, searching her interior. His thumb was also active, flicking over her clitoris, the nail rubbing the sensitive sex organ in a way calculated to raise her bliss, if her condition could be called that.
‘Aaaaagggghhhhhttthhh,’ Crimson Flare sputtered weakly. ‘Oohhh, god, please stop.’ There were tears in her voice. She was on the verge of being broken.
‘There are four of us here you haven’t entertained yet, and the others are ready for a second go.’
The heroine looked into the face of her dead friend. Tears filled her own eyes. She knew that she had failed. And if she had failed, that meant that Stacy had failed.
Justin continued to manipulate her. His fingers swept around inside her. He tweaked her blooming flower between thumb and forefinger. Crimson Flare threw her head back and drew her legs up, taking Justin’s hand with her. Too weak to scream, what emerged was a sickly, breathy groan. Under his expert ministrations, she was moments from an orgasm.
‘Uuuuuggghhh.’ Her voice was so weak even the men in front of her could barely hear her. Her legs began to move slowly up and down, her hips circling. This motion accelerated slowly, as her groans and whimpers increased in tempo.
Behind the group, Chan pulled himself up from the floor where he had been attending to the gang leader Cos. The lean pale form of the Norman chieftain was not moving and a pool of blood was visible under his head from the small caliber entrance wound invisible to the others. As he stood, Chan quickly moved to his left to seek protection behind a nearby pillar. He stole a look at them as Crimson Flare’s moans increased in volume until they were loud enough to be heard even by the warlord.
As Justin and the bodyguards stood around her, Crimson Flare’s body finally betrayed her. Beaten, battered, raped, she had maintained her dignity throughout. Now, under the digital ministrations and manipulations of the security chief, the orgasm building within her burst forth with a force she could not have imagined. The rush that seized her body made her shudder violently. Her thighs sought something to wrap around, and her legs stretched straight out from her hips, knees together, booted ankles crossed. Her arms, held behind her head in Bo’s full nelson, reached outward, her gloved fingers extending fully. The shriek which escaped her lungs filled the station.
As the heroine came, her juices literally exploded from inside her. Her first orgasm, the one Karen had feared would cost her her powers, seemed to rip away much of her insides. Her weakness apparent in the face of this intense rapture, she felt her heart thundering inside her. In a gradually diminishing series of pitiful moans, Crimson slowly came to rest, still held aloft in Bo’s grip.
Chan allowed himself a small smile. But it lasted only a moment as a quizzical look came over him. Still, he stayed where he was.
Crimson Flare literally drooped in Bo’s huge arms. At a signal from Justin, he simply dropped her to the floor. She grunted as she struck the tile.
The heroine lay still. The only sign of movement was the rising and falling of her chest and an occasional tremor. She lay on her back, her legs spread, and her arms cruciform. Behind her mask, Justin could see the blank stare of a broken spirit.
‘Let’s see who you are,’ he said, reaching toward her mask.
She made no effort to resist as he pulled the black vinyl from her face. All of the men surrounding the defeated champion peered intently at her.
‘Who the fuck is she?’
‘I don’t know.’ ‘Never seen anyone like that.’ ‘She’s cute, but I don’t know her.’ The responses were all of a piece.
Justin closed the conversation. ‘I guess no one will miss her then.’ There were a few chuckles.
‘Get the camera,’ he ordered, and one of the gang members trotted off. ‘We can make ourselves absolute rulers here. Get a picture of her masked and unmasked, so that there’s no doubt when the pictures are published. And we can show anyone who thinks about standing up to us what will happen to them. Stand her up!’
Two Normans easily lifted the helpless avenger to her feet. Her costume was torn, dried cum covered her face and arms, bruises were visible on the side of her face. Below, at the cut away portion of her costume, lubricant still ran down the insides of her legs, discoloured slightly with blood. Dried cum could also be seen on her legs as well.
Standing unsteadily, she swayed as Justin took his time to measure his target. He unleashed a looping right cross to her cheekbone. The sound of fist on bone echoed in the abandoned hideout. ‘Hurry up with that camera!’ he called, almost as an afterthought.
Crimson Flare was dropped to the floor by the force of the blow. Still conscious, she gazed up into the lights. A trickle of blood appeared at the corner of her left eye.
The man with the camera came running up. For the next few moments, the gang took a series of photos. Crimson Flare had her mask replaced for some of them, removed for others. Then another series allowed each of the gang members to be photographed with America’s Darling in various humiliating postures. At least one of the gang members used his opportunity to actually engage in intercourse with the young, helpless prisoner. She came again, the force of this orgasm equal to the first.
‘So this is a superheroine orgasm,’ he said. ‘It’s much bigger than superheroine breasts.’ More laughter at the defenseless champion’s expense.
Pulled to her feet again, Justin and the gang members took turns pounding the costumed champion. Blow after blow smashed into her face and body, her cunt, her breasts, the back of her head. Staggering around the platform, she seemed powerless to protect herself.
Chan watched in amazement as the battering went on for minutes and despaired for his plan. Until he realised something. The superheroine was absorbing t a horrendous beating, but she was not being knocked off her feet. To the contrary, each successive blow seemed to have a lesser effect than its predecessor.
Justin finally took the torn parts of the sequined costume in his fists, spit into the face of the unresisting heroine, and threw her against the same wall against which the lifeless body of Cos lay. Seeing their unmoving leader, the bodyguards now moved to finish what they had started.
But as she struck the wall, Crimson Flare’s eyes snapped open. The pain of the last week disappeared from her body. The craving for drugs, the throbbing which resulted from the beating, the ache in her sex from her multiple rapes, all were gone. All she felt was the anger at what these men had done, and fear for her life.
She leapt at them.
The surprise that showed on their faces as the superheroine tore into them might have been expected, but not the cries of fear, which accompanied these looks. Even Justin, seeing the bloodied face of his opponent hurdling toward him was so taken aback that he gave vent to a cry. The cry was cut short as Crimson Flare smashed into his throat with a karate chop which crushed his windpipe and larynx, broke his neck and tore his carotid artery. He dropped like a sack.
In turn, each of the bodyguards was dismantled. One had his arm torn out at the shoulder; another received such a powerful blow to the chest that a lung collapsed when a broken rib punctured it. None survived their leader by more than thirty seconds.
The struggle over, the young woman looked over the battlefield. Unmoved by the gore that covered the walls, the floor, and herself, she walked the few paces to where her black vinyl mask lay. She looked down at it, then sat on the platform, fingering the mask delicately. She wasn’t even breathing hard.
She sat there for more than a minute, still not quite comprehending.
‘Welcome, Superheroine.’ It was Chan, now standing behind her.
She turned, but said nothing.
‘The least you can say is “Thank you,” Crimson Flare,’ he said softly, a measure of respect in his voice.
‘Thank you?’
‘I was the catalyst of your victory and your survival. I have been studying you, your activities, your powers, for more than a year now. It seemed your were an immature superheroine. I have spent much money and much effort to get you to blossom.’
Crimson Flare looked up at him, questions racing across her face. She returned her mask to its place.
‘I’m sorry about your friend.’
The heroine’s gaze crossed the platform to where Stacy lay. The dried blood around her was now almost black. She looked back at Chan. ‘What-?-‘
‘I think we can have a very profitable relationship,’ the gang leader said quietly. ‘I can make enough money to help defer your crimefighting expenses, and still live well. And the inheritance your will receive from Stacy’s estate will help cover our expenses.’
‘Our-expenses?’
‘Umm-hmmh.’
‘Am I supposed to say that this looks like the beginning of beautiful friendship?’
‘That would be appropriate. Crimson Flare-I am Pitchblende.’
The End